Sunset in the East. DBB 30B. Open to Bibow

[kaleun]

July 25th 42
Aleutians:
Morning Air attack on Adak Island , at 162,52

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 43 NM, estimated altitude 28,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 9 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 33

Allied aircraft
P-38E Lightning x 16

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 3 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
P-38E Lightning: 2 destroyed

Aircraft Attacking:
3 x P-38E Lightning sweeping at 25000 feet

The B22 follow, twelve of them flying at 6000 ft. Despite the efforts of the P38 sweep, nineteen Zero come to fight but, caught at the wrong altitude only one of the bombers takes damage. 5 Zero damaged, one zero and one Nell destroyed on the ground.

The attack on Suva fizzles. Only 6 B24 reach the island. 8 Zero rise, one bomber destroyed, four damaged.

The news from the Burma front is not good. Imphal creamed by four successive waves of enemy bombers. The enemy Tojo fighter is far superior to anything the allies can throw at it, and the allied pilots too lack experience to face their opponents. The allied flyboys will gain experience soon though. Those that survive.

On the 27th the Burma Air Marshall orders all aircraft from the border airfields back to Calcutta. Only DC3s at Dimapur remain to ferry supplies over ther hump to Chengtu.

[kaleun]

July 28th 42

I-7 who had been making a nuisance of itself off the coast of Victoria is reported sunk after 8 depth charge hits.

6 B17 hit enemy forces at Raoul island in preparation for the upcoming invasion.

Wallis Island now has a size 3 airfield and the 38BG/70Bs flies its B26B from Pago Pago into it.


July 30th

Burma.
It’s Ledo’s turn today. The enemy bombers return to their bases leaving the airfield behind them a smoking ruin.

Hoorn Island hit by SBD 3, B26 and B17.
Raoul Island receives 5 B17

At midnight, the Raoul invasion force turns northwest.

[kaleun]

July 31st

Tragedy strikes the dive bombers from Wallis. Twelve SBD3 arrive over Hoorn unescorted. Fifteen Zero rise. The gallant dive bombers try to attack despite the odds and are decimated. Half of them will not return.

Naval intelligence reports Zuiho sunk at the battle of cape Esperance.

[kaleun]

August 1st 1942

Captain Watanabe enters the Admiral’s office.
“Ah, Captain,” Nimitz says, “I’ve got news for you.”
“Yes sir?”
“The second Marine Division just landed at Raoul Island, like you advised.”
Watanabe smiles; he knows that there had been no time to mount this invasion after his recommendations. Still he is glad that the Admiral shares his ideas on how to proceed.
“Sir.”
“They face the 62 Naval guards and an engineer unit.”
“They should have no trouble dispatching them sir.”
Nimitz nodded, “They will attack tomorrow.”

[Bif1961]

Our games are about at the same point me 9 July, 1942 and I am the Allies. Will be interesting to follow your adventures as I have my own.

[kaleun]

Thanks Bif. Are you doing an AAR?

[kaleun]

August 2nd

Raoul Island
After the battleships bombarded the defenders, B17s, SBDs and TBFs came in to further soften the enemy positions, the Marines attacked the heavily entrenched enemy forces and managed to reduce their fortifications but failed to dislodge the defenders.

In Burma the enemy bombers find the C47 on the ground at Dimapur and wreak havoc on them.

Air battles continue as Japan and the US dispute control of the skies over Hoorn and Adak.

Of greater importance, the battered remains of the 6th Australian Division reach the railroad line and supplies!

A PBY out of New Zealand at extreme range reports an enemy task force SW of Noumea, steaming towards Raoul Island. The size and composition of the task force is unclear but two battleships and two heavy cruisers are reported.

On Yorktown Vice Admiral Mitscher reviews the report.
“They know we have carriers, they must have carriers in that task force.”
The men around him agree, but say nothing.
I don’t want the transports around, or the battlewagons. Tell them to abort the unloading and head for Wellington. Send the second wave to Wellington too.”
Orders drafted, coded, signals sent.
“Let’s get ready to receive our guests gentlemen,” he says.

On the beach the Marine commander watches the ships stop the unloading process, lift anchor and depart. He looks up at the enemy positions. If the enemy is going to bombard the island, he’d rather be inside the enemy forts, reduced as they are, instead of here, on the beach, with his a$$ on the air.
“Let’s get those basterds before their ships get here,” he orders a shock attack for the morning.
The bombardment task force gets in a last salvo before departing for Wellington at full speed.

