The Battle of Jutland
The steam of the hundreds of ships could be seen from the binoculars of Dönitz as the sunset to his left. A grin was wide on his face as he saw the distant flag of the British high fleet wave defiantly in the wind. He looked upon his massive fleet as the sailed in pursuit. The British were evacuating Russian soldiers to Britain to continue the war efforts against the Kaiserreich. Little did those soldiers know that their enemy and motherland had united to fight the communists in Russia and France. Their mission was to capture the Russian soldiers and bring them to Germany to help against the new front in the west. Things were bleak for the Central powers for Austria had fallen but thankfully Italy had the honor not to directly attack the Kaiserreich. But a victory was needed to distract the population and this was the opportunity. If done well Dönitz could destroy most the British capital ships and level the battle of the surface fleets.
"Send in the fighters to harass them!" Said Dönitz as he signaled to the Radioman. Suddenly the sky was filled with a swarm of the Kaiserreichs finest pilots...
Motti dogged the hailstorm of flak of the fleet and rained his own hailstorm of rockets onto a destroyer imploding the smoke stack covering the whole deck in smoke. The smoke allowed a torpedo bomber to lower itself to the sea and drop a tube. It trailed a white line of water before it hit the side blooming into a flower of flame. The destroyer let out a groan of submission before leaning into the sea...
The guns of the, yet to be named, Bismarck class battleship was the first to fire due to its extreme range. It's three forward 3x 800mm cannons roared with such noise that if one stood on the nearest coastline in England to Jutland they could hear it. Eight spouts of water erupted in the middle of the fleet and one directly hit a cruiser. The Cruiser was utterly demolished and its deck in the aftermath of the hit was a sea of fire as oil spilled onto the decks. In under a minute the ship sank with most of its crew trapped in its flaming decks.
Dönitz should have been happy that in only a few minutes he had sunk two ships of the so-called "British fleet" but he wasn't. He had missed 8 out of 9 shots. It was a mistake taking out this superclass battleship. It hadn't been tested enough. What he thought had been aggressiveness on his part was just plain old recklessness. He shouldn't have taken it out but it was too late to turn back...
Suddenly a ship veered off the enemy formation and charged directly at Dönitz's battleship. He grabbed his binoculars to see a blue cross on a white background. It was a Russian Cruiser charging the fleet. Dönitz heart raced as he thought about what would happen if he fired...
His mission was to rescue the Russians not destroy them. Dönitz yelled to his crew members as he pointed at the impending Russian ship, "GET ME COMMUNICATIONS WITH THAT SHIP NOW". A crew member grabbed a black phone off a nearby wall and handed it to Dönitz. On the other side of the bridge, a man turned dozens of knobs on a massive radio.
"Incoming Russian ship, cease your hostilities at once, we are here to help". Dönitz said as calm as he could but there was an uncertainty in his voice that tinged on panic.
"How can you say that after burning Petrograd! How can you say that after destroying our beautiful nation and damming it to the Bolsheviks hordes!"
"No no no! Stop! Russia and the Kaiserreich have united in a crusade against communism!"
"You lie! Damn you German scum to hell!"
"Stand down now captain. I will not give a second chance."
"If we are to die then let us die in the light of our comrades."
"Captain! Permission to fire main battery!" yelled one of the fire officers.
"Please stop!" Dönitz got no reply and slowly put down his phone. He looked through his binoculars to see the guns of the charging begin destroyer to turn.
"Captain! Permission to fire! I need a response now!"
"Yes..." Dönitz voice had trailed off. Already before the battle had properly begun, he had failed his mission.
The guns of the battleship aimed for a few moments before letting out a terrible roar. four massive, two ton, shells arched up into the air and all impacted on the Destroyer. The first two shells hit the two forward guns vaporizing them and detonating the ammo rack. The remaining shells smashed into the bridge killing the whole command crew. The destroyer was engulfed in black thick smoke and oil filled the sea as it churned.
"Signal all ships to form goose formation and advance at all haste to the center of the British column, this ends now!" Dönitz said to the flag bearer who ran out of the bridge with all haste...
Motti strafed another boat killing half a dozen exposed crew on the deck before having do dodge another hailstorm of flak. One shell exploded close enough to shake his plane. But Motti turned around as the flak stopped, presumably the crew was reloading the gun and charged the ship where the flak was coming from. He was right, he could see an AA crew struggle to insert another clip of ammo and drop it onto the floor. They saw him coming and leaped off the platform and into the sea not a moment too soon as the position detonated into a flurry of fire and smoke. The ammo was haphazardly placed around the gun and Motti's strafe detonated it causing shells to ignite and fly out of their casing to smash into the ship's side killing even more crew...
