1939-1945: The War Years
1939: In September of 1939, even as the Germans and Soviets began their desembowlment of Poland, Prime Minister Eshkol dispatched Leo Salizard and Albert Einstein on a covert mission to London. There, the two brilliant scientists outlined the ideas of Operation Sampson.
Prime Minister Chamberlain was skeptical of such a Project. Along with many of his advisors. However, one man came out strongly in favor of it. Winston Churchill eloquently explained how such a weapon could quickly end the war in a descisive Allied victory. Reluctantly, Chamberlain agreed to the proposal. Project Sampson was now a fully-funded project of the British Empire. Delighted at hearing the news, Prime Minister Eshkol connacted the Belgian ambassador to secure Israeli rights to mine uranium in the nearby Belgian Congo for the precious metal.
That year, raids by the German commerce raider Atlantis ruthlessly sank dozens of Israeli and South African merchant ships in the Indian Ocean. In responce, the Israeli Navy was born. Starting out with several elderly WWI destroyers, the shipyards of Port Shalom began manufacturing a more modern day force. South African material aided in this endeavor. In December 1939, the Israeli destoryer Trumpledor managed to corner and sink the Atlantis in a short but fierce fight off the coast of Zanzibar. Combined with the recent destruction of the Graff Spree, this proved to be a much needed morale booster for the Allies.
The Israeli Defence Forces called up all able bodied males for training. Hundreds of thousands of young Jews volunteered to crush fascism. The native tribes were also quite happy to enlist in the IDF. English was the language that would bind this force together. A training center for the new Royal Israeli Airforce (RIAF) was built not for from the Serengeti Plain. Training first in old WWI bi-planes, and then in Hawker Hurricanes, the infant RIAF would go on to greatly distinguish itself in the years to come.
The manufacturing centers of Port Shalom, Mamodan, and New Jerusalem began churning out the first tanks that the IDF would employ in a variaty of conditions. Using imported metals from South Africa, the old textile mills of these cities were converted for concentrated effort for victory. The highly developed railways of Eastern and Southern Africa were soon groaning under the weight of war material as South Africa and Israel fully established themselves as bullworks of Imperial democracy.
The Mossad (Israeli intelligence), had started as a nucleus of advisors attatched to native tribes. At the start of the war, a proposal was brought to Levi Eshkol to turn the Mossod into a spy service.
10,000 men from the IDF were soon being deployed to France. They had little to do at first. There was nothing more than a "Phony War" on....which was about to change for the worst.
1940-1941:
The year 1940 was to be one of tragedies and triumphs. Of blood, toil, sweat, and tears. It was to, literally see the finest hour of Israel's sons. In early 1940, it was established by Project Sampson that an actual bomb could be built in January 1940. The administrator of the Project, William George Penny, was delighted to report the findings back to London.
The calm brought on by the Phony War ended as Germany unleashed Blitzreig on Europe. Norway and Denmark were quickly overrun. This was follwed in spring with the conquest of Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.
The IDF resisted valiently, and took many a German with them. But soon, they were bottled in at Dunkirk with the thousands of trapped British, South African, and French troops.
Mordechai Anielewitz, the commanding officer in charge of the IDF detatchment, ordered his men to resist with all the fury of a wounded, cornered lion. And resist they did. IDF raids were a major detrement to the Germans, and bought the time necessary to evacuate the port. Anielewitz was the last Commonwealth officer to leave the blood stained beaches, but he vowed to return one day.
The fall of Western Europe sent shock waves through Israel. Fearing that Hitler would attempt to seize the colonies of France and Belgium, Israeli troops moved in and occupied the Belgian Congo in June of 1940. This was also done to completely secure the uranium deposits of that strategic colony.
That same month, Mussolini, eager to buy himself the spoils of war at the expected peace conference, declared war on France (as she was falling), and Great Britain. French troops utterly bloodied the Italians in the first town in which they chose to give resistance.
Humiliated, Mussolini ordered the Duke of Aosta, the commander of all Italian forces in East Africa, to invade the Sudan and cut the important Cape-to-Cairo railway. On July 4, taking advantage of his numeratical superioriry, Lieutenant General Guglielmo Nasi struck westward into the Sudan, advancing 300 miles and taking several border towns. Nasi also overran British Somalailand, forcing the British to evacuate Bebera for Aden. Mussolini then thundered of how his Roman Empire would grow to rival Trajan's.
The Israelis viewed the Italians with utter contempt, and rightly so. Despite having 370,000 soldiers and sailors in the region, and 400 aircraft, the Italians lacked modern day weapons. Their Askaris fought well hand-to-hand, but lacked the training to deal with being bombed or srafed.
The IDF, by contrast, numbered well over 275,000 men, and they were backed up by additional troops from South Africa (which contributed another 75,000 men). Then there were the 50,000 men from the Gold Coast, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone (the troops of the King's African Rifles [KAR]).
The Israelis were also extremely well trained, and well motivated. They wasted no time in going after the Italians. Mordechai Anielewitz, now a Major General in the IDF, led the first assault.
On November 15, 1940, the IDF opened up the assault into Italian Somaliland with the seizure of El Wak, a fortefied border town. Over the next week, further IDF raids cleared away numerous Italian garrisons in southern Ethiopia. In New Jerusalem, the Lion of Judah waited patiently for the Israelis to liberate his country.
The Italians had been utterly shattered at El Wak. From then on, it was as close to a cakewalk as campaigns come. By the end of December, Israeli forces had entered Mogadishu, the capital Somaliland. Anielewitz didn't bother taking the Italians prisoner. Virtually all were just glad to out of the war. They would spend the rest of the war "volunteering" on special kibbutzes instead.
