Battle of the Third Reich Chapter 23: Looting (middle)
The attempted torpedo raid by the British destroyer scared the Prinz Eugen up and down.
After the initial fright, the heavy cruiser was completely enraged by the British destroyer's attack.
I was almost blew up by the torpedoes fired by the British. This fact made the German officers and soldiers who had reacted to feel that their personal dignity was seriously injured.
In the eyes of these German naval officers and soldiers, although the British attacked themselves in an open manner, this kind of courage is indeed admirable.
However, the warriors on the sea should bombard each other with artillery generously. It is shameless to use torpedoes to attack each other, and it is a cowardly act.
So in the eyes of these glorious and proud German sea knights, the British became a total sneak attack maniac, shameless murderer, not a real soldier, not a real man, but only On one side, the bandit who casts the dark arrow vile and so on. . . .
The character of the poor British naval officer was not only overturned by the German heavy cruiser, but also stepped on more than a thousand feet.
And these Germans don’t want to think about the huge difference in strength between themselves and the two small opponents, and the German Navy is also good at torpedo attacks. They have never seen them greet each other in advance before torpedo attacks. This habit.
In fact, these German naval officers and soldiers are seeking psychological comfort for their previous mistakes. After all, as a proud naval soldier, he was almost killed by such a weak opponent. This feeling is very bad. Since I can't find self-resolving The reason for this is to push all the faults to the enemy.
The angered Prince Eugen issued a request to the flagship for permission to leave the formation to attack the British destroyers. At the same time, while pouring anger on the two British destroyers fleeing frantically in the gunfire, they began to slowly turn to prepare to follow. The flagship Admiral Scheer in the back gave way.
General Lütjens agreed to the request of the heavy cruiser with little consideration.
The commander of the Ocean Fleet was still having a headache for that battleship dying on the battle line. In order to show loyalty to the great young German head of state, he must do his best to ensure the safety of the head of state envoy on that battleship. .
What’s more troublesome is that almost half of the Imperial Navy military academy is also carried on board. These naval reserve officers are a valuable asset for the future development of the Imperial Navy. If these non-commissioned officers suffer serious losses in battle, Marshal Del Admiral will not touch. The condiments ate themselves raw.
Lütjens had placed this warship in a safe strategic reserve position from the beginning of the plan, but he did not expect that the special envoy of the head of state would have asked to participate in the battle as soon as the war started. The always cautious Lu Tejens certainly did not dare to refuse the request of the special envoy of the head of state.
So the poor lieutenant admiral had to pay attention to the safety of the warship while directing the fleet battle. Lütjens was so bitter in his heart that he couldn't tell. He could only pray that God would bless that valuable battleship not to go wrong.
The previous desperate assaults of the British destroyers were beyond his expectation. These destroyers have indeed threatened the flanks of the fleet array. He was about to call out a battleship from the light cruiser formation behind to clean up these pesky boats and protect the flanks of the fleet when the battle train turned.
Since the heavy cruiser, which is now occupying its place in the dangerous shelling queue, made this request, he has no reason to disagree.
Lütjens did not know that Prince Eugen had just escaped from a torpedo attack by a British destroyer. In the eyes of the commander of the fleet, this heavy cruiser was a new ship, but those British destroyers except those There was no threat to her beyond the torpedo, and it was only a matter of time before the firepower of this battleship was used to clean up the small destroyers.
In order to express his concern for his subordinates, and more to allow the special envoy of the head of state on that battleship to show his rich experience, Lütjens responded to the request of the Prince Eugen and added a sentence at the end. Watch out for torpedo attacks from the opponent's destroyer."
The general advice of the Commander once again suffered a heavy blow to the pride of the officers on the Prince Eugen, and the concern of their comrades turned into an unbearable irony in their eyes.
Prince Eugen quickly replied to the flagship with a “understand”, then turned the rudder abruptly, pulled the whistle, and rushed towards the two British destroyers fleeing in embarrassment.
