April 1942 Alternate Indian Ocean
- Thread starter Zheng He
- Start date
- Status
With 3 Stacks, and 4 gun mounts, she could also be mistaken for an RN or RAN heavy cruiser.
0800 Hours, 26 December 1942, Bombay, India – The short Christmas break in port was over and the convoys were departing Bombay. The oilers USS Brazos and USS Trinity, and the RFAs British Genius, Eaglesdale, and Appleleaf, and Pearleaf along with 10 loaded freighters escorted by the cruisers HMS Devonshire and HNLMS Sumatra, the destroyer HMS Fortune, and the corvettes HMS Erica and HMS Primula cleared the harbor first, bound first for Colombo. The corvettes HMS Aster, HMS Genista, and HMS Nigella were taking the tankers M/V Aase Maersk and Erling Brovig back to Abadan Island in the Persian Gulf after both tankers had discharged their cargo in Bombay’s tank farm. Last to leave were 15 loaded freighters escorted by the merchant cruiser HMS Ranchi and the Free French aviso Savorgnan de Brazza. Their destinations were Port T, Diego Garcia, Port C, and eventually Fremantle. Several other empty freighters bound for African ports departed with the convoys and would be released for independent sailings once they were in open ocean.
1000 Hours, 26 December 1942, Calcutta, India – Field Marshall Wavell was not sure what was more difficult, working with local Indian officials whose primary objective was their path to independence or senior ranking Allied counterparts who had wildly opposing views regarding the strategic direction of Allied efforts in theater. Most of the month of December had been occupied with the later issue with the primary complicating factor the competing priorities of the Allied powers in what was now known as the China-Burma-India Theater. The British understandably wanted to protect India, recapture Burma, and eventually Malaya and Singapore. The Americans, whose presence in the region was growing, wanted to reopen the Burma Road and the overland supply route to China or failing that, develop a new supply artery to China in order to keep the Chinese in the war. The Nationalist Chinese led by Chiang Kai Shek were primarily concerned with surviving against the Japanese while preserving the capacity to deal with the Chinese Communists once the war with Japan was concluded. Naturally, a great deal of suspicion poisoned the inter-Allied relationships all around.
Operationally, a lack of infrastructure was the single biggest impediment to Allied efforts to launch a counter offensive in Burma, more than a lack of equipment, properly trained troops, or Japanese operations. This meant Allied troops in India and Burma spent a significant portion of the dry season in 1942 and 1943 engaged in construction and the improvement of overall logistics capacity as opposed to actual operations. This was not an entirely bad thing because these efforts in addition to improving the capacity of northeastern India to support an eventual counter offensive also provided Allied troops, many of whom were quite green with great deal of training.
Given all of the challenges the theater of operations presented, it is somewhat extraordinary that Field Marshal Wavell in his new role as the Viceroy of India managed to come to a substantive agreement with the Americans over the strategic direction of the campaign in India and Burma through the rest of the 1942 and 1943 campaign season and the 1943 and 1944 campaign season the next year. Wavell’s success in this regard is all the more impressive since the Americans were led by the acerbic Lieutenant General Joseph Stillwell, a man whose distrust and outright dislike of all things British rivaled that of Admiral Ernest J. King.
Stillwell, a long time US China hand who spoke the language fluently fervently believed that if properly trained and led, Chinese soldiers were more than a match for the Japanese and he also believed that reopening the supply route to China was key to the Allied war effort against Japan. To that end he was in the process of training two divisions worth of Chinese soldiers (the 22 nd and 38 th Infantry Divisions) who had escaped to India during the retreat from Burma with plans to expand the force. Stillwell also wanted to construct a new overland supply route to China from the railhead at Ledo in Assam through the Hukawng Valley to Myitkyina and eventually to Kunming in China, linking up with the Burma Road near the Burmese/Chinese border. Wavell and most other senior British commanders including Lieutenant General Slim were skeptical of Stillwell’s ambitions. They all believed he could do it given enough time and resources but they also believed the entire effort would take so long that it would get overtaken by events. They were also skeptical that Chiang’s forces in Yunnan Province could be counted render the necessary assistance in clearing Northern Burma and opening the sections of the Burma Road near the border. However, to his credit, Wavell was not against to supplying the Chinese from India. He simply believed that instead of cutting several hundred miles of new roads through the rugged terrain of northern Burma, Allied troops would be better employed building airfields in Assam to support the burgeoning effort to fly supplies to the Chinese from India over the foothills of the Himalayas, a route that would become known as the Hump.
For his part, Stillwell was skeptical of British designs. Like a number of senior American leaders both civilian and military he believed the only thing the British cared about was regaining their lost empire and he was not interested in seeing American boys or the Chinese troops under his command expended in that effort. However, the practical realities of the region meant that Stillwell’s Chinese troops would not be ready to begin work on the new road starting at Ledo until mid-spring, meaning that would not accomplish much before the monsoons made keeping them supplied in northeastern Burma next to impossible.
