Fantasque Time Line (France Fights On) - English Translation

[Wings]

July 1st, 1941

BAN Lartigue - The war has calmed, for a time, the quarrels of button. The GB IV/60, training school group on Consolidated 32, which welcomes both experienced personnel to be transformed as well as beginners just out of the training schools, has based itself at Lartigue Naval Air Station, 20 kilometers from Oran, whose fighters cover Mers-el-Kébir. Administratively, the IV/60 is under the authority of a GEIB (Groupement École Interarmes de Bombardement), whose existence is much more theoretical than real, commanded by Captain Barjot. This fiction allows to train on "32" - that we start, like the Americans, to name Liberator, sometimes Frenchified as Libérateur - not only personnel from the French Air Force, but also two or three officers from the Royal Air Force, about eight naval officers, mechanics and armourers. In fact, as long as the United States could maintain the pace of their deliveries, the Aéronavale should arm an anti-submarine warfare flotilla in Dakar by the beginning of 1942, using Consolidated 32.
Newly promoted, Captain Mendès-France arrives at Lartigue for a two-week training course, which is very useful, as the "32" is much larger and better equipped with navigation and radio equipment than the Amiot 351/354. As for the IV/60, it awaits Mendes with curiosity, especially since the B.O. of the Ministry of National Defense, section "Air", published this morning the following text:
"The General commanding the Air Force cites in the Army Order Capt. Mendès-France (Pierre), licensed navigator.
An officer of remarkable courage and drive, who combines eminent qualities of personality and attitude to competence. Has just completed 89 missions in a reconnaissance group. Always a volunteer, whatever the difficulties of the mission. Has known, in defiance of the enemy, to guide his pilot on many occasions in extreme conditions and to make the crew return to its base despite enemy fire damage and breakdowns. Was four times wounded. Honors the finest traditions of the Armée de l'Air and sets an example for all to follow.
This citation includes the award of the Croix de Guerre with Palm and the Order of Aerial Merit."
In a departure from tradition, Captain Mendès-France pays for the welcome drink.

 

[Wings]

July 2nd, 1941

Indian Ocean - Since it has been scouring the northern Indian Ocean, the Kormoran has only sunk two ships. Nevertheless, Captain Detmers must take his ship to an area away from the shipping lanes, as the machinery once again needs servicing.

 

[Wings]

July 2nd, 1941

Tokyo - The Japanese government recalls more than a million conscripts to arms and orders the return of Japanese merchant ships in the Atlantic.

 

[Wings]

July 2nd, 1941

Peloponnese - The German and Italian troops, now firmly established in the Pyrgos region, manage to cut the Pyrgos-Patras road.
Other German troops succeed in gaining a foothold on the northeast coast, not far from the site of Epidaurus, and start to advance towards Mycenae and Nafplio despite numerous allied air attacks.
At dusk, the main force of the Mediterranean Fleet sets course for the Peloponnese. At night, it enters the Gulf of Kiparissia. The battleships Barham and Queen Elizabeth
administer to the German-Italian forces near Pyrgos a 90-minute bombardment with 15-inch guns. The same night, under the protection of Force C of the Aegean Sea Squadron, the ABEL group, finding its first vocation, lays several minefields around the islands of Andros and Kea (the northern Cyclades closest to the mainland).

 

[Wings]

