#二战风云 #
For a general, the most difficult decision is to convince himself and his subordinates to die with their heads held high. Because in war, there are often situations where before the order is issued, you can put forward your own views on the objective situation and the comparison of the strength of the two sides, even if it is a tit-for-tat view and a contrary to the upper peak. But once the order is given, even if there are a thousand and ten thousand unwilling in their hearts, even if the road ahead is a dead end, they must desperately move forward, and before the end of their lives, they will achieve as many victories as possible and harvest the lives of the enemy, and Admiral Gunther Lütjens is such a person.
Gunther Lütjens, who at this time was a colonel in the Navy
Experienced and highly qualified surface ship commanders
Gunther Lütjens was born on 25 May 1889 in Wiesbaden, the capital of Hesse, and in 1907, at the age of eighteen, Lütjens joined Wilhelm II's Second German Navy, and after several years of training on several warships in his early years, he was transferred to the torpedo boat (the "torpedo boat" in the Second German Navy is equivalent to a lightning strike ship) and ushered in the outbreak of World War I. In the first year of the war, Lütjens accompanied his team on several missions in the English Channel; in May 1915, at the age of 26, Lütjens was transferred to a patrol boat of the Coastal Defense Patrol Boat Force as captain and promoted to lieutenant in the Navy, and was soon promoted to the captain of a patrol boat detachment; in 1917, at the age of 28, Lütjens was promoted to rear admiral, transferred to the coastal defense force, and in this position ushered in the defeat of Germany in World War I. Watching the humiliating imprisonment of the High Seas Fleet, which had seen the essence of the German Second Reich Navy, imprisoned in Scarpa Bay, the anchor of the British Grand Fleet, and hearing of the tragic end of the fleet eventually sinking there, the young Lütjens was filled with a strong sense of shame, that the warships of the German Imperial Navy could be sunk at sea, but must not sink so shamefully in the cage set up for them by their opponents, and a seed of revenge was planted in his chest.
After the end of the First World War, Germany was bound by the Treaty of Versailles to maintain only 100,000 Wehrmacht, resulting in the loss of many excellent naval officers, and Lütjens kept his job under the protection of his old superior, Erich Raeder, and continued to be steadily promoted (because the Wehrmacht during the "Weimar Republic" period served a long time, one turnip and one pit, so the speed of officer promotion could not be fast; in addition, Lütjens's surname did not bear the word "von" representing the old Prussian nobility. It also slowed his promotion to some extent). In 1923, at the age of 34, Lütjens returned to the torpedo boat (mine strike ship) unit as a detachment leader; in April 1926, at the age of 37, Lütjens was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the navy as captain of a gunboat; in 1929, at the age of 40, Lütjens was appointed captain of the first mine strike detachment. Two years later, in 1931, he was transferred to the Admiralty Personnel Office (the secretary of the Navy at the time happened to be Admiral Erich Raeder), but this office position did not take long to return to the warship, this time a large ship — he was appointed captain of the Second Ship of the Königsberg-class light cruiser "Karlsruhe", which officially entered service in November 1929, and was promoted to captain. During his five-year tenure as captain of the light cruiser Karlsruhe, Lütjens commanded the warship to cruise across the oceans, which was of great help to his repeated successful "cruise operations" in commanding large surface ships in the early days of World War II.
Light cruiser Karlsruhe
By 1935, the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles had loosened over Germany's head: that year Germany and Britain signed the British Naval Agreement, which stipulated that the total tonnage of the Surface Ships of the German Navy would never exceed 35 per cent of the total tonnage of the British (Commonwealth) Navy, while the total tonnage of German submarines would not exceed 45 per cent of the total tonnage of the British Navy. This meant that the German navy would be allowed to have a certain strength to compete with the French and Italian navies in Europe, and could legitimately expand the size of the German navy. So in this year, at the age of 46, Lütjens left the "Karlsruhe" and returned to the Naval Headquarters as the chief of the Officer Personnel Division, responsible for selecting qualified officers for the newly formed naval unit. In 1936, the following year, when the Personnel Office was upgraded to the Personnel Bureau, Lütjens was also promoted to Director.General. In 1937, at the age of 48, Lütjens was promoted to rear admiral and returned to sea as commander of the newly formed naval lightning strike force. In October 1939, at the age of 50, Lütjens was transferred to the command of the reconnaissance fleet of the German Third Reich Navy (under the command of the "Deutsches" class armored ships "Deutsches", "Count Spey", "Admiral Scheer" and "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau").
