A sporadic light raindrop drifted in the gloomy sky, and a gray, straight-wingspanned plane swayed north in the fierce wind. The www.biquge.info of the Fun Pavilion should be recognisable as a monoplane if you have been to the site to see the first two Schneider Cup water races held in April 1913 and February 1914. It was manufactured by the Newport Company in the United States, and although the engine horsepower was on the low side, thanks to the simple and light body design, its small turning radius and good maneuverability, it performed quite well in both races. The Newport IV seaplane in front of you has a fuselage and wings painted with the new concentric circle logo adopted by the Royal Naval Air Corps. For combat reconnaissance missions, the British added an observer and installed a rear-firing machine gun, which reduced the aircraft's top speed to 90 km/h, but its excellent agility and endurance were comparable to those of the British-produced Schott and Welthop seaplanes.

In the cramped, open cockpit, two pilots huddled back to back. They wore fur hats and leather jackets, and they couldn't resist the icy rain that soaked their scarves, and the biting chill went straight into their clothes. This is the Faroe Islands in the north of Europe, and at this time, "airspace" has not yet become a clear treaty article, and it is difficult for the Danish government to protest against British planes flying over its territorial airspace, not to mention that Denmark is no longer the dominant Nordic power of the past. Even if Britain and Germany used the Faroe Islands as a battlefield to fight, there was nothing they could do, and this is the reality that the strong make the rules and the weak follow the rules.

Flying over the Sletara Mountains on the East Island, the blue-gray land beneath the wings turns into a deep sea. There seem to be countless white spots on the surface of the rolling sea, but if you look closely, you can see the crest of the waves rolled up by the wind. At this time, the driver wearing windproof glasses turned his head and said loudly to his partner: "This uninteresting wind is really too big, the situation is not good, we will get out of control at any time!" ”

"May God keep us alive until the end of the war!" The observer-machine gunner in the back seat replied with difficulty, "But before we can do that, we have to defeat the German navy, or the 45 million British will not have a good life in the future." ”

The driver of the front seat seemed less confident in this expectation, and he asked rhetorically, "Do you think we can?" ”

The backseat pilot replied categorically: "Yes, of course!" ”

"Now that victory is in doubt, let's try to do something about it!" The driver in the front seat suddenly became interested, and he said passionately: "We are flying against the wind here, even if we end up in pieces!" ”

"So we have to find the German fleet as soon as possible." The backseat pilot responded, "They must be somewhere in this area." ”

The front-seat pilot thought as he said, "I guess they're already northeast of the Faroe Islands, maybe just north of Bird Island." Let's try our luck there! ”

With that, he swung the joystick lightly, and the white Newport IV turned lightly to the right, but the strong sea breeze made its flight attitude not as stable as usual, and the fuselage trembled badly at one point, and the pilot had to hold the joystick tightly with both hands to prevent it from losing control.

At the same time, in the relatively wide strait between the East Island and the Boroi Island, the lead-gray warships were sailing north in an orderly manner. Among them, the most eye-catching are naturally those majestic and imposing capital ships, especially the five super dreadnoughts that are less than 2 years old. They possess the most formidable firepower of their time, and their first-class protection has been proven by the brutality of many naval battles, and their single-ship capabilities are sufficient to rival the German dreadnoughts, and it is because of their existence that the British royal dignitaries and ordinary military and civilians still have high hopes of reversing the decline.

The mighty British fleet lined up for several kilometres, and some auxiliary ships had just entered the strait through the mouth of the bay. The ships were so jolted by the wind and waves that most of the offshore operations could not be carried out, with one exception. Every once in a while, a seaplane catapults off from it, and compared to the capital ships of the British fleet, it is neither large nor majestic, and the bow is even an old ramming angle, but its hull is laid with a flat wooden deck - despite its all-access flight deck, the Athletic is still positioned as a seaplane carrier in the British Navy.

The idea of converting the old protective cruiser "Athletic" into a seaplane carrier was born in 1912, and the conversion took several months, and the British installed a take-off platform in the bow and a docking platform on the aft deck, which was not a success. In the nearly two years that followed, the Athletic underwent two more modifications and continued to experiment with various types of aircraft and take-off and landing schemes, including the use of catapults to take off seaplanes and the historic use of folding wings. In 1913, during a major naval exercise, a plane on board the "Athletic" crashed and was rescued by a ship playing a hostile role, which once caused panic and was listed as a major safety accident in the British Navy.

