tocaff
Posts: 4781
Joined: 10/12/2006 From: USA now in Brasil Status: offline
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July 26, 1942 Australia The MSW Colac, despite her prior damage from air strikes while she was in port at Darwin, is trying to escape the Japanese. She is about 140 miles north of Wyndham, making for Broome where she hopes to make additional repairs and take on fuel before trying for Perth. A lookout points to the east and he calls out, “The sky is filled with planes and they're all on a course for us!” The Colac can only make 7 knots and she valiantly tries to evade the Vals and Zeros. There are just to many planes, 24 X Zero and 25 X Val to fight off and she shudders as the first of seven bombs rip into her. As the planes retire to the carrier that they came from the twisted, burning hulk breaks in two and both sections slip beneath the waves. The crew has suffered heavy loses, but some have managed to avoid the fires and are trying to swim to a couple of life rafts. Some of the men already on the rafts are doing all they can to paddle to their mates in the water as they frantically gesture and shout, “SHARKS!” The coastal guns at Darwin continue hammering the Japanese shipping as the latter continue to disgorge troops and supplies. The Japanese suffer moderate troop loses today and 3 X PG are hit, all on fire and 2 are heavily damaged. The Australians also have hit 3 X AP, all on fire and 1 heavily damaged. Near Darwin the submarine Pompano manages to make two attacks on a convoy. The first attack was nullified by dud torpedoes, but the sub evaded the escorts in the darkness. On the second attack one torpedo detonated upon hitting an AP, which resulted in fires. Pompano was not as lucky this time as the escorts located her and hammered her for over an hour with depth charges. Pompano suffered light systems damage and moderate flooding, which the damage control parties expect to get under control. The artillery duels between the Australians and the Japanese continued with the Japanese suffering the worst of it. Pete and his cohorts enjoyed the spectacle of the Japanese ships being repeatedly hit by the coastal guns that they are charged with protecting. Now they turned their attention to the perimeter as the word is that the Japanese are moving towards their positions. Suddenly they are caught in the midst of an intense artillery barrage. “Oh crap!” screams a man, “I was just going to go off to the loo!” As suddenly as the shells hit them, they stop. An officer checks the defensive line and discovers that the bunker closest to Pete's position has suffered a direct hit and all five of the men there are dead. He calls for the two positions immediately to the right and left to dispatch two mean each to the destroyed bunker. “What I want you men to do is remove the bodies, fix the position up as best as you can and man the machine gun. I've checked it and it's functional. You there,” he points to Pete, “You are the new gunner. Watch me closely and I'll show you how to kill the Jappos when they come.” Pete watches the officer and when he's asked if he's got it Pete nods. As the officer goes to leave them he shows another man how to load and feed the ammo belts so they don't jam. “You men better clean the dirt off of the ammo so you don't suffer jams.” With that he's off and Pete starts moving shattered bodies out of the position that is now little more than a hole in the ground. He reaches to grab a body and the arm comes off in his hands and Pete immediately starts throwing up. Today's intel report reads as follows: 498.5K troops at Hiroshima 48 CB is at Rahaeng 57 CB is at Rangoon 5 AFCB is at Sinkep Island 9 AvR is at Hailar 3 AAR is at Tokyo 31 AAR is at Sapporo There was another air raid at Chungking consisting of 33 X Zero, 7 X Kate, 25 X Helen and 3 X Babs which was met by 2 valiant P-40Es. The Japanese did light damage to the base and destroyed 3 X P-40E, 2 X I-153c and 1 X IL-4c in return for their losing 1 Zero shot down, 2 damaged Kates and 1 destroyed Helen with 5 others damaged. An advanced Chinese position in the Chungking area was attacked by 98K Japanese troops, who lost 288/17/2 in the attack. The Chinese troops, who numbered 18.8K lost 439/14/0 and retreated towards Chungking. It was only a matter of time before the Japanese went after Chungking and it looks like it'll be a major battle. At Sian the Japanese and Chinese exchanged artillery barrages, both suffering equally. Bill is bored out of his mind, but the Navy has no use for him at the present time so he reads Sandy's letters, writes back to her and gets to know the city of San Francisco.
< Message edited by tocaff -- 3/27/2010 6:52:18 PM >
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