13 April 1942
The operation to save Pearl Harbor
Hawaii and CENTPAC
Having failed to draw significant naval forces away from Pearl, I've decided to take the fight to him. Hornet, in company with a battleship task force, is the tip of the spear, with Enterprise and Saratoga forming up. The carrier task forces have all been detected, but the battleships have not. The goal of this operation is the sink the enemy battleships that have been the decisive factor titling the land battle on Oahu, and if possible, to cause enough damage to the airbase on Lahaina to allow Pearl to be resupplied.
Kingfishers and a single operational Bolo bomber have flown enough recon to give me a count of enemy aircraft at Lahaina that has been both consistent over several turns and corroborates with combat reports of what's been bombing Pearl. It looks like I'm only dealing with 30 fighters and 30 "Netties", plus various other bombers that would only be useful as decoys. I'm bringing 90 fighters to the party, which should be enough to deal with the problems those aircraft could cause. They can probably fly in more, but I intend to make them too late.
The plan is for my battleship fleet to hit the airbase to knock it out for this fight, while my carriers hit his battleships. His battleship fleet is resupplying from the port on the same island as the airbase, so there is a potential for an old fashioned BB vs BB fleet battle. If that happens, it should happen after I hit his fleet with an airstrike first, so I'll take those odds. But, he hasn't detected my battleships yet, so my expectation is that the BBs will try to evacuate to the north, which is fine by me it because gets them out of my way without getting them out of danger.
Clear skies forecasted, should have no problem finding them.
Back to today, the sub USS Pollack was depth charged after attempting to torpedo the enemy battleships (3 bombarding Pearl today), sustaining light damage.
At Christmas Island, we swept 30 more mines, still more to go. My USMC aircraft are coming online. We found another midget sub skulking around and destroyed it.
Thailand
We attacked the enemy armies chasing our nothern forces again. Just like yesterday, we shot down 3 of the Oscars trying to stop us, and lost 1 Blenheim.
SouthPAC
A Vincent light bomber reported bombing an enemy submarine near Suva, Fiji.
I've lost track of the enemy CVBG and the transports they're escorting. I still think they're here, just temporarily hidden by weather.
I've ordered a bunch of S-boats to block Luganville. Maybe I'll get a loaded troop ship on the way out.
Malaya
Wirraway light bombers attempted a low-level attack on the heavy cruiser Kako near Mersing, but missed. I'm a bit frustrated my torpedo bombers didn't fly too, this would have been an ideal opportunity for them--big target, no fighter cover.