The smoke of the sinking Russian destroyer had observed both fleets view of each other. Dönitz's fifty torpedo boats sped out of the black smoke and were spotted by the spotlights of the British fleet. The first salvo destroyed a dozen boats but the forward fleet's lights focused on a hundred white lines thundering towards them. The fleet scattered as fast as they could but two destroyers were hit. Spouts of water and flame covered the decks of the destroyers. Water flooded into the rooms and drowned many of the young engine workers drowned fast. Luckily one of the Destroyers water compartments containing most of the flooding but the other was unlucky. Cold seawater smashed into the boiler detonating it killing all of the engineer's below decks. The ships smokestacks, instead of ejecting smoke, ejected flame into the cold night sky. The flame shot into the night serving as a beacon that could be seen by Dönitz from his side of the smoke.
"Send forward our Gotha bombers and Air Cruisers. Tell them to target that beacon of flame!" Dönitz told his radioman...
A massive air fleet had been trailing the sea fleet providing a rear guard and scouting force. It had been a scout plane that had first sighted the fleet in the Baltic and it would be the very same to destroy it. To make it even worse Rictofen was here...
"Finally our Revenge is now, my friend!" Rictofen felt like he was that schoolboy in that candy store. He only needed to reach out and that damn candy cane... I mean Revenge would be his! His old naval friend, captain Oliver, smiled as well. He was once a British captain until his nation had abandoned him on the shores of Africa after a naval landing gone wrong. He had trecked his way through hostile native lands with his surviving crew only to reach German Angola. Where the British had abandoned him the Germans took him in. In the night where he laid delirious, the Germans fought to protect him from the oncoming native savages. He choose to revoke his British citizenship for a German one. That caused quite the media stir in Britain and quite the opportunity for the Kaiserriech's propaganda services.
He had hated the British. They could see him and his crew get massacred from their lofty ships and did nothing...
The British were not yet helpless. As the smoke cleared the British lightships had arranged themselves at the front and began to return fire onto another charge by the Torpedo boats. They killed two dozen before the boats got into range but the survivors launched twenty torpedoes into the heart of the British fleet and missed only two shots. The 18 torpedos hit five ships damaging them and causing one to begin to sink. The British destroyers at the front launched a volley into the center of Dönitz's fleet hitting several ships. But the Bismarck class super heavy Battleship shrugged off the hits. The massive cannons began to aim slowly at the cramped up fleet.
"All ships, FIRE!" Dönitz said into the phone on his console. Suddenly the night was filled by a brilliant flash from the German ships and lights fill the night and arch into the British fleet. Splashes of water filled the ocean and flames lit up the night as shots hit the British fleet...
Motti had regrouped with the new air fleet incoming. The battle would end now! Now a hundred planes descended onto the British fleet and Motti was about to release another round of rockets when the plane next to him erupted into smoke and flame. He looked up to see a massive airship fly through the clouds. It was shaped like a cigar and stretched for hundreds of meters. Cannons bristled from the dozens of compartments below the massive balloon. Anti-aircraft cannons on the top of the canopy were now firing into the center of the diving formation destroying many. The Air fleet began to turn against the massive British airship but was losing most of their heavy bombers in the process. They were too slow...
The massive British airship was bigger than any airship the Germans had. Their Bismarck class battleships were only 90 meters long and this one was in the hundreds. The firepower of the British airship was also massive. The many guns on the belly of the airship aimed at a German destroyer and fired. The ship was obliterated as it sank in under a minute with its oil spreading across the sea and was aflame. The anti-aircraft guns of Dönitz's flagship came to life but even as parts of the British behemoth began to burn it showed no signs of pause or mercy as it's guns destroyed two torpedo boats heading for another attack run on the British fleet. A swarm of planes had now emerged from the dark storm clouds emerged and dived upon the attacking planes...
