Sealion Fails Pt 25: Hammer and Anvil
On the 10th of May 1943 the French Army returned to France. For political reasons, Leclerc's Frenchmen were the first ashore in Operation Hammer, but Patton's Americans were close behind. The initial landings ranged from Cannes to Cavalaire and met unexpectedly light resistance. The fortifications on the beaches were not nearly as formidable as feared, German formations were few in number and the lightly armed Italian troops were quickly overwhelmed. By the end of May the Allies had liberated Toulon and Marseilles, crossed the Durance River, and were steadily pushing the Italians back towards the Franco-Italian frontier. However, the Heer soon made its' presence felt: An attempted American crossing of the Rhone was roughly handled, and Leclerc's lunge for Grenoble was turned back. As June wore on, it was clear that the easy part was over, and a slow grinding advance up the Rhone River valley began.
Then the Anvil was dropped into place. In July, Bradley and Gort led an Anglo American invasion of Normandy. By late August Caen, St. Lo and Coutances were all in Allied hands. The Wehrmacht initially tried to throw both attacks into the sea, but Allied aircraft swarmed like bees. The Luftwaffe was not destroyed in the summer battles over France, but the wounds it suffered were never to heal. After thirty days, Kesselring conceded control of the skies over France to the Allies. The two Allied pincers began to remorselessly pinch Occupied France in two. The Germans fought, were defeated, fell back, regrouped, fought, were defeated and fought again. Early attempts to shuttle forces between the two advancing Allied forces were soon abandoned in the face of omnipresent Allied airpower. More and more of the Luftwaffe's fighter strength was being diverted to the gigantic air battles occurring over Bulgaria in defense of the Ploesti oil facilities. But even without this drain, it is doubtful that the Luftwaffe could have won control of the air. The Wehrmacht's misery continued. Many in OKW had looked at the Allied air operation in the Balkans as a model for what to expect in France: An ordeal of aerial fire, but bearable. This was completely different. It was clear that the Allies had held back their air strength for the Main Effort, and this was it.
In purely rational military terms, it made more sense for the Allies to throw everything into an all-out blitz on Ploesti, but this ignored the primal need the French felt to return to France. Logic gave way to emotion, and the German garrison in France suffered the fury.
In Italy, King Victor Emmanuel, Count Ciano and Marshal Badoglio looked upon the storm of fire that was enveloping France and felt a sick dread to the pits of their souls. Italy's Navy was dead. The Reggia Aeronautica was dying. The Army was under equipped, under supplied and bleeding white in the Balkans. The only thing keeping Leclerc out of Italy was his desire to drive the Germans out of France. Italy and Germany had both suffered from air attack, Italy had felt the added misery of naval bombardment of her long coastline. Whatever France suffered in her Liberation, and she was suffering, was nothing compared to what Germany would suffer in her conquest. Italy would suffer, too, unless something was done immediately. The King of Italy ordered Mussolini's arrest. Mussolini did not go quietly. And so a second Axis capital was engulfed in blood and fire. But this was different. Count Ciano, with the public support of the King and Marshal Badoglio appealed to the Allies for aid. An American Corps under the command of General Patch landed unopposed at Anzio and raced north to Rome. Unfortunately for Mussolini, Badoglio had seen this coming, and had arranged for those divisions most loyal to Il Duce to be committed to the fighting in Yugoslavia, so Mussolini supporters were thin on the ground in south and central Italy. OKW watched helplessly. There were no significant forces available for intervention. What reserves were available were earmarked to deal with the Russians battering at the Dnepr/Dvina river line. To top it off, the Allies in Greece were attacking as well. Italy was lost. Mussolini escaped from the fighting in Rome with his hide and little else. He rallied his supporters in northern Italy with German assistance. The situation in Italy did not stabilize until October of 1943, when the Germans and Fascist Italians formed a line running from Pisa through Florence to Pesaro. The rest of Italy was worse than lost, it was now actively supporting the Allies.
In France, things had not gone much worse for the Allies. On September third, the Hammer and Anvil forces linked up at Sombernon. By the end of October, the Germans had lost most of Belgium and the westernmost part of Holland, around Breskens. Finally, the Allied advance faltered. The Allies were at the end of their supply tethers. To make it worse, the Allies encountered the fortifications that had not been present on the beaches. In 1940, the Westwall had been largely a propaganda puff piece. This Wall was real.
Sealion Fails Pt 26: The Tehran Conference.
