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January 21, 1942

 
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January 21, 1942 - 7/11/2010 1:22:22 PM   
Thayne

 

Posts: 748
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Status: offline 		THE THAYNE REPORTS: THE ADMIRALS' EDITION
January 21, 1942 - Potential Invasion of Ellice Islands Intercepted

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


Potential Ellice Island Invasion Intercepted

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) The Navy Department is reporting today that SS-S23, a coastal submarine operating out of Samoa under the command of Commander Hank Turner, torpedoed and sank a Japanese troop-carrying transport north of the Ellice Islands yesterday.

Ellice Islands is a small group of islands laying just east of a line from Canton Island to Samoa. The Navy Department had been eyeing the islands itself, but has so far lacked the man power to occupy these islands.

Whoever occupies the islands will fill a part of the gap currently separating the American line of defense from Canton Island to Samoa to Fiji and the maximum distance of the Japanese advance.

The American carriers Yorktown and Lexington are just 400 miles northeast of the Ellice Islands where they subjected the Japanese occupants of Baker Island to another day of bombing. The carriers have altered course to pass near Ellice Islands on their way to Fiji, where they will relieve Saratoga in watching over the American buildup there.


Submarine Squadron Protects Allied Communications

(Pago Pago - Samoa) The sinking of a Japanese transport north of the Ellice Islands has brought our attention to the submarine tender USS Fulton (AS-11) Commander Earl Sheetz at Pago Pago.

Fulton landed about four weeks ago with orders to try to intercept Japanese transport ships attempting to occupy the islands of the South Pacific and Japanese raiders attempting to infiltrate the Allied line of communications.

In addition to the sinking of the transport ship yesterday, SS-18 under the command of Commander George Lane torpedoed and shelled a Japanese transport just north of the New Hebrides Islands, though there was no sign that the transport carried troops.

The submarine tender is a newly constructed ship sponsored by Mrs. A. T. Sutcliff, the great grand daughter of Robert Fulton, who historians credit with making the first successful steamboat. The War Department was already prepared to send troops to Pago Pago to reinforce the island, considered a key link on the chain from America to Australia. To better protect the island, the Navy Department ordered Fulton to Pago Pago as well, and assigned a fleet of five coastal submarines.

Coastal submarines do not have the range of standard fleet submarines, so are best operated out of ports close to the enemy. No port along the allied chain is capable of tending to the requirements for an American submarine. So, the submarine tenders were built to augment the abilities of local ports with shops and equipment specifically tailored to fit out submarines.

In addition to having a large stock of spare parts and machine shops capable of making parts not on hand, the tenders have a mess hall, showers, and sleeping quarters for crews resting from a tour of duty in enemy waters.


Calcutta Airfield Survey Deems Air Ports Inadequate

(Calcutta - India) A joint American-British Survey on the adequacy of air fields in eastern India has judged them entirely inadequate for the tasks they will be asked to perform in the anticipated Japanese attack on Burma.

In light of these findings, the report made a number of recommendations aiming at improving the power of the air units operating out of India.

These recommendations include lengthening the runways at Calcutta and Dacca to better handle the take-off requirements of a fully laden B-17 bomber, as well as adding disbursement capability and separate fighter airstrips at the bases at Imphal, Dimapur, Jorhat, and Ledo.

The survey also examined the allied airfield at Chittagong, which the British air force as expecting to use as a forward base, and judged it too vulnerable to serve that purpose.

According to the report, the airstrips are too close to the shore and subject to naval bombardment. In addition, Chittagong must be considered a prime target for a Japanese invasion and such an airfield risks falling into Japanese hands.

As a result, the British have ordered the Hudson bombers that it was planning to base out of Calcutta to Dimapur instead.

The survey has been widely criticized by the Royal Air Force for being idealistic and unreasonable. One senior officer who asked not to be identified said, "Where do they expect us to get the crews to build these air bases? Carve them out of wood?"

Eastern India, like Burma, is suffering from a shortage of engineers. The Japanese was able to drive the Royal Air Force out of Burma by systematically destroying all of the air strips faster than the few engineering units in the area could repair them.

The survey pointed to America as a potential source for engineers to work on the airfields.

The survey was completed just as the first planes of the American 7th Bomber Group started to arrive in Dacca. The first plane landed two days ago, and flew out on its first mission - a reconnaissance mission into Thailand, immediately this morning - as three more B-17s landed.

One of the B-17s was immediately pulled aside for repairs as its pilot reported its Number 3 engine operating fast and hot during the flight from Batavia, Java.

The rest of the squadron is strung out on a line of bases going all the way back to the South Pacific.

The British are also expecting two Hurricane fighter squadrons and a medium bomber squadron to arrive in east India from Africa by the end of the month.





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January 22, 1942 - 7/16/2010 3:08:26 AM   
Thayne

 

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January 22, 1942 - Ellice Island Invasion Thwarted

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.



Ellice Islands Saved

The pilots of VS-2 from the carrier Lexington sank a Japanese troop transport ship in the Ellice Islands today. Combined with the efforts of the submarine S-23, which sank a Japanese transport yesterday, these efforts have almost certainly thwarted Japanese plans to occupy these islands.

Military experts are suggesting that the Japanese were intending to occupy two islands in the Ellice Island chain with good ports in an attempt to push the boundaries of its empire out as far as possible. American forces sank the two transports - and the troops they carried - before they could reach their destinations.

Float planes from heavy cruiser Minneapolis spotted the Japanese transport just 20 miles northwest of the island of Funafuti, making for the island. Rear Admiral Fred Sherman, captain of Lexington opted to send the scout squadron to take care of the transport so that his bomber squadrons would be available in case other ships were discovered, such as Japanese carriers or a surface force.

VS-2 proves worthy of the confidence that Sherman placed in it. They hit the transport with seven 1000-pound bombs. The Japanese ship capsized and sank before some of the SBD dive bombers were able to get their turn against the target.

The scout squadron, as is their nature, spent some time looking for additional Japanese ships on which to use their bombs, but could find none. They dropped their bombs into the water and returned home.

Sherman then ordered seaplanes dispatched to pick up survivors. Some of the Japanese responded by shooting at the rescue planes. F4F fighters answered by strafing the Japanese in the water.

Other potential prisoners shot themselves or blew themselves up as the seaplanes approached.

Ultimately, the sea planes rescued 19 Japanese soldiers.


Halsey Submits Training Program as Enterprise Enters Drydock

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) Rear Admiral Bill Halsey, after receiving estimates that USS Enterprise will likely be in dry dock for 6 to 8 weeks undergoing repairs, submitted a plan to fleet headquarters yesterday to use the time training naval pilots.

Halsey noted in his report that the fact that Enterprise was laid up did not mean that that its pilots should be freed up to serve on he other carriers. He provided Nimitz with a list of his 30 best pilots to be placed in general reserve for the other carriers to draw upon if those carriers needed pilots.

In their place, Halsey drew fresh pilots into his squadrons with the intention of giving them six to eight weeks of intensive training - for however long it took to repair Enterprise.

Nimitz approved the plan, with the first lessons to take place at Hickam Field the next morning.


Q&A from The Tanna Landings

Thayne Report was granted to submit a number of questions to the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Ocean Areas yesterday regarding the upcoming landings at Tanna in the New Hebrides Islands.

The following article gives an edited account of the answers we received.

Though these answers came from the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Ocean Area, we have been told that lower-ranked individuals typed up the answers which Admiral Nimitz then approved.

THAYNE: You seem to be treating the landings at Tanna as if they are a big deal.Yet, some of people consider this operation to be, in a word, trivial. You are landing soldiers on a base that is not occupied by enemy forces nor currently being contested..

CinCPOA: We know that Japan is planning an attack on New Caledonia with a full division. That attack is going to arrive with considerable strength. Japanese carriers have patrolled the New Hebrides twice. We have not had any information on the location of the Japanese carrier force - the one that destroyed Pearl Harbor. All of those facts make this operation hazardous.

THAYNE: There have been massive complaints from the Australians about their shortage of troops. Reinforcements from America are stopping at Fiji, while reinforcements from Africa and the Middle East stop at Ceylon. They have threatened to recall all of their troops. How have you responded to these threats?

CinCPOA: By pointing out that Japan has had a history of isolating its enemy in order to destroy it. Japan surrounded China, except for the Burma Road - and now it is after the Burma Road. Japan isolated the Philippines by taking bases in the south and are reducing the Philippines to dust. If Japan takes Fiji and Ceylon, Then Australia will go the same route as the Philippines.

THAYNE: And they accept this?

CinCPOA: Not fully. We had to make some promises if Australia is ever invaded. Australia will then get its units from Ceylon and the units promised to the southwest Pacific from the United States. We have advised the Australians to evacuate its northern coast.

THAYNE: What are your biggest worries? What can the Japanese do to really hut you at this time?

CinCPOA: I mentioned that we haven't seen the Japanese carrier force in quite some time. I'm worried that they will arrive in New Hebrides with a sizable surface force while we are carrying out our operations.

THAYNE: What is the good news? Or is there any good news?

CinCPOA: The good news is that we have conducted four offensive operations against the Japanese expansion in the Eastern Pacific. That includes two raids against the Gilbert Islands, one attack on Wake, and a sweep of Baker Island and the Ellice Islands. We have sunk damaged a battleship and sunk two cruisers. We have also sunk a number of troop-laden transports and prevented the Japanese from occupying the Ellice Islands, at least for now.

THAYNE: Finally, what is next in the Pacific? What are your plans now?"

CinCPOA: We are preparing to move the 1st Amphibious Headquarters and some naval support forces from Christmas Island to Fiji. Some of the transport ships are already loading and others will arrive at Christmas Island in the next day or so. Following that there is some coastal artillery about 2 weeks away from entering the Fiji Islands, and some tanks and infantry boarded up in San Diego who will sail out of the port at nightfall.

THAYNE: Thank you for your time.




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January 23, 1942 - 7/18/2010 2:05:00 AM   
Thayne

 

Posts: 748
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January 23, 1942 - Landings on Tanna - Day 1

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


Nimitz Gives Formal Approval to Occupy Tanna

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific, gave the official order to go ahead with the occupation of Tanna today.

Until today, Nimitz had the authority to cancel the occupation if he deemed the threat to be unreasonable. Not knowing where the Japanese carrier force is, the landings face a considerable threat.

Yet, ultimately, Nimitz allowed himself to be governed by the principle that in battle it was necessary to move ahead and keep pressure on the enemy - and not to let the enemy dictate all the moves.

With his order, two surface combat task forces, two carrier forces consisting of three carriers, and a troop transport task force, took off for Tanna. They should all arrive in two days and begin occupying the island.


The Occupation of Tanna - Day 1

(Suva - Fiji) I have been given the assignment to observe and report on the landings at Tanna.

For that job, I was welcomed on board the minesweeper Kingfisher when it left Suva in the Fiji Islands for Resolution Bay on the southeastern corner of Tanna.

We left shortly after dark, while the bay was filled with activity from the newly arrived landing force, two surface attack task forces, and the USS Saratoga carrier group. These ships added their numbers to those already present as a result of the overflow from Samoa off to the east.

It would have been hard to notice our little ship disappearing in the middle of this bustle.

Out at sea, we turned toward a crescent moon high in the western sky that gave the wake of our ship a glitter. Storms had been churning up the waters nearby, making the surface of the ocean choppy and giving Kingfisher a distinct roll. But, for now the sky was clear.

I sat around long enough to wait for the orders to be opened and read, and the news passed around the ship. Of course, I already knew where we were going. I took a note of which of the crew was surprised at the news.

Many were surprised, as it turns out. The consensus was that the troops were meant for New Caledonia.

In the orders the crew of Kingfisher were given assurances that, for the first 24 hours, they would be the only ship in the area. As such, they were to assume that any ship that they came across was Japanese and to react in any way deemed reasonable and prudent. This meant that against any lone ship up to destroyer size, Kingfisher would stand and fight. Against more or bigger ships, they it would retreat to Fiji if possible.

Against carrier planes, retreat simply was not possible.

At the same time, they were told that PBYs will be flying aerial reconnaissance and will warn the ship if they find any.

By dawn on January 21st, we were stopped in the predawn darkness. Clouds had rolled in, and the ocean was starting to get a bit choppy. I could not see the island that the navigator told us had to be ahead of us.

Lieutenant Commander Albert Wedemeyer took his binoculars and did a full sweep of the horizon, even though he had observers on the ship tasked to watch their own sectors.

After making sure that the crew had been fed their breakfast, he gave the order to man the guns.

"Quietly," he said. "We don't want to wake up the Japanese if they are here."

Then he ordered Kingfisher ahead slowly.


HMS Warspite Bombards Baker Island

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) The British battle ship Warspite, which was having its main guns replaced at Seattle when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, tested those guns on the Japanese occupied Baker Island yesterday.

Baker island had already been visited twice by the airplanes from the carriers Yorktown and Lexington..

Furthermore, on the day after the Japanese showed up, a destroyer squadron operating out of Canton island found and drove off - and probably sunk - a Japanese transport ship that had crews and supplies on board.

For these reasons, Captain Fisher of the Royal Navy ordered the fleet in close, where even the destroyers would get their chance to shoot at the Japs.

To the Americans on the destroyers and on the cruiser Chicago it was strange, to say the least, to be taking orders from a British task force commander. However, the battleship Warspite still carried a measure of prestige.

The bombardment started a few minutes before dawn, where early glow of daylight gave the ships' crew some measure of the amount of damage it inflicted.

Fisher was right. The Japanese had not been able to set up any types of defenses against a naval bombardment. They did not even have a way to fire back at the attackers.

The warships did their damage, then turned around and headed back to Pearl Harbor for another load of ammunition.


Allies Assure Australia of Troop Return if Needed

(Washington DC) If the Japanese should land any troops on Australia, then all Australian troops currently serving to protect Ceylon will be loaded onto troop transports at the earliest possible instant and returned to Australia.

That was the assurance that the Combined Chiefs of Staff gave the Australian government yesterday in negotiations for the defense of Ceylon.

The British government, concerned with the possibility that Japan could attempt to capture Ceylon, have reinforcing the island with Australian soldiers. As Australia has grown increasingly worried of a Japanese invasion, they have faced increasing pressure to call the troops home.

The agreement is predicated on the belief that Japan has the ability to attack either Australia or Ceylon and not both. So, if Japan attacks Australia, then the Australian soldiers would no longer be needed in Ceylon.

At least, that is what is hoped.

Either way, the promises have been made. Behind the scenes, the Combined Chiefs of Staff are hoping not to see the Japanese on either Australia or Ceylon.




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January 24, 1942 - 7/19/2010 2:18:32 AM   
Thayne

 

Posts: 748
Joined: 6/14/2004
Status: offline 		THE THAYNE REPORTS: THE ADMIRALS' EDITION
January 24, 1942 - Naval Battle Near Ambon, Dutch East Indies

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


Torpedo Boats Battle Japanese Near Timor

(Darwin - Australia) The orders said to take three PT boats from Ambon to Namlea, about 80 miles to the northwest, and attack any ships found at the location of the Japanese landing in that direction.

A Japanese task force had entered Namlea nearly a week earlier. Since then, Lieutenant Jorges Voorheas had been trying to get permission to lead his three PT boats on raid of the port. Every day his superiors told him that his mission was the defense of Ambon and that he was to stay put. So each night, as ordered, he lead his triplet of PT boats out to the mouth of the bay where Ambon sat and wait for the Japanese invasion fleet to show up.

If you listened to some of the crew members of the PT boats, they would claim that they had actually driven away a Japanese invasion fleet once. They tell a story of ships on the horizon that turned back mysteriously. Some say that they saw the ships as clear as day, while others claimed that they had seen nothing.

Regardless of the truth of the matter, Voorheas preferred attacking the Japanese at Namlea to waiting for them the Japanese to do the attacking.

Yesterday, Voorheas got what he had been asking for; permission to go on the attack.

He lead the PT boats out after dark.

To aid navigation he kept the PT boats near the coast line for much of the trip. However, the last 30 miles was across open ocean.

When he felt that the crew was getting near their target, they lowered the engines and idled into the harbor.

The half-moon was still up, though low on the western horizon, and the sky was clear. Having a good idea of where to look, they spotted a pair of freighters just inside the harbor on the right-hand side, and a range of a three miles.

The range was too far for an accurate torpedo shot. Voorheas ordered the PT boats closer.

At two miles, the Japanese spotted the PT boats and brought a searchlight to bear on Voorheas' boat.

Voorheas ordered the PT boats in at full speed, twisting left and right to dodge the incoming shells. Shells seemed to be falling everywhere. A half mile. A quarter mile. Voorheas ordered torpedoes away and turned to leave the fight.

Seconds later, two hot fountains lit up the side of the target transport.

Neither of the other two PT boats had gotten close enough to get off a shot, and still had their torpedoes. Voorheas ordered Lieutenant Diaz to follow him in. They closed on the other transport, still dodging bullets. When Voorheas gave the order, Diaz fired.

One torpedo hit.

In the glow of the fire they could see the first ship with a port list of over 60 degrees and increasing.

It looked like hundreds of Japanese soldiers falling or jumping off of the desk and into the harbor.

Voorheas took his ships and returned to Ambon.

They made it home without a scratch. After securing their boats and having a good breakfast, they went out to take care of the equipment - reload the guns, clean the engines, refill the tanks. That was when the message came of ships approaching.

Voorheas had his crew saddle up to go meet them.

The visitors turned out to be a Japanese battleship, a heavy cruiser, and two destroyers.

The battleship started firing at a range of 14 miles.

Voorheas ordered the PT boats to close.

The heavy cruiser added its large guns.

One shell splashed into the water a good 60 yards in front of Voorheas boat. But it had a flat trajectory and it took a fraction of a second for impact to turn into an explosion. By that time the shell was almost directly under Voorheas' boat. The explosion tossed the PT boat into the air and sent it tumbling, backwards, end over end.

Sailors flew everywhere.

Diaz' boat picked up five survivors.

Voorheas was not one of them.

Diaz ordered the boats to disengage. The Japanese ships chased them away with shell after shell.

A few minutes later the PT boats made it into open sea and put some distance between themselves and their attackers.

Seemingly content with the day's work, the Japanese ships turned around and headed north.

By the end of the day, Japan had lost one transport with all of its cargo, and took damage to a second transport. The Allies lost a PT boat and 6 crew members, including Lieutenant Voorheas.


The Landings at Tanna - Day 2

(Suva - Fiji) Pilot Officer Earl Reid was given credit for hitting a Japanese submarine off of the coast of Fiji yesterday, securing the landings set for the island of Tanna over the next few days.

When the ships of the Tanna landing force left Suva in the Fiji Islands, reconnaissance aircraft discovered two Japanese submarines in the water over which the departing ships had to pass.

Reid piloted one of the plains making these discoveries. His crew found one of the Japanese submarines while it was storing the float plane that the Japanese submarines carried with them. It was vulnerable, unable to dive until the plane had been stored, which it was just a few minutes away from securing. So, he brought the plane around so that he would be flying down the length of the boat. At the right spot, he dropped two 100 pound bombs.

One of them gave every appearance of hitting.

