5 October 1943
B-25 raid in Burma suffers heavy losses; HMS Trident sunk
CENTPAC
We're starting to get a solid portion of the Saipan troops onto Tinian to give us a shot at taking it. We sank two enemy midget subs that approached an amphibious task force at Saipan. An enemy sub tender tried to escape Saipan harbor but was hit twice by dive bombers.
At Guam, airstrikes destroyed an Emily and a July on the ground and damaged two cargo ships, a minelayer, and a sub tender. The minelayer is almost certainly sunk as it took 3 hits and is relatively small. The enemy garrison overcame our weak invasion force and forced a surrender.
The enemy attempted a similar overrun on Saipan, but our forces still there are mostly tanks and it appears the enemy is short on AT weapons. 685 enemy casualties with no Allied losses there.
Our ASW patrols reported 8 hits on enemy submarines around the Marianas.
Burma
HMS Trident attempted an attack on an enemy transport task force near Tavoy; it missed and was sunk by the counterattack of the escorting destroyers. Their contact report led to an airstirke of B-25Gs coming from Magwe, however they had 17 Zeroes on CAP overhead, resulting in no successful attacks at 8 bombers lost.
Reinforcements
DD Charrette arrives at Eastern USA
PF Glendale arrives at Mare Island
610th Coast AA Regiment arrives at San Francisco
__________________
|