The situation of the US Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk was much more predictable than Tan Renhao and others, and this "bad" had two meanings, one was that the warships were seriously damaged, and the other was that the morale of the military was shaken. Damaged warships are easy to repair, but the wavering morale and low morale of the army are not so easy to "repair".

In order to restore the fleet to combat effectiveness as soon as possible, Spruance asked about the maintenance of the battleship many times, but did not increase the speed of maintenance because of this.

Like the Imperial Navy of the Don Empire, the US Navy had a number of shipyards, and these shipyards were divided into classes. For example, on the East Coast of the United States at that time, there were several shipyards in Philadelphia, New York, Norfolk and so on, which were mainly responsible for building large warships, and the four battleships that were sunk in naval battles were built in the naval dockyards of Philadelphia and New York. After entering the war, the United States also built a number of small shipyards in the Great Lakes region, where most of the U.S. Navy's submarines were built at that time. In other words, all damaged warships of the Atlantic Fleet could not be repaired in Norfolk, and they had to be assigned to other shipyards for repair.

Arranging repair work is a very troublesome matter, because it involves the problem of replacing spare parts for damaged warships, so it is necessary to adjust the production of many manufacturers in the rear. What's more, the six Essex-class aircraft carriers in the Atlantic Fleet needed to be repaired the most, and this was the last of the class, and the more advanced Midway-class aircraft carriers were being built by American shipyards. That is, there are no ready-made spare parts available at these shipyards. It can only be delivered from naval warehouses, and some large spare parts even need to be manufactured on an ad hoc basis. All of this affected the timing of repairs, and after the completion of the general inspection, the final date for repairs was determined not in mid-July, but in late July.

In addition to six aircraft carriers. The other ships were repaired in Norfolk as much as possible to avoid being too scattered. At that time, two aircraft carriers were also undergoing repairs in Norfolk. Relatively speaking, the situation of escort warships is slightly better than that of aircraft carriers, at least there is no situation where the flight deck is blown over by a hurricane, and external damage can be repaired at the dock, without the need to enter the dock for repairs, which reduces the repair workload and speeds up the repair progress. Anyway. Before the repair of the six aircraft carriers, the Atlantic Fleet was incapable of combat, and no one would think of using cruisers and destroyers to deal with the huge main fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy.

While repairs were still underway, Spruance began to try to improve the morale of the officers and men of the fleet, and perhaps the problem was even more serious than that of the battleships.

The total annihilation of Task Force 21 was an impact on the morale of the officers and men, and after the Battle of Ago, the U.S. government temporarily blocked the news. The results of the "Battle of Santiago" were not announced until July 11, as usual. The government is unlikely to release anything other than to expand the results of the war and falsify the results that don't exist at all. The people were deceived, but the officers and men of the fleet were not deceived, and Spruance was not deceived. The total destruction of Task Force 21 resulted in the destruction of four battleships, four cruisers, and the sinking of two cruisers. More critically, it was a battle of equal strength, with neither side sending bombers. Although the situation at that time was extremely unfavorable for the 21st Task Force, the ground battleships of the 21st Task Force were still defeated by the obvious results of the Tang Imperial Navy.

The hundreds of US officers and men who had fled ashore and were not taken away by Task Force 3 were placed under house arrest, and for the sake of secrecy, they would certainly not be freed anytime soon. But there was no impermeable wall in the world, and the news of the disastrous defeat of Task Force 21 soon spread through the fleet, and morale almost fell to the bottom when the soldiers knew that it was only one battleship fleet of the enemy that was fighting against Task Force. Perhaps the young people who had only just joined the Navy were still fantasizing about the final victory of the United States. But now, these young officers and soldiers are skeptical about the outcome of the war.

There are many other problems that have led to a serious decline in the morale of the US military. Like what. When the Montana-class battleship was in service, the American propaganda department called it "the most powerful battleship in the world" and convinced everyone that this powerful battleship would change the entire war and lead the United States to victory. This kind of propaganda also played a great role within the army, and many young people believed that the US Navy would defeat the Tang Imperial Navy and seize sea supremacy, thus winning the final victory. As a result, when all four "Montana" class battleships were sunk, and they were all sunk by the other side's battleships, I am afraid that no one would believe that this new type of battleship was the most powerful in the world, let alone that the United States would win the final victory.

After morale began to falter, a lot of things arose within the army that would not have happened in normal times. For example, desertion, wanton violation of military discipline, and even desertion. Spruance dealt an extremely severe blow to these situations. According to the US Navy's military regulations, desertion is a small mistake, but gathering a crowd to make trouble is definitely a big mistake, and deserting from the army without authorization is even more serious. Between 10 and 15 July, 200 officers and soldiers were severely punished, and all six of them were brought to court martial, and the outcome of these six was not much better, ranging from five years in prison to treason.

It is impossible to rely solely on severe punishment in rectifying military discipline, and considering the national conditions of the United States, if only punishment is used, the effect will not be obvious, and it will even have the opposite effect, increasing the resistance and resistance of officers and men. Under these circumstances, Spruance had to give commendations to a group of officers and men who had performed well in battle. Among them were the officers of the 4th 21st Task Force,4 all of whom performed valiantly in battle, one of whom was the chief engineer of the "Russo-Russian", who was the last acting commander of the battleship, and at the last moment, he ordered the battleship to turn right, making way for the three battleships behind, and gave the order to abandon the ship in time, allowing many officers and men to survive.

The effect of the commendation should be good, and in order to expand the impact, these commended officers have been promoted and awarded medals. At that time, 12 people were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest medal of honor in the U.S. military

It is issued separately, and there are very few people who can get this kind of medal, and there are less than 20 officers and soldiers in the navy who received the Congressional Medal of Honor, and this time 12 were issued, so it can be said that the President of the United States is generous enough. In addition, thousands of officers and soldiers have been awarded medals of various ranks, and the most common issue is naturally the Purple Heart Medal, which represents excellent service, that is, the lowest level of medal.

