Sealion Fails Pt 13: Bombers and the Balkans
Although the world's spotlight and the greater part of German war supplies were shifted northeast to the Battle of Moscow, Rommel was not content to watch the Allies consolidate their position in Yugoslavia. After spending the last part of October regrouping he resumed his attack, catching the Allies off-balance. The only troops immediately opposing his 12 divisions were 8 disorganized Serbian infantry divisions. Rommel made short work of them, isolated Belgrade and continued driving south towards Greece. There were two French and three British Divisions in Greece by November, but these formations were still sorting out the remnants of the Yugoslav army trapped by the Serbian revolt. The Serbians were resisting fiercely, but the inevitable domestic chaos accompanying Serbia's declaration of independence hampered organized effort. If Rommel was to be stopped, the Greek Army would have to do it. Initial contact between Greek and German troops was made along the Morava river. The Greeks quickly learned that the Germans were an entirely different magnitude of opposition than the Italians. Roughly handled by Rommel's two Panzer divisions, the Greeks fell back to Skopje, where the Germans were held with the assistance of the French and British divisions freed up by the surrender of the isolated Yugoslav formations.
In the meantime the Luftwaffe was receiving a nasty shock of its' own. The Greek pilots were far better trained and more aggressive than they had been led to believe. In addition, Anglo-French squadrons quickly made an appearance over the battlefield. For the first time on mainland Europe, German troops were exposed to the joys of contested air space.
In January deteriorating weather and the attendant supply problems brought a halt to large-scale action. The Allies had managed to stabilize a line running from Tirana to Skopje and then east to the Bulgarian border. King Boris of Bulgaria had declared a unilateral cease-fire and was franticly reorganizing his army for the defense of Bulgaria, while seeking a formal peace with Greece. The Greeks were not inclined to let matters go at this, but Rommel was a far greater and more immediate danger, so a De Facto cease fire was effectively in place following a Bulgarian withdrawal from what little territory the Bulgarians had taken. The Allies accepted this situation, for the time being, while making it plain to King Boris that if German troops entered Bulgaria, the {very unofficial) deal was off. The Allies posted a hefty screening force along the border, (the lesson of the Ardennes breakthrough was never far from their minds) began construction of defensive works, and sent more troops north. For Germany's part, this whole affair was a holding action to keep the Allies away from Rumania's oil fields. An uninvolved Bulgaria was acceptable to the Axis. For the moment.
Bulgaria's position was precarious, to say the least. Sooner or later King Boris would be forced to choose sides. But whose? The German disaster at Kolomna indicated that the Soviet Union would probably survive the war, but the Reich's strength was still immense and easily capable of crushing Bulgaria. Bulgaria could be defended from the Allies only by the admission of German troops, which would spell the beginning of the end of Bulgarian sovereignty. The Balkans were becoming a cauldron, and King Boris feared that nothing he could do would prevent Bulgaria from eventually slipping into the pot. In the Mediterranean, the Italian garrison on the island of Pantelleria was overwhelmed after a three-day air/naval bombardment and a vicious amphibious assault. The French in particular began casting a thoughtful eye on Sardinia. Seizing the island was not strictly necessary, but would provide a valuable opportunity to sharpen the amphibious assault skills that would be needed for the return to France. Tentative plans of an assault in mid-1942 were drawn up, but the Japanese Offensive in the Pacific relegated such designs to the back burner. If the Americans could be drawn into the European war... well, it was something to consider.
In the Atlantic, the Pearl Harbor assault signaled the beginning of even greater cooperation between the USN and the Allied fleets. With 2nd Army and Panzergruppe 2 being ground to powder southeast of Moscow at Kolomna, even Hitler saw the wisdom of not declaring war on the USA. But this meant only that the very real naval war between the USN and the Kriegsmarine was De Facto and not De Jure. And the war got hotter. The USN and the Allied Navies acted like they were allies, no matter what the diplomats said, and U-boat strength in the Atlantic began a dramatic slide downward.
In the skies over Germany, RAF Bomber Command continued to bring the war home to the German people. The bombing was largely ineffective, the night raiders often missing their intended targets by miles and bomber losses were high.. The number and strength of the raids increased steadily, though. Allied bombers based at Corsica carried out a vigorous campaign of raids against southern France and Italy as well. Italian coastal shipping in particular suffered heavily from Allied air attack and light surface units.
The pressure on Italy eased up markedly after the Pearl Harbor attack, however, and Mussolini was able to stabilize his eroding political base somewhat. Italy was on the defensive, whereas Japan was threatening important Allied interests, so Il Duce had some hope, founded or not, that Italy's position could be salvaged.
Sealion Fails Pt 14: The Plot to Assassinate Hitler
In the middle of January 1942, the German 2d Army and Panzergruppe 2 were encircled by the Red Army at Kolomna. There were no formations available to relieve them. From Gomel to Vologda the Wehrmacht, hamstrung by Hitler's "No Retreat" order, was reeling under the Red Army's hammer blows. There was little subtlety to this attack, the STAVKA was still learning the art of modern war as it went along, but the sheer power brought to bear, and the over extension of the Wehrmacht, led to a dramatic roll back of the front lines. Mile by brutal mile the Red Army pounded the Germans back until the 1942 spring thaw made the lives of both armies' supply officers a muddy hell. In April the front had stabilized along a line running roughly from Tikhvin in the north, to Rzhev, Vyazma and Bryanks, then sharply southwest to Gomel, then south through Kiev and Oman, to Odessa along the Black Sea.
The Kolomna Pocket held out until the end of February, when 150,000 scarecrow survivors surrendered to the Soviets. They were paraded through Moscow, newsreel footage of which spread around the world. Hitler was enraged by the surrender, and blamed his Generals. The Generals blamed the No Retreat order, and Hitler's interference in combat operations. This disaster, coupled with the Sealion debacle was laid squarely at Hitler's feet. Hitler's scathing remarks regarding the courage and skill of the troops sacrificed at Kolomna was salt in the wound. Many officers regarded their stand, tying down 30 divisions for six weeks, as the only thing that allowed the line to be held so far east.
