Not long after dawn, just as Huang Xiaotian was about to get up in a daze, his adjutant pushed open the hatch, and a staff officer ran in quickly. Five minutes later, Huang Xiaotian, who didn't have time to wash, rushed into the command cabin, and at this time, Yan Yulong and all the staff officers were nervously guarding near the radio station of the fleet's internal communications.

"Where are the enemy's reconnaissance planes? Any more news? Huang Xiaotian walked over while buttoning the neckline.

Yan Yulong immediately turned around. "It was shot down, and it was confirmed that it was an SBD reconnaissance plane, and when our fighters found it, this reconnaissance plane was returning home. No other reconnaissance aircraft have yet been found. ”

"Where's the radar?" Huang Xiaotian's hands were trembling slightly, and he clenched his fists, not wanting to add to the tension.

"The radar has just been turned on, and no reply has been received yet." Yan Yulong noticed Huang Xiaotian's restrained nervous expression. "Maybe the US fleet is far away from us, and I just ordered the bomber unit to be ready for departure, and now the action plan for the second batch of reconnaissance planes has been canceled, and the aviation service department is inspecting the bombers, and the first batch of bombers can depart in half an hour at the earliest."

Huang Xiaotian nodded slightly, and a staff officer marked the location of the SBD on the chart.

"Have the bomber pilots assemble." Huang Xiaotian let out a sigh, "Let the aviation service department prepare a squad of reconnaissance planes first, and I will arrange the reconnaissance flight route in ten minutes." In addition, the fleet is ready for air defense operations, adding three squads of air defense fighters. Before I give the bombing order, the rest of the fighters have to be on standby on the flight deck, ready to participate in the air defense of the fleet! ”

Yan Yulong nodded and immediately called the aviation operations staff officer over. In normal times, these aviation combat orders were directly issued by Huang Xiaotian, and only during the operation, because Huang Xiaotian needed to take care of the actions of the entire fleet, would there be an aviation combat staff officer to issue aviation combat orders.

Although the atmosphere in the command cabin, and indeed the entire battleship, the atmosphere in the entire fleet was tense. The appearance of US reconnaissance planes means that the Fifth Fleet is nearby. Less than 300 nautical miles from them, a battle could break out at any moment. However, the staff officers, the officers and men of the battleship, and the officers and men of the entire fleet were doing their jobs in an orderly manner. This is precisely the benefit of the quality of the officers and men of the Fourth Task Force, and if there are too many new soldiers, I don't know how much unnecessary trouble will be caused at this time, thus reducing the operational efficiency of the fleet.

Huang Xiaotian also forced himself to calm down. He first learned about what was starting to happen.

The first reconnaissance planes set off at half past five. Immediately the fighters, who were responsible for the air defense of the outer perimeter of the fleet, took off. The sudden appearance of the SBD was the site of two fighters patrolling the southeast of the fleet, and from the initial reports of the fighters, the SBD had been sailing in a north-easterly direction until it was spotted. Because at that time the ground radar in the fleet was not activated. Therefore, since it is impossible to judge the accurate course of the enemy's reconnaissance plane, it is impossible to reverse the general direction of the enemy fleet. Other than that. While the fighter was catching up, the 03D was turning. Therefore, it is also impossible to judge whether the enemy reconnaissance aircraft turned after discovering the fighter or because it had already reached the limit of the reconnaissance radius. It can be said that the situation at that time was extremely coincidental, and as a result, Huang Xiaotian could not judge the exact position and distance of the enemy fleet through this information, and the only thing he could be sure of was that the Fifth Fleet was not in the north. It's to the south of him!

Then, Huang Xiaotian confirmed that four of the first batch of reconnaissance planes were flying in a southeasterly direction. And the one on the far right of them should be heading towards the sea area where the Fifth Fleet may be active. The SBD had sent a telegram before it was shot down, and perhaps it would not have mentioned the discovery of Task Force 4, but it would certainly have been intercepted by fighters. Then Spruance would have been able to judge that Task Force 4 was to the north and immediately organize the bombers to set off! But the problem is, where the Fifth Fleet is, Huang Xiaotian still can't judge, if the Fifth Fleet is too far away, then he is wasting the fleet's strike force by sending bombers now. But if it's too close, then if he doesn't send bombers now, I'm afraid he will never have a chance.

