Keynes' Cruisers

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    August 28, 1941 Rabaul

    Three transport ships, two small cargo coasters and the light cruiser Adelaide swung at anchor in Simpson Harbor. One transport edged up to the docks where native and settler work gangs were ready to start unloading the ships that carried a reinforced infantry battalion of the 8th Division.

    Over the course of the next three days, the small convoy unloaded. The prize possessions were unloaded last. Half a dozen eighteen pound field guns, four six inch coast defense guns and five bulldozers were dragged out of the bottom of the cargo holds. The coast defense guns would be placed on the ridge of the Mount Baai and the slopes of Vulcan. The field guns were the central reserve of the defense force while the bulldozers and a pair of steam shovels would improve the jungle airstrip into a fully functional airbase as well as carve out defensive positions and supply caches for the defenders.
     
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    August 29, 1941 Labrador Sea

    The Lockheed Hudson wiggled its wings. She was heading back to her airfield. Nothing had been seen in her long slow patrol over convoy SC-42. She had expected to see nothing as the Germans seldom came this far west. Every ship was accounted for and they continued to move towards Europe at a steady eight knots. The signal light from HMCS Skeena flashed “CU2MRW”. As the Hudson headed home, the convoy started a planned zig fifteen degrees off the base course as the escorts prepared for their nightly watch.
     
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    August 29, 1941 Kiev

    A string of tracers lit up the narrow street. Most of of the German assault group found cover but one man, a replacement who had been added to the platoon as a replacement of another replacement who had been killed by a mine, laid bleeding in the middle of the street. He was screaming in pain. Half a dozen men aimed their rifles in the general direction of the Soviet machine gun nest and sent a clip worth of bullets in that general direction to hold the machine gunner’s head down.

    Behind the assault group ground forward an infantry support tank. Its machine guns chattered and the heavy steel armor pinged as shrapnel and bullets deflected. It stopped and the turret swung slightly. The infantrymen were behind cover and even still they found the blast of the heavy gun nearly deafening. A hole in the wall had opened and in rushed a dozen men, grenades exploding in each room as the defenders were shocked by being outflanked and taken from a direction that was outside of the mutual support that they had counted on.

    Some men were able to resist briefly but most were cut down in the first few seconds of exploding grenades followed by bayonet charges. A submachine gunner was protected in the initial assault as he hid behind a sandbagged position that ate the shrapnel fragments of the initial room clearing assault. He went through his entire magazine, hitting the first two men coming through the door before the next set of grenades exploded within feet of him.

    The strongpoint on the block had been taken. The assault towards the river would continue.
     
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    August 30, 1941 Tokyo

    The strong jaw and chin line on the man had weakened after the fifth sake. The Nazi journalist made his farewells to the Japanese hosts as they enjoyed the company of the geishas. He straightened his clothes and tipped his cap before walking out the door. As he waited for a cab to take him to his mistress’ apartment, he went over what he had been hearing. There was almost no threat to Siberia unless Moscow fell. The fleet was training to go south and east. Oil exports were still needed and Japan had the cash to pay for whatever could be spared.

    He forgot about these details when he saw his mistress. They were not remembered until after his hangover subsided the next morning and he started to compose his message to control.
     
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    September 1, 1941 Portland Oregon

    Patrick Henry slid down the ways. She was the first of however many emergency cargo ships that had been ordered in every shipyard that had at least a single spare slip. Her crew had been assembled and they needed ten days to take her to sea for shake down and then another ten days of post shakedown repairs and replenishment. After that, she would bring 5,000 tons of food and medical supplies to Mariveles Naval Base. Besides the food, she was also due to load 100,000 shells for artillery with a roughly even split between 75 millimeter and the new 105 millimeter guns that the Philippine Scout artillery battalions had recently received.

    Two of her sisters were also due to launch soon and their first journey after shaking down would be Vladivostok with nearly identical loads for the Red Army.
     
