"Attention! Turn 5 degrees to the left of the half-rudder, maintain speed, advance 1 chain, return to the rudder! ”

This is Peter the Great Bay in the Russian Far East, in the waters east of Russky Island, the Whale Shark No. 4 patrol ship belonging to the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Russian Navy. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 Outside the door of the INFO wheelhouse, a navy non-commissioned officer with a slick chin holds an instrument similar to a sextant, and constantly reports the navigation data with reference to a bright spot in the distance at sea level, which is neither shining, nor sinking, nor floating, and the helmsman in the wheelhouse constantly adjusts its course according to these data, so that the patrol ship carrying a 76-mm gun and a quadruple anti-aircraft machine gun can sail smoothly in this mine-ridden sea area.

In the middle of the night, the sentries on patrol ships were engrossed in observing the surrounding sea, casting only occasional glances at the dark coastline to the west. With a displacement of less than 200 tons, Whale Shark 4 was sailing gently along the eastern coastline of Russky Island at this time. On the map, the Russian island, which covers an area of nearly 100 square kilometers, resembles the shadow wall of the mansion in Vladivostok, with the Amur Bay about 15 kilometers wide on the west side and the Ussuri Bay 34 kilometers from the opposite shore on the east side. Before the outbreak of the Japanese-Soviet War in 1942, the Soviet and Russian forces, which were inferior in naval strength, made careful arrangements to defend this strategically valuable deep-water ice-free port, not only laying artillery positions and anti-submarine warning nets at the entrance channel of Vladivostok, but also placing a number of minefields at the mouth of the Ussuri Bay, and sending patrol ships and submarines to patrol day and night.

"Comrade Sergeant! Comrade Sergeant! You look in the direction of starboard, there is something there! ”

On the broadside deck, the young sailor stretched out his hand to point into the distance, and the sergeant on duty followed the direction he was pointing, but let his eyes widen like light bulbs, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. In this hazy moonlight, it is easy to hallucinate when you stare at the sea for a long time......

"Listen, Private Ivanov, rub your eyes, close your eyes and rest for a minute, and if what you see is still there, tell me!"

The young private immediately did so, and this time, observing for a long time, then replied: "Comrade sergeant, that thing is still there, it seems to be a submarine ......"

After a moment's hesitation, the bearded sergeant turned, walked three steps in two steps to the wheelhouse, and reported to the instrumented officer at the door. The officer, with a very clean beard, stared at the sea on the starboard side for half a minute, and then gave orders to the gunners on duty in the foredeck gun position. A moment later, with a thud, a flickering point of light flew quickly towards the starboard sea surface at an angle of about 30 degrees, and only two seconds later, a dazzling light suddenly bloomed in that direction, instantly expelling the darkness that shrouded the sea.

At this time, the instruments in the hands of the Soviet Russian naval captain had been replaced by a pair of telescopes. A few seconds after the flare was lit, he exclaimed with a look of indignation: "It's a Japanese submarine!" ”

In the line of sight, there was an island and reef-like thing looming on the sea surface more than 1,000 meters northwest of the patrol ship.

The Soviet and Russian officers and soldiers who are familiar with this sea area know very well that there are no islands and reefs there at all, judging from its outline and appearance, it should be the command cabin of a submarine, and the hull of the big black fish must be hidden under the surface of the sea. God knows how it quietly slipped into the bay without touching the large number of mines laid by both sides -- after the war officially broke out, the Japanese army quickly launched a three-dimensional offensive on Vladivostok, land, and sea, and compared with the achievements of the army units that once approached the far suburbs of Vladivostok, the Japanese navy had a huge quantitative and qualitative superiority, and failed to break through the sea and air defense lines of the Soviet and Russian forces after several attempts, and not only lost many aircraft and ships, but was also disturbed by Soviet and Russian submarines and surface assault ships, until it sank the large cruiser of the Soviet and Russian navy." Kirov", this embarrassing situation was broken. In order to prevent Soviet and Russian ships from continuing to attack the country's sea shipping lines and reduce the losses of transport ships, the Japanese Navy then began to lay a large number of mines in Peter the Great Bay. As the number of mines laid by both sides continues to increase, the shipping lanes reserved by either side no longer exist.

"Nikolaev!" The lieutenant yelled, "Use high-explosive shells, shoot straight at them!" Kill it! Gotta kill it! It must be trying to sneak into the harbor to sneak up on our warship, and we're going to stop it anyway! ”

Next to the war's guns with curved shields on the foredeck, a strong man with a big beard replied in a deep voice: "Yes, Comrade Ensign!" Lads, high-explosive reloading, muzzle to the left, lower elevation angle...... Okay, the horizontal position is here, and the elevation angle is reduced by half a degree...... Fire! ”

Another roar swept across the silent sea, and in an instant, a wave exploded on the surface of the sea about thirty or forty meters away from the target. It is not easy to make naked-eye observations without the use of rangefinders, and in an environment where flares provide illumination, and it is not easy to have such an accurate head from a distance of nearly two kilometers.

