The Horrors of the (Alternate) Second World War

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XIV. Landings

Operation SeaLion is a class in and of itself, so these are the absolute briefest of highlights. Additional details can be provided but given the tight schedule let's stick to the overview.

Four hours before dawn broke over the English horizon, fifty-five BV 222-E transport aircraft dropped approximately ninety paratroops each onto key locations in southern England. Hundreds of gliders landed additional soldiers from across Europe throughout the region over the next three hours, focusing on key railways, electrical junctions, radar stations, telephone relays, bridges, and other critical infrastructure. Aerial troops bearing FG-43s and MP43s along with light field artillery and even a few dozen Panzer IIIa-1 lightened tanks at 9 tons each bearing 37mm cannons and capable of 60kph. Fuel limited their range and several were damaged on landing but their massed presence was key to the fall of the Dover batteries on day 1 of the invasion. The Isle of Wight also fell quickly as did Ramsgate and Folkestone. But Portsmouth, Worthing, Brighton, and especially (ironically) Hastings saw German blood spilled en masse with marked delays as a result. While paratroopers captured Eastleigh and Winchester early, Southampton and Portsmouth held for over two weeks and English forces based there repeatedly threatened to toss the whole German force back into the sea.

What likely tipped the tides were the Chinese landings on the southeastern side of the islands. Using the German pre-World War I proposals, China would try to land hundreds of thousands of troops at Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Southwold, Aldeburgh, and Dunwich. The so-called 'Dunwich Horror' describes the desperate hand-to-hand fighting here alongside massive casualties on both sides, and while Great Yarmouth fell quickly the rest did not. Lowestoft fell within the first week but even by week three fighting remained fierce at Southwold and Aldeburgh. While Norwich, Cromer, and Thetford fell and opened a pocket deep into the English countryside, the areas near the Thames continued fighting well into the first month of the operation.

Eventually while the British Army inflicted devastating casualties it proved unable to stop the Axis hordes from slowly but steadily forcing themselves ever-farther inland. Historians ate not kind to the defensive leadership of General Gott and his executive officer Bernard Montgomery though the Defense of London is where Sir Michael Carver and Sir Neil Ritchie among others got their first taste of ruthless combat against veteran German troops. But by early September the heroic defenses were beginning to turn, the Germans having committed almost 2 million men and their allies another 1.5 million with almost 40% casualties still kept coming. Whomever could get out tried to, mostly to Canada if able to get there, Ireland also proved a populat destination though most suspected Germany would try to invade it at some point. London officially fell on September 11 but fighting raged on in the western and northern parts of the city for another two weeks. German forces cleared out the last pocket of English resistance at Canturbury less than a month later.

By the end of 1944 the Axis successfully occupied most of the island of Britain south of Northumbria and established a Reichkommisarat out of Rhaetia and Wales (Cornwall was given to the Chinese as an enclave as other individual British ports and environs were given to other German allies). London would be the political center for now but Heydrich planned a series of aboveground and even more underground complexes which began to slowly appear near Leicester in central England. These eventually coalesced into a massive German military fortress and command center while planners went about fortifying the island from potential invasion, especially from the west. With deployment of Einsatzgruppen throughout the country to scour for Jews, other undesirables, and anyone listed in the Black Book, guerilla resistance cropped up quickly throughout the country. Mass deportation of about 1/5 of the able-bodied men to factories and mines only coalesced the unity of the subjugated British and German soldiers quickly learned what parts of the country to avoid whenever possible for the first several months. Oswald Mosely became Prime Minister, Edward VI was invited back to retake the throne (but surprisingly declined), William Joyce became Minister of Communications, but the real power lay in the hands of Field Marshall Von Leeb and ReichKommissar Odilo Globocnik. Their initially 'light' touch soon grew evermore ruthless as increasing numbers of German and other Axis soldiers went missing or worse. Their reign of terror soon became synonymous with what the rest of the world could expect if the Axis had its way. Interestingly, the Chinese enclave in Cornwall saw less of this, perhaps due to the better treatment of the populace, perhaps due to the nature of its people, or simply because the circumstances were somehow different as there was no single local resistance cell here that might unite the populace - or so it seemed.

British resistance was largely coordinated out of the small town of Chagford in Cornwall, thus the resistance here went to great lengths to keep from being noticed. Nearby was the island of Lundy, the last place of former England to fly the Union Jack (due to the local Gaulieter and his closest associates ironically being British moles or very effectively blackmailed) and the closest the Allies could risk approaching Britain in those dark days. While the British Army still held Northumbria until January 1945 and did not entirely leave Scotland until July of that year*, Ireland saw its opportunity and with Churchill's blessing 'invaded' Northern Ireland, the Isle of Mann, and Anglesey along with several of the Hebrides. Soon Ireland was reunited, at least for now, but de Valera was pragmatic - he fully expected to either pay a serious price for continued neutrality or be invaded outright. The answer lay somewhere in between as he would soon learn. While Roosevelt battled fiercely with Thomas Dewey for the White House the Americans made clear they intended to come back to Europe one way or another and Ireland would be an ideal base from which to do so. Germany saw the possibility early on and would soon act to prevent it.

*Orkney to this day boasts that a line from Latheron to Thurso was held indefinitely and that the Union Jack never entirely left the island of Britain for the long years of occupation. Historians dispute whether this was simply the local German garrison commander not wanting to risk his troops to ideal guerilla conditions or whether the locals simply greeted the Germans with a 'false storefront' only to revert it as soon as the troops left. Only at Duncansby Head Lighthouse, John O' Groats, and the area in the nearby mountains later known as Moletown can it be confirmed by documentation that the Union Jack never truly stopped flying.

 

[M79]

XV. Eye of the Tigers

While Germany continues securing its hold on the southern 2/3 of Britain in late 1944, China simultaneously began enactment of Project San Liu Ba, or 368, because its planners believed China would need all the luck it could get. While Project 36 had loberated Burma, its commanding officer held little respecf for the people and proved even more tyrannical than its British leadership. Thus when the time came for an invasion first of (a) Assam and Bengal, (b) Bihar, the Eastern States, and Madras, and then to (c) Ceylon before (d) pushing north to Bombay and finally (e) Karachi, planners were shocked that all of this was to be done in one operation. Avro Lancaster long-range bombers out of Burma had been able to reach most of China, taking Assam and Bengal would make much of Northern and Eastern China immune to Allied bomber attack outside of the Japanese home islands. Tokyo's new place among the Allies was a matter of expediency, Imperial Japan needed the fuel and the Allies needed the real estate for any hope of damaging China's industries.

