"Melden, how is the repair of boiler room No. 1 going? How long will it take to fix it? Otto Fein, the captain of the Gneisenau, was in a very agitated mood. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

In a previous air raid, a bomb dropped by a Tu-2 bomber hit the boiler room of the Gneisenau, causing the Gneisenau to lose a lot of power and reduce its speed to 10 knots.

If this continues, I am afraid that the Soviet fleet will really catch up, and then it will not be able to run if it wants to, so it will have to fight hard.

"Mr. Captain, we are doing everything we can to carry out the emergency repair, but it will be half an hour at the earliest."

"Half an hour?" Fern said angrily: "In half an hour, the Russians will catch up!" You guys have to speed up and get back to 22 knots or more in less than 20 minutes! ”

Fein also knew that what he said didn't help. It was indeed a difficult task to repair the boiler room in such a short time.

Even if the repair was completed, the speed could only be increased to 22 knots at most, and the Sevastopol battleship, which was the slowest in the Soviet fleet, also reached a speed of 24 knots, and it was only a matter of time before it was caught up by the Soviet fleet.

As the flagship of the German Baltic Fleet, the Gneisenau was not left behind because it was too slow. The other ships, with the exception of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, which was in a hurry to return to port for repairs, followed the Gneisenau and headed west at an extremely slow pace.

In the event of a naval battle, the Gneisenau would not be alone, accompanied by at least 3 light cruisers and 20 destroyers.

But in this way, it is equivalent to taking the entire fleet out of the water, and if the time comes, it may be able to keep this foundation, and if it loses, I am afraid that it will be buried together.

"Klaus," Finn called the correspondent's name, and then said, "send a telegram to the command of the Navy that the boiler of the Gneisenau has been blown up, the power has been damaged, and that the current speed is only 10 knots, and sooner or later it will be overtaken by the Russian fleet."

In order to preserve the strength of the Imperial German Navy, I suggested that the Gneisenau be left behind to cover the retreat of the other ships. Otherwise, we will lose not just one battlecruiser, but the entire fleet.

The Gneisenau will fight until the last shell is fired, and we are ready to die for the Reich, which is our glory and our duty as German soldiers! ”

When the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, Ellirich Raeder, received the telegram, his expression became solemn. If he had ordered the Baltic Fleet to retreat at full speed, with the Gneisenau in the rear, he might have been able to keep the fleet.

But if all the ships fought together, they might be able to inflict more damage on the Soviet Navy, but in this case, I am afraid that they would also bear the price of total annihilation.

If it were the British Royal Navy, of course such a price could afford it, anyway, they had so many ships, and more than two dozen ships were gone, which was just a small matter.

However, the situation of the German Navy is very different, the number of their ships itself is small, and the cost of shipbuilding is expensive, the speed of shipbuilding is not high, the loss of the Gneisenau is equivalent to donating blood, but the absence of this fleet is equivalent to digging a kidney, after this battle, the German Navy is bound to be greatly damaged.

At this moment, both Raeder and Hitler made the decision to abandon the car and protect the commander - to exchange one battle cruiser for the safety of the entire fleet.

But does this mean that the entire fleet is safe? Not necessarily.

At the command of the Admiralty, all the ships of the Baltic Fleet pulled up to maximum speed and headed for the port of Turku as fast as possible.

The Finnish Air Force flew hundreds of aircraft over the fleet to protect the fleet, and the German First Air Force also flew two combat aviation groups (out of a full strength of 80 aircraft) from airfields that had never been affected by air raids to fly over the Gulf of Finland to protect the Baltic Fleet from aerial threats.

Before the German planes arrived, the planes of a Soviet aviation division (180 at full strength, but this aviation division actually had only 160 left) came to the skies over the Gneisenau.

At this moment, there are only five fighters left to escort the Gneisenau, and the rest of the escort planes have either been shot down during the last air raid, or have gone to cover other ships, or have returned to base without fuel.

These 5 fighters, which is the opponent of hundreds of Soviet fighters?

What's more, 3 of these 5 fighters suffered varying degrees of damage in the gaps, and were easily solved by the roaring Soviet fighters, and the only remaining air defense was 7 twin 105 mm / L65 SK C/33 anti-aircraft guns, 16 37 mm SK C/30 anti-aircraft guns and 10 20 mm C/30 or C/38 anti-aircraft machine guns on the ship Gneisenau.

When the Soviet pilots saw the Gneisenau sailing at a turtle speed and fighting alone, they felt that something was not quite right. Where did the other ships go? Do the Germans want to ...... Leave this flagship behind the back hall to cover the retreat of the other ships?

The Soviet pilots knew the Germans' intentions at a glance, and in order to expand their success, they left only a small number of planes to bomb the Gneisenau, which focused on the Gneisenau's power system to prevent the ship from getting enough power to accelerate its escape.

The Gnaisenau's turret was also the target of bombardment, and as long as the turret could be blown up and the turret could not be operated, the damage caused by the shelling of Soviet ships could be reduced.

The main force of the group continued westward, but encountered a Finnish group of 40 planes flying eastward.

The Finnish group, judging by the direction of the flight, was clearly sent to support the Gneisenau, but they arrived at a bad time, and before they could reach their destination, they encountered hundreds of Soviet aircraft.

At that time, most of the main fighters of the Finnish Air Force were still from the 1930s, and the largest number of fighters was the Fokker D.XXI fighter manufactured by the Dutch Fokker company, followed by the M.S.406 fighter imported from France, and the F2A "Buffalo" fighter imported from the United States.

These planes are all old models of the 1930s, and they are not comparable to the La-7 and Yak-3 fighters of the Soviet Air Force in various performances.

As a result, the Soviet Air Force, which had an advantage in both quantity and quality of aircraft, easily wiped out the Finnish fighter group, and all 40 Finnish planes were shot down (because these planes did not fly fast and were easily overtaken by Soviet planes when they wanted to run), but the Soviet Union also lost 13 fighters.

The Soviet Air Division, with minor losses, continued to fly westward, and when they saw the German fleet, German air reinforcements arrived.