Dogfighting is a dance. A deadly dance at that. Once must move elegantly and know his limits in the air. A pilot cannot fly without oxygen like a dancer cannot dance without breathing. The air fight was now getting higher and higher as the two air fleets clashed. Explosions were now smaller as there was less air and Motti found it difficult to breathe. His plane was now stalling and stirring more often. To make it worse he had a British ace on his back. They were above the clouds dancing with each other in the moonlight and riddling each other with bullets. Suddenly, Motti's plane shook violently and blood splattered onto the console as another burst of fire ripped off one of his guns and smashed his left leg. He had to act now and the plan forming in his head relied only on his plane and just plain luck. Motti began to climb as high as possible as the ace followed him firing off another burst that ripped off his right tail elevator. The two war machines began to climb into the dark moonlit sky. Motti won the battle of machines as the British ace stalled and began to fall into the clouds. Motti turned his plane around and dove into the clouds searching for his foe. His emerged onto a scene of fire and water. Oil slicks in the middle of the ocean were alit burning floundering survivors while ships rammed each other and men boarded each other. Destroyers sailed through the flames and fired point blank against battleships ten times their size only to be destroyed by torpedo boats speeding through the battle.
Motti had found his target flying around the British flagship and was forced to dodge its flak. He would have to destroy a Battle... nevermind. A half dozen Gotha bomber flew through the scourge of battle and were now above the huge British battleship. AA guns and defensive aircraft concentrate their attacks on the oncoming Bombers but only managed to down two before the rest dropped their load onto the ship. The deck armor held in most places but there were four breaches on the decks exposing machinery, men, fuel tanks, supplies, and, worse, ammo. on the deck of the bow was killed or thrown off the ship into the fiery waters of hell. With the crew of the British flagship was now occupied with the second wave of bombers on the horizon Motti divided against his foe. The ace spotted him a moment too late as the spotlights of the burning battleship focused on him. Motti pressed the trigger on his flight lever and let loose a line of the Kaiserreichs finest explosive bullets. The ace was killed instantly and his plane began to climb on on its own with a smoking engine. Eventually, as it reached the clouds the engine died it began to fall to earth like a fallen angel with the moonlight on the dead ace’s face but it ended as it fell to the hell that was the battle of Jutland. The plane fell into the sea and the ace joined his comrades on the seafloor.
Motti was forced to return to the carrier group for repairs and landed on a mobile floating airstrip. As the crews worked to push his plane to an elevator to take it below deck Motti was approached by a flight officer.
"Captain." Motti acknowledged the captain as he lit a fag in his mouth. He could see the distant flashes of light in the distant night and massive explosions.
"Motti. I need you to regroup around our flagships and await several rocket barrage planes."
"Composition of those forces?"
"You will be supported by twenty rocket barrage planes and maybe an air cruiser or two."
"Objective?"
"Destroy that damn British airship.". The captain pointed to the huge airship above the battle destroying German ship after ship and taking hits after hits. It was lit up brilliantly by a hundred spotlights. The British Behemoth shrugged off hit after hit from the heaviest of naval guns. Probably, the only ship that could kill it was the super heavy flagship but its main guns couldn't elevate high enough and it couldn't disengage from battle lest it leaves its fleet without fire support. The British airship had been pummeling the German flagship but could only cause minimal damage and little casualties.
In mere minutes a replacement plane for Motti had arrived on the deck of the floating carrier. As Motti began to climb into his red Focke Wulf the Commander spoke, “Best of luck Motti.”
Motti threw the fag he had been smoking out of the plane and into the pitch black sea a hundred meters below and said “Why do I need luck? I have skill.”
With that, the propellers began to spin rapidly and the plane began to move forward. Motti’s plane disappeared from sight only to reappear a few minutes later. There was a chill now sweeping onto the battlefield. The water became icy cold and men would freeze to death in less than half an hour. The battle had to end now. Motti found two air cruisers around the flagship blasting away at the British ships but as he got closer to the two one exploded in the brilliant flash of light as a lucky, or rather unlucky for the German crew, shot found itself penetrating the armor and hitting the fuel storage whose anti-fire precaution systems were just shot out from the Bridge exploding due to another lucky shot. Motti swore as the wreckage fell and smashed into an unlucky German torpedo boat that couldn't get out the way fast enough. He flew by the air cruiser and signaled to the captain. It was go time. The air cruiser began to move against the British warship firing as it moved. As British aircraft began to move towards the German air cruiser Motti and other fighter kept them occupied as the air cruiser got closer and closer. Now the British airship’s crew could now see the air cruiser nearing and began to focus fire against it. Turrets were hit and armored bending from the near penetrations. Many crew members were thrown off and fell a thousand feet towards the sea, their bones breaking and bodies shattering from the impact at the surface of the water. But still, the air cruiser advanced and began to fire with all its guns at the British beast. Both ships began to have their systems fail as engineers and components died and exploded around them. On the German air cruiser, the forward heavy turret exploded tearing the legs off the fire officer and with him nearly the whole gun crew. Tongues of flame erupted out of one the bottom compartments of the British airship as an ammo rack was pierced. Men were forced to leap into the cold dark waters of the north sea to avoid the blinding flames of the compartment. Both ships were now nearly point blank as they exchanged fire. But the German air cruiser was too small, too little armor and too little firepower. The air cruiser began to rise as one of the engines malfunctioned and went into overdrive…
Captain Konrad Wittman looked at his bridge. Systems went into overdrive and killed or maimed engineers too close. Blood, bodies, and bandages littered the floor. Men and women were screaming in either pain or rage at the failing machines around him. Yet Konrad could not focus on that but rather on the picture frame of his infant son on next to his command console. He had just been born two fortnights before this damned war started. Now he could never go back to see him. He could never go back to Hamburg and enjoy picnics with his wife at the very same hill overlooking the city where they had first met that sunny day. He could still remember. She was looking from for her lost dog, Braun. They found her the next day playing around his neighbors tipped over trash bins. It was coffee the very next day. A proper date the very next month. A proper wedding the very next year. And the birth of his son only the very last year. He grabbed a pencil and paper next to him and began to write down a message. He could barely keep it coherent or his tear away as they fell onto the pages. He folded up the note and handed it to an evacuating medic who happened to be the very same man that had delivered his son.