Allied technology exchanges were yielding fruit in the form of the P-51d Mustang, the B-19f Flying Castle, and the various M4 Sherman derivatives. The latter two caused exceptional problems for Chinese industries as the tanks could hit hard and fast while the enormous B-19. China, meanwhile, responded with their own Chu-XP 4 fighter aircraft and P.133b bomber aircraft, both lighter than their counterparts trading armor for speed and altitude. German Ta152 high-altitude interceptors were still rare in the CBI theater but Me 262 fighters were beginning to appear in numbers. Allied planners were keen not to lose India and especially Ceylon.

Colombo was the largest British naval facility in the Indian Ocean, especially as China had taken Singapore and a combined German-Italian force out of North Africa was slowly making its way south, lack of infrastructure and naval support often meaning that the Axis forces literally had to build the roads and bridges to go farther south. They had been stopped in Tanzania, ironically enough, by a former Imperial German general who had told Hitler to his face to go **** himself - and lived to tell the tale. Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck was in his mid-70s but still fit, able, and quite capable of not only leading the Volksfrei government, but organizing an army with which to oppose its German counterparts. Interviewed shortly after Axis units crossed into Tanzania about how he felt fighting fellow Germans, he said he wasn't - these were demons possessed by the Devil, not his countrymen. At Petukiza the Axis was met, at Tagna they were stalled, but at Pangani (aka Battle of the Big Cats - Lion of Africa vs Tiger of Cairo) the Axis was beaten, if only temporarily. Terrain, ambush tactics, and weather played their own large roles but the Allied propaganda machine went wild. The victory also had peripheral consequences as it cost a notable amilount of support to the rebelling Boers of the Ossewabrandwag and their feared Sturmjaers which gained significant influence or outright de facto control of the much of northern and western South African territory. This fell apart as perhaps half of this control was through terror, and with even the Germans fighting their own the Boers began what became known as The Troubles.

Thus should Ceylon fall, the remnants of the Royal Navy would have to fall back to Cape Town and the Indian Ocean would be in danger of becoming an Axis lake. China's offensive was fast and furious but required the few engineering divisions available to constantly build bridges to support armor and vehicles, modular pre-fabrication was becoming an area of interest - and soon expertise - to the Chinese government. By the end of 1944 the Chinese offensive had begun to grind down in the face of stiffening opposition from Muslim groups and Hindu resistance fighters after Chinese allocation of meager food stores triggered first a famine, then rebellions, then massacres. A particularly brutal Chinese commander resulted to gas warfare and outright mass murder to try to pacify the populace, resulting in the loss of significsnt opportunity to turn the local populace against the British. By the end of November 1944 the Chinese crossed the Kollidam River, eight weeks behind schedule, and they reached Mandepam and Kochi shortly before the New Year. With Ceylon thought to be in dire straits due to the retreat of the British Indian Army and its native allies, China launched Operation Kotte - its move to take Ceylon via Adam's Bridge and restore it as a tributary state of China itself based on events from the early 15th century. Thus traditionally the highwater mark for the Axis is thought to be December 31, 1944 just before the concurrent Battle of Mann and Battle of Adam's Bridge began.

 

[M79]

XVI. Highwater Mark for the Axis - The Battle for Seattle

New Year's Eve going into 1945 is considered the high-water mark of the Axis powers in World War II. Germany and her Axis partners tossed Britain off of her home island while securing Northern and much of Eastern Africa. Chinese forces reached the mouth of the Gangavali River and threatened to cut off Allied access to northwestern India while also beginning to truly challenge the Allied naval forces in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, especially concerning with the fall of Timor and Mindinao just prior to the New Year. Sakhalin was firmly in Chinese hands while Project 886, the Chinese invasion of Hokkaido, was almost ready to go. Thomas Dewey had defeated Franklin Roosevelt for the White House largely based on how poorly the Allied efforts were going and his failure to assist the British in keeping their home island, in truth there was little FDR could have done.

Dewey was thought by some as perhaps ready to seek a peace settlement, but he was surprisingly firm in his determination to continue the war, especially after learning about some of the secret projects and technological efforts under by FDR in 1943 and 1944. But perhaps most impressive of all was the formal signing of the Treaty of Berlin, the formal peace settlement establishing the European Union in Berlin with every nation save Ireland, Switzerland, and Sweden represented. An empty seat was kept for Ireland as an indicator of German plans for the island. American reinforcement of Ireland continued at speed, the use of the B-19f as a cargo aircraft greatly accelerated this but German forces were preparing to invade the Isle of Mann even as the Americans began to reinforce it.

Chinese forces were there as well as preparing their own gamble of an operation - not to take territory in this case but supposedly to 'shatter' the myth of America's oceans as a source of invulnerability. Ostensibly planned as a reconnaissance-in-force, the two-pronged attack led by Zhang Zizhong that would later be known as The Battle for Seattle was supposed to target the Boeing manufacturing plant, the shipyards, and if at all possible seize the transmitter at KIRO for a broadcast message. Two dozen local agents had lived in the area for years and given intelligence to Beijing, they would also be ready to support on-the-ground efforts as they could. Using recently captured Dutch Harbor as a base, Zizhong's orders included a plan to claim Seattle was being captured as part of a beachhead for a wider invasion, hopefully propagating terror while misdirecting the American Army to commit large numbers of forces away from the East Coast, ideally pushing Washington that much closer to the negotiating table.

China had lost major land engagements before, but its plan backfired terribly. Zizhong, known for leadinf from the front, was thought killed by a bullet that grazed his head early in the attack but he was only unconscious. He was thus captured alive early in the attack as Renton turned out much harder to reach than initially predicted. His quick-thinking captors also stuffed cotton rags into his mouth as he awoke and he was unable to bite down on a cyanide capsule which was removed soon after - his knowledge of Axis operational planning became useful over the next two years. American Army forces just out of training and bound for the western Pacific, whose presence was not anticipated by the Chinese Army, tasted combat at Pioneer Square and Discovery Park. Chinese naval engineers had recreated the idea of the British 'Q-ship' disguising military vessels to appear as civilians, carefully hiding even large gun turrets by having them retract into the main body of the ship when not in use, and captured Japanese flags were flown to avoid suspicion. C4-class cargo ships, some of which were in fact built in Puget Sound, were approximately the size of the cruisers. They achieved near-total surprise, by arriving before dawn the downtown area was largely empty and due to a torrential downpour when they arrived visibility was severely limited. Rain would help limit fire damage, especially after Pier 91 and its storehouses took direct hits, but as the rain began to let up and visibility improved the soldiers landed and began to pusj into the city itself.

