Errolwi
Monthly Donor
Munich Shuffle: 1938-1942
- Thread starter Garrison
- Start date
Thank you both - although it does invite the further question of how often that mooring has to be dredged under the ship. Just every couple of decades when she's in dock or more frequently?
Which suggests that she's about due for another one.
Garrison
Donor
On a related matter watching a lot of Drachinifel videos on Youtube and in the video on Vanguard he mentioned it was suggested to finish it as a carrier, but this was rejected in no small part because of the losses the RN had taken in capital ships. Now ITTL that's not such an issues, fewer losses and two Lion Class battleships. So maybe that would give her a longer career?
Hello,
Can Great Britain maintain the current fleet past WW2, albeit by retiring the oldest ships? Maybe someone might have the sentimental insight to turn some of the retirees into museums. Otherwise later on...
Garrison
Donor
There will still be quite a bit of cutting back postwar, but I can see the RN maintaining a stronger presence in the world for at least a couple of decades after the war.
15th August – 29th September 1944 - The Liberation of Hong Kong – Part II – Reclaiming the Last Outpost
Garrison
Donor
15th August – 29th September 1944 - The Liberation of Hong Kong – Part II – Reclaiming the Last Outpost
The landing zones chosen for Operation Lighthouse were on the western side of the New Territories, intended to establish a bridgehead and cut the lines of communication the Japanese forces in mainland China before the main thrust of the British forces turned south towards Kowloon and Hong Kong Island itself. In the first weeks of August the Kuomintang conducted a series of small-scale attacks, primarily as a steppingstone towards their own planned major offensive operation, and the British took advantage of this in choosing a date to commence Lighthouse. Even with all the meticulous preparation for the operation and the Kuomintang distracting the Japanese there was the inevitable anxiety when the first landing craft set for shore and it was an immense relief when the initial landing on the morning of the 15th of August proved to be somewhat anticlimactic, in no small part because of the absence of any meaningful naval opposition and the paucity of air attacks against the landing zones or the fleet offshore. No organized Kamikaze squadrons had been created in Hong Kong and what contingency plans the IJN had created to oppose a landing had never gotten beyond broad outlines. These omissions reflected the fact that the high command in Tokyo had dismissed General Sakai’s requests for support, if an attack did come Sakai was told he would have to hold out until a counteroffensive could be mounted by the Japanese armies currently skirmishing with the Kuomintang. This decision seemed arrogant and short-sighted to Sakai; the truth was however that his superiors in Tokyo had already written off Hong Kong as a lost cause and even when what sparse intelligence they had gathered showing an attack was imminent, they did nothing except warn Sakai to be on alert for a landing, ‘Somewhere close to Hong Kong Island, sometime in September or October’, which did nothing to help Sakai to prepare for the invasion [1].
The leadership in Tokyo was beset on all sides, the Soviets were hedging about whether they would extend the non-aggression pact, the Chinese Nationalists were becoming increasingly aggressive and the prospect of an American landing on Okinawa, perilously close to the Home Islands, loomed ominously. Something had to give, and Hong Kong was the place that the Japanese chose to sacrifice so they could concentrate the available resources on protecting Okinawa and the Home Islands. Admitting such pragmatic strategic realities would have been a humiliation for the officers responsible, and a potentially fatal one. Better in the end to demand that Sakai fight to the last man waiting for a counteroffensive that would never come than concede that they had abandoned all hope of holding Hong Kong, especially as such an admission would naturally have raised questions about how precisely they would defend the heart of the empire [2].
During the first day of the attack no more than 200 Japanese aircraft sortied against the landings, and they did not fare well. Some may have been intending to conduct suicide attacks but given the strength of the British air defence and the fact that the sorties were sporadic and poorly co-ordinated none of were successfully carried through and within the first 48 hours the British had near total control of the skies over Hong Kong. The Japanese defenders on the ground didn’t fare much better given the spareness of the defences in the landing zone. Sakai had unwisely chosen to pack large numbers of troops into the forward zone, believing his sole hope of repelling the invasion was a swift, aggressive counterattack. He was also hoping that by swiftly getting in amongst the attacking troops he could force the British to hold back on their naval fire support. More pragmatically Sakai lacked the resources to build the layered positions required for a defence in depth, or as some have suggested simply lacked the temperament for such a methodical approach [3].
