At dusk, the long-lost sunset reflects a red glow on the sea. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 After dinner, Natsuki walked alone to the pier in Tórshavn, blowing the sea breeze, listening to the sound of the waves, looking at the brightly colored buildings around the pier with no other purpose, thinking of Muller's description of the living conditions of the Faroese people, suddenly a little envious, with his current conditions, it is easy to find a quiet and free paradise, and the real difficulty is to "let go". How many people have been able to put aside the status and prestige they have gained through hard work, let go of the great future full of glory, let go of the heroism and satisfaction of changing the trajectory of history and opening up a new world, and choose a transcendent life in this magnificent era?

At least Natsuki can't do it now.

Next to the docks, German Navy engineers are performing maintenance and overhaul of four Junkers-3C seaplanes lined up one after another, and service personnel are unloading bomb-like objects from a truck, and the white circles on the warheads indicate that they are air-dropped flares.

Seeing Natsuki, an officer standing next to the truck hurriedly greeted him and saluted: "Hello Your Highness, I am Lieutenant Paul Loews of the 16th Naval Flight Reconnaissance Squadron, and we are preparing for the night flight. The aircraft are in good condition and are all in normal condition. ”

Natsuki calmly and gracefully returned the military salute, and then continued to walk towards the seaplane. The combat orders given to this flying squadron were given from him, and of course they knew where they were going, what tasks they were performing, and when they would leave.

In the first few months after the outbreak of the war, the number of military aircraft invested by the Allied and Allied armies increased from less than 1,000 at the beginning to more than 3,000, and more than 100 types of aircraft were used, with an average of only about 30 aircraft of each type. Among this dazzling array of fixed-wing aircraft, the Junkers-3C equipped by the German Navy is undoubtedly a very successful one. Although its flight speed is not the fastest, it is lightweight, sturdy in structure, easy to maneuver, and has a relatively balanced performance, which can be carried by warships, catapult and take off, and can also be deployed in port inland rivers, and can be competent for reconnaissance, calibration, bombing and even expulsion and other tasks. By November 1914, the German Navy had received a total of more than 220 Junkers-3C, second only to the Hubert-D reconnaissance aircraft that was also equipped with the German Army and Navy, and these two famous military aircraft were both from the Hubert Aviation funded by Natsuki, the difference is that the former was designed and developed by the technical team led by Dr. Hugo Juncker, and out of respect and reward for Dr. Juncker, the aircraft was named after his surname.

Before the outbreak of the war, Natsuki had piloted a prototype of the Junkers-3C, and he was very impressed by its stable handling performance. It was through his tireless efforts that the German Navy ordered several batches of seaplanes and land/carrier-based aircraft with landing gear at the expense of several Zeppelins, which were not just icing on the cake for the High Seas Fleet, but a tiger with wings, allowing the German Navy to repeatedly gain an advantage in the confrontation with a powerful enemy. It is no exaggeration to say that if these aircraft of the German Navy were exchanged for the equivalent zeppelins, today's high seas fleet would either be fishing for Wilhelm and Kiel, or making a nest for fish on the bottom of the sea somewhere.

Before Natsuki approached, all the technicians, orderlies, and flight personnel stopped what they were doing and lined up beside the dock.

There weren't many people, so Natsuki walked over and shook hands with them one by one, although many of the technicians had oil on their hands, he didn't care about them at all, and at the end he jokingly said to everyone: "Tonight's mission is to light up the field of vision for our fleet, but don't throw flares on our own fleet." ”

The crowd burst into laughter. The technicians and attendants could laugh it off, but the pilots felt the weight on their shoulders. Flying at night is technically challenging enough, but it is even more difficult to accurately distinguish between enemy and enemy ships on the dark sea.

Natsuki knew this very well, so he said to the pilots: "Fortunately, there will be moonlight tonight, you should be able to clearly see the outline of the coastline, the enemy ships must be close to the coast to rescue the trapped landing force, and our fleet will not be too close to the shore to meet on the way." In addition, I suggest that you start by throwing a flare a little further away from the target to see what is going on, the main battleship of the British is an Indefatigable class battlecruiser, it has three chimneys and four main turrets, the middle two main turrets are arranged diagonally in the amidships, while our capital ships are arranged in the center of the main turret. ”

"Understood, sir." The highest-ranking pilot replied in a loud voice, "We will certainly assist the fleet in striking at the British, and we will be ashamed of the humiliation we received the night before!" ”

Xia Shu nodded expectantly: "In the name of Your Majesty, I pray that each of you can return triumphantly with outstanding military achievements." ”

Bathed in the same sunset, more than a dozen ships under the command of Felix Funk of the German Navy dragged a long shadow of the ship on the surface of the sea. Their location at this time is in the northwest of Mikines Island, this remote island covers an area of only a dozen square kilometers, the island is basically surrounded by steep sea cliffs thirty or forty meters above sea level, only one fishing village at the southwest end of the island, the artificially built dock can only dock fishing boats and yachts, slightly larger ships can not approach at all, and there is no mechanized hoisting equipment. Due to the difficulty of transporting supplies, neither side had any intention of stationing troops on the island. As a result, while the island of Vogue across the sea is full of war, Mykines Island still retains its pristine appearance.

