Defending the Realm

It's not obvious, but it looks like you've got Syria held by the Allies. IIRC, OTL they were held by Vichy France, and it took some serious fighting for the Allies to take them. Could you clarify for my poor, easily confused brain.

If not "held" at the very least completely isolated and out of options...
 
It's not obvious, but it looks like you've got Syria held by the Allies. IIRC, OTL they were held by Vichy France, and it took some serious fighting for the Allies to take them. Could you clarify for my poor, easily confused brain.
The Allies still invade Syria in 1941 in this timeline, and the invasion goes the same as our timeline - hence why it did not receive its own update. I probably should have mentioned that earlier on.
 
Chapter Eleven: The Battle of the Dodecanese
During the Second World War, major surface naval campaigns proved to be few and far between – in 1939, the first year of the conflict, the Battle of the River Plate took place, which saw the Royal Navy successfully defeat the Kriegsmarine in South America. In 1940, the Battle of Britain left the Kriegsmarine virtually annihilated, unable to challenge British naval supremacy at sea, and consequently surface battles became rather scarce between 1940 and 1942 – instead, the naval focus of the war was on the Battle of the Atlantic, which saw German U-Boats attempt to starve Britain through commerce raiding – however, by 1941, it was clear that Britain was also moving towards triumph in the Atlantic, as the deciphering of the Enigma code by Alan Turing enabled the creation of sophisticated Bombes, which gradually began to reduce the U-Boat threat. Indeed, by the end of 1941, it was clear that the Battle of the Atlantic was a British victory.

As a result of this, aside from a further U-Boat attacks (which were becoming rarer), naval warfare almost subsided entirely – that was, until October 1942, when the Admiralty Department determined that new action needed to be taken by the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. This was the capture of the Dodecanese Islands, which was now controlled by the Italian Social Republic, reinforced by the Germans, in the aftermath of the invasion of Italy. For the Admiralty, it was paramount that the Dodecanese were secured by the Allies, as it was possible that the German forces could use the islands as a landing pad to launch a renewed attack on Crete, which was jointly controlled by Britain and Greece – in addition to this, Allied control of the Dodecanese could potentially enable the Royal Air Force to achieve air superiority over the Balkans, enabling the bombing of German military targets in the region. When A.V. Alexander, the First Lord of the Admiralty, pitched the idea to Churchill and the War Cabinet, the Prime Minister agreed to launch the plan – it was agreed that the Royal Navy would bombard German and Italian defences on the islands, and also eliminate any potential Kriegsmarine or Regia Marina ships near the Dodecanese, thereby enabling Allied parachute regiments to land on the islands and, with supplies being able to reach the paratroopers through the sea, secure control.

On November the 14th, the Battle of the Dodecanese began, as a Royal Navy fleet, consisting of 11 destroyers, 3 battleships, 4 cruisers, and an aircraft carrier, under the command of Admiral Bertram Ramsay, approached the main island of the Dodecanese, Rhodes. The Royal Navy fleet was also assisted by 2 cruisers from the Regia Marina which had joined Free Italy [1], along with a single Free French battleship. By contrast, the Kriegsmarine fleet located nearby the Dodecanese and in port on the islands consisted of 4 destroyers, 2 battleships, and a single cruiser. In addition to this, thanks to the Allied presence on Crete, the Royal Air Force held air superiority over the southern portion of the Aegean Sea, and could consequently attack German forces as the two fleets came into combat with one another.

The naval engagement unfolded over two days, as both sides fired at one another. The Royal Navy was able to gain an advantage early on in the battle, and sunk two German destroyers, the ZI-4 Friedrich Inn and the ZI-5 Hermann Schoemann (both former Regia Marina ships forced into the Kriegsmarine after the German invasion of Italy), and damages the German cruiser, the Seydlitz (another former Regia Marina ship), which was forced to withdraw from the battle as a result and return to mainland Greece to seek repairs. On the second day of the engagement, the Royal Navy continued to inflict damage on the remaining destroyers and battleships, while the Kriegsmarine was only able to damage a single British ship, HMS Havock, which duly sought repairs in Crete after the end of the battle. Eventually, by the afternoon of the 15th, the remaining Kriegsmarine ships retreated from the Dodecanese, effectively leaving the waters surrounding the islands under Allied control.

As the naval conflict near the Dodecanese was coming to a conclusion, British and Commonwealth paratroopers began landing on the islands – to be specific, the three largest islands of the Dodecanese, Rhodes, Kos, and Karpathos, assisted with air support from RAF bombers, which assisted the paratroopers as they worked to take control of the islands. On Rhodes, the British parachute regiment, consisting of roughly 1600 men, faced two Italian brigades consisting of roughly 7000 men – fighting took place between the 15th and the 18th. During the Battle of Rhodes, many Italian soldiers, unwilling to serve under a Nazi puppet, defected to the Allies as the battle progressed, which dwindled the number of Axis troops on the island – this, combined with British technological superiority during the battle and the general state of disarray which the Italian Social Republic’s army was in following the German invasion, led to the Italian defenders surrendering, enabling the British commander, Lieutenant General Carton de Wiart [2], to assume control of the island.

Meanwhile, the landings on Karpathos were relatively straightforward for the British paratroopers, under the command of Colonel Airey Neave (who had only recently escaped a Prisoner of War camp in Germany), – as with Rhodes, the Italian soldiers guarding the island were in a state of disarray, with numerous defections to the Allies occurring, which significantly aided the British advance. Therefore, after only a day of fighting, the remaining troops loyal to the Italian Social Republic on Karpathos surrendered, putting the island under British control. The landings on Kos were undertaken by Canadian paratroopers, who fought against the Italian brigade, numbering roughly 3500 men, between the 15th and the 17th – the battle unfolded in a similar fashion to Rhodes and Karpathos, and the Canadian troops were after a few days able to subdue to the Italian forces depleted by defections. This left the three major islands of the Dodecanese under Allied control.

Between the 16th and the 20th, British and Greek troops landed on the other minor islands of the Dodecanese, where there were small populations and therefore few defending troops, using Landing Craft Assaults which had previously been used by the Allies during Battleaxe. This resulted in the Dodecanese fully coming under Allied control, and therefore brought the Battle of the Dodecanese to an end in a decisive victory from the Allies. Between late-1942 and mid-1943, new air bases were constructed on the most northern islands of the Dodecanese, which enabled the Royal Air Force to strike Axis targets in the Balkans – initially these were only limited to Axis military positions in Bulgaria, yet, in December 1943, an RAF raid was able to bomb Romanian oil fields, which was a crucial source of oil for Germany and other Axis countries. As a result of this, over 1943, the RAF and other Allied air forces began to gradually establish aerial dominance over the Balkans, thereby granting the Allies another crucial advantage as the war continued forward.

***​

[1] This is the term which shall be used to describe the Italian Government-in-exile and the forces loyal to them from now onward.

[2] In this timeline, since Italy is driven out Libya sooner than in our timeline, when de Wiart's plane crashes in the Mediterranean, he is rescued by Allied troops in Libya, rather than being arrested by Italians. As a result of this, de Wiart continues to serve in the British Army during the entirety of the conflict.
 
Last edited:

nbcman

Donor
How did the KM ships (destroyers Z14 Friedrich Inn and the Z7 Hermann Schoemann, and cruiser Seydlitz) get into the Aegean?
 
As the naval conflict near the Dodecanese was coming to a conclusion, British and Commonwealth paratroopers began landing on the islands – to be specific, the three largest islands of the Dodecanese, Rhodes, Kos, and Karpathos. On Rhodes, the British parachute regiment, consisting of roughly 2000 men, faced an Italian division of roughly 10,000 men – fighting took place between the 15th and the 18th. During the Battle of Rhodes, many Italian soldiers, unwilling to serve under a Nazi puppet, defected to the Allies as the battle progressed, which dwindled the number of Axis troops on the island – this, combined with British technological superiority during the battle and the general state of disarray which the Italian Social Republic’s army was in following the German invasion, led to the Italian defenders surrendering, enabling the British commander, Colonel Enoch Powell [2], to assume control of the island.

Couple of points.

1. Unsupported paratroopers either win quickly, get reinforced by the cavalry quickly, or die. The are, by definition, lightly equipped, low on supplies, and likely to be scattered. 2000 (which is a large regiment - theoretically possible but unlikely) paratroops, if they come by air is going to be 1600-1800 on hitting the ground (rather fewer if they are seen coming down). Against 10,000 defenders, even demotivated ones, that's a tough ask.

2. You might want to think very carefully indeed about using Enoch Powell. There was a reason he didn't get to see combat in OTL. Something to do with his stated comment that the objective of soldiers is to lay down their lives, and he later regretted surviving. The Powers That Be did not regard this as a healthy attitude for someone in charge of troops. He was kept on intelligence work specifically to make use of his literary talents, and to minimise his unfortunate attitude towards combat. If he does get a combat command, it is very probable that his command will get annihilated. More likely is that there will be an accidental weapon discharge. The comments of senior NCOs that worked with him were not entirely complementary.
 
1. Unsupported paratroopers either win quickly, get reinforced by the cavalry quickly, or die. The are, by definition, lightly equipped, low on supplies, and likely to be scattered. 2000 (which is a large regiment - theoretically possible but unlikely) paratroops, if they come by air is going to be 1600-1800 on hitting the ground (rather fewer if they are seen coming down). Against 10,000 defenders, even demotivated ones, that's a tough ask.
Based off of your advice, I shall limit the amount of paratroopers used by the Allies, and also the number of defenders (so as to achieve the required aim).

