19 June 1942
Milne dive bombers annihilated by KB's CAP
Battle of the Coral Sea, day 4
The Kido Butai continues to search for the Hornet, this time checking Port Moresby. Our base at Milne responded, first with our USMC Vindicator squadron (12 aircraft) with 39 escorting fighters, up against 51 Zeroes and 7 Rufes on CAP. We lost 8 fighters and all the Vindicators, downing just 2 Rufes and a Zero. Next, 13 Banshees arrived with 11 fighter escorts. We shot down 1 Rufe while the CAP took down a P-40 and 12 of the Banshees.
Well that pretty much does it for Milne.
The KB hit the port at Cooktown with a small raid, still thinking Hornet might be there apparently.
I'm failing to reconstitute CVW-8 because the squadrons were all technically destroyed with the loss of Hornet, and the aircraft ashore are just fragments. So the aircraft are entering the reserve pool instead of being reconstituted as combat effective squadrons. I can't even give these to CVW-6 (which wasn't destroyed with Enterprise, they officially disembarked) because every squadron is flying different aircraft than their sister units--even the Wildcats are different variants. I'm going to work on giving some of the Helldivers to reform the USMC squadron that was just wiped out at Milne.
If I'm going to hurt him, it's pretty much up to the submarines now. Milne, CVW-6 and CVW-8 were my main weapons, and they're all done for, at least in the short term. Subs cycling back onto station from replenishing at Brisbane and Noumea are headed directly for the KB--which will only work if they turn south into them. A bunch of subs that had been patrolling the Solomons are also guarding the KB's likely exit routes from near Milne up towards Rabaul.
An otherwise uneventful day, air raids continue in China, Thailand, and Sumatra but that's about it.
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