Keynes' Cruisers

[fester]

December 10, 1941 Vigan, Luzon 1432 Manila time

The surviving P-35s of the 34th Pursuit Squadron swept in low over the beach just west of the city of Vigan. The obsolete but modern looking fighters were out of their element but this was the best use for them. They could not fight the modern Japanese fighters, they were at best an even match against Claudes and Nates and dogmeat against anything newer. Their wet wing, and the lack of armor made ground attack an extremely risky but non-suicidal proposition.

Each had been armed with a pair of one hundred pound bombs and a full load of machine gun ammunition. They had taken off an hour earlier from Nichols Field after reports from the 21st Division that the Japanese were landing at Vigan. There had been talk about coordinating the P-35s with a sortie by Flying Fortresses operating out of Del Monte, but the big, modern bombers would be at least another three hours away. The Second Battalion of the 21st Infantry Regiment was fighting hard, but they were outnumbered and outgunned. The commander of the 21st Division had asked for any and all support as soon as possible so that the battalion could break contact and retreat south. The 34th Squadron was the only support available.

So they flew low, fast and out of their element. The first flight of fighter bombers attempted to loft bomb a large freighter. The bombs missed by so much that the freighter captain did not know he was targeted. However the explosions throwing up sea water alerted the Japanese flotilla that there were enemy bombers nearby and the next flight saw a cacophony of flak reach out. The leader was aiming for an old World War 1 destroyer that had been converted into a fast transport. His left wing was clipped by 25mm fire and the instability of the damage combined with the 240 mph approach at 150 feet left no room for him to recover. The second plane strafed the old destroyer and placed both bombs off the port bow. The small explosive charges sprayed the exposed crew with water but no casualties. The third and fourth aircraft in the second flight were disrupting by the increasingly heavy flak. Three of the four bombs went wide by several hundred yards, the last bomb failed to release.

The last flight of fighters bore in on the 630 ton minesweeper W-10. She was exposed out in front of the main body. Her three heavy guns banged away at the fighters, but she could only bring a single 25mm mount to bear. The American fighters dipped their noses and started to strafe the water leading up to her in order to gain an appreciation of the angles needed for the bomb release. The first bomb missed short, while the next three bombs penetrated her deck. The first bomb crashed through her engineering space before detonating, killing all power to the ship, while the second bomb exploded just beneath her bridge, while the final bomb penetrating the deck over the magazine for the 4.7 inch guns. Any one of these hits would have been devastating, but all three soon led to a series of uncontrolled explosions as her depth charges cooked off.

The surviving American fighters rallied ten miles north of the Vigan beachhead, and curved back around. They strafed the rear of the Japanese positions, killing half a dozen men manning a section of mortars and then escaping to the south. The material effects of the raid were not significant, but the 350 defenders saw that they had air cover that could inflict the same harm on their enemy that their enemy had been inflicting on them.

Two companies held a line just east of town for three hours after the airstrike while the last company and a group of mining engineers prepared the bridge over the Lagben River for demolition. Once the demolition wires were prepared, the two holding companies rapidly leapfrogged in retreat to the bridge. A company would run two hundred yards and establish a new cover position before the other company ran four hundred yards. The first company would use their three BARs and two Lewis guns to keep the Japanese pursuit honest until the second company was ready to cover their retreat.

By dusk, the battalion had crossed the bridge in reasonably good order with lightly wounded men already on horses being lead to the rear and severely wounded men in three of the battalion's twelve trucks. The company commander of the third company was the last man across the bridge as he ran through the rain of shells that from Japanese artillery that had been harassing the retreat for the past hour. As soon as he was fifty yards on the far bank, the mining engineers detonated the charges on the bridge. Three hundred pounds of dynamite severed the steel supports from the piers and another hundred pounds of dynamite created a clean break in the middle span.

The Japanese Army would be able to repair that bridge but it would take at least two days for it to be sufficiently stable to support anything heavier than a large infantryman.

