Against all Odds: The British Empire in World War Two

Alas still American, though the Alaskans missed independence by a hair's breath. (Should make a good alt-hist clichee for TTL)

Independence.

Went back to Cuba, along with the kit the Americans had there. The base was pretty much forgotten and the loyalist commander there joined Cuba so that his men would get fed.

The Islands had the ability to feed themselves, and basically where simply granted independence early, with a lot of military professionals and specialists, along with a lot of light and medium-size warships joining them.

All that went kapoof when the Japanese invaded, but news is spreading in the Islands now that they have been allocated to the british zone of influence, so those co-operating with the Japanese under the guise of anti-communism get asked some difficult questions and those units of the Philippine Army fighting in the bushes get motivation.

GNNN.

What is it with us and the Italians?

Yeah...Well, there's always our last England game...

As for updates, I am currently working on two other projects besides this one (each with 4k words per update) which I hope I can eventually turn into publishable novels, so they do take the forefront at the moment.

That being said, WW2 is never far from my mind and I am at the moment plotting out the battle for the AA battery.

Chapter 357​

The Lieutenant of Scapa Flow Defence Force was exceedingly nervous when he approached the outer Soviet positions with a white flag. These were Soviet Marines and known to be professionals to the core and yet....


But when the Soviet Officer, dirty, bleeding from a wound when a 40mm shell from Fearless had splintered some concrete near his face, came out to meet him, unarmed except for a pole with a white flag of his own he relaxed slightly.

“Major, I represent the commander of this base, Admiral Tovey. He implores you to surrender with honour and save the lives of your men. They will be treated fairly and properly under the conventions.”

From a previous contact the Officer was known to speak broken but understandable English, one reason why he had been chosen for this assignment.

“I..cannot. I have duty to perform.”

The Lieutenant had been told do expect something like this, after experience with two previous tries and only gave a “Very well” before turning around and walking back to the British positions.

The British withdrew a distance and offshore the dark shapes of three warships spat flame.


Later Lysenko would awake in a British military hospital after six hours of surgery, befuddled by drugs and thus easily divulging everything he knew, and much later he would wonder just why the British had gone through the trouble of saving his life.[1]


Just about the same time Naval Intelligence finished up with the Captain, an officer wearing the uniform and cap of the Scots Guards with the rank insignia of a Brigadier, someone who had not seen his nominal parent Regiment since before the war, was ushered into the library of the Prime Minister's expansive residence.

“Brigadier Stirling, how nice to see you again.”

“Thank you, Prime Minister.” Stirling replied with a smile. In spite of their different personalities the two men liked each other, that they had similar outlooks on how to fight this war certainly helped.

In fact the plan Stirling was there to present was something that Winston would like. It was, all things considered, among the more fancyful and risky scenarios he and Maine had worked on during the long hours at Hereford, and they had never really been forwarded to the War Office or the IGS. Yet, here he was.


“Did you bring it, Brigadier?”

“Yes, Sir.” Stirling laid the heavy manila envelope on the table and pushed it over to the Prime Minister. Churchill didn't open it, and Stirling took that as the order it was.

“Sir, this plan was worked out with something like what has transpired in Scotland in mind.”

Churchill's eyes shot up from the map he had been studying.

“You thought..”

“Nothing quite like this, Sir, rest assured. When we worked on this we expected something along the lines of them setting off limpet mines in our seaports or, in one very extreme case, an attempt on a member of the Royal Family, but nothing like attacking our primary fleet base. Since this would almost certainly start an eye for an eye exchange between us and the Soviets we decided to tread carefully.”

“So this is why you were here so quickly?”

“Yes, Sir.” replied Stirling and added: “And Prime Minister, Major Maine and I still believe that this could, frankly, come back and haunt us, badly. Stalin and his cohorts cannot overlook a slap in the face such as this.”

Churchill nodded. “Which is why, Brigadier, you and I will meet with the Imperial General Staff the day after tomorrow, and will after that, however way it goes, inform the Palace. Both the Princess Regent and Her Majesty have to be informed if we, to use an American colloquialism, go down this particular rabbit hole.”

