2 January 1944
USS Skipjack lost in attack on enemy convoy; HMS Hermes succumbs to yesterday's attack to become first ship sunk by a kamikaze
Philippines and surrounding seas
USS Skipjack successfully engaged a convoy west of Luzon, striking a 4875-ton cargo ship and likely sinking it. Afterwards it was prosecuted by a pair of PBs and a kaibokan. The kaibokan had deep reaching depth charges and of course she was the one that found the Skipjack, and proceeded to hit our boat with at least 3 solid pattern hits along with several damaging near misses. Skipjack was forced to surface and was summarily gunned down.
Skipjack recorded a kill on a mine tender (830 tons) in addition to the suspected kill in the attack she was lost in.
B-24s hit the main enemy base on Mindanao, Cagayan, causing 91 casualties.
Our advancing troops caught up with the retreating forces and dealt them another 248 casualties as they ran towards Cagayan.
Andaman Sea and Burma
Hermes went down overnight.
The enemy opened the day's festivities with 23 Georges from Bangkok sweeping Rangoon. We mustered 36 fighters to oppose them; losses were 10 Georges and 1 P-51. Not bad at all. And proof the altitude isn't everything... the George was the highest flying fighter in the fight.
That was followed up by 11 Betties escorted by 15 Zeroes attacking the transport convoy. They lost 3 Zeroes and 10 of the Betties. The surviving Betty launched a torpedo at a cargo ship but missed.
Next was a single Judy with 8 Zeroes escorting; the Judy was splashed. Then three Zeroes with 1 Jill; we got all 4 of them. And yet another raid of 1 Kate and 4 Zeroes, the Kate was shot down with 1 of the Zeroes. And finally, a less-piecemeal raid of 7 Frances torpedo bombers escorted by 4 Zeroes and 7 Georges. We got 2 of the Frances; the rest attacked minesweepers near Rangoon and missed.
3 B-25Gs then attacked the KB... that went exactly how you'd expect.
Other raids:
Pisanouke (ground forces): 43 casualties
China
Air Raids:
Sinyang (ground forces): 10 casualties
DEI
Air raids:
Koepang (ground forces): 9 casualties
Kendari (ground forces and airbase): 5 base hits, 4 casualties
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