 

[fester]

December 10, 1941 1400 Rangoon

“I’m sorry General, you need surgery to correct the previous surgery for your anal fissures. The last surgeon failed to clean up the entire impacted area. We can schedule you for the end of the week”

“Doctor, how long will I be hospitalized”

“Typical recovery is several weeks of hospitalization and then light duty for another month”

Major General Smyth paused for a moment. His Division, the 17th Indian Division, had just started to arrive in Rangoon over the past several days. During the entire time, his stomach was off and every step he took was painful. His chief of staff and his executive officer both encouraged him to see a doctor this morning as he had not been able to leave the water closet for an hour before the morning briefing.

If he entered the hospital, he would be leaving the war. A hero leaving the war because he could not shit right. Yet, he could barely think as his mind was focused on defecation.

“Doctor, let me have a few days to make arrangements for my division and responsibilites but please schedule me for surgery early next week”

With that, the process to find a new commander for the Black Cats started.

 

[fester]

December 11, 1941 0330 Wake Island

Every Marine on the island had been awake for the past three hours. Dauntlesses had detected the invasion convoy on the afternoon of the 9th. The patrol planes had attacked the convoy three times with 500 pound bombs. A single patrol boat had been damaged from near misses and after the landing party sailors had been transferred to other ships, he turned back to Roi-Namur.

Nell bombers had attacked the island twice more. The first raid was a high level raid at 22,000 feet to avoid the Marine fighters. That was successful, as only one bomber was shot down but the bombs moved sand and little else. The second raid was a low level attack by 12 Nells. They had succeeded in bombing the primary dispersal area, killing thirty Marine maintainers and destroying a pair of Wildcats and a trio of Dauntlesses on the ground. However the CAP descended on them and harried them out to sea. Only six bombers would ever fly again.

The invasion force had zigged and zagged. It was covered by two heavy cruisers and a trio of light cruisers. The half dozen transports held 1,500 men for the landing parties. Some of the men had been assigned to the Guam invasion but their landing team was re-allocated to Wake as pre-war overflights had shown that the Americans were evacuating Guam even as Wake was strengthened.

Major Devereux had planned to ambush any invasion force. He was confident that his Marines could defeat a landing but it would be far easier to prevent a landing.

The 8 inch guns had been well hidden on the island. They were always undercover when any civilian was within 50 miles of the island and twelve large and obvious fake gun barrels had been poorly emplaced at various locations around the island. The heavy guns were protecting the main lagoon entrance and the south beach. The lighter 5 inch 51 caliber guns were in heavily prepared positions at the points of Wake’s triangle shape. Each battery had its own director and each director position was tied into three redundant telephone lines. The rest of the garrison was either in reinforced concrete bunkers or in fighting positions with plenty of overhead protection.

The guns were loaded, the crews adjusting the range finders as the Japanese warships crept into position, first 10,000 yards away where the pair of heavy cruisers began to slowly steam parallel to the southwest shore. The rest of the force then they moved to 7,000 yards away before the light cruisers broke off from the destroyers and patrol boats, and then 4,500 yards away.

No one on either side had fired as the small dark blobs on the horizon became clearly defined occlusions of light that continued to approach the island. Guns tracked each their targets. The heavy cruisers were loading a mix of high explosive and semi-armor piercing shells for a hurricane bombardment that was scheduled to land just minutes before the first assault wave should be approaching the shingle. The American guns were focused on the nearer ships. As the light cruisers moved closer, the heavy eight inch guns slowly shifted to track their targets.

“Fire, fire, fire” came across the intercoms in each battery’s operation chamber. The voice was slightly high pitched, but sure and confident that they could now defend themselves. Within a minute, the coastal defense batteries of Wake opened fire. Batteries L and K, each with two five inch guns, concentrated on a destroyer apiece. Their first rounds were wild but corrections were being shouted as soon as splashes were seen.

Battery Boxboro, with two eight inch guns from USS Lexington, had been tracking the light cruiser Tatsuta. The Japanese warships were surprised as they believed their aviators claims that the defenses of Wake Island had been destroyed despite the heavy bomber losses. Battery Acton had no nearby targets, so the two guns lofted shells at the heavy cruiser Kinugasa. The last five inch battery was silent as no ships were within their field of fire.

