Three Hundred and Sixty-Seven God's Mischief

If it is said that on January 7th, God is on the side of the Germans, then there is no doubt that his most pitiful person is Lütjens. But if it is said that Lütjens, as a fleet commander, is taken care of by every warship in the fleet, there is no doubt that the High Seas Fleet is not the luckiest person on this day.

The luckiest thing was Prien, the captain of U-47, who was ordered to rush to the sea off the Netherlands to find an opportunity to ambush a British warship operating nearby. He spotted a fleet flanking his course at 4:01 a.m. on January 27, 1938, so he adjusted his angle after diving down and waited for his opportunity.

The opportunity came soon, because fearing being attacked by German bombers at dawn, the fleet fled in such a hurry that they didn't even have a decent warning of the nearby waters. So U-47 easily launched all 6 torpedoes at a very close distance. As a result, 2 torpedoes hit a cruiser on the flank of Howe, and the other 4 torpedoes all hit the British. On the side of the newly built battleship HMS Howe.

As a result, two of the four torpedoes directly hit the Howe's ammunition depot, detonating the large-caliber artillery ammunition equipped inside, and the other one hit the boiler room, scrapping half of Howe's power system.

A large amount of water did not leave much time for the battleship Howe. In just a few minutes, the battleship Howe sank on the sea. Except for a few sailors who escaped by chance, most of the personnel who jumped into the sea were killed. The vortex formed by the sinking of the ship was pulled into the abyss. But this time u-47 took advantage of the chaos and escaped, leaving an indelible trauma to the British Navy.

Prien is now the world's first super submarine ace to sink more than 100,000 tons of ships. Just after he sank the battleship Howe and sent a record telegram back to Wilhelmshaven, Prien was awarded the Oak Tree by Yuan Leaf Knight Iron Cross, promoted to colonel, and laughingly called "Battleship Killer".

This nickname is well deserved. Prien has sunk the battleships Barham, Sovereign and Howe after the war. This record can be said to be unprecedented, and it is estimated that it may really be unprecedented. . And Prien, the legendary captain himself, was also ordered to rush back to Wilhelmshaven to accept a new round of media reports.

On January 29, 1938, Lord Gott left Dunkirk in a submarine and returned to England. This also marks the complete abandonment of the nearly 200,000 troops in the Dunkirk area by the British side. But this army is still fighting hard, because the order issued by the British side is very simple-fight until the last soldier.

When the lord returned to the port of England, what he saw was devastated and dilapidated. In the majestic harbor of the Royal Navy of the British Empire, a few destroyers and gunboats were sporadically docked. In the distance, the battleship berths, which were originally densely parked with warships, seemed so empty.

In just one month, the UK sank 6 battleships and 3 aircraft carriers successively, accounting for almost half of the main battleships in active service in the UK. Some.

You must know that although the British Navy is extremely large in number,

The area to be protected is also huge. In the Far East where the fighting is intense, the British government still maintains a strong maritime force; in the Indian Ocean, in order to deter the nearby colonies, there is also a large fleet of ships; Canada, Africa, the Mediterranean, In the South Atlantic, while these areas provide Britain with abundant resources, they also involve more than half of the British Navy's forces.

Therefore, although the British and German navies still have the upper hand in terms of overall strength, in the waters near the North Atlantic, the United Kingdom has completely lost its command of the sea and the air, even if it is another ship King George V With the launch of the first-class battleship, the British Navy has no advantage at all.

At this moment, the battleship Ramiris is performing missions in the Indian Ocean, the battleship Resolve is in Africa, the battleship Nelson is performing escort missions in the Mediterranean, the Rodney is operating near the Strait of Malacca, the Queen Elizabeth is in the South Atlantic, and the Revenge is in the South Atlantic. In the Far East of Asia, the only remaining battlecruiser Repulse is being refitted.

The Royal Oak and Warrior are protecting the aircraft carriers Glory and Fury in the North Sea while avoiding the pursuit of the German Navy while returning. So when Lord Gott looked at the battleship berth, there was only a single battleship, HMS King George V, looking so lonely and pitiful.

A new battleship, two old battleships, plus two not particularly advanced aircraft carriers, this is the entire main force of the British Navy's home fleet. Of course, the UK still has a certain advantage in the number of cruisers and destroyers, but on the main combat ships, the UK and Germany have never been so close.

