"You mean, the Japanese First Air Fleet is not to the east of us?" Shaoqing was extremely surprised, because he hadn't thought of this at all.

"Let's take a look at the information we've received earlier." Tan Renhao touched the bridge of his nose, "Our submarine has discovered the Japanese Combined Fleet three times, although none of the three telegrams detailed the size of the Japanese Combined Fleet, but one thing is certain, the Japanese Combined Fleet is a whole force, so the First Air Fleet should be within the Combined Fleet." In other words, the First Air Fleet followed the battleship formations in the Combined Fleet to the south. ”

"It's possible." Lei Shaoqing nodded.

"Since then, the Japanese Combined Fleet has been operating in the waters near the Volcanic Islands and the Ogasawara Islands, so where do you think the First Air Fleet will hide?" Tan Renhao glanced at his friend.

"Near the two archipelagos?"

Tan Renhao shook his head. "The aircraft carrier fleet needs enough space to operate, and if the First Air Fleet wants to rely on the islands as cover, in fact, the internal waters of the two islands are not eligible. The Volcanic Archipelago is too sparsely distributed to allow the First Air Fleet to hide, and as soon as the battle starts, our bomber fleet may find them. The islands of the Ogasawara Islands were too densely distributed, and there was not enough sea for the fleet to maneuver. ”

"What do you mean......" Lei Shaoqing hesitated, "between the two archipelagos?" ”

Tan Renhao laughed, but smiled a little bitterly.

"So what do we do? Do you want to cancel the bombing of Iwo Jima? ”

Before Tan Renhao could speak, a radio station rang, and the staff officer in charge of decoding translated the telegram and immediately ran over.

"Damn it!" As soon as Tan Renhao read the telegram, he immediately became excited, "Damn, all those intelligence personnel should be sent to a military court!" ”

Lei Shaoqing quickly took the telegram and glanced at it, and at the same time he was surprised, followed by anger. "Damn, what those intelligence agents are up to. Such important information has not been communicated to us until now! ”

In fact, the personnel of the naval intelligence cannot be blamed, they also sent it to the command of the Navy immediately after receiving it, and the command of the Navy immediately sent the information. In fact, at that time, the intelligence system of the Tang Empire, especially against Japan, was very problematic. After the outbreak of the war, Japan strengthened its domestic intelligence security. With the attitude of preferring to kill by mistake rather than being missed, tens of thousands of people suspected of assisting the Tang Empire in spying on Japanese intelligence were arrested and imprisoned in several concentration camps, and even thousands of people were brutally killed. Before the war, the intelligence network that the Tang Empire had painstakingly built up in Japan was almost completely destroyed. After the outbreak of the war, several intelligence services of the Tang Empire, including the Naval Intelligence Bureau (now part of the Imperial Military Intelligence Bureau), worked to rebuild the intelligence network in Japan. However, in such a short period of time, it is impossible to re-establish a complete intelligence network.

"Three aircraft carriers!" Tan Renhao sat down. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. "If Japan's First Air Fleet really has three aircraft carriers, then the problem is serious."

Lei Shaoqing also sat down, and he glanced at the other staff officers. The staff officers who let the shift rest leave first. There was only one important element in the telegram from the naval command, and that was that the Japanese Navy had a high probability of having three usable aircraft carriers. In addition to the "Zuihe," the "Hayabusa" and "Flying Eagle," which were converted from two large cruise ships, also secretly completed sea trials more than 10 days ago.

Both aircraft carriers were actually converted from cruise ships, the predecessor of the "Hayabusa" was the "Zombie Hara Maru", and the predecessor of the "Flying Eagle" was the "Izumo Maru". The two ships were launched around the outbreak of the war, and were subsequently taken over by the Navy and then converted to aircraft carrier standards. Because at the time of design, the Japanese side had already taken into account the need for more warships after the outbreak of war, so the two cruise ships were designed with a lot of military standards. For example, the length of the hull reached 210 meters. The width reached 25 meters, the displacement was 27000 tons, and the speed exceeded 24 knots. According to the requirements set by the Japanese Navy at that time, the two ships could complete the refit within three months and join the combined fleet as fleet carriers. But in reality, the retrofit took much more than three months.

