10 Decebmer 1941
Allies roll the dice on risky counter attacks and hit the INJ where it hurts!
Celebes Sea
I don't usually start here but I don't want to bury the lede. My most aggressive move was an interdiction of the forces about to land in Manado. A surface task force of 5DD led by the light cruiser Marblehead sprinted south from Jolo, arriving in Manado right before sunrise and catching the phibs by surprise. They were defended only by the 2 Japanese seaplane carriers and a bunch of PBs. My skimmers sank the CS Chitose outright, along with 2PBs. The CS Mizuho was shelled and hit with a torpedo, and 2 more PBs were damaged. The transports, though, weren't hit that hard. An AP was left a burning wreck along with 2 tankers badly damaged. But the enemy turned east to run, and my boys called it a day at that point and got the hell out of there before they could get hit with an air strike.
Those CVLs apparently switched planes--the Vals did fly, but from the direction of the Ryujo, and as hoped they went after some evacuating AKs instead of my SCTF. Manado is still in my hands for now, but I'm not under any delusion that I can hold it, I've just made him pay a little bit for sending his CVL deep.
The B-17 strike I ordered three days ago finally happened: the port in Babeldoab was hit, destroying a minesweeper. Looks like everyone already left!
The destroyers Hatsuharu and Wakaba were spotted moving north up the Makasar Strait. These were the ships left undamaged from the first Java Sea engagement and attacked the second day. I presume he is reorganizing his CVL task forces and these are becoming escorts. That I've spotted these two again but not other two probably means the other two sank.
Malaya and West Java Sea
My gambit here was to throw Force Z into the mix for the first time. The plan was to go East, out of range of the Vietnam-based Betties, and try to get in position to smash the ARG in Kuching overnight. This didn't go so well. The enemy ARG was very efficient and had left before Force Z arrived. My ships have been detected, and most concerning, it appears a massive number of bombers have been rebased from Vietnam to Kota Baru. It's a safe bet that if they don't have an AirHQ there yet, they will within a day or two. I expect they will attempt an air strike tomorrow as they return to Singapore. I'll have Buffalos protecting them, but I have a lot more aircraft down for repairs right now than I have flying. The ground forces in Kuching seized the base there as Force Z turned around.
As expected, my destroyer group didn't arrive yet in the Batavia area, so the submarine turkey shoot continued. 4 Merchies were hit, 3 are already on the bottom. Just outside Singapore, another Japanese sub captain took the sage advice "be more aggressive" to heart and put a heavyweight torpedo into a little motor launch patrolling outside the harbor. Maybe some day we'll recover that wreck from orbit. Another Japanese sub attempted to penetrate Singapore harbor and hit a defensive mine--potentially the first first submarine loss of the war (excluding midgets). I'm not sure if the presence of 2 subs at Singapore means he's trying to break out into the Indian Ocean or if he just got tired of seeing Force Z sitting there under air cover.
Predictably, the follow-up troop/supply convoys off the Indochina coast turned south to avoid the Dutch subs they detected yesterday. I had ordered the subs to move south, anticipating this reaction. The KXVII hit 2 troop-carrying ships in rapid succession, one of which was hit 3 times so we can safety assume it sank. Wouldn't it be nice if THAT was the AirHQ for Kota Baru?
The air war over Malaya took an interesting turn as Zero-escorted Betties started attacking ground forces just south of Georgetown. This is actually a really good sign--these are probably the guys the rebased to Kota Baru, and we know that Force Z was spotted and in range. They probably didn't have their torpedoes yet. The fight in the skies was otherwise remarkable for the lack of casualties. I lost 4 Buffalo to a sweep over Singapore, but our fighters otherwise stalemated today. My medium bombers attempted attacks on phibs in Kota Baru and the Mersing covering force but missed. My torpedo bombers sortied but failed to locate their targets.
Luzon
My third aggressive play of the day was a PT boat raid on the phibs in San Fernando. The PTs were escapees from Hong Kong that slipped past their surface fleet and refueled on the Philippine coast. The fleet they met was massive--32 merchies and 8 small escorts (PC, TB, CM, PB). The results were poor; they torpedoed one AK while getting 2 of the PTs blown away. There were at least two collisions as the gators tried to get underway in the chaos. That was followed up with a 10x B-17 raid on the landing area, which caused significant disruption but not enough to tip the scales on the ground. By day's end their soldiers had pushed mine out, resulting in the first mass-casualty ground action--over 2600 Philippine soldiers were lost.
In the air, the raids against Clark/Manila paused. My read on it is they're giving their mechanics time to catch up--partly because a lot of the Zeroes flew north instead...
China
The American Volunteer Group made their debut defending against a sweep of Zeroes in Changsha, and boy did they blow it. We lost 5 AVG P-40s with nothing to show for it. Compounding this, the same squadron had been ordered to escort medium bombers to raid Ichang, but failed to link up. Fortunately, the Nates waiting for the bombers couldn't bring any down with their pitiful .30-cals. Another AVG squadron swept Canton (where they are bombing Hong Kong from), downing three Nates.
Ground forces began their assault on Hong Kong. Japanese engineers immediately demolished fortifications--Hong Kong isn't going to last long, could fall as early as tomorrow.
Elsewhere
-The Enterprise CVBG encountered an armed merchant cruiser at night near Christmas Island. It was a little hairy for a moment as the surprised warships traded shots, but the Big E disengaged and let Lexington send 9 SBDs after it in the daytime. 4 of them hit, I assume the burning ship won't survive the 3,000 mile trip to Truk.
-IJN Marines finally assaulted Wake. Wake's coastal batteries hit two of the merchant cruisers unloading troops. They made a hasty assault on my Marines, but it was a disorganized mess. We took out half their force--about 700 men--without taking a casualty.
-That minesweeper that left Guam ran into another convoy, just 4 AKs this time. It's a safe bet that this means at least 3 IJN task forces are either in or near the Bismark Sea.
-US fleet boats continue to suck. My subs attempted a total of 6 torpedo attacks around Luzon, Marcus, and near French Frigate Shoal (western Hawaii, targeting KB's replenishment group)
-Japanese marines landed in Brunei and Miri. We don't have enough troops to offer meaningful resistance.