Part 258: Operational Report: 21/08/42

The Dutch subs are still out there, but they are being less than successful.



The Japanese sail a battleship, the Yamashiro, into the bay at Guadalcanal. There she finds a number of supply ships that are at the end of an unload cycles, and quickly despatch them all.



They then move onto another task force and deal the same to then.



These battleship raids are getting annoying.



As dawn comes, the invasion fleet is attacked. Fighters from Port Moresby have been given long range CAP orders, while the British carriers have been forced to return to Sydney for refuelling. The Warhawks and flak are more than enough to drive off the inaccurate Lilly bombers.



Then an unescorted raid of Sallys comes over, and it is cut to shreds.



The afternoon raid of Lillys only gets two planes through our fighter screen, but we only get three of the planes.



Then the Sallys return, and we bag another one.



Our own dive bombers head out, but are unable to get a hit on the small craft they find.



Their afternoon attack is much more successful.







The Sailfish runs into some trouble off Japan, but escapes without damage.



The main Japanese force in the north, numbering 4 Divisions, push our own much, much smaller force out of the city of Kalgan.



While the men at Hong Kong continue to do their job.







Once more, we have a Japanese sub patrolling off Ceylon.



And there is another massed raid on Chittagong, this time we don't have the planes to stop them, and the two men who get into the air are quickly brought down again.









That was a poor day, we may have take out a good number of enemy planes, but the losses in shipping at Guadalcanal is much more costly.



Again, we have nothing that could have saved these men though.



The 41st Infantry division has made it back to San Francisco, although they are a division in name only now.



Attacks on Port Moresby and Eniwetock are both still planned, but I'm not worried to much about them.