The quality of aviation has been the soft underbelly of the US Navy since 25 years. After several large-scale, brutal, and extremely high casualty large-scale naval battles, the elite pilots of the US Navy before the war were lost, and the quality of aviation was sharply reduced. Compared with the Tang Imperial Navy, the U.S. Navy did not have the ability to train a large number of pilots as quickly as the Tang Imperial Navy in 25 years, even if there were a large number of aviation enthusiasts in the United States, and the atmosphere of civil aviation was very strong, but the consumption of the war far exceeded the expectations of the U.S. Navy and even the U.S. federal government.

After the aircraft carrier replaced the battleship, relatively speaking, the importance of the quality of the officers and men of the fleet was much lower, especially when the warships of both sides did not "meet", and the quality of the officers and men of the fleet did not have a great impact on the battle. In most cases, the most that the officers and men of the fleet did was to control the battleship, operate the anti-aircraft guns, and rescue the battleship after it was damaged. Almost all decisive naval battles are fought by the aviation forces of both sides, and the combat effectiveness of the aviation forces determines the victory or defeat of the battle, therefore, the quality of the aviation forces determines the quality of the fleet.

The aviation unit does not refer to pilots, but includes all personnel related to aviation operations, including aviation service personnel and even some fleet officers and men. Because the establishment of the navies of different countries is different, the personnel included in the carrier-based aviation of the navies of various countries are also different. In the Tang Imperial Navy, carrier-based aviation included many supporting departments such as aviation service personnel, maintenance personnel, and logistics support personnel, and pilots were only the most important part of them. In the U.S. Navy, some of the supporting departments are organized in the fleet. As a result, the size of the carrier-based aviation of the US Navy is relatively small. Even so, Spruance was still facing the most difficult problem of the most difficult problems he needed to solve.

In fact, the important impact of the quality of personnel can be seen from the tactical arrangements adopted by Spruance in several naval battles. In the confrontation with the Fourth Task Force, Spruance had absolute superiority in numbers, but did not dare to take an active and active attack. Instead, the sword went sideways, and as a result, the Fifth Fleet was "defeated". If the Fifth Fleet still had the same officers and men as it had at the outbreak of war, perhaps Spruance would not have considered any deviations at all, and would have gone up to fight with the Fourth Task Force in an upright manner, and it would have been the Fourth Task Force that would have suffered a heavy defeat, not the Fifth Fleet, but the Fourth Task Force. It's the same this time. Although the Tang Imperial Navy concentrated five aircraft carrier task forces, the Fifth Fleet also had three task forces, and the difference in strength between the two sides was not so large that Spruance had no chance of victory. If it weren't for the quality of the personnel, Spruance would not have avoided the fight, stayed away from the main battlefield, knocked and beat on the perimeter, and did not inflict any fatal damage on the opponent.

Bomb Wake Island, there's no way around it. After the bombing of Nihua Island, Spruance was devastated by the huge losses of the Fifth Fleet aviation, and it can even be said that it was extremely disappointed. This is just to bomb an island that will not move and the air defense is not strong, with this sailor, it is simply impossible to defeat the task force of the Tang Imperial Navy. And that's exactly what happened. Spruance did not allow the Fifth Fleet to return to the battlefield. Not to mention that the Fifth Fleet was not ready for a decisive battle with the naval fleet of the Tang Empire, and even Spruance himself was not prepared, the most important reason is. When the fleet left for Wake Island, Spruance still had limited information on the activities of the Tang Imperial Navy's task force, and he couldn't be sure where the Tang Imperial Navy's fleet was, what it was doing, and what it was going to do. Without the support of intelligence, Spruance did not dare to rush into the army, let alone go to the dangerous sea.

After careful consideration, Spruance put Mitchell in charge of directing the bombing of Wake Island. Mitchell briefly served as commander of the Third Fleet, had a wealth of combat experience, and was a bit better than Turner in planning large-scale combat operations. Spruance, on the other hand, focused on analyzing the situation. On the 22nd, Spruance's only information was that the task force of the Tang Imperial Navy was concentrated in the waters near Tudao and was preparing for a full-scale attack.

Spruance was a headache for Spruance with limited intelligence, and without accurate intelligence, he could not judge the activities of the naval fleet of the Don Empire. Nimitz must have arranged for submarines to go to the waters near Midway Island to look for the Tang Empire's task force, but the waters near Midway Island have become a restricted area for US Navy submarines, and the hundreds of patrol planes deployed on Midway Island and dozens of large and small anti-submarine ships can discourage any US submarine. None of the captains wanted to go to Midway to "die". However, the long-range reconnaissance planes deployed by the US military on Kauai Island could not fly to Midway Island at all, so it was impossible to determine the situation on Midway Island through aerial reconnaissance. In other words, on Spruance's chart, the waters around Midway are a blind spot, and there is no way to determine what is going on there.

The crux of the matter lies here, Spruance received the last telegram on the 17th that the second fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy had left the port of Apra and was on its way to Midway. If the Tang Imperial Navy had already deployed the Marine Corps before this, the war supplies had been hoarded on the front line, and the landing fleet and transport fleet had arrived after the fleet, it would have been reasonable to assume that the Tang Imperial Navy would definitely launch an attack on Kauai Island at the end of the month. That said, Spruance only had a few days to prepare when he made this judgment.

Perhaps, what Spruance lacked most at this time was time, and the initiative of the war had fallen into the hands of the Tang Empire, and the rhythm of the war was no longer in Spruance's hands. The Tang Imperial Navy was preparing for the attack step by step, while the US Navy did not have enough time to organize the defense. Therefore, Spruance had to speed up the training of pilots at the cost of huge losses, and even if one-fifth of the pilots would be killed in the bombing of Niwa Island and Wake Island, then four-fifths of the pilots would gain actual combat experience, and these four-fifths of the pilots might change the course of the war and completely reverse the fate of the United States.

