At 1 a.m. on July 5, 1924, the German naval base in Guadeloupe, located in the western Atlantic, was still brightly lit. On the docks, heavily armed German sailors watched warily, harbor patrols led by wolfdogs rattled to the neat and dull sound of leather boots, and searchlight lampposts swept back and forth in the harbor.

Inside the harbor, warships with simple and smooth lines slowly sailed out of the harbor, and the black vulture cross naval flags on the masts fluttered gently in the breeze.

An hour later, the harbor was calm again. Just counting the ships anchored in the harbor, there were 2 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, 1 escort carrier, and 22 destroyers less than in the evening.

At this time, the sunrise of a new day had already ushered in Berlin, and the senior generals of the Supreme Command were summoned to the Olaf Palace early in the morning. In the large chamber used for the Imperial Council, the Kaiser was already dressed and waiting there.

After all the participants arrived, Chen Tian motioned to the attendant to close the door of the conference hall.

With a slight clatter, the thick wooden door was shut, which made everyone inside feel a rare solemnity.

"Six hours ago, an assault formation of 32 submarines set off from Newfoundland with the goal of our Atlantic route! If nothing else, in another 7 or 8 hours, they will be at a certain point on that route, and there is a good chance that they will run into our G628 fleet or G629 fleet, and a fierce battle is inevitable! ”

In the previous paragraph, Chen Tian used a calm and gentle tone, and then, he raised his voice.

"If this is simply a submarine attack by Edward VIII, we have nothing to blame, and the Empire's excellent destroyer captains will give them a lesson that they will never forget! However, according to reliable and accurate intelligence, American submarines were also involved, and brazenly made all American officers and soldiers wear British ** uniforms and pretend to be British. What does this mean? ”

The eyes of the generals of the three armies were all focused on their rulers. No one exchanged heads, no one whispered, not even a single superfluous movement.

The atmosphere was very solemn.

"Since the Americans have made such a move, we don't have to be polite!" Chentian's tone became flat again, but everyone could feel the power behind this calmness.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to implement our Titan Project! As long as that submarine force, which does not know whether to live or die, launches an attack, as long as those stupid Americans are captured by us, the war will officially begin! ”

The generals of the army, navy, and air force replied in unison with great pride: "Obey orders!" ”

After the conclusion of this extremely important Imperial Council. Tatsuten sought Prime Minister Bateman and asked him to start preparing for the country's entry into a wartime system, followed by Stresemann, and Tatsuten asked him to prepare diplomatic documents to declare war on the United States.

At this time, it can be said that everything is in place, and only the east wind is owed.

In the middle of the Atlantic, an ocean-going fleet of 22 merchant freighters and 18 escort ships is heading west in the night. In terms of the ratio of escort ships to merchant freighters, this fleet was well protected, but after learning that it was going to attack a large group of submarines, everyone in the fleet raised their spirits, especially the officers and men on the ships.

The command ship of the entire fleet was the German battle cruiser "De Fllinger", in fact. However, escort antisubmarine operations were carried out by the escort aircraft carrier "Weimar" and three destroyer detachments carrying 30 warplanes. Therefore. After receiving an encrypted telegram from the German mainland, Rear Admiral Kutkerner, the commander of the fleet and captain of the "De Fllinger", summoned the captain of the escort carrier and the three commanders of the destroyer detachment to his ship.

"Berlin's order is to capture the American ** people on those submarines, the more the better. It would be best if an American submarine could be forced to surrender! Major General Kutkner directly conveyed the order of the High Command, but this order did not mention the purpose of capturing these Americans, let alone tell these non-core officers that this would be an important contract for the start of the German-American war.

"Will this order make everyone unable to let go, too much scruple may cause trouble for the fleet! In any case, we have never encountered so many submarines at one time, and I think it will be difficult enough to protect the merchant ships, and if we need to capture them......"

