Fantasque Time Line (France Fights On) - English Translation

[Wings]

April 30th, 1943

Moscow - General Andrei Khrulev would be tearing his hair out - if he had any left.
In charge of military supplies, working in concert with his counterpart for the Party, Anastase Mikoyan, Khrulev has just received Stalin's orders for the second half of 1943. The demands of the Stavka reach an unprecedented level, unequalled and extremely ambitious. Just the quantities required to equip the two Ukrainian fronts around Kiev are likely to jeopardize the entire Soviet railway system and the Baltic fronts will also have to be served, without neglecting the normal needs of the other fronts!
But these arguments, already used by Kaganovitch, do not seem to interest Stalin. The needs of the Red Army must pass before all the rest, including the needs of the civilian economy.
And now the NKVD requisitions means of transport to carry out some special operation in the Crimea... which, by the way, will hinder the deliveries of the Lend-Lease, which also use the railroad from Sevastopol to Zaporozhie. We will have to delay deliveries via Rostov or Taganrog, which will cause further delays in the schedule. Of course, we could have said no to Beria, but Khrulev does not want to visit the Lubyanka. A glance at the clock in his office depresses him a little more: he will sleep here again tonight. He might as well be productive.

 

[Wings]

April 30th, 1943

Italian Front - The bad weather persists in the center of the country. If some people in the headquarters, are pouting, on the front, the biffins are coming to terms with it without much difficulty.
.........
Further north, the campaign against the Genoa region continues. The city undergoes two raids during the day. The first, in the morning, saw the A-20s of the 47th BG attacking the bridges over the Bisagno. Arriving at low altitude with the P-40s of the 57th and 324 FGs, they leave without opposition, because the runways where the German aircraft are based are still under repair. The second raid is carried out by the 98th BG, escorted by the 14th and 79th FG, which bomb the railway installations of the city. The German reaction is still weak. Two Messerschmitt are lost and only one P-38 damaged.
During the night, the 205 Group continues its effort, but this time, the Bologna railway station is attacked. The next day, the fascist newspapers will storm as best they can against "the assassins of the sky", but the population grumbles against the Tedeschi and calm reigns only thanks to the numerous Black Shirt patrols that cross the city.

 

[Wings]

April 30th, 1943

San Remo - Nice weather in the city of flowers. From his room at the Bellevue Hotel, Georg Thom can contemplate the sumptuous flower gardens in all their springtime splendor. But the man is not here to revel in the intoxicating scent of the colorful corollas, nor does he have time to go gambling at the casino, one of the four in Italy! He has to go and recognize the surroundings, the topography of the place - a bowl centered on the city - offering numerous locations suitable for the installation of V-weapon launching ramps.
During the breakfast, the butler, approached by Vittorio Pruno, agrees to give some advice on easily accessible and well located places, going so far as to recommend Bignone mountain, accessible by a cable car inaugurated in October 36! The German smiles at this evocation, thinking rightly that a cable car cabin could hardly accommodate heavy equipment such as a Fi 103, even if the Sanrémasque tells him of a capacity of 25 people. The soldier retains that the slopes of the relief, well wooded, can easily shelter installations with ramps oriented towards Corsica, given the general axis of the mountainous terrain and without having any obstacles in front of it.
In fact, the day will be long and fruitful, the road crew even pushing to Termini, where we discover on the seaside an accessible and well oriented cave. It was necessary to go until there, because storms are foreseen for the following day, and Thom judges preferable to return to the sumptuous hotel Bellevue, more pleasant to spend rainy days if it were necessary.

 

[Wings]

 

[Wings]

The program for May 1943: More plans drawn as June will look decisive, plus some movement in Italy.

 

[naraht]

As a note on the differences iTTL. Stalingrad isn't even on the *map* of the Nazi conquests.

 

[Wings]

May 1st, 1943

Eperlecques - After a short week of almost continuous rain, the PRU Spitfire of F/Lt Arthur "B-for" Baker manages to pass between the clouds of a clear sky. Visibility is excellent, even exceptional, as it often is after spring thunderstorms - the pictures will be clear. They will especially confirm the last message of the Land Semaphore network received after Easter: the Germans are concreting, and not only a little. In addition to what looks like the foundations of a small station around the rails of the Decauville track, a rectangle of 150 meters by 90 meters, 6 meters deep, has been built along the railroad tracks, which suggests a large building.
Even more disturbing: Baker sees another construction site twelve kilometers further south, near the village of Wizernes, near Saint-Omer.