“Please, give this to him.” He said in the voice that was clearly keeping the tears back. The medic nodded and began to dash down the hallway to the escape pods. Konrad sat down in his captain's chair and began to reflect on how he had gotten to this point. Playing pilots with his childhood friend, Motti. Watching the blimps go by on the Kaiser’s birthday. Enlisting in the air corps the very next day. Oh, how foolish and idealistic he had been when he was young and how cynical he had been when the war started. Funny how he had gotten here…
And how he would end here. As he looked around he was the only one left and it was silent only for the occasional console to overload and burst into flame. He watched the pods fall from the air cruiser and the parachutes open bringing the crew to safety. Nobody was left on the ship where he had first entered as a lowly fire officer. He grabbed the captains hat he had only been given a year before for his actions in the battle of Berlin. We walked over to the helm and began to turn it. He felt the engines of the air cruiser die and could now see the British beast beneath him. Tears streamed down his face and fear gripped him. He closed his eyes and said
“I’m sorry Michael. I promised I would come home. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry!”
Then all was gone…
The air cruiser smashed into the top canopy. The wreckage of the air cruiser continued to crumble through the British Beast ripping out its organs and killing the crew. It drilled further and further to the heart and it found the engine room. The core on the air cruiser had been placed on critical and that moment every single boiler burst in a massive explosion. From the outside, the British airship looked fine if one looked...
Then it exploded in a brilliant fashion. It illuminated the whole sea and could be seen from London itself. Both fleets stopped firing at each other for a moment to celebrate and despair at the destruction of the evil British beast. They stared as debris his the ocean but even though the British airship seemed to have gone up in flames it wasn't done yet. What descended was was a glowing skeleton of the once great British airship and below it was the British flagship. The superstructure was the first to be crushed under the great weight of the airship. The Admiral dashed down the corridor as explosions blew holes in the wall of the very same corridor. The terrible sound of metal on metal nearly deafened him as the roof above him began to slowly get lower. He could now see the cold night sky lit by flames but just as he was about another hit rocked the ship. He looked behind him to see a wave of flames roaring towards him like the hounds of Cerebus were after him. He leaped over the doorstep into the freezing air of the north sea. The only thing separating him from the freezing waters below and keeping in the path of the oncoming flames was... nothing. The railing was gone probably destroyed by the battle. The Admiral had to choose… a slow freezing death in the water or… a hand grabbed him yanking him away from having to make that choice. He was pushed to the clod metal floor as the terrible flames barely floated above him. He screamed as loud as possible as it felt like his neck was on fire. Then the flames stopped. He looked back to see a corridor glowing red with heat. How lucky he had... he looked up to see a long line of fire start to descend on his ship from the sky. It smashed into the top of the flagships superstructure and crushed it like a tin can. Between the freezing sea and the firey death awaiting him the Admiral jumped into the sea. He would not leave his men behind though and would have to find another way back onto his ship...