While the flotilla of six Chinese 'Q-ship' cruisers and even a pair of converted 'Q-ship' Tang-class battleships made to look like large cruise liners created destruction in downtown, American artillery began returning fire even as the dozen nearby Army Air Corps airfields began warming up P-47s and other aircraft for bombing runs. Two American carriers being repaired at Puget Naval Yard were also able to launch Helldivers early enough to prevent greater damage to the city, smaller ships let loose and began attacking the Chinese naval forces directly. Without significant air cover, Chinese naval forces were quickly neutralized as the storm let up, and their failure to identify the KIRO antenna on nearby Maury Island meant they were defeated trying to reach the station itself in Eastlake instead of broadcasting directly. Of the 7500 men brought to the city over half were killed, the remainder would surrender having accomplished none of their objectives.

This defeat had three major consequences. First, it rallied those who supported peace to instead support the war effort, especially as an American city had come under sneak attack around a major holiday. Civilian casualties were far in excess of military deaths, over 10,000 dead were noted, and American civilian deaths created a shock factor that hardened Washington's resolution even farther. Second, the AlCan Highway was given even greater priority with extension to Nome via Fairbanks with branches to Juneau, Anchorage, and a massive planned military city facility at Goodnews Bay. Siberia would be liberated as a bridgehead to invade Manchuria and then the heart of China itself, and long with Nome (and later Unalaska Island), the contingency was should the Japanese Home Islands be compromised or captured, China could still be bombed via Alaska. Third, the Chinese Relocation Act was enacted, sending hundreds of thousands of Americans on the West Coast to internment camps. At the time none shed a tear for a gross violation of civil liberties, and in one of the most shameful moments of American history in the twentieth century otherwise loyal American citizens were reduced to little more than wards of the state while their property was often confiscated or simply stolen without compensation. China and the Axis in general used this event to great fanfare in propaganda throughout the remainder of the war.

Germany and Italy would use Brandenberger units to impressive effect during the war, and while a half-dozen small American towns were held in their grip by terror as bases of operations and two islands ostensibly captured by Germany to the same purpose during the war, they never tried so bold an escapade as China. Only the late 1945 discovery of what later came to light as German Operations Krampus and Hamelin, with depravity still scarcely believable among civilized countries and monuments to the children lost as a result in Birmingham AL, would rock the American populace to the core regarding the security of their homeland and its people.

 

[M79]

XVII. Turning the Tide - The Battle of Adam's Bridge

Even before the losses at the Battle for Seattle became widely known, the Chinese attempt to invade Sri Lanka was well underway. Despite attacks against their supply lines and rapidly stiffening resistance, the New Army of (Chinese Nationalist-Controlled) India began feeling the strain as an ever-increasing number of their soldiers were killed while guerilla attacks on tenuous supply lines resulted in food shortages among the troops. Requisitioning of supplies from the local civilian populace created an artificial famine in eastern India that would cost innumerable lives, the brutal reciprocity by Chinese commanders would turn the people of India against Beijing almost entirely. Although there were puppet regimes already in place (if only on paper) for most of the subcontinent, German refusal to cross into the Raj without laying claim to whatever territory they crossed prevented theil effective link-up of Axis forces in southern Asia, permitting Karachi's use as a terminus for families fleeing Nazi policies while also allowing limited trade. Britain was careful not to use this area too heavily as a military facility as not to tempt German invasion, a decision that drew much ire after the war and even led to several court-martial inquiries.

General William Slim successfully stalled the Chinese in a series of maneuvars lauded even by the German OKW as 'tactically brilliant' while whittling down one of the largest field armies ever created to barely two-fifths its effective fighting strength in less than three months. His forces capitalized on every chokepoint they could, detonating a massive bridge over the Krishna River at the Battle of Penumudi and literally pushing the Chinese tanks caught on the other side into the river. Having moved most of his forces in a feint he took a serious gamble by dividing his smaller army into two parts. The larger portion would secure the mountain passes from Dindigul to the sea, cutting southern India in half, to contain and funnel the Chinese Army to the target his opponent considered irresistible. Although politically disinclined and normally resistant to pressure, Lin Biao faced potential dismissal from command for both failure to heed the invasion plan's original (and grossly unrealistic) timeframe but also for mounting losses deemed the fault of his leadership and not the lack of supplies, crummy logistical support, lack of combat engineers and infrastructure, etc. Later analysis would almost universally exonerate Marshal Biao for the military situation he found himself in, the evidence that he lacked awareness of just how brutal his subordinates were in the field would also create a debate over his direct involvement in those atrocities which continues to this day. Biao eyed Colombo carefully - it was one of his three main objectives alongside Bombay and Karachi - but the need for naval transports would prove firmly irresovlable. There was a coral formation known as the Bridge of Rama, or in the Muslim tradition Adam's Bridge, which once allowed travel between Ceylon and India by foot though this was supposedly destroyed hundreds of years ago. Slim used a combination of false intelligence, doctored photographs, and even three severely insane criminals (given British Army uniforms of a scout reconaissance unit) to convince Biao that not only was the bridge intact but expanded with road and rail access along it. Simultaneously he set up two counterattacks in the north, Operations Saturn and Uranus, to retake portions of eastern India and cut off the Chinese Army wholesale, leaving the next Chinese field armies of note in Singapore and Yunnan.

Biao took the bait only after weeks of attempts as confirmed by ULTRA signals intelligence, moving most of his army south as Royal Navy ships began laying withering fire into the beleaguered Chinese forces. Prevented from pushing west by the mountains and sealed from retreating north of the Kollidam River via partisan activity, Biao actually ordered his men to cross the bridge only to find it cut off twenty miles from Ceylon. With Slim's army moving in from the mountains and with retreat cut off, Biao literally had his men in a three-line-thick bucket brigade pouring sand into the channel at night while defending their decreasing perimeter during the day. Air drops and even cargo transports kept the units somewhat supplied over seven months, and Biao came within sight of the First Island of Ceylon with a sand bridge mostly one foot underwater in key areas, but the literal starvation of most of his men resulted in the first surrender of an Axis field marshal in late June of 1945.

Heydrich was beyond furious - his back-channel efforts for a definitive peace treaty with the Dewey administration seemed to finally be yielding fruit after so much effort - but the surrender reinvigorated Allied efforts, resulting in both Slim's promotion for Field Marshall and two-day celebrations in Ottawa, Sydney, Wellington, and even quietly on the British Islands themselves. Kai-Shek was warned to keep his sphere of influence under control or risk it falling to the Germans, who subsequently invaded Afghanistan only for any unit smaller than a division to enter the country to disappear in a matter of days. Their consistent use of the lone suitable road for heavy tanks from occupied Persia quickly led to it becoming known as the 'Highway of Death', and more Germans would die trying to take Qandahar than they actually did taking Paris.

