For now and, hopefully, it'll stay that way (same with the Sullivan brothers ITTL)...
Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2
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For now and, hopefully, it'll stay that way (same with the Sullivan brothers ITTL)...
Driftless
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Regardless of this edition of the Sullivan's, there probably hasn't been a driver to change any rules about combining family on ships. It likely would take a tragedy on par with the Sullivans to change the policy. So if not the Sullivans, it might be the Fighting Swenson's, D'Agostino's, or Myers.
Two of them have brushes with deaths... hope the third one wont get unlucky.
The good news is she is too old for Comrade Beria to develop an interest in, but not too old for his NKVD comrades to decide she is too "elitist" or spending too much time in proximity to the fascists.
The third is an infantryman in Tunisia who will soon be trying to remember how the town upriver speaks as some of those words could be quite useful... and the fourth is aboard a US battleship.
Story 1963
Palawan, March 26, 1943
Captain Ibling paused. The point man at the head of the column had frozen a moment ago and his hand went up. The eighty men quickly stopped and signalled the man behind him. They all were alert. The birds were still singing and the animals were still scurrying out of the way.
A few minutes later, the point man resumed marching. It was nothing. The Navy pilot who was five steps behind Captain Ibling continued walking to his rescue. An hour later, two rubber boats from USS Growler came ashore in the small cove. The sailors unloaded ammunition, radio batteries and a few crates of medical supplies. They took back into the surf the fighter pilot and a trio of sick guerillas.
Story 1964
Neville Island, Pennsylvania, March 26, 1943
Another landing ship left the riverine shipyard. It was soon in line behind the Mon Valley barges bringing coal and limestone to the Aliquippa mills. Three hours later, it had descended into another pool along the Ohio River and would make a long journey down the Ohio-Mississippi River complex until it emerged into the Gulf of Mexico. The new Navy crew would eventually pick up a company of tanks for operations in the Mediterranean.
Mrs. Jaroshek did not care. She took her kerchief and wiped the sweat mixed with grime from her eyes. Coffee that had been sitting in the urns for too long had to be quickly drunk before the break whistle called the seam team of rivetters and welders back to work. A new landing ship was being laid down this afternoon and her gang was on it. This would be the fourth ship she would work on from start to finish and by now, her hands knew all the tricks to safely work quickly.
Story 1965
Sofia, Bulgaria March 27, 1943
The shark tooth fighter propeller came to a stop. The young pilot paused for a moment and looked at the gauges one last time. At the edge of the wing, the crew chief waited before his face asked about success. The pilot smiled, and put up a single finger.
The rest the 1st Group of Fighter Wing 53 was landing at their new airfield. Protecting Romania by basing in Bulgaria sure beat the Eastern Front. They had spent the last seven months fighting over the ever changing front lines of Army Group South. The smiling pilot with thirty six kills already painted on his machine had flown over Stalingrad and had claimed kills near Grozny. They had covered the retreat of 6th Army and the Romanian auxiliaries to the German legions. And they were the fist that allowed the panzers to punch back across the river lines.
Now they were protecting the largest oil fields supplying the Reich. American and British bombers were ranging over the eastern Balkans. The Romanian crude production was down eight percent year over year while exports of refined products could not keep up with the demands of a mobile war on the Eastern front and the defense of German cities and factories from the depredations of the ever growing Bomber Command and 8th Air Force operating from the Home Counties.
ME-109s were being pulled from the front to protect the oil fields that were critical. Now they would be fighting front line American and British fighters whose newest pilots had more flight hours than any of the raw Red pilots and many of the Soviet section and element leaders. Now they would be slashing into heavy bomber boxes. Now they would be trying to lame elephants with throwing javelins.
Sofia is in Bulgaria ^^'
Unless Romania invaded Bulgaria in a turn of events I haven't read
War is hell, but this does prove the maxim that the pen is mightier than the sword LOL
Is that an actual German idiom or something you coined just now? Either way, I'm stealing it.
Story 1966
Stockholm Sweden March, 27, 1943
The Mosquito bomber taxied down the runway. It was, as always unarmed. Unlike its many brothers, it was painted with a light gray bottom and a dark blue top to blend in with the sea. Civilian markings were on its tail and it was registered as a civil airliner. Dozens of crates were loaded into the bomb bay. Ball bearings and precision manufactured goods worth their weight in silver would be flown through the Kattegat and then across the North Sea at only a few hundred feet of altitude. Two Norwegian “tourists” who had engaged in a three hundred kilometer cross country skiing tour of the occupied nation were also being extracted.
Story 1967
Durban, South Africa March 28, 1943
The Dutch coastal defense ship Soerabaja pulled into the harbor. The old, small, obsolete ship was undermanned. Most of her experienced crew had been sent ashore at Batavia to replenish the ranks of the crews of the few still functional Dutch cruisers and the destroyers that still made up the colonial fleet. She was alone, and almost unarmed. Work gangs would spend two weeks stripping the cruiser of anything useful before the skeleton crew took her through the Atlantic to an Irish Sea port where she would be temporarily used as a barracks ship while her fate as a block ship was deferred.
The Dutch coastal defense ship Soerabaja pulled into the harbor. The old, small, obsolete ship was undermanned. Most of her experienced crew had been sent ashore at Batavia to replenish the ranks of the crews of the few still functional Dutch cruisers and the destroyers that still made up the colonial fleet. She was alone, and almost unarmed. Work gangs would spend two weeks stripping the cruiser of anything useful before the skeleton crew took her through the Atlantic to an Irish Sea port where she would be temporarily used as a barracks ship while her fate as a block ship was deferred.
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Driftless
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Is there a replacement ship in the works? The Dutch are certainly in the fight in the Pacific, so I'd guess there's ship/ships coming along as production priorities allow. Who's in the warship building business for the Allies at this point? Britain, US, Canada, Australia, ????
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