 

[Wings]

May 1st, 1943

French Admiralty (Mers-el-Kébir office) - The French Naval Aviation is definitely in full development, as shown by today's update on the numerous aircraft ordered for it on loan-lease.
.........
Chance-Vought F4U-1 Corsair
204 aircraft have been ordered and are being delivered, including:
- 4 F4U-1 pre-production aircraft, n° 01 to 04, delivered at the beginning of January (those of Scitivaux, Lagadec, Jubelin and Folliot)
- 25 standard F4U-1s, n° 1 to 25, delivered between February 22 and March 10, at a rate of 2 aircraft per working day (Monday to Friday).
- 175 F4U-1FN (FN for French Navy, official name given to the French Corsairs by the Bureau of Aeronautics of the US Navy). The n° 26 to 100 were received between March 10th and April 30th. Nos. 101 to 200 will be delivered between May 1st and June 2rd3, again at a rate of two aircraft per working day.
The 25 standard aircraft will finally be modified before the end of May into F4U-1FNs on a make-up chain (the Riddershorff-Hospers Commando) before being sent to North Africa.
Remarks:
1) Deliveries to the Aeronavale absorbed a third of the 619 F4Us produced between January and June 1943, but this did not affect, or only slightly, the creation of new squadrons equipped with Corsairs in the Marines or in the US Navy.
2) The F4U-1FNs are identical in every way to the American Corsairs, except for the wingtips, shortened by 4 inches (10 cm).
The armament is standard: 3 Browning M2 .50 machine guns in each wing. This version of the Corsair has neither a bomb launcher (but this will come soon enough) nor a rocket launcher (that too will come...).
On the other hand, a large auxiliary Duramold tank of 175 US gallons (about 663 liters) can be installed in the belly.
3) The F4U-1FNs wear the current standard USN camouflage, dark blue grey on the upper surfaces and on the underside of the folding wing section; light gull gray underneath.
The BBR rudder and the roundels at the six usual positions are all hooked.
The aircraft are numbered in black from 01 to 04 and from 1 to 200 at the bottom of the rudder.
4) The distribution of the aircraft will finally be quite simple.
100 planes (even numbers) will be delivered by boat in North Africa.
50 planes (odd numbers from 1 to 99) will go to GAN1 for the Jean-Bart.
30 planes (odd numbers from 101 to 159) will leave for the American West Coast to be shipped to Noumea, with a copious stock of spare parts. They will allow the rearming of the 20F squadron, which still uses F4F-4s and P-40s, and will then be redeployed to New Guinea.
The last 20 aircraft (odd numbers from 161 to 199) were sent to North Africa.
.........
Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless
100 aircraft are being delivered on lease since mid-April to US Navy standard, camouflage and French markings identical to those of the F4U.
The first 25 are going to GAN1. The others will go to NAF. These will be the last SBDs delivered to the Aéronavale.
.........
Grumman TBF-1 Avenger
150 aircraft are being delivered on loan-lease since the beginning of March to US Navy standard, camouflage and French markings identical to those of the F4U.
The first 25 are going to GAN1. The others will go to NAF.
.........
Grumman J2F-5 Duck
Fifteen of these funny ducks, large amphibious biplanes, were delivered to be used as liaison, sea rescue and as a barge aboard the Jean-Bart. Camouflage and markings are identical to those of the F4U.
Three embarked on the Jean-Bart, the other 12 left for NAF, where most of them were carried on board the Berlaimont.
Grumman also provided modified catapult carts. The Duck is not normally suitable for this sport (float too wide), but it is strong enough to be catapulted without modification of the airframe. It was replaced by the Curtiss SC-1 Seahawk in early 1945.
.........
Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat
A batch of 80 aircraft was taken from US Navy stocks in July, September and November. They will be sent to NAF by three rotations of jeep carriers (20+30+30).
These planes will wear the new three-tone camouflage of the US Navy with the BBR rudder rudder and the 6 phantom badges.
About 20 of them will be of the F6F-3N variant (night fighter). These aircraft will be used to arm the 9F squadron, commanded by Henri Daillière. The 9F was divided into three detachments, the first of which, commanded by Henry Yonnet, will be embarked on the Jean-Bart, the following ones were embarked on the Joffre and the Clemenceau.
.........
North-American PBJ-1D Mitchell (B-25D)
The 50 aircraft destined for the 17F and 18F squadrons were received and flown in September-October 1943, respectively in NAF (from where they were deployed in Corsica) and Nouméa (from where they were deployed in New Guinea).
.........
North-American SNJ-3 Harvard
Out of the 50 aircraft acquired on lease for the French Naval Aviation Schools in NAF, which lacked modern training aircraft, about fifteen of them will be equipped with landing claws to train CVE pilots, among others.

