9 July 1942
Rangoon mined
Burma and Thailand
Motor launches on ASW patrol detected mines in the river channels leading to Rangoon's port. They cleared a few and managed to give a transport convoy a clear path through, but one of them hit one as the day went on, sinking it. I'm calling in a minesweeper from India and another from Colombo to take care of this. Two convoys in Rangoon now are being ordered to remain there, another convoy that was on its way is going to wait in Colombo.
I'm doing some final recon of the Bangkok area--I have what should be a force strong enough to take it, or so I hope. I'm running out of time to do something about Singapore. Supplies there are already starting to tank now that cargo ships from Sumatra aren't getting there anymore.
Hawaii and Line Islands
The first two thirds of the amphibious convoy finished unloading and departed Pearl without incident. The final third took their place in the docks finished late in the day, and escorts spotted a sub as the convoy departed, prosecuting it and lightly damaging it. The only ships of mine left here in Hawaii are subs and a few cargo ships I plan on stationing here.
I'll be bombing Lahaina daily going forward. Today's raid resulted in an AKE being sunk in port (confirmed). Damage to the airbase is outpacing their repairs.
Several landing barges were sent to Pearl but they seemed to have run out of fuel enroute. One of my subs gunned one down; 4 USMC Buffalos strafed and sank 8 more.
A Kingfisher crew reported bombing a CL near Pearl, I'm pretty sure he meant to type "SS", we'd know if there was still a cruiser here.
Palmyra took a pounding from the Warspite and Colorado, but my troops aren't ready to take advantage. Maybe tomorrow.
Java Sea
The O21 was spotted and damaged by a PB, then Japanese aircraft found it again after it gave the PB the slip and hit it with a bomb. It's headed home for repairs.
Malaya
A new air campaign against Singapore is in full swing again, with multiple sweeps and bombing raids. We lost 2 Hurricanes, each one resulting in an ace wounded in action. We splashed an Oscar and 5 Sallies.
Sumatra
Our Palembang CAP strayed a bit again, shooting down 3 Oscars escorting bombers to the south. It looks like a battleship task force is headed to Palembang, hopefully they eat a mine going through that channel. If they avoid it we might get a shot at them with torpedo bombers.
Banda Sea
Yesterday I noticed enemy amphibious activity getting rather close to Darwin, so I moved the Beaufighter squadron from Port Morseby to Darwin. Today, they had a successful strike against a fast transport group near Selaroe, a small island east of Timor. They strafed and skipbombed a light cruiser and a destroyer there; the destroyer is believed to have been sunk. One Beaufighter was damaged, no losses. Not a bad debut.
Reinforcements
AM Adroit arrives at Portland
SC PC-578 arrives at Portland
xAK Maridal arrives at Aden
14th USN Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Port Hueneme