The submarine quickly finished loading up its seaplane, then dove before any reinforcements could show up.

An hour and a half later, the transport task force, support task force, and surface attack task force escorting them, passed through the region without suffering any harm.


Celebrations Over Ellice Islands Proved Premature

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) Celebrations over the prospect of having saved the Ellice Islands from invasion proved premature as Japanese naval forces showed up at the northern island today and occupied it.

The speculation is that Japan had a second task force that meant to follow up the invasion of the first group, or to land its own troops if the first group reached an unfortunate end.

After landing on the island, it took the Japanese only minutes to take control of its facilities. Nimitz ordered the ships in the fleet to take precautions against sea planes and, potentially, Japanese bombers using the islands as a base of attack.




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January 25, 1942 - 7/23/2010 4:20:35 AM   
Thayne

 

Posts: 748
Joined: 6/14/2004
Status: offline 		THE THAYNE REPORTS: THE ADMIRALS' EDITION
January 25, 1942 - Jap Ships Found near Tanna Landings

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


The Occupation of Tanna - Day 3

This is the Thayne Report on the minesweeper name.

The weather here at Resolution Bay has taken a turn for the worse. The good news is that, if there is an enemy carrier in the area, it might not be able to launch any planes. The bad news is that the American carriers cannot fly either.

We received news this afternoon that Saratoga was able to get some planes into the air and managed to sink a Japanese transport ship just off of New Caledonia. Saratoga is patrolling the waters west of here, while Lexington and Yorktown are coming in from the east.

The news came to us as rumor – something that one of the radio operators picked up. Since then I was able to get confirmation from Saratoga herself that they did indeed find a Japanese transport near New Caledonia and launch an air strike against it. Because of severe weather, Saratoga launched only ten dive bombers. Three of them were able to get 1000lb bombs onto the transport before losing it in a cloud of rain and smoke.

Since then, Admiral Nimitz, the Commander in Chief of the Pacific, has put us all on alert to watch for signs of the Japanese carriers. Allied intelligence has had reason to believe for a long time that the Japanese are planning to capture New Caledonia. It may be the case that the Japanese landings and the American landings are taking place at the same time.

Some of the Saratoga pilots did report seeing other ships in the area, but there has been no reliable or confirmed accounting of how many or what type. Intelligence experts are saying that there is a good chance of at least two additional ships.

Saratoga's mission was to sail to the west side of Tanna to screen for submarines and search for enemy ships. Allied leaders are worried that a Japanese carrier force might interfere with the landings. This is why Saratoga was on the New Caledonia side of Tanna.

Tonight, one of the two surface attack task forces will sail to the east coast of New Caledonia looking for the remaining ships, while the second surface attack force guards the allied landings at Resolution Bay.

Tomorrow, seaplanes that have flown into Resolution Bay and assigned to the seaplane tenders parked there, as well as the seaplanes on the cruisers protecting Lexington and Yorktown will look for signs of the Japanese ships. By then, Lexington and Yorktown will have joined Saratoga on the west side of Tanna to attack any ships that are discovered. Meanwhile, the transports will begin unloading troops and supplies at Tanna and immediately begin construction of a fighter airstrip.


Singapore Holding

(Singapore) Singapore, whom military experts predicted would be lost by the end of last week, has so far held out against extensive Japanese attacks. It now appears likely that it will hold out until the end of the month and potentially into February, in spite of having lost 10,000 troops in the heartland of Malaya.

One theory is that the stranded units are drawing units away from the fight at Singapore while they deal with the stranded soldiers. The Allied soldiers that got cut off have been trying to move onto the roads to block the flow of Japanese supplies, forcing the Japanese to respond to the threat.

The Japanese seem to have been lulled into overconfidence with the ease of their advance so far. Three days ago they launched an armored probe at the left flank of the British lines. They lost two dozen tanks in the process with almost no allied losses.

Yesterday’s attack on a much broader front utterly failed to push the British soldiers out of any of their defenses. The defenders report that food and supplies are still plentiful.

The one weakness that has become apparent during the vulnerability of the city's water supply. Both Japanese attacks have aimed to capture or to shut down the water treatment plants for the city.

Singapore citizens need fresh water that cannot be supplied in the quantities needed by any other method. To preserve the water supply, British leaders have ordered rationing and have sought to divert as much of the treated water as they can into other reservoirs. However, there simply is no place to store enough water for such a large population for more than a couple of days.


American Bomber Forces in India Repairs and Prepares

They come in at a rate of two or three per day – B-17 bombers from America. Their destination is the two heavy bomber groups beings established for the defense of Burma; the 7th bomber group in Calcutta, and the 19th bomber group currently arriving at Dacca.

Both groups have been standing down for about a week as ground crews get the planes in fighting shape. The ((Nth)) squadron has recently received the first of eight new B-17E bombers. It’s old B-17D bombers will undergo some serious maintenance then be handed out to the other heavy bomber squadrons in the group.

Meanwhile, bombers for the 19th Bomber Group are arrive daily from Batavia in Java.

The 2500 mile flight tests the endurance of these planes. Much of the flight takes them over enemy occupied territory in Malaya and southern Burma. After such a strenuous trip, the bomber crews are exhausted. While they get some much needed rest, their airplanes are overhauled and readied for combat.


Raid at Makassar Nets Two Japanese Transports

(Soerabaja - Dutch East Indies) The task force of British and Dutch ships still operating around Java raided the Japanese landing beaches at Makassar yesterday, sinking two Japanese transports before moving in to shell the shore installations.

The task force, operating out of Soerabaja, Indonesia, has been attempting to blunt the Japanese assaults on the region to weaken the Japanese ability to attack Java and Timor.

Four days ago, the task force, consisting of five light cruisers and 16 destroyers, narrowly missed a Japanese task force consisting of a battleship and heavy cruiser near Ambon, on the far eastern portion of the Dutch East Indies northeast of Timor, where the Japanese ships blew apart a PT boat that was also raiding Japanese shipping.





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January 26, 1942 - 7/24/2010 5:00:37 AM   
Thayne

 

Posts: 748
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Status: offline 		THE THAYNE REPORTS: THE ADMIRALS' EDITION
January 26, 1942 - American Navy Ambushes Jap Convoy at New Caledonia

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


Japs Ambushed at New Caledonia

(Noumea – New Caledonia) The Allied navy consisting of Australian and American ships ambushed a Japanese task force off the coast of Noumea yesterday, sinking three Japanese ships and damaging four others, some of them severely. The sunk Japanese ships include a heavy cruiser and a troop-laden transport probably headed for a landing on New Caledonia.

The ships were discovered yesterday by scout planes operating from the aircraft carrier Saratoga. It found at least three enemy ships, putting three 1000lb bombs into a transport.

Overnight, Nimitz ordered Cruiser task force 394, which consisted of Australian and American ships from the Philippines and Dutch East Indies, including Houston, Marblehead, and Boise to patrol the east coast of New Caledonia.

TF394 encountered two Japanese transport ships - one loaded with troops - and sank both of them.

At dawn the yesterday morning, the weather was still too bad for many airplanes to take off. However, PBY now stationed at Tanna discovered two task forces northeast of New Caledonia and passed the information on to the aircraft carrier Lexington.

Lexington, sailing with Yorktown, with Saratoga in a separate task force about 50 miles to the southwest, launched a number of strikes against the Japanese task force.

Pilots reported hitting a Japanese heavy cruiser with seven 1000lb bombs, sinking it. They also reported getting multiple hits against three Japanese transport ships, and one 1000lb hit on a Japanese light cruiser.

Rain and smoke obscured the battlefield, preventing the pilots from saying for certain whether any of these ships had been sunk.

The American navy lost 3 dive bombers in the attack. Furthermore, one F4F crashed while attempting to land on board Saratoga due to the rough weather.

Throughout the day, American military leaders anxiously awaited news that signs of the Japanese carrier task force. There were several anxious moments this morning after both Saratoga and Yorktown reported sightings of Japanese torpedo bombers. Yet, these sightings were probably the seaplanes accompanying the Japanese heavy and light cruisers.

Saratoga has not visited a port since it left San Diego last month. Its air squadrons are down to half strength, and it is running short of ammunition. Nimitz has told the carrier to prepare to return to Pearl Harbor for replenishment and resupply.


Tanna Occupation Proceeds

(Tanna - New Hebrides) While the Americans attacked the Japanese ships to the west of Tanna, American forces made their way to shore of the island and began setting up a base.

Thirteen hundred American soldiers made it to shore in the past 24 hours, in spite of the wind and rough seas, and got to work setting up a base. The corner of Tanna that they selected, Resolution Bay, is surrounded by thick jungle. A lot of work will need to be done to turn this into a functioning base.

Just outside of the bay, 7 cruisers with an escort of destroyers stand guard. They are accompanies by three tankers who are topping off the fuel tanks of the combat ships. Last night, they fed fuel to the carriers Yorktown and Lexington as they sailed by.

Another day will be spent unloading troops and supplies.

Still, everybody faces the nervous prospect that a Japanese carrier force could show up at any minute, sending ships and soldiers to the bottom of the ocean.


Japan Makes Gains Against Singapore

(Singapore) The defenses in Singapore as Japan launched an all-out drive to reach either gain control of or destroy the water treatment plants for the city.

In the face of the assault, a portion of the British main line of defense crumbled, forcing the defenders to retreat back to a second line. Fortunately, the second line held, at least for the rest of the day.

Casualties proved heavy on both sides, but apparently more so for the defenders of Singapore.

With Japanese control of the air blocking any hope of sending reinforcements, and with the Japanese having a considerable number of troops already occupying the island, the fear has once again risen that Singapore will be in Japanese hands by the end of the month.


Battle for Burma Begins

(Calcutta - India) The Japanese army has been spotted approaching the Burmese town of Moulmean, east of Rangoon.

Up until this time, the only Japanese activity in Burma has been to destroy the airfields in the country beyond all hope of repair, and taking the Burmese towns on the west side of the Thailand peninsula.

Moulmean, however, is less than 100 miles from the Burma capital of Rangoon.

The arrival of the Japanese forces triggered an alert among the two heavy bomber groups that the Americans had been assembling at Calcutta and Dacca. The 7th Bomber Group at Dacca was given permission to continue to rest and rebuild for at least another day. However, the 19th Bomber Group from Calcutta was given orders to prepare its first strike against the Japanese army in defense of mainland Burma.

Meanwhile, reinforcements are heading in to participate in the battle. Three fighter squadrons are within 2 days' travel of Karachi, and a construction battalion in Bombay is being loaded up for shipment to Dacca to keep the air fields operating.


Japan Conquers South Philippines

(Manila – Philippines) The Japanese army trapped the American and Filipino defenders of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, then launched a major attack that forced the allied defenders to surrender.

The attack represented the largest mass surrender of Allied troops since the capture of Hong Kong, with over 5000 allied troops turning over their weapons to the Japanese.

This gives Japan nearly uncontested control of the island. There remains only scattered pockets of resistance in the southwest and northwest corners of the island.


Japan Launches Attempt to Capture Ambon

(Darwin - Australia) After PT boats operating out of Amdon attacked and sank or badly damaged two Japanese transport ships at Namlea in the eastern Dutch East Indies, northeast of Timor, the Japanese responded with a powerful surface force and landings of Japanese troops in an attempt to capture the town.

The PT boats had retreated for resupply after spending their torpedoes on the raid at Namlea, so they were not available to meet the Japanese attackers.

The Australians have been attempting to build up the island of Timor to provide a defense against the Australian mainland. However, with few troops available the Australians have been able to do little more than help to ensure that the Australian forces are well supplied.




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January 27, 1942 - 7/25/2010 1:07:49 AM   
Thayne

 

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January 27, 1942 - New Bombardment Techniques Obliterate Makassar

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


The Occupation of Tanna - Day 5

(Tanna - New Hebrides) The weather here in Tanna continues to be rough while Marines unload from their transports and set up their base.

We haven't seen any sign of the Japanese in the last 24 hours. Apparently the carrier strikes convinced the Japanese to pull back.

Still, the tension here is thick. The Japanese can put over 350 airplanes on this place with little or no warning. If they do, most or all of these ships could end up in the bottom of the ocean - with many of the soldiers and sailors going down with them.

With PBYs flying in and out of the bay, and with airplanes from Lexington and Yorktown over head, the soldiers are always on edge, worrying if the last plane they saw was really American, or maybe it was Japanese.

There are 2,600 soldiers on the shore so far. It includes a couple dozen small anti-aircraft guns, but not enough to offer the soldiers much in the way of protection. When they haven't been sleeping, which is hard to do in this rain and mud anyway, they have been digging in, laying down telephone wire, digging foxholes, and felling trees to build something of a barricade for themselves.

There has been talk of pulling the ships out. The landings have gone well so far. The Americans are in control of the island. The argument is that the rest of the ships should pull up, and the troops still on them can be brought to Tanna using safer methods such as seaplanes and small boats that can quickly unload and get out.

The order has come from Nimitz to have Saratoga and the support force leave. The support ships are almost out of fuel anyway. They have refueled the aircraft carriers and both surface attack forces, and is sitting with just a few more gallons of fuel at the bottom of their tanks.

It should be enough for them to get home on.

The rest of the ships have been ordered to continue to unload for another 24 hours.

To give us some warning against enemy carriers, the seaplane tender Ballard and a squadron of PBYs have moved up to Efate, north of here. The seaplane tenders Thornton and Hulbert will be joining her.

Meanwhile, seaplanes continue to fly from here, Resolution Bay.

As the occupation of Tanna reaches Day 5.


Allies Test New Shore Bombardment Techniques at Makassar

(Soerabaja - Dutch East Indies) The four light cruisers and sixteen destroyers still defending Java tested new shore bombardment techniques today by returning to the recently captured port city of Makassar, on the southwestern corner of Celebes.

Having attacked the port earlier and sinking two transport ships, and knowing that it lacked shore defenses, task force commander Captain W.D. Stephens ordered the ships to approach to within 2000 yards of the shore.

On the way in, the assault force came across a Japanese destroyer, a patrol ship, and one more transport ship. They dispatched the destroyer quickly, then took their time to sink the remaining two ships.

Then they sailed in and set their sights on key parts of the town.

By the time the bombardment force left, huge fires were burning through entire sections of the town. Its airbase had been utterly destroyed. Captain Stephens reported that the destruction delivered to the town was so heavy that he felt compelled to order it ended and for the ships to return to Soerabaja.

"The situation just seemed to have gotten carried away," Stephens said. "I had to remind myself that Japan may occupy the city, but it is not a Japanese city. I was a part of the Dutch East Indies - governed by the Allies until the recent past. I have to say, when I got the aerial photographs of the destruction the next morning, I was shocked by what we had done."

Crew members reported still being able to see the glows from the fires at a range of over 40 miles.

To top off the night, the cruiser and destroyer squadron sailed over the top of a Japanese submarine on the way back to Soerabaja and either sank or destroyed it.


Malaya Soldiers Occupy Japanese Roads

(Singapore) Allied soldiers cut off in the middle of Malaya by the speed of the Japanese advance have been able to take control of one of the key roads connecting Southern Malaya with Bangkok and other ports further north.

This key breakout will limit the ability for the Japanese to get supplies to the troops attacking Singapore.

However, allied leaders were quick to remind Thayne Report, that the western route remained open and Japan has taken ports closer to Singapore they can now use to transport soldiers and supplies.





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January 28, 1942 - 7/27/2010 4:00:48 AM   
Thayne

 

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January 28, 1942 - Singapore Defenses Near Collapse

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


Japanese Drive Threatens Singapore Water Supply

(Singapore) The Japanese made a determined drive to either destroy or capture the water treatment plants in Singapore yesterday, driving the British soldiers back to the very edge of the contested region.

At this point, the British literally have nowhere to fall back to. They must hold the line that they have, or they will fall.

This has been the third day of determined Japanese attacks against the British. British leaders have noted that the Japanese soldiers seem to be getting tired and reckless. While the most recent battle managed to push the British out of their defenses, it came at a heavy cost to the Japanese.

Of particular note was an armored drive down the streets into the heart of the city that cost the Japanese 40 armored vehicles. The burning armor littered the road, but ended up providing cover for the Japanese infantry.

After three days of determined fighting, it is hoped that the Japanese may take a couple of days to regroup and reorganize. Yet, the other possibility is that the Japanese are smelling success. With their target so close, they will not be able to resist the temptation of continuing the drive and claiming Singapore as their own.

Back in England, Churchill has not been seen in public in the last 24 hours. News reports say that he is following the events in Singapore closely and is still expecting an allied victory. Churchill has noted that the British troops still have numbers equal to those of the Japanese attackers and should be able to drive them from the island. He has made the British commander at Singapore, General Archibald Wavell, aware of these sentiments.

Several of Wavell's subordinates, on the other hand, are lobbying in favor of surrender in order to spare civilian lives. The citizens of Singapore have been caught in the crossfire and are among the principle victims of shells and bombs entering the city.


The Occupation of Tanna - Day 6

(Tanna - New Hebrides) The situation at Tanna remains peaceful.

The Marines that have gone ashore have set up a defensive perimeter, building entrenchment and setting up guns to protect the peninsula that they have taken to be their base.

The 3,000 soldiers that are now on shore are being backed up by machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, and mortars.

With some defenses in place, engineers have been taken off of the task of building trenches and pill-boxes and been put on the task of building a fighter strip across the middle of the peninsula. The cutting and leveling and construction of a strip capable of surviving the rains will take some effort, and we do not yet have any machines here that can help. All we have are muscles, picks, and shovels.

The mess hall is still just a tarp that is tied from tree to tree where soldiers can stay a little bit dry when it rains. The soldiers do not have tents to sleep in. There's no room for tents, at least not yet.

Many of the soldiers are still on their ships, still capable of enjoying hot showers and a soft dry bed. Resolution bay is full of ships. This is true even though Saratoga with her entourage has begun her trip back to Pearl Harbor, and the now-empty oilers have gone back for more fuel. The PBYs now operate from a maintenance staff on shore, so the seaplane tenders have gone north to Efate with another squadron to watch for signs of the enemy.

There has been no sign of the Japanese for 2 days now. Some are saying that New Caledonia has been saved - that we have seen the big Japanese invasion and put a stop to it.

Others look to the sky and expect, any minute now, to see 300 Japanese airplanes.

For the moment, at least, we live.


China Moves Armies to Defend Supply Route

(Chungking - China) As a part of the China option, Generalissimo Chang Kai-Shek has ordered the 2nd Army Group, currently in Ichang, east of Chungking, to march to the western city of Kunming.

Kunming sits on the supply route from India to the Chinese capital at Chungking. With four divisions heading into Burma and, from there, to get trained and equipped at Calcutta, the western territories are now lightly defended.

The project of building the defenses of another town along this route, Tsuyung, is well underway. The American Volunteer Group ground echelon has recently moved into the city, and with it came the 3rd Squadron of the American Volunteer Group itself. Approximate twelve Chinese SB-III bombers have also moved into the town.

Earlier, Japan was able to drive the air forces over China into the interior by systematically destroying every air field that the allies tried to use. They are likely to try this system again when they move to capture Burma. For this reason, Chang Kai-Shek has also ordered engineer units to Tsuyung, to try to keep the airfield open as well as possible.