Aeronavale Grummann J2F Duck, CV Jean-Bart, Jean-Bart sea trials, May 1943

 

[Wings]

May 1st, 1943

Quonset Point - Lagadec: "Another trip in sight, and a predictable one at that. Next Saturday, direction Chicago, for the CarQuals! But without our planes. Indeed, the Glenview base is full of decommissioned trainers and old frontline aircraft. So there's no need to clutter up the parking lots any further. In addition, our Corsairs are not yet qualified to land on the very small platforms used.
Departure at the end of the week. We will have ten days non-stop (plus two extra days if necessary) to qualify or re-qualify all our lovely people to the joys of the "controlled crash" (nickname given to connoisseurs have given to the landing)."
.........
El Segundo - The 5F begins its return trip from California to QP.

 

[Wings]

May 1st, 1943

Berlin - Before the war, Joseph Goebbels took the habit of writing a daily diary, a habit that will prove to be an extremely rich source for historians. after the war. Labor Day or not, he does not deviate from his habit.
"In Berlin, we destroyed a nest of communists. So far, forty arrests have been made, but more are to come. This group has been carrying out clandestine activities in working class areas of Berlin. The leader is a 73-year-old pensioner, who had nothing to do all day and was engaged in subversive activities. We will guillotine him."
Wilhelm Lehmann formally admitted during his trial that he had written words condemning Hitler with chalk in a public toilet in the capital city because of his exasperation with the growing economic difficulties. Condemned by the People's Court, he was executed on June 10th, 1943. His widow will be asked to pay the bill covering the costs of her husband's incarceration and execution.

 

[Wings]

May 1st, 1943

On the road between Hanoi and Nhat-Tân (Tonkin) - The Workers' Day must be celebrated with dignity. This is the opinion of the leaders of the 309th Dai Doan Division (DD).
That is why, around 01:00, about thirty men swim across the Red River, slit the throats of two sentries and attack a machine gun nest with a knife. Some defenders have time to shout and open fire, which brutally wake up the whole regiment. None of the participants in the raid survive, but when the last one fell, the Japanese had six more dead (eleven in all with the sentries and machine gunners).
The rest of the night is a nightmare. Sporadic bursts of gunfire and flares prevent the soldiers from sleeping.
At 04:00 am, another assault is launched. This time, it is the tail of the regiment which is attacked by a pack of bo-dois coming, not from the other side of the river, but from the south, by the dike that the regiment crossed the day before! Sharp bugle calls launch a bayonet charge. This one is accompanied by a rain of mortar shells (these are captured Japanese knee-mortars or, more often, from the weapons supplied to the Thai army by Japan and sold to honorable intermediaries by the officers of the Thai units occupying Laos). The soldiers of the Mikado, surprised, do not have time to direct their machine guns on this side to block the charge and find themselves in close combat. After half an hour of an amazing fight in the middle of the shadows cut by the flares, the Viets withdraw, covered by a few machine guns. The Japanese have 17 dead and 23 wounded; they count 57 dead bo-dois.
The march resumes at sunrise. The men in the lead expected to fall into an ambush or to jump on a mine, but the only Vietminh they meet are dead: they lay in twenty-five graves dug the day before. The Japanese also discover a roughly fortified position, surrounded by bamboo stakes and traps that had become usual. But, for some reason, the place is deserted.
At 14:30, the Japanese reach Nhat-Tân (which should have been the first stage of the evening before) and discover that the small city is occupied by Vietminh troops. The confrontation is brief: the Bo-Dois defend only the first houses and withdraw, leaving three dead.

