The Whale Has Wings Vol 3 - Holding the Barrier Read Online Free PDF

considered an airfield at risk of being too close to a Japanese attack, like Kota Bharu) spotted a column of about a dozen light tanks heading south from the Japanese landings at Singora. They attacked the column with their 20mm cannon, noticing a Japanese soldier waving a flag at them (it was assumed he had miss-identified the planes as Japanese, something that was to occur fairly frequently on both sides with the single-engined fighters), and left five of them burning before returning to base.
     
    The Japanese were obviously starting to push south from their landings, and later that morning a column, again headed by tanks, was seen to approach the Ledge. The Australian commander watched the approach with interest, noting that the Japanese did not seem to be paying as close attention to possible opposition as he would have, and once the column had reached an opportune point ordered the charges detonated to block the road. This also buried at least three tanks and quite a few men under the collapse, and the blocked road would take considerable time to clear (so much so in fact that the Japanese decided to bypass this route, as it could not be cleared in fast enough).
     
    An attack was also made on the airfield at Victoria point, on the southern tip of Burma, which was in range of Singora. A force of Ki-27 Nate fighters strafed the airfield, causing little damage as the only 'aircraft' on the field being decoys. A further force of some 80 Sally bombers from French Indo-China was forced to turn back due to thick cloud. Their escorting fighters refuelled at Singora, then flew south to strafe Penang Island and Butterworth airfield.
     
    Penang was only occupied by a number of biplane trainers, which the Japanese duly shot up. Butterworth was now occupied by a squadron of Sparrowhawks and a number of Blenheim bombers and the four planes on patrol dived on the attacking fighters as soon as they started their strafing runs (detection of planes was still causing problems in the poor weather). The ten Oscars were concentrating on the airfield and their attack destroyed two of the Sparrowhawks on the ground, as well as one of the Blenheims. The defending fighters seemed to take the Japanese by surprise, and shot down three in their first diving attack. The Oscars then broke off to try and get the Sparrowhawks into a turning fight. This succeeded with two of the planes, but the other two declined, and instead broke off to make another attack on the Oscars. The attackers shot down both the Sparrowhawks they had lured into a dogfight, one Oscar being damaged (it was later seen to crash as it tried to make it back to Siam), but the remaining Sparrowhawks shot down two more Oscars, although one was damaged and had to land at Butterworth.
     
    Having been informed of the bombing of another convoy and its escort east of Siam, Admiral Holland intended to move Force Z north so he could intercept it. That afternoon a report was received from one of the T-class boats operating off French Indo China, to the effect that a large Japanese fleet, including two carriers and at least one battleship as well as a number of cruisers had been spotted. Given the location of Japanese bombers in Siam and French Indo China, this was too large a force for Force Z to engage with a reasonable chance of success, and Holland was ordered to turn south and wait for reinforcements. The spotted force was in fact the Distant Cover Force under Admiral Kondo, who had instructed his ships to concentrate on him after Force Z had been spotted and reported by a Japanese submarine.
     
    The next Japanese attack was against the airfield at Kuantan. This airfield had been hurriedly improved over the last few months, as it was the northernmost east coast field involved in the radar net. As a result it was home to eight Hudsons used for naval reconnaissance as well as a Sparrowhawk squadron. A number of ancillary and training aircraft had been sent south out of the way to