Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

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Belfast, March 1, 1943


HMS Bruiser, HMS Boxer and HMS Thruster formed the front portion of the second column of seven. Escorts darted around the ungainly and awkward amphibious ships. They were loaded with factory fresh tanks and firing range dirty guns. Some of the landing ships had the vehicle crews aboard while other soldiers had already headed to the front aboard fast liners in an earlier convoy.

 

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Murmansk March 2, 1943


The lumbering merchant cruiser Jervis Bay limped into the Kola Inlet’s anchorage. Ice had damaged her hull. Ahead of her twenty two ships were already preparing to unload. Ice had claimed a Panamanian tramps steamer while a mine had ripped open the hull of an Empire ship. Salvage would have been probable in better weather, but lingering only placed her crew and the crew of the corvette that had come aside to render assistance at risk. Two torpedoes from HMS Onslow finished her destruction.

The perpetual night had faded. Daylight was coming to this northern port. Astute men could see the cargo piling up as trains waited for tracks to clear and dock yard laborers struggled in the cold to move tanks and trucks and radios and wire and condensed milk atop of crates of heavily salted bacon. Enough supplies to keep a rifle army in combat for a month were waiting to be shipped south to clear the space for the supplies that were now arriving.

 

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Singapore, March 3, 1943


The great liners led by Queen Mary left the crowded harbor. The defensive guns at the end of the Johor Channel tracked them as they accelerated. Imaginary firings happened every minute on the minute until the mighty guns could no longer reach the greyhounds of the sea. Aboard Queen Mary was most of the 2nd Infantry Division. It had fought in France, it had fought in Malaya. Now it would be heading to Palestine for reconstruction and recuperation before being sent to fight wherever General Eisenhower needed an experienced division. USS Lafayette (nee Normandie) carried the 11th Indian Infantry division's first two brigades towards a destination near the Nile Delta.

The men of the 2nd Division were in the bunks recently vacated by the Americans of the 7th and 24th Divisions. They had come from California and Hawaii after training for years. Few had seen combat, and those that had were treasured even if their combat time was in Central America a decade ago. A smattering of veteran officers and senior sergeants stiffened battalions but it was one man here, and three men there. Two captains had been evacuated from the Philippines with modest wounds had seen rapid promotions to become battalion commanders.

 

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Gulf of Mexico March 4, 1943


The landing signal officer jumped off the small platform at the side of the flight deck. The heavy gull winged fighter was coming in fast and straight at him. The deck offered a semblance of protection. His arms waved quickly, and the tremendously powerful engine roared with raw horsepower. Real rubber wheels slammed onto the deck. A few seconds and a few hundred feet later, the Marine Corsair was being pushed to the edge of Ranger’s flight deck.

Landing practice continued for the rest of the day. A single Corsair was lost. The fresh 2nd Lieutenant who had come in too fast was rescued by the plane guard destroyer. Captain Jaroschek placed him on administrative light duty for the next two days as his back would most likely tighten up overnight. Medicinal brandy was also prescribed.

As night fell, Ranger and her two escorting destroyers slowed. They would head to Galveston to refuel overnight. The two Marine fighter squadrons had over three hundred air operations that day. Tomorrow would be similar. They had, for the first time, hotter machines than the Navy fighters that were assigned to a carrier. Soon they would be needed, but this week was critical in making sure that if they faced the enemy once, that they could face the enemy again as landing was almost as critical as taking off and intercepting fast bombers.

 

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Gulf of Sirte March 4, 1943


Surf surged. Half a dozen motor launches led by boyish faced war time emergency officers attempted to herd reluctant landing craft into straight lines. Public school boys would have looked in horror at the chaos and slanted lines and globs. If they had ever lined up like that, knuckles would have been wrapped.


The new landing barges were improvements over the previous ones. The landing gate had a thin layer of steel armor that should be sufficient to stop rifle fire and mortar fragments while a pair of heavy machine guns were mounted in cockpits at the rear of the boat. Nothing could be done for the ride. Most faces were odd shades of green and brown and yellow. Many boats had a thin, slopping layer of vomit. One assault transport had fed their landing parties pork and beans during the end of the second watch; no man kept that food down.


