...wouldn't Commander Fuchida be more famous among Western aviators? He is part of the IJN Expedition in the Atlantic, was part of the attack on Murmansk, and probably regularly flies CAP over the North Sea and Atlantic.
The Sun, The Stars and The Sickle: Alt-WWII and a Tripolar Postwar World
- Thread starter WaterproofPotatoes
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Among aviators, yes indeed!
However, fighter pilots do have a way of capturing the public spotlight, especially in the case of Slt. Sakai who was well-known to bask in fame OTL and TTL. At this point in the war, Fuchida would also have been detached from his ship's company, and would be serving as a senior instructor at the IJN flight school, as well as advising the Naval Staff.
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It's a bit early for that yet, as borders are not yet settled. In the USA, there isn't much deviation from OTL in terms of railways either.
I think there were railway changes as part of building the Alaska Highway. Is the Alaska Highway being built or do those small changes count as "not much deviation"?
OK. If are interested in ideas once the borders are settled, I'm available. After all, these are mostly ideas for the railways of China and France.
Didn't catch this on a first read-through. Is there an OTL equivalent to this transport-bomber design? And as a transport... does this mean paratroopers of the Rising Sun will be a thing soon?
Another quick question - much earlier chapters mentioned "Nanking Nancy" broadcasts. I assume these are meant to be an reference to the OTL Tokyo Rose transmissions, but I wasn't 100% sure.
Well spotted!
The "transport" part is (almost) entirely a cover designation- the Kawasaki Ki-91 is intended to be a heavy "tactical" bomber, since strategic bombing is now supposed to be the Navy's responsibility. The concept of paratroopers have been considered, held up by debates as to whether their training should be under the Inspectorate General of Military Training or the Inspectorate General of Army Aviation.
"Nanking Nancy" is indeed OTL's Tokyo Rose. The transmissions, since taken up by "Chongqing Cathy" are as hilariously over the top as ever.
Convoy
Arctic Ocean
Outbound Convoy JW 66
SS Lac Deschesnes
Sometime during the 00:00-04:00 watch
January 5th, 1943
ABLE Seaman Chris Barton was now a real sailor.
Well, mostly. Holding the exalted position of Able Seaman rather than mere Ordinary Seaman, means the Company pays you a bit more, but not enough to really notice. What you do notice is that the Company trusts you with more than a paintbrush and chisel. Now, at last, they trusted Chris with the wheel. Just as well, as tonight was not the kind of night one wanted to spend chipping ice off the bow, in weather so cold you could feel your skin sting and your eyes start to freeze shut if you so much as blinked. There are the things you get used to, and deal with, like waking up at the crack of dark. Then, there are the things that you never quite get used to, like how damn cold the Arctic night is. The wind made the radio wires strung between the masts sing, but the wires themselves were silent. Radio silence was to be maintained, with only flashing lamp signals from the escorts and the faint red and green markers from the other sixteen merchant ships in the convoy.
If the ship makes the sailor, Lac Deschesnes was not it. She could in no way be compared to the mighty battleships Warspite and Valiant which gave the convoy distant cover. Each jealously guarded tales of renown from this war and the last; proud ships from their towering bridges to their mighty fifteen-inch guns. When one only considered the close escort, the destroyers HM Ships Falchion, Cotswold and HMCS Athabaskan, their equal was still not reached. A destroyer is a thin steel shell, wrapped around an engine room, peppered with guns and torpedo tubes and an open bridge, upon which stands her commander, inevitably a wild-eyed seeker of glory, or at the very least, a seeker of Mentions in Despatches. Even a sloop-of-war is a proud ship. She the smallest and slowest "real" warship, but, by God, she is a real warship.
Lac Deschesnes was no such ship. She carried no motto in Latin, nor tales of glory. She was a perfectly ordinary freighter, like so many others. Four hundred and ten feet long, fifty-six wide, some seven thousand tons. One small reciprocating engine, and four big holds. A bit of rust and a slight but permanent list to starboard. She was not a proud ship.
