Part 60: Operational Report: 04/02/42

The Pickerel tries to help the defenders of Kavieng, but her one hit on an attacking destroyer is a dud, and she's forced to hide from her prey after that.



Unfortunately he cannot prevent the small company of defender from being overwhelmed by over a thousand Japanese troops.



Over at Port Moresby, we finally see some more action. Its been very quiet since the arrival of the Hurricanes, the enemy have not risked any of their planes over our airspace in a week.
Today, they let a task force of ships get to close, and into dive bomber range.



Singapore is being bombed as well as bombarded, we don't down any planes today, but continue to damage a large number of them.



Without proper defences, the Japanese army begins to inflict heavy casualties on our troops. Their own are not light, but are nearly half of our losses.



The carriers of the Imperial Navy are continuing to move westward, but today strike at near maximum range at Lautem.









The S-38 attacks a cargo ship off Leyte, the attack starts with the ship being strafed by 30 cal machine gun fire, before the captain tells his overenthusiastic crew to stop wasting AA ammo and switches to torpedoes.



The enemy push on Manila, and both sides take heavy losses during the house to house fighting in the city.








Some of the Blenheim bombers from Rangoon raid Avuthia near Bangkok. What this small raid could hope to accomplish is beyond me, and why they were bombing this city rather than the large enemy force right next to them is beyond me.







The defenders of Pucheng continue to butcher the attacking Japanese.



These men are really lifting my spirits, and I may consider ordering them to attack, but for now its much more effective to let the enemy throw themselves at our trenches.

After days of bombing, the Imperial Army has moved into Chengchow, and have suffered for the ground they have taken.



China is a bad place to be a Japanese soldier today.




The Japanese defenders of Luganville have realized that help is not coming, and that I am happy to starve them out at this point, so have launched a heavy attack on our lines, but in their weakened state, they make no gains and suffer heavy losses.



Tanna in the south is taken without loss today, its taken several days to confirm there are no enemy on the island.






Today's theme is heavy ground losses.



31 points worth if Japanese casualties against 49 points of our own, we may not have come out on top, but at least we're hurting them.







Port Moresby's defences are looking good, some more fighters have arrived, and we now have 119 fighters and 52 dive bombers.



Add to this the 21,000 troops defending the city, and the enemy will have a hard time taking it now.

I just wish I had enough troops in the area to mount an offensive.