And so, in March of 1942, a group of German officers decided to do something about the Fuehrer. The scheme they concocted was this: Hitler was scheduled to arrive at Smolensk in April for a meeting with the front line commanders.. He would be travelling by plane, and security would be airtight at both departure and arrival. So, the attack had to take place while he was in the air. By dint of painstaking intelligence work, they secured reliable information regarding his rout, the flight path, and the planned speed of travel. The assassins weapon would be a battery of antiaircraft guns. Russian guns. With German crews, all of them men who had lost friends or relatives at Kolomna. For three weeks the crews practiced with their weapons. On 6 April 1942, Adolph Hitler began his flight to meet his Generals. His plane, flying at the altitude, speed and course expected by the conspirators, entered the Flak trap over the swampland just east of Bobruisk. Hitler, although wounded by shrapnel, survived the attack. Several others aboard the plane, one of them Herman Goering, did not. As was to be expected, the SS converged on the area like enraged hornets. What they found were six Red Army anti-aircraft guns, surrounded by the dead bodies of their Russian crews. Standing over those freshly dead bodies with smoking weapons were members of a Heer unit that none of the SS personnel had ever heard of. Questions were raised, but the Heer troopers had tanks (what were precious tanks doing this far from the front line, anyway?) and made it plain they were leaving. No, they had no information to offer other than that they had heard the anti-aircraft guns, investigated, and mopped up a band of partisans. goodbye. Due to their winter clothing (another rarity), the SS didn't even get a good look at their faces.
Still, with that many people involved, it was impossible to keep the operation a secret. There were profuse denials all around, accompanied by comments that due to Der Fuehrers injuries, perhaps he should ease some of the burden of directing military operations back onto the shoulders of the professionals. Hitler soon discovered that OKH had taken advantage of his convalescence to rationalize the front line. Salients were abandoned, bulges were smoothed out, usually by withdrawal. The line had not moved west all that much, but the smoothing-out it had received had shortened the effective length by hundreds of miles. This was permitting the formation of a general reserve of about twenty divisions. Hitler's fury at the flouting of his No Retreat order was chilled by the accumulating evidence of the plot from SS and Gestapo investigators. Even as his generals carried out his orders and redeployed forces south for his mandated offensive towards the Caucasus, Hitler faced the cold realization that those same generals had just tried to kill him.
Sealion Fails Pt 15: Hell in the Pacific
As the month of February 1942 dawned, the Japanese were unstoppable. In the Philippines, Macarthur's decision to throw out the pre-war plans for an orderly withdrawal to the Bataan peninsula and instead, destroy the Japanese on the beaches exposed his large but undertrained army to piecemeal destruction by the Japanese. The loss of half his airpower exposed his supply lines to constant harassment from the air and hampered the withdrawal of his overmatched men. His ground troops and airmen did their best, but the difference in skill between the two sides was simply too great. Three weeks after the initial Japanese landings on 15 January, all of Luzon north of a line running roughly from San Carlos in the west to San Jose in the east was in Japanese hands. Within days it became clear that this position could not be held, and another retreat began. On 15 February, Macarthur's forces took up positions along the D-1 line, and the Siege began. This was where the main stand should have been held all along, according to the pre-war plans. The defenders were short of ammunition, and the food supply situation was made worse by the presence of tens of thousands of refugees. Still, there was some hope. The Americans still had nearly one hundred combat aircraft operational, whose spirited resistance to Japanese airpower had resulted in the salvaging of many supplies that would otherwise have been lost to the rapidly advancing Japanese. Whatever Macarthur had in mind for his next move will never be known, because on 20 February, while inspecting forward positions his staff car was strafed by Japanese fighters and he was killed (Many historians believe that his death in "battle" was all that saved his reputation from the severe rubbishing received by Short and Kimmel). The burden of the defense fell to Wainwright's shoulders. Fortunately, he was capable of bearing the burden and proceeded to conduct a vigorous defense.
The French situation in Indo-China was almost as grim. In 1941 the Japanese Army had carried out a series of offensives designed to open a land frontier with Indo-China. Attacking across the Chinese border, and supported by amphibious landings along the coast in the Gulf of Tonkin, the French were rapidly pushed back. There were a few bright spots, however. The French had learned the virtue of having adequate anti-aircraft guns, and the quantity and accuracy of their anti-aircraft fire was a nasty surprise for Japanese pilots used to attacking Chinese units almost at will. LeClerc's armored brigade had met an IJA Tank Regiment in a head-on tank battle. The Japanese tankers were used to shooting up unsupported Chinese infantrymen, whereas the French tankers had learned their trade from very unforgiving German tutors. The resulting engagement became known as the "Red River Turkey Shoot" in the American Press, and bought precious time for the French to reorganize their defenses. But despite such local victories, by mid February the French were falling back to Saigon and Pnomh Penh. Then Thailand entered the war on the side of the Japanese and the French position began to collapse rapidly. By March the French had abandoned any real attempt to hold Cambodia and were preparing to make a stand in the Mekong Delta. Leclerc, his brigade bled to nothing, was withdrawn and given command of a new armored division forming in Algeria.
The Thai entry into the war tipped the scales decisively against the French position in Indo-China, but it did clarify the regional strategic picture. Montgomery soon began offensive action along the Malay-Thai border. His attacks were tentative and slowly developed, but methodically relentless. However, his main concern was not to lose Singapore. To that end he began the action that would soon be his trademark: A substantial supply buildup to meet any eventuality
The final nails in the French Indo-China coffin were hammered home by the Japanese victory over the Anglo-French fleets at the Battle of the South China Sea. This was the first sea battle in history in which the ships of the two combatants never came in sight of each other. At first glance, the two sides were evenly matched, four carriers to four, but the Japanese carriers held more planes, and the planes were better. Three RN carriers were lost in exchange for one IJN light carrier, and Indo-China was doomed.
Guam had fallen to a 5-day onslaught in January, but the first attempt to seize Wake had failed. In March, while the Battle of the South China Sea was developing, the IJN tried again. The result was another carrier battle. The honors in this fight were even, with both sides losing a carrier, but this time the USN withdrew. The actual landing by Japanese troops was an abject failure, however. Wake Island's garrison had been reinforced, the civilian population evacuated, and new fortifications constructed. Despite a merciless pounding by Japanese aircraft, the assault was repulsed. In the aftermath of this fight, the IJN's Achilles heel was revealed: Japan did not have the at-sea resupply capacity to keep large forces on station in hostile waters. The shipping shortage was being exacerbated by the addition of 50 French submarines to the British, Dutch and American subs already taking their toll of Japanese ships. As the IJN task force withdrew for replenishment, the USN returned, resupplying the garrison.