Little biplanes and army cooperation spotter aircraft orbited overhead. Radios were blaring with orders to the landing ships that then blasted commands over radios or flags or bull horns. The second wave departed, again led by motor launches. They landed twenty minutes behind the first wave. Some of the second wave was coming up the ass of the first wave as intended, while other sections, platoons and companies were on their own as they landed on a beach that should have had a full battalion in front of them but there were no men within half a mile.

 

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Darwin, March 5, 1943

Third Fleet left the northern Australian anchorage. The largest warships ships slowly picked their way through the cleared channel as pilots looked for obstructions that could tear out the bottom of the heavily laden warships.

 

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Messina, March 5, 1943

Half the sky was covered in clouds. The other was blanketed with shell bursts. A twin engine bomber, factory fresh and flown by a pilot on his second combat mission, burst into flames. A single parachute emerged. The farmers were not kind to the navigator from Texas.

Several squadrons of single engine fighters weaved overhead. One squadron, the 99th Fighter Squadron had arrived in Tunisia just days earlier and was flying its first combat mission. Half a dozen aerial jousts had occurred during the morning. Most were inconclusive. A trio of P-40s had been damaged during an encounter with defending Italian fighters limped back to the hard surface airfields near Bizerte instead of the dirt strips where they had taken off in the morning.

Hundreds of bombs had been dropped. All landed. Many worked. Half a dozen actually hit the docks. Two wooden fishing vessels were on fire. A small coal fired coaster was underwater after a near miss buckled the hull.

 

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Pantelleria March 6, 1943


American P-38s and P-51s circled overhead. No action had been seen so far. But the fighters waited as the fleet below spread out. This was a tempting target. Beneath the fighters, half a dozen amphibians circled. Radars probed for Italian submarines. Minesweepers had cleared several wide and long firing lanes. Motor torpedo boats and gunboats had kept the cleared lanes open from any late night Italian coastal craft laying new mines.

Richelieu slowed to a stately running pace that would be too slow for a recruit at the end of his basic training. Eight heavy naval rifles swung around and hung over the port bow. The secondary batteries were aiming at different targets. A moment later, A turret fired. Four heavy shells screeched over the sea and slammed into harbor. Corrections were called and B turret flung out its shells.

Behind the French battleship, her two older and smaller cousins began to fire. The heavy cruiser Algerie picked her targets and began a rapid cannonade even as a pair of light cruisers and a quartet of destroyers waited. They would be the rapid counter-battery fire, held in reserve against any Italian gunners who were both brave and foolhardy.

Three hours later, smoke covered the small harbor on the northern side of the island. The airfield was also closed for at least several days for anything larger than an artillery directing aircraft. Even as the French fleet left to return to Bizerte to re-arm and refuel, dozens of British bombers began their runs against the southern port on the island.

 

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Tripoli, Libya March 7, 1943


General Pienarr looked down at his men. The South African expeditionary forces were being re-organized into a stand-alone corps. Replacements were slow in coming as only volunteers would ever be deployed outside of Southern Africa. The two big infantry divisions had done well in the advance from Egypt to Tunisia. They had since pulled back to camps outside of Tripoli where training could take place near ports while the overworked rail net of Tunisia could be relieved of some stress.


Each infantry division had three full strength infantry brigades as well as an infantry tank support group and enough artillery to blast through the thickest defenses. He could find enough men to keep the rifle strength up to standards for one, perhaps two engagements, but his divisions were brittle creatures. Instead of trying to keep two infantry divisions with a total of eighteen working rifle battalions and two infantry tank regiments up to strength, the South Africans were re-organizing. Two new divisions were being officially activated tomorrow even as the two formed divisions were being de-activated.