At the time of construction, the bulkheads of most of the ship's bulkheads were made of wooden planks, which was absolutely unacceptable on a warship, and all of them had to be replaced with bulletproof and fireproof steel plates. It is also necessary to strengthen the watertight system. In addition, the flight deck will be laid during the renovation of the cruise ship, which is actually equivalent to increasing the center of gravity of the hull, resulting in a reduction in the stability of the navigation place, so a series of major changes to the hull will be required. Plus the setting up of hangars, ammunition depots, installation of anti-aircraft artillery and much more. The renovation of the two ships actually lasted almost a year, and it was only within a year that all parties did their best to ensure the progress of the renovation, and without these guarantees, I am afraid that neither aircraft carrier would have been able to enter service until the defeat of Japan.

After the completion of the transformation, both aircraft carriers have a test displacement of 27,500 tons, a waterline of 215 meters long and 26.7 meters wide, a flight deck of 21 meters long and 27.3 meters wide, a maximum speed of 25.5 knots, and a cruising range of more than 12,000 nautical miles at 18 knots. It can carry 53 aircraft.

In terms of performance, especially in terms of the number of aircraft carriers, the "Hayabusa" class is far inferior to the aircraft carriers of the "Canglong" and "Xianghe" fleets. For example, the displacement of the "Soryu" class is not much different from that of the "Emperor" class, while the "Soryu" class can only carry 84 fighters, while the standard number of aircraft of the "Emperor" class is 90, and later it was even expanded to 108 planes. The displacement of the later "Yangtze River" class was also about the same as that of the "Xianghe" class (in fact, it was not much larger than that of the "Emperor" class), as a result of which the number of carrier aircraft increased to 108 and even expanded to 120 aircraft, while the "Xianghe" class remained at the level of 84 aircraft. In other words, the number of aircraft carried by Japanese aircraft carriers was already small, and its aviation strike capability was naturally affected.

The crux of the matter isn't really here. If Japan's First Air Fleet has two more "Hayabusa" class aircraft carriers, plus the "Zuizuru" aircraft carrier, the number of aircraft carried by Japan's First Air Fleet will be close to 200, which is not much worse than any aircraft carrier strike group in Tan Renhao's hands. That's the key question!

"Are we going to continue bombing Iwo Jima?"

Tan Renhao pressed his hand, he only hesitated for a few seconds, and then said firmly: "Bomb Iwo Jima as planned, and in addition, let the First Carrier Strike Group send twelve reconnaissance planes to repeatedly search the sea area between the Volcanic Islands and the Ogasawara Islands." The other bombers were combat-ready. Increase the number of air defense fighters of the fleet to 48 units. In accordance with the maximum anti-aircraft patrol radius, the first line of air defense interception was arranged at a distance of 50 nautical miles. Immediately after the departure of the group, the fleet sailed in anti-aircraft formations, and the battleships entered anti-aircraft combat readiness. ”

"But ......"

"Go and give orders, don't hesitate!" Tan Renhao glanced at Lei Shaoqing, "Now if we hesitate for a minute, it means a little more danger, let's go!" ”

Wait until Lei Shaoqing goes to give the order. Tan Renhao picked up the telegram again, and after looking at it, he crumpled the telegram into a ball and threw it into the corner.

Tan Renhao's anger was a bit too much, this information came quite timely, if it wasn't for this information, maybe he would have to wait until after the bombing of Iwo Jima before sending a reconnaissance plane to search the waters between the two islands. There was no submarine activity of the Tang Empire in that area, so it was the best place for the Japanese First Air Fleet to hide. If Tan Renhao waited until the bombing of Iwo Jima was over, and then arranged for the reconnaissance planes of the Second Carrier Strike Group to search that sea area. There will be a delay of at least two and a half hours. Or even three hours, and in a naval battle, a delay of three hours almost means defeat! Other words. This information actually bought Tan Renhao two and a half hours to decide the fate of the First Task Force.

Half an hour later, at about 5:50 a.m., about 40 minutes before dawn, the first batch of bombers left the flight deck of the "Yangtze River." At the same time, bombers on the aircraft carrier "Yellow River" also began to take off. Then, the two aircraft carriers of the 1st Carrier Strike Group, which sailed to the east of the fleet, also began to release anti-aircraft fighters and reconnaissance planes. While the 2nd Carrier Strike Group is responsible for the bombing mission, the 1st Carrier Strike Group will be responsible for the air defense of the fleet.

