81_81266 Darlan swears he was so happy when he saw the Luftwaffe for the first time in his life. When the dense array of German fighters surrounded the British planes in the sky, Darlan gave the order to repair the Dunkirk with all its might and withdraw from the battle.

"General, aren't we going to get caught up now and help the Luftwaffe take out the invading British fleet?" asked Darlan's adjutant with a frown.

"It's easy to chase us out, but if the British pull us on our backs before they die, the Resolve and the King George V will definitely sink us to the bottom of the ocean before they sink. Darlang sighed helplessly and said: "Besides, we don't have much ability to pursue now, we only have 4 main guns, and the speed of the battleship has also been affected." ”

Amid the roar of engines and the enthusiastic cheers of French sailors, the Luftwaffe tore more than 30 British planes to shreds in just a few minutes. Because of the huge gap in technical superiority and tactical superiority, the Luftwaffe often conjured up a flock of vultures when fighting more and less, these large mechanical birds circled and swooped in the sky, tearing their prey into several pieces in a few rounds.

The victory in the sky saved the French fleet in the harbor from annihilation, and the British, as expected, gave up the shelling and began to speed their escape, but whether they could escape the combined strangulation of the Luftwaffe and the air force is another matter.

In the spirit of not caring about himself, Darlang began to direct the troops to reduce losses and rush to repair the warship. The harbor was in shambles, with more than half of the French ships damaged by the British, a heavy cruiser and a light cruiser sunk, a gunboat reduced to a pile of scrap metal, and the only aircraft carrier destroyed.

The British proved themselves strong with their real actions. Even when most of the main forces were lost and morale was at the bottom, the precision gunnery maintained by good training was more than a step stronger than that of the French Navy. Although the artillery battle lasted less than half an hour, the British hit the target 11 times, while the French hit the Resolve only once.

Although this is related to the fact that the French are in the harbor, the warships are relatively dense and mostly immobile, while the British naval ships move at high speed outside the harbor. However, the difference between the training level and handling skills of the two sides is still very obvious.

Even Marshal Raeder, who later arrived at the military port of Brest to pay his respects to the French Navy, was struck by the level of the British's artillery battle: the rapid sinking of the Admiral Count Spee in the night battle, and the heavy damage to the main force of the French Navy in the artillery battle - this strength is indeed not an opponent that can be defeated in a head-on fight.

Raeder later wrote in his diary: "I now know how clever the Führer was in planning the construction of the navy, the Royal Navy was almost impeccable in both quantity and quality, and if it were not for the Führer's use of naval aviation to change the mode of naval warfare, even if it were to build 20 battleships, Germany would not have been able to ensure superiority at sea...... Not to mention such a brilliant result. ”

The smoke of the artillery battle at the Brest military port has not yet dissipated, and the naval battle not far from the sea off the military port has already begun. The roaring German naval aviation of 80 planes began to storm the British naval fleet, and the British naval fleet fled and returned fire, and the scene was not at a disadvantage for a moment.

If the commanders of the British Royal Navy fleet dared to carry out the task of attacking the French fleet when they went to sea, then the battle with the German Navy's high seas fleet during the day was undoubtedly a situation in which no one dared to fight. The moment they saw the German Navy carrier-based aircraft, almost all the British warships had only one thought left - that is, to flee quickly.

Lawrence, the commander of the frightened aircraft carrier Ark Royal, was naturally the smartest escapee: he had already taken three destroyers south twenty minutes ago, and now he was almost out of the main battlefield, and the route he chose was to go south instead of north, avoiding the key interception area of the German Navy, and he really escaped the pursuit of the German Navy.

But with the exception of the lucky aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, the other main ships of the British Navy involved in the operation this time were not so lucky, and the battleship Determination, which was hit by shells once, damaged several anti-aircraft gun positions, causing a vacuum in anti-aircraft fire. So the German fighters, who noticed this flaw, were like vultures with rotting flesh, like flies that smelled fish, and swooped down on the wounded British battleship Resolve.

A Stuka dive bomber slashed its target with its sights at high altitude and roared down with a whistling scream, while two 20mm cannons on its wings spewed tongues of fire and tracer bullets swept straight towards the middle of the Resolve, shooting a dazzling spark.