The opinion of Lieutenant Commander Balk Holon, commander of the 1st Destroyer Detachment, appeared to be more cautious, and he had under his command four newest destroyers, the "Kleda", "Somen", "Freiberg" and "Asterfu", all of which were of the 2,100-ton bayonet class, and the names of the ships were chosen after the four towns in central Germany.

"The fleet is carrying very important supplies. If the capture of the enemy is the first goal, then the flotilla ......" Lieutenant Commander Wilhelm, commander of the 3rd destroyer detachment, immediately raised his doubts.

Rear Admiral Kerner understood this secret order a little more deeply, and said: "Don't worry about this, the fleet from Guadeloupe will come to meet us!" As for the cargo on board, I think the reason why the High Command put the aircraft and equipment of an air force bomber wing in one fleet is to attract the enemy to take the bait! ”

Everyone nodded, and the commander of the 2nd Destroyer Detachment, Lieutenant Commander Ernst I. William, asked, "Do you need to inform other ships other than the escort ships of our plans in advance?" ”

"Of course not!" Kerner shook his head decisively, "For some purpose. Sometimes a small sacrifice is necessary! I decided that the destroyer detachment would be responsible for the front of the flotilla, the ship-by-ship detachment of the yard area would be responsible for the left side of the flotilla, the ship-by-ship detachment of the No. 1 Ant area would be responsible for the right, and the 'De Fllinger' and 'Weimar' would be located at the rear of the fleet, and one destroyer would be drawn from the ship-by-ship detachments of the 2nd and 3rd districts to protect the 'Weimar'! The three destroyer detachment commanders all nodded, and only the captain of the "Weimar", Colonel Alvin, raised his right hand, "General, then my plane must be ready for torpedoes and depth charges now?" ”

Kerner looked down and thought for a moment, "What do you think of combat reconnaissance planes and bombers carrying Type A depth charges, torpedo planes carrying Type E torpedoes, and fighters carrying auxiliary fuel tanks and being responsible for guarding the skies over the fleet?" ”

Alvin thought for a moment, "Yes! ”

Then, Kerner added: "These are just the first few attacks, and when the enemy submarines run out of batteries and float, they will all use C-type aerial bombs." Blow up as many submarines as you can on the surface of the sea! ”

"Got it!" Colonel Alwyn replied succinctly.

The long night and sleepy dawn soon passed, the sun rose and sunrose on the sea, and it was nearly noon that day, and the fleet of ships sailing in an orderly queue was still on the busiest route between Europe and the United States, and the speed of 10 knots was indeed a little slow, but it was conducive to maintaining the formation of the whole fleet. At any given time, there are always two or three planes buzzing around the fleet, and these alert planes will undoubtedly greatly increase the alert distance of the escort fleet. Only so far, there is nothing on the surface of the sea except waves and winds.

Under the scorching sun, the temperature on the deck of the ship gradually increased, and even the refreshing sea breeze of the early morning brought a gust of warmth, and the crew was no longer willing to stay on the deck, except for the sentry on duty, everyone else took refuge in the ground cabin. Coal-fired freighters still spew smoke out of their chimneys, and fuel-fired warships are slightly better, but on the whole these ships are still polluting the environment unconsciously.

By contrast, submarines that lurk beneath the surface are much more environmentally friendly. One by one, they all turned off their diesel engines. When it comes to underwater activities, it relies only on its own storage battery. In the periscope, the German fleet was so natural and harmonious, perhaps the Germans did not know it. The wolves under the sea can't wait to open their mouths.

"Check the torpedo one last time, and be sure to fire all four shots when firing at the firing site!"

Brandon shouted at the sailors in the front torpedo compartment, but at this point, such shouts only seemed to increase the tension on people's faces. For Brandon and Hill, the attack was more than just the first joint attack by British and American submarines, and the reason why the two navies sent nearly one-third of the combined submarine force to carry out the mission was because they had to prevent the Germans from continuing to deploy long-range bombers in Mexico and Guadeloupe. According to information from American spies embedded in Germany, the fleet contained an entire air wing of Owl DD heavy bombers, which could threaten the continental United States from Mexico or Guadeloupe, and could even drop bombs on Washington, D.C., from northern Mexico's airfields. This fact couldn't be worse for the United States!

