The team left the Chesapeake Bay on the afternoon of the 12th and then traveled as fast as possible. Spruance did not let the fleet go directly south, but planned to first move away from the coastal waters frequented by German submarines, and then turn south after penetrating deep into the Atlantic, so as to ensure the concealment of the fleet. To this end, from the second half of the night of the 11th, all maritime patrol planes deployed near Norfolk were dispatched to intensify the anti-submarine search density and sink three German submarines in the hope of driving them away.

That evening, when the Atlantic Fleet had sailed about 200 miles east and was about to turn south, Spruance received a telegram from Admiral King. This telegram confirmed his suspicion that a landing fleet of the Don Empire had reached the port of St. John in Antigua, and on the morning of the 12th it had left the port of St. John and entered the Atlantic sea. There is no doubt that this is the landing fleet carrying the Marines on the attack on the Bahamas. At that time, almost everyone no longer suspected that the purpose of the Tang Imperial Navy was to conquer the Bahamas, and even the President of the United States sent a telegram through Admiral King, asking Spruance to protect the Bahamas, at least to buy enough time for the Navy to reinforce the Bahamas. But Spruance was suspicious at this point.

The first is the capacity of Port St. John's. Before the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Little Andrés Islands, the port on the island of Antigua was a small fishing port, although the water depth was more than 20 meters and there was some infrastructure. But its capacity is quite limited. At the beginning, there were only 500 U.S. troops deployed on Antigua, and this port was mainly responsible for the supply of this part of the U.S. military. Obviously, unless the Tang Imperial Navy expanded the port after occupying Antigua, it would not be possible to accommodate too many ships in the port, let alone all the warships of the next large landing fleet. And during these months, the Don Imperial Navy has been strengthening the Bay of Limon. As well as the infrastructure of the Central American region, not many engineering troops were invested on the side of the Little Andres Islands, so will the size of this landing fleet be large?

Second, there is the issue of the size of the landing fleet. Although the U.S. military does not have many defensive forces in the Bahamas, there are hundreds of islands in the Bahamas. U.S. troops are deployed on the main islands. Even if the Tang Imperial Navy only attacked a few of the main islands, it would need to use a lot of marines. Considering that both of its main fleets are involved in combat operations, the Marine Corps does not need a separate fire support fleet, but there will definitely be no shortage of landing ships carrying Marine officers and men, as well as transport ships carrying combat materials. If you want to build military bases, such as airfields, camps, and expand the size of the port on the island, after the occupation, then you will have to invest more engineering troops and transport a large number of engineering equipment and supplies. That's how it goes. The size of its landing fleet is by no means small.

Combining these two points, Spruance found a problem. The port of St. John simply could not accommodate the next ten large landing ships. Then the size of the landing fleet sent by the Navy of the Tang Empire was rather limited. In this case, will the Bahamas be able to conquer the Bahamas? Even if it's laid. And how to consolidate the defense of the archipelago? Could it be that the Navy of the Don Empire prepared a second landing fleet? But this is completely unreasonable, if the Tang Imperial Navy is ready to attack the Bahamas, it will not send landing troops in two batches, after all, this requires more escort warships, not to mention the waste of troops, and it also increases the trouble of the command link, if it is Tan Renhao to organize this attack. He wouldn't have made such a low-level mistake. Of course, perhaps it was not Tan Renhao who organized this attack. Then that's a different story.

At that time, Spruance did not completely deny the possibility that the Tang Imperial Navy would attack the Bahamas with all its might, but he also kept an eye on it, and began to suspect that this was just a trap of the Tang Imperial Navy, using the attack on the Bahamas to force the Atlantic Fleet to fight, and then concentrate the two main fleets to kill the Atlantic Fleet. It was with this in mind that Spruance did not let the Atlantic Fleet go south that night, but let the fleet continue to sail eastward, and it was not until about ten o'clock in the morning of the 13th, that is, when the Atlantic Fleet had already sailed nearly 500 miles east, that Spruance gave the order to turn around.