Japan Feels First Effects of the China Option

(Rangoon - Burma) As the Japanese army approaches the town of Moulmein in eastern Burma, they are starting to feel the first effects of the China Option.

The China Option is the plan that the Combined Chiefs adopted at the Arcadia Conference earlier this year to reinforce India and to try to reach Japan through China.

One of the effects of that decision was to move the 19th Bomber Group to Calcutta.

The soldiers in Moulmein were able to watch as 15 B-17 bombers from Calcutta flew overhead. They were using the town as an aiming mark. As they flew over Moulmein they turned south.

Somewhere, south of here, they released their bombs on the advancing Japanese army. The soldiers at Moulmein could not see them release the bombs, or see the effects. They interpreted that to mean that the Japanese were still some distance away, and they had a few days left to prepare their defenses.

The soldiers on the ground did not know what the target was - a bridge, a camp, a cache of supplies. They did know that the the bombers were softening up the enemy. They also did not know, though some could have guessed, that there was a second reason why the bombers flew over Moulmein on the way to their target - a reason that had nothing to do with navigation. It was to give them heart in standing up to the Japanese.

It was good for morale.




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January 29, 1942 - 7/31/2010 2:12:07 AM   
Thayne

 

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January 29, 1942 - Percival Ordered to Attack

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


Churchill Orders Singapore Offensive

(London - England) The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill today ordered General Arthur Percival commanding the army in Singapore to plan and execute an attack against the Japanese forces to drive them from the island. He was ordered to launch the attack within 24 hours.

According to sources in 10 Downing Street, Churchill is certain that the British force operating near its own supply hub should be able to drive back the Japanese forces and at the very least reclaim the island of Singapore. He is further expecting the Japanese to be tired and low on supplies after four days of constant attacks against the British defenders.

He also expects the attack to come as a surprise, given that General Percival has been entirely passive so far against the Japanese.

Once the island is secured, Churchill hopes to order the air forces that had recently fled to Java back to Singapore to help Percival keep the Japanese off of Singapore and begin to drive the Japanese north out of Malaya.


100 Allied Ships Sunk

(Washington DC) The Navy Department reported the sinking of the transport ship Aniston City last night, shortly after it arrived at Midway with a full load of fuel. The ship was attacked by an attack force made up of a light cruiser and four destroyers.

Aniston City has the distinction of being listed as the 100th allied ship lost to the Japanese since the war began.

A list of other losses in the first eight weeks of the war include:

(1) Pearl Harbor. In three days of attacks against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese destroyed the battleships Arizona and Oklahoma beyond the possibility of salvage. The losses also include the cruisers New Orleans and Helena. Five other battleships were so badly damaged that they cannot be expected to return to the war before 1943. Only one of them so far has been made sufficiently seaworthy to try to move to San Francisco. It left Pearl Harbor three days ago.

(2) Pearl Harbor. The day after the first attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Kimmel, then Commander in Chief of the Pacific, ordered twelve ships out of Pearl Harbor to hunt for Japanese submarines. He was confident that the Japanese carriers had left the previous day and would no longer be a threat. The mistake resulted in the sinking of 11 out of the 12 ships sent out to sea.

(3) Ternate, Dutch East Indies. The combined British, Australian, Dutch, and American fleet stationed at Java at the time decided to challenge the Japanese landings on the island of Ternate. The force was split up into two attack groups. One of those attack groups - lead by the British battle cruiser Repulse - encountered a Japanese battleship guarding the landings. The Japanese sank Repulse and damaged three light cruisers.

(4) Timor. The three light cruisers damaged at the battle at Ternate, while heading to Darwin for repairs, made a decision to turn away from some suspected Japanese submarines. The morning found them within range of aircraft from a fleet of Japanese carriers. The Japanese carriers sank two of the light cruisers Danae and Durbin and hit the third, Dragon with two more torpedoes on top of the damage caused at Ternate. Dragon has been undergoing emergency repairs at Darwin, Australia, and may soon try to make a trip to Perth.

(5) Midway. In recent days, three supply ships at or near Midway have been sunk, either by Japanese surface raiders or Japanese submarines. Two of those ships were fully loaded with supplies. Officials within he Navy Department have started to speculate on whether the Japanese are trying to isolate the island in preparation for a future assault.


Chinese Reject Efficiency Reports

(Chungking - China). In China, Generalissimo Chang Kai-Shek rejected and condemned an efficiency report submitted by a team of Americans advising him to refuse to repair damaged industrial facilities in China.

According to the Efficiency Report, it takes nearly 3 years to repay the investment in rebuilding any of this infantry and, in those three years, the effort that went into those repairs can be better spent keeping troops fed and armed.

Chang Kai-Shek responded by condemning an attempt from the Imperialist countries to keep China dependent on foreigners. He asserted that his program to rebuild Chinese industry will continue so that China can, to the best of its ability, arm and feed its troops not only in the near term but in the far future.


Australian Army Concentrates at Ceylon

(Canberra - Australia) Because of a deal reached between Australia and the Combined Chiefs, Australian forces from Africa are being put in charge of the defense of Ceylon rather than being returned to Australia.

Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England, said that the continued delivery of fuel for Australia's fledgling war industry requires using the Australian forces to hold Ceylon.

According to negotiators speaking on behalf of Churchill in Australia, the best route for fuel shipped to Australia from the Middle East takes it near Ceylon. The Japanese capture of Ceylon would push these ships far to the west and add significantly to the time required to deliver the supplies, making the trip impossibly long for some ships.

Faced with the option of either having troops that it cannot supply or equipment it can provide to troops it is now mustering, Australian Prime Minister John Curtain agreed to allow the soldiers to garrison Ceylon under condition that they are immediately moved to Australia if Australia was to be invaded. In the mean time, Australia was to be provided with sufficient fuel to keep its industry growing.

Sources have told Thayne Report that the real reason Churchill wants the Australians in Ceylon is because he wants to use them in pursuing the China Option. When he is confident that Ceylon is secure, he plans on moving them to Burma to lead an assault east out of Rangoon into Thailand - hopefully to relieve the British garrison at Singapore.

Churchill has privately expressed concern that if the Australians go to Australia, he will never see them again.




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RE: January 29, 1942 - 8/1/2010 1:01:19 AM   
Thayne

 

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January 30, 1942 - Singapore Falls

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


SINGAPORE FALLS

(Singapore) The Japanese soldiers are streaming through streets of Singapore. The British defenses have crumbled. They have collapsed. The city is in absolute anarchy.

I am safe in the US Navy submarine S-37 which had been sitting ready to take me to safety. However, tens of thousands of British, Australian, and other allied soldiers left behind are suffering the uncertainties of the utter collapse of the British defenses.

The British army was preparing for an attack it planned to launch in the morning. They were just moving their soldiers into position, when a wave of Japanese soldiers came crashing into the city.

The pure magnitude of the Japanese shock attack stunned the defenders, which is exactly what the Japanese soldiers needed. They used the precious seconds that this moment of fear brought them to close with and overrun the defenders.

There is a rumor that General Archibald Percival and his staff were massacred when the Japanese overran their command post. These are unconfirmed rumors. At times like this, you trust nothing that you did not see with your own eyes. I suspect we will know soon enough if that is true. If the Japanese captured him, then they will certainly parade him in front of the cameras.

This is a stunning victory for the Japanese. It frees up airplanes and troops for other missions. The question the Combined Chiefs has to be asking is: What will Japan be doing with the soldiers that they used to take Singapore?

What will they take next?

Calcutta? Brisbane? Pearl Harbor? Ancorage?

The most likely place, according to official government reports, is that they will show up in Burma, where the defenses are quite weak.

The victory gives the Japanese access to the Bay of Bengal.

Now, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's worries about a potential attack on Ceylon seem to be prophetic. In fact, he was simply responding to a desire to keep the Australians near India. Now, the hypothetical need to defend Ceylon might manifest into an actual battle.

With these developments, the Combined Chiefs have ordered all ships out of the Bay of Bengal except certain small coastal defense ships. They have also stopped repairs to the British battleship Prince of Wales in Columbo so that the damaged battleship can retreat to Cape Town, South Africa.

Supply transports heading to Perth have been told to take extra precautions.

One British officer has been heard to have said, "Things now are not only worse than we have imagined. They are worse than we could have imagined."


Japanese Forces Reach Moulmein, Burma

(Moulmein - Burma) "Here come the Japs."

And there weren't just a few Japs coming up the road either. It was a reinforced Division.

Military intelligence said that we were about to come up against the 33rd Division, reinforced by the 112th Infantry Regiment.

We were holding Moulmein with as little as 3,000.

The knowledge that so many Japanese troops were so close brought home to these soldiers something that had just been an idea until today. A lot of them were thinking that they could hold the town. They walked about, looking at the defenses held by 3,000 soldiers, and it looked like a formidable force.

Then, they learned that they were standing against a full Division plus regimental reinforcements.

A cloud fell over the camp that was far darker than the one that delivered the afternoon rain.

Regular Japanese air raids had made it impossible to construct decent fortifications. The raids destroyed equipment, disrupted work, and, most important, took engineers away from the task of building defenses and onto the task of putting out fires and repairing structures.

Lieutenant Colonel Karl Halihan had already told the soldiers that the plan was to hold on as long as possible, then to fall back across the river. The soldiers here were supposed to delay the enemy - to inflict casualties on them as much as possible - to slow them down and make them cautious about proceeding further into Burma.

The engineers had already placed demolitions at key facilities. They spent the morning destroying cranes and warehouses at the docks and wiring the bridge across the river - but there would be no detonating the bridge until the defenders had retreated across it.

We were thinking that the Japanese might spend a day getting set up to attack. Or they could simply try to take the town on the run - they had the troops to do it with.

Tomorrow, the battle for Burma begins.


New Reinforcements Approach Samoa-Fiji

(Suva - Fiji) A new batch of reinforcements are on their way to the South Pacific island groups of Samoa and Fiji.

These troop transports carry soldiers to occupy Savaii, Wallis, and Hoorn islands, to further solidify the allied grip on this part of the South Pacific.

In addition to ground units, they are also bringing the 22nd Bomber Group (Medium), with 40 B-26 Maurader bombers.

These forces are also bringing another form of reinforcement - two squadrons of PT boats fresh from Hawaii to patrol among the islands and create a menace for the Japanese.

The carriers Lexington and Yorktown are coming in from the New Hebrides islands where they left the landers that were occupying Tanna to make sure that these landing craft did not come on any great misfortunes at the hands of the enemy.




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January 31, 1942 - 8/2/2010 12:25:28 PM   
Thayne

 

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January 31, 1942 - Japs Return to New Hebrides

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


Japanese Return to New Hebrides

(Tanna, New Hebrides) While the American navy sails east to watch over the next set of Allied reinforcements nearing the region of Fiji/Samoa in the South Pacific, the Japanese returned to the waters west of New Caledonia.

Seaplanes stationed at the new base of Tanna in the New Hebrides islands found what they identified as a heavy cruiser and a troop transport just north of New Caledonia.

Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander of the forces in the Pacific, had to weigh the option of recalling the American carriers and surface forces to the New Hebrides islands and leaving the new reinforcements unguarded, or continuing to protect the new arrivals.

With Japanese carriers on the loose, Nimitz let existing orders stand, for the most part.

The one exception was to order the transport ships still unloading at Tanna to pull up anchor and retreat to Auckland, in case Japanese carriers are nearby. Arrangements will be made in the week ahead to complete the delivery of those troops and supplies still on the ships - perhaps after those stayed behind on Tanna complete a landing strip for fighters.

About 3,500 soldiers were left on Tanna.


7th Bomber Group Flies First Mission in India

(Dacca - India) The 7th Bomber Group (Heavy) flew its first combat mission yesterday from its new base in Dacca, India.

Its orders were to attack the Japanese soldiers lining up against the British defenders of Moulmein in eastern Burma.

Intelligence sources are now reporting that the Japanese assault, in addition to including the 33rd Division and the 112th Infantry Regiment, also includes the 55th Cavalry Regiment and 1st RTA Division. Combined, the attacking force consists of over 20,000 soldiers.

This force is almost certainly going to be reinforced by Japanese units that had been involved in the capture of Singapore.

The bombers were not seen to have inflicted much damage on the invaders.

Back in Calcutta, workers are busy expanding the air base for the 19th Bomber Group so that it can deliver heavier bomb loads against the enemy. The expanded airstrip is nearly complete and should be available in a couple of days. This will double the effectiveness of the 19th Bomber Group.

Construction units are also heading to Dacca to do the same thing for the 7th Bomber Group.


Rescued Units Recovering in Calcutta

(Calcutta - India) A room in a warehouse near the train station in Calcutta has become the new office for Lieutenant Colonel Oliver Tomlin, while the warehouse has become the barracks for his 108th/2 Base Force.

Colonel Tomlin was originally in charge of overseeing the defenses of Victoria Point on the southern most tip of Burma. However, the Japanese attacked the town in force in late December, forcing Tomlin and what was left of his unit into the jungle.

Three weeks later, American PBYs transferred out of the Philippines picked up the last of his soldiers from a swamp north of Victoria Point and brought them to Calcutta. He had only 258 soldiers left.

Those troops were loaded up onto trains and delivered to Calcutta to rest and recover.

After a short rest period, the 108th/2 Base Force was assigned the job of processing replacement soldiers that came to Calcutta. Those that arrived were ordered across the street, where Tomlin's unit checked over their equipment, made up for any deficiencies, and made sure the soldiers got to the destination.

Along the way, it picked up some new soldiers itself. The 108th/2 Base Force had grown to 678 soldiers.

Yesterday, one of the trains that came in brought with it a squadron of hurricane fighters. Nearly half of Tomlin's unit was involved in getting the crated planes unloaded off off the train and onto trucks, where they were hauled to the airport to be assembled.

Slowly, the unit was getting back to normal. When it was fully recovered, Tomlin would then be assigned to one of the smaller forward airstrips to organize attacks against the Japanese.

In the mean time, it was lending its efforts to organizing the hub at Calcutta.





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February 1, 1942 - 8/6/2010 1:56:18 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 1, 1942 - Moulmein, Burma Falls

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


The Battle for Burma - Day 1

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) Thayne Report is calling January 31st the first day of the Battle for Burma. This is the day that Japan launched its ground war against the main portion of Burma by attacking and capturing the town of Moulmein.


The Fall of Moulmein

(Moulmein - Burma) I knew before going to sleep last night that there were at least 20,000 Japanese troops ready to attack the city. They were members of the Japanese 33rd Infantry Division, 112th Infantry Regiment, 55th Cavalry Regiment, and 1st RTA Division. Combined, there were over 20,000 Japanese war veterans squaring off against 3,000 allied defenders.

I decided against spending the night at British Headquarters and, instead, crossed the bridge north of the city. British sentries guarding the bridge stood ready to blow it up as soon as the order arrived. They had taken over a pair of buildings near the approach to the bridge and allowed me to spend the night with them.

Everything was strangely calm and quiet all morning.

The first real disturbance did not come until American B-17s arrived from bases in India. They came in four separate waves throughout the day, each dropping their bombs far to the south along the roadways leading up to Moulmein. We could not see how much damage they had inflicted. However, given how many Japanese there were, it was certainly a small dent in the enemy's total strength.

At 2:00 in the afternoon the artillery started coming in. It was thick, and a lot of it seemed to be aimed right at me. I was told that the Japanese were targeting this area, not because of me personally, but because they wanted to prevent the engineers from blowing the bridge. The bridge was rigged with backups and redundancies to make sure the bridge would be destroyed by somebody. With so much artillery, I thought for a moment that the Japanese might take care of the business themselves.

The ground attack came from the east - the Japanese apparently having moved a sizable force in that direction. It came down the river bank and drove straight for the bridge. The aim, clearly, was to cut off the only line of retreat for the defending British soldiers.

The army responded quickly, throwing men and machines between the Japanese and the bridge while administrative and support units came north, over to our side.

The bridge itself was nearly a mile and a half long, crossing shallow slow-moving channel of mud called the Hlaingbwe River.

Once they reached our side, they still had to endure our barrage before reaching relative safety further to the north. Many didn't make it. The dead and wounded started to stack up.

The Japanese were determined and had numbers on their side. There were still British soldiers on the bridge and in the town on the other side when Japanese tanks climbed onto the far side of the bridge.

While the fighting went on, another flight of B-17s flew overhead, dropping their bombs behind the Japanese lines. We had no way to contact them or to tell them that the battle lines had moved. Their bombs fell too far behind the fighting to do much good.

The order came. The Japanese were on the far side of the bridge. It was time to blow up the bridge.

The explosion itself probably killed several dozen British soldiers scrambling to safety.

With the bridge gone, the Japanese lifted their artillery barrage and the fighting died seemed to die down. From Moulmein we could still hear some gunfire and explosions, and could detect an occasional artillery barrage as the Japanese dealt with pockets of trapped British soldiers putting up a valiant last stand.

Attempts were being made to count and organize those who had come across. Few of them were combat soldiers, and they had brought few weapons with them. However, the British had brought a lot of their supplies north of the river. Clerks and truck drivers found themselves manning machine guns and mortars on the banks of the river.

It promises to be a long night.

The first of many.


Air Assaults Start on Java

(Soerabaja - Java) For two months in Soerabaja "the war" consisted of stories about things happening elsewhere. The closest the citizens of Soerabaja came to witnessing war was watching the navy ships sail into and out of the harbor and the refugees from distant ports arriving in whatever ships could hold them.

The reality of war became much more real when over twenty Japanese bombers came to the city.

There had been frequent air raid drills in the city. No doubt, when the sirens went off, the people thought this was just another drill. Mechanically, they went into their shelters and waited for the all clear.

Those whose duties prevented them from seeking shelter and those who refused to heed the warnings of the airraid siren and stayed outside, had an opportunity to see a formation of Japanese bombers flying in.

They were fairly high up - a couple of miles, perhaps, though it was hard to estimate.

By coincidence, the Dutch air force received orders at their morning briefings to end its training and to prepare for real combat. When the Japanese arrived, the Dutch pilots were in the air with full gas tanks and full ammunition.

They saw Dutch fighters take on the bombers, and watched as some of them crashed into the ground. Those nearer the crash sites rushed to help those who were hit. Those further way asked themselves who they knew in those distant parts of the city.

They flew over the airport, then turned and went back to the northwest, with the Dutch defenders shooting at them the whole way.

A few moments later, columns of black smoke appeared in the direction of the airport. Some of them grew taller and darker, fed by young fires.

Then the first wave of rumors spread through the street. Massive numbers of allied planes had been destroyed on the ground. The Dutch air force had been destroyed.

It turned out that the Japanese destroyed two bombers on the ground and damaged four others. They shot down none of the fighters – and fell far short of destroying the Dutch air force defending Java.

For this, and slight damage to the airfields that will be repaired soon enough, the Japanese lost 9 bombers. They lost another 6 bombers in a similar raid against Tjilatjap a couple hundred miles west of here. It was a steep price – a price that the Dutch pilots could be proud of.