She is what is, rather optimistically, called a "Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship". What that meant in reality, was that she was the same ship she always was, except now she had a sad ring of mostly-full sandbags surrounding her bridge. She also now sported a pair of ancient guns; one low-angle short twelve-pounder on the stern and one longer dual purpose three-incher on the bow, each from the last war, crewed by equally-grizzled veterans that the Royal Canadian Navy had no other use for. These did little to inspire anything in the way of confidence for the crew, especially since during the one gunnery drill that was held, the ice-cold spray over the bow had frozen the tampion in the forward gun in place, and it took so long to dislodge with prybars and other implements, only one shot could be fired off before the drill ended. The single dull pops of the little old guns were hardly reassuring, not that there was any chance of them hitting anything.
The crew did not exactly make the ship either, but they made her what she was. Her captain, Lewis Kipps, a perfectly rotund man with a head so bald it shined and a neatly-trimmed beard, prided himself on running a slack ship. He mused, loudly , over and over again, that if ever there was a mutiny, the boatswain would find himself hung from the lifeboat davits first, and the captain himself would only be about fourth or fifth. To say Boatswain Shaughnessy was a tough, hard-boiled man would be a useless description, as a boatswain is almost by design or requirement such a man. The rest of the crew was hardly what one would consider heroic sailors either. These were not jolly Jack Tars in form-fitting blue sailor suits, caps set at rakish angles and huge smiles full of gleaming white teeth, composure maintained even when hauling a depth charge onto the rails. They were other bored Ordinary Seamen, stokers, wipers, and assistant engineers. There was Chief Engineer Jean-Michel Beaujolais, who spoke such broken English, and French in jouals so thick you couldn't understand a damn thing he was saying in either language. There were First Mate and Third Mate Davis; who despite sharing the same name, hated each other. This was not what a recruitment poster looked like.
If that wasn't enough, there were the harsh realities of the task ahead. Gone were the easy runs to the Far East.
First off was Lac Deschesnes' destination. Northern Russia. Drift ice. Drift mines. U-Boats. Arctic night, and the endless sea of white-capped grey, transformed into an expanse of black nothingness, hiding periscopes and other dangers.
Next was the cargo. The truck tires and pressed steel parts in Nos. 1 and 4 holds were of no concern. The lubricating oil, naphthalene, and mineral spirits in No. 3 hold were. Worse still, in No. 2 hold, tucked under crates of canned beans, were 640 tons of ammonium nitrate, the deadly crystals contained by flimsily-sewn bags. The manifest called it fertilizer. Everyone damn well knew it was explosives feedstock.
You tried not to think about it much, but you can't exactly forget you're sailing a floating bomb right past the enemy. The stillness and blackness left too much room for the imagination.
The officer of the watch was the second mate, Morton Scully. The 12-4 watch is customarily the second mate's, and on Lac Deschesnes, this was no different. Scully was a big man with gangly limbs, and managed to make everything around him look a half-size too small- like the already-small chair in the chartroom he was trying wedge himself into. Scully wore an equally huge duffel coat and duck boots , which made his already large and awkward physique even more imposing as he tried to prop his foot up on the chart table, in a desperate bid to get comfortable. He was staring intently into a thick, leather-bound book, and fishing an apple out of the pocket of his coat pocket, barely looking up.
Nicky Watts, another able seaman deckhand, was standing watch on lookout duty, not that it did much good in the Arctic night. All you could see were the marker lights from the ships ahead and astern. Hazelmere, a larger freighter, held her station ahead of Lac Deschesnes, and the tanker Imperial McLeod was behind. Damn lucky that, because if a tanker goes up, she leaves a slick of burning oil on the surface, since oil floats and burns.