4th and 6th South African Armoured Divisions would spring into existence tomorrow as real units. The 5th South African Armoured Division was a phantom with one hundred andfive men and thirty one radios assigned to it. The 5th was assigned to the invasion of the Peloponnese. The two real divisions would be unique formations. Two armoured battle groups would be formed. Each had a cruiser regiment paired with an infantry battalion supported by two self-propelled batteries of Horse Artillery to form the mobile punch. An assault infantry brigade with two infantry battalions and an infantry tank regiment provided the division the ability to break through. General Pienarr as the corps commander would hold onto one pure infantry brigade. The South African expeditionary force would go from twenty battalions of front line combat troops to seventeen. The tank park would increase from seventy infantry tanks to over three hundred cruisers and seventy infantry assault tanks. Three fewer battalions were needed, and the average battalion had fewer men now. Corps support troops would be provided by other Commonwealth units.


The South African Corps would be ready for the follow-on operation after Husky.

 

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Sunderland, March 8, 1943

HMS Campbeltown was slowly eased into the dry dock. The destroyer was tired and wearing out. Convoy duties beat up on ships. Large waves and ice cold seas ruined hulls and battered men. Her crew had installed an emergency hot chocolate urn as well as an instant cuppa maker ready to pour out boiling water whenever a work party came below decks. There was nothing so remediating available for the ship. A pair of fresh frigates had just joined the escort group. One was reinforcement, the other was a replacement.

By nightfall, the shipyard’s busy hands had wrapped themselves around the old destroyer. She would be in their hands for the next forty five days. Easier duty would be her next task as the long but far calmer Freetown to Liverpool runs still needed escorts.

 

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North of Luhansk, March 9, 1943

Sergeants ordered silence. Men responded with raised eyebrows as the movement of two complete Panzer corps could never be quiet. Eleven divisions had concentrated north of the Russian-Ukrainian border town over the past ten nights. A false concentration of three more Panzer divisions was being shown to the Red Army intelligence system eighty miles to the south near the Black Sea coast.


Another battalion of heavy Tiger tanks was moved into position. There should have been forty five of the monsters available. Seven had broken down after the train trip to the forward depots. Another four had never been issued. Someday the broken down tanks would be available as combat replacements once the workshops finished cannibalizing one or two of the tanks for the other five or six to fight. The heavy tanks would be the spearhead into the Soviet forward defenses. Once a gap was opened up, motorized infantry from the SS would hold the edges and then the almost at full strength 10th Panzer Division would lead the rest of the offensive into the deep rear of the Soviet Southwestern front.


It was a simple plan. A heavy blow against an over-extended enemy. It was a straightforward plan. It was a plan that had a narrow window to work as the mud season was coming and once that happened, nothing would move off road even if it had tracks.


The next morning, a brief artillery barrage concentrated on only a few miles of the front. The tanks advanced with infantrymen right behind them to clean out the hold-outs and strong points.

 

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Bath, Maine March 10, 1943

USS Hale, a new Fletcher class destroyer, slid down the ways. Her crew and the proud work gangs cheered. The champagne flowed along her steel bow. Coffee was passed out. A few minutes to celebrate a milestone before men with heavy loads and women with wiring gear marched up the now floating ship to resume work. Two more months were needed to transform this project into a warship.

Half a mile from the river, a trio of seventh graders paused. Dirt was up to their ankles. The heavyset boy had the hoe while his lanky friend who would rather be reading comic books had the shovel. His twin sister had a bucket of potato eyes. They had already planted half of the acre garden. A few more afternoons after school, and their garden would be done. Three families had agreed to split the fruits of their childrens’ labor as a means of getting around rationing. Potatoes, corn, a few chickens and an old dairy cow were being raised on the spare land behind the Mulhanny’s house while a good maple boil was being conducted on old trees on the LaRouix land.

 

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Near Strasbourg, March 10, 1943

Her back was on fire. She should not be feeling like this at her age. She could have understood if her mama or her papa complained about their backs. They were old. They were almost fifty. But her back should be strong.

Today was a fourteen hour day. It started as it normally did, milking the few remaining cows and slopping out the pigs. And then, the entire family and the hired hands and the foreign laborers spent twelve hours in the fields. Half of the gang worked on preparing the ground for turnips. The other half prepared two fields for potatoes. Papa’s decision to kill most of the herd in the fall of 1940 and concentrate on root vegetables and staples had been, so far, a good one. The farm could easily feed itself while supplying well over its allotment to the markets.