Within minutes, a light cruiser and a pair of destroyers were sinking. The light cruiser had split in two when a pair of 8 inch shells penetrated the thin armor that boxed her forward magazine. One destroyer was flooding from a half dozen hits. Her engineers were trying to contain the damage and may have succeeded until she backed into a contact mine. Aboard Hayate, fires consumed her. Flames licked her superstructure. Her depth charges were cast overboard without arming. Shells for her guns were either fired rapidly at barely seen American positions or thrown into the sea. Suddenly, the western sky lit up as the oxygen tanks near the torpedo tubes overheated and added to the fires. American defenders could faintly hear the screams of burning men from two miles away.

Forty one minutes after the first shell was fired, the invasion force had turned around having lost a light cruiser and a pair of destroyers and suffering modest damage to a heavy cruiser and a trio of transports.

 

[fester]

December 10, 1941 North Atlantic

A single Canadian flown Catalina circled the convoy. The amphibian had replaced a squadron mate an hour earlier and would be covering the slow merchant convoy until dark. Forty seven fat hulled and slow ships carrying food, fuel, and things that went boom zigged and zagged across the ocean. A single modern American destroyer as well as an two four stackers were the primary escorts. A pair of Altoona class gunboats, an armed yacht and a single Coast Guard cutter completed the escort group. They would carry the convoy to the mid-ocean hand-off where a Canadian group of destroyers, sloops and corvettes would proceed to usher the ships to Liverpool.

As the ships pushed forward, a single U-boat waited. His captain had maneuvered underwater for hours, using up some of his precious battery life to get to the position for a shot if the ships went the right way for him. Four torpedoes entered the water and four ran true. Even as the U-boat went past 200 feet and his screws turned for a burst of speed, the four torpedoes hit. USS Lynchburg, the second Altoona class austere escort built, had been hit solidly in the bow and beneath her stacks. Her crew scrambled and half were able to enter a boat or the water before her back broke and she went under in seven minutes. A bulk carrier hauling paper, ore and powdered milk broke in half and sank within the hour. The yacht, the convoy's rescue ship hurried through the broken convoy to pull freezing men out of the hypothermia inducing water as quickly as she could as the other escorts raced down the torpedo tracks in an unsuccessful hunt.

The convoy continued east at a steady seven knots.

 

[fester]

December 11, 1941 1300 near the Thai-Malayan border

A company of Punjabi infantry ambushed a Japanese infantry column supported by three tanks near the Thai border. They had arrived in the village two days before and spent most of their time digging in. Clear lines of fire were prepared for the Vickers machine guns and the section of anti-tank guns. Engineers had placed demolition charges in every culvert. A dozen landmines lined the road and a line of observation posts extended two hundred yards into the jungle.

The forward listening post had sent a runner back to the main position fifteen minutes ago that the first Japanese column had been sighted. Three tanks and three companies of infantry with a pair of mountain guns were marching down the road. The lead company was the vanguard with the tanks separating that company from its fellows. Twenty minutes and the Japanese would make contact with the main delaying positions.

Every man waited. Nineteen year old volunteers who wanted an adventure or at least a sight of the world beyond the flooded river valleys and the back end of an ox that was their home clutched their rifles tightly and put out a brave face when their sergeants came by their fox holes and told them to relax and remember their training. A Viceroy Commissioned Officer, a gnarled veteran of many deployments looked over his position one last time and worried about his tea going cold.

The two English officers were nervous; one had fought in France and was injured during the evacuation from Dunkirk.

The other was a novice, and afraid to show his inexperience and his fear. The fear that he could fail, the fear that he were not who they imagined himself to be, the fear that his men would die pointlessly, the fear that the elephant would trample him as he saw it the first time.

Fear of dying was real, but it was not a primary fear for these young men who everyone else counted on to keep their heads despite this being their first action.

Suddenly, the lead Japanese company came into view. They had spread out as they entered the town and advanced warily. This was a natural choke point and ambush position. Three eight ton tanks followed them, silence filled the road as civilians had fled when they could and taken cover when they could not. No one was about. Violence was in the air.