The rapid Israeli success allowed for the Royal Navy to recapture British Somaliland in early 1941. The recapture was very easy, not least because the RIAF had wiped out the Italian air base at Diredawa, 300 miles away. The new air superiority utterly demoralized the Italian forces. Many askaris simply melted away, defecting to the IDF. In early February, British and Indian foces advanced into Eritrea, taking several major fortifcations with the extensive help of the RIAF. Mossad agents showed their true value, convincing thousands more Askaris to desert the fight. Many Mossad agents had been former traders in Italian East Africa, and knew the languages and customs well.
By March 30, the British were on the road to Addis Ababa. My mid-April, 1941, the Italians had had enough. The Duke of Aosta surrendered to Major General Anilewitz on April 15, 1941. Emperor Haile Salasie returned to his throne. In a related development, the Emperor asked for Israeli assistance in rebuilding his shattered country. This was to be the basis of the great postwar plans that would reshape Africa for all time.
The Battle for East Africa was won. Now, the IDF had a much tougher fight ahead of them in the sands of North Africa.
On September 13, 1940, Italian forces invaded Egypt from Libya. Three days later, they had reached Sidi Barrani, where they began to fortify their gains.
The South African and Israeli forces in East Africa were immedietly redepolyed to Egypt, greatly bolstering the Commonwealth forces already there. Fresh from crushing the Italians in Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland, Major General Anielewitz began his assault on October 15, 1940. Operation Trumpledor began with an advance by General Maurice Rose's 1st Armored Division within the IDF.
Rose, the son of American Jews who had immigrated to East Africa in the early 1900s, proved to be his worth in gold. By October 27, not only had the Italians been thrown out of Egypt by the IDF, but the town of Solum had been taken. Marshall Graziani was thrown into a panic as over 20,000 Italians were taken prisoner by the IDF and their Commonwealth allies. Siddi Barrani fell the same day as Solum, and General Rose stopped in order to firmly establish his supply lines. The RIAF and RAF flew round-the-clock missions against the Italians, who melted back into Libya. The Western Desert Force became XIII Corps.
By November, Rose was ready to continue into Libya. Smashing the Italians backwards, the IDF, aided by the 4th Indian, the Australian 6th Division, and the South African 12th Division (comprised mostly of soldiers from former Lower Rhodesia), captured Tobruk and Bardia, and encircled the Italians at Beda Fromm, capturing some 25,000 men, 200 artillary peices, 100 tanks, and another 1500 vehicles. The pathetic remants of the Italian force retreated to El Agheila by December 9.
Hitler, angered at having to bail out Mussolini, but not wanting a bunch of Jews menacing his Fortress Europe, activated the newly formed Deutsches Afrikakorps, commanded by Erwin Rommel. The trains that transported the men of the Afrika Korps were decked out with anti-semetic grafiti. One succinct message stated: "We're going to Africa to destroy the Jews."
In January 1941, Rommel launched his first assault against the Allied armies advancing towards El Agheila. Facing him was General Rose. The two tankmen fought to a standstill. In the end, Rose was forced to withdraw due to his precariously overstretched supply lines. Rommel advanced forward, only to meet stiff resistance every step of the way. Israeli Hurricanes and German Messcherschmidts fought for the right to strafe each other's colummns. To call the fighting intense between the Germans and the Israelis intense was an understatement, to say the least. One German soldier wrote in his diary: "The Jews are supposed to be subhumans, but they fight more like superhumans. Clearing those bastards out of Bardia cost us plenty."
By February 1941, Rommel had retaken all of Libya except for Tobruk, which was manned by the IDF. Several failed attempts to seize the port resulted in a seige.
XIII Corps attempted to releive the port in Operations Brevity and Battleaxe, both of which failed. However, a raid by South African Commandos and Israeli Maccabees (Israeli special forces) succeeded in destroying several tonnes of Axis munitions, giving the IDF forces bottled down in Tobruk some breathing room. Arthur Wavell was replaced as overall commander by Claude Auchinleck. The overall Allied field command became the British Eighth Army. Besides the remaining forces of the IDF (bolstered by over 100,000 fresh recruits from the homeland), the Eighth Army included two divisions of South Africans, several divisions of South Africans and New Zealanders, and a brigade of Free Frech under Marie-Pierre Koenig.
From March 4 to April 17, 1941, Operation Crusader under Generals Anielewitz, Rose, and Cunningham succeeded in releiving Tobruk and driving Rommel back to El Agheila. Unlike in OTL, the German garrisons at Bardia and Sollum were also recaptured.
By May of 1941, bolstered by fresh Israeli brigades, and not lacking the Australian, New Zealander, and Indian regiments that were sent to their homelands when the Japanese were menacing them, the Eighth Army was able to advance again. In the Second Battle of El Agheila in mid-May, 1941, Generals Rommel and Rose faced off again. This time, Rommel was the one who was forced to withdraw, despite an influx of new supplies. Hand-to-hand fighting between the Israelis and Germans was among some of the most brutal in the entire war. Taking prisoners was rarely practised by either side. The fierce fighting masked the massive buildup of supplies that the Allies were building up behind the bulge that the Israelis had set up.
Rommel was succinctly ordered by Berlin not to give an inch of ground to the "Anglo-Jewish vermin." Rommel never got the chance to follow that order. His staff car was strafed by a RIAF Spitfire on June 3, 1941. The Desert Fox, as his friends and adversaries had begun to call him, died of his extensive wounds two days later. The Afrika Korps began its long retreat.
It it was a very brutal and bloody retreat. The Germans and Jews clashed in one brawl after another across the length and width of Cyrenaica and Tripoltania. Tripoli fell in August 1941. Hitler by this time was focused on his invasion of the USSR, which he had traitorously attacked on June 22. However, this didn't stop him from sending more men into the African meat grinder to try and destroy the Jews, whom Hitler hated with a pathological fury that made his aids shrink before him. As propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary after Hitler got word of the fall of Tripoli: "The Fuhrer is quite right about the threat of the Jewish disease. Should they win this war, they will multiply ceasesly until mankind is incurably corrupted. At the very least, we shall not have this problem with the Slavs......"