As a good army man Sakai had failed to appreciate the weight of naval gunfire the British would be able to bring to bear on the landing zone and their willingness to spend a prodigious amount of ammunition to suppress the defenders before their soldiers went ashore. He had also failed to grasp that the landing force would be heavily supported by amphibious vehicles and tanks, making throwing waves of soldiers at the invasion force a recipe for heavy casualties. The Japanese attacks did cost the British significant casualties; however they fell far short of driving them back into the sea and indeed by nightfall on that first day the British had cleared the landing zones and driven several miles inland on a broad front. On the 16th the British troops held back from launching their advance, expecting to receive a further heavy counterattack and possibly the full-scale Kamikaze attacks that had failed to materialize the day before, what they got instead was a wave of refugees desperately trying to reach the perceived safety of the British lines, creating a crisis for the British that they had to deal with even as they were trying to resume their advance [4].
This sudden rush of refugees was the result of deliberate strategy on the part of Sakai, who ordered the local population round up by the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands according to some accounts, and then had the driven them towards the British line, encouraged by random executions among any who hesitated or tried to flee in different direction. Sakai was inspired by the chaos of France and Belgium in 1940, though in the case of Hong Kong in addition to blocking the British advance the aim was also to place the civilians between the British and the Japanese defences, a human shield in modern parlance, or ‘driving out the sheep’ as Sakai saw it. This appalling tactic achieved a degree of success, blocking roads and leaving the British trying to provide assistance to the desperate, sick and hungry people who did reach their lines. This display of brutality did however also produce problems for the Japanese as well. In some instances when faced with the choice of ‘fight or flight’ civilians turned on the Japanese soldiers harrying them, with bloody consequences for both sides. Some civilians ransacked poorly defended Japanese supply dumps and natives marshalled to be used as labour by the Japanese were swept up in the panic and fled, further disrupting the already fragile Japanese supply lines [5].
While these tactics certainly delayed the British advance for several days it used up manpower and resources that the Japanese did not have to spare and when the British advanced from their bridgehead on the 18th they made rapid inroads into the Japanese defences, forcing them to fall back, trying to buy time to prepare some sort of proper new defensive line. The British plan was to push forward with two spearheads, the British IX Corps would pivot south to drive towards Kowloon city while the Indian XXXIII Corps would sweep further east, through New Kowloon, aiming to create a classic pincer movement to cut off and destroy the bulk of the Japanese forces. Sakai remained committed to his scorched earth policy, but the British forces didn’t need to live off the land, their supply lines were adequate to keep them fed and well stocked with ammunition, a situation that the Japanese troops had all but forgotten was possible [6].
Far from trying to extricate his men from the this rapidly closing trap Sakai exhorted his subordinates to hold fast wherever they were and launch counterattacks at every opportunity, while continuing to carry out his scorched earth policy behind the front line, which at this point was creating more problems for the Japanese than the British. It seems Sakai was still clinging to the idea that with enough displays of Japanese resolve they could break the British will to fight, or perhaps he had chosen to believe that a counteroffensive from the direction of Guangzhou was still possible, even as the actions of the Kuomintang would render this impossible. Whatever Sakai’s belief such exhortations were futile, Banzai charges were a worn-out tactic that the British and Indian troops were well prepared to cope with. It did not help that desperate and poorly trained Japanese troops were very poor at judging when there was a genuine opportunity to launch one. They tended to either rush and charge far too soon, being cut down as they tried to cross hundreds of metres between themselves and the enemy, or they held too long and took equally heavy casualties as the British spotted the signs of a charge being prepared and ‘beat the bushes’ with machine guns, mortars, and artillery to break up the attacks before they could start [7].
This determination meant that even where the Japanese did manage to check the British advance temporarily, they failed to take advantage of it to break contact and withdraw to the next position, and such opportunities were short lived as the British forces possessed far greater mobility. The British forces deployed large amounts of light armour that was capable of flanking and cutting off the Japanese avenues of escape, while inflicting heavy casualties as the Japanese still lacked any effective anti-tank weapons and what little Japanese armour had been deployed to Hong Kong was obsolescent even by Japanese standards, intended for nothing more that policing the civilian population and supplemented by the few vehicles the British had deployed to the colony before its fall, a handful of Vickers Mk VI and Matilda I, mostly dispatched during Churchill’s brief change of heart on defending the colony. By the summer of 1944 it was a small miracle that any of these were still running, and most had been dug in to act as pillboxes for the defence of Kowloon City itself and the final Japanese redoubt, the site of what had been Kowloon Walled City. The Walled City had been a Chinese enclave in Hong Kong, though while the China still laid claim to it, they had exercised no actual control over it well before the Japanese invasion. In the 1930s its population had fallen to a few hundred with the British doing their best to clear out the remnants. This had gone into full reverse under the Japanese and in 1944 there were several thousand people crammed into the area, with more being added as the Japanese prepared for a final British assault, once again intending to use the civilian population as a human shield [8].