 

[M79]

XVIII. Jets, Knives, and good ol' Duct Tape

While Allied projects like ULTRA were bringing technologies to life thought to be science fiction merely ten years prior, the prospect of transatlantic bombing and even perhaps an invasion lingered on the minds of Allied and especially American military planners. Boeing's new B-35 flying wing bomber had phenomenal range as well as capacity, Convair's new B-36 design using six Lycoming XR-7755 engines refined for slightly greater fuel economy and somewhat better power output gave it over 35,000 combined horsepower. Captured German aircraft like the Me262 alongside innovations from the First Allied Combined Engineer Team - Integrated Military Enterprise (FACETIME) under Air Commodore Frank Whittle, created specifically to integrate the best innivations from all Allied parties, resulted in what was already being touted as the 'Model 150' project along with a new series of 'Century' fighter aircraft designs.

Interest in a Canadian patent from Julius Lilienfield also began to emerge, his resubmission of prior proposals for a potential substitute for a vacuum tube in electronic systems gained traction in early 1943 as the UK turned to increasingly desperate solutions in her darkest hours. Led by a team of engineers from MIT, McGill, and Georgia Tech, they prototyped the first practical transistor in January 1945. Mass production would take time, but the first field radio to incorporate this technology was demonstrated to Allied military leadership in March of that year. While the SCR-536 allowed for portable wireless field communication the concurrent development of an advanced Raytheon model of handheld field radio led to Allied orders for three systems - one of purely vacuum tubes, one of purely transistors, and one with elements of both as the technology was as yet unproven. What emerged eighteen months later was the AN/PRC 7, with six times the battery life, half the size, half the weight, and double the effective range. Its larger counterpart, a small backpack-sized radio with a unique segmented antenna mast in one-foot intervals to as high as seven feet with handset. At first it was a hybrid of vacuum tubes and transistors (AN/PRC 46) but later hardened transistor-only (AN/PRC 47), had a range of ten miles or more at maximum height and came standard with a field tool akin to a swiss army knife for field repairs. These would soon be very highly prized units by both sides.

Field intelligence evolved rapidly as well. While Germany introduced the MP43 in that year then the StG44 and later the StG46, American riflemen began the war with the M1 Garand before starting to transition to the M1B, which used BAR magazines for greater firepower. In addition, a new derivative of the M1 carbine later known as the 'Tinker Toy' incorporated developments from a prototype engineered by a surviving Russian engineervnamed Alexei Sudayev. Named for its extreme ease in assembly, disassembly, and almost endless tolerance for the worst conditions, it incorporated lessons from around the world and its case was stretched from 33mm to 39mm (based partially on Soviet data), eventually resulting in the now-global Standard Rifle Round known as 7.62x39mm.

Other engineering novelties became increasingly commonplace, from cotton-backed waterproof Duck Tape (a misunderstanding and frequent civilian use in HVAC systems now means it is known more widely as Duct Tape). Its initial use for sealing cases of explosives and ammunition would soon grow into a nearly ubiquitous place in field repair kits for soldiers and civilians alike. The introduction of increasing numbers of antibiotic agents and better understanding of field triage made medical miracles possible while pre-fab modular construction made tents a sign of only very recently taken areas. Japanese use of pre-fab housing saved countless civilian lives from lack of shelter following the Chinese firebombings of their cities from 1943 onwards. Their contributions to fireproofing and safer civil engineering remain the foundation for modern residential safety standards. Concentrated orange juice made its commercial debut shortly after being made available for Allied soldiers while increasing and ongoing use of fuel meant gasoline and heating oil were increasingly rationed for the civilian populace.

While the American Marines understandably made their KA-BARs famous, many civilians and other military personnel began using the Japanese Type 75 Field Knife. A refinement of the Type 30 Bayonet incorporating features of a Yoroi-Doshi style tonto, the forst batch was made from a set of spring steel initially thought ruined by the addition of the wrong mixture of elements into the spring steel alloy, but the resulting knife showed phenomenal edge retention as well as rust resistance. Its 180mm full-tang blade and rugged 120mm handle made from plasticized PVC gave it an overall length of 300 millimeters and thus its moniker 'The Footlong'.

 

[M79]

XIX. The New Great Wall

1945 held significant developments in both Asia and Europe. Considered the longest major continuous battlefield in a time of war, the German landings on the Isle of Mann in late 1944 did narrow the Allied forces down to Peel by March 1945 with a perimeter holding less than four square miles if the island at the nadir, but persistent reinforcements and local guerillas making 'examples' of German troops set the stage for Operation Murray, the first major Allied landing of troops on European soil. At Smeale Beach and surprisingly even at Port Erin the Allies landed thousands of soldiers quickly as the Germans reinforced their positions. Ramsey and Balthane became heavily contested towns with Close Clark, Greeba, Injebreck, and Glen Auldyn marking the rest of the contested zone. Trenches and heavy fortifications were built by both sides, the fighting so close that both sides were hesitant to commit fully for concern they risk opening up their respective island bases to further invasion by doing so. As the Allies prepared for larger landings via Operation Overlord, the Chinese had fallen back in rapid succession across the Ganges by June 1945 and used it as a defensive perimeter.

Chiang Kai-Shek made known his plans for a New Great Wall as a defensive perimeter around the holdings of the China and her puppets. Stretching from the still-contested island of Papua New Guinea across the southern edge of the former Dutch East Indies, then around Thailand and Burma to the Ganges, then through the Himalayas and up the Ob River around the Arctic Circle and down the Bering Sea (including the still-held Aleutian Islands), its eastern frontier was less well defined as the original plan to include a satellite Japan had failed to bear fruit. Half the army lost at Adam's Bridge was slated for use in an invasion of Hokkaido and all other forces were tied down containing rebellions, building critical infrastructure, or fighting the Allies - it would take time to train and organize another field army. Strategic bombing was also hitting Chinese industry evermore effectively - following the German example, underground factories were being built especially around Chongqing and Chengdu. These factory-fortresses were still under construction and not expected to be operational for another 12 to 18 months at least. With Japanese and other Allied agents supplying insurgents from Sumba to Sakhalin to Sumba and Nepal to New Guinea, Chinese efforts to hold their various conquests grew more difficult every month. Discussions for a potential invasion of Australia were stopped cold as Allied forces battled Chinese aircraft carriers to a draw north of Lae, leading to a Chinese plan for a great battle to draw out the Allied fleets and sink as many of their capital ships as possible.

