Dawn of the Rising Sun - Forgotten Hope 0.7 Campaign

[POLPOTI]

This map is awesome. Like the others 

[RAnDOOm]

Do you want to repeat all the great experiences that you had on FH1 ?

Now you can and with confirmed 64 players for 4 whole hours.

Play a Forgotten Hope 1 campaign spanning 13 battles across the Southeast Asia.

32x32 players every Saturday

This battle will be played Saturday 22 of May at 20hGMT on Forgotten Honor Tournament

Reclaim of Balikpapan



Reclaim of Balikpapan City, Borneo, 17 July, 1945



The attack on Balikpapan on the south-eastern coast of Borneo, which began on 1 July 1945, had been prepared by large scale bombings and for two weeks Allied mine sweepers clearing huge numbers of mines placed in Balikpapan harbour by both sides. The seaborne assault (codenamed Operation Oboe Two) by the Australian 7th Division, under the command of Major-General E. J. Milford, was supported with large air and naval forces consisted from RAAF, USMC, USAAF, USN, Dutch and Royal Navy units.


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Japanese strength in the Balikpapan area was estimated to be 3900 with reinforcements of another 1500. The Japanese had had plenty of time to fortify Balikpapan since January 1942. An offshore underwater obstacle, starting north of Manggar, had been extended westward along the coast; extensive anti-tank ditches had been constructed; trench networks on the ridges north of the beaches had been extended and improved (in the Klandasan area alone fifty tunnel entrances had been detected); land mines and booby-traps were expected. Several heavy coast defence guns and anti-aircraft defences were detected and described by Australian Air Force as the heaviest yet encountered in the South-west Pacific area.


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At 3am on the 1 July a dull red glow on the horizon a few points to starboard could be seen from the armada. It was Balikpapan  on fire-a result of the rapidly increasing tempo of Australian air and naval bombardment. Five minutes before 9 am the first assault wave of three infantry Battalions hit the beach, 2/10th and 2/12th Battalions of the 18th Brigade on the left, and beside them 2/27th Battalion of 21st Brigade. The Japanese had withdrawn to his tunnels, pillboxes and entrenchments which pockmarked the dominating features some hundreds of yards inland.



Parramatta Ridge was a Japanese fortress. At the top was a cunning trench system, while a hundred feet below were vast intercommunicating honeycomb tunnels. Artillery had shaken the Japanese out of this fortress and made the way easy for the infantry. At the southernmost point of Parramatta Ridge was Hill 87. C Company of the 2/10th Battalion launched an attack against the Japanese on this feature. The tanks had bogged down near the beach and could not be brought forward in time. With heavy support of artillery, C Company captured Hill 87. By this time the tanks had passed the boggy ground, reaching Hill 87 in time to support C Company's further advance north along Parramatta Ridge. By 2.20 pm Parramatta Ridge was completely in Australian hands.



Morning of 2 July had seen the reserve infantry brigade 25th beaching and moving inland to relieve units of the two assault brigades. This enabled 18th to concentrate its entire force for an attack on the Balikpapan. Except for a few scattered Japanese snipers in bunker positions, Balikpapan had been evacuated by the Japanese. All that remained was an eerie, deserted mass of crumbling mortar and the charred skeletons of power plants, factories and business houses.