Chapter 294 A Crossroads That Determines the Fate of the World

When the British Royal Navy was fully equipped, German raid ships had to make a detour through the North Atlantic, breaking through the Danish Strait between Iceland and Greenland into the Atlantic. Every time you enter the Atlantic, it is a heartbeat journey, because during this time, you must encounter desperate interception by the Royal Navy, whether it is the original real historical plane or this plane that has been shattered and changed beyond recognition by the traverser.

However, this changed on 25 February, when the Royal Navy was completely wiped out in the Third Battle of the Norwegian Sea.

The Faroe Islands were originally an overseas dominion of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located about 602 km west of Norway and 310 km northeast of Scotland, about a little east between Scarpa Bay and Iceland.

For the British Empire, the strategic location of the Faroe Islands was extremely important, and with the occupation of this place, the Germans had to make an additional 600-kilometer detour to break through the Atlantic, taking the Danish Channel waterway. Once the Germans occupied the Faroe Islands, their route to the Atlantic Ocean was much shorter.

In January 1940, after the German attack on Mai and Denmark surrendered without a fight, the British Royal Navy sent troops to occupy the Faroe Islands. At that time, the Royal Navy had an absolute advantage over the German Navy in terms of tonnage and literal strength, and although they occupied the Faroe Islands, the British at that time were operating in the Narvik generation in northern Norway. The Faroe Islands had only a small army and a few aircraft stationed.

At the end of the naval battle on 25 February, the Royal Navy was completely destroyed. The Germans took advantage of the victory to launch a full-scale counteroffensive.

On the 26th, the two Shane sisters, who had suffered minor artillery injuries, returned to Bergen for maintenance and supplies. However, the German navy, which had won a great victory in this naval battle, took advantage of the victory to advance westward, and in the early morning of the 26th, it reached the Faroe Islands and began the operation to seize the islands.

At this time, the British army in the Faroe Islands was very weak, and the Faroe Islands originally consisted of 17 inhabited islands and one uninhabited island. After the British occupied the island in early February, it took a month. Field airfields were built on the two islands, but during the naval battle on the 25th, all the planes on the islands were dispatched to rescue the main fleet, but they were shot down by a large number of carrier-based aircraft of the German fleet. On the 26th, the British had less than 20 planes in the Faroe Islands area.

In the early morning of the 26th. The German fleet, led by two pocket battleships, approached the Faroe Islands, and with him came five more aircraft carriers, six cruisers and seven destroyers.

If the strength of the Royal Navy was intact in the past, even if those six battleships were still there, the German Navy would not dare to launch an operation to seize the island if it was close to here. But the 26th was the weakest and weakest hour for the Royal Navy.

Despite the fact that the German navy itself consumed ammunition and damaged ships greatly during the battle on the 25th, the current British navy could not even send decent 10,000-ton warships, and it was the best time to seize the Faroe Islands.

In the early morning of the 26th, the German fleet, led by two pocket battleships, shelled three islands with garrisons in the Faroe Islands. The garrison was defenseless. Under the washing of 283-mm, 155-mm, and 128-mm shells, the British garrisons stationed on the three islands suffered heavy casualties, and the remaining planes parked at the airport were all destroyed on the airfield under the guidance of the human flesh correctors of the dogs and men of Lin Han and Hannah.

At dawn the next day, thousands of sailors cobbled together from German warships, armed with small arms and rowing like kayaks, began to land on the island under the cover of naval guns. By this time, the defenders had already been terrified by the early morning shelling, and they lacked heavy weapons. The resistance is very slight. By noon that day, several major islands had fallen into German hands.

The most interesting thing about the weather in the Faroe Islands is that. It is a volcanic island covered with thick snow and ice. It has a temperate maritime climate with an average temperature of 3.4°C in January and an average temperature of 10.3°C even in July. On top of that, the area is foggy, with more than 200 foggy days a year.

Twenty-sixth. When the German Navy launched the campaign to seize the island, the area was covered with fog all morning. The British were shocked when they learned of the German naval attack on the Faroe Islands. At dawn of the day, all the planes that could be dispatched to reinforce the island were mobilized, but when they flew over the Faroe Islands. However, they found that the low-altitude dense fog was so dense that they could not see the ground clearly, and it was even more difficult for the German troops who wanted to bomb and land.

The Faroe Islands are also three hundred kilometers away from the nearest British mainland airfield, barely within the combat radius of British fighters. It's just that among the active aircraft of the British Air Force, the Hurricane fighter has a range of 740 km, and the Spitfire, the short-legged king, does not even have 700 km.

The fighters sent by the British Air Force originally wanted to use the local wild planes to refuel and replenish, but last night's shelling destroyed all the airport facilities, and the runway was also covered with thick fog, even if the runway was not destroyed and wanted to land, it would not be possible

The German naval aviation, well aware of the weakness of the British, took advantage of this, and under Hannah's guidance, all the fire support ships in the German fleet took refuge in the dense fog, while the five aircraft carriers were stopped at a distance of 100 kilometers to "zoom out" - which was already outside the combat radius of the Hurricane fighters.

