"Plotting............ will resume tomorrow." Sounds downright sinister.
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"Plotting............ will resume tomorrow." Sounds downright sinister.
Story 1366 June 1 1942 Start of Volume 4
June 1, 1942 Fairbanks Alaska
Another bulldozer was ready to be released from the maintenance depot. The engineering regiments were running through the machinery almost as fast as an auctioneer went through his patter. The highway was steadily expanding east and then south even as the Canadian side of the project edged north and west. By the fall it was scheduled to be done even as the mud ate a bulldozer every week.
Another bulldozer was ready to be released from the maintenance depot. The engineering regiments were running through the machinery almost as fast as an auctioneer went through his patter. The highway was steadily expanding east and then south even as the Canadian side of the project edged north and west. By the fall it was scheduled to be done even as the mud ate a bulldozer every week.
Driftless
Donor
Would the Alaskan highway be running at the same schedule as OTL? Since there's no Aleutian Campaign in this alternate reality would that take some of the urgency and hence resources away from completing the AlCan road?
Story 1367
Southwest of Ras Lanuf June 2, 1942
Two armored cars stopped. Even as the riders scrambled to put up the mottled netting to offer some cover, three more trucks arrived. Within half an hour, one section was guarding the vehicles while the rest of the patrol began to advance. The flames from the recaptured port were still touching the sky. Very little had been captured before the Italian and German engineers wrecked the small town. The infantry regiments that had captured the city were more comfortable living in tents outside of the ruins.
The men advanced single file. Three men were the point element, one man was thirty yards in front of the other two who were his support. The rest of the column was almost one hundred yards behind them. The lead man carried his rifle. He knew that if the enemy was ready, he would never have the chance to fire his weapon so he kept his grip light and easy even as his eyes focused on the dune lines looking for anything that was too smooth or too regular. The other two men were an immediate reserve, one carrying a brand new Sten gun and the other carried a rifle with a quintet of rifle grenades. Their mission was to create enough chaos if the patrol got jumped to give everyone else a chance.
Four hours later, the patrol found a good hide on the reverse slope of a dune. Men began digging into the cold desert sand looking for create both shelter from shells and from the incessent heat of the mid-day sun. Even before the desert turned to a brilliant copper-gold color with the dawn, every man had finished his hide in the sand and had his eyes protected from the glare even as they were drinking the second of their canteens for the day. They would stay here for the day, and complete the patrol once night fell again.
Two armored cars stopped. Even as the riders scrambled to put up the mottled netting to offer some cover, three more trucks arrived. Within half an hour, one section was guarding the vehicles while the rest of the patrol began to advance. The flames from the recaptured port were still touching the sky. Very little had been captured before the Italian and German engineers wrecked the small town. The infantry regiments that had captured the city were more comfortable living in tents outside of the ruins.
The men advanced single file. Three men were the point element, one man was thirty yards in front of the other two who were his support. The rest of the column was almost one hundred yards behind them. The lead man carried his rifle. He knew that if the enemy was ready, he would never have the chance to fire his weapon so he kept his grip light and easy even as his eyes focused on the dune lines looking for anything that was too smooth or too regular. The other two men were an immediate reserve, one carrying a brand new Sten gun and the other carried a rifle with a quintet of rifle grenades. Their mission was to create enough chaos if the patrol got jumped to give everyone else a chance.
Four hours later, the patrol found a good hide on the reverse slope of a dune. Men began digging into the cold desert sand looking for create both shelter from shells and from the incessent heat of the mid-day sun. Even before the desert turned to a brilliant copper-gold color with the dawn, every man had finished his hide in the sand and had his eyes protected from the glare even as they were drinking the second of their canteens for the day. They would stay here for the day, and complete the patrol once night fell again.
The Alaskan Highway OTL was approved February, 1942 and the Aleutian campaign did not start until June 4, 1942 so there are almost no plausible drivers for a significant divergence. The US still thinks Alaska could be plausibly threatened and also that it could plausibly threaten Northern Japan.
Exactly .. a total waste. Expend the dozers on a different road
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Agreed it is a total waste but I don't have a plausible reason for someone to say "WHY ARE WE DOING THIS .... really...." and since the US is operating with slightly higher material endowment, the typical prioritization against dumb ideas because of not enough available capacity won't happen. hell, there is a decent chance that an extra engineering platoon or a trio of trucks has been allocated to the project.
Story 1368
Malta June 2, 1942
The submarine approached the harbor. The gunners at Fort St. Elmo’s concrete towers tracked the submarine without firing. As the wind picked up, laughter broke out and then cheers. HMS Marlin was flying a Jolly Roger and a broom from her periscope.
Hours later the submarine was secure to the naval base inside of Marsamxett Harbour. Her crew was handing her off to the shipyard workers for a short burst of repairs and tweaks. They would have at least two days ashore before they were needed back onboard to get ready for the next patrol.
The young lieutenant commander who commanded the small American made submarine looked over the log one last time before passing operational control of his boat to his Jimmy. The typed patrol report was tucked under his arm and he headed over to headquarters to report the success of the patrol: three torpedoes out of four fired had obliquely struck and exploded along the entire length of a Zara class heavy cruiser. Four torpedoes fired crippled but did not sink a large tanker of at least 7,500 tons as only one torpedo detonated. The rest of the torpedoes were fired at a trio of merchant ships between 2,000 and 3,000 tons. One sank after one torpedo hit and exploded. Two duds were observed. The hunting patch near the western tip of Sicily was overflowing with coastal patrols and almost continual daylight air cover. She had bumped into a single mine that had failed to detonate in an uncharted minefield. The hunting had been good but the danger was extreme.
