Shattered World - A Worse World War : Part 48

October 1st  1948 to November 15^th 1948

 

October 1^st 1948

Alec Douglas-Home , a popular conservative and member of Churchill’s war cabinet, becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain. In a speech before the Commons the new Prime Minister vows to “carry on the fight until the struggle has been won”.

On the Eastern front, the battle of Orel has ended in a relative stalemate. German mechanized forces inside the Orel pocket managed to use the last of their fuel reserves to punch a narrow corridor through which about 125,000 German soldiers were able to flee west to safety after abandoning their heavy equipment. German casualties during the retreat were heavy as the evacuation corridor came under intense air, rocket, and artillery bombardment. 75,000 German forces were trapped in Orel after the corridor was blocked and surrender on this day after running out of ammunition and supplies.    

October 2^nd 1948

After twenty four hours of sustained naval and air bombardment, and an atomic strike on Wotje Atoll, U.S. marines land on the twin islands of Roi-Namur in the Marshall Islands. The initial landings are largely unopposed as the Japanese have chosen to disperse around the islands to avoid a devastating atomic strike around the beach head.

Germany launches 200 of its new A-3f ballistic missiles towards London over the course of several hours, causing scattered but heavy damage in pockets around the city. This is the largest and most effective single ballistic missile attack since the ‘Rain of Steel’ began. The new ballistic missile, upgraded to lob a two and a half ton warhead with slightly improved accuracy over previous versions of the A-3, is launched exclusively from new road-mobile launcher vehicles.

October 4^th 1948

In the Marshall Islands, as U.S. marines are pushing inland from their beach heads on Roi-Namur, another major landing force lands on Kwajalein island. Resistance here is heavier but the marines leverage their overwhelming advantage in firepower to quickly establish a beach head.

October 5^th 1948

The British renew their push against Benghazi with Indian, Egyptian, and ANZAC infantry smashing ahead into Axis lines as British tanks and mechanized infantry sweep southwest in an attempt to flank Guderian’s defensive lines. After a full day of fighting the battle hangs in the balance. At the end of daylight British armor reaches the Mediterranean coast south of Benghazi, cutting off the city and surrounding Army Group Africa.

October 6^th 1948

Rommel’s 8^th Panzer Army, which had been on its way by rail to join Army Group Africa under a thick cover of Luftwaffe protection, is forced to disembark at Qaminis, a town about fifty kilometers south of Guderian’s besieged command in Benghazi. Guderian has not panicked and has arrayed his forces into strong defensive positions. With control of the port and the city Guderian believes he can hold out indefinitely despite the intense British bombardment.

Rommel sends word to Guderian that he intends to drive north up the coast and relieve Benghazi. British intelligence intercepts and decodes the messages and the British move immediately to begin strengthening their southern flank. The British field commanders are elated, believing they have a chance to destroy Army Group Africa and the infamous 8^th Panzer Army in a single master stroke. British armored divisions receive orders to prepare to roll south to meet Rommel head on with superior numbers and iron resolve.

What the British don’t realize is that Rommel has tricked them. The messages to Guderian were a deliberate ruse that only Rommel and his command staff are aware of. Rommel has no intention of driving north up the coast towards Benghazi. What the commander of the 8^th Panzer Army actually has planned in something much more bold.

October 7^th 1948

The British stage a massive air strike on Benghazi, the largest single bombing  raid of the North African theatre to date.  Some 600 British B-31 and Lancaster bombers, many recently transferred from operations against Turkey, follow a massive RAF fighter surge to carpet bomb the besieged city’s port as well as the headquarters of Army Group Africa. In addition, the British use several dozen radar and TV guided bombs to sink and disable several large merchant ships in the harbor as well as to hit fuel and ammunition depots. This, along with massive carpet bombing, causes the port to sustain critical damage - cutting off Army Group Africa’s lines of communications.

Guderian and several of his staff are killed when a bomb scores a direct hit on their bunker. With a powerful British army closing in from all directions, Army Group Africa finds itself leaderless and cut off.         

October 8^th 1948

British carrier aircraft strike a recently completed German submarine base at the Spanish port of Cadiz, heavily damaging the new facility. The strike is the latest in a series of British carrier attacks on Spanish and Portuguese ports which have hindered German efforts to increase its submarine presence in the mid and south Atlantic.