So, the strong man who used his fingers to measure the shooting parameters roared again: "Turn the muzzle to the right for 10 minutes, drop the elevation angle by another 5 points, and reload the high-explosive shell!" ”

The gunners quickly adjusted the gun's guns, only to hear a crunch, the bolt closed again, and then a burst of flame erupted from the muzzle, and the whole patrol ship shuddered......

"Smonikov!" The lieutenant, who was fighting outside the wheelhouse, shouted, "As soon as the target is in range, do not hesitate to open fire!" ”

On the aft deck, the sailors who control the quadruple machine guns are already in place, this weapon has a great deterrent effect on low-altitude and close-range targets, and the muzzle of the black hole hole is impressively pointed at the starboard sea. It's a pity that this is a 7.62 mm light machine gun instead of a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun, otherwise it would have given the Japanese submarine a brain.

The second shell fired by the Russian patrol ship swept over the island-like submarine command cabin and landed in the distance, separated by more than a thousand meters, it was difficult to determine whether this shell had caused damage to it, and as the light of the flare quickly dimmed, the guy disappeared into the darkness again, and most people could not observe its existence with the naked eye alone.

"Nikolaev!" The lieutenant called, "Flares! ”

"But the high-explosive shells have been loaded, the angle of fire has been corrected, Comrade Second Lieutenant." The brawny man replied loudly, "Please allow us to fire!" ”

"Then let's fire!" The lieutenant said angrily.

In an instant, a dazzling flash of light flickered through the darkness, and the cannonballs flew away with a short screech, followed by a boom.

"Reload the flares!" The big man commanded his gunners angrily.

A few seconds later, the cannonball's flare burst through the air, but when its light lit up the sea again, the big black fish was gone.

"It actually fled, cowardly, cowardly, vilely!" The lieutenant slammed his fist on the railing and shouted hatefully, but the Japanese were not stupid, how could they risk a submarine that had already passed through the enemy's perimeter for the sake of an innocuous Soviet and Russian patrol ship?

Just as the flare fired by the Whale Shark-4 lit up the sea for the second time, in a coastal defense artillery headquarters in the eastern part of Russky Island, the phone rang, and a sleepy-eyed major officer grabbed the microphone, and only a few seconds later, he turned his head and shouted to his communications officer:

"Quick, wake everyone up, be sure to enter the gun position within two minutes, and be ready to fire in four minutes, the target is ten kilometers directly in front of us, it is a Japanese submarine!"

After 240 seconds, the heavy guns in the reinforced concrete emplacements began to cluck. Although some of these guns date back to the last century, and some even participated in the last Russo-Japanese War, this did not prevent the Russian army from allowing them to continue to defend the long coastline.

At the same time that the artillery positions entered a combat state, a number of outposts near the shore also received alarm ring orders, and high-power searchlights were lit up one after another, and pillars of light swam back and forth on the sea surface, but the big black fish that broke the Russians' sleep completely disappeared.

The Japanese submarine broke into its own restricted area, and the Soviet and Russian navies did not dare to be negligent and would not give up. As time went on, the number of minesweepers, patrol ships, and destroyers coming out of the port of Vladivostok increased, and they swept back and forth in the sea where the big black fish were found, dropping a few depth charges from time to time, tossing and turning throughout the second half of the night, but nothing came out.

Returning to the Whale Shark 4 patrol ship, it had been stationed in the perimeter cordon for two days, and was rotated by friendly ships to return to the port that night to rest, with little fuel left on the ship and basically running out of fresh water food. After much tossing and turning, it was allowed to return, and continued to use the fixed buoys as references, according to their navigation codes, or specific calculations, to calculate the safe passage and bend around the minefields.

With an hour to go before dawn, Whale Shark 4 safely passed through the last minefield outside the harbor, and in front of it was the channel into the port of Vladivostok......

As long as a ship passes by at night, a few searchlights will be lit by the channel, and as the beam of light swept over the tail of Whale Shark 4, a sharp-eyed sentry noticed something unusual, and exclaimed, "Look, our patrol ship seems to be following something!" ”

The scream caught the attention of the sentries on duty, and also alerted the crew of the Whale Shark 4, who looked towards the stern of the ship, and the water splashed by the propellers to form white ripples, and where the ripples had basically dispersed, something that looked like a sea serpent's head and a canned box appeared like nothing.

The Whale Shark 4 is a small patrol gunboat, with a maximum speed of only 15 knots, and the usual cruising speed is about 10 knots, but in order to safely pass through the minefield, the actual speed is reduced to 5-6 knots, which provides convenience for the quiet tailing of enemy submarines. If it were not for the vigilance of the sentry, it would have sneaked into the port of Vladivostok under the guidance and "cover" of this Soviet and Russian patrol ship, and the Soviet and Russian warships moored at various docks or moorings would have become lambs waiting to be slaughtered, even if this is a pocket submarine with only two 450-mm torpedoes, it has every chance to inflict heavy damage on the Soviet Russian Navy that is difficult to heal in a short time.

(End of chapter)