11 February 1942
Allied destroyers strike back against Coral Sea submarines
Japan
USS Trout torpedoed a cargo ship in the Kyushu-Okinawa gap, but it appears this one will survive long enough to make it to port.
Coral Sea
Intensive ASW operations around Townsville led to decisive results today. Events began with a minesweeper prosecuting a medium-sized sub near shore. The sub was severely damaged, the captain claims a kill and he may be right. A pair of destroyers had contact with two enemy subs, attacking each in turn--these got away with just one lightly damaged. Then a destroyer-minelayer pair had a contact to prosecute. USS Sicard scored a critical hit with the last depth charges it had, which forced the sub to the surface, where it was quickly gunned down. This was the RO-65, and it is the first 100% positive sub kill of the war. The Sicard returned to port to rearm, and contacted another sub shortly after getting back underway. It ran itself out of ammo on this one too, but only caused moderate damage this time.
Malaya
Japan lost two light cargo ships at Mersing, presumably on a supply run. The first hit a sub-laid mine, the second was attacked by Wirraway light bombers on a low-altitude attack. A third AKL was bombed and damaged.
Air raids on Singapore continued. We did not have many planes up and only managed to shoot down 2 Nates and 3 light bombers today. Flack added 3 more light bombers. Airfield facility damage isn't as bad as I thought it was, it appears our low CAP levels have more to do with aircraft being damaged on the ground.
Java
A CVL appears to be headed for the Java Sea via the Makassar strait. Ahead of them, Zeroes swept Surabaya from Kendari. Losses were nearly even, 5 Zeroes for a P-40, 2 Sea Hurricanes (left by the Indomitable) and a Hawk.
Sumatra
7 Nells and 3 Betties attempted an attack on a Dutch surface force sheltering at Palembang. They had 20 Zeroes escorting, and I only managed 6 fighters on CAP during the worst part of the raid. The attack cost only 1 Betty and 1 Buffalo, but the point was made--I don't have enough fighters here yet to protect ships. The SAG is retreating to Batavia.
Borneo
A sweep by Zeroes and Oscars was followed by another attempt on the ASW group. We lost 4 fighters, they lost a Zero and 4 torpedo bombers. We launched bombers right back at Tarakan, but they didn't hit anything and flak took down a P-40 on escort duty.
Philippines
Enemy air raids are now including port attacks at Bataan, apparently they're trying to catch my supply subs docking.
Surigao has been captured.
