15 March 1943
Solomons
A pair of destroyers I sent to chase subs away from Shortlands found and lightly damanged an enemy sub.
Maldives/Sri Lanka
The B-24 raid I mentioned last time happened, hitting Male and causing nearly 900 enemy troop casualties! With just 14 planes! This is what happens when you put a whole bunch of troops on a small island with no natural cover.
Still no sign of the carriers...
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16 March 1943
Solomons
A task force of 3 enemy destroyers made their way from Guadalcanal to the Shortlands area enroute to Rabaul. One of the destroyers was badly damaged. They met my ASW group at night and traded shots. One of my mine was hit twice, causing moderate damage and setting it on fire. We got a single hit on one of theirs.
The Avengers (18) and Beauforts (11) of Shortlands found 2 of the enemy destroyers during the day, but even the damaged one was nimble enough to evade the torpedoes. 39 wasted torpedoes! The destroyers shot down one Beaufort.
We lost a B-17 over Guadalcanal to flak.
CENTPAC
I sent the USS Lapon into the harbor at Marcus to try to sink support ships. It hit a mine and is headed back to Pearl for repairs.
Maldives/Sri Lanka
B-24 raids on Male took out another 440 enemy troops.
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17 March 1943
Maldives/Sri Lanka
It's not just B-24s anymore. Battleships HMS Ramillies and HMS Royal Sovereign, and heavy cruisers HMS Exeter and HMS Devonshire shelled Male pre-dawn for a surprisingly light 53 casualties. Still no sign of carriers...they'll rearm at Colombo, then head back northwest to re-group with the main force. The B-24s came back, but storms limited their accuracy, just 75 casualties.
Still no carriers!!!! But the appearance of the British fleet may change that.
CENTPAC
USS Tinosa torpedoed a troop-carrying cargo ship in the middle of the Marianas.
Burma
We lost a P-40 to an enemy sweep near Lashio. I'm surprised they have so many sweeps going on and so few CAPs. I have B-24s and B-25s hitting their troops in northern Burma daily with no intervention. Casualties are light due to the rough terrain, but still.
An enemy infantry attack against our retreating troops resulted in 487 to 180 casualties in our favor, once again we badly outnumber them. They're basically hoping we're completely out of supplies... we're not out, we're just low.
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18 March 1943
CENTPAC
USS Tinosa found the ship it hit yesterday, abandoned by its convoy. She put two more fish into her and sent it to the bottom.
I used 4 PBYs from Wake in an attack role against Marcus, trying to kill what the Lapon couldn't. They spotted a seaplane tender in the harbor and hit it with 1 500-pound bomb. The enemy had 2 Irving fighters (night fighters, I think) on patrol, but they failed to intercept.
Solomons
My ASW 2-ship found another enemy sub and dealt it some damage. These two deep-water engagements have had very low accuracy and expended a lot of ammunition. I'm taking them off-station to rearm and repair.
Maldives/Sri Lanka
B-24 raids on Male caused 385 casualties. Fish in a barrel. This time, 11 Zeroes responded..ineffectively. Combat report says they're from Shokaku. Have they divided the KB? And if so where did the others go?
And the Shokaku wasn't done...it sent a few light raids against the bombardment detachment trying to rearm at Columbo. First, 3 Kates escorted by a whopping 26 Zeroes. 14 Hurricanes came out from Colombo to protect the ships. We got 1 Zero, and lost 1 Sea Hurricane. The Kates made it through, but were apparently at too long of range to carry torpedoes, they dropped bombs at the Devonshire and missed. Then the rest of the Kates, 10, arrived without escort. So they had a bit of a coordination SNAFU. We got 7 of them. One of the Kates hit the Royal Sovereign with a 250kg bomb. There was a true 2nd wave in the afternoon, 24 Zeroes and 15 Kates; we only managed 9 Hurricanes this time. We got 4 Zeroes this time, but the Kates got through and hit the Ramillies and Royal Sovereign with 1 bomb each. Damage to the Royal Soverign was surprisingly high, while Ramilies barely had her paint scratched. I'll be leaving Royal Sovereign in Colombo for repairs, hoping the fighters based there can keep her safe for a few days. We'll have a much stronger CAP over Colombo itself than we do a few hexes out to sea.
Burma
Our retreating armies in Burma suffered another land assault, this time combined infantry-armor all out shock attack. But we outnumbered them 2 to 1 and the terrain favors the defender. Casualties 1480 to 189 favoring us.
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