14 October 1942
Submarine service terrorizes
Luzon Strait
USS Thresher may have just set a new record for number of duds in a single fight. It scored 12 hits on an unescorted cargo ship in a night surface attack. Hits number 10 and 12 were the only ones that exploded.
One hex to the east, USS Spearfish also engaged an unescorted cargo ship on the surface--this sub mostly just missed. Might have been a few dud hits in there, but it ran itself completely out of torpedoes and took a hit from the enemy ship's guns. It's headed home in shame.
Since these were both night attacks this wasn't a factor, but the British Hudsons with naval search radars are now operational and patrolling the Taiwain and Luzon straits. My subs are going to be much more effective here now.
Japan
Near Shikoku Island, the USS Whale made a gun attack on an AKL, getting close enough to use even its .30cal machine guns. It took some light damage from the AKL in return. The AKL was damaged badly enough by the Whale's main gun that it should sink.
Luganville Invasion
An enemy submarine decided to try to get into my staging area at Efate and hit 3 defensive mines. No way it survives that.
Ceram Sea
The O24 torpedoed an escorted cargo ship off Ternate. Vehicle losses were reported.
Burma
We wiped out the paratrooper unit fragment we probed yesterday. I think there are at most 2 more. One of them is adjacent to the unit that just destroyed this one, and is actually moving toward us. I'm happy to wait for them.
Reinforcements
DD Fletcher arrives at Eastern USA
AM Strahan arrives at Newcastle
SC-630 arrives at San Francisco
223 Group RAF arrives at Aden
503rd Parachute Regiment arrives at San Francisco
RAF 221 Group Base Force arrives at Aden
--The British reinforcements in Aden are empty commands, but I expect I can bring base forces and such to full strength pretty quickly. It's infantry I'm short on.
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