20 February 1944
P-40 escorts bounced as Japanese air forces attempt to protect troops outside Bangkok from relentless bombing
Japanese Home Waters
Let another unescorted enemy transport escaped a US sub while taking a dud torpedo impact near Chichi-jima. This time the unlucky sub was USS Skate. The Skate then engaged yet another transport and missed completely.
DEI
Arizona and New Mexico shelled Koepang again, this time hitting displaced enemy troops as the base had been captured before they arrived.
Air raids:
Surabaya (airbase): 18 hits
Koepang (ground forces): 0 casualties
Kendari (ground forces and airbase): 0 casualties, 4 airbase hits
Land combat: Mop-up attacks inflicted 1330 enemy casualties at Koepang, while we sustained only 9.
Babo has been recaptured, 478 (J) to 22 (A) casualties in our attack.
Philippines
After being detected by float planes flying out of Jolo, an enemy sub was prosecuted in the Sulu Sea by a pair of US destroyers. The sub sustained heavy damage and was last seen limping back towards Manila.
Raids:
Iloilo (ground forces): 121 casualties
Land combat:
Deliberate attack at Iloilo, forts reduced to 0, casualties 56 to 0, but we still haven't overrun the enemy base.
Burma and Thailand
A P-47 sweep over Bangkok shot down 4 Georges.
But, most of the CAP put up by Bangkok wasn't protecting Bangkok itself, but the "west road" where an enemy troop concentration has been getting bombed by US and British aircraft. Our raids faced 10 Georges, 9 Tojos, and 1 Tony, which regretfully got the drop on the P-40Ks escorting the bombers. We ended up losing 11 P-40s and 4 Wellington medium bombers, without shooting any enemy aircraft down. Our bombers did still get through, causing 273 enemy casualties on the ground.
18 of my B-24s attacked enemy troops in Bangkok itself, causing 37 casualties with 1 B-24 shot down by flak.
Land combat:
Artillery exchanges in Bangkok and on the west road, light casualties on both sides.
The enemy has retaken Pisanuloke with a token paratrooper force. Again, this could disrupt my supply lines slightly but not much else. I have local forces available to wipe them out.
China
Air raids:
Near Taiyuan (ground forces): 164 casualties
Land combat:
near Sinyang: We defeated a 9k strong force with a 26k strong force, casualties 3488 to 826
near Hankow: This was 54k to 3k in our favor, casualties 1248 to 276 as this enemy force was also routed.
Marianas
The enemy convoy is still there. Two, actually. We attacked Tinian with 15 B-24Ds, scoring a pair of hits on an enemy cargo ship, setting it on fire. Saipan was attacked with 6 B-24s, which scored no hits. There were 13 enemy fighters on CAP at Tinian, and another 30 at Saipan, which were able to shoot down 5 bombers. The bombers got 1 Zero.
Reinforcements
DE Swearer arrives at Eastern USA
SS Bream arrives at Balboa
APA Storm King arrives at Alameda
AP Gen. W.M.Mitchell arrives at Cristobal
81st FG/93rd FS arrives at Aden
164th USA Base Force arrives at San Francisco
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