Huang Xiaotian's thinking speed was very fast, and it only took him five minutes to make an inference about the two possible scenarios, just when he was hesitating whether to send a bomber or a reconnaissance plane first, suddenly there was a ticking sound from the radio when it received the telegram, and just as he turned his head, Yan Yulong connected the horn to the radio.

"Report, report, here is 'Swift' 4, here is 'Swift' 4, the enemy fleet was discovered, three large fleet carriers were confirmed, the distance was 310, the azimuth was ......

Hearing this, Huang Xiaotian's eyes immediately widened in surprise. Without waiting for the staff officer to mark the location of the enemy fleet, he himself drew a red cross on the chart. The Fifth Fleet, to be precise, a task force of the Fifth Fleet was 310 nautical miles south of them, and it was sailing in a southwesterly direction, while the Fourth Task Force was sailing in a northwesterly direction, so the distance between the two sides was not shortening, but expanding!

The pilot of the reconnaissance plane repeated the three-sided report in a row, and then the call ended, and Yan Yulong also came over at this time. Huang Xiaotian didn't look back at the staff officers, he knew that everyone was waiting for his decision now. To be more precise, Huang Xiaotian must choose one of the two options, and it is a mandatory choice and a single choice.

If it chooses to fight, then the fleet must immediately go south and let the bombers go. Taking into account that at this time it is an easterly wind, this will have a negative impact on the combat radius of the bomber. In addition, it takes enough time to attack a huge fleet of three aircraft carriers. By the time the fleet returns, the fleet may have been hit, and it is very likely that it will not be able to land on three carriers, so more time will be needed. Therefore, the combat radius of the bombers will definitely be shortened considerably, and if the bombers are to take off immediately, then the fleet will have to sail south and strive to shorten the distance with the American fleet, so that the flight distance of the bomber group will be shortened when it returns home.

But the risk of the fleet going south at this time was considerable, and the Fourth Task Force was already in the air, and Spruance had no reason not to send bombers. At this time, Huang Xiaotian had already learned that the US military was equipped with a new type of bomber, and whether it was SB3C or TDF, its combat radius was much higher than that of the original bomber. By no means under the "Shooting Birds" and "Sea Eagles", Task Force 4 no longer has the advantage of striking radius. What made Huang Xiaotian even more uneasy was that. It was only one U.S. fleet that was found, where was the other fleet? In addition, the report of the reconnaissance plane clearly mentioned that there are no bombers on the aircraft carriers of the US fleet, and it is impossible for the "Essex" class aircraft carriers to stuff all the bombers into the hangars, and this is the same as the "Lake" class aircraft carriers, and some of the bombers will certainly have to be parked on both sides of the flight deck. So, has the US fleet already arranged for the bombers to depart?

Another option is to "run away". Or rather, "retreat". Anyway. Anyway, it is to let the fleet immediately sail north, and close the distance between it and the enemy fleet as soon as possible. At the current distance between the two sides, even Spruance had already let the bombers go. Then these bombers will also take a half or even two hours to arrive. And the fleet can pull the distance away by 30 to 50 nautical miles during this time. Perhaps this distance is still not enough to escape from the strike range of the US bombers, but it can certainly limit the combat time of the US bombers and force the US bombers to drop bombs in a hurry. In addition, this one and a half hours is enough for all the fighters in the fleet to take off, and the 108 "Golden Eagles" on the ground on the three aircraft carriers are enough to form a tight air defense network over the fleet, and it is certainly not a problem to deal with more than 100 US bombers.

But there is also a serious question about "running away", or rather "retreating", that is, in which direction to run? And the crux of the matter is still another US task force that has not yet appeared. If this is a trap set by Spruance. Then another U.S. task force must be somewhere nearby, if the fourth task force turns around. I am afraid that I will hit it head-on, and then be hit by the two task forces of the Fifth Fleet and nearly 500 bombers on the six fleet aircraft carriers at the same time, and even if the 108 pilots of the Fourth Task Force are all aces in air combat, it is almost impossible to block the repeated strikes of 500 bombers in a row. Therefore, even if you want to escape, you have to choose a right direction to avoid the American fleet that has not yet appeared!

