France attacked 25 October 1939

December 1941
The loss of an Aircraft Carrier and near loss of a second as well as damage to Ark Royal made for RN sending the remaining two Illustrious class Carriers, the fourth improved aircraft carrying wise Indomitable now ready, and the old Glorious off for the Far East to make up for the losses sustained.
The damaged ships would be going to India for repairs.
The losses were heavier than expected and being the only power – besides the USA – with operational Aircraft Carriers Britain had to shoulder the struggle.

The older Carriers Argus, Hermes, Eagle and Furious was deemed too small for operations so far off and some force had to be kept in European waters until the ordered new larger Carriers would be available though that would still be some years into the future even if Shipyards being available.
The Fairey Fulmar had been phased out of service as a Carrier Fighter being replaced with the Grumman F4F-4/Martlet II with folding wings which allowed a few more being operated from Carriers due to their being slightly shorter than the Fulmar. These had also been ferried out to India to replace the fighters of Ark Royal and with a reserve in place.

The French Navy would probably need at least another year for finishing the Joffré which was fitting out.
Even the French seemed to not know if they were going to finish the Graf Zeppelin/Alsace though doing so would at least provide another Carrier untill the second Joffré/Painlevé would be finished and Churchill urged the French hurring the completion and fitting out of their building Carriers.
The French promised prioritizing the Carrier building and would send a second pair of Battleships to FIC along a convoy carrying another Colonial Infantry Division and an Armoured Brigade to make for a full Armoured Division in place.

With an eye to French Air Operations over FIC RAF was directed to send more units as well as more radar to increase coverage and thus early warning.
With the airattack on Singapore and invasion attempt of Brunei/Sarawak the airdefences of these were increased too.
As the French had decided to increase their Air elements with Strategic Bombers so did RAF in order to have command of the South China Sea by Air and Naval units.
The Japanese Fighter Aircraft had been able to inflict serious losses on the RN aircraft though this was ascribed to the larger numbers of aircraft carried by IJN Carriers.
They did though have a very long range as the first wave fighters which had participated in the attack on Singapore had been able to escort the attack wave to Singapore and back and then go searching for the RN Force without refuelling. If they hadn't been able to return to their Carriers they had shown foolhardy aggression in their search for the RN Carriers.

The IJN would have 2 Aircraft Fleet Carriers and one light Carrier operational as well as their first old Carrier still in service though that only operated 15 Aircraft.
Not known was the IJN building programme of converted hulls to 2 Fleet Carriers and 5 Light Carriers as well as a Super Carrier.

Intelligence was also worked on in area; the disclosed Air Liaison Officer was apprehended and interrogated while work was ongoing for detecting other such Japanese spies. A few was disclosed in Malaya and British Borneo though no others in British forces. Apparently the Japanese was too adept to inform their spies of other such.
This being the case a Double-Cross operation was initiated against the Japanese using the Air Liaison Officer to keep contact with his Japanese operator to feed false information and trying to obtain Japanese information.

The French had suffered high losses too above Tonkin Bay mainly due to the older Fighter aircraft which had also been thrown into the fight that had been easy prey to the IJN fighters.
However the low numbers of modern IJN fighters thrown into the battle had made the older French fighters able to pick off Japanese bombers as the Dewoitines fought the IJN fighters.
Those IJN fighters had been difficult to get into the sights but once there they took less damage than expected to be downed.

Regarding the Italian forces both the British and the French were adverse to include them in fighting in either FIC or Malaya/North Borneo.
Mussolini was informed of this decision and adviced to move his troops into China by the Burma Road as the Tonkin area was a little hot at the moment with occasional Japanese airraids and nightly shore bombardments. The Italians would have to make their own arrangements regarding the Navy component.

Chang Kai-Shek would welcome European allies fighting alongside him and the Italian airunits would be a tremendous boost to the Chinese Airforce.
The Italian Naval contingent was somewhat more difficult to handle as nobody really wanted it at least not under Italian command!
Even the Dutch were apprehensive of such aid as they feared the Italians would then move all of their troops to NEI instead of China.

While discussions were ongoing Emperor Haile Selassie once again took the seat at LoN appealing to the member states of the organization that Mussolini now had a time to redeem himself in the eyes of the World by pulling out of Ethiopia. Selassie would then return to his throne and send off an Expeditionary Force to the Far East.
The French ever eager to pull a leg on the Italians seized the opportunity to agree with Selassie and voted for having all the minor nations in tow.
Britain however..