A pop of a flare gun went off and a green flare arced over the Japanese force. This was the signal for the ambush. Anti-tank guns barked and Vickers chattered in controlled bursts. Riflemen ran through the routine, shoot,shoot, shoot, move to a new position. Within seconds the Japanese infantry had hit the ground and started to return fire

Ten minutes of intense fighting left three tanks burning as ammunition cooked off. The two-pounder anti-tank guns and a section of Boys anti-tank rifles left all three Japanese tanks on fire. Heavy machine gun fire forced the Japanese infantry to the ground until darkness. In the dark, the second company was able to slip into the jungle and re-appear behind the Punjabi’s half an hour later. Fierce hand to hand fighting punctuated by the din of pistol shots and bursting grenades relieved the pressure on the rest of the Japanese advance guard. The flanking company was beaten off, but the Punjabis hurried to their dozen bivouacked trucks and withdrew down the road, abandoning a pair of machine guns and a single anti-tank gun.

 

[fester]

December 10, 1941 Philadelphia Naval Shipyard

HMS Furious was guided into the main shipping channel of the Delaware River. Her engines were freshened up and her anti-aircraft suite improved with almost a score of new 20 millimeter guns. Other minor repairs and revitalizations were made to the old carrier. She would meet with a pair of American destroyers at the mouth of the river before her air group came back aboard. A day of qualifications was needed and then she was due to join Indomitable at Norfolk.

As the carrier was leaving the refit slip, USS North Carolina stood in queue. She had shaken down. She was supposed to be a brutally efficient fast battleship and her gun crews had an excellent shoot earlier in the week so she was a battleship although her shakes still kept her from outrunning the World War 1 veterans that made up the Atlantic Fleet battle line. Maybe the next repair would be the one that made her a truly fast battleship.

 

[fester]

December 11, 1941 Washington DC

For some inexplicable reason, the German ambassador requested an early morning meeting with the Secretary of State. At that meeting, he delivered a declaration of war.

As soon as that news was spread through Washington, chaos piled atop of the frenzied activity that had not stopped since Sunday afternoon. Ships that were supposed to head to the Pacific had their orders held, pursuit and bombardment squadrons that would be tasked with covering American possessions in the Eastern Pacific would stay put. None of the men whose lives would change because of this news knew of the changes in the plans as they had not been told where they would be needed yet.

Three high priority messages were sent within an hour. All American carriers in the Atlantic Fleet were to be held in port or restricted to local operations until further notice. The Pensacola convoy would continue to at least Australia until the situation in the Philippines was clarified. And Admiral Nimitz would become the Pacific Fleet commander while Admiral Kimmel would still maintain his command until the arrival of his replacement.

 

[fester]

December 11, 1941 1730 Norfolk Virginia

Nineteen men were all standing at attention. Two admirals, one American and one British were looking at the still and silent men, their carrier air group commanders and some of their more experienced operational planners and attack squadron leaders. They had been called into the office with no warning of what the meeting would be about. They had been scrambling to either get the pair of Royal Navy carriers on the US East Coast ready to return to Home Fleet and then deployment to the Mediterranean or the Far East or preparing the American carriers to head to the Pacific. And now their preparations were interrupted.

Admiral Hewitt started the conversation after the long and pregnant silence:

“Gentlemen, please tell us, your theoretical superiors, what the hell this Operation Bathhouse is? I’ve been hearing rumors of it for weeks and I want to hear it from the horses’ mouth instead of the horse’s ass”

Yorktown’s CAG, Lt. Commander Pederson, stepped forward. He was the commander of the most experienced and well trained American carrier group and he had encouraged the discussions the most.

“Sir, Bathhouse was a training exercise that was predicated on a large, multi-carrier task force attacking the two German battlecruisers in Brest.”

"Just a training exercise?"

"Yes sir, just a training exercise and not an actual attack plan but it would be readily convertible to an attack plan, sir."

“How many variations of Bathhouse are there?”

“Three primary variants. Bathhouse-1 used three Atlantic Fleet carriers and had dive bombers as the primary attack formation. CAGs 4,5, and 7 have run this scenario twice while 8 has done this once. We've attacked cow pastures in North Carolina.

Bathhouse-2 was just the four carriers of Home Fleet intending to replicate the Taranto mission. Furious and Indomitable squadrons simulated the attack three times, most recently last week when they overflew Baltimore.

The final training scenario was Bathhouse-3 which combined Bathhouse 1 and 2.”

Admiral Hewitt paused for a moment as he considered his words.

“Please tell me how many times Bathhouse-3 was practiced as a combined US Navy and Royal Navy operation while we were not at war with the intended target?”