As soon as Germany's attention was diverted to France to deal with the Allied landings there, the Allied forces in Greece made their move. A Greco-American army blasted northwest from Katerina to relieve the Greco-American Metaxas Pocket, while three Allied armies (one French, one British Empire and One Greek) lunged for Tirana. Both thrusts were successful. The Trapped Allies were rescued in August, while Tirana fell to the Greeks in late July. After the liberation of the Metaxas pocket, the eastern arm of the Allied offensive began moving up the Axios river valley into Serbia. Serbia promptly exploded with guerrilla activity. By the end of September Allied forces had conquered nearly all of Albania south of Scutari, had encircled Skopje in Serbia and had re-entered Bulgaria. Italy's defection to the Allies in October blew the entire western flank of Rommel's position wide open. The rough terrain and frantic footwork restored the line, but at the end of October the Allies had taken Dubrovnik in the west and Sofia in the East. The Axis still held the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burga, but this was under siege.
At this point, the Allies gained a new complication: Turkey, fearful of Russia and desiring protection, declared war on the Axis. The Greeks and Bulgarians found the prospect of fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with The Turk less than pleasing, to put it mildly. Once again, American forces would be used as shock absorbers to keep the "Allies" from one another's throats. The joy of coalition warfare...
But in Russia, the OKW felt cautious optimism. In August, the Red Army finally forced the Heer to withdraw behind the Dvina/Dnepr river line north of the Pripyet Marshes. But here the Line was held. From late August to mid-October the Soviets pounded the Germans, forcing their way across the rivers here and there, but were soon bludgeoned back. The strip of open country between the two rivers should have been a weak point, but had been well fortified, with a fall back position prepared at the Beresina River, should that become necessary. But by the arrival of the Fall Rains in October, it had not become necessary. The Red Army had expended prodigious quantities of men and materiel, and had accomplished little. OKW gambled, and began shipping troops to France for a counter attack.
In November of 1943, the leaders of the Allied powers, including Greece, met in Tehran to decide what to do next. Nearly all of France had been liberated, Occupied Greece had been re-taken, probably permanently this time, and although the Soviets were facing difficulties, the Axis was clearly on the defensive in the Soviet Union. So, what to do next?
It was quickly and firmly decided that this time, there would be no peace with Germany until Allied troops were marching through the streets of Berlin. There would be no "stab in the back" myth to sustain German militarism. The Wehrmacht would be beaten into the ground. It was agreed that Germany's unconditional surrender, to all of the Allied powers would be the only acceptable end to the war. But there were tensions. The French were clearly very unforgiving with regards to Stalin's early dealings with Hitler in the first half of the war, and were pointedly supporting the Scandinavian Defense League in its' peace negotiations with the Soviet Union. SDL support among the American delegation was high as well. There was also the matter of stop lines and occupation zones in Germany to consider. How was this particular pie to be carved up? The Soviets were currently stalled, the Allies in France might well be held for some time by the Westwall. But in the Balkans, the Allies were on the move. Who would advance to where? Poland would obviously be first reached by the Soviets, who announced plans to occupy Rumania as well. The French, with close ties to that nation disputed this, and anyway, the West would probably get most of the country first. However, it was agreed that the Soviet Union would occupy all of Rumania east of the Pruth River. Hungary and Austria would almost certainly fall to the Allies, as well as the Czech region of Czechoslovakia. But occupation zones in Germany remained an unresolved sticking point at the end of the Conference. Other than an agreement that all the Allies would have a presence in Berlin, final occupation zones for Germany were left unresolved. The first hints of the Cold War were stirring in the night.
Sealion Fails Pt 27: Torpedoes in the Water.
In early 1943 the Allied submarine fleets finally got a solid grip on the Japanese Empire's throat. For months, USN sub skippers had been screaming with fury at their own Ordnance branch, which had steadfastly refused to test the torpedo detonators the USN skippers assured them were malfunctioning. The situation had gotten so bad that the French sub fleet, although short of torpedoes, had flatly refused to use the unreliable American weapon. With great reluctance and ill-grace, the detonator was finally replaced, and shipment of the new torpedo began arriving at the submarine bases. The British, Dutch and French sub flotillas had inflicted grave losses on the Japanese Merchant Marine, and despite inferior weaponry, the USN pig boats had scored success of their own. But now the largest contingent of Allied subs had reliable weapons, and Japanese losses exploded.
The immediate result was the near total collapse of the supply train feeding the Japanese forces in Thailand. As Allied pressure on the Japanese and Thai armies intensified the IJA, falling back into bad habits picked up in China, began raiding Thai villages for food in late summer of 1943. The Thai villagers resisted and a few massacres occurred. The Thai Government protested but was essentially ignored by the Japanese Army. The IJA began another series of "requisitions", but this one met resistance from several Thai Army formations which happened to be stationed near the areas from which they had been raised. The Japanese ordered the Thai Government to put a stop to this. The result was that Thailand followed what seemed to be the developing pattern among Axis minor allies: As the Allies continued their relentless advance, a pro-Western faction overthrew the government. The IJA responded quickly, smashing the Thai units in and around Bangkok, but the Thai army scattered to the countryside, and large scale revolt erupted against the Japanese. The Japanese army responded with great brutality, but clearly the Allies could not be stopped. The Japanese began retreating to Indochina.
