17 August 1943
Enemy carriers elect not to pursue Yorktown.
DEI
Another barge hit a mine at Ambon and sank. I sent a pair of destroyers and a PT squadron to Ambon to further harrass the barges. The destroyers found a midget sub, depth charged it and sank it. The PTs found the barge group and sank 6 out of the 10.
Burma
A third enemy submarine attempted to attack the landing ships, HMS Racehorse depth charged it for a confirmed kill.
SouthPAC
All 3 of my carrier groups successfully rendezvoused in the Marshalls. We didn't spot the enemy carriers at all today, which strongly suggests they didn't follow--in addition to the SBD scouting from all 3 fleet carriers, the entire Marshalls are under constant Catalina surveillance.
There were still a few of our troops left on Ponape, the fighters escorting raids on them for the first time included the N1K1-J George. I'm not all that familiar with this airplane, but it appears to be a Navy fighter but not carrier capable. Similar in speed and manueverability to the Zero, it is more durable and more heavily armed, so I'd expect it to be a good fighter and superior to the Zero at bomber interception.
Reinforcements
SS Aspro arrives at Eastern USA
LSD Ashland arrives at Los Angeles
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