To maintain Hawaii's fuel reserves, the staff racked their brains to think of many solutions, but they were denied one by one:

The first idea is to use heavy transport aircraft for strategic air transport of thousands of aircraft. After calculation, it is only possible to provide 500 tons of fuel per week, which is simply a drop in the bucket;

The second idea is that ships in Pearl Harbor are stationed and all consumption is stopped. Not to mention that it is quite dangerous to take the initiative to stop the ship while surrounding the enemy fleet. It should not stop the ship from the perspective of training, sea trials, and running-in, otherwise how can the new recruits master the warships;

The third idea is that except for the necessary ships in Pearl Harbor, all other ships return to the west coast without consuming Pearl Harbor's stock fuel, which can greatly extend the maintenance time.

The third opinion makes sense, and Halsey also replied to Ingram, "If the situation is unfavorable, this fleet will protect the transport fleet and return to the west coast and standby."

But Spruins privately disagreed with this opinion. He said something that made everyone stunned: "Are you planning to hide on the West Coast for the rest of your life?" Because of the deployment of the US Navy, such as the New York Shipyard, Norfolk Shipyard, Philadelphia Shipyard, Newport Newfoot Shipyard, Bethlehem Steel Fore River Shipyard, etc., which can build battleships and Essex-class fleet aircraft carriers, are all distributed on the east coast, while the West Coast Shipyard can only build escort aircraft carriers. Not to mention whether there are enough pilots and sailors to build more escort aircraft carriers, even if they are fully equipped, can this "Jiper aircraft carrier" that will be paralyzed with a 25o kilogram bomb to compete with the Dafeng-class armored aircraft carrier or Xianghe and Yunlong-class fleet aircraft carriers?

The United States has been considering the deployment of the two oceans, but has never considered the blockade of the two oceans: the paralysis of the Panama Canal and the blockade of Cape Horn have deteriorated the strategic situation of the US Navy to an unparalleled extent.

What's worse is that the maritime transportation line that needs to be protected on the West Coast is not only one to Hawaii, but also the transportation line to Australia and New Zealand has also been cut off. In Spruins' view, solving the current problem can be avoided in a short time, and ultimately solving it must be fought. "Otherwise, after the Pacific route is blocked by the Japanese fleet, Australia and New Zealand and Hawaii will collapse sooner or later."

He even used the Royal Navy's blockade of the German High Seas Fleet during World War I to describe the current situation. "The Pacific Fleet has become a fleet that is weaker than the German High Seas Fleet. This is not an exaggeration..." In his eyes, the High Seas Fleet can still muster up the courage to fight a tactical victory in the Battle of Jutland. The main force of the t5o fleet could not defeat the essence of the joint fleet at all, and the Atlantic Fleet is now facing the main force of the Axis Fleet and cannot reinforce. Even if the Atlantic direction can have extra warships in the future, when the Panama Canal is blocked and Cape Horn is blocked, it is equivalent to no way out.

This conclusion made Nimitz so worried that he couldn't eat or sleep every day. At that time, he was annoyed that Huotsukahara "three fights against Panama" and hoped that the Japanese fleet would get out quickly. But if the Japanese army did not care about the direction of Central America and just went north to the west coast, he felt that he couldn't stand it. After all, he would only count one less thing. The Japanese fleet did not have to maintain a supply line that traveled thousands of miles away, and could go to Galapagos Island and Peru to get supplements nearby.

At the Joint Conference, the 6th Army and the 6th Air Force also considered attacking Peru, and finally it became depressed. Even if attacking Peru is not enough to change the situation, the Japanese could go to Chile to replenish supplies. If they attack Chile again, the Peruvians would not be able to see the war clearly stated that the supplies were requested by the Germans through the La Plata Group, and the oil was provided by the Argentines. They were also "badly". If you have the ability, you should beat the La Plata Group and the Germans!

At the late night meeting on the 22nd, Spruins once again proposed: "There are three ways to change the current situation on the West Coast:

The first article is to make peace with Germany, to draw the main force of the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, and use the two ocean navies to overwhelm Japan. This is the fundamental solution;

Article 2: The t5o fleet takes advantage of the opportunity that the main force of the joint fleet has not yet been in place, and uses the transport fleet as bait to attract the enemy to break the fleet and take the bait and use its own advantage to destroy the troops of the 6th aviation team;

Article 3: The t5o fleet uses itself as bait. Regardless of whether it has the cooperation of 6 aviation, it will try its best to defeat the enemy's fleet (there will definitely be the remaining part), so that its main fleet cannot be rotated and responds with a war of attrition."

The first two items were implemented in a favorable state to the US military. The third item was a little hesitant at first, and only after communicating with Halsey, he strengthened his confidence.

Halsey's point of view is clear: if the T5o fleet and the Kakuda fleet die together, the Tsukahara fleet will not be able to maintain even if there is Peru's supply point, and if there is no replacement, then the main force of Tsukahara goes to Peru for supplies, the west coast can take the opportunity to transport supplies to Hawaii; if the main force of Tsukahara is stuck in the West Coast and Hawaii, and only relies on oil tankers to deliver oil, submarines, destroyers, and escort aircraft carrier formations, and Air Six can find ways to eliminate it.

