Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
Was all that realy known in the USA at the time? Because if it did not get real coverage in the media and Gloria was not around at that time, then it is entirely possible that she did not know about it. Add that Kat is not the most forthcomming person with personal information and how would Gloria know what she did in the war?
I think one of our problems is that we know how it was and today have an encompassing media coverage. But then (in TL) it was newspapers and radio that were the established sources and TV was fast becoming one. But still it was far less fast and encompassing then today. So if news have run through the system, then I think it is very realistic that the information gets into the back row of archives.
While Gia's part in caring for the Russian women POWs is well known thanks to her cousin the Czar, it seems that Kat went unnoticed by the general public in this, if this story gets out it will just add to the legend of Kat and show another side of her that is different from turning Kim Philby into Tiger Chow.
The fact that Kat was under the direction of Empress Kira could lead to the Russian Orthodox Church canonization of Kira as a saint and what will the reaction of Gia and Kiki would be to that?
Gloria may have received some very good checks from the royalties from the biography and could have become some sort of a literary celebrity that others may want to interview like the daughter of an old friend who is beginning to make her own name as a writer.
The fact that Kat is suspected to be a conduit for technology transfers between Canada and Germany is basically a red herring because someone else would have been in position to do the same thing.
Speaking of red herrings is there any thing significant about a Marine with the nickname of Rabbit?
The fact that Kat was under the direction of Empress Kira could lead to the Russian Orthodox Church canonization of Kira as a saint and what will the reaction of Gia and Kiki would be to that?
Gloria may have received some very good checks from the royalties from the biography and could have become some sort of a literary celebrity that others may want to interview like the daughter of an old friend who is beginning to make her own name as a writer.
The fact that Kat is suspected to be a conduit for technology transfers between Canada and Germany is basically a red herring because someone else would have been in position to do the same thing.
Speaking of red herrings is there any thing significant about a Marine with the nickname of Rabbit?
I suspect that's one of those things that would get overshadowed by other events. When your calling card is used to terrify enemy troops, and you have a hand in capturing the enemy leader out of his very capital, the fact tha you helps POWs would tend to fall by the wayside.
Among the Palace, OKL, OKH and Auswärtiges Amt Gloria could come up with the list of Kat's medals and orders. Appendix A of the book should be a chronological listing of the actual citations, with annotations if required to explain military terms.
Probably not the kind of nickname that gets a full explanation in polite company?
As I was over thinking the reason for Gloria not knowing about Kat's involvement with the Russian women POWs, the most possible reason could be while Kat was awarded a Red Cross medal the reason for it was downplayed with some generic description for it.
I think that ITTL the Germans complied with the Geneva Conventions and turned over the list of POWs in its custody to the Red Cross.
It was established in the first timeline that there were punishment against their families by Stalin and I think if it was known that Kat was helping the women POWs it would have been worse for the families.
I think that ITTL the Germans complied with the Geneva Conventions and turned over the list of POWs in its custody to the Red Cross.
It was established in the first timeline that there were punishment against their families by Stalin and I think if it was known that Kat was helping the women POWs it would have been worse for the families.
On the hunt for the latest serial killer:
Kat should get Petia to pass the word through the ex-POW network to keep an eye out for something suspicious or anything that attracted attention about the time and place of the last couple of killings. She should also pass the word down the BII chain of command that there may be ex-POWs coming forward with tips and not to dismiss them or be rude to them.
The message to Petia's network is to just be on the lookout and report anything suspicious, not to take matters into their own hands unless necessary to save life.
Kat should get Petia to pass the word through the ex-POW network to keep an eye out for something suspicious or anything that attracted attention about the time and place of the last couple of killings. She should also pass the word down the BII chain of command that there may be ex-POWs coming forward with tips and not to dismiss them or be rude to them.
The message to Petia's network is to just be on the lookout and report anything suspicious, not to take matters into their own hands unless necessary to save life.
Probable but highly unlikely in my experience.
