17 December 1941
Luganville ARG smashed by joint US-AUS SAG.
Philippines
Enemy air forces mostly took the day off. Call it a maintenance holiday. There were only skirmishes among the ground forces too--my isolated troops fought two with a small IJA armored unit and came out ahead.
Here's the current map of the area:
Celebes Sea, Makassar Strait area
I sent PT boats from Manado to Ternate to raid enemy ships in the harbor. We scored two torpedo hits for the loss of one PT boat. Dutch bombers hit the same ships later and scored another hit.
Japanese marines made another attempt to capture Manado but failed. They did take down the fortification level, though, so the next attempt could succeed.
The Zuiho and possibly the Soryu continued to operate in the Makassar strait, striking Balikpapan twice. The first time, shooting down 4 defending fighters, the second time getting Kates through to bomb two tankers and a destroyer. Another tanker was chased down by a surface group.
Malaya
We had a bad day here. The medium and light bombers attacked shipping at Kuantan, mostly avoiding the fighters on the way in, then dropping their bombs and missing, then getting massacred on the way out. 1 Buffalo, 3 Blenheims, and 3 Wirraway were lost. Over Singapore, we got two Zeroes and two Nells in exchange for 1 Buffalo while they continued to focus on the port. They got some hits on the Repulse, along with some merchant cruisers.
Enemy patrol gunboats attempted an attack on Singapore--a fortress armed with coastal defense artillery overlooking a naval minefield. It went as you'd expect it to.
On the other side of the South China Sea, Singkawang was captured.
Solomons Area
Kavieng was finally captured.
But the big news for me involved the Luganville landing. Yesterday I mentioned I had cruisers covering my own landings. That task force had split up, so my warships hadn't gone far. So the USS Pensacola (heavy cruiser), HMAS Leander (light cruiser) and HMAS Voyager (destroyer) rushed back and engaged the enemy force of 2 Minelayers, 2 destroyers, a patrol boat and two cargo ships. The Voyager was apparently led by an idiot, it got in really close to torpedo one of the CMs, but got shot up a ton on the way in and was a bullet magnet for the rest of the fight. She's gone. But the two cruisers absolutely wrecked the IJN fleet. The destroyers got away with light damage, one CM is limping away in denial of its fate, and the rest are on the bottom.
Of course, this ARG had already landed a full naval guard unit, so the situation on Luganville itself hasn't changed much, with the possible exception that the troops may be short on supply.
Elsewhere
-Two enemy submarine hit mines trying to enter the harbor in Batavia. I don't know if they'll sink, but they won't be making any attacks. Just in time, too, I have a troop convoy coming through that area. Also, this probably opens up an escape route to start evacuating merchies through again.
-An enemy submarine sank a cargo ship trying to replenish Palmyra. This actually hurts more than it should, I have very few cargo ships operating out of Pearl right now and a lot of thirsty bases.
-The USS Sealion finished off a damaged AKL trying to make it to Truk lagoon.
-The AVG intercepted air raids in Ichang again, this time bypassing the escorting Nates and going after the bombers. We only got two, I'm really hurting for numbers there.
-The IJAAF is hitting my forces in Paotow hard enough that a successful attack there looks very unlikely.