"Go, gentlemen! To pay our respects to His Royal Highness Prince Heinrich, our former Commander-in-Chief of the fleet, the respected and welcoming. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ”

In the officer's conference room of the "De Fllinger", Natsuki said. Next, under his leadership, the officers in charge of the amphibious landing operation rushed out through the passage of the ship's cabin to the upper deck on the right side of the ship's side. At dawn, the sky was hazy, and a fleet sailed on the sea not far away, the most striking of which was the titular flagship of the German High Seas Fleet, the Caesar-class dreadnought Frederick the Great, on board which Prince Heinrich had come to inspect the labor army as a representative of the royal family. As it approached, most of the crew, including Hipper, came to the broadside deck to pay attention.

The fleet, which had come from afar, was not only responsible for the incidental political tasks, but was also responsible for transporting the third batch of troops to the Faroe Islands. The "Frederick the Great" suffered structural injuries from ramming the British dreadnought in the Battle of Jutland, and the technical problems of the ship's hull made it no longer suitable for fierce combat confrontation, but fortunately, the weapon system was still functional. During the landing operation on the coast of Flanders, as the command ship of the support fleet, it carried out many shelling of the coalition forces stationed in northern Belgium, and fired more than 500 rounds of 12-inch high-explosive shells and shrapnel shells, destroying a large number of coalition offensives, and even crashing two railway bridges in the coastal area, making no small contribution to the smooth landing of German marines.

The "Frederick the Great" was stationed only for a short period of time during Prince Heinrich's stay, while the accompanying Longne-class armored cruiser "York" was deployed for a long time. The performance of this old ship was far inferior to that of the battle cruisers, and it was quite difficult to fight against the British armored cruisers built at the same time, but its arrival was still a very useful supplement to the Hipper's fleet, and it could share the patrol and vigilance tasks of the "De Fllinger" and "Seydlitz" to a large extent.

Like the York, half of the fleet from the German mainland will have permanent light ships stationed in the Faroe Islands, including two fast freighters that have been modified to carry 7- and 16-ton amphibious landing craft. During the recent landing operation in Flanders, both amphibious landing craft were put into real combat and were well received by naval officers and sailors. Light assault boats with a displacement of 7 tons can carry 20 naval infantry or 2 tons of combat materiel and transport fighters and combat equipment to the beach at a speed of about 8 knots in not too bad sea conditions; The 16-ton heavy landing craft can carry one Hubert-13 naval combat vehicle and 10 naval infantrymen at the same time, and is equipped with a 25 mm cannon, which can provide some fire support while transporting troops to land. The landing craft will play a role in the Soood Island landing operation, and once the fighting in the Faroe Islands is over, they will also be transferred to Ireland to support the German-Irish coalition against the British.

At Natsuki's request, the communications corps of the "De Fllinger" sent a salution to the "Frederick the Great" with a signal light, and at the same time, his staff adjutant Lütjens took Natsuki's personal letter and the battle plan for this landing operation and took a liaison boat to the "Frederick the Great". It was common sense that the fleet, which had traveled a long way, should dock at Tórshavn and rest before going into battle, but Natsuki saw the last two days as the ideal time to attack Sood Island, so he sent a telegram to Prince Heinrich, hoping that he would understand his special arrangements. For reasons of secrecy, the telegram did not mention the full deployment of the landing operation, and the Theater Command did not notify the fleet commander of the place and time of the rendezvous until Prince Heinrich's fleet arrived in the waters of the Faroe Islands.

In Natsuki's mind, Prince Heinrich was a magnanimous and excellent quality honorable man, who withdrew from the command of the German Navy early due to differences in political views and ideas, first served as the chief inspector of the navy, and was appointed commander of the Baltic Fleet after the outbreak of the war, and until the current position, Germany and Russia in the Baltic Sea are mainly mine-laying and blockade, and there are occasional small-scale firefights, but compared with the hand-to-hand combat of the British and German navies in the North Sea, it is simply some insignificant friction.

After a few moments, Frederick the Great greeted him with a light signal. The battle was imminent, and both sides did not spend much time and energy on this formality. The two fleets were soon united, including the Frederick the Great, and all ships were to be at the disposal of the De Fllinger until the end of the battle.

When the "Frederick the Great" arrived at the position of the large battleship's shelling, the "De Fllinger" issued a tactical command by light signal, ordering the ships engaged in the shelling to aim at the specified coordinates -- the firing commanders of each ship immediately calculated the coordinate parameters and converted them into the firing elements of the ship's guns. There must have been a large deviation in the first round of artillery fire, so the four large warships fired in turn, and the calibration was carried out according to the impact point. The light ships that carried out the shelling were not so troubled, they reached the north of the island of Little Dimen and opened fire from a position where the target port could be seen with the naked eye.

At 7:30, the shelling of the coast of Sandwich on the island of Soud by the German fleet began in a magnificent manner.

