Dec. 22nd + 23rd, 1941
Malaya:
As expected, the convoy in the South China Sea is a Mersing invasion! Gary concealed the true destination by moving to Singkep first, he even bombardet this unimportant little island:
Naval bombardment of Singkep, at 22,53
Allied aircraft
no flights
Allied aircraft losses
No Allied losses
Japanese Ships
CL Jintsu
CA Atago
CA Takao
BB Yamashiro
BB Fuso, on fire
BB Haruna
BB Kongo
Allied ground losses:
252 casualties reported
Guns lost 3
Vehicles lost 1
Airbase hits 1
Airbase supply hits 1
Runway hits 7
Port hits 2
Port supply hits 4
I never believed that Singkep would be his target, but he unsettled me enough to send most of my subs towards Palembang and Singkawang. Johore Bahru would have killed me, but there are 2 brigades at Mersing and a third from Singapore is on its way. 4 PTs from Singapore failed to interrupt his landing, 2 of them were sunk. He landed his troops from Kuching: the 35th Brigade, the 4th Mixed Regiment and the 9th NLF for a total max assault value of not more than 350! No efficient bombardments or air attacks on my troops, no supporting HQ, no prep points for his units, highly disrupted troops... I ordered a shock attack for tomorrow!
The little detour to Singkep will cost im BB Fuso (according to his emails):
O19 paid the price for Truants torpedoeing of the Fuso, she was attacked and sunk by the escorts of the Japanese convoy in an adjacent hex.
Singapore itself was bombed by 90 Nells on the 22nd, but no follow-up strikes have occured (bad weather, presumably) and the damage is already repaired. AVG and the P40Es from Manila are back in town, hopefully they can but up a better fight together.
Singapore's bomber flew another futile naval attack mission on the 22nd, before resuming only slightly more successful ground attack missions on the 23rd:
Day Air attack on 25th Army, at 22,46
Allied aircraft
Buffalo I x 3
Blenheim IV x 9
Hudson I x 13
B-17D Fortress x 19
B-17E Fortress x 6
Allied aircraft losses
Hudson I: 3 damaged
B-17D Fortress: 2 damaged
Japanese ground losses:
48 casualties reported
Aircraft Attacking:
3 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 8000 feet
Japanese planes finally started flying from Malaya: IJA from Kota Bharu (his own bombardment runs have blasted the airfield, it's still heavily damaged) and IJN from Singora. Mostly ground attack missions (IJA) and some bomb carrying Nells from Singora attacking shipping in the Andaman Sea (no hits so far).
Tavoy and Victoria Point fell to the Japanese: both bases had only some aviation support squads left, the larger parts of the base forces are already at Calcutta.
DEI:
Still no submarine attacks on Mini KB, this is frustrating! He managed to refuel his carriers southwest of Java, outside of LBA range. Most of his Kates were damaged during the last turns, and he hasn't hit much so far, so we're probably both unhappy with the results of this little carrier raid.
He retreated his invasion convoy from Tarakan! Only few troops made it ashore, so we're stalemated here. Positive side effect: all resource and oil production has stopped because of the enemy presence. All because of some litte PT boats... [:)]
Philippines:
The last transports have left Manila. AO Pecos, fully loaded with fuel but heavily damaged, was the last ship trying to make the run south. She didn't make it far: an I-boat found her just outside the harbor and sent her (and the fuel) to the bottom of the sea. 12000 fuel less for the IJN.
Lingayen fell, the static base force (TOE error in CHS) retreated to Bataan.
Clark captured by the 48th Div and the 65th Bde: I had to pull out of Clark several turns ago as troops from Lucena threatened to enter Manila any day, and then units at Clark would have been trapped. Too bad, it prevented me from "using up" the fort levels at Clark...
China:
Minor ground attack missions by Japanese planes. Gary settled for bombardment attacks at Wuchow. In central China, his Bde blocking my retreat west of Nanchang tried two deliberate attacks against my single corps on the wooden hex - they were defeated twice! The second attack, with an adjusted Japanese AV of 15!
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 7199 troops, 19 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 194
Defending force 10921 troops, 49 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 240
Japanese max assault: 195 - adjusted assault: 15
Allied max defense: 236 - adjusted defense: 259
Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1
Japanese ground losses:
218 casualties reported
Guns lost 1
SWPac:
Another deliberate Japanese attack brought the forts at Rabaul down from 3 to 2. BB Hyuga, Ise, Mutsu and Nagato are back bombarding the garrison. At least I know where is battleline is.
Madang (north coast of New Guinea) conquered.
CentPac:
Suddenly, everything is quiet between PH and the West Coast. Neither sub nor ASW attacks during the last turns. A Glen keeps spotting some TFs, though.
Good news from Intel:
The turn before several CVs were shown at Kwajalein (forgot to take a screenshot), so the location of KB seems to be confirmed.
A real gem from SigInt:
SIG INT REPORT FOR 12/23/41: South Seas Det. is loaded on AK,China Maru moving to Marcus Island.
Mmmh, KB at Kwajalein, SSD at Marcus... Midway? Johnson? Palmyra? The Marshalls would be a better staging area for an invasion of the Line Islands, and Johnson would only make sense as a first part of an PH invasion, for which it is already too late IMO, so my bet is on Midway. I split the 25th Divison at PH and the strongest part + supplies is (fast) transported to Midway.
