War Diary

Post descriptions of your brilliant victories and unfortunate defeats here.

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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

Post by AcePylut »

Here's Lihue - or Kauai (sp)... showing the peninsula where Burns Airfield is located, and also the Lex's anchorage. Thank you Google Maps.

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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

Post by AcePylut »

And here's what Mighty Burns Airfield looked like in 1939 - in a pic of the peninsula. Not much but grass and ocean.

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RE: War Diary

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Suscribed
Appear at places to which he must hasten; move swiftly where he does not expect you.
Sun Tzu
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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

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Dec 18th, 1941: Today the navy boys were all full of piss and vinegar. Guess they all got called to the Lex, hauled into their ops room, and got a good chewing out from the "higher ups". Seems as if a pair of Jap merchant cruisers, slow, vulnerable, stood off shore some spit of land about 1000 miles SW of us called "Palmira" and sank a supply transport. These cruisers were in sight of some of Dauntlesses flown in to that speck just to get some revenge for Manila. But for two days, these boys found nothing. Yes, nothing. The cruisers just lolly-gagged into the bay and sank this transport and escaped. So yes, the navy pukes all got a good chewing... and a massive uptick in their training regime. I wonder if that transport was full of such luxuries like Toilet Paper. We aren't, we've been put on "half-rations" for toilet paper, because we aren't sure when the next supply ship will make the run through Torpedo Junction (as the run from here to Pearl is being dubbed). Half-rations of toilet paper - so basically two sheets. Before too long we'll have to find a way to make Three Sea-Shells work to clean ourselves.
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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

Post by AcePylut »

Dec 19th, 1941:
Poor Jackson, he gets the worst luck. Out overflying Torpedo Junction he must have blown a cylinder for dark smoke started spewing from his engine. Luckily, we were at about 18k feet, and he was able to nurse the plane back into Burns, so we’re short a plane until it gets fixed. Thus, the tally is... Jap Airforce = Zero, US Maintenance Crew = 1. It’s going to be a long war. Heard over a HAM radio some asian saying a “Hello all you GI’s...static... Ever Victorious Army has captured Hong Kong”. Also got a whiff of some naval action, but couldn’t make out where or who was in it. They had an accent, couldn’t tell if it was an Aussie or a Brit accent though. Seems as if our local destroyers and air assets are clearing out subs, as the amount of ordnance dropped didn't kill 23,145 fish like the other day. I noticed less ships and less planes pounding the water. That’s good… maybe we’ll get a shipment of toilet paper and food that isn’t as solid as these damn biscuits they keep giving us. The sun was out today, and the moon was down. Looking out west we were treated to a brilliant sunset and the stars were out in wondrous splendor. This war is going to take a long time, but for us, it seems so far away.
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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

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Dec 20th, 1941:

I heard something interesting a long time ago – and it said, “when one person figures out something, so does everyone else”. Today we all came to the realization that there aren’t any actual grunts on this island. Sure, we have some planes, we have our maintenance crews, we have bulldozers… but no actual fighting soldiers. If the Japs were to come, the only thing stopping them are our 15 P40’s and the Lex’s air group. They could come and brush us into the ocean. This was a sobering thought. It seemed to take effect as our squadron flew our missions today with a little more precision, a little more attention to the minor details like “fuel economy”. Because, when you fly over the ocean, having that extra gallon of fuel in the tank might be the difference between coming back to earth on dry land, or swimming in the ocean. Of course, all this was for naught as the Japs still haven’t shown up besides their subs. I swear they must have a thousand of them. Either way, a directive came down that now ships besides destroyers were to travel between Lihue and Pearl. I’m sure the cargo boys are happy, but not us stuck with the same meal. Time to go fishing again to supplement our diet.
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RE: War Diary

Post by Rio Bravo »

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

Dec 20th, 1941:

I heard something interesting a long time ago – and it said, “when one person figures out something, so does everyone else”. Today we all came to the realization that there aren’t any actual grunts on this island. Sure, we have some planes, we have our maintenance crews, we have bulldozers… but no actual fighting soldiers. If the Japs were to come, the only thing stopping them are our 15 P40’s and the Lex’s air group. They could come and brush us into the ocean. This was a sobering thought. It seemed to take effect as our squadron flew our missions today with a little more precision, a little more attention to the minor details like “fuel economy”. Because, when you fly over the ocean, having that extra gallon of fuel in the tank might be the difference between coming back to earth on dry land, or swimming in the ocean. Of course, all this was for naught as the Japs still haven’t shown up besides their subs. I swear they must have a thousand of them. Either way, a directive came down that now ships besides destroyers were to travel between Lihue and Pearl. I’m sure the cargo boys are happy, but not us stuck with the same meal. Time to go fishing again to supplement our diet.