All officers and soldiers of the Prince Eugen are determined to wash their shame with the blood of the British, although no one except themselves thinks that the British have humiliated them.
"Fire! Fire! Tear them apart! As long as they are still floating on the sea, don’t stop the fire. Let these British guys see what will happen to challenging the dignity of the German naval officer. Blocking the enemy ship’s deck, I don’t want to return Someone is seen activity above, unless the other party clearly surrenders to us. The port side observation team pays close attention to the movement of the enemy cruiser, and immediately reports if there is any situation."
Feng. Colonel Hertz was standing in front of the narrow observation slit of the armored bridge and issuing orders loudly.
’s naval officers and combat officers stood on their respective consoles and issued the captain’s combat instructions to the corresponding positions on the entire ship. Although on the surface the scene in the bridge is a bit confusing, in fact everything is happening. Proceed in an orderly manner.
The helmsman repeated the navigator's steering instructions over and over again, flexibly turning on the steering wheel, and finely controlling the course of the battleship.
The combat officer wears a headset to constantly receive feedback from each battle position, and adjusts the firepower distribution of the battleship according to the ship position.
Several navigating non-commissioned officers are standing in front of the nautical chart and constantly observing the track of the battleship recorded by the automatic roadway. According to the enemy ship position parameter sent by the artillery observation room, the relative position and the position of the two sides are marked on the nautical chart. track.
The two British destroyers have given up the stupid idea of continuing to approach the enemy ship for close-range shelling after encountering the fierce interception and shooting of the German Navy.
The rising water column around the hull finally calmed the two crazy destroyer captains.
In fact, when they saw the two battleships aiming fire at them, they should know that there was nothing to do, but the fanatical belief in dedicating themselves to the British Empire made them lose their ability to judge the situation correctly.
After five minutes of struggling in the German artillery fire, the blood in the hearts of British naval officers and soldiers began to slowly cool down.
Maybe it’s because they have successfully launched a torpedo attack on the enemy ship. At this time, no British would have expected that the attack would be the kind of shocking result. These British navy sailors felt that they I have fulfilled my responsibility for the empire and the king, and the German navy’s artillery fire has become more and more intense. In this case, the instinctive survival of mankind began to gradually overwhelm the loyalty to the empire to the king, regardless of In any case, they have done more for the king than imagined.
But they wake up too late, and a difficult and powerful enemy has been eyeing them.
The current performance of the two destroyers is very apt to describe it as panic. They are desperately doing evasive movements, crossing the course back and forth, trying to avoid the fire of the terrifying enemy that crazily approaching behind.
The two destroyers have been injured and can't run their maximum speed, but they can still run wildly at 30 knots.
At this speed, it is possible to get rid of ordinary German warships. It is a pity that they met the Prinz Eugen, who is also proud of the speed. It is a pity that they rushed away from the German fleet. too close.
When the two destroyers turned their course and began to flee towards their own fleet, Prince Eugen was already like an angry tyrannosaurus jetting flames against the two weak enemies who offended her.
This 18,000-ton heavy cruiser is agile as a lightning strike ship of more than 100 tons. Before the two destroyers can react, the killer with the skull flag has already occupied them. In the left rear position, she began to use all the weapons that could reach them to slowly ravage the two opponents who had humiliated her.
The two 203mm twin front main turrets of the Prince Eugen each selected a frantically fleeing destroyer as the target to start a pleasant flat-fire bombardment.
is a destroyer and is not on the list that must be captured, so the Prinz Eugen can launch an attack in any way she sees fit.
But because the Germans rushed so hard, the distance between the two sides was too close.
The bulwark of the British D-class destroyer is notoriously low, and the bulwark of the Prinz Eugen as an assault ship operating in the North Sea is very high. As a result, the four powerful main guns of Prince Eugen placed their aiming points on the destroyer's tall bridge at the same time, because they had nowhere to fight except there due to insufficient firing angle.