Sealion Fails Pt 16: Widening the War
All through the winter and early spring of 1942, the Allies continued their build-up in Greece and southern Serbia. The eruption of hostilities in the Pacific slowed this process, but did not stop it. By the end of April, there were 20 French and British Empire divisions in the theater, along with 25 Greek and 15 Serbian/Macedonian division, although not all of the latter were combat ready. It was clear that the Allies were there to stay. Greece was the beneficiary of a massive expansion of her road and railroad networks, and airfields were springing up like weeds all over the country. With a well-fortified position to defend, and a mountain of supplies to draw on, the Allies decided it was time to stir up some trouble. In May, after the Germans had launched a renewed offensive in the Soviet Union, the Ploesti raids began. The raids were conducted at night as per the usual Bomber Command practice. As a result, they did not accomplish very much in the way of physical damage, but the political and diplomatic consequences were profound.
With the first raid, King Boris III of Bulgaria knew that the time remaining until his country became a battleground was very short indeed. Both sides were fighting it out in his nation's airspace, and German pressure to allow transit through his country was mounting rapidly. King Boris was beginning to suspect that the Axis might ultimately lose the war, but the reality of Germany's present power overshadowed such future concerns. In the long term, he felt that the Axis would probably lose, but in the short term, joining the Allies would mean the rapid annihilation of his armed forces, and a prolonged occupation of his country by the Axis, whose behavior in occupied territories was undeniably vicious. This grueling experience was certain to be followed by intense fighting as the Allies ejected the conquerors. This "short term" could be long and bloody indeed. Boris III responded to German pressure by granting unlimited free passage by the Luftwaffe (which was occurring anyway) and returning downed Luftwaffe aircrew to Axis territory, while interning Allied crews. This bought a little time, a very little time, while he sought a way to mitigate what was about to happen to his people. He never found his solution, it found him.
In late May 1942, a particularly vicious naval battle was raging in the North Atlantic as U-boat wolf packs tore at a convoy escorted by Allied and USN ships. Although not realized at the time, the dreadful losses inflicted on the convoy and its' escorts was the swan song of the Kriegsmarine's U-boat fleet. From the summer of 1942 onward, shipping losses would slide downward. But one of the losses in this raging battle would assume a significance even greater than her military power represented: The USS Ranger, an American aircraft carrier. Despite the close cooperation between the USN and the Allied fleets, Hitler had directed that the U-boats fire upon USN vessels only as a matter of the absolute last resort. No one ever knew the exact circumstances surrounding the U-boat's sinking of the Ranger because the U-boat in question did not survive the battle. Was the U-boat already crippled, and decided to take the Ranger with her? Or was it simply a case of a German commander presented with a target of unbelievable opportunity? It didn't matter, really. All that mattered was that three torpedoes ripped open an American capital ship, and almost 500 USN seamen died. The reaction of the American public was predictably explosive. There was spirited, at times vicious debate in Congress over going to war with Germany while Japan continued to run amok, but in the end, most Congressmen and Senators recognized the inevitable. On 7 June 1942, the United States of America declared war on Germany.
Boris III's immediately began re-deploying his forces facing the Allies to reinforce those units facing the Axis. He did not come right out and declare for the Allies, but instead played for time to rearrange his troops. The Germans were not fooled. Even before he received official orders, Rommel attacked Bulgaria. The Allies immediately came to Bulgaria's aid, but within a week, the King and Government fled the fall of the capitol, Sofia. The maniacal campaign that followed showed Erwin Rommel at his best: tenacious, decisive and unpredictable. By the end of June, the only part of Bulgaria still in Allied hands was the mountainous, easily defended southwestern fifth of the country. Allied losses were high, Bulgarian losses staggering. In fact, Rommel had actually managed to grab part of Greece, along the Greco-Turkish border and had forced the Allies almost back to the Metaxas line. There were ripples from this campaign on the Eastern Front, however. Rommel's achievement had been assisted by the armed forces of Hungary, which had been originally slated for use against Russia. The need to safeguard the Rumanian oil fields had also forced the commitment of several divisions from the newly formed OKH reserve. The entry of the US into the war was a grim omen which a number of German generals contemplated with thoughtful foreboding.
Sealion Fails Pt 17: The Battle of Kursk
By Mid May 1942, the Wehrmacht was ready to once more resume the offensive in the east. Hitler's plan was to cripple the Soviet Union by seizing the Caucasus oil fields. OKH did not for one minute believe this was possible, considering that the starting position for the offensive was a more or less straight line running from Kiev to Odessa. The proposed attack did have the merit of catching STAVKA off balance, however, because the Red Army's deployment made it clear that another German grab at Moscow was expected. Also, the proposed attack would advance the German positions south of the Pripyet marshes eastward to met the northern "bulge" which ranged from Tikhvin to Bryansk and southwest back to Gomel. This would gain strategic depth which OKH knew would be badly needed when the Red Army launched its' expected winter offensive. Hitler's plans were accordingly modified. The expected goal of the offensive would be a defensible position along the Don river if possible, the Donets if not. In the center of the Eastern Front, Voronezh was the target, with Kursk as a fallback position. Hitler was not informed of this change.
The assault began with an intensity that approached the fury of the 1941 with two crucial differences: The scope of the attack was greatly limited: Less than half of the frontage of Barbarossa. And the Red Army was better prepared. The Soviets were hammered back with grave losses. STAVKA had grown somewhat overconfident after the victories of the previous winter, and ordered the Front commanders to stand and fight. This cost the Soviets dearly. 300,000 troops were pocketed at Kiev, Odessa was besieged and Red Army forces in between were simply vaporized in vast mobile battles. By the end of June the advance German patrols had reached the Donets river, the Crimean peninsula was invaded and Kursk was encircled. But STAVKA was reacting well. When it became clear that the southern thrust was not a diversion from a Moscow attack, 40 divisions were released from the Moscow defenses and rushed south to relieve Kursk. This engagement rapidly became a sinkhole for troops of both sides. The initial Soviet counterattack had lifted the siege, a German riposte had cut off the relief column and then another Red Army attack punched through the Heer cordon. Hitler raged at his generals, ordering them to clear the city block by block. His demands were met with stony silence. Kietl (badly wounded by the attempt on Hitler's life) had been replaced by Rundstedt, a much tougher personality, as Chief of Staff. Rundstedt stiffly informed his Fuehrer that to throw away the Wehrmacht's clear advantages in mobile warfare in favor of street fighting in a not-too-important city was madness, and would not be done. Kursk never fell to the Germans and the losses incurred in the fighting sapped the momentum of the Southern Offensive. Nearly all of the Crimea was in German hands, save for Sevastopol and Kerch, the Kiev pocket had been crushed, and Odessa would soon fall. But the Landsers were nowhere near the Don river, and would never get there. When the offensive finally lost steam in September the Germans held Toganro on the Nius river, Izyum on the Donets, the west bank of the Donets almost up to Kursk, and a line northwest back to Bryansk from just north of Kursk.