However, the Japanese faced troubles in Indochina as well. Ho Chi Minh had long since disposed of the French Army formations left behind in the wake of the Japanese conquest (They had died bravely fighting the new conquerors. Funny how the round-eyes had taken the brunt of the Japanese attacks.) The newly formed Viet Minh still had large stocks of equipment left by the French, and a constant trickle of new hardware had been arriving from the Americans ever since the IJN had withdrawn to like its' wounds after the Battle of the Celebes Sea. Viet Minh action was increasing, but Uncle Ho was reluctant to push the Japanese Army too hard before the Allies were in a position to come to the rescue. On the other hand, it was vital that Ho Chi Minh be in a position to make a solid claim for power in order to prevent the simple exchange of French masters for Japanese dominators. To this end, the Vietnamese received priceless assistance from the political Left of the United States of America. This coalition formed a wartime league with the extremely powerful China Lobby. General Stillwell had sent several observers from his headquarters on Borneo to inspect the Viet Minh and they had all been quite favorably impressed. The French viewed all this billing and cooing with great distaste but were becoming increasingly worried by growing Nationalism in North Africa. If a choice between holding North Africa and Indochina had to made to help shore up support from the Americans for the post-war political maneuvering, well, reluctantly, Indochina would have to go.
The Invasion of France in the Summer of 1943 had resulted in a major drain of amphibious capability from the Pacific theater, but Stillwell saw no reason to sit on his hands. There were a number of options available, and Davao, on Mindanao in the Philippines looked the most attractive. General Sharp's command, although battered, still was a force in being on the island, and had received limited resupply from the USN. Over the course of the summer, Sharp's forces began concentrating near the port of Davao. In September, Stillwell was ready. Davao fell to a combined amphibious/landward attack. The United States Press trumpeted America's return to the Philippines. The Japanese High Command nearly had a collective stroke, and Yamamoto buried his face in his hands when he got the news. The IJN would be returning to battle.
Sealion Fails Pt 28: Wacht Am Rhein
The month of November was a logistical build-up race on the Western Front, although the Allies did not truly realize the stakes involved. Both sides were preparing new offensives, but the Allies discounted the magnitude of the German preparations. The Allies were planning a renewal of offensive operations in January, when the weather cleared. The Germans planned to attack in December, having learned the hard way that the Luftwaffe could no longer protect the Heer from enemy air power. Antwerp was the key to stabilizing the situation in France. With that great port in Allied hands, all the food, fuel and ammunition the Allies required would flow as fast as it was needed. Take Antwerp, and just maybe, the war could be dragged out long enough for an armistice to be negotiated.
In early December 1943, the Germans made their move. Reinforced by 40 divisions from the Eastern front and the diminishing OKH reserve, the assaulting forces attempted to repeat history when the Heer lunged through the lightly guarded Ardennes forest. But this was not 1940. The Allies were taken aback by the size and ferocity of the assault, but their own mobile warfare doctrine had now been tested in battle and they met the Germans on equal terms. The offensive reached the Meuse on December 31st, but got no further. The high point of the German counter attack ran from Liege to Namur along the Meuse then faded back southeast along the Lesse river. In January the Allies began grinding the Germans back. Another series of air battles erupted over the battlefield, but now greater numbers of Luftwaffe fighters were being diverted to deal with the Allied Daylight bombers. Escorted bombers. By the end of January the Germans had been forced back to their start lines.
In Italy, the Allies made little progress. Italy was in a state of near total social collapse and most of the Allies logistical capability was currently being spent just feeding a now Allied population. The Germans and RSI Italians made the most of the delay by franticly digging in along the Gothic line running from Pisa through Florence to Pesaro. Allied air activity was constant, but bearable.
Over Germany itself, the Air War was hot and getting hotter. The Allied bombers were hitting targets around the clock. The problem was, they were attacking everything. The strategic bombing campaign was suffering from a distinct lack of focus. There was no clear consensus among targeting planners as to the relative importance of transportation, manufacturing or energy production targets, so all were hit with a resulting diffusion of effect. The only clearly measurable gain was the rapidly waning strength of the Luftwaffe.
In the Balkans, however, the Allies made notable gains. Burga had finally fallen in mid November, then the Allies battered their way up the Black Sea coast to Varna, then turned west to flank Rommel's position in the mountains in central Bulgaria. The terrain here was relatively open, as compared to Yugoslavia, where the Allies were slogging their way inch by bloody inch towards Sarajevo and Nis. Reluctantly, Rommel ordered a withdrawal to the Rumanian border, which was mostly shielded by the Danube River. King Boris returned in triumph to his liberated country (accompanied by some muttering on the part of the Greeks about reparations, but they were relatively discreet about it).
