When the three wounded Heinkel II carrier-based fighters landed safely on the wide flight deck of the "Georg", the fleet commander Maximilian . Feng. Admiral Spee, Rear Admiral Friedrich Hartmann, captain of the flagship "Thessaloniki", Rear Admiral Marco Weikoler, captain of the heavy aircraft carrier "Georg", and Captain of the heavy cruiser "Scharnhorst" Stefan von. Commodore Novak, captain of the heavy cruiser "Königsberg", Admiral Fran Brown. Ke Feng. Captain Schemitt, captain of the heavy cruiser "Leipzig", Matthias. Admiral Stein, captain of the light aircraft carrier "Finkenstein", Admiral Mitchell. Colonel Bruce gathered in the officers' lounge of the "Thessaloniki" for afternoon tea.

Although it was afternoon tea, none of the officers present had a relaxed expression, don't look at this fleet is swaying on the sea, but the burden on their shoulders is not light at all, especially when their other fleet has been targeted by the powerful Japanese fleet as expected, the officers here hope that the time to attack can come earlier, so that their own "bait fleet" casualties will be smaller, but rationally speaking, only the heavier the "smell of blood", the "evil wolf" will rest assured to go into the trap.

"Report, General Wolman is calling!"

The communications officer, dressed in a double-breasted tight short jacket, walked in and handed a telegram to Spee.

After reading the contents of the telegram, Spee closed the folder and said calmly: "They had to abandon the battered Blinkik, the hapless aircraft carrier has begun to tilt!" ”

Everyone here did not speak, this kind of loss is completely within the expected range, even if the German Navy ships are highly skilled, don't expect a 10,000-ton light aircraft carrier to withstand a large number of bombs, the loss of one or two warships is not the most terrible, and the loss can not be replenished in a short time after the loss is a headache, fortunately, the German Navy does not have this concern at present, and the huge battle fleet is gathering on the mainland. A large number of I1-trained naval reservists are being demobilized for the I1, while the old warships in the inventory with better performance will soon be reactivated, and the naval shipyards are building new ones at full capacity.

In contrast, the geographical location, distribution of resources, and government finances of the Japanese archipelago greatly limited the ability of the Japanese navy to regenerate, and in the current situation, Japan would not be short of fuel and steel shortages, which is why the Japanese would do whatever it took to drive the Germans out of the Far East.

Seeing that everyone did not take the initiative to speak, Shi Pei picked up his coffee cup.

said: "In this way, the next target of the Japanese bombers is the 'Caesar Barbarossa', and I hope that the battleship can survive it!" ”

"I don't think it's too much of a problem! I've studied that ship, and it's full of anti-aircraft firepower, and it's excellent on deck, on the waterline, and below the waterline! The speaker was Marco Weiköller, the current captain of the Ernst-class aircraft carrier "Georg", an experienced aircraft carrier commander who served as deputy captain of the "Prince" and captain of the "Zeppelin", and even more remarkable is that he is only 46 years old this year.

Friedrich Hartmann agreed: "Although the standard displacement is only 35,000 tons, and the caliber of the main gun is only 13.5 inches (343 mm), it is not for nothing that the Admiralty spent a lot of money to build it!" Not to mention against Japanese bombers. Even if it is an artillery battle with the main Japanese battleship, it is estimated that it will not fall behind! ”

"But we have never been interested in a battleship decisive battle with the Japanese Navy!" Stefan von. Commodore Novak said. Of course, this is true, and it is fine to say it from the mouth of the captain of a heavy cruiser, but if the captain of the aircraft carrier said this, I am afraid that it will displease the generals in command of the battleship.

"Who can guarantee that there will be no artillery battles in exceptional circumstances?" Hartman doesn't seem to fully agree with Novak's view. "Otherwise, the Navy would not have to hold battleship single-ship confrontation and fleet combat drills every year, heh, it would still be a day battle and a night battle, and the frequency and intensity would almost catch up with that time in 1914!"

"Didn't we also fight the Japanese fleet in 1914? It's been 15 years in a blink of an eye, and now we have met our old rivals again, which is really a historical reincarnation! Shi Pei sighed, how did he know that if history had not changed, he would have been glorious 15 years ago. Where is there still a chance to brew a sea battle with fewer strikes and more here.

Everyone nodded slightly, especially Friedrich Hartmann and Stefanvon who participated in the naval battle that year. Novak, but it was only a naval battle that was not enough to change the fate of both sides, and this time it was very different.

