Spruance arrived at Task Force 51 on the evening of the 8th, still sailing westward at 16 knots.

The establishment of the US Navy fleet is rather unique, and the officers and men of this fleet have not been replaced, and even most of the staff officers of the task force staff have not been replaced. When Halsey commanded the bombing of the Tang Empire Naval Air Airfield on Tagura, it was numbered Task Force 31.

When it was transferred to the Pacific Theater of Operations, its number became the 51st Task Force. In fact, the fleet was replaced by the commander and a few important staff officers. The flexibility of this kind of organization is very great, and the same task force will be under the command of different fleets when it operates in different theaters. In peacetime, the Third Fleet and the Fifth Fleet only have numbers and fleet headquarters, and there are no fixed task forces. Only when performing combat missions will the task force be directly commanded. This ensures that the warships of the US Navy (which are basically based on the task force) can be transferred between different theaters and fleets, improving the efficiency of the use of warships, and enhancing the combat capability of the Navy's warships in disguise.

Having arrived at the fleet, Spruance first adjusted the arrangements of the staff, announcing a new combat mission. As the bombers and fighters landed on the carrier before dark, Spruance went to have dinner and returned to the Commander's Bridge.

The island of the "Independence" is much smaller than that of the "Essex" class aircraft carrier, and the inside of the commander's bridge is much narrower, and many important departments have to be housed in other cabins, and the entire commander's bridge can accommodate up to more than ten staff officers working at the same time. And it's very crowded. Spruance didn't care about that, he stayed by the wall where the charts hung all the time, except for going to the bathroom. He barely left the place. The ordinary tasks of the fleet were arranged by the three staff officers he brought in, while he concentrated on judging the actions of his opponents.

Tan Renhao, the commander of the Tang Empire's number one aircraft carrier fleet, was already very familiar to Spruance. Spruance was well aware of Tan Renhao's characteristics when he commanded the aircraft carrier fleet in battle.

Of course, he also knows that the other party knows him very well. This time, the purpose of the first task force is Midway, so it must first bomb the airfield on the middle of Midway Island and seize air supremacy. Then the gradual destruction of military contact facilities on the island, focusing on fortifications, which will take about two to three days. In order to achieve the purpose of the surprise attack, it is likely that Task Force 1 will carry out the first round of bombardment at dawn, and then maneuver in the waters near Midway, and perhaps send out artillery formations to shell military targets on the island. Although this tactic is a bit old-fashioned, it is very effective and has been proven to be the best way to deal with the island's airfield.

If Tan had been convinced that there were U.S. aircraft carriers operating near Midway—and Spruance did not doubt that—he would have sent all of his reconnaissance planes to search the waters around the fleet during the daylight before the bombing of Midway. If the first task force is a two-carrier formation, count the seaplanes on the escort battleships. Then there will be about 50 to 60 reconnaissance aircraft, which can ensure coverage of the entire sea area within a 90-degree sector and 250 to 350 nautical miles from the fleet.

If it's a three-carrier formation. Then there are 60 to 80 reconnaissance aircraft, and these reconnaissance aircraft can completely cover the entire sea area of 250 to 350 nautical miles from the fleet within a sector of 120 to 150 degrees. If you're going to try your luck, loosely configure these reconnaissance planes. Then the 1st Task Force can cover a maximum of 180 to 270 degrees of sea space, and if the sea area is 90 degrees to the west of the fleet, the 1st Task Force has the ability to organize a powerful reconnaissance and search network around it, and the maximum radius of this network is 350 nautical miles.

Spruance used a three-carrier formation to calculate the reconnaissance capability of the First Task Force, because it was impossible to know how many cruisers there were in the First Task Force and the specific types of these cruisers, so it was impossible to completely determine its reconnaissance coverage. In the end, Spruance came to the conclusion that if he was within 250 to 350 nautical miles of Task Force 1, the chances of him being exposed were more than fifty percent. This is already very big, and it will be very risky, and if he is discovered by Task Force One, he will not even have the strength to fight back. Obviously, it is necessary to maintain a distance of more than 350 nautical miles, preferably 400 nautical miles, from Task Force 1. Now, it is necessary to determine the approximate location of the possible existence of Task Force 1.

