FVN Chapter 663: 622 submarine
Chapter 663: 622 submarine
Chapter 663: 622 submarine
From the moment they hit the water, the panicked flight crew were close to tears. Being grasped and hauled onto the world’s only submarine of its kind, they lay sprawled out, gasping on the wet deck.
“Quick! Help me pull him up!” The flight engineer, who had been holding onto the copilot, shouted for assistance to get the unconscious copilot onto the submarine: “He’s injured!”
However, the sailor who had jumped into the sea ignored him and just pushed him towards the submarine. As he pushed, he explained, “He’s already dead!”
The crew hadn’t realized that they had been floating in the sea with a corpse for over an hour, never letting go until they were rescued.
“You all did well.” The submarine’s captain stood atop the command casing, looking down at the men and shouted loudly.
Knowing he had lost a crew member, the pilot sat in silence, soaking wet. Though the seawater wasn’t ice-cold, his mood was far from good.
...
“If you had come just a bit earlier, just a bit... he might not have died.” The bombardier murmured softly, holding onto a sailor who had passed him a cigarette.
“He’s been dead for a while now. We didn’t come here for you guys.” The sailor spread his hands in a helpless gesture, “You should thank your lucky stars. We just happened to be passing by.”
“You didn’t come to rescue us?” The navigator asked in surprise, having thought this unseen ship that emerged from the sea’s depths was there to find them.
“No, we are the engineering technicians testing this ship, along with a few representatives from the Navy... This project is still highly classified, so not many in the Navy are even aware of our existence,” the man with glasses explained.
This warship was not yet commissioned into the Navy and was still in the testing phase. Aside from a few Naval submariners on board for training, only a small portion of the leadership of Tang Country knew of this warship’s existence.
Even now, the warship did not have its own name, and when referred to, it was simply called “that warship.”
“We were just testing some... special feature of this warship.” Due to secrecy, even after everything had been seen by the flight crew, the personnel on the submarine still couldn’t mention sensitive terms like “diving,” “submerging,” or “underwater travel.”
“If we hadn’t seen your orange vests and observed carefully for a while, confirming your identities, we might not have even surfaced,” he said while pointing upwards toward the captain’s position, “You should be grateful to our captain, he’s a good man.”
“Thank you! I am the pilot of Flying Fortress Bomber number 397, here’s my bombardier, flight engineer, navigator... I request that you take the copilot’s body back with us.”
“That’s... difficult...” Hearing the request to bring back a body, the submarine crew looked uneasy: “We have no way to preserve the body.”
It wasn’t out of any superstition that they hesitated, but... they were on a submarine. The ventilation was already poor, and to stack a corpse inside would make the odor... nearly lethal.
“We are Air Force, we don’t have the tradition of a sea burial.” The pilot looked up at the captain above him.
This might be why every German submarine crew member in World War II was so highly decorated: besides sinking enemy warships, they really couldn’t find anything else interesting to do.
Even though the identities of the airmen could be confirmed, access to the submarine’s engine room, the torpedo bay in the front, and even lingering in the command room was not allowed for them.
Even so, the risk of leaking secrets was still tremendous: the interior space of the submarine was so compact that every inch had to be utilized, and secrets could be seen everywhere.
You see, even the toilet on the submarine was high-tech and strictly off-limits for these Air Force airmen.
“Thank you. If it weren’t for you, we might have been soaking in the sea for much longer,” said the pilot, extending his hand.
The captain reached out and shook the pilot’s hand, “No need to be polite, I hope we can fight side by side again in the future.”
In reality, the pilot was being a bit too optimistic. He didn’t know that at that moment, planes were still circling non-stop, looking for his aircraft and had even expanded the search area.
Since the submarine had not been listed with the Navy, the Navy was also unaware that a new type of warship was cruising in the combat zone.
Night fell quickly, and thousands of Shireck Sailors, along with various officers, cooks, and stokers, could only despairingly continue to soak in the water, waiting.
In actuality, the rescue operation had already begun. The Sailfish had pulled up more than 50 Shireck prisoners. However, they still hadn’t found their own downed airmen, and the search and rescue operation had to be hastily concluded before nightfall.
The patrol plane returned to base, discontent, leaving the area, while the search was handed over to a Fengshun-class Destroyer that had arrived later.
The massive searchlights swept back and forth across the sea surface, with plaintive cries rising and falling. As the darkness fully descended, these became increasingly feeble.
The warship’s sharp bow sliced through the sea surface, sometimes even colliding with floating debris as well as corpses and survivors.
But after a busy round of searching, they still couldn’t find the airmen, who might have been in the water for 5 hours.
Then, Xiao Yun, who was in charge of this search and rescue operation, received a telegram from the Navy, saying that 5 airmen had already been found...
And after that, the Shireck prisoners soaking in the water finally received the order to rescue them...
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