Scully was quietest of the mates in the deck department and the smartest by a longshot. He was engrossed in a multi-volume book about the Fall of Rome; to those who asked, he declared it to be "Gibbon. Good stuff." His orders for the night consisted of: "Watts! Open your goddamn eyes and shut your goddamn mouth! Oh and Barton, just don't hit anything. That's all!"
Watts, who had a black sense of humour even for a sailor, broke the silence:
"Hey Chrissy!" he said, at a volume loud enough to cause one of Scully's massive eyebrows to raise.
"What?" responded Barton, not especially in the mood for one of Watts' jokes.
"You ever thought what's going to happen when this tub gets torpedoed?"
"Jesus Christ, Nicky, what now?" said Chris, wondering what gallows humour Watts had concocted
Watts' face spread into a massive grin "See, all the explosives under the beans- when something sets that off, the whole goddamn convoy is gonna get showered in beans. Bean smoke for goddamn miles!"
Barton and Watts burst into laughter at the thought of a rain of beans, but Scully was less than amused.
"Will you two shut the fuck up! I'm so goddamn sick of listening to this morbid bullshit! Night after goddamn night, the same shit, over and over again! I'm trying to get some cultural enrichment on this little vacation cruise here, and you fucking Barbarians just won't quit!"
Scully kicked the door between the bridge and chartroom shut, which caused the door to hit the frame with such force that the door failed to latch and swung right back at him, smacking him in the foot, and surprising him so much he dropped the apple he was eating.
Dead silence fell over the bridge and chartroom, but only momentarily.
"Motherfucker!" roared Scully. "Does one- just one goddamn thing on this rotten tub work properly? I'll give it to you Watts, you're right, the Krauts can be my guest! Blow the whole goddamn thing sky high, beans and all!"
Dead silence once again, this time broken by laughter, and Scully was laughing too.
Somehow, somebody somewhere decided that this bunch was the right bunch for the job, and laugh all you want, the ship and crew were doing it. Holding their own in a job not one of them were really made for, but managing all the same. Lac Deschesnes, in Able Seaman Barton's hands, held her station.
Outbound Convoy JW 66
SS Lac Deschesnes
Sometime during the 00:00-04:00 watch
January 5th, 1943
ABLE Seaman Chris Barton was now a real sailor.
Well, mostly. Holding the exalted position of Able Seaman rather than mere Ordinary Seaman, means the Company pays you a bit more, but not enough to really notice. What you do notice is that the Company trusts you with more than a paintbrush and chisel. Now, at last, they trusted Chris with the wheel. Just as well, as tonight was not the kind of night one wanted to spend chipping ice off the bow, in weather so cold you could feel your skin sting and your eyes start to freeze shut if you so much as blinked. There are the things you get used to, and deal with, like waking up at the crack of dark. Then, there are the things that you never quite get used to, like how damn cold the Arctic night is. The wind made the radio wires strung between the masts sing, but the wires themselves were silent. Radio silence was to be maintained, with only flashing lamp signals from the escorts and the faint red and green markers from the other sixteen merchant ships in the convoy.
If the ship makes the sailor, Lac Deschesnes was not it. She could in no way be compared to the mighty battleships Warspite and Valiant which gave the convoy distant cover. Each jealously guarded tales of renown from this war and the last; proud ships from their towering bridges to their mighty fifteen-inch guns. When one only considered the close escort, the destroyers HM Ships Falchion, Cotswold and HMCS Athabaskan, their equal was still not reached. A destroyer is a thin steel shell, wrapped around an engine room, peppered with guns and torpedo tubes and an open bridge, upon which stands her commander, inevitably a wild-eyed seeker of glory, or at the very least, a seeker of Mentions in Despatches. Even a sloop-of-war is a proud ship. She the smallest and slowest "real" warship, but, by God, she is a real warship.
Lac Deschesnes was no such ship. She carried no motto in Latin, nor tales of glory. She was a perfectly ordinary freighter, like so many others. Four hundred and ten feet long, fifty-six wide, some seven thousand tons. One small reciprocating engine, and four big holds. A bit of rust and a slight but permanent list to starboard. She was not a proud ship.
She is what is, rather optimistically, called a "Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship". What that meant in reality, was that she was the same ship she always was, except now she had a sad ring of mostly-full sandbags surrounding her bridge. She also now sported a pair of ancient guns; one low-angle short twelve-pounder on the stern and one longer dual purpose three-incher on the bow, each from the last war, crewed by equally-grizzled veterans that the Royal Canadian Navy had no other use for. These did little to inspire anything in the way of confidence for the crew, especially since during the one gunnery drill that was held, the ice-cold spray over the bow had frozen the tampion in the forward gun in place, and it took so long to dislodge with prybars and other implements, only one shot could be fired off before the drill ended. The single dull pops of the little old guns were hardly reassuring, not that there was any chance of them hitting anything.
The crew did not exactly make the ship either, but they made her what she was. Her captain, Lewis Kipps, a perfectly rotund man with a head so bald it shined and a neatly-trimmed beard, prided himself on running a slack ship. He mused, loudly , over and over again, that if ever there was a mutiny, the boatswain would find himself hung from the lifeboat davits first, and the captain himself would only be about fourth or fifth. To say Boatswain Shaughnessy was a tough, hard-boiled man would be a useless description, as a boatswain is almost by design or requirement such a man. The rest of the crew was hardly what one would consider heroic sailors either. These were not jolly Jack Tars in form-fitting blue sailor suits, caps set at rakish angles and huge smiles full of gleaming white teeth, composure maintained even when hauling a depth charge onto the rails. They were other bored Ordinary Seamen, stokers, wipers, and assistant engineers. There was Chief Engineer Jean-Michel Beaujolais, who spoke such broken English, and French in jouals so thick you couldn't understand a damn thing he was saying in either language. There were First Mate and Third Mate Davis; who despite sharing the same name, hated each other. This was not what a recruitment poster looked like.
If that wasn't enough, there were the harsh realities of the task ahead. Gone were the easy runs to the Far East.
First off was Lac Deschesnes' destination. Northern Russia. Drift ice. Drift mines. U-Boats. Arctic night, and the endless sea of white-capped grey, transformed into an expanse of black nothingness, hiding periscopes and other dangers.
Next was the cargo. The truck tires and pressed steel parts in Nos. 1 and 4 holds were of no concern. The lubricating oil, naphthalene, and mineral spirits in No. 3 hold were. Worse still, in No. 2 hold, tucked under crates of canned beans, were 640 tons of ammonium nitrate, the deadly crystals contained by flimsily-sewn bags. The manifest called it fertilizer. Everyone damn well knew it was explosives feedstock.
You tried not to think about it much, but you can't exactly forget you're sailing a floating bomb right past the enemy. The stillness and blackness left too much room for the imagination.
The officer of the watch was the second mate, Morton Scully. The 12-4 watch is customarily the second mate's, and on Lac Deschesnes, this was no different. Scully was a big man with gangly limbs, and managed to make everything around him look a half-size too small- like the already-small chair in the chartroom he was trying wedge himself into. Scully wore an equally huge duffel coat and duck boots , which made his already large and awkward physique even more imposing as he tried to prop his foot up on the chart table, in a desperate bid to get comfortable. He was staring intently into a thick, leather-bound book, and fishing an apple out of the pocket of his coat pocket, barely looking up.
Nicky Watts, another able seaman deckhand, was standing watch on lookout duty, not that it did much good in the Arctic night. All you could see were the marker lights from the ships ahead and astern. Hazelmere, a larger freighter, held her station ahead of Lac Deschesnes, and the tanker Imperial McLeod was behind. Damn lucky that, because if a tanker goes up, she leaves a slick of burning oil on the surface, since oil floats and burns.
