The outcome of the "Battle of Midway" was an unexpected one for both sides. In this naval battle, the US military did not take any advantage, and it can even be said that it suffered a lot of losses. Whether it is the number of warships lost, the tonnage, or the number of officers and men lost, the US Navy is more than the Tang Imperial Navy. But the problem is that after the battle, the U.S. Navy gained valuable sea supremacy.

Nimitz did not think that there was anything wrong with Spruance's command, and there were many accidental factors in the heavy losses of the 51st Task Force, such as the quality of the officers and men of the fleet (the 51st Task Force could have avoided the reconnaissance planes of the Second Task Force), as well as the high bombing accuracy of the bomber units of the Tang Empire, and the misjudgment and wrong actions of the 52nd Task Force. These were in fact the direct causes of the heavy losses of Task Force 51. Throughout the operation, Spruance was well aware of his mission and purpose, and eventually completed his mission, driving Task Force 2 out of the waters near Midway.

As the commander of the theater of operations, Nimitz was in no hurry to find anyone responsible, and the most important thing he needed to do was to determine the next combat operation. At that time, most of the staff officers of the Pacific Theater Command supported an immediate counterattack on Midway, and immediately sent the Marines to midway Island, taking advantage of the unstable foothold of the Tang Imperial Marines. Unless the Tang Imperial Navy dispatches a fleet to the Central Pacific, otherwise, the U.S. Marine Corps can capture Midway Island with the support of Task Force 52 and complete the combat operation!

Nimitz had this idea at one time because Midway was so important. But the problem is that by the time he prepared the landing fleet, the Tang Empire's transport fleet had already reached Midway. At that time, the 52nd Task Force had not yet reached the waters near Midway, and it was too late to prevent the Tang Empire from sending reinforcements to Midway. Then, the ground fighters of the Tang Imperial Naval Air Force began to patrol the sky over Midway. The operational difficulty of the counter-attack on Midway Island has risen sharply, and there is no adequate preparation.

Without a strong fleet, it is almost impossible to attack Midway! Moreover, the Upper Tang Empire Marine Corps on Midway had been increased to three divisions (in fact, two and a half divisions), and to quickly capture Midway, at least four Marine Divisions would need to be committed. And this was almost all the mobile forces in Nimitz's hands at that time, and the reinforcements would not arrive until after the 25th, and if they were caught in the bitter battle at Midway, then Nimitz's other counterattack plans would have to be put aside for the time being.

On the 13th, Spruance returned to Pearl Harbor by plane, passing through several islands, ahead of Task Force 51. After understanding the situation clearly, he immediately made a proposal to attack Wake Island first. Isolate Midway, or even skip Midway, after laying down Wake Island. Immediately go south to attack the Marshall Islands and Gilbert Islands, fulfill Nimitz's promise to MacArthur, and finally concentrate on attacking Midway, or march on the Mariana Islands.

3z436D。

The core idea of Spruance's proposal is to put Midway aside first. After completing other counterattack missions, come and clean up the Tang Empire Marines on Midway. However, the key point of this proposal is that the US military must have a strong enough fleet and must ensure that the sea supremacy is in the hands of the US military; without sea supremacy, then this counterattack plan cannot be realized. At that time, the news that the Second Task Force of the Tang Empire still had one fleet aircraft carrier that was not injured, and the Tang Empire could reinforce two small aircraft carriers to the Second Task Force at any time. The U.S. military has only three small aircraft carriers in the Central Pacific, which are at most on par with their opponents, or even a fraction of them. How to ensure sea supremacy?

If the fleet is sent back from the southwest Pacific, first of all, MacArthur will oppose it, and secondly, the president will not approve it, the most important thing is that the Tang Empire has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in the southwest Pacific, if Halsey's fleet is withdrawn, then the Tang Empire will definitely launch a large-scale attack, and then the New Hebrides, Port Moresby, and even the island of New Caledonia will be lost, and the Southwest Pacific theater will be completely finished, and the Tang Empire's marines will quickly land on the Australian mainland, The U.S. defense line will collapse completely!