But the raid did inflict a cost that the people of Soerabaja were not accustomed to paying. One of the bombers shot down crashed into a neighborhood where it killed a woman and her two children, and hospitals suffered their first rush of injured soldiers and civilians.

War had now come to Soerabaja.


SS Plunger Blocks Baker Reinforcements

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) The submarine Plunger made a significant contribution to the defense of naval routes from Pearl Harbor to Fiji/Samoa yesterday when it sank a troop-laden transport near Baker Island.

Baker Island sits near the naval routes that the Americans are using to reinforce their troops in the Fiji/Samoa region. Japanese planes operating out of this island would force allied shipping east and south, delaying the arrival of any reinforcements or supply convoys.

The Japanese occupied Baker Island on January 15th. Two days later, four American destroyers attacked, sinking a troop-laden landing ship. American carriers Lexington and Yorktown launched two heavy and well-coordinated carrier-based strikes. Then the British battleship Warspite with an escort of destroyers and one heavy cruiser bombarded the island.

After these attacks, the Navy Department suspected that the Japanese forces would need reinforcement. Three days ago, they intercepted radio communications stating that the 6/4th Garrison Unit was boarding the transport ship xAK Achou Maru, destined for Baker Island.

This gave SS Plunger time to reach the approaches to the island and find the Japanese naval squadron.

Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific, has ordered a naval strike force centered on the battleships Warspite and New Mexico to leave Pearl Harbor for Baker Island in the hopes of further disrupting any Japanese landing of reinforcements. In addition, Saratoga, on its way to Pearl Harbor to resupply, is to meet the bombardment group and provide cover against air attack.

At the same time, Lexington and Yorktown are to patrol the waters north of the Samoa islands for signs of Japanese raiders that might disrupt the upcoming landings. Though there is a risk of the Japanese carriers showing up, Nimitz has decided that the odds are unlikely - that the carriers will likely next appear near New Caledonia and the New Hebrides islands to the west.




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February 2, 1942 - 8/8/2010 3:38:25 AM   
Thayne

 

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February 2, 1942 - Dutch Lose 2 Cruisers to Jap Carriers

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


The Battle for Burma - Day 2
A Standoff at Moulmein

(Moulmein - Burma) The night was broken by the occasional flash of lightning of a storm east of Moulmein. The light would reveal a crowded boat in the water, filled with men, trying to reach the near shore. Then it would be dark - an utter dark where the only you could see is the afterimage of the lightning flash burned into your eye.

"Did I actually see a boat full of people?"

"Were they British, or were they Jap?"

All it took was one person thinking that the boat was filled with Japanese infiltrators to open fire.

At other times, people would wait and challenge the occupants. There would be a tense moment. Sometimes, the shooting would start. Some of the boats were filled with Japanese infiltrators, others with British soldiers trying to escape the Japanese.

In addition to the shouting or the shooting, the Japanese across the river would treat us to a few rounds of artillery from time to time, to keep us awake.

Even spread out as thin as we were, we did not have enough troops to guard the river. The Japanese could carry a boat upstream and cross over there, then come around behind us. It would not be an easy trip. The British had explored that area before the Japanese showed up. The only thing that was probably preventing the Japanese from cutting off our escape already was the difficulty to be found in crossing that muddy, swampy terrain.

It was no better for any Japanese trying to outflank us to the left. They would have had to cross the delta.

The lightning storm that was setting off those flashes of light to the east had dumped an inch and a half of rain here earlier in the night, turning the whole area into a mud pen.

This was the situation when Lieutenant Colonel Sparks announced that we were going to pull out.

Soldiers would hold the line, at least for the day. The wounded and non-essential personnel would be loaded onto trucks and sent north. They would be given one day's head start. Then the rest of the army would pull back.

At the start it looked like a hopeless trek. The Japanese to catch up with us. In addition to dealing with the mud, the roads themselves were filled with refugees trying to escape the Japanese. Yet, they did not seem to be in a hurry about it. They ambled along as best they could, given that they carried their children and brought their grand parents along.

Shortly after 11:00, the B-17s showed up. This time they came in one large mass - about 50 planes as far as I could count.

Their primary target seemed to be the airfield on the other side of the road. If anybody was wondering why we had set up our defenses on the other side of the river, you should know that the airport, port, and all of the conveniences and advantages of a city, were on that side of the river. Everything that was worth holding - and worth taking - was over there.

Half of the bombers focused on the airport. Three smaller groups of six or seven planes turned south to drop their bombs.

A second group with about a dozen planes showed up a half hour late. They dropped their bombs on the airport, then they flew off.

Then it was our turn. Betty bombers showed up. Their instructions seemed to be to stop us from retreating. They dropped their bombs the length of the road heading north, out of town, hitting soldiers and civilians alike. Blood mixed with mud in a think soup along the roadway, leaving some to conclude that the road was not safe. They headed across the fields - across the swamps - or into the mountains.

Some stayed behind and tried to care for the wounded.

At dusk, it was time for the soldiers to leave. The Japanese, sending their patrols across the river in the darkness, would discover soon enough that we had left, and they would start their pursuit.

I wasn't a soldier. I took my note pad and rifle and headed up the road as fast as I could, on foot, in the darkness.


Japanese Carriers at Java

(Soerabaja - Java) The Japanese carrier force showed up unexpectedly north of Soerabaja, Java yesterday, catching the British-Dutch fleet rearming after its recent visit to the Japanese-held city of Kendari.

The fleet scrambled and put to sea, while fighters scrambled and put to the sky.

The fighter pilots discovered the difference between battling unescorted Betty bombers and carrier-trained Japanese Zeros. The Zeros cleared the sky, giving the Kate and Val bombers clear runs against the fleeing ships.

In deeper waters, the cruisers had some room to maneuver. They were not as easy to hit as the battleships at Pearl Harbor had been.

Observers reported over 160 attack planes. The ships seemed to be doing well for a while, avoiding the attacks made against them with wild high-speed turns and maneuvers.

Four torpedo bombers lined up to strike CL Sumatra. It turned into the torpedos when four more planes approached on the port side. Turning into them would put the ship in the path of the first set of torpedos.

CL Java took two bomb hits. Smoke from its fires made a thick cloud in the sky, telling any Japanese flier who did not know where the battle was where to look. Two bombs hit DD Kortenaer and stopped it in the water.

Java, Sumatra and Kortenaer, wounded and struggling in the water, became airplane magnates, drawing the Japanese airplanes to them. Java took two more bombs and a torpedo, before rolling over and sinking. Sumatra took two more torpedoes and went down by the stern. Kortenaer took two bomb hits and was scuttled by torpedos from another destroyer.

DD Jupiter took a torpedo hit, but managed to limp into port.

With the attack, the British Admiralty concluded that the Java sea was just too dangerous for its fleet any more. It ordered a withdraw. Reluctantly, the Dutch sent those few of its ships that remained with the British, leaving the air and army corps to defend Java.


South Pacific Assaults Ordered to Proceed

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) The news of Japanese carrier planes near Java came as welcome news to Admiral Chester Nimitz, the Commander in Chief of the Pacific. He had just ordered his carriers to strike at Vaitupu and Baker Islands without having any idea where the Japanese carriers were at. There was a chance that he was directing his carriers to their death.

Lexington and Yorktown will stop 100 miles southwest of Vaitupu by tomorrow morning. After looking around for Japanese ships, it will launch its first strike tomorrow. Then, it will head west, back to the New Hebrides islands.

Meanwhile, the carrier Saratoga will travel north towards Baker Island. It will join up with the battleships Warspite and New Mexico and try to sink the support ships that were discovered heading towards Baker Island.




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February 3, 1942 - 8/8/2010 3:25:50 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 3, 1942 - American Carriers Sink 2 Jap Transports and Escort at Vaitupu

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing. Revealing any of the contents of these reports will be punished as treason.


The Battle for Burma - Day 3
Calcutta Processes Reinforcements

(Calcutta - India) Another train pulls into the rail yard in Calcutta, India.

A stream of passengers disembark. They are sent across the street to a warehouse where members of the 108/2 base force sees to it that the soldiers get their equipment and are delivered to the correct unit.

The rest of the train's contents are pulled into a side yard where the 108th RAF Base Force is in charge.

The 108th formerly occupied the town of Tavoy until the Japanese kicked them out. Now, like the 108/2, they are in Calcutta contributing to the movement of men and materials while they rebuild their strength and their confidence.

There is a desperate shortage of rolling stock in India, so the supplies cannot stay on the rail cars for long. The 108th see to it that the cars are quickly unloaded and its contents distributed or stored.

Food goes into a warehouse dedicated strictly to the collection and distribution of food. The troops in eastern India, from Calcutta to Chittagong to Ledo and back, were using up over 20 tones of food each day.

A typical rail car has the ability to hold up to 75 tones of food, so that is the equivalent of one filled railway car filled with flour, potatoes, carrots, onions, meat, milk substitutes, chocolate, and huge tin cans of everything from tomatoes to apple sauce.

This train came with three LB-30 Liberator Bombers packed in their crates. These planes are going to the 32nd Squadron of the 19th Bomber Group. The 32nd Squadron's B-17D bombers will then get cleaned up and redistributed to the other squadrons in the group to fill out the unit.

The train also brought also came with two dozen crated P-40E Warhawk fighters. The 2nd Squadron of the American Volunteer Group will be flying into Calcutta this afternoon. They will undergo a brief period of training on the Warhawk while the fighters were being assembled, then they will fly off to face the Japanese in their new planes.

Meanwhile, their H81-A3 fighters - which were actually P-40 Tomahawk fighters sent to China as a part of Lend-Lease - would be cleaned up and redistributed to the 1st and 3rd Squadrons of the American Volunteer Group.

A representative of the 254th Armoured Tank Brigade - an Indian armored brigade - shows up in the afternoon.

The 254th came to Calcutta in December with 32 tanks and very little to back them up with or support them.

Then, in January 7th, supplies started to arrive from America and England. Each day, the 254th would get some new tanks, or some updated artillery, or a squad of infantry. Today, the 254th has nearly 150 vehicles and three companies of infantry backed up by 18 pieces of artillery. Its estimated combat strength is over six times greater than what it was six weeks ago.

Today, however, the representative of the 254th leaves nearly empty handed. The ammunition, spare parts, and other supplies it needs were loaded onto a single truck.

At the airport itself where the 254th standa guard, engineers have just finished lengthening the runways.

This means that the 19th Bomber Group will be needing more bombs. Crews carefully unloaded the 500lb bombs from the train, placed them in trucks, and started shuttling them up to the airport - along with machine-gun ammunition and spare parts. Aviation fuel was drained from tanker cars and also placed in trucks for delivery to the airport.

A flight of 20 bombers would typically use up 40 tons of bombs 120 tons of fuel per day.

Construction supplies are being transferred to another car that can travel the narrow-gage rail lines to Dacca, where crews are working on extending the airfields there. Other construction materials are needed at every base from Ledo to Chittagong - wood, cement, hammers and nails, paint.

As news that the Japanese had taken Moulmein rippled through the city, the soldiers and their paid laborers worked with an added sense of urgency. The cars are unloaded, hooked up, and sent back to Karachi for another load.

Tomorrow, there will be more of the same.


Lexington, Yorktown Attack Vaitupu

(Lexington) The American Aircraft Carriers ]Lexington and Yorktown spotted three Japanese ships unloading supplies at the Japanese-held island of Vaitupu in the South Pacific yesterday and sank all three ships. The identified their targets as a transport ship, a small transport ship, and a sub-chaser.

According to pilots that did fly the mission, the sub chaser completely disappeared with a single bomb hit. Lieutenant Tod Jensen placed his bomb squarely on the small escort ship and there was an explosion. When the spray and smoke cleared, there wasn't a ship to be seen.

Bombers also attacked installations on the island itself.

Thayne Report is attempting to determine why the planes on Yorktown did not participate in today's attack. While their planes were not needed to sink the Japanese ships, they also did not attack the shore installations on Viatupu. We have heard rumors ranging from an accident on the flight deck to a decision on the part of Rear Admiral Frederick Sherman to hold the planes on Yorktown in reserve.

East of Vaitupu, the carrier Saratoga is preparing to make a similar attack against Baker Island in two days. It will remain on station long enough to see to the safety of the battleships Warspite and New Mexico, which are on their way from Pearl Harbor.


British Navy Abandons Java

(Soerabaja - Dutch East Indies) The location of the Japanese carrier fleet, which recently attacked Dutch ships at Soerabaja on the island of Java, is once more a mystery. Consequently, the British navy has withdrawn the remainder of its ships from the Dutch East Indies for redeployment to Ceylon, India.

Some officials at Java are furious at the move, claiming that it demonstrates the British unwillingness to fight. Amidst charges of "cowardice" there are strong feelings of resentment in Java now against the British navy.

Still, the Dutch government ordered the Dutch ships to travel with the British to Ceylon.

Sources tell Thayne Report that the British is now concerned about the possibility of Japanese raids in the Indian Ocean, now that Japan occupies Singapore. The threat is amplified by the fact that the Japanese carriers were recently seen in the Java Sea, and might decide to use their newly won access to the Indian Ocean.

Submarines in the Straight of Malacca between Malaya and Sumatra report that the Japanese are already using the channel. The Dutch submarine SS KX reported sinking a Japanese transport just southwest of Singapore yesterday.

Furthermore, military intelligence has acquired information that the 29th Division and the 11th Tank Regiment are loading up onto ships for redeployment to Moulmein, a recently captured Japanese port in southern Burma.

The British hope to redeploy their remaining ships to Columbo to help secure shipping routes from Cape Town in South Africa to India and to western Australia.




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February 4, 1942 - 8/9/2010 2:53:07 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 4, 1942 - Retreat to Pegu

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.


The Battle for Burma - Day 4
Retreat to Pegu

(Pegu - Burma) The Japanese came at us from all sides.

Lieutenant Colones Sparks knew that our position was indefensible. He did not have enough soldiers to protect his flanks from Japanese infiltrators.

However, he was worried that if he retreated too quickly that the Japanese would charge and overrun his units.

So, in a meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Halahan of the 2nd Burma Brigade, he decided that he would lead the 107th RAF Base Force back to Pegu as quickly as possible, while Halahan's 2nd Brigade covered the withdraw.

We knew we were not going to stand up to a Japanese assault. So, Halahan's orders were to annoy the Japanese until they started their attack, then bug out as quickly as possible.

When a particularly heavy artillery barrage came down on us, we took that as our sign to move out. We took only what we could carry and threw everything else into the river.

Traps and tripwires set up on the flanks slowed the Japanese down enough for us to get out of the narrow corridor between the two attacking pinchers that Japan launched against us. We were soon on the road heading north.

However, the refugees told us that we had not been fast enough. News travelled down the wire like a lit fuse. We could see ahead of us that something was wrong as refugees came to a stop and spoke frantically among themselves. Then, word came from ahead of us, passed over us, and travelled down the line. The Japanese had cut the road to the north.

The flood of civilians suddenly switched direction and, instead of heading away from Moulmein, they were heading back toward the city. This formed a confused mess with those still traveling north.

"Every man for himself," Halahan ordered.

This was not as foolish nor as cowardly a move as it sounds on the written page. The fact is, any large group of British soldiers would be easily rounded up by the Japanese. A soldier's best hope of making Pegu was to travel alone or with just a few friends, making a group too small to notice.

Less than a second after hearing the order, I was off and running into the hills east of us.

I had been studying my maps. To the east, there is another road - a dirt road - heading north then west. To get there, I had to cross about a mile of hills and jungle. I pushed myself hard to get across as quickly as possible. Once hidden in the forest, I stopped only long enough to get out of my western-style clothes and into some native clothes that I had brought in my backpack.

I ate the last of my food, took what water I had left, and continued east.

The refugees knew of this road as well as the main road to Pegu, but it was much less crowded - and there was no sign of the Japanese.

I moved north at a half-trot as long as there was daylight, then a fast walk after dark.

It was 30 miles to the town of Thaton. I got there shortly after noon. The Burmese refugees along the road gave no hint that there was Japanese up ahead, and they would know.

In Thaton, I found Colonel Sparks and the 107th RAF Base Force. I told him about the Japanese attack. He had heard rumors, but had no solid information. With my news that the Japs were definitely on their way, he got his soldiers mounted up and heading up the road.

We reached Pegu just at sunset. Lieutenant Colonel MacKendrick, who is in charge of the garrison here, had set up assembly areas for the 107th and 2nd Burma. Sparks had gotten 200 soldiers out of eastern Burma. When I got to the assembly area for the 2nd Brigade, Colonel Halahan was there with three other soldiers and a machine gun.

That is what was left of the 2nd Burma Brigade.


Japanese Carriers Circle Java

(Soerabaja - Java) Japanese carriers circled to the south side of Java yesterday, threatening shipping routes to and from the island.

However, allied leaders had called an end to attempts to send ships to Java when the carrier force appeared. In fact, they had ordered an evacuation of all remaining combat ships around Java that were fit to sail. This left one destroyer undergoing repairs in Soerabaja that did not fit that description.

Because of the weather, no air strikes were launched against the carriers, and the carriers launched no strikes against Java. Still, the British and Dutch air force in Java are on alert and hoping for a brighter and clearer morning. The first thing they will need to do is to find the Japanese carriers. The second thing they would need to do is sink some of them.

One current worry is that the Japanese carrier fleet can now disappear in the empty Indian Ocean, only to appear suddenly at Ceylon or off the coast of western Australia. The Combined chiefs have ordered that all efforts be made to keep track of the Japanese carriers.


Indian Soldiers Cut Malaya Road

(Columbo - Ceylon) Indian soldiers cut off in central Malaya have managed to turn the tables on the Japanese, if only briefly, by blocking both major roads from Singapore to Bangkok, Thailand.

The soldiers of the 1st Hyderabad Battalion moved to capture a section of the coastal road on the west side of the island that Japan had used to make their lightning-fast strike on Singapore, while the 8th Indian Brigade and the 28th Ghurka Brigade occupied the road further inland.

The soldiers have been involved in destroying bridges and supports, pulling up railroad tracks and destroying communication wires along the length of the road.


Saratoga Prepares Assault on Baker Island

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) The American aircraft carrier Saratoga sailed past Canton Island in the South Pacific yesterday on its way home.

It's next destination will be Japanese-held Baker Island, where Captain Ramsey hopes to inflict more damage on the site on his way to Pearl Harbor for replenishment.

Military intelligence confirms that a transport convoy has recently arrived at Baker Island to deliver reinforcements.

Saratoga is travelling with separate force of three cruisers that should arrive at Baker Island during the night to destroy any transport ships and to shell the island. It will then continue on to Pearl Harbor for resupply. The cruisers should inflict enough damage to prevent the forces on the island from posing any threat to Saratoga.

A few days later, the battleships Warspite and New Mexico are due to arrive to shell the island again.

Saratoga is scheduled to arrive and restock its supplies at Pearl Harbor at about the same time that the carrier Enterprise under Admiral William Halsey completes its repairs for a torpedo hit it took last month.




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February 5, 1942 - 8/14/2010 1:12:12 AM   
Thayne

 

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February 5, 1942 - 9 Jap Ships Sunk at Baker Is.

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.


