Chapter 47: See through the fog

The night was low and the starry sky was dim. Six slender warships were sailing 10 degrees east-south at a high speed of nearly 30 knots. The sea breeze pulled the collars, sleeves and trousers of each naval officer and soldier on the open air. People looked vigilantly at the chaotic and dark sea surface. Following the strict principle of confidentiality, most people were not sure what the important cargo escorted by the fleet was, but the experiences of the "Indianapolis" and "Minneapolis" were already

Their imagination pointed out the direction (the two heavy cruisers transported atomic bombs code-named "Little Boy" and "Fatty" from the United States to the western Pacific respectively in 1945), but this also made them feel uneasy about their fate - the "Indianapolis" completed its transportation mission and was sunk by a Japanese submarine on its way back, and the officers and soldiers suffered extremely heavy casualties. It is worth mentioning that its voyage back to the United States was actually a lonely ship, and there was no destroyer around to provide escort.

On this empty sea, after formation adjustment, the position of the flagship "Boston" has been adjusted to the middle and rear of the fleet, and the pilot ship was replaced by the Allen Sumner-class destroyer "Batton". It has excellent design and excellent equipment with its fellow villagers. It is considered to be the best comprehensive destroyer built by the United States during World War II, capable of escorting, air defense, anti-submarine and other tasks. Followed closely by the Cleveland-class light cruiser "Vincent", which has a standard displacement of nearly 12,000 tons, and is a "big guy" among the light cruisers.

The sufficient tonnage allows it to obtain excellent protection performance on the basis of paying attention to maneuverability and flexibility. Following the "Vincent" is the "Boston" and the Fletcher-class destroyer Anthony. These four warships are listed as high-speed maritime columns, while the other two destroyers "Gatling" and "Sigsby" in the fleet cover both sides of the fleet, one left and one right. Precise sea detection radar and fire control radar allow them to maintain appropriate distances from each other in environments with poor vision, and this skill is particularly important under high speed conditions.

There was no stimulation of alarms or shock of gunfire. During the continuous high-speed voyage, people heard only the monotonous sound of waves beating the ship and the roar of the turbines. The quiet and boring atmosphere gradually eroded everyone's energy and patience. Every half an hour or so, the radar officers on the ship would come to report on the monitoring of external radar waves. Those mysterious and weird centimeter-wave pulse radars were gone but heard, as if the evil ghosts on the bottom of the sea had floated on the water, always entangled with this American fleet that was almost at full speed.

In the uneasy atmosphere, time passed, and seeing that there was only one or two hours left before dawn, the person who pushed the door in again finally changed to a radio communications officer. At this moment, all the eyes in the command room gathered together.

The communications officer was shocked by this unexpected situation. He hesitated toward the fleet commander General Jetlica, and reported tremblingly: "Sir, this is a telegram sent to you by the Admiralty."

Captain Colonel Angelo stood up first, and his position happened to act as a transit. He took the telegram clip, turned halfway, and sent it to the general.

General Jetlica hurriedly opened the telegram clip, glanced back and forth on the telegram several times, and then looked at the White House envoy with an incredible look.

Angelo looked at the text on the telegraph paper in his position. This was a handwritten manuscript from the telegrapher using a password book to translate the original text. The familiar handwriting is still as correct. The general content is "A ship that has been summoned to support it. If an emergency occurs, you will be fully entrusted to make decisions based on your judgment on reality, but it is important to protect important goods as the first task."

The "you" here obviously refers to General Jetlica, who is the commander of the fleet.

Thinking of what the White House envoy said before on the Battle Bridge, Colonel Angelo couldn't help but turn his head to look at the mysterious guy. At this time, he suddenly realized that the special envoy Leghall who had been sitting in the command room for most of the night seemed to be inconsistent with his eyes and face. At this moment, Leghall was no longer the guy on the dining table who was talking and doing his own thing. He looked a little confused, as if he was thinking hard about the secrets he kept but still couldn't understand. The expression on his face was not only calm, but also a kind of surprise and fear hidden in his heart.

The awkward and dull atmosphere continued like this. General Jetlica seemed to want to find out what could make him finally make up his mind from the envoy's face, but that face seemed to have only a reaction now. After a while, the hatch door was knocked again, and this time the radar officer with sweat on his forehead appeared in people's sight. His white lips were trembling, and a lack of strength sound came from his throat: "50 cm pulse radar wave, 18 degrees northeast, 35 nautical miles!"

"It's really a god!" General Jetlica couldn't help but slapped the table. You should know that this fleet was rushing at sea at a speed of 28 knots. At present, no submarine in the world can have a speed of more than 25 knots. However, the way these pulse radar wave sources appear is like falling from the sky. However, its carrier-based radar has not detected any aircraft or large ships. At such a distance, it can avoid the US military's active high-frequency microwave radars from 10 nautical miles away.