Scully was quietest of the mates in the deck department and the smartest by a longshot. He was engrossed in a multi-volume book about the Fall of Rome; to those who asked, he declared it to be "Gibbon. Good stuff." His orders for the night consisted of: "Watts! Open your goddamn eyes and shut your goddamn mouth! Oh and Barton, just don't hit anything. That's all!"
Watts, who had a black sense of humour even for a sailor, broke the silence:
"Hey Chrissy!" he said, at a volume loud enough to cause one of Scully's massive eyebrows to raise.
"What?" responded Barton, not especially in the mood for one of Watts' jokes.
"You ever thought what's going to happen when this tub gets torpedoed?"
"Jesus Christ, Nicky, what now?" said Chris, wondering what gallows humour Watts had concocted
Watts' face spread into a massive grin "See, all the explosives under the beans- when something sets that off, the whole goddamn convoy is gonna get showered in beans. Bean smoke for goddamn miles!"
Barton and Watts burst into laughter at the thought of a rain of beans, but Scully was less than amused.
"Will you two shut the fuck up! I'm so goddamn sick of listening to this morbid bullshit! Night after goddamn night, the same shit, over and over again! I'm trying to get some cultural enrichment on this little vacation cruise here, and you fucking Barbarians just won't quit!"
Scully kicked the door between the bridge and chartroom shut, which caused the door to hit the frame with such force that the door failed to latch and swung right back at him, smacking him in the foot, and surprising him so much he dropped the apple he was eating.
Dead silence fell over the bridge and chartroom, but only momentarily.
"Motherfucker!" roared Scully. "Does one- just one goddamn thing on this rotten tub work properly? I'll give it to you Watts, you're right, the Krauts can be my guest! Blow the whole goddamn thing sky high, beans and all!"
Dead silence once again, this time broken by laughter, and Scully was laughing too.
Somehow, somebody somewhere decided that this bunch was the right bunch for the job, and laugh all you want, the ship and crew were doing it. Holding their own in a job not one of them were really made for, but managing all the same. Lac Deschesnes, in Able Seaman Barton's hands, held her station.
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I know I've said this before, but I enjoy these street-level (deck-level?) looks into "The Sun, The Stars, and the Sickle" immensely. Bringing personality and narrative into the timeline already elevates it above merely a list of events (I got a legitimate chuckle out of Terauchi and Hata's "The morale? Does the Navy want that, too?" bit a number of chapters back), but these segments following ordinary sailors, soldiers, journalists, and children really make things feel alive.
Not too much to say about this chapter specifically, as we already knew supplying the USSR via northern waterways was a top priority for the Allies. On a writing level, we immediately get a tactile feeling of how uncomfortable and unglamorous the convoy crew's jobs are, even if they are vital. Let's hope Seaman Barton and his mates give the Nazis the slip on this voyage.
Not too much to say about this chapter specifically, as we already knew supplying the USSR via northern waterways was a top priority for the Allies. On a writing level, we immediately get a tactile feeling of how uncomfortable and unglamorous the convoy crew's jobs are, even if they are vital. Let's hope Seaman Barton and his mates give the Nazis the slip on this voyage.
I'm actually hoping those guys make it to their destination safely. I mean, not just because they're the good guys, but also because the crew are such a comic bunch. It's a waste to society if they all get torpedoed and beaned 
You know, I sorta want to see a show that the group wrote after the war go on air.I'm actually hoping those guys make it to their destination safely. I mean, not just because they're the good guys, but also because the crew are such a comic bunch. It's a waste to society if they all get torpedoed and beaned
It'd be the sort of thing that I'd find funny.
Bunch of seamen looking out for the kraut cracking jokes and doing bad jobs.
Reminds me of a couple of TV shows even now too be fair.
Blackadder would be a good one, but a father Ted sorta show based on that would also be pretty good.
So, the next chapter was going to be the Battle of Wuhan, but given current events, I have decided it wouldn't be appropriate right now. I have some other things in the works!
Thank you so much! That is an amazing compliment!
The view from the streets/lower decks are honestly my favourite chapters to write, because it's the ordinary people just doing their jobs that the great men and women of history depended on in order to execute their great feats.
Merchant mariners in particular have my abiding respect as the truly unsung heroes of the world wars, and far too many never got their due in their lifetimes. They bravely sailed under-if-not-unarmed and unarmoured floating bombs into hot warzones without any specialized training. Many among them were even people who knew that they couldn't kill if ordered to do so, but still knew that humanity depended on Nazi Germany being stopped in her tracks. So, they did their jobs, braving the wind, braving the waves, braving the treacherous foe. We gave them the goods and they delivered, and we can never forget that.
It was hard not to love this bunch when writing them! I really wanted this chapter to feel "alive" and I hope I succeeded in really making it seem like you could just walk up the gangway and be familiar with this crew!
I can't help but root for them too!
Thank you so much! That is an amazing compliment!
The view from the streets/lower decks are honestly my favourite chapters to write, because it's the ordinary people just doing their jobs that the great men and women of history depended on in order to execute their great feats.
Merchant mariners in particular have my abiding respect as the truly unsung heroes of the world wars, and far too many never got their due in their lifetimes. They bravely sailed under-if-not-unarmed and unarmoured floating bombs into hot warzones without any specialized training. Many among them were even people who knew that they couldn't kill if ordered to do so, but still knew that humanity depended on Nazi Germany being stopped in her tracks. So, they did their jobs, braving the wind, braving the waves, braving the treacherous foe. We gave them the goods and they delivered, and we can never forget that.
I'm actually hoping those guys make it to their destination safely. I mean, not just because they're the good guys, but also because the crew are such a comic bunch. It's a waste to society if they all get torpedoed and beaned
It was hard not to love this bunch when writing them! I really wanted this chapter to feel "alive" and I hope I succeeded in really making it seem like you could just walk up the gangway and be familiar with this crew!
I can't help but root for them too!
Caught up again. You keep running a good timeline
Well China seems fucked and the Nazis seem to have bit off more than they can chew. Chances are a steady rollback will begin now. The only question is, how do the dice fall before it all ends. IIRC China will end up somewhat Balkanized and I mean more than just the Japanese puppets remaining a thing. However India might also if China lights the spark of rebellion there and they are in a position to do so. Bose's fascist rebellion could face a lot of Indian resistance, backed by the Imperials post-war, this could lead to a country split in two. Or three if a anti-Bose, anti-British faction springs up. Likewise the colony may be further splintered by the Hindu-Muslim split of our world in addition to these ones. Now will these "fallout" nations be always fighting and troubled or more dynamic because of increased competition between themselves remains to be seen. More likely the former as the three sides jockey for influence.
Wondering about other possible changes in the post-war world. The Balkans are less messed up being as they are in the Italian orbit and out of the war. Yugoslavia may chug along or at least have a less messy breakup down the line without the horrific crimes of the Ustashe hanging over the Serbs and Croats. How the monarchist Yugoslavia develops will be interesting in any case. I forget, what is the status of Romania, was it torn up like in our timeline or left alone? Things could be a lot better there if it was left alone but Soviets may want Bessarabia anyway due to strategic concerns like OTL. Also what is the status of Bulgaria?
Finally Finland Is it in the roughly same boat as OTL Finland (Nazi allied but not advancing past its own original borders)? And will it be able to escape its fate as a Soviet puppet despite having the stigma of an alliance with Hitler?
Good work and looking forward to more @WaterproofPotatoes
Well China seems fucked and the Nazis seem to have bit off more than they can chew. Chances are a steady rollback will begin now. The only question is, how do the dice fall before it all ends. IIRC China will end up somewhat Balkanized and I mean more than just the Japanese puppets remaining a thing. However India might also if China lights the spark of rebellion there and they are in a position to do so. Bose's fascist rebellion could face a lot of Indian resistance, backed by the Imperials post-war, this could lead to a country split in two. Or three if a anti-Bose, anti-British faction springs up. Likewise the colony may be further splintered by the Hindu-Muslim split of our world in addition to these ones. Now will these "fallout" nations be always fighting and troubled or more dynamic because of increased competition between themselves remains to be seen. More likely the former as the three sides jockey for influence.