For the Afrika Korps, flesh and munitions could only hold out so long. Retreating into Tunisia, the Germans resisted as doggedly as they could at the hated Jewish enemy, which repaid every blow in kind. "The men do not take prisoners. And who can blame them? They're fighting an enemy that views them only with the desire to exterminate. Should we not respond in kind?" wrote General Anielewitz in his diary as the IDF crossed into Tunisia after the Germans in September 1941, with the Commonwealth forces straining to keep up with them. On October 1, 1941, the last members of the much vaunted Afrika Korps retreated on Italian boats back to Fortress Europe. Hitler threw an immense tantrum when he heard of this loss. "Spittle and froth flowed liberally from his jaw as he screamed his head off about Germany's failures. This must be a frightening development for him. If the Jews can beat us in armed combat, then our whole idea about race might be wrong." one aid of Hitler's recorded in his diary.
With the securing of Libya, and the rolling back of pro-Axis forces in the Middle East, the British began to work on swaying the Vichy forces in Algeria and French Equitorial Africa to switch sides. This came as German forces occupied Vichy France itself in November 1941, fearing an inevitable Allied attack. That same month, IDF forces seized the Italian island of Pantaleria. Mussolini, having lost his entire African empire, began a rapid descent into ill-health. Slowly, one-by-one, the Vichy French began to defect to the Allied side, not least due to the smashing victory that the Commonwealth Forces had won in North Africa. Plus, the regeime in Vichy itself was now truely a German puppet, if not already. Admiral Francious Darlan was among the last holdouts. A Free French assassin ended the last block towards Allied consolidation over the African continent.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii brought the United States into the war. World War II was now truely a global conflict. The Japanese began also stuck Malaysia and Singapore that day. With an influx of fresh Commonwealth troops from Africa, the British prepared to implement Operation Matador with strikes into Thailand to preempt a Japanese attack on Malaysia and Singapore itself. Over 50,000 Israeli and South African troops were dispatched from North Africa to Malaysia to aid in the Operation.
Maurice Rose was awarded the Victoria Cross for his role in the destruction of the Afrika Korps, as was Mordachai Anielewitz. This triumph was overshadowed breifly in mid-December, 1941, when Joseph Trumpledor died of a stroke at his home in New Jerusalem. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck gave the eulogy for his friend, as a monolith to the founder of the old JDF was laid to rest.
Now that the continent of Africa was free of and Axis presence, the war would come to Fortress Europe.
1942:
After the destruction of the Axis forces in Africa, things began to quiet down for the Israelis. An attempt to aid the British forces in Asia against the Japanese onslaught proved to be a failure as the Israeli Navy was bloodied by Japanese aircraft and submarines in the Indian Ocean. The Navy was ordered home for the time being.
However, the IDF and the South Africans proved invaluable in Malaysia, where they managed to delay the Japanese advance through Malaysia. Operation Matador only ended when Japanese air and naval power proved to be too overwhelming. The delay, however, was crucial in allowing William Slim to adequetaly prepare defences in Burma. Using his observations from Operation Matador to full effect, Slim avoided full frontal assaults on the Japanese, and used air cover effectivally. As a result, the Japanese were prevented from advancing further than Rangoon. As more reinforcements from India arrived, Slim, commanding XV Corps, began to slowly push back againt the Japanese onslaught.
The Israelis participated major operation in the first half of 1942. Of all the French colonies, Madagascar remained the last pro-Vichy holdout. So, in April of 1942, the Israelis and the South Africans invaded and quickly occupied the island, in order to prevent the Japanese from getting any kind of a toe-hold on the strategic locale. The South Africans agreed to administer the island for the time being. The Israelis had enough on their plate with Somalia (former Italian and British Somaliland) and the Congo.
The Germans had conquered a sizable chunk of the Soviet Union. But what to do with the Slavs? The Slavs were all designated as subhumans [without any Jews, the Slavs are now considered the prime target of Nazi brutality; the few Jews still in Europe are already dead].
The Wannsee Conference, held in January of 1942, was designed to answer these questions. Adolf Eichman was granted the duty of carrying out the goal of extermination. Such cleansing would take place in special camps. Numerous such camps already existed
Project Sampson continued on schedual. After the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway ended the Japanese threat to Australia, Woomera became the site for the Commonwealth's contruction facility. Tel Aviv was the administrative center, where the uranium was refined to build the ultimate weapon.....scientists from all over the Commonwealth were stationed in Israel and Australia....always working. With the intelligence that the British had shared with him, Franklin Roosevelt ordered the launch of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Heavy British aid allowed for the Americans to jump start their program. Some of the men stationed at Los Alamos were Mossad and M15 agents....watching to make sure that none of the research found its way to the Soviets.
Prime Minister Churchill wanted dearly to open up a front in Europe. With the American deployment to Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya in May of 1942, such a front could be realized. Churchill wanted the front to be in the "Soft Underbelly of Europe." The only question would be wether it would be in Italy or the Balkans. Mossad and OSS agents were soon engaged in Operation Mongoose-confusing the enemy greatly as to the target of the invasion. Generals Anielwitz and Auchinleck were ordered to Egypt. Hitler promtly ordered three divisions to occupied-Greece. The Allies did much to encourage the rumor. Fake football matches were held by fake infantry units. Fake wedding notices were posted for non-existant troops. The Israelis contructed dummy tanks, army barracks, and airfields. From their sources in Cairo, the Germans prepared for an onslaught in the Balkans.
Of course, that's what the Allies wanted them to think.
