A trophy of the 1940 war, Iceland is now the most important forward base of the German Navy in the Atlantic. As an "unsinkable aircraft carrier", after the signing of the Amsterdam Agreement in 1940, the German Navy, which occupied Iceland, made every effort to transform it into a naval base.

On May 17, 1941, in the harbor of Reykjak, Iceland, two new battleships were docked, which were modifications of the Shane-class battleships, the Bismarck and the Tirpitz.

The No. 1 ship, the Bismarck, joined the German Navy at the end of September last year, and soon after the ship entered service, Britain and Germany signed a peace agreement, but finally did not catch the last train of the war. As for the Tirpitz, it officially joined the German Navy in March 1941.

Compared to the Shane sisters, the Bismarck-class battleship is only an improved version of it, correcting some minor flaws exposed by its service participation, and in essence, the two are actually the same serial product. Slightly different, in order to increase range and further improve seaworthiness, as well as the need to strengthen defenses, the standard tonnage (i.e., unladen state) of the two ships was raised to 45,000 tons, the same tonnage as the Iowa-class battleships in the United States were laying keels.

Due to the exchange of artillery manufacturing technology between the German side and Japan when making the barrel of the ship's main gun, the gun performance of the battleships of this class was slightly improved compared with that of the Shane class. The Tirpitz will also be the last battleship to enter service in the German Navy, and the era of aircraft carriers has arrived, and in the future□ ☆ Germany will not build new battleships.

Since the war ended earlier than Ringham and Hannah had predicted, the construction of these two battleships showed some redundancy. But no one could have imagined that Britain would be forced to accept a peace agreement. At that time, only preparations could be made for the worst.

The sea conditions in the North Atlantic are rough, and there are often bad weather conditions for half a year that are not suitable for aircraft carrier sorties. Here the role of a battleship was no worse than that of an aircraft carrier. At that time, Lin Han strongly advocated the construction of these two battleships, and another reason was to consider the American factor.

"No matter how good Germany is, it will not be able to compete with the Americans in shipbuilding capabilities. Playing an aircraft carrier duel with the Atlantic Americans, the ability of the ship spirit cannot be fully exerted. Our advantage is not huge. Only by taking advantage of the factors of darkness and bad weather, bullying the opponent to ask for the enemy's fault, lacking artillery sighting radar technology, and using battleships to approach the opponent at night for artillery battles, can there be a slight chance of defeating the opponent. ”

In actual combat, the Chinese Navy suffered four heavy defeats at the hands of the German Navy. More than half of the battleships were sunk by Lin Han and Hannah by taking advantage of the "open map" and relying on the battleships to approach the enemy fleet through artillery battles.

The process of the fall of Cunningham's fleet is the best example of this. At that time, the two aircraft carriers were attacked by battleships at night at close quarters, and until they were sunk, none of the planes on board the ships had a chance to get planes, and finally sank in a humiliating manner. Before them, the Ark Royal, which sank during the First Battle of the Norwegian Sea, was sunk in a similar way.

Because Britain and the United States did not know that there was a ship spirit "hanging", under the influence of it, even if the aircraft carrier showed more and more kingly atmosphere in the war, Britain and the United States were in the post-war naval construction. did not dare to ignore the role of battleships. The British continued to build five George V-class battleships, while the Americans continued to build five new Iowa-class battleships while two South Dakota-class battleships were still being built on the slipway, which was also deeply influenced by the way the Royal Navy was destroyed.

With four battleships, the German Navy had replaceable battleships, which significantly increased freedom of action. After the two Bismarck-class battleships entered service, two Shann-class battleships were replaced after April and assumed the "strategic duty" mission at the Icelandic naval base.

Inside the port of Reykjavík. In addition to the two Bismarck-class battleships, there is also a new "main god-class" aircraft carrier "Gabriel", which entered service at the end of April. This class of aircraft carriers is an improved version of the Zeppelin-class aircraft carriers, with only a slight increase in tonnage compared to them, and corresponding improvements have been made according to a series of defects exposed by the Zeppelin class during use.

As the German Navy became more and more "godlike" and Germany became more and more a religious country, the newly launched aircraft carriers have not shied away from using the name of the god of Sephiroth, another sister ship of this class of aircraft carriers, "Sephiroth". It was planned that he would also enter service after October 1941.

At one o'clock in the afternoon of 17 May, in the harbor of Reykjavík, the new German Atlantic ship was appointed Commander Otto Murphy. Ernst. Lindemann received a brief coded message from Berlin.

After getting the codeword, Lindemann, who was grim-faced, called the deputy commander and chief of staff and opened the safe. Took out a sealed bag that had been sent to the fleet a month earlier.