The Battle for Burma - Day 5
Reinforcing Pegu

(Pegu - Burma) When the 2nd Burma Brigade flew back to Calcutta, India, the entire unit fit in one airplane, with room for 24 sacks of mail and a government official from Rangoon, where the airport had been destroyed.

As they flew off, they left behind an army working to put up another barrier to Japan's attempt to annex Burma.'

Yesterday, units that had been garrisoning Rangoon formed up and started marching here, to Pego. This is where the Japanese have to cross the river if they are going to take Rangoon. This is where the best chance to stop the Japanese exists.

The soldiers here are waiting for an answer to a very important question. Will the British and Burmese army get here from Rangoon before the Japanese 33rd Division gets here from Moulmein?

If so, the British intend to plant themselves on the west side of the river. They will mass a force of 4500 soldiers.

Behind them, demolition experts will go to work destroying everything of value in Rangoon, just in case.

The plan has its risks. Rangoon will be left nearly empty. The Japanese can, if they are good enough, move around the British line and land in Rangoon itself. However, the British do not have enough troops to hold the river and the city. They have opted to hold the river - and they hope the Japanese do not realize that to this the British had to abandon the city.


American Ambushes at Baker Island

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) Captain Riker, commander of Task Force 394, expected to see a couple of cargo ships pulled up to the pier at Baker Island or at anchor at sea. That was the best he had hoped for.

Instead, he got a report from the destroyer Stuart, which was the only ship in the task force equipped with radar, that there were about a dozen cargo ships at the island. They were all drawing up anchor, trying to get away.

Riker split up his task force and sent them on different bearings with the instructions that no enemy ship was to get free.

Observers scanned the horizons for any sign of a Japanese escort coming to the rescue of the transport ships - a heavy cruiser or battleship. The radar operator continued to report that all his radar was picking up were the transport ships.

Riker's first command was to "break the legs" on the transports - to hole them below the water line or damage engines to prevent their escape. Once they could no longer move quickly, the task force, consisting of three Riker's first intention was to wound the enemy ships with damage to the engines or by putting holes in the hull so they could not move away so quickly.

After all of the enemy ships had been made lame, he had his task force of 3 cruisers and 15 destroyers could concentrate on sinking them.

There may have been a time, after putting a couple dozen holes in an enemy transport ship, that Riker could have ordered his fleet to retreat, confident that the ship would sink eventually. However, Riker decided to keep firing and to count the ship sunk only when he saw the sinking with his own eyes.

As dawn broke and the sun climbed the eastern sky, his task force was still pumping shells into enemy ships. By 10:00 am he was ready to leave, confident that there was not one enemy ship afloat.

The official tally was 8 transport ships sunk, along with one patrol boat.

This brings the number of enemy ships sunk in February so far up to nineteen.

Another source of fruitful hunting has been around the port of Singapore. There, it appears that the Japanese brought up a group of transport ships to load the victorious units that captured Singapore last week and ship them to Moulmein, Burma - rather than march them overland. However, British and Dutch submarines have been put the length of the Straight of Malacca between Malaya and Sumatra. The cost has been a number of troop-laden transport ships torpedoed and sunk.


Japanese Carrier Raiders Maul Java Air Force

(Soerabaja - Dutch East Indies) The weather cleared over Java, giving the Japanese carrier force currently sailing west along Java's south coast the opportunity to destroy the Dutch air force.

The Japanese concentrated their efforts on the port of Soerabaja. Japanese Zero fighters had no trouble brushing away the Dutch and British fighters guarding the town, allowing the bombers the opportunity to attack the port and airfields of Soerabaja at their leisure. The attack cost the defenders of Java over two dozen aircraft, at a loss of less than 6 Japanese planes.

In addition to damaging the port and air facilities, the Japanese bombers managed to hit a submarine that had come to Soerabaja to rearm, and put another bomb on the damaged destroyer Jupiter as it sat in dry dock.

Meanwhile, no allied aircraft approached the Japanese carriers. By the time the Japanese carriers had been located, naval attack craft at Batavia were already en route to a Japanese task force seen approaching the oil port of Palembang instead. The attacks on the Palembang task force failed to inflict any noticeable damage.




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February 6, 1942 - 8/14/2010 10:56:11 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 6, 1942 - Pegu, Burma Lost in Surprise Jap Attack

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.

The Battle for Burma - Day 6
The Element of Surprise

(Rangoon - Burma) Nobody was prepared for the attack.

I was playing cards near the bank of the river with three members of a machine gun team when we started to hear rumblings off to the north. We dismissed them at first and kept playing. The explosions, shouts, and rifle shots quickly grew louder. Still, we did nothing but stand, face north, and stare for some clue as to what was going on.

It was too hot to do much else.

Then we caught the first sight of fleeing troops. A Jeep, loaded with soldiers, moving south so recklessly that it lost a passenger and did not even slow down to see if he was okay. Next, there were foot who had dropped or left all of their equipment - heading south in a dead run.

My reporter's instincts told me to go north, towards the action, and learn what was happening so that I could report it. Every other instinct I had told me to run for my life. I answered both demands by staying put and staring, like a proverbial dear caught in headlights, waiting for some definitive sign to tell me what to do next.

When I saw a squad of Japanese soldiers stop and shoot fleeing British soldiers in the back as they ran, I took off, heading south.

The Japanese, I later learned, had came out of the woods across the river in a swarm, running across the fields, carrying just about anything they could get their hands on that could float.

The British were nowhere near prepared for this. They were having a casual afternoon, confident that the Japanese would not be able to muster a force capable of attacking for at least another day. Meanwhile, they were going to enjoy the time they had remaining.

Artillery crews were involved in a game of soccer (football) in the afternoon heat, but many of the British soldiers were simply asleep.

There were British soldiers on the march from Rangoon, but they had not gotten here yet. Many were expected tomorrow, when they would be put up along the river to prepare for the Japanese attack.

Japan was not interested in waiting.

With the defeats and retreats I had witnessed so far, this was the first one I was in where the defenders were utterly surprised. There were a lot of individual acts of bravery - soldiers manning their guns and staying there until overrun by a wave of Japanese soldiers. What was missing was any type of coordination. One hundred individual acts of bravery is pathetically weak compared to the routine non-heroic coordinated actions of 100 soldiers trained working as a team.

The British did not have that at the moment, due to Japanese surprise.

The bulk of the enemy attack landed on our north flank, upstream. The Japanese threw themselves into the river using boats, logs, anything that could float. They actually started far upstream, expecting the current to carry them south as they crossed the river. Still, they landed north of our northernmost troops.

When they reached our side of the river, they began fighting their way south. Our defenses were built to fight the Japanese coming at us from the east, across the river. They were not set up to fight an attack from the north.

It was not a withdraw to Rangoon, it was a route. Retreating British soldiers heading south to get away from the Japanese crashed into the Rangoon brigades coming north to help defend Pegu.

The units coming out of Rangoon were able to react intelligently. They set up perpendicular to the road, letting retreating British soldiers through. Behind those lines, the British in retreat were able to stop in relative safety and start to put themselves into order again.

Whole batteries worth of guns were overrun. Nearly 1000 soldiers are still listed as missing.

The capture of Pegu effectively cuts the rail line through which supplies were getting to China to help them with their battle against Japan.

Once again, the Japanese were able to surprise the British with the speed of their advance.


Bataan Begins Severe Rationing

(Bataan - Philippines) Supplies at Corregidor Island are becoming severely depleted as a result of the continued Japanese assaults on the defenders.

The Philippine army had hauled over 35,000 tons of supplies to the Island before the Japanese took of Manilla. However, Japanese air assaults and artillery bombardments, as well as the needs of an army with over 25,000 soldiers, have reduced that stock pile to less than 2,000 tons of supplies.

Sources in the War Department report that we should expect to report on the fall of Manilla within the next 48 hours.

As with the fall of Singapore, this will free up a large number of Japanese military units - particularly army and air forces, to enter into the war on some other front. Places where the allies might see increased activity include China, Burma, Java, Timor, and New Caledonia.

Confidential reports by those who work in the Office of the Combined Chiefs say that at no point on this line are the allies well enough organized to withstand a Japanese attack.


Japanese Carrier Force Disappears South of Java

(Batavia - Dutch East Indies) Allied reconnaissance aircraft have lost sight of a large Japanese carrier fleet that was last seen in the waters south of Java.

As a result, units from Calcutta to Darwin have been put on alert to look out for the Japanese armada. Japanese planes have the potential to appear without warning at any port bordering the Indian Ocean.

British military planners are particularly worried about the potential for the Japanese fleet to appear off of Ceylon. To prepare for this possibility, they are reducing their naval presence in this region around Ceylon until the location of the Japanese carrier fleet is once again known.

Ships carrying supplies to Australia from Cape Town, South Africa have been ordered to sail widely disbursed to prevent the destruction of any large quantities of ships. Larger ships with important cargo were ordered to take longer routes, while smaller ships with common supplies were ordered to take shorter, more direct routes.

The next task is to wait and see where the Japanese fleet shows up next.




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February 7, 1942 - 8/15/2010 10:56:41 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 7, 1942 - Jap Carriers Reappear in Java Sea

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.

The Battle for Burma - Day 7
Battle Lines at Pegu

(Rangoon - Burma) The British Army did not retreat far out of Pego.

At the end of the day, they managed to set up a defense just south of the town.

The terrain here is flat and well populated. There is a steady stream of refugees approaching our lines. However, this time, the British are not allowing anybody to get through. Fearful that Japanese can hide among the refugees and get behind our lines, they have simply closed the roads.

If anybody gets too close, they get a warning shot.

If they get any closer, the next shot is not a warning.

The units that are making up this line are not those that the Japanese kicked out of Pegu yesterday. These are the fresh troops that had been marching north from Burma. They had been studying the maps and preparing to fight in this region, so they were familiar with the terrain.

They have simply arrived one day too late.

There is a steady stream of refugees leaving Pego and heading toward Rangoon. The population We can't see any distance at all before trees and buildings get in our way.

There is one fact we cannot avoid. There are five Japanese for every British soldier here in Burma. They will probably attack tomorrow. Yesterday has told us that the Japanese are not accustomed to taking their time. We will retreat back to Rangoon. And there we will have our backs against the proverbial wall.

The Burma Road has been cut. There is nothing more to be said about that. Some day, the British may have the power to open it up again. Until then, Japan has accomplished a major objective. It has cut off China. We must now ask how long China can hold out without supplies.

The only life line that is left is north of here. Twenty DC-2 transport aircraft are making daily flights from Ledo into China. They carry 20,000 tons of supplies per day. That sounds like a lot, but it will barely keep a battalion clothed and fed - without equipment, and without ammunition.

The sun is setting. That means nothing here. The Japanese will use the night to probe the British lines and harass British soldiers. Eventually, the attack will come, but there will be no rest between now and then.


Bataan Holds On One More Day

(Bataan - Philippines) Bataan is still in allied hands for another day, but the supply situation there continues to deteriorate. Twenty-five percent of the remaining supplies were either consumed or destroyed in the past 24 hours. This means three days on the outside before the Philippines is in Japanese hands.

Mostly, Bataan is in allied hands because the Japanese have not tried to take it yet. Throughout the day they subjected us to continued shelling and bombing. There were around 100 Japanese sorties flown against the defenses, and there was not a moment in the day when shells were not falling somewhere within or on top of the Allied defenses.

Anti-aircraft and artillery shells make up a sizable portion of the supplies being used. However, since the soldiers cannot eat them and it would be foolish to save them for the Japanese to capture, the soldiers are using them up against Japanese airplanes and soldiers.

In spite of the Japanese threat, the allied forces here have been serving as a refueling location for allied submarines. Every night, one or two submarines show up. The crew here fuels them from drums that have been stockpiled, and sends them on their way.

The submarine Supplies at Corregidor Island are becoming severely depleted as a result of the continued Japanese assaults on the defenders.

Under orders from Thane Report headquarters, I have been told to take the next submarine out of here. "You can't file reports on the treatment of POWs from a POW camp. The Japanese will not allow it," my editor has told me.

The submarine Porpoise has pulled up for refueling and re-arming. So I will be on it. This is the last report you will get from Bataan for quite some time.


Japanese Carrier Force Re-Appears
Japanese Carrier Bombers Ambushed

(Batavia - Dutch East Indies) Dutch military units breathed a sigh of relief when the Japanese Carrier fleet re-appeared just 100 miles north of Batavia after sailing through the Sunda Straight west of Java.

The Dutch air force decided not to take on the Japanese fighters, and continued to launch their air attacks against the Japanese force currently off of the coast of Palembang. However, repeated Dutch sorties against the Japanese force failed to produce any hits.

The carriers opted to launch a massive attack on Tjilatjap in south-central Java, effective closing that airbase. However, in the course of the attack, a squadron of Japanese Kate bombers appear to have gotten lost. While the main body of bombers attacked Tjilatjap under the protection of Japanese Zero fighters, allied radar picked up this squadron flying separately and directed Dutch fighters towards its location.

The result was nine carrier-based Kate bombers shot down.

An examination of the wreckage told Allied military intelligence that these Kate bombers came from Kaga, one of the main Japanese fleet carriers.

In a separate attack against Soerabaja, Dutch and British fighters shot down four unescorted Betty bombers.

However, the damage that the Japanese inflicted was equally severe. The Japanese ended up destroying a dozen allied airplanes, most of them on the ground. Ground crews immediately looked for replacements that had been stored in various places around Java and started putting them together.


Lexington and Yorktown Continue Defense of New Caledonia

(Noumea - New Caledonia) With the Japanese carrier force known to be in the Java Sea, the American carriers Lexington and Yorktown returned to the waters around New Caledonia to scout for signs of a Japanese invasion.

Again, they discovered Japanese transport ships and an escorting task force.

For the first time in the war, American torpedo bombers sank an enemy ship. Up to this time dive bombers from the American carriers, or torpedo bombers carrying bombs, delivered the payloads that had been sinking the Japanese ships.

Two torpedo bombers came from Yorktown and included one of that ship's newest pilots, Ensign Arnold Raymond. The target in this case was a particularly tough target to hit - a Japanese patrol craft.

Raymond opted not to go after any of the transport ships since the dive bombers seemed to have had them nearly demolished and sank. He sought to go after the smaller ships.

The torpedo nearly missed. It detonated so far towards the rear of the enemy ship it would not have been hard to think that the explosion was behind the ship. However, the explosion blew off the rear end of the ship and stopped it dead in the water.

This left the ship vulnerable to another torpedo bomber, Ensign Robert Jeffries, to finish off the ship.

It is known that at least one enemy destroyer escaped the attacks. The bombers sank three transports, one destroyer, and one patrol craft.





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February 8, 1942 - 8/21/2010 9:06:10 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 8, 1942 - Jap Burma Reinforcements Stopped at Sea

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.


The Battle for Burma - Day 8
Japanese Slaughter on the High Seas

(Columbo - Ceylon) A Japanese task force attempting to carry the victors of Singapore to Burma by sea - up the west coast of the Malaya Peninsula - has been decimated by Dutch submarines.

The Dutch submarines, including KVII, KXI, and KIX, sank five transport ships in the past 24 hours, doing serious harm to the force that the Japanese were likely hoping to participate in the capture of Burma.

Several other Japanese ships have been damaged and forced to shore or possibly sunk.

Though Japan has a significant force in Burma already and is quickly moving to take over that country, it is hoped that the lack of reinforcements will prevent the Japanese from moving on Ceylon or eastern India, or moving up into western China along the Burma Road.


Japanese Drive Toward Rangoon

(Rangoon - Burma) The attack that Japan launched to force the British army back towards Burma came as expected yesterday.

Still, the Japanese were able to surprise the British with the speed of their advance. According to reports, the Japanese did not hit us with just the 33rd Division. It threw in at least one additional infantry and cavalry regiments, and had set up a substantial number of artillery positions during the night.

With the suddenness of the attack, the Japanese were able to isolate and then eliminate the 1st Gloucestershire Battalion, which held the right flank on the British line.

The rest of the units were able to retreat to Rangoon and set up another line of defenses. However, these defenses are not well established. Military leaders give no hope that the remaining defenders will be able to hold off the Japanese. Plans are already being discussed to retreat the remaining British units out of western Burma and into India.


Allied Demolition of Baker Island Begins

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) Airplanes from the carrier Saratoga and a task force of cruisers and destroyers again rattled the Japanese garrison at Baker Island, continuing its work of disrupting any Japanese plans to turn the island into a major military base.

Reconnaissance of the island currently shows that the island is being garrisoned by the 4th Garrison Unit, 4th RF Gun Battalion, and the 26th JAAF AF Battalion. However, it is expected that these units are lacking any heavy guns because the ships bringing them were sunk over the course of the past few days. The Allied ships participating in the bombardment did not report any resistance from the island.

Saratoga reports that it has currently used up over 90% of its supplies and will need to return to Pearl Harbor before it can carry out any more strikes. Its airplanes have been put on anti-submarine patrol to help it get through the dangerous waters around Pearl Harbor.


Reinforcement of the Fiji-Samoa Region Continues

(Suva - Fiji) American troops continue to move into the Samoa-Fiji region, which the Combined Chiefs of Staffs has designated as the jumping-off point for fighting back against the Japanese Empire. Transport ships are currently unloading men and supplies on three key islands in this region.

A recent decision by the Combined Chiefs calls for making Suva a major receiving station for all reinforcements. Its port facilities are to be built up to handle the shipments of troops. After being disembarked in Suva, the allied forces will be loaded back onto transports and dispatched to nearby islands.

Naval support forces are currently en route to Suva to help in these operations.





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February 9, 1942 - 8/27/2010 2:26:11 AM   
Thayne

 

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February 9, 1942 - Jap Carriers Surround Java

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The Battle for Burma - Day 9
Rangoon Riots

(Rangoon - Burma) A rifle-shot from a distant rooftop sends soldiers scrambling for their cover. An army private who had been filling water jugs for soldiers setting up defenses lay on the ground, his blood mixing with the water from the dropped hose.

The soldiers here are unable to get even a moment's rest. With the British army under attack from Japan, the citizens of Rangoon are seeing this as a chance to throw off the yoke of colonial rule. Disorganized rioters have approached a number of British strongholds while the soldiers try to prepare for the Japanese army.

There is looting and violence everywhere. There is no place for a British soldier to go where he is not under threat. If he is not being bombed by Japanese Betty bombers, then he is being shelled by the Japanese army. Those not being shelled by the Japanese army are being harassed by Burmese citizens telling the British army to get out of the country.

Once again the American PBYs are being put to use ferrying people back to India. Priority goes to key political leaders in Burma who have cooperated with England during colonial rule. Non-essential military personnel, those who are sick or wounded and unable to fight, and civilians with important skills such as airplane mechanics and boat pilots get to move to the front of the line.

Many soldiers who feel that the defense of Rangoon is hopeless are mapping out their lines of escape.

I have been given my way out. A fast boat sits docked at a portion of the port that is under armed British guard. A Burmese boat pilot is standing by to take me upstream as soon as I am ready to leave. Given how quickly the Japanese have moved, I am staying near the pier in case I have to move quickly.

