Chapter 7: The Horror of Dogger Bank (Seven)
According to go229 data, the captain of the Feng De Tan En is not Ta Pa Ke Na, but Marx Hahn. Change it!
"Commander, Mary Queen has hit Moltke!"
The fierce flames of the Moltke's battlecruiser ignited the passion of all officers and men on board the Lion. It was known that Germany's most outstanding young commander, Admiral Scheer, one of the two strategic geniuses of the German Navy, was on board the Moltke. He was the mastermind behind the chaos caused to the Royal Navy's overseas fleet since the start of the war, and the one who had led the Grand Fleet to a crushing defeat, bombarding British military ports and landing on British soil.
August 4, after Germany and Britain declared war on each other, the old ministers retreated one after another, and the vast North Atlantic became a stage for young people to play and swing. The romantic Europeans regarded David Beatty and Hipper as a pair of private friends who were sworn enemies in the national war, like medieval knights fighting for their kings. The Battle of Dogger Bank on November 14 was the first head-on confrontation between the Round Table Knights of the Grand Fleet and the Teutonic Knights of the High Seas Fleet.
The outcome was a foregone conclusion, the Grand Fleet's presence was awe-inspiring, the Germans fled in disarray, and Hebe-Westfalen's flagship rode out the storm. Young Royal Navy sailors glanced at their unflappable fleet commander David Beatty with renewed admiration.
"With three battleships holding back my footsteps, the Pacific Fleet makes a desperate counterattack......" Betty's hands fell down around her chest, and she said with mixed emotions: "The plan wasn't bad, what a pity, my old friend, I have three Invincible-class ships and an intelligence advantage, while you and your Mutsu can't last more than four hours!"
Seawater flooding in from the B turret magazine was quickly brought under control, but by this time Moltke had taken on over 1,500 tons of water; the weight of this extra burden reduced her speed to 18 knots (33 km/h), making it impossible for her to shake off Lion. As the range closed, British gunners grew anxious and began firing wildly with their 4-inch guns.
At 19:01, Wang Haitie walked out of the command tower with a armored conning tower and came to the starboard side of the bow of the Moltke.
After pouring a large amount of water into the B turret, the spreading fire was gradually brought under control and extinguished by the damage control team's effective strangulation. The stumbling and staggering Moltke cruiser momentarily disappeared into the moonlight. When Wang Haitong arrived at the bow of the Moltke cruiser, he saw that the rear of the pearl-white painted forecastle, the swaying smokestacks, and the remaining half of the cylindrical mast were all covered with scars from knife cuts, as well as traces of the fierce fire and smoke. On the starboard side near the bow, the last lifeboat of the Moltke was lowered, along with oil barrels filled with fuel and wooden barrels filled with coke. Three iron-blooded men, wearing only their underwear and tank tops, were exercising their bodies.
"First Lieutenant, the launch is ready!" The British shell splinters whizzed past the port side of the Moltke, the armor shrieking in a heart-rending scream. Captain Magnus von Levetzow came forward, pointing to the young German faces: "Herrmann-Grenadier, from Schleswig; Henkel-Donatius, from Augsburg; Theodor-Molinari, from Bavaria..."
They were all a group of young men in their late teens, full of vigor and vitality. Wang Haiting, who was only thirty-six years old, suddenly felt a sense of agedness, her eyes reddening as she pondered for half a day but couldn't find any stirring words to match the youthful energy of these young lives. She raised her arm, hesitated for a long time, and finally abandoned the grandiose rhetoric of a politician, instead giving a simple yet solemn military salute to these young people who were humble in status but not lacking in nobility.
Just before the next British broadside, three sailors jumped into the icy blackness of the North Sea, climbed aboard a lifeboat and picked up oars to pull with all their might towards the silent, deadly vastness of the ocean on the starboard side of the Moltke.
"We sing loudly today and drink deeply of that icy fine wine."
I'm about to leave, let the wine glass make a crisp sound.
Let me hold your hand again, holding your fair hand.
Farewell, my beloved
Farewell, my beloved
Farewell, take care of yourself.
We're going on an expedition.
We're going on an expedition.
We're going on an expedition to England!
"England!"
The warrior's figure gradually went away, suddenly, a German sailor hummed in a low voice the "We're Sailing Against England" written by German patriotic writer Hermann L?ns. The sailor's low and mournful voice echoed, and soon was piercing his throat due to his life that was about to disappear.
For centuries, the Royal Navy, born of pirates, rushed towards the vast and desolate sea to the majestic song "Rule-Britannia", defeating the invincible Spanish Armada, winning the global war with the Sea Beggars, and gaining glory at Trafalgar. On November 14, 1914, the sailors on board the Invincible still sang the Royal Navy's military anthem, embracing the icy North Sea without hesitation, while on the other side, the military song of the German nation also rose to a crescendo.
The low hum of the sailors subsided, but soon more and more sailors joined in, eventually transforming into a mighty roar of a warship clad in armor and wielding a knight's sword, evolving into a powerful challenge to the ocean from the German people, sublimating into the strongest sound of the era of giant ships and cannons!