Getting close enough, Stuka dropped the 500-kilogram aerial bomb under the belly of the plane, and then slammed the nose of the plane. The speed of the entire plane was sharply reduced, and the bomb relied on inertia to rush directly into the chimney of the battleship Resolve, and the entire Resolve, which was slightly trembling by the huge impact force.

A few British sailors who were in the nearby anti-aircraft gun position saw the bomb penetrate some parts of the armor in the center and rush all the way into the interior of the battleship. They closed their eyes in despair, praying countless times in their hearts that the bomb would not cause much damage.

Suddenly, their feet trembled violently, as if they were feeling an earthquake of magnitude 8 on land. The entire middle of the battleship was propped up like a balloon by the huge impact force, and then with a dull loud noise, the entire deformed hull fell back at a rapid speed, and the huge air flow spread out in all directions, and all the sailors on the deck were lifted into the sky.

"The Resolve is finished!" On the Cambridge of the battleship George V, who kept dodging torpedoes and frantically throwing barrages into the sky, the captain with a sharp chin sighed, and then ordered his lieutenant again: "Continue to keep shooting in the air, the battleship accelerates to the maximum, let the surrounding cruisers and destroyers follow, abandon the Determination, keep the formation and continue north." ”

"The Ark Royal is heading south, and they have gotten rid of contact with German aircraft. A telegraph officer handed over a telegram and reported loudly.

"Bastard! last time he lost the Athletic and ran away by himself, this time he lost us to the Germans and ran away by himself!" The British captain spat hatefully: "This Lawrence! When I go back, I can't spare him!"

"The Fury has lost contact, and a destroyer has confirmed that the Fury was hit by a torpedo, which is the last news we have ever heard of the Fury. The adjutant sighed and said, "If we are also finished this time, then the home fleet of the British Navy will also be completely finished." ”

"Don't say anything discouraged! Full rudder on the left, advance at full speed!" The captain frowned and ordered loudly: "Continue firing at the anti-air! You go to the anti-air command station outside and let the person in charge of air defense pay attention to all positions at high and low altitudes, and you can't let the German fighters take advantage of the loopholes!"

Just as he gave the order, the middle of the battleship Determination, which had long been left behind, broke apart, and the bow and stern began to rise, breaking into two and sinking at a rapid pace. The sea was covered with oil stains, as well as corpses and some broken planks and lifebuoys.

In the core of the original British Navy fleet, the aircraft carrier Fury had already burned into flames, and the smoke was billowing into the sky with a scorching breath. A German aerial bomb hit the bridge of the USS Fury with unmistakable accuracy, completely destroying the carrier's command system in an instant, and the ensuing attack went smoothly, with three torpedoes hitting the side of the Fury, the entire carrier rolled over and the ammunition exploded, and the interior was no different from an oven.

This time, although the British inflicted heavy losses on the French navy, they also took advantage of their last bit of home, the German fleet was chasing and killing the last battleship capable of fighting on the British mainland, the King George V, and the rest of the battleships were sunk and wounded, and half of them had lost their combat capability.

Lawrence looked at the sea not far away, it seemed to be so calm that it was refreshing, but both he and George beside him knew that it must be a sea of fire and disaster. Although they evaded the pursuit of the German naval fleet and retained the last capable aircraft carrier for Britain, everyone knew that the British Royal Navy was already on the verge of death.

The Mediterranean Fleet had long been overwhelmed by the Italian Navy; the Japanese Army in the Far East had been bogged down in war on Chinese soil, but the Japanese Navy was moving southward rapidly, and the British Far East Fleet had already sent numerous emergency telegrams; the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean were even more important for Britain to give up -- the forces that could be drawn were not as large as expected, and the forces that the British Navy could use to resist the German invasion were almost exhausted.

The Fury sank without even a single message of condolence, and the Resolve sank with the same speed and without delay. The King George V escaped the German Navy and fled back to her harbor under the desperate cover of homegrown land-based fighters.

However, the battleship was not able to fight for a short time, because its A turret was hit by a bomb and was destroyed into a pile of scrap metal; the vicinity of Cambridge was also blown up beyond recognition, but fortunately there was no problem because of the thick armor; the hull was hit by a torpedo, and the entire hull of the ship was tilted 15 degrees by the water inlet guide - the assessment report of the damage management department confirmed that it would take at least half a year for the battleship to be repaired before it could return to the combat sequence