When it was dark, Tan Renhao made new arrangements for the more than 10 destroyers in the fleet, and the anti-submarine network was divided into two layers, with six destroyers on the periphery on mobile patrols, and another six destroyers on the inside. The cruisers were concentrated in the direction of both sides of the aircraft carrier, and the distance was shortened to 2 nautical miles, so that even if there was a sneak attack by a submarine, it was quite possible to hit the cruiser first, and not the aircraft carrier. In other words, Tan Renhao used the cruiser as a shield for the aircraft carrier, while the destroyer was responsible for patrolling the perimeter to prevent enemy submarines from sneaking closer.

"The fleet maintains a speed of 20 knots, and no matter what, it will hold out for at least a day.

Tan Renhao assigned a task to the navigation staff, "As long as we return to the waters south of Gardner Island, it will be safer, and then let the fleet return at cruising speed!" ”

As soon as the seafaring staff understood what the commander meant, he immediately went to adjust the navigation of the fleet.

Hao Dongjue walked in, he first glanced at the staff officers who were still busy, and then walked over to Tan Renhao. "The losses of the pilots were counted, and there were probably more than 30 pilots captured by the US military, and more than 20 people were actually killed. The wounded have all been settled, a group of seriously wounded have been transferred to the cruiser and are now being rescued. ”

Tan Renhao nodded, and then walked out of the command cabin.

After the bombers of the Qiu Gengbo group returned, Tan Renhao arranged for two intact "water birds" to reconnoiter and monitor the Fifth Fleet, but by the time the two reconnaissance planes arrived, the remaining warships of the Fifth Fleet had already run away, and finally caught up with them more than 50 nautical miles to the south. By that time, the distance between the two sides had expanded to 280 nautical miles. The speed of the American fleet reached 33 knots, while the speed of the 1st task force was only 22 knots. When Yang Qinkai's fleet returned. The distance between the two sides is already close to 300 nautical miles, and the distance continues to widen. As a result, Tan Renhao had to give up the third wave of bombing. It has been confirmed. All four aircraft carriers of the Fifth Fleet were sunk, and two more large cruisers were sunk. Other words. The rest of the Fifth Fleet were small warships that did not pose much threat, and Tan Renhao had no need to let Yang Qinkai and them take another risk for these warships.

You must know that the pilots of Yang Qinkai's group carried out three bombing missions in less than ten hours, and many of the pilots were about to collapse when they returned to the fleet, when the bombers landed. There were three accidents that caused serious injuries to one pilot, and to let them take off again was simply asking for the lives of these pilots!

Tan Renhao's decision was later criticized, because those escaped American warships caused a lot of trouble to the Imperial Navy in the future, and more importantly, Spruance was on the fleeing battleship, and Tan Renhao missed the opportunity to kill Spruance. But under the circumstances at that time, Tan Renhao had to give up the attack. The first is that the distance between the two sides has been expanding, even if Yang Qinkai's group is allowed to set off immediately. By the time they flew over, the distance between the two sides had increased to about 330 nautical miles, and it was likely that the bombers would not be able to return to the fleet. Secondly. The pilots were extremely tired, not to mention dropping bombs on enemy warships, and whether they could hold on to flying over the enemy's fleet was a question. Finally, and most crucially. At that time, both aircraft carriers of Task Force 1 were damaged, and even if they had not completely lost their aviation combat capability, the state of the aircraft carriers was very unstable. Tan Renhao has ordered the most dangerous ammunition compartment and aviation gasoline depot on the aircraft carrier to be closed, and a comprehensive inspection of the aircraft carrier's pipelines to the ground to ensure that there are no hidden dangers, and if the oil depot is opened rashly, it is very likely to lead to catastrophic consequences. That is, at that time it was simply impossible to replenish the bombers with fuel and ammunition! Of course, Tan Renhao didn't know that Spruance was still alive at the time.

Under these circumstances, Tan Renhao's decision to give up the attack was quite normal. He had already won the victory, successfully destroying most of the main ships of the Fifth Fleet, especially the four carriers.

