7 May 1942
Timor
IJN Hiei bombarded Koepang overnight. It doesn't seem to have had a lot of ammunition for the task, and damage was surprisingly light: 1 bomber destroyed, a few more damaged, light facility damage. They might have succeeded in disrupting my planned bombing of Mataram, that strike never took off.
Java Sea
Our planned counterattack on Mataram amounted to nothing (not that we had anything to lose, though). He landed a bunch more troops so we were horribly outnumbered by the time the attack took place. Plus he bombed the snot out of the island, while our bombers never got there. Mataram is captured.
Hawaii
USS Flying Fish ran itself out of ammo attacking two cargo ships trying to resupply enemy armies at Pearl. It torpedoed and likely sank one and shot up another with its gun. Sadly, torpedo ammunition efficiency is pretty horrible when more than half of them are duds.
I'm going to set up a submarine operation to try to keep Pearl supplied. I have a bunch of subs patrolling places that aren't getting any traffic or that just aren't mission critical, so I can spare several boats.
SouthPAC
We engaged and sank the bogey, VIDing it as a single cargo ship. I wonder what happens next now that this sacrifice has taken place. If nothing else, he knows I have 4 cruisers operating in this area, but he should already know that from the Christmas Island op.
Solomons
A Liberator raid at the Guadalcanal port produced a hit on a seaplane tender. I'm very surprised I've been allowed to have my way with Guadalcanal and Rabaul. I'm guessing the increased Zero presence at Lahaina was at the expense of this area.
Sumatra
The enemy attacked Oosthaven with a lot of bombers from much lower altitude than usual, as low as 6,000 feet. He paid for it--7 Anns, 6 Lilies all shot down by flak.
We sent 9 B-25s after the heavy cruiser Kumano, escorted by 6 Australian Kittyhawks. The Kittyhawks proved no great barrier to the 31 Zeroes protecting the ship, 2 were shot down without enemy loss. But the B-25s themselves were a meat grinder. Most of the Zeroes were shot up. 1 was shot down. 2 B-25s were shot down, but the rest made it to the target---and missed.
Bay of Bengal
The supply convoy made it safely to Rangoon, no sub attack materialized.
West Coast
A floatplane was spotted spying on San Francisco. I've surged ASW assets again and assigned some USMC Buffalos to CAP.
Reinforcements
CLAA Atlanta has made it through the Canal and is approaching San Francisco just in time for the enemy sub to be snooping around. I'm giving it extra DDs to complete its journey. Its transit from the Canal took so long it's already due for an upgrade, which means I probably won't deploy it with the Lex, which finishes its upgrade in a few days.
CLAA San Diego arrives at Balboa (Panama Canal)--fortunately this one already has the upgrade.
SS S-31 arrives at San Francisco -- Assigned to Pearl supply run
xAK Samuel Adams arrives at Alameda
54th PG/42nd PS arrives at Eastern USA - (18/25 P-39, restricted) - training squadron. I wish I had obsolete airframes to give to this unit so I could send those P-39s to the front.
North Pacific arrives at Dutch Harbor (HQ unit, close to full strength)
A major troop convoy has arrived at Sydney from the US. It's delivering replacement base forces for Brisbane (the unit previously there was moved, I think, to Milne) along with a general buildup of Seabees, artillery, and AA. I took the opportunity to swap a couple destroyers--old ones with the convoy, newer ones with upgrades to join local combat task forces.
A squadron of B-25s from Aden arrived in India. Once they offload they'll be headed east--I originally intended them to deploy to Burma/Thailand, but now I think they'll do more good in China.
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