Review of the Sailors' Lütjens
The results of the patrol operations are remarkable, and the talent is beginning to show the command of the troops
The outbreak of the Second World War, the German Third Reich Navy joined the war without being fully prepared for war (Hitler had sworn to Raeder in 1939 that Germany would not be involved in the war until 1943, and after learning the news that Britain and France had declared war on Germany, Raeder once said in despair: "The German fleet cannot do anything other than fight and sink gloriously"), but it is an ironclad fact that it is already ironclad, and no amount of complaints is pointless. Only take stock of the existing family base and fight on the existing ships.
At this time, the German Navy could not compete with the British Royal Navy and the French Navy in terms of size. Thus, the German High Command's order to the Navy on warfare against Britain consisted of only a short sentence: "The Navy shall fight against the enemy merchant fleet, mainly the British merchant fleet." ”
In 1940, at the age of 51, Lütjens was promoted to vice admiral and promoted to deputy commander of the navy acting commander of the high seas fleet. In April of the same year, during the German invasion of Norway, code-named "Exercise Weser", Lütjens demonstrated for the first time his outstanding campaign command skills. He commanded the reconnaissance fleet of two battlecruisers, Scharnhorst and Gwaisenau, to attract the British fleet and cover the landing forces. This was the most dangerous and important task of the whole campaign, and Marshal Erich Raeder, commander-in-chief of the German Navy, entrusted him with the trust he had placed in Lütjens.
Erich Raedell
Luteens during the Vice Admiral period
On 8 April 1940, Vice Admiral Lütjens took the "Scharnhorst" with the "Gneisenau" to the mouth of westfjord, where the destination of the operation, Narvik, and engaged in an exchange of fire with the British Royal Navy battlecruiser "Sonic" stationed here. This ensured the smooth entry of ten destroyers of the first fleet under the command of Commodore Friedrich Bonter into the Westfjord and the capture of the port of Narvik, and after completing the mission, Lütjens commanded two battlecruisers to return smoothly to Wilhelmshaven. In June 1940, two months after the war, Lütjens was awarded the Knight of the Iron Cross.
Scharnhorst battlecruiser
The battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau moored together
On 4 June, Lütjens, wearing the medal he had just been awarded, again commanded two battlecruisers from Wilhelmshaven, by which time the German Army had already won a decisive victory in Norway, and his mission was to intercept the British troop carriers that had helped evacuate from Norway, and this attack achieved great results: on June 8, two battlecruisers sank a troop carrier and an oil tanker in the morning; in the afternoon successfully intercepted the British Royal Navy aircraft carrier "Glory" and two escorting A-class destroyers "Zealous" The SHIP and the Acasta sank all three ships with guns. As many as 1,500 royal navy and air force personnel were buried in the icy Norwegian Sea. The Germans' loss was that a torpedo fired by the Scharnhorst hit the connection of the III-IV cabin directly below the Y turret at the stern of the ship, and 360 kg of high explosives tore a large opening 14 meters long and 6 meters wide in the hull. The thin anti-torpedo compartment was useless, and the watertight longitudinal partition on the inside collapsed, and a large amount of seawater poured into the C turret ammunition depot, the Iv secondary turret ammunition depot and the No. 1 and No. 3 engine compartments. The barrel of the right gun of Turret B was scrapped by a 120 mm shell fired from the Acasta. Three officers and 45 sailors were killed and 3 others wounded. With the flagship Scharnhorst badly damaged, Lütjens was forced to interrupt its cruise and return to the port of Kiel. Because of his success in sinking the aircraft carrier "Glory", Lütjens successfully removed the word "generation" from the "Acting Commander of the High Seas Fleet" and became the true commander of the High Seas Fleet, and was promoted to admiral in September. Twice promoted in a year, it is true that the war has promoted the pace of promotion of soldiers.
