By the dawn of a new day, Vice Admiral Steddy, Chief of Staff of the Royal Navy, had spent another sleepless night in his operations command room in London. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoSince the outbreak of the war, the dedicated chief of staff of the Navy has lived in his office and rarely leaves the staff even during the day. Under his exemplary leadership, the staff officers worked day and night to try to help the British Navy win a new victory through their own efforts, but the outcome of the Battle of Jutland greatly exceeded their expectations. According to the operational report provided by the Grand Fleet Command, Sir Stedi and his professional staff carefully studied every detail of this naval battle, and they found that the tactical strategy of the German High Seas Fleet was not seamless, and there were even a few obvious flaws, but the perfect debut of new technical weapons made the tactical efficiency of the Germans increase by a whole level. If you want to solve this situation, the only way is to return the favor with the other -- carrier-based aircraft against carrier-based aircraft, high-speed warships against high-speed warships, and heavy battleships against heavy warships!

The construction of capital ships takes a long time, and the British naval staff are fortunate to find that the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships under construction not only have the ability to outperform their opponents, but also surpass their opponents in firepower and speed, which is the perfect design. The five ships scheduled for construction of this class were all under construction in 1912-1913, and the fastest ones, the Queen Elizabeth and the War Weyware, were already in the outfitting phase and could be completed in three to four months. As for high-speed warships, Britain had an ultra-light group of high-speed torpedo boats second only to the German Navy at the time of the war, and accordingly tried to modify torpedo boat carriers, except that they were assigned to the main fleet for auxiliary operations like the Germans. With a strong ship resources and technical base, in only one or two months, the British Navy was able to catch up with the Germans in this regard. Although the British Navy realized that aviation technology had a war potential that could not be underestimated, their operational theory always revolved around battleships, and only invested less energy in naval aviation, installed some aircraft, and transformed several seaplane carriers, and was still very unfamiliar with aircraft-carrying carriers like the Germans. The R&D mission was submitted to the Navy's technical department, but no one was able to submit a timeline - when will the British Navy have ships that can take off and land directly from carrier-based aircraft? Maybe a month, maybe half a year, or even longer. During this period, the situation of the war may change dramatically, and the Germans may install more aircraft-carrying carriers, and every time they think about this, Sterdey and his officers feel an inexplicable sense of anxiety and fear.

Standing in front of the window and looking at the whiteness of the fish belly in the sky, Sir Sterdy sighed heavily, the German fleet was nowhere to be seen overnight, and the North Sea was so large that even at a relatively slow cruising speed, they could run from the earlier warring waters to any corner of the North Sea. Of course, it is possible for the Germans to return victorious, but Sterdy prefers to believe that the opponent has a greater appetite, and the German government's reference to the "massive shelling of military installations on the east coast of Britain" in the communiqué of naval warfare last night can imagine how much the confidence of the British to continue the war will be shaken once the German main fleet swaggers appear off the coast of Britain and show the British military and civilians the terrifying destructive power of battleship groups!

Turning back to the map, Sterdey looked worriedly at Britain's long eastern coastline, dotted with names of Edinburgh, Middlesborough, Great Yarmouth, Harwich, and a long list of names that represented beautiful scenery and history, and places that stretched inland along the river from the coastline, and the names that came to mind were even more significant: Newcastle, Kingston, Ipswich, London, ......

Thinking of this, Stedi was eager to turn back the time to 24 hours ago, when the cruiser detachments, destroyer squadrons, and torpedo boat squadrons used to defend the east coast of Britain were still on their own alert, although they could not cope with the attack of a German fleet alone, but at least they could prevent the opponent from attacking coastal targets with impunity, and if they were lucky, they might also damage the German capital ships and prevent them from retreating at full speed, but now, most of these light ships were concentrated in the waters of northeastern England, There was a vacuum in the maritime alert defense forces along many coastlines, and even an ordinary German cruiser could not cope with those patrol gunboats armed with 2-pounder guns!

With a porous coastal defense system on the one hand, and a combat order issued by the Admiralty on the other hand, Stedi was deeply entangled and distressed, and an indescribable intuition of danger made him feel uneasy all the time. Finally, a staff officer hurriedly pushed the door in, and reported with a grim face: "Sir, I have received an urgent message from the 17th Task Force Squadron!" ”

Sterdy grabbed the telegram and glanced at it hurriedly, as if he had fallen into an ice cellar, cold from head to toe.

Task Force 17, which had gone to lay mines off the Gulf of Helgoland during the night, saw a German fleet on its way home, but before it could get close to it, it was bombed by enemy planes in the north-western waters of the Netherlands, only 120 nautical miles from the mouth of the River Thames.

