Anti-submarine - British submarine

  Churchill's nose was twisted with rage when he received the news of Gibraltar Strait being occupied by Spain on the Atlantic, and listening to the comments of various countries' media on Spain's actions this time made him even more angry.

  But after he got over his anger, he realized that Spain's daring to pull teeth from the tiger's mouth was inseparable from Germany's support behind its back. However, Spain is now facing a test of famine at home and needs to rely on foreign aid, so when World War II broke out, the Spanish dictator Franco said that Spain would remain neutral and would not join the war. But this guy never forgot that he was brought up by Germany and Italy, so he has been secretly coordinating with them all along. Now he must have seen Germany and Italy winning victory after victory on the battlefield, and finally couldn't help but come to the forefront to perform. And Germany must have given him a lot of benefits too.

  The British Ambassador to Spain, however, cabled Churchill that the Spanish note said this was merely a response to Britain's long-standing illegal occupation of Spanish territory. In the past, Spain had not been strong enough to do anything about it, but now under their great leader Franco, they were going to recover what belonged to them.

  Churchill decided to put the matter on hold after reading the telegram from the ambassador in Spain, as Germany posed a greater threat to Britain and Spain was currently unable to control Gibraltar. The domestic problems in Spain were also very serious. This action of sending troops to occupy Gibraltar might also be Franco's attempt to shift the attention of the Spanish people and show a superficially resolute attitude towards Germany and Italy in order to gain more benefits from them. So Churchill decided to put the matter on hold for the time being, until he returned from his visit to the United States.

  Zhou Tianlei stood on the command bridge, holding a telescope to observe the exercise. Luo Ge was beside him and suddenly asked: "Commander, you just said that we should take control of the air on the sea surface, I can understand this, but if we are going to make an amphibious landing, our number of attack aircraft is not enough. If we only rely on ship guns, the range of the ship guns is limited. Moreover, after exceeding a certain distance, the error of the ship guns is quite large. As fire support for our troops' landing, I always feel that something is wrong."

  Zhou Tianlei put down the telescope and turned to Luo Ge, saying: "Our main goal is to control the ocean's dominance. As for supporting amphibious landings, our current naval aviation force cannot provide effective air support to ground forces due to the reasons I mentioned earlier. It can only be provided by the fleet's ship guns. However, since our marine corps is also relatively limited in number, it is impossible to have a very good performance in large battles. They are now only suitable for amphibious landings on larger islands, and in that case, our ship guns are sufficient to provide them with the artillery support they need. But if it's against a continent, such as the European mainland, we can only provide firepower support to the landing site. This is what our current strength dictates, and I have decided that our goal is still to prepare for taking control of the ocean's dominance, so we can only let go of one side for now. Remember, our main target for attack right now is the enemy's naval fleet."

  They kept holding binoculars to observe until the exercise ended and the planes started landing on the deck one after another, only then did they put down their binoculars.

  Chow Tianlei returned to his own commander's rest cabin, took off his uniform and hung it on the hook of the clothes rack, sat in a chair thinking: That day I saw Hitler without asking him how to preserve the Jews, was because of those two Japanese spies, but also they stopped their own temporary impulse, themselves did not think, could they stop Hitler's massacre? It is simply an ant trying to shake a big tree. Not only can't save the Jews, Gypsies, Poles, but will also get themselves involved. What would they use to help their own country at that time?

  I can only be considered a soldier, not a politician. But can I just stand by and watch as so many Jews are sent to death camps by that devil Hitler? They've already started massacring them in Poland, next it will be the Jews of Western Europe, hundreds of thousands of people, no small number. As we Chinese say, this is a matter of losing heavenly virtue. I must not only refrain from doing it myself but also find ways to rescue as many of them as possible.

  But doing this thing himself was also a bit helpless, he had to go find an ally, who would it be? Zhou Tianlei fell into deep thought.

