"Boom, boom, boom" One after another, the bombs fell on the armored deck of the aircraft carrier "Ark Royal", and then turned into hot fireballs, devouring everything around them, and before they knew what they were ignition, they started a fire on the deck of the aircraft carrier.
However, the weakness of the insufficient penetration of the 250-kilogram bomb was immediately apparent, and although the accuracy of these Fokker 99s exceeded 80, none of the bombs could penetrate the solid armored deck of the "Ark Royal".
The force of the bomb's fall and explosion from a high altitude only turned the surface of the aircraft carrier's armored deck into a pothole, charred black.
"I'm Lieutenant Hersman, the chief commander of the air raid," Hirsman Jr. had already led 24 escort fighters to clear the direct cover over the "Ark Royal" at this time, and finally had the energy to direct the bombing.
"Stop attacking aircraft carriers, new targets are cruisers" He had already discovered that the 250 kg bombs dropped by the Fokker 99 were of little use to the "Ark Royal", so he ordered the remaining Fokker 99 to drop the bombs on the light cruiser "Fiji" guarding the "Ark Royal".
Hearing his order, the 14 Fokker 99s, which had not yet dropped their bombs, immediately turned their noses and dived down in turn towards the 8,000-ton light cruiser.
Of the 16 aircraft, 1 was shot down, while 10 of the remaining 15 bombs hit the Fiji and 2 were near-missed.
The 250-kilogram aerial bombs, which had no effect on the armored aircraft carrier, were very powerful when attacking the light cruiser, and the "Fiji", which had eaten 10 bombs, quickly turned into a sea of fire, and three minutes later the fire spread to the ammunition depot in the bow of the "Fiji", detonating the 6-inch shells inside, and with a loud bang, the cruiser broke into two sections and sank into the sea in a very short time.
However, the attack on the "Ark Royal" did not end there.
After the Fokker 99's attack ended, Hersman Jr. ordered 19 Fokker Zeros to escort 3 of the 33 Fokker 99s that completed the attack were shot down and returned, and he and the remaining Fokker Zeros also lost 1 Fokker Zero, staying in the air near the "Ark Royal" to escort the 24 S79s and 16 Fokker Zeros that were coming.
They arrived from Stavanger, 820 kilometers from the location of the Ark Royal, and required a continuous flight of two and a half hours.
And they took off 45 minutes later than the time when Hesman Jr. took off from the "Seydlitz", so it took another hour to arrive.
And while Little Hersman was slowly waiting for S79 to arrive, two big things happened on the Shetland Islands.
First, the "Prince of Wales" was blown to pieces, and finally ran aground in the port of Lerwick.
The 380,000-ton battleship was bombed indiscriminately by two waves of aircraft, a total of 178 and 80 JU88s and S79s.
Four 1,000-kilogram bombs and six 500-kilogram bombs were hit one after another, two of the three main gun turrets were blown off, the unarmored bow was almost blown up, and a large amount of seawater poured in, causing serious flooding of the bow.
In addition, the battleship's command tower was also hit by a 1,000-kilogram bomb, and all the others in the command tower were killed except for the captain John Ritchie, who was seriously injured.
In the end, the chief engineer temporarily took over the command, and the battleship was barely driven to the beach of Lerwick and ran aground, and then the entire crew abandoned the ship and left.
And another big thing is happening right now "Torpedo Dodge" Three more TBD torpedo bombers rained down three 450-kilogram aviation torpedoes.
Because of the artillery battle with the four battleships of the British Home Fleet, the German First High Seas Fleet could not set up an air defense array, and it was of course impossible to cover it with 24 direct cover planes in the air.
These direct cover aircraft can only focus on protecting medium and high altitudes, preventing SBD dive bombers from dropping 1,000-pound bombs.
BD torpedo attack aircraft, it was up to anti-aircraft artillery to deal with it.
The BD broke through the anti-aircraft fire net, and Bismarck's anti-aircraft guns also shot down 6 TBDs.
Three black barracuda-like shadows rushed to the stern of the battleship "Bismarck" with a white trail from under the blue waves.
Captain Lindemann personally steered the steer and dodged two of them, but one of the torpedoes hit the burly body of the "Bismarck" fiercely.
The hull of the ship, with a full load displacement of more than 50,000 tons, just shuddered and continued to move forward as if unscathed.
's naval guns shelled the battleship "Nelson" at a distance of 23,000 meters.