At the outbreak of the war, in addition to the "Athletic", the British Navy also had several seaplane carriers converted from several channel ferries and fast cargo ships, among which "Egadine", "Campania", "Hagmet", and "Luno" were incorporated into the British home fleet.

In the First Battle of Flanders, the British had high hopes for these seaplane carriers, but the "Campania" was not well dispatched, and while the British home fleet was trapped by German mine ambush and submarine attack tactics, the remaining three seaplane carriers and the seaplanes they carried were exhausted but had little success. After this, the British wartime cabinet urgently allocated funds for the assault construction of aircraft carriers, and the existing seaplanes were concentrated to encircle the capital area, which made the situation of seaplane carriers in the British Navy even more awkward.

After Sir Jackson became the commander of the British Home Fleet, the "Athletic" underwent the fourth refit, and the bow take-off platform and the stern docking platform were connected by building a steel frame and laying wooden planks to form an all-through flight deck. The number of aircraft was increased to 10, and 2 seaplanes were catapulted and took off at the same time. Since seaplanes can be parked side by side on the flight deck before takeoff, the efficiency of take-off has also improved a lot. During the training, the "Athletic God" had a record of ejecting all 10 carrier-based aircraft into the aircraft within 10 minutes, and its take-off efficiency was much higher than that of other seaplane carriers, and its ability to adapt to sea conditions was also correspondingly enhanced.

After the seaplanes put into reconnaissance set off one after another, the crew of the "Athletic" was loading torpedoes under the belly of the four Verthorpe "Falcon" seaplanes, the diameter and length of these torpedoes were almost exactly the same as the torpedoes equipped on the British destroyers, with the normal load capacity of the Welthorp "Falcon", even if they could take off with them, the flight condition was worrying, not to mention such bad weather conditions, but the British crew and the pilots who were preparing to set off did not see such worries at all, obviously, These torpedoes have been modified accordingly.

At this time, there was still 1 Newport IV parked at the front of the flight deck. With the addition of an additional pilot and a machine gun, it would have been enough to carry another 100 kilograms, but the British managed to mount two bombs with trigger fuses under its fuselage. Now that everything necessary for the attack was ready, the British aboard the Athletic began to pray that the seaplanes that had set off first would be able to reconnoiter the position of the German fleet before the weather got worse, and that they would return the color in the usual German way.

At the northern end of the strait, the two British destroyers serving as outposts had seen the open sea, and there was not a single shadow on the horizon, which relieved the crew, who did not necessarily understand the famous naval battle that took place on the Korean Peninsula more than 300 years ago, but the delicate situation of the British fleet was obvious. If the German fleet had formed a battle formation at the exit of the Channel at this time, it would have been tantamount to preempting the "T-shape" in front of the British fleet, thus putting the British fleet in an extremely tactically disadvantageous position.

In the drizzle, the two British destroyers were ready to rush out of the strait, and if the German fleet sailed in formation to the waters east of the Faroe Islands, the British fleet would have the opportunity to strike them hard from behind, and the superiority and inferiority of the two sides would be completely reversed, but only if the Germans were always ignorant of all this. Judging by the past performance of the German fleet, this could not have happened unless they were carried away by victory, or if all reconnaissance and alert methods were temporarily ineffective due to bad weather.

The British planes flying over the Faroe Islands to reconnoiter did not bring back the enemy's situation for a long time, which made the British very worried, and on the flagship "Iron Duke", which sailed to the middle of the strait, all the officers and crew were on duty at their respective combat posts, especially beware of the German planes appearing at this time and attacking the British fleet with torpedoes and bombs, but this extremely pessimistic situation has not been realized for a long time, and the whole fleet seems to sail in the fog, and the atmosphere is so strange that people feel uncomfortable.

"Sir! A wireless telegram has just been intercepted, judging from the coding rules we have, this is the secondary encrypted code used by the German naval intelligence to communicate, the German fleet will not break the radio silence for no reason, and this telegram was sent very close to us, the most likely situation is a telegram sent by a German spy lurking in the Faroe Islands, we are trying to decipher the content of the telegram, whether it will succeed is unknown. ”

The staff officer in charge of communications brought such suspenseful news to the officers on the bridge, and the pessimists naturally calculated the worst in their hearts. Sir Jackson pondered and waited without saying a word, while Vice Admiral Madden, the chief of staff of the fleet, held up his binoculars and gazed long to the northeast. Suddenly, he exclaimed, "It looks like a German plane...... Not in the sky, but at treetop height, where it flies at low altitudes...... Hell, this is not an illusion, we were discovered by the Germans! ”

(End of chapter)