18 February 1942
Massive Betty raid on Oosthaven area, USS Yorktown finished off
East Java Sea
The enemy surface forces truly were gone. The only action on this side were submarines. A Jap sub sank an AKL off Surabaya, while Dutch sub K XII put two fish into the light cruiser Kashima south of Celebes, which was part of a replenishment task force.
West Java Sea
The Yorktown made it about as far west as Batavia when the Betties came. Despite having the Lexington in company with its own fighters and most of Yorktown's fighters assigned to CAP, supplemented by land based fighters from Batavia and Oosthaven (P-40s, Hurricanes, Buffalos), the CAP over Yorktown was just pathetic for most of the day.
The first raid targeted Yorktown, just 9 Betties escorted by 17 Zeroes. We managed 2 Dutch Buffalos, 1 Hurricane, and 10 P-40s to meet them, although the P-40s arrived piecemeal so that 10 isn't as good as it looks. And NOTHING from Lexington. The air battle resulted in 2 Zeroes and 1 Buffalo downed, all 9 Betties made it through unmolested and all targeted the Yorktown. They got one torpedo hit. Already seriously damaged on the 14th, the Yorktown was now fighting for its life.
The next to arrive were 7 more Betties without escorts. Our CAP was occupied with the first raid and these ****ers slipped in unopposed. We got lucky--they shot at the cruiser Exeter (damaged awhile ago, was going to report for repairs with Yorktown) and the Yorktown but they all missed.
Lexington was targeted next. You'd think that because it contributed no fighters to help Yorktown that it's own fighters would be available for defense. Just 6 Lexington fighters were on CAP, backed up by 2 land-based fighters. The raid was 3 Betties escorted by 17 Zeroes. Our fighters did pretty good, we lost a Wildcat and a Buffalo but shot down a Zero and two Betties. The Betty that got through missed. 4 more Betties arrived right after, 3 Buffalos tried to get to them but were intercepted by Zeroes. No one was shot down. The Betties failed to separate into elements for a multi-directional attack, and the Lexington was able to deny them a broadside shot, and they all missed.
9 Betties bypassed the carriers and took a run at our transports in Oosthaven. This would have been a great move a few days ago, but most of my ships had left by this point and those that were still there were only dropping off supplies, the troops were already ashore. A transport and a cargo ship were hit, the transport sank and the cargo ship remains on fire and will likely go down tomorrow.
Technically this belongs in under Malaya, but it's relevant to this battle--after all this happened, my bombers arrived at Johore Bahru, the likely source of the Betties. But why so late? They didn't need to wait for scouts to tell them where the target was. And they only had to fly about 40 miles to get there, compared to about 560 miles for the Betties. But they only just arrived now. I guess the Japanese are just that much better organized than us, or maybe a month of siege has exhausted the coffee supply and we just don't function in the morning. Japan had no CAP on their base, flak shot down a Blenheim and a Hudson, but we hit the base pretty good with 8 bombers causing moderate facility damage. But I'm sure by now the rest of the strikes were already in the air, so this was too little too late to disrupt the raids headed south. The main consequence of this raid will be some of those returning Betties will be destroyed hitting craters in the runways as they land.
By afternoon, the Yorktown had limped to the straits at Merak, within sight of the open sea and relative safety. But the second wave of strikes arrived. The first was a group of 6 Betties escorted by 9 Zeroes, they went after Yorktown opposed by a Buffalo, a Hurricane, and 6 P-40s--again, arriving piecemeal. We managed to get 3 Zeroes but could not reach the Betties. All 6 got through and performed a proper anvil attack, and the Yorktown was hit by 2 more torpedoes. The ship was already on its last legs, she rolled over and went down before the Betties were gone.
With the Yorktown gone, the Lexington was the new priority target. 22 Betties escorted by 20 Zeroes went after her. Our CAP was just pitiful in comparrison, 3 P-40s, 2 Dutch Buffalos, 2 US Buffalos, 1 Sea Hurricane and 1 Wildcat. The air battle resulted in one Zero and one Betty downed, with our Sea Hurricane also lost. Flak got another Betty, but 19 made attacks. Fortunately they only managed a single hit on the heavy cruiser Salt Lake City, but it was a good one. The main battery magazine exploded and the ship was shattered.
12 Nells, 6 Betties and 6 Zeroes went to Batavia, where I had diverted transports under attack at Oosthaven. They hit a transport, seriously damaging it. Again, the troops were already offloaded.
Hawaii
The bombardments/strikes were especially effective today, finishing off a destroyer, 3 tenders, and tanker.
Malaya
No bombers today, just sweeps. And mostly Nates, since the Zeroes were needed elsewhere. 4 Nates were shot down with no allied losses.
Makassar Strait
We lost a Falcon flying out of Samarina (adjacent to the now-conquered Balikpapan) trying to attack a destroyer-transport. Their troops will be here any day now--I've ordered the rest of my planes here to evacuate. Thus, one of the main strategic consequences of losing Balikpapan will set in; I have far less capacity to observe ship movements in the Celebes Sea, South China Sea and Sulu Sea. It was this capacity that made my ambush on the 14th feasible as I was fairly sure the KB wasn't there even though I hadn't seen it in probably 2 weeks, now that's gone.
China
Those I-15s in the northern mountain regions finally shot down a Lily. I mention this only because it's the first time the Chinese Air Force shot down someone on their own rather than let the AVG do it for them. The squadron of Hawks didn't even get any kills before they lost all their planes. Congratulations, Wan R., you alone among your peers do not suck.
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In hindsight, I feel like turning the ships back East was probably the better play. I already knew my CAP was struggling, so even if the surface threat was still there that might not have been as bad as an airstrike. I still would have suffered a Betty raid, but all indications up until this point were that the eastern bases did not have torpedoes.
The loss of the Yorktown had a logistic side to it too. My failure to keep a decent CAP up might be because I never replaced the Lexington's Buffalos with Wildcats. And this was because I was slow reacting to events at Pearl Harbor--I needed to turn off replacements for the USMC squadrons there sooner. So I ended up sending Wildcats that the Lexington needed to Pearl, only for them to be destroyed on the ground. I failed to recognize that not only is the Wildcat a superior plane performance wise, but it also has a maintenance rating 2 points better than the Buffalo. That's a huge difference. So, the high-maintenance Buffalos soaked up my mechanics' time, and we ended up with fighters in the hangar that needed to be in the air.