Sensing an opportunity due to the fact that Stillwell’s troops were going to be under employed for the next several months, Wavell, assisted by General Auchinleck presented Stillwell an alternate course of action that led to a series of negotiations between both sides that lasted most of December 1942. Ultimately, Wavell was able to convince Stillwell that if he permitted his Chinese troops to assist with building airfields in Assam and in expanding the road and rail infrastructure around Imphal and Kohima, he could offer him an alternate route back to China.
This coupled with Wavell’s plan for Lieutenant General Scoones IV Corps for the 42/43 campaign season to establish a strong position along the Chindwin River while expanding its rear areas in preparation for a thrust toward Mandalay during the 43/44 campaign. With the assistance of Stillwell’s Chinese troops, the odds of success were significantly increased. Wavell got Stillwell to agree with his course of action by promising him that the upcoming campaign would include capturing Homalin 70 miles due east of Imphal on the banks of the Chindwin while then improving road and river access from Imphal to Tamu then Sittaung and north to Homalin. Wavell proposed that from there a key focus of the 43/44 campaign would be an advance eastward by IV Corps to Pinbon and then Indaw and Katha and then along the Irrawaddy River to Bhamo and eventually to Wanting on the Chinese Burma.
The advantage of this route was that it was over 100 miles shorter than Stillwell’s proposed road and in most cases took advantage of existing infrastructure that would simply have to be improved including primitive tracks from Imphal to Tamu, a riverine route from Sittaung to Homalin, then existing tracks from Homalin to Katha, a riverine route from Katha to Bhamo, and then an existing road from Bhamo to Wanting. For his part, Wavell suggested that Stillwell’s Chinese troops could advance on Myitkyina to the north and the Japanese troops in northern Burma would be forced to retreat or risk getting cutoff and overwhelmed. While it took some convincing, Stillwell agreed in principle to Wavell’s plan although a lot of details would need to get worked out over the next 10-12 months. Wavell also needed Stillwell to work with the Chinese to encourage them to launch an offensive of their own directed toward Bhamo and he also needed to consider future command arrangements. He did not think Stillwell would be a willing subordinate when the time came.
Operationally, a lack of infrastructure was the single biggest impediment to Allied efforts to launch a counter offensive in Burma, more than a lack of equipment, properly trained troops, or Japanese operations. This meant Allied troops in India and Burma spent a significant portion of the dry season in 1942 and 1943 engaged in construction and the improvement of overall logistics capacity as opposed to actual operations. This was not an entirely bad thing because these efforts in addition to improving the capacity of northeastern India to support an eventual counter offensive also provided Allied troops, many of whom were quite green with great deal of training.
Given all of the challenges the theater of operations presented, it is somewhat extraordinary that Field Marshal Wavell in his new role as the Viceroy of India managed to come to a substantive agreement with the Americans over the strategic direction of the campaign in India and Burma through the rest of the 1942 and 1943 campaign season and the 1943 and 1944 campaign season the next year. Wavell’s success in this regard is all the more impressive since the Americans were led by the acerbic Lieutenant General Joseph Stillwell, a man whose distrust and outright dislike of all things British rivaled that of Admiral Ernest J. King.
Stillwell, a long time US China hand who spoke the language fluently fervently believed that if properly trained and led, Chinese soldiers were more than a match for the Japanese and he also believed that reopening the supply route to China was key to the Allied war effort against Japan. To that end he was in the process of training two divisions worth of Chinese soldiers (the 22 nd and 38 th Infantry Divisions) who had escaped to India during the retreat from Burma with plans to expand the force. Stillwell also wanted to construct a new overland supply route to China from the railhead at Ledo in Assam through the Hukawng Valley to Myitkyina and eventually to Kunming in China, linking up with the Burma Road near the Burmese/Chinese border. Wavell and most other senior British commanders including Lieutenant General Slim were skeptical of Stillwell’s ambitions. They all believed he could do it given enough time and resources but they also believed the entire effort would take so long that it would get overtaken by events. They were also skeptical that Chiang’s forces in Yunnan Province could be counted render the necessary assistance in clearing Northern Burma and opening the sections of the Burma Road near the border. However, to his credit, Wavell was not against to supplying the Chinese from India. He simply believed that instead of cutting several hundred miles of new roads through the rugged terrain of northern Burma, Allied troops would be better employed building airfields in Assam to support the burgeoning effort to fly supplies to the Chinese from India over the foothills of the Himalayas, a route that would become known as the Hump.
For his part, Stillwell was skeptical of British designs. Like a number of senior American leaders both civilian and military he believed the only thing the British cared about was regaining their lost empire and he was not interested in seeing American boys or the Chinese troops under his command expended in that effort. However, the practical realities of the region meant that Stillwell’s Chinese troops would not be ready to begin work on the new road starting at Ledo until mid-spring, meaning that would not accomplish much before the monsoons made keeping them supplied in northeastern Burma next to impossible.