Spruance did not expect to win completely, he had little hope of victory, and what supported him to continue fighting was the honor of the military army, the oath he made to his country, and the ability to bring more young people back to their loved ones at the end of the war. But fundamentally, except for Spruance. Many American generals have not given up hope, including Turner, Mitchell, Nimitz, and other American Navy generals have not given up their last hope. At this time, the U.S. Navy was one of the largest since the outbreak of the war, only slightly smaller than the scale of the "Battle of the Coral Sea", although relatively speaking, the size of the U.S. Navy was much smaller than that of the Tang Imperial Navy. However, the Americans' innate spirit of not taking risks and their fighting spirit of not admitting defeat are supporting every officer and soldier of the US Navy.

The bombing of Wake Island was not much of a challenge, Wake Island was an isolated island, there was no other island to cover and support it, and there were not many reconnaissance planes deployed on Wake Island. After Spruance determined the route of entry to the fleet, all the rest was left to Mitchell. In the early morning of the 28th, the officers and men of the three task forces were busy, and according to Mitchell's arrangement, the fleet bombers would arrive over Wake Island after dawn. And dropped the first bomb. Do not give the shore-based aviation of the Tang Empire Navy on Wake Island any chance to counterattack, so as to control the losses of the fleet aviation. In addition, the first bombers of the three task forces will arrive in batches. This will avoid confusion when arriving at the same time, and second, it will facilitate the command work, and at the same time, it will also prolong the bombing time, and it will be possible to carry out repeated bombing of key targets, so as to ensure that after the first round of bombing is completed, the air force on Wake Island will be completely destroyed, and when the time comes, the artillery warships of the Fifth Fleet can still sail over for artillery "training."

Mitchell was very thoughtful, but the problem was. There was a problem with the newly added aircraft. Originally, it was planned that the bombers of Task Force 53 would depart first, then the bombers of Task Force 52, and finally the bombers of Task Force 51 would arrive at Wake Island. Spruance had to arrange an additional group of escort fighters in the bomber group and reduce the number of dive bombers by one group. Moreover, the bombing of Wake Island was delayed from 6:30 to 7 o'clock. The bombers of the other two task forces reached the skies over Wake Island before the bombers of Task Force 51 could withdraw, and they arrived at the same time, which caused considerable confusion.

By the time the US bomber group arrived, there was already a squadron of "Golden Eagles" in the air, and it was carrying out air defense patrol missions near the island, but thanks to Spruance arranging a squadron of "super pirates", the bomber group of the 51st task force was able to break through smoothly, and dropped bombs on the airfield before more air defense fighters took off, but it was only half an hour of disgust, and more than 20 US fighters were shot down, which exceeded Spruance's expectations. Then, the bomber groups of the other two task forces, which arrived almost at the same time, caused a lot of confusion over Wake Island, many of the bombers failed to drop their bombs smoothly, and the bombing took nearly an hour longer than scheduled, until about half past eight, when the last bombers dropped their bombs. Long Zhen sent a telegram after seven o'clock, and was intercepted by several task forces including the First Task Force.

When he received the combat report of the first round of bombing, Spruance was furious on the spot, more than 40 bombers and fighters were shot down over Wake Island, and hundreds of US carrier-based fighters faced less than 40 shore-based fighters of the Tang Imperial Navy, and as we all know, the quality of the shore-based fighter pilots of the Tang Imperial Navy was far better than that of non-carrier-based fighter pilots. In addition, this is a surprise attack, and the raid has been fought like this, and it has caused such huge losses, it is not difficult to imagine what the result will be in a head-on confrontation.

Anger to anger, because there were still a number of important targets not destroyed, Spruance immediately ordered the second group of bombers of Task Force 51 to take off before the returning bombers arrived, and at the same time let the artillery fleet that had been formed long ago rush to Wake Island, four battleships, several cruisers, and escorting destroyers to kill them in one fell swoop, ready to destroy the targets on the island with heavy artillery. Turner and Mitchell made the same arrangement, and the second group of bombers of both task forces took off before nine o'clock.

The battle continued until noon, when the losses of the second round of bombing finally subsided, only 8 bombers were shot down, and 4 returning bombers were badly damaged, and finally had to make a forced landing on the sea, and two pilots died during the forced landing. Spruance did not give up, he knew that he only had one day, the Tang Empire had two large fleets operating near Midway, and these two fleets would only need a day to get around, and then the Fifth Fleet would be driven out of the battlefield and lose the opportunity to prevent the Tang Empire's naval fleet from landing on Kauai Island, so he had to seize this day to allow more pilots to gain combat experience.

In order to shorten the flight time, the fleet kept approaching Wake Island, and at half past two in the afternoon of the same day, the US carrier-based bombers reached the sky over Wake Island for the third time. Then, at about six p.m., the fourth group of bombers arrived over Wake Island. Almost every pilot flew two bombing missions. Although the intensity of this sortie was still not excellent, the carrier-based aircraft unit of the Tang Imperial Navy could make more than three sorties a day. But for this batch of newcomers in the US Navy, this is already quite good, and in order to ensure the energy of the pilots, and at the same time let the pilots sum up the lessons and lessons, flying twice is already good.

After completing the bombing mission, Spruance should not have thought about capturing Wake Island, he had no marines, and even if he had a landing fleet, he would not be able to take Wake Island. Now, what he should think about is how to retreat, how to take the next step, and at the same time, he has to deal with some problems exposed in the actual battle to prepare for the next decisive battle!