2 years ago, it was unimaginable that the King of England appeared at the inaugural ceremony of a 7500-ton cruiser. However, two years later, the cruiser "Churchill", which was in exile in the British government navy, attracted Edward VIII and a large number of cabinets to watch the ceremony.

The officers and men of the navy in pure white uniforms lined up on the foredeck and aisle of the "Churchill" with serious expressions to listen to the holy message, and then made declarations such as "inheriting the glorious tradition of the British Imperial Navy", "fighting for the country and fighting for honor", and then in the roaring salute, the slender and white-painted cruiser slowly sailed away from the Canadian port of Bekomo and began its own ** voyage.

Unfortunately for the 418 crew members of the "Churchill", the cruiser, which was dubbed "revival" and "rising" by the British government-in-exile, had long been targeted by German spies, and just as it was leaving Canadian territorial waters, a radio wave sent this important information to Berlin.

"The hope of the British and Canadian governments in exile must be stifled in the cradle!" The Kaiser, who was patrolling the French front, personally instructed the Admiralty not only not to allow the "Churchill" to bring losses and panic to Germany's Atlantic routes, but also to give a head start to those fools who planned to use naval raids and warfare to confront Germany.

Because of the repeated attacks on freighters, the glorious image of the German Navy in the minds of the people since the war has been greatly reduced, and the admirals were holding their breath, but after receiving instructions from the Kaiser, they immediately set up a special staff group to be responsible for the strangulation of the "Churchill."

On 9 May, the German ocean-going fleet, which was evacuating expatriates in Mexico, left only the battleships "Catherine" and "Osterfrisland" and the transport fleet to continue the evacuation of the expatriates.

On the same day, the German 3rd Submarine Detachment, which was patrolling the waters of the Atlantic, was ordered to search the waters near the Azores, and these 12 submarines formed the second task force against the "Churchill".

May 10th. Task Force 3, consisting of the battlecruiser "De Fllinger", the light cruisers "Boum", "Rowitz", and "Reno", the seaplane carrier "Luna", and the supply ship "Glenbur" sailed from Pascal Flo, England, from the east into the Atlantic. The first departure was also carried out by four Navy zeppelins, which will form a search team to conduct a large-scale search of the northwestern Atlantic, weather permitting.

In order to avoid alarm, the German Ministry of Shipping did not send an alert to the German merchant ships on the Atlantic route, but only reminded the G511 escort fleet on this route to pay attention to vigilance through secret telegrams.

The net has been opened twice, and the biggest problem facing the German Navy is when and where the "Churchill" will appear in the vast Atlantic.

At this time, the British Commodore Fawkes and his crew were not at all aware of the active deployment of the Germans against them. Prior to this, British raid ships had basically returned with a full load every time they left port. For the Edward VIII allegiance navy, it was not their opponents, the German navy or the German merchant ships, that stood in the way of their own success, but their own strength that limited the number and distance of their attacks.

Before the fall of the homeland, a great deal of wealth of the British royal family, government and people were transferred to Canada, but the shipyards they were once proud of were not transferred to Canada, and many freighters carrying equipment and machine tools were either sunk by German submarines or captured by German surface ships, but cruise ships carrying civilians and valuables were able to pass through the German naval blockade from time to time - this was obviously due to the "benevolence" of the German navy. After the war, the Americans signed a memorandum with Germany for their own interests that the German Navy would not attack North American ports, which gave the British government-in-exile and Canada a big straw because of the transfer of colonial troops from India and the newly recruited Canadian troops. The army they could use to encircle Canada was only 300,000 men. Moreover, there is a shortage of equipment and materials, and morale is very low.

The defense problem was solved, but the government of Edward VIII found that the navy they had at their disposal was only a few dilapidated ships, and the only battleship, the battleship "Dreadnought", had become their last spiritual support. As the first dreadnought-class battleship commissioned 10 years ago, its firepower, armor, and speed are not inferior to those of its juniors, and it cannot but be said to be the essence of British ship technology. However, the British admirals, who had suffered enough in the war, said that they would not let the Dreadnought challenge the mighty German Navy alone, let alone let it go to the Atlantic to fight an assault battle, because that would "inevitably lead the German Navy's battlefleet to the Atlantic." Therefore, since 1915, the 20,000-ton giant ship equipped with 10 305mm cannons can only be quietly anchored in the ports of eastern Canada, and can only occasionally go offshore when the weather is good.