The American entry into the war was a dreadful, albeit expected, blow to the confidence of OKW, but it was very nearly a portent of Divine Wrath to the leadership of the Scandinavian Defense League. Right from the beginning of Barbarossa, the SDL had been at pains not to antagonize the Allies. Supply convoys to Murmansk were completely unmolested by SDL Naval and Air forces. The Germans at first paid little attention to this, because it was believed that Russia would collapse before such aid would make any difference. However, the Soviet Unions survival of the initial hammer blows changed Germany's perception of this problem drastically. Growing pressure was brought to bear to permit the deployment of Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine units in Scandinavia against the convoys. This was refused. And when America declared war on Germany, the SDL (which considered itself a co-belligerent of the Axis, not a member) pointedly did not join Italy in declaring war on America. The Government of Sweden collapsed in a vote of no confidence and offensive operations by SDL troops against the Soviet Union halted. Hitler was furious, but the Wehrmacht had a very full plate on the table and there was little that could be done. The SDL began negotiations, discreet, back channel and deniable, but negotiations nonetheless, to find a way out of the war.
Sealion Fails Pt 18: Into the Grinder
As March 1942 progressed to April, the territory held by the French in Indo-China shrank steadily. The Japanese victory in the Battle of the South China Sea had doomed the garrison to eventual defeat. However, word of the brutal treatment the IJA was giving POWs was well known the French Imperial troops, so the garrison fought on. As French forces were pounded back, Ho Chi Minh saw an opportunity. Japanese treatment of Vietnamese civilians was almost as brutal as Japanese behavior towards prisoners of war, so meaningful collaboration with the new Imperial overlords was quickly shelved. Besides, for all the rubbishing the United States received from the Comintern International, Ho Chi Minh was well aware of the vast power the USA possessed. The Viet Minh soon struck a deal with the Allies: Provide us with weapons and advisors, and we commence guerrilla operations against the Japanese. The USA accepted at once, the British with less enthusiasm, the French with no enthusiasm whatsoever. Petain's Government knew that creating a guerrilla army in Indochina was just asking for trouble after the war, and only a desperate need for American equipment caused them to go along with the plan at all. The French opposition to the plan was a constant, but low-key obstacle to implementation all through the war. The personal bond formed between Ho Chi Minh and American General Joseph Stillwell while overcoming both Japanese and French obstacles would be a hugely important factor in the fate of Indo-China after the war. Despite fierce resistance from the French Army, and steadily increasing Viet Minh harassment, Saigon fell to the Japanese in early April. Organized resistance collapsed swiftly after this, with many French Imperial troops taking to the jungle and linking up with the Viet Minh. Many of these French soldiers were effectively purged by the Vietnamese by being squandered in combat with the Japanese.
In the Philippines, the Bataan perimeter shrank steadily. By the end of February the Americans and Philippinos had been forced back to a line running from Olongapo in the West to Lubao in the East, the Base of the Bataan peninsula. By April, constant, grinding pressure from the Japanese had pushed them back to the Bagac-Mt. Samat-Pilar line. And here, to Wainwright's secret surprise, the line held.. He had the French to thank for this, the Indo-China campaign had siphoned off a considerable portion of the reinforcements that General Homma, the commander of the IJA fourteenth Army had been requesting. Wainwright's position was behind a river, and centered on a mountain, thereby eminently defensible against Homma's limited forces. Shielded by the rapidly shrinking American fighter strength, a few merchantmen had braved Japanese attack to deliver badly need food and ammunition, evacuating civilians and casualties on their return trips.. But the most important factor in Wainwright's logistic situation had been his immediate abandonment of Macarthur's plan to hold all of the Island of Luzon against the Japanese. Wainwright had immediately begun gathering up supplies from scattered positions and concentrated them for the siege he knew was coming. In addition, Wainwright had refused entry through his lines to many civilians, many of whom suffered greatly at the hands of the Japanese. He received much criticism for this, but it was generally agreed among military authorities that his ruthless decision to limit the number of noncombatant mouths to feed extended the siege and tied down Japanese troops and air power for a greater period of time. But as April wore on. Homma received reinforcements released by the defeat of the French, and pressure on the Bataan garrison mounted rapidly. However, the new forces were not all that Homma had hoped for, because by late April, Yamashita was engaging General Montgomery in Thailand.
Montgomery ignored pressure from Churchill to get a move on, and attacked only when he was ready. His first move was Operation Matador, an attack along the base of the Malay Peninsula to shorten the land perimeter he would need to defend. This attack revealed the extreme lack of combat readiness in the Thai Army, and Montgomery was soon in possession of the Thai cities of Singora and Patani. Despite the loss of the two divisions sent to Indo-China, and the commitment of other units to Borneo and Celebes, Monty had five divisions, two independent infantry brigades, and armored brigade, adequate artillery, and 400 aircraft to defend Malaya. When Yamashita attacked in April, he quickly found that he had a considerable task on his hands. Fortifications had been erected, a supply network established, and Monty's troops had been drilled to within an inch of their collective life. What had been planned as a lightning campaign became yet another bloody slog through hotly contested jungle. The situation was further complicated for the Japanese. This entire campaign had been planned around the necessity of grabbing the East Indies oil fields, and not a single one had felt the tread of Japanese troops. Despite warnings from supply officers, the Japanese military began operations in the Netherlands East Indies with landings on Borneo in Brunei and Sarawak. Japan's Armed Forces had taken their first steps into what veterans on both sides would call "The Coffee Grinder", or simply, "The Grinder".
Sealion Fails Pt 19: Buildup in the Mediterranean.