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    • Butchpfd

    sloreck said:
    Hopefully a lot of those supplies will end up stockpiled in safe place on Bataan.
    Click to expand...
    Maraviles, is the port and harbor, at the end of the Baatan, opposite Correigidor island. At this time in both ttl and otl, it is a race to complete tunnels and magazines for naval and army munitions storage.
     
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    Butchpfd said:
    Maraviles, is the port and harbor, at the end of the Baatan, opposite Correigidor island. At this time in both ttl and otl, it is a race to complete tunnels and magazines for naval and army munitions storage.
    Click to expand...

    I believe that Japanese agents had pretty solid reports of the location of materials, if not the details on levels; so your point about having protected tunnels and magazines is spot on.
     
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    September 2, 1941 2157 near Kos, Italian Dodecanese

    HMS Clyde surfaced. One of her battery compartments had been ripped out in Alexandria. She only carried torpedoes in her tubes with no reloads. Instead, twenty four very unusual men were waiting for the captain to allow them to emerge from the hatches.

    Within minutes, four rubber boats were being paddled aggressively through the waves. The heavily armed raiders were due to strike the Italian airfield near Antimachia. This was the first raid on the Italian Dodecane possessions. Continual pressure was needed to give Crete time to breath and develop. Fifteen light bombers and a dozen fighters routinely raided eastern Crete. The Special Boat Service would try to destroy as many planes, wreck as much infrastructure and kill any man dumb enough to make themselves visible at the airfield. And then they would run back to the submarine within six hours.
     
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    September 2, 1941 Moscow

    The freshly promoted general looked up from his paperwork. His commissar had knocked at the door and gave him at least the courtesy of a pause before coming into the dimly lit room that served as the office and bedroom of the militia division’s commander.

    “Comrade, we’ve received our orders. We’re to entrain at the end of the week and head to Vyazma. The fascists are recuperating from the casualties inflicted by the heroic defenders of Kiev whose lives are buying patriots time to prepare defensive positions for a decisive battle. “

    The general looked at his commissar who had served his time as a conscript immediately after the Revolution had completed and then worked as a party functionary with a studied neutrality. The division was not ready for combat yet; they might be able to hold against Romanians or Hungarians but not against a determined German attack. Stating realtiy was defeatism and the general would prefer to avoid another winter near Lake Baikal.

    “Very well, we will have an officer’s meeting this evening, all battalion commanders and above as well as all zampoliti shall attend at 18:00. The Revolution shall be defended.”

    The heavy set man clicked his heels and left his general alone to his thoughts.
     
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    September 3, 1941 Lima, Ohio

    The first M-4 tank prototype came off the line. Three more engineering prototypes were almost ready. Once completed, two would be shipped to Fort Knox and the other pair would be sent to the Salisbury Plain for evaluation and feedback. These tanks were a noticeable improvement on the tall and awkwardly armed M-3 tanks that were just starting to show up in American armored formations. The silhouette was lower, the heavy, main gun had 360 degrees of traverse and was capable of firing high explosive and anti-armor rounds. The engine was a touch more powerful even as it became more reliable. If everything went well, the new tank would be in combat ready units by next summer.
     
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    September 3, 1941 Portsmouth, New Hampshire

    The Stars and Stripes on the fantail of USS Marlin quickly descended. In its place, the Union Jack ascended. She was now HMS Marlin. Her crew was entirely Royal Navy now that half a dozen American instructors and engineers were superfluous. She would be heading to Gibraltar and then Malta to reinforce the coastal submarine flotillas.

    Her and her sister, HMS Mackerel had been designated for transfer to the Royal Navy in the first week of Lend Lease. Crews had arrived in April to train on the small, coastal submarines. The shipyards forced them to wait to board the ships as American torpedo equipment was removed and Admiralty equipment added. There had been talk about using American torpedoes as a live fire test but the combination of the expense and rarity of modern American torpedoes, the desire by the Torpedo School to keep tight control over the sophisticated fuses and detonators and the pragmatic problems of supplying American torpedoes to British submarines in combat areas put an end to that conversation.
     
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