“None, sir; it had been discussed over beer on a frequent basis and I assigned a meddlesome JG to mock up the plan as a way to keep him busy and out of trouble.”

“And how prepared are those plans, commander?”

“We could execute a tabletop exercise by the end of the week and fly it a few days after that.”

Admiral Hewitt looked at his Royal Navy counterpart. They had heard what they unofficially expected to hear. Significant strength was still needed in the Atlantic to contain German capability, but Bathhouse offered a path to being able to transfer ships to the Pacific without uncovering more vital missions.

“Very well, next Monday we tabletop and Thursday we fly Bathhouse-3; Also, never again plan a joint operation against a nation that one of the two navies is not at war without informing your admirals. We don’t like being surprised.”

 

[fester]

December 11, 1941 Somewhere in the Pacific

The transports bobbed in the placid waves. They were still far from their destination and that destination was becoming less and less knowable. USS Concord led the gaggle of ships forward.

Sergeant Donohue did not care about the maneuvers of the captains and the admirals. He had three cares at the moment. First, he cared about the ongoing poker game going on in the NCO mess deck. As of the last hand, he was up $165.21 since the transports left New York. It was not hard to see when a man thought his cards were too good although the number of easy marks was slowly declining throughout the trip as they either learned to be better or they left the game entirely.

He also cared about his team. They had mounted the machine guns on an impromptu welded contraption made of hollow pipes and ball bearings. Other machine guns sections had done the same since word of the attack on Pearl Harbor. During daylight hours, half of the Army’s machine guns were manned at all times. He had to keep his team on the ball and alert during their shift, the navy called them a watch. After that, he had to keep his team involved in physical training and classroom lectures. They were going to war once they figured out where that war actually would be.


And finally, he cared about the letter he was writing to his wife. He had just started it.


‘Dearest Elaine,

The seas are open and broad, promising so much and smelling so different than the beaches at Salisbury and Hampton. The ocean now has a clarity that I could never have imagined, having seen Boston and New York harbors, I never knew the ocean could be clean. We are aboard the ship that you kissed me onto and we are somewhere far far away. I could ask the navy guys but anything they tell me would not matter. We were told that the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor and there is fighting in the Philippines, we might be heading there, we might be going somewhere else. No one has told us yet.


I promise I will be safe and come home to you and our baby. I promise you the world and on all of my love for you that once this war is over, we will go on a ship far more comfortable than this one to someplace warm and safe so that you too can see the beauty of a clear sea…..”


He needed to write more and say more to his wife, so he chewed on his pencil for a moment and looked out over the ship’s stern and at the foaming wake and let his mind wander until the words could find him.

 

[fester]

And if N. Carolina can get her vibration problem fixed for additional AAA, also Which Atlanta's are available for escort?

None of the Atlanta's will be ready in time for Bathhouse

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/keynes-cruisers.388788/page-232#post-15958159

 

[fester]

December 12, 1941 Murmansk

Convoy PQ-6 had arrived. Nine merchant ships were being brought to their piers by steam tugs while the Royal Navy escort of a single light cruiser, a pair of destroyers and a handful of other, smaller warships stayed further up the bay until a minor issue could be resolved by the harbor master. The only danger during the passage was the southward edge of the pack ice was much further south than it usually was. The cold winds had allowed for a faster and broader freeze. Sailors reported seeing at least one periscope every day but no torpedoes ever came for the convoy.

 

[fester]

December 12, 1941 Dawn, Hong Kong


HMS Thracian pounded through the narrow waters between the New Territories and the original island of the colony. Her guns were manned and an extra three dozen men were brought aboard to operate the light machine guns. She was the only plausible threat to the assault that everyone on the island knew was coming. The four battalions that garrisoned the colony as an outpost were insufficient for actual resistance. They had been enough of a presence to force the Japanese to make an overt and non-deniable move that would result in war if they wanted the colony but war had come anyways. They were expendable now.

