Late summer and early autumn nights are breezy and sleepy, but in the waters of the Thames estuary in England, the rumbling of cannons creates a strange and noisy atmosphere. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 The German Navy, with "Caesar", "King", and "Elector" as the 1st artillery detachment, and "Oldenburg", "Goeben", and "Moltke" as the 2nd artillery detachment, carried out long-range shelling at a distance of 16,000 to 18,000 kilometers against the stranded British super-dreadnought "Ajax". The three warships of each artillery detachment were equipped with the same type of main guns, and the ship in the center was used as the command ship to issue unified firing commands. In order to correct the impact point, in the first few rounds of shelling, each ship used ordinary shells with high explosive power.

During the shelling, two German water reconnaissance planes that had departed in advance kept sending back information through the radio station for calibration. Although the visual conditions at night were much less than during the day, the starry sky was intended to help the Germans, and the outline of the coastline and the dark shadow of the "Ajax" were very clearly visible from the planes flying at low and medium altitudes. Therefore, the shells from the German fleet quickly threatened the maintenance ships anchored around the "Ajax", and they had to temporarily interrupt the external auxiliary repairs, put away the divers who were working, and hurriedly evacuated the scene.

Upon receiving the warning of an enemy attack, the officers of the British Admiralty and the Naval Staff naturally thought of the main fleet of Jericho. After withdrawing from the battle, the fleet soon returned to the mouth of the Thames and sailed into the Thames. On the one hand, there were first-class shipyards such as Thames Steel on the banks of the Thames, where damaged British warships could find suitable docks for repairs, and on the other hand, if the German fleet forcibly blocked the mouth of the Thames, or even sent ships into the Thames, the British main fleet could fight to the death to prevent the German warships from threatening the capital London under any circumstances.

Precisely because of the need to guard against the attack of the German fleet, after Jellicoe led the fleet to the Thames, only the most seriously injured "Conqueror" was sent to Thames Steel to be docked for repairs, while most of the warships, including "Daring", "Thunderbolt", and "Collingwood", were repaired only by conventional means. After several hours of hard work by the navy crew and repair workers, the leakage of the hull of these damaged ships has been temporarily controlled, most of the slightly damaged or malfunctioning naval guns and weapons have been restored to combat capability, and all the casualties on the ships have been removed, and the ships have been replenished with reservists.

Even in the dead of night, it was difficult for normal sight and hearing to detect the artillery battle that was taking place more than forty kilometers away, but Jericho could not bury his head in the sand. First Admiral Oliver of the Naval Staff, and then Churchill also called Jellicoe, who remained behind on the "Daring", to ask when the fleet would be ready to fight.

"In a quarter of an hour I will set sail with the fleet, and some of the maintenance workers will voluntarily remain on the ship to continue the repair work, and all the officers and men will be determined to defend the honor, but in the duty of a fleet commander, I must point out that since the German fleet has reached the mouth of the Thames, we should use torpedo boats and submarines to exhaust their strength to the maximum, so that in a duel between the main fleet and the main fleet, we may have a greater chance of victory." Jellico said so on the phone.

"All torpedo boats have received combat orders." Churchill exclaimed on the other end of the phone, "It will not be long before the waters of the Thames estuary will be filled with the corpses of British warriors." ”

Jericho was silent for a long time before he spoke: "If we had won the battle during the day, we would definitely not have the trouble we have now, unfortunately, we basically did not get the chance to win, it is not a question of who is derelict in their duties, but because the enemy is indeed stronger than us, and they have an unprecedented advantage in technology." ”

"Now is not the time to discuss." Churchill replied unceremoniously, "Britain is in a situation like a drowning man, and only by struggling can he get a glimmer of life." ”

"I see, Your Excellency Lord of the Admiralty." Jericho replied, "Tomorrow when the sun rises, you will see many shipwreck masts at the mouth of the Thames, with either our St. George flag or the German eagle flag on it...... Tonight there will be only British battleships that have sunk and not retreated! ”

Putting down the phone, Jericho took out his pocket watch, and it was just over twenty minutes before midnight.

A few minutes later, the "Daring" raised its anchor, and the communications crew cut the telephone line to the land.

Having no longer heard Churchill's aggressive tone for a while, Jericho felt relieved.

The temporary anchorage is located downstream of London, more than 20 nautical miles to the site of the Ajax's grounding. Jericho ordered the ships to sail at 6 knots, which meant that they would not engage the German fleet again until at least three hours later, and the British torpedo boat forces would have plenty of time to attack.