Spruance first found the information that the First Task Force had left the port of Naha, and then combined with the 18-knot cruise speed of the Tang Imperial Fleet, as well as several routes that were most likely to be adopted, and finally calculated the approximate location of the First Task Force. However, this is not an accurate inference, because the First Task Force can take different routes according to different tactical arrangements, so the range is different, and in addition, the speed of the voyage may not be 18 knots, so it is impossible to accurately judge where the First Task Force is.

The speed is not a big problem, it is impossible for any battleship to sail at the fastest speed for several days, this is that the boiler cannot withstand such a large load, and the second is that the fuel consumption on the battleship will be very fast, and the range will be greatly shortened. Taking the "Lake" class aircraft carrier of the Tang Empire at that time as an example, when sailing at a cruising speed of 18 knots, its range was more than 10,000 nautical miles (the specific range is related to sea conditions, if the sea conditions are bad, then it will be reduced a lot), if it sails at a speed of 33 knots, even if the problem of boilers is not considered, it will sail at most 300 nautical miles, and this gap is very obvious. Therefore, in addition to the need to quickly rush to the battlefield, as well as to avoid enemy strikes during operations, battleships generally advance at cruising speed. However, this cruising speed is not fixed, except for sea conditions, if you consider saving fuel, maybe it will be 16 knots, if you need to buy time, maybe it will increase to 22 knots, or even 24 knots.

The impact on shipping routes is also significant, and if Task Force 1 had stopped in Guam and refueled, the route to Midway would have increased by hundreds of nautical miles, if it had not stopped at Guam. Then the route to Midway will be much shorter. In addition, there are several routes from Naha to Midway, all of which vary in length. This also determines that the location of the fleet is definitely different.

After half a day of calculation, Spruance came up with a result that made little sense: Task Force 1 was about 1,200 to 400 nautical miles from Midway. Moreover, the area of the sea area where it is located is more than 1 million square attacks, in other words, even if the three small aircraft carriers are all reconnaissance aircraft, the chance of finding the first task force in this sea area will not exceed 20%!

It was past ten o'clock. Spruance received important information: a large fleet of landing ships and transports, under the cover of more than a dozen destroyers, was sailing northeast, and the fleet appeared about 125 nautical miles from Guam and 2,200 nautical miles from Midway, at a speed of 16 knots. The telegram was sent by the theater command at Pearl Harbor, and the fleet was found by a U.S. submarine patrolling nearby.

Although this information had nothing to do with Task Force 1, it did make Spruance smell the fighters. From the course and speed of the landing fleet, as well as the distance from Midway, it can be accurately calculated that the landing fleet will probably arrive at Midway on the night of the twelve, that is. It is very likely that the Tang Imperial Marines would have landed on Midway on the morning of the 13th. According to the arrangement of the landing operation of the naval forces of the Tang Empire, before the landing of the marines, the fleet was to carry out at least three days of artillery bombardment. Other words.

Task Force 1 was to bombard Midway in the early morning of the 10th, begin a full-scale shelling of Midway during the day of the 10th, and cover the landing of the Marines on the 13th.

The error of this strike time is about one day. It was already eight days and nights, and Task Force 1 was supposed to send all its reconnaissance planes to search the surrounding waters during the day of the ninth day. After making sure that there was no activity of the US fleet, it maneuvered in place at night and destroyed the Midway airfield in the early morning of the 10th. From this point, the approximate location of Task Force 1 can be deduced.

It was soon confirmed by Spruance that Task Force 1 was within 900 to 600 nautical miles to the west of Midway, or to the southwest. However, it is not very likely that the 1st Task Force will appear northwest of Midway, mainly due to the influence of time, and if the 1st Task Force takes the northern route, it will be difficult to ensure that it will be able to maneuver to the attack area on the night of the 9th.