The "De Fllinger", "Seydlitz", "Braunschweig", and "Frederick the Great" were diagonally horizontal, with their guns held high, and the large-caliber naval guns let out an overwhelming roar one after another. Heavyweight shells roared over Xiaodimen Island, some fell directly on the shore, like the heavy hammer of the gods slamming into the ground, instantly blasting up columns of smoke to the sky, and some fell into the offshore sea, even the water and mud stirred up dozens of meters high, leaving huge pits on the seabed.

At this time, if people turned on the radio near Sandwich and adjusted it to the corresponding frequency, they could hear the message from the German radio station on Little Dimen Island, and the well-trained gunnery observers concisely and accurately provided the fleet with calibration data, and the shelling lasted for more than ten minutes, and the British officers and men deployed in Sandwich did not even see any trace of the German capital ships, let alone judge the type of ships by their outlines.

While the shelling was underway, more than two dozen landing ships sailing from the port of Tosl approached Sood Island under the direct cover of a large group of torpedo boats. The landing ships dropped their boats several kilometers offshore, and with the exception of the speedboats carrying elite commandos rushing to the shoreline with steep sea cliffs, the rest headed for the Sandwich coast. Among these motor boats, sampans, and kayaks, the landing craft that arrived in advance to the Faroe Islands were undoubtedly the more eye-catching targets, and they easily overtook most of the small boats and rushed to the northern shore of Sandwich. The British troops on the defensive dug criss-cross trenches two or three hundred meters from the shore, and the artillery fire of the German light ships has covered the fortifications here, and the large and small craters are the best proof of the efficiency of the shelling, and there is not a single British soldier in the trenches, let alone fierce anti-landing fire, seeing that the German landing craft are about to land, suddenly, two tongues of fire appeared on the high ground overlooking the beach, and a series of machine shells swept fiercely towards the German landing craft. A light assault boat more than 20 meters offshore was immediately hit by a bullet and caught fire, losing speed, and nearly half of the German naval infantry on board were killed or wounded. The survivors hurriedly opened the landing hatch at the front, and despite the two-meter-long landing pedal, the German soldiers who left the boat ahead of time were still faced with the icy water, and some had to leave behind their heavy battle bags and swim across with guns and ammunition.

If the two machine guns were allowed to run rampant, these German landing craft and the landing personnel on board would soon be in a desperate situation, but fortunately, the large German torpedo boats covering the landing monitored the entire shoreline, and the gunners on the boats found the British fire point, and immediately suppressed the fire with artillery, and a few rounds of accurate artillery fire destroyed the British firing bunkers covered with concealed camouflage but not well constructed, clearing the way for the first landing force.

Without the threat of British machine guns, the rest of the German landing craft successfully reached the shore. The seabed here does not have a gentle entry into the water, but it is like a swimming pool step, and the landing craft with a draft of about one meter can be driven very close to the shore, and after lowering the landing pedal, the naval infantry can go directly to shore without even wading into the water. At this point, the long hours of training finally came to fruition, and the German naval infantry advanced inland one by one on the open coast with an unobstructed view, and before reaching the British trenches, they immediately dug improvised one-man firing bunkers with their sapper shovels as soon as they reached the British trenches.

Due to the scarcity of landing craft, the German infantry who landed first landed was less than 100 people, but they were well-trained and well-equipped, with a number of Madsen light machine guns and battleships to support and cover, even if the British deployed two or three times the defensive force, they may not be able to drive this group of German troops into the sea, not to mention that the German artillery bombardment and amphibious landing were tightly connected, and the British troops who had withdrawn to the rear in order to avoid the German heavy artillery had not had time to return to the forward position, and the German naval infantry entered the British trenches effortlessly.

At this time, it was getting dark, and with the open terrain of the Sandwich coast, whether it was a lookout post on a high place, a firing point, or a low-lying main position, it was not difficult for British officers and men to detect the German occupation of the northern beach. Soon British soldiers appeared in the communication trenches leading from the rear to the positions on the north side, and the British light and heavy artillery deployed in the rear also began to fire at the German ships close to the coast. At this time, even if the German army did not dispatch water reconnaissance planes, the observation post at the commanding heights of Xiaodimen Island could guide the German artillery to accurately suppress it, and the artillery battle between the two sides, which was very different in strength and the situation was obviously superior, lasted less than 10 minutes, and ended with the German army taking full control of the battlefield.

The naval infantry carried by the landing craft took the lead in seizing the beachhead, and ten minutes later, the main force of beach-grabbing vehicles, consisting of traditional vehicles such as motorboats, sampans, and kayaks, gathered in groups. The situation was initially decided, and the landing force confirmed that the conditions on the shore and beach were suitable for the landing of combat vehicles, and several precious heavy landing craft also arrived.

At 8:11, the first Hubert-13 German naval combat vehicle landed on Sood Island, and the German naval infantrymen who had previously occupied the northern position of the LinkedIn Army also engaged in a fierce exchange of fire with the British troops engaged in the counter-assault.

(End of chapter)