[Molon Labe]

11 December 1941

A good day for British air forces

Malaya and West Java Sea
My ASW group arrived off Batavia but failed to find the subs, which happily attacked more shipping in the area. A group of HDMLs that had moved to Kuantan from Georgetown drew a Nell airstrike--one was blown away, but while the Nells were playing in Kuantan, Force Z returned to Singapore unmolested. IJAAF light bombers pounded Georgetown. I have far more damaged, grounded planes there than airworthy, and the facilities are taking a beating. I'm worried those planes are going to be trapped there when their armies come.

Then came the good part--the torpedo bombers at Kuala Lumpur finally got into the fight with three airstrikes. In one of them, the Japanese merchants were able to maneuver away from the attack. But the other raid of 16 Vildebeests hit four troop-carrying ships, sinking two. Thousands of Japanese soldiers and hundreds of vehicles went down, their worst tactical defeat in the war so far. The third was a bomb-carrying raid against ships too far out to reach with heavy torpedoes; those Swordfish hit a troop-carrying AKL, likely sinking it.

To the north, Japanese soldiers seized Victoria Point.

Celebes Sea and East Java Sea
The Ryujo didn't swap planes with CVL#2 (likely actually the CVE Taiyo) after all. The reason I thought the Vals came from the Ryujo is because the Taiyo followed the Ryujo into the Makassar strait, and the Ryujo, went south towards the Java Sea. This seems absolutely insane to me. I thought it was a mistake for him to push so far, and that yesterday's routing of his Manado force would have made that point to him as well. But instead of protecting his forces, he doubled down on the advance. The Ryujo's Kates bombed some tankers that I had trying to bring fuel to the eastern island bases. They'll probably get more. But as far as I can tell, all those heavy cruisers are still with the Ryujo. So, that SCTF that had hit Manado and had been leaving the area is turning back for another round. My 2nd SCTF, this one at full strength (the first lost a cruiser in the opening days), is now retracing the path of the first. He has landings in progress near Manado and at Ternate--I'm going to lose Ternate--but with any luck I'm going to shatter the fleets that delivered them. Speaking of Ternate, Dutch medium bombers took a crack at the landing ships there, and managed to bomb one of them. Won't make a difference.

The thing I said the other day about not being intimidated into keeping my ships in port... well, I don't have a choice anymore, not with two carriers approaching Surabaya.

Luzon
I had my B-17s shift focus. My southern-based bombers, instead of hitting the empty Babeldoab again, hit a captured airfield in San Fernando that I know for sure he moved aviation support into. But once again, there were no planes there. The bombers did moderate damage to the airfield facilities. As for my Clark-based B-17s, they went all the way to Cam Rahn Bay and bombed the port facilities, hitting a heavy cruiser. Maybe this will force him to pull some fighters away from somewhere else.

My British PT boats tried to get back to San Fernando but were driven off by subchasers. Northeast of Taiwan, the USS Swordfish made a successful night surface attack against an unescorted AO, scoring 2 torpedo hits.

Japan pretty much hit Clark with everything they had today-70 Zeroes, 30 Nells, 60 Betties. I had maybe 40 fighters defending. The raid resulted in 7 Zeroes and a Betty shot down, for 6 of my P-40s. That may look like a good result, but it's not--going close to 1-for-1 with them only means I'm going to be even more outnumbered next time. I credit the superior durability of the P-40 for the even numbers. Fortunately for me, the bombers bombed from very high altitude and caused almost no damage. With my P-40s all defending Clark, 40 Sally and Lily bombers hit my troops hard at Lingayen, the last stop on the enemy's march toward Clark.

Everywhere else
-My armies in Ichang probed the enemy there and found the defenders appear to be weak. I may be able to take Ichang soon.
-I attempted a land attack in Paotow, China, but there the enemy there appears to be stronger (we outnumber them, but the terrain favors Japan and my conscript troops are pretty ****ty). They'll be backing off for now.
-The enemy in Hong Kong took the day mostly off to recuperate from yesterday's attack. They'll probably attack in force tomorrow.
-The KB is still near Pearl. They sank a patrol craft and supply ship bound for Midway, then launched a series of sweeps over Pearl. Disgustingly, they achieved air superiority over the base. Kills were in their favor with at least 15 of mine shot down to 5 of his.
-The extended presence of KB west of Pearl gives credence to the SigInt about an early attack on Midway.
-I lost a transport to a submarine attack in port at Canton Island. Fortunately, the transport had already dropped off nearly all its cargo--USMC AA and coastal defense artillery.
-Japanese marines landed in Rabaul. I had been trying to reinforce it, but that now looks like a mistake. Coastal defense batteries managed to hit some of the phibs, but probably not enough to endanger the operation. At least, it won't be enough if there are more to come, and there probably are.
-Japanese marines landed on Ocean Island. I had already evacuated.
-My marines counter-attacked the desperate IJN marines on Wake, killing about a third of the remaining troops while taking only light casualties.
-Miri and Brunei were captured; more troops landed in Jesselton.
-10 paratroopers (not a typo) attempted to seize a hex west of Hong Kong only to be wiped out. I can only assume he thought that space was empty.

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I find it interesting that despite constant sub attacks by my side, mostly against escorted targets, the only ASW hit Japan has scored was by the gunners on that cargo ship the crazy Dutch captain tried to get into a surface duel with.