[kaleun]

August 3rd:

Raoul falls to the 2nd Marine shock attack. The enemy task force that precipitated all this however disappears into thin ocean. Did it turn back? Was it ever there? Were those ships just shadows at the edge of the Catalina’s vision?
In any case, the invasion task force turns around to complete unloading the 3rd Marine Division. It is quite possible the enemy may want to retake the island and if so, there will be a warm reception prepared for him.

The attacks on the enemy positions will continue. TF 91 carrying the 22nd Marine Regiment and the 307 Base group resume their route to Rabaul. They will form the garrison of the island while 2nd Marine will be transported to Wellington and prepare for their next invasion, objective yet to be determined.

Carrier I, turns south to meet the oilers and top up its fuel bunkers.

Two AVDs Casco and Hulbert head for Raoul to support VP 44’s PBYs that flew to Raoul from Canton Island. From Pearl, VP 72 flies to Canton to replace the redeployed 44.

[kaleun]

August 6th 42

Raoul island is secured. The enemy’s 62nd Naval Guards wiped out.
The carriers refuel from the oilers.
TF 91 unloads the garrison at Raoul. 22nd Marine Rgt and 307 Base group. As soon as the ships finish unloading, they will embark the 2nd Marine Division and transfer to Wellington.

August 7th

15 SBD3 escorted by 9 P40E attack 83 Naval Guards at Hoorn Island. There are no allied losses though the damage to the enemy is questionable.

August 8th

There being no perceived threat from enemy naval assets too Raoul Island, the three carriers are ordered back to Tahiti. The fraction of 2nd Marine that did not disembark at Raoul is now unloading at Wellington.

New Zealand’s north island becomes the new neuralgic center of operations. 1st Marine takes replacements and upgrades. Begins to prepare to invade Norfolk Island and packs for strategic transport to Wellington. Also packing for strategic transport to Wellington is the first Marine raider battalion prepping for Lord Howe Island as is the 147th Infantry Regiment.

The airfield at Auckland, where activity had been almost languid, aside from patrol, now picks up its operating pace. Questions asked. No longer will the Catalina and LR Hudson simply patrol the seas looking for the enemy invasion fleet. In this part of the world, at least, the Japanese are not expected to expand any further and, with a bit of luck, will begin to be rolled back.
Norfolk Island is defended by III/90 Inf battalion. The first Marine Division assigned to this island should easily overwhelm the garrison.
What is the garrison at Lord Howe? Recon aircraft fly over the tiny little island.

[BBfanboy]

I see you have a TF in the same hex as a Japanese sub. How is your ASW war going?

[Bif1961]

No AAR I am not computer smart enough, but my opponent and I do 2-3 turns a day so an AAR would just slow down that rate anyways.

[kaleun]

As you can see, BBFanboy, not good.

[kaleun]

August 9

Once again the SBD pilots prove their mettle. 15 unescorted SBDs of VMSB 141 attack Hoorn and meet 8 A6M2; the results are predictable. Only four bombers make it back to Wallis Is. Capt Abbott, their commanding officer is livid. He heads off to the command barrack where the 46FG/17FS is quartered. At his waist, the holster for his Colt M1911 .45 is unbuckled, the pistol inside is cocked. As he enters the office, the two MPs at the door salute. He does not return the salute. The two MPs look at each other, and at the two Marine NCOs trying to catch up with their captain and, without a word, follow the Marine captain in.
Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton stands, or rather is held up by the left fist of the Marine captain clenched around his neck. The right fist holds the Colt, its business end stuck in the army airman’s mouth. It takes two MPs and two Marines to pull the irate captain Abbott off the pale army officer.
“I’ll kill you, you yellow bellied mothertrucker,” his words unintelligible under the fountain of spit coming out of his mouth.
The four men manage to extract the commander of the dive bombers out of the airfield command office. The field flight surgeon, attracted by the commotion gives the belligerent captain an injection of a sedative; he looks at the struggling officer and gives him a second one for good measure. Under the effect of enough Nembutal to drop a Clydesdale, the captain gets carried to sick bay.
The following morning Lt Col Hamilton is replaced by Major Peachtree whose first order is for the P40s of the 17 fighter squadron to sweep Hoorn.
“We’ll get some payback, I promise,” he tells a drugged Captain Abbott who under the frequent injections of Nembutal cannot remember his own name at this time.

