On a quiet night, the silvery moonlight fills the sea, and the vague outlines of the islands form the mysterious backdrop to this wonderful picture. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info For thousands of years, whether it is the exploration of the Vikings or the prosperity of the great industrial age, this cold and remote northern sea has always maintained its natural appearance, rarely disturbed by human civilization, and the people who came to settle in the Faroe Islands have only blended into it, and have never really broken the quiet atmosphere here.

In the early winter of 1914, two steel fleets, representing the highest level of industrial civilization, engaged in an unprecedentedly fierce naval battle in the Faroe Islands. The climax of this naval battle lasted only a few hours, but as many as 100,000 tons of ships and thousands of crew sank to the bottom of the sea, and the northern sea was no longer peaceful.

The Goeben, a massive machine composed of thousands of parts and controlled by more than 1,300 crew members, is one of the great achievements created by mankind since the beginning of the industrial age, with a 24,000-ton hull covered with strong armor, 12 11-inch naval heavy guns and another 44 rapid-fire guns of different calibers, and two high-performance steam turbines provide it with a maximum output of 55,000 horsepower, in ideal sea conditions. It is capable of galloping at speeds of more than 25 knots.

General Lebrecht-Maas, who commanded the German 2nd Reconnaissance Group during the Battle of the Faroe Islands, remained on the bridge of the Moltke, and since the "Goeben", "Blucher", "Scharnhorst", and "Gneisenau" all returned to the mainland, he became almost a bare-bones commander, accompanied only by the lightly wounded "Rostock". Even so, the aggressive Maas had long wanted to fight the British Indefatigable battlecruiser that had failed to catch up with the Battle of the Faroe Islands, and in his opinion, the "Moltke" could easily kill the "Australia" in a single battle or a fleet bombardment -- the difference in ship-building ideas and technical details had long determined the strength of the two.

Sunny weather brought great benefits to the ship's night voyage, and the sextant could be used to determine the bearing more accurately. As the outline of Vogue Island became clearer in front of the port side, the crews of the two German battleships, "Moltke" and "Rostock", were ready to fight. Above the bullet-riddled bridge, Maas and his officers stood proudly, and although there had been no news of the British Warcruisers or the Dreadnoughts until now, they remained steadfast in their belief that the British Navy would not sit idly by and ignore the trapped Marines on Vogue Island, which was their usual naval spirit. If they were timid enough to avoid war, it would not only be these hundreds of marines who would be abandoned, and the fighting faith that would have supported the Royal Navy through one difficult task after another would collapse with a bang......

On the calm sea, the roar of aircraft engines is faintly discernible. "Rostock" was equipped with carrier-based aircraft and catapults at the beginning of the war, and "Moltke" also added catapults after the Battle of Jutland, which could carry up to two Junkers-3C. Considering that the warships could not use eye-catching navigation lights to guide their planes to land during the engagement, and that the theater command had specially dispatched water reconnaissance planes, they did not need to dispatch the seaplanes carried on the ships, so as to avoid causing additional damage in battle, the Junkers-3C in a folded state neither refueled nor equipped with weapons and ammunition, unless there was any major accident, the pilots were destined to act as spectators in their respective cabins.

At 10:10 a.m., the communications crew of the "Moltke" received a radio signal from their own maritime reconnaissance plane on the agreed frequency, and the two Junkers-3C planes had already flown into the waters south of Vogue Island, and the pilot saw from the sky a small fleet heading northwest, preparing to drop flares on their area.

"Let them start!"

Rear Admiral Maas asked the ship's communications staff to respond to the pilot of his reconnaissance plane in an extremely concise expression.

A few minutes later, a blinding light suddenly appeared in the dark sea world, and the lookouts and officers on the two German battleships stared into the telescope.

"See! There are five small ships, all of which should be military combat ships, with a maximum of no more than 2,000 tons, destroyers or small lightning strike ships! ”

An officer reported what he had observed in a sonorous voice, and Major General Maas stared coldly ahead, and without hesitation gave the order to open fire.

After a short period of observation and ranging, and parameter setting, the 150-mm secondary gun on the port side of the "Moltke" took the lead, and the twin main guns of the same caliber of the "Rostock" followed with a loud roar. In a few moments, the Moltke's triple main guns began to fire in rotation, and although one of its main turrets was destroyed by the "Tiger" during the Battle of the Faroe Islands, this did not prevent it from fighting strongly. The rumbling sound of artillery echoed on the sea, the flying shells made a sharp sound of breaking through the air, at the far end of the line of sight, the white water columns rose one after another, and those British ships suddenly became leaves in the wind and rain, whether the officers and men on the ship expected such a bad situation or not, in the face of the main force of the German Navy and the new light patrol, they had no chance to counterattack at all, leaving them with nothing more than two endings: being sunk by the Germans, or turning around and fleeing.

