Seeing Turner's brazen return to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even the need to give guidance on such a critical occasion, the frustration of the army, especially the army's top brass, was really a shame -- Turner's strategy of "replacing the crew for tankers" had greatly damaged the vitality of the army's aviation, and it was still too much to slow down. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

But there is little way for the Army to blame Turner, because the intention of bringing Turner back is clear, the Navy wants to protect the Pacific Fleet, or at least the backbone of the Pacific Fleet. This was not only President Truman's determination, but also Dewey's request, even if Turner and Dewey turned their faces and expressed their dissatisfaction with Dewey in public and private, at least at today's small-scale public meeting, Dewey still shook hands with Turner very gracefully, and also gave Turner a short greeting to General Turner and General Turner for his retirement life -- as a politician, you must be good at concealing your true feelings, and he courteously Turner not for Turner himself, but for the navy behind Turner.

Many people, including Nimitz, have criticized Turner's linear thinking, and even Spruance, who is close to him, agrees with this assessment, but that doesn't stop them from seeing Turner as their own. Turner did just that, and in his philosophical dictionary of life, "Navy interests come first!" Reading this sentence is the only way to truly understand Turner.

And a person who thinks in a linear way is good - he can drill the horns of the bull, as long as he is given the direction, he will definitely be able to hold back the move. As for the good and bad, whether there will be other side effects, they are all in the second place and even not considered.

Turner was first of all categorically opposed to the idea of a scattered escape or a quick escape of troops, and he also opposed Halsey's idea of "fighting to the death with the Japanese on the southern or northern fronts" -- this was the mainstream view developed by the staff officers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in an emergency situation.

He first asked a very simple and thought-provoking question - is face or fleet important? Is it politically important or militarily important?

The Pacific Fleet, as the only mobile force on the west coast, is not an opponent of the Japanese army in the short term, but if it still exists, it can at least play a role in containing and delaying time; if according to Halsey's idea of "dying vigorously", it can certainly fight out 2-3 or even more Japanese aircraft carriers, but it will definitely not change the situation in which the Japanese army is alone in the Pacific Ocean, and once the Pacific Fleet is completely destroyed, it will soon be Hawaii's turn. Turner asked Clark: "Assuming that Hawaii has no army and navy support, with the current 100,000 defenders on the island and related supplies, do you think you can hold out for a few months?" ”

For the Hawaiian defenders, who have "no reinforcements from outside and no fuel from inside," once they face the encirclement of the Japanese army and the landing campaign, the morale will decline very quickly, maybe for three months, maybe one month -- in short, no one in the army dares to pack a ticket.

In the same vein, Turner analyzed the current situation: not to mention that the Navy will not be able to project forces to the West Coast for a long time to come (6-8 months), and even if it could, there would not be too many resources available in the future - the Naval Shipbuilding Committee had just confirmed that by June 1945 1945 the three Essex class ships would be completed in addition to the three Essex class ships by the end of this year.

It sounds like a lot, but in reality the 10 ships are very unevenly distributed: only four ships were completed in the first three months, and two ships per month in the second three months - from April 1945 onwards, the Essex class would continue to be delivered at a rate of two ships per month. Unfortunately, this point in time meant little for the United States, or it was too slow: the warships delivered in June would not be operational until at least August, and the situation on the West Coast was now too dangerous to drag on until then.

So after Turner asked the question, Nimitz hurriedly stated on behalf of the Navy: the fleet comes first, and face comes second; Military first, political second. He even said that as long as he could keep Halsey and the main force of the fleet, and let Nimitz bow to Horikichi and beg for mercy - the top of the navy said this, and Truman and the other high-ranking officials could only echo it.

This is why Nimitz instructed Spruance to bring Turner back, and it is said that he was also approved by Admiral King. Simply asking for advice on some plans and programs would have allowed Turner to privately tell the two of them that now letting Turner proudly hold the nondescript title of "deputy director of the Office of the Retired Admiral's Naval Affairs Adviser" is obviously asking Turner to say what the Navy thinks in his heart, but can't say on his face -- this is a truth that everyone understands.

In fact, Turner is also being used as a gunman now, but he is willing to do it - without the towering tree of the navy, he Turner is nothing, let alone pointing the country, and maybe he will go to prison in two days. At least now he doesn't have to go, Nimitz and Spruance have even found a small place in the Pentagon to set up an "adviser's office" - in addition to naval affairs, maybe in the future, there will be army affairs, who knows?

Turner's point of view is certainly different from others, and he believes that the most dangerous time for the TF50 is not in the next few hours, but in the early morning of the 31st. As for the moment, as long as the fleet retreats in a group and uses escort aircraft carriers to defend the core warships, it will be no problem to spend the next few hours safely.

