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Chapter 23 Looting (Part 2)

The attempted torpedo raid from the British destroyer scared Prince Eugen up and down.

After the horror was finally settled, the heavy cruiser was completely angered by the attack of the British destroyer.

I was almost blown away in a mess by the torpedo fired by the British. This fact made the German officers and soldiers who reacted felt that their personal dignity had been seriously damaged.

In the eyes of these German naval officers and soldiers, although the British attacked themselves openly, this courage is indeed admirable.

However, the soldiers at sea should openly bombard each other with cannons and sneak attacks with torpedoes is too shameless, and it is simply a cowardly behavior.

So in the eyes of these glorious and proud German sea knights, the British became a complete sneak attacker, a shameless murderer, not a real warrior, not a real man, a bandit who only despicable casting arrows on the side, etc....

The poor British naval officers and soldiers were not only overturned to the ground by the officers and soldiers of this German heavy cruiser, but also stepped on more than a thousand or hundreds of feet.

These Germans didn't think about how huge the gap in strength between themselves and those two small opponents was. Moreover, the German Navy was also good at torpedo attacks and had never seen them say hello to the other party in advance before the torpedo attack.

In fact, these German naval officers and soldiers are looking for psychological comfort for their previous mistakes. After all, as a proud naval soldier, they are almost killed by such a weak opponent. This feeling is very bad. Since they cannot find a reason to resolve themselves, they can only push all the mistakes to the enemy.

The angry Prince Eugen asked the flagship to allow him to leave the formation to attack the British destroyer. At the same time, while pouring out anger at the two British destroyers fleeing wildly in the artillery fire, he began to slowly turn to prepare for the flagship Admiral Schell, who was following behind.

General Lütjens simply agreed to the heavy cruiser's request without any consideration.

The commander of the Ocean Fleet was having a headache for the battleship to die on the battle line. In order to express his loyalty to the great young head of Germany, he must do his best to ensure the personal safety of the head of state envoy on the battleship.

What's even more troublesome is that the ship is carrying almost half of the Imperial Navy Academy. These naval reserve officers are valuable assets for the future development of the Imperial Navy. If these non-commissioned officers suffer serious losses in battle, the Marshal Del will eat himself without any seasonings.

Lütjens placed this warship in the initial plan in a safe strategic reserve position, but unexpectedly, the head of state envoy made a request to participate in the battle as soon as the war began. Lütjens, who was always cautious, certainly did not dare to refuse the request of the head of state envoy.

So the poor lieutenant general had to pay attention to the safety of the warship while commanding the fleet to fight. Lütjens was really distressed and could not say anything, so he could only pray that God would bless the precious warship with something else.

The previous desperate assault of the British destroyers was deeply beyond his expectations, and these destroyers now had indeed posed a threat to the flanks of the fleet. He was about to call out a warship from the light cruiser formation behind to clean up these annoying small boats and protect the flanks of the fleet's battleships when they turn.

Since the heavy cruiser, which now lies in the dangerous shelling queue, has made such a request, he has no reason to disagree.

Lütjens didn't know that Prince Eugen had just escaped from the torpedo attack of British destroyers. In the eyes of this fleet commander, although this heavy cruiser was a new ship, the British destroyers could not pose any threat to her except those torpedoes. It was only a matter of time before the firepower of this warship was used to deal with the small destroyers.

In order to show concern for subordinates, and to allow the head envoy on that battleship to show his rich experience, Lütjens, while responding to Prince Eugen's request, added a sentence at the end, "Be careful of the torpedo attack of the opponent's destroyer."

The commander's ordinary advice once again hit the self-esteem of the officers on Prince Eugen, and the care of the comrades turned into an unbearable irony in their eyes.

Prince Eugen quickly replied to the flagship "I understand", then turned around and pulled the whistle and rushed towards the two British destroyers that were fleeing in a panic.

All the officers and soldiers of the Prince Eugen were determined to cleanse their shame with the British, although no one except themselves thought that the British had humiliated them.

"Fire! Fire! Tear them apart! As long as they are still floating on the sea, don't ceasefire. Let these British men see what the outcome will be if they challenge the dignity of German naval officers. Block the deck of the enemy ship, and I don't want to see someone moving on it unless the other party clearly expresses his surrender to us. The port side observation team pays close attention to the movements of the enemy cruiser and report it immediately if there is any situation."

Navy Colonel von Herz stood in front of the narrow observation slit of the armored bridge and issued a loud command.

The navigator and combat officers under his subordinates stood on their respective stages to issue the captain's combat instructions to each corresponding post of the ship. Although the scene in the bridge seemed a bit chaotic on the surface, in fact, everything was going on in an orderly manner.

The helmsman repeated the rudder instructions of the navigator over and over again, flexibly pressed the steering wheel, and finely controlled the course of the warship.

The combat officer wore headphones and kept accepting the feedback from various combat positions, and adjusted the firepower distribution of the warship according to the ship's angle.

Several navigators stood in front of the chart and kept observing the battleship tracks recorded by the automatic route instrument on one side, and marked the relative positions and tracks of both sides on the chart according to the position parameters of the enemy ships sent from the artillery observation room.