"Call the command of the Harwich fleet at once and order them to go all out and go at full speed to the area of engagement reported by the 17th Task Force Squadron and repel the German fleet at all costs! Call the command of the Naval Aviation Service Corps and ask them to send planes to reconnoiter the enemy, reminding them to make sure that there are more than five planes on standby at all times, and if the enemy planes are close to London, they must be driven away anyway! ”

As he said this, Sterdy himself felt his voice tremble slightly. He forced himself to calm down and think carefully for a while, and then personally called the newly appointed Chief of Army Staff, Sir Charles Douglas, to borrow him the Royal Flying Corps planes and airships stationed in the east of England, and cautiously reminded his Army colleagues that "the Germans may be dropping paper bombs in London, as they did yesterday in Newcastle".

Having done this, Sir Sterdy summoned the Correspondence Officer and ordered him to send a telegram to the Admirals and the First Sea Lord, who were still on the "Aboukir", informing them that "the German fleet is suspected to have reached Dutch waters and may take action against the south-east coast of England". Immediately afterwards, Sir Sterdy returned to the window, and it was another sunny day with scattered clouds floating in the sky. London spends about half of the year in rainy and foggy weather, and bad weather can greatly limit the movement of airplanes and airships, and if the Germans did attack London with carrier-based aircraft, whether they dropped leaflets, bombs, or just a visit, it would have a huge negative impact on Britain.

After about a quarter of an hour, the previous officer came to Sterdy again in a hurry, and he still brought a telegram from Task Force 17: The minelaying ships with low combat effectiveness were being chased and attacked by the German light cruisers, and the British cruisers responsible for providing cover arrived in time, and the two battleships exchanged fire briefly, and the German cruisers, which were not weak, took the initiative to retreat.

The content of this battle report undoubtedly aggravated Sturdy's worries, and then news came from the Harwich fleet that the British light fleet stationed in Harwich Harbor, northwest of London, had hit the road, and the 2 light cruisers and 22 destroyers that went out to fight were all newer ships with better performance, and the air force of the army and navy also quickly sent planes, and Stedie's psychological pressure was finally slightly reduced, but what he did not expect was that the carrier-based aircraft sent by the German fleet did not come to the British capital. Instead, it appeared in Ipswich, more than 60 miles from London, where four German planes dropped a total of more than 20,000 leaflets, exactly the same as those dropped in Newcastle and surrounding towns a day earlier.

Just over an hour after the bombing of the Ipswich paper, the port of Harwich, not far away, was also attacked by German aircraft. Here, the Germans not only threw leaflets, but also dropped real bombs on the fleet stations and repair docks. Since the Harwich fleet was not in the harbor, only one small patrol ship was damaged, some dock facilities were damaged, and less than 10 people were killed or wounded, but this was the first real air raid on British soil. The news soon reached London, and the official blockade or explanation no longer had any effect, and people not only questioned the significance of Britain's involvement in the continental war, but also feared that after the British government sent troops to France, German troops would take the opportunity to land in eastern England.

At 9 a.m. sharp, British Prime Minister Henry Asquith made a national radio address as originally planned. After Ipswich and Harwich were attacked by German planes one after another, he was able to speak skillfully and weakly to defend and refute the German government's communiqué on naval warfare. At the end of his radio address, Asquith described in an emotional tone the stubborn resistance of the French and Belgian armies to the German attack, and he called on the British military and civilians to overcome the difficulties of the present and to tide over the present difficult times with the characteristic Anglo-Saxon fearlessness, and he spoke lightly of the leaflet offensive and bomb threat of German aircraft, and then announced impassionedly that the British navy was launching a powerful counterattack against the attackers.

Through this national broadcast, Asquith, who was good at debate, did rekindle the fighting spirit of many discouraged British soldiers and civilians, but shortly after the broadcast, the British Navy suffered another defeat - the heroic Harwich fleet suffered heavy losses in the waters northwest of the Netherlands. Instead of encountering a terrible mine array, they were strangled by the combined efforts of the German battlefleet, high-speed torpedo boats, and battlecruisers, and the two light cruisers that led the destroyer detachment were both sunk, and only 9 of the 22 destroyers survived. Since this brutal naval battle took place off the coast of the Netherlands, some British sailors who were forced to abandon their ships were unwilling to be captured and resolutely swam to Dutch territorial waters. In order to avoid the two great powers, the Dutch had no choice but to detain the British sailors on the grounds of observance of the Neutrality Act and not repatriate them until the end of the war.

However, the great sacrifice of the Harwich fleet was not without gain, and some of the British officers and men on the surviving ships observed two German capital ships with mines in their hulls before the end of the battle. Upon receipt of the report, the officers of the British Naval Staff all felt that this was a great opportunity to reverse the unfavorable situation, and immediately sent a report to the Admiralty Secretary and the First Sea Secretary, who had just arrived in Liverpool, for decision.

(End of chapter)