As they advanced the British had also been forced to deal with several outbreaks of disease among the remaining civilian population, including a number of cases of bubonic plague whose origin baffled the doctors of the Royal Army Medical Corps who were tasked with trying to prevent the spread of these outbreaks. The explanation was finally revealed by documents captured from a group of Japanese soldiers, as well as some unusual equipment in their possession. It was only at this moment in the war that the British became aware that elements of Unit 731 were abroad in Kowloon and Hong Kong and that their real purpose had nothing to do with sanitation. The grim prospect of biological warfare being unleashed in Kowloon and on Hong Kong Island gave the British some pause for thought, but in the end the best way to neutralize such a threat was to neutralize the Japanese forces in the area. This is not to say the British did not adapt their strategy for the liberation of Hong Kong, and on the 4th of September the orders were issued to proceed with Operation Candid, despite there having been some previous reservations about such a bold/reckless plan. Nonetheless Candid would be launched even as the British were in the thick of the fighting to secure Kowloon City [9].
[1] Sakai is up the creek and Tokyo has just advised him there are no spare paddles.
[2] They could of course have chosen to withdraw and saved the forces in Hong Kong for other operations, but that would be a step too far.
[3] He also doesn’t have the supplies and equipment needed for a long drawn-out battle.
[4] Sakai is willing to throw any warm body at the British, even the luckless locals.
[5] In short, people are not sheep.
[6] The British forces are not only better supplied and equipped, they are now considerably more experienced.
[7] The Japanese have committed the cardinal tactical sin of becoming predictable.
[8] A crowded slum that is going to be very nasty to clear out.
[9] Sakai is only helping to encourage the British to take whatever measures are needed to crush Japan before any troops set foot on the Home Islands.
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David Flin
Gone Fishin'
That's a lot of aircraft. 200, I assume, rather than 20,000 (which is what 200 hundred comes to).
Are the Soviets already prepared to invade Manchuria or there hasn't been any agreement yet?
Garrison
Donor
It is being prepared, this is going to be a very busy few months for the Japanese forces in China and Manchuria.
I am now dreadfully curious about what Operation Candid is.
Maybe a scratch/'Emergency' amphibious landing to try and take the Port of Hong Kong? Or a covert thrust to try infiltrating the lines and seizing General Sakai and his HQ/Command Staff (along with, perhaps more importantly, their horrifyingly revealing records?)
Maybe a scratch/'Emergency' amphibious landing to try and take the Port of Hong Kong? Or a covert thrust to try infiltrating the lines and seizing General Sakai and his HQ/Command Staff (along with, perhaps more importantly, their horrifyingly revealing records?)
Garrison
Donor
Well not to give it away to everyone:
It is indeed an amphibious assault to take the port.
15th August – 29th September 1944 - The Liberation of Hong Kong – Part III – The Walled City, Operation Candid and the Final Liberation
Garrison
Donor
15th August – 29th September 1944 - The Liberation of Hong Kong – Part III – The Walled City, Operation Candid and the Final Liberation
As the Japanese forces were pushed back towards Kowloon City the British slowed their advance, not wanting to rush into what they expected to be a potentially bloody house to house battle for control. Their advance came to a complete halt on the 2nd of September, less than four kilometres from the outskirts of Kowloon. Sakai’s demands for constant counterattacks and the actions of Unit 731 had promoted a degree of caution on the part of the British and while they had no intention of allowing the fighting to drag on, they were willing to engage in a period of siege warfare to wear down the defenders, already short on food and ammunition and becoming more so every day as the Japanese persisted in skirmishing with the British forces even as they were trying create some sort of viable defensive position in the city. This made life even more miserable for the unfortunate civilians trapped in Kowloon with the Japanese as what food they had left was requisitioned by the Japanese, meaning that they ripped through every house and building searching for any scraps the residents might have saved to fend off starvation, it was a given that anyone who had succeeded in doing so faced the full wrath of the desperate Japanese soldiers [1].