Under the joint supervision of two other colleagues, Lindemann removed the wax seal on the file bag, took out the text jiàn, and then each of the three took out a code book, put it together, and began to translate the secret order on the text jiàn.

Ten minutes later, after the secret order was translated, Lindemann and the three proofread it again, and after confirming that it was correct, the commander and the other three looked at each other and nodded with a www.biquge.info.

A few minutes later, a piercing battle siren sounded in the harbor of Reykjavík, and a huge siren buzzed that shook the eardrums of civilians throughout Reykjavík.

Two hours later, the twelve German warships anchored in the harbor were all set on fire and pressurized, and then left the port of Reykjavik one by one.

After the signing of the Armistice in October 1940, Reykjavik was one of the most important forward bases for the German Navy to enter the Atlantic. In order to monitor this place, neither Britain nor the United States sent spies here. And when Commander Lindemann "sounded" the battle alarm in such a loud voice, everyone in the city knew that the German Navy was about to leave the port, which immediately aroused the alarm of British and American spies in the area.

At 4 p.m. on 17 May, Attlee, the new British Prime Minister living at No. 10 Downing Street, received an urgent report from naval intelligence that all the German Atlantic Fleet in Iceland had left port. Not only surface warships, but even submarines that were docked there all left the port within a few hours. The message sent back by the local intelligence service risked exposure also gave the Prime Minister the startling news: they had seen with their own eyes the scene of the German submarine replenishing the hoisting torpedoes before the sortie.

This information came at a time when British Prime Minister Attlee was convening an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the possible impact of Hitler's assassination in Munich on Anglo-German relations, and Attlee was asking MI5 to confirm that Hitler had actually died.

In times of war, each team has an emergency plan to deal with emergencies. In the extraordinary period of Hitler's assassination, the actions of the German Atlantic Fleet were tense but not surprising.

It was now May 1941, and with some new ships entering service, the British Royal Navy had recovered some of its combat strength, but it was still temporarily unable to compete with the German Navy in the Atlantic. After getting this information, the entire British cabinet immediately became nervous. The war in Europe had only ended for half a year, and now such an "emergency" had occurred, and under the chain reaction, the entire British Isles was also tense like an electric shock.

At five o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, the British naval and army garrisons also sounded like the Germans with a terrible combat readiness siren. The soldiers and soldiers who were idle because of "peace" were summoned back to their stations as soon as possible, and the warships moored in various ports were also immediately lit up and pressurized, and were ready to attack at any time.

The United States of America, which was separated from Britain by the Atlantic Ocean, also received the news of Hitler's assassination as soon as possible, and even received information from Britain a few hours later that the German Atlantic Fleet had poured out. U.S. President Wilkie, who stayed in the "safe" American continent, was not as nervous as Attlee, but he also immediately put down the official business he was doing, and then convened a tense meeting of his staff.

However, the most rapid reaction to the volatility caused by Hitler's assassination was not the British and American governments, but the Wall Street stock market in the United States. Less than two hours later, the news spread from Germany to the United States.

The time difference between Germany and the United States is six hours, and after the news reached the United States, the Wall Street stock market that opened that day, dozens of stocks related to the military industry, rose sharply in the first time (because I don't know whether the stock market in the 40s had the concept of a daily limit, I won't write much about this), and the speculators were so happy that they smiled.

After a break at noon, when the Wall Street stock market opened again in the afternoon, there was another "good" news: the German Atlantic Fleet and submarines all left port.

After this news came out, it was like pouring a ladle of cold water into an oil pot, which made the entire stock exchange boil.

"Buy, buy, buy!"

"Chase, chase, chase!"

The Wall Street stock market, which had been silent for several months because of "peace in Europe", became completely crazy because of these two "continuous positive" news, and the exchange was full of people who were crazy to chase and buy, and those few promising military stocks, as long as they were thrown out, were not bubbled for a few minutes, and they were copied by crazy buyers.

But in the hands of these buyers, there are still a few calm people.

The trader at the New York Stock Exchange "kindly" asked, "Sir, do you want to throw it now?" Why don't you wait and see? ”

On the phone, the voice of the remote commander replied indifferently: "Throw it all away, this is just temporary madness, the situation in Germany is not as exaggerated as everyone imagined." ”

After confirming that all the tens of millions of dollars in stocks held by him had been put on the trading platform, the owner of the voice muttered in his heart: "This farce will only last for forty-eight hours at most, and the stock will fall back at that time." ”

Ask for likes (to be continued......)

PS: Let's update a chapter first. Try to look at it at night and try double watching