I would not be surprised if the battle for Rangoon ends tomorrow. I would not be surprised to see the Japanese sweep down, take the city, and drive what is left of the defenders across the river by sundown. That river will be a major problem. Guns and tanks will have a particularly hard time getting across. This could be the end to British artillery and armor in south Burma.

If there are any survivors from the upcoming battle of Rangoon, they will probably be too badly beaten and ineffective to do anything but retreat to India. However, this itself is going to be a struggle.

Japan will then move into the center of the country where there simply is no force capable of defending against the Japanese.


Japanese Air Forces Dominate Java

(Soerabaja - Java) Japan hit air fields in Java from three different carrier forces yesterday, sending in a total of about 170 carrier-based airplanes against the allied defenses.

Most of the strikes fell on Soerabaja again, whose airfield is showing significant damage from these repeated attacks. The Japanese suffered few if any losses. The Dutch air force reported the loss of 7 airplanes from these raids. Most of those planes were destroyed on the ground.

The Dutch air force also lost eight 139-WH3 bombers when they attempted to strike the Japanese naval force near Palembang, Sumatra again. This time, the Japanese had assigned as squadron of Zero fighters to protect the task force. Because Palembang is still in allied hands, the Japanese Zeros had to fly in from another source. Allied intelligence is suspecting the possible presence of another Japanese carrier force in the area.

Elsewhere, allied submarines have spotted Japanese transport ships in the Java Sea.

One group of Japanese ships has been spotted north of Batavia. Allied submarines and air units flying from Java were able to sink or damage two transports in these groups.

Submarines found a second group of transports sailing south through the Makassar Straight on the east side of Borneo, but were unable to inflict any damage.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff have issued an alert stating that the Japanese invasion of Java appears imminent.


Baker Island Again Bombarded

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) This time joined by the battleship New Mexico, the British battleship Warspite along with four cruisers and a half-dozen destroyers hammered Baker Island yesterday.

Baker Island is the Japanese held island southwest of Hawaii which the Japanese are probably seeking to set up as a major forward base.

Recently Allied cruisers attacked and destroyed a major supply force anchored at the island. In addition, the carrier Saratoba bombed the island while sailing past on its way to Pearl Harbor to replenish its ammunition and air crews.

Observers on the battleships as well as spotter planes set up by the cruisers in yesterday's bombardment reported three significant fires on the island, indicating that the ships had found and destroyed at least three caches of weapons and supplies. In addition, the damage to buildings and emplacements was been described as "extensive".

The attack not only inflected major damage on the airfield, but is likely to serious disrupt the Japanese ability to repair and enlarge the base.

Back at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nimitz has asked his staff to explore the possibility of retaking the island from the Japanese.

While the Japanese base suffers a continuing series of attacks, the Americans at Canton Island 300 miles to the southeast are continuing to solidify their hold on that island.




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February 10, 1942 - 8/29/2010 2:08:58 PM   
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February 10, 1942 - Bataan Defenders Near Collapse

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The Battle for Burma - Day 10: A War Diary
Respite at Rangoon

(Rangoon - Burma) The Japanese gave us an unexpected reprieve today. I expected them to rush into Rangoon at the same breakneck speed they used in the capture of Pegu to the north, and which they used in the capture of Singapore.

Even though they are continuing to push down the road, they are not moving at the speed expected that would have had them occupying the city today.

One possible reason for this is that they might be suffering a shortage of supplies. Reports have reached us of nearly 50 B-17 bombers attacking Pegu, the town that Japan recently captured. This interdiction of the Japanese supply lines may be making it difficult for them to bring supplies forward.

Another possibility is that the Japanese forces have become disorganized in the charge so far, and they are taking the time to reorganize them before making the final push. Furthermore, the Japanese may not be aware how feeble the defenses of Rangoon really are at this point, though it would be easy enough for them to find out.

Less than 2500 soldiers of the British Empire continue to hold Rangoon.

It would be more honest to say that the British forces and their allies control a few key places in the city; the airport, the port itself, and some key government buildings. The rest of the city has descended into lawless chaos with British forces themselves finding it difficult to travel between strongholds.

Japan added to the chaos late in the afternoon by visiting us with over two dozen bombers. Experts tell me that these were Sally bombers, each coming with four 250kg bombs - the Japanese (and British) equivalent of the American 500 lb bomb. This is half of the bomb payload of a B-17 bomber operating from a sufficiently large airbase and within normal range of a landing strip.

We are not expecting this reprieve to be for more than 24 hours. By this time tomorrow, I am expecting Rangoon to be in Japanese hands.


Bataan Supplies Near Exhaustion

(Bataan - Philippines) Over 50,000 troops trapped on a peninsula in the Philippine Islands report that their reserves have dwindled to the last bullets and bags of rice.

The only supplies that remain are those that each unit has drawn from the general stores for their own use. Soldiers have been placed on one-third rations and told that the bullets they carry now are the last ones they will see. With these, they have been told to hold out as long as possible.

The Japanese have made no real attempt to dislodge the Allied soldiers yet. Instead, they have subjected the defenders to daily bombardment from the air and from the ground, but have not launched any deliberate attacks. It is thought that the moment the Japanese attackers find out how few supplies the defenders have left, that this will change and the defenders will be forced to give up quickly.

Some defenders are fearing that they may be forced to endure what the defenders at Guam endured - nearly two months of bombardment with little or no food, no ammunition, and little drinking water.

Once the defenders in the Philippines finally fall, Japan will have a number of resources that it could then contribute to another front. This includes bombers and fighters, as well as tens of thousands of ground soldiers.


Japanese Carriers Circle Java Like Sharks

(Soerabaja - Java) Japanese carrier aircraft continue to circle Java like a school of sharks, flying repeated missions against the Dutch defenders.

Their encirclement destroys any hope that the allies might be able to smuggle supplies or reinforcements into the island.

The Japanese carriers continue to concentrate their air assaults on the port of Soerabaja. Their efforts have nearly put the air bases out of service, forcing squadrons to relocate to other bases and leave this major port city undefended.

Two ships caught in port undergoing repairs - the destroyer Jupiter and submarine O24 have suffered a number of hits from these raids. It is thought unlikely that they will survive to ever see battle again.

Meanwhile, the survivers of the joint Dutch-British fleet that the Japanese had probably hoped to sink near Java are continuing to make their way to Columbo. The combined fleet, consisting of three light cruisers and 12 destroyers will add their strength to the defense of India and Ceylon.


Fresh Troops Reinforce Fiji-Samoa

(Suva - Fiji) The American armed forces continue to reinforce the Fiji-Samoa region, which it has selected as the jumping-off point for its plan to defeat the Japanese.

Currently, the 182nd Infantry Regiment is setting up defenses on Hoorn Island, while the Bobcats USN Seabees, E Detachment USN Port Services, and I US Amphibious Corps work to turn Suva in the Fiji Islands into a viable hub for South Pacific operations.

Suvaii in the Samoa islands is also receiving reinforcements with landings from the 1st Marine Raider Battalion, 57th Coastal Artillery Regiment, and the 808th Engineer Aviation Battalion.

The plan is to turn these islands into network of airbases, each capable of aiding the others if those others should fall under Japanese attack.

Additional reinforcements are also heading to Wallis Island and will land there in about three days.

Suva's own airfield has been expanded by engineers trying to make the fields large enough to handle bombers carrying a full load of bombs. The 22nd (Medium) Bomber Group has recently landed in American Samoa where the planes are being assembled for distribution to other bases in this mutually interdependent set of islands.

The 35th Pursuit Group and several New Zealand bomber squadrons are also setting up operations at Suva itself, and two transportation squadrons will soon arrive to aid the mutual support of the islands.

A problem still exists in that there are no ports in the region capable of handling the larger transport ships, or more than a small handful of the smaller transport ships. Construction crews have to make delicate decisions on whether to build fortifications, or build the facilities such as airfields and ports that risk falling into enemy hands.




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February 11, 1942 - 9/4/2010 1:53:14 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 11, 1942 - Japs Score Major Air Victory Over Java

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.


Slaughter Over Java

In the worst allied air defeat over Java, Japanese carrier planes destroyed a substantial portion of the air force protecting Java, suffering only minor losses.

By the end of the day, Dutch headquarters had counted the loss of 34 allied airplanes due to enemy fighters, and another 4 due to flak from enemy ships. The Japanese also destroyed 10 allied planes on the ground bringing the total loss of airplanes to 48 aircraft for the region.

After sorting through the various reports, allied intelligence gave its final estimate that allied fighter and anti-aircraft forces did not bring down a single Japanese airplane.

Many were quick to come to the defense of the pilots involved in the defense of the island, claiming that their airplanes are obsolete. While claiming that their pilots could stand up to the Japanese if allowed to fly modern airplanes, the Combined Chiefs of Staffs continued to insist that its modern airplanes go to the European and Mediterranean fronts.

In these air assaults, the Japanese also managed to sink the first allied ship since February 1st. The submarine O24 had come into Soerabaja to rearm when the port came under attack earlier in the month. That attack damaged the submarine too badly for it to return to sea. In this most recent series of attacks, the Japanese finished the job.

They are also near to sinking the destroyer Jupiter also caught in port with significant damage and unable to escape to sea.

The primary targets for the Japanese attacks were the air fields around Soerabaja, which are now virtually destroyed. By the end of the day over 200 bomb sorties had appeared over Soerabaja striking the port, airfields, and coastal gun defenses.

While the Japanese were destroying the airfields and sinking ships at Soerabaja, British and Dutch pilots were trying to sink some Japanese ships spotted off of the west side of the island at Merak, west of Batavia.

Japanese Zero and Claude fighters intercepted these missions, cut through the fighter escort, and prevented many of the bombers from reaching their targets. Those planes that did manage to get through the wall of defenses and fire on Japanese ships were unable to score any confirmed hits against those targets.

Military intelligence suspects that it is just a matter of days or even hours until the Japanese start landing troops.


The Battle for Burma - Day 11: A War Diary
Japanese Respite Continues

(Rangoon - Burma) I woke up this morning in a state of disbelief. The British still hold port area and air field of Rangoon and the Japanese are still a safe distance away from the city itself.

It is true that, even without the Japanese army, no British soldier dares to go out of this small protected oasis of civilization into the city itself. Gangs of thugs, protesters, and looters control the streets outside of these defensive walls. However, here, there is a semblance of civilization.

Speculation remains that it has been the work of the 7th and 19th Bomber Groups (Heavy) out of India that are responsible for slowing down the Japanese advance. During they day they flew several missions against the Japanese supply lines from Pegu to Moulmein. Word came into the region today from natives still in contact with friends at Pegu that up to 50 B-17 bombers struck several locations along that route.

They also brought news that Japanese ships had reached Moulmein. These are the ships that survived the British and Dutch submarines on the way from Singapore. If the information is to be trusted, the Japanese brought 15 ships - cargo ships and escort - into the port. These reinforcements and supplies will certainly go to helping the Japanese conquer Burma, but thanks to the submarines it is far less help than the Japanese would have otherwise gotten.

However, it is not the case that the Japanese have left us alone to enjoy another day of peace.

American pilots, using the river as a landing strip, are continuing to fly in with their PBYs and carry out the sick and wounded, as well as Burmese civilians who have been instrumental in helping the British govern the province and have bought the rights to some quid pro quo from the British with their service. Estimates are that over 100 people made it out of here to Calcutta yesterday.


Suva Grows as an American Hub

(Suva - Fiji) If you stand on a hill overlooking Suva with a good pair of binoculars, you should be able to count 84 American, Australian, and New Zealand ships in and around the port. This includes 2 carriers - Lexington and Yorktown and approximately 15 cruisers.

All day long, troops and equipments piled up on the docks of the city and moved inland. The Americans are turning Suva into a major forward base well defended, not because of the units that are stationed here, but because of the strength of the units passing through.

Suva is also under the protection of nearly 50 U.S. Army fighters that have been stationed here, and another squadron of 25 fighters on the other side of the island at Nidi, as well as bomber and scout planes.

Many of the ships have been out to sea for several weeks. While they are here, their crews have been assigned the task of getting some maintenance done.

Lexington and Yorktown had used up over three-fourths of their available supplies before coming to work. The first thing they did was to start to haul on board bombs and torpedoes, as well as replacement airplanes. They drew 10 new F4F Fighters and 6 new SBD bombers from those that the cargo ships had brought to the island.

At the same time, an amphibious task force came in with troops and equipment for the nearby islands. These additional forces happened to include the C and E Port Services Detachments, who are experts in seeing to it that particularly heavy equipment makes it off of the ships and onto the shore.

Once on shore, the cargo will be reloaded so that it can be quickly unloaded on the target islands, whose ports do not have the capacity that Sava's does.

There is an ongoing dispute over what projects the limited number of engineers and construction workers should be working on. Should they be expanding the port to turn it into a larger and more efficient supply hub? Should they be building fortifications against the possibility of a Japanese attack?

Currently, the orders have been to expand the runways to make them suitable for bombers. Several New Zealand bombers squadrons are operating off of the island, and the American 22nd Bomber Group (Medium) is currently unloading at American Samoa, about 700 miles east of Fiji. This work will also be useful for the two squadrons of transport aircraft that are due to land in the next few days.

Nimitz ordered the destroyers that came in with these task forces - those that did not require extensive maintenance - to form up and return to sea to attack the submarines known to have been lurking in the region. Five separate sub-hunting task forces will leave the island to patrol the seas nearby for the next 24 hours. Starting at dawn, Lexington will make its contribution to the anti-submarine effort by sending out its bombers to hunt for submarines.






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February 12, 1942 - 9/6/2010 1:53:11 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 12, 1942 - Air Strike - Noumea

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.


The Battle for Burma - Day 12: A War Diary
Japanese Reach Rangoon

(Rangoon - Burma) The streets of Rangoon have changed considerably in the past twenty-four hours, since my last report. They are now nearly deserted, allowing the British some freedom of movement to take up more defensive positions.

The reason for the change is that the Japanese arrive. The 33rd Division, or so it is assumed, has reached the edge of the town. They have spread out some, taking up starting positions. The citizens know that when the bullets and the shells start flying, they are not going to discriminate in who they hit.

A lot of the civilians have fled, moving upriver, either by boat or by road. Others are staying. Many are welcoming the Japanese as liberators, waiting only for them to drive the British out before they approach their new occupiers and ask, "How can I help?"

The people may have left the streets, but there are still fires around town burning out of control. Not even the owners of the structures are making any effort to save them. What's the use? Once a fire gets going it becomes a monster that requires an army in its own right to stop.

We have less than 2000 troops, already suffering from two defeats at Pegu that cut the size of the army nearly in half. The soldiers here have no illusions that they can hold on the Japanese, and attitudes like that become self-fulfilling prophesies. Each soldier knows he will retreat, it is only a matter of when, and along which route.

Nobody wants to be the last soldier on the line facing the Japanese.

I am no different. A boat sits ready for me at the river, its pilot ordered to stay in the boat with orders to take me upstream when I am ready to leave. He has asked, and I have assured him, that we are not going to wait until the last minute. My bags fit into a large backpack that sits at the foot of the cot I have claimed in the corner of one of the warehouses.

I know that I am leaving Rangoon, and I know I'll be leaving shortly after the first invitation to leave arrives. It is just a question of when.


An Allied Draw Over Java

(Batavia - Dutch East Indies) The Dutch were surprised to discover that they fought the Japanese to a draw over Java today, after the slaughter yesterday.

The main reason is because the Japanese decided to launch a strike against Batavia from one of their smaller carrier groups. They met up with two squadrons of British Buffalo fighters that had taken refuge from Singapore.

The British pilots were able to chase the Japanese fighter escort back to the carrier. These were the obsolete Claude fighters and not the more modern Zero fighters. Then, they attacked the bombers, destroying three of them.

The Japanese still managed to do some damage to the airfield, but it was minor.

The biggest worry now is of night-time strikes against Batavia. Against these, the British and Dutch have very poor defenses. Light discipline is being very rigidly enforced. Fortunately, the moon is but a thin crescent. The airfield may survive for a few more days.

Meanwhile, the British and Dutch are gathering their remaining air forces around Batavia for a chance at once of the Japanese convoys known to be hanging out in the waters just off of Java. They have adopted what some here have called the Gaschk Principle.

"I may die, but I'm going to take somebody with me."


Carrier Strike At Noumea

(Suva - Fiji) A surprise carrier strike hit Noumea today.

Noumea is on the island of New Caledonia, which is a place on the line of islands from America to Australia that the allies are expecting the Japanese to try to occupy.

The strike came at about mid-day when 30 carrier-based airplanes approached the island from the southwest. The location but the task force as far as possible from the newly established Allied bases at Fiji and Samoa where the American carriers are being rearmed, refueled, and resupplied.

Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, immediately ordered a surface attack force and a carrier force assembled to go after the new Japanese threats. Nimitz is working under the advantage that the bulk of the Japanese carrier force is encircling Java and cannot possibly be waiting in ambush for the Allied task forces - though the Japanese have some battle ships that still pose a threat.

Further south, the appearance of the carrier force has caused New Zealand to put off temporarily its move to occupy Norfolk Island. Norfolk Island sits approximately half-way between Noumea and the northern tip of New Zealand itself. It is, then, a natural stepping stone to New Caledonia either for the New Zealanders fighting their way north, or the Japanese fighting their way south.

New Zealand has been loading a few forces into amphibious transports to use in occupying the island. Those ships will remain in Auckland until the situation with the Japanese carrier is resolved.




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February 13, 1942 - 9/10/2010 2:57:25 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 13, 1942 - Japs Probe Rangoon Defenses

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.


The Battle for Burma - Day 13: A War Diary
Japanese Reach Rangoon

(Rangoon - Burma) Yesterday, the Japanese army launched a series of probes against the British defenses at Rangoon, Burma, still postponing any attempt to capture the city.

A new theory circulating among the officers is that the Japanese are expecting to find a much larger defensive force in Rangoon. Yesterday's small attacks, involving an estimated at a little over 2000 Japanese soldiers, were meant to test that theory.

What they probably found out is that even that small force has the British defenders here outnumbered. They would have counted the artillery that the British put into the fight and found it nearly non-existent. They would have counted the tanks and armored cars and found them lacking as well.

Ultimately, the British came out ahead in the day's battles. They stood up well to what the Japanese put up against them. Since the Japanese attacked with what amounted to a superior force, though the Japanese probably thought of it as a small reconnaissance mission. In holding off the force, the soldiers could count the day as a small victory - and another day of delay for the Japanese.

However, the Japanese likely got what they were looking for; information about just how lightly defended Rangoon has become because of the serious defeat at Pegu last week. There is no reason for them not to take the city tomorrow.

Every day, the soldiers here have been certain that this is the day the Japanese would attack and drive us out of Rangoon. They are anxious and, in their own minds, they have already lost the battle. There is nothing to do but to make good an outcome that is already a foregone conclusion.


New Air Headquarters Reach India

(Cochin - India) The only two military units to be pulled out of Singapore before its capture yesterday landed in the Indian port of Cochin on the southern tip of the island.

