When the sun rose from the east again, the US fleet had sailed at a speed of 18 knots for a whole night, reaching the Sulawesi Sea for more than 200 kilometers. When the sun rose again, the fleet was still heading towards the target at the highest speed possible. The core fleet was reduced into two, one was a battleship team and the other was an aircraft carrier team. They were located in the center of the entire fleet, and around them were an escort formation composed of more than 30 destroyers. 40 kilometers away from this fleet, the remaining destroyers and cruisers formed a sparse circular warning area, cleaning up accidental ships that could appear at any time on the surrounding sea!

Although there is no target worthy of the US main fleet in this sea area, the battle has begun. In order to prevent any suspicious ships from exposing the whereabouts and location of the fleet, more than 6 Americans' destroyers and two cruisers teams repeatedly cleared the sea like combs. In the following dozens of hours, the war had begun, and American shells had landed on the Japanese and British ships!

"Send signals to dd244 and dd345, so that they can expand their control range!" At this time, Halsey, who was already commander of the destroyer squadron, issued another order. Two minutes later, the order was sent to the other two destroyers through flags. The US destroyer team, which had already been unfolding in a fan shape, became even more dispersed. They shuttled back and forth on the sea at a speed of more than 22 knots, searching for the target.

The God of War did not make Halsey wait for too long. While having breakfast, a sentry discovered the warning of a suspicious ship that made Halsey immediately throw away the bread and cans in his hand and come to the bridge in a few steps. Following the direction pointed by his subordinates, he could see a black smoke column in the distance where the sea and sky meet.

"Tell the guys, we will start the first battle of this battle! The remaining warships continue to search, and we rush up and kill him!" Halsey said excitedly.

"Don't we determine the target first? If it were French or other neutral ships, we would get into a lot of trouble." said an officer.

"It doesn't matter, the US government will help us deal with these things. rush up, if it's a Japanese ship, we will kill it directly, if it's a neutral ship, we will control the ship." Halsey ordered.

Opposite was a slow merchant ship. Halsey estimated that the speed was about 6 knots per hour, as slow as a snail. The destroyer DD370 he was riding rushed over at a high speed of 28 knots. Halsey was backing the sun to make full use of the sunlight and the cover of the warship painted. In addition, the destroyer itself burned oil and the smoke was not heavy, so he was almost not discovered along the way.

"Okay, it's a Japanese merchant ship, ready to turn on our communication jamming equipment. Go up and kill them with a gun. Our torpedo may have to be left for some big guys." Halsey put down the telescope in his hand and said. Although there has not been a war, everything has been confirmed. The Americans are very careful and have considered that it is impossible to completely avoid ships during this journey. Therefore, in order to prevent the other party from sending reports, interference equipment was specially set up for the merchant ship frequency band. When the interference equipment starts working, civil communication equipment within a radius of ten kilometers will not be used.

When the Japanese finally discovered the rushing destroyer, it was too late, and electronic interference seemed to be unnecessary, because Halsey had no chance to send a message to them! After getting closer, the fierce firepower of three 120mm and two 75mm guns instantly engulfed the merchant ship with a displacement of only more than 3,000 tons. Accompanied by the rolling smoke and leaping flames, the Japanese merchant ship sank into the seabed in just a few minutes. In order to prevent someone from obtaining the information of the fleet by rescuing the Japanese crew after the fleet passed, Halsey chose to eliminate the roots without hesitation!

Of course, on the way, the US fleet did not just encounter some little guys. At noon the next day, a Japanese fleet escorted by destroyers appeared swaggeringly from the northeast of the US fleet's avant-garde force. As early as an hour ago, the US Navy had discovered this fleet through patrol seaplanes. It was not clear whether the Japanese discovered the American plane, because even if they discovered it, in their subconscious, the planes that could appear in the Sulawesi Sea could only be Japanese planes. So they didn't care at all.

"6 transport ships, 1 destroyer and 2 gunboats." At this time, Fletcher Jr. was aboard the flagship of the Armored Cruiser Detachment, the USS San Francisco, was developing a combat plan. This time, it was attacked by a Japanese transport fleet, and it was not a big problem to kill all transport ships. After all, these guys were too slow and had almost no resistance. The most troublesome thing was destroyers and gunboats. They might run away at high speed or send information through telegrams. In this case, the US fleet must capture the other side in a short time as much as possible!

"In 15 minutes, our large seaplanes will arrive. They will carry jamming equipment and weapons to suppress and track Japan's escort record. Two destroyer teams will be responsible for encirclement and suppression of the transport fleet, and we and another destroyer team will be responsible for handling the escort warships." Fletcher Jr. ordered.

Immediately, the US Armored Cruiser Detachment and three destroyer detachments began to unfold the formation. Fletcher's and a destroyer detachment would stop the Japanese from the front, while the other two destroyer detachments would launch an attack from the back. A huge plier had already spread out faintly on the sea surface, and the rest was waiting for the moment of attack!

Six twin-engine watercraft arrived as promised. In this era, the poor engines of the aircraft were almost impossible for a twin-engine watercraft to carry electronic equipment and sea attack weapons at the same time. Therefore, the six aircraft were divided into three twin-engine teams, one of which was equipped with electronic jamming equipment and antennas weighing hundreds of kilograms, and the other was equipped with small bombs and machine guns.

"We have arrived in the designated waters and found the smoke column of the other ship, but we cannot determine the specific location." The watchman of the SSP1 aircraft said to the captain.

"Then let us raise our target a little higher and immediately get close to the target after discovering the target. Our airborne electronic interference equipment has limited effective distances and must be closer. We target the destroyer, and the remaining two teams target the gunboat. After destroying them, we can attack the merchant ship at the discretion!" The captain of sp1, Carl, ordered.
Chapter completed!