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May 31st,1945, John Brown and Company...
Lena readied to make her way back to the Kansens' dorm after an exhaustive day at John Brown and Company's bustling shipyard, her mind still swirling with the excitement of the day's developments. The shipyard was alive with the anticipation of expansion, as the company eagerly sought to carve out a larger niche in the lucrative Fleet Countries.
The allure of constructing the new Lion-class battleships loomed large, promising substantial profits in the near term. The contracts for HMS Lion and HMS Temeraire had ignited a flurry of activity, as they changed hands from the reputable firms of recently merged Vickers-Armstrong and Cammell Laird to John Brown and Company in a strategic swap for the contracts of HMS Conqueror and HMS Thunderer. The remaining two ships of the Lion-class still awaited their names, shrouded in the promise of the future.
With a looming sea monster threat heightening tensions, the Admiralty found itself with increased funding, finally securing the means to accelerate the production of the Lion-class battleships. The very essence of the Washington Naval Treaty was being scrutinised against the backdrop of escalating peril from formidable sea creatures that prowled the continent's waters.
Six Lion-class battleships could potentially strengthen the Royal Navy's ranks significantly, a much-needed reinforcement in a time of uncertainty.
"Lass," the first dockworker Lena encountered greeted her with a bright grin, his expression radiating a contagious spirit of enthusiasm. "I can't express how truly happy I am"
"Oh, I didn't do much, sir," Lena replied modestly, a hint of humility in her voice. "I merely suggested the possibility of expediting the construction of the new battleships, that's all."
"Nonsense, lass," he laughed. "I have the chance to be part of this—travelling and working in the Fleet Countries? It's a dream come true!"
Indeed, the shipyard was bustling with preparations, as workers were being selected to embark on the journey to the Fleet Countries.
"Take care, lass," he called out as he drove her in a truck, the old vehicle rumbling with life as it transported her toward the waiting ferry. The sun dipped below the horizon, casting golden hues across the sky as they made their way to Scapa Flow, where the silhouettes of warships loomed like sentinels in the evening light.
After a long day filled with strategic planning and financial projections regarding the accessible new supply of high-quality steel for their forthcoming warships, Lena felt the weight of fatigue creeping in. As the night fell over Scapa Flow, casting a dark blanket across the harbour where warships rested, she disembarked from the ferry.
Making her way to the dormitory, she paused at a grave memorialising sailors who had perished at the Battle of Jutland. Kneeling reverently, she placed a delicate flower, a symbol of remembrance and hope, at the grave, wishing that the souls of the fallen would find peace.
Upon entering the dorm, Lena was greeted with warm smiles from a few Kansens standing guard at the entrance, welcoming her back. Most of the Kansens were already deep in slumber as the moon climbed higher in the sky, indicating it was nearly midnight. Tonight, she would share her space with Hood, as her room's heater was malfunctioning—a reminder of the chilling winter air creeping in.
Lena was aware that today marked the anniversary of the brutal attack by Alterhood on Hood, a painful memory shadowing the battlecruiser's otherwise proud history. It was a sombre reflection, especially as the battlecruisers had suffered greatly at Jutland, where three of them had tragically succumbed, taking nearly all their crew in devastating explosions. This catastrophic event forever altered the perception of the battlecruiser class, painting them as fragile and ill-equipped.
The catastrophic loss of HMS Invincible, HMS Queen Mary, and HMS Indefatigable alone accounted for over 48.7% of British losses during Jutland—a single battle that had left a stain on its naval history.
With a determined stride, Lena approached Hood's room and knocked gently on the door.
"Come in," Hood's voice rang out, inviting and warm.
Lena opened the door, stepping inside to be met by Hood's gentle gaze, a sense of concern etched on her features. She closed the door behind her, sealing out the chill of the night.
"I was worried about you," Hood admitted, her eyes filled with genuine care. "How was your day?"
"They've agreed to proceed with the Fleet Countries plans," Lena replied, sharing the thrilling news about John Brown's contract negotiations. "They exchanged contracts for HMS Lion and HMS Temeraire, gaining HMS Conqueror and HMS Thunderer from Vickers-Armstrong and Cammell Laird."
"The Admiralty was eager to secure the Lions swiftly, especially with the recent threats looming over us," Hood explained as Lena set her bag down near the bed, feeling the day's weight begin to lift. "We're left with just two 16-inch gun warships, the two Nelson-class battleships. As they prepare to relocate them to the main Azur Lane base, the demand for new vessels to protect home waters has intensified."
Every navy, irrespective of faction, was scrambling to leverage the fear surrounding the sea monsters, extracting funding from their respective governments to bolster their fleets.
"The remains of the sea monster obtained from the Fleet Countries," Lena noted. "It has become a powerful instrument for all navies to secure additional funding."
Indeed, while the Eagle Union claimed the organs for study, the haunting images of the colossal sea monster had instilled terror across nations, compelling them to allocate more resources to their naval forces.
"Can't sleep?" Lena noticed Hood's tired eyes that, for some reason, refused to close.
"You know what significant event took place today back in 1916?" Hood inquired, the corners of her lips curling into a faint smile, aware that Lena would instinctively know the answer.
"Jutland," Lena articulated, her voice a whisper filled with the weight of history. Almost immediately, a sharp pang of pain shot through Hood upon hearing the name, prompting Lena to leap from her seat and check the bandages that swathed Hood's head. The white dressings concealed half of her face, while the multitude of stitches marred her skin like a patchwork quilt. Her legs lay immobilised, battered by the merciless blows from Alterhood, displaying brutal fractures that spoke of recent violence.
With a worried frown etched on her brow, Lena dashed to the nearby table, retrieving a bottle of painkillers. She counted out several small pills, her hands trembling slightly as she poured a clear glass of water. The air thick with anxiety, Lena returned to Hood, who was groaning softly, grappling with her suffering. She gently offered the painkillers, watching as Hood dutifully took them, washing them down with the water.
As the medicine began to seep into Hood's system, calming her heavy breaths, Lena slipped into a soft sleeping gown and climbed onto Hood's bed, settling down next to her.
"That woman chose this fateful day to kidnap Amelia and ambush me," Hood whispered, tears welling up as she revisited the traumatic memories. "Right on the very day my seniors faced their tragic fates at Jutland, right after Bismarck nearly took my life."
Lena allowed Hood to rest her weary head against hers, feeling the warmth of Hood's tears dampening her hair.
"I should have fought that woman to the bitter end," Hood's voice trembled, the sorrow entwining with anger. "Just look what she's done to you."
One of Hood's arms was trapped in a thick white cast, but she managed to wrap her free limb around Lena, pulling her closer in a desperate embrace. Lena returned the gesture, her heart aching for Hood's pain, as she whispered soothing words to calm her.
"Sir, what transpired at Jutland was largely due to human errors, and your seniors bore little blame for it," she reassured, her soft voice cutting through the haze of despair that surrounded them.
Hood's sorrow began to ebb, replaced by a flicker of curiosity.
"You see," Lena continued, tilting her head to meet Hood's gaze. "When I was trapped aboard Alterhood's ship, she forced me to read something."
Hood, recalling the heartfelt conversation from a year prior when she had confided her thoughts on human errors leading to the disastrous outcome of Jutland, focused intently on Lena.
"It was a report on the battle of Jutland," Lena explained, resting her head against Hood's shoulder, her voice a soft murmur. "I read it over and over again. I kept encountering the Republic's blunders time and time again."
Concern creased Hood's brow as she absorbed Lena's words on the notorious battle.
"The Royal Navy could have secured a decisive victory, but miscommunication, signalling errors, issues with powder handling, and shell faults turned the battle into a calamity," Lena noted, her head resting gently against Hood's skin. "After poring over those reports, it all made sense to me."
Hood remained silent, allowing Lena to express her thoughts freely.
"Alterhood exploited Amelia and me to draw you into her trap," Lena continued earnestly, her eyes reflecting intelligence and resolve. "The High Sea Fleet laid a cunning plan to lure out the battlecruiser segment under Vice-Admiral Beatty, hoping to wipe them out in a surprise attack. They nearly succeeded."
Looking deeply into Hood's eyes, a flicker of cunning gleamed in her own silver gaze. "But what good is a trap when your enemy is already aware of it?"
True to her instincts, Hood had anticipated the traps laid for her, preparing herself for confrontation each time. The second clash saw her training intensively, allowing her to face Alterhood with greater tenacity than before. Lena's empathy stirred a sense of reflection within Hood, reminding her that, indeed, the Grand Fleet was aware of the German strategies and had sailed into battle, foiling the elaborate trap designed against them.
"The trap loses its potency if the intended prey is forewarned," Lena pointed out. Her clarity gave voice to a critical truth: in the case of Jutland, the High Sea Fleet's plan faltered before it began, as the Grand Fleet, not the isolated remnants the Germans had hoped for, had set sail for battle.
"First and foremost, the issue lies in the poor communication between the fleet and the intelligence units," Lena identified, her tone growing more passionate. Hood remained a listening presence, allowing Lena to delve deeper into her analysis. "The intelligence unit was privy to the plan due to Room 40, but the communication breakdown to the Admiralty and the misinterpretation of the information turned critical knowledge into missed opportunities."
True, her senior, Tiger, spoke of the harrowing battle, drawing from the scant information at their disposal as they set sail into the uncertain waters ahead. No one had anticipated a fierce confrontation that day; expectations were modest, with only the Scouting Group expected to launch a minor raid. Yet, the Germans had cunningly executed their plan, luring Tiger and her fellows ever closer to the formidable might of the entire High Sea Fleet.
Lena elaborated on the critical misstep that had led to their dire predicament.
"The liaison neglected to gather all the necessary details of the intelligence," she remarked, her voice steady yet tinged with frustration. As a result, he mistakenly believed that the High Sea Fleet remained safely docked in harbour. "This oversight was the beginning of a disastrous chain of poor communication that would plague the Royal Navy during the battle."
She recalled how the Legion had mastered the art of radio jamming, expertly severing lines of communication between nations, rendering them vulnerable to piecemeal destruction.
"The Legion's radio jamming effectively dismantled organised resistance during the first year of the war," Lena continued, her silver hair catching the light as she spoke. "A tactic that would continue to hinder us for the next decade."
She emphasised the irony, noting that both fleets ventured into battle under pretences, each believing that only a fragment of the opposing force would engage.
"Both sides entered the fray blind, unaware that they were walking into the most significant naval conflict of the Great War," she pointed out, a grim acknowledgement of the impending chaos.
As Lena delved deeper into the issues, she touched on the critical failings of wireless communication and flag signalling. A sharp memory pierced through Hood's mind—a recollection of Tiger's exasperation with Beatty's flag officer, whose laziness and negligence had severely hindered their tactical response during the battle. Beatty's sluggishness in relaying commands to Admiral Jellicoe did little to help the battle. Warspite, a proud warship, seethed with frustration at both men for allowing her crew to bear the brunt of enemy fire, particularly when Beatty failed to tell the other ships with adequate speed or communication.
Hood felt the weight of Warspite and Tiger's frustration, remembering the opportunities lost to annihilate a significant portion of the High Sea Fleet—missed chances borne from rampant miscommunication and the chaos of warfare. Vital intelligence was either disregarded or drowned in the tumultuous noise of battle, obscured by the creeping fog of war that clouded judgment.
"The breakdown of communication was the Royal Navy Achilles' heel," Lena stated, raising a finger to underscore her point. "Only second to the catastrophic mismanagement of ammunition and powder supplies. Look at HMS Invincible, HMS Queen Mary, and HMS Indefatigable; they bore the brunt of those failures."
Hood could vividly picture the gruesome explosions of the three battlecruisers, recalling what her senior told her. Tiger had been near Queen Mary when she shattered apart in fire and smoke like a volcano, a sight that haunted her. The emotional scars ran deep—Tiger had wept in Hood's arms countless times as she recounted the agony of witnessing such monumental loss.
"I perused the reports from before the battle," Lena continued, her voice reflective. "The assessments of the battlecruisers leading up to Jutland. The relocation of these formidable ships to the south—an area vulnerable to High Sea Fleet raids—had severely limited gunnery practice. This constraint compromised the handling of shells and ammunition as crews adjusted to achieve a higher rate of fire."
The navy had long stood as the first line of defence, yet the march of new technology and the mounting threats of war had allowed the High Sea Fleet to undertake numerous raids on the Isles throughout the Great War. In response, the Admiralty hastily relocated the battlecruisers, aiming for a faster reaction to potential assaults. However, this tactical move, set against the backdrop of civilian populations, curtailed essential gunnery practice, leading to reduced proficiency and resultant errors in ammunition handling.
This desperate pursuit of rapid-fire capability contributed directly to the tragic fate of the three battlecruisers, which became symbols of disaster, their loss resonating profoundly with nearly all crew members lost at sea.
"The shells themselves proved woefully inadequate, which allowed the High Sea Fleet to suffer fewer losses than they should have," Lena added, her tone grave. "Had those shells been effective, the Germans might have seen six or more capital ships sunk."
Indeed, the Grand Fleet had scored several massive hits, yet the damage inflicted was minimal compared to what it could have—and should have—been. This dismal shell performance ignited a scandal that sparked a redesign and subsequent trials of new ordnance, known as the Greenboy shells.
As Lena's words faded into the air, Hood allowed her mind to drift into darkness, her eyes finally resting, weighed down by the sorrow of those memories, as shadows of the past went away at last.
Lena gently slipped out from beneath the warm covers of Hood's bed, the soft rustle of fabric blending with the room's quiet. She had managed to ease Hood's troubled mind regarding the haunting memories of this day, one etched deep in the annals of history decades ago. With a tender gesture, Lena lifted the blanket, delicately tucking it around Hood's slumbering form, as the lady deserved a peaceful night's rest after grappling with the weight of the past and waiting up all night for Lena's return.
Though Lena had a multitude of ideas swirling in her mind to soothe Hood's heart, the initial three had successfully diverted the lady's attention from the tragedy that befell her seniors on this fateful day. The lead-up to the Battle of Jutland echoed with an unsettling familiarity, reminiscent of the grave missteps executed by the Republic.
As Belfast shared with Lena the poignant truth that every year on May 31st, sleep eluded Hood, Lena initially found herself puzzled. Yet, after perusing the harrowing reports on Jutland and the unflattering shadow cast upon the battlecruisers in its aftermath, understanding washed over her. The searing memories of her seniors perishing in the chaos, along with the smear campaign that sullied her class ship's legacy, enveloped Hood in a sorrow that Lena felt compelled to mend, all in honour of those lost souls.
An unsettling notion crept into Lena's mind regarding the dubious decision to deploy HMS Invincible and HMS Indefatigable, despite their outdated designs. These venerable ships, aged and under-armed in comparison to the formidable High Sea Fleet, ought to have been stationed far from the fray—perhaps safeguarding distant waters like the Falklands or the Far East, where they could have challenged Von Spee's Squadron early on.
The three fallen battlecruisers met sheer dumb luck due to a direct hit at the magazines and poor handling of the powder. Queen Mary, the newer ship, suffered massive explosions due to sheer dumb luck and placement of the shells and the powder in the turret. As a result, she met the same fate as her two older cousins.
Lena held onto a fleeting hope that she had lightened the burden on Hood's heart, even if just temporarily, despite the painful spectres of the past that loomed large. She yearned for the day she could help Hood cast off the heavy mantle of grief that had clung to her for so long. The unjust stigma surrounding the battlecruiser, stemming from the perceived inadequacy of its armour, was a tarnished assertion that Hood tirelessly laboured to overturn.
In Lena's vision, the imposing Lion-class battleship stood as a worthy successor, a potential means to lift the thorny crown that had weighed heavily upon Hood for over two decades. She hoped that, in time, someone else might be deemed deserving of the title "Pride of the Royal Navy," allowing Hood to find peace finally.
With a sigh, Lena ambled over to a modest mattress in the corner, her own exhaustion creeping in as she settled in for some much-needed rest. The Admiralty had already tasked her and Annette with significant projects that lay ahead. While Hood recuperated in her tranquil slumber, Lena had pressing responsibilities awaiting her. A new era of warfare loomed on the horizon, one defined by aircraft carriers and powerful jets that would transform naval battles and the skies above.
Innovative ideas from recent encounters, such as the frightening Fritz-X missile that almost sank Warspite, and the heavy anti-aircraft measures employed by the Legion gunboat during relentless aerial assaults, had sparked inspiration within the Admiralty to counter these emerging threats.
Technological advancements during the Legion War, particularly the use of scout drones and precision-engineered laser-guided shells, emboldened the Admiralty's vision for a more refined artillery targeting system for naval vessels. The encounters with the Legion gunboat had starkly illuminated the glaring limitations of the Royal Navy's armour-piercing shells, igniting a fervent desire for newer, more powerful ordnance.
Annette's expertise in the Para-RAID program caught the attention of those in command, and the Admiralty was eager to capitalise on any knowledge that could advance their own initiatives.
With a well-deserved refit and ample time to rest, Hood would soon return to the battlefield rejuvenated. Yet, as Lena's thoughts drifted back to the battle report that gnawed at her conscience, she ultimately set aside her worries, her gaze fixed on the peacefully sleeping Hood. Weariness overcame her, and soon, the soft embrace of sleep enveloped Lena as her eyelids grew heavy. She whispered into the stillness of the room.
"Good night, sir,"