And with a big victory already in place, he had no reason to let Task Force 1 continue to take risks. Under the circumstances, Task Force 1's most important task was to return safely to the Empire and allow the two damaged aircraft carriers to be repaired in a timely manner. The injuries suffered by the "Xingkai Lake" and the "Hongze Lake" were not serious, and Tan Renhao himself roughly estimated that the "Xingkai Lake" would be repaired within about a month, while the "Hongze Lake" would take two months at most to repair. If there is an accident on the way, then no one can bear this responsibility.

Of course, there was another circumstance that many people did not take into account, and that was that there was not much fuel left for Task Force 1 at that time. After completing the replenishment, the fleet carried out five consecutive days and nights of combat operations, and during this time, more than half of the time was sailed at the fastest speed.

And the fuel consumption rate of a battleship at the fastest speed is three times or even more than four times that of a normal cruising speed. In other words, the fuel left for Task Force 1 at that time was probably just enough to return to the supply area southwest of Gardner Island. In addition, the power system on the battleship needs to be maintained, and it is already a blessing in misfortune that there is no problem, and if you hold on to the battlefield for an extra hour, it will be a little more dangerous, if the boiler of any battleship explodes because of long-term high-efficiency operation, I am afraid that this will be an extra loss!

This also reflects the mature side of Tan Renhao. If it had been four years ago, or even a year ago, he would have organized a third round of bombing without hesitation, and he would have completely wiped out the Fifth Fleet before returning home. But now he didn't do this, he rationally chose to retreat and keep the results of the battle, instead of sacrificing the combat effectiveness of the fleet for unnecessary purposes and making the officers and soldiers pay a greater price.

After the two of them had dinner, it was already completely dark, and the fleet was still sailing westward, and every hour, it would make an anti-submarine evasion maneuver. Tan Renhao also let the officers and men of the fleet enter the normal rotation operation, and now everyone needs to rest, but someone must stick to their posts.

"You go and rest, I'll be on duty at night." Hao Dongjue also knew that Tan Renhao was almost tired.

"No, you go and rest at night." Tan Renhao glanced at his partner, Hao Dongjue hadn't slept well for almost three days and three nights. "I also have to write a combat report. Send back the specific situation as soon as possible, so that General Liao Hanxiang can prepare faster. ”

"This ......"

"Go get some sleep, and remember to come early tomorrow morning to change me."

Hao Dongjue smiled reluctantly. "It's fine. I'll come to you tomorrow before dawn, if you can't hold on at night.

Let's go get some rest, we won't be back in Guam for a few days anyway. ”

After sending Hao Dongjue away, Tan Renhao asked Du Xing to make him an espresso, and then returned to the command cabin. He had already sent back the approximate battle situation in the afternoon, and asked Liao Hanxiang to prepare for basic maintenance for the two aircraft carriers. In addition, find a way to arrange a group of destroyers to meet the returning fleet. He also did not forget to contact Wei Dongbei and let Wei Dongbei pay attention to the US convoy, if Nimitz continued to let the convoy go to Gardner Island, then he could only rely on Wei Dongbei's artillery formation to intercept the convoy.

The specific battle damage report still gave Tan Renhao a headache, the losses in this battle were not small, preliminary statistics showed that more than 70 pilots were killed or captured, and the fleet lost about 500 officers and men, and there were some accidental casualties. The loss of combat aircraft exceeded 120 units. All three aircraft carriers were injured, and it is still a question whether they will be able to return safely. The losses of the escort battleships were not significant, but because of overuse. Most of the ships were in a problematic condition and required extensive repairs.

Tan Renhao was not in a hurry to complete this battle damage report, he just wanted Hao Dongjue to rest, so he just made an excuse. In this battle. Hao Dongjue is even more desperate than Tan Renhao, at least, Tan Renhao can rest for a few hours every day, while Hao Dongjue is almost spinning, and he doesn't even have time to take a breath.

"General, the telegram I just received was sent by General Liao Hanxiang."

Tan Renhao looked up at the communications officer who had come over and motioned for him to put the telegram on the chart table. Except for Tan Renhao and Hao Dongjue, all the main staff officers of the fleet headquarters and the main officers on the battleships of the fleet were very tired. And now, all the officers on duty in the command cabin are ordinary officers, and the staff officers have been arranged by Tan Renhao to rest.

After a while, Tan Renhao picked up the two-page telegram, which was a very long telegram.

