5 August 1942
Transport torpedoed in Bay of Bengal
Bay of Bengal
This was an unforced error on my part. I had meant to escort a troop convoy with an depth charge equipped armed merchant cruiser, but I assigned one without depth charges, which meant this convoy was effectively unescorted. It dropped of its troops at Rangoon without issue, but ran into a sub on the way back, which torpedoed one of the transports. Since I'm behind on mission reports, I'll skip ahead--the flooding was survivable and it was headed for Colombo for repairs. But a small fire on 5 August wasn't brought under control, and by the next day it wasn't so small anymore. The fire caused more water to get into the people tube and by 7 August the ship had sunk.
Sumatra
More sweeps and raids; losses: 3 Zeroes, 3 Hurricanes, 1 P-40. A land attack brought Palembang's forts down to Level 2.
Thailand
We shot down 7 Sallies trying to bomb my secondary force attacking Tavoy.
Solomons
We spotted a sub tender at an atoll to the north of the Solomons were we've seen tanker traffic before. This is odd because there's no real base here. Any fuel there above a rather small threshold would suffer spoilation loss due to lack of proper facilities. But, that didn't stop us from bombing it with B-17s--one 500lb bomb hit for moderate damage.
CENTPAC
At Johnston, the S-47 put 2 fish into a cargo ship for a confirmed kill. No troops aboard.
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6 August 1942
Palembang's Albacores get a pair of APDs
Bay of Bengal
A light cargo ship was gunned down by a Japanese sub. The cargo ship had been acting as sort of a tanker for a pair of small ASW craft that couldn't make the trip from Karachi to Rangoon on their own. The ASW craft had been delivered and the AKL was returning to port unescorted, so it was an easy target.
CENTPAC
At Pearl, a pair of recently-delivered subchasers managed to hit a Japanese sub on their first war patrol today. Not bad, but they'll need to do better to actually sink one.
Now that Pearl has mine tenders again, a minelayer got to work setting up a defensive minefield. Skipping ahead again...within the next 2-3 days it had laid 300 mines, good enough for now. I have enough tenders to support 450.
Kingfishers got another hit on one of the subs blockading Pearl.
Thailand
We lost a pair of fighters trying to protect our Tavoy army with nothing to show for it.
Our bombers went active again and hit Pisanuloke, causing heavy troop casulaties. Probably caught someone packing or unpacking for rail transport.
China
Chengchow is still an active battlefield, at least in the air. We traded 3 P-40s for 2 Oscars and 5 Zeroes.
Sumatra
The Albacore squadron struck again, hitting a pair of APDs on ASW duty with torpedoes. One sunk immediately. The other was hit by a followup raid of Beaufighters, which hit the crippled ship with 3 250lb bombs and several strafing runs, finishing it off. One Albacore was shot down by flak, another crashed on landing from the damage it sustained in the attack.
Solomons
The B-17s returned to the northern atoll and bombed an ammunition tender, setting it on fire.
Refits/Reinforcements
DD Aaron Ward beginning refit in shipyard at San Francisco
DD Buchanan beginning refit in shipyard at San Francisco
DD Lardner beginning refit in shipyard at San Francisco
DD McCalla beginning refit in shipyard at San Francisco
--these 4 are all Bristol class boats from the Lex/Sara CVBG
SS S-36 begins refit while under repair at Brisbane
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