Wondering about other possible changes in the post-war world. The Balkans are less messed up being as they are in the Italian orbit and out of the war. Yugoslavia may chug along or at least have a less messy breakup down the line without the horrific crimes of the Ustashe hanging over the Serbs and Croats. How the monarchist Yugoslavia develops will be interesting in any case. I forget, what is the status of Romania, was it torn up like in our timeline or left alone? Things could be a lot better there if it was left alone but Soviets may want Bessarabia anyway due to strategic concerns like OTL. Also what is the status of Bulgaria?
Finally Finland
Is it in the roughly same boat as OTL Finland (Nazi allied but not advancing past its own original borders)? And will it be able to escape its fate as a Soviet puppet despite having the stigma of an alliance with Hitler?Good work and looking forward to more @WaterproofPotatoes
IIRC, based on snippets from the future, China will be divided into at least five countries.
There's Japan's puppets Manchukuo and Mengjiang. Japan also keeps the Qingdao Leased Territory, which now runs from the city of the same name up the coast towards and including the Liaodong Peninsula in Southern Manchuria. Then there's the American-backed Union of China, and a rump PRC in Xinjiang. I also remember a rump RoC being mentioned at one point, though I'm not sure where in China it is.
There's Japan's puppets Manchukuo and Mengjiang. Japan also keeps the Qingdao Leased Territory, which now runs from the city of the same name up the coast towards and including the Liaodong Peninsula in Southern Manchuria. Then there's the American-backed Union of China, and a rump PRC in Xinjiang. I also remember a rump RoC being mentioned at one point, though I'm not sure where in China it is.
Agreed, I'm always interested to see what WaterproofPotatoes has in store! One small but fun thought I had: Some Jewish migration to E Asia occurred over the centuries even OTL. TTL, I wonder if there'll be a long-term minority Jewish presence in Manchukuo and elsewhere, just because Japan has treated them better than much of Europe.
Apparently there will be in Manchukuo, with the Harbin Synagogue being a major landmark and historical site for decades to come.
Speaking of treating Jews better, it's apparently a historical case of debts owed, both literally and figuratively. A Jewish-American banker, Jacob Schiff, essentially made it possible for Japan to fight the Russo-Japanese War, by getting the Japanese the funds they needed. He was later publicly-honored in Japan, and even received a personal audience with the Emperor, the first non-Japanese to receive the privilege.
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That right there will be very interesting...
TTL, there is a big push to encourage Jewish migration to Manchukuo, and it is technically at the Emperor's pleasure, any Jewish escapee from Europe who is of good character may claim refugee status in Manchukuo, and citizenship is typically granted as a matter of course. Jewish Manchurians may serve in the Manchukuo Imperial Army and Navy, enjoy free excersise of their religion, and it is expressly forbidden to discriminate against Jews or incorrectly label food products as kosher if they are not.
Would-be escapees are taught to memorize the stack markings of NYK, OSK and K-Line ships, as His Imperial Japanese Majesty and His Imperial Manchurian Majesty have an agreement in place for the settlement of migrants to Manchuria, with some settling in Japan. Kobe hosts the largest Jewish population in Japan, many of whom are employed as codebreakers by the IJN.
Jewish Manchurians are actually overrepresented in the armed services, and a significant proportion of military decorations have gone to their units as well as individuals.
The Harbin Synagogue will indeed become a landmark for years to come, and many will remember "the generous contribution of the Synagogue of Kobe"
With the amount of Jewish migrants in Harbin, I also wonder how Israel will be affected ITTL.
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