A coal-fired Euro Solidarity freighter (a bulk carrier modeled after the American Liberty) arrives at the Palembang dock on the banks of Mousey, which is experiencing its worst moment since the beginning of the Japanese occupation era. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoThe once busy port is now deserted, and the docks are filled with only Japanese soldiers in yellow-green uniforms and long rifles with bayonets. It gives people the feeling of being on the verge of a great enemy.

Several powerful Taisho 14-style 105mm anti-aircraft guns were placed in a corner of the pier, and sandbags were built around them, forming an anti-aircraft artillery position, and several Japanese army soldiers who were also wearing khaki military uniforms were conducting routine training around the anti-aircraft guns. The muzzle of the anti-aircraft gun, with the sound of the command, constantly changed direction.

Next to the anti-aircraft artillery position was a dock built by several Dutchmen, which was not too big to repair small ships of several thousand tons, and could not even fit the European Solidarity ship, which had a displacement of only more than 10,000 tons. None of these small docks were empty, and each of them contained a freighter damaged by a mine.

Due to the shallow water depth, the Strait of Malacca is the best place to lay submerged mines, and it is also a water transportation hub between Europe and East Asia, and it is also an oil export channel for the huge annual output of the Palembang oil field. Therefore, since 1942, when Japan was stationed in the Dutch East Indies, the British and American navies have laid a large number of mines in this area, including submerged magnetic mines and floating anchor mines.

The Japanese Navy has also deployed a number of minesweepers, submarine destroyers, special cruisers, and destroyers of the second rank in Malacca, as well as some patrol planes with antisubmarine and minesweeping functions, including the "East China Sea" antisubmarine patrol planes equipped with magnetic detectors.

However, compared with the strength of Britain and the United States to break diplomatic relations, the Japanese Navy has invested too little in anti-submarine and minesweeping.

After all, the investment in preventing thieves must be many times greater than being a thief!

For example, in some cases, it is not even necessary to dispatch submarines or planes to lay mines, but a camouflaged minelayer carrying the flag of a neutral country or a European Community country can do the trick -- unless every foreign freighter passing through the Strait of Malacca is carefully searched, there is no way for Japan to put an end to the activities of camouflaged minelayers.

And strict searches are both time-consuming and prone to unnecessary friction (during the war years, when supplies were scarce, it was the time when smuggling activities were the most profitable, and who would be completely clean of those sailors who ventured to sea?). ), which made many European sailors reject the dangerous and unprofitable Malacca route.

Another reason why European sailors are reluctant to come to the Strait of Malacca is that this shallow strait will be blocked by mines every once in a while, and then no one knows when it will be restored. As a result, merchant ships arriving or preparing to sail from the Indian Ocean had to wait endlessly in the harbor.

But for Lieutenant Commander Knopmann, the captain of the Valsburg Hill, which had just entered the harbor under the flag of the neutral Netherlands, but which was in fact under the head of the European Intertransport Command, the passage to and from the Strait of Malacca was only his contribution to the victory of the war in the German homeland.

This round face, blinking eyes, and short and fat old German man was the old German navy that had fought in the last world war. However, he was not a militarist, and in fact he turned to anti-war at the end of the last world war. At the time of the revolt of the sailors in Port Kiel, he not only sympathized with the sailors, but also helped them a lot.

As a result, he was expelled from the navy immediately after the end of the World War, and he was not re-drafted at a time when the German navy began to expand. It was only after Germany's victory over Britain in 1943 that he was recalled to the Navy to serve as captain of a freighter on the Eastern route.

By that time, he had completely changed his anti-war stance, from an early anti-Nazi and a supporter of social democrats, to an honorable Nazi party member...... Such a change of position was very common in Germany, and now that Germany was about to win, the ideal society of National Socialism seemed to be at hand, and everything was so beautiful, and it also proved the correctness of Chancellor Hitler and Field Marshal Hersmann.

The "Walsburg Hill" had already approached the dock, the gangway had been lowered, and several Japanese in yellow-green tropical military uniforms walked up quickly.

At the head was a captain in his thirties, with a stubbled face and a very arrogant expression. Although the Netherlands ceded the Dutch East Indies without a fight, in the eyes of most Japanese, this small European country that had long since fallen was also a defeated enemy of the Great Japanese Empire.

"Who's the captain? We're going to board the ship and check it! ”

A Japanese warman, presumably a Japanese warman who was trading in the Dutch East Indies before the war, asked the Indian sailors on board in stiff Dutch - although the ship was flagged with the Dutch flag, and the main crew members such as the captain, first mate, second officer, and chief engineer were all Germans, most of the sailors were recruited from India. They barely understand English, but they absolutely don't know Dutch.

