Chapter 192 Miracle

For this secret operation, the crew had received six months of rigorous training, and now even the cook on the boat can operate these thrusters skillfully.

"Begin the operation!" Prien gave the order, picked up the diving suit that had been prepared long ago and began to put it on.

The first mate on the side advised with some concern. "Captain, I'd better go first. If there is any accident, you will be needed to command."

"Don't worry." Prien patted his shoulder. "You said that the spirits of our ancestors will bless us, what accidents can there be?" Then he said seriously. "But just in case, you go and install the explosives. We are carrying so many advanced equipment this time, and we must not let them fall into the hands of the British."

"Yes!" The first mate nodded, and took a few people to install explosives in the torpedo room and the power room.

The first batch of action team members changed into diving suits, and the submarine slowly rose to the hatch and emerged from the water. Although they can climb out of the torpedo tube, they not only carry oxygen equipment, but also bulky night vision goggles. For convenience, they still had to go in and out through the hatch. Anyway, it was late at night, and unless there was a searchlight shining here, no one would find their submarine in the dark.

"Let's go!" A group of twelve people walked out of the submarine hatch and jumped into the sea. After entering the water, Prien couldn't help shivering. Although it was summer, the sea water at night was still a little cold.

The twelve people were divided into four groups and swam to both sides of the submarine. Prien pulled out the wrench from his waist, fumbled for the nuts that fixed the propellers, and began to disassemble them.

Although the German engineers tried to make the disassembly process as simple as possible, each propeller was still fixed with more than 30 nuts, and it still took some effort to disassemble it. Fortunately, there were three people in each group, and each person only needed to be responsible for a dozen nuts to get it done.

After removing the propeller, they pushed it to the front of the submarine's torpedo launch port. At this time, the sailors in the boat had pushed the tactical bomb head out of the torpedo launch port halfway.

This step was not easy either. To launch an ordinary torpedo, high-pressure air is needed to "shoot" the torpedo out; but this tactical bomb head is not a torpedo, so it can only be carried out by a sailor who climbs into the torpedo tube with the warhead, closes the rear cover, injects seawater, and then opens the front cover. The sailor in the launch tube slowly pushes the warhead out of the launch tube.

Prien and others took great effort to fix the warhead in front of the propeller. Fortunately, these warheads have buoyancy devices, otherwise they would have to sink to the bottom of the sea with it.

After taking a few breaths, Prien sat in the front seat of the propeller, responsible for controlling the speed, direction and lifting of the propeller; another sailor sat in the back; then the four teams headed for their respective targets.

The maximum speed of this propeller can only be maintained at 3 knots. If the speed is too high, it will not only affect the range, but also may throw the operator off the seat. Under normal circumstances, the operators can just keep their chins above the water. If they encounter patrolling ships around, they have to dive underwater.

When Prien's propeller was more than 50 meters away from the target warship, he operated the flooding valve and began to dive slowly.

Soon their heads were submerged. He saw that the luminous depth gauge on the steering wheel had shown 15 meters, so he closed the flooding valve and slowly drove forward.

The darkness became deeper. Although the night vision goggles they wore were waterproof and could be used underwater, after all, these night vision goggles were not the high-tech advanced equipment of later generations. In addition, the density of seawater is much greater than the density of air, so the effect of night vision goggles can only be said to be better than nothing.

After driving forward for a distance, the sailor on the back seat patted his shoulder. He knew that he had come to the bottom of the target ship, so he turned off the motor, opened the drain valve, and let the propeller rise slowly.

In this process, he had to be particularly careful. There were various things attached to the bottom of the ship, and if he was not careful, he could tear the diving suit and cause seawater to leak in. They had encountered such situations many times during training, and they dared not be careless at this time.

After a while, his shoulder was patted twice, and the sailor behind him found the keel.

The keel is a longitudinal member connecting the bow column and the stern column in the center of the base of the hull. Its main function is to bear the load, withstand the longitudinal bending moment of the hull, and ensure the structural strength of the ship. Therefore, once the keel is severely damaged, the ship will either break in two or be dead or injured. Even if you want to repair it, it will be impossible without a year or two.

The sailor fixed it on the keel with a special clip and pulled out a rope to fix the second clip; then the two of them worked together to wrap the rope around the hook of the warhead and separate it from the propeller.

Without this heavy object, the propeller floated up uncontrollably, and Prien hurriedly turned on the flooding valve to prevent the propeller from colliding with the bottom of the ship.

They set the time fuse on the warhead to 6 hours later, when the warhead with 450 kilograms of explosives exploded and destroyed the sea giant above. The ticking of the fuse clock sounded second by second, and the sailor climbed back to the back seat of the propeller. Prien started the motor, swam out from under the big ship, slowly ascended, and returned to the submarine.

There was a flashing infrared beacon on the top of the submarine, so they easily found the location of the submarine. Because it was infrared, it would not be detected by others. Only those of them wearing night vision goggles could see it.

The first mate had already led the second group of action teams waiting there. "Captain, are you okay?"

Although he was exhausted after this trip, Prien still showed an excited smile. "It's okay, hurry up, we don't have much time."

Prien didn't return to the cabin until the second group of action teams left. The first thing he did was to take off his wet diving suit, wrap himself in a blanket, and drink a few sips of steaming coffee.

He looked at the time. It was now 3:027.

They arrived at the entrance of the Kakok Strait at 1:05 a.m.; it took nearly an hour to cross the strait and enter Scapa Flow at 2:30 a.m.; it took more than an hour to remove the thrusters, install the warheads, give the enemy ships a big gift, and return. Although there was no step of removing the thrusters from the second group, they could directly install the bombs and leave; but they could only send one more group before dawn; after that, they had to evacuate in the darkness before dawn.

But three waves are not a small number. If nothing unexpected happens in the middle, they can harvest a full 12 large warships; even if each tonnage is 10,000 tons, it is 120,000 tons; this will be the highest record of single-line sinking tonnage so far!

They will create an unprecedented miracle!