For the British Royal Navy, the defeat in 1941 was a complete catastrophe.

In addition to the loss of a bunch of precious warships and a large number of excellent officers and sailors, the country's strategic security has also reached an extremely bad level.

Taking advantage of the victory, the German navy seized the Faroe Islands and Iceland, and placed a large number of submarines and a fleet of destroyers there. Later, the Germans allowed the Soviet Navy to lease a port in Iceland as a naval base, and this clever move of the Soviet-German convergence was a stab in the chest of the British, who was already "like a man on their back".

At this point, the strategic situation of the British in the Atlantic suddenly became unprecedentedly bad, and they changed from monopolizing the sea control of the East Atlantic to "sharing the Atlantic" with the Soviet Union and Germany.

The cruiser Black Prince, an air defense cruiser that was launched a year and a half after the end of the war to join the Royal Navy. Terry was the ship's first captain.

James. Terry is thirty-five years old at the age of Chinese New Year's Eve, at the peak of an officer's experience and energy. In the Royal Navy, which also talks about seniority, being able to become the captain of a cruiser at the "young age" of thirty-five years old is really "thankful" for the European war that drained the blood of the Royal Navy. After four successive naval defeats, the overwhelmed Royal Navy lost a large number of sailors and good older officers, so much so that it had to draw a large number of underqualified young officers to replace them.

Like the current miserable U.S. Navy, the British Navy, which suffered heavy losses in naval battles, is also facing the embarrassment of "personnel disconnection". Fortunately, the Royal Navy is a century-old navy with a strong family background and a solid and mature system for training young sailors and officers. After two years of lying on the salary, it is gradually improving. Although it was not yet comparable to the pre-war period, the British, who had learned from the pain, had an unprecedented sense of responsibility. The combination of a young captain and an equally young sailor gives the reviving navy a lot of energy.

The Black Prince joined the British Navy in July 1942, and after entering service, the cruiser Black Prince's main mission was to make routine cruises in the Norwegian Sea at regular intervals. Since the Faroe Islands and Iceland were occupied by the Soviet Union. The Norwegian Sea and the adjacent North Sea have now become a "bath" shared by the three countries – of course, the waters of this bathtub are never quiet due to the harsh sea conditions of the North Atlantic.

The Norwegian Sea is not very large, and the Faroe Islands and Iceland are too close to the UK. After setting up a naval military base here, although it has great strategic value, whether it is the Soviet-German family that was forced in, or the Royal Navy, which was originally the master here, the feeling in the hearts of the three families at this time. It's like three big men on a single bed.

The Navy is the only branch of the world that has the potential to lose a war in a matter of hours. At a time when the air threat was becoming more and more severe, both the Soviet Union and Germany were worried that the British would send out their air forces to launch a sneak attack on the warships in Faro and Iceland. Of course, the worries of the Soviet-German family were also the worries of the British.

As a result, all three naval vessels here have become "lighter" and "smaller". With the exception of small ships such as submarines, destroyers, and torpedo boats, the three did not dare to lightly deploy large ships in many ports in the northern North Atlantic, except during special periods.

For safety, peacetime. Both the Soviet Union and Germany hid their capital ships in safe ports at home, as did the British. The capital ships were arranged in the south, far from the north. All three in the northern ports of the Norwegian Sea have only light ships with relatively short manufacturing cycles.

March 2 was the day of the routine patrol of the cruiser Black Prince in the Norwegian Sea. On this day, James. Terry commanded his beloved ship and sailed to the old battlefield of the Third Norwegian Naval War. The disastrous defeat of the war in 1939~1940 was regarded as a great shame by the Royal Navy. In order to boost morale, every time he commanded a warship to pass through this sad place of the Royal Navy. Captain Terry would order the ship to stop on the old battlefield, and then the ship's crew would line up on the deck and walk in respect of the battlefield.

James. Terry fought in all three disastrous naval battles in the Norwegian Sea, where the Royal Navy was wiped out, and he was lucky to survive. Although in the two years after the war, the British Navy constantly reflected on and deduced the scenes of the battle of that year. However, the officers and staff officers of the Admiralty have never been able to fully restore the full truth of the Royal Navy's fiasco to confirm the real cause of the defeat.