In fact, the key to these two options is how the fleet should turn, and whether to strengthen the fleet's air defense first, or arrange for the bombers to depart first. Huang Xiaotian only thought about it for less than five minutes, and he made a decision.

"The fleet maintains its current course, accelerates to 31 knots, and in addition, immediately let all fighters take off with large auxiliary fuel tanks, at least to ensure that they can patrol until noon today." Huang Xiaotian turned his head, "After the standby fighters take off, those fighters that need to be refueled within two hours will immediately return to the aircraft carrier to refuel, so that the aviation service personnel can make corresponding preparations." All fighters had to take to the air within an hour, and all but two squadrons were responsible for the inner layer of air defense and two squadrons patrolling the north and northeast sides of the fleet, and the other five squadrons were all concentrated within 90 degrees of the south of the fleet, ready to intercept American bombers at any time. ”

The aviation operations staff officer quickly conveyed the order of the fleet commander, and he did not seek the opinion of the chief of staff of the fleet, and at this time, Huang Xiaotian would not listen to Yan Yulong's opinion.

"Are we ready to retreat?" Yan Yulong didn't object, but was a little puzzled.

"It's not about retreating, it's about figuring out the situation first." Huang Xiaotian walked to the left porthole of the command cabin and looked at the aviation service personnel below who were already busy, as well as the fighter pilots who were preparing to board the plane. "We're too far away from the U.S. task force, and there's another task force that's not showing up. Why the Fifth Fleet is to the south of us, I don't have time to think about it yet, and the first thing we have to make sure is not to be killed by the Fifth Fleet. Even if we take out the task force to the south, if the fourth task force is wiped out by Spruance, we will all lose and we will not be able to achieve the goal of the campaign. At this time, we had better be cautious, because if we pursue it south, it is very likely that we will fall into the trap of the US military. ”

"Maybe the Fifth Fleet is not here to deal with us, after all, it is unlikely that Spruance knows our exact location, this time it just happened to collide, and the Fifth Fleet is not ready for battle."

Huang Xiaotian frowned slightly, he didn't take this into account, he just didn't believe this inference, because in his opinion, there was no reason for the Fifth Fleet to appear to the south of him, and Spruance should go to deal with Midway.

"Perhaps, the Fifth Fleet is going to attack the Marshall Islands." Yan Yulong carefully stated his inference.

"There is this possibility, but the question is, what is the benefit of the US military to abandon Midway and attack the Marshall Islands?" Huang Xiaotian grabbed his partner's shoulder, "In addition, even if the U.S. military does attack the Marshall Islands, then they still have a task force that has not appeared, and it is impossible to take the Marshall Islands in the short term, we don't even need to cover the Marshall Islands to let the Fifth Fleet stay in the Central Pacific, and now withdraw from the battlefield first, this will not have any adverse impact on us, right?" ”

Yan Yulong shrugged his shoulders noncommittally, there would indeed be no loss in retreating, and it would be able to avoid risks, but if the US military was really attacking the Marshall Islands, it would miss the opportunity to annihilate the Fifth Fleet, at least half of the Fifth Fleet, and it is very likely that there will be no such opportunity in the future.

The fighters on the aircraft carrier were taking off one after another, and the fleet had been sailing in a northwesterly direction, and after fifteen minutes it had accelerated to 31 knots. By half-past seven, the fighters on the carrier were all in the air, and those fighters who did not have enough fuel left were returning to the carrier, ready to land for refueling.

It was at this time that the communications staff sent out a telegram, which was actually two telegrams that had arrived one after another, one from the Kwajalein Atoll and the other from the Theater Command, and the content of the two telegrams was partly the same: The U.S. military was bombing Kwajalein Atoll and Majuro Atoll, and there were more than 400 U.S. bombers on these two atolls, perhaps more!