The Storm of Normandy: A Failed D-Day Timeline

Prologue, June 19, 1944
Prologue


Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone. Therefore, I am submitting my resignation as Supreme Allied Commander to the President, effective immediately. The war will be won by the combined powers of United Nations, but not with myself leading the troops here in Europe.

May God, and those that placed their faith me, forgive me.

-General Dwight D. Eisenhower, London, June 29, 1944



...and so ended the career of a soldier who had an amazing knack for organization and diplomacy, balancing the talents, the egos and the often divergent odds of the leaders and commanders of the American, British, and other allied nations, which I know all too well. Eisenhower had never lead a unit into battle, having served at home in the First World War, and wholly as a staff commander in the Second, from the Torch Landings in North Africa right until Normandy. He was a man who you could disagree and argue with, but always kept a calm head, a rosy outlook on life, and relaxed with bridge and poker and oil paints, rather than galavanting with secretaries or pretty WREN officers like many officers are wont to do. Eisenhower, Ike to his family and to the soldiers he commanded, was a solid family man, devoted to his wife and child. He was a meticulous planner and organizer, who made the tough decisions when needed, but did his best to ensure there wasn’t a bitter taste for the loser of the discussion. That call was needed most in early June, and, after bad weather on June 5 worried him, he made the call to unload the ships and prepare the invasion for June 19.

But on such little things do great events of history turn. In hindsight, the originally scheduled day for the landings would have been perfectly fine weather wise at Normandy, despite the original forecasts that called for bad weather, and low cloud. The advised postponement for two weeks seemed right in theory, and when the landing boats first left in the early morning hours of June 19, all seemed calm and fine, and the initial landings achieved the surprise and initiative that was sought.

Then the storm hit. The storm no one saw coming. The storm that sank 20,000 men to watery graves, stranded 20,000 more on the beaches, and allowed the Nazi’s to come wipe out the beaches the British, Americans and Canadians had fought so hard to keep. Rommel’s smashing victory on the beaches that day when everything went wrong due to a squall no one saw coming, undoubtedly changed how the war played out, and the postwar period that we now live in. The consequences we still feel today.

...Ike’s reputation today is most unfair, and one that I wish we could correct. He laid the groundwork for victory in the war, and has since been ignored or insulted for the failure of a weatherman.


-Sir Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Volume 6 “Triumph and Tragedy” Published 1953
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Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to my first major contribution to alternatehistory.com: The Storm of Normandy. This is an idea I've had in my mind for a while now, and after some feedback on the general idea, I feel ready to start sharing it with the world.

This story will be told mostly as a epislatory/scrapbook style, similar to A World of Laughter, A World of Tears and The Ides of March by Thornton Wilder. So expect newspaper headlines and articles, book excerpts, government documents, interview transcripts, and letters, from a variety of real and fictional people: Most of those that will be fictional are minor characters, looking upon bigger named people that we could recognize from our timeline, but doing different things.

I have written alternate history for over 10 years now, starting on the AltHistory Wiki, then moving on to my own, though mostly defunct blog, and have been working on writing publishable stories for the future. If Storm of Normandy works well, I will most likely make it into a book at some time. Fingers crossed!

I'm always looking for feedback on my stories and writing. I hope that, in general, I will capture the essence of each character in the story, if not the exactly writing or speaking style. If something seems really out of place, please let me know, and I will fix that. However, I have a pretty solid idea of where the story will go from here, so major alterations will not take place in this version that I'm posting online now. I'm going for a mostly plausible story, but I will be letting the butterflies take their course in time, to present an interesting, different, and undoubtedly alternate world that could have happened. Maybe.

So please enjoy this diversion into a different world, where Normandy is not the name of a great victory, but a sorrowful tragedy, to millions around the world.
 
Part 1: June 1944 - November 1944
Part 1: June 1944 - November 1944



ALLIED ARMIES LAND IN FRANCE IN THE HAVRE-CHERBOURG AREA: GREAT INVASION IS UNDERWAY

New York Times, Headline June 19, 1944

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, Monday, June 19-The invasion of Europe from the west has begun.

In the gray light of a summer-dawn, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower threw his great Anglo-American force into action today for the liberation of the Continent. The spearhead of Attack was an Army group commanded by Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery and comprising troops of the United States, Britain and Canada.


NORMANDY STORM KILLS MANY BRAVE SOLDIERS, GERMANS SECURE BEACHES; LANDINGS FAILURE

Winnipeg Free Press, Headline June 20, 1944

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Tuesday, June 20-Just hours after it began, it’s over.

The Invasion of Normandy has been canceled due to a severe, unforecasted storm that began battering the invasion fleet. Thousands of ships were forced to turn around to retreat to the safety of ports in Southern England due to high waves that would have swamped and sank many of the small landing boats used, and the entire Allied air forces were grounded. The lead elements of the Canadian, American and British force on the five beaches had landed, but were unable to be retrieved due to the gale. The Germans reported that they had managed to hold onto the town of Caen, and had already secured the beaches codenamed “Omaha” and “Sword.” The other three beaches were still holding out as of time of print, but it’s doubtful they can make it until the storm clears...


...it is my solemn duty to ensure that when we return to Europe, it will be done safely and with minimal needless loss of life. Therefore, all current operations in the European Theatre are on hold until an investigation has been conducted to determine the cause of the Normandy tragedy, and recommended actions are undertaken...

Letter to the Troops from new Supreme Allied Commander General Jacob L. Devers, June 28, 1944


CHURCHILL SURVIVES NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE BY NARROW MARGIN

The Times, Headline July 13, 1944

LONDON-Today the House of Commons voted narrowly in favor of Prime Minister Churchill’s continuation in that office, by a vote of 218 to 191. In light of the disaster of the Liberation of France and the resignation of American Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander two weeks ago and replacement with Gen. Jacob L. Devers, several Labour backbenchers sought to make their displeasure at the current state of affairs known. The support of Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee meant that enough Labour Party members, as well as most of the Conservative MPs ensured Mr. Churchill’s continued leadership, though it’s a certainty that any more such military disasters will result in a change in 10 Downing Street.


HITLER SURVIVES BOMB ASSASSINATION; DISLOYAL GENERALS PURGED; COUP ATTEMPT PUT DOWN

Houston Chronicle, Headline July 21, 1944


M: The July 20th Plot. What exactly did you know about that? Did you know anything?

R: Operation Valkyrie. Of course I knew about the plot. Anyone with half a brain in the Wehrmacht upper echelons heard of the plot, or been asked to participate.

M: Where you asked?

R: Of course! I would have been insulted had they not. (Laughter)

M: But did you join them?

R: I entertained them, yes. My Chief of Staff, Hans Speidel, broached the subject to me over the months previous. I listened politely, met the men that he brought in, messages from Colonel von Stauffenberg.

M: But did you join the plot at all?

R: I entertained them.

M: So would you have?

R: I really don’t know. It was so hypothetical. Very uncertain. It all hinged on one thing: the death of the Fuhrer. Hitler by then had descended into total madness, and killing a man like him was necessary, but at the same time impossible. It’s like trying to shoot a rabid dog: no matter how many bullets you put into it, the dog will still try to attack. And this rabid dog had the SS, he had the Gestapo, he had that damned Oath that terrified so many people.

M: Many generals, politicians and other figures were rounded up and killed right after.

R: And it was a terrible thing. Many were innocent. Most were guilty because they once met them, or were family, and knew nothing of the plot itself.

M: Why not you?

R: I really don’t know. I was unable to ask why I wasn’t rounded up and shot by that madman. (Laughter) But it was just a few weeks after the Normandy attack, and by then Goebbels had spent weeks building me up as a great hero of the Reich, the victor of of the West. Even though I barely did a thing. Having me paraded as an attempted murderer would have looked very damaging to the Reich right then.

M: Looking back, would you have joined them had they killed Hitler?

R: I’m not a man to dwell on the past. I don’t stick my head in the sand, asking myself “what if?” all the time. It creates doubt, it creates paralysis. If you are so busy wondering what others will think of your actions in the future, you miss the chance to make a decisive and bold attack. I will let the historians decide the result of such a fantasy.

Interview with General Erwin Rommel by Edward R. Morrow, at Madison Square Garden, July 19, 1949


ROOSEVELT HANDED DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION FOR FOURTH TERM

Washington Post, Headline July 21, 1944


PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT IS DEAD: HEART ATTACK IN CALIFORNIA; WALLACE, TRUMAN CONTEST LEADERSHIP OF DEMOCRATS

New York Times, Headline August 1, 1944

LOS ANGELES, CA, July 29 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, War President of the United States and the only Chief Executive in history who was elected for more than two terms, died suddenly and unexpectedly at 4:35 P.M California time today at Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, Ca. The White House announced his death at 5:48 o’clock. He was 62.

The President, stricken by a heart attack, passed from unconsciousness just three hours after returning from Hawaii to meet with military leaders on the war with Japan, and just eight days after the National Democratic Convention in Chicago where he was nominated to run for an unprecedented fourth term in office…

...Vice President Henry A. Wallace in Washington has already been sworn in as the thirty-second President of the United States. However, since he had been removed from the election ticket in favor of Senator Harry S. Truman from Missouri, there is confusion as to who will now lead the Democratic Party in the November election.


GREAT OFFENSIVE BEGINS: OUR VICTORIOUS ARMIES PUSH WEST!

Pravda, June 23

MOSCOW-The Red Army is currently attacking the vicious German invaders in Belorussia, inflicting great casualties and destruction…

...the failure of the Western Allies to land in France means that the burden of the war continues to rest heavy on our shoulders as the Germans can reinforce our front... The Soviet people have carried a burden that no other people’s in history have faced. But the peasants and workers of the Soviet Union are united and strong under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, and we will march forth to victory!


Units of the French Forces of the Interior: This is General Charles de Gaulle.

Rise up! It is up to you and your comrades and fellow citizens to reclaim the homeland. Our allies have been unable to gain a foothold in the homeland, and will not be able to for some time. They can continue to provide bombing and supplies, but only a unified military force can liberate our nation.

But in their arrogance, the Hitlerite’s have moved many troops from occupation here in France to fight elsewhere. The FFI is more than capable of striking at the enemy. So now is the time. Take up your arms, free your homes, free your neighbors, free your nation. France can not, will not, wait for others to liberate us. We shall have to do it ourselves!

Vive la France!

Radiodiffusion nationale Transmission, August 14, 1944


...Your goal is to take control of Cherbourg port and defend it from the Germans, to present an opening for the British and Americans to come. Cut telegraph and telephone wires, destroy bridges, assassinate officers, whatever you need to do to slow down attacking German troops. Holding the port and ensuring the Allies can arrive quickly and safely is the most important objective... revolts elsewhere will assist, but do not aid them until Allied troops arrive.

Instructions from Free French to French Forces of the Interior in the Cotentin Pinnensula, August 1


...The current situation with France is one that we have not planned for, nor had any forewarning. Had we been in closer contact with the Free French, we could have had units ready for deployment to areas that the Resistance has occupied… While we can’t guarantee that all the ports are fully secure, the reports we have received from the continent indicate that Cherbourg, Brest, Bordeaux and smaller ports have been occupied by the Resistance… US 9th Infantry, US 2nd Infantry, US 5th Infantry, the UK 59th (Straffordshire) Infantry, the UK 49th (West Riding) Infantry and the CDN 1st Division, are the most prepared, and can be sent to load on ships in 48 hours, with your command.

Gen. Sir B.L. Montgomery, 21st Army Group

Memo to Supreme Allied Commander, August 17, 1944


...Eighth Air Force will continue focusing on the strategic bombing campaign of German industry, with highest priority being oil refineries, factories devoted to building enemy airplanes and tanks, and major land and sea transportation centers...

...Ninth Air Force to focus on providing air support for French Resistance fighters. Priority targets: barracks, armories, tank gathering points, rail stations, rail marshalling yards, rail and road bridges, artillery sites... Operations around Paris are forbidden until further notice.

Air Force Directives from Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Devers. August 18, 1944


HEAVY FIGHTING IN FRANCE; PARIS UNDER SIEGE BY GERMANS; ALLIED TROOPS REINFORCING THE FREE FRENCH

New York Times, Headline, August 28, 1944


BELGRADE LIBERATED: TITO AND PARTISANS DRIVE NAZIS OUT;

The Times, Headline October 8, 1944


… the long delayed Operation Dragoon finally landed in Southern France on October 9. Originally scheduled for August, the plan was thrown into disarray with the Normandy Storm, and in one of his first actions as Allied Supreme Commander, General Devers ordered all future amphibious operations to be postponed until an investigation into how Operation Overlord failed like it did. The last thing Devers wanted was to have several thousand more Allied soldiers simply thrown at the Germans to capture...

...The landings in Provence faced only minor resistance. The one silver lining of Normandy could be that the Nazi High Command assumed that the Allies would not be able to invade for a long time: long enough for them to transfer 12 of the 50 divisions in France to the East to hold back Operation Bagration launched by the Soviets. This also allowed the French Resistance, heeding de Gaulle’s call, to rise up to liberate their own nation, so when the Allied troops of Dragoon touched shore, in several places like Toulon they were met not by angry German soldiers but by happy French civilians. Further, hastily organized landings in Brest, Bordeaux and several other ports along the Bay of Biscay resulted in a total of 24 Allied divisions being landed in France, most without firing a shot. Only in Cherbourg did the landings go astray when German saboteurs destroyed the piers after the first troops of the American 9th Infantry division docked, killing 249 soldiers, 58 crew, 29 French and wounding 978 more...

Complete History of World War II, Published 1987


...Premier Stalin was very angry, yelling at Mr. Churchill about the cowardice of the Western Allies, and how they were turned back, not even by German guns, but by some water. Mr. Churchill was flustered, trying to explain that had they continued the attack, they could have lost all 150,000 men assigned for Normandy at once. Premier Stalin rebutted, saying that the Eastern front saw even greater casualties every day.

Needless to say, the Moscow Conference went pretty much no where after that: the statement released after the meeting barely hid the divisions and accusations that followed. Nothing was decided beyond the Nazi’s had to be defeated.

There were some who spoke afterwards that they thought Stalin would have considered making a separate peace with Hitler then and there, but the Germans had done too much, killed too many people, destroyed too much of the Soviet Union, to willingly let them off the hook. So the war continued.

But I still say the Cold War began that day.

Interview with Captain Georgiy Kilesso, February 9, 1964, Toronto, Canada


ITALIAN FRONT ON THE MOVE: ALLIED FORCES PUSH NORTH OF ROME; REINFORCEMENTS DRIVE GERMANS BACK.

Washington Post, Headline, October 21, 1944


U.S. DEFEATS JAPANESE NAVY; ALL FOE’S SHIPS IN ONE FLEET HIT; MANY SUNK; BATTLE OF PHILIPPINES CONTINUES

New York Times, Headline, October 26, 1944


DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN

Chicago Tribune, November 8, 1944


...It was a race that had been in turmoil since FDR died, at least for the Democrats. Having only been nominated days before as the Vice President, suddenly Senator Truman, who had little national attention before hand, was proclaimed as the new candidate for President. But Vice President Wallace, who became President after Roosevelt’s death, and undoubtedly bitter at having been removed from the ticket, sought to have a new National Convention, this time to decide who was going to be president: namely, himself, now that he was the chief executive.

But the big bosses of the Democratic Party, who were all apprehensive and steadfastly opposed to Wallace and his brash nature and radical policies, were opposed to the idea, and got Truman to select Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas to be his running mate on August 8. Wallace was furious, denouncing the Democratic Party as the party of “...vested interests, the Klan, and the Progressive-In-Name-Only” in his first “Fireside Chat” to the nation as President, continuing the tradition that Roosevelt started...

...the sidelining and shunning of Wallace undoubtedly lead to Dewey’s election. Wallace split from the Democratic Party and used the ever popular Progressive title for a third Party, and took his not inconsiderable followers with him: visiting as many states as he could on such short notice, giving rallies to crowds large and small...

...both Wallace and Truman tried to pose themselves as the successor of Roosevelt, but in turn destroyed each other doing it. The New Deal was used as a cudgel on the other, the war effort became a battle of words of who could lead the nation to victory against the Germans and the Japanese.

And through it all, Dewey continued his tour of America, campaigning with his vague promises and serious public demeanor, giving a glimpse of stability to the Democratic infighting, though he struggled to avoid being dragged down in the muck with Truman and Wallace, as reporters asked him everywhere he went about the barb one or the other made. He snarked in private after one such incident in September: “This will be known the election between Wallace and Truman, and Dewey was there as well!”...

...But as soon as Illinois went for Dewey, which in itself was a huge upset for a state that had been Democratic in every election since the end of Reconstruction with the exception of Hoover in 1928, the game was up, and Dewey was going to be President. When the final vote tally was finished, the 1944 Election turned out to be a repeat of 1888, when the winner of the Electoral Vote did not win the popular vote: The Republicans had 41.6% of the vote, and Truman got 43.1%. But Wallace’s spoiler effect, with 18.1%, almost all from liberal Democrats, resulted in states like Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Michigan going to Dewey.

...The election was bruising and bitter, and Dewey knew his first goal as President, besides winning the war, was to unite the nation once again...

The Little Man: The Presidency of Thomas E. Dewey - 1944-1952: Written by William B. Pickett (published 1990)

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The butterfly's have begun! Dewey is President, Devers is in charge of Europe, the French are rising up, and Rommel is safe.

Captain Georgiy Kilesso is a fictional character, and I will be detailing more on his life during future updates.

After I complete a "Chapter" (not sure how many parts I will make for each Chapter, it will vary), I'll post a timeline of events that occured in that time period to make it easier to follow the story, and reference events that I may not have mentioned in the actual posts.

I don't have a planned release schedule, but hopefully I'll do one every week or two. But once they are done, for sure they will be posted.

EDIT: I changed the state from Texas to Illinois where the upset victory happened in the 1944 Election, and added more to explain the French uprising.
 
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If there's one thing that could have caused D-Day to fail, it's an unexpected and nasty storm. I really like what you've done here, especially with the French Resistance uprising reopening the doors for Allied troops.
 
I was liking this until the response of the Germans to this version of a failed D-Day and de Gaulle's speech.

1.) The Nazi high command wouldn't dare weaken their occupation units in France because they know most of the invasion forces are intact (they can count bodies and prisoners and do the math). They were making lots of bad decisions during this period but weren't completely stupid. A failed D-Day also likely results in a smaller scale or even cancellation of Bagration. I just don't see how they drain France of enough forces to make a resistance takeover even remotely possible.

2.) de Gaulle would be extremely naive to call for the resistance to rise up and liberate their country knowing that the likely outcome is a bloodbath for the resistance once the Germans respond a curb-stomp them (the French resistance was passionate precisely BECAUSE they knew how brutal the Nazi's could be). It'd be like the Taliban coming down out the the hills en-masse and confronting a modern army on an open battlefield - suicide. Given #1 above, de Gaule wouldn't have made this speech.
 
Not sure about Texas and Florida going GOP, given that they both voted over 70% Democrat IOTL (a nitpick I agree since you could switch other states but...)
 
Not sure about Texas and Florida going GOP, given that they both voted over 70% Democrat IOTL (a nitpick I agree since you could switch other states but...)

Yeah there's no way that the Texas of 1944 is voting for a Republican at the federal level. Hell, Dewey in OTL 1948 lost the state 65-24!
 
The Nazi high command wouldn't dare weaken their occupation units in France because they know most of the invasion forces are intact (theycan count bodies and prisoners and do the math).

Yes, and no. While the Germans would be aware that the land forces were still mostly intact and would still be on guard for future landings to some degree, they underestimated the amount of amphibious assets that the WAllies had. Stripping out 6-7 of the panzer divisions and another 5-6 of the high quality infantry formations might seem safe.

A failed D-Day also likely results in a smaller scale or even cancellation of Bagration.

Conception and planning for Bagration was done in April and May, before D-Day went off, and it's execution was conceived of being totally independent of Overlord's success or failure.
 
I was liking this until the response of the Germans to this version of a failed D-Day and de Gaulle's speech.

1.) The Nazi high command wouldn't dare weaken their occupation units in France because they know most of the invasion forces are intact (they can count bodies and prisoners and do the math). They were making lots of bad decisions during this period but weren't completely stupid. A failed D-Day also likely results in a smaller scale or even cancellation of Bagration. I just don't see how they drain France of enough forces to make a resistance takeover even remotely possible.

2.) de Gaulle would be extremely naive to call for the resistance to rise up and liberate their country knowing that the likely outcome is a bloodbath for the resistance once the Germans respond a curb-stomp them (the French resistance was passionate precisely BECAUSE they knew how brutal the Nazi's could be). It'd be like the Taliban coming down out the the hills en-masse and confronting a modern army on an open battlefield - suicide. Given #1 above, de Gaule wouldn't have made this speech.

The idea I had was that the Germans took it as a bigger victory than it actually was, the numbers being inflated as it went through each cycle of command, and Hitler thinking that 100,000 or more Allies were dead, not less than 10,000. I may have transfered too many divisions, but with Bagration still going ahead (I highly Stalin would have canceled it because of a failed D-Day), the Germans panicked, and pulled some divisions from the west to try to blunt the east (which they kinda did, but really just slowed the Soviets down by a few days, a couple weeks at best.)

The French and de Gaulle went the way it did because de Gaulle, who knew that Devers had postponed all future attacks until a future date, feared that the Soviets would reach French territory before the Allies would try to attack again. The last thing de Gaulle wanted was to replace the Nazis with Communists. So, trying to force the Allies hand, he had his contacts in France rally some forces of the Resistance to focus on several ports (Cherbourg, Brest and Bordeaux) that was close enough that the Allies could send troops to on short notice (and planes could be in the air within hours), then gave the speech to all French Resistance fighters to rise up, hampering the German response. The sudden revolt all over France overwhelmed the Germans, wirh their ruined infrastructure, cut communications, etc and it took time to figure out what was happening and solve it all.

I should have been more clear on these ideas, but I didn't want to get bogged down by minutiae details when I had so many other things to talk about
 
Yeah there's no way that the Texas of 1944 is voting for a Republican at the federal level. Hell, Dewey in OTL 1948 lost the state 65-24!

I was thinking with the vote split between Truman and Wallace, and the bitter race making many people stay home would have just given Dewey enough votes, like fractions of a percent, to win Texas. Though, maybe I'll change it though.
 
Part 2: November 1944 - July 1945

Part 2: November 1944 - July 1945


Dear Mother,

I’m currently writing you from Brest, in France. I got your letter a few weeks ago when I was still in England, but before I could write back, we ended up in Europe thanks to the French resistance. I’ve finally found some time to write. Thank you for the cigarettes and the chocolate. They never go wrong here.

We’ve been fighting the Germans for the past few days, who have been attacking us to try to pull a Normandy on us. But the weather was fine, the battleships and bombers have blasted the Nazis, and we are holding the port. I think we are here to stay now.

It’s taking a long time to organize everything, to get ready to march through France and drive the Germans out. I’ve heard it could be a couple of weeks yet before we are in full strength to go.

I haven’t heard from Jack since I got to Europe. Think he’s still driving those bombers that are hammering the Germans hard, last I heard. If you do get a letter from him, please let me know.

Tell Mary that I love her. I’ll send her a letter soon as well.

Your son;

Pat, in France!


Letter from Patrick “Pat” Morrison, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, 1st Canadian Division. Sent October 23, arrived November 8, 1944.


Paris is free! You have rose up and smashed the swastika that flew over our great city. The cost has been terrible, for much of the city has been destroyed in the two months of battle. But in the ashes of Paris, there is hope for all France. France is now on the path to total liberation. The French Forces of the Interior have done so much. Now is the time to take the French Republic and lead it to total victory!

Charles de Gaulle, speaking to the crowd at Orly Airport, November 23, 1944



NAZI’S BURN PARIS!

ATROCITIES IN CITY OF LIGHTS


This stunning footage has been captured during the height of the Battle of Paris, which has recently end. French Resistance photographers, risking life and limb, have documented the destruction of their great city. Many of the famous landmarks of the capital of France are burning: the great Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre Palace where famous works of art like the Mona Lisa are housed, and the Palace of Versailles, where Kings of France lived in opulence, and 25 years ago the First World War ended.

Nazi demolition crews were foiled from destroying the famous Eiffel Tower by partisan troops. The Arc de Triomphe, however, was not so lucky. Much of the rest of the great city is in ruins, as the French freedom fighters battle their oppressive German occupiers to liberate themselves.

Prime Minister Churchill spoke to the press and said that the Allied forces are doing everything in their power to help the French, and soldiers from the Western Allies are already moving from their ports into the interior of France. Nazi domination of France is nearing its end.

Pathé News Newsreel, November 27, 1944


OPERATION VENISON SUCCESS CRETE UNDER BRITISH OCCUPATION

Telegram from Admiral Sir Andrew B. Cunningham to Admiralty, December 9, 1944


GREECE OCCUPIED BY SOVIETS, YUGOSLAVS: ATHENS LIBERATED FROM NAZIS

The Times, Headline December 9, 1944


… the majority of Greeks were not totally happy with the fact that it was the Communists who liberated them, while the partisan army of the National Liberation Front (ELAS), which had close ties to leftists groups and the USSR, welcomed the Soviets with open arms. The ELAS and it’s political arm the EAM organized the Political Committee of National Liberation as the new government of mainland Greece, with support from the Soviets.

The Greek government in exile, headed by King George II, sought to return home and place the democratic government back in power. But the prospect of a civil war, in the middle of the current world war, and with little help forthcoming from the British who were busy in Italy and France, was enough to dissuade him from attempting to do so. Instead, he went to British controlled Crete, set up a government in Heraklion, and waited for the communist regime to fall: it’s aggressive moves to dispossess landowners, execute suspected collaborators and close ties to the hated Yugoslavia convinced King George and his government that it wouldn’t take long for the people to yearn for him to come back…

Complete History of World War II, Published 1987


GERMANY IN REACH: THE RED ARMY PUSHES FORWARD

Pravda, January 8, 1945


With Poland lost, Hungary and Romania gone, and the Soviets on the borders of Germany proper, it was apparent to everyone but Hitler himself that the war was over. In his bunker, the Fuhrer continued ordering around phantom units, ordering generals that he had ordered killed or fired to mount great counter attacks with divisions reduced to regiment strength, or sending units from France fighting the partisans and Western allies to march across the shrinking Reich in a few hours, to cut of Soviet spearheads that were much further into the Reich than the maps showed. With France virtually gone to the resistance and the British and Americans, and what was left of Italy growing smaller and smaller, the war was effectively over.

But Hitler could never have accepted that. He clung to the idea that the alliance against him was breaking, that the British and Americans would come to their senses and join him to destroy the Slavs and the Jewish communists. He couldn’t comprehend that it wasn’t just an International Jewish conspiracy that was against him, pulling the strings in Washington and London and Moscow, but the whole world hated him, and wanted him gone.

And there were still Party members who believed in him, or at least said so when he was around. Goering and Goebbels were together much of the time trying to figure out how to get the next wonder weapon, the next propaganda victory that would turn the tide. Speer continued to work miracles, albeit smaller than in early 1944, as the bombing of the Ruhr and Rhine was almost non-stop, day and night. But even his level headed managerial skills was running headfirst into reality, that reorganizing factories, sending slave labour from one bombed out factory to another, and diverting resources from the SS pet projects to guns and tanks and planes was impossible as infrastructure broke down and resources dwindled and oil was totally cut off.

Now was the time to plan how to end the war. Or to continue it from the shadows...

William L. Shrier, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Published 1960


The famous picture of Mr. Churchill and Premier Stalin sitting together in their big coats in the cold nearly didn’t happen. A third chair was available the whole time, but when President Dewey declined to come to Yalta, citing his responsibility to the American people at home, and sent Secretary of State Dulles, Stalin wanted to cancel the whole meeting. But Churchill insisted it go on, as there were things to discuss, plans to be made.

Stalin was still angry at the Allies for Normandy, and half baked, disorganized campaign after the French virtually liberated themselves did little to endear him to his supposed allies, as well as the slight of Dewey sending his minister and not traveling himself. And in the end little was decided except that the Nazis had to be totally defeated. Stalin had all his maps, and Churchill was ready to bargain for what sectors, what nations would be assigned to who, but it was Dulles, with his ridiculous idea of not having any occupation zones in Germany, that a new, neutral government be set up by all the powers, and that the Oder–Neisse Line was too unfavorable for the German people, that really infuriated him. He was sure it was an American attempt to make sure the Union was going to be hampered, and to rearm Germany to strike at the USSR again.

So that evening, Premier Stalin turned to Marshal Zhukov, who was there to give updates on the offensive into Germany, and told him: “Marshal, I want you to get to the Rhine. Kill everyone in your way. Do not stop until you get there.”

And that was then that Premier Stalin also determined that Norway and Denmark had to be taken as well. If the Allies weren’t going to work with him willingly, then he would force them too. They would never allow Copenhagen and Oslo to be Communist, he was sure, and would give him everything he wanted. He would use them as pawns to ensure that Germany be punished for its actions.

Interview with Captain Georgiy Kilesso, February 9, 1964, Toronto, Canada



U.S. MARINES STORM IWO JIMA; ISLAND 750 MILES FROM TOKYO

Chicago Tribune, February 20, 1945


...the Bretton Woods idea made Dewey very uneasy. Linking the whole world to the US Dollar, and the US dollar to gold? And at $35? And total free trade? It was incredulous, what these high minded economists were pushing...

...It was the Northeastern businessmen who really pushed against it. The idea that America would have to impoverish itself to rebuild the rest of the world (and their competitors in Germany, France and Britain, incidentally), and the high taxes and low productivity that would entail, could cause enormous pain, for little benefit. George Humphrey, President of an Ohio steel company, was particularly opposed. “Subsidizing the Europeans that destroyed themselves is not good business,” he told Dewey at a meeting in January. He focused on the International Monetary Fund and Redevelopment Bank in particular, as they seemed overly generous, planning to give huge loans to Britain and France, similar to the loans that had been made to those same nations during the First World War. Could they even repay those old loans after a second, even more costly war, on top of new ones?

Isolationists like Senator Taft also expressed opposition to the plan, saying that Bretton Woods was “internationalism disguised as a charity.” It would require America to police the oceans with a big, expensive navy for decades to come to ensure that world trade kept moving. Tying America into a world economy where a famine in India would cause a stock market crash in America was absurd and dangerous… While Taft and Dewey didn’t get along even on the best of times, representing opposite sides of the Republican Party, Dewey knew very well that he couldn’t alienate Taft and his conservative followers who would make any work for his incoming administration more difficult. Democrats still held both houses of Congress. No need to create more opposition than needed...

...Dewey gave notice to the British, the French and all the others that were at the meeting: Bretton Woods was off. Reconstruction efforts would be undertaken by direct, government to government treaty after the war, and not by an open-ended system rife for abuse. “America is generous, but we can’t give away our whole nation,” Dewey said during the campaign, and he was fulfilling that promise now...

William B. Pickett, The Little Man: The Presidency of Thomas E. Dewey - 1944-1952 Published 1990


ITALIAN FRONT BROKEN: ALLIED TROOPS RACING NORTH TO PO RIVER

Winnipeg Free Press, Headline, March 10, 1945



The news of the Italian breakthrough was the final straw. Even Hitler by now could see the war was over. The Soviets in the east were 100 miles from Berlin, the Western allies pushing Rommel back in France were closing in on Alsace, and Kesselring in Italy could barely retreat to a new defensive line before it was broken.

The economy was in shatters. Allied bombing had crippled all rail and river transport in the Rhineland. The few barges that could run were operating solely at night, as slow as possible to ensure that their wake couldn’t be seen from the air.

When I had my weekly conference with Hitler on March 10, in that spartan, concrete bunker he called home, it was with a broken man, much different than the Hitler I had planned Germania with. He was skinny, compulsively shaking, eye twitching. It was an open secret that he was on a large number of drugs, mostly methamphetamines. He sat in silence as I read off the numbers for the tanks we built, the factories damaged, the locomotives repaired. But he wasn’t listening. He was staring at a map of the Reich on the wall.

“Bavaria,” he blurted out.

“Pardon, Mein Fuhrer?”

“Bavaria. Munich. The Party started there. The National Socialist revolution began there. It needs to be reborn there.”

“What are you saying?”

“I want you and Goering and the others to go to Munich, and set up a new government,” Hitler stated.

“Mein Fuhrer, what about you?”

“I will fight on here. I will defend Berlin to the last. But the National Socialist movement can’t die. It can’t be snuffed out by the International Jewery.” He glared at me, with those hard piercing eyes. I felt a shiver run down my spine. “The National Socialist Movement must… will survive.”

That night I packed the few belongings I had: my Party uniform, a couple suits, and got my wife and children ready for the journey... a truck caravan left for Munich on March 12…. Marshal Goering was there, to replace Hitler once news of his death in Berlin was received. Goebbels, his wife and children, and the little bit of a Propaganda Ministry joined them. Himmler was in the Netherlands, but expected to join us in time, and we had an SS guard the whole way. We could only travel at night, when the airplanes couldn’t see. It took us four days, on an autobahn that should have took four hours, hiding at night like rabbits from the wolves that lurked above...

...Goering pulled me to the side the night before we arrived in Munich, very much nervous and frightened. “What is the status of Project Festung?”

I told him I did not know. But in reality, it never really got started, even though Goering had asked me to soon after the July 20th incident, because I thought it was a waste of resources then. Just a team, using local materials that they could get kept it going.

“It must become the top priority,” Goering stated. “If we are to keep the Party, the Movement going, we need Project Festung.”

I told him I would look into it, and ensure everything that could be done, was done. Though I knew even then that there was little I could do...

Albert Speer: Inside the Third Reich, Published 1974



… The hammer blows from the west fell quickly: Operation Rattlesnake was launched April 8, with General Patton’s Third Army Group, including the Sixth US Army and the British 7th Army, from Brittany and heading along the northern coast of France, bypassing Paris, destroying any pockets of German resistance that remained. That same day, from Aquitaine and Provence, Operation Cathedral, and the Second Army Group of General Bradley, almost all American, charged east and North, meeting somewhere in the northern Rhone valley, before turning toward the Rhine River. They were supposed to meet up somewhere south of the Belgian border...

...Rommel was outnumbered 3 to 1 in troops, 5 to 1 in tanks, and an astounding 10 to 1 in aircraft. The vaunted Luftwaffe was no more. The Panzer divisions that tore through Europe, North Africa and Russia were but lifeless hulks by now. The average soldier was an old man, median age 43: the soldiers that made the Blitzkrieg so effective had long since been buried.

But they still fought tenaciously, counter-attacking where they could, and withdrew in good order. Though Hitler had given orders to all his armies to hold every inch of ground, Rommel was in no mood to allow his army to be simply torn to shreds. The SS officers sent to enforce Hitler’s will after Rommel disobeyed direct orders soon found themselves “killed by partisans” or “mortally wounded in bombing raids”...

...The landings on the Dutch coast on May 1, codenamed Operation Market-Garden, was another blow that the Nazi’s were unable to overcome in the death throes of the Third Reich. Organized and conducted by General Montgomery using his British and Canadian divisions, Market-Garden resulted in several brutal battles with the SS Army lead by Heinrich Himmler, but Himmler, a brutal and ruthless police chief and torturer, was hapless as an army commander. Soon the Scheldt Estuary was in Allied hands, Antwerp liberated, and Amsterdam secure, and the whole of the Belgium and Netherlands was in Allied hands by the end of the month…

Complete History of World War II, Published 1987


BERLIN FALLS! RED ARMY OCCUPIES LAIR OF THE ENEMY

Pravda, June 8, 1945


HITLER FOUND DEAD IN BUNKER; REMAINING NAZI LEADERS UNACCOUNTED FOR

New York Times, June 10, 1945



R: The news was a shock. I could not conceive of Hitler ending his own life. Maybe the propaganda had twisted my mind. I honestly thought he would have lead a final charge of his SS guards against the Soviets, dying in a last ditch attempt, a honorable, memorable end. But no. He put a bullet through his head hours after marrying Eva Braun. I could not believe it.

M: But it wasn’t the end.

R: I knew that Goering and the other leadership had evacuated to Munich. I was surprised to learn that no one else knew, that Munich was to be the last capital of the Reich. I was sure that the Soviets and Americans would have charged for Bavaria had they knew. But instead they focused on Northern Germany, toward the Rhine. I can’t blame them for doing so.

M: Why not?

R: It’s good tank country. (laughter) Best place to send massive Panzer divisions. If I was in Zhukov’s place, I would have done the same thing.

M: Where were you when the Rhine Meet-Up occured?

R: I was with my headquarters in the Ardennes Forest. Field Marshal von Rundstedt, who had been my superior at Normandy, and I was now his co-equal in the final battles, was there, and we were arguing over something or another, I cannot remember. I had driven through the Ardennes at the start of the war with the movement that defeated the French. It was a rough area, perfect, I thought, to stay hidden and to organize a last offensives. It was around the town of Bastogne when I received the message that the Soviets and British and Americans had met at several places along the Rhine. I was quite surprised. I honestly thought the Western Allies would have been able to cross the river before the Soviets arrived. Maybe I did my job too well.

M: Would you have prefered to have the Americans and British cross the Rhine?

R: Again, a hypothetical. It happened that way. I was mostly fighting at the end to ensure as many Germans could make it back to Germany as possible, to avoid the wrath of the French and Belgians.

M: Though most would end up in the Soviet occupation.

R: Yes. But after Paris was leveled, I knew that the French were in little mood for being conciliatory. At least the Soviet’s wanted to keep Germans alive to work for them. The French would have killed us all...

Interview with General Erwin Rommel by Edward R. Morrow, at Madison Square Garden, July 19, 1949



WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

  • to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

  • to regain faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

  • to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

  • to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS

  • to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and

  • to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

  • to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

  • to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations



…San Francisco is such an interesting city. Every city in America is interesting. Everything is bigger, louder, brighter. That’s what you get for having a nation 3000 miles from Europe, and twice that with Asia. War doesn’t touch these cities...

...The United Nations is such a fine idea. Have all the nations work together to solve their problems, resolve wars before they begin.

The problem, dear Maybelle, is that we already tried it once before. The League of Nations, after the last war.

I know you don’t care much for the geopolitics, but I know very well that we have to actually try this time.

Human civilization won’t get a third chance.

Letter from Sir John MacKlein, British Foreign Office, June 26, 1945, from San Francisco to Maybelle Oliver



WAR IS OVER!

The Times, Headline July 9, 1945



VICTORY IN EUROPE; ROMMEL SURRENDERS; NAZI LEADERSHIP MISSING; FIGHTING CEASES ON ALL FRONTS

New York Times, Headline July 9, 1945

<> <> <>
Part 2 is complete! The War in Europe is over, but the groundwork for the post-war period (or lack of a groundwork) is in place. Up next: the final defeat of Japan, dividing the spoils, and NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS. Stay tuned!

Patrick Morrison and Sir John MacKlein are both fictional characters, and will play bigger roles later in the story.
 
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Part 2: November 1944-July 1945


Dear Mother,

I’m currently writing you from Brest, in France. I got your letter a few weeks ago when I was still in England, but before I could write back, we ended up in Europe thanks to the French resistance. I’ve finally found some time to write. Thank you for the cigarettes and the chocolate. They never go wrong here.

We’ve been fighting the Germans for the past few days, who have been attacking us to try to pull a Normandy on us. But the weather was fine, the battleships and bombers have blasted the Nazis, and we are holding the port. I think we are here to stay now.

It’s taking a long time to organize everything, to get ready to march through France and drive the Germans out. I’ve heard it could be a couple of weeks yet before we are in full strength to go.

I haven’t heard from Jack since I got to Europe. Think he’s still driving those bombers that are hammering the Germans hard, last I heard. If you do get a letter from him, please let me know.

Tell Mary that I love her. I’ll send her a letter soon as well.

Your son;

Pat, in France!


Letter from Patrick “Pat” Morrison, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, 1st Canadian Division. Sent October 23, arrived November 8, 1944.


Paris is free! You have rose up and smashed the swastika that flew over our great city. The cost has been terrible, for much of the city has been destroyed in the two months of battle. But in the ashes of Paris, there is hope for all France. France is now on the path to total liberation. The French Forces of the Interior have done so much. Now is the time to take the French Republic and lead it to total victory!

Charles de Gaulle, speaking to the crowd at Orly Airport, November 23, 1944



NAZI’S BURN PARIS!

ATROCITIES IN CITY OF LIGHTS


This stunning footage has been captured during the height of the Battle of Paris, which has recently end. French Resistance photographers, risking life and limb, have documented the destruction of their great city. Many of the famous landmarks of the capital of France are burning: the great Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre Palace where famous works of art like the Mona Lisa are housed, and the Palace of Versailles, where Kings of France lived in opulence, and 25 years ago the First World War ended.

Nazi demolition crews were foiled from destroying the famous Eiffel Tower by partisan troops. The Arc de Triomphe, however, was not so lucky. Much of the rest of the great city is in ruins, as the French freedom fighters battle their oppressive German occupiers to liberate themselves.

Prime Minister Churchill spoke to the press and said that the Allied forces are doing everything in their power to help the French, and soldiers from the Western Allies are already moving from their ports into the interior of France. Nazi domination of France is nearing its end.

Pathé News Newsreel, November 27, 1944


OPERATION VENISON SUCCESS CRETE UNDER BRITISH OCCUPATION

Telegram from Admiral Sir Andrew B. Cunningham to Admiralty, December 9, 1944


GREECE OCCUPIED BY SOVIETS, YUGOSLAVS: ATHENS LIBERATED FROM NAZIS

The Times, Headline December 9, 1944


… the majority of Greeks were not totally happy with the fact that it was the Communists who liberated them, while the partisan army of the National Liberation Front (ELAS), which had close ties to leftists groups and the USSR, welcomed the Soviets with open arms. The ELAS and it’s political arm the EAM organized the Political Committee of National Liberation as the new government of mainland Greece, with support from the Soviets.

The Greek government in exile, headed by King George II, sought to return home and place the democratic government back in power. But the prospect of a civil war, in the middle of the current world war, and with little help forthcoming from the British who were busy in Italy and France, was enough to dissuade him from attempting to do so. Instead, he went to British controlled Crete, set up a government in Heraklion, and waited for the communist regime to fall: it’s aggressive moves to dispossess landowners, execute suspected collaborators and close ties to the hated Yugoslavia convinced King George and his government that it wouldn’t take long for the people to yearn for him to come back…

Complete History of World War II, Published 1987


GERMANY IN REACH: THE RED ARMY PUSHES FORWARD

Pravda, January 8, 1945


With Poland lost, Hungary and Romania gone, and the Soviets on the borders of Germany proper, it was apparent to everyone but Hitler himself that the war was over. In his bunker, the Fuhrer continued ordering around phantom units, ordering generals that he had ordered killed or fired to mount great counter attacks with divisions reduced to regiment strength, or sending units from France fighting the partisans and Western allies to march across the shrinking Reich in a few hours, to cut of Soviet spearheads that were much further into the Reich than the maps showed. With France virtually gone to the resistance and the British and Americans, and what was left of Italy growing smaller and smaller, the war was effectively over.

But Hitler could never have accepted that. He clung to the idea that the alliance against him was breaking, that the British and Americans would come to their senses and join him to destroy the Slavs and the Jewish communists. He couldn’t comprehend that it wasn’t just an International Jewish conspiracy that was against him, pulling the strings in Washington and London and Moscow, but the whole world hated him, and wanted him gone.

And there were still Party members who believed in him, or at least said so when he was around. Goering and Goebbels were together much of the time trying to figure out how to get the next wonder weapon, the next propaganda victory that would turn the tide. Speer continued to work miracles, albeit smaller than in early 1944, as the bombing of the Ruhr and Rhine was almost non-stop, day and night. But even his level headed managerial skills was running headfirst into reality, that reorganizing factories, sending slave labour from one bombed out factory to another, and diverting resources from the SS pet projects to guns and tanks and planes was impossible as infrastructure broke down and resources dwindled and oil was totally cut off.

Now was the time to plan how to end the war. Or to continue it from the shadows...

William L. Shrier, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Published 1960


The famous picture of Mr. Churchill and Premier Stalin sitting together in their big coats in the cold nearly didn’t happen. A third chair was available the whole time, but when President Dewey declined to come to Yalta, citing his responsibility to the American people at home, and sent Secretary of State Dulles, Stalin wanted to cancel the whole meeting. But Churchill insisted it go on, as there were things to discuss, plans to be made.

Stalin was still angry at the Allies for Normandy, and half baked, disorganized campaign after the French virtually liberated themselves did little to endear him to his supposed allies, as well as the slight of Dewey sending his minister and not traveling himself. And in the end little was decided except that the Nazis had to be totally defeated. Stalin had all his maps, and Churchill was ready to bargain for what sectors, what nations would be assigned to who, but it was Dulles, with his ridiculous idea of not having any occupation zones in Germany, that a new, neutral government be set up by all the powers, and that the Oder–Neisse Line was too unfavorable for the German people, that really infuriated him. He was sure it was an American attempt to make sure the Union was going to be hampered, and to rearm Germany to strike at the USSR again.

So that evening, Premier Stalin turned to Marshal Zhukov, who was there to give updates on the offensive into Germany, and told him: “Marshal, I want you to get to the Rhine. Kill everyone in your way. Do not stop until you get there.”

And that was then that Premier Stalin also determined that Norway and Denmark had to be taken as well. If the Allies weren’t going to work with him willingly, then he would force them too. They would never allow Copenhagen and Oslo to be Communist, he was sure, and would give him everything he wanted. He would use them as pawns to ensure that Germany be punished for its actions.

Interview with Captain Georgiy Kilesso, February 9, 1964, Toronto, Canada



U.S. MARINES STORM IWO JIMA; ISLAND 750 MILES FROM TOKYO

Chicago Tribune, February 20, 1945


...the Bretton Woods idea made Dewey very uneasy. Linking the whole world to the US Dollar, and the US dollar to gold? And at $35? And total free trade? It was incredulous, what these high minded economists were pushing...

...It was the Northeastern businessmen who really pushed against it. The idea that America would have to impoverish itself to rebuild the rest of the world (and their competitors in Germany, France and Britain, incidentally), and the high taxes and low productivity that would entail, could cause enormous pain, for little benefit. George Humphrey, President of an Ohio steel company, was particularly opposed. “Subsidizing the Europeans that destroyed themselves is not good business,” he told Dewey at a meeting in January. He focused on the International Monetary Fund and Redevelopment Bank in particular, as they seemed overly generous, planning to give huge loans to Britain and France, similar to the loans that had been made to those same nations during the First World War. Could they even repay those old loans after a second, even more costly war, on top of new ones?

Isolationists like Senator Taft also expressed opposition to the plan, saying that Bretton Woods was “internationalism disguised as a charity.” It would require America to police the oceans with a big, expensive navy for decades to come to ensure that world trade kept moving. Tying America into a world economy where a famine in India would cause a stock market crash in America was absurd and dangerous… While Taft and Dewey didn’t get along even on the best of times, representing opposite sides of the Republican Party, Dewey knew very well that he couldn’t alienate Taft and his conservative followers who would make any work for his incoming administration more difficult. Democrats still held both houses of Congress. No need to create more opposition than needed...

...Dewey gave notice to the British, the French and all the others that were at the meeting: Bretton Woods was off. Reconstruction efforts would be undertaken by direct, government to government treaty after the war, and not by an open-ended system rife for abuse. “America is generous, but we can’t give away our whole nation,” Dewey said during the campaign, and he was fulfilling that promise now...

William B. Pickett, The Little Man: The Presidency of Thomas E. Dewey - 1944-1952 Published 1990


ITALIAN FRONT BROKEN: ALLIED TROOPS RACING NORTH TO PO RIVER

Winnipeg Free Press, Headline, March 10, 1945



The news of the Italian breakthrough was the final straw. Even Hitler by now could see the war was over. The Soviets in the east were 100 miles from Berlin, the Western allies pushing Rommel back in France were closing in on Alsace, and Kesselring in Italy could barely retreat to a new defensive line before it was broken.

The economy was in shatters. Allied bombing had crippled all rail and river transport in the Rhineland. The few barges that could run were operating solely at night, as slow as possible to ensure that their wake couldn’t be seen from the air.

When I had my weekly conference with Hitler on March 10, in that spartan, concrete bunker he called home, it was with a broken man, much different than the Hitler I had planned Germania with. He was skinny, compulsively shaking, eye twitching. It was an open secret that he was on a large number of drugs, mostly methamphetamines. He sat in silence as I read off the numbers for the tanks we built, the factories damaged, the locomotives repaired. But he wasn’t listening. He was staring at a map of the Reich on the wall.

“Bavaria,” he blurted out.

“Pardon, Mein Fuhrer?”

“Bavaria. Munich. The Party started there. The National Socialist revolution began there. It needs to be reborn there.”

“What are you saying?”

“I want you and Goering and the others to go to Munich, and set up a new government,” Hitler stated.

“Mein Fuhrer, what about you?”

“I will fight on here. I will defend Berlin to the last. But the National Socialist movement can’t die. It can’t be snuffed out by the International Jewery.” He glared at me, with those hard piercing eyes. I felt a shiver run down my spine. “The National Socialist Movement must… will survive.”

That night I packed the few belongings I had: my Party uniform, a couple suits, and got my wife and children ready for the journey... a truck caravan left for Munich on March 12…. Marshal Goering was there, to replace Hitler once news of his death in Berlin was received. Goebbels, his wife and children, and the little bit of a Propaganda Ministry joined them. Himmler was in the Netherlands, but expected to join us in time, and we had an SS guard the whole way. We could only travel at night, when the airplanes couldn’t see. It took us four days, on an autobahn that should have took four hours, hiding at night like rabbits from the wolves that lurked above...

...Goering pulled me to the side the night before we arrived in Munich, very much nervous and frightened. “What is the status of Project Festung?”

I told him I did not know. But in reality, it never really got started, even though Goering had asked me to soon after the July 20th incident, because I thought it was a waste of resources then. Just a team, using local materials that they could get kept it going.

“It must become the top priority,” Goering stated. “If we are to keep the Party, the Movement going, we need Project Festung.”

I told him I would look into it, and ensure everything that could be done, was done. Though I knew even then that there was little I could do...

Albert Speer: Inside the Third Reich, Published 1974



… The hammer blows from the west fell quickly: Operation Rattlesnake was launched April 8, with General Patton’s Third Army Group, including the Sixth US Army and the British 7th Army, from Brittany and heading along the northern coast of France, bypassing Paris, destroying any pockets of German resistance that remained. That same day, from Aquitaine and Provence, Operation Cathedral, and the Second Army Group of General Bradley, almost all American, charged east and North, meeting somewhere in the northern Rhone valley, before turning toward the Rhine River. They were supposed to meet up somewhere south of the Belgian border...

...Rommel was outnumbered 3 to 1 in troops, 5 to 1 in tanks, and an astounding 10 to 1 in aircraft. The vaunted Luftwaffe was no more. The Panzer divisions that tore through Europe, North Africa and Russia were but lifeless hulks by now. The average soldier was an old man, median age 43: the soldiers that made the Blitzkrieg so effective had long since been buried.

But they still fought tenaciously, counter-attacking where they could, and withdrew in good order. Though Hitler had given orders to all his armies to hold every inch of ground, Rommel was in no mood to allow his army to be simply torn to shreds. The SS officers sent to enforce Hitler’s will after Rommel disobeyed direct orders soon found themselves “killed by partisans” or “mortally wounded in bombing raids”...

...The landings on the Dutch coast on May 1, codenamed Operation Market-Garden, was another blow that the Nazi’s were unable to overcome in the death throes of the Third Reich. Organized and conducted by General Montgomery using his British and Canadian divisions, Market-Garden resulted in several brutal battles with the SS Army lead by Heinrich Himmler, but Himmler, a brutal and ruthless police chief and torturer, was hapless as an army commander. Soon the Scheldt Estuary was in Allied hands, Antwerp liberated, and Amsterdam secure, and the whole of the Belgium and Netherlands was in Allied hands by the end of the month…

Complete History of World War II, Published 1987


BERLIN FALLS! RED ARMY OCCUPIES LAIR OF THE ENEMY

Pravda, June 8, 1944


HITLER FOUND DEAD IN BUNKER; REMAINING NAZI LEADERS UNACCOUNTED FOR

New York Times, June 10, 1944



R: The news was a shock. I could not conceive of Hitler ending his own life. Maybe the propaganda had twisted my mind. I honestly thought he would have lead a final charge of his SS guards against the Soviets, dying in a last ditch attempt, a honorable, memorable end. But no. He put a bullet through his head hours after marrying Eva Braun. I could not believe it.

M: But it wasn’t the end.

R: I knew that Goering and the other leadership had evacuated to Munich. I was surprised to learn that no one else knew, that Munich was to be the last capital of the Reich. I was sure that the Soviets and Americans would have charged for Bavaria had they knew. But instead they focused on Northern Germany, toward the Rhine. I can’t blame them for doing so.

M: Why not?

R: It’s good tank country. (laughter) Best place to send massive Panzer divisions. If I was in Zhukov’s place, I would have done the same thing.

M: Where were you when the Rhine Meet-Up occured?

R: I was with my headquarters in the Ardennes Forest. Field Marshal von Rundstedt, who had been my superior at Normandy, and I was now his co-equal in the final battles, was there, and we were arguing over something or another, I cannot remember. I had driven through the Ardennes at the start of the war with the movement that defeated the French. It was a rough area, perfect, I thought, to stay hidden and to organize a last offensives. It was around the town of Bastogne when I received the message that the Soviets and British and Americans had met at several places along the Rhine. I was quite surprised. I honestly thought the Western Allies would have been able to cross the river before the Soviets arrived. Maybe I did my job too well.

M: Would you have prefered to have the Americans and British cross the Rhine?

R: Again, a hypothetical. It happened that way. I was mostly fighting at the end to ensure as many Germans could make it back to Germany as possible, to avoid the wrath of the French and Belgians.

M: Though most would end up in the Soviet occupation.

R: Yes. But after Paris was leveled, I knew that the French were in little mood for being conciliatory. At least the Soviet’s wanted to keep Germans alive to work for them. The French would have killed us all...

Interview with General Erwin Rommel by Edward R. Morrow, at Madison Square Garden, July 19, 1949



WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

  • to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

  • to regain faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

  • to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

  • to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS

  • to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and

  • to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

  • to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

  • to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations



…San Francisco is such an interesting city. Every city in America is interesting. Everything is bigger, louder, brighter. That’s what you get for having a nation 3000 miles from Europe, and twice that with Asia. War doesn’t touch these cities...

...The United Nations is such a fine idea. Have all the nations work together to solve their problems, resolve wars before they begin.

The problem, dear Maybelle, is that we already tried it once before. The League of Nations, after the last war.

I know you don’t care much for the geopolitics, but I know very well that we have to actually try this time.

Human civilization won’t get a third chance.

Letter from Sir John MacKlein, British Foreign Office, June 26, 1945, from San Francisco to Maybelle Oliver



WAR IS OVER!

The Times, Headline July 9, 1944



VICTORY IN EUROPE; ROMMEL SURRENDERS; NAZI LEADERSHIP MISSING; FIGHTING CEASES ON ALL FRONTS

New York Times, Headline July 9, 1944

<> <> <>
Part 2 is complete! The War in Europe is over, but the groundwork for the post-war period (or lack of a groundwork) is in place. Up next: the final defeat of Japan, dividing the spoils, and NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS. Stay tuned!
Great update! Some of the dates say 1944 insteady of 1945 but that’s easily fixable; keep up the good work!
 
Part 2: November 1944-July 1945


Dear Mother,

I’m currently writing you from Brest, in France. I got your letter a few weeks ago when I was still in England, but before I could write back, we ended up in Europe thanks to the French resistance. I’ve finally found some time to write. Thank you for the cigarettes and the chocolate. They never go wrong here.

We’ve been fighting the Germans for the past few days, who have been attacking us to try to pull a Normandy on us. But the weather was fine, the battleships and bombers have blasted the Nazis, and we are holding the port. I think we are here to stay now.

It’s taking a long time to organize everything, to get ready to march through France and drive the Germans out. I’ve heard it could be a couple of weeks yet before we are in full strength to go.

I haven’t heard from Jack since I got to Europe. Think he’s still driving those bombers that are hammering the Germans hard, last I heard. If you do get a letter from him, please let me know.

Tell Mary that I love her. I’ll send her a letter soon as well.

Your son;

Pat, in France!

After censors get done with it.....

Dear Mother,
<Censored> I got your letter a few weeks ago <Censored>I’ve finally found some time to write. Thank you for the cigarettes and the chocolate. They never go wrong here.

<Censored> But the weather was fine <Censored>

<Censored>

I haven’t heard from Jack <Censored> If you do get a letter from him, please let me know.

Tell Mary that I love her. I’ll send her a letter soon as well.

Your son;

Pat <Censored>
 
And that was then that Premier Stalin also determined that Norway and Denmark had to be taken as well.

Denmark basically comes with the rest of Central Germany, but Norway's probably not going to happen. Nonexistent infrastructure, mountains, and arctic climate make the overland route from Finland through Narvik too difficult and Soviet shipping assets are too threadbare to make it before the Anglo-Americans once Germany surrenders.

...the Bretton Woods idea made Dewey very uneasy. Linking the whole world to the US Dollar, and the US dollar to gold? And at $35? And total free trade? It was incredulous, what these high minded economists were pushing...

...It was the Northeastern businessmen who really pushed against it. The idea that America would have to impoverish itself to rebuild the rest of the world (and their competitors in Germany, France and Britain, incidentally), and the high taxes and low productivity that would entail, could cause enormous pain, for little benefit. George Humphrey, President of an Ohio steel company, was particularly opposed. “Subsidizing the Europeans that destroyed themselves is not good business,” he told Dewey at a meeting in January. He focused on the International Monetary Fund and Redevelopment Bank in particular, as they seemed overly generous, planning to give huge loans to Britain and France, similar to the loans that had been made to those same nations during the First World War. Could they even repay those old loans after a second, even more costly war, on top of new ones?

Isolationists like Senator Taft also expressed opposition to the plan, saying that Bretton Woods was “internationalism disguised as a charity.” It would require America to police the oceans with a big, expensive navy for decades to come to ensure that world trade kept moving. Tying America into a world economy where a famine in India would cause a stock market crash in America was absurd and dangerous… While Taft and Dewey didn’t get along even on the best of times, representing opposite sides of the Republican Party, Dewey knew very well that he couldn’t alienate Taft and his conservative followers who would make any work for his incoming administration more difficult. Democrats still held both houses of Congress. No need to create more opposition than needed...

...Dewey gave notice to the British, the French and all the others that were at the meeting: Bretton Woods was off. Reconstruction efforts would be undertaken by direct, government to government treaty after the war, and not by an open-ended system rife for abuse. “America is generous, but we can’t give away our whole nation,” Dewey said during the campaign, and he was fulfilling that promise now...

William B. Pickett, The Little Man: The Presidency of Thomas E. Dewey - 1944-1952 Published 1990

Oh dear. Certainly hope the US isn't contemplating full blown retreat into isolationism. That would be Churchill's ultimate nightmare made real...
 
Part 3: July 1945 - January 1946

Part 3: July 1945 - January 1946


...the Pacific War was, for all intents and purposes, a totally separate conflict from the one that was being waged in Europe. It’s a testament to the great, untapped strength and righteous fury of America that, after the poke in the eye that was Pearl Harbor, they were able to mobilize incredibly rapidly, create an army and air force virtually from scratch, massively expand their already respectable navy, wage wars on the other side of two major oceans, and was able to supply all their allies with food, raw resources, weapons, material, shipping, and infrastructure for virtually free…

...the set back of Normandy in Europe did little to change the tide of the war in the Pacific. By mid 1944, Japan’s Imperial experiment had virtually failed. The destruction of the naval fleets and air armadas that made the whole Pacific Rim shake with fear was gone. By the start of 1945, he was replaced with suicide charges by battleships with enough fuel for a one way trip, and airplanes whose pilots only had enough training to take off and fly at an American ship…

...The US Army Air Force, with their massive B-29 bombers, could hit the Home Islands by the end of November 1944, and had begun to lay waste to Japan in earnest in the New Year. Small specks on the map with such foreign sounding names as Saipan, Peleliu, Leyte, Luzon, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa were now permanently etched in the histories of the United States, these great but incredibly costly victories leading up to what would be the greatest invasion of them all: Japan itself…

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, The Second World War, Volume 6 “Triumph and Tragedy” Published 1953



The meeting at Potsdam was the first time that Premier Stalin had met the new American President. Dewey, with his thin mustache, stiff formal appearance, and icy demeanor made the Premier very suspicious of President Dewey. His avoidance of the Yalta conference in February did little to appease Stalin, who by then was ranting and raving that Dewey was little better than a capitalist wo was only thinking of the bottom line, how to make the most money, and when to cut and run…

… Dewey surprised Premier Stalin in private though. There, he was friendly, charming, and remarkably friendly, and Stalin said he got along well with Dewey. But where Roosevelt had an idealistic outlook and plan for the future, but was willing to pragmatically compromise, Dewey had few ideals and spoke often in vague terms, but refused to bend on certain points. The Americans were adamant that democratic elections be held in all of Eastern Europe, the land occupied by the USSR, and the governments in exile return home…

...Stalin, at the meetings, would agree, promise all that Dewey and Attlee wanted to hear, then tell Molotov or Beria or whoever to figure out how to delay the elections, or rig them to ensure Communist victory…

… By now Stalin knew of the Manhattan Project. He was quite surprised that Dewey didn’t say anything about it, or asked for help dealing with Japan. When Stalin did offer to declare war on Japan to help out, Dewey only gave a vague statement along the lines of “... thank you for the offer, I will have to consider it, but you shouldn’t worry yourselves about the Japs.” Stalin still had Stavka make up the plans...

Interview with Captain Georgiy Kilesso, February 9, 1964, Toronto, Canada



...it’s not in the nature of the Japanese to surrender easily. Every battle we have fought from Guadalcanal right to the doorstep of their islands has been met by vicious resistance and bloody fighting, where only a tiny handful of the defenders, and usually only if they were wounded or incapacitated, would surrender.

… we could cut them off, starve them, consign their islands the most strict of blockades and never ending bombardment from the air. But would they surrender even with all this?

...it may take a weapon so great, so powerful, that no one has yet conceived of it.

Draft of New York Times editorial, July 14, 1945. Censored and not allowed to be published.



"Now we are all sons of bitches."

Kenneth Bainbridge to J. Robert Oppenheimer, July 16, 1945 during the first detonation of an atomic bomb at Trinity Test Site, New Mexico.



The operation was a success. Dr. Groves said the patient is recovering well. Should be released in three weeks.

Message sent to Secretary of War Robert A. Lovett in Potsdam, July 17, 1945



INVASION OF JAPAN: HOW TO DEFEAT THE FINAL BASTION OF AGGRESSION

TIME Magazine, August 4, 1945



… Dewey had been given an incredibly quick lesson in nuclear physics and the implications of the device that the Manhattan Project had developed since he was first told about it the day before his inauguration by outgoing President Henry Wallace. For weeks he had been debating with only a few members of his staff, namely General Marshall and Secretary of War Lovett, on how best to use the atomic bomb, or if to use it at all. Use it to clear the way of the beachheads of the invasion? Demonstrate it for the world press and have them warn of the danger? Or just use it wipe out a city?

The President went back and forth on the different options. But in the end it all came down to the sobering numbers that were being mentioned of casualties of Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan: anywhere from 500,000 to two million total casualties, many hundreds of thousands dead, if the Japanese civilians resist the Allied invasion with the same ferocity of its soldiers.

“If they said that the atomic bombs would have only saved one American life, I would have still done it in a heartbeat,” Dewey told General MacArthur years later. “Then, at least, I would have saved at least one brave soldier who otherwise would have died.”

The Little Man: The Presidency of Thomas E. Dewey - 1944-1952: Written by William B. Pickett (published 1990)



TARGET LIST:

The following targets are selected for deployment of the weapon, with approval from the President and Secretary of War:

Kokura: industrial center, largest munition plant in Japan

Kyoto: Major industrial era, ancient capital of Japan.

Hiroshima: major port, industrial center, HQ of Second General Army

Yokohama: major port, Aircraft manufacture, and industrial tools

Niigata: major port, steel and aluminum, oil refinery.

Final Target list given to 509th Composite Group, August 10, 1945



… Hirohito had, with the suggestion of Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki, relocated with the his family to Kyoto, due to the lack of bombing of the old capital. Tokyo barely existed now: it was a city of ash and wreckage after many firebombing strikes against the city. It would do no good to have the emperor die from an American firestorm, though it would have undoubtedly strengthened the resolve of Japanese citizens to fight to the end.

The Emperor and his family arrived in Kyoto on August 4, 1945, and it had been decided that the Prime Minister and the other ministers would make a weekly trip by vehicle to confer with the Emperor. There was no talk of ending the war, even at this point. The invasion of Japan, forecasted to begin soon, would, as predicted constantly by the generals and admirals, result in such a bloodletting, so many American and Allied casualties, that they would have to sue for peace…

Complete History of World War II, Published 1987



Primary target was the city of Kokura. However, heavy cloud cover over the city when mission arrived necessitated moving to secondary target… bomber codenamed Top Secret reached the target at 0809, flying at 31,060 feet… The device was released at 0815, detonation occured 44 seconds after… Bomb was 500 yards off target...

After Action Report, submitted August 15, 1945, declassified 1970



My family and I lived in the Ukyō Ward, and I was walking to work with my sister (Koume) at a factory near the river when there was a sudden bright light, like when you open a door from a dark room into a sunny day. My sister screamed in pain and fell down, as she had been facing the south where the bomb occured while I was looking away because I thought someone had called my name...

...When I finally turned around to see what happened to my sister, I looked to the south, I saw a great cloud, rising high into the sky, like a mushroom. Then I was knocked off my feet by a great, monstrous wind, that made all the buildings around me fall down, with glass breaking and wood snapping and the cries of many demons screaming…

...I was finally able to get up. My back felt like it was on fire, as well as my hair and clothes. I took them off to try to put out the fire. I looked to my sister, who was lying on the street next to me. She was still covering her eyes, crying in pain. I went to her, and tried to help her. Her clothes had melted onto her skin, her face was badly burnt. I could only hold her...

Shimamoto Tora, interview in 1970 commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Kyoto, Japan



PRESIDENT ANNOUNCES BOMBING OF KYOTO WITH “NEW, DESTRUCTIVE WEAPON;” ATOMIC DEVICE LEVELS JAPANESE CITY; CASUALTIES UNKNOWN

New York Times Headline, August 16, 1945


Hirohito was having breakfast with his family when the bomb went off. The bomb landed in the Shimogyo ward, near the Katsura River. Almost everything within a mile of Ground Zero was destroyed, and widespread damage was reported three miles from the detonation point. The Imperial Palace was almost five miles from ground zero, so had little destruction from the initial blast, but the shockwave and fires that followed damaged many south facing walls.

Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Kōichi Kido, with several army officers and soldiers who were guarding the palace, soon arrived to see if the Emperor was safe. They found Hirohito shaken, having looked to the south to see the mushroom cloud of the explosion. “It is over,” he said. “The war is over…”

...For the next three hours, reports of the destruction of the city reached the emperor. The sheer devastation that was reported, much greater than any firebombing raid on Tokyo or any other city, convinced him that the American’s warning of a “great new weapon of unparalleled destructive power” was, indeed true, and not simply propaganda to make Japan surrender and give up the war without an invasion…

...Defense Minister General Anami arrived that afternoon in Kyoto upon news of the destruction of Kyoto. He was convinced that the Americans could not possibly have more than two or three more weapons of such power, and he tried to persuade the Emperor that Japan can, and must, ride out these attacks… Hirohito, however, was adamant, as only a survivor of an incomprehensible attack of such nature could be. “The Empire cannot hope to win this war, and any chance of a negotiated peace is gone. We must bear the unbearable…”

...Anami, despite his support to continue the war, was a loyal servant of the Emperor, and so he acquiesced to the order, and went to the cabinet in Tokyo that evening for a late night meeting. But the meeting was fractious: Anami was accused of being a coward, and that the Emperor, who was still in Kyoto, would never order such a thing. The Defense Minister, who could not convince his colleagues of the Emperor’s command, and the failure of communications with Kyoto, as all telegraph and radio stations had been destroyed or disabled, instead announced his resignation, and he committed seppuku on August 17.

The announcement of Anami’s resignation was interpreted by hardliner officers in the army as an attempt to end the war with a surrender, as they knew General Anami’s support for continuing the war, but not that the Emperor had ordered the war to end. Major Kenji Hatanaka, convinced that the government was preparing to overthrow the emperor to end the war, instead prepared a coup to end the defeatist elements, to fight the war…

...The arrival of Hirohito on the morning on August 18 in Tokyo for an Imperial Conference with all but the deceased Defense Minister, and his announcement that Japan would surrender, changed the whole equation. The cabinet, realizing that Minister Anami was correct, hurriedly tried to organize a communique to be sent by the Japanese ambassador to Switzerland and Sweden to the Allies announcing the war was over. Hirohito, afraid that another Japanese city would be obliterated, said that he would give a broadcast to the Japanese people over the radio, to confirm it, and hopefully prevent the Americans from any more bombing raids…

...The attempts to organize a recording of the Emperor’s speech resulted in a recording that was of such low quality as to be nearly impossible to understand, so Hirohito decided to give the speech live on the radio. Prime Minister Suzuki tried to dissuade the Emperor, as he had received reports that some army officers were preparing a coup, but Hirohito ignored him, and a motorcade was organized to take the Emperor of Radio Japan...

...Major Hatanaka, hearing that the Emperor was going to announce the surrender of Japan, began to act. His supporters used their army units to capture the Imperial Palace and place the emperor under “protective custody,” while the ministers who led the Emperor astray were to be hunted down and killed. The coup attempted to capture Radio Japan, but loyal soldiers held back Hatanaka’s forces long enough for the Emperor to arrive, and be hustled to a recording booth to make the announcement…

Complete History of World War II, Published 1987



After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining in Our Empire today, We have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.

We have ordered Our Government to communicate to the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, and China that Our Empire accepts the provisions of their Joint Declaration.

To strive for the common prosperity and happiness of all nations as well as the security and well-being of Our subjects is the solemn obligation which has been handed down by Our Imperial Ancestors and which lies close to Our heart.

Indeed, We declared war on America and Britain out of Our sincere desire to ensure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from Our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.

But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone—the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of Our servants of the State, and the devoted service of Our one hundred million people—the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.

Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects, or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers....

The hardships and sufferings to which Our nation is to be subjected hereafter will be certainly great. [muffled explosions] We are keenly aware of the inmost feelings of all of you, Our subjects. However, it is according to the dictates of time and fate that We- [explosions, silence]

Announcement from Emperor Hirohito to the Japanese People announcing the surrender before being cut off, August 18, 1945



… the artillery bombardment that an as yet still unknown Japanese officer who was part of the coup against Radio Japan was done on the assumption that the Emperor's message was a recording, and not that Hirohito was actually there in person to give the order. It was only twenty minutes later, when news came that the Emperor was at the radio station that was now off air, that the artillery barrage ended, and the coup collapsed almost immediately.

Major Hatanaka, the organizer of the coup, committed seppuku once he learned that he had actually killed the Emperor, who had given the order to surrender… the news rocked Japan, that the Emperor was dead, and that Japan had surrendered.

Complete History of World War II, Published 1987


SOVIETS INVADE MANCHURIA; CONFUSION IN WASHINGTON OVER JAPAN’S RADIO MESSAGE; BOMBING RAIDS HALTED TEMPORARILY

New York Times Headline, August 19, 1945


… Premier Stalin wanted a seat at the table to decide how the war against Japan would be solved. However, the destruction of Kyoto was unexpected, and the preparations to invade Manchuria were not complete… Stalin ordered the revocation of the neutrality pact with Japan on August 15, the same day the atomic bomb was used, and though the army was not ready, the invasion of Manchuria followed on the 18th… I was in the room with Stalin and Molotov while they waited for the news of the attack on Manchuria. Zhukov reported that fighting was fierce, casualties were high, but the Army was over the Amur River in multiple places. Surprise was definite.

Interview with Captain Georgiy Kilesso, February 9, 1964, Toronto, Canada



WAR IS OVER! JAPAN SURRENDERS!

Winnipeg Free Press, Headline August 21, 1945



...The war in the Pacific came full circle. The surrender ceremony on the USS Maryland, one of the victims of Pearl Harbor, raised to be rebuilt and fight the war, ended up at anchor in Tokyo Bay where the Japanese soldiers and politicians came to sign the instrument of surrender. They were in mourning, their Emperor killed in a last ditch attempt by the hardliners to fight the war to the bitter end. Now an 11 year old boy reigned over them, Emperor Akihito, and all of Japan now waited to see what General Douglas MacArthur, leader of the Allied Occupation Force, would do...

Complete History of World War II, Published 1987



CHURCHILL OUT: LABOUR WINS GENERAL ELECTION WITH MAJORITY; ATTLEE PRIME MINISTER

The Times, Headline September 18, 1945


CHAING, CHINESE COMMUNISTS ARE FIGHTING ALREADY STOP CIVIL WAR RESTARTING IMMINENT STOP RECOMMEND MASSIVE AID TO KUOMINTANG OF DEMOBILIZED EQUIPMENT STOP

Telegram from US Ambassador John. L. Stuart, October 3, 1945



As per the Japanese Surrender Agreement, 2nd Marine Division has been landed at several points in the Korean Peninsula and have occupied major cities. Met Soviet troops on Yalu River, cordial relations at moment. Chinese citizens crossing into Korea, citing Communist reprisals, and Chinese Red Army working with Soviets. Further Instructions requested.

General LeRoy P. Hunt of 2nd Marine Division reporting to General MacArthur, October 18, 1945, Pyongyang, Korea



We laid low for several weeks in the bunker that Operation Festung had set up. They were small and cramped, but had sufficient food for four months. We hoped that by that time, we could send supply runs to nearby towns for whatever food or supplies we would need.

The first volunteer, a S.S. officer in civilian clothes, was successful, getting some fresh food and bringing it back. Several others went out in the days that followed, and got some extra food, but buying a lot of food at a time posed a problem. It soon became apparent that getting large amounts of food from the nearby villages would be difficult due to suspicions of well educated, German speaking strangers that the Swiss would have, and their still armed neutrality…

On October 19, I left the bunker to go do the same. But when I arrived at the village, a nice peaceful little hamlet tucked beside one of the great peaks of the Alps, I was apprehended by the gendarme, and taken to his home. There, two men in black suits was there.

One of them pulled out a folder from a desk, and held up several pictures, before exclaiming something in what must have been Russian. He started getting angry, shouting in Russian. The second man turned to me, and in Russian accented German asked: “Are you Albert Speer?”

I considered lying, saying it was a mistake, they had the wrong man. But what happens if the much more recognizable Goebbels tried to leave? Or Goering? The game was up.

“I am,” I replied.

The first Russian quieted down a bit, before saying something else in Russian. I looked to the man who knew German, but he didn’t saying anything. I was locked in the prison cell overnight, and a couple days later, a battalion of Swiss soldiers came to the town. I was taken from my cell. I was told to take the soldiers to where the other Nazi leaders were hiding. With little choice, I did so.

Arriving at the bunker after several days away made my wife and children happy, but when the soldiers followed me, their faces fell. We were all arrested, all 79 of us, and taken out to be incarcerated. The attempt to continue Hitler’s mad vision was over.

Albert Speer: Inside the Third Reich, Published 1974



NAZI LEADERS FOUND IN SWITZERLAND; HIDING IN BUNKER ACROSS BORDER; GOERING, GOEBBELS AMONG THEM; STALIN CALLS FOR THEIR EXTRADITION

New York Times Headline, October 23, 1945



M: What did you think when you heard the news of the Nazi’s in Switzerland?

R: I was suspicious at first. I honestly thought it was a ploy by the USSR to take over the nation or something. But when Hermann Goering, Goebbels, Speer, Himmler and their families were brought out and displayed for the world to see, I realized that it must have been true. Or a really well done forgery. After all, Hitler had used deceptions much like it to start the war in Poland, and Stalin with Finland. This was just Stalin’s attempt to ensure Europe was going to be Red.

M: But by this time, you were in British custody, correct?

R: Custody isn’t the right word, really. I was a guest of General Montgomery at his headquarters in Brussels, and negotiations with the Americans, Soviets and British were going on about what to do with Germany, and how to find a person to lead the nation in the upcoming peace talks in London.

M: And they chose you.

R: They were ready to name as acting President of Germany when the Alpine Crisis began. Montgomery said that it was because I was the only person that was respected by everyone: German, Allied, Nazi and Communist. They didn’t want to have someone that would be seen as just a puppet of the defeated enemies, though they still expected me to do just that. They wanted me to become the German Petain.

M: Then why did you do it?

R: I believed that maybe I could have helped Germany escape the worst of it. Ensure that the nation was turned into some impoverished African colony, while still maintaining some semblance of peace. But the appearance of those idiots in Switzerland nearly derailed the whole thing. The Soviet’s coming up and saying that I was just a pawn for these master manipulators to regain power.

M: Where you?

R: Of course not. The war was over. We lost. National Socialism had lost. It was to be put into the trash and swept away forever. I may be a German nationalist, but I knew well enough that the extremists of Hitler’s group needed to be totally removed, and never allowed back.

Interview with General Erwin Rommel by Edward R. Morrow, at Madison Square Garden, July 19, 1949



… the commando raid was ill advised. Even Beria told Stalin that there was not enough planning, not enough time to organize it. The invasion of Norway was used as an excuse: the hasty preparations and ill planning resulted in many deaths, and the complete failure to ensure Norway was captured to use as a pawn. But Stalin wanted those criminals to be tried in Moscow, not handed over to, what he saw as lenient justice, in the west. After all, the Nazi’s were capitalists, and the Allies would undoubtedly free them so they can all unite to fight against Communism. Stalin gave the order, and Beria had to accept it…

… it was, as Beria said, botched from the start. I could hear through the office doors as the mission went sideways. The attempt to intercept the convoy before it arrived in France failed, gunfire erupted, several people were killed. Himmler and Goebbels among them. The rest, however: Goering, the armaments minister Speer, Goebbels wife, a few SS officers, were captured and rushed out to the Soviet Occupation zone…

...For years, Stalin kept up the appearance that it was a Nazi unit that tried to free their leaders, and that they were captured in Germany again. But it was an NKVD operation from the start to end. I’m sure the Americans, British and French knew as well, but they didn’t say so out loud, if just to keep the fiction of an alliance in place.

Interview with Captain Georgiy Kilesso, February 9, 1964, Toronto, Canada



...negotiations have begun in London to end the war. No, I’m sure you are asking, the war isn’t officially over. Not till the Peace Treaty is signed. With an armistace, it just means that everyone has decided to stop shooting at each other until the peace treaty is made official…

...I’m here, like most men of the Foreign Office, to provide insight and background on certain issues, translate the ten languages or so being used, participate in meetings of smaller issues that are delegated to us, and generally to just look busy, making the language complicated and difficult to read but oh-so official…

...I met an interesting chap from Russia, a certain Marko Kaljurand. Over drinks of vodka and whisky, he discussed with me the idea about how Germany was to be divided. I realized that he must have been sent by Molotov to sound out British interest in how to split up Germany. I didn’t give a certain answer, as I would have to ask Minister Bevin before the official British position stood.

Of course, since they already occupy some 90% of Germany (everything east of the Rhine), it’s not like we can tell them to go back. And the idea of dividing Berlin and Vienna among all four major nations seems ludicrous, without viable transportation…

And here I go rambling about politics again. I know you don’t have much to share with me about it, but it’s good to get off my chest and onto paper when need to.

Who knows? Someone might want this letter in the future, to see how we screwed everything up.

Letter from Sir John MacKlein, British Foreign Office, November 19, 1945, from London to Maybelle Oliver



Dear tovarishch,

The great celebrations for the end of the war is finally over, and my job with the Party committee to organize them is over. So many flags, so many parades here in Kiev. Many soldiers are coming home, and their wives and children are very happy. Maybe the man who would become my husband will come as well. Oh, how I wish you could see it!

But now we must turn to rebuilding the Motherland, for all the damage that the Nazi’s did to our nation. I will do my duty, work where I need to, until Communism in the Soviet Union is complete. And we must ensure everyone will do their job.

A couple days ago, I heard Yeva at the factory, saying things about how cold it is becoming, how there isn’t coal to heat her home, and that she would like to go somewhere warm for a week, just to get away from the cold.

Yesterday, Yeva was not at the factory. She wasn’t there today either. Another woman, Stanislava, was there instead. No one said anything about Yeva, except that it was nice that she got a vacation.

I hope she enjoys it.

Letter from Hanna Omelyanivna Baran, written December 29, 1945



… The Ambassador provided documents to me regarding the existence of a Russian spy ring in North America. He said that it came from a defector of the Embassy in Ottawa, who was facing deportation and went to the office of the Canadian Minister of Justice seeking refuge… Recommend contacting Hoover and getting an investigation underway immediately... We must be prepared for possibility of great infiltration of our political and scientific organizations by agents of Soviet Russia, and prepare to deal with the threat accordingly.

Memo from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to President Dewey, January 2, 1946

<> <> <>

The war is over, and the post-war world is already looking a lot different from OTL...

Shimamoto Tora and Hanna Omelyanivna Baran are both fictional characters. Shimamoto may not be featured in future parts, but Hanna will.

For those wondering re: the Atomic bombs/Japan's surrender: Kyoto was originally on the target list, but Secretary of War Stimson was responsible for having it removed. With Stimson not in place now with Dewey as President. In ATL, the bombing raids against Japan would be slightly more intense, as Dewey diverted more resources and production to fighting Japan, though this only really translated into bombing raids with some more aircraft. Kyoto had not been bombed at all until this point, so I would think it would be reasonable that Emperor Hirohito would be encouraged to move to the safety of Kyoto. The coup/surrendering scene as well is partially based on OTL: the actual recording that Hirohito made was of such low quality that it caused a lot of confusion. Here, with Hirohito wanting to plainly ensure that his message got out, wanted to do it live. The coup's attempt to stop what they thought would be a recorded message from a forced emperor resulted in the death of Hirohito instead, and the collapse of the coup: they wanted to remove his misguided ministers, not kill the Emperor.

And, yes, the Soviet's planned invasion of Northern Norway failed. Denmark was still occupied, but Norway is going to be Free and Democratic!(tm)

Anyway, on to the post war period, the start of the Cold War, and how Dewey, Attlee, de Gaulle, Stalin and all the other leaders handle it!
 
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