Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

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Story 1696
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    • fester

    Near Strasburg December 6, 1942

    Feminine hands pulled on hard, thin bodily protuberances. White fluid emerged as the young woman let go of quiet, contented noises. The milk cow mooed as pressure eased and her comfort increased. Anna Marie had taken to doing the morning milking over from her mother which allowed the older woman to sleep for another ten minutes.

    Her breath crystallized in the air and the song that she was humming was almost to the end. Overhead an owl almost silently swooped one last time down upon a mouse before dawn broke. Off in the distance, a truck backfired near the antenna collection that served as a radar site and a listening/interception post. The last of the milk was in the bucket and she headed inside where she would churn butter before breakfast. As she walked past the fallow garden, the laborers who had been sent to the farm waved at her as they headed out to fields to repair fences and prepare for the next planting season.
     
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    • Story 1697
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    • fester

    Off Lowestoft, England December 7, 1942


    Gunners aboard the two Norwegian destroyers, Tor and Sleipner were ready. Ammunition had been put into the chamber and the directors were warmed up. Dozens of coal barges and coasters were getting ready to receive an air attack. Smoke was pouring out of the two destroyers as they sped along the length of the convoy attempting to create a thick enough hiding place for as many of their charges as possible.
    Twelve minutes later, the gunners stood down. No aircraft had attacked. RAF Typhoons screeched overhead with their wings wiggling in victory. The four defenders had managed to get the bead on fast German fighter bombers. No kills would be claimed, but they had forced the Luftwaffe pilots to drop their bombs and run for home before they could hit the convoy.
     
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    • Unknown

    Didn't know that about Jack...

    Of course, your JFK line was so hilarious, and so something that JFK might say, IMO...

    Elaine seems to be meeting a few people from the Boston area who will be famous in the future...
     
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    Unknown

    On a side note, since it's the one-year anniversary of Pearl Harbor, let's look at what the Japanese have accomplished:

    They managed to take Hong Kong, most of the Philippines, the Borneo oilfields, part of Burma and Guam.

    OTOH, Hong Kong and Guam had already been written off by the British and US (indeed, the Brits were sending more troops bound for Hong Kong to Malaya) ITTL, the Philippines still haven't fallen completely, the Japanese and Thai forces are in trouble from Malaya and Burma, Java and Sumatra haven't fallen, and they were driven off of Timor. They're in their death spiral, and that will dawn on them soon...
     

    Killer in

    Unknown said:
    On a side note, since it's the one-year anniversary of Pearl Harbor, let's look at what the Japanese have accomplished:

    They managed to take Hong Kong, most of the Philippines, the Borneo oilfields, part of Burma and Guam.

    OTOH, Hong Kong and Guam had already been written off by the British and US (indeed, the Brits were sending more troops bound for Hong Kong to Malaya) ITTL, the Philippines still haven't fallen completely, the Japanese and Thai forces are in trouble from Malaya and Burma, Java and Sumatra haven't fallen, and they were driven off of Timor. They're in their death spiral, and that will dawn on them soon...
    Click to expand...
    And then they'll get desperate
     

    Bob in Pittsburgh

    fester said:
    Scunthorpe, England December 5, 1942

    The mighty blast furnaces were in operation today for primary production of high quality steel instead of merely recycling scrap or smelting down the poor quality local ore.
    Click to expand...
    Minor point but blast furnaces do not consume scrap. Blast furnaces produce molten iron. The iron is then converted to steel in the open hearth (open hearths were the state of the art in 1942) where about 10% scape is added to the mix. Sorry to nit pick a great story but 35+ years in the steel industry teaches you a few things.
     

    fester

    Bob in Pittsburgh said:
    Minor point but blast furnaces do not consume scrap. Blast furnaces produce molten iron. The iron is then converted to steel in the open hearth (open hearths were the state of the art in 1942) where about 10% scape is added to the mix. Sorry to nit pick a great story but 35+ years in the steel industry teaches you a few things.
    Click to expand...
    Updated to reflect this input.
     
    Story 1698
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    • fester

    Stalingrad December 8, 1942

    The grandfather slept. He slept as the ground rumbled with tanks moving west several days walking to the west. He slept as bombers roared overhead. He slept as an artillery division fired several box cars worth of shells at a fascist rear guard. He slept as his son in law laid on the snow, bleeding out from a mortar shell that exploded a few feet from him.

    He woke.