 

[Wings]

May 1st, 1943

Espiritu Santo - In the early morning, the USS Enterprise (CV-6) sails for Pearl Harbor. After more than a year of continuous operations, the aircraft carrier is in dire need of a general overhaul. The interim repairs carried out for months by the Vestal's (AR-4) crews to keep her operational had indeed reached their limits.
.........
Pearl Harbor - At the same time, the USS Essex (CV-9), the first operational ship of her class, leaves Pearl for New Caledonia. Accompanied by the Alabama (BB-60), she leaves to join the Hornet and the three battleships (South Dakota, Indiana, Massachusetts) which are covering the slow advance of the Allies in the Solomons. The two carriers are to carry out joint exercises and maneuvres for a few weeks, until the departure of the Hornet, whose wear and tear is also beginning to be felt.

 

[Wings]

May 1st, 1943

Chongqing - The radio technician requested by Lieutenant Linebarger descends from the C-47 that assures the daily liaison between the USAAF base in Kunming, the air hub of Allied forces in Southeast Asia, and the base near the capital of free China. Before being dispatched by Chennault, the 26-year-old non-commissioned officer, son of a small businessman, served as communications chief of the Burma Bridge Busters, a squadron of B-25s specialized in the neutralization of the Japanese infrastructure on the Burmese front. It is shyly as they greet each other, but as soon as they start talking, the current passes: the radio technician reveals himself to be also a fan of science and the trip to the Intelligence office is spent exchanging reminiscences of old issues of pulp magazines they had devoured as children. "I've been reading science fiction stories since I was seven," says the technician. "You could say it's in my blood. So to meet someone who actually writes them..." Linebarger is modest: "Oh, they're not published, and I don't know if they ever will be. They don't seem to interest many people.
It's raining until the Ford in US Army colors arrives at its destination, after slowly winding its way through the narrow, crowded streets. "What weather!" the technician remarks. "Is it always this humid here?"
- Unfortunately, the local climate is ten months of rain and two months of heat. You have to get used to it. Here," says Linebarger, handing him a soft felt that has already been well used. "Less regulation than the cap, but it protects better from the drops. Keep it, it doesn't fit me anyway."
- My first souvenir from China!" exclaims Sergeant Arnold Spielberg. "I will keep it preciously.

 

[Wings]

May 1st, 1943

Moscow - Despite the war, the International Workers' Day is once again celebrated with great pomp on the Red Square. Coming from all over the country by special trains, tens of thousands of soldiers, trade unionists, members of the Communist Party and old bolsheviks parade in front of Lenin's mausoleum on which Stalin and the main leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union are installed. For the occasion, the three components of the Red Army are honored. Infantrymen, tanks, planes, navy troops parade in front of a battery of cameras and a cloud of photographers under the eyes of a crowd. The foreign diplomatic corps also came to see the show - and to tries to identify vehicles that are still unknown. But the military attachés will have to make do with riflemen marching impeccably in tight rows and platoons of T-34/76 brightened up to the point of shining like new pennies.
Reading Pravda and the rest of the press of the day is more instructive. Between two articles on the recent victories of the Soviet armed forces and on the coming debacle of the fascist invader, the reader can discover three appointments of marshals. The last ones were the unfortunate promotion of 1935 (three of the then five distinguished generals had been eliminated in the purges of the following years*) and the one of 1940, which was happier, if not more glorious (Shaposhnikov dismissed for medical reasons, Kulik disgraced, only Tymoshenko remained, but in a secondary command). But the class of 1943 was victorious and had a special spice. In addition to Zhukov and Vasilyevsky, it rewards a man whose merits are discreetly but more and more regularly praised. A man credited with having stood firm in the face of Hitler's sneak attack, a man who never sleeps and who will certainly ensure the victory to the Soviet people: Joseph Stalin himself.

* Voroshilov and Budyenny (the least deserving) survived.