As a result, this air support of the British was like yesterday's support, and it once again became a tragedy of taking the initiative to send people to the head. The escort fighters were limited by their range and could not cover the bombers attacking the German aircraft carriers.

In the air battle over the Faroe Islands, the escorted Hurricane fighters could only fight here for ten minutes and had to retreat, otherwise their residual fuel would not be enough to return.

The German Navy, which was obviously fighting away from home, became like fighting at home here. The dense foggy weather in the local area allowed the naval pilots to let go of the "life and death" of the ground and sea teams, and under the guidance of the air traffic control on the ship, they could choose the best time to cut into the air battle at will.

The air battle on 26 June again turned into a one-sided massacre, and on that day the British Air Force lost more than 40 planes over the Faroe Islands, and on the return flight, more than 20 Hurricane fighters ran out of fuel and plunged headlong into the sea, and the losses of both planes and pilots were extremely heavy.

By the twenty-seventh day, the German Navy had completely taken control of the Faroe Islands. Although the Battle of the Faroe Islands was not intense, in the Norse Campaign, its "priority" Cheng dù was more than the annihilation of the British army in Narvik. In order to consolidate the occupied Faroe Islands, the German naval and land forces even transferred a landing force that was supposed to participate in the attack on Narvik to the Faroe Islands, and for this reason postponed the launch of the Battle of Narvik by three days.

In the final stage of the Nordic Campaign, the German Navy, which had suffered great losses in the early stage, was actually at the end of its strength, and its strength was even more stretched due to the need to fight in two theaters. However, at this time, the situation of the British Navy was even worse, and its home fleet had no available troops, and it could only watch the "weak" German Navy easily seize the Faroe Islands, an important fulcrum in the Norwegian Sea in the North Atlantic.

On 12 March, the German task force entered the Atlantic Ocean, no longer via the Danish Channel waterway, but through the channel between Guò Iceland and the Faroe Islands. This alone saved more than a thousand kilometers of distance for the entire fleet back and forth.

Scapa Bay, the home of the Royal Navy, is only 300 kilometres from the Faroe Islands. In the past, the German Navy dared to take this waterway so aggressively, and it was intercepted by the main fleet halfway long ago, and then sunk in the sea, but now that the British royal capital ships have been completely destroyed, the navy has become an "air" army, and in addition to dry staring, Britain even

It was reluctant to send planes out for air strikes -- in the two days of 25 and 26 July, the Royal Air Force had lost more than 130 planes and more than 200 pilots and crew members over the Norwegian Sea, not counting the loss of aircraft carrier-based pilots.

When the news came that the German task force had crossed the waterway between Iceland and the Faroe Islands into the Atlantic, the whole of the British Isles shook again.

Compared to attacking surface gunboats at a distance of only thirty kilometers, the aircraft carrier has a wider range of attacks. The fleet of two aircraft carriers, two pocket battleships and four cruisers was just a "piece of cake" in the eyes of the Royal Navy in the past, but for the British Empire, which is now in extreme decline, it is a red-hot charcoal that cannot be touched at all.

When the news came back, Atlantic shipping between the United States and the United Kingdom was immediately greatly affected. The convoy of transport ships, which had originally organized a convoy to escort the ship, had to be scattered to prevent the German fleet from encountering a "disaster". And these merchant ships, scattered without escorts, will only cheapen Dönitz's "sea wolves" with the consequences.

On 15 March, Churchill, who could not hold back, boarded an Atlantic airliner early in the morning and flew to Washington, D.C., to seek the help of the Americans.

As soon as he got off the plane, Churchill went straight to the White House, and after meeting the president of Cactus Ghana, Churchill's first words in front of him were: "The British Empire has now reached the most dangerous point, and if the Americans can no longer provide effective support, and the situation of Atlantic shipping security continues to be so bad, it will take three months at most, and the British Empire's endurance will reach its limit, and then we will have to consider the topic of peace and conversation with the Germans." ”

In the aftermath, President Cactus Ghana described Churchill's "ugliness" in his diary.

"When he saw me, the old arrogant and weak English fat man, he almost fell to the ground, rolled, played tricks, and shouted at me: If you don't help me again, I'll kneel down to that German mustache to the east. That's what he meant at the time, and I understood it perfectly. ”

The colonies of China and Asia and Africa are on fire, and after the three naval battles in the Norwegian Sea, the "sun never sets" empire is already in the past, because of successive crushing defeats, in this war, it is very close to the limit of its supporting power.

Churchill flew directly to the United States, not only to ask for help, but also to "kick the ball", and he handed over the choice to decide the fate of the world in the New World and the Old World in the hands of the President of Ghana.

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