The last half of 1942 was fairly quiet in the Balkans. The Allies were recovering from the thorough pounding they had received at Rommel's hands in Bulgaria while the Axis was at first surging forward south of the Pripyet Marshes, then enduring the Soviet counter-offensive aimed at Leningrad. Neither side was ready for action, so both sides prepared for the 1943 campaign season. King Boris III of Bulgaria and his Government in Exile were welcomed with great public fanfare by the Allies (with considerable private sniping from the Greeks). Enough Bulgarian troops and military age refugees had escaped to form several new divisions, but it would take time to train and equip them to acceptable levels of readiness.
By fall of 1942, the Americans were making their appearance in Europe. Two divisions arrived in Greece in August, but did not move to the front lines until September. American air strength increased steadily through the summer, with B-17s making their first tentative appearance over France and Bulgaria. But more was needed, in order to fully mobilize American home support for fighting in Europe, as opposed to the Pacific. The Americans needed to be blooded before facing the Germans in strength, but it was politically necessary for them to pay a large role in a high-profile military operation. The answer to this problem was Sardinia. Garrisoned by poorly equipped and supplied Italian troops, the Island was not expected to present any great challenge. But an Amphibious attack would be flashy enough to attract popular attention, The Allies had been meaning to get around to taking the island anyway, and it would be a prime opportunity to shake the bugs out of Allied Amphibious doctrine.
To most observers' surprise, Patton got the job as commander of the American contingent in the operation. Surprising, because the American commander had originally been General Lucas. But Lucas turned down the assignment because he was slated for Army command, and this would be a demotion. Patton accepted because this would be a chance to command troops in battle. This difference in attitude did not go unnoticed. The invasion of Sardinia began in late October of 1942, and the Italians surrendered before the end of November. The inexperienced Americans made more than their share of blunders, but Patton's fanatical intolerance for timidity on the part of his commanders more than made up for this.
Mussolini's Government endured yet another seismic tremor as a result of this defeat. With the loss of Sardinia, there was now no interdiction at all against Allied raids against Italy's west coast. The Italian Peace faction began to gather strength in earnest. On Christmas Eve, King Victor Emmanuel held an audience with Count Ciano in which the possibility of peace negotiations with the Allies was openly discussed. Il Duce did not know it yet, but he had begun his slide from power.
On the Axis side, Rommel was devising a plan: Obviously the Allies wanted to advance the front close enough to Ploesti to allow daylight raids by escorted bombers. This would quickly reduce Rumanian oil production to a level that would doom the Axis to defeat in short order. Clearly, the best response to this threat would be to eliminate the Allied foothold in the Balkans. Accordingly, he proposed that Germany's next great offensive take place not in Russia, but in the Balkans. He proposed the redeployment of 80 divisions from the Eastern Front and OKH reserves for this purpose.
After regaining control of his blood pressure, Von Rundstedt informed Rommel that this was not likely to occur. The basic idea was sound, but the operational demands of the Russian Front determined that the scale of the attack had to be trimmed back. Rommel countered that there was a good deal of strategic depth to be sacrificed in Russia, particularly since the Wehrmacht had already begun fortifying the Dnepr/Dniestr river lines as fall-back positions.. In any case, it would be impossible to continue the war if the flow of Rumanian oil was impaired. The plan that was eventually hammered out was this: When the next Soviet offensive ran out of steam, as many as 50 divisions, depending on the circumstances in the east, would be pulled out of the line, refitted, and re-deployed to the Balkans. Air assets to support the attack would be proportionate in numbers. Once the Allies were blown out of continental Europe, the forces involved could be returned to the east.
Sealion Fails Pt 20: The Road to Berlin
OKH expected a vigorous Soviet response to the German Summer 1942 offensive, and STAVKA rose to the challenge. The target of the Soviet Offensive was the recapture of Leningrad, the spiritual home of the October Revolution. The initial blows of the offensive were softened somewhat by the diversion of troops from the reserves to deal with the Axis Southern Flank offensive, but by November 1942, the attack had built up steam. The Germans noted immediately a vast improvement in Red Army offensive tactics. These were not the brute force mass charges of the previous winter. The Red Army's technique was still considerably lacking, by Heer standards, but the Soviets had clearly learned much. The German line was under assault all the way from Bryansk to Finland, but there was very clearly a concentration of force, a Schwerpunkt, aimed at Leningrad. OKH quickly shifted troops to meet this threat, and once the Axis was clearly committed to stopping it, STAVKA unleashed the real offensive column towards Pskov. STAVKA's true objective was nothing less than the encirclement and destruction of Army Group North. The plan very nearly succeeded out of sheer audacity, but the Red Army had not quite yet gained the operational expertise to pull it off. The Wehrmacht once again demonstrated that it was still the master of mobile warfare, but discovered that its' Soviet student had gained considerable skill of its' own since the preceding winter - and strength, as well. At horrible cost, the Germans were hammered back. At the beginning of the Red offensive, the German line in the north had run from Tikhvin to Rzhev through Vyazma and south to Bryansk. In January 1943, after four months of pounding, the Germans still held Leningrad, by just barely stopping the Red Army at the Volko river. At this point, the German line ran south from Lake Lagoda along the Volko river to Novgorod, through Staraya Russa, Kholm, Velikiye Luki, then Southeast to Smolensk and Bryansk. But the STAVKA offensive was not yet over. From Late January 1943 to March 1943, it was Army Group South's turn.
Red Army Forces massed at Kursk struck nearly due south towards Kharkov, while another Red Army column attacked west from Voroshilovgrad towards Krasnograd. The Soviets had easier going here, because the Germans were weaker and the terrain more suited for the attack. But again, the Germans evaded the trap, pulling out their endangered troops rather than allow them to be encircled. When the Red offensive had ground to a halt in late March, the Germans had been pushed back almost to Kiev and Dneprpetrovsk along the Dnepr river.. Mariupol was still in Axis hands, however, so the German grip on the Crimea was still secure.
In the far north, the Red Army remorselessly drove the Scandinavian Defense League back towards the Finnish border. The front was still something of a sideshow to the main Soviet effort, but Stalin was slowly ratcheting up the pressure, just to remind the SDL that they had not been forgotten. Sweden's new government, combined with the success of the Soviet offensives, was rapidly bringing about a change in SDL policy: Get out of the war, and fast. The only questions remaining were what kind of price would the Soviets demand for peace, and could Anglo-French embarrassment over their invasion of Norway in 1940 be exploited to help minimize the pain? It was soon discovered that the French were quite sympathetic. French anger at Stalin's telegram to Hitler congratulating him on the Fall of France had festered, and Petain let it be known that he would be delighted to stick a finger in Stalin's eye, politically speaking. Thus began official, secret, but official negotiations between France and the SDL.