"Then it's time for our Air Force to come out next! Oh, I hope they don't scare the Japanese away! ”

Colonel Matthias Stein said that the air force was not a carrier-based aircraft of this fleet, but a Luftwaffe unit stationed on the island of Kuye, and the 150 nautical miles were completely within the range of land fighters and bombers. However, it took more than half an hour for the fighters to take off from Kuye Island to reach the skies above the decoy fleet, which is not a long time. But it was enough for the Japanese carrier-based aircraft to complete the attack and calmly fly away.

Don't look at the number of heavy aircraft carriers, 1 light aircraft carrier, and 1 cruiser-class aviation warship in the Speese fleet, and the standard number of carrier aircraft is 150, but now only 26 fighters and 51 bombers can be lifted into the air for combat.

"Don't worry, no land-based fighter will make the Japanese suspicious!" Shi Pei said confidently.

When the second wave of attack planes that took off from the "Awaji" flew over the battlefield of the naval battle an hour earlier, the pilots did spot the German light aircraft carrier "Blinkik", which was still smoking and the hull had tilted quite sharply, and after circling at low altitude several times, they determined that the aircraft carrier had been abandoned by the Germans, and that one side of the flight deck had been submerged in the sea, and it seemed that it was not far from being completely sunk.

When the news was transmitted back to the Tateno fleet, the officers and men immediately burst into jubilation, and Tateno immediately sent a telegram from the flagship to the Admiralty to report this good news that was enough to "excite the whole country" in Japan. In the evening of the same day, the emperor personally sent a congratulatory telegram, and Lieutenant General Tachino Tokujiro was a little flustered.

Before dark. The aircraft carrier "Awaji" successively sent three waves of attack planes, dispatching 42, 38 and 35 fighters respectively, damaging the German battleship "Caesar Barbarossa" and the light cruiser "Chiriwitz", sinking the German destroyers "Heideberg" and "Naou", and sinking a 10,000-ton transport ship, but the desperate resistance of the German fleet also caused a lot of casualties to the Japanese fighters, and the German land-based fighters from Kuye Island also appeared at the most critical moment. The Japanese lost a total of 66 fighters and bombers. By the time it got dark, there were only 8 reconnaissance planes, 12 fighters, and 14 bombers left on the Awaji, and nearly one-third of the planes were too badly damaged to participate in the next day's battle.

Considering the heavy losses of his own carrier-based aircraft force, the captain of the "Awaji" Jimiyo Goji and the commander of the carrier-based aircraft wing, Teramoto Takeji, jointly proposed to Vice Admiral Tachino Tokujiro to temporarily withdraw to Niigata Port to replenish it, but at this time Tachino refused to stop at all, in his opinion, he could catch up with the German fleet at dawn, and then all the remaining German ships could be sent to the bottom of the sea with a single artillery fire, and the combat area was not far from Hokkaido, so it was not too late to ask for reinforcements from the army aviation unit if there was a problem.

However, Tachino never expected it. As night falls. His good fortune has basically come to an end. In the icy waters about 80 nautical miles south of the junction of the Shoe Strait and the Soya Strait, ghostly submarines are massing. At midnight, after the scarred decoy fleet sailed through the sea. Thirty-three VX-A minelaying submarines began to lay mines, and according to the reconnaissance submarines, 2,970 trigger-type drifting mines were laid against Japan, thus forming a large minefield 25 nautical miles wide and 125 nautical miles long, while another 51 combat submarines of various types were quietly lurking in the waters near the minefields.

Just 3 hours after the German submarine finished laying mines, that is, at 764:30 a.m., a group of black shadows appeared on the sea in the southwest, and despite the implementation of light control, the German submarine easily found them through sonar, and 40 Japanese ships were chasing the German fleet in three columns.

4:50 a.m. The Japanese fleet began to enter the minefield, and the first unlucky person to hit the mine was a large minesweeper located in the front right position of the fleet, although it was equipped with special minesweeping equipment, but at this time except for a few sailors on duty everyone else was asleep, and the minesweeping equipment was not at all in the state of standby minesweeping, although it was not a joke that the minesweeper was blown up and sunk by a mine, but Vice Admiral Tateno, who was awakened in his sleep, naturally regarded this as a torpedo attack by a German submarine, and immediately ordered the entire fleet to take the "zigzag" anti-submarine route. There is only one result of such a voyage in a mine array, and that is that there are more and more ships that are mid-mine.

