The Channel Pact - Germany&UK Coop AAR

In the Cabot Strait, several U-boat fleets began hunting for smaller task forces, intercepting a Canadian warfleet.

Over the course of February, British forces commenced a full-scale attack on all remaining Japanese islands in the Pacific. The stationed garrisons fought with valor, but were doomed: Japan had fleet nor air support left for it’s islands, and emperor Hirohito himself issued the order to escape to the Home Isles whenever possible. In the meanwhile, British fleets swarmed over the Pacific, hunting down remaining Japanese convoys, effectively destroying Japan’s merchant fleet.

By the end of March 1944, the Royal Marines had succeeded in conquering all strategic airbases and ports in the Pacific. The Japanese Home Isles were now weakened and isolated, stripped of their fleet and with only fragments of their former airforce left. On the 24th of March 1944, Grand Admiral De Nil and Field Marshall Van Geyte met in the occupied city of Seoul, to compose Operation Setting Sun. On the Japanese Home Isles, the Imperial Japanese army hastily set up a defense to hold off a possible Pact invasion, using very creative methods: Battleships were reefed near the coast to serve as gun platforms, entire cities were commandeered as military outposts, all civilian vehicles within Japan were taken by the military to serve as crude motorized regiments and all possibly assailable beaches on the Home Isles were severely fortified. Hirohito himself called this “Japan’s last line of defense – Our Ring of Fire”. In it’s current state, Japan hoped to be able to inflict such heavy casualties on the Pact invaders when they attacked, that the Pact was forced to sign a peace with concessions. The war would turn out differently.​

The following events took place March 26, 1944, Shimanoseki, Japan

Hideyaki Kawashi was, in all aspects, a simple man. He was a farmer that spent his days working on the fields he had inherited from his father, forty miles East of Hiroshima. He did not meddle in citizen life, and citizen life did not meddle with him. Having no radio, he was largely unaware of the war going on around him: He had thrown his radio out of the window long ago, as Japanese radio nowadays broadcasted little more than propagandistic speech after speech from Emperor Hirohito, calling all young Japanese men to take up arms for the Empire, and defend their righteous homelands. Hideyaki spat on the ground and leaned on his shovel to rest for a while. It was a beautifully day in March, and the sun bore down upon Hideyaki’s farmlands. He grinned, knowing that soon his toiling would bear fruit and his crops would grow to feed him and his family. Indeed, Hideyaki has no aspirations beyond these fields in Shimanoseki: This was his, hard-earned, little empire.

The only times Hideyaki was informed of the war was when the Special Frontlines Service came to his house at night, crudely bashing down his door screaming and demanding that he’d give up trivial possessions to aid the war effort: The Japanese government had already taken half of his tools to melt into rifles and ammunition, four of his cows and his oven in which his wife used to bake bread. Whoever was winning this war, Hieyaki hoped it would soon be over.

The other times he was informed by the war was when groups of young, nationalistic volunteers marched past his fields, singing the Imperial anthem and holding up portraits of emperor Hirohito like he was God himself. Many of these groups departed from Shimanoseki to march to Hiroshima, where they would enthusiastically volunteer for the military. Many left, but none had returned. The village had grown old, and so had the rest of Japan: All men under 25 were either at the front, or sailing on some large gunboat out on the seas. Hideyaki missed the old Japan he had known as a child, where it had been a tough but fair country. The industrialization had changed everything, and now the rather liberal government had been wiped away by the Emperor and his legion of shady war capitalists. Hideyaki worried not about the war. Indeed, it was not his to fight.

A low and gentle sound slowly pulled Hideyaki from his pondering. He pinched his eyes and peered across the fields to see if any cars were approaching. None. As the humming grew louder and louder, dogs in the distance began barking. The sound was extremely loud now, almost deafening, and Hideyaki became confused by the origins of it. It was as if the humming came from the mountains, and reflected all around him. Slowly, clouds moved in front of the sun and the sky darkened. Clouds? The sky was clear as crystal. Hideyaki looked up.

Above him awaited a magnificent yet intimidating sight: The sky was filled with hundreds of aircraft, moving south in several V-formations. There were so many that, even from the ground, the roaring of their engines was deafening as their silhouettes adversed from the bright blue sky. The air seemed to be filled with an endless stream of mechanical birds, as their sheer numbers blocked out the sun and cast Hideyaki in a chilling and eery shadow. Astonished, he dropped his shovel and looked at the sky. In the distance, he could hear air alarms sounding off.

Their enemies had come.




To crack the fortress that was Japan, the Channel Pact began a coordinated strategic destruction campaign of epic scale: Over 55 tactical bomber squadrons of the Luftwaffe, launched from China and Korea joined force with 40 strategical bombers squadrons of the Royal Airforce from Manchuria, along with mixed forces of at least 20 squadrons of interceptor aircraft. In total, over 120 squadrons participated in the first phase of operation Setting Sun.


Japan’s airforce and anti-Aircraft installations proved far from sufficient to stem this colossal attack: Within the first week of bombing, Pact interceptor forces had torn the IJAF to shreds. With aerial superiority established, bombers began their destructive campaign to annihilate all Japanese industry, installations and infrastructure.​