29 August 1943
Lexington CV-16 hit by two torpedoes while attempting to withdraw from submarine threat
More enemy transport losses at Rangoon
SouthPAC
I thought I was playing it safe by ordering Lex and Yorktown to leave the Solomons and head back to the Coral Sea area to get away from the surging enemy sub presence. Well, I walked right into one. Lex took two hits. Fortunately, the damage was not severe. I've detached Lex along with a bunch of destroyers and gave the rest of her task force to Yorktown. She's headed back to Pearl. Sydney is closer, but their shipyards suck and it'll probably take them months instead of weeks to patch these holes. The enemy sub got away mostly unscathed, just some minor damage from near misses.
DEI
There was a significant fighter presence (16) waiting for my B-24s at Ambon today. I thought he'd given up on saving these guys. We lost one Australian Kittyhawk trying to protect the bombers, no other losses on either side.
Our attack on Dili, Timor commences tomorrow.
Burma
They brought the task force into Rangoon after all, and it was transports again, not cruisers. The CAP over the task force ended up going after the B-24s hitting Rangoon and got worn down to essentially nothing. 1 Zero actually shot down, along with 2 B-24s lost. But that opened up the skies for my Beaufighters and Vengeances later in the day. Only one Zero intercepted the Beaufighters, and they shot it down. The 15 Beaufighters managed only 3 bomb hits spread between 2 transports--unimpressive--and one was shot down by AA fire.
xAP Teifu Maru, Bomb hits 1
xAP Kitano Maru, Bomb hits 2, on fire
The Vengeances did better, 16 aircraft scoring 17 hits between 4 ships--all of which might go down depending on damage control:
xAP Kamo Maru, Bomb hits 6, heavy fires, heavy damage
AV Sagara Maru, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires
xAP Dairen Maru, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAP Kanzyu Maru, Bomb hits 6, and is sunk
No troop casualties reported, so it looks like this was reinforcement rather than evacuation.
We now have base forces in Pegu, so starting tomorrow we'll have P-40s and Beaufighters based right next to Rangoon. We'll see what trying to support that is going to do to our supply lines, though.
Japan
USS Haddo torpedoed and destroyed a mine tender (being used in an ASW role) near Tanegashima. This is a very poor use of mine tenders, IMO. Japan doesn't have enough of them to maintain minefields in all their harbors, and they suck in this role.
South China Sea
USS Capelin torpedoed and sank a PB escorting a tanker convoy off the northwest coast of Borneo. I wish she would have gone after a tanker instead; hopefully this convoy will be more vulnerable to other subs at it nears the Philippines.
China
The enemy has reinforced Chengting sufficiently that I won't be able to take it. I'm falling back to Taiyuan. Hopefully they follow, I'll have a good defensive bonus there and will be able to inflict more casualties if they attack.
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