2. You might want to think very carefully indeed about using Enoch Powell. There was a reason he didn't get to see combat in OTL. Something to do with his stated comment that the objective of soldiers is to lay down their lives, and he later regretted surviving. The Powers That Be did not regard this as a healthy attitude for someone in charge of troops. He was kept on intelligence work specifically to make use of his literary talents, and to minimise his unfortunate attitude towards combat. If he does get a combat command, it is very probable that his command will get annihilated. More likely is that there will be an accidental weapon discharge. The comments of senior NCOs that worked with him were not entirely complementary.
Is there anyone else you would recommend instead, rather than Powell?
 

nbcman

Donor
They were built in ports in Italian ports prior to the fall of Mussolini.
Was it a different Seydlitz? She was already launched in Bremen but not finished prior to the start of WW2:

Seydlitz was a heavy cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine, fourth in the Admiral Hipper class, but was never completed. The ship was laid down in December 1936 and launched in January 1939, but the outbreak of World War II slowed her construction and fitting-out work was finally stopped in the summer of 1940 when she was approximately 95 percent complete. The unfinished ship remained pier-side in the shipyard until March 1942, when the Kriegsmarine decided to pursue aircraft carriers over surface combatants. Seydlitz was among the vessels chosen for conversion into auxiliary aircraft carriers.
 
Is there anyone else you would recommend instead, rather than Powell?

It depends on what you want. If you're looking to recycle someone who becomes politically significant (such as Powell did), looking through senior politicians of the 1960s and 1970s is a good place to start. Many of them had military careers of varying degrees of talent. Denis Healey, to take just one example, was (OTL) a gunner in the Royal Artillery before being commissioned in the Royal Engineers; he was involved in North Africa, the invasion of Sicily, and famously, was a beach master at Anzio.

On the other side of the political divide, there's someone like Francis Pym, who served in North Africa and Italy as a tankie. He won the Military Cross.

If you're looking for someone from the bonkers file, Airey Neave would be a possible. OTL, he was captured in France in 1940, escaped from Colditz, and worked with MI9 (helping escaped POWs get away). He was, however, regarded as something of an eccentric. For example, he is reliably reported to have pushed to have the Security Services assassinate Tony Benn. He was also pressing to have MI6 and MI5 combined, and placed under the overall control of Maurice Oldfield, who was, um, how can I put this, not the greatest head of MI6 that organisation has ever produced.

There are dozens of other possibilities. Powell, however, is not, in my opinion, a high probability choice.
 

nbcman

Donor
Another option from the 'bonkers file' would be General Carton de Wiart. He was involved in the Balkans (Military Mission to Yugoslavia) prior to his capture IOTL - but since the Italians were swept out of Libya faster ITTL, he would not have been captured. You have to admit that a man willing to pull his own fingers off when a doctor refused to amputate them is a definite bonkers file candidate.
 
It depends on what you want. If you're looking to recycle someone who becomes politically significant (such as Powell did), looking through senior politicians of the 1960s and 1970s is a good place to start. Many of them had military careers of varying degrees of talent. Denis Healey, to take just one example, was (OTL) a gunner in the Royal Artillery before being commissioned in the Royal Engineers; he was involved in North Africa, the invasion of Sicily, and famously, was a beach master at Anzio.

On the other side of the political divide, there's someone like Francis Pym, who served in North Africa and Italy as a tankie. He won the Military Cross.

If you're looking for someone from the bonkers file, Airey Neave would be a possible. OTL, he was captured in France in 1940, escaped from Colditz, and worked with MI9 (helping escaped POWs get away). He was, however, regarded as something of an eccentric. For example, he is reliably reported to have pushed to have the Security Services assassinate Tony Benn. He was also pressing to have MI6 and MI5 combined, and placed under the overall control of Maurice Oldfield, who was, um, how can I put this, not the greatest head of MI6 that organisation has ever produced.

There are dozens of other possibilities. Powell, however, is not, in my opinion, a high probability choice.

Another option from the 'bonkers file' would be General Carton de Wiart. He was involved in the Balkans (Military Mission to Yugoslavia) prior to his capture IOTL - but since the Italians were swept out of Libya faster ITTL, he would not have been captured. You have to admit that a man willing to pull his own fingers off when a doctor refused to amputate them is a definite bonkers file candidate.

I've decided to go for Carton de Wiart, due to the fact that, judging by his Wikipedia article, he sounds like the most determined and resilient man to have ever walked this Earth!
In addition to this, I've also put Airey Neave in charge of the parachute regiment which landed in Karpathos.
Cheers for the suggestions!
 
Top