Chapter 12: Establishment

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Upon returning to the mainland and being liberated from the confined warship, Captain Iizawa's ears were filled with a mixture of truth and fiction as rumors flew in one after another.

During the Battle of Midway, there was a heated debate between the 1st Air Fleet Headquarters and Rear Admiral Yamaguchi, the commander of the 2nd Carrier Division, regarding whether to launch the third attack group. Yamaguchi argued that with the skilled crew members of the 2nd Carrier Division, even with a small number of planes, it was possible to destroy the remaining two American aircraft carriers and advocated for continuing the battle. However, the staff of the 1st Air Fleet, including Chief of Staff Kusaka, opposed the commander's proposal, citing the heavy depletion of friendly carrier-based aircraft and the excessively high risk of pursuing the enemy in the presence of intact Midway airfield. In the end, Vice Admiral Nagumo sided with the staff's opinions, leading to the cancellation of the third attack.

Additionally, Iizawa had heard rumors that the flagship Yamato of the Combined Fleet had detected signs of movement by the American mobile fleet in the vicinity of Midway before the operation started but failed to relay this information to the 1st Air Fleet. After Operation MI, both the 1st Air Fleet and 2nd Carrier Division headquarters reportedly criticized the Combined Fleet Headquarters for this negligence. Rumors even included stories of Yamaguchi physically confronting Kuroshima, who allegedly withheld the information. Iizawa, however, was skeptical about such sensational details. If a lieutenant commander were to raise his hand against a lieutenant, that would be one thing, but it's unthinkable and not a plausible thing for a rear admiral to beat a captain, let alone with punches.

While Iizawa understood the feelings of both the 1st Air Fleet and Rear Admiral Yamaguchi, he couldn't ignore the fact that the strategic leadership of the Combined Fleet, whether in the aborted Operation MO or the incomplete Operation MI, had been questionable. In particular, the decision to assign separate missions to carriers such as Ryūjō, Jun'yō, Zuihō, and Hōshō during Operation MI, as well as placing battleship forces far behind the mobile fleet, was hard to justify.

Now, both the Combined Fleet and the 1st Air Fleet seemed to have shed their previous arrogance. The formidable strength of the American mobile fleet, coupled with the clear disadvantage in the current power ratio between the Japanese and American mobile fleets, had become evident.

After the Battle of Midway, the Imperial Navy had determined through intercepted enemy communications and interrogations of prisoners that the Lexington and Yorktown had been sunk in that battle. Additionally, the Saratoga had fully recovered by that time, and the Wasp was being transferred to the Pacific.

On the Japanese side, the Shōkaku and Akagi were undergoing repairs for damage suffered at Midway. However, it was expected to take about three months for both ships to return to the front lines, and the damaged Zuikaku also needed more time for recovery. Fortunately, the Ranger was still in the Atlantic, limiting the number of American carriers in the Pacific to a maximum of four.

Even so, facing an estimated American mobile fleet of at least 300 aircraft, the current forces that the Imperial Navy could deploy included only the medium carriers Hiryū and Sōryū, and the small or converted carriers Ryūjō, Jun'yō, Zuihō, and Shōhō, with a total aircraft capacity of less than 250. There were also the Hōshō and Taiyō, but they were either too outdated or too slow, posing difficulties for use in a fleet battle. In any case, the gap left by the absence of the 1st and 5th Carrier Divisions with their large carriers was too significant.

Similarly, just as they knew that the Lexington and Yorktown had been sunk, the Americans must have known that the Kaga had been sunk and that the Akagi, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku were undergoing repairs. Therefore, the most likely time for them to attack would be while these three large carriers are undergoing repairs. If the Akagi, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku return to the front, the Americans will be outnumbered.

Conversely, the attack window for the American mobile fleet was at its highest during this period. The Navy General Staff and Combined Fleet Headquarters suspected that the most likely target for the US was Wake Island or the Marshall Islands, but they also considered Rabaul and Truk as potential areas of concern, given the successful carrier-based air raid on the Imperial Capital.

Regardless, the Imperial Navy urgently needed to rebuild its mobile fleet. Understanding that naval aviation battles at sea were crucial in determining the fate of fleet engagements, and especially considering the unfavorable power balance against the American mobile fleet, stagnation was unacceptable. Therefore, the Imperial Navy disbanded the 1st Air Fleet and established the Third Fleet, a newly formed mobile fleet that the former 1st Air Fleet Headquarters had long desired.