14 February 1942
Soryu, 2 CVLs sunk in St. Valentines Day Massacre
Battle for Balikpapan
I ordered the ASW group that's been under daily attack at Balikpapan to retreat to Surabaya--a day late. They ended up running into several incoming fleets, retreating from one only to encounter another. The two destroyers were sunk by sunrise, although they did manage to score some hits on the main invasion force, severely damaging a destroyer-minesweeper. As the fleets approached our base, we sortied PT boats to attack them, but they had so many warships in company that we couldn't get close enough to score torpedo hits. We lost 5 of 8 PTs for trying. Next up were the minefields. He had 3 destroyer-minesweepers and a regular destroyer go in first to blaze a trail. The destroyer hit a mine and the DMSs were damaged/sunk by coastal defenses, but it was successful: no other ships hit mines here today. Enemy troops came ashore amid a fierce battle between our coastal batteries and enemy battleships and cruisers... a lot of cruisers. Enemy ground forces appear to be about 2 regiments plus artillery and light armor support.
I had lost track of the enemy CVBG yesterday, probably hiding in a rain squall or something. But I knew it was still here. What was shocking was we both apparently wanted to stage in the same spot of ocean--daybreak revealed the Lex/Yorktown group within sight of the Soryu CVBG! Both fleets turned around to engage in their preferred form of battle. I am disappointed that the covering force my carriers waited for yesterday didn't step in here. This could have really messed things up... the close range of the opposing task forces probably affected our ability to get a decent CAP in the air...
Japan was first to strike, with a raid of 20 Kates and 14 Vals escorted by 39 Zeroes. We only managed to get a CAP up of 12 Buffalos, 14 Wildcats, plus 1 P-40 from Surabaya. The CAP arrived piecemeal, we never had more than 10 fighters engaging at any time. It was nearly a disaster as the Zeroes prevented our fighters from reaching their bombers, 3 Zeroes, a Buffalo, and A Wildcat went down in the fight. We were fortunate that most of these Kates didn't have torpedoes and were assigned to attack from high altitude. They were completely ineffective. The Vals had poor accuracy and missed everything. But the Kates that had torpedoes--just 6 of them--managed to score 3 hits on the cruiser Chicago (she sank immediately), and 1 on the Yorktown. The hit on the Yorktown was bad enough to prevent further flight operations. Fortunately, its strike was already airborne and there were air bases to divert the planes to.
As this went on, land-based fitghers swept Balikpapan again and shot down two more of our fighters without loss. USS Pickerel tried to reach the invasion force but was driven off by destroyers.
Then our strike arrived at the enemy CVBG. Their CAP was just 9 Zeroes and 12 Claudes, quite sad compared to how many Zeroes they had on offense. Our strike package was 61 SBDs and 30 TBDs escorted by 11 Buffalo and 13 Wildcat. Our fighters, too, managed to keep the enemy fighters away from the package; 2 Wildcats and a Buffalo went down along with 6 Claudes. With the enemy fighters pushed aside, my strike was devastating:
CV Soryu, Bomb hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
CVE Taiyo, Bomb hits 6, heavy fires, heavy damage
CVL Zuiho, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 1, heavy fires
CA Mogami
DD Shinonome
DD Isonami, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
CA Myoko
DD Sazanami
DD Kuroshio
All 3 carriers were knocked out of flight ops, with the Taiyo apparently sinking shortly after our planes retired. The Yorktown's planes diverted to a small base in the southern island chain (why not Surabaya? Baka!) while many enemy planes appear to have diverted to Makassar (southwest Celebes).
Round 2 involved the diverted enemy planes re-attacking from Makassar--I'm impressed that he apparently had aviation support there, enough to refuel and rearm 10 Zeroes and 7 Kates. But, no torpedoes. We were only able to vector a single Buffalo and a P-40 to defend; the P-40 was shot down along with a Zero. But once again, the Kates were level bombing from high altitude and hit nothing.
Our divert base had enough support to send 5 Yorktown Wildcats and 15 SBDs back into the fight. They bombed the enemy CVBG without opposition, hitting the Zuiho with a 1000-pounder and 2 hits on the cruiser Myoko. The Lexington's air group returned with 29 SBDs and 13 TBDs:
CA Mogami, Bomb hits 1
CV Soryu, Bomb hits 3, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
DD Asagiri
DD Arashi, Bomb hits 1, on fire
DD Murakumo
CA Ashigara, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
CVL Zuiho, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Kuroshio
The Soryu and Taiyo are gone for sure. Zuiho was still afloat when our planes retired, but appears doomed.
We had land-based bombers get in on the action too, but they didn't hit anything. One medium and one light bomber out of Balikpapan were shot down.
I'm probably going to have to evacuate my aircraft from Balik. As for my CVBG, I feel like I'm in the same position Admiral Mikawa found himself in after defeating US surface forces near Guadalcanal. Especially with the Yorktown disabled, letting the Lexington press the attack seems risky, even more so when I can't get a decent CAP up.... now that I've slept on this for a day, at the risk of repeating Mikawa's error, I have to prioritize the safety of the Yorktown. He has a ton of surface forces in the area, including what's left of the Soryu's battle group, and they might attempt to charge instead of retreat.
Japan
USS Sturgeon torpedoed and sank a light cargo ship near Okinawa, then surfaced to attack another AKL with guns. It aborted the second attack after taking a hit from return fire.
Coral Sea
Japan swept Port Moresby in force with at least 26 Oscar sorties. It ended up being an aerial chess match with few actual hits scored, just one P-40 and 1 Oscar went down. His armies attempted to attack but were beaten down hard.
Hawaii
Hickam was still in operation enough to get fighters up again today, we splashed 7 medium bombers. 4 BB bombarding again.
Sumatra
A small task force including at least one cruiser is making its way up the channel near Palembang. Too small to be an invasion force, maybe looking to bombard the base? He's asking for trouble. Level bombers took their best shot at them but missed.