4 January 1944
CVE Kaiyo damaged as enemy CVBG's air cover degraded
DEI
An enemy submarine fired 6 torpedoes at USS Barnes, a CVE in an amphibious task force headed back to Darwin from Mindanao. All 6 torpedoes missed, and 3 destroyers then took turns depth charging the sub.. one of them to the point it ran out of depth charges. The sub took heavy damage but survived.
Another enemy sub found one of my minesweepers tranferring bases near Ambon and hit it with a torpedo for a kill.
Air raids:
Kendari (ground forces and airbase): 3 hits, 0 casualties
Koepang (ground forces): 15 casualties
Burma and Andaman Sea
The destroyer HMS Rotheram got caught between Rangoon and an enemy bombardment task force in the river deltas. She eventually slipped out (a storm was hampering visibility), but not before taking several shell hits, leaving her badly damaged. She managed to hit the Mogami twice in the exchanges. The bombardment task force eventually made it to Rangoon where it hit an LST in port, caused 94 casualties, and caused light airbase damage.
We raided Mergui (coastal base south of Tavoy) as it appeared enemy ships might have been docking there to reinforce/evacuate enemy troops. We didn't find any transports there, but the enemy CVBG (I'm not sure it's actually the KB anymore due to how many new CVEs are in it) was nearby trying to get extra air cover from Bangkok. So we ended up with 30 B-24s against 46 Zeroes and 2 Rufes. Zeroes suck against heavy bombers... We lost 2 B-24s but the enemy lost 6 Zeroes and both Rufes. The bombers hit nothing of value on the ground. But it did weaken the CAP significantly for raids to come.
6 Beauforts attacked the task force unescorted, and the enemy mustered only 3 Zeroes to intercept, and none of them made it down in time. They attacked the Kongo, losing one to flak before they fired their torpedoes, and the Kongo was then able to evade the 5 torps fired at it.
Finally the enemy's good fortune ran out, a little. 21 Vengeances attacked escorted by 18 Spitfires. The enemy intercepted with just 25 Zeroes. The Spitfires seemed nearly invincible, shooting down 6 Zeroes while only losing 1, but they failed to keep the Zeroes off the dive bombers, resulting in a loss of 12. 9 of the bombers made attack attempts, split between theh CVEs Kaiyo, Chuyo, and Shinyo. Kaiyo was hit twice and Shinyo once (and that one bomb was just a little 250-pounder). Both ships were set on fire, Kaiyo rather badly. One additional bomber was shot down by flak.
At the end of the day, our ground forces had captured Mergui, the only enemy forces there being a fragment of a paratrooper unit.
Other raids:
Pisanoulke (ground forces): 47 casualties
Japan Home Waters
USS Redfin torpedoed and sank a PB near Iwo Jima.
USS Blackfish and USS Dragonet both attacked a cargo ship convoy near Torishima, but both missed. And both took light damage from a kaibokan afterwards.
China
Air raids:
Sinyang (ground forces) 28 casualties
Philippines
Air raids:
Cagayan (ground forces) 229 casualties
Reinforcements
DE Reynolds arrives at Seattle
VMF-322 arrives at Eastern USA
VP-61 arrives at Oak Harbor
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