USS Glory
Destroyer Zeal
USS Acasta
On January 22, 1941, the 52-year-old Admiral Lütjens once again commanded the two battlecruisers "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" to go on a hunting trip, in which Lütjens gave full play to the advantages of the "Scharnhorst" class battlecruiser "battleships cannot catch up, cruisers cannot be defeated, and enemy battlecruisers compete with them and suffer losses". Never fight with the enemy, go away after the fight, and strike east and west. Disturbed the order of the Atlantic route to the greatest extent. For example, when he found the HX-106 fleet south of Greenland escorted by battleships, he quickly changed plans, slipped westward, turned the rudder north after detaching himself from the enemy, hid in the Davis Strait for ten days, and when he went south again, after sinking five merchant ships in a row, he wandered in place for a moment and then quickly sailed southwest; after being discovered by the British, he turned back to the northwest again, sank sixteen merchant ships in a row, and then took the southeastern voyage back to the Brest Naval Base in the French occupation zone before the British reacted. The attack, which lasted more than half a month, sank a total of twenty-one cargo ships with a total tonnage of 110,000 tons, and successfully attracted the attention of the British Royal Navy, pinned down a large number of Royal Navy ships, and covered the return of friendly ships from the north road. This hide-and-seek-like art of conducting fully reflects The talents of Lütjens. In the case of radar and carrier-based aircraft are inferior to each other, they can successfully avoid the enemy's main force, which makes people have to admire.
Lütjens, who became an admiral
The wind is cold and the water is cold, and the brave man will not return once he is gone
On 18 May 1941, after three months of returning home, Lütgens was again commissioned to command the fleet to sea after being promoted to admiral, this time commanding Germany's most elite battleship Bismarck (bismarck class) and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen (Admiral Hipper class), the mission of this attack was to cut off Britain's Atlantic lines of communication, Hitler personally inspected the Bismarck before departure, and summoned Ruttergens and others to ask for their views on the prospects of this attack. However, Lütjens, who had a good understanding of the British navy, was not optimistic about the attack, and he did not think that the entire Royal Navy could be countered by a single Bismarck. Lütjens then made his own proposal: after waiting for the repair of the "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" to be completed, the sister ship "Tirpitz" of the "Bismarck" that was being stepped up to be outfitted was completed and formed into combat effectiveness, and then concentrate two battleships and two battlecruisers to attack together with a total of four ships.
Battleship Bismarck
Prinz Eugen heavy cruiser
Although This proposal of Lütjens is conservative, it is also desirable, and if the British Navy faces these four cutting-edge German naval capital ships at the same time, it must concentrate all the high-speed battleships and aircraft carriers that can be used to win. At this time, the Royal Navy was simply unable to concentrate the capabilities and capabilities of all high-speed battleships and aircraft carriers. Unable to fight these four German ships at sea at the same time. If this plan is really implemented, it is not known who will be in charge of the Atlantic theater.
Before Hitler could answer the call, Marshal Erich Rieder, the commander of the German Navy, who had been vigorously promoting Lütgens, insisted that "the battles in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean have reached the most critical time, and the war situation is not waiting for me!" His immediate superior, Bole, was so insistent, and the "Fuehrer" present was known to respect the opinions of the commander-in-chief, that Although Lütjens was unwilling in his heart, he had to express his deference to the general's orders. Before leaving, Lütjens said to a colleague: "The strength of this battle is very different, I am afraid that I will take the old life." ”
On 18 May, the battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, flying the flag of General Lütjens on the mast, left their home port and sailed into the vast Atlantic Ocean.