July 2nd, 1941

Mönichkirchen, Hitler HQ - The Führer reviews the situation in Greece with Jodl, Keitel, Göring and several high-ranking officers. "As I have always said, the British have set up the whole Greece thing so that they could base their heavy bombers in Crete and threaten the Romanian oil fields! We have to seize Crete as soon as possible, by an energetic airborne and naval operation!"
Lieutenant-General Kurt Student, still convalescent after the wounds received in Corsica, is appalled. "My Führer, the XI Flieger Corps is still unable to undertake such an operation. Our troops suffered heavy losses in Corsica and Sardinia during Merkur; they are far from having made up for them, because the training of a paratrooper is long and expensive. Moreover, we have barely 200 Ju 52s, and more than half of them are currently used to transport supplies between Bulgaria and the Athens region. We need at least 500 aircraft! Even if we are scraping the bottom of the drawer and recovering for example the last old Italian bombers like the SM.82 Pipistrello, which would take several weeks, we would not reach this figure. Then, supposing we could gather the necessary means for a first airborne wave, it seems doubtful to me that we could mobilize the naval means necessary to transport the second wave by boat. It would be wiser to seize first the first Cyclades, until Milo and Thira-Santorin, in order to be able to assault Crete more easily afterwards."
Hitler does not appreciate this speech and also refuses to accept the opinion of Keitel, who underlines that most of the Greek civilian ships have left for Crete or the Dodecanese and that the Axis forces have very few means of naval transport at their disposal.
"Do not always invoke your stupid questions of logistics!" the Führer lashed out, annoyed. "Once the Peloponnese is in our hands, Crete will only be a short hop away!"
Göring intervenes at this point: "I don't see the problem! The power of the Luftwaffe is sufficient to annihilate the enemy's air assets in Crete for the time necessary to organize a large-scale attack. It would be enough, my Führer, if you would authorize the transfer to Greece of the I. FliegerKorps, which is in Poland."
But this transfer does not suit the Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe, General Jeschonnek, at all: "My Führer, the land available in Greece is scarce, poorly developed, and moreover, we have just spent several weeks bombing them! We have already installed the Vth FK, it is impossible to deploy a second FliegerKorps there overnight! Moreover, the fuel supply, which is already inadequate for a FliegerKorps, would be totally inadequate for two!"
These objections are rejected by Göring himself, but Hitler, for once, does not allow himself to be carried away by the enthusiasm of his heir apparent. Not that he was worried about a question as stupid as the supply of fuel for his planes, but he refuses to clear the border with the USSR or the Channel front against the RAF any further.
Nevertheless, he refuses just as much to admit the threat posed by an Allied-occupied Crete on the Romanian oil. The air battle of Crete will take place with the forces already deployed on the spot, even if this decision - as the Führer undoubtedly knows, without wanting to admit it - implies that operation Barbarossa, already very delayed, will have to be postponed to the spring of 1942.

 

[Wings]

July 3rd, 1941

London - As if to confirm the information provided by Beria, Winston Churchill personally gives the ambassador Ivan Maisky a letter intended for Stalin.
His Majesty's Prime Minister does not hesitate to write in his own handwriting, in English and even in Russian in the attached translation, "Mr. Secretary General and dear friend". He specifies that Britain intends to intervene very soon in Iran to force Shah Reza to stop favoring, openly or covertly, the two Axis powers. If necessary, we will go as far as getting rid of the occupant of the Peacock Throne*.
He adds that under the plans approved by the War Cabinet, British forces will occupy Iran, as long as necessary, from the coasts of the Gulf to an approximate line Urmia - Tehran - Torbat-e Jâm. This line, he said, could be retained as a limit to an intervention of Soviet forces because "Great Britain is aware of the importance of the interests of the USSR in Iran and would not only understand but, moreover, "would unreservedly approve of the Soviet government's desire to protect them." He goes on to say: "I can vouch for the fact that His Majesty's Government would have no difficulty in envisaging the presence of the Army and Fleet of the Soviet Union along the whole of the Caspian coast and as far as the outskirts of Teheran."
Churchill suggests that Soviet military attachés in London and British military attachés in Moscow respectively, could contact the Imperial General Staff and the Red Army staff to settle the details and "to abort from scratch any unfortunate misunderstanding."** The care to consult each other and, if they deemed it useful, to exchange officers
even liaison missions, would be left to the generals on the spot: still the old Whitehall respect the man on the spot, who has great freedom to implement the policy adopted in London, of which he knows the ins and outs.
It goes without saying that the Prime Minister is silent on the fact that the limits set on the presence of Her Majesty's units in Iran covers the border with Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east. And he knows he can count on Ankara to forbid the USSR from any untoward thrust towards the west from the Caucasus. Having himself served in India in the time of Queen Victoria, he has not forgotten the lessons of the Great Game celebrated by Kipling and played out against the Russian bear by generations of Indian Civil Servants, Residents and Political Officers***.

