Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

[ThunderBolt47]

Loyang, China June 2, 1944

Are those planes from a proper, reconstructed Chinese Air force, flown by Chinese pilots or an American force like the flying tigers?

Also what does the air force's Order of Battle look like in China? I would imagine the Thunderbolt's are close too or are the best planes in the region.

 

[fester]

Pang Hseng, Burma June 2, 1944

Another train arrived. The rail line had been extended to the frontier town over the previous dry season. There had been talks about extending the rail line into China, but now the coolies were busy unloading several full trains a day and loading fuel, ammunition, spare parts, shoes and the twenty thousand other goods that the Chinese government needed every day to keep its armies in the field. The next train to arrive in the afternoon would be unloaded under American supervision to be loaded onto American built and American driven trucks. Over 80,000 men and a few thousand American women were supporting the KMT government including two division sized task forces that were moving as a single corps sized unit for the first time towards contact in support of the Chinese field armies that were bending but not yet breaking from a determined Japanese theater wide attack. The American aircraft, the American trucks, and the American tanks had an insatiable appetite for supplies that could only be met in fits and spurts, lunges, lurches and rests, starts and stops as supplies were stockpiled and then consumed before exhaustion set back in.

 

[Draconis]

Since it's too difficult and impractical to build the railway all the way to Kunming at least it can be extended as far as possible. Pang Hseng sits at 2500 feet above sea level. That's getting well into the foothills. Not good country for railroads. And the Burma Road itself can be improved where possible. This is all a huge and beneficial improvement over the costly OTL Hump airlift.

Still, logistics restrain the Allied armies and airforces in China. What is needed is a seaport. But that is many months away if ever, I would guess.

 

[fester]

East of Turin, Italy June 3, 1944

"Jaroshek, get over here, the company XO wants you...."

The corporal brushed some dirt off his uniform. He and four other men had spent the night in a listening post a few hundred yards in front of the company. There might have been a German patrol bumbling out in the darkness, but it could have been a large animal or two as well. He was not sure. He was sure enough to have used the field telephone to call in a report, but not sure enough to ask for mortars or artillery. The patrol had been relieved an hour before dawn and he had made it back to the main position twenty minutes ago. Ten minutes was taken up by reporting to to his LT and the old man. Five minutes was spent shitting out the remains of yesterday's rations while the most recent five minutes was spent with a cup of lukewarm coffee with too much cream and not enough sugar. He had been planning on getting a bite to eat and then an hour or two of sleep unless the Germans shelled the company. They seldom did that. The redlegs and the fly-boys were too good at sending back counter-hate. He made his way to the communication trench and his long legs ate up ground as he went to find the XO.

The XO, his LT and the platoon sergeant were all in the company CP, a twelve foot by eleven foot hole in the ground with a few radios and several field telephones connections.

"Corporal, you're out of uniform"

He looked at the XO funny. He was not a bullshit artist. But this was not usual behavior. He stood still and then snapped a salute while coming to attention.

"Sir, Corporal Jaroschek reporting as ordered"

The XO smiled as he responded, "I was looking for Sergeant Jaroshek"

The XO then extended his hand and offered him a rank badge with three chevrons.

"At ease sergeant... we're losing McNeil, so you're getting 3rd squad over in the 1st platoon and we're bumping Shannahan to your old position... congratulations... and the promotion is backdated to April, so you'll see a bump in your pay soon"

The newly minted sergeant smiled --- a 20% raise for doing the same exact thing he had been doing was not a bad morning. Now if he could just find more coffee or a nap.

 

[Crowbar Six]

East of Turin, Italy June 3, 1944

"Jaroshek, get over here, the company XO wants you...."

The corporal brushed some dirt off his uniform. He and four other men had spent the night in a listening post a few hundred yards in front of the company. There might have been a German patrol bumbling out in the darkness, but it could have been a large animal or two as well. He was not sure. He was sure enough to have used the field telephone to call in a report, but not sure enough to ask for mortars or artillery. The patrol had been relieved an hour before dawn and he had made it back to the main position twenty minutes ago. Ten minutes was taken up by reporting to to his LT and the old man. Five minutes was spent shitting out the remains of yesterday's rations while the most recent five minutes was spent with a cup of lukewarm coffee with too much cream and not enough sugar. He had been planning on getting a bite to eat and then an hour or two of sleep unless the Germans shelled the company. They seldom did that. The redlegs and the fly-boys were too good at sending back counter-hate. He made his way to the communication trench and his long legs ate up ground as he went to find the XO.

The XO, his LT and the platoon sergeant were all in the company CP, a twelve foot by eleven foot hole in the ground with a few radios and several field telephones connections.

"Corporal, you're out of uniform"

He looked at the XO funny. He was not a bullshit artist. But this was not usual behavior. He stood still and then snapped a salute while coming to attention.