His judgment was as follows:

First, Halsey has 230 fighters, which can inflict heavy casualties on the invading enemy -- in fact, he believes that the Japanese army has already had the opportunity to attack the TF50, but it is only because they are afraid of heavy losses and are unwilling to do so, as long as the escort aircraft carriers hold up their umbrellas for the Essex class at sea and in the air, and at the same time retreat collectively at a speed of 18 knots, it is not a big problem to stay up until the sun sets.

As for the first reason, many people have also thought of it, and some staff officers have proposed that two Essex-class, two South Dakota-class, and eight cruisers should be given priority in retreating, and the escort aircraft carriers should take off and the fighters should defend all the way, but Turner believes that the escort aircraft carriers can also act as a meat cushion for the warships to block mines at critical moments -- now the Essex-class is not very afraid of Japanese bombs, but the Japanese torpedoes are fatal, as long as they are hit and above, there may not be any danger of sinking, but they must slow down, and now this situation will be over as soon as they slow down.

Second, after sunrise tomorrow, the risk to the Halsey fleet will be reduced to a low level.

As for the second judgment, it is actually an extension of the first judgment: since the Japanese army did not fight in the early stage because it was afraid of the killing of US escort fighters, as long as it maintained sufficient fighters and speed, the Japanese army would still be quite restrained in its own losses.

The schematic diagram he drew on the chart is quite obvious: the current fleet time is 10:30, about 20 hours to sunrise on the 31st, and it is now a total of 1,800 kilometers away from the west coast, if it can move slowly at a speed of 18 knots, it can advance at least 650 kilometers in 20 hours, which means that it is only 1,150 kilometers away from the west coast, and the army and navy have a lot of P-51\P-47\F4U fighters on the west coast, which can provide a large range of about 2,500 kilometers after loading the auxiliary fuel tank, so that they can set off from the west coast, always hovering over the fleet, escorting the fleet with surplus fuel.

To this point of view, the army aviation instinctively expressed disgust, and Spartz subconsciously asked: "Army pilots simply do not know how to take off and land warships, such a long distance, flying to the top of the warship and staying for a few minutes before returning home, it is simply impossible to escort the ship for a long time." ”

"I didn't say let them go back!"

"You!" Spatz glared.

"Not having to return is not for them to commit suicide, the planes will cover over the fleet until they run out of fuel and parachute or make a forced landing on the sea, and then let the destroyers rescue them...... As I have learned, these planes can basically maintain 2 hours of escort time in this position, and the closer the fleet is to the west coast, the longer the escort aircraft can stay. Turner smiled wryly, "This is what Horikichi did in the naval battle in the South Pacific, and we will learn from it now." ”

Everyone nodded, and their faces began to relax, although the pilot will inevitably lose some money, but at least there is a rescue channel, which is much better than simply sending him to death. The army aviation generals looked at each other, pinched their noses and agreed, indicating that 350 planes -- it was not that the army was stingy, but that there were not many skilled pilots who could maintain their skills after flying 1,150 kilometers, and Nimitz had gone out of his way to draw 400 Hainan Airlines planes, and said that the first batch of aircraft that would be put on the HNA at dawn would be put on the HNA first, and the HNA would be on the ground air when it ran out -- at that time, it would not be 1,150 km, maybe 950 or even 850 km.

At this time, Lu Hang had nothing to say at all, and agreed to it.

To paraphrase Turner's calculations, 750 is not very safe, but it is basically enough.

"The biggest risk now is that during the period between sunset today and sunrise tomorrow, I deduce that the enemy will send an elite night attack team, and we don't have very good means of defense, night air defense is simply a difficult point, the west coast can't be defended, and the fleet can't be defended either......"

Everyone nodded coldly, which is why everyone unanimously wants to protect the naval fleet: without the naval fleet, the west coast will be harassed every day, and at that time, both political and military will be extremely passive, and the army aviation responsible for the defense of the homeland will die more.

"According to my understanding, the biggest difficulty in a night attack is to find the fleet, as long as the fleet is found, it is not difficult for Japan to attack, so ......" Turner raised his head and raised his voice to emphasize, "The night formation should be dispersed, and at the same time suspicious troops should be deployed, my idea is to use 12 escort aircraft carriers to simulate the main fleet to attract Japanese firepower for us, and the main fleet will take the opportunity to escape, escape separately at night, and then find a way to gather into a small cluster at dawn tomorrow." When scattering and escaping at night, the fleets can play their fastest speed. ”

The crowd thinks that there is some reason: Scattering and escaping at night will certainly greatly increase the difficulty of the Japanese army's search and attack, and the escort aircraft carrier group that is still in a group will become a relatively conspicuous target, and the Japanese commander will definitely eat the escort aircraft carrier that is easy to fight and then come to other warships to find bad luck, so that there will be more chances of escape -- after all, it is impossible for the Japanese planes to search all over the sky after flying several hundred kilometers, and they will also be subject to fuel restrictions.

Another advantage of accelerating at night is that you can get closer to the west coast at dawn, maybe not 1150 km but 1050 or even 1000 km......