* Churchill wrote "to dust off the Shah" - which implies a sweep!
** Churchill, true to the tradition of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Marlowe, was never afraid of words on this point.
*** The Indian Civil Service (ICS) - less than a thousand civil servants, all of them very high level - held the positions of responsibility in the administration (largely open to the natives for executive tasks) of the vice-royalty of India and ensured the functioning of territories depending directly of the Crown. The Residents, who came from the ICS or the Army, represented the viceroy to the most important maharajas, while the younger Political Officers, younger and of lower rank, fulfilled the same function for the second rank princes. In both cases, they were, in fact and sometimes in law, protectorate regimes in which nothing of importance, in spite of the wishes of autonomy of the princes often advised by Russians driven out of their home by the October Revolution, could not be decided without the express agreement of Delhi (or, in summer, of Simla).

 

[Wings]

July 3rd, 1941

Hanoi - An 18-car freight train leaves for Kunming. The French High Commissioner in Indochina refuses the creation of a Japanese commission of inquiry on the attack of the Japanese consulate, but proposes material compensation for the destroyed goods.
.........
Alger - The French government proposes to stop all supplies of French arms to China (it has hardly any more to supply it at this time...=and it does not take any commitment as regards the weapons provided by other countries!).

 

[Wings]

July 3rd, 1941

Peloponnese - Fearing to be encircled, the Greek troops holding Patras start to move southwards, leaving the coast of the gulf of Patras undefended. If, on the Pyrgos side, the night bombardment has somewhat tempered the ardor of the attackers, in the east, the Germans recieve reinforcements and Nafplio falls into their hands at the end of the day.
During the night, the 15 Stirling bombers that remained in Crete bomb the concentrations of German troops around Megara and Corinth, which were preparing to cross into the Peloponnese.

 

[Wings]

July 3rd, 1941

Ionian Sea - At daybreak, as the British squadron is withdrawing, it is attacked by SM.79s of the Regia Aeronautica, at the extreme limit of their range. In the absence of the Eagle, the defence of the fleet relies on the flak of the two anti-aircraft cruisers.
The latter do their job well, shooting down five Sparvieros and preventing the others from adjusting their torpedoes on the British battleships. But one of the planes that had been pushed away from the battleships managed to hit the heavy cruiser York.
While the fleet takes cover, the York is sent to Suda Bay for temporary repairs. The place is not very safe, and therefore not very busy - there is only one Greek tanker from Piraeus, the Pericles, some English patrol boats (Fairmile type B), some small French ships and four German-built Yugoslav speedboats, the Kaimakcalan, Orjen, Suvobor and Triglav.

Brindisi - For several weeks, the men of the Xa MAS surface section, who have moved to Brindisi, have been working hard. The operations in the Aegean Sea seem to offer many targets for their MTMs and MTSs; all of them have dreamed of being able to intervene in the harbor of Piraeus, to oppose the re-embarkation of the allied troops... Unfortunately, the naval superiority of the Allies in this zone made it very unlikely to be able to attack without being intercepted. With the loss of the Dodecanese, Italy lost the only base of operations that would have allowed it to reach these targets in a single night.
But in the evening, a piece of information gathered by aerial reconnaissance changed the situation: a heavy cruiser, damaged the same day, was spotted in Suda Bay. Such a
such a target justifies a big risk.

Aegean Sea - In the evening, the ships of Force C of the Aegean Sea Squadron start transferring troops from Crete to various islands of the Cyclades.

 

[Wings]

July 4th, 1941

Strasbourg - The German administration of Alsace and Lorraine (both annexed de facto to the Reich for a year) decides to set up a conscription system. For the time being, it is only a matter of recruiting units of workers, especially since the Wehrmacht has no desire to put in line in its fighting units men whose fidelity would be very doubtful, as soon as they could be opposed to French troops.
But it is obvious to everyone that, if the need arises, these units of workers could be transformed into combat units as soon as they could be sent to face a different adversary - far to the east, for example.
Who will be the "labor conscripts"? First of all, a good number of ex-French prisoners (or more exactly ex-French): most of the prisoners from the region were released at the end of 1940, on the condition that they recognize that they belonged to Greater Germany.
They had no idea that this would mean joining the workers' units of the Heer... In addition to these former prisoners, the young people incorporated (as in all of Germany) into the Reich Arbeit Dienst* are involuntary but ready-made candidates for conscription into the workers' units.