The British who tried to piece together their forces to intercept
According to Lütjens' plan, the fleet took the north course first, then the northwest course, and successfully and unharmed across the Norwegian Sea, towards Greenland, to the Danish Strait between Iceland and Greenland - that is, the entrance to the Atlantic Ocean. Because the route of the fleet was close to the Arctic Circle, British air reconnaissance did not spot the Germans. Since the main target of the Germans was the convoy, Lütjens hoped to sneak into the Atlantic with the help of thick fog.
What Lütjens did not expect was that the British Admiralty had long suspected that the Germans would break through the Atlantic, and the news of Bismarck's departure was confirmed by "superclassified" (a specialized intelligence deciphering agency that cracked the Enigma code). Three days later, on 21 May, the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen formations were spotted and photographed by Spitfire reconnaissance aircraft as they anchored in the Grimstad fjord in Norway, near Bergen. On this basis, the Royal Navy dispatched its troops to keep an eye on the routes that Bismarck would pass through when it entered the Atlantic.
The Royal Navy's strength on paper can be described as a large number of troops, but the actual number of troops that can be used to intercept the Bismarck with a speed of more than 30 knots is not much, five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships and four Revenge-class battleships, as well as two Nelson-class battleships, are unable to intercept German ships due to insufficient speed. The five "King George V" class battleships that started construction before the war were comparable to the German ships in terms of speed, but the firepower was inferior, not to mention that at this time, only the first ship of the class, "King George V" and the second ship "Prince of Wales", were completed; the speed and firepower could compete with the German ships, the three battlecruisers "Shengwei", "Enemy" (belonging to the "Prestige" class) and "Hood", but they were either fighting in the Mediterranean at this time, or they were escorting the merchant fleet on the ocean. The only ones who could make immediate dispatch were the 21-year-old battleship Hood and the battleship Prince of Wales, which had been completed on 31 March 1941 and had just announced its entry into active service in the Royal Navy on 21 May.
USS Hood battlecruiser
USS Prince of Wales
At 00:50 on May 22, 1941, Lancelot Admiral E. Hollander's Hood led the battleship Prince of Wales and five destroyers out of Skapa Bay to intercept bismarck in the Danish Strait (this configuration was jokingly described as "an old woman with a little boy", the "Prince of Wales" was so "new", its crew had not yet completed training, the gun sighting device had not yet been debugged, and there were technicians from the shipyard in charge of debugging equipment).
Lancelot Vice Admiral E. Holland
On the evening of 23 May, the Germans were spotted by the radar-equipped British heavy cruisers Suffolk (of the Kent class) and Norfolk (of the Norfolk class), while the two ships were patrolling the Danish Strait, waiting for a German breakthrough. After a brief exchange of fire between the two ships, the British cruisers, knowing that they were not opponents, were forced to release smoke and retreat beyond the range of the German ships, tailing the Germans with radar. At the same time, the huge vibration generated by the bismarck's main gun fire caused the condensed ice on the mast to fall off and smash its radar, forcing Lütjens to order Prinz Eugen to sail to the front of the fleet, providing the fleet with a forward radar search. This inadvertent decision in the ensuing Naval Battle of the Danish Strait left the British unable to distinguish between the German ships, as the two German ships themselves were very similar in silhouette, as were the camouflage painted on the hulls.
At 5 a.m. on 24 May 1941, as the German fleet prepared to leave the Danish Channel, the sonar of Prinz Eugen detected 2 undetermined ships on the starboard side. The German ships were immediately ready for battle.
At 5:15 a.m. on May 24, the Hood sent the last telegram to the Scapa Bay Naval Radio Station consisting of only a few letters and numbers, which roughly meant: "A battleship, a cruiser, 17 miles, 013 sea area, 210 courses." At 5:35 a.m. on the 24th, the battleships Hood and the Prince of Wales discovered the German ship.