In addition to awards, appropriate positive publicity can also have better results. At the beginning of July, after it was established that the main fleet of the Don Empire had returned to Panama, the American propaganda apparatus was set in motion to continue to promote the > of the 21st Task Force in the Battle of San DiegoIn addition, it was also hyped that the main fleet of the Tang Empire was hit by a hurricane and suffered even more heavy losses.

The latter did not seriously deviate from the facts, the warships of the Tang Imperial Navy at that time were indeed attacked by hurricanes, and the fleet was at sea at that time, not in the harbor, and the damaged warships were much more than the US military, only 11 aircraft carriers were damaged, and only 6 aircraft carriers of the US army were damaged. The situation with other escort warships was much worse, and according to normal thinking, the fleet of the Navy of the Tang Empire would definitely need to be repaired longer.

This propaganda did not do much to Spruance, and even the intelligence at the time was of little value to Spruance. Spruance knew one thing very well in his heart, that is, the recovery speed of the Tang Imperial Naval Fleet was definitely much faster than that of the Atlantic Fleet.

At the time, Spruance already knew. In order to improve the fleet's continuous combat capability abroad and reduce the frequency of the fleet's return to its home port for maintenance, the Tang Imperial Navy specially built a large number of engineering maintenance ships, which were transformed from large cargo ships or fast combat support ships. The smallest displacement also has more than 2 tons, and the largest exceeds 50,000 tons. These ships were the most powerful, advanced and well-equipped maintenance ships in the world at that time, and could provide repair services for all kinds of warships, from large battleships to small frigates. This has long been confirmed by the intelligence department of the US military, when the Tang Imperial Navy had at least 20 or more engineering maintenance ships (in fact, it was far more than that, there were 10 engineering maintenance ships in Panama, and the two main fleets of the Tang Empire could be. Battle effectiveness. Its repair is even faster than that of the Atlantic Fleet.

The most important thing is that there is no problem with morale in the navy of the Tang Empire, which is what Spruance envies the most. Since the outbreak of the war, except for the first year, the Tang Imperial Navy suffered a brief period of demoralization due to a crushing defeat at the hands of the Japanese, since the beginning of the counterattack against the Japanese. The morale of the Tang Imperial Navy was always quite high, and its fleet commanders did not even need to encourage the loss of officers and men. In some cases, it is necessary to try to make the officers and men calmer and avoid making wrong actions because they are too excited.

All these determined that the Tang Imperial Navy would quickly restore its combat effectiveness. At that time, even though the Atlantic Fleet had regained its combat effectiveness in late July, Spruance did not dare to rush to lead the fleet out because of low morale and the lack of fighting spirit among the officers and men.

Beginning on 20 July, the warships that had completed repairs began to return to the fleet one after another. The two aircraft carriers at the Norfolk maintenance site were the first to regain their combat effectiveness. The maintenance progress of the escort warships left here is also relatively fast. By the 25th of July, the two aircraft carriers under repair in Philadelphia had also been repaired and were on their way back to Norfolk, arriving on the 28th. That is, on the 28th, the Ocean Fleet will be fully restored to combat effectiveness. To be precise, the warships in the Atlantic Fleet will completely regain their combat effectiveness, and the problem of morale and fighting spirit of the officers and men has not yet been resolved.

Perhaps intensive training is an effective way to solve morale through training. It can allow officers and soldiers to return to combat condition as soon as possible, and when training. Since the officers and men are on the warships, there is much less contact with the outside world, and it is not easy to obtain bad news from the outside world. Anyway, it was the only way Spruance could do it at the time. Since July 21, training has been fully resumed. The next day, the aircraft carrier and the escort warship left the Chesapeake Bay to test the power system at full power in the open sea, while a group of carrier-based aircraft conducted landing and take-off training.

As training began, the situation in the fleet gradually improved, but the pace of improvement was far from what Spruance had expected. By July 24, after the two aircraft carriers repaired in New York had returned to the fleet, Spruance had expanded his training. The next day, he received the most unwanted news that the main fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy had left the Gulf of Limon and was entering the Caribbean!

This information was provided by the intelligence department, and this time the efficiency of the US ground intelligence department was quite high, and within four hours after Tan Renhao left the Limon Bay, the US ground spy personnel sent a telegram. Immediately, a US long-range reconnaissance plane deployed in Dominica "patronized" the Limón Bay in the early morning of 26 June and determined that all the warships in the bay had left. At this point, Spruance also had to believe that the Tang Imperial fleet had already regained its combat effectiveness, or had long since recovered its combat effectiveness, and now it had set off again, ready to launch a new attack.

At that time, both the US naval and land forces were actively acting, on the one hand, judging the true intention and purpose of the Tang Empire's main fleet to leave Limon Bay, and on the other hand, trying to find a way to deal with this powerful fleet. For Spruance, the most important thing he wanted to know at that time was whether he would let the Atlantic Fleet go to meet the main fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy. When, to be exact, let the Atlantic Fleet go.

The intention of the Tang Imperial Navy's next attack was very obvious, and the intelligence department of the US military had already received information that Cuba would be the next place to be attacked. If the Tang Imperial Navy wanted to attack Cuba, it would have to use the fleet to seize sea and air supremacy, and the fleet's actions would directly determine the time of the landing, and judge the possible landing site from this. In other words, at that time, the U.S. military was most concerned about Tan Renhao's actions, and wanted to judge the offensive line of the Marine Corps from his actions. Under these circumstances, it was impossible for Spruance to remain in Norfolk, and after Tan Renhao led the fleet to depart, he was about to leave the base and go to the battlefield.