Liao Hanxiang first congratulated the First Task Force on its victory, and then explained that he was already preparing in Guam to do simple repairs for the fleet, and that the "Gaoyou Lake" aircraft carrier would arrive at Apra Harbor within two days, and that the aircraft carrier would not be attacked by submarines again, and that it would be sent back to the Imperial shipyard for overhaul after the simplest repairs were made at Apra Harbor. In addition, Liao Hanxiang has arranged for more than 10 destroyers to provide anti-submarine cover for the returning Task Force No. 1, and these destroyers will strive to rendezvous with the No. 1 Task Force within four days. This is only a secondary part of the telegram, and the main content is still to come.

The U.S. convoy that had previously arrived at Kauai was still sailing westward, and Liao Hanxiang had already contacted Wei Dongbei and asked Wei Dongbei to prepare to intercept the U.S. convoy. But the problem is that now the artillery formation commanded by Wei Dongbei has been fighting continuously for a long time, and the performance of many warships has problems. And according to credible intelligence, the ships that escaped from the Fifth Fleet did not return to Pearl Harbor but went to Kauai, and it is likely that Nimitz had the undamaged ships to provide cover for the convoy. Therefore, Liao Hanxiang wanted to talk about Renhao to send a number of warships, especially cruisers, as much as possible to support the artillery formation in northeastern Wei and strengthen the interception force.

Liao Hanxiang did not give this task in the telegram in the form of an order, but asked Tan Renhao to make arrangements according to the actual situation of the fleet, that is, whether to strengthen the artillery formation in northeast Wei, this is decided by Tan Renhao, if Tan Renhao feels that it is not necessary, then the artillery formation in northeast Wei will meet the US transport fleet alone.

After reading the telegram, Tan Renhao smiled bitterly. He also found that Liao Hanxiang still had one point that he did not explain, that is, Han Shaofeng was preparing to launch a final attack, and the fleet was the main fire support of the marines on Gardner Island, so Liao Hanxiang wanted to talk about Renhao arranging for the cruiser to go to Gardner Island.

Tan Renhao didn't think too much about it. The fleet will be out of the strike range of the US long-range bombers tomorrow afternoon, and there will be no need to consider the air threat at that time, so it only needs to be covered by destroyers to cover the return of the aircraft carrier, and the cruisers can be assigned to the artillery bombardment formation in northeast Wei. And now these cruisers in the fleet have enough ammunition on board (with the exception of anti-aircraft guns), and the capabilities of naval combat are not bad. Moreover, the fleet was also sailing westward, and when it reached the vicinity of Gardner Island, it was not too late to let the cruiser pass.

In the second half of the night, Tan Renhao finally couldn't hold on and fell asleep on the chart table.

When he woke up, the first thing he saw was the officer standing next to him.

"General, the telegram from General Liao Hanxiang just now."

Tan Renhao hesitated for a moment, and while taking the telegram, he asked, "What time is it?" ”

"It's almost four o'clock, and the chief of staff will change shifts in about half an hour."

"You guys are also going to change shifts, two hours early today, everyone go and get a good night's sleep." Tan Renhao nodded at the officer, then picked up the telegram.

This is the second telegram sent by Liao Hanxiang, to be precise, it should be the telegram from the naval headquarters forwarded by Liao Hanxiang, which was sent by Gan Yongxing.

Gan Yongxing still congratulated Tan Renhao on his victory in the battle, and this victory has been affirmed. The main content of the telegram was to ask Tan Renhao to hand over the cruiser to Wei Dongbei for command, let Hao Dongjue lead the fleet back, and after arriving at the supply area, he would take a seaplane to Midway Island, where he would transfer to a transport plane and return to the naval headquarters (he had to land on Guam on the way), ready to accept the award and new mission.

When Tan Renhao finished reading the telegram, he laughed helplessly, and Hao Dongjue also returned to the command cabin at this time.

"What's going on?"

"See for yourself." Tan Renhao gave both telegrams to his partner, "It seems that the chief of staff really wants to exhaust me!" ”

"Hey, those who can work harder, don't think about it."

"Yes, with the phrase 'those who can work hard', I have to run for my life!" Tan Renhao smiled and shook his head, "I'll go to sleep, the fleet will only return to the supply area in two days, I'll arrange relevant things in the afternoon, you just pay attention to anti-submarine!" ”

Looking at the back of his partner leaving, Hao Dongjue also laughed helplessly.