After encountering the fiercely harsh stop shooting of the German navy, the two British destroyers had already given up the stupid idea of ​​continuing to approach the enemy ship for close-range shelling.

The rising water columns around the hull finally calmed down the two crazy destroyer captains.

In fact, when they saw both battleships pointing their firepower at them, they should know that there is nothing they can do, but the fanatical belief in devoting themselves to the British Empire made them lose the ability to correctly judge the situation.

After five minutes of struggling through German artillery fire, the blood in the hearts of British naval officers and soldiers began to cool down slowly.

Perhaps because they had successfully launched a torpedo attack on the enemy ship, no British would have expected this attack to be a shocking result. These British naval sailors felt that they had fulfilled their responsibilities for the empire and kings, and the German navy's artillery fire began to become increasingly dense. In this case, human instinctive desire to survive began to slowly overwhelm the loyalty to the empire and the king. In any case, they had done much more for the king than they had imagined.

But they were awake too late, and a difficult and powerful enemy had already set their sights on them.

The current performance of the two destroyers is very appropriate to describe it as panic. They are desperately doing track avoidance, crossing the route back and forth, intending to avoid the artillery fire of the terrifying enemy who is approaching madly behind.

Both destroyers were injured and could no longer run out of their maximum speed, but they could still maintain a speed of 30 knots and run wildly.

At this speed, it is still possible to get rid of ordinary German warships. Unfortunately, they met Prince Eugen, who was also proud of their speed. What's even more unfortunate is that they rushed too close to the German fleet.

When the two destroyers turned their course and began to escape towards their fleet, Prince Eugen was already like an angry tyrannosaurus spewing flames and pressing against these two weak opponents who offended them.

This 18,000-ton heavy cruiser was as flexible as a lightning striker of more than 100 tons. Before the two destroyers could react, the Killing God with the skeleton flag had already occupied their left rear position and began to slowly ravage these two opponents who had humiliated her with all their weapons.

The two 203mm double-unit front main turrets of Prince Eugen each chose a crazy escape destroyer as the target to start a pleasant flat-fire bombardment.

Since it is a destroyer and is not on the list of prisoners, Prince Eugen can launch an attack in any way she thinks is appropriate.

However, because the Germans fought too hard, the distance between the two sides was too close.

The bulwarks of the British D-class destroyer are notoriously low, and the bulwarks of Prince Eugen as an attack ship that fights in the North Sea are very high. As a result, Prince Eugen's four powerful main guns placed the aiming points on the tall bridge of the destroyer, because due to insufficient shooting angle, they really had no place to fight except there.

However, the three 105mm high-level dual-purpose cannons on the starboard side of Prince Eugen have their place. This very famous excellent naval cannon in World War II is most suitable for this kind of mid-to-close shooting.

So six 105 rapid-fire naval guns began to launch a storm-like bombardment towards the deck of the British destroyer that was close to each five seconds.

The Defender, the closest to Prince Eugen, was the first to be hit. Although the brave British sailors used the two 120mm naval guns at the stern of the ship to fight back, the gap in strength between the two sides was too far.

After four close shots from Prince Eugen, the Defender became a pile of burning scrap iron.

Her bridge was completely destroyed during the third volley of the German warship, and the light-armored box-building was completely smoothed out from its base by high-explosive grenades, leaving only a pile of burning twisted wreckage.

The two main guns in the first part have been blown away together with the first building. Only the lower half of the chimney in the front is left, while the chimney in the rear is gone. The twisted steam pipes are frantically spraying strong steam and hot water columns into the air. The destroyer has completely lost its power and started to slow down.

There was no sign of active people on the deck of the battleship, and there were charred and broken corpses everywhere.

There was no one like a lifeboat on the deck of the lifeboat in the middle, and they had been torn into pieces of wood by heavy rain 37mm shells.

The two quadruple 533mm torpedo launchers that almost exploded Prince Eugen directly to Iceland from here to burn, so they couldn't tell what they were like. Unfortunately, it was not loaded with torpedoes, otherwise the pain of the warship would have ended with a roar.

The y turret at the stern of the ship became a pile of burning bonfires. The position of the x turret is now a large hole gushing outward. The deep-water bomb on the release rail of the deep-water bomb may have been thrown into the sea by British sailors, otherwise it would be a disaster. The same is true for the two deep-water bomb launchers, leaving only the bare launch poles looming in the blazing fire.

The Defender has become a burning steel coffin. The British Royal Navy officers and soldiers can now choose only two ways. One is to hide in the burning hull and then be cremated or buried directly. The second is to climb onto the deck and then be killed by German artillery fire and then be cremated or buried there.

It is quite terrifying to be burned alive, not to mention that this warship is slowly sinking, the Germans must have dug many holes under the waterline of this ship. The sea water quickly flooded the boiler and engine room. Even on the deck of Prince Eugen, the terrifying explosion sound made by the boiler when the water inflowed can be heard.

The twin 37mm machine gun group and the 4-link 20mm machine gun group on Prince Eugen finally stopped firing at the pile of wreckage, and various large and medium-caliber artillery had already transferred the firepower to another fleeing enemy.

