[Fritz]

Week 1, July 1944.

Central
Working with unusual speed, Allied planners devised an invasion plan for Ulithi Atoll. That plan called for the 77th (Liberty) Division plus an amphibious armor battalion to board an 80 Ship invasion fleet (twice the size needed) sail 330 miles from Guam and strike several islands. The troops would carry only a combat load of supplies, which were expect to last only a day or so. Additional food and ammunition would be brought to the island the night after the invasion by a division of fast transports. RADM Tisdale's Battleship Task Force sortied against the island 3 times in the week preceding the invasion, striking possible shore batteries and likely Japanese positions. Aircraft from CV Bennington stuck positions and repair crews during the day.

On July 7th, the 77th Division landed on 3 principal islands. The small Japanese garrisons on Mogmog and Falalop islands, mostly administrative types, quickly succumbed to the veterans of Tinian.

By the end of July, CENTRAL plans to have base and support troops building mooring, airfields, dumps, and billets.

As the invasion force retired from Ulithi, a large Japanese airstrike fell upon the combat transports, sinking an LST and a LCI.

The CV Franklin TF, operating near the north of the Philippines was struck by several waves of Japanese bombers. Many were shot down, but one managed to hit the carrier with a torpedo, flooding some forward compartments and starting fires. The carrier, still making 21 knots, was able to transfer her two bomber squadrons to the Ticonderoga and make for Guam. By the end of the week she had reached Guam, pumped out the seawater, and placed a large patch over the gaping hole in her port side. The ship will move to Pearl Harbor where the repairs will be inspected, then sent to Seattle for dry-dock work.

South

An infantry division based on Fiji has been given orders to board transports and move to Guam. This division will be used to capture Woleai and Satawal in the Carolines.

Southwest

Base force and engineers have been ordered to move to the newly captured island of Morotai. Once the airfield here is operational, the Allies will have a curtain of aircraft across the South Philippine sea, isolating the Japanese potions in New Guinea, Truk, and Rabaul.

Australian troops continue to fight at Tarakan, the last Japanese base on South/Eastern Borneo. Allied bombers now operating from Samarinda are already threatening shipping moving oil from Brunei. LT. Gen. Alfred Bellenhurst DSM, the commander of all forces on Borneo, has been tasked with capturing a location on the north/west coast where an aircraft can be based to threaten the South China Sea. This would allow allied forces to interdict supply and reinforcements to Japanese forces in Malaysia and Burma.