At 19:33, Lieutenant Commander Hellmuth Heye lit the fuse of the explosive boat, and flames and smoke danced on the icy surface of the North Sea, as if the great sea soul of the German nation was gradually being stirred.
****
At 18:51, the first salvo of SMS Von der Tann hit HMS Invincible, forcing her to signal "I am badly damaged, abandoning the fight" and withdraw from the battle.
The departure of the Invincible did not change the precarious situation of the bait fleet. At 7:12 pm, two high-speed fleets crossed each other under the hazy moonlight, with the closest distance exceeding 3,000 yards.
The first battlecruiser squadron's slightly curved course reduced the angle between the two fleets, and the main armament of Queen Mary, Princess Royal, Tiger's amidships and aft turrets finally came into action. As a key member of Fisher's faction, John Jellicoe deeply understood the true meaning of Admiral Fisher's 3R principle (ruthless, relentless, remorseless) and attached great importance to gunnery training for the Royal Navy. In the Dogger Bank battle, the battered British gunners performed beyond expectations on the moonlit night of November 14 in the North Atlantic, showcasing their advantage in 15-inch and 13.5-inch main caliber guns.
Tiger hit Blücher again, at 19:07 a 15-inch shell from the gun between the third funnel and the engine room struck Blücher's stern. The armour-piercing shell penetrated the combined casemate and turret armour of the old pre-dreadnought battleship, which had been launched in 1907, exploding in the magazine, which then ignited the magazine under D turret.
The detonating magazine consumed all the oxygen in Brünnhilde's stern, dozens of officers and men inside had no time to react, suffocated to death in an instant. The solid horizontal armor on the rear deck of Brünnhilde seemed to twist downward, and soon broke open with a tremendous explosion sound, rebounding from the energy released by the magazine.
Dozens of gunners and more damage control personnel followed the 39-ton, 28cm SKL/45 twin main turret into the air, then fell irresistibly into the sea. In an instant, a thick black smoke, spinning iron fragments, and scorching human bone dust burst out from inside the hull of the Blücher, and flames over ten meters high illuminated the black-painted Dogger Bank.
Colonel Alexander Edman was thrown out of the conning tower by the ship's violent rocking, and as he struggled to get up with his ears ringing, the deputy commander of the battleship Brünnhilde rushed over, frantically gesturing something in front of him.
It's not necessary for the deputy captain to remind anyone, everyone knows that the Brünnhilde is done. Colonel Edmann picked up his military cap which had fallen on the command tower deck with a look of relief, dusting it off as if it were his own child, and gently patted the emblem on the cap.
"Send a telegram to the High Seas Fleet Command..." Colonel Dae put on his Shanghai military cap, gazed deeply at the German coastline in front of him, and dictated a hasty farewell telegram to the communications soldier: "November 14, 1914, 19:01 hours, SMS Yorck was hit by a torpedo, sinking is inevitable. SMS Yorck will make a final counterattack. Long live the Kaiser! Long live Germany!"
At 19:25, the heavily smoking and burning Blücher refused to surrender to Queen Mary's battlecruisers and was sunk by two torpedoes from them. Until the last second before sinking, the only remaining 280mm main gun of the old battleship still fired!
****
At 19:12, the two fleets having passed each other rapidly opened up a fighting distance. Queen Mary steamed directly at the badly damaged Blücher, while Princess Royal and Tiger turned again to pursue Derfflinger under Kommodore von Hipper's command.
At 19:25, the disastrous Dogger Bank battle had been going on for over an hour. The flagship of the decoy fleet, Moltke, was heavily damaged, Blücher sank, and Von der Tann was lightly damaged; David Beatty's First Battlecruiser Squadron also suffered significant losses, with Invincible sinking and Queen Mary being hit by the mortally wounded Blücher.
At 19:49, the lookout on Von der Tann spotted three shadows to the east. At 18:22, the three battleships that had flashed by in Moltke's lookout's glasses finally appeared, brazenly crossing Von der Tann's path as she steamed eastward, and Von der Tann found herself in a desperate situation of being caught between two fires.
At this point, the Battle of Dogger Bank had become a complete mess. After some textbook tactical maneuvers, night fighting, close combat and chaotic battles unfolded one after another. Beatty's flagship Lion chased down Hipper's Moltke, while Queen Mary annihilated the old Blücher, but was counterattacked; Princess Royal and Tiger were still chasing down Derfflinger, performing a dance of life and death on Dogger Bank. The decoy fleet and the First Battlecruiser Squadron dispersed in formation, with Invincible sinking at the westernmost part of the battlefield. Moltke and Lion clashed in a decisive battle on the western front, while Queen Mary sank Blücher in the central part of the battlefield to soothe her wounds, then cautiously pursued eastward; on the eastern side of the battlefield, Derfflinger and Tiger and Princess Royal chased each other; at the farthest eastern end of the battlefield, Rear Admiral Arthur Leveson's three Indomitable-class dreadnoughts arrived late.
"Asshole!" Colonel Marx-Hahn slammed his fist against the thick armor of the command tower, ignoring the bloody hand as he gazed out in the direction of Heligoland Bay and said dryly: "General Hipper, the decoy fleet has done all it can..."
