4 August 1942
USS Jarvis sunk off Pearl by submarine
Hawaii
I have 2 convoys arriving, the first is a supply convoy that includes ammunition ships and subchasers that will stay at Pearl. The second is a group of mine tenders. I sent out the only two operational ASW ships at Pearl to try to clear a path for them, a destroyer and a minesweeper. The destroyer Jarvis encountered two enemy subs, the first took a shot at it, missed, and got away. The second scored a fatal torpedo hit on Jarvis. The minesweeper moved in to try to find the responsible sub but never found it.
Kingfishers scored two hits on subs near Pearl later in the day. The first convoy arrived safely. The minesweeper and the two subchasers that arrived with the convoy are going to go out and meet the second convoy to try to bring it through safely.
There is a relatively large surface combat task force loitering near Johnston. I think this is a covering force for the evacuation there. I'm going to send some B-24s to Johnston to try to bomb the ships being loaded; I expect there will be some resistance by fighters but it's worth the risk. There's no sign of enemy carriers anymore, so I might send Lex and Sara after them if the enemy takes his time.
Sumatra
We traded a Hurricane and 2 P-40s for 2 Zeroes. Additional enemy forces are about to cross a bridge to reach Palembang. I don't know why they're taking this risk--all the other troops there took the long way around to avoid this. But we may have a bloodbath on our hands here in a few days.
Thailand
An infantry brigade has caught up with the armor I've had advancing on Tavoy, they'll assault it together in another two days or so. This should leave the enemy units that were moving into the mountains from there trapped between two of my armies that outclass it. Enemy bombers continued to harass my main Bangkok force, but now that we're in the mountains the damage is far less than it used to be. Our long-range CAP took down four Sallies--our fighters are closer now that the troops have pulled back a little so they're doing better.
To the north, it looks like Pisanuoke has a Royal Thai Army division guarding it. These aren't nearly as strong as Japanese divisions, so I'm willing to keep going in. There's another unit in the mountains that's coming down to block the road to Raheng again, I expect the reinforcements I have already headed to Raheng will be more than a match for these guys that have been cut off from supply for months, so at least for now I'm not concerned about it. In any case, I already have airlift operations working to keep Raheng supplied.
China
At the cost of about 100 political points, I pulled the American B-25 squadron off the front lines and transitioned them to B-24s to go through with my plan of probing enemy ports for tanker fleets. One thing I hadn't considered is the atrocious service rating of the B-24, though. The time estimate to get all aircraft ready is currently at 20 days! With that much delay, I might hold off on this mission. The 90th Bomber Group is arriving on the east coast over the next 6-25 days. Based on how close the Canadian fighters are to arriving in India (departed Canada 7/25) I'd say ~20 days is about right if I was going to ship the 90th to China via India. So if I'm willing to be patient, I might be able to hit multiple ports simultaneously instead of taking them one at a time and letting him pick up on the pattern.
Reinforcements and Refits
SC-709 arrives at Balboa
AMc Killegray arrives at Auckland
SS S-35 begins refit while under repair at Brisbane (long overdue 4/1942 radar installation)
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