  He suddenly thought of one person, the second-in-command of the Third Reich, Hermann G?ring. Albert G?ring, the younger brother of the Luftwaffe commander-in-chief, was an artist who deeply detested the Nazis' methods and opposed their mass slaughter of Jews and other European minorities. However, his power was limited, so he used his brother's vanity to show off his own influence by occasionally sending him a list of Jews to be released. Hermann G?ring often signed these lists sent by his younger brother. Who would dare not release those Jews with the signature of a high-ranking Nazi Party member and the second-in-command of the empire? Later, these freed Jews would receive mysterious financial assistance, allowing them to escape Europe through Romania's borders. After the war, the Allies initially did not believe that there was a good G?ring until they obtained extensive evidence proving otherwise. Only then did they release Albert G?ring.

  Zhou Tianlei thought he should go find him to discuss how to rescue Jews and other European minorities, but he never went to find him. Could he trust himself? Never mind him, isn't there a Chinese saying: when the cart arrives at the mountain, there will be a road.

  According to intelligence, Franco has already sent troops to occupy the Rock of Gibraltar, but he knows that Franco does not have the power to control this area, and in the end, he can only secretly hand over the control of Gibraltar to Germany according to the signed secret agreement, which will complete the first step of his plan.

  Just as he thought of this and had not yet considered it, he suddenly heard the alarm sound outside. The sharp alarm sound was swirling above the German fleet.

  Zhou Tianlei suddenly jumped up from his chair, grabbed his uniform from the clothes rack and ran to his command post. After rushing into the command cabin, he picked up a pair of binoculars, and Luo Ge immediately came to report: "We've discovered an unidentified submarine."

  "Is it one of our submarines?" asked Zhou Tianlei. "I've already inquired with the submarine command, and there are no submarines from us in this area," said Luo Ge. "Besides, if it were one of ours, he should be able to recognize that this is a German fleet and wouldn't hide underwater."

  "Can we now determine the submarine's position, depth, course and speed?"

  "Now we can only roughly determine its position, depth, speed and direction of movement are all undetectable, the sonar is all reflected sound."

  Zhou Tianlei thought for a moment and knew what was going on. He said, "Now it's at the bottom of the seat, trying to use this method to evade our sonar detection. Humph, I myself am from a submarine officer, how could I not know what he's thinking?"

  Rog asked: "This guy moves too fast, he hides as soon as our sonar detects him. How can we detect him?"

  Zhou Tianlei said: "I'll think of a way to deal with it. You just watch the show."

  The submarine under the water belongs to British Royal Navy Submarine S-class 'Simon'. They were originally just performing patrol tasks, but never thought that when they planned to float up to the surface, the sonar soldier on the submarine reported a large fleet of ships active in the southwest direction.

  Commander Jack of the 'Simon' proceeded in the direction reported by the sonar operator and queried British naval headquarters whether there were any national or allied vessels operating in that area. Headquarters replied that there were none, and ordered him to investigate what was going on.

  As he approached, he was startled to see the German High Seas Fleet in his periscope, and what shocked him even more were two enormous objects among the numerous battleships and cruisers.

  He hastily pulled out the ship identification manual to check what those two huge objects were, but he couldn't find them. He put his eyes back on the periscope to take a look, but by then the two aircraft carriers had been blocked from view by the German battleship "Gneisenau".

  Jack was helpless and had to order his submarine to move, wanting to find another gap to observe the two aircraft carriers. But in this matter, he was discovered by a German destroyer.

  Jack saw that the German destroyer had discovered them, so he ordered the submarine to dive quickly to avoid being tracked by the German destroyer. However, he hid a bit too late and was unable to escape the German destroyer's reconnaissance. Seeing this, Jack could only order the submarine to sink to the bottom of the sea, using the turbulence at the bottom of the ocean to cover themselves.

  After the submarine sank, Jack ordered all personnel on board to enter a state of silence, not making any noise, and the watertight doors of each cabin must be closed tightly to prevent flooding in one cabin from affecting other cabins. To avoid being found by German destroyers on the surface, the entire submarine was illuminated only by dim red lights, the power was turned off, and the crew members sat or stood still, not daring to make a sound. Several sailors kept fidgeting with their fingers, everyone was tense waiting for the arrival of Germany's depth charges.

  Zhou Tianlei pointed to the sea chart and said, "Are you sure this submarine is in this area?" Luo Ge said, "Yes, I confirm it's inside, but this area is really too big. It's not easy for us to find it."

  "We are a fleet, not individual ships," said Zhou Tianlei. "We can sink it with this. Order the destroyer squadron to freely drop depth charges in this sea area."

  "Yes, sir." The naval aide took down Zhou Tianlei's order and turned to pass it on.

  "What, are we to drop depth charges on a submarine whose position is not even known? The German escort destroyer squadron was ordered to do so by the flagship. Commander Friedrich muttered when he saw the order. "Is this not an invitation to a wild goose chase?" But the Germans grumbled and went ahead with the task nonetheless.

  On the afterdeck of a German destroyer, the naval officer in charge of dropping depth charges bellowed: "Set to 150 meters, 20-second intervals between each salvo." Meanwhile, German sailors were setting the fuses on the depth charges with special tools and starting to push them slowly overboard.

  Shortly afterwards, the German destroyer flotilla began dropping depth charges into the sea upon arrival in the designated area. High water columns were seen rising from the surface of the sea.

  Jack and his crew finally heard the terrifying sound of the depth charge descending into the water, the sonar operator reported: "Now there are 3 depth charges." Then hurriedly took off their headphones to prevent the explosion from damaging their eardrums.

  The depth charge exploded with a loud roar after sinking to the set depth, and the underwater shock wave generated by the explosion quickly spread to the "Simon", Jack and his crew were shaken off their positions in front of the shock wave, they felt that their internal organs seemed not to belong to them, feeling like they were about to jump out of their mouths.

  The sonar operator put the headphones on his ears and immediately said, "Here we go again, 4 of them." After finishing speaking, he threw down the headphones and covered his ears with both hands.

  This time the depth charge was closer to Jack and his crew, they felt like their submarine was a small boat in a stormy sea, tossing up and down, ready to capsize at any moment. Some loose objects on the submarine were thrown to the ground with a loud crash.

  The depth charge finally landed very close to the submarine, and all that was heard from the engine room was: "My compartment has been damaged by the bombing and is flooding, please send someone to support." Jack quickly dispatched 3 sailors to the engine room to assist in stopping the water. He knew that with the German destroyer's attack becoming more accurate, his submarine's destruction was only a matter of time. He decided to make a fake appearance to deceive the Germans on the surface.

  He ordered several sailors to take some trash and clothes taken by the submarine crew to the forward torpedo room and fire them out through the torpedo tubes, and ordered the submarine to release some fuel oil to deceive the Germans on the surface, letting them mistakenly believe that they had been sunk, anyway, they wouldn't be able to come down to the bottom to see if they were sunk or not.

  On the sea surface, Zhou Tianlei and Luo Ge both saw the debris and oil floating on the sea surface that was emitted by the "Simon" number. Luo Ge excitedly shouted: "They were sunk by us." Zhou Tianlei said coldly: "It's not necessarily, maybe it's just to deceive us, I've played this trick before."

  Rog was brought back down to earth by Zhou Tianlei's words, and his excitement dissipated. He asked: "Sir, how do we know if it has been sunk or not?"

  "Command the destroyer squadron to cease fire. Half of them are to withdraw, and the other half is to retreat a certain distance before gradually reducing engine speed until they come to a stop. The battleship squadron and cruiser squadron will do the same."

  "Sir, what are you trying to do? Why order them to gradually reduce the main engine speed?"

  Zhou Tianlei ignored him and continued to give orders: "Observation personnel on each ship must closely monitor the movements on the sea surface. Once an enemy submarine is discovered, do not ask for instructions, attack directly."