At 4:56, the kamikaze-class destroyer "Chaofeng" with a displacement of 1,270 tons struck a mine and sank, killing all 148 officers and men on board.

At 4:59 a.m., the Fengfeng-class destroyer "Island Wind" with a displacement of 1,245 tons was damaged by a mine, and only one of the 154 officers and men on the ship survived.

At 5:01 a.m., the battleship "Kashima," which was at the top of the battleship column, was hit by a mine in the bow, and the influx of a large amount of icy sea water caused the old battleship to quickly lean forward, and after the emergency repair failed, the captain Ken Ikeaka ordered the ship to be abandoned, and only more than 20 minutes later, the battleship that the Japanese Navy had purchased from Britain at great expense completely disappeared into the sea.

At 5:05 a.m., the kamikaze-class destroyers "Chasing the Wind" and "Hurricane" both struck a mine and sank, and although some of the officers and men on board survived the explosion, because the Japanese fleet was already in chaos, these lucky and unlucky bombs finally ended up freezing to death in the icy waters.

After a series of explosions, Tachino Tokujiro finally came to his senses, but at this time his fleet was already like a man stuck in a swamp, and returning or turning would only make more ships hit mines, Tachino had to bite the bullet and order each ship to keep course and reduce the speed to 5 knots, and the only remaining 3 minesweepers quickly drove to the front of the battlefleet to clear mines, and at the same time, each ship also used searchlights to search the sea ahead, and the sailors used all the weapons at their disposal to detonate the mines on the route in advance.

At the same time as Tachino gave this order, another large minesweeper struck a mine, and a huge explosion easily made the ship less than 800 tons disappear into the sea, and then another minesweeper also struck a mine when it moved according to the order, and only one of the only four minesweepers in the fleet was left at this time, and its role was obviously insignificant.

Soon, the light of the searchlight allowed the Tateno fleet to "burrow" out of the darkness, exposing itself to the German submarines lurking around. The Japanese ships were cautiously driving in the mine array, and the officers and men on the deck searched the sea with wide eyes, and when they saw the swarms of torpedoes coming from a distance, the souls of the Japanese soldiers were almost frightened!

Although the "Amagi" and "Akagi" are both first-class battle cruisers with high speed and fierce firepower, when advancing at low speed, they can only twist their bodies clumsily like ordinary merchant ships in the face of enemy torpedo attacks, while using the secondary guns, machine guns and machine guns on the side of the ship to detonate the torpedoes as early as possible, such a scene is easily reminiscent of the scene where a martial arts master is ambushed by a group of archers, and the two battlecruisers have powerful firepower but cannot be used, and finally at 5:19 and 5:23, The two ships were hit by 2 and 3 torpedoes respectively, and the German-made 533-mm torpedoes tore huge holes in their hulls, and hundreds of tons of seawater quickly poured into the bilge. Fortunately, the Japanese naval ship designers, who had been watching the wars between Europe and the United States on the sidelines, designed numerous watertight compartments for the two super battle cruisers, which greatly delayed the sinking of the two giant ships, but many Japanese sailors were trapped in compartments before they could even react.

"Amagi" and "Akagi" were still struggling on the sea, but the blow faced by the Japanese fleet did not stop because of this, a torpedo fired from a long distance slipped through the fire blocking line and hit the tail of the "Mutsu", but the power of this torpedo was not enough to put the 38,600-ton giant ship to death, but the damage to the rudder made it only keep turning to the right according to the captain's final turning order, and within ten minutes, the bad luck of hitting two mines in succession made the right tilt of the hull of the "Mutsu" more and more serious. Captain Yoshihiro Morimoto hurriedly ordered to keep the ship's surface balanced in the port side compartment and bring the hull back to a horizontal state, the bow deck was already submerged in the water, and the speed was reduced to less than 3 knots.

Next, the "Nagato", "Katori" and even the "Awaji" did not escape the fate of being hit by mines and torpedoes, and the cost of less than 3,000 mines and hundreds of torpedoes combined was only a few million euromarks, but a fleet with a total price of more than 100 million euromarks and a total crew of tens of thousands of ships was in a desperate situation.

At dawn, the roar of German carrier-based aircraft came from the northwest, and the faces of the Japanese officers and men who were still breathing on the sea were full of despair.