Germany could not afford to lose Rumania. The oil was vital. Production was plummeting under the now-escorted swarms of Allied bombers, but it was still flowing. There would be no pro-Allied coup here. Abundant deployment of Heer Security divisions saw to that. Antonescu's Government was in it to the end. Or else.
Sealion Fails Pt 29: Blood and Thunder
In January 1943, the Red Army made its' second great effort to break the Dnepr/Dvina line. For thirty days the land between Riga and Smolensk shuddered under the combatant's fury. Forced out of Smolensk, the Germans made a stand at Orsha, and stabilized the front. In February, the second blow fell. This time the front between Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk was struck.. And here, finally, the line cracked. By the end of February the Red Army had rolled the Germans all the way to the Bug River before an increasingly frantic Army Group South managed to secure a position. The front was continuous, but now there was almost a hundred miles of relatively clear terrain between the bug River and the Pripyet marshes to be covered by an increasingly stretched Heer.
The pressure on the Reich had become too great to be borne. The attempt to seize Antwerp had failed, and buoyed by a flood of supplies from that great port city, the Western Allies hammered relentlessly at the West Wall. In the Balkans, the Allies ground towards Ploesti and Hungary. There weren't enough Germans, pure and simple. The Prussian Junta's hopes for a negotiated end to the war flickered, and then began to die completely as the position of the Allied governments became plain: Unconditional Surrender.
The Junta's thoughts began to turn to what might happen after the war. The Heer's hands were far from clean after all. The SS Special Action groups carried out the organized butchery of noncombatants in the Soviet Union, true, but the Wehrmacht had noticeably relaxed its' standards of behavior toward occupied populations in the east. Germany had much to answer for, and the Soviets were sure to present the bill. So, how to minimize the repercussions? Uppermost on the Junta's mind was keeping the Russians out of as much of Germany as possible. None of them wanted Russian soldiers doing to their people what German soldiers had done to Russians. The key point was whether the Allies had come to a firm settlement of occupation zones in Germany. There was some indication that they had not. Frenzied activity by the Reich's diplomatic corps met a universal lack of success. German was to be beaten down then ground into the dirt. That hope having been dashed, what about the Nazi Hierarchy? Could they be sacrificed to take the heat off of the military? Probably, if enough of them could be presented to the Allies alive. It was worth considering...
On the Allied side, the Soviet Union became increasingly (and where the French were concerned, rightfully) concerned that the Western Allies wanted to cut the Soviets out of Germany completely. Churchill was pondering post-war developments himself, and raised the point with Roosevelt. Who got what chunk of Germany? The Reds had finally forced their way across the Dnieper, but they were a hell of a lot further away from Berlin than the Western Allies. The US government was looking at the casualty projections for the proposed assault on Berlin with an increasingly jaundiced eye. Besides, there was Japan to consider. Invasion of the Home Islands would probably be necessary. Better to let the Russkies deal with Berlin. And so, finally, the Soviet Occupation Zone for Germany was set: The USSR would occupy all German territory east of the Elbe river. Stalin was less than pleased with this, but considering the distance his army still had to go, he would have to make do.
Sealion Fails Pt 30: Home Rule
The last quarter of 1943 began badly for the Japanese Empire and went down hill from there. In September the Americans had seized the port of Davao, on Mindanao. By mid-October a flood of American troops had completed the liberation of the island, small American contingents had landed on Panay, Negros , Bohol and Leyte while the USN began nosing around Luzon. On the Mainland the French and British began driving the Japanese out of Thailand. The Thai armed forces were not really a factor in this fight, having been nearly annihilated by the IJA when the Thai government was overthrown by a pro-western cabal, but Thai irregulars harassed the retreating Japanese continuously. A bad Japanese position was made much worse by Australian and New Zealander landings on the southeast coast of Indochina near Saigon. A Viet Minh uprising in Saigon threw Japanese countermeasures against the landing in disarray. Thus, after the local defenders annihilated themselves against the beachhead in fruitless Banzai assaults, the Allies lunged for Saigon. When they got there, they were welcomed by the Vietnamese, who were just finishing off the remaining pockets of Japanese resistance.
It is hard to say who was more distressed by the Vietnamese self liberation of Saigon: The French or the Japanese. The IJA 15th Army was now in a position that was worse than hopeless: the Anglo-French advance across Thailand was picking up steam, the ANZACs were being reinforced by the Americans and the Viet Minh cadres were coming out of the woodwork. It seemed like every adult male in Viet Nam had a rifle and 400 rounds of ammunition. So the Japanese certainly had reason to be upset.
