3rd April
The Japanese open an all-out offensive against the Bataan line, which is by now under strength, undernourished, poorly clothed and equipped, and battle weary.
You can add sick.

AIUI, American medical supplies for combatting tropical diseases were all but exhausted by this time.
In the Mediterranean, final preparations for an amphibious operation aimed at Sicily are taking place. Reports from the Far East are encouraging, and the monsoon will soon put a stop to major operations in Burma and Malaya. Once it starts, Operation Husky will take place on the next suitable date.
No doubt, Britain has the troops available for Husky. Maybe even enough landing craft IF-big if-they land on relatively poorly defended beaches.
Certainly they have the naval forces available, and if the U-Boat War really is doing better for the Allies than OTL shipping must be in far greater numbers as well. Economically, Britain is doing better, and that helps all the way around.
However, I've said it before, I am saying it now, and I'll keep on saying it until someone can provide me with a reasoned argument that shows the RAF can gain Air Superiority in the Central Mediterranean in early 1942. Even ITTL. Granted, the Germans are getting ready to launch Case Blue, so will have their hands full regarding strategic emphasis for the Third Reich.
But the Red Air Force by this time in WWII is still a shell following Barbarossa. Their relatively unwise tactics in the use of their air assets only made things worse for them and easier for the Germans. So, except for some regional (Leningrad & Southern-Southeastern Russia) tactical and logistical demands the Luftwaffe would ITTL still have one (even one and a half) hand(s) free to face the British.
Considering that we all agree on Marshall's strategic madness of Sledgehammer, the "Western Front" is still very much a mirage at this point in WWII. So...
I can't help but think of the mind of Adolph Hitler in all this. The man was very much a bully, and his record shows this. Time and again he would divert forces away from strategically important sectors (or even theaters) and throw them into actions that defied military sense but suited his political and racist ideologies. Or, at the very least, promised to give him cheap tactical military victories that he could have Goebbels crow about over Radio Berlin.
Frex:
1) Holding off destroying the Allies at Dunkirk, and rather leaving things to the Luftwaffe while the German Army rested/turned to France...
2) Leaving conquering the UK by terror bombing in response to the failure to defeat the RAF and the RAF's bombing of Berlin following London's being bombed for the first time?
3) Diverting the main thrusts in Central Russia in 1941 to the North and South rather than straight on to Moscow?
4) DoWing America in a fit of pique?
5)
Getting his head handed to him by the Soviets at Kursk, and using as an excuse the Allied invasion of Sicily to break off the offensive and play fire brigade in the Mediterranean Theater.
6) Responding with such force at Salerno and later Anzio that Hitler nearly drove the Americans into the sea, all in the name of drubbing the forces of the Western Allies, and halting their progress. All this, while the Soviets, if not running rampant, were already advancing inexorably west.
7) Stripping the Eastern Front to the point of permitting the circumstance of the Destruction of Army Group Center, all in the name of driving the Allies in the sea. At Pas-de-Calais.
8) Launching an offensive by the German 7th Army at Avranches against hopeless odds, even as the Soviets were launching a 1944 version of Red Storm Rising.
9) Launching the Ardennes Offensive, even as the Soviets were running wild in the Balkans and were readying to sweep across the rest of Poland and East Prussia.
10) Detaching two SS Panzer Corps from the Russian Front to crush the Hungarians in Budapest, and prevent the city's falling to the Soviets. THIS, while the Russians were storming towards Berlin!
I'm just saying that with all this, with the humiliating loss of North Africa already, and British bombers plastering his cities, I can only imagine Hitler's reaction to an Operation Husky
pre-Stalingrad. As in: "How dare they? HOW DARE THEY? The British have REALLY stuck their necks into it this time! So that drunken lap dog Churchill wants a fight? FINE! And if Mussolini's miserable cowardly Italians won't give it to them, THEN WE WILL!"

(paraphrasing Herman Wouk). Very Hitler. There may be logistical barriers to Hitler's doing this, particularly against Husky as compared to Avalanche, but is anyone in Berlin going to have the nerve to tell him?

For all the arguments made in FAVOR of Husky ITTL, I haven't really seen a solid set of numbers vis-a-vis the RAF versus the Luftwaffe that convinces me that the Luftwaffe couldn't at the very least raise absolute holy hell for Allied
OFFENSIVE operations in the Med. Not when you consider that along with everything else, the Germans have the interior lines. In air power and well as on the ground. British air has to come all the way from England, after all.
I just worry that this is all too much, too soon.

The Japanese have all the vulnerabilities displayed ITTL. But if we start seeing an early collapse with the Germans I'd have to call foul. OTOH, I haven't seen anyone, especially Astrodragon, claim that Germany's fall was going to be very much sooner than OTL, anyways. But that must mean that at some point Hitler is going to be forced to redeploy major levels of troops to the West and Med. Stalin is going to get his Western Front a whole lot sooner than OTL. But maybe not quite in the manner he may have wished...
4th April
In Malaya the Australians break the Japanese defensive line. With orders to hold, Yamashita is unable to stop them forming a 'shoulder' in the east, allowing them to commence rolling up the western units, which are almost unable to pull back as they are also facing a slow infantry advance from the west under Slim.
Getting Yamashita will be almost as good as nailing his army, IMVHO. Does anyone agree? Disagree?
5th April
Fuhrer Directive 41 is issued and the Wehrmacht has its orders for 1942. Leningrad is to be captured and contact is to be made with the Finns east of Lake Ladoga, however this is a secondary objective. The main attack will be in the South, which involves 2nd Army and 4th Panzer Army breaking through to Voronezh on the Don River. 6th Army will break out south of Kharkov and combine with the 4th Panzer Army to surround the enemy. After that, the 4th Panzer Army and 6th Army will drive east under the command of Army Group B and surround Stalingrad from the North, while Army Group A's 17th Army and 1st Panzer Army will do so from the South.
With you so far.
Once Stalingrad is taken, the 6th Army will hold the flank defence line while Army Group A drives South into the Caucasus to seize the oilfields. After this it will be possible to advance south and attack the British positions in the Middle East, taking the oil fields and the Suez canal and cutting the direct link between Britain and the Far East
Uh, Mein Fuhrer, has anyone made you aware of how HIGH the Caucasus mountains are?

Or how far it is from Rostov to Baku, from Baku to Tehran, from Tehran to Baghdad, from Baghdad to Damascus, from Damascus to the Suez Canal?
6th April
Soviet Army troops force a very narrow corridor to Leningrad, opening a tenuous rail link to the city. Trains run into the city with desperately needed supplies and came out with civilians and the wounded, all under heavy artillery fire from the Germans.
That's one bright light in a dark tunnel of human tragedy.
8th April
Harry Hopkins, Special Assistant to President Roosevelt, and General Marshall, US Army Chief of Staff, arrive in London for talks with British service and supply chiefs concerning the integration of US and British manpower and war production for action in Europe. General Marshall urges an offensive in the west to relieve pressure upon the USSR and promises a constant flow of US troops, including many air units, to the UK. The British treat these suggestions politely, but in fact they have no intention of attacking into France, instead their operations are aimed at Italy. Since the only US Army involvement is a brigade of the 1st Infantry Division (compared to some 14 Imperial and French Divisions), Marshall has no troops to back his arguments with.
You can't play poker without any chips, General Marshall
Somerville informs Alexander and Blamey that he expects to be able to lift the required troops onto Bali in a few days. While he has the naval support he needs, a delay has been caused due to all light shipping and craft having been evacuated to the west out of the range of the failed Japanese landings.
Still waiting, AD.
At 1200 hours, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, with the heavy cruisers USS Salt Lake City and Northampton , four destroyers, and the oiler USS Sabine, sortie from Pearl Harbor to rendezvous with the aircraft carrier USS Hornet which is carrying B-25s to attack Japan.
Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main...[SIZE=-4]Shut up Cash![/SIZE]