Having already made the decision to stand at the Dnepr/Dvina river line, OKW was perfectly willing to trade ground for lower casualties no matter what Hitler said. And Hitler had plenty to say. In public, he supported his Generals' conduct of the war. In private, his rages were towering, and often left him pale and shaken at the conclusion of his fits. The fact was that Nazi control of the war effort, and Germany itself, was eroding. The Final Solution was already well behind schedule, due to the Wehrmacht's refusal to release railroad transportation for use by the concentration camps. OKW listened to Speer and Todt, whose competence was undeniable. But most other Nazi officials were coming to be regarded as corrupt hacks whom could best be done without. The most dramatic improvement seen by the changing balance of power in German politics was in the Luftwaffe. Kesselring was a far, far abler man than Goering. The pie-in-the-sky ME-262 Jet Fighter project was relegated to a back burner and advanced piston-engine fighter designs such as the ME-309, the TA-152 and HE-219 received priority. Goering's budding plans for Luftwaffe field divisions and a Luftwaffe Panzer division (of all things!) were scrapped.
Tank production was also streamlined. Speer's advice, and the increasing pressure on the Wehrmacht finally convinced OKH that interrupting tank production so that each and every design improvement could be incorporated as soon as it was conceived was resulting in delays that could no longer be tolerated.. The result was a sharp decrease in the number of variants and sub-variants of vehicle design, greatly easing the burdens on German Quartermasters.
None of this mattered to Hitler. All he saw was that Germany was, in his mind, needlessly giving up territory in the East. The fact that half of resources that he had wanted to use to build his Atlantic Wall were, instead, being used to construct fortifications along the Dnepr/Dvina River Line struck him not as foresight, but defeatism. He ranted at OKW in General, and Von Rundstedt in particular, demanding an all-out offensive to drive the Allies into the Aegean Sea and the Russians beyond the Urals. Von Rundstedt listened politely, then declined. Yes, there would be an offensive in 1943, but only in the Balkans. By Spring of 1943, both Hitler and Von Rundstedt had decided that the other would have to go. Hitler gathered his inner circle, and began laying plans for a purge of OKW. Von Rundstedt began carefully sounding out his colleagues about a Junta to replace the Nazi power structure. The fuse had well and truly been lit.
Sealion Fails Pt 21: Attrition Warfare
In May 1942, the Japanese tide broke against the Netherland East Indies. The Japanese landed in force at Menado on the island of Celebes and in Sarawak and Brunei on the Island of Borneo. The scattered and understrength garrisons of the NEI region had been greatly strengthened in the time gained by the French Stand in Indochina and the Americans in the Philippines. As a result, while the Japanese gained secure lodgments at Kuching and Miri on Borneo, the hoped-for quick annihilation of the British garrisons became a slugfest from which the British only grudgingly relinquished Sarawak and North Borneo. The assault upon Menado failed completely. To the vast surprise of the Japanese, the Dutch defenders of Celebes had been reinforced by a full division of Americans, with abundant air support. The accompanying Battle of the Molucca Sea was something of a fiasco for the Dutch and Americans in which they lost twice as many ships as their Japanese opponents, but the engagement disrupted the formation of a secure beachhead, which was then crushed by the defenders.
In truth, Japan had run out of time. The conquest of Indochina had taken too long, and too many troops and planes. Forces that should have been deployed to support the East Indies attack were tied up fighting Montgomery on the Malay peninsula and Slim in Burma. The Japanese could probably have won on either front, but in trying to take both at once failed at each. Between Pearl Harbor in January and the USA's declaration of war on Germany in June, the Pacific Theater had benefited from the undivided attention of the United States military establishment. American force commitment to the developing East Indies campaign was massive. By August the Japanese were engaging 5 American divisions and over a thousand combat aircraft.
In the open waters of the Pacific, the IJN made another try at taking Wake island. Once again, the IJN was forced to split it's forces. The battle of the South China Sea had reduced the RN's carrier strength from six to three, but two more carriers were dispatched from Europe, and the French Navy had deployed the first two Independence class light carriers from American shipyards. More would follow. The size of the Marine garrison on Wake Island could not be greatly increased, the atoll was only so big, after all. But by July of 1942, every inch of the island that needed to be fortified had a concrete bunker on it. The defenders had plenty of food, plenty of water, plenty of ammunition and clear, prepared fields of fire. In addition, Allied code breaking efforts had paid dividends. The USN had a pretty good idea of what it was up against and planned accordingly. The IJN plan was nothing fancy, Japan's diminishing fuel reserves would not allow much finesse. Go in, smash the USN in a stand-up battle and swamp Wake Island with troops. The resulting matchup pitted four IJN carriers against 4 USN carriers. Despite a still-noticeable edge in Japanese aircrew quality, the USN, benefiting from the knowledge of the enemy's general course and bearing, managed an even exchange of CVs once again, two for two. The USN again withdrew, but the losses among the IJN carrier's airgroups meant that the invasion force was once more largely unsupported by airpower. True, the island was bombarded by the Haruna and Yamashiro, but the length of bombardment was too short for any meaningful result. The landing force was butchered.
The IJN itself then withdrew from the waters around Wake, this time never to return. The increasingly dire position of the Imperial Japanese Army in the NEI was demanding attention. The IJA secured Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo, but the rest of the island was firmly under the control of the Allies. On the Asian mainland, General Slim was waging a vicious house-to-house battle with the Japanese for control of Rangoon. In Malaya Yamashita had finally driven Montgomery south to Kota Bharu. But all three Japanese land campaigns were suffering from logistical overstretch.. The French, Dutch, British and Americans all had submarines in the area, and the low priority that the IJN accorded anti-submarine warfare duties resulted in a rich harvest for the Allied sub flotillas.
