4 November 1942
Allied air forces defending Rangoon breaking
Battle of Rangoon
Two heavy cruisers entered Rangoon's hex and shelled our base, damaging about two dozen aircraft and keeping the base facilities in a poor state of repair.
The enemy turned their attention from Tavoy itself to my ground forces that had taken it and are now pursuing the enemy south. Dozens of Sallies and even a few Vals tried to bomb them, without much success in the thick jungle. Wasn't enough, we were still able to attack and we routed the enemy, inflicting 500 vs our 50 casualties in the process.
The largest group of Sallies (over 100), though, went to hit my forces that were adjacent to their landing area. This eliminated any chance of my attack succeeding--my forces were as badly disrupted as theirs. There were also more enemy soldiers than there were yesterday as a third of the 12th Division joined the party. We took 394 casualties in the failed attack without doing any damage to the enemy. Would have been a lot worse if not for the B-24s...
We managed 31 B-24s striking the enemy here, not bad considering the amount of aircraft disabled by flak and fighters last turn, but we were contending with severe storms which affected our accuracy. Enemy casualties were light.
There weren't a whole lot of aircraft lost today, mostly because we didn't get many fighters in the air. Raheng can't keep pace with repairs/maintenance, and now its supplies have dropped so low they can't use drop tanks anymore. That's OK for the P-40s, but the Hurricanes are now considered at "extended range" to fly to the Pegu beachhead. Anyway, total losses in Burma theatre today: 3 Hurricanes, 6 Vengeances (we attempted a raid on the task forces that went nowhere), 2 Zeroes, 1 Oscar,
Celebes Sea
The KXVIII spotted a tanker convoy near Tarakan, in an unavoidable hex of deep water along a suspected coastal shallow-water route from Borneo to the Philippines. It hit a Tonan Whaler-class tanker (13,340 tons) - a very high-value target. The convoy appeared to also have 3 medium tankers and 1 light tanker, with only 1 PB escorting them. The convoy left the burning Tonan behind, and the Dutch sub put two more fish into it to finish it off.
Banda Sea
More success for USS Sargo. She got 2 hits on a cargo ship south of Celebes, one of them even detonated. Very likely a kill.
Solomons Area
Kates bombed Ndeni in support of their counter-invasion. My airbase at Luganville is now up to Size 2, enough for offensive air operations. I moved the Wildcats (formerly from CVE Copahee) to Luganville and ordered a sweep for tomorrow. Speaking of which, today's P-38 sweep didn't happen, probably scrubbed by weather. So tomorrow hopefully both squadrons. On the other end of the Solomons, I'm sweeping Rabaul again tomorrow.
He's got a LOT on Guadalcanal, but not a whole lot at Rabaul. I think the best way to take out the Solomons is going to be to take Rabaul and possibly the Shortlands first, cutting off a lot of potential support from the northwest. It shouldn't be too hard to cut into the Gilberts a little bit or use subs to block supply from the northeast.
To the southeast, at Noumea, our crack ASW squadron reported bombing 2 subs.
The aircraft strength estimates were getting from the carrier are consistently lower than I'd expect for the KB. I still have to treat it like a potential death star, but... well, the sweeps should tell me something if they fly tomorrow.
CENTPAC
My Midway encroachment operation is looking like a bust. Progress on building the airstrip is only at 3% after what feels like a week. But they're also not getting bombed, so maybe I can just try the recon mission again with a CVE.
A bunch of convoys left Pearl today, mostly headed for Sydney, loaded with troops and engineers to use in the Solomons area.
Repairs and Reinforcements
Repairs completed on CVE Copahee at Pearl Harbor, ship returned to service (torpedo damage from Luganville operation repaired)
257th USAAF Base Force arrives at Santa Ana
40th USN Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Port Hueneme
41st USN Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Port Hueneme
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