As the destroyer got in close to the opposite shore line, her machine guns and pom-poms fired on a trio of junks, setting one ablaze, and holing another until it sank. The Japanese artillery started to fire and it was quickly obvious that they were not used to shooting at rapidly moving targets. Thracian dodged the shell fire until she approached the eastern edge of the channel where a trio of Japanese anti-tank guns waited for her. They fired, and fired again, and fired once more as heavy machine gunners supported them by rapid and accurate bursts of fire into the ship’s hull. The Royal Navy sailors and the machine gunners from the Middlessex Regiment were exposed and cut down on the deck. Soon the destroyer had to turn her stern to the anti-tank ambush and run to the open sea where her surviving crew could deal with the half dozen small fires and three score holes in her hull between wind and water.

As she eased her way back to the dock, she was deemed to be useless without significant repairs that the colony could not do in time. The discussion to start making a decision began. Before night fall, a tug boat pulled the old destroyer to deeper water outside of the harbor and opened up her seacocks. Coastal defense guns were spiked and the last of the useful facilities began to be destroyed. As this was happening, a delegation under a white flag went across the bay to discuss terms with the invading Japanese.

 

[fester]

December 12, 1941 20 minutes after dawn, Singapore

The last Hurricane from 30 Squadron had entered the landing circle. Radar had detected a large air raid before dawn and the fighters had scrambled into the low but increasing light. As the Mitsubishi bombers came closer to the port city, they stayed in tight formation even as their fighter escorts chomped at the bit.

Sixty bombers had departed their bases and fifty seven were in formation when the defenders of Singapore started their attacks. One squadron of Hurricanes tangled with the dozen Zeros. The Japanese pilots, to the man, grinned as the Hurricanes tried to dance with them. A swirling dogfight started and then quickly ended as the surviving half of the squadron dove for the deck. The British pilots would claim five kills. All but one Japanese fighter actually returned to base and almost all of those survivors would be available for a late afternoon sortie.

The Hurricanes of 30 Squadron had the chance to climb higher and earlier so they dove into the bomber groups. Heavy 20 millimeter cannons pounded lightly built bombers. Seven bombers would be claimed as sure kills and another trio were trailing smoke by the time the escorting Zeros could intervene. Two fighters had been lost to the bombers’ defensive fire and another one was lost on the first head on pass by a Zero. The more eager British pilots wanted to dogfight but the squadron commander’s South African accented voice ordered his men to head for the deck and egress as they were outnumbered and out organized.

The remaining bombers flew through the heavy anti-aircraft fire of the fleet and naval base to drop their bomb loads on the base and the airfield at Sembawang. One hanger quickly collapsed and some workshops were wrecked. The fleet was barely damaged. A few ships had minor shrapnel scars and a dozen sailors were killed by a stray bomb.

 

[fester]

December 12, 1941 Pearl Harbor

USS Langley entered the still smoking ruins of Pearl Harbor. She had been at sea for the past seventy days and typically she would have a twenty or thirty day yard period to repair any of the minor issues a long hard voyage inflicted on an old ship. The repair ship Vestal could devote three days of temporary ad-hoc repairs for Langley before the old collier was due to pick up the forward elements of the 13th Pursuit Squadron from Hickam Air Base.

As she tied up, she blew her whistle as the Pacific Fleet’s carriers began to leave harbor to cover the first Wake Island relief force.

 

[fester]

December 12, 1941 Fort Benning, Georgia

The 2nd Armored Division was back in the field. New draftees had arrived right after Thanksgiving and some of the better men who had figured out how to keep the new M-3 tanks running and fighting well had been pulled back out to become instructors at the training schools and cadre for other armored divisions. Six battalions of tanks were all maneuvering as a chaotic whole. Armored infantrymen were clutching their helmets tight as their chins bobbed and their bones rattled with the half tracks and trucks advancing across the cold Georgia ground.

Their divisional commander was flying over the multiple battalion level training exercises in a Piper Cub. He leaned out the window and saw two companies of new Grant tanks advancing into an obvious ambush. The scouts were not far enough forward and the tankers were thinking like cavalry men trying to break a square. Notes were quickly scribbled and the notebook placed back in the pocket near his pearl handled revolver. A few minutes later, the notebook came out again as a combined tank and infantry team was slowly working their way through a potential ambush alley. The infantry were moving forward in rushes while the tanks found hides that still allowed them to cover the infantrymen with their heavy cannons and machine guns. The progress was slow as the team leapfrogged forward and more than once it was obvious from the air that something had gone wrong with the communication. It was also obvious that the men on the ground knew that they had SNAFU-ed something as men walked to the back of tanks and slammed their canteens against the steel walls to start a conversation.