* Reich Labor Service - Compulsory service of 6 months to 1 year for young Germans between the ages of 18 and 25, providing them with pre-military training before they were drafted into the Wehrmacht. Before the war, the units of the R.A.D. were employed in clearing works or in the construction of the Reichsautobahnen. Since 1939, these works are more military: construction of light defenses, ringstand, trenches, artillery tanks, anti-tank walls, etc. especially in the occupied territories.

 

[Wings]

July 4th, 1941

Zagreb - Ante Pavelic, Croatian Poglavnik, has legislated a lot in less than two months of power. After the law of May 30th on the protection of the "Aryan blood" of the Croats, here is a law on the protection of their "Aryan culture". In this context, parks, restaurants and streetcars of Zagreb are forbidden "to Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and dogs". In the whole country, the Ustasha close the Orthodox churches and destroy all signs of the Serbian presence. Some of their leaders encourage the forced conversion of Serbs to Catholicism.
Bishop Stepinac, head of the Croatian Catholic clergy, shows an ambiguous neutrality.
On the same day and in the same spirit, a meeting is held in Zagreb, chaired by Obergruppenführer Siegfried Kasche. It is decided to deport to Serbia several tens of thousands of Slovenes from the Reich and as many Serbs from Croatia to Serbia. Kasche, a former SA chief survivor of the purge that liquidated Röhm and his friends in 1934, shows such zeal in his duties as ethnic purifier that the following year, the Führer considers him for the post of Reich Commissar for Muscovy - as soon as Germany had conquered Muscovy,
of course.

 

[Wings]

July 4th, 1941

Peloponnese - Elements of the 11th Italian Army (and in particular of the Special Army Corps of General Messe) cross the Gulf of Patras, land and enter Patras without opposition around noon. In the east, the city of Argos is attacked during the whole afternoon by troops coming from Nafplio. The French troops defending the city move to the south-west at dusk, which leaves some small Greek units trapped on the northern coast of the Peloponnese. These troops will try to reach Tripolis through the mountain paths.

Athens area - In the afternoon, a formation of 18 British Stirlings and 12 French Consolidated 32s take off from Rhodes, flying north at low altitude until it reaches the island of Skyros, then turns southwest and arrives over the Athens area coming from the northeast at the last light of the day. This maneuver having allowed the raid to pass completely unnoticed, the bombers attack without opposition at medium altitude the airfields of Tanagra, Eleusis and Tatoi, then withdraw towards Rhodes without being worried.
The damage is important, many aircraft just redeployed are destroyed on the ground...
"Welcome to Greece" says Heinz Becker to his comrade Thomas-Bernhardt von Stahlman in front of the smoking carcasses of their Bf 109F.

 

[Wings]

July 5th, 1941

Smederevo (southeast of Belgrade) - A large German ammunition depot explodes, killing several thousand people, including the son of Serbian general Nedic. It is still unknown
whether it was an accident or an attack, but the event occurred the day after the Zagreb conference and a wave of anti-Serb decrees, and shortly after the massacres of Serbs by the Ustasha in Krajina and Herzegovina. Among the massacres, there were one perpetrated by Bosnian Muslims, who had old scores to settle with the Serbs.

 

[Wings]

July 5th, 1941

Off the mouth of the Gironde - Maricosom has finally decided to send to Betasom the submarine Michele Bianchi, whose damage suffered in February has been repaired.
Now commanded by CC Franco Tosoni Pittoni, the Bianchi, which left La Spezia on May 30th, has crossed the Strait of Gibraltar without a hitch. Reaching the Azores, it successfully attacks the SL.76 convoy (Sierra-Leone - England), sinking two cargo ships loaded with iron ore, the French Djurdjura (3,460 GRT) and the Greek Eirini Kyriakides (3,781 GRT). After these two victories, the Bianchi sets sail for Bordeaux.
On July 5th, it is not far from the mouth of the Gironde when it is spotted by the submarine HMS Tigris (Cdr Bone), which torpedoes and sinks it. The whole crew is lost.

 

[Wings]

July 5th, 1941

Bordeaux - Arrival of the cargo ship Himalaya. Having left Massawa nearly six months earlier (January 8th), she crossed the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, rounded Cape Horn and sailed up the South Atlantic to arrive in Rio de Janeiro on February 11th. After a few weeks, the ship left for Bordeaux. This real exploit will be duly celebrated by the Italian propaganda.