When the Combined Chiefs of Staffs had agreed to the China Option, which includes a plan to move across Burma and China and recapture Hong Kong - it decided that this would have to start with an air war to control the skies over the battlefield. In addition to sending the 7th and 19th Bomber Groups (Heavy) to eastern India and several American PBY squadrons, it ordered the evacuation of the 223rd and 224th Group Royal Air Force Headquarters from Singapore to take up station in eastern India.

The evacuation started by flying headquarters staff to Java, then flying them to northern Australia. In Australia, they boarded troop carriers that took them across the Indian Ocean and to the port city of Cochin. Now in India, they will be embarked onto trains and taken to their stations at the two largest air bases in eastern India, Dacca (223rd) and Calcutta (224th).

In addition, the first American fighter reinforcements from the 51st Pursuit Group arrived in Calcutta yesterday. The headquarters squadron is getting to know the lay of the land and preparing for the arrival of the rest of the squadron. In addition, the 3rd Bomber Group (Medium) and 8th Pursuit Group are getting closer to eastern India with each passing day. These three air groups have been sent to reinforce eastern India and give the allies an extra edge in the air war that will make up the opening phase of the planned China Option.


Saratoga Reaches Pearl Harbor

(Pearl Harbor - Hawaii) The American carrier Saratoga received a hero's welcome as it sailed into Pearl Harbor yesterday, after a long battle-filled tour of duty.

Saratoga participated in the second raid on the Gilbert Islands, then helped fight a Japanese task force near Baker Island that saw the sinking of a Japanese heavy cruiser and damaging a battleship. It then sailed south to oversee the landings of the first American reinforcements in the Fiji-Samoa region. There it's companion ship, Enterprise, took a torpedo from a Japanese submarine and left for Pearl Harbor for repairs.

In defending the Allied landings at Tanna near New Caledonia and west of Fiji, Saratoga took part in air strikes against a Japanese task force that entered the region whose intentions have not yet been fully understood. All that is known is that the Japanese lost 2 destroyers, 1 patrol boat, 5 cargo ships, and 1 troop transport to allied air strikes.

On the way back home to resupply, Saratoga payed a second visit to Baker Island, which the Japanese now control, and oversaw two naval bombardments while delivering its own air strikes against the island with the last of its ammunition.

Now in Pearl Harbor, it has set out to take on supplies and ammunition and to rebuild its air units.

Its companion ship Enterprise still needs to spend more than two weeks to finish up its repairs before it can return to duty. The crew of Saratoga will get a little rest as crews work to make minor repairs on the ship and its replacement crew members become integrated with those combat veterans who have already served through the ship's first tour of duty.


Dutch Retreat to Batavia

(Soerabaja - Dutch East Indies) Because Soerabaja is now indefensible from the air, the Dutch command has decided to center its defenses on the western side of the island, near the capital of Batavia.

Supplies once stored at Soerabaja are being loaded onto trains and trucks and shipped to Batavia, and air and land forces are moving west to aid the defenses there.

Japanese air attacks have destroyed the air defenses of the city and left its air field in ruins. Fighter squadrons flying from nearby bases had been trying to defend the city, but they proved no match for the Zero fighters that came in with the carrier-based air forces.

Dutch military leaders fear that supplies left in Soerabaja would simply be left to complete destruction from the Japanese air attacks, and so made the decision to move them to Batavia where some air protection can still be provided. During the night, crews began the operation of loading equipment onto anything that moved and starting it off to Batavia.

Meanwhile, the large Japanese carrier force is, itself, approaching the western side of the island.









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February 14, 1942 - 9/18/2010 2:47:30 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 14, 1942 - Japan Takes Rangoon

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.


The Battle for Burma - Day 14: A War Diary
Japanese Reach Rangoon

(Schwebo - Burma) Japan kicked the British out of Rangoon today in a sudden and massive attack that destroyed any hope of an orderly retreat.

I woke up this morning surrounded by hundreds of explosions as the Japanese started their attack with a massive artillery barrage. I spent a good two or three minutes dazed and confused, not knowing what to do or what to think, in a state of virtual panic.

My home these last couple of days had been a cot in the corner of a warehouse near the docks in Rangoon. There were sandbags piled up against the outside of the wall providing me with protection on two sides. However, it did not provide any benefits from shells coming in through the roof. It must have been one such shell that woke me up. The room was filled with smoke and dust such that I could barely breathe.

I covered my mouth with my sleeve and rolled over into the wall to get as close to its protection as I could. I laid there, thinking that the artillery would stop. I should have known better. It took literally minutes for me to piece together the fact that I was in Rangoon, the Japanese wanted to take the city, and they were certain to begin any attack with a massive artillery strike that would end when the Japanese soldiers arrived.

This was my queue to leave - to get on the boat assigned to me and head out of town.

This meant I had to leave my secure corner of the warehouse and run a couple of hundred yards to the docks. I was no stranger to the facts of what an artillery shell could do a person. The Japanese, in taking their time to surround the city, and put in place hundreds of guns. Since the British did not control very much area, the Japanese could concentrate their fire on the little bit of ground the British did control.

"Okay. You're going. Now," I told myself. I got up, saw my helmet on the floor, picked it up, and ducked right back into my secure corner.

I had forgotten about wearing a helmet. Seeing it there had brought about a sudden change in plans.

An artillery strike just outside the walls gave me the encouragement I needed to leave. A ball of flame came into the room above my head, showering me with broken glass and splinters of wood. My ears popped. I could barely hear. I hid under my helmet until the rain of debris ended, then broke out in a run. Then I took off running.

Out the door, I turned right. I had walked this route a dozen times. I could have made my way in the dark, but the way was well lit by fires and flashes of artillery.

About half way to the docks, I ran into a narrow walkway between a heavy truck and a building and paused to gather the courage to go further. That gave me the chance to witness the devastation around me. Explosions were tearing apart every building, fortification, and defense in the area. Fires grew to consume whole buildings, giving an orange glow to the shells of thick columns of smoke that looked nearly solid.

I should help.

If I could stop and do a little bit of help then I could make things easier for somebody.

But I was not a trained soldier. And my duty was to report back things that I know.

I am not only a reporter for Thayne Report, I am a trained observer. I am one of those people the military trusts to tell them exactly what happened. In the thick of battle, a soldier sees only what is in front of him. Even then, his reports are filled with conjecture and speculation that his brain has interpreted as fact. It actually takes training to stop, look around, and see what is actually going on.

I forced myself to pause and make some mental notes. The fact that came to mind was that the Japanese had decided not to allow the British to make an orderly retreat. Their attack aimed to destroy the British army. It was throwing far more into the fight than it needed for victory. It's hope was to overwhelm the defenses before the British had any chance to retreat.

If any soldier did decide to retreat, he would face the artillery. Many - most - would not make it. If one British soldier went down, his friend would certainly stop and help him, breaking down the retreat further.

In a few hours, not only would Rangoon be in Japanese hands, but the army that had been defending it would cease to exist.

Giving myself a count of three, I hurried towards the boat that should have been waiting for me.

I did not recognize it at first. I found a boat crowded with people - over thirty people, all civilians, crowded onto a small motor boat. My boat was supposed to be reserved for me.

"Who are these people?" I asked the pilot.

"This is my family. Get on! Get on!"

I immediately saw the futility in expecting the pilot to order his family off of the boat. He would likely leave me if I tried. Technically, there wasn't enough room for me, but I was not going to stay behind. I forced myself into the crowd of Burmese women, children, and elderly and told the pilot to go.

Being relatively tall, I could look over the heads of the other passengers and watch Rangoon burst into flames behind us. I could not see how there could even be a square foot of territory that would not be torn apart by Japanese artillery even before the Japanese soldiers got there.

We continued upstream through most of the day - past noon, and into the late afternoon. Eventually, we ended up at the town of Schwebo in central Burma. Our only encounter along the way was with Japanese Zero fighters patrolling the river. But they did not attack. With such a target-rich environment, they might not have thought that a boat full of refugees was worth the effort. Or they had already run out of ammunition.

I reported in with the British headquarters in Burma. It's near evening now, and I am about to file my report. Tomorrow, I will head south. There's a military-grade airfield south of here, at a place called Toungoo. That is where I expect to meet the Japanese again.


Americans Prepare to Dual Japanese Carrier

(USS Lexington - Samoa) Rear Admiral Frederick Sherman took a long walk on the flight deck to get away from the advisers. The wind made his uniform flutter like a flag. The last of the planes had landed, and the ship was securing itself for the night. For Sherman, tt was time to take the information he had, as incomplete as it was, and try to make a decision.

At last report, a Japanese carrier force sat a little less than 400 miles west by southwest of his position. The Japanese were heading east, toward Suva.

This was not a large force. Earlier today he received a report of an air strike against the forces at Tanna. They counted 40 bombers, and bragged that their anti-aircraft had cut into about ten percent of those. That was a third of the bomber force that Sherman had on his two carriers - Yorktown and Lexington.

Allied intelligence knew that the bulk of the Japanese carrier force was near Java.

On the dark side of the equation, the Japanese had better reach. If he was not careful, or if he was unlucky, he could find himself in a position where the Japanese could hit him, but he was powerless to strike back.

His first thought was to head south and to intercept the Japanese carriers as they got to Suva.

But, maybe, the Japanese would not continue east once the sun set.

Sherman looked to the west. The Japanese had to know they had been spotted. As darkness came, they could go any direction. Which direction would they go?

Sherman had decided that they would either continue east to strike Suva, or head back up to the north after having patrolled the waters around New Caledonia. Intelligence reports continue to suggest that the Japanese have targeted New Caledonia. It would make sense that they would conduct these patrols to keep the island isolated.

Sherman decided that Suva could take care of itself. The island had nearly 100 fighters, and Major General William Upshur, who had been put in charge of the island, had all of them on full alert.

He would go north - north of Tanna, near the island of Efate - and cut off the Japanese retreat.

With any luck, by this time tomorrow, the Japanese would be missing one or two of its carriers.








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February 15, 1942 - 9/20/2010 3:03:11 AM   
Thayne

 

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February 15, 1942 - Jap Carriers Vanish

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.


Air Slaughter Continues over Java

(Batavia - Java) Four days after the bloodiest air battles in the Pacific Theater, British, Dutch, and Japanese pilots fought an even bloodier air war over Java, with the Japanese coming out the victors.

Some analysts say that the Japanese set a trap for the British and Dutch air forces, and the allies had flown straight into it.

The Japanese carrier force sailed within 60 miles of Batavia, Java, and the British and Dutch commanders could not resist the opportunity to try to sink a few Japanese carriers. They sent their combined air force straight after the Japanese fleet.

However, a swarm of nearly 80 Japanese fighters intercepted the Allied airplanes. The Japanese zeros quickly cut their way through the escorting fighters, then went to work on the bombers. No allied plane got anywhere near the Japanese ships.

Still, the British and Dutch mustered up what planes they could for a second strike later in the day. This one proved no more successful than the first. Combined, the two strikes saw the destruction of over 60 fighters and bombers with minimal losses to the Japanese.

The one exception from making this a total Japanese victory came when the British 453 Squadron discovered a squadron of Kate bombers fying without escort. They swooped in and destroyed 14 Japanese airplanes. These are elite Japanese pilots who will be difficult to replace, whereas many of the British and Dutch pilots shot down during the day were flying obsolete airplanes. Furthermore, many of the Allied pilots were able to ditch their airplanes in Java and lived to fight another day - if only they had planes to fight with.

Mechanics immediately went to work trying to scrounge together enough parts from those airplanes that came back damaged to fly another day. Ground crews are working throughout the night in the hopes that they will have another chance against the Japanese carrier force tomorrow.


The Battle for Burma - Day 15: A War Diary
The Aftermath of Rangoon

(Schwebo - Burma) Schwebo was the first time since the first of the month that I am away from the Japanese army. It is a couple of hundred miles south of here, so there is no chance that the enemy will come swooping into this city in the next 24 hours.

There is a chance of an air raid. Schwebo has an airfield. However, the Japanese had wrecked it weeks ago and the British, short of engineers, have left it wrecked. The Japanese have so far showed little interest in coming here and adding another layer of craters to the runway.

There is a lot of military activity in Schwebo. The most conspicuous of this is the 200th Chinese Infantry marching into town from the south and setting up camp. They will be camping north of town while they wait for trains that will take them north to Myitkyina. From there, they will march through the jungle to Ledo and, from Ledo, they will board another train for Calcutta, India.

The 200th Chinese Division is one of four Chinese divisions marching through Burma trying to get to Calcutta. At Calcutta, they will be supplied, reinforced, drilled, and trained into an army corpse that will eventually return to China and, from there, spearhead an attack to take the city of Hong Kong as a part of the China Option.

There have been calls for the Chinese divisions to stop and fight for the defense of Burma itself. However, General Archibald Wavell has expressed concern that the Japanese will pin the Chinese troops against the jungle and wipe them out. Thayne News reports that Wavell also is concerned with the defense of Calcutta and wishes to see the Japanese divisions there in order to defend the city from a Japanese invasion along the coast.

It will still take a good month for the first of the Chinese divisions to reach Calcutta.

Another part of the plan involves having transport planes flying supplies into Burma from airfields to the north such as Ledo return with replacement soldiers to fill up the four Divisions. Over time, the divisions will be brought up to full combat strength. With soldiers from China, and supplies from England, and a year or so to build up their strength, it is hoped that these four divisions will make a significant contribution to the British arm of the China Option.

However, those plans depend on getting the Chinese divisions through the forest into India before the Japanese are able to destroy them. The rest of the British army is seeking to delay the Japanese advance while the Chinese continue their journey.

The British and Commonwealth forces are not only seeking to delay the advance for the sake of the Chinese divisions. They are seeking to delay the advance as British and Commonwealth soldiers build fortifications on the India side of the border, and build up air bases that will be vital in helping the Allies to win the air war that is to come in this region.


Japanese Carriers Vanish near New Caledonia

(USS Lexington - South Pacific) It was a clear day with good weather - a good day for the two American carriers Lexington and Yorktown to try to sink a small Japanese carrier that had raided the area.

The problem is, the Japanese carrier is nowhere to be found. Search planes were out before first light, so that they could be on station as dawn broke and give the Americans first word on where the Japanese carrier was at.

However, by mid-day, none of the search planes had yet reported any sign of the Japanese carrier.

Lexington had sailed near the island of Efate in the New Hebrides chain to intercept the carrier if it tried to retreat back to its side of the lines. If the Japanese carrier went east instead, it would be near Fiji where its air force would battle the carriers.

This meant that the Japanese could have gone back west, or it could have gone south - possibly even seeking to strike New Zealand.

An amphibious task force had just left Auckland, New Zealand, bound for Norfolk Island. Norfolk Island, half way between New Zealand and New Caledonia, is considered important in the defense of New Zealand if Japan should make good on its threats to capture New Caledonia. Facing the prospect of a Japanese carrier in the area, the amphibious task force turned south until the Japanese carrier could be found again.

At Suva, in the Fiji islands, a second amphibious task force is being prepared to drop American troops off at the island of Efate in the New Hebrides chain. These landings will help to isolate New Caledonia if the Japanese should decide to occupy the island. In spite of the threat posed by the Japanese carriers, loading operations for the Efate landings are continuing.

The American carriers have been ordered south, back to Suva, to protect allied shipping to these forward islands.




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February 16, 1942 - 9/20/2010 3:28:01 PM   
Thayne

 

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February 16, 1942 - Jap Carriers Vanish

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Japanese Land on Western Java

(Batavia - Dutch East Indies) The Japanese landed their first troops on Java today, selecting as their initial landing site the westernmost city of Merak.

In their initial landings they delivered a small initial force. However, the numbers of ships spotted off of the west coast of Java suggest that the Japanese will be landing a considerable force over the next few days.

Merak is currently being held by 7,000 soldiers of the 1st and 2nd KNIL Regiments. These regiments have been ordered to make an orderly retreat back to Batavia in the face of Japanese pressure, but to provide resistance against any Japanese advance.

The British and Dutch have been concentrating their forces on the Western side of the island given the Japanese destruction of airfields on the eastern side and the need to move supplies out of Soerabaja, where the Japanese had been focusing their air strikes.

In the skies over Java, the British and Dutch air forces were able to hold their own, shooting down a number of Betty and Kate bombers that had become separated from their escort, while avoiding another slaughter at the hands of the Japanese fighter pilots. Meanwhile, ground crews continue to piece together replacement airplanes from available "spare parts".

Reports of available aircraft are always subject to suspicion. Saying that the British and Dutch still have over 100 aircraft - fighters and bombers - flying over Java may sound like a lot to the untrained ear. However, the fact that many of these fighters are obsolete, and the pilots themselves are exhausted and feel they are sacrificing themselves in a battle they cannot win, and the Japanese have twice as many flying off of carriers around the island with Japan's best planes and pilots gives a better indication of what the British and Dutch air forces are up against.


The Battle for Burma - Day 16: A War Diary
A Growing Conflict

(Schwebo - Burma) While I made plans to travel south to Toungoo, where I expected the Japanese to make their next attack, I was informed by British intelligence officials that the Japanese are making their move on Prome instead.

There are two valleys connecting central Burma with the coast to the south. One - the Eastern Route - which goes throught a jungle valley from Schwebo through Toungoo south to Pegu then Rangoon. The other - the Western Route - goes to Rangoon through Prome.

It may well be the case that the Japanese are also marching on Toungoo, but has managed to keep its forces hidden. The British that retreated out of Rangoon recently are providing information on the Japanese units heading north out of Rangoon to Prome. Patrols operating out of Toungoo on the Eastern route have yet to encounter any Japanese.

The Western Route actually provides the Japanese with a number of advantages.

(1) They cut off the remnants of the units once holding Rangoon, who had retreated to Bassein. In this case, however, American PBY pilots stationed in Chittagong are airlifting those units back to India.

(2) It is harder to defend than the jungle terrain of the Eastern Route, thus easier to attack.

(3) It has the potential of cutting off any defenders who had been set up to defend the eastern route. In this case, the 4/14th Punjab Battalion has already been ordered to fall back from Toungoo to avoid being cut off.

(4) It provides Japan with an air base closer to India - though the American bomber groups at Dacca and Calcutta are already preparing to deny the Japanese the use of these fields.

(5) It can be used as a staging base for overland assaults into eastern India.

Concerning this last advantage, British military intelligence recently learned that the Japanese 25th Division is preparing to occupy Akyab.

So far, the British have made no move to defend the bases of far eastern India. Earlier in the war they sent infantry regiments east to occupy the coastal towns of Akyab and Cox's Bazaar, the two ports nearest to Burma. However, after deciding that it was spreading itself too thin in trying to defend everything at once, and looking at the poor roads connecting these villages, it pulled those soldiers back into Chittagong.

The British have since put their efforts into fortifying Chittagong, considering it the gateway to India. Currently, over 25,000 British and Commonwealth troops guard the city, with two fighter squadrons - including one of the squadrons of the American Volunteer Group - stationed to protect it.

I have also learned today from sources in India that air missions out of Dacca were cancelled for today and tomorrow to give air crews a chance to rest while engineers finish extending the runway at Dacca. This will allow the American bomber group stationed there to carry heavier bomb loads in its attacks against the Japanese.


