It is often said that the navy is an aristocratic army, and from the day the navy was established, honor and pride coexisted with the navy, and in the hundreds of years of history of the navy, honor and pride have always remained in the navy. The Navy is an army that can always be proud of and a force with great honor. Not only the navies of the Tang Empire, but the navies of all countries in the world grew up in honor and pride.

The British Navy is no exception, and when every British Navy soldier wears that "sea soul" suit, the concept of honor takes root in their hearts. Historically, the British Navy has taken honor even to the point of nitpicking. In the age of sailing, the British Navy had the strictest military discipline in the world, and even some minor mistakes would be whipped, and there were even accidents that led to the death of sailors because of whipping. In the era of ironclad ships, the British Navy had extremely strict, even harsh, requirements for the dress of sailors and the neatness of warships. But at that time, the battleship burned coal, not heavy oil, not only when carrying coal, it would stain the battleship, but also the coal ash produced when the battleship was sailing was also a very tricky problem, so the battleship at that time was almost "swarthy", to keep the battleship tidy, this is not only troublesome, but also will make the sailors bear too heavy tasks. Many countries have not had similar requirements, but the British Navy has always had incomprehensibly high requirements for the cleanliness of warships.

From these little things, it can be seen that the British are not only rigid, but also extremely proud, and have a very strong sense of honor. This probably has something to do with the history of the United Kingdom. During the Tang Empire's colonization of Europe, Britain was the country with the fastest economic development. At that time, Britain was the logistics support base of the Tang Empire's expeditionary force. Thanks to the large purchase of land for the Tang Empire's expeditionary forces, and the fact that hundreds of thousands of imperial expeditionary troops lived in Britain itself, Britain's economy was much better than that of other European countries that were under the control of the Tang Empire.

And at the time of the withdrawal of the Don Empire from Europe. Britain already had a certain industrial base, and then replaced the Tang Empire. It became the overlord of the North Atlantic, thus gaining a large number of maritime interests, and Britain was at the forefront of maritime trade and later in the struggle for colonies with the Tang Empire. Arguably. Until World War I, Britain was the most developed and powerful country in Europe, and has always regarded itself as the leader of European allies (there are few countries that can recognize Britain as the hegemon of Europe, mainly because Britain lacks a strong army and is difficult to directly control the European continent), and in World War I, forced the Tang Empire, Persia, Germany and other opponents to sign a series of armistice treaties. In exchange for a large number of war benefits, these made the British very proud. This is the root of the stubbornness and pride of the British. A country that has been strong in Europe for hundreds of years, if there is no pride. If you don't have a strong sense of honor, that's a real problem.

The sense of honor embodied by the British from top to bottom also affected the British Navy, and affected the admirals in the British Navy. At this life-and-death juncture, Cunningham's decision has its own relationship with his sense of honor. Under the circumstances of the time. Cunningham didn't really have much chance of winning, and someone else, even Spruance, would have chosen to retreat to Lagos first, reorganize the fleet and then fight the enemy instead of fighting at a time and place chosen by another opponent. However, Cunningham did not retreat, and he gave an order that was completely opposite to the retreat:

The fleet left the Bay of St. Helena and prepared for a decisive battle with the fleet of the Don Empire! It was the early morning of April 21, and Cunningham made a decision before and after Tan Renhao realized that the Anglo-French expeditionary fleet might be hiding in the Bay of St. Helena and had sent four fighters on a reconnaissance mission.

Later generations found many problems in the analysis of the combat operations of the Anglo-French joint expeditionary fleet, such as why the Anglo-French joint expeditionary fleet did not directly enter the Red Sea and assist the allied fleets on the other side of the Mediterranean to lay the Suez Canal before the arrival of the main fleet of the Tang Empire. Why not rush to Colombo to intercept the approaching Tang Imperial fleet, and after the setback, the Anglo-French joint expeditionary fleet can also go to Australia, from the south of Australia into the Pacific Ocean.

