Part 97: Operational Report: 13/03/42

The troop ships returning to Pearl after the Einwetock invasion are harassed once more by enemy planes, but the flack from the destroyer screen is enough to keep the enemy from making any real attack runs.



We even bag a kill in the second wave, which is always good for morale.
These two raids are the sum of the morning air battles – and I mean it, we only see these two raids in the entire theatre.

They return in the afternoon as one combined raid, but that is still ineffective.



The next raid is on the other convoy just leaving Einwetock, but these ships are not as lucky, as the San Francisco takes two hits.







The enemies raid south of Soerabaja is massively over escorted, two squadrons of Zeros protecting one of Vals.



The raid by carrier based aircraft at Soerabaja seems to be designed to take out the large number of patrol boats in the harbour. This seems a waste of the three planes lost, as although they sink eight ships, each one was mounted with only two browning 50 cal machine guns.



Batavia receives a pounding from the Japanese artillery, rather than a proper attack, the Japanese conserving their strength.



The Japanese are now using Singapore as a base for their planes, and launch an ineffectual strike on Medan in Sumatra.



Djambi sees a massed raid that causes only 6 casualties.







The Imperial Army step up their attack at Sinyang, and today cause nearly even casualties, with a total of nearly six thousand men being killed or wounded today in the battle.



The Hankow offensive begins just as I expected it to – with heavy casualties on both sides.



The difference being, their losses were 1,000 out of 9,000 – ours were 1,200 out of 45,000 men. We could continue this for eight more days and they would be wiped out and we would still have over 30,000 men left.

We also capture Kukong – that empty base – without loss.






Once more China is heating up as we get more attacks going in the area, and only the hit on the San Francisco was of any import today.



She's hit hard, but we've seen much worse ships limp back into port. I'm sure she can make it back to Pearl.

The other ship of not arrived yesterday, but I forgot about her.



The Formidable is another medium sized carrier, and will be sent down to Sydney to support any operations I make from there.