apbarog
Posts: 3769
Joined: 5/23/2002 Status: offline
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16 Oct 42 I spotted enemy ships at Carnavon yesterday. I diverted a cruiser force to run full speed into Carnavon. During the night, Seawolf spotted the Japanese ships but missed DD Yukikaze with 4 torpedoes. I spotted a task force leaving Carnavon to the southwest, a task force that turned out to be at least one small tanker. During the day, Japanese ships arrived at Carnavon and found 3 Dutch destroyers. Day Time Surface Combat, near Carnarvon at 49,133, Range 25,000 Yards Japanese Ships CA Kako CL Yubari, Shell hits 3 DD Kuroshio, Shell hits 1 DD Oyashio, Shell hits 1, on fire DD Yukikaze, Shell hits 2 DD Yamagumo Allied Ships DD Piet Hein, Shell hits 12, and is sunk DD Evertsen, Shell hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage DD Van Ghent, Shell hits 15, and is sunk A follow-up engagement sank Evertsen. Oyashio is SYS 28/FLOT 13-4/ENG 28-6/FIRE 0 and split off to head to Port Hedland for fuel. The other ships are going to Port Hedland also. 2 big Zero units swept Chungking from Ichang. Over 120 fighters have been showing at Chungking, but far fewer actually flew, and all were Chinese. No matter. The P-43s performed excellently, mostly flying higher than the Zeros. The Zero pilots are the cream of the crop. Many elite pilots. I have to think that the Chinese pilots are very good also, seeing the results. Total air losses were 24 Zeros for downing 10 P-43A-1s and 7 P-66s. 11 Japanese pilots were KIA on the entire map. Most were here. This was a bit of a waste of good pilots. I pulled the Zeros out, moving them to Canton to recover. 2 big Oscar squadrons took their place at Ichang, and they will try to sweep Chungking today. The Oscar pilots are very good but not as elite as the Zero pilots, and are more easily replaced. Hurricanes swept and Blens bombed east of Akyab, hitting a Thai division and an RF gun unit in the jungle est of Akyab. Australian B-17s hit Gove. I'm now set up with fighter protection at Buna, unspotted. The B-17s will show up their eventually. Buna has been hit before. Dutch sub O16 hit APD Satsuki with a torpedo at Mataram. Satsuki had just dropped off an infantry fragment that is capturing the empty base. Satsuki is gravely hurt, with SYS 36/FLOT 90-62/ENG 16-7/FIRE 2. If Mataram had flipped to Japanese control, I could have disbanded the ship into port. But it did not. I could keep the ship in place, where O16 obviously is. I decide for it to try to make it to Denpassar, 2 hexes away. The ship is not likely to make it. Side note: OPilot is showing recon interest of Ndeni. Ndeni is not heavily defended, and could have been the invasion target of what appeared to be an aborted invasion armada weeks ago. I'm still get regular heavy activity messages on SigInt for Pearl Harbor. Pearl is a hotbed for US ship activity. That could mean a lot of things. KB remains hidden in the Marshalls, waiting.
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