On another sunny morning, as the Ju-88 long-range reconnaissance aircraft belonging to the German Air Force flew over the airspace of the traditional anchorage in northern Scotland, the pilots were surprised to find that two aircraft carriers and four cruisers were nowhere to be seen. The open sea was now only occupied by the injured "Rodney" battleship, the aging "Rage" aircraft carrier, and a few light vessels.
The news of the deployment of the "Ark Royal" and the "Eagle" was immediately relayed to the German Navy Command by the German Air Force Intelligence Department, and encrypted radio waves swiftly flew towards Trondheim—The two branches of the German military, the Air Force and the Navy, were cooperating closely with unprecedented efficiency.
Although all the ships were fully fueled and manned, Otto Syriacos, commanding the German fleet, did not dare to leave the heavily guarded Trondheim port hastily, given the unknown whereabouts of the enemy aircraft carriers. Based on the plans provided by the Air Force Operations Department and the Navy's experience in Brest, the Germans had built a new air defense formation in this northern Norwegian port: FUMO radars were installed at the Bruxstad and Sandy Capes at the mouth of the Trondheim fjord. When British aircraft approached the Norwegian coast, the radar would alert, and the entire air defense system would start operating; German fighter planes at Trondheim Airport were on standby, ready to take off within 15 minutes of receiving an alert from the radar station; 17 anti-aircraft guns positioned at high points around the port and along the fjord provided a dense firepower protection network for the entire port, supplemented by large smoke generators deployed on the coast and patrol boats, enough to effectively protect the German fleet stationed here in a short period of time!
With great anticipation, by noon, the two British aircraft carriers leaving the anchorage finally "appeared": a group of 39 torpedo bombers composed of "Swordfish" and "Albacore," escorted by 14 "Sea Gladiators," aggressively approached the Trondheim port. However, even before this group of carrier-based aircraft reached their target, 11 Bf-109s and 7 Bf-110s from the German 5th Air Fleet had already flown out to the Norwegian coast, and a fierce air battle erupted in the cold Nordic skies:
Both sides had experienced pilots, with the Germans having the upper hand in weaponry. The British pilots, however, were determined to win. Aircraft chased, rolled, and flipped in the sky, the sound of engines ranging from dull to loud, and the sound of gunfire accompanying each short and long burst. The battle began with brutal killings from the start. Many pilots were killed by bullets directly in the cockpit, while some unlucky ones failed to escape from their damaged aircraft and plunged into the land or sea along with them. The luckier ones managed to open their parachutes in time, but none could survive for long in the cold waters!
With the frontline fighter units successfully intercepting the second attack of the British carrier aircraft, the 5th Air Fleet, commanded by former Chief of the Imperial Air Force Hans Schunpf, immediately dispatched long-range fighter and bomber units from various airfields in northwest Norway to search and attack the British carrier fleet—Four batches of combat aircraft took off, totaling 161 aircraft, almost the entire combat strength of the air fleet, and their large scale and decisive action clearly indicated that this was not just a temporary combat order. Considering the cold weather in the Nordic region, preparations had to be made in advance for runway conditions, aircraft fuel, and engine operation!
Using the powerful German fleet as bait, a grandiose naval ambush gradually reached its climax. Around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, a squadron of He-111s discovered the British fleet, centered around two aircraft carriers, about 210 nautical miles southwest of Trondheim. Despite the interception of carrier-based fighter aircraft, the pilots carried out their attack. Limited by the accuracy of horizontal bombing, only one of the 47 bombs hit the "Eagle," and it failed to pose a serious threat to this aircraft carrier, which had been converted from a battleship. However, after radioing the position of the British fleet, a large number of German bombers rushed in!
Thirty minutes later, as the last "Sea Gladiators" returned to the "Ark Royal" flight deck from Trondheim, the British fleet began to retreat westward at full speed. However, within minutes, 23 Ju-88s tracked them down, and these agile twin-engine bombers immediately conducted accurate dive bombing on the two aircraft carriers. Although four of them were shot down by intense anti-aircraft fire from British vessels, their daring actions soon paid off: a 250kg bomb hit the flight deck of the "Ark Royal," and the huge aircraft carrier was immediately enveloped in thick smoke and flames. The previously launched fighter planes for cover could only land on the "Eagle," with limited capacity, but just six minutes later, a bomb dropped by a German bomber hit the flight deck of the "Eagle," although the explosion was slightly off to the left side of the ship, it instantly destroyed nine parked aircraft and a large number of ground crew on the flight deck, and more critically, the fighters in the hangar couldn't take off, and the ones that took off couldn't land.
Once the air cover was lost, the aircraft carrier, with limited air defense capabilities and thin hull armor, was in an extremely dangerous situation!
German bombers taking off from Norwegian airfields soon arrived, and British cruisers and destroyers had to go all out to protect the two aircraft carriers, resulting in black smoke from exploding anti-aircraft shells hanging over the fleet. But without the interference of British fighters, German bombers became even more reckless, and even the Bf-110 heavy fighters dived down, strafing the British vessels with machine guns and cannons. Don't underestimate the bullets from aircraft guns—they inflicted great damage on surface vessels and could even threaten the weak hulls of upper structures on destroyers. After successive attacks, by the time British fighters took off from airfields in northeast Scotland to "rescue," this British fleet was already in chaos and disarray. Although none of the ships sank, each suffered varying degrees of damage, especially the two aircraft carriers, which would take at least ten days or even longer to return to combat readiness!