The French, however, were apoplectic. The self liberation of Indochina by a gang of Buddhist Home-Rulers was most definitely not a part of their plan for the post war world. Uncle Ho's public relations teams in the USA were doing a bang-up job of rousing American public opinion. The American people were very susceptible to comparisons between Viet Minh fighters dueling with brutal Japanese troops in the streets of Saigon and American Minutemen of old blazing away at the Redcoats at Lexington and Concord. Ho Chi Minh's representatives made the most of it, bolstered by statements from General Stillwell's inspectors praising the organization and dedication of the Viet Minh. It was a very attractive package and to French fury, the Americans bought it. A torrent of US war materiel began flowing to the Vietnamese. In February of 1944, as the Anglo French offensive reached Phnom Penh and Vientiane, Ho Chi Minh and his provisional government occupied Hue, and declared the formation of the Republic of Vietnam.
The Japanese Navy did not sit idly by while the USA regained a grip on the Philippines. The IJN sortied to blast the Americans out of the islands. And there, at the battle of the Philippine Sea, the IJN strike force died. Not the entire navy, there was no longer enough fuel for the entire fleet, even in its' current reduced state, to sortie. But of the four aircraft carriers and four battleships the Japanese sent into action, none returned. The IJN carriers had full aircraft complements, but the crews were only half trained. The USN carrier air groups opposing them out numbered them almost three to one, and the pilots knew what they were doing. It was a slaughter. The one bright spot from Japan's point of view was the sinking of the USS Arizona by the Musashi, itself promptly sent to the bottom by the North Carolina and South Dakota. Nearly all of the IJN's lighter units committed to the battle fell prey to the Americans as well. They did not have the fuel to flee at full speed, and were hunted down one by one. When Corregidor and Fort Drum were officially relieved in January 1944, President Roosevelt declared a national holiday in celebration. The Japanese Empire had been placed in the coffin. Now it was time to hammer down the lid.
Sealion Fails v2.0 Pt 31: Breakthrough
The Original OKW plan following the Wacht Am Rhein operation was to ship the formations stripped from the East and OKH reserve back to face the Red Army.. The failure to take Antwerp threw these plans into the dustbin. Far too many of those troops were needed to hold the Westwall in the face of the plentifully supplied Allied hammering.
The non-appearance of these troops on the Russian Front was soon felt keenly.. The German fall-back position along the Bug River began leaking like a sieve. Numerous small beachheads were won by Red Army troops at horrible cost. Many were smashed, but the rest grew, merged, then erupted. Another stand was attempted at the Dniester River, in April, but this too began to give way.
Rommel's Balkan command was robbed of troops to stem the tide, with catastrophic results: A renewed Allied offensive rampaged up the Rumanian Black sea coast. By March of 1944 Constanta had fallen, and Galati was under attack.. In Yugoslavia the Axis was holding a line running from Sarajevo to Kragujevac, Nis having finally fallen to a Greco-Serbian force. Stretched to the braking point, the Danube line finally snapped northeast of Ruschuk in April. Supported by the usual blizzard of bombs, American armor raced Greek tankers for Bucharest, which was encircled in mid May. By now, Ploesti's oil facilities were in extreme danger, and under bombardment by heavy artillery. Oil production flickered, then collapsed completely. By the End of June, Ploesti had fallen.
In Byelorussia also, the Axis line finally gave way. The Dvina river was forced at Riga, which was isolated with 10 German divisions, and at Dvinsk, from which point a Soviet pincer curved Southeast to meet another thrust Northwest from Magilev. This pocketed another 10 German divisions at Orsha. From this point, the Red Army advance began gathering steam. The Russians reached the Pruth River stop line in Rumania. Somewhat to Western surprise, the Soviets honored the agreement, and began moving northwest along the Carpathians into Slovakia and Poland. In June 1944, Warsaw and Przemysl fell to the Red Army. Here, the Soviets paused to gather strength for the final drive on Berlin.
In Italy, the Axis Gothic line was finally ruptured, and the jubilant Allies swept north only to hit a literal stone wall: The Alps. A few tentative probes soon made clear the fact that nobody was forcing those passes anytime soon, so the advance was redirected into Yugoslavia. Not that the terrain was marvelously better for the attackers there, but at least the defenders would be distracted by the Allied forces swarming northward from the Balkans.
In France and the Low countries the Westwall was blown to gravel. This took time however, which the Germans used to fortify the Rhine itself. The construction efforts were severely hampered by omnipresent air attack, and were badly behind schedule when the Allies began attempting to force the river in April. Frantic shuffling of troops up and down the river forestalled this for a time, but in June 1944 the last great obstacle to the Allies' advance was breached by a mammoth Airborne assault at Arnhem.... And almost by accident by an American raiding force at a small German town named Remagen.