Anna Marie stretched. She curled her fingers around her toes and leaned forward until the tension in her back disappeared. A few bones popped back into place and soon she was ready for the tea that mama had made and a long night’s sleep assuming no air raids would fly close enough for the heavy flak battery down the road to fire upon.

 

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March 11, 1943 Arlington Virginia

Quartermasters and planners were locked into the room. They had been huddled together for so long that the British and Americans were actually speaking the same language instead of two diametrically opposed dialects. More than a few fists had been thrown on the issue of “tabling” proposals months ago. Now there was a poster of common phrases and agreed upon meaning hung up in every conference room. No one had said “table” a proposal since the New Year.

Today’s meeting was over the allocation of resources from American and Commonwealth factories to the Free Allied armies. Naval and air units were another planning cell’s problem. The American colonel in charge of the briefing began his talk:

“To summarize, by June 1, 1944, the United States will be have stood up 105 divisions, inclusive of Marines. This will consist of 5 Marine divisions, and another division equivalent of Marines, 18 armored divisions, 2 cavalry divisions, 1 airborne division, 3 airborne division equivalents in independent brigades, 1 special projects division, and 73 infantry divisions including Colored and Spanish speaking units. Corps and Army level support units will be proportional. The Commonwealth anticipates have fifty two British divisions formed by that date. This will be composed of twelve armoured, one airborne and thirty nine infantry divisions. Not all are to be at full strength nor capable of sustained, offensive operations. Canada will supply five divisions, including one armoured. Australia will supply five divisions including a single armoured division while New Zealand will commit to a single infantry division and an independent brigade while South Africa and Rhodesia will be committed to a combined two armoured divisions and two independent infantry brigades. The Indian Army will field twenty four divisions including two armoured divisions. These Indian divisions will include some British units. Not all Indian divisions are available for deployment outside of the Raj.

Now let’s get to the meat of today’s discussion. Can we reconcile national desires with our supply situation?

The State Department and the Foreign Ministry have agreed to Lend Lease supplies to Brazil for a single standard pattern infantry division.

This is the only Western Hemisphere divisional contribution that we must discuss.

We will proceed counterclockwise around the European theatre starting in Poland. The Poles are mainly in the Mediterranean Theatre at this time as part of the Army of Liberation. They have two corps with five infantry and two armored divisions. Conscription of Polish nationals living in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States will allow for the replacement of casualties. There has been a request to convert at least one more infantry division to the South African armoured division pattern.

Norway currently has the Free 6th Norwegian Division with four brigades of light infantry trained for specialized duties. These units are in Scotland on training and home defense duties.

Free Dutch forces and the Dutch Army of the Indies are entirely reliant on Allied supply. Limited, local logistical support of basic consumables and petroleum is available in the Indies. Currently, there is a single Dutch European division in Java, and four more infantry as well as one mechanized cavalry division are rebuilding. None are available for combat operations at this time but should be available by June 1, 1944.

The Royal Navy evacuated almost 100,000 men from the Belgian Army. The Free Belgian Army currently consists of five four battalion infantry brigades. They routinely train with the single Free Czech tank brigade. One brigade has been deployed to the Belgian Congo. We can consider this to be an oversized single division.

French forces will be the dominant subject of discussion today. There are three major streams of French forces that must be supplied with current production and another stream that will be under consideration for future meetings. Currently, the French can field two infantry divisions that have been in Great Britain since 1940. Another six divisions including an armoured division have been formed and supplied from the units of the North African garrisons. Madagascar and Levantine garrisons can supply another two infantry divisions. Local conscription can supply several more divisions worth of manpower while there is sufficient officers and cadre for at least three more divisions. The French want to convert at least three of their current divisions to Commonwealth standard armoured divisions.

In the long run, as we liberate France, we will also need to support a greatly expanded French Army that can conscript and train from local populations.

Finally, the Greeks have a single infantry division on Crete, and another veteran division in Libya. They have stood up a static division from Cretan conscripts. If and when we move significant forces into Greece, we will face the same challenge of re-equipping the Greek Army that is able to build units from local populations.