The British began an artillery bombardment of Japanese defensive positions in and around Kowloon. It was impossible to hit these positions without inflicting significant civilian casualties, in no small part because Sakai was still pursuing the use of human shields, preventing the population of Kowloon from fleeing despite the extra strain this placed on the meagre resources in the city. Some on the British side were hoping that there might be an uprising in the city of the sort that had greatly helped their operations in Thailand in Indochina, however the population had been thoroughly ground down by the Japanese during the occupation and those inclined to resist the Japanese had long since fled into the countryside. By and large the people trapped in Kowloon simply sought to keep their heads down and hope to survive the inevitable British onslaught. The British were not entirely insensitive to the plight of the civilian population and on the 10th of September they called a halt to the artillery attacks and sent out a delegation to try and negotiate a surrender with the Japanese. This can be seen as a cynical gesture on the part of the British, going through the motions so they could claim they had tried to spare the civilians even though they knew there was little to no chance of the Japanese accepting any terms the British might offer. If this was the view of the British commanders then it was borne out when the Japanese refused to even meet with the delegation, even going to so far as to threaten to open fire if it did not promptly withdraw [2].
With this formality completed the British opened up with their artillery once more, significantly increasing the volume of fire on the morning of the 11th as they launched an assault on the west of Kowloon, led by several companies of A22 Infantry Tanks, though by this point the British had begun to adopt the Heavy and Medium nomenclature instead of the Infantry and Cruiser designations. The A22 was well suited to leading an assault where speed and the ability to engage enemy armour were not critical factors and instead their thick armour and ability to simply plough through obstacles was paramount. Many of these tanks had also undergone field modification with addition of cages around the turret to prevent troops climbing onto the top and grilles designed to deflect grenades and Molotov cocktails. Some also had the so-called Rhino blades, bulldozer type attachments that further enhanced the Black Prince’s ability to push through obstacles, as well as making it harder to throw satchel charges under the tank [3].
With nothing more than a few light artillery pieces available to them the Japanese defenders could do little to stop the tanks, especially as they were closely supported by infantry. This co-ordinated action allowed the assault to make rapid inroads into the city and the Japanese determination to fight house to house and floor to floor in every street counted for little when the British had the firepower to clear out every strongpoint and blast apart any defence however determined and by the 15th the Japanese forces had been surrounded and forced back into the Walled City, which was something of a misnomer in 1944 as the old wall had pulled down soon after the invasion in 1941, with the material earmarked for use in expanding Kai Tak airport. It was hardly an impenetrable fortress and even as the British prepared to mount their final assault in Kowloon they were launching Operation Candid [4].
Operation Candid had originated during the overall planning of the battle and the idea was for a direct assault into Aberdeen Harbour on the Southwestern corner of Hong Kong Island, using destroyers and fast boats to swiftly land a substantial body of troops and seize the port facilities so that further troops and equipment could be landed, driving a deep wedge into the Japanese positions while they were focused on the landings in Kowloon. Such a plan did not seem like a natural fit for Montgomery, whose signature was meticulous preparation and a relatively cautious approach. It was thus a surprise to some that Montgomery endorsed Candid, though not without it undergoing some revisions and improvements before it was put in motion. The force that set out on the night of 15th – 16th September consisted of a naval force led by the Cruiser HMS Belfast, supported by seven destroyers and nine Motor Torpedo Boats, eleven had originally been intended to take part but two had suffered mechanical issues in the days leading up to the beginning of Operation Candid [5].
The Japanese had done nothing to improve the defences around harbours of Hong Kong since 1941 and indeed outside of Victoria Harbour on the northern side of the island they had not even bothered to maintain what they had inherited from the British. The expectation of swift victory followed by the needs of other places on what had been the frontlines of the war had left nothing to spare with which to protect Aberdeen harbour. There were no search lights, no mines, and no artillery pieces covering the harbour and what troops were assigned to the area were there to prevent acts of sabotage and theft. These patrols had been expanded as the threat of a landing drew closer and a few machine gun nests had been set up in a rather perfunctory manner. This was all done with a view to defending against a small-scale raid, not the nearly 1200 troops approaching aboard the MTBs and destroyers, mostly made up of No.7 and No.9 Commando, supported by a contingent from the Pioneer Corps [6].
With their lights extinguished and dark grey paint applied over the superstructures the ships were able to approach almost completely unnoticed until the MTBs went to full speed and raced towards the docks to put the first wave of commandos ashore. This provoked more confusion than alarm among the Japanese troops patrolling the harbour and it was only when soldiers who went to investigate the sudden flurry of activity came under fire that they realized that this was an attack, though they had little opportunity to report this fact as more British troops came ashore and rapidly moved out and took control of the quayside, with the destroyer HMS Havelock being the first to tie up alongside and offload the 143 men crowding it deck. She was soon followed by HMS Garland, HMS Highlander, and HMS Imogen. By dawn the British had taken control of the docks and this paved the way for two liberty ships converted to serve as troop ships to land another 786 officers and men as well as artillery pieces, armoured cars and a small number of light tanks, allowing the attacking forces far greater mobility than the defenders [7].