As the glowing hot corpse of the British airship crashed into the cold dark sea throwing up water and a wall of steam all around the battlefield. Then all was silent. Ships that were foes only a minute ago found themselves unable to fire on each other. Perhaps it was just the shock of such a beast brought down. Perhaps humans have only such a limit for such violence. It did not help that the sea was aflame and the bodies of their friends filled the sea. The cries of their comrades could now be heard clearly and without orders, both sides began to launch rescue craft. Both sides raced to the surface of the sea and began pulling up Friends and Fiends. British and German rescue boats passed each other and did nothing except to exchange bodies and survivors. Near the flaming wreck of one the German battleships, a group of British and German boats had gathered. They formed a sea-based medical bay treating the freezing, bleeding, and the shocked wreck of survivors. Both sides helped save the other sides lives and exchanged hot chocolate and rations. The dawn rose both sides had done what they could to help. The flame was now gone and only distant crackling of drifting British could be heard. Despite both sides having been trying to kill each other only a few hours ago none could now remember why. They just stared at each other as their leaders talked to high command on what to do.
Even high command had no idea what to do. The battle had dragged on for so long and was so chaotic that high command had no idea how many ships were left or even if their fleets were still floating. Orders were just the same...
"Destroy the enemy fleet."
But still, the two fleets didn't fire afraid that whoever made the first move would end this miraculous moment of peace...
Nolan Wolf was using a blowtorch to fuse a plate of armor on a breach in the turret. The smoke from the penetration could still be smelt and the blood on the walls was not yet washed. At the very least they had taken away the bodies before they send Nolan and his men in. The battle was now silent and an unspoken truce had taken shape over the battlefield. Both sides had stopped to take care of their wounded and repair their ships. So far, from what Nolan had heard as he passed the relocated captains bridge near the engine room, high command had ordered that the battle continue but the captain had said that he needed more time to help the injured. Honestly, all Nolan wanted was this damn war to end so he could go home. Now the plate was fused and the next thing on the list was the fix the cannon. Nolan began to repair what damage there was but he couldn't seem to lift up the cannon breech to clean the inside. Nolan began to try with all his strength but he lost his grip and used his back foot to prevent him from falling. But he had stepped on the firing pedal and a giant roar filled the compartment. The shell flew through the air and time seem to stop. The German crews lept to the floor hands over their heads. The shell smashed into a destroyer that was serving as a medical bay. The still wet paint of the red cross clearly shone out as the shell penetrated the thin armor and hit the ammo rack. There was a massive bout of flame and the ship was torn in half. Wounded were forced to watch as the water began to rapidly rise around their broken bodies and scream until their mouths were covered in water. On the surface, both sides were unmoving in pure shock. Then all hell broke loose.
Every ship that was left in the German fleet opened up with everything they had. Cannons fired as fast as they could and Anti-Aircraft guns target both planes and ships. German sailors grabbed rifles and began to fire at British gun crews. Torpedo boats dogged in between massive battleships slugging it out and instead torpedo boats unleashed their payloads on the smaller battleships and Destroyers. Boats fired a full broadside at all sides and began closing the distance between the German and British ships. Sailors dropped onto British ships as they collided and fought a bloody battle to either capture the ship or disable it. British ships were scuttled as German sailors began to overwhelm their decks and a British destroyer was overwhelmed and began to fire on its own side. It was mayhem as Britsh and German sailors had no idea whose ship was whose.
In the air, planes danced at close range. They charged each other head on seeing who would disengage and those that didn't would smash into each other. At the center of this were the air cruisers as they fought ships and aircraft. British planes fell like flies but so did the Germans. A Gotha bomber was brought down and in his death throes the pilot shifted their planes all so slightly and smashed into a British cruiser detonating both's munitions in the process.
Motti fired off a burst of bullets and brought down another British plane as it tried to make an attack run on the Bismark class super battleship. He watched as the broken and burning plane was extinguished and the pilot turned from snobbish noble to floundering fish. He turned his plane into a dive to avoid the aiming reticle of a British AA cannon and once the reticle was turned away searching for other targets Motti turned back and strafed the gun, killing the crew and detonating an ammo cache...
The Bismarck class super battleship was in a fight for its life. One of the main gun turrets had been knocked out by that, thankfully downed, British airship. But despite the half a hundred dead crew the Battleship continued to sink ship after ship. It's armor made even the heaviest British guns bounce off and It's cannon made the British armor seem like paper. It's AA guns were used to great effect but no against the hundreds of British flies about but rather suppressing the crew of a British Battleship as the main cannons were reloading. Shoving a two-ton shell into a breach is not an easy task or fast one. The crew had taken off their shirts due to the sweat and heat. They were assisted by a large internal crane to shove the shell in. It took about 30 seconds for the crew to reload. The turret was controlled by a fire room deep within the ship. Inside the fire control room, the crew moved around frantically. The ground and table were filled with paper covered in calculations. A light bulb turned from red to green telling the fire crew that the main battery was ready. They made some final calculations before the order came
"Main Battery one, three, and four... FIRE!"
