8 February 1942
SouthPAC
It looks like the former Port Moresby garrison has given up on trying to return. One less problem for me to worry about I guess. I'd rather have the Anns I moved in here on ASW duty anyway.
B-17s raided Luganville again, targeting and missing the airbase while being harassed by Zeroes.
Efate's airbase has expanded to size 2 and is now an offensive threat to my New Caledonia operation. Of course that also means I can take it from him and make it a threat to him instead. Maybe after the initial landings when I have a ton of empty ships sitting around.
Burma
Port strike on Rangoon...air battle resulted in 1 Oscar lost, with the enemy losing a P-40 and 3 Hurricanes. In the first raid, 25 Sallies dropped 100 250kg bombs on the port--resulting in a single hit on the cruiser Colombo. A second raid of Betties hit the Colombo again, but I'm pretty sure it was just a 60kg bomb that didn't get through the armor. The third and final raid was 30 more Sallies, this time hitting the Colombo yet again and a transport twice. A transport that was not hit during the raid was seen sinking while the aircraft were present. There was a fourth raid of Betties, too, but they hit nothing.
Java and Sumatra
Betties recently rebased to Palembang attacked a minesweeper at Merak; a lone Buffalo tried to defend it and was shot down by escorting Zeroes. The Betties, equipped with bombs as their AirHQ has not yet arrived with their torpedoes, missed.
Eight medium bombers from west Java attacked my forces advancing towards Oosthaven, patrolling Oscars splashed two but the rest went on to cause some light casualties.
Dutch East Indies
9 Hudson bombers tried to attack a pair of cargo ships unloading at Babar, 3 didn't make it back thanks to Oscars on CAP. No hits on the ships.
Reinforcements
65th Naval Guard Unit arrives at Tokyo - sending the straight to Truk
9 February 1942
Well, that didn't take long...
Hawaii
I-3 took down an enemy destroyer.
Burma
3 Hurricanes tried to raid my ground forces outside Moulmein. We shot down 1, the rest retreated. 1 Blenheim was shot down in a later raid, our troops were unharmed by the bombing.
Raids on Rangoon resulted in 2 Buffalo and 1 Hurricane shot down by escorting fighters; we lost 1 Sally to flak and scored one more hit on the Colombo and just light facility damage.
SouthPAC
Luganville was targeted by several raids today, at least two of which were from the recently-upgraded Efate. First was a sweep by 5 P-40s, which was a fruitless one-way trip for them. A pair of B-26s snuck past the Zeroes next, attacking the airbase ineffectively. Next up were 6 B-17s, which scored 1 hit on the runway, but managed to draw a lot of attention from my remaining Zeroes on CAP. There was only 1 Zero left when their best strike arrived, 11 A-24 Banshees with 1 P-40 escort. The single Zero shot down the P-40 and one of the Banshees, but the remaining bombers put three thousand-pounders into a cargo ship unloading in the port, sinking it.
We're probably 2 days from landing on New Caledonia. Both amphibious task forces have been spotted. The KB hasn't technically been spotted, but he had 2 subs inside the KB's ASW search area, so if he's paying any attention he's noticed a lot of Kate sightings in his operations reports.
Java
13 Zeroes from Makassar swept Surabaya, shooting down all 5 fighters on CAP (2 Demon, 3 Buffalo) without loss.
China
We attacked outside Sian again, and this time finally routed them. We lost 1 tank (plus several device disablements) while destroying 612 devices in the rout. Sian is too well protected now, with about 150k troops hanging out there, so this force is going to head south down the road to join the battle outside Nanyang. We'll turn that into a slaughter too. Then take Sian.
Reinforcements and withdrawals
Kawai Detachment (Clades at Babeldoap) withdraws.
SC CHa-27 arrives at Toyama - sent to Nagasaki to use for shallow water patrols.
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