Chapter 270: Commendation

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In the dim light, Prien was recording his nautical log. They had been in a submerged state for two days now, and for all that time, he and h

In the dim light, Prien was recording his nautical log. They had been in a submerged state for two days now, and for all that time, he and his U-boat, U-211, had not been able to completely shake off the entanglement of the British destroyer fleet.

Although the British Navy had been thrown into disarray when they were ambushed, their well-established traditions and combat experience, formed over many years, had allowed them to make many correct judgments. For example, sending destroyers to block the several important exits.

Although this move was still a step too late, and the U-boat U-211 had already fled at full speed to one of the exits of Scapa Flow, the British destroyers had still discovered the U-211 in the narrow waters.

But it could be said that the first destroyer to catch up was unlucky. A salvo from the two torpedoes in the German submarine’s stern had left this destroyer with no way out, because following behind it were two more friendly destroyers. In such a crowded place, there was no way to dodge. And so this destroyer had taken two torpedoes head-on and had become the final pawn that helped the German submarine to escape.

Of course, the British were not willing to let the German submarine just slip away. They used their speed to roughly fix the German submarine’s position, and then, relying on their advantage of having more ships and being familiar with the terrain, they began to frantically search for the U-boat U-211.

As the disaster at Scapa Flow approached its end, the British losses had reached a staggering level. The battleship HMS Royal Sovereign, because its ammunition magazine had been hit, had suffered a cook-off of its main gun shells and had sunk in an instant, resulting in the deaths of 911 soldiers, including all officers up to the captain.

The other battleship, HMS Barham, had ultimately failed in its rescue efforts and had also followed the Royal Sovereign to the bottom of the sea. About 700 sailors had abandoned ship at the last moment, but for various reasons, the remaining soldiers had never been able to leave the warship. Although the captain of the Barham had been off the ship that night, attending a friend’s banquet, two days later, this middle-aged man, who could not escape responsibility, had shot himself in the head.

The aircraft carrier HMS Courageous had also failed to escape the fate of sinking. This warship, which was a decent one in the hands of the British, had capsized at its anchorage, and 892 men on board had gone down with the ship. The huge hull of the Courageous had made Prien think it was the newly commissioned HMS Ark Royal, but in fact, he had misjudged. This old aircraft carrier had taken the bullet for Britain’s main carriers.

The last three torpedoes fired by the Germans had been hastily aimed. At this time, it was entirely a multiple-choice question of who was the unluckiest, not a meticulously planned assassination. So the other British main warships had escaped this calamity. The torpedoes had hit the relatively less valuable cruiser HMS Norfolk. And what had made the British break out in a cold sweat was that another battleship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, had been moored right next to the Norfolk.

Can you imagine what kind of mood this was? When the British had faced the main German fleet, they had only lost one battleship and one old, obsolete aircraft carrier in a disastrous defeat, and this loss had shocked the entire British nation. But now, they had been ambushed by a single German submarine and had lost two battleships and one aircraft carrier in one go. This was enough to make one want to curse.

After receiving the report, the British First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill, fell into a coma. The King of England did not even have the mind to reprimand anyone; he sat in his seat without saying a word for a full two hours. Even the British Prime Minister had cried out loud on the spot after hearing this news. The British Parliament had even entertained the idea of a separate peace with Germany—but this idea had only appeared for a few minutes before it was drowned out by a chorus of roars for revenge.

So the British Navy had sortied in full force, not to seek a decisive naval battle with Germany, but to search the boundless sea for a single German submarine, for the U-boat U-211 that had pierced the blue sky above the British Royal Navy.

Because the density of the searching British naval vessels was too great, Prien, who had already become a hero of the German Navy, really did not dare to risk surfacing. But not daring to risk surfacing meant that he could only move forward at a slow speed. At a depth of a dozen or so meters underwater, his submarine could only travel at an economical speed of 4 knots and had to surface to charge the diesel engines every 90 nautical miles.

The crewmen were very excited because they had already completed the most incredible surprise attack and had become the executors of the most successful submarine operation in human history. Their combat record this time was something their colleagues would not be able to surpass for months. Twelve torpedoes had brought them a total of at least 70,000 tons of sinkings. This was a number that ninety percent of submarines might not be able to surpass in their entire lifetime.

“Sir, we just surfaced to periscope depth and used the snorkel to charge the batteries. About half an hour after we submerged, a destroyer came nearby and dropped two depth charges,” the first mate reported, leaning against the narrow corridor to Prien, who was on his bunk. “Should we change course again?”