But the problem is that without a fleet, then this plan cannot be implemented. Spruance also brought back injuries from the USS Franklin when he returned to Pearl Harbor, and he promised to get the carrier into the fleet when the counterattack began. Nimitz did not rush to agree, but on the 15th, that is, the "Franklin" fleet aircraft carrier and the dozens of escort warships returned to Pearl Harbor, and after the ship repair workers in the port determined the situation of the aircraft carrier, he issued an order that the aircraft carrier must be repaired within three days, and Spruance was fully responsible for the repair of the aircraft carrier. The fleet had to leave Pearl Harbor on the 18th to rendezvous with Task Force 52. At that time, Task Force 52 will be changed to Task Force 51, under Spruance command, and Turner will be transferred back to Fifth Fleet Command.

To repair the aircraft carrier "Franklin" in three days, this seemed almost impossible at the time.

The aircraft carrier was bombed twice during the battle, hit five 500-kilogram aviation armor-piercing shells, and inside the ship, a third of the cabins were blown up, and two catapults were blown up, two boilers were damaged, and a steam turbine was damaged, and a large number of key equipment was destroyed. According to the previous pace of ship repair, the aircraft carrier will take at least two months to repair. But now, Nimitz only gave Spruance three days, and from the 15th, the day the fleet arrived at Pearl Harbor, in fact, it was only more than 60 hours.

The phrase "war makes people crazy" is not wrong, the "Yangtze River" aircraft carrier of the Tang Empire was heavily damaged in the "Battle of the Philippines", but it was repaired within a few days (this became the main reason why the "Yangtze River" could not fully recover its combat effectiveness later, a lot of repair work was done too roughly, and if the aircraft carrier was to restore its full combat effectiveness, it would have to be completely renovated, which was more expensive than the cost of building a new aircraft carrier), so that the first task force had two aircraft carriers, and defeated the 17th task force in the ensuing battle, which laid the foundation for the victory in the "Battle of the Mariana Islands". Now, the US military also needs a miracle. Whether the aircraft carrier "Franklin" can be repaired or not, whether it can participate in the next stage of combat operations. This will be directly related to the success of Nimitz's counterattack in the Central Pacific.

Spruance made a guarantee, and Nimitz didn't bother with repairing the aircraft carrier anymore. At the time when the "Franklin" was towed onto the slipway (in order to speed up the repair, none of the remaining fuel on the aircraft carrier at that time was pumped out). Nimitz also began to make other preparations for the deployment of a counterattack.

On the Marine Corps side, Nimitz could mobilize four Marine Divisions. The U.S. landing fleet and transport fleet assembled at Pearl Harbor at that time could ensure the transportation of two divisions of marines at a time, as well as supporting heavy preparation and artillery, for a month's use of combat materials.

There is no doubt about the transportation and delivery capabilities of the US military. At that time, the large warships of the U.S. Navy were built on the East Coast, and after the outbreak of the war, new shipyards were built in several ports on the West Coast of the United States. In this way, the Pacific theater of operations can be replenished in a timely manner. In addition, the 10,000-ton cargo ships built by the United States are not only the main transportation force in the North Atlantic, but also widely used in the Pacific theater. Like what. On the route from the continental United States to the Australian mainland, there are more than six fleets sailing round and forth all year round, and on the route from the continental United States to the Hawaiian Islands. There are also four fleets transporting supplies back and forth. The number of freighters in these fleets ranged from thirty to sixty, and if they were temporarily strengthened, there were also huge fleets of more than eighty freighters. At that time, there were already more than 200 10,000-ton standard cargo ships operating in the Pacific Ocean. In addition to undertaking strategic transportation tasks, these freighters also undertook the task of campaign transportation, and Nimitz could dispatch freighters from Pearl Harbor at any time to complete the campaign operation.

The scale of the US landing fleet is not small.

