21 July 1942
Kido Butai defeats USMC dive bombers, again
Solomon Islands
The S-28 attacked a convoy of tenders approaching the Solomons from the north, hitting a seaplane tender with a Mk10. The tender was not fatally damaged.
Malaya
A Japanese sub attacked an ML on ASW patrol and missed, the ML counterattacked, dealing substantial damage with depth charges before the sub escaped.
Enemy sweeps downed 2 Mohawks over Singapore. 3 bombers were shot down by flak. Enemy bombing accuracy isn't good enough to outpace repairs.
Oscar raids targeted MLs on patrol with strafing runs. Damage in the morning was insignificant, but they connected solidly in the afternoon, resulting in one ML scrapped.
Sumatra
2 Hurricanes down over Palembang, the first sweep was 40 Oscars to 4 Hurricanes and got worse as the day went on.
Hawaii
The enemy carrier force is getting closer, and it looks like the whole KB except for the torpedo-damaged Akagi. (confirmed: Junyo, Kaga, Zuikaku, Hiryu)
The six USMC Buffalos on low altitude naval attack orders decided the KB was an appropriate target. The CAP was 107 planes. They didn't come back.
The second raid was our partial strength SBD squadron (11 planes) with 21 F4F escorts, a small fraction of what was available. 5 got through, attacking the Hiryu and Junyo, but they all missed. All the SBDs were lost, to the CAP and 2 more to flak. 6 F4Fs and 5 Zeroes were also downed.
After one last raid that destroyed 2 light bombers on the ground at Lahaina, the level bombers and flyable torpedo bombers have all been evacuated to minimize the damage when the battleships hit us.
No airstrikes by the KB.
Pearl's Marines inflicted 1990 enemy casualties without taking losses, eliminating the 14th Army headquarters.
Thailand
1 enemy Nick shot down by Hurricanes trying to stop our bombers near Raheng. Some enemy forces at Tavoy are moving back towards Bangkok.
China
The enemy attacked at Chengchow, bringing forts down to level 3. Casualties 17810 to 7000 favoring us.
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