Well...neither in mine, but I had to suggest something innocent
Part 90, Chapter 1405
Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Five
21st September 1960
Pusan, Korea
In her haste to come here Nancy had crossed all sorts of lines that she had no idea existed. Bringing Noella had turned out to be a bit of a mistake because it implied that she wouldn’t place a whole lot of trust in Korean Domestics to mind her children. Something that the Koreans placed a huge amount of importance in. It had taken time, but she had managed to organize the household in a way that worked and so that she didn’t need to send Noella packing. Sebastian loved it because he was never without attention, even for a second. Nancy had however, found the entire episode embarrassing. She had a Degree in International Communications from the University of Washington. She was supposed to know these things.
The other adjustments had become clearer as the days had passed and Nancy had set up the household. In Cuxhaven, Tilo had commanded the 3rd MID’s training cadre and then he had been a Staff Officer in the Ministry of War in Berlin. Here, he was in charge of the entire Division and that came with a large number of headaches for both of them. For Tilo it meant sitting behind a desk trying to get a handle on the massive backlog of paperwork that had resulted from the Division being in the field for the whole summer.
Nancy on the other hand had found that she was subject to a large number of expectations at the very top of the pecking order among the wives of the Officers of the 3rd MID. She was supposed to provide leadership while at the same time turning a blind eye to some of the realities that she encountered on the ground here in the Korea, like the number of men who had multiple families, on opposite sides of the globe. Tilo said that it came from spending years away from home and that she would need to be understanding. Nancy on the other hand had made it clear that if she ever learned that Tilo had an arrangement like that, it would become very boring after she cut his balls off. Reier found that hilarious. She had found the presence of the senior Noncom a bit of a comfort, he certainly was the one to talk to if something needed to be done without delay. At the same time, she always had to be aware that while Reier wasn’t the highest ranking of the Noncommissioned Officers, he was well known to have been with Tilo all the way across the Pacific. Tilo never had to get angry because if anything happened, Reier typically happened to the malefactor first.
Rural Upper Silesia
It was the first exercise like it that had been attempted on a mass scale. The entire 1st Fallschirmjäger Division was going to insert themselves behind “Enemy Lines” and it was the job of Sigi’s Flight Group to provide close air support once they were on the ground. This being an exercise, the Brass would want everything to go perfectly or go perfectly wrong. No one would know until they got to the landing zone. Sigi had told the crews of the helicopters in her Squadron that they needed to be prepared for anything. Up front, Schinken was fiddling with the yoke that controlled the chin turret. As a perfectionist, he disliked it when there was any play in that system.
“No shooting before we get where we are going” Sigi said into the intercom. Schinken just made a two fingered gesture in return that Sigi laughed at. He had never fired any shots by accident, but it was still a dangerous thing to do even if the circuit breakers that armed the guns were switched off.
Just to their left were hundreds of Al-18 transport helicopters, dubbed Dragonflies by their crews, in close formation and each one carrying a dozen Paratroopers. The Hornet’s were along the outside of the formation, any interference from the ground during the landing would get their undivided attention. Not that a Dragonfly was helpless, far from it, some of them carried the same pods that fired the meter-long rockets that the Hornets did, while they weren’t filled with the anti-armor rockets that the Hornets typically carried, a rocket with a high explosive warhead moving at a 1000 meters per second would ruin almost anyone’s day. All of them had gunners with machine guns sitting in the doors as well.
Sigi glanced down as they passed over a road, she had to wonder what the people down there made of the display that was passing over their heads at that moment. They could only wish that they had a job like hers.
----------------------------------------------------------------
It was one of the crassest displays of military posturing that Gloria had ever seen. That was her thought as she watched the helicopters flying overhead. She had been on the road back to Berlin when she had noticed that people had stopped and were looking up at the sky. Her understanding was that the German Military had been shrinking over the last several years, going to a smaller, professional Army, Airforce and Navy that were bolstered by a couple other service branches that worked with all of them equally. It was hard to square that with what she was looking at.
