Chapter 257: Finding Those Lost Things Again

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When George was pulled out of the icy seawater, he was already so cold he couldn’t speak. He knew he was still lucky, because after he had jumped into the sea, he had found a hard wooden plank. A sailor, George, who was only a few meters away from him, had stopped moving and had sunk into the depths of the sea right before his eyes, and he had been unable to reach out a hand to save him.

And when he had drunk a mouthful of hot water and had slightly recovered his senses, the first thing he did was to climb up from the deck and press himself against the ship’s railing, looking at the sea in the distance. The behemoth that had once been endless to the eye was gone. The warship HMS Malaya, on which he had lived for many years, was no longer there.

“Where’s the Malaya? Where’s the Malaya?” George asked, pointing at the sea to the still-shaken sailors below him. He roared, attracting the attention of the sailors on this destroyer.

“Sir!” A sailor, after glancing at his rank, saluted and then said, “Please, control yourself! The battleship HMS Malaya has already sunk. You have been floating in the cold river water for forty minutes. It would be best for you to get some rest.”

“Where’s the Malaya? Don’t you lie to me!” George turned his head and murmured with a look of despair. The sailor behind him was taken aback for a moment, then saw the deep despair and sorrow in George’s eyes.

Suddenly, George remembered something and looked at the sailor. “Where is Captain Brown? Quick, take me to him! Have you found the captain of the Malaya? Quick, pull him out of the sea! Quick!”

“Sir! Sir! Please calm down! Half an hour ago, Captain Brown sent a telegram to the entire fleet and decided to go down with his ship… so we were unable to rescue him,” the sailor said with a sigh. “But we have found the executive officer. He is resting in a cabin below.”

“My God,” George turned his head again and stared blankly at the sea, which was covered with floating corpses, oil slicks, and broken pieces of wood. And then he saw an even more terrifying sight.

On the distant sea, a huge British warship was spewing thick smoke. The great fire on it was still clearly visible even in the daytime. That warship was also sinking slowly. George could even faintly see people jumping off it.

In the end, the German Air Force shot down all the British planes that had bravely taken off to meet them. Ten Gladiator and seven Swordfish bombers were destroyed in the sky by the German naval air arm. The carrier-based fighter pilots of the British Royal Navy had shown their opponents their extraordinary courage: even when their fighters were completely wiped out, the bomber pilots still dared to take off to engage the enemy planes, sacrificing their young lives.

Of the 31 British air force pilots, only four were rescued, because the pilots of the planes that were hit by the cannons equipped on the German aircraft rarely had a chance to bail out. But they had also achieved an admirable result: two German Stuka dive bombers and one Fw-190 fighter were shot down, and five German pilots were killed.

But the highest honor of this day still did not belong to these British pilots, because they were ultimately the losers. The German naval air arm had rewritten the history of naval warfare on this day.

An hour ago, a light cruiser of this fleet, the HMS Penelope, had sunk. The destroyers of the British fleet had been forced to rush to rescue the men. And just half an hour later, the battleship Malaya, which had been hit at about the same time as the Penelope, had sunk to the bottom of the sea, and the entire battlefield had become a disaster.

But this was not the end. The German planes, taking advantage of the chaos in the British fleet, had cleared the few remaining British planes from the sky in one go and had then ferociously pounced on their main target, the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle.

Soon, the carrier Eagle was hit by a torpedo. But at this moment, it seemed that the British’s luck had arrived. The German carrier-based aircraft, due to their initial nervousness and chaos, had foolishly dropped many of their bombs and torpedoes. Now, these planes had no bombs or torpedoes to continue the attack.

With no other choice, the German carrier-based aircraft began to return to base. But as they disappeared over the horizon, the second attack wave of the German naval air arm plunged out of the clouds. The fully-armed German planes dropped three bombs in one go, hitting the carrier Eagle, and also sent a destroyer that had come to the rescue to the bottom of the sea.

Almost all the combat power of the entire British fleet had been wiped out. The remaining cruiser, with two newer destroyers, turned and fled, leaving behind three older warships to rescue the men in the water. All the sailors on the destroyers were very nervous. They gathered around the anti-aircraft gun positions, staring at the distant sky with faces full of fear.

The pilots of the German naval air arm had, on this day, sunk one British Royal Navy battleship, the Malaya; one aircraft carrier, the Eagle; one cruiser, the Penelope; and one destroyer. A combat record like this was enough to bring them endless honor.