An hour later, the small observation aircraft landed at the post's airfield. The general stretched his legs and collected his thoughts in his first two steps. He had work to do, his men had work to do. This was one of the divisions that had been marked for overseas contingencies and they still needed more time to get ready.

 

[fester]

December 13, 1941 West of Moscow

The 90th Division had entered combat for the first time that morning. A Soviet cavalry corps was probing forward. The first patrols recoiled as well supplied and warm German infantry outposts machine gunned the Cossacks who had crested a small ridge line that was no more than two men tall.

Along the division’s front, sharp, short actions started and then ended as patrols ran into outposts and scouts battled enemy scouts. Artillery was occasionally called for and seldom released as the infantry regiments with their own assets were able to hold the line so far.

Further west, remnants of German battle groups were congealing and reforming. The Luftwaffe had started to airlift critical supplies including winter clothing, ammunition and fatty food forward. 184 transports had been released from Luftflotte 4 the day before. The trickle of supplies were insufficient for sustained offensive combat but they gave the battered front line units enough to continue to fight and function. The meteorologists were not optimistic about the air supply operations continuing for long as the weather was incredibly cold but every little bit helped.

 

[fester]

December 13, 1941 near Jitra

The last company from the Thai raiding force had returned to the almost complete defensive positions just outside of Jitra. The brigade that had entered Thailand on the morning of the 8th had returned intact and in reasonably good order. There mission was not to stop the Japanese, it was to delay them by blowing up as much infrastructure while forcing Japanese advance guards to deploy and conduct deliberate attacks.

The III Indian Corps was now ready. The experienced 5th Division had two brigades on line with the last brigade in the corps reserve. The 11th Indian Division also had two brigades on line with the third brigade in close echelon to the forward units. That deployment was not particularly creative but the frontage was narrow enough where firepower and availability most likely would beat creativity.

Heavy rains over the past few weeks had rendered the task of digging in at Jitra painful and inefficient. Trenches were deep enough to offer good protection against shell fire but the water table was highh enough that most feet would be soaked through within minutes of standing in the bottom of the trenches. The experienced men of the 5th had been the more effective scroungers and had built wooden firing steps and otherwise sought to make their defenses more effective and more comfortable. Telephone and telegraph wires were strung all over the battlefield. The artillery lines were more likely to be encased in piping to offer some protection but more than a few wires were shorting out every hour due to seepage. This was not the ideal position but it was strong enough.

Two Japanese divisions with a regiment of tanks were coming down the trunk road. Scouting parties had been tracking the Japanese advance for the past three days. They were advancing with scouts out in front and out wide to avoid ambushes and surprises. As the Japanese advanced down the trunk road, the first heavy artillery batteries consisting of the corps reserve 6 inch guns started to fire high explosive and shrapnel harassment missions against the road. This was still grid square targeted and not observed fire, but it was enough to remind the experienced Japanese soldiers that they were no longer fighting lightly armed Chinese infantry any more.

By mid-afternoon, the Japanese artillery had been brought up and two waves of light bombers had attacked the Indian lines. A regiment of infantry was seen disappearing into the forest east of the trunk road while most of two divisions began to push forward, probing for weak points in the four brigades that blocked the road south into the heart of Malaya.

 

[fester]

December 14, 1941 Wake Island

The last Catalina departed for Midway carrying five stretcher patients. The seaplane base was still operational, but it was not safe to only operate three amphibians when there were only seven fighters available to provide cover for the entire island. The Japanese had accelerated their air raids after the first invasion attempt had been beaten off. The last raid had been successful in damaging an anti-aircraft battery and destroying another Dauntless on the ground. The striking force for the island was now down to four dive bombers.


Thirty miles off shore, one of those dive bombers was conducting an anti-submarine and anti-invasion patrol. Those two tasks were in direct opposition to each other but the lack of aircraft made the pilot attempt the impossible. The single 500 pound bomb slung underneath the belly of the bomber was a significant weapon. The pilot saw a submarine in a zone where he was told that no American submarines would be operating. It was on the surface, evidently charging batteries in the early morning light. His gunner sent in a sighting report and received an acknowledgement even as the bomber edged over into a glide bombing attack. As the plane passed 2,000 feet, the submarine started to dive underneath the waves. It was a race to see who could go as low as they wished to first.