"Sir, Corporal Jaroschek reporting as ordered"

The XO smiled as he responded, "I was looking for Sergeant Jaroshek"

The XO then extended his hand and offered him a rank badge with three chevrons.

"At ease sergeant... we're losing McNeil, so you're getting 3rd squad over in the 1st platoon and we're bumping Shannahan to your old position... congratulations... and the promotion is backdated to April, so you'll see a bump in your pay soon"

The newly minted sergeant smiled --- a 20% raise for doing the same exact thing he had been doing was not a bad morning. Now if he could just find more coffee or a nap.

Methinks a battlefield commission may be on the eventual horizon for this young man.

 

[Paulo the Limey]

Methinks a battlefield commission may be on the eventual horizon for this young man.

Or a random death. Or a dishonourable discharge. Seriously, whilst it’s often been possible to pick out grand themes of this story, one of the things I like is that main characters’ fates are generally unpredictable.

 

[Crowbar Six]

Or a random death. Or a dishonourable discharge. Seriously, whilst it’s often been possible to pick out grand themes of this story, one of the things I like is that main characters’ fates are generally unpredictable.

Or end up running from MP's through the sewers of Vienna after his part in a black market penicillin operation is uncovered.

 

[NotBigBrother]

Or a random death. Or a dishonourable discharge. Seriously, whilst it’s often been possible to pick out grand themes of this story, one of the things I like is that main characters’ fates are generally unpredictable.

George R R Martin's seal of approval.

 

[fester]

Freetown, Sierra Leone June 4, 1944

A tramp steamer left the anchorage. She was heavily laden with raw materials that would eventually be consumed in the factories of the Midlands. On her own, she would proceed to Dakar where a small coastal convoy with perhaps one or two Free French manned sloops would take them to Casablanca. Some ships, including this tramp, would join a convoy that would leave Gibraltar, other ships would unload, and more ships would independently enter the middle sea to supply the French colonies of Algeria and Tunisia or to bring needed food and tropical oils to the civilians in Italy. And then they would turn around again.

 

[Driftless]

One of the thousands of cogs in the machine.

 

[fester]

Port Said, Egypt June 4, 1944

Half a dozen Liberty ships and an equal number of Empire ships were waiting in the northern anchorage. A single armed merchant cruiser was ahead of the heavily laden cargo ships that were destined for Aden, Bombay, Colombo, Singapore, and Sydney. There was a problem with the pilot on the merchant cruiser which had left the ships idling for longer than they should have, but now that it was resolved, the canal was open again for southbound traffic. By nightfall, these dozen ships were either tied up at Suez or making their way into the Red Sea. Aboard each ship, lookouts noticed the steady stream of independent sailings heading to the southern terminus of the canal.

 

[Driftless]

Lookouts noticed the steady stream of independent sailings heading to the southern terminus of the canal.

Lookouts for the Japanese or Germans?

 

[fester]

Lookouts for the Japanese or Germans?

Ship lookouts, so all Allied personnel

 

[fester]

Saint Jean de Daye, France June 5, 1944

Slim Williamson pulled his coat in tight. The winds were driving the rain nearly horizontal. Pellets of water dug into the few patches of exposed skin and the mud in the ground sucked his boots in deeply. His driver had taken over an hour to get him from one regiment to another regiment of the 1st Infantry Division. The Big Red One had been in combat constantly since D-Day. The first few companies had come ashore just hours after the paratroopers, and the assistant division commander had waded ashore two hours after the second assault echelon had barely been able to move off the shingle of Omaha Beach. They had managed to push inland as sergeants and lieutenants realized what needed to be done and they did it. His job was organizing the chaos and sending little clumps of men and small clusters of organization to where they could have the most impact and keep reinforcements moving to success and away from failures. In between moments of being a battalion commander of all battalion commanders, his signals teams had managed to establish contact with the fleet. By mid-afternoon, destroyers were within machine gun range of the beach, cruisers could be hit by mortars, and battleships barely had to elevate their guns as the armada blasted holes with direct fire into the German defenses. There were times in the past three weeks that he knew his company commanders wished that they could call in a few fourteen inch broadsides to solve difficult tactical problems the easy way.

He shook his head and adjusted his helmet as he finished the short walk to the battalion command post. Half a dozen officers were huddled in an abandoned barn looking at a map underneath a tarp. Grease marks showed the position of the battalion and where they thought a few German battalions could be. There was a nice defensive position just to the south that eventually the division would need to take but between the mud and the rain keeping air support grounded, today was not the day for complex maneuvers. He listened to the discussion for the next twenty minutes. He was proud, these men were professionals even though many of them had only joined the Army in the past four years. They had learned through paying the blood price in North Africa and Italy. Now they were masters of their craft. The battalion CO, a young major of thirty two years old looked at him for any insight and the young brigadier had little to give besides make sure the men had warm food and dry socks as preventable casualties needed to be avoided.