For more than a year after entering the war, the US military was in a state of strategic defense, so there were no large-scale landing operations in the Pacific Ocean, and the losses of landing battleships were much smaller than those of the Tang Imperial Navy. Before the war, the United States had a landing fleet of not small size, and for more than a year, many shipyards that did not build large warships (mainly due to substandard workmanship) were almost all building landing ships for the navy. By the middle of the 25th century, the U.S. Navy had more than 25) landing ships with a displacement of more than 1,600 tons concentrated in the Pacific theater, and hundreds of smaller landing ships. Most of these landing ships were deployed in the Southwest Pacific theater, and there were about 80 landing ships at Pearl Harbor at that time, enough for Nimitz to deliver two Marine Divisions at once (the first landing force had only two regiments, about 5,000 men).

At that time, the marines, landing fleets, transport flotillas in the hands of Nimitz were actually prepared for the final attack on the Mariana Islands. Fighting back the Mariana Islands is Nimitz's highest goal, and it is the goal he has been working towards. According to Nimitz's plan, if he was able to counterattack successfully by the end of the year, and if the reinforced marines, landing fleets and convoys arrived, he would have enough strength to counterattack the Mariana Islands. And to use these forces to attack Wake Island would be to really hit the eggs with a stone!

On the 17th, the landing fleet and the transport flotilla left Pearl Harbor in the darkness of night, under the cover of more than a dozen destroyers. The timing of the departure of the U.S. fleet was quite appropriate. At this time, there was already an anti-submarine sonar array outside Pearl Harbor, and the guards of Pearl Harbor had figured out the rules of action of those Tang Empire submarines wandering outside the harbor. The two fleets left Pearl Harbor between eight and twelve o'clock, and during this time, the submarines responsible for monitoring Pearl Harbor all retreated to the open sea to recharge their submarines, and these submarines could only sail in the direction of Pearl Harbor at twelve o'clock at the earliest, and by the time they were at the end, the sea outside the harbor had calmed down.

On the morning of 18 July, with the joint efforts of more than 1,300 shipyard workers and more than 1,000 officers and men of the fleet, the "Franklin" aircraft carrier was basically repaired and left the slipway in the afternoon of the same day. There is no longer time for the US military to do navigation tests, as well as acceptance work. By ten o'clock in the evening of the same day, the aircraft carrier was replenished with ammunition, fuel, food, fresh water. All the officers and men also came to the aircraft carrier, and the carrier, under the cover of two large cruisers, four light cruisers, and eight destroyers, left Pearl Harbor before 12 o'clock to join Task Force 52, which Spruance had only arrived by plane on the morning of the 19th.

Spruance commanded one fleet carrier, three small carriers, and the 51st Task Force with nearly 30 ships to rush to the waters of Wake Island, striving to maneuver in place on the night of the 19th, and bombard Wake Island in the early morning of the 20th. The landing force will land on Wake Island in the early morning of the 20th. This is only one part, or rather the first part, of combat operations.

The combat operations of the US military were arranged in an extremely tight manner. On the night of the 18th, Task Force 52 was operating near Johnston Island, and on the morning of the 19th, the four aircraft carriers rendezvoused about 25 nautical miles west of Johnston Island. At this time, the fleet is still about 80 nautical miles away from Wake Island, and even if the strike radius of 250 nautical miles is calculated, the fleet needs to sail at least 500 nautical miles, and 550 nautical miles in less than 20 hours! That is, the speed of the fleet is close to 30 knots, which can simply be described as a wild rush.

After sending Turner off, Spruance let the fleet begin to accelerate. The plan was determined by him, and in the end it was only decided by Nimitz, and the idea of attacking Wake Island was also proposed by Spruance. He's not the kind of guy who likes to complain, he fell short last time, and this time he knows he's going to win. At least, by midnight on the 19th, when Spruance received the news that the Second Task Force of the Tang Empire was still resting in Apra Harbor on Guam, he knew that he would definitely win!

The battle did not go as Spruance had arranged, and at about four o'clock in the morning the fleet was spotted by a long-range patrol plane of the Don Empire, and although the patrol plane was quickly shot down, the fleet was exposed. Spruance had to resort to a backup plan, and the fleet advanced the bombing time to six o'clock while evading it in a northwesterly direction, and he left a group of bombers behind and did not use all his strength.