    His grandson decided that he needed to play. The little boy pulled on his grandpa’s beard and attempted to eat his nose. Short arms squeezed sleep out of the old man’s eyes as they locked behind his neck.

    “Play, play now” So he rolled out from underneath his wool blankets and began to play. The toys were simple, a piece of a blanket and a few pieces of wood that somehow had become trains and ferocious actors in a story that was being formed extemporaneously. He played for a few minutes until his daughter handed him a cup of hot, thin broth with a smile on her face.

    She and her children had come back into the city a few days ago, and their house had been lucky enough to not be on the front lines. Apartment blocks a few hundred meters to their east had been the front and the defenders had intentionally wrecked bedrooms and living rooms into defensive nests. Artillery and anti-tank guns had wrecked many of the low lying apartment blocks. The defenders who had survived the shells that knocked the buildings into pieces had merely dug in deeper. All that would not matter to the grandfather and his daughter as their apartment had merely been scratched by shells missing long or to the right.

    “Play, play now” His boss commanded him so he got back on the floor and tickled his supervisor.
     
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    • Story 1699
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    • fester

    Off Endau, Malaya December 8, 1942

    Half dozen modified gunboats bounced in the waves. The guns had been removed, the storage lockers replaced with impromptu fuel tanks and the center part of the ship emptied out. The small arms lockers were still aboard and crew accommodations had been improved as they were no longer patrol boats who would dart in and out of harbor for a night or two, but transports, capable of carrying forty five or fifty tons of well loaded cargo for several thousand miles.

    Today, USS Gay Corsair was bumping against the tires hanging along the hull of USS William B. Preston. The seaplane tender dwarfed the wooden craft that was doing something the lanky lieutenant had never done before. PT boats never self-deployed across an ocean or went thousands of miles from base. They were knife fighters who jumped out of shadows for a rapid ambush. Taking on fuel from a steel hulled support ship was a new experience. And it was proceeding slowly as hoses landed on the wooden deck. The ships were tied together and then as the hoses were secured to deliberately half filled fuel tanks, thousands of gallons of diesel fuel was transferred.

    An hour later, Gay Corsair was lower in the water and had taken up an escort station as another pair of boats pulled alongside the seaplane tender. They continued to head north at eight knots as the improvised crews aboard the impromptu cargo craft slowly learned the intricate dance of refueling at sea.

    As night fell, the nine vessels headed north to port at Kota Bharu.
     
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    • Story 1700
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    • fester


    North of Singora December 8, 1942


    Men with bayonets fixed advanced slowly through the thick jungle like timber plantation. A few dozen yards behind them, a platoon of US made and Australian manned M-3 tanks advanced. Machine guns were moving back and forth with eyes seeking danger and trouble. Whenever a veteran felt a tweak along his spine that he could not explain but only listen to, a machine gun would send tracers to a potential hiding spot even as the medium tanks slowed and spun slightly to bring the heavy medium velocity cannon into line with the target. A few seconds after the machine gun fired, heavy cannons boomed and high explosive shells ripped open potential ambush sites and hidey-holes.

    The 1st Australian Armored Division continued advancing at a steady walk throughout the afternoon. A few land mines had to be cleared by pioneers. Artillery regiments threw stonks whenever the Japanese rear area troops attempted to slow the exploiting tanks and armoured infantry men. Battle groups turned off the main north-south road and ravaged logistical units while infantrymen slaughtered Japanese artillerymen who were still trying to fire at the gaps in the front lines where the two armoured divisions had already passed through.

    As nightfall came, the Australian division had already pushed fourteen to twenty miles north of the morning’s jumping off point. The battered Japanese divisions had failed to hold back yet another deliberate assault from the lavishly supplied and well trained Commonwealth 11th Army. And once the tempo of the battle hinted at Japanese exhaustion, the four hundred and fifty tanks and thirty thousand men of the exploitation force were sent against two battalions of Japanese infantry that would have been hard pressed to stop a determined attack of Girl Guides.

    Food, and far more importantly, fuel and ammunition was being passed out to the diggers as night was falling. Each section of a platoon gained a few critical hours of sleep while the rest started to prepare for tomorrow’s assault. If they could push another ten miles north, they would have the crossroads that would lead them to the east and west coasts. The generals had not told the men if they were to advance or if they would need to hold in place.
     
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    • Viper91

    This may buy the Bataan garrison critical time, but I still expect at least one or two if not more of these ships will still run into enemy aircraft, surface warships, or the odd mine. This is as best a temporary measure, but it could still buy the garrison weeks at least.
     
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