20 May 1942
KVII sunk off shore of Oosthaven
Timor
The S-38 and S-41 both sustained depth charge damage trying to get close to landing areas. We also lost another P-40 trying to get to their bombers. His local ARG with battleships attached is now on the east side of the island, I assume, to pick up the troops there and bring them back west to Koepang. Our B-26s scored a hit on one of the transports, but it was empty at the time.
I put all my heavy bombers in the area on Ambon this turn but we destroyed no planes on the ground--I think the base is empty and that Kendari is the only base supporting this operation. Well, that's good news for me, safer for my ships operating near Darwin. I'll hit it once more to be sure, the weather was T-storms so our accuracy might not have been that great.
We defeated the first group of road blockers at Raheng. One more to go.
Strait of Malacca
A destroyer and an armed merchant cruiser pulled into Medan, a base in northwestern Sumatra, and started offloading troops. Heavy machinegun fire made them change their minds, they got back in their boats and left. I'm guessing this was the "covering force" I detected earlier, it's too small to be the suspected ARG. For now I'm going to continue under the assumption there is still an ARG headed for the Tavoy area.
Sweeps targeted Singapore, which is a curious move because he's dealing with my bombers quite effectively without needing to open up the skies for a strike on my airbase. But I do thank him, because the RAF got some much needed payback. 9 Oscars shot down with a loss of a Mohawk, 2 Marlets, and 3 Hurricanes.
Sumatra
A series of several sweeps hit Palembang, costing him 3 Zeroes and us 2 Kittyhawks.
A strike by 5 DB-7Bs hit an ASW group, sinking a PB. A flight of 9 Falcons attacked a pair of subchasers but missed.
That same group of subchasers then detected and attacked the KVII, scoring several solid hits with depth charges. The boat suffered internal fires and sank--the first submarine kill by the Japanese not by an aircraft.
Thailand
I've made an interface error here that could cost me dearly. I had intended to split force Lauren between armor and everything else, sending the armor to Tavoy the long way on roads, with everything else hiking through the mountains. This is to stop the armor from slowing everyone else down with their extremely slow movement on rough ground. But one armor unit stayed with the main force. So they're suffering the movement penalty, and have been for over a week. Which means he probably gets to Tavoy ahead of me with time enough to take the base before my reinforcements arrive.
I'm going to try to slow his movement with airstrikes. I'm only ordering one strike to stop escorting fighters from being divided, and I'm hitting the skies with a sweep because I expect heavy fighter resistance. I'm expecting heavy air casualties but losing Tavoy would suck worse.
Today, an air battle over Tavoy resulted in 4 downed P-40s from the newly arrived squadron--not a great start for them--along with a Hurricane; we got just 2 Oscars with that loss.
China
Our troubles getting our fighters to link up with bombers continued, costing us 3 SB-IIIs and 6 Wellingtons. I'm grounding the bombers and switching to sweeps for a bit.
Hawaii
The enemies armies on Oahu decided to remind us they're still here. They attacked and were repelled easily, casualties 300 to 5000 favoring us, forts holding at level 3. Apparently they are suffering supply shortages. Speaking of which, I think what's sucking my supply is AA ammunition expenditures, which I can't turn off.
Reinforcements and refits
SS Silversides begins refit while under repair at Dutch Harbor (radar)
AM Horsham arrives at Sydney
301st BG/352nd BS arrives at Mojave (3/8 B-17E)
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