The IJN's attempts to interrupt the flow of allied troops and supplies to Borneo resulted in near constant night actions in the Makassar Strait between Borneo and Celebes, giving that body of water the nickname Ironbottom Strait among Allied mariners. In October, the IJN was ready to once and for all eliminate the Allied Naval presence in the Netherlands East Indies. The Chaotic three day battle that resulted was called the Battle of the Celebes Sea, although the naval actions involved ranged from the Makassar Strait in the south to the Sulu Sea in the North. When the IJN engaged the Allied Fleets 1400 hrs on 4 October 1942, the fighting continued virtually without stopping for the next 64 hours. The fight opened with airstrikes between opposing carrier forces, continued through the night of the 4th with gun duels between light forces of both sides, and resumed with more carrier strikes the next day.. The French, British and Americans each lost a carrier while the IJN lost only two. But the IJN carrier air groups were effectively gutted by this battle, and losses among the land based IJA and IJN squadrons on Borneo had also been high. Allied land based air strength, on the other hand, had actually increased during the fight. The IJN reluctantly withdrew. To the disappointment of Battleship skippers on both sides, this battle largely passed them by, other than receiving the unwelcome attentions of opposing dive and torpedo bombers, they saw little action. Not that they had been idle in the summer battles around Borneo, three Allied and two Japanese battlewagons were resting comfortably on the bottom of Ironbottom strait.
On 7 August 1942, after four months of pounding, the Japanese finally broke the American defense line on Bataan. The last organized resistance on the peninsula ended on the ninth. Now all that was left was Corregidor, the small nearby fortified islands of Caballo, El Fraile and Carabao, and a small detachment on Mindanao under General Sharp. General Homma ordered a quick, on-the-fly assault on Corregidor, which predictably failed. He attempted to organize a larger, better prepared assault, but the swelling battle in the NEI left very little amphibious capacity for his use. For the moment, he contended himself with artillery bombardment. Ft. Drum's 12-inch mortars responded with vigorous counter-battery fire which soon convinced the IJA gunners to stop. For the moment, stalemate.
Sealion Fails Pt 22: Rommel's Offensive
In January of 1943, Rommel launched the Axis' last great effort to drive the Allies out of Greece. Reinforced by 40 divisions and nearly two thousand aircraft from the OKW reserve and the Eastern Front, Army Group Balkans fell upon the Allies like a thunderbolt. However, the Allies were ready. ULTRA had given them prior warning that an attack was pending, and the terrain was well suited for defense. Still, the defenders were a coalition, with weak points at the junctures of their armies, while the attack was carried out almost exclusively by the Germans.
One such weak point was the position held by two green American divisions in Bulgaria. The Americans were in place for the sole purpose of separating the Bulgarian and Greek contingents of the Allied force. The inexperienced Yanks were no match for the cold professionals they opposed, who blew right through them. In a week the Allies were driven from the southwestern corner of Bulgaria that they had managed to retain against the last Axis offensive. Even worse, a pocket of Allied troops had been formed: The remnants of the American formations and two British, two French and two Bulgarian divisions. A forty mile gap was torn in the Allied lines and Rommel pounded down the Axios river towards Thessalonika and Salonika. The Allied reaction was limited by holding attacks launched all along their lines, but some reserves were dispatched immediately to plug the gap.
Rommel took Salonika at the end of February, but did not advance much further. Another attack column struck the Allies in Albania, driving them to within twenty miles of the Greek border near Yugoslavia. The final Allied foothold in Yugoslavia was lost, but the Axis troops were stopped just north of Fiorina. And here the Allies held. At the end of March, the line ran from Katerina on the Aegean coast through Veroia and Fiorina in Greece to Karitsa in Albania, running almost Due West from that city to the coast of Albania. The initial pocket formed in Bulgaria was soon crushed and the American troops captured there were paraded through Berlin.
There was another pocket of Allied troops formed as well, which came to be called the "Metaxas Pocket". Eight Greek and three American divisions were trapped against the Aegean coast, the center of the pocket being slightly northwest of the island of Thasos, . But this pocket had the benefit of resupply and reinforcement from numerous small ports along the coast. The loss of this pocket would be a political disaster which the Americans were determined to prevent at almost any cost. The islands of Thasos, Samothrace and Lemnos were nearly paved with airfields to support the massive air support the Americans had available. The Greeks and Americans used the time between their encirclement and the redeployment of German troops from the stalled attack on Veroia to franticly fortify their positions. When the Axis attempted to crush the pocket in late March and early April the attack was smothered in a rain of bombs, bullets and rockets. This was the end of the Balkan offensive. The Red Army was already beginning to stir in the east, and the troops committed from the reserve would need rest and refit before they were sent east. Rommel's offensive had failed.
The skies over France were beginning to see activity as well. Starting in November 1942, the Luftwaffe noticed, to its' disquiet, that Allied air activity was increasing, and that the rate of increase was itself accelerating. By March 1943 it was obvious that the point of the campaign was to prepare France for an Allied invasion. Operating from bases in Corsica and England thousands of French, British and American bombers and fighters prowled the skies, attacking rail lines, bridges, Axis military bases, anything they wished.. The Luftwaffe and Reggia Aeronautica rose to defend them, precisely as the Allies wished. Luftwaffe planners realized that the losses would soon become unsustainable, but the range of the American escort fighters meant that there was no place in France for the Germans to withdraw their planes that could not be reached by the Allies. The Luftwaffe could withdraw to Germany, true, but this would mean that the Allied invasion would be unopposed. The Kriegsmarine would be unable to destroy the invasion force, as the Royal Navy had done to the Germans during Sealion. OKW quickly came to the glum realization that the Allies would almost certainly get ashore in sufficient strength to stay there. The only solution that presented itself was the same solution reached in the Soviet Union: Space for time. Wearily, OKW began upgrading the Westwall.
Sealion Fails Pt 23: Palace Revolution
In May of 1943, Mother Russia gave yet another demonstration of her growing strength: The Red army launched simultaneous offensives towards Leningrad and the Crimea. Almost immediately the Germans began withdrawing their forces from the Crimea. The Rumanians were sent home, to defend their country from the Western Allies, while the Heer's formations were sent to the Army Group South reserve. By the end of the month, the Peninsula was evacuated, indeed, by mid-June all of Army Group South was in position behind the Dnepr River. And it was there that the Soviet offensive was stopped cold. The Reds forced their way across the river on several locations, but the bridgeheads were crushed rapidly by the German reserves. The Second, Third and Fourth Ukrainian Fronts hammered the Germans until their supply dumps gave out at the end of July, but were unable to break the line.
By late July, the German line north of the Pripyet Marshes ran from Pskov at the southern edge of lake Peipus through Nevel and Vitebsk to Smolensk. From there, the line ran along the Dnepr river positions. Here was where the Wehrmacht planned to hold, although it was expected that eventually STAVKA would force the German north wing back to the Dvina river.