The British formation was led by the Hood, behind the Prince of Wales. Lieutenant General Holland ordered his own ship to be aimed at the German ship in an attempt to shorten the distance between the two sides as soon as possible. At 5:49, Holland ordered fire to be fired at the German leading ship that thought bismarck was actually Prinz Eugen. The Hood opened fire at 5:52 a.m., and the Prince of Wales then opened fire on pristine Eugen. It wasn't until after two salvos that Captain Richie, the Captain of the Prince of Wales, judged that the one behind the formation was Bismarck, and a minute later the Prince of Wales opened fire on Bismarck. Lieutenant General Holland, after receiving the secretary from the Prince of Wales, discovered that the target of the attack had just been wrong, and immediately ordered the firepower to be diverted to the Bismarck, but much time had been wasted and some confusion had been caused. At 5:55, the German formation returned fire and concentrated its fire on the Hood.
The situation on the battlefield was very favorable to Lütjens - since the Bow of the British battleship was facing the German ship, the Hood and the Prince of Wales could only fire with four 381 mm and five 356 mm guns respectively (the Prince of Wales A gun turret had one gun that could not be fired due to a faulty lifting mechanism), while the German warships were able to return fire to the British with all 380 mm guns and eight 203 mm guns.
Immortal feats and the gates of hell
At this time, the "Hood" and the "Prince of Wales" fired a total of six and a half salvos (half of the main guns fired), and the "Hood" lost all of them, but the "Prince of Wales", which had not yet been debugged, hit the "Bismarck" in the fourth and a half salvos, but did not cause fatal damage to the "Bismarck".
The Germans counterattacked much more efficiently: a 203 mm shell fired by Prinz Eugen hit the middle of the Hood, causing a fire on the deck of the dinghy and spreading rapidly. A 4-inch anti-aircraft artillery shell and part of the ammunition of the UP rocket stored in an anti-aircraft ammunition box were detonated. The fire was so strong that explosions were heard one after another. However, Lieutenant General Holland ordered his subordinates to ignore this, probably believing that the fire would only affect the deck, and the explosion would only hurt the damage pipe personnel, and the damage could be quickly controlled. Holland ordered the left-hand drive twenty degrees to attack bismarck with full firepower. At this time, Major Schneider, the main fire control officer of the Bismarck, had accurately measured the distance of the Hood and ordered the four turrets to "salvo", and the Bismarck fired a fourth salvo at a distance of 16,000 meters to achieve a straddle at the Hood.
At 6:00 a.m., the distance between the two sides was about 13,600 meters, and the Hood had just completed its turning, and a shell of the fifth salvo of Bismarck hit the rear of the main mast of the Hood. Penetrating the weak deck armor, it detonated the secondary ammunition depot and then spread to the main ammunition depot. The deck of the lifeboat near the rear mast of the Hood suddenly emitted a large amount of smoke and made a very dull explosion. The sound was not very loud, but it was very intense, and the second half of the hull of the "Hood" was immediately shrouded in black smoke. A violent explosion ensued. The explosion occurred in the middle and rear of the hull, almost instantaneously, the entire warship was engulfed in smoke and fire, the X main turret of the "Hood" was violently exploded and lifted to a height of tens of meters in the air, and the smoke of the explosion rushed straight to a height of hundreds of meters, a large number of hull fragments and even some of the body of the crew were thrown into the air and scattered on the deck and the surrounding sea, and some hull fragments even fell on the deck of the "Prince of Wales". After the explosion, the Hood first tilted 6 to 7 degrees to the right, and then to the left. The hull of the ship broke in two at the rear main mast. The rear part was blown into a pile of debris, and the front part was detached from the rear and sunk to the left. The bow was lifted off the surface of the sea within a few seconds of the explosion, and after falling into the water, a large amount of water entered the rear fracture, quickly sinking, and then the entire front half of the bow was sunk vertically into the sea upwards and backwards. The ship sank in the 1500-foot deep Atlantic Ocean at 63°20' N and 31°50' W. At this point, the Prince of Wales, located about 900 meters behind the Hood, turned right-hand to avoid the wreckage of the Hood.