At this time, more than a dozen figures suddenly rushed out at the exit of the first building of the Defender, which almost made the German sailors unable to believe their eyes. They couldn't understand how the British sailors survived the burning crematorium in that terrifying attack.

A four-unit 20mm machine gunner excitedly pulled the bolt and wanted to fire at the figures, but was stopped by the commander of the gun group standing behind him with a standard civil gesture. He was slapped hard on the back of the head by the officer.

"What do you idiot want to do? They have no resistance anymore. We are glorious German naval soldiers, not butchers."

The British sailors first rolled and crawled, running towards the tail of the ship with thick smoke from the deck. When they arrived at the ship, they found that the lifeboat had become a pile of broken wood, and then began to stumble towards the bow, and the bow had already burned into a ball of fire.

Several people's military uniforms were suddenly ignited by the high temperature. They screamed and jumped out of the ship and jumped into the water with thick oil floating. The others also found that they were desperate, so one after another survivor jumped into the sea.

They were not wearing life jackets, and the toxic heavy oil on the water stimulated their skin and respiratory tracts. The people struggled in the viscous oil to escape the sinking battleship desperately.

Because the destroyer, which had almost been flattened by the Germans, was making chilling metal twists and breaking sounds, everyone knew that the warship was about to capsize.

Prince Eugen passed by the Defender quickly, and she had an enemy that had not been resolved. The Happy fleeing desperately towards the British fleet, 350 meters away from her.

The sailors on Prince Eugen felt a heartfelt shock when they looked at the broken and charred shell of the Defender, but this was the only shortcut to make up for their previous mistakes.

War is cruel. As long as you wear this military uniform, you must have the awareness of becoming a broken corpse. This is the unanimous idea of ​​all officers and soldiers.

The Defender finally turned over after a wail, then squirted with mist and water columns to slid towards the seabed. Before he could swim out of the wreck, the British sailor screamed loudly and was sucked into the seabed by a huge vortex.

The remaining dozen lucky people struggled helplessly on the sea. Several seriously injured sailors began to wave their arms to Prince Eugen, who was passing by quickly, and cried for help.

The battle is still in progress, and Prince Eugen cannot stop the ship and rescue him in order to save several enemy people who fell into the water, but just watching those people drowned alive is not in line with the knight tradition of the German Navy.

A large inflatable life raft and several lifebuoys were thrown into the sea from the stern of the ship. Looking at the British swimming desperately towards the precious life-saving equipment, the German naval officers and soldiers who had just completed a killing felt a little comfort in their hearts.

The battle continued, and the Happy One could not escape after all. A 203mm shell hit the engine compartment ended her escape journey.

Steam gushed out from the exits of each cabin, and the warship tilted forward like it was tripped by something, and the bow of the ship was almost buried in the wave peak.

The Happy continued to struggle and glide forward for a distance before stopping, and then another batch of German shells accurately hit the deck of the lost destroyer.

Prince Eugen coldly harvested the lives of the Royal Navy officers and soldiers, and shells of various caliber were swept across the narrow deck of the battleship again and again.

In less than fifteen seconds, the Happy became a broken incinerator like her sister ship Defender, and before that, the Happy had only had time to shoot two volleys at Prince Eugen.

All superstructures of the battleship were completely destroyed and the deck was burned into a sea of ​​fire.

With the vent of the Defender's mind before, Prince Eugen gradually calmed down and stopped ravaging the destroyer after two volleys of secondary guns. The Germans were ready to give the British sailors a chance to escape.

But what made the German naval officers and soldiers feel regretful was that the British still could not escape in the end.

Three seconds later, a terrifying explosion suddenly occurred on the destroyer. I don’t know whether the fire ignited the ammunition depot or the deep-water bomb depot on her ship.

The huge shock wave was so strong that it could be observed with the naked eye. Various steel fragments rushed towards the deck of Prince Eugen. A Haqikes machine gun with its gun stand rolled over more than 300 meters in full view of the public and landed on the Prince Eugen's Luosu Bridge.

The Quicker was blown into pieces in front of the German naval officers and soldiers. The remaining half of the first floor struggled on the water with the wreckage of a 120mm cannon for four or five seconds, and then inserted it into the sea with a beautiful back rolling action, and then disappeared without a trace.

There was only a large area of ​​heavy dirty oil left on the water, various burning or smoking fragments, as well as various debris on ships, which proved to people that a destroyer of 1,900 tons had been floating here a few seconds ago.

Prince Eugen did not slow down, the battle continued, and the warship did not have time to express any emotion.

After passing by less than fifty meters behind the sinking place of the Happy Sink, Prince Eugen made a slow-angle turn to the port side.

The most beautiful heavy cruiser of the German Navy drew a beautiful arc on the sea. She did not realize that she had left the original route while chasing the two destroyers.

Prince Eugen had unknowingly inserted the inner formation of the British cruiser fleet, which was fighting against the periphery shelling array.

Now the battleship with the black skeleton battle flag has found her next target, an opponent who finally looks more in line with her identity, the British Royal Navy light cruiser Sheffield.

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Chapter completed!
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