So the Prime Minister was aware of the dangers.

“So, can you re-capitulate it for me, Brigadier? And do sit down.”


Stirling placed himself in one of the ornate armchairs and began to speak.


“Sir, Operation Unthinkable.” Stirling gratefully accepted the cup of tea offered by the Prime Minister.

“It is conceived as a large-scale retaliatory campaign for especially Soviet ground and sea attacks against the United Kingdom in particular but also against civilian targets overseas and in the Commonwealth Dominions. It would consist of commando strikes, sea and air attacks against select Soviet targets along the coast and as far inland as we can reach with an acceptable risk.”

“No Germans?”

“No, Prime Minister. Frankly, Field Marshal Alexander is already far too deep into Germany proper, and our boffins think that sooner rather than later the Germans will be too busy expanding especially the Heer as fast as they can. Their Brandenburger Division for example hasn't been seen in action for months.”

Churchill just nodded, and Stirling continued.

“As I was saying, the primary target would be the Soviet Union. Everything from ports to infrastructure. In fact,” Stirling paused for effect, knowing that Churchill would love this part, “Group Captain Gibson has suggested a repeat of Operation Chastise on the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station in the Ukraine, but there is the issue of range involved, but apparently more for the fighter escort than the bombers.” Another pause. “If we were to stage the Special Duties Wing out of Romania that is.”

“Later, perhaps.” Churchill said absentmindedly, and Stirling could tell that Winston wouldn't let this go. Now Gibson did not only owe him five pounds but the wager on how long it would take the PM to talk to the Group Captain was on.

It occurred to neither man that this would only further escalate a brutal war, but then, that was probably inevitable.


“So, if were to do this,” continued Churchill after a few minutes, “where would we strike first?”

“On the way over here I selected two options that would find the nature of the crime, as it were.”

Stirling reached for the envelope and pulled out out two sets of four pages held together by paperclips.

“One would be a combined air-naval assault against the Soviet Naval base at Sevastopol, though there we'd need co-operation from the Romanians and we also lack the spare Cavalry for that.”

Churchill let out a short barking laugh at that and then looked at the other planning paper.

“This one would involve far less preparations, and I know for a fact that Romanians would most likely help us with what they can. This is actually one 22 Regiment has been preparing for for a few months. We were going to pitch it to you and the Imperial General Staff in another two or three weeks.”

Churchill read through the proposal and looked up at Stirling. “That's certainly ambitious.”

“Yes, it is. And I would feel better if Colonel Drake was available to do it, but he's too valuable in the Far East. Still, the Regiment can do it, especially when we can borrow 2 Commando Brigade. They are green, but as well trained as we can expect them to be without actual combat experience.”[2]

“Can they do it?”

Stirling wasn't sure. He would have preferred to try them against something less vital than the main, only supply route that ran by land into the Crimean but he already knew that the Prime Minister wanted to carry this plan through.

He should have known. And he knew that if this turned into a bloody damn disaster, it would be his head on the block.

He wouldn't be surprised that if this was pushed faster or beyond the limit, that he would then have to face loosing the entire force. The risk was ridiculous.

But so were the rewards. It would show the Soviets what Chastise and countless special operations had shown the Germans, one did not tell the British Empire where it could and could not go. It would seriously hamper Soviet Naval operations in the Black Sea and allow the Romanians and Bulgarians, supported by the Allied Air Forces to get a handle on the Soviet Fleet there, which in turn might push the Turks even further to the Allied camp.

And yet... it put near six-hundred of the Empire's finest into a risk that was even greater than it would ordinarily be in the biggest war in history, and as someone who had built up a unit from nothing he knew that letting them go like this was hard.

Raids like this went so far beyond anything expected of a soldier in a war, even if one belonged to the Special Air Service.


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Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?

In case you haven't figured it out yet, the point behind the raid wasn't the raid itself or the damage it might have done but rather the British reaction to it. That being said, I was going to detail the battle, but I re-wrote the combat scenes twice and frankly it was still crap. So in the end I just jumped ahead a bit. So sorry.

[1] Remember his name.

[2] Roughly equivalent to the 2nd Special Service Brigade of OTL fame.