By nightfall, his report had been delivered, and he had been debriefed by the squadron intelligence and operations planners. Marlin would be due to head back out in a week for a mine laying patrol near Tunis.
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Story 1369
Russia, June 2, 1942
Light was painful. Somewhere a small man was dancing a polka on his skull. His feet were trampling between his forehead and his ears, cushioned only by a thin layer of gauze. He tried to turn his head slowly so that the old, uncoordinated dancer would fall off to no avail. A stiff board kept his neck in one place. He flexed his eyebrows and the dancer moved slightly until he was two-tapping atop of a nerve.
He grunted and within a few minutes, he felt a feminine hand grip his fingers that he had forgotten that he had possessed.
“Comrade general, glad to see you awake…. Let me get you some water”
A straw was placed into his mouth and he sipped tentatively at first and then greedily, moisture soaking into the crevices and cracks of his dry mouth. As the nurse pulled the straw away from him so that he would not drink too quickly, his eyes scanned the hospital ward. A dozen beds were within sight. Most of the men were bandaged and restrained in a variety of positions. Half a dozen orderlies and nurses were taking care of the wounded. Two were moving a man’s leg despite his screams of pain as the scar tissue had to be broken up if he was to ever walk again. Another was removing a bed pan and the rest were like the nurse, addressing the various needs that the wounded bed cases had.
“I need to see my men, what happened to my division comrade nurse?”
“Some of them are in other wards and floors here, as for the rest of the division, I don’t know”
“Can you take me to those wards?”
She paused and thought. She would need three aides to move the wounded general to a wheelchair.
“Not today, but tomorrow morning after the doctors check on you, if nothing else is found, we can go downstairs”
He was satisfied, he could see at least some of the men who had gone into the maelstrom outside of Kharkov with him. The last day of the failed counter-attack was almost forgettable as there was no sense in the violence. Every step was observed by the fascists who alternated air strikes and artillery barrages when their machine gunners were not firing into the flanks of the depleted battalions and regiments of his division. As he laid in bed that night, he could hear the cries of the wounded, boys asking for water and their mother and the moans of broken horses. He thought about the last minutes that he could remember of that day and decided that it had to have been an artillery shell that wounded him as no one had called out in alarm about Stukas unlike the other dozen times they had been attacked that day.
The next day, the doctors looked at their work on the young general’s face and they were satisfied. No more work would be needed, he could heal and rehabilitate before being sent back to the front again. Twenty minutes later, the general was gently lifted into a crude wheelchair and pushed down to a burn ward where he saw three dozen men that he had commanded.
Story 1370
Timor, June 3, 1942
Shells reached the apex of their journeys and then tipped over. Steel screamed downwards and then as the fuses were crushed, the explosives packing the interior of the case detonated, sending hundreds of shards in a fan pattern. Four Marine Wildcats were north of the artillery free fire zone as the first attack by the freshly arrived Marine battalion was going forward to clear out a Japanese outpost line that was sitting on the flank of the slow general advance eastward. The Marines were attached to the Massachusetts National Guard infantry regiment. The artillery battalion raised in Worcester was busy supporting the Marines' initial advance.
Josh looked briefly at the artillery shells screeching through the air. As long as his section of four Wildcats stayed to the north, he would be safe. His eyes scanned the front even as his ears monitored the radio. A flight of A-24 Dauntlesses covered by a half a dozen P-40s were two minutes out. Off in the distance, below him, something flashed. He called in the sighting and the airfield acknowledged the report even as he wiggled his wings to bring the other three Wildcats with him. They entered a sharp turn and as the four stubby fighters got closer, the glints of light became shapes and those shapes became green Japanese Lily bombers. Two Wildcats stayed high as Josh led his wingman down.
The fast bombers did not see their attackers until the robin blue Wildcats were less than a mile away. Thirty five seconds was an eternity as the bombers split. Two continued forward and a pair turned north while the other pair turned south. The Wildcats pressed forward against the central pair. Josh lined up his gun sight and he could see in his mind’s eye where the bombers would be in a second and a half. Even as the four heavy machine guns began to fire, the single defensive machine gun on the nearest bomber attempted to scare him away. Four .50 caliber guns against a single rifle caliber gun carried by an unstable bomber was not a fair contest. The single stream of bullets arced underneath the fighter while the burst fired by an expert marksman slammed into the cockpit. Three dozen slugs shattered instruments even as one spent all of its energy fragmenting the pilot’s femur. Another short burst started fires on the starboard engine and the bomber tilted over before slamming into the jungle below.
Josh broke his attack run and turned back to friendly lines as he gained altitude. His wingman had half a dozen bullet holes in his right wing, no serious damage as the other element of Wildcats greeted the new ace and his watcher at 11,000 feet where they could resume covering the advance of the Marine battalion.
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Driftless
Donor
The chief gazinks at Newport on reading the relayed intelligence reports about the duds: "Whadda those damn Limey's know... Pfft, just covering their fat backends over their own failures"
a Little nitpick on post 8215, just because this is such a good time line. In WW2 the submarine base HMS Talbot at Malta was not in the Grand Harbour but on Manoel Island in Marsamxett Harbour. When present prewar and post war, the submarine depot ship was moored in either Lazeretto Creek or Msida Creek.
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