Japanese Carriers Return to New Caledonia

(USS Lexington - South Pacific) The Japanese carrier force that disappeared yesterday in the waters south of New Caledonia appeared again just 100 miles south of Noumea, launching an air strike against the defenses there.

The American carriers Lexington and Yorktown, ordered back to Suva until the Japanese carriers could be relocated, immediately turned around to sail to the northern end of New Caledonia in the hopes of cutting off the Japanese retreat.

Meanwhile, allied troop transports bearing units intended to occupy the island of Efate (in the New Hebrides) and Norfolk Island (between New Caledonia and New Zealand), and to reinforce the American defenders at Tanna (in the Southern New Hebrides) continue to wait for the Japanese raiders to be driven out of the area.

At Tanna, the American forces are putting the final touches on a fighter strip that will further aid in the defenses of the islands. This fighter base will provide better protection against any Japanese operations in the area, as well as provide carrier airplanes with a place to land if the carrier they are stationed at should be sunk.

In other news, the War Department ordered the release of the 108th Infantry Regiment, currently assigned to protecting the US West Coast, for dispatch to the New Hebrides island chain to bolster the defenses at Efate.


Australians, Dutch Reinforce Timor

(Darwin - Australia) In a nearly forgotten corner of the war, Australian and Dutch forces have been working to build up the island of Timor as a shield protecting the Australian north coast from the Japanese.

Dutch seaplanes operating out of Timor have been rescuing stranded garrisons from across the eastern Dutch East Indies and bringing them to the island. The operations since the start of the war have brought the total number of soldiers stationed on Timor to nearly 10,000 soldiers.

At the same time, airplanes taking off from Darwin on the northern tip of Australia are bringing fresh supplies to the island on a daily basis. The work horses of this airlift include C-47 transports.

The weak point in this supply chain involves getting supplies to Darwin to be air-lifted to Timor. A number of small cargo ships have been dispatched to sail up from Perth, on the western coast of Australia, to Darwin. As long as Timor remains in allied hands, these ships should be able to deliver much-needed supplies to Darwin. However, they still have to navigate the sub-infested waters of northern Australia.








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< Message edited by Thayne -- 9/20/2010 6:07:02 PM >

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Post #: 87
February 17, 1942 - 9/20/2010 7:31:16 PM   
Thayne

 

Posts: 748
Joined: 6/14/2004
Status: offline 		THE THAYNE REPORTS: THE ADMIRALS' EDITION
February 17, 1942 - Timor Invaded

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.


Timor Invaded

(Darwin - Australia) Almost as if on queue, the day after Thayne Report mentions the "forgotten corner of the war" where Australians and Dutch have been busy fortifying the island of Timor, the Japanese invade.

Japanese forces landed on the western side of the island near the town of Koepung with a force of 1500 troops, against a defensive force of 3,000. The Allied defenders immediately started shelling the Japanese.

In response to the attack, the Dutch transferred all of their seaplanes operating out of Koepung to the east-Timor town of Lautem. The seaplane tender that had been maintaining these airplanes, Pollux, has been ordered out of the harbor at dusk in the hopes of reaching Darwin, Australia.

It is hoped that the Japanese have under-estimated the size of the defensive force and has sent along too few troops to take the island. This will force the Japanese to withdraw and spend several weeks organizing the delivery of reinforcements. During the delay the Dutch and Australians will continue to reinforce the island.


Western Java Invaded

(Batavia - Dutch East Indies) As expected, the Japanese followed up their small initial landings near the town of Merak in western Java with a full fledged landing today.

Observers in the area report that the Japanese 14th Division plus reinforcements landed on the beach. The Dutch defenders immediately opened up with their artillery, but did little to stop the invasion.

The Allies also called in their air forces to attack the invaders. Having been unable to hit Japanese ships at sea, they focused their firepower on the Japanese ground troops.

So far, in the Java region, level bombers have made several attacks against Japanese ships without scoring a single hit against an enemy ship. It is hoped that they will have more destructive potential against ground forces.

Meanwhile, the Japanese continued to strike the eastern half of the island, launching a series of attacks against the port of Soerabaja and several other cities and towns.

Among the effects of the Japanese bombardment is that a number of Allied submarines that had been patrolling the area around Java have had to relocate to new bases in western Australia. This move will require the boats to spend more time in transit and less time harassing Japanese shipping. So far, none of the submarines have been able to find, let alone attack, a Japanese carrier.

Off of Western Java, the US submarine Saury, travelling to Ceylon after using up its store of torpedoes in the defense of Java, encountered a pair of Japanese destroyers. Spotting these destroyers on the south side of Sumatra means that these destroyers are a part of a task force now loose in the Indian Ocean.

The British had substantially ended all traffic in the Indian Ocean other than cargo ships heading to and from Australia. Those cargo ships are taking a far Southern route and and should be safe from the destroyers, which were heading northeast along the coast of Sumatra rather than south. However, all ships in the area have been put on alert.

One of the ships in the area is the converted cruise ship Aquitania. This ship has been dispatched from Ceylon to Perth to pick up the 1st Australian Headquarters and bring it to Columbo to take command of the Australian troops occupying the island. Australian soldiers leaving the fighting in Africa are garrisoning in Ceylon to prevent the Japanese from taking the island and effectively blocking the supply chain to western Australia.

If the battle goes well, the 1st Australian Corps will transfer to eastern India in the next year or so to be used in the attack on Burma.


The Battle for Burma - Day 17: A War Diary
Japanese Reach Prome[

(Schwebo - Burma) Returning to its practice of swift movement, the Japanese army reached Prome just three days after capturing Rangoon and are poised to capture the city.

In response, the British have put more of the air forces in eastern India on alert.

With the Japanese air fields in southern Burma in such disrepair, the British command has given the American bombers a second day of rest to prepare for the upcoming air assaults on the Japanese in Prome. The Americans plan to destroy all useful facilities in the city by air if the Japanese should take control of it.

Prome is not only within range of Allied B-17 and LB-30 heavy bombers using the newly expanded airfields at Dacca and Calcutta. It is also within range of medium bombers operating out of Dacca. To take advantage of this fact, three medium bomber squadrons of the British 223rd Group Wing are being transferred to Dacca, the headquarters of the 223rd Wing.

The Japanese are not expected to be able to put up any resistance to the bombings because of the damage the American pilots had already done to all Japanese controlled air fields in the area.

Later on this afternoon, after filing this report, I plan on taking a Jeep down to Prome. It will a long and stressful trip, not the least part because I will be swimming upstream against a flood of refugees trying to stay one step ahead of the Japanese.


New Caledonia Raiders Vanish Again

(USS Lexington - South Pacific) Again, the small Japanese carrier force that has been making a nuisance of itself around the port of Noumea in the South Pacific has vanished.

This time, bad weather prevented the Allied navy from launching more than a few scout planes, and none of them found the Japanese task force.

With the landings on Efate and Norfolk Island further postponed, Rear Admiral Frederick Shreman, commander of the carrier task force, ordered the ships around to the west side of New Caledonia to try to find the Japanese fleet over there.

Meanwhile, workers at Tanna completed the air field on that island, which immediately became home to the 39th Pursuit Squadron. The planes of the 39th Pursuit Squadron strapped on expendable gas tanks in Suva to make the journey.

Further support for Tanna will be coming from three squadrons of transport airplanes now stationed on Fiji - though these three squadrons have a maximum of six functional airplanes between them. These six planes will be bringing in supplies for the soldiers on Tanna until the Japanese carrier has been sunk or driven from the waters and the sea lanes are once again open.




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Post #: 88
February 18, 1942 - 9/25/2010 2:21:14 PM   
Thayne

 

Posts: 748
Joined: 6/14/2004
Status: offline 		THE THAYNE REPORTS: THE ADMIRALS' EDITION
February 18, 1942 - Prome, Burma Falls

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.

The Battle for Burma - Day 18: A War Diary
Prome Falls

(Magwe - Burma) I never made it to Prome before the Japanese captured it.

The wave of Burmese refugees blocking my way soon included unorganized soldiers of the 3rd Burma Rifles Battalion retreating from the city.

They let me know how the Japanese had gotten to Prome so quickly. Their adversaries were the Japanese 14th Tank Regiment, whose vehicles simply rolled right over the top of the defenders. There is no telling at this point how many escaped. I saw, perhaps, twenty soldiers before returning to Magwe. There were probably more.

Prome is the closest that the Japanese has gotten to India so far. Sources in Calcutta tell me that the allied air forces are ready. They are preparing to destroy anything the Japanese might find useful in Prome as soon as they can get their planes off the ground tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the largest allied bomber raid in the Pacific Theater will be launched and all key facilities in Prome will be shut down, if everything goes according to plan.

This time, medium bombers will be involved in the attack. About 35 Blenheim and Hudson bombers stationed at Dacca can reach Prome.

The near total destruction of all airfields in Japanese control in southern Burma means that the allies expect no fighter resistance.

However, it is unknown at this time if the weather will cooperate. If not, Japan could get an opportunity to get fighters onto the base, and the air war for the skies over Burma will have begun.

Meanwhile, the Allies are preparing for the ground battle to move into central Burma.

On the eastern route to central Burma from Rangoon, the 4/14 Punjab Battalion is pulling out of Toungoo, abandoning the city to the Japanese in preference to getting cut off and surrounded. It will be racing on through Mandalay to set up defenses on the north side of the Irrawaddy River.

The airfield at Toungoo is already on the target list for the heavy bomber squadrons in India.

The Allies have also pulled their troops out of Lashio and Taungh Gyi in eastern Burma to try to defend the center of the country.

The purpose now is to buy time for the Chinese divisions to get through the country on their way to India. The complete success of that mission seems highly unlikely at the moment as the Japanese race through Burma at high speed.

The British should now think seriously about the possibility of the Japanese following the retreating Burmese and Chinese armies through the jungle and looking to capture the airfields in far north-eastern India.

Meanwhile, I am heading back north to Mandalay, which is almost certainly where the advancing Japanese forces will merge.

A few soldiers here are secretly taking bets on whether Mandalay will be in Japanese hands by the end of the month. The odd are favoring that it will be. It shows the depth of the British problem in Burma that its soldiers are betting on their own defeat.


Allies Continue to Hunt Japanese Carrier near New Caledonia

(Lexington - South Pacific) The Japanese carrier raider that has been dodging Lexington and Yorktown appeared again south of Tanna, between New Caledonia and Fiji in the South Pacific, out of range of all allied air forces.

For five days now, Lexington and Yorktown have been chasing the Japanese carrier around New Caledonia and the New Hebrides Islands. The American carriers have stayed to the north, attempting to block the Japanese escape to safer waters.

The Japanese, in turn, have stayed south of New Caledonia and Tanna. disrupting allied military plans in the region by their mere presence, delaying important amphibious landings at Efate and Norfolk Islands as well as supplies and reinforcements for Tanna.

Military strategists suggest that the Japanese carrier was aiming to launch a second strike on the allied forces at Tanna. However, their scouts probably reported a significant change at Tanna since the Japanese attacked this island two days ago.

Since then, engineers had completed a fighter strip on the island and the 36th Pursuit Group consisting of two dozen P-39 Airacobra fighters had taken up the job of defending the island. Against this threat, the Japanese may have decided against launching any attacks.

Nimitz is reportedly on the edge of calling an end to this "dance" with the Japanese raider and ordering the American carriers to cover the planned landings and let the Japanese try to interfere. One of the objections raised against this strategy is that it pins the American carriers to the amphibious assault forces.

For tomorrow, Rear Admiral Frederick Sherman, the commander of the carrier task forces, has ordered his carriers into the waters southeast of Noumea in New Caledonia. This will give the Japanese carrier a chance to escape if it makes a break to the north. On the other hand, it could put the American carriers on the Japanese door step if Japanese continue hunting in the waters south of New Caledonia.


Koepang, Timor Holds Out Against Japanese Invasion

(Darwin - Australia) The allied defenders of Koepang on the western end of the island of Timor, northwest of Darwin, Australia, are continuing to hold out against a Japanese attempt to capture the port.

The Japanese have now landed an estimated 3000 soldiers on the island fighting 3000 allied defenders. The Allied soldiers are reported to have inflicted heavy casualties among the attackers, but the aggressiveness of the attackers has driven the allies back to their last line of defenses.

The heavy casualties reported to have been inflicted against the Japanese give some hope that the enemy will not be able to continue its attack and may be forced to give the defenders some much needed rest. The allied defenders are looking for an opportunity to push the Japanese back into the sea, though that depends on the the reinforcements the Japanese may be able to land in the next 24 hours.

Allied bombers have tried to reach the city to aid its defenders. However, the city remains just outside of the range of bombers stationed in Darwin.


Bloody Java Air War Favors Japan

(Batavia - Dutch East Indies) The bloody air war being fought over Java heavily favored the Japanese today.

The enemy stationed fighter protection over their landing forces at Merak west of Batavia that intercepted and badly mauled an Allied attempt to bomb the attackers. Meanwhile, Japanese carrier-based airplanes continue to launch devastating attacks against airfields and other facilities across the island.

Before the battle for Java, the allies had been defeating the Japanese in air-to-air combat at a ratio of nearly 2 to 1. In Java, the Japanese have brought the scores to nearly even. They have been able to demolish just about anything the Dutch and British have put up against them.

The heavy Japanese bombardment attacks have also lead to the destruction of many allied airplanes on the ground.

The British are now starting to look for ways to get their best pilots out of Java as soon as there are no more airplanes to fly. If successful, these pilots will be transferred to eastern India where the next phase of the air war is likely to start up. Unlike Java, the Allied pilots in eastern India will be flying some of the best planes that the allies have to offer.




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Post #: 89
February 19, 1942 - 9/28/2010 4:18:38 AM   
Thayne

 

Posts: 748
Joined: 6/14/2004
Status: offline 		THE THAYNE REPORTS: THE ADMIRALS' EDITION
February 19, 1942 - A Day of Waiting

The Thayne Reports are published by allied intelligence and distributed to senior officers serving in the Pacific Theater of Operation in order to give these officers an understanding of the overall military situation. These top secret reports contain the best and most up-to-date information available at the time of their writing.


The Battle for Burma - Day 19: A War Diary
The Weather Favors Japan

(Mandalay - Burma) In Mandalay, Burma, there is a palace. It sits surrounded by a square moat, which is about 2 kilometers long on a side, which the British are using as a local headquarters.

It's not a particularly wise place to have a headquarters, and the British know this. Some Burmese soldiers are intending to try to hold the place. However, no doubt the region will be cut off, surrounded, and invaded. Militarily, it is inconsequential. Politically, it still hold power.

Other Burmese soldiers are awaiting the opportunity to defect to or enlist in the Japanese Army.

After reversing direction at Prome, I arrived at Mandalay in a rain storm that lasted the night and went long into the next day.

Here, I sat and waited with the British leaders for reports on the largest air raid so far organized in the Pacific Theater.

On the airfield in Dacca, the pilots waited as well. They sat in the shade under the wings of their airplanes waiting for orders to take off. Their planes were fueled. The bombs had been loaded. Everything was ready.

However, Prome was socked in under the same front that covered Mandalay with rain. So we sat, while water drummed on the roof and splashed in the streets, hoping for a break in the weather, and for the airplanes to be given the order to start their engines.

While we waited, we got news that the train bringing the 4/14 Punjab Battalion out of Toungoo to the south had arrived. The troops disembarked in the rain, then marched in the rain to set up camp and take up positions on the north side of the Irrawaddy River in the rain.

After dropping off these troops, the train travelled north to Schwebo to pick up the 200th Chinese Division and take it north to Myitkyina, where it will begin its march to Ledo in India. Another train, carrying the 22nd New Chinese Division to Myitkyina, went through at around noon.

Still, the bombers in India stayed on the ground. They waited until it was so late in the day that the bombers could not reach Prome and return in daylight. At that point, they scrubbed the mission, and the Japanese controlled airport at Prome remained unharmed.

In Burma and India alike the question was raised as to whether Japan was able to get fighters into a base that the British could not bomb, giving Japan the means to build an air force presence in Burma itself.


Jap Carriers Disappear Again at New Caledonia

(Lexington - South Pacific) A radio operator on board the US aircraft carrier Lexington turned to Rear Admiral Frederick Sherman and said, hesitantly, "All scout planes have reported in. No sign of the enemy."

Again, the Japanese carrier planes that had been floating around New Caledonia putting a stop to allied landing operations had disappeared. Admiral Nimitz had given up the hunt and had ordered that the landing operations were to commence. Lexington and Yorktown had new orders - to return to Suva in the Fiji Islands, refuel, and escort the amphibious task force waiting there to Efate.

There would be no more hunting.

With the sun setting, Sherman ordered the carriers on a heading of 090.

In the morning, he would have another chance to find the Japanese carrier. After that, he would be playing baby-sitter to a flock of troop transports for the next week. He struggled to keep a lid on his frustrations as he stood and left the bridge. Not a single word was spoken until he had left, and for several long seconds afterward.


Allies Score Minor Win Over Java

(Batavia - Dutch East Indies) The Dutch air force scored a rare win today in the air battle over Java as Dutch fighter squadron 2-Vl.G.IV flying CW-21B Demons intercepted a squadron of Kate bombers over Soerabaja in eastern Java. They were able to get past the two Zero fighters flying as escort and destroy four Kate torpedo bombers attacking the city.

Meanwhile, the joint British-Dutch air force suffered no casualties from the Japanese attacks. The Japanese carrier force struck at Loemadjang, which the Dutch had abandoned as it moved its operations westward.

Dutch bombers flying out of Batavia encountered no Japanese combat air patrol as it attacked the Japanese 14th Division landing on the beeches at Merak, further disrupting the Japanese landing. However, it is considered unlikely that the pilots were able to do enough damage to influence the outcome of any future battle. It did put the Japanese on notice that the allies did intend to fight back.


Koepang, Timor Defenses Stand

(Darwin - Australia) The hopes that the Japanese did not properly plan on the British and Dutch operation to fly reinforcements to Koepang on the western side of the island of Timor may be bearing fruit.

After yesterday's attack in which the Japanese suffered significant casualties, the Japanese and Allies traded artillery shells through most of the day. The Japanese bombardment inflicted only minimal damage on the allied defenders, observers report the allied shells inflicting significant damage.

Australian and Dutch military leaders have expressed some hope to Thayne Report that the Japanese may have to abandon this attempt to take the island, retreat, replan, and try again. This will give the Australians additional time needed to boost their defenses.

Towards that end, the first two units of the 49th Pursuit Group arrived at Sydney, Australia and are currently being unloaded. Two additional squadrons are currently rounding the south coast of New Zealand and should be in Australia by the end of the month, barring an unfortunate encounter with any submarined.

These air units will eventually be placed to contribute to the defense of Australian air space from attacks launched from bases such as Timor, as well as to help protect against possible landings on Australia itself.

Also, at Darwin, its stockpile of supplies continues to grow as cargo unloaded at nearby ports such as Broome and Derby are transported overland into Darwin. However, these supplies are threatened from Japanese attacks, particularly if Japan should successfully occupy the island of Timor. For this reason, the Australians have initiated plans to move some of the supplies back to safer locations such as Katherine, Australia.






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