We have significant but limited resources. Every ten half tracks we send to a Free unit to build it up is probably seven half tracks that will not be used by the Russians on the Eastern Front. Over the long run, building up Free allied units will be a more efficient use of resources presuming the Russians can continue to battle the Heer to a standstill but if we pull to many resources from our Russian allies, they may either be defeated or agree to a separate peace. And then an extra division or two of French or Greek troops will be meaningless against the newly available hundred German divisions….

So let’s get to work….”

 

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Southern Russia, March 11, 1943


Overhead Yaks clashed with Junkers. Messchersmitts jumped Illusyshins. Focke Wolfes patrolled looking for Migs and Bell products. Pyres marked where a pilot got lucky and his opponent was unlucky. They were scattered up and down the front. Sometimes there would be clump after a squadron got jumped and then there would be nothing for miles. Other times, a single machine had been brought down.


Beneath a string of flying tanks, a dozen diesel fires burned out of control. A counterattack failed in empty wheat fields. Eighty German tanks were hit hard and fast by one hundred and ten Soviet tanks. The first few minutes were brutal as gunners fired at anything that looked like an opponent. Big guns raked targets at knife fighting ranges. One Panzer IV was destroyed by a trio of shells fired at penalty shot range. However, the veterans of the Eastern Front responded to the surprise better than the attackers could respond to their response. Artillery and mortars soon separated the Soviet infantry from their tanks, and then German platoons began to hunt as packs. By nightfall, the counter-attack that had initial success had been pushed back another seven miles.


Miles to the north, an armored car company paused. Machine guns started to fire. Half a dozen running men fell to the ground awkwardly. The rest went to the ground deliberately. Soon rifle shots pinged off the steel armor of the light armored cars. A radio call was made. The panzergrenadier battalion half an hour behind the scouts would be able to chase the Red Army quartermasters and truck drivers further off the road. The scouts soon continued to advance through a small cross road hamlet of two dozen battered and ramshackle houses and three common buildings. There were no civilians. Some had left when the Heer had surged east in the summer. More had left as the front line came back west during the Red Army’s winter counter-offensive. And the few remaining survivors had run into the fields once they heard hundreds of guns fire and almost a thousand tanks rumble towards them.


Further to the south, a rifle division curved and curled in on itself. Outposts had been overrun by the German spearpoints, but battalions and companies backed by anti-tank guns and thick minefields had been holding onto a few small crossroads. The soldiers in these pockets had taken the time that they had once the spearheads passed and before the motorized infantry and self propelled artillerly could come up to improve their positions. Hasty trenches, and interlocking fields of fire from mutually supporting machine gun pits began to appear before nightfall.


Thirty seven miles to the east, a mechanized corps began to move forward. Scouts were arrayed in a broad line looking for contact even as the tank crews scanned the horizon. Their objective was the narrow neck of land between the German shock troops and their main body.

 

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This is authorized canon

Finally, finished infobox on the Battle of Makassar, the largest naval battle of WW2 ITTL, and probably the most deadliest naval battle of the war:

Spoiler

 

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Palawan, Dawn March 12, 1943


Kingfishers and sea gulls circled lazily over the harbor. Off shore a pair of submarines waited. They hoped to stay down for the entire day with only their periscope and radio masts breaking the waves but they would be ready.

Twelve miles north of an airfield, Captain Ibling waited patiently. A hot cup of tea was in his hand even as his carbine rested on his knee. Other men from the guerilla band were watching the clearing. They had been told to expect air strikes today and this field was a natural point for a pilot in a damaged aircraft to attempt a soft crash landing. He enjoyed the sound of the birds singing as the light crept over the horizon.

One hundred and thirty seven miles away, USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown turned into the wind. Ten Wildcats from each carrier were the first up. They would sweep the skies of opposition. Two squadrons of dive bombers and another squadron of Avengers followed the first fighter sweep. Each carrier completed its launching evolution with another six Wildcats as close escort.

The escorting fighters climbed for altitude. By the time that they caught up with the slower bombers, they had passed over USS Denver and USS Santa Fe. The two big light cruisers were heading to Palawan at twenty six knots. A trio of destroyers escorted them. They would be in bombardment range by the time the first strike landed. As the forward fighter sweep bounced the morning patrol of six Japanese Army Oscar fighters, USS Constellation turned into the wind. A squadron of dive bombers and elements of fighters and torpedo bombers raced down the deck for the second strike.