The idea of a Second Front (which Stalin was demanding of his allies), got a field test at the French Channel town of Dieppe. On August 18, Israeli Maccabees, American Rangers, along with British and South African Commandos, (the Israelis and South Africans in particular were considered the best of the Allied special forces units), raided the the town. The raid was an utter success, not least because the Israelis and South Africans had demanded, and got, the right to individually seize the innitiative in the mission. Plans went ahead on planning a return to France....where General Anielewitz had vowed to return.
Mussolini's troubles only grew and grew. Italy had now utterly lost her empire. The Italians now depended on their German "ally" for oil, among other things. The vast majority of Italians only wanted the war to end. Mussolini was beginning to lose control.
Hitler feared this greatly. Operation Alaric was drafted in May as the plan to occupy Italy in the worst-case scenario.
The worst-case scenario came on September 2, 1942, as Operation Torch, the invasion of Sicily was launched. American, British, Canadian, Israeli, and South African forces invaded along a broad front.
The news of the Allied landings shocked the Italians. For the members of the Fascist Grand Council, it was the straw that broke the camal's back. On September 4, Mussolini was arrested by orders of the Council. Marshall Pietro Badoglio became Prime Minister, at the urging of King Victor Emmanuel. A few days later, Italy officially surrendered to the Allies. Jubilation erupted amongst the Italians.
Unfortunately, the Germans had other ideas. Operation Alaric went into affect as German troops occupied the Italian boot. But it was too late to secure Sicily. Messina had been occupied by the IDF, at the urging of General Rose. This denied the Germans the chance to land on the island. The remnants of the Italian armed forces eagerly defected to the Allies. Prime Minister Badoglio and the House of Savoy was forced to flee Naples on a South African destroyer as the Germans closed in. Sardinia, Corsica, and the lower 2/3rds of the Italian Boot were in Allied hands by late October. Field Marshall Kesselring, the overall German military commander in Italy, was forced to pull back steadily as Allied armies began their long march up the Boot.
In the later part of 1942, the German and Soviet armies at Stalingrad marched towards their respective destinies.
In Israel itself, total mobilzation had occured. Every able-bodied male civilian was in the IDF. The automobile and textile factories were converted to churning out tanks, aircraft, and jeeps. Nummberless guns and countless tonnes of ammunition. The booming industrial economy in both Israel and South Africa shook off the last effects (and there were not that many) of the Depression.
The Israeli administrators in the Congo and Somalia began contruction of roads, schools, hospitals, and other nesecities of civilized life. Israeli ideas waffed across these two administrative zones like the smell of freshly cooked gafilte fish. The Israeli and South African attempts at mining the precious minerals of the Congo brought large-scale development to that portion of the world.
For the native Somalis and Congolese, such luxuries made the prospects of going back under colonial rule of any kind all the more odious.
1943:
January 1943 brought news of the fall of Naples, which the Germans had ruthlessly rigged with explosives and other booby-traps. It took weeks to properly secure the city and repair its port.
In a seperate action, the Israeli Navy assisted in the liberation of Rhodes, which the Germans had seized only two years earlier.
February brought news of the anihilation of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. From then on, the Reich's armies in the East would be on a retreat that would make the fall of the Afrika Korps look like a hiccup. But the grim job of slaughtering Poles, Ukranians, Czechs, Great Russians, Roma and Senti, and Belarusians would continue. Even as the Reich's transportation systems strained under the job of fighting a war and commiting genocide, the horrific task would continue.
Mossad agents began to slip into Western Europe, to aid the burgeoning resistance movements. The Mossad had trained the Czech expatriates who had killed Reinhard Heydrich in May of 1942. In addition to crippling the German Norsk hydroelectric plant in Norway, Mossad agents contented themselves with directing increasingly bolder and bolder attacks. Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons, died under the guns of the French Resistance in March of 1943 thanks to the Mossad's intelligence.
Of all the nations of conquered Europe, Denmark was unique. To maintain Danish cooperation, the Jews of that nation had not been harmed. ITO agents had failed to get any Danish Jews to immigrate before the war. They were an integral part of the Danish nation, after all. But after the fall of that nation in 1940, 8,000 Jews remained trapped under German domination. But they remained under the protection of the Danish people. The German administrators decided it to be more trouble than it was worth to seize them.
But as news came of the IDF's defeat of the Afrika Korps, and other IDF actions, the pressure mounted. Hitler personally ordered the Jews of that nation liquidated. A mole in the German Foreign Ministry alerted members of the Danish government. Aided by Mossad agents, the Danes succeeded in evacuating all 8,000 Jews to neutral Sweden aboard fishing boats. Hitler threw yet another tantrum. The only major concentration of Jews in Europe had escaped him. This episode led to a huge increase in Israeli-made arms to the Danish resistance, among other things.
The summer of 1943's big news was the fight for Monte Cassino, a fortified monestary on the road to Rome. A stalemate ensued, until Israeli Maccabees and South African Commandos (reafirming their legendary status) attacked and eliminated the main part of the German garrison, allowing for the Allies to seize the monestary without having to destroy it. By June of 1943, the Allies were in Rome. The Germans continued their retreat northwards....doing their best to cause as much pain to the advancing Allies as possible....especially to the blasted IDF.
Benito Mussolini had been arrested after his fall from power. The former Duce had been turned over the Allies at the insistance of the IDF. He was now interred in Cyprus, guarded by Italian-Jewish expatriates that he had driven from his nation in the late '30s. They took delight in taunting the tinpot Caesar at every opportunity. Keeping his legs shackled, he was denied visitors. In the end, he was found hanging from his cell on July 11, 1943.
No great loss.
With the rapid progress that the Allies had been making in Italy, Churchill brought up his desire to liberate the Balkans before the Soviets could get anywhere near them. The Israelis had already liberated Rhodes, after all. But Churchill found himself overuled by the Allied Supreme Commander, Dwight Eisenhower. A Second Front should come in Europe. But not to the Balkans. General Anielewitz fully backed Ike. He wanted to go back to France. Badly.