Knopman had been to Malacca more than once and knew the temper of the Japanese. At this time, he had already put on a straight face, put a red sleeve with the Nazi swastika on his sleeve, walked quickly to the deck, and when he saw the Japanese, he stood upright, and then raised his right arm: "Hey! Hitler! ”

It turned out to be a Nazi!

All the Japanese immediately put away their arrogant faces, and all of them stood up and saluted Knopman.

Knopmann then handed over his ID along with the identification documents of the "Walsburg Hill" and the ship exemption order issued by the Japanese Navy's Southwestern Fleet.

The ship was loaded with electromagnetic minesweepers made in Germany, which the Japanese had ordered in March -- before March '44, the Americans had basically not used magnetic mines, so the Japanese were not very prepared. After running into trouble, he turned to Germany for help and ordered a large number of diesel generators for electromagnetic minesweepers, which had already supplied power to electromagnetic minesweepers.

Since April, a certain proportion of the list of goods destined for the Strait of Malacca and Yangon, Myanmar, has included various mine-clearing equipment.

Incidentally, Yangon, the capital of Japanese Burma, was a relatively safe port for Eurasian trade. After the occupation of Burma, Japan also drove Allied prisoners of war to build a Thai-Burma railway connecting Yangon with the Thai capital Bangkok, but the Thai-Burma railway transportation capacity was limited, and in addition to the oil produced in Burma (Ringanqiang oil field) and important minerals, only aircraft engines, radars, and high-quality aviation fuel (since 1944, Germany began to export small quantities of high-octane aviation gasoline and jet fuel to Japan, which cannot be produced in Japan), can travel through the Yangon route.

However, even the Yangon route is not completely safe, because the route from Bangkok to the Japanese mainland is also full of mines and submarines laid by the Americans.

Therefore, all kinds of mine-sweeping equipment and light escort destroyers are the things that the Japanese Navy urgently needs at present.

The former is easy to provide, and now American submarines are also mine-laying around the Atlantic coastline in Europe and North Africa (German submarines are doing the same thing), so electromagnetic minesweepers have been mass-produced.

But the latter is not something that can be provided immediately if you want it, because American submarines do not deal much damage to the European Community economy, and Germany and France do not have enough naval officers and sailors at their disposal.

In addition, the US Navy has not completely lost its naval supremacy in the Atlantic, and from time to time they can send surface ships and even aircraft carriers to break up diplomatic relations. So the kind of light escort destroyer of 1000-1500 tons will not be able to complete the escort mission in the Atlantic. In 1936, the Type D destroyer was the cheapest multi-purpose destroyer most needed by the EC Navy.

Therefore, in the countries of the European Community, except for the United Kingdom, which has a light escort destroyer of the "Hunting" class, there is no second country that has engaged in such a thing.

However, in the second half of 1943, the Japanese themselves developed a standard displacement of 1,260 tons, a maximum speed of 27.3 knots, which could be used for both anti-submarine escort and fleet engagement (with four 610mm torpedo tubes) of the "Matsu" class D-type destroyers -- according to different functions, the Japanese Navy divided the destroyers into four types, A, B, C, D, of which the D-type is similar to the escort destroyer, and at present there is only one kind of "Matsu" class, and the lead ship "Matsu" has just been completed on 28 April.

At the same time as building the "Matsu" class on its own, the Japanese Navy was also negotiating deals with German and French shipbuilders to order a large number of "Matsu" class.

Because the German and French shipyards required the power combination of the heavy oil boiler + steam turbine used in the "Song" class to be changed to a diesel engine (the production of steam turbines is more difficult than diesel engines, and the price is more expensive), the design modification was completed in early May, and the first batch of 5 "Song-class" destroyers (according to the contract, starting from June, there will be 8 ships starting every month), and the keel was laid before the end of June, and it will be completed within 5 months according to the plan.

It is expected that starting in 1945, Japan's predicament of antisubmarine mine-sweeping operations in the Nanyang Islands will be greatly improved...... If Japan hadn't withdrawn from the war by then.

But for now, starting from the Strait of Malacca to the east, it is a dangerous sea for Axis ships.

The elderly German captain Knopmann was now just thinking about unloading the ship's cargo earlier and leaving the place.

Just as he was about to ask the Japanese officers who were boarding and inspecting the ship when the unloading would begin, a shrill air raid siren suddenly sounded on the docks in Palembang.

"What's going on?" Amid the "whine" siren, he asked aloud in Dutch.

"It's a drill!" The Japanese soldier Cao replied with a smile, "It must be an air defense exercise, and air defense exercises are often held here." ”