Part 166: Operational Report: 21/05/42

The Japanese sail more ships into Port Moresby, this time, two battleships open up on the shore. They land many shells, but cause no damage to the military installations there.



At Lunga, men moved across from Tulagi come ashore to attempt to recapture the island from the reported 500 men defending it.



The Gato makes a surface attack on a Japanese freighter, but find she is armed and soon drives our sub off.



The Japanese begin to land troops in Lea, so we give them a visit from the Banshee's.



This is not enough to stop the Japanese taking the base from us.



In the afternoon, the Banshee's go after the Ise comes under attack, but we fail to get any hits on her.





There is a Japanese sub prowling near Vancover.



I need to beef up security up there, I should have some more ASW ships around.





Over Chittagong, things go horribly wrong for us.



Our planes take a hammering, overwhelmed by enemy three times their number. We don't lose any pilots, but there are some big names in the ticker.



Wigglesworth is shot down! He's wounded, but he'll be back soon enough.
With no CAP to protect the base, the airfield gets a bomber raid later in the day, which costs us another Hurricane.



Then those blasted Bettys go after our supply airfield in full force.



To make matters worse, they ground forces continue to advance towards this base. I need to get some more defenders towards the area.





The Betty's and Nells return to Wake once more.



We also get reports from spotter planes of three ships west of Midway. I must remember to send them a surprise.
The Pompano uses dud torpedoes on another target.







Sinyang continues on as normal.



Kiukiang also continues to cost the enemy dear with their futile assaults.



The Imperial Army has moved in to Tsiyaun behind our forces, their 60,000 men overwhelm the garrison there, meaning our men to the east are now cut off and need to reverse their direction.



We make some more progress at Tsiatso.









Canton Island is ours!



One more bit of the Pacific reclaimed from the Japanese.






A busy day, with ups and downs for both sides. The 67th was crippled for a while, and I may need to call the fighters back to Calcutta and leave Chittagong to the mercy of the enemy bombers for a time, while we rebuild the numbers of the depleted squadrons.

With the enemy ships reported near Midway, I'm sending out the Yorktown to meet them, I doubt it will be a carrier, so she will be in little danger (I hope), and we may be able to bag ourselves some destroyers or even a cruiser.
Or it may be nothing more than a fuel burning mission.