 

[Wings]

July 5th, 1941

Tokyo - The Japanese government sends a note to the French government demanding a complete halt of all rail traffic with China, a monopoly on Indochinese rice and the right to occupy Saigon airport "as a measure to maintain peace after the war with Siam". In addition, the Imperial Navy requests the right to inspect any cargo ship going to Indochina to search for "contraband war material". However, the Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr. Matsuoka, specifies that "this note is not an ultimatum" but... a proposal for an agreement. A copy of this "note-not-ultimatum" is nevertheless transmitted by the French government to the American government.

 

[Wings]

July 5th, 1941

Peloponnese - The Italo-German troops who took Argos push towards Tripolis, on the eastern coast of the Peloponnese, in the face of energetic Allied resistance.

Larissa area - Luftwaffe activity over the area is noticeably lower than in previous days, as the aircraft of the Vth FK are being redeployed to the Larissa area in order to limit the congestion of the airfields in the Athens area. Adapting to this redeployment, 15 Stirlings carry out a new bombardment after a feint to the north, this time on the airfields around Larissa. Nevertheless, they are detected early enough to be intercepted on their way back. In addition to two planes destroyed by the Flak, 4 are shot down and 5 damaged by the German fighters, who lose however three Bf 109 and 1 Bf 110, victims of the machine-gunners of the bombers, which they are little trained to attack.

 

[Wings]

July 5th, 1941

Ionian Sea, 00:10 - The two large Italian destroyers Francesco Crispi and Quintino Sella are 10 nautical miles from the bay of Suda, after a miraculously calm trip from Brindisi. Without trying to tempt fate any further, they launch their six MTMs and set off at high speed.
02:00 - The six boats approach the entrance of the bay. On a calm sea, in line and at low speed so as not to be betrayed by the noise of the engines, they pass easily, thanks to their low draught they clear the two minefields and other obstructions that close the bay. The third minefield, at the bottom of the bay, which protects the ships at anchor, proves to be more tricky but the MTMs finally get around it shortly before five o'clock. After a last sighting with binoculars, Lieutenant Luigi Faggioni, who is leading the raid, assigns each one his target. He launches two MTMs against the cruiser York, his main target, and two others against a tanker he has just spotted, while he stays with the last two (his own and another) to finish the job if necessary.
The boats of the first wave launch themselves at full speed and soon two of them hit the cruiser, which immediately gives way; a few seconds later, an explosion sounds on the tanker, which catches fire and lets its fuel escape (one of the two MTMs launched against the tanker had technical difficulties and did not reach its target). While the British flak is unleashed against imaginary planes, Faggioni is watching the York, who does not decide to sink...
Faggioni then decides to attack the cruiser with his last crewman; but as they set off, he sees two silhouettes that cut off their path. These are two Yugoslavian patrol boats, the Kaimakcalan and Orjen, whose officers are the only ones in the bay to have understood what was happening. Faggioni tries to alert his last crew member, but he is already targeted by the Kaimakcalan, which destroys it with a 20 mm gun, while Faggioni missed his target and goes to crash his boat into the pier... It is then that the York ends up sinking.
The six Italian pilots are alive (only one is wounded), clinging to their rafts and quickly captured.
The Greek tanker Pericles sinks on July 6th while being towed to Alexandria, allowing the Xa MAS to achieve a double victory.

 

[Wings]

July 5th, 1941

Aegean Sea - The fast mine anchor HMS Manxman arrives at the island of Karpathos (between Rhodes and Crete). She brings from England a complete GCI radar set, to be installed in the mountains of the island, at more than 1,200 meters, in order to double the radar already installed in Crete.
During the night, the ABEL group anchors a large minefield at the entrance to the Gulf of Patras.
During this time, the ships of Force C carried out a new "tour" to garrisons in the Cyclades and the LCI Glengyle starts to transfer to Crete troops of the 50th Indian Division, based in Cyprus.

 

[Wings]

July 6th, 1941

Alger - The French government meets to discuss the Japanese note and decides to reject it purely and simply.