The increase in strength is like a catalyst that activates the ambitions of the US Navy and some military personnel. Just after the ships arrived at Pearl Harbor, the idea of launching another counterattack, or even a counter-attack on Australia, was proposed. Among them, there is no one who is the most noisy than MacArthur.

In November 26, before Brisbane was completely surrounded, MacArthur fled to Wellington, Spruance really didn't know how MacArthur escaped, there was a blockade of Tang Empire warships at sea, and there were Tang Empire fighter jets monitoring in the sky, could it be that MacArthur escaped in a PT boat like the defenders who withdrew from Kuah Island? Spruance didn't want to figure it out, he preferred that MacArthur be killed and that he wouldn't be able to return to Wellington at all, at least that way no one would come to trouble the Navy, but the reality was too far from what he had hoped, and MacArthur not only fled to Wellington, but also arrived on Oahu in early December, before the newly replenished ships arrived at Pearl Harbor.

It's not just Spruance who wants MacArthur to be finished, I'm afraid all the U.S. Navy officers and sailors want MacArthur to be at Pearl Harbor forever. But the problem is that MacArthur did come, and he set up a temporary command at Pearl Harbor. You can't drive MacArthur away, and MacArthur, who has lost everything, is like a lost dog, no one wants to provoke him, but it is this lost dog that finally gives Nimitz, Spruance, Mitchell and others a headache.

After learning that the Navy would receive a large number of warships, MacArthur became active. If MacArthur's ability to command combat is only barely passable, then he can score 80 points for his political maneuvers, and he will definitely get perfect marks for his bragging.

At the time, Nimitz and Spruance were thinking about how to hold the Hawaiian Islands, or at least not lose too quickly, but MacArthur was preaching victory, or future victory. He even declared at a meeting of Army officers in Washington that the U.S. Army was in fact the victor. What led to the current fiasco in the Pacific is the incompetence and defeat of the US Navy! If you only look at the arguments cited by MacArthur, I am afraid that everyone will believe his nonsense, but every officer and sailor of the Navy knows in their hearts that the Army has responsibilities that cannot be shirked, such as MacArthur's several serious mistakes in the defense of the Solomon Islands, and the incompetence shown in the defense of Australia. Although the Navy also bears the responsibility for failure, not all the responsibility should be borne by the Navy, let alone the incompetence of the Navy that led to the defeat!

Brag. The damage to the Navy from passing the buck is not great, after all, MacArthur is not the decision-maker, and it is not up to MacArthur to decide whether the Navy or the Army is incompetent. But the problem is that MacArthur is not just boasting, and he is not just shirking responsibility. The most ridiculous thing he did at that time was: ask the president to give him a batch of troops to counterattack Australia! Moreover, he also officially submitted an operational plan to the Chief of the Army General Staff, General Marshall, and sent a copy of the operational plan to the red sandalwood desk in the White House!

When Nimitz received the battle plan from MacArthur sent by Admiral King, his hands were shaking. It's not because of excitement. It's not excitement, it's anger.

"Counterattack?" Spruance read this flawed and full of self-deceptive lies. And when he fought irresponsibly, he hardly knew whether to cry or laugh.

"Yes, only a madman could come up with such a battle plan. If I were Marshall, or the president, I wouldn't be entertaining this madman with hot coffee, but I would call a few psychiatrists, and prepare a forced bed to thoroughly examine what is going on in the madman's head! Nimitz's words could be said to be extremely mean, Spruance had never seen Nimitz comment on a person so harshly before. In his impression, Nimitz was a fairly gentle, personable and cultivated old man.

"But at the very least, we can't ignore it."

"What else can we do, do we go crazy with him?" Nimitz was controlling his emotions, "He can make hundreds of thousands of American soldiers sacrifice for goals that can never be achieved, but I can't, I can't let our officers and soldiers take risks, and I can't let our only hope be ruined!" ”

Spruance didn't think the newly arrived battleships were hope. But he couldn't say it. "In any case, since Admiral Kim has sent this battle plan over, and the president knows about it, we can't do nothing."

Nimitz touched his forehead and sat Spruance down. "Redmond, what do you think we should do?"

"At the very least, we have to let others know that this plan is not going to work." Spruance looked at the plan in his hand again, and he didn't understand, even a madman wouldn't come up with such a plan, could it be that dozens of MacArthur's staff officers were going crazy with him?

From the point of view of a serious military strategist, the battle plan that MacArthur submitted to Marshall and the president was not at all a battle plan, but like a reserve officer who had not even stepped out of the gate of a military academy wrote in advance in his diary the days for the next few months, which was not only absurd, but also had no logic to speak of, and was groundless!

According to MacArthur's plan, he only needed a task force, 30 divisions of ground troops, and a few transport fleets to counterattack the Australian continent, and defeated the Tang Imperial Army, which had already gained a firm foothold on the Australian continent, and even had basically won the victory, occupying an absolute advantage. First of all, regardless of whether MacArthur's 30 divisions could defeat the Tang Imperial Army on the Australian continent, it is a question of whether this force can reach Australia.