Ace-

*raising my hand to volunteer for the Fishing Detail*

I am enjoying your war diary.

Best Regards,

-Terry
"No one throws me my own guns and tells me to run. No one."

-Bret (James Coburn); The Magnificent Seven
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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

Post by AcePylut »

Week 2 Update:

Lets go around the world and check in:

China: Hong Kong fell. It did well and held out against 3 Deliberate Attacks. While all those IJ troops were in HK, I moved in 2 Chinese Corps to Canton (heavy urban hex) to shut off production and be a thorn in his side. I’m shuffling a couple more corps into Canton to be a bigger pain in the rear. The 2 corps have withstood 3 deliberate attacks with little to no damage… the 700 Jap AV has been adjusted down to 2 AV in his attacks.

India: Troops have been shuffled around to build a line along Imphal. All coast hexes between Ceylon and Chittagong have BF’s that are building forts. Deigo Garcia has 400 AV and rapid fort building – as does Attu. I’m buying out a couple of Chinese corps to move into India. They will sit back and take replacements, and increase exp for the time being… but I like having an extra 1k AV in the area. Rangoon is building forts rapidly – so far there have been no moves toward it.

Malaysia/DEI: I was able to pull the bulk of my forces in the Malaysian Peninsula to Singapore before the Mersing Gambit cut off the north from the south. The POW played “jump ports” and escaped a heavily infested sub region with no further damage. She is on her way to a far off port with 40 Sys. Float Damage went from 40 to 26. The rest of Force Z is out of the area. Jap air is starting to cover the region, and my opponent isn’t pushing forward without air cover. Thus, Force Z’s goal has been achieved with little loss. I still show 2 Jap CA sunk from the exchange, but I don’t think that’s true.

Palemburg has 100 AV and is building forts as fast as possible. Northern coast of Brunei is in Japanese hands, no moves to the southern region of the DEI, yet. Java is building forts in Batavia and Sorejaba (sp) asap.

Martins flying out of Batavia managed to park (2) 300kg bombs into an AV ship at the NW coast of Brunei (Sinkgawang or something like that). The next day the base was filled up with about 75 aircraft. My opponent learned a lesson with that attack by Martins.

Intel also shows that a Jap CL was sunk at Ternate due to collision. I intercepted an invasion TF with some torpedo boats – put 2 torps into some transports. In the confusion of the combat, the Japanese CL must have rammed something. I hope this is “real” and not FOW, time will tell.

Philippine Islands: The Boise and Houston teamed up and just missed interdicting an invasion fleet at LIsyang. This proved costly, as the two ships made for Midway Island, and had they not had the one day delay trying to sink a couple of CS’s, they’d have made it. As it is, they got caught by the Mini-KB and sunk. Poop. I have about 1100 AV in Manila, building forts. The Philippines AF is dead. All that’s left is to last as long as possible.

Australia: A great majority of the ships fleeing the DEI are showing up in Perth.

New Guinea / Coral Sea: This is where the fun happened this last week. I’ve flown in AV to Rabaul. She stands at 80 AV with forts abuilding. I’ve shipped and flown in some AV to Port Moresby – she stands at 100 AV with forts building. I don’t expect them to stay in Allied hands, but I want to make it difficult for my opponent and make him think that every base is defended with as much as I can muster. This will force him to bring more than necessary and slow his tempo down a bit.

I must have made him mad or something, because a heavy IJ force of 4 CA and 4 DD bombarded Port Moresby. They didn’t do much damage as I didn’t have anything there at the time (lucky me). The IJ task force egresses through the Rossel Islands (the shoals to the east of PM/Mili). There, I intercepted the Japanese with a tf of 2 CA, 3 CL, and 2 DD. I was outgunned, but did a wonderful job. I sank 1 DD outright – cut that thing in half with a torp fired from my own a DD. Did heavy damage to 2 other CA’s, and put a torp and some 8” ers into a third CA. I took minimal damage in return (1 DD sunk, 1 CL lightly damaged, 1 CA lightly damaged) and think he must have exhausted all his big-gun ammo on the bombardment. Next day – my search showed a tf of 2 ships that had moved 2 hexes, and a tf of 5 ships that moved past the Solomons on the way to Naru (7 of 8 ships that bombarded Port Moresby, given that one Jap DD was sunk in action). The day after that, I heard “sinking ship” sounds in the combat replay, and the tf that had moved “2 hexes” had now moved about 6-7. Intel screen shows that I sunk a CA. I’m pretty sure I did. That’s good news for my Aussie navy considering they were heavily outgunned (but not out-ammo’ed)! I tried to intercept the straggling tf with a couple of tf’s (the Aussie ships, and also a squadron of Dutch CL’s and DD’s that were hanging around Horn Island with the IJ Bombarded) but to no avail. If I really have sunk 3 CA’s to date, that’s great. That’s 10% of his CA force for the entire war (assuming he gets 30 CA’s total). I’m pretty certain I’ve sunk 1 CA, and probably put 2 CA into dock for a while.

