9 September 1943
DEI
We've got a minesweeper dealing with the minefield that cost us a DM the other day.
Sweep of Kendari went much better this time, as I stood the weak P-38 squadron down and the strong one managed to find the target this time. We lost 2 P-38s but shot down 4 Nicks and 4 Georges. That was out of 31 fighters on patrol total.
Kendari is currently home to an obscene amount of ships, something of a forward naval base. They should be in range from Namlea...and if I can get that CAP strength down below 25 or so I should be able to get some dive bombers in without suffering obscene casualties like I've been. Assuming they fly with their escorts, anyway. I'm building up Namlea and Dili as fast as possible to hopefully catch a break here.
Burma
The enemy CAP was only 1 fighter, enough to shoot down a sweeping P-40 and disappear, though.
Bombing raid hit a transport at dock. Probably the same one as awhile back, the shipyards are keeping it alive.
Our base forces from the first of the 2 coastal landings have reached Prome. So have enemy units breaking out of Rangoon. I'm not sure how many there are but I'm hoping they've been seriously softened up by bomber attacks on the way up.
China
The Wuchang CAP was down to just 3 Tonies, P-40 sweep shot one more down.
I intentionally let the Beaufighters have another crack at the ships here. They had 6 Tonies back on CAP by the time we arrived, which cost us 1 Beaufighter. But we got a solid hit on an AKL, possibly sinking it.
Our land forces cleared out another hex near Canton, casualties 2600 to 500 favoring us.
Reinforcements and Intel
AGC Blue Ridge arrives at Balboa
TK D.G. Scofield arrives at Portland
VF(N)-75 arrives at Eastern USA (nightfigher Corsairs)
VF-17 arrives at Los Angeles
607th Coast AA Regiment arrives at San Francisco
183rd USAAF Base Force arrives at San Francisco
Intel reports Kaga sank 9/6/43 just outside Hiroshima. I'm very skeptical of this report, since if she was really that badly damaged when she approached Japan, our subs should have been able to spot her due to her reduced speed--hard to slip by unnoticed when it takes you a week to get through the danger zone.
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