Eighty years on. 22nd July 1940

Historical

The Luftwaffe flew only reconnaissance missions and no convoys were attacked, despite good flying weather.  Hurricanes of 145 Squadron shot down a lone Dornier Do17 bomber off Selsey Bill.  A Hurricane of 85 Squadron crashed approaching Castle Camps airfield killing the pilot.  Overnight, numerous small German raids bombed coastal towns and laid mines off the east coast of England and Scotland.

The British submarine HMS Clyde fired six torpedoes at another British submarine HMS Truant, off Fejeosen, Norway.  Fortunately, all the torpedoes missed and neither sub was damaged.

The British Foreign Minister Lord Halifax broadcast a speech rebutting Hitler’s offer of peace in his Reichstag speech of 19^th July.  “No one here wants the war to go on for a day longer than is necessary.  But we shall not stop fighting until freedom, for ourselves and others, is secure.” He said.

In Britain the “Special Operations Executive” was created.  The aim was, in Churchill’s words, to “set Europe alight”.  Both MI6 and the army objected as they felt the new organization would intrude on their territory.

In Japan, General Hideki Tōjō was appointed Army Minister in Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe’s new cabinet.

Game day 326.  China

China was losing the fight for China itself, and fighting continued in Kwangtung.  With fifteen resource points supplied from the U.S.A. having arrived at Singkiang the question was how to use them?  Building factories would be useful in the long term, but with no further U.S. supplies likely in the foreseeable future there may not be a long term.  So the resources were used to raise manpower to ward off the Japanese, in the form of thirty new infantry units.

Six infantry units in SingKiang moved northwards to head off the Japanese forces advancing towards the province.  In China six infantry units launched a desperate attack on three Japanese units defending the industrial zone at map reference 112,43.  Each side lost one unit, but the Japanese were pushed back.

In another counterattack eight Chinese infantry units attacked seven Japanese at map reference 116, 47 in Kwangtung.  The Japanese lost three units to the Chinese two.  The Japanese retreated to the north.