In the north, The Volkhov Front and the First and Second Baltic Fronts lunged for Leningrad. By late may, they were across the Volkov river. On the 10th of June, Leningrad was officially liberated, the German Army once again declining to sacrifice itself in a street battle for a city it saw no point in holding. The Heer was forced back nearly to Narva, but here the Germans held..
Upon learning that Leningrad, the birthplace of Bolshevism, had been surrendered to the Soviets without a fight, Hitler treated his inner circle to the greatest fit of rage of his entire life... and his last. In mid-tirade, he collapsed. Rushed to the finest hospital in Berlin, it was quickly determined that he had suffered a massive stroke. While still alive, the doctors reported that a full recovery was out of the question, any recovery at all problematic. The remainder of June saw a feeding frenzy as the sharks of the Nazi Hierarchy consumed each other in a struggle for power. By July, the only two contenders left standing were Heinrich Himmler and Reinhardt Heydrich. As a result, July saw open combat in the streets of Berlin. The Gestapo mostly supported Himmler, the Waffen SS was predominantly with Heydrich. In seven days, it was over. Himmler fled to Switzerland and Heydrich began consolidating control of the Nazi regime. What was left of it, anyway.
At this time, OKW was too busy dealing with the Allied invasion of France to take part in the Berlin fireworks display, and anyway, the more Nazi bigwigs who killed each other, the fewer the Generals would have to find a reason to hang later. Von Rundstedt made sure that Heydrich was perfectly clear on one crucial point: No interference in the conduct of the war. The surviving Nazi's soon realized that while they still held titular authority, for all practical purposes the country was run by a Prussian Junta.
The Berlin Bloodbath, as it came to be known, was the last straw for the Scandinavian Defense League. The SDL government formally requested terms for peace from the Soviet Union. Stalin was not inclined to be forgiving, and initially directed Molotov to draft terms that were harsh indeed. However Timoshenko, Zhukov and Koniev, casting thoughtful eyes towards the German defensive works along the Dvina/Dnepr line, gave him much to consider. The SDL military was sizable, and still largely intact. Most of the Red Army was facing the Germans, and if sufficient divisions to deal with the SDL were to be re-deployed northwards, there would be insufficient time for combat operations to break the SDL before winter. No Red General wanted a repeat of the Winter War, especially against a bigger and better opponent. Molotov agreed, it was better to string out negotiations while the Germans were dealt with, then the SDL must needs accept any terms Stalin cared to offer. Stalin informed the SDL that a cease fire would be in effect while negotiations were underway, provided that the SDL retreated to the 1940 Finnish border. The SDL agreed, and twenty Red Army divisions began moving south to face the Germans.
Sealion Fails Pt 24: The Road to Tokyo
By November of 1942 the Imperial Japanese army formations in Burma, Malaya and Borneo were at the end of their supplies. The troops were worn out, poorly fed and scraping for ammunition. The time was ripe for an Allied counterattack and In mid-November it began. Montgomery kicked off first: He launched a vigorous offensive based from Kota Bharu and succeeded beyond expectations. Monty had spent several months amassing supplies for his attack, and his five divisions had been recently reinforced by two more from Australia. His relatively fresh, and much better supplied troops tore through Yamashita's starving legions like wildcats. By the middle of December Patani and Singora were back in British hands. Naval action between light forces of the IJN and Anglo-French navies was fierce, but the IJN was unable to prevent the Allied fleets from supporting the British Empire's armored spear thrust up the coastal roads. With the fall of Singora, Yamashita lost his last source of seaborne supplies. He ordered a general retreat up the peninsula, made a brief attempt to hold the narrows of the Malay Peninsula, but broke off that action due to bad news from Burma.
General Slim started the second act of the Allied counteroffensive. Having lured the IJA into street fighting in Rangoon. He launched a daring (some said insanely risky) amphibious flanking move coupled with an attack by Indian Army troops from Toungoo which cut off two Japanese divisions in Rangoon. This pocket was quite a difficult nut to crack, and the appalling atrocities committed by trapped Japanese troops upon the people of Rangoon caused Slim to delay his eastward advance in order to quickly crush the pocket.
In Borneo, the Japanese Army tasted what was in store for the Axis in months to come: Seven divisions of the United States Army, three Dutch, and two British Empire divisions supported by over two thousand combat aircraft fell upon the Japanese lodgment like the Wrath of God. As on the Asian mainland, the Japanese soldiers were full of spirit, but on Borneo they were even emptier of food and ammunition. For one week, two the battle raged then, in a final series of suicide charges, the IJA main forces on Borneo impaled themselves on the Allied guns. Scattered resistance would continue, but by the end of January, The Japanese been driven out of the Dutch East Indies.
On the mainland, the Imperial Japanese Army benefited from land supply routes through Thailand, so total collapse did not occur. The Allies were clearly on the offensive, however. By January the French had committed fresh troops to the offensive, which began driving into Thailand. In February, one American Division arrived to add steam to the attack.
In March, the Japanese High Command convened a special conference to take a look at the strategic dilemma. Yamamoto bluntly informed the conference that the war was lost. The entire point of the war was to gain control of the NEI oilfields. The Japanese had never come near them, and never would. The British and French Empires were driving deep into Thailand toward Bangkok. Substantial American forces under General Stillwell were largely uncommitted at the moment, but that was obviously because the Americans were planning to relieve Wainwright at Corregidor and Sharp on Mindanao. The IJN carrier arm was a shambles. Six carriers had been lost, and there were not enough trained crews to fully load the remainder. The Allies had more carriers in service, with full air groups, and more were on the way. Four IJN battleships had been lost, three more were undergoing repair. The Allies currently had ten fit for battle on station. Yamamoto might well have been talking to statues. Surrender was unthinkable, defeat unheard of. Thailand would be abandoned to her fate, the Allies would be stopped in Indochina. When the Americans re-entered the Philippines, the IJN would sortie to destroy the US Fleet in the final decisive battle, and General Homma's men would slaughter any American GIs who somehow made it to shore. This plan totally ignored the fact the Homma's command had been stripped of troops to support the fighting in Malaya and Borneo, and was barely able to keep control of the territory it was standing on, but never mind the details. Bowing to the inevitable, Yamamoto began drawing up plans for the coming doomed fight.