USS Essex sent up an identical strike once the morning strike turned around. By the time her aircraft had landed, USS Enterprise had another, smaller, strike package in the air again. A metronome could not be set to the spot cycle of the four American carriers as a squall disrupted launches in the early afternoon. Four hundred sorties were sent to hit Palawan, three hundred and eighty seven landings were recorded.


Captain Ibling had a long, and restful day. Guerrilla bands watched and reported on the movement of Japanese reserves that had headed to the beach nearest to the cruiser bombardment. It was the worst beach to land on.

 

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March 12, 1943, Northern Borneo


HMS Ark Royal turned out of the wind. The last fighter had landed. Air operations were over for the night. Her escorts clung tight to her. The other three carriers of the Far East Fleet were also completing their flight operations. Soon the last flag was down minutes before the sun set beneath the western horizon.

Two hundred sorties struck Brunei today. The airfield was wrecked, the harbor ruined, and the oil tanks a smoking pyre that would have been suitable for a Viking funeral. Soon destroyer escorts would stop listening and pinging. Speed would be protection as the carriers could now leave the operational box. Once a destroyer thought they had a contact. Depth charges were flung with wild abandon to no avail. Post war records would verify that there was nothing to fear within eighty miles of the attack.

The fleet soon high-stepped back to Singapore.

 

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London, March 13, 1943


The clerk checked the memo one last time. All was in order. The Naval Estimates had been re-adjusted in light of the ongoing demands of the war and material allocation. The major changes were three light carriers, HMS Perseus, Majestic and Terrible, would be cancelled. Some of their long lead time items had already been ordered but no steel had been cut and no slips had been emptied. The work gangs that were supposed to build HMS Perseus would be allocated to ship repair. The resources that would have been used by Majestic now were to be used to build landing ships. HMS Terrible’s workers and steel would accelerate construction of the four 41,000 ton carriers already under construction. Six improved twenty six thousand ton carriers of the Centaur class were still anticipated to be ordered in the fall. Design work would continue for those ships although their projected availability for late 1945 or mid-1946 would probably be after the war had been won. This would be a debate for the July meeting.

He stamped the distribution and file copies. Copies went into the out-basket and the file basket. A WREN would know what to do with those. Now it was time to take notes on the expedient committee for extemporaneous harbors. Those meetings always ran long so he made a brief stop at the water closet before entering the conference room.

 

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March 13, 1943 Bataan


USS Gay Viking left lightly loaded. Eighteen men, including eleven invalids had boarded just after dinner. The blockade runner waited for low tide before departing. Her skipper, his skin bright red from the tropical sun, waved at the gunners holding open Manila Bay. This was his ninth trip into to the besieged. The run in was easier this time than it had been before. No aircraft had been spotted over the Spratleys and Japanese coastal patrols were thinning out. A gunboat had claimed USS Typhon three weeks ago but there was nothing to evade. It seemed that the Japanese were just as short of fuel as the army on Bataan was short of food.

Ashore, the army’s quartermaster general sighed. The steady trickle of external supplies was holding off crisis and starvation. As long as they did not have to fight, the army would survive. Eight weeks of food was in the larders of the army. Tomorrow morning, another blockade runner was due to arrive. It would replace everything that his men ate today with her fresh cargo.

Now if he could only get fresh food again. The gardens that the combat support units (mainly engineers and artillery) helped somewhat. The rice paddies that the combat service support units had begun to cultivate would soon stretch out his supplies. There was almost no fresh meat on the peninsula; most of the farm animals had been butchered long ago. The pigs had managed to escape and enterprising infantrymen would eat quasi-wild hog now. Small skiffs and fishing boats brought in bay fish on an almost nightly basis. He knew of that success, he was one of the better fishermen on Lorcha Pier but those gains went straight to either the fisherman’s company or the black market.

They would continue, that was his only choice. Now he had to figure out how to insure that the 59,500 men could continue.