China had never been a naval power in the modern era and the planning for the landings at Luzon represented reflected some of this. Grand Battle Plan thinking was still en vogue with many nations at the start of the war but aircraft carriers had almost never been part of that equation. A limited skirmish at Taranto, Italy in 1940 together with the aerial draw at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea had pushed some Allied admirals to reconsider their prior thinking. Development of accurate naval bombers as initially discussed by Billy Mitchell just after the Great War, and especially given the capabilities of aircraft like the Douglas BTD Destroyer, A-26 Invader, and Blackburn Firebrand, meant that even among the stalwart battleship generals a change in thinking - no matter now minor - was called for.

China's efforts at the Battle of Guam involved their first major landing foray into the deeper areas of the central Eastern Pacific. Her fleet was larger than Allied intelligence initially believed but they had cracked Chinese cryptographic codes via ULTRA with four weeks notice. Landings planned for three divisions to quickly overwhelm the island while carrier-based fighters would provide tactical support and, if necessary, air cover. American forces on the island had figured after the fall of Mindinao that an attack here was possiblenand had begun fortifying the island with reinforced concrete, anti-landing pylons, and defensive works. Their advanced notice of where the invaders would land meant deplying the pylons and setting up barbwire emplacements was rapidly completed. From above, the island resembled a labyrinth of trenches, artillery/AA emplacements, and pillboxes instead of flat land and sandy beaches.

Casualties were enormous, especially for the Chinese. Their lighter landing craft were less robust and often fell apart on impact with the pylons, those that not usually just sank. Often wearing 60+ pounds of equipment, more Chinese soldiers drowned than were shot, and the total number of survivors from the landing itself numbered less than a thousand. Their Combined Assault Fleet paid dearly as well - only one of three carriers and six of fifteen other capital ships escaped, of those only three destroyers were undamaged. A torpedo concern among the Americans from the onset of the war had finally been corrected and meant direct hits no longer had a signficant chance of simply bouncing off the enemy hull, and Allied ships were now able to operate in parts of the Western Pacific away from the range if land-based aircraft with much greater chance of survival.

 

[M79]

XX. Taking the High Road and the High Ground

China's construction of a crude highway system over years of occupation for Burma and Southeast Asia included the Ledo Road, Burma Road, and China-Burma-Thai railway. Using both POWs are civilian 'volunteers' from half a dozen countries, by the summer of 1945 the railway linked Krung Thep to Rangoon and Myitkyina with a spur of double-rails rapidly growing to Baoshan and with a secondary line growing from Bhamo in the same direction. Lines from Kunming already linked to Yunnanyi, efforts were underway to link the line to Lijiang to both Baoshan and Yunnanyi itself. Field Marshal Zhu De, formerly a member of the so-called Yunnan Clique, was put in charge of both the railway project (under command of General He Long) and the defense of the Bengal-Burma-Tibet-Yunnan theater (under reformed Communist and very talented General Liu Bocheng). At first Bocheng began a tactical withdrawal to the Brahmaputra River, beginning a slow fighting retreat out of northernmost India and occupying months of Slim's time and especially that of his subordinate Bernard Montgomery. After judging local support and infrastructure inadequate he held the river pending British and soon American/Allied reinforcements only to push back to the Pakhain mountains with further plans to fall back to the Chindwin River and eventually the Irrawaddy if needed. He called his strategy a 'Porcupine Defense', knowing that the Allies would pay dearly for Burmese soil as a way to set up an invasion of Yunnan and southern China, but he thought to make them bleed so badly as to discourage any further advancement or minimize their gain entirely.

Allied leaders had other plans, however. They intended to force Zhu to park hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Burma while the real plan of attack began via Sikkim into occupied Tibet under Operation Shangri-La. Allied mountaineering and Special Operations troops marched hard over the Himalaya mountains to liberate the Tibetian town of Shigatse, taking thr Shigatse Dzong over as Chinese troops thought the Himalayas literally impenetrable to the Allies. No road existed to connect India and Tibet save the Hindustan road, with three tunnels dynamited to prevent Chinese raids, and another through Nepal not open to large trucks. Tibetans were overjoyed with liberation of Shangtse leading to representatives from several other regions soon offering overt support for the Allied cause. China would pay for not developing the road systems here sooner though Allied cargo aircraft flying 'The Hump' from Calcutta and soon Patna needed escorts from the Chinese Shenyang-9 high altitude propeller and Shenyang-14 jet engine fighters. Allied Skytrain, Skymaster, and even the new Globemaster cargo aircraft brought in supplies by the literal ton, including bulldozers, artillery, tanks, fuel, and equipment to eventually build a trio of pipelines, railways, and roads south to Sikkim and the ports of India. They would soon also use 'slab dab and tab' steel-reinforced sections of flat reinforced steel and concrete plate to begin building runways for both bombing missions and even more cargo deliveries. Troops also began to fan out along the Yarlung river in both directions while fortifying the few roads in the area with pillboxes and checkpoints.

China surprised the Allies with its first use of the C2I ballistic missile system, a stretched V2 launched from a facility just outside occupied Nagqu, but its effect is limited due to a poor guidance system. Due to a news blackout, China didn't even know where it landed until over a month later, and Allied salvage teams work diligently to study any such material they can in either theater. Their use of paratroopers to attempt to secure one of the roads between Lhasa and Shangtse was also a surprise as over 1000 successfully dropped into an area about 50km east of Shangtse where the river coalesces into one stream. Though this slowed the Allied advance it did not actually stop it, soon raising concerns in Beijing as the Allies now held territory in historic China itself.

 

[M79]

XXI. Project Atlantis

China also benefitted greatly from use of a system first instituted off the coast of the Canary Islands in late 1945. German interest in obtaining farther reach for her U-boat fleet led to construction and later implementation of a novel undersea fuel depot approximately 500 miles south of the Azores and 500 km WNW of the Canary Islands. The Great Meteor Seamount was discovered by a German survey ship in 1938 with a fairly flat summit as little as 150m below sea level, making it somewhat ideal as a place to test the Kriegsmarine proposal for construction of an underwater facility specifically for refuelling of U-boats and R&R for submariners in long-range voyages. Over 4 million gallons of diesel fuel would eventually be stored at the site, largely provided by specially-designed plasticized PVC storage tanks laden with fuel then sunk in place before being covered in approximately seven feet of underwater concrete. Work was done onsite via anthropomorphic hardsuits tested a decade prior and further enhanced with flexible joints with reported safety down to 300m, though none were used below 235m in this case.