In Italy, the Allies had reached the Arno Line, and were busy hacking it to bits. The IDF's routine hadn't changed. Prisoners were rarely taken. Working in tandum with their South African comrades-in-armes, the Israelis proved once and for all the utter stupidity of the German racial dogmas. Leading the charges, the Israelis and South Africans punched through the Arno Line in August, and through the Gothic Line-Kesselring's grand fortefication, in September. Winnie, eager for the Western Allies to be in Vienna, urged them forwards. In the end, Generals Mud and Winter ground the fighting in northern Italy to a halt.
In Russia, the Germans were crushed in the Battle of Kursk. Soviet forces began their surge towards the Reich.
In October, Mossad agents assasinated Ante Pavelich, the sadistic head of the Croatian Ustashe, which had fallen on the Serbs in an orgy of bloodshed.
Plans continued to be drafted for Operation Overloard-the invasion of Western Europe. While all this was going on, Operation Fortitude was launched, in the spirit of Operation Mongoose. The Israelis proved to be the perfect actors in the scheme. Anywhere they were rumored to land was sure to gain Hitler's fullest attention. The Fuhrer, still in a dangerous rage after the news came to him of Mussolini's death in an Israeli prison, bought every rumor of possible Israeli deployments hook, line, and sinker. Rumors came that the Jews would strike at Norway. Hitler kept several divisions stationed around Trondheim. Rumors came that the Jews would strike at Greece. Hitler kept several divisions around Athens. Rumor came that the IDF would be deployed to several points around the Balkans. Hitler stationed heavy divisions around each locale (there were around 7 possible landing points leaked to the Germans by the British and Israelis).
Once again, it was what the Allies wanted the Germans to think.
At Los Alamos, Mossad agents tipped off the Americans that one of the scientists, one Klaus Fuches, was a Communist. Fuches dissapeared from the site (it should be mentioned that the Rosenburgs now live in New Akko, while David Greenglass is at Woomera).
The end of 1943 brought new optimism to the Allied cause. Italy was all but liberated, the Russians were pushing the Germans out of their country kilometer by bloody kilometer, and the Japanese were being pushed back in Asia and the Pacific. 1944 would be the year when the nails began to fall into the coffin of Hitler's Thousandd Year Reich.
1944:
Preparations for Operation Overlord began in earnest. The spring of 1944 was schedualed as the tentative time period for the invasion.
The Allies would land in Normandy. The Americans at Omaha and Utah Beaches, the British and Canadians would land at both Juno and Gold. The Israelis and South Africans would land at Sword. Mordachai Anielewitz would keep his 1940 vow to return.
Maurice Rose was withdrawn from Italy in order to play his part in Operation Fortitude. The man who had beaten Rommel was put in charge of an utterly mythical detatchmant of the IDF. The Germans soon got a juicy tidbit to report to Hitler. Maurice Rose would be in charge of the real assault at Calais; Normandy would be the site of diversionary raids only. It appeared that the typically-devious Jews wanted the Germans to be fooled into thinking that their assault on Calais would gain releif through the diversion at Normandy.
Oh how Hitler gloated. Those damned Jews weren't so clever after all. When the Israelis began their assault, they'd find the main German forces solidly entrenched at Calais, waiting for them.
The Allies sighed with relief. Hook, line, and sinker.
June of 1944 would be the target date. Hopefully, the Channel would cooperate.
In Italy, the overall Allied Commander, Sir Harold Alexander, began his assault against Kesselring. Italian partisans, aided by the now ubiquitous Mossad agents, upped their ante against the German occupiers. Florence fell. With the aid of the partisans, Milan, Pisa, Bologna, Verona, and Venice were soon in Allied hands. The Brenner Pass was within reach.
The IDF was slowly being withdrawn to England in preparation for Operation Overlord. Churchill's pressure to drive to Vienna began to slacken as Normandy replaced Vienna in importance.
Field Marshall Kesselring was ordered not to give up one inch of Italian soil to the "Jewish-Allied vermin." But the constant partisan attacks, combined with the drangon's breath of the Allied armies, led Kesselring to bow to the inevitable. He surrendered to the British in late April of 1944. Italy, except for a few small chunks, was free of the invaders. Fresh divisions of the IDF were soon deployed to Italy to replace the veterans, who had departed for Britain.
Alexander then drew up a plan to go for the Brenner Pass. Hitler was starting to lose control. He spent more and more time huddled in his Berlin bunker, as the RAF, USAAF, and, to a lesser extent, RIAF, pounded the capital to rubble.
The Soviets were busy consolidating the Ukraine and liberating the Baltic states. The first horrific discoveries were being made. Babbi Yar, a ravine outside of Kiev, was discovered to contain the bodies of thousands of innocent Ukranian civilians. Whole sections of the Ukraine were devoid of people. It appeared that the worst had come to pass. The Russians, from then on, were far more unwilling to take prisoners. The drive to the west began in earnest.
Harold Alexander planned to make raids into the Balkans to coordinate with the Normandy invasion. There wasn't too much more he could do until more reinforcements from Israel and South Africa were deployed. His best units were going to England, or being earmarked for an attack on the south of France. The new units of the IDF gained their baptism of fire in the seizure of the port of Trieste, where Fascism's grandfather, Gabriel D'unzzio had birthed the nefarious movement.
Yugoslavia hardly required a large Allied invasion. The Yugoslavs, under Tito and Mikhailovich were doing an excellent job of liberating themselves. The Germans still had large divisions encamped at Dubrovnik, Split, Hvar, Vis, and Cetinje waiting for invasions that never would come. The Mossad proved instrumental in gunrunning operations to the Yugoslavs.
