Part 398: Operational Report: 08/01/43

The Sawfish is spotted by the escorts of a convoy she is stalking, but easily avoids them.



She tries again, and hits a freighter with a dud torpedo, the slips off once more.



The Haddock is luckier, and gets a solid strike at the enemy.



The Shanghai Express continues to slowly but surely destroy the Hiroshima Naval Shipyards.



I really wish I could get more planes into Shanghai, but the airfield can only take so many, so two raids a day must be the limit.







The Japanese send a military task force to hit our men unloading at Rio-Namur



Our warships do their best to screen the troop transports, but they take some damage before the Japanese ships are driven off.



Then another cruiser comes in, and savages the already damaged task force before she to is driven off.



We lose two ships, and numerous men on board them.
The carriers finally get some planes into the air, but even a massed force of bombers is unable to do more than confirm the damage that has been done to the ships.



The Isuzu is not so lucky, and takes three more hits.



The Betty's still operational in the area attack our forces at Nauru, and the Marblehead takes a hit.



We also strike the airfield at Kwajalein, causing only minor damage.



The reports of ground combat begin to come in, Makin is a few days from being taken.



Roi-Namur is going to take some time as well, but we are progressing well here.







There is a Japanese force near Milne Bay, our Beauforts make an attack, but get no hits.



At Guadalcanal, a large pocket of Japanese defenders surrenders to us, and a tenth of the estimated remaining Imperial forces are gone without the loss of a single allied life.







We launch another attack on Kiangtum and things are still looking good here.









That's the first large scale surface combat we've seen in a long time. Those Japanese cruisers were a surprise, I did not expect them to be so viscous in their attacks. But they are all damaged now, so hopefully we can hunt them down using the carriers.



Here is the task force at Rio-Namur sorted by damage. Things don't look good for the Kota Baroe.



But we're making ground on the islands themselves, but this was always going to be a tough nut to crack, there are just so many Japanese units in the area.