"Checked, everything is normal!"

When the shout came from the torpedo compartment, Brandon breathed a sigh of relief, the German fleet was indeed here, but he always felt in his heart that things were not so simple, with his years of experience in dealing with the German Navy, those guys would never let others take advantage of themselves easily, let alone take advantage of them.

"Let me see!" Hill gently squeezed Brandon aside and pressed his own eyes to the observation port of the periscope. Holding the rotating handle of the periscope with both hands, he moved clockwise, and said in his mouth: "Oh, it seems that there is not much difference with our intelligence, the escort ship troops, aircraft carriers and battle cruisers are probably at the rear of the fleet, and the destroyers can already be seen, not much, but not too little!" ”

"I hope all the best!" Brandon said gloomily. But only half an hour later, his bad premonition came true. Just when the opposing fleet was about to enter its own ambush circle, the ten destroyers in the German fleet suddenly accelerated away from the fleet and headed towards the ambush area at high speed, and the submarines at the periscope depth put away their periscopes that stayed above the sea surface, but this saved them from being discovered by the German destroyers - the detection range of 3-4 nautical miles of DD active sonar allowed the German destroyers to quickly find the hunters lurking underwater, and then, the depth charges fell into the water one after another, and the sea began to boil!

"Hell! Shit" Brandon and Hill used their own curses, but no amount of vicious swearing helped, and according to habitual thinking, they immediately ordered their submarines to dive deeper to avoid depth charges.

Under the influence of the same scraping manual, the other captains also made the same decision, and the 32 submarines in a large circle were actually dived into the water because of the depth charge attack of 10 destroyers, and the formation was also disrupted, this comical situation is indeed a bit laughable, in short, in the first quarter of an hour after the battle began, the British and American submarines did not fire a single torpedo at the German destroyers, whether because of damn habitual thinking, or for fear of scaring the flotilla behind, In short, the captains of both Britain and the United States made a very fatal mistake.

A few minutes later, the fighters who took off from the German escort aircraft carrier also joined the submarine hunt, and under the guidance of the destroyers, they dropped depth charges from the air, although the power of these bombs was no different from the depth charges dropped from the destroyers, but they could be thrown at any part of the sea at will.

After a while, the torpedo machine also flew to the battlefield, carrying the precious millimeter light torpedo they have no target to attack for the time being, so they just circled over and over again at low altitude, as long as the submarine could not help but float up, they would launch a fatal blow, although the base millimeter torpedo is small, it is more than enough to deal with a submarine, and the biggest advantage of this kind of torpedo is that it can be thrown closer to the target, even if it is a submarine, there is not much chance of evasion.

"Captain, 60 meters!"

By the time the sailors reported the figures, there was less noise around the submarine, and 60 meters was already the maximum depth of the submarine, but Brandon knew that the Germans usually only set their depth charges at between 10 and 50 meters, which was basically safe.

At this time, the hull of the submarine was no longer shaking as much as before, but the roaring sound still came from nearby one after another, and many of them sounded very clear. As time passed, the British and American crews began to become restless, but the Germans kept throwing depth charges as if there was no limit to the number of them, and they did not want to think that a 2,100-ton German destroyer could casually carry one or two hundred 25-kilogram drop-off depth charges and two dozen 100-kilogram roll-off depth charges, plus airborne depth charges constantly dropped from the air, this kind of attack would indeed make the people in the submarine collapse in a long ordeal.

Gradually, submarines began to venture to the surface and raise their periscopes again, boldly trying to fire torpedoes at the evil German destroyers, and others quietly sailing to distant fleets while the German destroyers were busy dealing with other submarines.

But just then, another group of planes flew in from the west and soon joined the hunt. It turned out that the fleet from Guadeloupe had arrived more than 100 nautical miles away from the fleet as early as noon, and in order not to startle the fleet, they had kept a distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the fleet, and with their appearance, the initiative in the battle situation had been completely controlled by the German side!