June 6, 1944 brouught D-Day. Right on cue, the IDF and the South Africans landed at Sword, and captured the city of Caen (which would have taken another month to take in another universe). Bellowing "Amcha!" and "BuLala!" respectivally, the Israelis and South Africans battled the crack 21st Panzer outside the city. General Anielewitz fought with all the ferocity that he could muster, leading from the front lines. A lucky German shell put an end to Mordachai Anielewitz's illustrious career, but he had managed to keep his promise. Maurice Rose soon arrived to take over.
Hitler held the large German divisions at Calais for another five agonizing days, by which time it was too late. Mid-June had Hitler still thinking that Normandy was a diversion. But by then, the Allied armies had broken out of the beach heads and linked up. Late June and July had the Allies consolidate their territory in northern France, as Brittany was liberated, even as the hedgerows bedeviled the Allied armies.
July 20 had seen Hitler surviving an attempt on his life. The Devil protects his own, they say. Walther Model, Hitler's fireman (named that for his ability to handle crisis situations), was brought in to salvage the disaster now facing the Germans in France.
August saw the German Fifth Panzer Army and Seventh Army surrounded and utterly destroyed in the Argentan-Falaise pocket. The IDF and the South Africans, mostly veterans of Italy, proved instrumental in plugging the hole. 75,000 Germans were trapped. An attempt by Model to break them out failed, and the Germans suffered their worst defeat since the end of the Italian campaign.
The rest of August saw the American, British, Israeli, and South African armies driving across France. Paris was finally free again, and spared the destruction that Hitler had planned for it. Soon, the only thing stopping the Allies from moving past Verdun was the lack of fuel. The Allies had also landed in southern France during this time.
A sore point remained among the Allies. Charles de Gaulle, now back in Paris, angrilly demanded that Madagascar be returned to French control. After much feet dragging, the island was recognized as French again.
The Israelis and South Africans found themselves aiding the British and Canadians in their drive to invest the Channel Ports. Belgium was invaded, with Brussels falling on September 1. Antwerp, the all-important port, fell soon afterwards before the Germans could demolish the docks and wharves. The Israelis and South Africans cleared the Germans out of the 60-mile Schelde Estuary, allowing for the free flow of supplies to and from the key port. Logistics became much more easier. Optmism abounded in the Allied armies. Plans to drive into Germany itself were drawn up.
To the east, the Soviets had entered Poland, where evidence of atrocities to rival Stalin's gulags were discovered. The sight of so many emaciated Polish, Roma, and other Slavic survivors of the extermination camps led many Soviets to gun down every German that they could find.
Meeting with General Eisenhower in Brussels, General Bernard Law Montgomery, who had distinguished himself in the Italian campaign, drew up a new scheme to bring the war to Germany itself, through the generous use of the Allied parachutists who had not seen action since D-Day. The Allied 1st Airborne included the US 101st Airborne, the US 82nd Airborne, a Polish brigade, and the Israeli Trumpledor Regiment. The plan called for the Allied 1st Airborne to sieze a series of bridges and canals after landing along a highway connecting the Dutch cities of Eindoheven, Nijmegan and Arnhem. This was the phase of the venture called Market. Phase Garden called for the South African, Israeli, and British armored forces to drive through this passageway 99 miles to the Zuider Zee, the wheel around to the east, outflanking the West Wall, and go on to seize the Ruhr.
It was a very bold proposal. Eisenhower, itching to use the airborne reserves, approved it. September 17 was the jump-off date. With the Schelde Estuary already cleared, things would go much smoother.
The landings were a success, although intense resistance from the 9th SS Panzer Division was harsher than expected. The Trumpledor Brigade proved instrumental to the Americans in seizing the bridge over the Waal. Israeli and South African tanks soon led the way in the Commonwealth attack, with Maurice Rose at the healm. The 9th SS put up a stuborn fight, it was nothing the victor of El Agheila coulnd't handle. Clearing the new corridor, the Commonwealth forces had managed to clear their objectives. The operation, feared by some Allied strategists as too risky, gave the Allies the Ruhr. Germany's industrial heartland was now in Allied hands.
Sepp Dietrich and Walther Model both commited suicide over their failures. Hitler collapsed on the floor of his bunker in utter agony. "The war is lost!" This was the first time he had uttered those words. Jews had smashed through some of the best of the Whermacht. Jews!
Adolf Hitler, for the rest of the war, remained huddled in his bunker, steadily losing touch with reality. Occasionaly ranting at aids for imaginary offenses, and more than often starring into space glassy eyed, Hitler was no longer really in control.
Germany had been utterly sapped by this latest setback. The fall of the Ruhr was confunded as Allied troops managed to seize the city of Aachen. The bell was rapidly tolling on all fronts. In the east, the Russians were in Warsaw and marching into East Prussia. In the Balkans, the Yugoslavs were laying seige to the German troops still encamped with their Croat allies. The IDF had driven the Germans, with the aid of the British and the Israeli Navy, out of the Dodencanese Islands, and off of Crete. With their landing in Athens, the Germans simply melted away, except for the fanatical Nazis who stayed to get butchered by the Israelis. General Alexander had cleared the Brenner Pass, and was on the road to Innsbruck. Everything was rapidly falling apart.
With the Ruhr secured, and with supplies flowing from Antwerp uninterupted, the Allies began moving deeper into Germany. The Remegan Bridge was seized, and the entire Rhineland was soon lost. Israeli troops took personal joy in ransacking the home where Joseph Goebeles had grown up. Cologne fell. Frankfurt fell. Stuttgart fell. Rotterdam fell. Kassel fell. Amsterdam fell.
By mid-October, Innsbruck had fallen, and Commonwealth forces were on their way towards Salzburg. Numberless Allied soldiers were crossing the Rhein into the German heartland.
Israeli officials met with the provincal Belgian government in late October to discuss the status of the Congo. The Belgians wanted it back. The Israelis reminded the Belgians that their infastructure was utterly devastated. They would have a hard enough time putting themselves back together again, much less running a part of Africa that had been little more than the stomping grounds of the King. In the end, the Belgians reluctanly relented. Until the Congo could gain a responsible self-government, the Congo would stay under their jurisdiction. The government in New Jerusalem quickly passed laws forbidding any civilian settlements in the Congo to underscore the point.