The battalion CO and the assistant division commander were then escorted to the front by a twenty seven year old captain commanding a company that had been in the first wave on Omaha Beach. He had been nicked twice that morning by fragments and shrapnel, but he had gotten off lightly. Only five company commanders or platoon leaders who had boarded boats that morning were still walking this morning. The company had been brought mostly back up to strength as the walking wounded returned to their squads and replacements had filtered in over the past ten days. Now the two senior officers just wanted a few minutes to talk to the privates and sergeants while looking at the terrain to get a sense of where the division would be in the next week. As Slim dashed to a machine gun nest, he shook his head to clear the water off his face. Today, tomorrow and the day after were originally scheduled to be the weather replacement landing days for the May landing. It was absurd to think of any combat happening in this slop.

 

[Driftless]

Saint Jean de Daye, France June 5, 1944

(snip) Today, tomorrow and the day after were originally scheduled to be the weather replacement landing days for the May landing. It was absurd to think of any combat happening in this slop.

Nice bit of AH irony there.

 

[Major Major]

Freetown, Sierra Leone June 4, 1944

A tramp steamer left the anchorage. She was heavily laden with raw materials that would eventually be consumed in the factories of the Midlands. On her own, she would proceed to Dakar where a small coastal convoy with perhaps one or two Free French manned sloops would take them to Casablanca. Some ships, including this tramp, would join a convoy that would leave Gibraltar, other ships would unload, and more ships would independently enter the middle sea to supply the French colonies of Algeria and Tunisia or to bring needed food and tropical oils to the civilians in Italy. And then they would turn around again.

Escorted by the DE USS Major on the route from Apathy to Tedium with some ships taking side trips to Monotony and Ennui.

 

[Draconis]

Lookouts for the Japanese or Germans?

"Aboard each ship, lookouts noticed the steady stream of independent sailings heading to the southern terminus of the canal."; from post #2583.

I think what this is indicating is that it's safe for ships to sail independently in the Indian Ocean. Or at least in the Arabian Sea portion of it. The threat from submarine or surface raider attack has diminished enough that ship captains don't see a need to convoy.

 

[fester]

Ishigaki, Japan June 6, 1944

In the small bay on the southwest side of the island, eight PBYs were lined up to take-off. Each was fully loaded with mines. Two were tasked to refresh a small field near the port of Taipai while the rest of the squadron would be laying a new field at the mouth of the Yangtze. In the five weeks the squadron had been operating from this new forward base, two of the patrol bombers had not returned. One had been shot down by a night fighter. The other just never came back after a radio check-in that seemed normal. At the cost of the two crews, their mines had already claimed over forty thousand tons of shipping while their radar patrols had led to three opportunities for squadrons of Army medium bombers attacking coastal shipping.

The airbases on the recently conquered islands were scheduled to become more crowded. A dozen miles to the southeast of the seaplane base a pair of two mile long runways were almost complete. Scuttlebutt had an Army Air Forces superheavy bombardment group due in July while half a dozen airfields were on the main island of the base complex. Already over two hundred fighters and almost a hundred medium bombers were based here. The quality of play in the fighting squadron softball league a had dramatically improved over the past three weeks.

 

[fester]

East of Turin, Italy June 7, 1944

The medic tightened a tourniquet. Blood seeped out of a fresh wound as a syringe of morphine was jammed into the private's thigh. Within seconds, his thrashing eased. The medic spread some sulfa powder over the wound and nodded for three men to help load the wounded man onto the stretcher. Two minutes later, the private, a replacement who had joined the squad that morning was heading to the battalion aid station to treat a wound that a veteran who could tell when incoming was going to be close and therefore worth ducking would not have received. Instead, he looked for the sound and the mortar shell sent at least three fragments into his arms and another broke a rib or two.

 

[Driftless]

Ishigaki, Japan June 6, 1944

In the small bay on the southwest side of the island, eight PBYs were lined up to take-off. Each was fully loaded with mines. Two were tasked to refresh a small field near the port of Taipai while the rest of the squadron would be laying a new field at the mouth of the Yangtze. In the five weeks the squadron had been operating from this new forward base, two of the patrol bombers had not returned. One had been shot down by a night fighter. The other just never came back after a radio check-in that seemed normal. At the cost of the two crews, their mines had already claimed over forty thousand tons of shipping while their radar patrols had led to three opportunities for squadrons of Army medium bombers attacking coastal shipping.

The airbases on the recently conquered islands were scheduled to become more crowded. A dozen miles to the southeast of the seaplane base a pair of two mile long runways were almost complete. Scuttlebutt had an Army Air Forces superheavy bombardment group due in July while half a dozen airfields were on the main island of the base complex. Already over two hundred fighters and almost a hundred medium bombers were based here. The quality of play in the fighting squadron softball league a had dramatically improved over the past three weeks.

I had to look up (again) where Ishigaki is. That's right in the Japanese back-pocket.