24 March 1942
Western Australia
For the first time since the war began, Japanese submarines are prowling the Indian Ocean shipping lanes. We lost a cargo ship to a sub attack near Perth. I've moved ASW aircraft to Perth and will be consolidating convoys in response.
South China Sea
USS Sailfish may be the unluckiest sub in the fleet. It pressed a surface attack against a light cargo ship, firing and reloading torpedoes over and over. It scored a total of 7 hits against it. All duds. The sub managed to set the ship on fire with its deck gun before it disengaged.
Java
Surabaya suffered another naval bombardment by two heavy cruisers, disabling at least 12 planes. We attempted an airstrike on part of their eastern prong, costing a P-40 and causing light enemy casualties on the ground.
In the west, an enemy air raid on Bandoeng resulted in 9 Lillies shot down with a loss of 1 Hurricane and 1 P-40. We also swept their beachhead with Hurricanes, finding a swarm of 50 enemy fighters there. We shot down 6 Zeroes at the cost of 3 Hurricanes. Unfortunately, the enemy forces at Bandoeng were able to break through my lines, and with it my best hope for turning this campaign into a quagmire for him. My troops retreated to Tilapjap.
I'm going to order my reinforcements landing in Koepang to pack up again and put them in eastern Java. With any luck I'll be able to consolidate them with my Surabaya forces before the enemy finishes the western half and turns east.
Solomons and New Hebrides
S-23 damaged a cargo ship with a torpedo hit in the eastern Solomons. 9 Betties attempted an attack on my naval forces near Luganville, P-39s tried to intercept but only shot 2 down. The Betties missed. My marines attacked the enemy land forces but were turned away. It looks like even with the supporting regiment I'm not going to have enough here, or at least, it's going to be air and naval supporting fires that earns my troops a breakthrough. At the moment I have a squadron of B-26s and Havoc bombers hitting them daily. I'll try to add some B-17s to that soon.
Thailand
Nates tried to sweep Tavoy. Nates! He must be getting stretched thin on Oscars. We shot down 1. Our bombers hit the 5th division hard, causing nearly 200 casualties on the ground; we lost 1 Hudson to flak. Maybe it make a difference: the 5th Division attacked our southern group, but failed to achieve a breakthrough despite having superior numbers. Casualties were 1150 to 640 favoring us.
Celebes Sea
The Dutch sub O-21 scored two hits on a cargo ship, almost certainly sinking it.
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