To paraphrase a senior Admiralty official,

"During the whole course of these three naval battles, the German Navy was able to make advance military predictions about the commands of the Royal Navy as if it were foresight. All three naval battles began in the middle of the night, but the Germans' ability to grasp the battlefield was as precise as if we had played with them beforehand. ”

Although officials have pushed the Germans to have more advanced maritime search radars, some careful military personnel, including James . Captain Terry, including Captain, believes that the truth is far more than that, and all the inferences are like a puzzle, and the most important board is missing, so it is never possible to restore the whole truth.

At Captain Eatery's orders, the Black Prince's sailors dropped a wreath on the battlefield as usual. During that year's war, Captain Terry lost many of his comrades in the Navy, and they were buried in the icy Norwegian Sea, along with the sunken warship.

After the wreath was thrown, and the crown was pregnant with his deceased comrade, Terry was about to order the sailors to blow their horns and set sail, when suddenly the lookout on the lookout pointed to a black spot on the sea not far away and shouted: "There are people on the sea!" ”

A few minutes later, the Black Prince sailed near the black spot, and when they got closer, they found that it was a small, somewhat broken lifeboat with a man in a sailor's uniform on board.

"R-a-m-i-l-l-i-e-s, Ramillis? Oh my God, it's a lifeboat on the Ramillis! ”

As he approached, the lookout made a letter by letter through the binoculars and spelled out the letters on the lifeboat.

And after leaning on the lifeboat, the sailors on the Black Prince saw more clearly that the person on the boat was wearing a dirty, old and torn sailor uniform, as if he had been soaked in the sea for many years.

And the lifeboat he was sitting in was mostly filled with seawater, the surface of the hull was covered with shells, a large number of seaweed and other algae creatures were hung, and the mysterious sailor who always had his back to the Black Prince, the whole scene was even more bizarre.

"Is it the ghost of the sunken sailors on the Ramillis?"

The sailors began to whisper. The navy is one of the most superstitious of the military, and the place where this lifeboat appeared was less than two kilometers from the Black King. There were more than 400 sailors on board the Black Prince, and a few minutes ago no one had seen a dinghy nearby, as if the ship had suddenly appeared on the sea out of thin air.

The Black Prince cautiously approached the suspected lifeboat of the Ramillis, and some of the soldiers were so nervous that they ran back into the cabin to take out their Lee Enfield rifles just in case, while the rest of the sailors, either reciting the Bible with words in their mouths or holding the letter of the cross around their necks, began to pray secretly.

When the Black Prince approached less than thirty meters away from the dinghy, the mysterious sailor on the boat, who had been facing away from the Black Prince, turned around sharply, and then, in the midday sun, took off the dirty sailor's hat on his head, and raised his head to the sailors on the Black Prince.

The Black Prince suddenly caused a commotion, and almost everyone who saw the true face of the mysterious sailor, including the captain, exclaimed in their hearts.

The face that raised its head was not the face of a dead corpse or a ghost soaked in the sea water as they imagined, but the face of a girl full of heroic spirit.

"Is it a sea witch? Maybe it's the daughter of the sea? ”

The sailors began to whisper.

The girl picks up two flags from the lifeboat and sends a signal of help to the Black Prince in the language of the flag.

A few minutes later, a cable pulled the girl along with her, a large ornament placed on the lifeboat, and onto the Black Prince.

"Thank you, Vice Captain Terry!"

After boarding the ship, the girl gave a standard British naval salute to the Terry.

Then the girl asked: "Is there a place for hot water and bathing?" Mr. Captain, I've been soaking in the sea for too long, and I'd love to take a hot shower, and besides, excuse me, please prepare me a change of clothes," the girl said, pointing to the navy that was covered with mold and algae, and couldn't get dirty anymore, "They haven't been washed for three years." ”

Although her whole body was soaked, and her clothes were dirty and smelly, when the girl stood on the deck and combed her hair, which had been glued together by the seawater, revealing her beautiful face, even Captain Terry was stunned by the girl's beauty that looked like something out of a fairy tale.

Soon, Terry gave up his bathroom and provided hot water, soap, towels, and a set of sailor uniforms for the girl to change into.

As the girl was bathing in the bathroom, Captain Terry was stunned at the ornament that had been hoisted onto the deck with the girl.

"I recognize it, it looks like the insignia of the warship of the Ramillis! Yes, that's it, you can't go wrong! ”

Captain Terry then noticed that his ship was located right in the same place where the Ramillis was sinking.

"Sir, this is indeed the insignia of the warship of the Lamillis, which I have served on the Lamillis before."

Captain Terry immediately realized that something was wrong with him, and he immediately ordered, "Fish up that lifeboat." (To be continued......)

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