Germany began construction with 'auxillery cruisers', converted cargo ships turned commerce raiders, but ultimately a larger cargo ship fitted with cranes helped finalize construction and brought most of the concrete which was secured via a special plastic 'frame' to provide a 'wall' and columns to support a space above it. Six older U-boats were intentionally sunk adjacent to one another atop the fuel containers with hoses, pumps, and other refuelling equipment installed. Three external 'docks' with pipe-like conduits attached permitting the frames to be added around them, allowing concrete to be poured as to permit people and fuel to pass through the walls. Two emergency exit pipes rising to a depth of 50 feet below the surface were placed at each end of the line of uboats through the 'roof' that stretched for almost 200m across the top. Dornier 204 seaborne aircraft also delivered supplies as needed to the station which kept excellent records and subsequently proved useful in planning for later space missions and other deep sea exploration.

Use of Project Atlantis began even before the site was complete with the sunken Uboats (originally intended as pressure shelters with hardsuit access to the outside in case of a leak) able to refuel a Type XI-D, which in turn refuelled several other U-boats in the Atlantic before coming back to repeat the process. China saw the promise of such a site early and went for more shallow installations, starting with Fuzang (X) then Heavenly City (Y) and Forbidden Palace (Z). While none compared to the scale of the German compound later known as Thule, they still permitted their crews of 40-60 the ability to refuel and vastly extend the duration and range of the Uboat threat, leading to repeated sinkings of Allied ships within sight of their shores. First the Liberty Ships then after 1946 the Freedom Ships and ultimately the Victory Ships were made en masse to deter the Class XXIX, XXXVI, XLI, and VL U-boats along with their Chinese equivalents (or as unified designs for the XLI and VL u-boats as well as the entirety of the Tauschiff series). Several of these bases did not survive the war and at least two were not discovered for over a year after the atomic bombs were dropped.

 

[M79]

XXII. First to fall, plans for Case Gold

Operation Octopus was the first landing of Allied troops in Continental Europe since the fall if France in 1940. OSS and MI5 received reports of an Axis force amassing near occupied Lisbon for an invasion of Madiera and/or the Azores, fly-overs with F-13s and F-15s confirm the concentration of soldiers and ships, leading first to a massive naval shelling of Lisbon then followed by a series of aerial bombings in and around the city. Portuguese support for the Allies is exceptionally high and they are desperate to get a foothold in Europe, leading to the birth of an eight-pronged invasion of the Portuguese coast. Alabama Beach and Boynton Beach were at Lagos; California Beach, Detroit Beach, and Eastern Beach are near Lisbon; Florida Beach, Georgia Beach, and Hawaii Beach are near Porto.

Portuguese resistance to the Axis contributed significantly to the successes of the Allied effort as did the near-total surprise of the attack itself - later documents revealed that Heydrich was organizing for an invasion of the Azores when the attack came. Local populations were jubilant at the news while Spain, France, and even Italy saw a resurgence of their own native opposition movements. Russia, where the Communist Party and Vor came together in an unholy alliance, began greater activities against the Germans and planning to liberate central Siberia. Even in Indochina and the bulk of Tibet, rebellions and partisans gained traction. By the end of the sixth week from the start of the invasion most of Portugal, Extremadura, western Andalusia, and Galicia were in Allied hands. Unfortunately the Axis had built a defensive line along the Ebro as well as secondary lines along the Guadalquivir and branches of the Douro and Jucar. Spain would prove far bloodier a fight but the liberation of Santiago de Campostela only accelerated European resistance that much more.

In a hotel near Lisbon several Allied planners found the tangible plans for Case Gold - an invasion of the continental United States via bases in Bermuda, the Azores, and Canada. These would be kept secret for 75 years as a matter of state security and remain highly controversial to this day, but the arrests of German agents in the United States associated with those plans that followed was not. In the post-war trials over a sixth of the documentation was deemed Top Secret and kept quiet because of the damage believed possible from revelation of the extent of their influence. To this day some of those documents remain classified, much to the consternation - and curiosity - of historians.

 

[M79]

XXIII. Genie in the bottle

Atomic weapons were proposed in the 1930s but at the time atomic ohysics were the exclusive province of university professors and then-cutting edge researchers. The potential destructive power of an atomic weapon with its capacity to level cities or even whole nations was both a significant unknown and a potential resource sink. Every major nation in the Second World War had a nuclear weapons program, the war's end being brought about by the use of atomic bombs by President Truman as previously noted. Germany focused much of her efforts on developing such a bomb from the start of Heydrich's takeover and a (poorly funded and even more poorly coordinated) program was in place even prior to that. Under Heydrich and Kammler, however, research accelerated such that by late 1948 the Germans were thought to be within six months of developing an atomic device. Their primary research laboratories were moved underground to a sprawling underground complex in the Bavarian Alps known as 'Der Trolle', another high in the Carpathian Alps known as 'Schloss Adler', and another pair of complexes on the European side of the Ural Mountains. President Dewey had learned of the US atomic program upon taking office but diverted resources to other projects such as the B-35 heavy bomber, jet engines, T-20 rifles, M26 tanks, basic military equipment, and various synthetic fuel/chemical projects for civilian industry. He knew that once out of the bottle the genie could never be put back and so, based on available estimates and intelligence on the capacity for atomic weapons production of Germany and later China, he decided against an open test as well as a first use - a controversial decision that would haunt his legacy to the present day.

The one exception to this was nuclear naval propulsion systems, which he directed Captain Hyman Rickover to investigate via the beyond-top-secret Oak Ridge National Laboratory. By the summer of 1948 initial successes were promising, and combined with new more hydrodynamic ship and submarine designs, allowed for the testing of both a conventional 'teardrop' submersible as a prerequisite to a nuclear-powered one. Its speed doubled under the same power as its more traditional counterpart, resulting in the 'Nautilus' class of American attack submarine being launched staring with the namesake of the class in late 1950. With a top speed of 23-25kn, she delivered on the promise of the failed HTP drive Germany tried to perfect during the course of the war, and after the war ended it was discovered the Germans and Chinese had each acquired plans for the S2W reactor powering the design and feverishly worked to complete designs, or in the case of China a working model, of their own as the war ground to an end.

A by-product of this was the development of nuclear power plants which remain in widespread use today. With concern for expanding energy needs and increasing fuel shortages by war's end, mass transit systems grew popular around the world but consumed ever-increasing amounts of energy. Second generation nuclear power plants derived from some of the world's deadliest discoveries made possible the continued expansion of such systems as well as energy self-sufficiency for nations like Japan, Ukraine, and even France. Today over a third of the world's energy is generated from fourth and more recently fifth generation fission power plants although solar and wind continue to gain rapidly and coal/oil power plants remain the source of power for over half the world.

