24 August 1943
More carriers headed to Ponape?
Phillippine Sea
USS Thresher located and engaged a tanker convoy near Legaspi in the eastern Philippines. This corresponds to a shallow water route that goes through the islands. The Thresher missed, and unfortunately I didn't get a direction this convoy was headed in. But I'll have subs looking for this convoy in both the Sulu Sea and around Okinawa.
DEI
P-38 sweeps at Kendari got another 5 Tojos with no losses.
Our marines have taken Lautem, Timor, inflicting 800 enemy casualties nearly without losses. We will now advance to Dili overland.
Boela's airbase is now large enough to base medium bombers without penalty.
Burma
No enemy air activity at Pegu today. But it looks like they're sending in additional troops from Rangoon. It's a gamble, thinking he can overrun my troops before I can bring in more. The problem with that theory is Pegu is open terrain and I'm causing hundreds of enemy casualties with bombing every day. That said, it could still work, depending on the number of troops.
China
We suffered an enemy attack at Kiukiang, casualties 211 to 345 favoring them. We're badly outnumbered (14k to 3k) and just holding out thanks to terrain defensive bonuses. At least my reinforcements will arrive before his. But who knows how much he's bringing in after that.
SouthPAC
A smaller task force with carriers is moving into the area. Still sketchy on who this might be, best guess is maybe a couple CVEs. The main CVBG moved a little east of Ponape, probably thinking he can attack my carriers after the bombing of the sub yesterday gave him some idea where they might be. But he's looking further north than where they actually were, and they left the area headed south, so he's pretty far off.
3 days until I reform the Essex battle group.
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