The RAF had been allowed increasing its presence at Cam Rahn Bay airbase with more long range Short Stirling AEW aircraft operating out of it to try assure the whereabouts of IJN ships and aircraft.
Cooperating to this was the RAF in North Borneo flying like aircraft and the Dutch flying their Dornier Do 24 Flying boats out of a temporal station at Bungaran Island.
The WAllies were agreed that the importance of FIC shouldn't be overlooked as it would be a blocking area to Japanese operations thus RAF got its way into Cam Rahn Bay airbase.

The French had by now 1 Armoured Division and 7 Infantry Divisions: 2 Colonial, 1 Foreign Legion, 1 Senegalese Tirailleurs and 3 Locally Raised in FIC. Half the Armoured Division and the Colonial Infantry Divisions had combat experience from the War in Europe.
The Foreign Legion commanded respect and the Senegalese were well reputed and trained.

French Airforce had also moved in on an ever increasing part of Cam Rahn Bay airbase that was being enlarged to accomodate the various units.
French Strategic Bombers were flying sorties from the base meeting up with their Dewoitine fighter escorts north of Hué then crossing the sea to Hainan Island to bomb Japanese airfields and ports or other targets were such reported by Chinese Partisans.
Other French Bombers flew from Tonkin into China to attack Japanese targets in Kwangsi and Kwangtung Provinces under fighter escort.

The British had kept 1 Australian Infantry Division in Malaya and another sent to New Guinea. The New Zealand Division was in Borneo along 2 British.
2 Indian Divisions were in Malaya and another Australian Division had been shipped to Dutch Borneo to build a reserve for British Borneo and aid the Dutch in defending their oilfields.
One British Division had been shipped to Sumatra to reinforce the sparse Dutch troops there especially to guard the oilfields.

There was also Naval cooperation – the Dutch kept their units mostly in NEI waters though this way they also observed the waters north of NEI south of US Philippines and south of the Japanese Carolina's. The RAN and RNZN operated north of New Guinea and east into the Pacific to patrol south of Japanese Carolina and Marshall Islands.
The RN had kept its large Submarines in Singapore and as during the initial IJN attack on Singapore kept aggressive patrolling in the South China Sea to establish the whereabouts and operations of IJN and hit Japanese shipping when possible though this usually only happened along Hainan Island, Taiwan and the Chinese coast.

Japanese attack on North Borneo January 1942
The IJN had assembled the 5 Aircraft Carriers at Taiwan to be able to deploy a serious fighter and divebomber force against British Borneo indcluding Brunei to be able to overrun these and capture the oilfields and refinery at Seria in Brunei and Miri in Sarawak.
An eleborate plan was drawn up for cooperating of land based IJN Bombers at Hainan Island that was to fly across the South China Sea to hit the British troops under a Carrier fighters umbrella. The plan required lots of communications by radio in ciphers which made for alerting the Allies that something was brewing – though not what.
Advance on NEI part blocked by Aus and British infantry along Dutch.

This time the IJN was able to hit hard. The Zero fighter aircraft pilots knew where they were going and already had some experience of fighting the WAllied airforces. The British Spitfire was a fine aircraft but not as agile as their's though with the identical armament.
Due to the distance the RAF hadn't expected Japanese landbased bombers to attack under fighter cover.
With the short range of the Spitfire it had to take off as late as possible to be given as much time as possible in the air. Drop tank hadn't been supplied to the Spitfires as they were to be defending the oilfields and refinery. Which prevented them from a more aggressive defence.

The Japanese aircraft did get through and the IJN Amphibious troops got ashore but the refinery at Seria and the oilfields at Seria and Miri had been demolished prior to British and New Zealand troops would retreat. The Japanese divebombers had been as effective as the German Stuka's.

The Japanese seemed to have guessed the Short Stirlings were very special reconnaisance aircraft so went after these at any occasion they were spotted. It had given away the IJN moving on North Borneo but it had also prevented too much information being collected on the actual composition of the Fleet.
The RN Submarines had been able to tail the IJN part of its moving though regularly airpatrols had been active at day preventing the Submarines closing in even if the IJN still being shoddy on ASW.

Following the Japanese capture of the oilfields and refinery the British and New Zealnd Divisions were fighting a withdrawal south where the Australians had been buse building fieldworks and move up supplies and ammunition to be able to check the Japanese advance.

In the wake of the attack one British Submarine managed by night to move close to the IJN Force and torpedo a Fleet Carrier and sink it.