“Let’s deviate 15 degrees to the east. After so long submerged, we’ve already lost our basic sense of direction. I can only estimate the general direction now. If I’m not mistaken, our current position should be here,” Prien said, agreeing to the first mate’s request. He then pointed to the sea chart for his first mate in the dim light.

“I knew we shouldn’t have smashed the telegraph and burned the codebooks! We could still be sending back the news of our successful attack,” the first mate sighed and then said with a bitter smile. “At least now we could send a telegram for help and have the navy come and meet us.”

“There was no other way,” Prien said, shaking his head. “The mission required us to destroy the telegraph and burn the codebooks. I cannot disobey orders. If the sonarman doesn’t hear any British destroyers in half an hour, then let the soldiers rest in shifts. Most of them haven’t had a rest all day.”

“I understand,” the first mate nodded and left Prien’s captain’s cabin. To call it a captain’s cabin was an overstatement. It was actually a place that integrated the radio room and a miscellaneous locker, with a bunk squeezed in wherever there was space. The only difference from the crew was that this bunk had its own lighting and a small cloth curtain to block the view.

Prien returned to his thoughts and continued to record his combat results in his nautical log. He believed that he had sunk an aircraft carrier and at least one battleship. “It could be the battleship Royal Oak, or it could be the Queen Elizabeth,” he wrote in his diary.

The seawater was still cold, and his surroundings were still full of danger. But he had successfully completed the mission given to him by the German high command, making the British completely forget the role of the German aircraft carriers and instead turn their attention to the threat of the German submarines.

But there was one thing that Prien and his first mate had both guessed wrong, and that was that the German Führer, Akado, had learned of Prien’s combat results the very next day from the reports of his spies. The German Navy had finally, at this moment, completely regained its confidence, achieving a climax of blossoming everywhere. But for the sake of caution, Akado did not rush to announce the combat results of the submarine force. He ordered this news to be carefully verified.

This was because in the Second World War of another timeline, Germany had once made a laughable joke by believing a one-sided account and falsely reporting the sinking of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal. So this time, Akado suppressed the news of this victory and began to use his spies in Britain to feed back intelligence on this matter.

However, he did not have to wait long. The news of the Scapa Flow operation was soon confirmed, because the King of England, George VI, had delivered his famous “I Fight With You” speech, confirming the news that the British battleships Barham and Royal Sovereign, and the aircraft carrier Courageous had been sunk by a German submarine in Scapa Flow, and had called on all the British people to bravely resist the German invasion—”No peace talks until Germany is defeated!”

Of course, Akado’s response was, in his personal view, quite ironic. He had plagiarized a speech that had appeared later in the other timeline. When he handed this speech to Fanny, her eyes had shone with stars.

“I regret to inform my opponents of an unfortunate piece of news. The German Navy’s trump card, the submarine force, has just heavily damaged the British Navy. Our brave and fearless officers and men have sunk a large number of British warships in one go. Facts have proven that their so-called invincible navy is vulnerable in the face of our army’s submarine force,” Akado announced the combat results of the U-211 with pride, winning a chorus of cheers from the audience.

He then said with a smile, “When my heroes return in triumph, I will personally award them the Iron Cross…” After some deliberate modification, Akado did not announce the specific submarine number or the names of the crew members, in case the submarine was subsequently sunk and he would be unable to explain it away. The German Navy had even already found a replacement, ready to claim this world-shaking achievement at any time.

“In London, some people think that Germany cannot possibly defeat the British Navy! In Paris, some people think that Germany cannot possibly defeat the French Army! They think that we Germans don’t know how to fight a war at all! And that we can’t win this war! The whole world is laughing at us! I know!” Akado shouted into the microphone. “Let them sneer and ridicule!”

He excitedly delivered his declaration to countless people. “Let them say it to the steel legions under von Rundstedt! Let them say it to our invincible pilots in the sky! Let them say it to our U-boat crews in the deep sea! Let them say it to our brave paratroopers who have shed their blood for Germany behind enemy lines! Let them say it while licking our victorious boots!”

Amidst the billions of calls of “Heil Führer Akado Rudolph,” Akado concluded his speech. “God bless Germany! No matter what happens in the future, please witness my oath today with me—Germany… will be victorious!”

But it seemed that the U-boat U-211, far away under the surface of the Atlantic, could not hear the Führer’s praise now, because they were currently with all their equipment shut down, listening in terror to the rumbling sound of a destroyer passing over the sea surface above their heads.