It was a set-up, the ally fleet wasn't at the transport location... No, "no longer at" to be exact. Instead, the enemy fleet were lying in wait.

Somehow, the enemy found out about our merged operation, and hurriedly change their foothold.... Also, because we were impatient, we didn't contact the ally fleet first before leaving.

...In other word, perhaps we had already played into the enemy's hands right from the beginning.

Even now, we still do not know whether it's true or not.

But what's more, the higher-ups simply dismissed the incident as a problem caused by error in information processing, and blamed it all on Admiral Amano.

After that, you could say, talks began to spread.

"A whole fleet devastated, caused by one elementary mistake from a stupid, incompetent Navy Admiral" or something like that. Our role, our pride, resupply and support of the front line, the things which supported us, were being trampled under the feet of the people we used to support.