Sensing an opportunity due to the fact that Stillwell’s troops were going to be under employed for the next several months, Wavell, assisted by General Auchinleck presented Stillwell an alternate course of action that led to a series of negotiations between both sides that lasted most of December 1942. Ultimately, Wavell was able to convince Stillwell that if he permitted his Chinese troops to assist with building airfields in Assam and in expanding the road and rail infrastructure around Imphal and Kohima, he could offer him an alternate route back to China.
This coupled with Wavell’s plan for Lieutenant General Scoones IV Corps for the 42/43 campaign season to establish a strong position along the Chindwin River while expanding its rear areas in preparation for a thrust toward Mandalay during the 43/44 campaign. With the assistance of Stillwell’s Chinese troops, the odds of success were significantly increased. Wavell got Stillwell to agree with his course of action by promising him that the upcoming campaign would include capturing Homalin 70 miles due east of Imphal on the banks of the Chindwin while then improving road and river access from Imphal to Tamu then Sittaung and north to Homalin. Wavell proposed that from there a key focus of the 43/44 campaign would be an advance eastward by IV Corps to Pinbon and then Indaw and Katha and then along the Irrawaddy River to Bhamo and eventually to Wanting on the Chinese Burma.
The advantage of this route was that it was over 100 miles shorter than Stillwell’s proposed road and in most cases took advantage of existing infrastructure that would simply have to be improved including primitive tracks from Imphal to Tamu, a riverine route from Sittaung to Homalin, then existing tracks from Homalin to Katha, a riverine route from Katha to Bhamo, and then an existing road from Bhamo to Wanting. For his part, Wavell suggested that Stillwell’s Chinese troops could advance on Myitkyina to the north and the Japanese troops in northern Burma would be forced to retreat or risk getting cutoff and overwhelmed. While it took some convincing, Stillwell agreed in principle to Wavell’s plan although a lot of details would need to get worked out over the next 10-12 months. Wavell also needed Stillwell to work with the Chinese to encourage them to launch an offensive of their own directed toward Bhamo and he also needed to consider future command arrangements. He did not think Stillwell would be a willing subordinate when the time came.
Last edited:
That is a hard row to hoe. Unless you can convince Skippy to rearrange the geography and climate of Burma. The Pinbon route is no worse than the OTL route though. However when you examine the many possible options on the various routes it's all different versions of bad. But not impossible.
Driftless
Donor
If this POD had occurred, that could create a very substantial set of knock-ons for the later-war and post-war world
Have Brazos and Trinity been given overhauls and weapons updates as done with other Oikers in OTL?
Oilers, though Oilers and tankers frequently handle like oinkers(pigs).
It's all a lot of lousy options but this proposed route has the advantages of being over 100 miles shorter, it takes better advantage of some existing routes in certain parts, and it also supports a thrust by IV Corps into north-central Burma. Still a pain in the ass though.
Not really, these guys are two of the oldest oilers in the USN and just like OTL they are getting used and abused and after the war they will be sold off or scrapped.
Route proposed for the Imphal Road - December 1942:
A - Imphal to Tamu by Road (improve existing tracks)
B - Tamu to Sittaung by Road (construct new road)
C - Sittaung to Homalin by River (eventually construct road alongside the Chindwin River)
D - Homalin to Indaw by Road (improve existing tracks)
E - Indaw to Katha (existing road and rail)
F - Katha to Bhamo by River (eventually construct road alongside the Irrawaddy River)
E - Bhamo to Loiwing by Road (improve existing roads)
F - Loiwing to Wanting by Road (improve existing roads)
A - Imphal to Tamu by Road (improve existing tracks)
B - Tamu to Sittaung by Road (construct new road)
C - Sittaung to Homalin by River (eventually construct road alongside the Chindwin River)
D - Homalin to Indaw by Road (improve existing tracks)
E - Indaw to Katha (existing road and rail)
F - Katha to Bhamo by River (eventually construct road alongside the Irrawaddy River)
E - Bhamo to Loiwing by Road (improve existing roads)
F - Loiwing to Wanting by Road (improve existing roads)
BlackDragon98
Banned
in case any of you want to see what the Chinese troops experienced in Burma, there's a whole Chinese TV show called "Chinese Expeditionary Force" about Nationalist forces in Burma.
according to Chinese veterans of that campaign, its actually rather historically accurate
according to Chinese veterans of that campaign, its actually rather historically accurate
It looks quite plausible to me. It may take until mid-1944 to reach Wanting. How large an effort will the IJA expend to cut the new route. The Japanese can attack up from the South supplied by the railway from Rangoon.
It's unfortunate Ramree Island doesn't have any substantial harbours or road networks. From the point connecting Ramree to the mainland it's only about 40 miles over the Arakan Range then into the Irrawaddy river plain South of Mandalay. But the mountains are steep with no roads worth the name. And the IJA can be easily supplied to defend them.
Ohhh Wavell. And you were doing so well until that point.
I do hope the plan can survive Stillwell being... well himself... instead of a useful or reliable subordinate. *Fingers crossed*
Thanks for catching that, there was supposed to be a “not” there. Typo fixed and meaning changed.
- Status