Immediately after determining the approximate location of Task Force 1, Spruance ordered the fleet to adjust its course and determined his battle plan. He was not worried about the safety of those aviation units on Midway. Since Nimitz sent this telegram, it proves that he also judged that Task Force 1 would bombard Midway within two days, and that the relevant orders must have reached the headquarters of Midway, and that the defenders on the island would certainly be quickly prepared and arrange for more reconnaissance planes.

The key now is how to force the Tang Empire to abandon the capture of Midway.

The most effective way to do this was to defeat the First Task Force so that none of the Tang Empire's marines almost landed on Midway. A landing operation without the support of the fleet was doomed to failure, not to mention the threat of the 51st Task Force, those air forces on Midway were enough to bury the landing fleet of the Tang Empire in the sea. But this is also the most unrealistic way. Tan Renhao will not let down his vigilance, and if he has three aircraft carriers, he only needs to use half of the bombers at most to complete the bombing of Midway, while the other half of the bombers can stay on the aircraft carriers, and while bombing Midway, he will arrange as many reconnaissance planes as possible to search the sea area within a radius of 250 to 350 nautical miles around the fleet. If Task Force 51 were to get closer to 250, at most 300 nautical miles, the probability of exposure would be much higher, and the bombers in Task Force 1 would be enough to say that Task Force 51 had been completely wiped out.

Spruance knew that it would be impossible to deal with Task Force 1, and if it was Task Force 4 or Task Force 2 that came this time, he would still take a risk, but the problem was that he knew very well that Tan Renhao would not make a mistake on such a critical issue. Then, to prevent the Tang Empire marines from landing on Midway, they could only attack that landing fleet. As long as the landing fleet is killed, then even if Task Force 1 blows up the airfield on Midway, it will be impossible to send the officers and men of the fleet to land on Midway! And if the Tang Empire wants to reorganize a landing fleet, I'm afraid it will take a month or two.

Having determined this purpose, Spruance immediately had the seafaring staff correct the fleet's course and increase the fleet's speed to a maximum cruising speed of 22 knots. In reality, Spruance only had one chance.

When Task Force 1 bombed Midway, they were about 800 nautical miles away from the landing fleet. At that time, it is very likely that Task Force 1 will only leave the artillery formation in the waters near Midway, and in the absence of an air threat, the artillery formation will be enough to suppress the American forces on the island without any threat. It is very likely that the aircraft carrier formation of the First Task Force will retreat by more than 100 nautical miles, and after one day, the distance between the First Task Force and the landing fleet will be shortened to 300 to 400 nautical miles, and if Tan Renhao is aware of it, this distance will even be shortened to 20 nautical miles. At that time, Task Force 1 will not only be able to provide air cover for the landing fleet, but will even be at an ideal distance to attack Task Force 51. In this way, even if Spruance had severely damaged the landing fleet, Task Force 51 would be finished.

As a result, Spruance had only one chance to take out the landing fleet before Task Force 1 joined up with the landing fleet, and then retreated quickly without giving Task Force 1 a chance to fight a decisive battle.

These battles had to be completed in a single day, and Task Force 51 had to preemptively enter the attack area and complete the preparations for the attack.

The battleship began to turn rapidly, and Spruance gave several orders. The time of the battle may be in the morning or afternoon of the 10th, and it is necessary to arrive at the attack area in the early morning of the 10th, and then send reconnaissance planes to find the landing fleet of the Tang Empire, and complete the combat mission while the First Task Force bombards Midway.

At this time, the location of the 51st Task Force was not expected by Tan Renhao, and at the same time, Spruance did not fully anticipate the location of the 1st Task Force. Both sides are speculating about each other's intentions and desperately trying to seize their chances. Both fleets, one to the east and the other to the west, were sailing at high speed.