Part 96: Operational Report: 12/03/42

The Japanese Air Force send a wave of unescorted bombers over Soerabaja, and our CAP happily trades a few bombs in the runway for one of their planes.



The enemy carriers have moved off to the south of Java now, and there are more likely three of them from the numbers we see today.



A damaged Dutch sub, a damaged tanker and a couple of patrol ships are sunk, but we do manage to down some of the Japanese planes, and those carrier pilots are just to valuable for the enemy to be losing in any numbers.

Batavia sees continued fierce fighting, but the Japanese don't seem to be making any headway beyond wearing down our men through attrition.








Once more the Japanese try and penetrate the flack over Einwetok, and today they pay as they lose a plane to the clouds of black death thrown up by our men.



Seemingly frustrated by this, they then hit one of the supply convoys coming into the island, which has plotted a course to close to the enemy held islands. Two ships and one enemy plane are destroyed in the raid.







The Japanese should really stick to bombarding Sinyang, as they lose four to one in today's assault on our defences.



I'm sure they will be back to lobbing shells at us tomorrow. They really cannot afford to keep up the attacks like this.







Definitely another rest day for the air and sea arms, I'm not sure the army will ever get a rest day.



So what do I do on a quiet day?
Go to China!



So while Sinyang has been the main focal point for a while, I've not been idle – I've just been waiting for my men to get into position, I'm now going to open up Hankow as a new battleground. This should be trhe first of many new battles in the coming weeks, this theater is going to explode if I've done things right.



As you can see, the Japanese forces here number around 17,500 men, so to combat this, I've moved these units into the area.



with these near 50,000 men, we have over a 2:1 advantage over the enemy. I'm ordering our men to make a shock attack tomorrow.

I also replace most of the Generals in the army, and half of the Generals at Sinyang – something that I should have done days ago!

I also notice that near Canton in Kukong, I have men in an enemy base that seems to have no defenders, so I give the order to attack – it seems that these Chinese Generals have no initiative.




At Pearl Harbour more of the ships damaged in the Marshall Islands campaign are back in port. I set them to be repaired.



Only the battleship Colorado needs to be taken off-line for any repairs, so I do so. I do plan to move these battleships in a few days, but we need a little more time to shore them up.