Of course, these questions ignore the fact that the supply situation of the Anglo-French joint expeditionary fleet at that time, the battleships were certainly unable to carry out any long-distance raids when they did not have enough fuel, and this was a key factor limiting the fleet's ability to operate.

But the problem is that Cunningham did make a lot of mistakes in the command at that time. For example, in the first encounter with Task Force 3, he had enough strength advantage, at that time he had eleven battleships and battle cruisers in his hands, while Task Force 3 only had five battleships.

Although actual combat proved that the performance of the "New Provincial Capital" class battleships of the Tang Empire was much more powerful than any British and French capital ships at that time, and the firepower, armor, speed, and even radar were much better. But eleven capital ships fight five, even if there is a gap in performance, Cunningham still has a huge advantage, if this battle breaks out, I'm afraid the third task force will be completely finished.

Then, at the time of the second encounter, Cunningham still had the money to drag Task Force 3 into the water. However, it turned out that he was right to flee, and if he hadn't fled, the bombers of Task Force 1 would have completely destroyed the British expeditionary fleet after dawn, and he would not have even had a chance to return to Cape Town.

The biggest question is why Cunningham hid in the Bay of St. Helena for three days after the Tang Imperial fleet went south, and during these three days, not only did he not take the initiative to attack and look for a decisive opportunity, but he also did not take the initiative to retreat and return to Lagos. Under the circumstances at that time, if he chose to take the initiative, he might be able to gain something, even if the final result would not change much, but he would at least be able to kill some of the warships of the Tang Empire. On the contrary, if he took the initiative to retreat, three days would be enough time for the fleet to reach the vicinity of the Gold Coast, and even if he advanced at cruising speed, he would have already escaped from the strike range of the Tang Imperial fleet, and he would not be hit at all. Why, then, did Cunningham not choose to strike or retreat, but instead waste three days in the Bay of St. Helena?

Someone made excuses for Cunningham, such as the condition of the battleships that did not allow Cunningham to fight a decisive battle with the enemy's main fleet. At that time, there were problems with all three battleships of the "King George V" class. After it was put into service, the ground rotation mechanism of the turret of the quadruple main gun, which had been constantly problematic, came out again to "make trouble". The condition of the four warships in the French expeditionary fleet could not have been worse, and two of the "Dunkirk" class battleships had problems with their power systems, and the maximum speed could only reach 24 knots. Worse. There were problems with the elevators of three aircraft carriers of the British fleet at that time, and before that. The bombers originally attached to the aircraft carrier have been transferred to the shore to support the defense of Cape Town, and the number of fighters left on the aircraft carrier is not very large, and the total number of fighters on the three aircraft carriers is only more than 60, which is simply unable to effectively cover the fleet. It was precisely these problems that led to a significant reduction in the combat effectiveness of the Anglo-French joint expeditionary fleet. It was simply impossible to fight a decisive battle with the fleet of the Don Empire. Later, some people even used some battle reports left at that time to simulate the situation of the Anglo-French joint expeditionary fleet with the help of computer technology, and the result of the computer simulation was that when Cunningham led the fleet to the Bay of St. Helena, the combat strength of the Anglo-French joint expeditionary fleet was only about 50% of what it was when it set out, which was not even comparable to the third task force of the Tang Empire!

The disagreement between the commanders of the British and French fleets was also a serious problem, and from the information obtained after the war, it appears that Goldford was preparing to forcibly break through the blockade of the British expeditionary fleet and leave the Bay of St. Helena. Head north alone and return to Lagos. Moreover, there were already skirmishes between the fleets of the two sides at that time, and several French destroyers almost collided with British battleships when they forced their way through. At this time. Cunningham must have been in a panic, on the one hand, to guard against a sudden enemy attack, and on the other hand, to prevent the French from escaping, as you can imagine. In this case, Cunningham's decision to make must be extreme and difficult to consider.