At OKW, a great debate was raging. One party favored striping the west of as many troops as possible in order to hold off the Russians, who would surely seek vengeance for what they had suffered at German hands. This was opposed by Rundstedt, who felt duty-bound to keep all of Germany's enemies out of Germany for as long as possible. The debate failed to consider one crucial factor however: Reinhardt Heydrich. Suspecting (correctly) that the Armed Forces were prepared to sell out the Surviving Nazi leaders to minimize damage to their own skins, Heydrich husbanded his remaining forces and struck. At the worst possible moment, from the German point of view, another armed power struggle erupted in Berlin. When it ended Heydrich was once more in control of the Reich, Rundstedt was dead, and the Wehrmacht was in complete disarray..
Sealion Fails v2.0 Pt 32: Bombing Range.
In early 1944, the United States Army Air Force began deploying a brand new toy: The B-29 Superfortress. It was a huge and expensive beast, complex and requiring very intensive training for the crews. Luzon, which was quickly being cleared of the remnants of the Japanese Army would make a nice base for this long-legged bomber. Formosa(Taiwan) would be even better. Now that the Allies were knocking at the gates of Germany, the vast numbers of Amphibious Warfare vessels used for the assault on France had been freed up and were finally arriving in the Pacific in great numbers. This opened up a wealth of opportunities. Formosa was definitely on the list, Hainan would make a nifty airfield to support the Nationalist Chinese and both islands would make nice springboards for retaking Hong Kong. The Japanese defensive perimeter of the Marianas and Caroline islands was now quite outflanked, the garrisons could be left to starve or surrender. There was considerable Japanese air power on some of the islands, but massed raids by Allied carriers took care of that little detail.
On the mainland, an Anglo-French column from Vientiane was racing an Anzac-American-Viet Minh force from Hue for Hanoi. The Anglo-French were hampered by difficult terrain. The other column raced up the coast, plentifully supported by Naval gunfire and the USAAF's customary hurricane of bombs. The French were first to Hanoi and Dien Bien Phu in June 1944, but the Viet Minh were the first into Haiphong.
By mid-1944, both Hainan and Formosa were invaded. Hainan fell quickly, but Formosa was another matter. This had long been a Japanese possession, and the defending force was large and determined. Formosa was not completely secured until late September, when the remnants of the garrison expended themselves in the customary suicidal charges. But even before then, B-29s were using the southern part of the island as a base. An ever-increasing swarm of Superfortresses began raining fire upon Nippon.
The Allied Submarine fleets continued their grim work, gutting the Japanese Merchant Marine. Sailing from bases that were virtually at point-blank range to the target areas, facing an opponent who held Anti Submarine Warfare in contempt and with little to fear from the air, the Allied pig boats feasted.
In October 1944, the USMC descended upon Okinawa, and discovered a change in IJA tactical doctrine: Instead of facing the Americans on the beaches and being exterminated by Naval and Air firepower, the defenders abandoned the landing beaches after only token resistance and made a stand at the mountainous north and south ends of the Island. The campaign lasted three full months and gave the Allies a grim apprehension of what they might face in the Japanese home islands. Not that this dissuaded the Americans. Hell was about to come to Japan.
Sealion Fails Pt 33: The End of the Reich
The Thousand Year Reich was dying. Whatever ghost of a chance existed for the Reich's survival dissappeared with the echoes of the gunfire that accompanied Reinhardt Heydrich's counter-coup against Von Rundstedt and OKW. Shot through the head, the remnant of the OKW staff was incapable of coordinating resistance to the converging Allied columns and so the local commanders reacted according to their own assessments of the situation.
In the Balkans, Rommel took a hard look at his predicament. Although personally loyal to Hitler, he held little liking for Heydrich. He and Von Rundstedt had never gotten along all that well, but they had developed a reasonably good working arrangement. For reasons that somewhat mystified him, he enjoyed a highly favorable personal reputation among the Western Allies, particularly in the Western press. After securing the safety of his family, Rommel surrendered Army Group Balkans to the Western Allies in late July.
In the East, Von Manstein and Guderian had no illusions about what would befall them if they fell into Soviet hands. The terrors inflicted on the Soviet people were about to be paid for in German blood. They continued the fight for as long as they could, but despite all they could do Berlin fell in Mid August.
In the West, Field Marshall Model, a true die-hard, fought to the last, withdrawing as much of his force as possible to Bavaria to continue the fight. At the bitter end, he committed suicide rather than surrender.
Hungary surrendered when Rommel surrendered, Slovakia promptly followed suit.. Rumania surrendered as well, a point that was largely moot as most of the country had been overrun by the Allies anyway.
As agreed, the Western allied drive through Germany halted at the agreed upon demarcation line of the Elbe river. This left the assault on Berlin to the Red Army, a task whose difficulty was minimized by the total disarray of the defenders. In the end, Berlin fell to the Soviets at a price of less than 200,000 casualties. The Nazi hierarchy scattered to the winds. Goebbels, Himmler and Bormann were caught before they could escape Germany, but Heydrich would not be tracked down until 1957. Hitler, however, was the grand prize. Whatever madness that fueled his drive to power had also supported his recovery. By the time the Soviets captured him, he had reached the point where he could sit upright in a wheelchair and talk with some difficulty.