[kaleun]

August 10th

Burma

Ledo. At the end of the railroad line from Calcutta, at the foothills of the Himalaya, Ledo has an airfield that grew from a small strip to a major airbase. The airbase was full of transport airplanes that took over from the bombers flying over the hump to shuttle supplies to China. There are other airfields in the northeast territories but Ledo is the largest and the shortest distance to the China airbases. Since the fall of Rangoon and closure of the Burma Road, this is the only supply route to the beleaguered Chinese.
Or rather it was. Today the field is an unrecognizable mess of craters, burning and destroyed buildings and airframes scattered all around. Ambulances twist and turn around pillars of black oily smoke that mark the final resting place of yet another C-47, another hangar, another useless AA gun.
First came the Tojos, thirty of them. Against the powerful fighters only nine Martlet fighters could be scrambled. No Tojos were damaged and only one Martlet was destroyed. By Burma rules this could be considered an important allied victory.
But the enemy sweep achieved what it intended. Force the defenders up, so that when the bombers arrive, escorted by Oscars no interceptors rise. Twenty six Sally bombers, flying above light flak range cause great destruction on the airbase. Then the real raid arrives. Fifty eight more.
Ledo is no longer a functional airfield. Nor will it be for a long time to come. The surviving aircraft get trundled into railroad cars and shipped to Calcutta.
Over the ruined base thirty six Tojos fly over in formation, a provocation that the RAF is unable to respond to, even had it been willing.

Wallis Island, South Pacific.

Captain Abbott returns to his bunk, discharged from hospital. His condition began to improve when the P40s departed in the morning. Eighteen of them. Only four found the target though, weather and mechanical malfunction caused the rest to turn back without engaging the enemy. The four that did arrive over Hoorn met an equal number of Zero fighters. The dogfight was perfectly even with one Zero and one P40 lost.

B17s hit the 19th Engineer regiment at Lord Howe Island and 101 JAAF base at Norfolk Is.

Aleutians.

The air war over Adak has dragged on all summer. Allied B25s and B17s have been unable to shut down the airfield. The losses have been forbidding. Only by constantly rotating airgroups from Anchorage to Umnak have offensive operations been maintained. A cunning plan is coming to fruition. Today a dozen B17s of the 280BG/36BS and eleven of the 43BG/64 BS arrive from Anchorage. The aircrews look to the morrow with justified trepidation. Some of them have been here before, those that returned from Adak. “It will be different this time,” squadron leaders tell their men. Though it violates operational security, they will tell their men tonight, “The Navy will hit Adak during the night. “The airfield will be inoperable tomorrow and we should catch the basterds on the ground.”

[kaleun]

August 11th
The best laid plans.

Aleutians
It was bound to happen. The bombardment task force ran into I-31 who attacked Chicago with a spread of six torpedoes. All fish missed but the ensuing confusion and scrimmage delayed the task force enough that it did not reach firing position in time and had to withdraw south. The signals announcing the delay, were not picked up at Umnak, and the relayed message from Dutch Harbor was received too late to prevent the two bomber groups from departing. Eighteen B17 meet 18 Zero, one enemy fighter destroyed, one damaged. Two B17 destroyed and eight damaged. The aircrews were not pleased.
Thirteen G3M2 Nell bombers armed with torpedoes show up over TF 42. The battleships and cruisers weave and turn, their wakes criss crossing each other as their AA guns fire and the DD escorts lay smoke screens and fire their guns at the incoming level bombers. Shrapnel peppers the Nell bombers and one machine is destroyed. Eight bombers are claimed damaged but, what’s more important is that all torpedoes miss their targets. As the bombers return home the task force reassembles and increases speed following the retreating bombers.

[kaleun]

August 12th

Aleutians.

It works, this time. North Carolina, Chicago, St. Louis, Chester, and Houston hit Adak. Eighterrn Zero damaged, two destroyed, runway cratered, one shell explodes in the port, some on the positions of the 80th Infantry regiment.

A dollar short and a day late. The morning does not bring about the expected attack. There are not enough serviceable bombers at Umnak to carry out a raid. The skies over Adak and Umnak remain quiet. The enemy engineers repair the runway, the enemy mechanics the fighters.

August 13th
SOPAC
CVE Long Island is a busy little carrier today. First the 18 SBD 3 of VMSB 232 depart her deck bound for Wallis Is. No sooner are the last bombers over the horizon when a formation of dive bombers appears. Seven SBD 3 bombers arrive and land on the carrier’s short deck; VMSB 7 arriving from Wallis to receive upgraded machines. Long Island turns around and heads back to Pearl. Eighteen F4F from Savaii, VMF 121 fly to Wallis Is.

Aleutians

Orders are bungled, SNAFU. Three B17s raid Adak, meet 13 A6M2. As outnumbered as they were it is remarkable that only one bomber was destroyed by the enemy fighters and one by AA. One Zero falls to the .50 cal guns of the fortresses. Six B17s arrive and meet ten Zero. One fighter destroyed and three bombers damaged. Finally, three lone B26 come in at 5000 feet. Only two fighters remain in the air to challenge them but they are way up high and by the time they dive on the bombers the three fast Marauders are already heading for home. No losses on either side. The enemy fighters land to refuel just as four P38s arrive, late, to sweep the skies which they do unmolested.

