Blue sky and white clouds, light breeze and waves, such a Thames estuary is like a delicate picture, the whole gives people a sense of tranquility and peace, but if you think about it carefully, the heart of the ocean empire is so sparse, and there is bound to be a turbulent undercurrent hidden under the calm surface. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

At three o'clock in the afternoon, a gray cloud of smoke drifted over the sea in the northeast.

German fleet?

With such speculation, whether it was on the gunboats cruising on the surface of the Thames estuary or in the coastal defense fortresses on the northeast bank of the Thames estuary, the British officers and men who were waiting for the battle suddenly became nervous.

Adjacent to the imperial capital of London, the Thames Estuary is an open harbour with an equilateral triangle in shape, with Collingham downstream of London as the apex corner, extending northeast to the mouth of Blackwater and east-southeast to Margate Point. In the early summer of 1667, the Dutch navy took advantage of the high tide of the night to enter the Thames, caught the English by surprise, and blockaded the mouth of the Thames, coerced London, forced the British to conclude a peace treaty, made concessions on trade rights, and redefined overseas colonies, thus entering the most glorious era of the "sea coachman".

After the fall of the Netherlands, the British Empire established its unique maritime supremacy, and while the rise of Napoleonic France posed a threat to Britain's homeland, the mighty Royal Navy neatly eliminated the source of the threat – the fleets of Spain, Denmark, and Norway. This time, King George's British Royal Navy suffered a series of defeats, and Kaiser Wilhelm's German Royal Navy attacked strongly. In the waters of Flanders, the elite Harwich fleet collapsed again, the German battle patrol formation was trying to knock on the door of the long-sealed strait, the violent explosion at the fortress of Dover made many people mistakenly believe that it had fallen to the German ship, the situation continued to deteriorate, if the German dreadnought fleet approached the mouth of the Thames at this time, most of the British might give up the belief in defending justice and compromise with the evil and violent enemy.

When the fleet that appeared northeast of the Thames estuary approached, people saw the silhouette of the British capital battleship, saw the St. George naval flag flying high on the mast, and saw the majestic majesty of the Grand Fleet, which restored the confidence of many witnesses, but its incomplete battle formation made others worried, lest the British main fleet commanded by Jericho would be defeated by a strong enemy again, and what made this group even more pessimistic was that the battle of the fleet, which decided the fate of Britain and Germany, had not yet begun. Jericho's fleet was in big trouble......

"Torpedo! A torpedo was spotted in the starboard direction! ”

The screams from the lookout were like sharp awls, piercing the chests of the British sailors, giving them the courage they had so easily mustered up and the conviction of victory. The German submarines were like hunters hidden in the woods, repeatedly firing deadly cold arrows, and then repulsing with one blow, becoming a dilemma that the British fleet could not solve.

The warning was clearly not a hallucination caused by the nervousness of the lookout sentry, and a faint white trail was soon found on the sea. A terrible siren sounded throughout the ship, and under the control of the helmsman, the battleship began to turn sharply, the deck lost its level and the inclination quickly increased. For the ship, such a dodge action is like an antelope trying to escape the lion's mouth, the reaction speed has reached its own extreme, and those torpedoes that come quickly may be shot far away, after a certain distance of sailing, the distance between each other has been widened, not enough to form an attack formation against a battleship that is difficult to dodge, but it also makes more than one battleship turn to evade. Unconsciously, the tight and compact escort formation of the British fleet loosened.

One by one, the British sailors on the battleship breathed a sigh of relief, but the crisis was far from over, and suddenly, four torpedo tracks appeared on the sea in the other direction, and they struck at the nearest British capital ship at high speed - when the lookout on the British battleship spotted them, these torpedoes were only five or six hundred meters apart, and they were as fast as lightning bolts, and they were in front of them in an instant—the first one was off the side of the ship, the second missed by a fraction of a second, but it was good luck that came to this, The third and fourth torpedoes swooped down on the stern.

In an instant, a thunderous roar sounded on the sunny sea, and a violent explosion brought the ship's displacement to 2. The 50,000-ton British battleship trembled violently.

Not far away, a black submarine suspended in the water was retracting its periscope and starting its motors. The two propellers rotated, and the resulting water rolled up clouds of mud and sand on the seabed below the hull, and the surrounding water suddenly became cloudy. After a while, a distinct roar was heard on the surface of the sea, and the frustrated escort ships desperately fired at the suspected periscope, and continued to throw high explosives into the water, so that the water became even more turbid, and the submarine slipped away like a moray eel......