It was particularly tone deaf considering the things that Gloria had learned about this odd region where Germany, Poland and Bohemia came together. The result was a truly odd mixture of cultures, societies and politics. While it wasn’t universally true, she had discovered that here there was a similar urban/rural divide as the one that could be found in the United States. The difference was that the people living in the cities frequently were of a different religion and/or ethnicity than those who lived out in the small villages and farms. The old landed Nobility was very much in control as the land reforms that had been instituted during the Second World War had not touched the region because the Russians had briefly occupied it. It was because of those very divisions that a killer had been able to operate undetected for a considerable period of time.
Tomorrow, she would be back in Berlin and she would type up this story. Then the following day she was to meet with Katherine von Mischner again and her legal counsel was supposed to be present. There were a few questions outstanding that touched issues that weren’t exactly legal. What some considered the abduction of Jehane Thomas-Romanova and a few mysterious deaths that might have been the work of Katherine’s father.
21st September 1960
Pusan, Korea
In her haste to come here Nancy had crossed all sorts of lines that she had no idea existed. Bringing Noella had turned out to be a bit of a mistake because it implied that she wouldn’t place a whole lot of trust in Korean Domestics to mind her children. Something that the Koreans placed a huge amount of importance in. It had taken time, but she had managed to organize the household in a way that worked and so that she didn’t need to send Noella packing. Sebastian loved it because he was never without attention, even for a second. Nancy had however, found the entire episode embarrassing. She had a Degree in International Communications from the University of Washington. She was supposed to know these things.
The other adjustments had become clearer as the days had passed and Nancy had set up the household. In Cuxhaven, Tilo had commanded the 3rd MID’s training cadre and then he had been a Staff Officer in the Ministry of War in Berlin. Here, he was in charge of the entire Division and that came with a large number of headaches for both of them. For Tilo it meant sitting behind a desk trying to get a handle on the massive backlog of paperwork that had resulted from the Division being in the field for the whole summer.
Nancy on the other hand had found that she was subject to a large number of expectations at the very top of the pecking order among the wives of the Officers of the 3rd MID. She was supposed to provide leadership while at the same time turning a blind eye to some of the realities that she encountered on the ground here in the Korea, like the number of men who had multiple families, on opposite sides of the globe. Tilo said that it came from spending years away from home and that she would need to be understanding. Nancy on the other hand had made it clear that if she ever learned that Tilo had an arrangement like that, it would become very boring after she cut his balls off. Reier found that hilarious. She had found the presence of the senior Noncom a bit of a comfort, he certainly was the one to talk to if something needed to be done without delay. At the same time, she always had to be aware that while Reier wasn’t the highest ranking of the Noncommissioned Officers, he was well known to have been with Tilo all the way across the Pacific. Tilo never had to get angry because if anything happened, Reier typically happened to the malefactor first.
Rural Upper Silesia
It was the first exercise like it that had been attempted on a mass scale. The entire 1st Fallschirmjäger Division was going to insert themselves behind “Enemy Lines” and it was the job of Sigi’s Flight Group to provide close air support once they were on the ground. This being an exercise, the Brass would want everything to go perfectly or go perfectly wrong. No one would know until they got to the landing zone. Sigi had told the crews of the helicopters in her Squadron that they needed to be prepared for anything. Up front, Schinken was fiddling with the yoke that controlled the chin turret. As a perfectionist, he disliked it when there was any play in that system.
“No shooting before we get where we are going” Sigi said into the intercom. Schinken just made a two fingered gesture in return that Sigi laughed at. He had never fired any shots by accident, but it was still a dangerous thing to do even if the circuit breakers that armed the guns were switched off.
