Chapter 203
3rd March 1942
London, United Kingdom
The Prime Minister was clearly deadly tired. He had slept little on the expedient voyage back from America when HMS Hood had raced back so fast that she had been forced to leave her escorts behind and now, scarcely a day later he was attending a conference that hadn't even planned, never mind the next one that he hadn't been meant to attend in the first place. Right now he was listening to a report that Field Marshal Auckinleck had communicated in from Delhi.
“So let me summarize, Marshal Gort.” the PM said. “Heavy fighting in northern Burma with the Nips pushing us back by sheer numbers, the Frogs are loosing Indochina as fast as they can run and Slim is conducting a fighting retreat down the Peninsula.”
“In essence yes, Prime Minister. The Nips have cut the telephone line between Singapore and Delhi yesterday, but the long-range transmitters in Singapore itself still allow us contact, and General Slim has used this route.”
Churchill ignored this and asked then: “Has the Palace been briefed?”
“Yes, Sir. I did myself.”
“Good.”
The Prime Minister leaned back and closed his eyes as most of the Civil servants and Officers left the room. For the next hour Churchill worked as if he hadn't been deprived of sleep for most of the last week and prepared the next meeting which, at least in his own opinion, was far more important for the bigger picture than the war in the Far East, given that the latter was merely days old and that there was nothing in the very short term that hadn't already been done.
Parts of Force A were patrolling the Indian Ocean, allowing the main force to refuel before they moved on to Australia from where they would fight the expected thrust of the Japanese towards the Dutch East Indies, elderly reserve Crusader Tanks were moving the same way to equip additional Indian and Australian Armoured Units, supplementing the Sentinel, of which the Australians could never produce enough as it seemed. Crated Fighters, bombers and all sorts of war materials from the scarce reserves the Empire had were on their way into the pacific, and for the moment that was all that could be done. Here on the other hand the war was raging as violently as ever. The Allied Forces were still unable to break through the Gothic Line, but at least they had cleared away the stop lines in front and were now pitted against the main line of resistance. Churchill had not been there, but reports said that it was eerily resembling the Western Front the last time around.
And now he had to be diplomatic to ambassadors and heads of state from around the allied powers and juggle all their demands and wishes to come to a satisfactory conclusion, never mind that he sometimes felt as if this was too early to talk about these things. Alas, there was nothing to be done about that, and it was nothing special anyway, only the occupation policies and plans for Germany. Since the early bird caught the worm the Foreign Office, the IGS and the Ministry of Defence had created a study group almost immediately after the invasion of Italy, and now they were negotiating the plans. He knew that the Poles were more than willing to go with the plan, he had already talked it over with President Raczkiewicz who knew that after the war Poland would simply be unable to manage, occupy and pacify a real, full-sized zone in addition to the territorial compensations, especially with the war against Russia still going on, same went for the Belgians and the Dutch that would simply be part of the British Occupation forces in the sectors of Germany that bordered them. The CANZACs had a similar problem, only they would get an Enclave somewhere in the north, probably in Schleswig or around Bremen. No, the real problem were once again the French. They would most certainly demand the full annexation of the Saar Region into France, and that was something that would repeat the mistakes that had been made at Versailles. Lower down in the folder he found the map, the map of how Germany was to be divided.
There were many other problems. In Germany, unlike Italy, one could not rely on having a whole sector of the population sympathetic with ones own cause, there the occupation would have to be conducted and upheld against a hostile civilian population, and in Germany too the politics that had lead to the war itself were ironically rooted far deeper than in Italy where, unlike in Germany a viable opposition still existed and had managed to survive even throughout the purges and repressive measures. Then there was the matter of Austria... It was all a nightmare.
Aeronautical Testing Centre, exact location secret
“You see Marshal Dowding, I have been working on this design since January 1940. On and off, since I have other work to do, but I finished the drawings about half a year ago, and now at last we have three dummy prototypes for testing in the air.” Barnes Wallis was enthusiastic when explaining his work as always.
Dowding just nodded and pretended he was interested in the technical explanation that followed.
“The bomb itself is based on a scaled-down version of our 2000pounder AP bomb, with a strengthened casing for increased armour penetration and of course more external modifications to allow the bombardier to steer it into the target.”
“What about guidance?” asked Dowding, more to keep the conversation going than for anything else.
Wallis swallowed and answered tentatively after a few moments.
“That is what we are working on right now, Marshal. The electronic parts are delicate and as a result can be unreliable, but the principle is perfectly feasible.”
Dowding raised an eyebrow in response before Wallis continued.
“If...or rather
when we make it work, we can theoretically attack enemy shipping from two to three miles away, and as long as the launching aircraft does not manoeuvre too wildly we should achieve reasonable accuracy.”