The three 105mm high-level dual-purpose guns on the starboard side of the Prince Eugen have their abilities. This excellent naval gun, which is very famous in World War II, is most suitable for this kind of medium and close range shooting.
Then six 105 rapid-fire naval guns began to bombard the nearby British destroyer deck like a storm at a rate of one round every five seconds.
The destroyer Defender, which is the closest to Prince Eugen, bears the brunt. Although the brave British sailors fought back with the two 120mm guns at the stern, the gap between the strengths of the two sides was too far.
After being fired at close range four times by the Prince Eugen, the Defender became a pile of burning scrap iron.
Her bridge was completely destroyed during the third salvo of the German battleship. The lightly armored box building was completely smoothed from its base by high-explosive grenades, leaving only a bunch of burning fire. The twisted wreckage.
The two main guns at the first part have exploded together with the first building. Only the lower half of the front chimney remains, while the rear chimney is nowhere to be seen. The twisted steam pipe madly sprays strong steam and With the hot water column, the destroyer had completely lost its power and began to slow down slowly.
There is no moving figure on the battleship deck, and there are scorched and mutilated bodies everywhere.
The lifeboat deck in the middle of the can no longer find anything like a lifeboat. They have been torn into pieces of wood by the torrential rain of 37mm shells.
The two quadruple 533mm torpedo tubes that almost blew the Prinz Eugen directly from here to Iceland have burned and I can’t see the original look. It’s a pity that it was not loaded with torpedoes, otherwise maybe The pain of this battleship had long ended with a roar.
The Y turret at the stern of the ship became a burning bonfire. The X turret is now a large hole with flames. The depth bomb on the depth charge release rail may have been thrown into the sea by British sailors. , Otherwise it will be another disaster. The same is true for the two depth charge launchers, leaving only the bare launch rods looming in the raging fire.
The Defender has become a burning steel coffin. The Royal Navy officers and soldiers have only two options. One is to hide in the burning hull and then be directly cremated or buried at sea. The second is He climbed up the deck desperately and was killed by German artillery and then cremated or buried there.
was burned alive is a terrible thing, not to mention this battleship is sinking slowly, the Germans must have dug a lot of holes under the ship’s waterline, and the sea water quickly flooded the boiler. And the engine room, even on the deck of the Prince Eugen, you can hear the terrifying crackling sound of the boiler when water enters.
The twin 37mm autocannon group and quadruple 20mm autocannon group on the Prince Eugen finally stopped firing at the pile of wreckage, and various large and medium caliber artillery had already transferred firepower to another one. On the fleeing enemy.
At this time, a dozen figures suddenly rushed out from the exit of the first building of the Defender, which made the German sailors almost couldn’t believe their eyes. They couldn’t understand how the British sailors were in such horror. Survived in this burning crematorium during his attack.
A quadruple 20mm machine gunner excitedly pulled the breech bolt to fire at those figures, but was stopped by the gun group commander standing behind him with a standard civilian gesture, and the officer was hit on the back of his head. Slap severely.
"What do you idiot want to do? They have no resistance. We are glorious German navy soldiers, not butchers."
The British sailors first ran to the stern of the ship, braving the thick smoke billowing on the deck, and when they ran to the ship's midship, they found that the lifeboat had become a pile of debris, and then started to stumble towards the bow of the ship. Ran, and the bow of the ship had already burned into a ball of fire.
Several people’s military uniforms were suddenly ignited by the high temperature. They screamed out of the ship’s side and jumped into the water floating with thick oil slicks. Others also found that they had nowhere to go, so survivors jumped one after another. Into the sea.
They were not wearing life jackets. The toxic heavy oil on the water irritated their skin and respiratory tract. These people struggled in the thick oil slick to free themselves from the sinking battleship.
Because the destroyer that had been almost levelled by the Germans was making chilling metal twists and cracks, everyone knew that the warship was about to capsize.
