After a long voyage, a steamer arrived in a port in Spain, carrying a group of sailors dressed in German naval uniforms. The ship returned from Australia, and almost all the German officers and men on it were the elite of the submarine force.

The men walked down the ladder in groups of three or five, laughing and laughing, and a few German naval officers were on the dock to greet them, and as soon as they got off the boat, they were given the treatment they had always dreamed of. There were enough banknotes for them to eat, drink and be merry in Spain, and there was an order of honor for the Medal of the Great Sea.

They are the soldiers with the most experience in ocean-going operations in the German Navy's submarine force, and it can be said that they carry the future and hope of Germany in its struggle for hegemony in the ocean. According to the plan, they will be responsible for training ocean-going combat units for the submarine forces of the Third Reich Navy, imparting their experience in ocean-going and cross-regional operations, and evolving the German Navy's submarine forces from a local navy to a global navy deployed around the world.

For this plan, Prien led ten submarines out of Germany and sailed to Australia to complete an operational deployment across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which proved that it is not easy for a navy to expand its combat range. This requires many people to put in their own efforts and struggle for a long time to achieve this goal.

In order to ensure the normal operation of this submarine force, it is necessary to deploy some repairmen and engineers with the army, and eventually to dismantle damaged submarines and remove parts to repair submarines with minor failures -- all this is still based on the German submarine model specifications and the common use of parts.

Over time, Prion led one submarine back to the sea, while the remaining submarines began to be scrapped and destroyed one by one due to breakdowns. Maintenance ships from Germany can only transport some wearing parts to Australia, and once the submarine has a major failure, it can only rely on dismantling one and repairing the other to ensure that someone can go to sea to fight.

In order to balance the strength of the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Navy, Accardo ordered the German naval detachments in the Pacific to start attacking the U.S. transport fleet with all their might, but because the U.S. anti-submarine defense was still in place, the German submarines did not achieve any decent results except for sinking some merchant ships.

They mainly attacked American transport ships, sneaking up on the slow ships on the route, which were piled up with supplies that the United States was sending to the front, and each sinking was very sad for the American soldiers on the front line.

Now, only three of the seven submarines were still at sea, and the German sailors who had lost their submarines were ordered to return home, and they were heroes, so they must have been triumphant, and they were allowed to spend three days in Spain or France before returning to base and reporting to their superiors.

When Accardo knew that the Japanese Navy was retreating on Kauai, he knew that his purpose of letting Japan and the United States consume each other should have failed. His plan to counterbalance Japan and the United States was too sloppy and did not keep the Japanese in a good state and deplete the U.S. naval fleet.

"Welcome back safely!" The German officer at the head came to a German submarine captain who was disembarking, and raised his arm with a smile: "Long live Führer Accardo? ”

"Long live the Führer!" the German captain also raised his arm, then smiled and took a step, hugging the German officer in front of him: "It's good to come back alive." I'm glad you came to pick me up, come, I'm here to introduce you, this is my crew. ”

The commander in front of him was the commander of the port leased by Germany in Spain, and he and the captain were once college classmates, and the two had a good relationship, and when he went to Australia, it was he who sent the fleet out of Europe and embarked on a journey to the Pacific.

"The Führer is very grateful to you for the courage you have accumulated for the Empire the valuable experience of ocean-going submarine warfare, and all of you have a holiday, each of which can be spent in Spain or France, 1,000 Imperial Gold Marks. The officer smiled and shook hands with the submarine sailors one by one, saying a message that made everyone cheer.

"What is the current situation in Australia's submarine forces?" Sitting in the car returning to the base, the officer opened his mouth to ask about the situation of the troops in Australia that he had acquaintances, after all, it was far away from the base, and it was very difficult to find someone to inquire about it in person. Although Prion has brought back a lot of news, the latest news still has to be asked to the latest returnee, isn't it?