A massive volley smashed into the battleship killing almost everyone in the superstructure. A turret was blown off and sank into the sea. Flames appeared all over the ship and eventually reached the ammo rack. A massive explosion was now in the middle of the battlefield. The flaming wreck spilled oil into the sea. Both sides held their breath aware that a single spark could mean the destruction of them. This was no ordinary fuel but rather a British experiment at creating ships that didn’t need steam at all. A wasteful experiment that would never replace the superior nature of steam power. But still, this fuel was well known to both sides due to the sensational titles in the newspaper only two years ago. Both sides stopped firing as they watched the flames spread over the surface of the ocean. Then a flaming hot piece of metal fell off a German Cruiser and the whole sea was alight.
It was hell. Pure hell. Any men swimming were treated with a painful death as the flames entered every orifice in their body. Smaller boats had their hulls melt and sink into that hell. Inside the bigger Battleships, the hull turned white hot and melted the boots of the crew to the floor condemning them to roast in the tight hot corridors. Boats began to flee the sea as fast as they could as several began to sink rapidly. Their propellers melting off and falling to the sea leaving them trapped in this hell. Both fleets had now fled the field…
Dönitz has lot slept for a very long time. He had eye bags that could be seen from the other side of the bridge and he had a stubble from an unshaven day. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands were shaking. He had his right arm in a sling for when a stray shot had hit him in the shoulder. He had hit the British hard but he had been hit hard as well. To make it all worse he had failed to locate the Russian fleet.
“Get me a beer. And get me high command on the radio.”
He sat in his captain's chair downing the entire bottle in less a minute. His first major command and massive losses for seemingly no gain. He looked out of the bridge to see the German High Fleet limping away. The air fleet had only left a few airships to guard the retreating fleet while it returned to Hamburg to celebrate their grand victory. After all, they had performed so much better than the high seas fleet. They had brought down hundreds of British planes, Airships, and brought down the biggest airship ever created. What did the High seas fleet do? Punching the British navy in the face but only reeling it. The British navy had lost control of the North and Baltic sea… Wait, they lost control of the North and Baltic sea? He had an idea. One idea that could end the war in a month or two… The phone began to ring and Dönitz grabbed it.
“High command I have an idea, I need five hundred tons of the most-” Dönitz said with near glee and was almost mad when he was interrupted…
“Five tons of what… the finest Vodka I have to offer?” Dönitz recognized that annoying Russian voice as Grand Admiral Kolchak of the Russian fleet.
“Fick Dich Kolchak. I needed you an hour ago. Where the Scheiße were you!”
“Busy finding my comrades.”
“You found them? I assume some of them didn’t come willingly.”
“Da, I had to contend with… 6 matinees, 3 rouge Destroyers, Communist suicide bombers, and all my Vodka being stolen by someone.”
“Your Vodka was stolen! The war is lost!”
“Don’t joke around. That was my finest Vodka. My grandfather made it. I will find who took it and…”
“Get shitfaced with him?”
“You know me too well Dönitz.”
“Too much. Too much. Wished I never took that vacation in St. Petersburg.”
“Same here.”
“Remeber the time you woke up in a bush just outside the palace.”
“And you getting in the fistfight with Lenin.”
“Yeah he could punch hard but he couldn't take a punch to that bald noggin of his.”
“Ah, when we were young.”
“I’m still young. Not sure about you, old creaky bones.”
“Ah, You know me. Old creaky bones.”
“By the way how many men did you get and how many are willing to fight.”
“I got about a million men and half will fight under the Motherland.”
“Good work.”
“Now I will meet you in Hamburg. I have to go now. There’s a drunken brawl I have to break up”
“Careful or you’ll turn into dust the moment you take a step.” Then the radio went silent. It was a good day. The sun had set on the British Empire and it was about to rise on the Kaiserriech.
German LossesNaval Losses
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-68 Torpedo Boats
-45 Light Destroyers
-22 Medium Destroyers
-12 Heavy Destroyers
-4 Light battleships
-4 Medium battleships
-3 Heavy battleships
Aircraft Losses
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-89 fighters
-57 interceptors
-12 Gotha Bombers
-34 torpedo boats
-39 Dive Bombers
-5 Bismark class air cruisers
-3 Kaiser class air cruisers