In order to maintain Hawaii's fuel reserves, the staff officers racked their brains and thought of many ways, but they were denied one by one:

The first idea was to use heavy transport aircraft to engage in strategic airlift of thousands of aircraft, and after calculation, it was found that only 5,000 tons of fuel could be replenished per week, which was simply a drop in the bucket;

The second idea is that the ships in Pearl Harbor are stationed, and all consumption is stopped, not to mention that it is quite dangerous to take the initiative to stop ships while the enemy fleet is surrounded by the periphery, and the ships should not be stopped purely from the perspective of training, sea trials, and running-in, otherwise how will the recruits master the warships;

The third idea was that all but essential ships in Pearl Harbor would return to the West Coast without consuming fuel from Pearl Harbor's stockpiles, which would greatly extend the maintenance time. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The third opinion is somewhat reasonable, and Halsey also replied to Ingram that "in the event of an unfavorable situation, this fleet will protect the transport fleet and return to the west coast to stand by."

But Spruance privately disagreed with this opinion, and he said something that made everyone dumbfounded: "Are you planning to hide on the West Coast for the rest of your life and not go out?" "Because of the deployment of the US Navy, such as the New York Shipyard, the Norfolk Shipyard, the Philadelphia Shipyard, the Newport Newford Shipyard, the Bethlehem Steel Company's Fore River Shipyard and other naval main shipyards that can build battleships and Essex-class fleet aircraft carriers are all distributed on the east coast, while the west coast shipyards can only build escort aircraft carriers, not to mention whether there are enough pilots and sailors to build more escort aircraft carriers, even if they are fully equipped, can this kind of "jeep aircraft carrier" that will be paralyzed by a 250-kilogram bomb go to fight for the Dafeng-class armored aircraft carrier or Xianghe, Yunlong-class fleet aircraft carrier?

The United States has always considered the deployment of the Navy in the two oceans, but it has never taken into account the pattern of the blockade of the two oceans: the paralysis of the Panama Canal and the blockade of Cape Horn have deteriorated the strategic posture of the US Navy to the point of no return.

To make matters worse, there is not only one sea route to Hawaii that needs to be protected on the West Coast, and the route to Australia and New Zealand is also currently cut off. In Spruance's view, the solution to the current problem can be solved in a short period of time, and the final solution must rely on war, "otherwise after the Pacific route is blocked by the Japanese fleet, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii will collapse sooner or later."

He even used the blockade of the German High Seas Fleet by the Royal Navy during World War I to describe the current situation, "The Pacific Fleet has become a weaker than the German High Seas Fleet, this is not alarmist...... In his eyes, the High Seas Fleet can still muster the courage to fight a tactically victorious Battle of Jutland, the main force of the TF50 fleet cannot defeat the essence of the Combined Fleet, and the Atlantic Fleet is now facing the main force of the Axis Fleet and cannot be reinforced. Even if there are more warships to reinforce the Atlantic in the future, it will be equivalent to no way out when the Panama Canal is blocked and Cape Horn is blocked.

At first, he was annoyed that Tsukahara had "three dozen Panamas" and hoped that the Japanese fleet would get out of here, but if the Japanese army didn't care about the direction of Central America and just went north to the west coast, he felt that he couldn't stand it. The only thing missing was that the Japanese fleet did not have to maintain a supply line of thousands of miles, and could have been replenished by the nearest Galapagos Island and Peru.

At the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the army and army also considered launching an attack on Peru, and finally found that even attacking Peru would not be enough to change the situation, and the Japanese could go to Chile to resupply, and if they fought Chile again, this war would not be seen at all - the Peruvians made it clear that the supplies were requested by the Germans through the La Plata group, and the fuel was provided by the Argentines, and they were also "reluctantly" doing it, and you have the ability to beat the La Plata group and the Germans!

At a meeting late at night on the 22nd, Spruance again proposed: "There are three ways to change the current situation on the West Coast:

First, a radical solution is to quickly make peace with Germany, to transfer the main forces in the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and to overwhelm Japan with the navy of the two oceans.

Second, the TF50 fleet took advantage of the fact that the main force of the combined fleet had not yet arrived, and used the transport fleet as bait to attract the enemy's broken fleet to take the bait and destroy it with the superior forces of its own and ground aviation.

Third, the TF50 fleet uses itself as bait, regardless of whether it has the cooperation of land and aviation, to fight out the enemy's broken fleet as much as possible (there will definitely be some left), so that its main fleet will not be rotated and will respond with a war of attrition. ”

The first two were implemented in a favorable state for the U.S. military, and the third Spruance was a little hesitant at first, but he deliberately communicated with Halsey before he strengthened his confidence.

Halsey's point of view is very clear: assuming that the TF50 fleet and the Tsunoda fleet are all destroyed, the Tsukahara fleet, even if it still has Peruvian supplies, will not be able to maintain it because there is no ** exchange - if Tsukahara's main force goes to Peru to replenish, the west coast can take the opportunity to send supplies to Hawaii; If Tsukahara's main force is stuck between the West Coast and Hawaii, and only relies on tankers to deliver oil, submarines, destroyers, escort aircraft carrier formations, and land aviation can find a way to eliminate it.

But Halsey's wish was not necessarily fulfilled - who stipulated that the enemy must attack the TF50 with the convoy, wouldn't they have attacked the convoy? So before the meeting at night, Spruance secretly approached Turner again and asked him to help him figure out a solution.

Asking Turner is theoretically against the rules, since he is not only retired but also not a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at all, and to discuss this is tantamount to divulging confidentiality. But Spruance thinks that although Turner has such and such faults, he will not commit treason, and there are a lot of ghost ideas, isn't the method of "sailing during the day and stopping at night" on the Caribbean transportation line Turner came up with? And he humbly consulted him.

It is said that Turner is "linear thinking", but linear thinking has an advantage, he will do everything he can to drill the horns, and in the face of Spruance, who was in a hurry to go to the doctor, Turner proposed two methods that were not a solution:

The first is a multi-way attack: organize multiple transport forces, only escorted by destroyers and a small number of escort carriers, and go out in several ways, such as one road from Los Angeles, one road from Canada through Aleushen in the north, one road from Mexico in the south, and several other sacrifices will be sacrificed, as long as one way can be guaranteed to Hawaii.

The second is the aircraft carrier oil: Casablanca-class escort aircraft carriers can carry more than 4,000 tons of various fuels after overloading, 8-12 ships are dispatched at a time and then 4-6 fast tankers to carry out transportation tasks, due to the protection of escort fighters (240-360 air defense fighters), the loss will not be too large, a single trip can net more than 50,000 tons of fuel (deducting the fleet in the middle of the back and forth with fighter escort consumption), the only thing to be prepared for is that the Japanese army sent fast battleships and heavy cruisers with naval guns to break the relationship, But that's another topic, and he thinks it can be solved.

The first type is just that, and the second type is similar to the TL type frigate developed by Japan, except that the escort aircraft carrier developed by the United States has a large number of aircraft and a small amount of fuel; The frigate aircraft carrier developed by Japan can carry up to 7,000 tons of fuel, but there are only 10 aircraft.

Spruance nodded at such a crazy idea, indicating that he knew what it would be like after Halsey and the transport troops converged, and he would not dare to use this kind of "bad idea" until the last resort - just use it if it works. At the beginning, it was Nimitz who refused to listen to Turner's suggestion to send 50 escort aircraft carriers to bulldoze the Azores, so that it became more and more troublesome. In the words that Turner complained in front of Spruance: "Every time I say that my method is too barbaric, I want to use clever methods, but the 'clever methods' don't work every time, I don't want to kill too many people, I don't want to lose a lot, and I don't want to shrink back, I can't let go of that, and I can only ...... if I win."

Halsey, who commanded TF50, knew that life was difficult, and he was not tired on the Franklin late at night on the 23rd, and he chatted with his old partner, Vice Admiral John Sidney McCain (author's note: In real history, the McCain family has achieved remarkable results, the old McCain chased the general, and the wheat later became the commander-in-chief of the Asian theater, and the little wheat is a senior Republican senator, but in 2008 he lost the presidential campaign with Obama, and the legendary life of the old wheat can be Baidu), McCain's mentality is more positive, The proposed solution is slightly different from that of Washington.

"We will first meet the transport fleet in the normal formation, and if we are sure that the main Japanese forces are gathered, the TF50 and the transport troops will first return to Los Angeles and wait for the enemy to disperse again; If we are convinced that the enemy forces will not be able to cut off the transport line, our troops will be divided into two columns, the front and rear, and six escort aircraft carriers will be assigned to protect the transport troops, and the main fleet will protect the ...... 200 kilometers behind."

"What if we run into the enemy's broken fleet first?"

"That's the best, him first!" McCain shook his fist, "I've been seeing them unpleasant for a long time, and if it weren't for the management of (Ingram and Nimitz) from above, I would have wanted to rush out!" ”

Looking at the starry night, Halsey suddenly asked in a ghostly manner: "Last time I was outside with an aircraft carrier formation, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor; This time I am outside with a formation again, will the Japanese go to attack Pearl Harbor again? The broken fleet has been gone for days......"

"This ......" McCain was stunned by what he said, and then laughed again, "Last time there were a bunch of battleships in Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese took advantage of our unpreparedness to sneak attack, and it was quite a bit of a success, this time there are only a few worthless escort aircraft carriers in the port, what can they bomb?" Besides, now that the war has been fought, the army and the army should always be more vigilant, and if they are attacked by surprise, I think all the Japanese will commit suicide. I even thought that Japan would attack Pearl Harbor, so that the Army Aviation would have a chance to sink the enemy ships and reverse the current disadvantage in the balance of power. ”

Halsey nodded, agreeing with the judgment.

While they were chatting, the Second Air Battle, which had been hidden for a few days, had arrived less than 800 kilometers away from the west coast, and Tsunoda calmly summoned the flight captain: "At half past three in the morning, our army will arrive at a place only 600 kilometers away from Seattle. ”

"Understood, go bomb Boeing's aircraft factory!"

"Good luck with your start, please!"