Three hours is not a long time, but the "Ajax" categorically did not last that long. Faced with heavy artillery bombardment from the German fleet, the officers and men on board the ship quickly controlled the main guns to return fire, and because there was no guidance from ships or planes to calibrate and measure, the distance observation of distant artillery flames by optical instruments alone could not pose a real threat to the German fleet at all, and the captain of the ship, Rear Admiral de Robeck, immediately ordered a ceasefire. However, despite the strict control of the lights on the whole ship, and the lights were turned off along with the maintenance ships and escort ships, the German fleet still maintained a high accuracy in long-range shooting. In the first 20 minutes, the deck of the "Ajax" was flooded with sea water stirred up by shells, the loopholes that had been easily plugged were shaken open again, and a few near-misses caused new breaches, and the ship's personnel were forced to evacuate from the open combat positions. Over the next twenty minutes, the "Ajax" began to come under direct fire from enemy shells, which had a larger angle of incidence under ultra-long-range shelling, making it easier for them to hit the weakest points of the battleship's defenses, such as the deck, which meant that it was possible to destroy the British super-dreadnought with very few direct hits.

In a telegram sent to the Naval Staff and the flagship of the fleet, de Robeck reported on the precarious situation of the "Ajax", and at the same time, he believed that the German artillery fleet consisted of at least 5 capital ships.

Combined with the exchange of fire in various battlefields during the day, the British Navy could basically determine the main lineup of the German fleet and the battle damage, although it was not as strong as expected, but the performance was unexpectedly strong, and in several fierce battles, not a single dreadnought or battlecruiser sank, which once again proved the amazing anti-sinking performance of the German capital ships. However, if the damage is excluded, the German fleet has less than five capital ships capable of fighting, which contradicts De Robeck's judgment. However, neither the British navy nor Jericho's fleet command team was overly surprised by this situation, after all, there was a certain degree of subjectivity in combat reports on the battlefield, and even if a German dreadnought did suffer heavy damage, it could be repaired to maintain its combat effectiveness.

Just after midnight, the first group of British torpedo boats appeared at the mouth of the Thames, coming not from the upper reaches of the Thames, but from another river that joins the mouth of the Thames, the Medway. Prior to this, a British patrol ship had spotted the German fleet in the northeast corner of the Thames estuary area, and had telegraphed the azimuth coordinates before the German light ships sank them, saving the British torpedo boat force from distracting the search for targets.

Listening to the rumbling of artillery in the distance and watching the bursts of fire in the sky, the fighters on this group of British torpedo boats knew that the German fleet was ravaging their "Ajax". Filled with anger overpowering their fears, they wanted to torpedo all the German warships to the bottom of the sea, but before they could see the shadow of the German capital ships, a huge threat was silently rushing towards them......

"Torpedo!"

By the time the sharp-eyed British crew let out this heart-rending scream, the nearest torpedo had reached the surface of the sea.

In the case of high-speed torpedo boats of only a few tons, it is easy to avoid enemy torpedoes by turning at will, but the British Navy is neither specialized in high-speed warships like Germany and Italy, nor is it like the French Navy, which is dedicated to building high-speed destroyers. In the past decade, it has not only produced and built many types of ultra-light high-speed warships, but also launched projects of 50 and 100-ton medium-sized high-speed torpedo boats. In addition, by the outbreak of the war, the British Navy still had a large number of torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers ordered at the end of the last century in the coastal defense fleet and reserve forces.

The British torpedo boat that was suddenly attacked by torpedoes belongs to a group of conventional torpedo boats built before the torpedo boat destroyer officially entered the stage of history, with a displacement of nearly 200 tons, a maximum speed of 26 knots, and four old 18-inch torpedo tubes. As a result, the torpedo boat was instantly sunk and only four of the 52 crew members survived.

Immediately after that, German torpedoes appeared one after another on the sea, these light torpedoes were relatively weak, but they were more than enough to deal with small and medium-sized ships, and they were fast and their tracks were relatively hidden......

11 "Lightning-14" and 14 "Thunder" -- In order to cope with the main fleet's combat operations at the mouth of the Thames, the German support fleet sent all the remaining high-speed warships into battle, and four large torpedo boats served as their tactical leaders. For the same purpose, the German submarine group returned to the Thames waters. Under the cover of night, they are either suspended at periscope depth, or half-floating on the surface of the sea, quietly peeking into this vast body of water, and at any time using radio to transmit information about the enemy situation to their surface ships.

(End of chapter)