Only submarines with the main body submerged in the water, but since their speed could not catch up with the fleet, what made all crew members anxious in the middle of the night should be the submarines deployed along the road in advance. Considering that the fleet's current location is far away from the established route, the other party has to deploy submarines in any possible area to maintain radar tracking. The vast Atlantic Ocean is so vast. Could it be that the Soviet Navy has hundreds of ocean-going submarines equipped with high-power radar overnight?

"It's incredible, it's incredible!" When Colonel Angelo said this, his eyes were staring at the White House envoy. The guy who seemed to have lost his soul finally raised his head, and there was a little fear in his eyes. Before he spoke, he asked everyone except General Jetlica, Colonel Angelo, and Dr. Mante to leave the command room.

"Well, gentlemen, as you know, the heavy cruiser Indianapolis, which once transported the atomic bomb, unfortunately sank on its way back, which made the top leaders very worried about the reliability of ship transport, and once had the idea to transfer it to aircraft. For some time after we declared war on the Soviet Union, we had been secretly transporting atomic bombs to Europe through the B-29 superfort, but this path began to encounter difficult big trouble two months ago." Envoy Leghall looked around with his hands clasped his hands, "You may have heard rumors about UFOs, which was not a lie made up by hostile countries to create a panic atmosphere. They did fly freely over the United States, and no fighter or anti-aircraft gun could shoot them down.

, not even the fur is damaged. In fact, before the end of World War II, our pilots had encountered these strange aircraft many times when bombing Germany. Although there has never been a record of their active attack on our fighter planes, there is no such thing as no... Yes, you should have guessed that the B-29 that recently transported atomic bombs to Europe have encountered such indescribable aircraft one after another. What is surprising is that no matter how large the escort formation, they can approach the aircraft group calmly, and the machine guns and rockets are simply willow branches waving in the hands of children. Our pilots have no mentality to deal with this situation at all. Two times they almost made fatal mistakes due to nervousness and panic, so the senior management decided to suspend the aircraft transportation."

The envoy sat down again after saying that, and the command room was as quiet as if it was empty - the huge surprise seemed to make people forget their breathing.

The first to break the silence was General Jetlica, the fleet commander looked at the envoy and asked, "Why isn't a submarine?"

"I heard that two weeks ago, the submarine that was originally planning to secretly transport atomic bombs to Europe also encountered a flying saucer during the commissioning voyage, and the crew were very frightened." The envoy's hearsay directly answered the general's question, which also made people's surprise and confusion deeper.

"What exactly are they? The cutting-edge technology of the Nazis?" General Jetlica no longer had the anger he had when he slapped the table, and what hung on his face was a tangled expression of confusion and worry.

After saying so much, the special envoy's expression had been eased, and he continued to reply: "At the beginning, we thought they were either Hitler's new toys or advanced civilizations outside our cognition, but then our spies photographed this kind of thing in a remote valley in the Urals, where there was a facility that was suspected to be a secret base, so we had reason to believe that they were now under control by the Soviet Union."

"If the enemy has such an invincible weapon, wouldn't we definitely lose this war?" Colonel Angelo expressed the logical speculation that everyone thought but didn't want to say.

"If this super high-altitude and ultra-high-speed flight technology is used on fighters and bombers, we will not be able to continue this battle anyway, and this returns to our initial guess: why they just appear, approaching and never launched an attack." Leghall, a White House envoy, said more and more depressed. This is like a traveler who just discovered that he was actually in the ghost realm. Before the horror scene under the fog was fully revealed, he had already begun to give up on himself.

"Maybe they are not suitable for carrying weapons, or they may not have any entity at all, they are just a fantasy created using strange technology... Have they been detected by radar?" Angelo asked.

The envoy sighed: "Yes, whenever they appear, we can not only detect the images of their rapid movement through radar, but also receive strong radio waves, which sometimes even temporarily fail our precision instruments."

"That at least means that this is not such a terrible thing that uses radar to detect our location." General Jetlica analyzed.

"Even if not," the envoy said, "With their speed and range of motion, it is absolutely easy to find us under the guidance of the detector."

"Detector? You said that it was not the submarines that bother us but the detectors?" General Jetlica asked in surprise.

The envoy closed his eyes and shook his head: "No, the detector may be a submarine or another form of equipment. I'm not sure about this, but it must have a radio contact function. The radio waves we intercepted before are probably used to provide positional parameters to the command center."

General Jetlica bit his lip: "Since we are in such an irresponsible dilemma, why not just apply to the Navy Operations Department to cancel the operation? We can throw the atomic bomb to the seabed several thousand meters deep and then return to the local base."