It was this order that allowed Spruance to avoid the fatal blow. In the early morning of 13 July, the First Fleet led by Tan Renhao had already maneuvered to the waters northeast of the Bahamas, 250 miles from the Third Fleet operating in the south, about 400 miles from Marsh Harbor on Grand Bahako Island, and about 850 miles from Norfolk in its northwest direction. In other words, in the early morning of the thirteenth, the distance between Spruance and Tan Renhao was about 600 miles. If the Atlantic Fleet had turned south at that time, it would have entered the search range of the First Fleet's reconnaissance planes before dawn on the 13th, and would have been spotted before dawn, and the First Fleet's bombers would have arrived quickly after dawn. It was precisely because Spruance allowed the fleet to continue deep into the Atlantic that he avoided the night reconnaissance planes of the First Fleet.

Spruance, of course, only suspected that this was a trap, and was completely unaware that the First Fleet was in ambush not far to the south, and he was just lucky enough to avoid it. The development of the war itself was not determined by Spruance, that is, on the morning of the 13th, when the Atlantic Fleet had just turned south, Spruance received a second telegram from Admiral King. The telegram asked him to annihilate the Third Fleet, which was bombing the Bahamas, as soon as possible, and then intercept the approaching landing fleet to ensure the safety of the Bahamas.

The Third Fleet continued to bomb U.S. military bases in the Bahamas on the morning of the 12th and 13th. After basically destroying the US airfield on the 11th, the focus of the bombing shifted to the US military camps, port infrastructure, and key targets such as US radar stations and communication centers. At that time, in order to convince the US military that both the First Fleet and the Third Fleet were bombing the Bahamas, the bomber sorties of the Third Fleet were doubled, and at the same time, the Seventh Task Force was positioned further forward, its carrier-based aircraft were all painted with the First Fleet logo, and the pilots were also given orders to say that they were the pilots of the First Fleet, not the pilots of the Third Fleet, if they were unfortunately captured. In addition, on the night of the 12th, the Third Fleet also organized more than a dozen cruisers to approach the island of Mayaguana and shelled Abraham Bay on the island, making the US military mistakenly believe that this was the first

3rd Task Force.

Under this arrangement, the intelligence agencies of the US military have always believed that there are two main fleets bombing the Bahamas, but they do not realize that the First Fleet has not participated in the bombing operation, but has been waiting for the arrival of the Atlantic Fleet outside the battlefield. It was precisely because of this that Admiral Jin ordered Spruance to speed south to attack the main fleet of the Tang Empire. More importantly, the landing fleet that had left Port St. John at that time would arrive in the waters of the Bahamas on 16 July, and the US military intelligence department judged that the landing operation would begin on 17 July, not at the latest on 18 July. Therefore, it is necessary to annihilate the fleet of the Tang Empire before that, and only then can it strike at its landing fleet and avoid letting the Tang Empire marines go to the island. Relatively speaking, this time is quite tight, even if the Atlantic Fleet goes south at full speed, it can only reach the battlefield on the afternoon of 15 July, and only on 16 June can it find the opportunity for a sneak attack; if something else happens, this time will have to be delayed by one to two days, that is to say, the Atlantic Fleet must seize all the time to be able to thwart the landing operations of the Tang Imperial Navy.

After receiving the order, Spruance did not immediately order the fleet to speed up southward, in fact, he did not think about attacking the landing fleet at all, as long as he defeated the main fleet of the Tang Empire, and to defeat the main fleet of the Tang Empire, what was needed was not a hurry, but an opportunity. The battle takes only a few hours, and if there is no favorable opportunity, then these hours of fighting will not lead to victory, but complete defeat.

Then. Spruance was already suspicious, especially when the telegram mentioned that two main fleets were bombing the Bahamas, which made Spruance even more suspicious. Even if it is not the commander of the First Fleet, Tan Renhao, who is not in command of this battle, then Tan Renhao will at least be responsible for the combat operations of the fleet. According to Tan Renhao's habit, it is impossible for him to put two main fleets into ground strike operations at the same time, and the military target on the Bahamas is not worth the two main fleets to attack at the same time, under the condition that he has several days of strike time. Any main fleet can easily take out military objectives on the island. So, why did Tan Renhao invest in the two main fleets?

