25 May 1942
Offsetting heavy air losses over Tavoy and Rabaul
Thailand and Burma
I had the battleship group attack one more time before departing, making sure they expended as much ammo as possible before pulling out. The CVBG will remain on station while they rearm.
For once, our bombing raids were well-coordinated; a single massed raid was made to support Tavoy, with a strong fighter escort. So it was 22 Oscars against 22 Hurricanes, escorting 34 bombers. We shot down 12 of the Oscars! At a cost of 2 Hurricanes and a Hudson bomber.
We're still going to lose. In addition to the 12,000+ in Tavoy now, there are 30,000 troops following that up. I'm ordering a retreat to the north to prevent these guys from getting cut off--I don't want to risk them retreating south, which would mean they'd be eliminated/captured in their entirety. The enemy attacked this turn, reducing fortifications to level 2. The fire they took from the battleships is probably the only thing that kept them from overrunning the base.
Timor
I don't even see the enemy fleets standing by in Kendari anymore. It just looks like they left. There are also at least 3 subs patrolling near Darwin, despite there not being a whole lot of merchant activity there--suggesting they're there for another reason. So, between that and the bastion behavior, it looks like he knows what I'm up to here. I should probably do something else.
Enemy armies attacked Koepang, reducing forts to 0 , casualties 300 to 700 favoring them. This is just about over anyway.
Our minelayer made the trip to Koepang safely, left its gifts, and is returning.
Gilberts
We bombarded Ocean island hoping a sub tender would turn up, but got nothing.
Coral Sea
He finally got tired of me bombing Rabaul. I thought I'd have wrecked it enough that a fighter deployment would be a problem, but a bunch of Zeroes managed to operate from the base just fine. 12 Hudsons went down.
Sumatra
Tandjoengbalai has been captured.
Reinforcements/Refits
Repairs completed on SST Argonaut at Brisbane, ship returned to service (my first "transport" submarine)
Repairs completed on CA San Francisco at Alameda, ship returned to service (AA upgrade)
Repairs completed on CL Adelaide at Brisbane, ship returned to service (AA upgrade)
DD Aaron Ward arrives at Balboa (future Wasp escort)
301st BG/BS (Comp) arrives at Mojave (8/8 B-17, restricted--training squadron)