FeurerKrieg
Posts: 3397
Joined: 6/15/2005 From: Denver, CO Status: offline
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August 6th, 1942 Carrier battle at Johnston Island! Today our carriers engaged the Americans in a vicious air battle. Unfortunately the Americans came out on top in the contest, but thankfully, we still have a very large portion of our carrier fleet safe at the Home Islands, whereas every US carrier was involved in this battle. The battle isn't over yet though, and we may still get some licks in tomorrow with LBA from Palmyra, and likewise, things could go from not-a-victory to a real defeat if the enemy carrier continue their attack! Through the night many minesweepers were clearing our mines at Johnston. There were some 2500 mines still in place when the island was captured yesterday. As day broke, float planes and scouts from both sides spotted enemy carriers and all carrier task forces reacted in unison, moving to within 120 miles of one another. Both sides launched strikes around the same time. The American strikes came in against the Japanese fleet and the initial group was relatively small, 22 F4F-4's and 15 SBDs. These ran into a CAP of 123 A6M2's. All the enemy fighters were shot down, as were 10 SBDs, 5 turned and headed back to safety. Next, 15 SBD's arrived with no escort. These were all shot down easily. Finally, the main US strike of 6 F4F-3, 41 F4F-4 and 73 SBDs arrived, facing a still potent, but tiring, CAP of 80 some A6M2s. The battle was rough and although our fighters performed very well, downing nearly all the enemy fighters, there were just too many SBDs to stop them all. Some 54 SBD's approached our carriers, and several of those were shot down from heavy AA fire. Even so, Junyo, Hiyo, and Soryu each took 1, 2 and 3 1000lbs bombs respectively. Thankfully at this point none of the ships were heavily damaged, although Hiyo did suffer from a Fuel explosion. All three carriers did have fires to contend with however. Another smaller strike arrived of 14 F4F-4s and 29 SBDs. Only 48 Zeros remained aloft at this point, and although they took down most of the fighters, they only dropped 5 of the bombers. Thankfully many of these bombers attacked battleship Fuso, scoring two hits that did negligible damage. One SBD did manged to hit Soryu again. Finally the last morning strike arrived. This one consisted of 18 F4F-4 and 30 SBDs. Again, nearly all the fighters were shot down, but most of the bombers made it through. They hit Junyo once more and put two more bombs into Soryu, which was definitely hurting after these last two bombs. Seeing all these fighters made me think that perhaps the defending CAP would be low, but the lack of TBDs on attack was soon explained when our first strike hit the enemy. Even though they had attacked us with 95 F4F-4s and 6 F4F-3s, they still had 99 F4F-4s and 6 F4F-3s up on CAP. Still, I was hopeful with a large strike we could get through. The first attack was small, 9 Zeros, 26 Vals and 28 Kates. The Zeros on escort had a tough time against so many enemy fighter, but they damaged 9 of the enemy at least. After 21 bombers were shot down, the rest headed for home, realizing they wouldn't make it to the target. Still, this attack did tire the enemy CAP a bit. Our next attack was very well coordinated, consisting of 44 Zeros, 60 Vals and 111 Kates. Our Zeros fought very well even though they were outnumbered, taking down 28 enemy fighters while 32 of the Zeros went down. Some 45 bombers were shot down, but 83 Kates and 44 Vals lined up on target. With so many planes I was sure we would score many hits, especially considering many of these pilots were veterans of Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately though, the spirits weren't with them today. Out of 127 bombers attacking, the only hits scored were a 60kg GP and a 250kg AP bomb hit on CV Enterprise. Our last morning strike of 9 Zeros, 21 Vals and 23 Kates managed to get about half of their planes through the CAP. These faired a bit better, although all the Kates still missed. The Vals put two 250kg AP bombs into CV Hornet. Both side were pretty well spent, but more planes were launched in the afternoon. The US strike of 39 F4F-4 and 16 SBD hit a weak CAP of 31 Zero which shot down 7 fighters and 1 Bomber. CV Kaga took a bomb hit, but it did little damage to the big ship. The Japanese strike of 17 Zeros, 13 Vals and 24 kates did no better, scoring no hits on the enemy ships, although they lost few of their number since the enemy CAP of 33 fighters was also very weak. To finish the air combat, 3 Bettys arrived at Johnston and put two torpedoes into a cargo ship there. Some 28 Bettys from Palmyra and Midway had attempted attacks but got lost enroute to their target. Clearly, the enemy carriers had swapped TBDs for extra fighters. The good news is that they are out of range for TBDs to fly in from Hawaii since they reacted towards our carriers. In contrast, our Carriers have flown off all operable Val and Kates to Palmyra, and flown in several Zeros from Kwajelein. Tomorrow we should be able to maintain a CAP of 60-80 Zeros. Hopefully it will be enough to protect our carriers as they head back to Kwaj. Some 120 Bettys and Nells have arrived at Palmyra and will also attempt to continue their attacks now that the enemy carriers CAP has been severely weakened. If our carriers can avoid any more hits, they may well make it back to Kwajelein where repairs can get underway. Losses for the day: F4F-4: 107 F4F-3: 11 SBD-3 Dauntless: 75 A6M2 Zero: 98 B5N2 Kate: 102 (34 of these were ops losses) D3A2 Val: 70 Nine floatplanes were also lost in air-to-air while they were on naval search. Carrier status: Soryu: 93/39/49 Hiyo: 48/29/38 Junyo: 39/23/20 First carrier battle of the war! In China, our air units continued the attack against Liuchow and the lead elements of our army arrived there today. The bulk of the army should arrive tomorrow. Some enemy reinforcements have arrived, hopefully we can still push them back.
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