There was no actual formal surrender of the German government, the putative Nazi leaders were too busy running for their lives for that. But General Paulus's surrender of the Sixth Army in Prague to General Patton on September 5th, 1944, the last major Heer formation to continue fighting, is considered by most historians to be the official end of the War in Europe.
Sealion Fails Pt 34: Downfall
February 1945:
Kamikaze. The very idea was something the Allies had a great deal of trouble coming to terms with. The recently concluded conquest of Okinawa had seen the debut of large-scale suicide attacks on Allied shipping. The Allied advance up the coast of China had met the same, albeit to a much lesser degree. Most of the Japanese air attacks had been conventional attacks made by crews who expected to return home and attack again a later day, but a large minority had been suicide strikes. Fortunately, the Japanese themselves had not quite decided how to employ this new tactic, and the assaults were mostly made by individual planes, or small groups numbering less than a dozen aircraft at a time. Those that had managed to pierce the Combat Air Patrol and flak curtains had proven distressingly accurate, though. What if such attacks were made by hundreds of planes, instead of handfuls? Something to consider.
Back in the USA, at a small New Mexico town called Los Alamos, General Leslie Groves viewed the progress of the war with increasing sourness. The Manhattan Project had spent billions of dollars on a new weapon, a potential war winner, but it looked like the war would be won without it.
The destruction of the Japanese Empire continued apace. Indochina had been cleared of Japanese troops by the end of August 1944 and the Allies had barreled across the Chinese border, scooping up Pakhoi and Nanning by the End of September 1944. After years of relative inactivity, the Nationalist Chinese Army lumbered into action. The Chinese did not accomplish very much, but the Imperial Japanese Army had far too much to deal with to deliver the punishing counter blows the Nationalists were used to receiving. The Allies tore their way up the coast, leapfrogging any Japanese strong points with amphibious landings. The Japanese response was hamstrung by swelling Soviet strength facing Manchukuo. In early April the Soviets struck. The vaunted Kwantung Army shattered like glass under the impact of thousands of tanks, planes and artillery pieces. By the end of May nearly all of Manchukuo was in Soviet hands, and advance recon units were crossing into Korea.
Steadily increasing air and naval bombardment of Kyushu heralded what the Japanese High Command had long believed impossible: Invasion. Finally, on 1 April 1945, Operation Olympic began. The Japanese reaction was explosive, the remnants of the IJN joined thousands of Kamikaze planes in last desperate strikes at the USN, but the attacks, however viscously pressed home were largely uncoordinated. The Japanese had not yet developed an effective doctrine to employ the Kamikaze to the limit of their hellish potential. Many failed to find their targets at all, half-trained pilots in their hundreds died at sea, miles from any enemy. Many more were clawed from the air by American, British and French fighters. Those that actually reached the invasion fleets then faced a curtain of anti-aircraft fire. And finally, there was the problem of target identification. Although ordered to attack transports only, how did you identify a target when every ship on the water seemed to be ablaze from the fire on its' own flak guns? And so everything was struck, from battleships to troopships to destroyers. Those brave souls who made it through the defenses frittered themselves away on any ship they could reach.
By the middle of June, the Soviets had the entire Korean Peninsula in hand, as well as all of Manchukuo. They had not entered Nationalist China proper, and seemed to have no intent of doing so. This was cold comfort to the Japanese forces on the mainland, they were in retreat everywhere. Hong Kong was retaken by the British, the French and Australians had landed near Shanghai, and Nanking was threatened.
On Kyushu, the Americans, rather to their own surprise, had virtually cleared the southeastern two-thirds of the island. There were still pockets of resistance, and the rough terrain of the remaining part of the island greatly aided the surviving defenders, but the important work was done: Enough of Kyushu had been secured to furnish a more than adequate base for Coronet, the invasion of Honshu.
The Japanese High Command had faced the events of 1945 with stark disbelief. They had assured the Emperor- in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary-that if the round-eyes dared to land on Japanese soil, all their advanced weaponry and numbers would not be enough to save them from the wrath of the Japanese people. Well, they had landed, and they had won. Aside from scattered and starving Island garrisons, all that remained of the Japanese Empire were the rapidly shrinking positions in China. The apparently unstoppable B-29s were obliterating Japanese cities one by one. Hirohito bowed to the inevitable. After an unprecedented statement at a council of war, the Japanese empire accepted the Allied terms for surrender on June 26, 1945. The Second World War was over..
Sealion Fails Pt 35: The Post War World
Ok, here is the final breakdown of who got what in Occupied Europe:
The Soviet Union occupies the Baltic States, East Prussia, Poland, Slovakia and the Bessarabia region of Rumania. Stalin being the sort of fellow he was, Bessarabia becomes the Bessarabian Soviet Socialist Republic. In Poland, anti-communist resistance by the Polish Home Army continues for quite some time, but it is a lost cause. The Red Army has quite a few "facts on the ground" in Poland.