Although Mykines Island was such an indisputable place, before leading the fleet to this area, Funk cautiously sent two rounds of reconnaissance by the Junker-3C water reconnaissance aircraft carried by the "Rostock" to see if there were any British ships hidden here.

Judging from the movements of the last two days, it seems that Funk has avoided engaging the enemy with a cautious attitude of not seeking merit but seeking no fault, but in fact it is not. The German rear admiral's personality and fighting style were of the same type as Hipper, and he had earned himself the accolades for his bravery in previous naval battles.

Before departing from Tórshavn with the news of the British fleet's attack, Funk only had a brief conversation with the theater commander known as the "Hohenzollern genius" on the phone. One of these two people is from the royal family and has been undefeated repeatedly, and the other is highly qualified, highly respected, and has their own duties in direct dialogue, and they have not been unhappy because of who is pointing fingers at whom, but Funke, a mature veteran, can naturally capture key information from the other party's words, and then make a final decision based on his own judgment, and Funke's understanding of the battle situation is also very wise - if the battle fleet under his command is sharp enough to block the slightly inferior British fleet from the beginning, even if the intention of annihilating the opponent is achievedIf two or more of the three dreadnoughts and one battle cruiser were forced to withdraw to the country, the German Navy would have to defend its control of the waters of the Faroe Islands with two capital ships and a number of light ships.

By nightfall, every ship under Funck's command had burned enough boiler steam, and now it was just waiting for the British ships to appear to meet the landing force. To be on the safe side, he did not intend to send all the capital ships in one go, as long as the British did not send the capital ships, they would only let the "Moltke" battle cruiser partner "Rostock" light cruiser attack. With these two fast warships, it was easy to wipe out the few British ships, and the three dreadnoughts including the "Regent of Louisport" only needed to respond in a pressurized formation.

In order not to startle the snakes, it was not until it was completely dark that the German 16th Naval Flying Reconnaissance Squadron stationed in Tórshavn dispatched water reconnaissance planes one by one, each Junkers-3C carrying 24 aviation flares with small parachutes. From Tórshavn, they reconnoitred the waters around the islands of San and Sood before flying to the southern waters of Vogue Island. The dark clouds cleared, the moon was in the sky, and the plane flew at an altitude of two or three hundred meters, and the pilot could relatively easily observe the plume of smoke produced by the ship as it sailed. Just after eight o'clock, the third group of German reconnaissance planes spotted a small fleet of light ships on the sea west of Mulberry Island, about two hours from Severwag, and the pilots immediately reported the situation to the theater command by radio.

Estimating that the British fleet heading for Vogue Island would not reach the ambush area of the Funk fleet until about 10 o'clock, Natsuki ordered the 16th Reconnaissance Squadron to continue to maintain a seaplane cadence of one seaplane every half hour, so that at least three Junkers-3Cs could be deployed at Tórshavn at any one time.

Over the course of two hours, the 16th Reconnaissance Squadron conducted repeated reconnaissance of a large area of the sea southwest of the Faroe Islands. In addition to the small fleet, which was limited in size, the German reconnaissance planes also noticed that a number of submarines were operating in the waters south of Vogue Island, and the German Navy had only six combat submarines deployed in this area, and it was obvious that the British submarine forces were lurking here, waiting for an opportunity to attack German ships, especially at night, the reconnaissance and vigilance efficiency of German planes was greatly limited, and it was easier for them to approach German ships. However, in the previous two nights, the British submarines had not been able to make any gains, and they had only had two chances to engage the Funk fleet during the day, but both of them were unsuccessful, and instead they were pursued by the large torpedo boats of the German Navy, and one of the submarines was narrowly sunk.

The only battle cruiser in the British fleet was nowhere to be seen, and the more powerful would-be dreadnoughts were nowhere to be seen, and the two-ship formation of the "Moltke" and "Rostock" broke away from the Funk fleet and sailed alone to the southern waters of Vogue Island. Any British ship that came across, whether they had Marines on board or not, was sunk.

(End of chapter)