In addition, I have to say that although there are a large number of British cruisers and destroyers, most of them were nailed to death by German submarines on the route between the North Atlantic Ocean and the United States. The actual number of domestic destroyers and cruisers is even inferior to that of the German Navy. .

While Lord Gott was staring at the only British battleship King George V in a daze, a British soldier on the front line of Dunkirk was sitting listlessly in the trench with his rifle in his arms, holding his lunch box in both hands daze.

The clear soup and boiled water in the lunch box were not much different, and there was a lot of dust that had just fallen into it from the shelling at the bottom. That moldy piece of bread has already been swallowed. After all, whoever is hungry for a long time doesn't care about the quality of the food, right?

His face was full of exhaustion, and the German attack seemed to be a little slower, not as violent and intensive as it was a few days ago. However, some well-informed officers were talking about the navy. I heard that the navy lost almost one-third of its main battleships in the North Sea battle because of the war in the Dunkirk area.

As a British Army, although he doesn't know how many warships and sailors the British Navy has, but the United Kingdom, which has always claimed to be the world's number one navy, must have a small number of warships, right? ten? Twenty ships?

In short, he lost, and he lost badly. This is his most intuitive understanding of naval failure. Of course, another incident also proves from the side how tragic the navy's failure is-beginning on January 27, the ships that came to transport personnel to evacuate have almost disappeared. Occasionally, there is one at night, which is also a civilian ship. Not a single military warship has come to Dunkirk.

He took a few sips of the clear soup mixed with sand and soil in the lunch box, poured the rest on his feet, cleaned up a little, and then stood up in the trench, and smiled with the corpse of his comrade who had been dead for a long time, He looked at the opposite position.

The Germans over there seemed to be still eating, and the British soldier seemed to smell the aroma of vegetables. Even he has heard that food in Germany is very scarce, and most of the meals are mainly potatoes and various vegetables, but now he is hungry and thinks that potatoes are the most delicious food in the world.

In the afternoon, the British soldier did not wait for the tragic fight and battle of the previous day, and the German tanks did not appear on the position in front of him. Thousands of those terrible killing machines harvested the lives of British soldiers. Burn Britain's best tanks for scrap. So those German tanks were one of the scariest weapons of war he had ever seen—because there was an equally terrible weapon called the Stuka.

I don’t know what time it is in the afternoon. Anyway, when the British soldier was taking a nap in the trench, his platoon leader brought people to inspect. The British platoon leader kicked his men awake with his toes, and then chatted for a while. On the topic of ammunition and weather.

"Sir, why didn't the Germans attack this afternoon?" asked the British soldier who stood up and saluted.

"The people above are negotiating. If there is no accident, we will put down our weapons and surrender." The platoon leader has a good relationship with the company commander, and it happens that the company commander is the division commander's uncle, so this company has always been well-informed Grass-roots troops, otherwise it would be impossible to know the news of the navy's defeat.

Yes, there was no accident after all. Almost an hour after the platoon leader left, there were cheers from afar. Battle songs were even sung on the German positions, with laughter and laughter. Just when the British soldier didn't know what to do, the platoon leader appeared in time again and told him to put down his weapons and wait for the Germans to come and accept the surrender.

On January 30, hundreds of thousands of British and French allied forces surrendered, and General Gan Malin shot himself in his headquarters. Britain and France mourned, while Germany was boiling. With the surrender of Dunkirk, nothing can stop the Germans from going south. The German army of more than 1 million is mighty and mighty, singing triumphant songs and rushing to Paris, the French capital.

The 10th Armored Army in the hands of de Gaulle retreated steadily, and did not stop its rout until the suburbs of Paris. The more than 70,000 British soldiers in France received a strange order to abandon their defense lines and control areas, concentrate on the French coastal cities, and then board the departing ships and return to the British mainland.

The 300,000 newly mobilized French soldiers had to use their rifles and bayonets to try their best to prevent the German Army's 3,000 tanks from entering their capital. The whole of France was crying, and the government was in chaos.

At this moment when France was already besieged on all sides, another shocking news came. Italian leader Morini finally couldn't help but make a move. The speed with which Germany swept across Europe made the Italian leader feel that he would not make a decision anymore. It's about to watch Germany take advantage of it.

So just one hour after the Dunkirk surrender, Italy couldn't wait to declare war on Britain and France.

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