The Western Allies Occupation Zone of Germany runs all the way to the Elbe river, and north from Launberg on that river to Lubeck. The Soviet Zone is thus significantly smaller in this TL. After the border readjustments giving German territory to Poland, East Germany is rather a small state indeed. The Czech Republic becomes part of NATO, as well as Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria. Yugoslavia does not exist. Having fractured in civil war, none of the component parts are too keen on re-uniting. The Allies view Yugoslavia as an experiment which failed. Instead, the nations of Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are created. Greece is much better off, no civil war for one thing, most of the country was never occupied by the Axis, lots and lots of dandy infrastructure improvements by the Allies. Oh, and Aegean Islands held by the Italians before the war are firmly in Greek hands..
You are free to disagree with me, but I believe that Stalin being the kind of man he was, the Cold War was inevitable. NATO will be considerably stronger in this TL. However, I view Eastern Europe as being something of a sinkhole for Soviet resources, so their economy might be in a little bit better shape. Then there is the question of casualties. Estimates of Soviet casualties vary widely. I have seen estimates that ranged from 20 million to 60 million. Pick whichever number you are happiest with, and knock of about 25% to get the total suffered by the Soviet Union in this TL. The beneficial affect this will have on the USSR should be quite profound.
The Holocaust: About half as bad as in OTL. I think Israel will still be founded in this TL and a lot of the people who survived in this TL will emigrate there. This has some rather significant implications for the Arab-Israeli demographic balance of power of course. Although the Holocaust is not as extensive as OTL, Holocaust Deniers will have an additional obstacle to overcome in this TL: The written record of the prolonged and vicious arguments between the Nazis and OKW over OKW's refusal to release rail capacity for use by the SS to feed the death camps.
Neo-Nazi's will have another problem: Heydrich's counter-coup decapitated OKW at the very time the Allies were storming Germany's gates, so the Nazi's will be blamed for a "Stab in the Back" in the Reich's hour of crisis. Poor babies.
One unfortunate effect of the OKW Coup will be to bolster the war-crimes defenses of Wehrmacht personnel during their war crimes trials. Many who were convicted in OTL will beat the rap.
France: The Right wing will not have been discredited by Vichy collaboration.. In fact, it is the Communists who will be tarred with the Collaborationist brush due to Stalin's telegram to Hitler congratulating him on the conquest of France. I have no idea what the long-term effects of this might be. The French have lost Viet Nam, but they still hold Cambodia and Laos. For a while anyway. There is a certain degree of animus, shall we say, between the Cambodians/Laotians and the Vietnamese. A French presence similar to what they have in Africa in our time line seems likely. The French will be feeling quite a bit more self-confident in this TL, and they might well succeed in crushing the Algerian rebellion. They would be aided in this by the fact that many of the refugees from Metropolitan France may well decide to stay in Algeria. Considering the growth of Algeria's population compared to Metropolitan France over the post war years, the demographic and political butterflies spawned by this will be colorful and plentiful.
No Vietnam war, obviously. Well, not between the Americans and the Vietnamese. The Chinese and Vietnamese will probably get into a dust-up or two. I think the Communists will still win in China, although since Nationalist territory will not have suffered the OTL Ichi Go operation, the Chinese Civil War may last until the early 1950s.
The USA will probably get involved in a real mess somewhere, though. Probably Cuba. We'll win this one, the USN can isolate the place after all, no Ho Chi Minh trail equivalent. But it won't be quick or easy, and it will cause much the same social strains while it lasts. Despite victory, the entire affair will leave a bad taste in the American people's mouth so far as future interventions go.
No Korean War, the Soviets took the whole peninsula. Kim Il Sung gets control, to be followed by his son, Kim Jong Il. Not a good thing for the Korean people, but overall conditions will not be as bad as in OTL North Korea by a very large margin.
No Korean War means that the re-industrialization of Japan will be significantly delayed. Especially in light of the Operation Olympic bloodbath. Perhaps as much as ten years behind OTL.
Now the Biggie: The Bomb. It has not been used in anger, dropping it on unoccupied test towns will not have the same impact as the pictures of those killed and maimed at OTL's Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Consequently, the USA will not demilitarize as greatly as in OTL, with a consequent burden on America's economy. Will The Bomb be used? Although I can not venture as to the exact circumstances, I am very much afraid the answer is yes. Border clashes between the Chinese and Soviets could well go nuclear, or a Slovakian revolt might draw in NATO.
Well, that's it. This has been a lot of fun, and a hell of a lot more work than I thought my planned five part series on a failed Operation Sealion and the immediate aftermath was going to be. Talk about mission creep.