The element of surprise in the attack had been total and as dawn broke the FAA made a significant contribution to keeping the defenders disorganized as strike aircraft from the carriers HMS Illustrious and HMS Ark Royal hit a number of key targets on the island with a mix of bombs and 4.5in rockets. Among the targets hit was the main Japanese command post for Hong Kong and when the aircraft attacked they caught the entire senior staff, including General Sakai, in the building. The aircraft inflicted devastating damage and Sakai’s remains were buried in the rubble along with his staff, or at least this must be assumed even though his body was never definitely identified in the aftermath. This amounted to a decapitation strike as Japanese command and control in Hong Kong collapsed in the aftermath. Counter attacks were sporadic and easily rebuffed by the British, who steadily pressed onwards and expanded their perimeter. The Japanese certainly did their best to resist, but they lacked the number and co-ordination to make the kind of bloody last stand the defenders of the Walled City did [8].
The British initially hoped they could reduce the Japanese defences in the Walled City in two days, in the end it took six as they were forced to inch their way forward. The confines of the Walled City limited the use of armour and the Japanese liberally spread booby traps throughout the area, including planting them among groups of civilians, forcing the advancing troops to treat the hapless Chinese residents with considerable circumspection. It did not help that there was an outbreak of Typhoid among the residents, which provoked considerable alarm among the British command after their previous encounter with Unit 731. In this case the outbreak seems to have been the result of bad food, bad water and inadequate sanitation, though even in the absence of any paper trail the possibility that it was deliberate has never been entirely ruled out. This outbreak accounts for the photographs of British soldiers fighting in the Walled City wearing gas masks, though the reality was that this was far rarer than many people assumed. The masks were in short supply, completely unsuitable for the combat conditions the British were operating in and the masks that were available had been held in storage for years and rubber parts had perished in many of them rendering them useless. This does not even address the fact that they would have little effect on exposure to diseases spread through contaminated water or insect bites [9].
Had the Japanese been able to make the entire battle for Kowloon as bloody and exhausting as the fight for the Walled City then perhaps Sakai might have been able to force the British to pause their operations and reconsider their future strategic plans, though it is doubtful the outcome of such considerations would have benefitted Japan. As it was as desperate as the battle became it was simply relegated to being one more hard fight among many others and by the 24th the British had complete control of the Walled City and the whole of Kowloon. The fighting on Hong Kong Island lasted until the 29th and if it lacked the intensity of the battle for the Walled City this was only because the British were able to break the Japanese forces down into a series of isolated pockets that were reduced one by one. Despite the speed of the British advance on Hong Kong Island the Japanese troops on the island could not be prevented from carrying out atrocities, including the murder of several dozen POWs, executed before the British could take the camp they had been moved to as part of Sakai’s human shield tactics [10].
The liberation of Hong Kong technically marked the end of the road the British had been pursuing in Asia since they had held the line in Malaya against the Japanese in December 1941. Every corner of the British Empire was once again in British hands, even if the relationships in some of those corners was subject to change. Some in London did feel that this should mark the end point for British offensive operations in the war, at least on the ground. The actions of the Japanese argued against such a stance, if they were allowed to turn the Home Islands into a redoubt, and continue to work on biological and chemical weapons while they did so, who knew what horrors they might unleash before they were defeated? There was also the consideration that if they attempted to stand aside and leave the remainder of the fighting to the Soviets and the Americans, they risked allowing those powers to dictate the terms of the peace, despite the massive contribution the British had made to the war in the Pacific. In the end the British would become involved in the planning for the invasion of Japan, and they would be drawn into one last amphibious operation, which has come to be seen by many military historians as Montgomery’s masterpiece [11].
[1] This is going beyond the usual brutality as their discipline is starting to crack.
[2] Cynical? Sincere? Probably a bit of both.
[3] These A22 crews have gone just a touch Mad Max.
[4] This is not going to be a slow grinding advance by the British.
[5] So Montgomery may just acquire a taste for flanking amphibious assaults.
[6] Closer to OTL St. Nazaire than Dieppe, but the British aren’t planning on pulling out.
[7] So ITTL there is a battle of Aberdeen…
[8] Sakai thus evades a war crimes trial.
[9] This is going to accelerate the deployment of Bomber Command to South East Asia among other things.
[10] And whatever political discussions may have been had in London the British are going to commit to the complete defeat of Japan.
[11] I will leave it to the reader to speculate where that might be.