Question about loading transports

[Anonymous]

I and a friend play a PBEM game and recently the following situation occurred:

Setup:
Man 2inf (US)
JPN 4inf
JPN sz 1BB, 1 trn (US)
BUR sz 1AC, 2ftr, 3trn (JPN)

Japan moves all his fleet in BUR sz to JPN sz, loads 4 inf from JPN on his transports, conduct battle (all US and 1 Japanese trn sunk) and then unloads all inf in Man making a new combat situation with those 2 US inf (amphibious assault).

The thing we argue about is if Japan can load those inf from JPN and unload them in Man.

Arguments for this are:
1.        Its not explicit stated in the rules that you can’t
2.        All is part of combat movement phase so this happen before combat

Arguments against are:
1.        As soon as any land or naval unit enters enemy occupied territory the movement phase is IMMEDIATELY over so loading units is not legal (part of movement phase).
2.        It is clearly stated that transports can not unload until the naval combat is resolved so why should it be possible to load? Load and unload should work the same way and if so then the movement phase is over when combat starts so it will make it impossible to load.
3.        If this would be legal then you can rescue troops on an island that is blocked with enemy naval units in its sea zone. You just send in X trn, loads all units, take one round of combat and then retreat.

Please help us out here because our game has come to a standstill just because of this.

[morten200]

I would have to say that it is illegal.  You must conduct all your combat movement in one turn.  You can´t load the tr with inf as part of your combat move because you don´t know that your tr won´t be destoyed in the sea battle (however unlikely it may be).
Remember, the sea combat precedes the loading of the tr, which means the loading of the tr has to be conducted on the next move.