That commanded Dowding's full attention and his eyes gleamed with the interest of a man who made a living out of preventing what the good bombmaker was proposing. “Are you sure? Three miles?”
“Well, under perfect conditions of course, and I know how seldom those are actually there, but it should indeed be something thereabouts in most cases. The most important thing is that the weapon itself cannot be intercepted, since it is moving too fast, and it would give the chaps that fly against enemy ships from land bases a weapon beyond the torpedo.”
Dowding was even more interested now. Since he came from Fighters he detested the thought of flying a torpedo attack into the teeth of the enemy defences, and anything that saved men and aircraft in Far Eastern War was something that had at the very least be considered – RAF Malaya Command was hard pressed. Even though they had suffered relatively few losses in men so far, thanks to the Malaya Volunteer Air Force, the stocks of pre-positioned spares would not last forever, never mind in Burma where the air war was just as intense as it was over Italy itself.
“I see.” Dowding said and mused over the implications of such a weapon for a few minutes while Wallis kept looking out of the window. “So Mr Wallis, you say you have two prototypes ready for testing?”
“Yes, Sir. We have one with a new experimental guidance system, and one with the old, dodgy one. Before Air Marshal Harris left Bomber Command we were ready for testing, but he decided that there was no application for the weapon for Bomber Command, convinced that it was too small to be of any use against the U-Boat bunkers the Germans are building or against any other form of land target. That was two weeks ago, Marshal.”
“So when you telephoned his successor you were hoping to get in touch with me instead?”
Wallis nodded. He took off his glasses and cleaned them vigerously for a while.
“The point being that I...we felt that Coastal Command might be more receptive to new types of weapons, especially in the far east.”
Dowding just nodded. “And what about tests?”
Wallis smelt the morning air, now only one more hurdle needed to be climbed.
“We have conducted some, we can look at the films made.” Wallis looked at Dowding again and decided that he had to play for keeps. “I would first like to show you the bomb itself.”
Wallis led the Marshal out of the room and through the long corridors before they entered one of the many small rooms where the Special Weapons Sections, inherited from the Air Ministry were now creating special toys for the Ministry of Defence. What Dowding saw in the room did not look exceptionally special. It was a bomb casing surrounded by several boffins that were working on it feverishly. At a closer look one could see that the bomb had been altered. Short, stubby wings, presumably to keep it level, fins at the back to give it steerage and the changed nose section that contained various electronic items.
“We have lined up a test for tomorrow, Sir.” Wallis said while the Marshal inspected the weapon as close as he dared without touching anything. “Given all goes well and meets with approval we can start series production within less than four months.”
“That fast?”
“Yes, Sir. After all, we would need very little retooling, and production could, with the exception of the electronic components of course run largely parallel with the normal bombs. We would most likely take normal bomb casings off the production line and then refit them to turn them into these. Now, if you would follow me into the projection room please...”
Minutes later Dowding was watching as a Wellington, carrying the weapon opened it's bomb bays and dropped the weapon using a specific manoeuvre to make it come out from under the aircraft. He watched as the bomb began to glide in a ballistic curve. At this point Wallis changed the roll and then he watched a mountainside somewhere that had been painted with the outline of a warship. Suddenly the focus of the camera changed and it caught a fast moving black shape that raced downwards in a curve and hit the painted shape somewhat forward of the 'smokestack'. Had that been a real ship and a real bomb the warship would have suffered massive damage to it's machinery spaces.
Wallis began to explain some more. “You see these bits falling off? They were parts of the bomb casing. We conducted this test a week ago and we have the second prototype prepared...”
“With actual explosives?”
“Yes. Short of an actual target vessel we had to rely on calculations for an estimate of penetration abilities, but we could base that on the properties of the actual bomb this was based on so we estimate that it should be able to penetrate or at the very least cause very high damage to the armour belts of most escorts and smaller capital ships.”
Dowding thought about the proposition that was laid out before him even though Wallis had not said a thing. He was the only one who could authorize the bomb for production. He was already convinced, and if he knew the Prime Minister correctly so would Churchill be as soon as he saw these films.
“If all things go as I think they will you might get some visitors for the tests.”
[Notes: Now, next week I have to start studying. This means that until after the exams all my AAR work is on hold as of Sunday evening. I will try to get something else out before then, but no promises.]
[1] Of course I can't discuss Harris' proposals, but methinks he theories are known to be of a rather controversial nature, they certainly are here in Germany. Let's just presuppose that there has been something of a scandal within the service about this. My reasoning is that Churchill is against it this time because the Army is already in Europe, so ITTL Bomber Command at this point is no longer the only way to hit back at the enemy.
[2]Formerly the Air Staff.