23 December 1941
Training is King
Hawaiian Island Chain
The Kido Butai launched three major strikes: two against tankers entering Pearl and a strike on Lihue. Compared two the last two air battles, this went much, much better. Moving experienced pilots into these squadrons made a huge difference.
His losses: 6 Zeroes, 12 Vals, 3 Kates
My losses: 1 P-40, 1 P-36, 2 Texan, 2 DD badly damaged, 4 TK/AO sunk.
They landed at least two regiments on Lahaina, with plenty of AA and engineering support. Lihue was captured.
The map is much nicer with the mod, thanks Lugerman!
USS Grayling spotted a tanker approaching Midway and missed. He clearly intends to use the base as a refueling station. USS Cuttlefish got caught in the shallows and was damaged in a depth charge attack.
Malaya
Apparently enraged that he missed my troops convoy, his Nells started attacking the only available target ships. They orbited an HDML with a torpedo, Buffalos took out an escorting Zero. His Mavis flying boats even got in on the action, bombing a minesweeper on ASW patrol.
Another Buff went down escorting a strike against enemy troops at Johore Baru. The bombers got through but were ineffective.
A strike on Singapore took out another two Buffalos at the cost of one Oscar.
And another strike on troops headed south resulted in another Buff shot down, their strike was fortunately ineffective.
Philippines
Zeroes swept Clark and managed to take down 7 P-40s and 2 P-26s with no losses. Hellcats and Corsairs when?
The 16th Division is confirmed to be in Luzon, it's the force attacking Manila.
Dutch East Indies
The 146th Regiment landed on Manado to reinforce the stalled invasion there. So it looks like the 56th Division (its parent unit) has been assigned to DEI operations.
He's combined the carriers Ryujo, Zuiho, Hosho, and Chiyoda (seaplane carrier) into a single CVBG and it looks like it's headed to raid Darwin. Along the way, near Timor, it found an transport group I had been using to shuffle base forces in the area, sinking a cargo ship and its escorting minesweeper, and damaging another AK. Fortunately, they were empty at the time. A followup strike took out the last undamaged AK in the task force.
South Pacific
Canton was invaded. They achieved complete tactical surprise, immediately capturing the island before the PBY squadron could be evacuated.
A patrol craft that had been hunting the sub prowling off Palmyra was instead torpedoed by its quarry.
The light cruiser Katori bombarded Pago Pago for the second consecutive day. She can't have much ammo left onboard. I'm ordering a cruiser of my own to take her down. I have some concern that he might invade Pago rapidly as he did Canton, so I'm temporarily moving the PBY squadron there out. Suva may be under similar threat as well.
I believe my naval forces operating from the Solomons all the way east through Canton island are superior to his, I just have to be careful about airpower, especially around Rabaul. Also, I've lost track of the Soryu, so she might turn up there.
Elsewhere
--USS Thresher torpedoed an Akasi class cargo ship between Okinawa and Kyushu, then chased down the wounded ship to administer a coup-de-grace.
--I'm not sure how I know this (coastwatchers?), but an AKL hit one of my mines at Guadalcanal.
-The AVG took out three Nates and two light bombers trying to protect Chinese troops near Nanchang. Oddly enough, two divisions crossed the river there and attacked a completely different unit. Casualties were heavy on both sides, but my troops held the line for now. My bombers will be shifting targets to this from Ichang.
-He moved land forces to try to retake Sinyang from me. It doesn't look like he has enough to do it, I'm counterattacking.