This idea sounds too absolute, but the envoy did not deny it, but instead supported it: "It may be the only way to save the lives of our fleet and more than 2,000 naval officers and soldiers. The enemy's target must be the two atomic bombs on our ship."

Captain Colonel Angelo did not speak, and Dr. Mante was struggling with logical contradictions. At this time, it was Jetlica who raised the objection: "Wait, Mr. Leghall, and Colonel, Doctor, please help me think about it together. If we were not running around in panic, but were heading towards Europe at the cruise speed at the original course, what would happen next?"

The envoy spoke first, and these guesses seemed to be the problem that tortured him this night: "The enemy will find the right opportunity to launch a fatal attack with a submarine. They seized the best silent submarine from the German Navy, which is the most powerful underwater hunter. I guess their flying saucer will also disrupt our sight at critical moments. In fact... there is no problem with our air transport line. Their flying saucer cannot directly launch an attack, and I don't know which one in a cluster of dozens of aircraft is the one that carries special cargo... Oh, damn it! I should have thought of this! They hoped that we use ships to transport atomic bombs so that they have a chance to start, and surface ships are easier to detect the exact location than submarines!"

The envoy Leghall suddenly realized in his analysis, and General Jetlica seemed to have figured it out.

"As long as we sink in a sea that is not too deep, they can send divers to pick up the atomic bombs on the ship, and neither ordinary nor sea water will damage them." The general cast a proof look at Dr. Mante.

Dr. Mante had the same complex expression as the special envoy Leghall just now, and his forehead was sweating: "Uh... an ordinary explosion will not detonate atomic bombs in theory. In order to ensure safety, we did install the detonation device separately on another batch of ships, but if a very violent explosion occurred on our warship, it may also prompt the enriched uranium raw materials to reach the critical value of chain reaction... This process is equivalent to using a detonator, and two k-class atomic bombs are enough to destroy the entire fleet."

General Jetlica suddenly frowned. As a senior admiral, he would never have thought that such an important burden would suddenly be pressed on his shoulders. With a heavy expression, he laughed at himself: "If such a situation occurs, the enemy will never want to obtain an atomic bomb from us, and our sacrifice can at least save the lives of thousands of allied people."

Infected by this, Colonel Angelo put on a stance of giving out: "Let them do it! Those flying saucers without attack are dazzling balloons. We will do our best to see if it is the enemy's submarine that sank us one by one or we will destroy them all!"

General Jetlica laughed and turned to the envoy Leghall, saying: "Please draw a message that explains the situation, so that the senior White House leaders can see through the enemy's conspiracy. As for us... If the White House agrees that we will throw the atomic bomb without a detonator into the deep sea, we will find a place where no one can dive to the end and throw them down. If we disagree, we will escort them to the destination without hesitation."

Leghall resolutely replied: "Okay! I will handle the telegram to the White House. This will definitely make the president and his quarrels truly wake up from their dreams."

After saying that, the envoy took out a pen from his pocket, then took the telegram clip sent by the communications officer directly, and prepared to draft a telegram in the blank area of ​​the telegram. He happened to see the telegram content feedback from the Navy Operations Department, and he thought for a while: "General, perhaps we can slow down appropriately now and gather destroyers operating nearby to strengthen anti-submarine power. In today's Atlantic waters, the enemy can use submarines to attack ships, and the number is definitely not large!"

"This is a good idea!" General Jetlica took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his sweat beads all over his head. The Western Atlantic Ocean in early March has gradually escaped from the cold of winter, so the air conditioner was not open on the ship. The temperature at night should be suitable for sleep, but the atmosphere in this command room is in a dull state most of the time. He was nervous, anxious, surprised, panic, and sad. These emotions were turned around. When he came to his senses, he suddenly felt the abnormal soreness and weakness of his limbs.

The envoy Leghall was still writing in the telegraph paper. General Jetlica did not call others in. While thinking, he said to Colonel Angelo: "Issue orders to each ship: keep the current formation unchanged, the speed will reach 20 knots, reduce the combat alert to air defense and anti-submarine alert, and arrange crew members to rest in shifts. Use the naval secret code to send a message, and invite escort aircraft carriers and destroyers that can maintain a combat range of at least three days. The frigates come. If there are friendly ships to contact each other, politely refuse their kindness!"

Colonel Angelo wrote down these instructions one by one and asked, "Whether to maintain the current course or adjust the route back to the original planned route."

General Jetlica opened his mouth and wanted to reach it, but seemed to have changed his attention temporarily. He thought for a moment: "Keep the existing route for the time being, and wait for dawn to see the specific situation before deciding."

*
Chapter completed!