The captain who came back mentioned that Australia did not seem very happy, he thought for a while and then said slowly: "Actually, the conditions there are very bad, the Australians only provide us with fresh water and a small amount of support, and the Japanese have approached the east coast, and the situation is very critical." We lacked ammunition, so we gave up many good opportunities to attack, the submarines themselves were poorly repaired and maintained, and the soldiers were fighting on their faith. ”

In fact, his words are not exaggerated at all, in the battle in Australia, the German submarine officers and men are almost fighting by their own convictions. They dismantled a submarine and used its parts to repair the remaining submarines in better condition, and fewer and fewer submarines were usable, but they still went to sea on time to attack designated U.S. transport targets.

Since the beginning of the war between the United States and Germany, American ships heading to the Middle East have been attacked by German submarines, and in contrast, the originally safe route from Spain to Australia in the Pacific has also been blocked by US Navy destroyers. The German Pacific submarine fleet, which was already short of parts, completely fell into the embarrassing situation of lack of food and ammunition at that time.

Some scarce parts were not replenished, and no new torpedoes were sold, and the submarine detachment was able to maintain the normal operation of five submarines at the beginning, but now there are only three left, and even so, these three submarines still have to choose their targets carefully when they sail, so that their precious ammunition will not be wasted.

"How's the scrapped submarine doing?" the officer asked, listening to his old classmates complaining about how his submarine had been dismantled because of a minor glitch and had ended up in a matter of parts stockpile.

"We dismantled all the parts that could be removed, finally opened the sea valve, and watched our submarine sink to the bottom of the sea. That's our old buddy for years, do you think we're going to do it hastily? We watched it sink and sing military songs. The captain replied.

"I have here a telegram from Berlin, which the Reich Minister of Propaganda ordered his men to send, a statement to the media, which you have to look at carefully, and then, if anybody interviews, you have to answer the other person's question in this standard language. The officer handed the captain a document and said, "I heard that you will be promoted to colonel and go to the submarine academy to teach, congratulations." ”

"Seriously, if I had the choice, I'd rather be adrift on the sea. The submarine captain smiled bitterly and said: "People who have fought on the sea do not disdain to return to land to live a stable life, I still hope that I can take my soldiers to fight on the cold bottom of the sea, which is where I really like, there is no intrigue, no mess." If you have the ability, you will survive and make contributions, and if you don't have the ability, you will die as a matter of course. ”

The officer who greeted them laughed: "I knew you would say that, but unfortunately, you are now the most valuable talents of the Empire, so you can teach in the school with peace of mind." ”

Sighing, the submarine captain nodded in resignation: "Sometimes I really envy that guy Prien, he went to Australia with us, and I heard that he is still at sea now, living the life he likes to fight?"

"This guy is even more proud now, I heard that he burned and looted all the way to the east coast of the United States, just like a bandit. The U.S. government offered a bounty of $5 million, as long as Prien's head!" "As the commander of the port, the information is still very well-informed, Prion is now between Iceland and the east coast of the United States, has sunk a transport ship with a gross tonnage of more than 100,000 tons, which makes the whole United States angry.

The new submarine, renamed U-47, became a ghost living in the North Atlantic, and the destroyers of the U.S. Navy had detected this terrible weapon more than once, but no one had been able to sink it. The submarine came and went without a trace, playing dozens of British and American destroyers like idiots, and making the British and American navies suffer.

Like the British, Germany invested its new weapons in the North Atlantic, but unlike the British Meteor fighters with extremely low reliability, Germany's new submarines were very reliable, and compared with the British, the German weapons used in the war were more mature and more deterrent, and after Prien's submarine began to fight, the efficiency of transportation between Iceland and the United States was reduced by more than five percent. And that's just what a new submarine can do.

Just when Britain and the United States were overwhelmed by the German ghost submarines on the east coast, in the German Wilhelmsport, three dockyards opened their doors at the same time, and three identical new submarines were launched one by one to the music played by the military band, and Dönitz and Raeder smashed champagne for the three submarines in turn.