All four aircraft carriers were busy releasing warplanes. A staff officer brought breakfast to Tan Renhao and Lei Shaoqing. Neither of them left the command cabin, both waiting for news. Tan only speculated that it was much more likely that Japan's First Air Fleet would appear in the waters between the two archipelago, rather than being completely sure. Therefore. The seaplanes that were sent out were still carrying out search missions according to the predetermined plan. At least, before the fleet broke the radio silence, Tan Renhao could not change the direction of the flight of these reconnaissance planes, and he could not take this risk and arrange a new reconnaissance mission for the seaplanes.

At 6:15, the formation of the ground aircraft group left the sky over the fleet. At this time, the fleet was about 280 nautical miles away from Iwo Jima, and the fleet arrived over Iwo Jima at about half past seven. According to the information provided by naval intelligence, the Japanese troops on the island were to change the guard at this time, and at the same time start breakfast. It's also the best place to launch a sneak attack. The distance of 280 nautical miles, for a carrier-based aircraft, is exactly within the maximum strike radius.

The reconnaissance planes with auxiliary fuel tanks left the sky over the fleet at 6:05 a.m., and the combat radius of the reconnaissance planes was about 150 nautical miles farther than that of the bombers. And these reconnaissance planes will arrive at the predetermined reconnaissance area at about half past seven.

Tan Renhao was not worried about the bombing of Iwo Jima, but about Japanese reconnaissance planes. If Yamamoto 65 had known that Task Force 1 had left Naha Port three days earlier, he would have had reconnaissance planes on nearby islands search the nearby seas. And the 1st Air Fleet will definitely send reconnaissance aircraft to look for them. These Japanese reconnaissance planes must have taken off just before dawn, and if they were coming in the direction of Task Force 1, they should have reached the skies over the fleet between seven and half past seven. As long as the location of the 1st Task Force is revealed, Yamaguchi will not hesitate to send a group of bombers immediately, and even Japanese bombers on the surrounding islands will be dispatched. Even if they took off at half past seven, the bombers would have been between 8:45 and 9:15 when they reached the skies over Task Force 1. And the first carrier strike group needs at least twenty-five minutes, or even half an hour, to organize the bomber group to take off. Therefore, if those reconnaissance planes fail to detect the Japanese First Air Fleet before 8:15 p.m., then the First Task Force may have to face an attack by Japanese bombers.

Thinking of this, Tan Renhao was upset for a while. In the age of sails, naval battles were measured in days, while in the era of fleet battles, naval battles were measured in hours, but now, naval battles are measured in minutes. 8:15 a.m. was the deadline, and by this time the group bombing Iwo Jima was already on its way home. If the bombing went well, the bombers would return to the fleet at about nine-ten, and if not, at half-past nine. And this is exactly the time period when the fleet is most likely to be attacked by Japanese bombers!

"Chief of Staff, no news yet?" Tan Renhao stood up.

Lei Shaoqing shrugged his shoulders, and then glanced at the navigation clock.

Tan Renhao looked down, and it was only six past thirty-five minutes. He smiled awkwardly at Lei Shaoqing, and he felt as if hours had passed. At this time, the sky had just brightened.

"Do you want the air defense warship to activate the radar?" Lei Shaoqing walked over, and he could also see that Tan Renhao was very nervous.

Tan Renhao wiped the sweat off his forehead, and then shook his head. "There's no need for the time being, let the fighter take charge of patrolling the perimeter. If at 7:45 the news of the reconnaissance aircraft has not been received, the fleet will turn according to the plan, and at the same time, let the radar start and prepare for the air defense operation! ”

"Are you alright?" Lei Shaoqing found that Tan Renhao was breaking out in a cold sweat.

"It's fine, just a little tired!" Tan Renhao sighed, if he often lived in this state of high pressure, he would live at least ten years less, but now Tan Renhao is thinking about whether he can survive today.

"Then you go and rest for a while, wait a minute......"

"No, you go get busy first, I'll wait here!"

Lei Shaoqing patted Tan Renhao on the shoulder, he was still a little uneasy, but he didn't know what to say, at least at this time, Tan Renhao would never leave the command cabin.