Alerted by Mossad agents, the RIAF and RAF plastered Peenmunde, where research for the V-1 and V-2s, which had ravaged London throughout the year, had gone on. Several German rocket scientists were killed.
The rest of 1944 was spend tearing the Reich to peices. Allied forces in the west were now approaching the Weser River. Israeli and South African forces siezed Emden, Wilhelmshaven, and Bremen. Hamburg was now in sight.
During this time, William Slim began his drive on Singapore, echoing the Japanese advance over two years earlier. The city would fall in January 1945, restoring British pride greatly.
East Prussia was soon lost to the Germans, as the Soviets cut a fairly vengeful swath across that region that would have made Sherman himself take note.
Hitler was no longer really in touch with reality anymore.
Winston Churchill was now pressuring for a drive on Berlin. Winnie had no desire to see the Russians encamped there first. The Commonwealth forces in North Germany now had one final goal: March on Berlin!
For the Israeli soldiers camped in Bremen, this would be their last great trek of the war. To the south, more of their bretheren were marching on Salzburg. Operation Infinity was drawn up. It called for the quick seizure of Hamburg, followed by a sprint to the German capital before the Russians could cross the Oder. It was set to begin in early December of 1944.
Opposing the Commonwealth forces was Major General Johannes Blaskowitz, who had barely made it out of Amsterdam as the South Africans seized the city. His troops were extremely low on morale. Their cause was utterly empty. The Jews were not subhumans, that much was clear. Making his headquarters in Hamburg, Blaskowitz vowed to resist.
Operation Infinity began with a massive air and aritillary bombardment of the German positions in the early morning hours of December 4, 1944. Maccabees and Commandos again led the way in taking out the command headquarters and officers. Mossad intelligence crippled the supply depots that the army depended on. The Israelis and British, flanked by the South Africans and Canadians, had Hamburg surrounded by December 8. General Blaskowitz commited suicide even as the city's commandment, General Alvin Woltz, was forced to surrender.
The fall of Hamburg, followed by news that the Allies had taken Bertchesgaden drove Hitler close to his breaking point. He was now huddling in his bunker, speaking to no one but his mistress, Eva Braun. Army Group South, under the command of Fredrich Schultz, was rapidly being squeezed by the South African forces to his south, and the Franco-American armies to the north.
Allied forces in central Germany had begun to discover the camps. Ohrdruf, Buchenwald, Dauchau.....when the Israeli troops saw images of the emaciated Slavic and Roma survivors, they often lost control. On IDF brigade began gunning down the German troops who were trying to surrender.....until General Eishenhower put out specific orders forbidding such acts.
In late December 1944, Somalia, its native tribes placated by promises of autonomy and by the wealth had sprung up through the new investment in infastructure, was officially annexed by the state of Israel. East Africa was now almost etirely an integral part of the Jewish nation.
The rest of 1944 saw the Allies further desembowel the Third Reich. By New Year's Eve, Commonwealth Forces had made it to Wismar. Soviet forces were clearing Pomerania. The Race to Berlin would soon get very interesting indeed......1945 would see the beginings of a Brave New World, even as the old one lay dying on the funeral pryre of Hitler's wretched Reich.
1945:
As 1945 dawned, the Allies continued to run rampart over a shattered Germany. Soviet forces were in Vienna (to Chuchill's chagrin). American forces entered Madgeburg. The French and Americans were closing in on Nuremburg. And in north Germany, Commonwealth forces were racing to beat the Soviets to Berlin.
Berlin was one of many topics that came up at the Yalta Conference in January 1945. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met to settle the boundaries of postwar Europe.
Berlin remained a contentious issue. Stalin and Churchill both had drawn lines in the sand. Roosevelt tried to negotiate. In the end, they agreed that Poland would gain Pomerania, Silesia, and a godly portion of East Prussia. Roosevelt also got Stalin's word that free and democratic elections would be held in Poland and Eastern Europe (which meant that Communism would be the new dominating philosophy, to say the least, as it turned out).
Berlin would be divided into four quarters: Russian, American, British, and French. Germany would be divided into American, British, and French zones of occupation.
Stalin also agreed, at some point, to enter the war against Japan, which was also on the ropes at this point. The Russo-Japanese War was still a memory, after all.
The failure to agree on who would take Berlin spelled out the message loud and clear: whoever took the city would be drawing a line for the future of the world. Commonwealth forces set out from Wismar, and American forces set out from Madgeburg. The Soviets were busy taking their time consolidating their holds over the Balkans, and weren't in as great a rush to take the city.
The Commonwealth's Twenty-First Army Group, under General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, raced towards Berlin. Israeli, South African, Canadian, and British forces were salivating at the idea of finally putting the Nazi mad-dog down for all time. The Israelis in particular were adamant at wanting Hitler and his surviving minions to pay for their crimes. Himmler had already commited suicide after being captured by South African soldiers, and Goering was in American custody. Goebeles and Bormann were trapped in Berlin with Hitler, whose mind now resembled a child's.
An utterly insane child, to say the least.
The Battle of Berlin occured as Soviet, Commonwealth, and American forces converged on the capital almost simoltaneously. The race for the capital soon became a race for the Reichstag (which was won by Soviet troops). But the Israelis cared heavily about finding the mad-dog (Hitler) who had started this whole war. More than a few of the IDF forces were of German origin. They hadn't forgotton their native country's betrayal.