After a brief hesitation, three British ships turned to "Moltke" and "Rostock", and the other two rushed desperately towards the southwestern tip of Vogue Island.

This is the way to go in a desperate situation.

The two Junkers-3Cs hovering in the night sky each split one at one end, dropped aviation flares weighing 4.5 kilograms each, emitting light for a minute and a half and slowing down with the help of small parachutes. After half of the flares were dropped, the firing of the two German battleships was basically calibrated in place, and the dense and heavy artillery fire continued to shroud the three brave British light ships in fog-like waves. After several rounds of shelling, the speed of two British ships dropped significantly, and the lone one one was under the heavy attention of the guns of the two German ships, and soon the shells were hit, and the ships immediately burst into flames, and the fate of the sinking was inevitable.

At this time, Calthorpe was both excited and worried when he learned that the Germans had the audacity to send a battle patrol and a light patrol to bite the bait they had laid, he knew that three German dreadnoughts must be nearby, and his 7th detachment had just been supported by the 8th detachment, and the combat lineup had increased one Edward VII-class and three Duncan-class, although these were all former dreadnoughts, they were only about ten years old, and they were only three or four years earlier than the "Dreadnought". Although there is an epoch-making gap in the design concept, the technology of weapons and equipment is very similar, and the main gun models they use are also the same as those of the "Dreadnought".

In order to avoid the aerial reconnaissance of the Germans, Calthorpe concealed his capital ship group at a five-hour voyage from Vogue Island and waited until dark to make its way to the waters of Vogue Island. Calthorpe's plan was to play half an hour ahead of the decoy fleet to reach the waters south of Vogue Island, and despite the deliberate radio silence of both fleets along the way, Calthorpe managed to keep the crucial fishing operation on schedule. When the prey bites, his main fleet is only a dozen nautical miles from the battlefield, and it will not take twenty minutes to enter the combat range.

After Rear Admiral Maas's two-ship formation launched an attack on the British ships, the German theater command immediately issued an order to the naval reconnaissance flight squadron deployed in Tórshavn, requiring all the water reconnaissance planes on standby to be dispatched, and they flew directly from Tórshavn to the southern part of Vogue Island The combat sea area was only 30 kilometers, so they arrived on the battlefield ahead of Calthorpe, two of which Junkers-3C took over the "light eye" position of their companions, and the third plane carried out alert reconnaissance in the sea area near the battlefield as planned, and the south direction was the inevitable first choice. As a result, the German pilot who piloted the Junkers-3C made a great achievement, and when Calthorpe's main battleships raised their guns one by one, ready to give an unexpected gift to the two German battleships commanded by Rear Admiral Maas, he dropped a flare in front of the British fleet, and after seeing the lineup of the British fleet, he calmly sent out a warning message: a large enemy fleet was found in the waters south of Vogue Island, and one Indefatigable class battlecruiser was confirmed, and six former dreadnoughts of the Edward VII class or similar to it were confirmed. There were about 20 light ships, and this British fleet was only a dozen kilometers away from our battle patrol, heading due north, at a speed of about 18 knots.

Due to the uncertainty that Funk and Maas received the radio signal of this reconnaissance plane, the German Theater Command immediately contacted the "Regent Louitold" and the "Moltke" on the main and standby frequencies after receiving the warning, and in addition to the two command ships of different classes receiving the signal from the Theater Command, the communications department on another German battleship also received and was qualified to interpret this important secret message, which was the ship of German Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper, the "De Fllinger", known as the "super battleship".

Like Calthorpe's support fleet, Hipper failed to catch up with the Battle of the Faroe Islands, and his 1st reconnaissance group had two of the strongest battle cruisers in the German Navy, the "De Fllinger" and "Seydlitz". In the final stage of the naval battle, if these two battle cruisers were present, Betty's "Tiger" probably would not have a chance to escape. Regrettably missing the Battle of the Faroe Islands, Hipper led the two main battle cruisers in the waters north of Ireland for several days, and then received an order from the High Seas Fleet Command to go to Tórshavn, where Funk's battle fleet would be temporarily placed under his command and under the command of the Faroe Islands Theater Command.

Because the 1st Reconnaissance Group was silent on the radio, even the German Faroe Islands Theater Command did not know Hipper's exact location, and in fact, he and his two battle cruisers had already reached the waters northwest of the Faroe Islands, about 50 nautical miles from the location of the Moltke. For such a journey, Calthorpe's fleet had to run for three hours, and the "De Fllinger" and "Seydlitz" were both tough guys with a top speed of more than 27 knots, and they could join the war group in two hours, regardless of the relative displacement of the two sides.

(End of chapter)