But Halsey's wish may not be achieved. Who stipulates that the enemy must attack the T5O with the transport fleet. Wouldn't they attack the transport fleet? So before the night meeting, Spruins secretly found Turner and asked him to help think of a solution.

In theory, it violated the regulations. The latter was not only retired, but also was not a member of the Joint Council. Discussing these is equivalent to leaking secrets. But Spruins believes that although Turner has various problems, he will not treason and has many tricks. Isn’t the Caribbean transportation line a way to “open ships during the day and stop ships at night”? He asked for advice humbly.

It is said that Turner is "linear thinking", but linear thinking has an advantage. He will try his best to get stuck in the slightest way. Faced with Spruins, who is in a hurry to seek medical treatment, Turner mentioned two methods that are not the solution:

The first is multi-way attack: organize multiple transportation troops, escorting only with destroyers and a small number of escort carriers, and several routes are out, such as Los Angeles, Canada goes all the way through Aleutian in the north, Mexico in the south, and other routes are sacrificed, as long as you ensure that you can reach Hawaii all the way.

The second type is aircraft carrier oil transport: after the Casablanca-class escort aircraft carrier, each can carry more than 400 tons of fuel, and 8-12 ships are drawn at a time and 4-6 fast tankers are used to perform transportation tasks. Due to the protection of escort fighters (24o-36o air defense fighters), the loss will not be too large. A single trip can solve the net problem of more than 50,000 tons of fuel (excluding the consumption of back and forth between the fleet and fighter escorts), the only thing to be prepared is that the Japanese army sends fast battleships and heavy cruisers to break through with naval guns, but this is another topic, and he believes that it can also be broken.

The first one is fine, but the second one is similar to the Japanese TL type escort aircraft carrier. It is nothing more than the United States' escort aircraft carrier carrying a large number of aircraft and a small amount of oil; Japan's escort aircraft carrier carrying a fuel capacity of 7ooo tons, but only 1o aircraft is available.

Regarding such a crazy idea, Spruins nodded and said he knew it. It depends on what happened after Halsey and the transport troops. He did not dare to use this "bad idea" if it was bad, it would work. At the beginning, Nimitz refused to listen to Turner's suggestion to dispatch 50 escort aircraft carriers to defeat Yar, which became more and more troublesome. In the words Turner complained in front of Spruins: "Every time I said that my method was too savage, and I wanted to use a clever method, but the 'crack method' was not effective every time. I didn't want to die too many people, nor did I want to lose a lot, and I still refused to retract. I had to care about that and not let it go. Only if I could win would there be a ghost..."

Halsey, who commanded T5o, knew that life was hard. He was tired of the Franklin late at night on the 23rd, and chatted with his old partner, Lieutenant General John Sidney McCain (Author's note: In real history, the McCain family has achieved remarkable achievements. Old Mai pursued General, and later became the commander-in-chief of the Asian War Zone. Xiao Xiaomai was a senior Republican senator, but he lost his 2OO-8 campaign for president. Old Mai's legendary life can be Baidu). McCain's mentality is relatively positive, and the solutions proposed are slightly different from those of everyone in Washington.

"We first use normal formation to welcome the transport fleet. If we are sure that the main Japanese forces gather, the t5o and the transport troops will return to Los Angeles to stand by and wait for the enemy to disperse again; if we are sure that the enemy cannot cut off the transport line, we will divide the two rows in front and back, and divide the 6 escort aircraft carriers to protect the transport troops. The main fleet will protect it at 2 o' kilometers behind..."

"What if I encounter the enemy's debunk fleet in the middle of the way?"

"That's best, just fuck him first!" McCain waved his fists. "I've long disliked them. If it weren't for the superiors (Ingram and Nimitz) who were in charge, I would have wanted to rush out!"

Looking at the stars at night, Halsey suddenly asked in a strange way: "Last time I took the aircraft carrier formation outside, but the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor; this time I took the formation outside again, would the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor again? The fleet of broken traffic has disappeared for several days..."

"This..." McCain was stunned by his words, and then laughed again, "The last time there were a bunch of battleships in Pearl Harbor. The Japanese took advantage of our unprepared surprise attacks. There were only a few worthless escort carriers in the port. What can they explode? Besides, until now, the 6th Air Force, the 6th Army, should be more vigilant. If it is attacked by sneaks, I think all the Japanese will commit suicide. I even think that Japan will fight Pearl Harbor so that the 6th Air Force will have the opportunity to sink the enemy ships and reverse the current disadvantage of the balance of power."

Halsey nodded, agreeing with this judgment.

While they were chatting, the Second Air War, which had been hiding for several days, had reached less than 80 kilometers from the west coast. Kakuda calmly summoned the flight captain: "At 3:30 in the morning, our army will arrive at a place only 60 kilometers from Seattle. At this time, you all attacked. Do you understand the goal?"

"I understand, go and bomb Boeing's aircraft manufacturer!"

"I wish you a victory, please!"
Chapter completed!