Just as the sailors of the Shireck Navy were desperately trying to save their warship, which was engulfed in thick smoke and fierce flames, someone peered through the billowing black smoke to see groups of Stukas approaching from a distance.
"Planes! Planes!" an officer shouted, pointing at the sky to alert his companions, but most of them were helpless against the threat.
Helpless, their few Maxim machine guns, some of which had been destroyed, hardly had any ammunition left.
These machine guns were originally installed on the warships, not for anti-aircraft combat. Their purpose had been to deal with small enemy boats that got too close.
In fact, one could say that the use of these machine guns for suppressing mutinies among the sailors was far greater than their anti-aircraft function.
So the ammunition reserves for these machine guns were not plentiful at all, but which gun hadn't fired off several thousand rounds during the previous anti-aircraft combat?