SOPAC

Seventeen P40Es sweep Hoorn Island. They return claiming one fighter destroyed and no friendly losses.

Raoul Island’s runway is now repaired, the service hut is still a shambles and the little port is operating at 43% of its capacity.

Tahiti.
The allied carriers disband. Hornet needs two days to fully repair, Pensacola, tied up by the repair ship will need four. Salt Lake City can fix her minor damage in three days without turning her boilers off.

The 24th Sep Inf Rgt and the 3rd Marine raider battalion load up heading for Pago Pago

SWPAC

Norfolk and Lord Howe Island hit by B17s again.

[kaleun]

August 14th 42

Hoorn Island

The air war over Hoorn Island continues to rage on. Ten B17 hit the airfield. 13 Zero challenge them. Two Zero destroyed a cost of one fortress destroyed and nine damaged. Eight P40E sweep the skies after the heavies leave. Six Zero fighters dispute this; two Zero destroyed. 70th FS celebrates its first ace. First Lieutenant Schilling gets credited for his third kill. 80 XP, 70A,72 D

Tahiti now sports a size 5 airfield.

Raoul Island.

The last elements of 2nd Marine have departed. The 29th Port Maintenance engineers arrive and set to work. It will take a while to repair all the damage to the base, but they’ll get it done.
August 15th

In all of the bloody shambles of Burma, the disasters of the SW Pacific, the fall of almost half of Australia, and all the other fiascos, it may be forgiven to forget that one of the big causes of this war was the US response to the Japanese invasion of China.

How goes the war in China? If mentioned at all, it is as a postscript in the newspapers, hidden away in the middle of the news, solitary reports of steady Japanese advance.

Tomorrows papers though will run this report:

Chingking, China:
Yesterday, Japanese bombers, seventy eight of them, with a heavy escort of forty one modern fighters tried to attack the valiant defenders of the Chinese capital. The outnumbered Chinese fighters flying fourteen obsolete P66 airplanes disrupted their plans. Two Sally bombers destroyed, six damaged, and one Oscar fighter killed, at a cost of a single P66.
This is the first time that the fledgling Chinese Air Force meets the enemy. Despite their numbers and training the heroic Chinese pilots gave Tojo a bloody nose.

Over Hoorn Is. Eight Wildcats escort fifteen SBD-3 against the airfield. No fighters rose to challenge the Grumman machines and one Zero was destroyed on the ground. Seven P40 later challenged the garrison but no fighters rose.

[Bif1961]

With all his conquests what is the current VP count and are you in risk of a VP auto-vcitory?

[kaleun]

Yes I was at risk for auto-victory and in fact that happened on January 1st 43. Bilbow however wanted to continue. I personally like to play for auto-victory but only on stock or at most Hakku Ichu. On Ironman auto-victory is too accessible for an average Japanese player (not me) IMHO

For the record we are playing Ironbabes[8|] not Ironman.

Bilbow and I are also playing the same scenario inverted. I am doing even worse there and am on line for the earliest Japanese defeat ever[:(]

[kaleun]

August 16th

Chungking, China.
Perhaps as a reply to yesterday’s showing by the CAF, today 32 Oscars sweep the skies over the Chinese capital. They are unchallenged.

Elsewhere the war grinds on. Lord Howe Island bombed.
Both sides wrestle for air supremacy over Suva. Eleven B24 hit the airfield; they meet thirty Zero. Three Zero destroyed, four heavies lost, three damaged.

Even the Aleutians participate in the daily grind with six P38 sweeping Adak, meeting six Zero and no losses on either side.

The B17s that hit Lord Howe Island carry not only bombs but also cameras. Not the dedicated, sophisticated contraptions that recon machines have but simpler units on the bomb bay that take images after the bombs have been released to document the damage done. An army of analysts pore over these images, not only to assess bomb damage but also to try to estimate, guess, divine what the enemy has there. Today their assessment is that there are three units at LHI, an engineer regiment, the 19th Independent, the 43 JNAAF and the 63rd NGU.

The brass decides to bring a full division to LHI, 3rd Marines. Orders sent and the Marines start preparing. 1st Marine continues preparations for the invasion of Norfolk Island which will occur first.

At Canton Island the PBY will recon Vaitupu and Funafuti as part of Operation Duck Gun.

A mighty battleship, of a class not seen before departs Balboa. South Dakota enters the Pacific heading for San Francisco.