7 January 1941
Hickam Airbase bombarded, Soryu CVBG advances towards Makassar Strait
Hawaii
Operation "any ship can be a minesweeper once" continues, with at least 3 midgets and 2 barges offered as a sacrifice to Neptune. Destroyers also entered the area to assist with mine clearance, although probably not intending to clear them by hitting them. But one did hit one. Three battleships then bombarded Hickam AFB hard, destroying at least 4 aircraft on the ground and damaging 19 more. I'm not going to be able to put another strike together if this keeps happening. He got close enough for coastal defense to shoot back, we got 4 hits on BB Yamashiro, but it wasn't anything the heavily armored ship couldn't handle.
An attempted PT raid on Lahaina got caught between covering forces at Lahaina and the battleships attacking Pearl. No losses on either side.
SigInt reports elements of the 4th and 55th Divisions are boarding ships at Lahaina. I forgot to mention yesterday, patrol aircraft bombed Palmyra. Probably as a form of recon. So that's a possible destination. But there are others that make more sense...
Philippines
Air strikes continued to target ground forces instead of the air base. For good reason, my CAP this turn was 1 P-40, which was damaged and returned to base. My only flyable aircraft there are now recon.
The enemy army made a deliberate attack on Clark and reduced the forts to level one, at a cost of about 4600 men. I'm not sure they have enough right now--but if the two divisions from Hawaii head over, they'll pull it off.
Dutch East Indies
The Soryu battle group, after pausing for a day, has moved into the Celebes Sea. At the same time, a small 3-ship task force was observed moving north from the Celebes into the Sulu Sea, the carrier may be providing cover for continued landings in the central/southern Philippines. Or this could be a move against eastern Borneo, although I haven't spotted any larger troop convoys approaching from the east (EDIT: But there are cargo ships in Brunei right now. They might be picking up troops there to move here from the north.) The Soryu's Zeros strafed the PTs (that hit an ARG in the Philippines a few days ago)heading south to rearm, causing light damage to one of them. The pilots probably aren't trained for this.
The humiliation of the CVLBG sitting off the coast of the biggest bases in the DEI with impunity is still fresh in our minds. Since then, we've upgraded a few fighter squadrons from Buffalo to Demons or Hawks. We've also been training our bomber crews for naval attacks, although they still only have medium and light level bombers to do it with. We've also got enough surface assets to put up a decent fight--but also fresh in our minds is our defeat in the Battle of the Celebes Sea a week into the war, so I'm going to be very careful about identifying what's out there before I commit to a surface battle.
ASW operations off Surabaya continue to suck. There are at least two subs there, our planes keep spotting them, but they're always gone by the time our destroyers or minesweepers get there.
Malaya
Air raids targeted Singapore and Malacca. The Singapore Zeroes on escort did well, taking out 2 Hurricanes and 2 Buffalos while only losing 1. But they let a bunch of Hurricanes through, costing them 5 Sonia light bombers. 2 more Sonias were claimed by AA. In Malacca, enemy fighter coverage was spotty. Hurricanes shot down a Nate and 5 Sallies with no losses. Two light cargo ships arrived in Malacca to deliver badly needed supplies to the armies trying to hold on there.
A tank regiment has advanced from Georgetown all the way south to Kuala Lumpur, where I wanted to try to hold off the southern advance originally before we got outflanked by the Mersing landing. The tanks attacked, causing significant damage to personnel and fortifications. The defenders are mostly in Malacca now, so that's not going to hold.
EDIT: I forgot to mention when I posted this, we have another Ace-in-a-Day here, FLT J.R. Huchinson of the No 488 Squadron--he got six kills today.
China
I was wrong about Chusien. We outnumber them significantly, but they have better leaders and the terrain is hampering offense and boosting defense. They've also got trailing units that look like they are going to guard a road that I otherwise might have cut off to block enemy supplies from reaching Chusien. This looks like the beginning of a prolonged battle.
SouthPAC
Ndeni is officially theirs now, and we spotted two ships approaching it from the east. Probably engineers. I could, in theory, interdict this, but I decided to be cautious. There's a huge blind spot just to the north/northeast of there, for all I know the CVLBG or Shokaku CVBG are in it, waiting for me.
Resupply operations are proceeding in Fiji and Pago now that the surface threat has passed. No sign of that sub either.