Lowpe
Posts: 22133
Joined: 2/25/2013 Status: offline
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Aug 29, 1943 No night bombing. Lots of sub action. Allies have an solid picket line around Sabang to Georgetown and lots of subs in the Truk, Ponape, Kusaie area. Not so much anywhere else...and huge convoys are ferrying oil, fuel and resources out of the SRA at a huge clip; cargo ships by their lonesome are plying the Hokkaido, Sakhalin and Fusan routes without losses. My hunter killer group (1 radar DD, 3Es) ran the Destroyer empty, the previous day a W class E ran empty and returned to Truk for supplies. The mortars have yet to engage.... An Iboat attacks two xaks and a yard sweeper on the surface, heavily damages or sinks both xaks (which had fuel in them) but also takes a pounding in return, especially by their AA guns. Ouch. Another Iboat is destroyed by 5 destroyers as she tried to penetrate their screen near Johnston Island. Lousy, funky, top secret American ASW weapons forced her to surface.... Air ASW assets report the sinking of a Yank sub near Ponape and a dozen hits all over. Destroyers and Es, despite numerous encounters, score only a half dozen glancing hits. An S boat sneaks thru the ASW efforts on the KB, and gets a torpedo into the Kaga. Damage is light, the task force veered off their planned course of travel and instead routed themselves thru the American sub forest around Truk. I guess they saw something, but search reveals no threats other than subs, which are plentiful...like leaves in the fall. Today, also marks the first use of Allied assault bombers in an anti-shippping role. Four of them, protected by Hurricanes (Oscars get a half dozen or more) make a run against two APDs at Car Nicobar, and plant two 500 pounders on one of the APD....89 fire. Ouch. I like those ships...can't bring myself to scuttle, but I don't want to lose the Captain either. So I disbanded her in port, where she will most likely get crispier before the end. 4000 supplies landed at Kusaie. Yeah! Food and ammo for a week.
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< Message edited by Lowpe -- 1/12/2015 8:59:20 PM >
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