After the "Dreadnought", which barely acted as a façade, the only ships that the British took were two 3,000-ton protective cruisers and seven 1,000-ton and 1,300-ton destroyers. 2 protective cruisers, although new ones were commissioned after 1900. However, as a protective cruiser, their firepower and defense cannot be compared with ordinary combat cruisers, but their speed of 25 knots and endurance of 8,000 nautical miles make them not useless. The seven River-class and Tribal-class destroyers were all destroyers with a distinctly British Imperial Navy design style - high speed, a large number of guns and firepower, carrying only two torpedo tubes, originally designed to deal with large German torpedo boats, with poor ocean-going performance and very limited endurance.

With a small number of supply ships, freighters, and hospital ships, these fewer than 30 ships constituted the "Imperial Navy" of the British government-in-exile, and with the coastal defense forces of the Dominion of Canada, this navy no longer has a trace of its glory days. Despite the bleak condition. Edward VIII's Imperial Navy sank and captured as many German merchant ships as many as one in 10 months between July 1915 and May 1916, and inflicted some losses on the German Atlantic Fleet in two skirmishes. With the support of the Canadian government and the people, the Imperial Navy received a large amount of reconstruction funds, although the plan to purchase ships from the United States was lost, but some new shipyards were established on the east coast of Canada, plus the original shipyards in Canada, the annual shipbuilding capacity in the area controlled by the British government-in-exile has risen to 250,000 tons, and the completion and commissioning of the large cruiser "Churchill" is a sign of their shipbuilding level further improved.

Being able to command the second largest warship of the "Imperial Navy" to go to sea for raid and transportation battles, Commodore Fox felt even more proud. He had served in the British Imperial Navy for 22 years, served as commander of the British Navy's 3rd Destroyer Detachment, participated in the glorious Battle of Helgoland Bay, and survived the Nightmare of the Imperial Navy, the Battle of the North Sea. Later, he participated in the special fleet organized by Churchill, Secretary of the Navy, and was attacked by the German fleet on the way home from the United States to receive ships, and Fox once again escaped death, and retreated to Canada with most of the officers of the Navy in the later part of the war, and once became an "empty captain" without warships.

The ones who were previously sent to attack the German Atlantic route were all protective cruisers and destroyers with increased endurance after modification, and it was okay to encounter a single German merchant ship, but if they ran into a fleet escorted by German ** ships, they would only have to flee in ashes. The most disgraceful thing for the officers of the "Imperial Navy" was the attack on the destroyer "Severn" three months ago, the 1,300-ton destroyer found a German armed merchant ship on the route from New York to Liverpool, and when the "Severn" was about to go up and capture the other side, it was damaged by several 120-mm shells from the German ship and damaged its front main gun, and the "Severn" with only two 105-mm tail guns had to fire two torpedoes at the other side from a distance and then turned around and retreated. The end result, of course, was that the German ship swaggered away, and after arriving in the United States, it made a lot of publicity, which made the British government-in-exile very embarrassed.

Looking at his brand-new battleship, Commodore Fox was convinced that he would never commit "Severn"

No. that kind of low-level error. This "Churchill" belongs to a large cruiser, although the caliber of the eight main guns is only 152 mm, but the salvo rate can reach 5 rounds per minute, which is twice that of the 203 mm naval guns, and this battleship also adopts the unified azimuth firing command system of the whole ship and the advanced rangefinder imported from the United States, and is not inferior to the 10,000-ton armored cruisers of various countries in terms of shooting accuracy and speed. More importantly, the ship designers of the Imperial Navy finally put down the shelves this time to learn from the advanced design concepts of the Germans, the "Churchill" adopts the structure of small compartments and multiple watertight doors, and adds 30 mm of armor to key parts such as ammunition depots, engine rooms and conning towers, and the side armor reaches 100-152 mm, and the waterline armor is 25 mm. The design idea of the waterline becoming longer.

Under the premise of unabated firepower and enhanced defense, the "Churchill" used 8 heavy oil boilers and 4 steam turbines, with a maximum speed of 28 knots, a load of 1,650 tons of heavy oil, and a cruising range of 7,500 nautical miles.

It was not only the completion of the Churchill that made Edward VIII and his staff very happy, but also the fact that despite the loss of the British mainland, the colony of Canada was still full of hope for a turnaround - as the world's third largest mineral producer after the United States and Russia, Canada is rich in oil, iron ore and other resources. Although they lacked heavy industrial equipment and large shipbuilding facilities, they at least retained a full government and a great deal of wealth, and with the population and resources of the colonies of Australia, New Zealand, and India, it was only a matter of time before they were revived.

Of course, their sworn enemies, the Germans, knew this better than they did, and that Canada was not really "never invaded" as the British government-in-exile advertised.