The bomber won the race. The heavy steel egg was dropped and fell forward. The pilot squeezed the trigger and the bomber’s light machine gun armament fired. Most of the bullets just made the water foam but some hit the steel hull of the submarine and made the men inside clench their bowels as they heard the pings and dings of hits and near misses.


The bomb missed, but just barely. It entered the water 15 yards from the submarine’s sail and exploded eleven feet under water. The bomb was now acting as a depth charge and it crippled the submarine as its hull plates were bent and flooding started in two compartments. She was not yet sunk but as the pilot pulled out, he called for the other dive bombers to help him finish her off. The anti-aircraft gun on the submarine was manned as she had to stay on the surface until at least temporary repairs could be made and she could make it back to the Marshalls.

 

[fester]

December 14, 1941 west of Moscow

The battered division that had been pulled from the front lines north of Moscow for a week was now available again. Replacements flowed from reserve units and men were returning from the hospitals. Hot food and dry socks did wonders for morale as well. The men had been re-issued winter smocks and thick clothing to stay warm. By now, the division which had left the battlefield with the combat power of an understrength regiment could put the equivilent of two slightly worn out regiments back into the field. And they were being called back into the field again.

Two hundred guns ceased firing. The silence was broken by the cries of wounded fascists and the neighs of broken horses. The Soviet infantrymen clutched their rifles tight for another minute and then the drone of engines became louder. Two regiments of frontal support aircraft streamed over head. The light bombers and fighter bombers hit the German front and immediate reserve positions while the twin engine bombers held their bombs for another few minutes until they could drop their entire load on a crossroad village that was the hinge of the entire German position. As soon as the bombers cleared the front, the two hundred guns started to fire again. Three minutes of hell and then a five minute pause. That pause was psychological and tactical and technical. Some of the artillery pieces started to limber and make themselves ready to move forward while the rest of the gunners prepared for the last planned fire mission. Another three minutes of fire from one hundred and fifty guns smashed into Germans who had emerged from their dug-outs waiting for an attack that had not yet come. The brave and the competent were the target of the stuttering barrage.

As a smoke screen was being laid down by the divisional guns, whistles along the entire divisional front started to blow and ghosts emerged from the snow and began their advance even as machine guns began to fire and mortars threw their shells at known and suspected German positions.

 

[fester]

December 14, 1941 Eastern Mediterranean Sea

The convoy split into two sections. Most of the slow and small ships turned south. Older and shorter ranged escorts turned with them. Once the new coastal convoy was re-assembled it would steam south to Benghazi. A few of the ships would then push forward to Marsa al Brega while motor launches and landing craft were destined to operate near the front that had stabilized at Ras Lanuf.

Most of the supplies that the army needed would land in Benghazi and be trucked forward to the leading elements of the 8th Army. Once the ships had been unloaded, they would be reloaded with broken down trucks, worn out artillery and the other detritus of war to be brought back to the workshops in the Delta. Most of the gear would not be salvaged but some could be reconstituted and be made fit for at least second line duty even if it might not be restored for front line service again. The 8th Army would need their mechanics to perform miracles as the flow of supplies for Britain and America were at risk of being diverted to the new fighting in Malaya and the East Indies. No word had come down yet, but the rumors swirled around the quartermaster tents more frequently than black flies.

The other convoy was a fast and large convoy of seven ships headed to Malta. Two light cruisers and eight destroyers were the close escort while Formidable, Eagle, Warspite and Queen Elizabeth were the center of the distant covering force. Special sources and photo recon indicated that most of the Italian fleet was committed to supporting their supply convoys that went west of Sicily before dashing across the narrows. Once the Italian supply ships made it to Tunisian waters, Italian battleships and cruisers adopted distant covering positions as the convoys hugged the coast all the way to Tripoli. Mines and submarines were claiming some kills but Italian minefields had created a fairly safe corridor for Axis supplies.

The convoy to Malta would carry enough reinforcements to allow for attritional losses as the bastion could still influence the desert campaign.