Part 75: Operational Report: 19/02/42

Four torpedoes, one dud and one explosion. This seems to be par for the course, and the Stingray causes heavy damage to an enemy ship off their homeland.



The enemy continue to bomb Changsha, concentrating on the runway.



At Sinyang, after pushing the enemy out of their fortifications yesterday, we are able to push them out of the city today and force them to retreat.







The enemy begin to land troops to the north of Batavia, but the Dutch KXII is ready to protect her territories, and gets two for two into the side of an unloading troop ship.



But one sub cannot stop an invasion force, and the base is quickly taken, the attack on Batavia itself cannot be long in coming.

While it looks like the cruisers have made it out safely during the night, the Royal Sovereign is much slower due to her damage, and takes many hits during an air raid. Her think armour protects her from much of the damage from the 250kg bombs that strike her like a rainstorm.



She takes another three hits in the next raid, but still continues to sail. In the afternoon, another three bombs hit the battered ship, but still she continues to make her way south.

A strike at Soerabaja goes wrong for the enemy, as the P-39's take down two of the attacking planes and break up their attack.



Another raid a few hours later is also hammered, but makes it to their target.







The Battle for the Marshall Islands begins today, as the enemy bombers out of Wotje make an attack on the Lexington.



The enemy bombers give us a scare, getting through the fighter screen and attacking the carrier itself, but the flack guns on the fleet open up, and three of the planes are downed before they can make their attack, and the remaining planes are unable to hit the mighty ship.

Another raid is intercepted before it makes it to the ships, and the Wildcats have a field day with the unescorted bombers.



This is what we wanted, reducing the enemies ability to attack the troop transports by shooting down their planes.

Having found no ships in Wake Island, the planes sent to raid it bomb the runway there to prevent any planes that may be stationed in the area from taking off.







The Battle for Bataan continues, with the Imperial Air Force making its daily visits to the defenders of the city.



The Imperial Army continue to add their fire power to the bombardment, and hundreds are killed or wounded over the course of the day.



The former defenders of Manila, who have retreated south, have been pursued by the enemy and are also under heavy artillery bombardment.






The full might of the Japanese army is now attacking Rangoon, with thirty thousand men, they outnumber the defenders two to one, but are taking heavy losses striking at our well prepared
defences.









We're on the up again, we lost 5 planes to the enemies 36 yesterday, and they lost two ships to our none. Of these, 22 were those bastard Betty's, the bane of our shipping.



Yes, I'll admit the attack on the Lexington had me worried, but she was fine.

We've also reached a turning point, as the operations report shows.



The enemy are starting to admit to the ships lost on the first day of the war. That's one of their midget submarines. While its not important in itself, it means that the list of kills will now start to rebalance itself somewhat, and we should start to see a more accurate picture of the losses taken by the enemy.
Lets hope a carrier appears on there soon.



The enemy are sending even more troops to support their attack on Rangoon.

And because everyone will want to know, this is what the Royal Sovereign looks like after taking 16 bomb hits in a day.



She's only making a knot now, so I don't expect her to survive tomorrow without being sunk. But god dam, the British know how to build their ships.