In Libya German recon elements begin probing north towards Benghazi, further convincing the British that Rommel intends to strike directly north. More British armor begins rolling south down the coast. The British now have some 400,000 men massed around the Benghazi pocket and 700 tanks are already rolling south to meet the expected thrust of the 8^th Panzer Army.

{* This 400,000 man army massed around Benghazi represents the maximum effort of the British Empire in North Africa – they have put every possible resource they can muster into this and stretched every supply line to, and sometimes beyond, its limit.*}

October 9^th 1948

The 8^th Panzer army begins rolling directly east through Cyrenaica. Rommel leaves a screen of his best anti-tank infantry to cover his logistical hub at Qaminis. He is taking an enormous risk, his biggest gamble. With Benghazi surrounded, the Luftwaffe struggling to stay in the air over the front,  his logistical hub in danger of capture, and Army Group Africa virtually paralyzed - Rommel is charging due east in personal command of his best panzer divisions with the rest of the 8^th Panzer Army strung out behind him.

October 10th 1948

British armor, probing cautiously south in search of the 8^th Panzer Army’s missing attack, unexpectedly runs into entrenched German anti-tank infantry just north of Qaminis. Believing they are walking into a German trap, the British armored divisions halt their advance as mechanized cavalry units probe south and east in search of the vaunted 8^th Panzer Army.

   Several hundred Soviet medium bombers hit the East Prussian city of Konigsberg, dropping mustard gas and conventional bombs. German civil defense has been preparing for chemical bombardments. Casualties in the raid are relatively light although there is extensive bomb damage. The Soviet bombers suffer 40% losses due to the failure of Soviet escort fighters to clear the area as well as excellent German anti-aircraft defenses.

October 11^th 1948

British air reconnaissance spots a large and fast moving panzer column rolling northeast across Cyrenaica and, to the horror of the British commanders, headed straight towards the vulnerable southern flank of their army. The British armored divisions probing south of Benghazi receive emergency orders : proceed east at all possible speed to prevent Rommel from cutting the supply lines of the 400,000 man army pressing into Benghazi.

 

October 13^th 1948

Despite increasing RAF attacks on his forces and logistical trail, Rommel has managed to tear into and through the Australian infantry arrayed on the British southern flank. By the end of the day Rommel has placed himself due east of Benghazi and his forces are blocking British supply columns trying to move east towards Benghazi.

   In the Marshall Islands the U.S. drops another atomic bomb on the last Japanese stronghold island of Roi, destroying the Japanese head quarters, airfield, and main supply dump there. U.S. marines will land several days later and secure the island after several days of scattered and light resistance.

October 14^th 1948

Three British armored divisions rolling east from Benghazi smash directly into two German panzer divisions moving west. 700 British tanks engage four hundred German panzers in what is one of the greatest armored battles of the North African theatre to date. Although the German Cougar and Cougar II’s are superior to the British Centurions, the British crews are well trained, determined, and more numerous. By the end of the day nearly two hundred tanks are burned out hulks littering the desert landscape. The Germans have lost 65 tanks while the British have lost 130. At nightfall the 8^th Panzer Army begins disengaging and withdrawing south.

October 17^th 1948

In the dark waters off the coast of Libya several British cruisers open up a nighttime naval barrage on Benghazi, further damaging the port facilities that Army Group Africa has been desperately attempting to repair, and destroying a precious ammunition dump. By morning the British cruisers have disappeared into the fog, leaving Italian patrol aircraft scouring the cloudy Mediterranean in frustration.  

Deep below the Kremlin, Beria informs his top generals that a winter offensive must be conducted to “liberate” the rest of the Ukraine and to “reclaim the rest of mother Russia from the fascists”. The staff officers nod among themselves. They had been expecting such an order and they have already drafted plans to transfer armored forces, fuel, and numerous infantry divisions from the Chinese front to make such a winter offensive possible. One more hard blow, they hope, will shatter the Germans.

In China, and in Manchuria along the frontier with Japanese-held Korea, Soviet forces halt offensive operations and settle in to consolidate holdings and establish communist regimes in Manchuria and northeastern China. The expected Soviet thrust into Korea is put on hold, the Soviet Union needs all available forces for the greater struggle in the west.