Just to their left were hundreds of Al-18 transport helicopters, dubbed Dragonflies by their crews, in close formation and each one carrying a dozen Paratroopers. The Hornet’s were along the outside of the formation, any interference from the ground during the landing would get their undivided attention. Not that a Dragonfly was helpless, far from it, some of them carried the same pods that fired the meter-long rockets that the Hornets did, while they weren’t filled with the anti-armor rockets that the Hornets typically carried, a rocket with a high explosive warhead moving at a 1000 meters per second would ruin almost anyone’s day. All of them had gunners with machine guns sitting in the doors as well.
Sigi glanced down as they passed over a road, she had to wonder what the people down there made of the display that was passing over their heads at that moment. They could only wish that they had a job like hers.
----------------------------------------------------------------
It was one of the crassest displays of military posturing that Gloria had ever seen. That was her thought as she watched the helicopters flying overhead. She had been on the road back to Berlin when she had noticed that people had stopped and were looking up at the sky. Her understanding was that the German Military had been shrinking over the last several years, going to a smaller, professional Army, Airforce and Navy that were bolstered by a couple other service branches that worked with all of them equally. It was hard to square that with what she was looking at.
It was particularly tone deaf considering the things that Gloria had learned about this odd region where Germany, Poland and Bohemia came together. The result was a truly odd mixture of cultures, societies and politics. While it wasn’t universally true, she had discovered that here there was a similar urban/rural divide as the one that could be found in the United States. The difference was that the people living in the cities frequently were of a different religion and/or ethnicity than those who lived out in the small villages and farms. The old landed Nobility was very much in control as the land reforms that had been instituted during the Second World War had not touched the region because the Russians had briefly occupied it. It was because of those very divisions that a killer had been able to operate undetected for a considerable period of time.
Tomorrow, she would be back in Berlin and she would type up this story. Then the following day she was to meet with Katherine von Mischner again and her legal counsel was supposed to be present. There were a few questions outstanding that touched issues that weren’t exactly legal. What some considered the abduction of Jehane Thomas-Romanova and a few mysterious deaths that might have been the work of Katherine’s father.
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I rather hope not. What would be an interesting wrinkle if somebody in one of those helos spotted her struggling with him and they get surrounded with a couple of slicks worth of pissed off Fallschirmjäger.
If she brings up that crass display of military posturing to Kat she'll get an earful about 'you fight like you train' and other subjects.
And from what diseased mind came the "abduction of Jehane Thomas-Romanova?" Who would have standing to bring that before a court?
Ooh! Possible POD for TTL's alternate history: Gia gets evacuated to Britain's Buckingham Palace (by Ian Fleming?) where she strikes up a friendship with Elizabeth. Kim Philby informs the Soviets. Where it would go from there I'm not sure because with all those Boys in Bearskins she would be a pretty hard target.
Nancy should be given a pass on her mistake because it was probably the first time something like this has happened.
It is going to be a strange time for her as the base is like a little part of Germany surrounded by Korea on the outside and with the Deutsche Mark being the preferred currency of merchants and shopkeepers outside the base she is going to get great deals like brass beds, (I shipped home a Queen size brass bed frame very cheaply and my parents then asked me why didn't I ship more home to them).
One of the things that Nancy may notice is a sign at the front gates of the base of where there has been reported occurrences at certain clubs of diseases of the "Social" type and thus are off limits to the personnel of the base, and on Mondays she is going to see long lines at the "Special Clinic" with mandatory counseling from the Chaplin Corps.
It is going to be a strange time for her as the base is like a little part of Germany surrounded by Korea on the outside and with the Deutsche Mark being the preferred currency of merchants and shopkeepers outside the base she is going to get great deals like brass beds, (I shipped home a Queen size brass bed frame very cheaply and my parents then asked me why didn't I ship more home to them).
One of the things that Nancy may notice is a sign at the front gates of the base of where there has been reported occurrences at certain clubs of diseases of the "Social" type and thus are off limits to the personnel of the base, and on Mondays she is going to see long lines at the "Special Clinic" with mandatory counseling from the Chaplin Corps.