Just when the people in the command tower were proud of the sturdiness of the "Bismarck", Colonel Lindemann suddenly shouted: "The admiral's rudder seems to be out of order" "Rudder failure" Gunther Rutters was taken aback by Lindemann's words, "So where are we going now?"
"The course is now southwest" "We're heading to the British mainland," asked Gunther Ruttes.
The navigator of the "Bismarck" replied: "Admiral, if our course remains unchanged, the fleet will sail to Holland. ” "Then go full speed and get rid of the British fleet," Gunther Ruetjens gritted his teeth and looked at the "Nelson" in the distance with some reluctance.
Because of its speed advantage, the German fleet has always been in a favorable position, and can concentrate 22 380 heavy guns and 16 203 heavy guns to bombard the "Nelson", while the British fleet can only return fire with 6 16-inch guns.
So the upper hand in the artillery battle was entirely on the side of the German fleet, and the "Nelson" had already been hit several times, although it was not "shot into the soul" like the "Hood", but it was also beaten to the point of fire.
If we can fight for a few more hours, we may be able to sink the "Nelson".
But now, the "Nelson" can only be spared, and the tail between the legs is withdrawn from the battle.
Of course, it was not possible to run all the way to Holland, and after withdrawing from the battle, the "Bismarck" would be towed by the "Tirpitz" to change course, and then withdraw to Wilhelmshaven for overhaul.
"Admiral, the Germans seem to have fled" On the "Nelson", Admiral Tovey, the commander of the British Home Fleet, breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the German fleet accelerate its departure.
"How's the Prince of Wales doing?"
asked Admiral Tovey.
"Hit hard and ran aground on Lerwick Beach, the main turret was blown off, 2 were blown up, the bow was almost blown up, and the damage was very heavy" In fact, it was almost as sunk as the war, and the "Prince of Wales" was stranded in Lerwick, which was very close to Bergen and Stavanger, and the German planes would definitely continue to attack and blow it up completely sooner or later.
"After all, it didn't sink, and we have completed the mission."
Admiral Tovey smiled bitterly, "But in this battle, we lost the Prestige, the Hood, and the Prince of Wales was seriously damaged and stranded, and the result was only a German mothership, really" Before he finished his words, the communications officer spoke in a tone as if he was mourning: "Admiral, the telegram of the C fleet, the Ark Royal was attacked by S79 torpedo bombers again, and 3 torpedoes were hit, and now it is 18 degrees, a large amount of water has entered the engine room, and the main engine has stopped running, and now Vice Admiral Somerville is organizing manpower to make every effort to repair it" "What" Admiral Tovey opened his mouth, trying to say something, but he couldn't say anything.
He knew that the Home Fleet would most likely lose the Ark Royal, because the Germans would not spare an aircraft carrier that had lost power.
"Prestige", "Hood", "Prince of Wales", and now "Ark Royal" In addition, the fierce air battles of the past two or three days have cost Britain at least a thousand planes and hundreds of pilots, which is really a heavy loss With the loss of these important warships, the balance of Anglo-German naval power has been reversed in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, and the English Channel.
If the United States does not enter the war as soon as possible, Britain will lose the war.
"Vice Admiral, I propose to transfer the fleet command."
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Colonel Scott walked into the conning tower with a sad face, his trouser legs soaking wet, apparently just walking in the water.
"Can't close the gap," Lieutenant General Somerville asked, looking at Scott.
Scott shook his head, "The damage pipe is clogging as much as possible, but there is no power, the pump is not working, and the sea is always increasing" It is impossible to completely plug the gap, this has to go to the dockyard for overhaul, and at sea it can only be plugged so-so, and the sea water will still pour into the breach, but less often.
If the pumping machine worked, the ship would not sink as long as more water was discharged than was leaked in.
"Now we can only inject water to keep it balanced, and completely seal the engine room."
Colonel Scott said, "Then let the other warships tow back to Scotland, and if the Germans attack again, the Ark Royal will be completely finished."
"They'll definitely come again," Vice Admiral Somerville smiled bitterly, "let's arrange for most of the people to evacuate, as long as the war is not over, we still need these excellent naval soldiers." ” Somerville was not mistaken, and at the same time as he left the "Ark Royal", the Stavanger base sent hundreds of bombers, torpedo planes, and fighters to form an attack aircraft group and flew in the direction of the "Ark Royal".
At the same time, 2 German motherships under the command of Helmuthayer also ventured to send a second strike wave.
Under the blows of these two waves of German attack aircraft, at 10:13 a.m. on June 11, the aircraft carrier "Ark Royal" flipped and sank to the bottom of the sea. t1706231537: