Under the cryptonym “Wikinger” stands the unsuccessful action of the German navy against British fishermen, during which 2 destroyers were lost and 590 sailors were killed without any contact with the enemy. The following story has really happened, and this is probably the most discrediting defeat of Kriegsmarine during World War II.
When a heavy bomber B-29 was distancing itself from the Japanese city of Hiroshima, on which the crew just dropped the first atomic bomb in history, the second pilot of the “flying fortress” – Robert A. Lewis, seeing the exodus of almost 80,000 people underneath them, screamed: “My God, what have we done?”
The American did not know that in addition to the complete destruction of a large city, his crew had contributed to the end of World War II in the Pacific and the start of the nuclear arms race between the world’s superpowers.
The biggest naval battle of the Great Russian-Japanese War, which ended with a total, devastating defeat of the Russian squadron, going towards friendly forces in the Pacific. Tsushima caused Russia to lose its position as a maritime power and the beginning of Japanese domination in East Asia. At the same time, it is one of the most interesting and important sea battles of all time – among other things, because the Russians sailed for 9 months in half of the world only to lose almost all the ships in less than 2 days.