After thinking about it, Spruance only came to one conclusion, that is, Tan Renhao created a false illusion, so that the US military ground intelligence department judged that the two main fleets were attacking the Bahamas, so that the Atlantic Fleet could directly kill them. In fact, there must be a main fleet lying in ambush nearby, just waiting for the Atlantic Fleet to be fooled. In this case, Spruance would not be in a hurry to speed up the fleet.

The problem was also exposed here, the Atlantic Fleet has maintained radio silence since it went to sea, and Spruance was not worried that the radio waves would be intercepted by the radio stations of the Tang Empire, and the nearest Tang Imperial radio stations were still in the Little Andrés and the Azores, and they were too far away to detect. But the problem is that there are quite a few German submarines operating in the waters around here. The submarines of the Imperial Navy of the Don Empire also operated in the North Atlantic, and these submarines were equipped with improvised radio listening stations. It is quite possible to receive a ground radio signal from the Atlantic Fleet, and then the departure of the Atlantic Fleet from Norfolk will not be able to be kept secret. Of course. It is also easy for the fleet to be pursued by submarines, and its whereabouts will inevitably be revealed. In addition, the Atlantic Fleet was already more than 550 miles away from Norfolk, and the distance continued to expand, and the fleet could turn at any time, in which case Spruance could not send planes back to Norfolk. In other words, Spruance was only able to unilaterally receive messages from Admiral Kim. And it was not possible to send a telegram to Admiral Kim.

In order to get an accurate picture of the activities of the fleet of the Don Empire, Spruance decided to wait a little longer. That is, the time to delay the south. This decision is undoubtedly the right one. By the evening of the 13th, Spruance had received new news that the US reconnaissance planes deployed on the Greater Andres Islands had been fully dispatched and had made contact with the fighters of the Tang Imperial Fleet many times during the day of the 13th, but they had not been able to successfully approach the fleet, so it was impossible to judge the specific location and scale of the fleet. Admiral Kim has already ordered the reconnaissance planes to intensify their operations as much as possible, determine the specific location and scale of the Tang Imperial Fleet as soon as possible, and provide assistance for the Atlantic Fleet to launch a sneak attack.

There is no doubt that this is an important piece of information. At that time, the US military had hundreds of reconnaissance planes deployed on the Greater Andres Islands, many of which were long-range reconnaissance planes converted from heavy bombers. The range of these reconnaissance planes is very huge, and they are not too far from the battlefield, and they are fully capable of discovering the fleet of the Tang Empire. At this time, there was still no major gain, it can only be said that it was not very lucky, and as long as the reconnaissance aircraft unit was given enough time, then it would definitely be able to find the fleet of the Tang Empire, and at that time, the Atlantic Fleet would not need to personally send reconnaissance planes, and could use the information provided by shore-based reconnaissance planes to launch an attack. Because of this, that same night, Spruance again gave the order for the fleet to turn to the ground. This time, the fleet is no longer sailing directly to the south, but to the southeast, if the main fleet of the Tang Empire is active in the southeast waters of the Bahamas, then it is better for the Atlantic Fleet to appear in its northeast, or even to the east, that is, in the direction where the opponent's defense is weakest, and then launch an all-out attack!

At this point, the Atlantic Fleet was still approaching the Third Fleet, and Huang Xiaotian did not let the fleet leave the predetermined sea area, he did not even contact Tan Renhao, and he did not know what the First Fleet was doing. According to Tan Renhao's deployment, the First Fleet will be responsible for the security of the Third Fleet, and the First Fleet will not take the initiative to send a telegram until it encounters the Atlantic Fleet. Huang Xiaotian could only pin his security hopes on the First Fleet. Of course, he is not completely passive in combat, and he can use more reconnaissance planes in other directions without the need to send reconnaissance planes to monitor US military bases.

Similarly, on the aircraft carrier "Longganhu" of the First Fleet, Tan Renhao had already dispatched four groups of reconnaissance planes on 13 July, and waited patiently for a day, until midnight on 13 July, but still had no gains. At this point, Tan Renhao also had to start wondering if Spruance would rush up directly. Just as Spruance feared, Tan Renhao was worried that the First Fleet would suddenly encounter the Atlantic Fleet and be hit suddenly.