George looked at the slowly sinking warship in the distance, his hand gripping the railing tighter and tighter. A few hours ago, he had been playing poker with Frank and the others for fun. A few hours ago, he, like everyone else here, had believed that the British Royal Navy was the invincible hegemon of the seas. But now? He was just a drowned rat, just a cold and forlorn soldier, just a pitiful sailor who had lost his warship.

“The entire fleet is to proceed north at full speed! There are at least 2,000 freezing British sailors floating there now! We are going to pull them up!” Lütjens was especially happy today. He even had someone bring out the red wine he had treasured in his captain’s cabin and poured a glass for every officer on the bridge. The remaining half a bottle was sent to the carrier air group’s command bridge, where the cheers could now be heard throughout the entire warship.

“Full speed ahead! Prepare to receive the returning carrier-based aircraft! They are our heroes today! I don’t care what kind of wine you use, get them drunk!” the first mate said loudly with a smile.

Because he was so excited, Lütjens habitually raised his binoculars to look at the sea. Realizing that this was now useless, he secretly put the binoculars down, then looked left and right and gave his other order. “Telegraph room! Send a telegram to the Führer at the Felsennest! The content is as follows: The Second Fleet of the High Seas Fleet has heavily damaged the British fleet off the coast of the Netherlands, sinking one battleship, one aircraft carrier, one cruiser… Commander Lütjens.”

After he had given the order, another cheer broke out on the bridge. Today, as officers of the German Navy, they were too happy. The thing that generations had longed for day and night, the thing that their predecessors in the German High Seas Fleet had failed to do, they had done today: they had annihilated a British fleet at almost zero cost.

“General! The radar shows that our air group has entered our alert airspace. The brothers from the air defense fighters have already gone up to meet them,” the radar operator reported loudly. His words once again caused a cheer. It seemed that the frustration that had been suppressed in their hearts for so many years had been vented. Everyone’s mood had never been so good.

“Look! Our heroes are back!” After a while, a lookout in the mast’s crow’s nest shouted.

The first Fw-190 fighter landed on the deck of the aircraft carrier. The ground crew rushed up to help him open the cockpit canopy, and with many hands, they pulled the man out of the plane. Soldiers who had been waiting rushed to push the fighter to the side, and the second plane was already charging toward the carrier’s runway in the air.

At the beginning, every time a plane landed, it would draw a cheer from the ground crew. But soon, the sound of cheering disappeared. The ground crew just silently received the pilots from the planes and then pushed the planes to the side.

This was because most of these fighters had bullet holes in their fuselages, and some even had holes shot in their cockpit canopies. The pilots were panting with exhaustion and had to be helped out of their cockpits by the ground crew.

When the first Stuka landed on the deck, everyone was stunned. This dive bomber, with its cockpit surrounded by thick steel plates, could be described as being in tatters. There was a row of machine-gun holes in its wing, and two not-so-small holes in its horizontal stabilizer.

What was even more terrifying was the navigator’s cockpit of this plane. The entire canopy was covered in red bloodstains. The plexiglass of the canopy was already shattered, and the machine gun that had been fixed to the rear seat was long gone.

The pilot opened the canopy. The ground crew hurriedly pulled him out of the cockpit. Only then did they discover that his parachute had been damaged by shrapnel, and there were even scratches on his shoulder. This pilot was the hero who had been the first to hit the Malaya.

“My navigator has been hit! My God, get a doctor! Get a doctor, quick! He needs help! Quick!” As soon as he got out of the plane, this pilot did not shout the lines people expected. He shouted in a panic, stumbling into a ground crewman who was preparing to open a bottle of champagne for him.

“Congratulations on being the first to hit the Brits’ battleship!” an officer said, walking over and steadying the somewhat panicked pilot. “And your navigator was very brave. He helped you complete a historic attack with his own life! You have done your best by bringing his body back.”

The pilot looked at the officer blankly and finally calmed down a little. “Sir! I hit that warship! I hit it!”

“Yes!” the officer said, saluting at attention to the pilots who were resting on the deck, leaning against the walls of the superstructure. “Heil Führer! Congratulations on completing your combat mission!”

“Heil Führer!” a few pilots scrambled up from the deck and returned the salute sporadically. Their clothes were a bit messy, their smiles a bit stiff, but something different could be seen in their eyes. This something had been missing from the eyes of the officers and men of the German Navy for a long time. Perhaps ten years? Perhaps twenty? Perhaps fifty. They had even forgotten what it was they had lost.

Now, they had found those things they had once lost—courage.