South Pacific- Tarawa fell, but other than that, region is quiet. For 2 days, search planes out of Palmyra watched a 2 Ship TF slowly approach. For 2 days, I had some DB’s set to attack (they were flown in from Pearl). For 2 days, my planes didn’t – I’ll have to check but I can’t remember if Palmyra af starts at 1 or 2 as the cause. The 2 ship Jap TF sank an xAKL. I reported on this in my diary portion. That’s an example of how I’m translating “the game” into “the diary”.

Pearl/West Coast As noted the Lex took a torp and is sitting in Lihue waiting to duck into Pearl. I’ve dropped so much ordnance hunting subs that all the fish in the area must be dead – but I’m not having much luck actually sinking the subs. Midway, French Frig Shoals, Palymra, Christmas Island, and PH are all in fort building mode. They will accept more grunts as soon as they arrive. Upon receiving grunts, they’ll start building ports and airfields.[/i]
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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

Post by AcePylut »

Dec 21, 1941.

Two weeks into the war, and nothing for us to show for it. Nothing except a Carrier with a big hole in it. Our combat ships collect dust, sitting in harbor, while our allies fight desperate battles. I wonder how my cousin is doing in the Philippines. He was assigned to some tiny little minesweeper – and from the blackout over any info we’re under, combined with the lack of positive news, I gather we’re not doing well. I’m going to write a long letter to my parents tonight. I need to set them at ease about how we’re doing. I doubt that the censors will let anything defeatist or frustrating, go through, so I’ll have to take note of what I write and how I write.
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RE: War Diary

Post by BBfanboy »

Be careful with sending all your retreating ships to Australia - it runs out of fuel pretty fast!
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

Post by AcePylut »

They are set to "do not refuel" and I've pulled out as much fuel from the DEI as possible. I plan on using my long-range ships at Perth to shepherd the short range worthless ships to Cape Town (worthless for now - but come late '42 '43 they might come back. I don't have any use for a 12knot AVP at the moment, or the multitude of acm (or is it amc - IDK)), or any of those other baby ships. I also turned off all the HI in Oz, which seems to be the big fuel-suck. Fuel supplies are ok to support the combat ships I have there, and I don't forsee any dramatic fuel use for the time being.
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RE: War Diary

Post by BBfanboy »

Bullwinkle58 put me on to using short range/small cargo ships to haul supply and fuel from EC USA to Cape Town. They use no fuel during the trip and in their numbers they can move a considerable amount of goodies.
Once you start taking some territory back and have a need of small, short-range ships to haul to very small ports, you just send some back on-map.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

Post by AcePylut »

That's an excellent idea. I didn't really have a use for them and was going to stash all those 10kt transport/tankers in some backwater until I needed them - but hey, why not make use of them in the meantime!
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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

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Dec 22, 1941

The storm rolled in quickly. Came early in the morning (which I’ve heard was unusual for this time of the year, but who knows what fairy-tales we get told). By mid-morning, the field of dreams was a field of muck. No flights today. It turned out “living quarters” floor into a mud-pit. We did our best to stay dry, but when the surf gets kicked up by a sideways blowing storm, it’s pretty difficult to say the least. It was a trudge just to get to the ‘chow hall’ – which had new fare today. Some sort of "meat" with some sort of "vegetable". We weren't able to determine what, exactly, we were eating. Nerves got frayed, even our poker game was cut short due to angst. We are all anxious to do battle with the enemy.
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RE: War Diary

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Dec 23rd- As we looked out across the airfield, those Dauntlesses have finally been pulled from the muck. That’s good, because we don’t have any bombs for them. Those boys got the orders to fly out tomorrow over to Pearl. Poor guys probably never want to see anything but the nice warm confines of their fluffy beds on their carriers ever again after spending some time here with us in the mud and dirt. Later in the day some construction engineers showed up, they had been working on the Lex these last few days to patch up the hole in it. I surmise that now they are here to expand the airfield, the Lex is going to head to Pearl soon to make the ship battle-ready. I didn’t fly today again, bad weather, so we climbed up part of the volcano that is this island and watched destroyer after destroyer whip around Torpedo Junction. There’s much more fish-killing activity then there was the last two days for sure. I’d bet real money the Lex is leaving us shortly. I wonder what that will mean for us.
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RE: War Diary

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Dec 24th, 1941. Today dawned bright and sunny, and given any other circumstance, I’d be thinking of Christ my Lord and the blessings He gave us with His sacrifice, home, a fine meal, and a day off.

