Part 73: Operational Report: 17/02/42

Changsha takes another heavy day of bombing, as the remains of the runway is reduced to rubble.



West of Kaifeng, our troops make a vigorous attack on the enemy forces, causing heavy casualties on them and forcing them back. Our China offensive is beginning to gain speed.







Another of the convoys fleeing Java is hit today, and we lose another ship.



Our Swordfish go out to try and slow the flow of troop ashore at Kalidjati. They manage to get a hit on one of the unloading ships, its not much, but its better than letting them all get ashore.



They return in the afternoon to get another couple of strikes on another ship.



but this is not enough to stop the Japanese from securing another beachhead in Java.



The carriers launch a full strike at another convoy, this time we have some planes in the air, but they are slaughtered by the Zero's escorting the bombers.



The loss of three ships is another blow, as one of them is a valuable tanker.

At Port Moresby, the Banshee's make it through the large number of Zeros without loss, but fail to get any hits on the ships in Gasmata.



While on the ground, the less than one hundred defenders are quickly captured by the attacking troops.





The enemy try a push at Rangoon, but our troops are forced back by our forces.







We lose the last of the Ellice Islands today.






We have all but lost Java now, the Japanese Army now has two ports to unload its troops into, and even the sterling work of the Allied Navies has not slowed their invasion one jot.



And today's intelligence report, of little use as normal.



The only thing of note is the 29th Division is moving to Moulmein, this is to support the attack on Rangoon.





As this is the forgotten front, I thought I'd spend a bit more time going over it, as we're doing well here now, and the other fronts are all running on plans and don't need any real orders.

There are three main areas of attack going on here, spread across hundreds of miles of China.



Pucheng, as you know, is going well, the enemy have moved more unit up, so our advance has been halted, but if we can continue to hit the enemy there we can hope to break them again. We have 7,500 front line troops and the same in the rear areas. The enemy has a estimated 15,000 troops against us.

Sinyang in the “Centre” has some seriously strong units. We have 17,000 front line troops and 20,000 support units in the area.



The only problem is that their experience is fairly low. And having only arrived in the area, we only know that there are five Japanese units in the area, and nothing else about them. Hopefully we can make some advances here.

To the north, in Kaifeng, we are advancing, and the enemy are estimated to have 16,500 men, and we will be moving 18,000 front liners and 14,000 support units.

We're force to concentrate on these areas, as the enemy are very strong in the Wuchang area with 20 units estimated to be in the city, so an attempt to cut their supply lines would be the best bet, but that's a whole load of area to cover.