“(The King of the North Atlantic, Section 7, The Doomsday of the Rice Flag[2])

From 12:34, the commander of the Canadian battleship was shot, the second round of the Orkney Islands naval battle has been on and off for forty minutes.

During this period, the Canadian, Rhineland, Posen, Berleaufon, Neptune and Royal Oak sank one after another. The German and British Admiralty have set up a long list of battleship losses for the Orkney Islands.

Of course, the British could also add the battleships of the Hong Kong battleship, the Ultimate and New Zealand battleships to their already cruel battleship list.

But even so, both sides still had no intention of stopping. The two nations that bet all had their eyes red. The battle continued from the Revenge to the Indomitable, and from the Moltke to the Bavaria. On this battle line, almost every sea was exploding and trembling, and the North Sea was artificially created by arrogant steel monsters.

The Germans were gathering fire in the second team. It turns out that no matter whether the navy or the army, as long as the Germans are more serious, even God cannot stop them.

In the battle between Centurion and Baden, the Joe fifth-level battleship Centurion, equipped with 10 15-inch main guns, was not the latter's one-union enemy at all.

‘The Germans’ artillery is extremely accurate, and luckily they don’t hit much. I looked up at the whistling shells, which looked like lead blocks wrapped in blazing colors, and seemed to pierce into your eyes, just as you couldn’t help but close your eyes. They either exploded near you, splashing dozens of feet of water. Or... or send you to the ocean directly…’

Centurion Lookout Keane commented on their miserable situation after the firefighting Germany's first team.

Maybe it was the fourth round of Baden's full turret half-air gun shooting, or maybe it was the fifth round. In short, just as Baden had just completed the muzzle steering and was experiencing time and effort to carry out the main gun "scheduling" when he accidentally touched the port side of the Centurion, a 380mm armor-piercing bullet with the waterline with main armor" ended the Centurion's service career.

There is no need to elaborate on the difference in the protection of the fifth-level battleship. The bulky large-caliber armor-piercing bullet hit the design drawings of the Centurion battleship where the main armor of the 12-inch waterline was easily tore open the armor belt less than 8-inch, and passed through the weak dome layer and two watertight tanks with smooth ballistics. It almost penetrated the expensive super-dreadnought.

Perhaps it was the smoke wall phenomenon caused by the long-term shelling of the Centurion, or perhaps it was the rolling of the Centurion itself. In short, the German lookout did not accurately find this round of hit, but instead reported a "port side bullet".

As time went by, the smoke wall on the port side of the Centurion became thicker and thicker. The Baden battleship, which was extremely difficult to observe, gradually lost the opportunity to continue attacking the Centurion battleship, and temporarily stopped the artillery attack at around 13:17.

The Badens were very upset about this. They felt that they had defiled the reputation of the German naval artillery, but on the other side of the battlefield, the frustrated British were complaining that the German artillery was too shocking.

After the Centurion was shot, seawater poured into the depths of the battleship's hull from tons, and the watertight tank with severe structural strength was repeatedly exploded. Three or five minutes later, the Centurion's battleship had nearly 4,000 tons of water inflow. The main engine was shut down, all the pumps stopped working, and the hull was tilted to the port side.

Lieutenant Fres, who came out of the telegraph room, recalled this in the last few minutes of the Centurion:

‘At that time, the whole ship was tilted very much left, so I stumbled to the bridge. Before I could hold on to the handrail, I was pushed down by the people behind me and fell down the port deck along the stairs of the trestle. Then I fell into the sea without control.

Fortunately, the hull was in severe water, and the port deck of the warship was only about two feet away from the sea, so I was not knocked out by the sea. At this time, many people gathered around me, and they were hesitant to climb onto the warship, but I pointed to the Centurion half-jokingly and said that it was no longer helpful, just like the bold in 1914.’

Second Lieutenant Fres hit the nail on the side deck of the Centurion at 13:17, the sea water overflowed the port deck of the Centurion. The captain who tried every means but could not stop the Centurion from sinking had to choose to abandon the ship and ordered the sailors to open the sea valve.

The Baden battleship did not react until the target ship, which was completely stationary on the sea, sank rapidly. Afterwards, the conscientious captain of the Baden grabbed the navigation log awkwardly, without knowing how to record the destruction of the Centurion:

Captain Baden, who was not sure how the battleship of the Bold, felt that "killed with one shot" had visited Kiel Port on the eve of the war in 1914. The British Joe Class 5 super-dreadnought, which swore forever peace in Germany and Britain, was too unrestrained. In the captain's impression, no matter how bad Joe Class 5 was, it was a first-class battleship with a 12-inch waterline with main armor and a standard displacement of about 26,000 tons. The British shipbuilding merchants would not have conscience to blackmail their own people.

Behind the Centurion battleship, the Magnificent battleship of the Fifth Detachment of the First Battleship Fleet, Observer Roy seemed to have a premonition. He took out the paper and pen that should have been used to record combat data, and wrote a letter from the rear command tower.

‘Kate, you must not think of the environment I fought. Our newspapers and governments always boast about how powerful the Royal Navy is and how majestic the dreadnoughts flying the Rice Flag are. But the fact is that we can defeat the offshore battles of the British Islands.

Another round of shells whizzed past our heads, and the 380mm shell projected from the Baden would explode somewhere outside the starboard side of the Magnificent. As an observer, I could only hide in the Magnificent's rear command tower, secretly glad that I still survived - although the Germans maintained a main gun fire rate of two and a half to three rounds per minute, we were safe for at least these twenty seconds.

After the flagship Royal Oaks sank, the fleet commander Sir Doverton Steady, who survived the disaster, skipped the already sunk battleships of our fifth squad and moved his incomplete command into the Commanding Tower of the Magnificent.

This is both the honor of the Magnificent and the misfortune of the Magnificent - because of the sinking of the Royal Oak, the Canadian and the Berlelofon. Orion had no choice but to become the flagship of the Second Battleship Fleet, and because of the sinking of the Royal Oak. We are rightly prey to the 350mm main gun group of the German First Reconnaissance Cluster.

Before the second round of firefighting, we had already set a distance of about four kilometers from the Second Battleship Fleet. When the three main battleships in front of the Magnificent sank one after another, the distance was further widened, in other words, our First Battleship Fleet and Fourth Battle Patrol had become alone.

Although the ship was in bad condition, we could only try our best to catch up and shorten the distance, so that the Magnificent could move forward at full speed. At this time, the rear command tower was filled with the sound of wind breaking through the air, the roar of waves hitting the ship's side, the roar of machines and the sound of our own cannons. Even the explosion of the Germans cross-fire at us was covered up.

The shells splashed on both sides of the hull of Orion, surrounded by water columns of soaring water, even higher than the rear-mast watchtower I had worked on, and then splashed onto the hull of the magnificent. Occasionally, a light flashed in front of me, something came in through the narrow observation hole and passed by me. It was not until I saw Lieutenant Giggs lying in a pool of blood that I realized that it was shrapnel flying around.

From beginning to end, I didn't hear the explosion. I was originally glad that the Magnificent escaped this dangerous spurt, but the sudden tilt of the hull made me realize that maybe I was too optimistic about the Magnificent's future...'

At 13:19, British observatory Roy, who retreated to the command tower below because of damage to the rear mainmas armored watchtower, hurriedly left his last sentence in his letter to his home.

‘A officer in the custody rushed in and said he needed manpower. My dear, I can only continue this letter after the battle, wish me good luck…’

Roy didn't know that was his last letter. He put away his letter, wrapped it tightly with a tarp cloth, and finally placed it in an iron box.

No one knows how Roy died. In 2012, diving enthusiasts who were used to peace and tranquility pulled out the iron box from the silt in the sea during an Orkney Islands naval expedition and found a letter of home covered with mottled years in the waterproof oil cloth.

The British government spent a lot of time to find Roy's love Kate and sent out his late letters. But being late means being late. At that time, Kate had been away from the world for more than 40 years. Roy and Kate were not married. They had no children, and Roy had no brothers and sisters.

The romantic tenderness of the years of war has always been just a fantasy written by the writer, and it has always been so sad and painful!

At 13:20, the sound of cannons stopped. The mass of death and the cry of the wounded, the broken cloth chips, the corpses of soldiers, the burning oil and crackling wooden blocks rose and fell in the sea. The sea breeze swept the lonely sea surface low, clearing the undesirable smell of blood and smoke above the sea level. The sailors with white flags drove a boat to shuttle the sea surface stained with blood, holding long poles to search for possible survival.

In this way, the North Sea, filled with smoke, calmed down temporarily.

This temporary tranquility was not because the two steel fleets were exhausted or afraid of war, but because the smoke walls generated by the continuous shelling began to seriously interfere with the sight of the two fleets, forcing them to temporarily put down their anger and accumulate strength to wait for the final battle and withering sorrow.

In summary, both Britain and Germany suffered heavy losses in the second round of firefighting.

At the front end of the battle line, the British Battleship Marboro was shot by the brave Louis Troopold Regent battleship, with some of the underwater damage to the bow; the British Battleship Revenge and the Bavarian Battleship were abnormally weirdly exploded each other's chimney base with armor protection, and the other ships also suffered varying degrees of damage.

In Germany, the battleship Albert could not withstand the 380mm green bombs installed by the Iron Duke-class battleship. The upper armor belt and other hulls were shot one after another, and they were shaking on the northern ocean.

Compared with the front teams on the front line, the battle between the squadron and the rear team is much more tragic.

On the British side, they lost five battleships in one go, the Canadian, Berleaufon, Neptune, Royal Oak and Centurion, which increased the number of battleships on the British Empire to an unprecedented eight. Another battleship of the Magnificent was about to be destroyed. On the German side, they also explained that the Rhineland and Posen had a total of two battleships.

Given that David Betty and Heidi Sileme both made "hard damage and annihilation of an opponent's combat squadron" in this round of firefighting, and the main casualties were also concentrated in the battle line squadron and rear teams, the navy also defined the second round of the Orkney Islands Naval Battle as "a battle that took place in the battle line squadron and rear teams."

The 'The battle that happened in the back team in the battle line' came to an end. Both sides obtained a fifteen-minute break and made the final adjustment while the smoke wall was dissipating.

Compared with the British Empire's end of the road, Heidi Sileme's cards were obviously better than his opponents. However, the Germans did not have the advantage. The fast fleet on the south side of the battlefield was moving closer to the main fleet of the large fleet at full speed under the leadership of General Lampard. On the north side of the battlefield, four American battleships were also leisurely heading south. The two emerging naval powers, Germany and the United States, were destined to compete in the North Sea."
Chapter completed!