 

[Wings]

May 1st, 1943

Italian front - If the front is still calm, it is not so in the air where the La Spezia-Livorno-Florence triangle is the object of Rhubarb missions carried out by two Bombardment Groups of the 49th BW, three Fighter Groups of the 64th FW and the groups of the 4th EC and the 53rd EACCS. The German reaction is very moderate, the enemy grounds seem to be emptied of their aircraft.

 

[Wings]

May 2nd, 1943

Le Havre - The torpedo boat Möwe is back in the 5th Flotilla, after very long work in Germany to replace her stern. This one had been torn off during the torpedoing of the ship by the submarine HMS Taku on May 8th, 1940.
During this transfer, the Möwe is accompanied by the torpedo boats Greif and Jaguar, which had months earlier escorted the Tirpitz and Scharnhorst to Norway and then escorted the Admiral Scheer to Kiel, before carrying out various missions in the North Sea.

 

[Wings]

May 2nd, 1943

Moulmein - For the first time, the raids launched on the airfield north of the city do not produce any results as the Japanese refuse to fight. Only the flak damages two of the attackers.
During the following weeks, the allied aircraft sorties are hardly opposed - only four planes (two on each side) are shot down. It seems that the Allies have acquired the air superiority on the front. As the monsoon arrives and with it a clear decrease in the number of sorties, it is decided that the Japanese airfields would only be carefully monitored until their activity resumes.

 

[Wings]

May 2nd, 1943

On the road between Nhat-Tân and Ba-Duong, Tonkin - The 71st IR resumes its march in the same formation as the day before. In the afternoon, the leading company comes up against a well-prepared and well-defended enemy position. However, the confrontation is quite brief. As soon as the artillery intervenes, the Bo-Dois disengage and flee. Made cautious by their previous experiences, the Japanese did not suffer any casualties.
The Viet position has a small field hospital, but the wounded and most of the equipment were evacuated. At a few signs, the Japanese think they recognize that one or two "colonists" were there and are angry that they had let them get away.
Using binoculars, the officer commanding the vanguard spots another defensive position and asks for artillery support. Once the shelling is over, he launches his men into the assault, but they only take an already abandoned fort.

In the skies over Tonkin - Ten H-87s of the II/40 come across a formation of 8 Ki-36s "Ida" on their way to a fire support mission and covered by 6 Ki-27 Nates. While six of them dive on the Nates, the other four go after the Ki-36. Despite their agility and courage of the pilots, they are swept away by the Curtiss, and the fight reminds some veterans of what they had experienced when they were flying Morane 406s over France.
A veteran of the II/40 later recalled: "We even felt sorry for those kids sent to the box in their old-fashioned cuckoos: with more than 160 km/h speed difference for the Idas, 130 for the Nates, our six machine guns, four of them heavy, against their two light guns, plus the rest, it was no longer air combat but an execution..." Even the skill of the pilots that made the Ki-27s formidable a year earlier is no longer there: the pilots from the beginning of the war are dead or have been sent to other fronts, flying better aircraft. Those who face the Allies today are mostly novices.
Five Ki-36s and a Ki-27 burn out in a few moments, in exchange for an H-87 whose engine was set on fire by a lucky shot and another that a Nate pilot doesn't hesitate to ram.
Back in Hoa Binh, the seven survivors make the bitter observation that two 7.7 mm are decidedly too light to light to significantly damage the American aircraft, and that the Ki-36 is far too vulnerable to Allied fighters, even with a fighter escort...

 

[Wings]

May 2nd, 1943

Aden - At dusk, the Volframio, accompanied by the Barletta, makes a discreet entry in the port of Aden. It is the first time in three years that an Italian submarine has crossed the Red Sea without a hitch. The new Freon air-conditioning system that equips the Volframio has given full satisfaction, erasing the problems suffered by the Macalle, Archimede or Perla in the summer of 1940. The two Italians are docked in a remote area of the port, with the Barletta masking its companion from any inquisitive, Japanese-speaking eyes.
The stopover lasts less than forty-eight hours before attacking the crossing of the Indian Ocean.

 

[Wings]

May 2nd, 1943

Latvia - General von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt's doctors, in agreement with the medical services of the HeeresGruppe Nord, order his immediate transfer to Germany, as his state of health no longer allows him to remain at the head of the II. ArmeeKorps of the 16. Armee. He is replaced in his post by General Paul Laux.