23 January 1942
Port Moresby appears doomed
CENTPAC
The daily 4 BB bombardment of Pearl happened again. Shore batteries hit back a bit, enough to start a fire on the Fuso. As expected, the KB switched targets to Christmas Island and incapacitated the SBD squadrons. I'm glad though, better this than sinking the transports to the east or south. Lexington and Yorktown are long gone.
Dutch East Indies
Our Falcons tried to hit the SAG entering the Sulu Sea, but the only result was one lost to flak. A few went to Miri too and didn't bother to bring the escorting fighters I made available. Fortunately the Nates missed.
US fighter squadrons are arriving from Australia. I had been hoping to position them in areas to support attacks on enemy ships, but I've lost most of the airbases that would be useful for that. So out of necessity these are just going to end up at our largest bases.
Coral Sea
Zeroes tried to stop us from bombing the troops again but were beaten back, 1 P-39 and 1 P-40 lost to 5 Zeroes. But, this will be the last attack by land-based bombers for awhile. The enemy troops have reduced our fortifications to nothing and it appears our base will be overrun soon. So, all flyable planes have been evacuated. After all this, it looks like they've won. I still have reinforcements on the way, maybe I'll get lucky and the enemy will need to pause before the final push.
China
I bombed the Nanchang airbase again but it appears to have been empty this time. There's an army unit that moved into the open near Ichang, so it's time to switch targets anyway.
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