Part 11: Operational Report: 17/12/41
A Dutch sub opens up the day's actions, causing heavy damage to a freighter. From the name its seems to be a captured British ship.
Whatever its former nationality, its left burning from the explosion. The same sub then hits a ship loaded with sailors, and from the number of bodies in the water and seen jumping from the ship, the captain estimates there were some heavy casualties on-board.
The next morning she completes her hat trick and hits a third ship in the same area. Once more there are two confirmed torpedo explosions.
Another brutal ground attack pushed back a Chinese Corps and takes another base from us. There are more Chinese troops captured with light losses on the Japanese part.
With low supplies and next to no training, its unsurprising the average Chinese peasant is unwilling to fight.
A Japanese sub hits one of the destroyers sallying forth from Manilla. The destroyer soon sinks from the damage inflicted on it. This is the sum of this move of mine, making it a dismal failure.
The CAP over Manilla is becoming weaker all the time, and the attacks stronger, three of the six planes that take to the air are shot down.
The Prince of Wales is 120 miles out of Soerabaja when yet another disaster strikes.
A Japanese sub finds the relatively lightly escorted battleship and puts another torpedo into her. This is a nightmare, as it seems that the Prince of Wales is a cursed ship, or at least a torpedo magnet. We'll have to see if this new hit causes enough damage to sink her - this makes three torpedo hits in two weeks for the battleship, but she's not gone down yet.
The defenders of George Town have to put up with a large bombardment, with only a few fighters to defend them. There are only 30 people killed on the ground, but this is an obvious move to soften up the defences.
Another landing force arrives in an area previously untouched by the war. Ternate quickly surrenders to this surprise attack, giving the enemy a base in this sector of the Dutch East Indies.
Rangoon comes under attack for the first time today, the Buffalo's manage to destroy one of the attacking planes and protect the cruiser Dauntless in the harbour. A second wave is also disrupted, at the cost of one fighter.
An average day in the field, it looks like we took out another squadron in one of those ships, we seem to be doing well with that. Everything else was fairly even.
It seems that the attack on Rabaul is going to be reinforced by a whole army. Even if this is just a fancy name for a regiment or division, this is going to be more than the defenders in the region can cope with.
It also seems that both ships hit by the Dutch subs went down. The Captain will be pleased with that.
The Prince of Wales is in a poor state, while not one fire, she is taking on a fair bit of water, and needs to return to Soerabaja, we will most likely need to have a go at patching her up before trying the run to Cape Town once more.
Beyond that, there is little to talk about this turn, everything that needs to be underway is underway, and no amount of staring will speed those ships up. There are two surface taskforces that are closing on the enemy landing forces, but for now we need wait.