31 December 1943
KB appears in Andaman Sea, attacks troop transport convoy between Port Blair and Rangoon
DEI
New Mexico and Arizona completed another run at Koepang, 392 casualties this time.
Air Raids:
Koepang (ground forces): 18 casualties
Kendari (airbase and ground forces): 4 hits, 0 casualties
Philippines and surrounding seas
The O19 torpedoed a 6475-ton cargo ship off Leyte. Just in case the damage wasn't fatal, USS Burrfish came along and put 2 more into her.
B-24s attacked the Palaus, destroying at least 2 Judies on the ground.
B-25Gs attacked Iolio, sinking a PB there.
7 Georges and 3 Tonies attempted to establish a CAP over Cotabo, but the Yankee Butai was nearby and was able to contribute 42 Hellcats to a B-24 raid that was already escorted by 17 USMC Corsairs. 4 Georges and 1 Tony were shot down without Allied losses.
Cotabo has been captured with nominal Allied troop losses. A naval guard unit was displaced and is retreating towards Cagayan. There's a small airbase here ready to go, I'm moving in two fighter squadrons and one dive bomber squadron.
Burma and Andaman Sea
Scoutplanes detected an enemy task force south of Port Blair. I was immediately worried these were carriers as anything else would have trouble surviving here now. I'm in the process of moving infantry off Port Blair and replacing them with base forces. The British CVBG is providing cover for the operation to protect them from bombers from Bangkok, but they're no match for the KB. Also, I have to wonder if the reason 2 subs got bombed yesterday was because these carriers were there rather than land-based ASW patrols.
The enemy kicked off an attack with Georges sweeping Port Blair--a good idea, but the infantry-carrying task force that was being escorted by my carriers had already left for Rangoon.
Meanwhile we ourselves swept Bangkok, with 18 P-51s going up against 19 Tonies; resulting in 2 P-51s downed and one Tony.
Bangkok was then able to locate and strike at the transport convoy headed for Rangoon, sending 11 Betties escorted by 27 Zeroes. The carriers Hermes and Battler put up a total of 11 Hurricanes and 2 Seafires. They got 8 Zeroes without losses, but never reached the Betties. And the Betties did remarkably well, getting 4 hits on an APA and 2 on an LST with just 11 torpedoes launched. Both ships sank, with 1718 troop casualties reported.
The KB then located a smaller transport convoy moving base forces to Port Blair. It was hit with a raid of 79 Judies, 6 Jills, and 11 Kates... this convoy had no air cover, and was wiped out.
xAK Testbank, Bomb hits 8, and is sunk
xAP Doumer, Bomb hits 5, heavy fires, heavy damage
DE Godavari, Bomb hits 4, and is sunk
xAK Bhima, Bomb hits 5, and is sunk
DE Narbada, Bomb hits 3, and is sunk
xAP Malda, Bomb hits 8, and is sunk
227 (troop) casualties reported.
A pair of Helens tried to attack the first convoy again but were easily splashed.
All remaining ships are hauling ass to Rangoon to get the most possible benefit of land-based air cover.
China
Air raids:
Anking (ground forces): 96 casualties, 1 B-25 lost to flak
land combat:
Enemy shock attack at Sinyang, 50k of their troops against 32k of ours. Casualties 6295 to 1290 favoring us, forts reduced to Level 2. So the enemy pretty much wiped out their gains from sinking our transports and then some.
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