But today is not like any other day as today, on this Christmas Eve, we are at war with an enemy I haven’t seen, haven’t fired a shot at, and it’s hard for my thoughts to be on peace and love. Nonetheless, we had split cap duty today. Half our pilots flew in the morning, I drew the afternoon CAP. It seems as if, after the failure to strike those merchant cruisers at Palmyra (I have learned how it’s spelled) our Cats have expanded their search perimeter, and still detect nothing. The war rages across the ocean over in the Philippines and Malaysia, but nothing here.

A Priest was carted in to the airfield by the time I got back and we held a good mass. More people showed up than I expected, including a couple of fellow pilots that never showed an interest in religion. I must admit that this priest was “different” than I expected. Back home we’d always have a black suited white collared, very uptight, strict, priest. But this guy was all “Hawaii”, and gave mass in a loose-fitting shirt that could best be described as “Hawaiian clothing”. But his clothing really didn’t matter because what he preached was pretty powerful stuff. He spoke of the righteous anger Jesus had when entering the Temple that was being abused by moneygrubbers and merchants. My soul felt better for the anger I feel for what the Japs have done, and are doing. The Priest seemed like a guy I’d have a beer with and chase flimsy skirted ladies (if they did that sort of thing) if he weren’t a Priest. I liked him.
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RE: War Diary

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Dec 25th:

Merry Christmas. Today’s rations of Pork and Beans makes me miss Mom’s home cooking more than ever. Here we are in a land of paradise on any other day, but we live in a field of dirt on a peninsula in an outpost in the Hawaiin islands. You wouldn’t know it was Christmas unless the calendar said so, as we did our usual routine of “fly around the skies” and not see anything other than the usual ocean pounding that our bombers and destroyers are giving the sea. Subs still infest the waters, Japan must have 100 of those evil boats. But other than their one victory in putting a torp into the Lex, nothing else has been hit. Of course, I’m not sure we’ve hit anything either. Sigh. We celebrated our Lord’s birthday with another bottle of fun-juice from my stash from the marines. They didn’t like the grub too much, and are whispering up some sort of sneaky plan up for tomorrow.
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RE: War Diary

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Dec 26th,

Today was an interesting day. As I flew the Early-Bird Riser over Lihue’s harbor.. the Lex was no where to be found! Seems as if they patched her up as much as possible, and she departed in the middle of the night. I didn’t see her anywhere over Torpedo Junction, so most likely she’s taking some circle route to avoid the subs. Then, as I made my way over to some speck of land to the west of us, I saw her sitting at anchor. No word on why she only moved to that island… ‘Nihow’ the locals call it. I’ll have to figure out its name.

Of course, with the ship gone, “our” detachment of Marine pilots decided to stage a “raid” of their own. You see, the Navy has all sorts of supplies lying around the harbor, as they were probably thinking they’d be here a long time. But Marines have this 6th sense and were on the supply dump as soon as the Lex was gone. Each of them came back with a duffel bag of goods to be had…. Ranging from toilet paper (oh my arse will thank the Good Lord for that), to some cans of fruit, to some cigars, and one guy even snatched a turkey! A frigging turkey. Navy boys get turkey and we can canned spam. They were “kind” enough to share the food and smokes with us (in return for another couple of bottle of drink-juice cracked open) and we had a grand old meal.
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AcePylut
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RE: War Diary

Post by AcePylut »

Dec 27th:
The Lex has moved again. We know this because we were tasked with providing long range cap for it. She’s about 100 or so miles to our north, headed east… our suspicions were correct – she’s took a circle route around Torpedo Junction to avoid all the subs. I wonder what our 6 birds would do, should the Jap Carriers come a-calling, but again, all of our long range patrols have sighted nothing. Nothing but the occasional conning tower.
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RE: War Diary

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Dec 28th:

Another day, another mission, another futile exercise. I’m really racking up the flight hours. At this morning’s briefing, we all spent an extra hour reviewing fuel consumption and how to eek the most range out of our machines. It was good to review, as you really don’t want to ditch in the ocean. There be sharks in them there waters. Lex moved out of range of our planes, and CAP was taken over by some boys out of Pearl. I wonder if that means we’ll stay here or return to Pearl. I bet we’ll stay – for why else would those couple of bulldozers run all day and night and keep us awake. They’ve almost got a decent runway built, which will be nice…. No more mud for us!
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