No, it’s right. I own a first edition rulebook and I just verified that fighters attack on a 1 and defend on a 2 in the original out of the box game.
Defenseless transport rule is only that you don’t have to actually roll the dice when only transports are left (in the conduct combat phase).
From the blue box: “In a sea battle, if the defender has only transports remaining and the attacker still has units capable of attacking, the defending transports are all destroyed.”
This is in the rules for “Phase 3: Conduct Combat”
The defenseless transport rule does not come into play in the movement phases