23 May 1942
Rangoon captured; Hornet and US carrier forces deterred by early detection and submarine attack
Fiji
Despite the possible incoming carrier attack, I allowed the Kirishima and Hiei to perform their scheduled bombardment of Suva this morning, as they're pretty fast and should be able to clear the area before being attacked. As it turned out, the enemy carrier forces broke contact, apparently not in the mood for a fight having been spotted in advance and with one carrier already damaged.
The enemy salvaged a small victory from the situation, slipping 4 PBYs in under my CAP at Nadi, which managed to tag an AMC with a 500lb bomb, causing moderate damage.
Timed to be on the same day as the battleship bombardment, I made another deliberate attack on Suva, acheiving only 1 to 2 assault power ratio with enemy forts holding at level 3. The attempt cost us both an equal number of devices destroyed and disabled, but the enemy is showing a supply shortage, so this should start to tip in my favor soon. Still, discouraging enough to get me to start loading up reinforcements from Truk and Guadalcanal.
Coral Sea
My woes near Port Moresby continued, with the KIX torpedoing and sinking one of the DMSs I sent to try to evacuate the stricken supply convoy (which is now just one badly damaged AKL). The enemy also has moved separate B-17 groups here, so he doesn't need to alternate between day and night attacks--he can do both. Without adequate supplies, I can't replace the inevitable Zero losses from intercepting these bombers (or the occasional aircraft destroyed on the ground--there's been at least one). I've pulled another Zero detachment out of Guadalcanal to try to restore some balance here, and another supply convoy is enroute.
China
Sian held out against another of our attacks, and I'm honestly not sure how. Forts have been reduced to rubble. Our adjusted assault power ratio is 1.6 to 1; anything over 1 to 1 should be an overrun with the forts at 0. In any case, their squads destroyed were double mine, and he's in a supply crunch so he can't re-enable disabled units, while I can. This will be over soon.
Burma
Rangoon fell rather quickly, with our forces overwhelming them despite them maintaining level 2 forts. Part of the reason for the easy win might be that he had begun an partial evacuation before the battle began--we're observing some land units making a run for the coast and/or India. Today's attack cost me only 6 squads; the enemy lost 580 devices. I'll be pursuing the retreating garrison all the way to Magwe if I need to, where hopefully the enemy will find that my armor and paratroopers have already taken that base from them and will be trapped.
Speaking of cutting off retreats, I hit Lashio with an airborne assault, and failed to take it probably because of having the paratroopers on the wrong settings. I still have a decent chance of taking it in another day or two--the defending garrison is so weak I didn't even take any casualties. Lashio sits on the only road connecting Burma to China and would have been the ideal place to rail retreating units out. His prospects for getting anything out of Burma look pretty grim, IMO. He can probably save units fragments with transport flights, but that's about it.
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