Prince Eugen quickly passed by the Defender. She still had an enemy unresolved. The Joyful fleeed toward the British fleet with billowing black smoke 350 meters away.
The sailors on the Prince Eugen looked at the broken and charred shell of the Defender, which was slowly leaning, and felt a heartfelt shock, but after all, this was the only shortcut to make up for their previous mistakes.
War is cruel. As long as you put on this uniform, you must have the consciousness of becoming a broken corpse. This is the consensus of all officers and soldiers.
The Defender finally turned over after a groan, and then quickly slid towards the bottom of the sea spraying water mist and water jets. The British sailors who had not yet been able to swim out of the sunken ship screamed and were sucked in by a huge whirlpool. seabed.
The remaining dozen lucky people were struggling helplessly on the sea. Several seriously injured sailors began to wave their arms to the Prince Eugen, who was passing by, crying for help.
The battle is still in progress. It is impossible for Prince Eugen to risk being attacked as a live target in order to save a few enemy people who fell into the water. However, it is impossible to watch those people drown alive. In line with the knightly tradition of the German Navy.
A large inflatable life raft and several life buoys were thrown into the sea from the stern of the ship, watching the British desperately swimming towards the precious life-saving equipment, the German navy officers and soldiers who had just completed a killing felt a touch of comfort .
The battle continued. After all, Happy was unable to escape. A 203mm shell that hit the engine room ended her escape journey.
Steam gushes from the exits of each cabin, and the battleship leaned forward as if tripped by something, and the bow was almost buried in the wave.
Happy continued struggling to slide forward for a certain distance and then stopped, and then another batch of German artillery shells accurately hit the deck of the destroyer that lost power.
Princess Eugen coldly harvested the lives of Royal Navy officers and soldiers, and shells of various sizes and calibers swept across the narrow battleship decks.
In less than fifteen seconds, the Joyful became a broken incinerator like her sister ship Defender, and the Joyful only had time to fire two salvos on the Prince Eugen.
All the superstructures of the battleship were completely destroyed, and a sea of flames burned on the deck.
With this mental vent of the former Defender, the Prince Eugen gradually calmed down, and after two salvos of secondary artillery, it stopped ravaging the destroyer. The Germans prepared to give the British sailors Abandon the opportunity to escape.
But the German navy officers and soldiers regretted that the British still failed to escape in the end.
Three seconds later, the destroyer suddenly had a terrifying explosion. I don’t know if the fire ignited the ammunition depot on her ship or the deep-water bomb depot~ IndoMTL.com~ The huge shock wave is so strong that it can be seen with the naked eye. It was observed that all kinds of steel shards rushed towards the deck of the Prince Eugen, and a Hakikis machine gun with its gun frame rolled over three hundred meters in full view and landed on it. On the Compass Bridge of the Prince Eugen.
The sooner the faster was blown to pieces in front of the German navy officers and soldiers. The remaining half of the first building with the remains of a 120mm gun struggling on the water for four or five seconds, then rolled over with a beautiful back. The action plunged into the sea, then disappeared without a trace.
Only a large piece of heavy dirty oil remains on the water surface, various pieces of burning or smoking, and various debris on ships prove to people that there used to be a thousand pieces floating a few seconds ago. A 900-ton destroyer.
Prince Eugen has not slowed down, and the battle continues. This battleship has no time to express any emotions.
passed less than fifty meters from the sinking point of the Happy, and the Prince Eugen made a gentle turn to port.
The most beautiful heavy cruiser of the German Navy drew a beautiful arc on the sea. She did not realize that she had left the original course very far while chasing the two destroyers.
Prince Eugen has unknowingly inserted the inboard formation of the British cruiser battling the outer shelling array.
Now this battleship with the black skull battle flag has found her next target, an opponent who finally looks more in line with her identity, the British Royal Navy light cruiser Sheffield.