6 November 1942
Rangoon situation grim in spite of heavy enemy bomber losses
Sulu Sea
The O21 detected the same tanker convoy that suffered losses over the last two days, about to enter the channels in the Philippines. Its escorts spotted the O21 first and drove it off. But we have a more accurate composition of this convoy now--it has 2 PB escorts, not one, and the original number of tankers was 7, not 5. I'll be looking for these guys again on the other side.
CENTPAC
I wanted to do another bombardment of Canton Island but my Catalinas kept seeing subs patrolling the coast, and I'd rather not give him a shot at a cruiser. Solution: just bombard with destroyers instead. They arrived today and the enemy sub took the bait. Our DDs avoided the torpedoes and hit the enemy sub back pretty hard. Enough for the captain to claim a kill, which I doubt, but it'll be down for repairs for awhile. The DDs shelled the enemy base afterward but it didn't do much.
Solomons Area
At Noumea, an enemy sub entered the base's hex and encountered my surface combat task force, which is standing by to potentially evacuate. This task force has at least 7 destroyers; the sub was spotted and depth charged relentlessly. It was forced to surface, and in spite of it getting a few torpedo shots off while on the surface, it was gunned down and confirmed sunk.
Our B-17s hit the enemy troops on Ndeni but didn't do much--40 Zeroes shooting at them the whole time didn't help. They shot down 3 of the Zeroes though. P-38 sweeps arrived after, getting 4 more Zeroes. None of this stopped the enemy troops from taking back Ndeni, though. Our small garrison has surrendered. It looks like the enemy used a third of a division for this. I guess they really want this island.
I wonder if the KB (fragment?) will leave now that its apparent mission is accomplished. In hindsight, I probably should have ordered that surface task force at Noumea to evacuate just in case the next thing to do with it is go after a target of opportunity. At least if the enemy does press south I'm almost guaranteed to get significant airstrikes against them.
Battle of Rangoon
East of the main frontline, enemy carrier aircraft attacked my army that was pursuing the enemy's former Tavoy garrison. They didn't do much damage to us in the thick jungle, but our AA gunners got 4 Vals.
The enemy Sallies targeted Rangoon this turn, and flew unescorted. We were able to get plenty of CAP aircraft up to meet them--we shot down 30. The total number of sorties was well over 100 though. Damage to our base was light--they're bombing from 20,000 feet again. They did hit the light cruiser Caradoc, previously damaged by the CVBG airstrikes. I just don't think these bombers are doing much good here, so their loss isn't a big deal either.
More concerning to me, our B-24s flew uncoordinated strikes before our fighter sweeps arrived. The CVBG's Zeroes were so worn down trying to stop the bombers that our sweeps had no joy when they showed up afterward. We had 7 B-24s shot down by Zeroes, with another 4 lost to flak. Absolutely unsustainable. And we only inflicted a few dozen casualties. Our bombers shot down 4 Zeroes.
To the west, at Akyab, the B-25s that had been bombing the base switched to an attempted attack on an APD in the port. It missed, but this is interesting--he's either reinforcing or evacuating the base. I'm really disappointed in my Beaufighters for not doing this instead, APDs and whatever transports it might be with would make ideal targets for them, but they refuse to fly missions. Our tanks arrived at the base and tried to seize it, but the enemy garrison is too strong for this unit by themselves. Infantry support is still a few days off. In the meantime, those B-25s are off naval attack duty, they'll support the tanks. As for the ships, my British fleet has arrived and they even did it undetected. I'm going to try to be a little sneaky, instead of the Indomitable hitting them with torpedo bombers, I'm breaking off 2 cruisers and 2 destroyers to attack the enemy directly. With a little luck, he'll badly underestimate the forces I have here and make a bad decision. Best case, that cruiser task force that's been hanging out here comes back.
If it turns out the KB-West comes after me, that's bad news, but the lack of Zeroes over the beachhead at Pegu should mean my bombers can do much more damage, perhaps even flattening the new airbase they're building there and taking out a ton of Oscars on the ground.
China
Got a 6 more Sallies over Amoy in an unescorted raid.
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