At present, the Tang Imperial Navy has not deployed a task force in the southwest Pacific, and even the scale of the theater fleet operating there is not large, only more than 20 cruisers and destroyers, but the question is, the Tang Imperial Navy has so many task forces, if the US Navy transfers the fleet to New Zealand, will the Tang Imperial Navy sit idly by? In order to counterattack Australia, it is first necessary to seize the sea control of the Tasman Sea and the Coral Sea, which requires at least two or more task forces, and the hope is still very slim. At that time, with the help of the cover of shore-based fighters, the fleet of the Tang Imperial Navy only needs one task force at most to contain the main force of the US Navy in this direction, and the other fleets will concentrate on attacking the Hawaiian Islands.

Even if 10,000 troops were withdrawn, MacArthur's army reached the Australian continent, how much of a force could 30 divisions play? Spruance didn't know much about ground warfare, but he did. Just a few months ago, dozens of U.S. divisions commanded by Bradley, as well as dozens of U.S.-Australian allied divisions in Sydney Harbor, were wiped out by the Tang Imperial Army, and the U.S. Army had no chance to defeat the Tang Imperial Army from beginning to end, let alone a practical victory. At that time, let alone investing 30 divisions, as long as the Tang Imperial Army was prepared, even if MacArthur was given 100 divisions plus sufficient combat materials, he would not be able to successfully return to Australia. and destroy the Tang Empire's army on the Australian continent.

Spruance didn't go crazy. He was also a rather rigorous military strategist. After only a cursory look at MacArthur's "battle plan," Spruance knew that it was not MacArthur fighting back, but saving his military career, which was almost at an end. And the dying struggle of political career, is to take the lives of hundreds of thousands of young Americans, and the last bit of capital of the US Navy, for his personal interests, personal ambitions to make the last struggle! If MacArthur had only been in his dying throes and had not involved the fundamental interests of other people, or even the country, Spruance would not have been so disgusted by MacArthur's actions. has completely violated the responsibility and honor of a soldier, and violated the oath of a soldier, so can he still be regarded as a soldier? Not to mention American soldiers!

"The president is definitely thinking about this battle plan." Nimitz's anger had subsided, and now anger would not solve the problem. "Kim gave us this plan so that we could be ready. I'm afraid I'll be back in Washington in a few days. ”

Spruance immediately looked up. "You're saying that there's a good chance that the president will believe in the crazy plans of a madman?"

Nimitz nodded. "I don't know, but we can't rule it out. We haven't had any overall strategic plan since the last campaign. How to fight next, many people don't know in their hearts. We didn't have a concrete battle plan, and we didn't know where to go. MacArthur saw this opportunity, so he submitted the battle plan in a timely manner, and if we could not come up with a more convincing, logical, objective, and most importantly, more promising battle plan, then the president would have no other choice. ”

"But the president won't even fail to see such a simple truth!"

"The president is not a military strategist, but I believe that the president should at least be on our side." Nimitz hesitated slightly, "The president has served as an assistant to the Secretary of the Navy and has served on a destroyer, so he should be more familiar with the Navy." The President may not understand the Army's combat operations, but if we can come up with a battle plan that satisfies the President, then the President will support us. ”

Spruance didn't know what to say, or rather, he didn't know how to complete the battle plan.

"Redmond, you can't control what others do, and you shouldn't be in charge." Nimitz's eyes stayed on Spruance, who had changed a lot since Spruance returned from Washington, not in behavior and language, but in his mental outlook. "I will reflect your opinion to Admiral King, but we should all know that what MacArthur wants to do, or what he can do, is beyond our control or control, and the only thing we can do is to make others believe in us and work hard to fight for it."

"Then we're going to have to come up with a pretty plan." It's not that Spruance doesn't understand these truths, and he's always been demanding of himself, and now what he needs is not to understand the truth, but to have faith, confidence in the final victory.

"Redmond, we don't have much time, and we don't have much opportunity." Nimitz knew that Spruance was under pressure, but he didn't expect Spruance to be losing confidence. "We're going to get this done as soon as possible, maybe I'll get the news at some point, and before that, we've got to come up with a plan."

"Then I'll do it right away."

And that's the end of the conversation between the two, Spruance knew what he had to do and what he had to do, but he still didn't hold out any hope, it was just a plan, a plan that could be put on the red sandalwood desk in the White House for the president to see, and for the president to finally believe that there was hope for the United States, but this plan could not be made Spruance himself.

Because he used to work as a staff officer, Spruance was still very good at making plans. In addition, most of the officers in the Fifth Fleet Command at that time had no other important tasks, and Spruance had ample manpower. But this is just a task, in addition to coming up with a plan that can persuade Nimitz to convince the president as soon as possible, Spruance has a lot of things to do, such as making the Fifth Fleet form combat effectiveness as soon as possible, and organizing training to improve the combat effectiveness of the fleet.

This was a lot of work, and in the winter of late '26 and early '27, the weather at Pearl Harbor in the tropics wasn't cold, and there was no snow here. Spruance was not enthusiastic, and most of the time, he was just doing his part, and there was very little that he really wanted to do, or could do it spontaneously.

Spruance's attitude did not make much of a difference, he came up with the plan that Nimitz needed as scheduled, the training of the fleet was also carried out in an orderly manner, and the reorganization of the fleet was also planned. As if, there are no noteworthy changes, but changes are quietly coming, and Spruance is well aware that the changes have already begun, and when they come, they will certainly surprise everyone, and they will definitely surprise everyone.