In the noisy sea, the British battleship, which had been hit by a torpedo, had noticeably slowed down, and instead of coming to a complete standstill, it was heading in the direction of London under the guard of several destroyers. The distinctive insignia indicates that it is one of the few remaining ultra-dreadnoughts in Jericho's fleet, the "Ajax". The George V-class battleship was the work of Lord Fisher, with superior firepower and first-class protection, but the top speed of 21 knots was slightly insufficient in the face of the new dreadnoughts of the German Navy. During the Battle of Jutland, the "Ajax" sank an old German battleship and damaged many German ships, which was remarkable, and in the first Battle of Flanders after that, it was blocked by the traps laid by the Germans with mines and submarines together with the main force of the British Grand Fleet, and finally returned in vain.

Because of the anti-sinking design that is not inferior to that of the German capital ships, as long as there is no big accident, the "Ajax" will not be killed by the two 500 mm G-type torpedoes, but in the waters of the Thames estuary, the British fleet is not faced with a German submarine lurking alone, but a group of underwater hunters who have been waiting here for a long time and have been hungry for a long time.

As long as the British Grand Fleet sailed through the mouth of the Thames, it did not want to leave unscathed.

Since the outbreak of the war, German submarines have visited the Thames estuary many times, sinking more than 20 naval ships and civilian ships here, and both warring sides have laid mines in this water, which is said to be a dangerous area for ships to stay away, but the seabed of the Thames estuary is shallow, and it is under the close surveillance of British alert ships and airships, which is not conducive to the long-term activities of submarines. Circumventing these waters and heading to the Strait of Dover is either a long period of time on the high seas between Britain and Belgium, where it is difficult to effectively support its own offshore ships and air forces, or it is close to the Belgian coast, which is long and full of unknowns.

"Note that the tank drains a quarter, rises to periscope depth, prepares to raise the periscope."

In cramped, cramped, diesel-smelling cabins (with the exception of some early test submarines, which were equipped with diesel engines, which were relatively safe and reliable compared to gasoline engines), Wasel-Fustmann, dressed in a new military uniform, calmly commanded his crew.

After a short break, he and his crew wore the Iron Cross, a symbol of honor, on their chests.

Half a month earlier, in the waters of the Auckland Islands, Furstmann commanded the U-34 to torpedo the British battleship "Herculus", the unfortunate British capital ship was damaged by a mine on the way back - the credit was finally credited to Furstmann and his crew, and Furstmann also advanced to the rank of German submarine ace, and his personal ranking among German U-boat commanders soared to third place overnight, behind the two aces of Otto Verdigan and Hans Ross - the former is the U-26 commander. In just one month, it achieved the amazing record of sinking one old British battleship, one auxiliary cruiser, three transport ships, capturing and sinking two cargo ships, killing one British ship in an average of four days, and ranking first in the German Navy in terms of the number of ships sunk and the registered tonnage; The latter is the commander of the U-29, the great hero who sank the "Dreadnought", with a record of one dreadnought, one transport ship, and three cargo ships, and his characteristic is that he never warns the enemy ship and sinks it directly, and is regarded as the most ruthless killer at sea.

In view of the unimaginable difficulties overcome by the entire U-34 personnel in the course of the battle, the Kaiser personally awarded medals to the young men, and many of them, including Furstermann, were promoted.

After the First Battle of Flanders, the main fleets of Britain and Germany invariably chose to rest and wait for battle, the smoke-filled North Sea temporarily calmed down, and the German submarine forces also adjusted their combat strategy in a timely manner. The small submarines built in the early days continued to undertake auxiliary combat missions such as reconnaissance and vigilance, while the new submarines built in the later period were mostly sent to the Atlantic Ocean. There were hundreds of Allied merchant ships, largely unprotected, and an ideal place for U-boat commanders to improve their ranks. Otto Wiedigan and Hans Ross left for the "North Atlantic Hunting Grounds" in late August and early September, respectively, and Furstermann and his U-34s were scheduled to set off on September 11, but with the British carrying out large-scale cross-channel troop transports, the situation in the North Sea changed dramatically, and the German High Seas Fleet proudly hoisted the battle flag. During the voyage, the newly promoted captain received orders from the U-34 to conduct joint operations with the U-7, U-12, U-18, U-20, U-52, and U-53 in the waters of the Thames Estuary.

Although the Submarine Command assigned Furstman the role of so-called "special liaison officer", he became the de facto commander of the wolf pack at sea due to the deployment of the other six submarines at the disposal of the U-34s.

Judging from the trajectory of history, he does possess all the qualities required of the "head wolf": a keen sense of smell, tenacity and patience, extraordinary intelligence, and strong intuition......

After a while, the submarine periscope sticks out of the sea, and Furstman quickly looks around. As expected, many of the British destroyers in charge of escorting the ship broke away from the queue to search for the German submarine that had attacked their capital ship, and although the British Grand Fleet was now on the highest alert, its vigilance and defense appeared to be quite chaotic, especially not conducive to guarding against follow-up attacks by enemy submarines from all directions.

(End of chapter)