The fighting was intense. As Lieutenant Joseph Peled wrote in his diary:"By the Brandenburg Gate, as our forces fought their way down the East-West Axis, our tanks came under attack from some Hitler Youth members wielding those sodding rockets....." [panzerfausts] ".....at us. We tried yelling at them to get them to disarm. They of course didn't. Oh, they must have felt so eager to go kill a Jewish 'subhuman' or two. Of course, we had no choice but to machine-gun them. Who in G-d's name sends children to die for a sodding madman? More than that, who in the hell taught them that rubbish in the first place? May G-d have mercy on this sodding country, for we'll give it none." Such thoughts dominated the members of the IDF.
In the end, several Maccabees discovered Hitler's bunker. Blowing down the doors and fighting a confused, desperate battle down the stairwells and in the corridors, the Israelis came across a stooped man with sunken eyes, clad in a ragged greatcoat and wearing a diaper. It was clear that the man had attempted to shave off a mustache, but had done a poor job at it. Blood flowed freely from his mouth, which was open in some horrible, hellish laugh. A blonde woman lay dead beside him. The smell of gunpowder hung lankly in the air. The Maccabees dragged the corpses out with them.
Thus, Adolf Hitler passed onto a far more hotter realm than the Germany he had brought destruction to.
With the end of the war, Africa began to change for the better. In South Africa, the Fagan Commission's recomendation of de-segregation was begininng to be implemented. Prime Minister Smuts embraced those results. He was in little danger of any kind of Afrikaner backlash, as his electoral base was amongst the Enlgish and Jewish colonists.
Israel didn't really have many segregation laws.....enfrancisement had always been based on education and property rights, and the Jews, more than any other group of colonists in Africa, had tried to implement them to actually benefit as many as possible.
Debate had started in Israel on just who constituted a Jew. Numerous tribes, most notably the Tutsis, Ugandan Bantus, and the Mwamunzenti had begun adopting Jewish customs (ranging from a few to many). The Orthodox and Hasidic elements of Israeli society stubornly insisted that a strict biblical interpratation be followed.
But there was a growing number of Jews who were starting to take a more secular approach to life. This manifested itself in the growth of Reform movement, which had spread from the United States. Reformers advocated, among other things, total seperation of "church and state," and relaxing the old tracts frowning on conversions. Besides, many argued, if the natives were denied being recognized as Jews simply due to a lack of Orthodoxy, they could always simply vote away the State of Israel.
Meanwhile, the Knesset voted to accept over 100,000 Polish "DPs" (Displaced Persons). Despite some Conservative resistance, Prime Minister Eshkol got the directive passed. "If we had lacked our beloved refuge, then it would have been us in those camps," said the PM during the floor debate.
Jan Smuts and Levi Eshkol both met in the city of Salisbury in April of 1945 to discuss the future of Africa. Both men had embraced the new United Nations to replace the decrepit League of Nations. Now, they both had several paths in front of them. Israel and South Africa, from the 1930s onward, had developed strong economic ties. The war had led to the industrialization of both nations, and a surging economy in each country as well.
Prime Minister Eshkol suggested that since the great colonial powers of Britain and France had been bankrupted by the great conflict, that they would soon be leaving their colonies. Such a hasty departure could very well create great zones of conflict and civil strife.
Smuts suggested that a new sort of union should be formed to ensure stablity in the expected decolonization rush.
Out of the Salisbury Accords, signed in May of 1945 came the foundation for the entity that has turned Africa into a model of democracy and economic growth. The African Federation was meant to promote a stable zone of economic growth. The State of Israel and the Union of South Africa were the founding members. Each nation in the Federation would remain sovereign, but would be be a vehicle for eventual economic unity. The Federation's Parliament would be in Salisbury, South Africa.
The Kingdom of Ethiopia joined in June of 1945. The Ethiopians were staunch allies of the State of Israel, and the Israelis were already helping Haile Salasie's kingdom develop a stable democratic government, as well as a strong economic foundation. Ethiopian students were taken to the finest Israeli schools.
The Israelis continued to move towards further economic and political enfracisement. The Labour Party led the way, not least because Eshkol saw it as a way to squeeze the Conservatives, who were also forced to embrace the new programs for political survival.
With the defeat of Germany, the Commonwealth's Project Sampson would instead be fully directed at Japan, now in its own death throws. The militarists in the Japanese government, blinded by their own extreme traditions and harsh worldview, refused to yield to the obvious.
Finally, in July of 1945, the first atomic bomb in human history, Herzl, was detonated at Woomera. The world would never be the same again. This was soon followed by the American detonation of its own bomb, Fat Man, at Los Alamos.
In August of 1945, two atomic bombs were detonated over the Japanese cities of Nagasaki (the Commwealth's), and Hiroshima (the USA). Followed by Stalin's invasion of Manchuria, the Kuriles, and Japan's portion of Sakhalin Island. Stalin, feeling cheated by lacking a zone of occupation in Germany (whose borders were now at OTL's present day borders), settled for the consolidation of the buffer states in Eastern Europe conquered by the Red Army.
The African Federation remained staunchly anti-communist. The Jews in particular disliked it, since they had no reason to love Russia, the nation that had begat their 20th century Exodus to East Africa.
In late 1945, the Israelis managed to get an interim parliament elected for the Congo. Economic development had spread to the Congo as a result of the Israeli mining expeditions. The Republic of the Congo, with its capital in Kinshasha, would join the African Federation as a full member in 1950. Until then, it remained an Israeli Trust Territory.
The Polish DPs began arriving in Israel, settling mainly in Mogadishu. South Africa took in over 250,000 DPs during this time, firmly eroding the already fringe National Party, which folded without much fanfare in late 1945. This came as the members of the IDF began returning home in greater numbers. The IDF veterans formed the bedrock of the new Labour election strategy. In the elections of 1945, they ran dozens of veterans as candidates, and solidified their majorities in the Knesset.
The Federation gained its fourth member in November 1945. The Republic of Liberia had close ties to the United States. For a long time it had been one of two free African nations. Now, it was part of a growing family.