Computationally inferred that the Bismarck shell penetrated the trajectory of the hull of the Hood from underwater
Later generations drew the process of the explosion and sinking of the "Hood" through research, armored shovelers
A hand-drawn sketch of the explosion of the Hood by Captain Colonel Richie of the Prince of Wales, apparently near the main mast in front of the X turret
Seeing the Hood disappear in front of his eyes, Lütjens could not accept this reality for a while, but his surprise soon turned into ecstasy, and immediately after celebrating the victory, he ordered to continue the attack on the Prince of Wales.
At 6:03 a.m., the single-handed Prince of Wales carried a salvo of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, and was hit by four 380 mm and five 203 mm shells, the most fatal of which was a 380 mm shell hitting the weakly armored box tower bridge of the Prince of Wales, and all the personnel of the entire bridge had no life except Captain Colonel Richie and a signal soldier, causing the Prince of Wales to lose control for a while, and the hull tilted to the right at one point to 20 degrees. The time-conscious Ritchie used the backup call system to directly notify the engine room control room to order a rudder retreat.
Depicting the Prince of Wales passing by the side of the explosion-sunken Hood, taken from an armored shoveler
Of course, the "Prince of Wales" counterattack was not a no-no: since the engagement, the ship had fired a total of nine rounds of five "semi-salvos" at bismarck, except for the one hit by the fourth salvo before, the sixth and ninth salvo hits one bullet each, and the sixth salvo hit the one that penetrated about 30 mm of light armor on the bow of the Bismarck, causing damage to the second fuel tank to break, and the leaked fuel began to cause a long fuel belt; the bullet hit by the ninth salvo caused " A boiler on the starboard side of the Bismarck was destroyed, the generator cabin of the No. 2 was flooded, the hull tilted 3 ° to the left and 9 ° tilted, the right propeller tip came out of the water, and the speed dropped to 26 knots, laying the foundation for the future annihilation of the Bismarck. However, these hidden dangers did not erupt at this time, and Lütjens, who received the report, also realized that the Bismarck had lost the ability to continue the combat mission. Seeing the departure of the Prince of Wales, Lütjens did not give the order to pursue.
At 9 p.m., the Royal Navy officially issued an announcement: "The British Royal Navy intercepted and attacked the German fleet off the coast of Greenland this morning, including the battleship Bismarck. During the battle, the Hood was unfortunately hit by the ammunition depot and exploded. The Bismarck was hit. The pursuit is still ongoing. There may be no one on the 'Hood' who has survived—"
Three and a half hours later, when the destroyer Electric was the first to reach the sunken waters of the Hood, no survivors were found except for the three men lying on the life raft (Ted Briggs, Bob Timbonley, and Bill Dundas), and the only 3 survivors were all killed after the explosion and desperately swam away from the sinking hull, and the remaining 1418 officers and men, including Lieutenant General Holland and Captain Cole, were all killed with the ship. After the war, the Hood received the only combat title of her life, "Bismarck 1941".
At the ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the Hood's battle, Princess Anne saluted the salvaged and restored Hood ship, which was heard by Chinese and foreign ships
The wreckage of the bridge part of the Hood found in the 2012 exploration activity, Chinese and foreign ships
The Hood learned the lessons of the Battle of Jutland, but was still unable to escape the death of the Battle of Jutland.
The next thing Lütjens on board the Bismarck was to reward the meritorious personnel of the Danish naval battle, but he may also know in his heart that the British who have suffered losses will gather their forces to encircle themselves, and may reflect their prediction before the voyage: "The strength of this battle is very different, I am afraid that I will take the old fate." ”
Named after Lütjens, the destroyer "Lütjens" of the Federal Republic of Germany
Here are the benefits:
The director of the plant drew a second view of the battlecruiser "Hood"
The director of the plant drew a second view of the battlecruiser "Scharnhorst"
Side view of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen drawn by the director of the plant
The director of the factory drew a second view of the "Kent" class heavy cruiser