 

[M79]

XXIV. Giants and Playgrounds

With the atomic decimation of the Isle of Mann during 1948 and again in 1949 the island was reduced to little more than a radioactive field of dead and dying soldiers - the Reaper's Playground became not only the moniker of the soldiers stationed there but a bestselling book and triad of movies after the war. Even today background radiation levels are still enough that staying more than a few hours is not advised, but the City of the Unknown Dead makes for a grizzly if sobering sight. With the exception of the airport and partially-restored ruins of Douglas, the remainder of the island was literally turned into a giant cemetery. Fine marble gravestones, statues, and ornate mausoleums contrast with plain crosses, crescents, and stars of david. For the Allies this would become their main cemetery after the last Germans were driven from the island in late 1949, only a handful of soldiers living long enough to see the 20th anniversary of the end of fighting there.

Development of the Boeing B-64 Aerofortress began as a cross-service cargo plane project that grew into a robust six-engine bomber only somehwwhat smaller than the vaunted Spruce Goose of Hughes Aircraft. With crude air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles now a viable threat to any aircraft going over Germany, those engaged to do so were turned into complete defensive systems complete with RADAR, ECM jamming systems, and their own missile defenses, as well as an extraordinary bomb load. British officials hung their heads low as London suffered horrifically under Allied bombings when German bases started appearing in the city - citizens fled en masse only to be stopped and used as human shields by the National Action Militia and SS. The launch of V-101 missiles from areas surrounding London, Birmingham, Oxford, and Cardiff heralded a new phase of the war even as Allied troops began to land in Cornwall and Wales itself.

Chinese soldiers fell back slowly into eastern Tibet as the first Allied soldiers moved ever farther north pushing into former Soviet Central Asia. There they found gulags of enormous size and diversity with slave-workers kept alive only so long as they were useful to their masters. Horrible images scrubbed for television and news reels made their way around the world in days but these were unfortunately among the mildest and were cheerful compared to what awaited the Allies as they drove farther and farther inland. By April 1949 a wedge of Allies territory ran north from Persia into Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to Tajikstan and Kyrgyzstan along with the western and southern 3/5 of Tibet. With the completion of AirBases One, Two, and Three six months after the opening of the TransHimalayan Highway, heavy bombers began making China and German-occupied Siberia burn.

 

[M79]

XXV. Operation Kimchi

The simultanous massive landing of Allied troops at Pusan, Ulsan, and Pohang in Korea marked the first time Japanese troops landed together with their Western counterparts in an amphibious landing. Japanese tanks, designed around an infantry support role instead of an armor-on-armor capacity, proved critical in the early parts of the landing. Type 3 Chi-Nu and Type 4 Chi-To tanks proved nimble and deadly, especially with improvements 'inspired' by Western engineers. After American Pershings and British Centurions landed en masse, the first secure beach head in this part of Asia became a killing field known as the Pusan Perimeter. Chinese troops hurled against the slowly expanding line of Allied control as it reached inland. It would be into 1951 before the entire peninsula was under Allied control but the manpower lost by China and Russia here prevented their use in Europe to reinforce against the landings there soon after.

Surprisingly the landings at Vladivostok and Kharbarovsk, originally intended to be diversionary, allowed the Amur River Valley to quickly come under Allied control. Fighting only in the summer months to prevent winter from taking the worst toll on their troops, much of eastern Siberia quickly fell and former gulag prisoners quickly rebuilt a Russian state. Madagan became a redoubt for this and a logistical center, especially as starvation in central Siberia pushed people to flee for their lives. Half as many lost their lives to cold as disease and famine, but China was forced to contain an ever-larger front in the North even as the Tibetian lines continued to retreat ever closer to the home provinces. Germany sent reinforcements but not nearly enough to turn the tide on either front.

By the beginning of 1950 war had raged for over a decade, and with the Russians and Chinese occupied Allied planners began the execution of Operation Templar - the Liberation of Europe.

 

[M79]

XXVI. Operation Templar

While Operation Kimchi was named for a Korean dietary staple and soon turned into an inside joke about fresh things that got buried, rotten, and utterly transformed in the process, the initial phases of Operation Templar - the Allied landings in southern Europe - were meant to exemplify the honor and dignity of the Allies and their soon-to-be-liberated opponents. Many of the landings on Sardinia achieved a total surprise that was previously inconceivable and permitted a literal island of friendly soil in the middle of enemy territory. Large caves were excavated and expanded to form underground runways immune from the ever-more-frequent atomic bombings, leaving the surface often cratered and sometimes blackened.

After the first three months the whole of the island was secured, including two hardened command centers and a centrally located bunker large enough to house several thousand people. Allied troops soon brought in their larger cargo aircraft to plan for the next phases, including landings in Corsica, France, and Rome. Sicily and southern Italy were to be cut off entirely and bypassed, trapping several German divisions completely. Southern France was a known hotbed of anti-German resistance while taking northern and central Italy would force Germany to commit troops for further defense and weaken their other fronts. Corsica would fall a few weeks after the final surrender of Sardinia thanks partially to their proximity while Sicily and the Baelerics were isolated and left alone due to their concentration of German defenses as well as fortifications.

Allied landings near Marseilles would only happen later the following year due to the preparation needed, the increasingly atomic response from German aircraft, and the desire to preserve as many lives as possible. By the end of 1949 a growing beach-head emerged from Montpelier to Cannes with difficulty pushing into France closer to the mountains. Only with the help of the Resistance did the Allies manage to advance significantly especially following the unexpected turn of the Italian government and need to rush forces into northern Italy.

 

[M79]

XXVII. Operation Calamari

By early 1949 the stage was set for Operation Calamari, the long-awaited multi-prong invasion and liberation of the British Islands. German divisions prepared seaborne defenses alongside their British Action counterparts but a series of tactical nuclear strikes and repeated follow-on shellings from Montana-class and the new Tillman-class dreadnought. Taking a lesson from World War I when a Senator Tillman asked for a 'maximum battleship' there were already designs in place before the war for four sextuple-turrets of 18 inch guns which were replaced by a variation of the 'Little David' 36-inch mortars re-scaled for naval use in twin turrets heavily reinforced to permit the turrets to withstand their use. While their guns required loading in a unique order and took extraordinary powder charges to fire, when functional these super-battleships could utterly destroy seaborne fortifications or other targets within 30+ miles of thr coast. Most feared was the American 'Hot Pocket' shell, a delayed fire round with an armored copper case surrounding a large quantity of finely powdered white phosphorus with a small explosive activated fifteen minutes after impact.

