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On 8 December 1938 Germany' s first aircraft carier Graf Zepelin was launced, but far from complete. Oposition from Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, Commander of the Luftwaffe, who was resentful of any incursion on his authority as head of the country's air power,and within his own service, in Admiral Karl Dönitz, a submariner. Technical problems and inexperience of constructing a ship like this cause sveral delays.
But Großadmiral (Grand Admiral) Erich Raeder finaly could order the ship on ship trials in the Baltic on 30 september 1940. These trials were despite some small technical problems extended to a full upworking program, as long as the Baltic wasn't vrozen.
The trials were at least so succesfull the the planed scrapping of the"Flugzeugträger B", was posponed.
From the planned and ordered planes only 12 Fieseler Fi167; 10 Ju 87 C0 ; 7 Ju 87 C1 were used during the trials. In February 1941 10 Messerschmitt Bf 109 T-1 were added to.
All planes were pre-production models and the aircraft carier had thus only a part of the planned 50 planes on board.
Admiral Reader heavaly opposed even within his own service needed an operation which showed the value of this ship.
Several plans resulted in ''Operation Rheinübung'' ("Rhine Exercise") It was a sortie into the Atlantic together with the new German battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen.
Operation Berlin was a a highly successful sortie by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau which ended in March 1941.
On 2 April how ever a fire happened on board the Bismarck, it stated in the galley and howevre the damage was not devestating it was large enough to keep the battleship mored at the shipyard for repairs which lasted until end of June.
This accident delayed the whole operation which was planed in May.
Reader how ever took the decision the proceed with the operation with only the Graf Zepelin and the Prinz Eugen. This could work since he knew that British intelegence considered the large threat of the Bismarck at this moment gone as long as it was in repair. On the other hand the Graf Zepelin did not have their air wing complete.

The operation turned out to be a enorm success even the ships were shadowed from the beginning by a large amount of Royal navy units, among them Battle cruiser Hood and Battle ship Prince of Wales.
The triumph started when the cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk were spotted and destroyed by a combined attack of Fi167 torpedo bombers and Ju87 dive bombers. With this cruisers destroyed the ppusuing Brittish forcess lost the Graf Zepelin and Prinz Eugen.
On midday 28th of May, convoy HX129 was discovered by a scouting plane of the Graf Zepelin. With in an hour all Fieseler torpedo bombers and Junkers Ju87 dive bombers were in the air heading to the convoy, while the Graf Zepelin and Prinz Eugen were steaming towards the convoy.
The attack was devastating; 51 ships out of 73 were sunk by air attack as by surface attack, 4 escorts were destroyed as well.
The Britsh heavy naval units failed, even alerted by the merchant ships, to make close contact with the German ships who dissapeared in the emptiness of the Atlantic ocean
On the 9th of June both ships mored at Bergen Norway.
The success of the aircraft carrier, even Prinz Eugen scored more hits, was impressive enough to resume construction on Flugzeug trager B and production of the planed aeroplanes.
In the mean time Bismarck was almost repaired.
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