In addition, after bombing Port Elizabeth, the Tang Imperial fleet sent reconnaissance planes to the skies over Cape Town, and then, the Tang Imperial bombers did not immediately bomb Cape Town, which also gave Cunningham a bit of luck. At that time, the weather in the South Atlantic was improving, but there was no guarantee that there would be no sudden changes, and for most years, the weather did not improve until early May, and sometimes even late May. That is, the fleet of the Tang Empire, perhaps taking into account the change in weather, did not immediately bomb Cape Town, and the time for attacking Cape Town must have been delayed considerably. If this is the case, then it is quite possible that the fleet of the Don Empire will return to Lagos, and Cunningham will not have to flee back to Lagos, but will be able to return to Cape Town.

Finally, and most importantly, Cunningham received an order to keep him in Cape Town, and to ensure that the French expeditionary fleet did not leave his sight (which was indeed stated in the telegram), and not to let him lead the fleet back to Lagos. It was this order that made Cunningham decide to stay in the Bay of St. Helena, ready to make a decision on the situation.

For all these reasons, one thing is certain, it was a bad decision to stay in the Bay of St. Helena without taking any action. Cunningham realized at the last moment that he had made a serious mistake, the Don fleet did not withdraw, but bypassed, and the opponent's purpose was not to take Cape Town, but to annihilate the Anglo-French fleet!

Shortly before dawn on the 21st, the conflict between the British and French fleets broke out, and Goldford ordered all French battleships to anchor, and at the same time pointed their guns at the nearby British battleships, and then telegraphed to Cunningham that the French fleet would return to Lagos, and if Cunningham wanted to block it, then the French fleet would take any necessary action to break through the blockade of the British fleet, and all the consequences would be borne by the British fleet. Prior to this, destroyers and cruisers on both sides had already had many non-firepower confrontations, and there were even several incidents of warship friction. By the time Cunningham reacted and tried to prevent the French fleet from leaving, Godelfoy's flagship "Richelieu" had already been the first to break through the British blockade, and then other French warships broke through the British blockade one after another. Under these circumstances, Cunningham had no choice but to abandon the interception operation, and on the one hand, he telegraphed to the British commander in the port of Lagos that after the arrival of the French fleet, he must not provide fuel to the French fleet, and tried to detain the French warships and arrest the officers and men of the French fleet, but to avoid armed conflict and bloodshed as much as possible. In addition, Cunningham also began to give orders for the departure of the fleet.

In other words, a few hours before Tan Renhao took into account that the Anglo-French joint expeditionary fleet was hiding in the Bay of St. Helena, the French expeditionary fleet had already left the Bay of St. Helena alone, and the British expeditionary fleet was making preparations for sailing. And this preparation took time, especially since the two British light cruisers, which were injured during the confrontation with the French battleships, were checking the power system, so they were not able to start a fire in time, and the two battleships needed at least three hours to complete the preparations for departure. At that time, Cunningham did not make good use of these three hours, otherwise, the British expeditionary fleet would have run dozens of nautical miles, and whether Tan Renhao could find the British expeditionary fleet is a question. Perhaps, Cunningham thought that it was impossible for the Tang Imperial fleet to get around so quickly, so three hours was not important, but the problem was that it was these three hours that finally exposed the British Expeditionary Fleet to the bombers of Task Force 1.

At about ten o'clock, Cunningham's battleships anchored one after another, and then the fleet headed for the Bay of St. Helena, at this time, four fighters with reconnaissance missions flew over, and the radar in the fleet first detected these four fighters, and each of the three British aircraft carriers took off four fighters urgently to intercept them. But it was too late, the radar on British warships would not be able to detect a small single target such as a fighter at a distance of more than 40 nautical miles, and for a fighter flying at a cruising speed of more than 210 knots, 40 nautical miles was just over 10 minutes.

After determining that it was the carrier-based aircraft of the Tang Imperial Navy, Cunningham was completely desperate, the British expeditionary fleet had been exposed, and the first task force of the Tang Empire must be not far away, and its fleet had received the news, I am afraid that the bombers were taking off one after another. Of course, the problem was not so serious, Tan Renhao only received the report from the fighter more than half an hour later, and at this time, the First Task Force was still continuing to sail eastward, and the British expeditionary fleet had not yet entered the range of bombers!