Mere mention of the pending arrival for the ten different Allied landing groups prompted spontaneous uprisings in northern/central Wales as well as Scotland, ironically beaches 'Juno', 'Gold', and 'Alabama' were liberated before the Allied soldiers landed with 'Cincinnati' and 'India' already strongly contested. At the other five however, especially 'Delaware' site, an underground German base (under the village of Newton Stewart to man and protect a massive RADAR and SIGINT installation built into a nearby mountain). Thankfully several of the Allied beachheads merged quickly while the Welsh provided a serious distraction and happenstance chance to secure Anglesey and Welsh environs well ahead of schedule. Originally Anglesey was to be avoided due to its concentration of fortifications and bunkers (much as the Channel Islands, Crete, and several other locations would be) but most of Wales north of Aberystwyth and even a few pockets of England near the Welsh and Scottish borders liberated themselves. Fighting grew ever more intense as Allied forces consolidated their beachhead and began to truly contest the islands. London would not fall easily but it's liberation near the end of 1949 became cause for celebration around the world - what was not initially reported was the razor-thin margins by which three different atomic weapons nearly destroyed the city on the ground and how five missiles bearing atomic warheads were successfully stopped from doing the same afterwards - one of which landed on the great German fortress near Pais-de-Calais and reduced it to ash.

Perhaps the most serious help for this effort was the unexpected stop to German atomic bombings - their top uranium refining facility near Pibruns, Czechkoslovakia was found and 'bunker-buster' fission-enhanced nuclear weapons destroyed the site. The secondary facility at Belfort in France was also destroyed in a similar manner. With a third site in the Carpathian mountains and another in the Urals only partially completed, Germany was without the means to produce atomic weapons for five months. Hot Pocket bombs also destroyed the refineries at Baku while Tibetian resistance magnified such that almost the entire country was now free.

China, facing increasing revolution within her borders and suffering additional losses elsewhere in the Pacific, made a surprise attempt for peace with the Allies in exchange for retention of Eastern, southern, and northern China, the Dutch East Indies, and French Indochina - she would cede her other conquests peacefully and join the Americans against Germany as an Allied power. Allied leaders seriously considered the proposal at the Savannah Conference but ultimately decided they would not have to - an invasion of the Chinese core territories was already in the planning stages - Operation A-Mi-Go.

 

[M79]

XXVIII. New Technologies

Technology during the war improved radically from its start in 1939 until its conclusion in 1953. The introduction of the transistor in 1946 would radically shrink electronic systems and improve computing capabilities. Radios a fraction the size of the old tube sets with far less power need meant every soldier was carrying a personal system by war's end. Computers went from theoretical to taking up whole rooms to large desks while programming languages permitted the last generation of wartime and first generation of post-war aircraft to take advantage of computer-aided design (CAD) via Z21 (Germany), Lotus Blossom (Japan), and IBM 880 systems. Synthetic fuel evolved to include the early forms of algae-derived fuel we now call Bioil, which permitted relief from oil shortages and gasoline rationing globally, even in areas largely spared the worst of the war's destruction. Integrated circuits developed in Germany came too late to have much immediate or practical impact on the conflict but would further enable the electronics revolution and lead to further marvels later in the century.

Synthetic fibers from Nylon to the first para-arachnid fibers allowed for replacement of scarce cotton while permitting late war soft armor capable of resisting pistol rounds, the addition of steel plates allowing for resistance of intermediate rounds and flak survival. Polyester became a fiber of choice for many around the world if only due to lack of natural alternatives. Greenhouses and environmentally-focused technologies began to emerge in light of the vast numbers of atomic and later other bombs used, the vast vertical farming setups we know today have their roots in the massive underground greenhouses set up around the world during the war. Concentrated fruit juices, nearly indestructible 'walking sticks' with myriad uses, mylar tents, more efficient solar panels, and vast other numbers of technologies either arose or saw vast improvements due to the efforts of the war.

Perhaps the greatest achievements were in transportation and medicine. Blood banks and antibiotics allowed field hospitals to perform life-saving surgeries onsite while Littermaster conversions of Cargomaster aircraft moved tens of injured patients to intensive care units around the world at record speeds. New ways of remote monitoring for bodily functions and more efficient use of power via Transistors and refining of technologies permitted the first telemetry units while the very early prerequisite to what eventually grew into Computed Tomography would emerge just before the end of the war at the University of Urbana-Champaign in Illinois. Pneumatic tube networks, safely underground and reliable to the end, delivered mail in record time across regions, including an express secure system from Boston to Chicago and another from Paris to Kiev.

Jet aircraft went from prototypes to supersonic second-generation aircraft in the skies with third-generation prototypes well underway in Germany, Japan, Russia, Canada, and the United States by war's end. Infrared guided AAMs met with 20mm, 23mm, and 30mm cannons instead of biplanes bearing .30 caliber guns. Bombers advanced from B-17s to the jet-powered B-52 and six-propellor ultra-heavy B-56 and from the Ural Bomber to the jet-powered Ju 560 and eight-propellor ultra-heavy He 535. Japan's G3 bomber and Zero fighter began the war while the G12 'Ryu' and G14 'Fugaku' bombers alongside the A9 'Zebra' fighter were there at the end. Missiles went from crude short-range experiments to viable military weapons as artillery and air warfare tools but also as the first spaceborne reconnaissance craft took to the skies with Germany even placing a crude single-module space station in orbit before war's end (an empty A14 rocket fuel tank). Orbital reconnaissance photography proved very helpful in the war's final year for both sides but especially the Allies as Berlin fell. Without a doubt the world would look radically different at the end of the war both for the survivors but also for their descendants.

 

[Nivek]

Operation A-Mi-Go.

friend?

 

[flamelord]

Japan, facing increasing revolution within her borders and suffering additional losses elsewhere in the Pacific, made a surprise attempt for peace with the Allies in exchange for retention of Eastern, southern, and northern China, the Dutch East Indies, her original holdings, and French Indochina - she would cede her other conquests peacefully and join the Americans against Germany as an Allied power. Allied leaders seriously considered the proposal at the Savannah Conference but ultimately decided they would not have to - an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands was already in the planning stages - Operation A-Mi-Go.

Wait, I'm confused. Is this supposed to be China, or is this a leftover from a different draft/story? Because I thought Japan was already firmly committed to the Allied side by this point. They're invading China together after all.

 

[M79]

Wait, I'm confused. Is this supposed to be China, or is this a leftover from a different draft/story? Because I thought Japan was already firmly committed to the Allied side by this point. They're invading China together after all.

Thank you

 

[merlin]

Surprised I haven't come across this earlier - as it was, hard (but enjoyable) going, plowing through it. I think US planners in the event of Britain 'seeking terms' or being defeated, and the US at war with Germany had it mind to secure a base in the Azores & West Africa. I think an invasion of the UK across the Atlantic would be challenging at best - and then through Wales where choke points are plenty!

Nevertheless well done, perhaps though missing naval warfare in the western Pacific, and Indian oceans - would have been fun with a mix of US & Japanese carriers!