Part 91: Operational Report: 07/03/42

The S-40 Makes a surface attack on a ship near Batavia, but only scores a few hits before being driven off by the targets deck gun.



The defenders see the last of their fortifications destroyed today as the enemy push forward, the fall of the city can not be to far away.



We also take some casualties to a Lilly raid down near Soerabaja, but they are minimal.



While the Javan capital gets its own regular visit from the Imperial Navy's carrier based planes. This time we get 16 P400's into the air, and shoot down three planes, although the Dutch sub KX Takes a hit during the attack.



In Sumatra, Djambi continues to see heavy enemy raids but little material damage as the enemy try to bomb the defenders back into the stone age.








The Mutsu is unable to get away today, and gets a morning visit from our planes, she takes another dozen hits, but is still floating according to the pilots.



Of course, we make sure to visit the smaller ships as well, we don't want them feeling at all left out when it comes to our attention.



in fact, the first afternoon raid concentrates on the cruiser Kitakami, and sinks her, as well as placing more bombs onto the thick top armour of the Mutsu.



In fact, that armour seems to be absorbing a great deal of punishment, even from the 1000lb bombs being dropped on the ship in great numbers. We do finish off on of the destroyers in a later wave though.




These battleships must have been intended to soften up Wake before the enemy landed fresh troops there. I suspect this as the other carrier flight finds a troop convoy and sinks on of the ships.






The daily bloodbath at Sinyang continues today, as the Japanese continue to throw wave after wave of their men at our defenders.









Those dam battleships are build tough, although we do get to see a nice screen today



our only loss was a PT boat that had been damaged ages ago. The enemy however have lost a cruiser, a destroyer and we know that there is one badly damaged battleship out there � what happened to the other ship is anyone guess. Lets hope she's at the bottom of the ocean!



An invasion of Kopeng is planned - this is an island between Java and Australia, where we are currently loosing a good number of bombers on the ground as they cannot get to the mainland from there, and I'm not sending a ship into Betty range to get some outdated planes.

On checking the aircraft withdrawal screen, I get a nasty surprise



90% of the planes defending Port Moresby are due to be withdrawn this week. I could try and keep them around, but the political ramifications would be dire, and I need those points to free up ground troops of the 41st Division just turned up in Seattle, and I need 1000 points to get them moved to my command.

I have no planes to replace these in the area, So I'm going to ave to see about shipping some more in from the west coast.