Across all of China, the Japanese withdrawal to the major coastal cities is largely complete. Soviet and American forces, having met in central China, now settle into a siege of Beijing, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai,  Macau, and the island of Hainan in the south. In each of these large cities, and on the island of Hainan, the Japanese have established strong defensive perimeters and are making preparations to destroy virtually everything before being forced out. The Japanese leadership still believes that victory is possible if the Germans tie down enough allied resources in the west and the Americans become exhausted and war weary. Victory also requires that the home islands not be invaded, so denying the use of the major Chinese coastal cities is critical to Japanese strategy. The Soviet halt on offensive operations in the east has left Korea firmly in Japanese hands for the moment, a glimmer of hope against an overall dark outlook for Tokyo.

 October 20^th 1948

The 8^th Panzer army has taken up defensive positions north and east of Qaminis while the British continue establishing a stronger line of defense along their southern flank facing Cyrenaica. For the moment the situation in Libya has settled into a stalemate. Rommel, upset that his attempt to cut off British forces around Benghazi has been thwarted, begins demanding reinforcements and planning his next step. For the British, the next step is clear. Benghazi must fall before the Desert Viper takes another stab at their lines of supply

October 23^rd 1948

The U.S. navy declares the Marshall Islands fully secured although there remain small pockets of Japanese resistance scattered around the islands.

October 27^th 1948

After a surge of British jet and prop fighters clears the skies over Benghazi, some eight hundred British heavy and medium bombers rain a torrent of destruction in a massive day time raid on the besieged city. The port is again heavily damaged and several merchant ships anchored off-shore are sunk as well. In addition, Axis troop concentrations are pounded mercilessly. Benghazi, such as it was, has become a mad man’s vision of hell. No building is fully intact, no road is fully visible. German and Italian troops cling to every pile of rubble.

October 30^th 1948

At a test range north of Las Vegas the U.S. successfully tests its latest atomic bomb design, the Mk. III. The new warhead, an improved version of the plutonium implosion bomb, achieves an explosive power of 40 kilotons while using about half the weapons grade plutonium as the first-generation device. The new bomb is also 40% smaller than the first generation implosion design making it easier to carry aboard the SBC’s B-31 atomic bombers.

November 2^nd 1948

In the U.S., president Dewey is re-elected in a landslide election. His popular campaign slogan of "wining the war at home and abroad" also helps sweep the Republicans into control of the House and Senate.

November 9^th 1948

The U.S. uses its new  Mk. III atomic bomb against Japanese forces on the occupied island of Wake. The 43 kiloton blast vaporizes the island’s airfield facilities and destroys a strong Japanese bunker complex near the airfield. Many Japanese commanders on the island are killed and most of the southern half of the small island is pulverized. Japanese plans for a stubborn defense on the tiny island are thrown into disarray.

November 11^th 1948

U.S. Marines, adorned in gas masks and full-body chemical protection gear, secure the devastated, and radioactive, southern half of Wake. They will re-capture the entire island within a few days. A battle that the Japanese had intended to last for weeks will instead last just several days. With the loss of Wake and the Marshall Islands the Japanese position in the central Pacific has been dealt a major blow.

November 12^th 1948

Free France establishes formal diplomatic relations with the French Axis puppet states of Aquitaine and Vichy but maintains a neutral stance towards the Axis Powers as a whole. De Gaulle intends to encourage as much immigration to Free France as Germany will let him get away with - and then some. In Casablanca, De Gaulle is busy securing American funding for an impressive series of infrastructure improvements designed to turn Free France into a true industrial nation-state and granting full citizenship rights to native peoples across Free France in exchange for military or civil service. American weapons continue to flow into Free France as well.

    After “granting independence” to Indonesia Japanese forces have completed withdrawing the last of their forces there to Singapore. Many of the Japanese troop transports are sunk by mines as well as allied aircraft and submarines during the short but treacherous journey across the Straight of Malacca. Of the 70,000 Japanese troops being evacuated from Indonesia, some 30,000 are lost at sea.

Novembers 14^th 1948

 

Rommel receives a portion of the reinforcements he has been loudly “requesting” - One obsolete Italian armored division, one German panzer grenadier division transferred from Spain, and several divisions of raw Italian conscripts. Despite being promised more reinforcements in “a few weeks” Rommel decides that he cannot afford to wait. Army Group Africa’s perimeter has been forced inside the city of Benghazi itself.

 

November 15^th 1948

 

As winter sets in across Eastern Europe thirty Red Army divisions, veterans sent straight from the front in China, are massing in Orel for Beria’s winter offensive. The divisions are heavily mechanized and armed with the Soviet Union’s latest tanks and equipment. The date for the start of operation ‘Snow Thunder’ is set for late November. Opposite them lie ten exhausted, under strength, Wehrmacht divisions along with the mangled remnants of the 1^st SS Panzer Army.

 

 

 

            In the contaminated rubble of Beriagrad death came easier than a bite of food or a sip of clean water. German bombers were a constant menace, raiding by day or night, dispersing the “Wolke des Todes”, a lethal combination of nerve and blistering agents -  Sarin and Mustard Gas. These days the Russian people were reduced to insects in the face of their German exterminators, and Beriagrad was very much a wounded hive. People killed each other over gas masks and chemical warfare suits. The extensive and growing underground raid shelters were a roach’s nest of filthy, packed, starving, humanity. Such was life in the Shattered World of European Russia.

It was amidst this seen of carnage and human depravity that Michael Gorbachev crept silently through the darkness. Moving about the piles of rubble was dangerous and hard work. There were many fires and unexploded bombs, and the landscape itself was contaminated and lethal. So you moved slowly, and deliberately, or you died horribly. The decontamination squads didn’t visit the residential districts often, the Party put higher priority in government buildings and military facilities. The people were on their own. If there was anything good about the chemicals, it was that it made you forget about the cold.

Luckily for him, Michael had traded a rare cache of cigarettes for a precious chemical warfare suit several days before. This allowed him to venture into the hell that was the surface of Beriagrad.  On the surface there was profit for those willing to risk it all. Michael wasn’t the only such young man moving through the rubble. He was rooting through the contents of an abandoned house when movement caught his eye – a man moving towards him. The man, like Michael, was covered head to foot in chemical gear and the gas mask hid the stranger’s face. But Michael had no doubt of the man’s intentions, the rifle the stranger carried made those intentions clear. Mentally, he calculated the distance. The angle was good.

In a single fluid motion Michael whirled around and flung his throwing knife, then dove for cover as he heard the rifle bark. Sweating inside of the chemical warfare suit, struggling for breath through the gas mask, Michael peaked around the shattered door to see if his throw had struck home. It had, his would-be murderer was instead murdered and now writhed, convulsing, on the tile floor. Michael recovered the knife and finished the man with a merciful opening of the throat. The initial wound would not have been fatal in any normal setting, but the block of flats and abandoned houses  in which he found himself was anything but normal. The small tear in the man’s suit had allowed nerve gas to come into contact with his wound. He might have lasted a few minutes if Michael hadn’t ended it for him. He ended it more for himself than for the suffering man. He’d seen too many men, woman, and children die from the chemicals – he didn’t care to see it again.

The stranger’s misfortune was Michael’s good fortune. The dead man’s gas mask would fetch a healthy price on the bustling black market in the tunnels, sewers, and bomb shelters below Beriagrad. Even the suit would fetch a decent sum after the fresh tear was patched over. Getting the mask and suit was dirty work, but necessary. And the dead man’s pockets revealed cigarettes and cash.  The cash might be worth something again someday, so he kept a growing stash of it hidden carefully. The cigarettes had more immediate value, they passed as currency these days. Cigarettes were a poison you chose, choice was important in a time when more deadly poisons were commonly forced.

Michael was making his way back to the shelter that served as his home when the terrible, and too familiar, drone began. German bombers, big ones. A lot of them. There would be a fresh dose of the “Wolke des Todes” tonight. More of the city turned into hell. He had just entered the shelter when the bombs started falling, he clutched his booty selfishly and moved deeper into the dank side tunnel he slept in. Men and woman prayed, children huddled silently with their parents. Some whimpered wordlessly. Their eyes were blank, always blank, and the silence was deafening. In the distance bombs exploded in rapid sequence, a muted rumble somewhere far away. Hitting the rail yards again tonight he thought. That was good, they were on the other side of the city.

 Such was life.

 

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED…