Chapter 21
-or-
"Gimme Shelter"
-or-
"Gimme Shelter"
Papa New Guinea,
Australia/New Zealand Army Corps Landing Zone Green.
"Join the engineers he said, you won't be on the front lines he says. Cushy bleedin job for the rest of the bleeding war he says. If I ever see that recruiting sergeant again I'm going to fuckin kill him." Cpl. John Smith, Canberra Royal Military Engineers, wasn't even bothering to keep his thoughts to a mutter. Right now he was the only person near were he was, with the exception of the Dutch of course and quite frankly he didn't give a flying fuck what the Dutch thought of his thoughts, after all they were too busy trying to kill him.
*BOOM* And a pile of sand was thrown up a ten foot high roughly six feet from him, the shock-wave of the explosion forcing him to completely lie flat instead of having his chest, arms and face raised as he had been. He got over it and continued working on preparing the explosives to blow the Dutch earth-works in front of him so that the troops would be able to get to work, a bloody stupid task that he had started on some three hours ago. Then though he had assistance from some annoying Kiwi who had caught a mortar shell early on. This had focused John's attention to the task at hand as there is nothing like a bloke exploding all over your face to get you to focus. Now though he was setting the timed fuses in what he believed was officially referred to as a "metric shit-ton" of high explosives. Even though he was under mortar and rifle fire he was surprised at how calm he was feeling as he slipped them into the explosives.
"After all it's only enough explosives to blow me all the way home in many small pieces. No worries eh?" With the fuses set he pulled the pins that would see them begin their five minute ignition time. He leaned against the small impromtu rampart he had constructed from a couple of fallen sand-bags and the Kiwi's corpse and gathered his breath.
"Now here comes the fun bit." He straightened up, well not fully up into a sort of half-crouch half-standing pose, picked up his SMLE and got ready to run. On his way over he'd heard some country bloke with the Light Cav muttering about his legs being like springs and running fast as a leopard. He didn't know anything about that but he knew that running from people shooting at you. He started pegging it towards the ANZAC lines, going from side to side to make his target harder to hit. He felt the bullets from the Dutch whizzing past him and hitting the sand near him as the soldiers in the trench in front cheered him on, calling for him to run. He just reached the lip of the trench when he felt with horror something smack into his lower back and push him forward.
"OH FUCK." He screamed as he fell forward, a bunch of hands caught him "I've been fucking shot." The soldiers lay him down on his back as the medics were called. John thought he could feel his legs going numb and his vision darkening. He started thinking of home, of his family everything he loved and was terrified he would never see it again when the medic reached him. His hands swept up John's increasingly numb body searching for where the bullet had penetrated.
"You big pansy. Bullet hit your canteen. Bloody lucky if I may say so myself. Get your arse up mate." Suddenly all feeling returned to John's body and his vision cleared up and he felt oddly embarrassed as the other soldiers round him started to jeer him. He got back to his feet when he heard what sounded like the fist of God hitting the ground. He scrambled up and looked over the trench at what remained of the dutch earth-works. As beside him sergeants and officers started calling to fix bayonets and prepare for charge. As the troopers went over the top to very little resistence John realised something very important.
"Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the rest, those were two minute not five minute charges."
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While Papa New Guinea was the jewel of the Dutch Pacific possessions it was lightly defended due to the majority of Dutch soldiers being recalled to fight against the Belgian and German armies at the beginning of the war. The task of kicking the Dutch out of the Pacific fell to the recently formed Australian/New Zealand Army Corps or ANZAC troops. They carried out this role throughout 1915 until November when the Dutch were fully removed from the Pacific.
The fact that they faced very little naval resistance was due mostly to the Dutch Pacific fleet being sent to assault Hawaii with the American Navy.
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HMIS Cú Chulainn,
Task Force Alaska,
North of the Sandwich Isles.
Niall O'Doherty was not a soldier, nor was he a sailor or indeed a military man of any persuasion. He was however a War Correspondant and had managed to blag his way onto the Battleship so that he could get the eye-witness account of what happened when the Allied fleet hit the Sandwich Isles, and sunk the Yanks while they were at it. Now though he was sitting with the head of the Irish navy stationed out of Alaska in his cramped quarters on the Cú Chulainn as they were approaching the Isles, with the smoke of the American ships spotted by sea-plane to the South-East.
"So Admiral" he began "What's the plan?" He had no problems asking this question as after all by the time his story reached the newspapers the battle would be long over.
Admiral Niall MacAnnally leaned forward in his chair. "The plan is pretty damn simple. The Japs are going to be sallying out from their base at Pearl Harbour to meet the Yanks head on while ourselves and Task Force Okinawa come in from the North while the Brits come in from the South. Once they have been engaged Task Force Alaska will be forming the barrier to the East to prevent them from escaping back home. We hope to completely and utterly destroy all US naval power in the Pacific which should free us and the Okinawa force to go round the horn for service in the Atlantic."
"Very good. Admiral but why are we getting involved? After all the British and the Japanese between them have some of the best naval services in the world, surely they would be more then capable to defeat a second rate power like the Yanks? After all even there current War-Time budget is still smaller then the Royal Navies Peace-Time budget."
The Admiral looked at him and smiled "The Japanese believe that the waves will help them with a divine quality. The British sing about ruling the waves. However we in the Irish navy do neither, were just very very good at our jobs and don't bother praying or singing about it. That's why we're here, to make sure the world sits up and listens when we speak as is we're viewed as just another British Dominion, after this war people will be looking at us differently. This mission is as much political as it is strategical."
The rest of the interview was suddenly cut off when an ensign burst into the room. "SIR sorry to interrupt but the British just telegraphed in. Their under attack from the Dutch fleet. The Japanese are going to assist so were stuck tackling the Yanks alone SIR."
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Barely an hour had passed when the Irish had the American fleets within viewing distance. The massive guns of the Cú Chulainn, Lunása, Vinegar Hill and the Wolfe Tone were already tracking the American ships with orders to fire once they were within range. Niall knew this would be any moment as he stood in an out of the way section of the observation area, a pair of field glasses held to his eyes as he watched the American ships in the distance. Suddenly the air around him was filled with a roar like he had never heard, and the ground shook entirely underneath him as the massive long-range guns of the Cú Chulainn fired on the Americans.
After he regained his footing he brought the glasses to his eyes again and saw through the smoke the sight of columns of water rising near the American ships, as well as one starting to bellow black smoke. He then noticed the flashes from the American ships and before he knew it heard the sound of Freight train roaring as suddenly columns of water started to erupt near him. He made his way back inside as he felt the ship roar and shake again as the guns fired again, a quick look out at the Irish ships showed that they were also opening up at the Yanks. He suddenly realised that he might die today and the shock of this made him start to shake. He started to make his way back to were he had been billeted as he didn't think he could bare the thought of continuing to stand.
He reached his bunk and lay there. The ship shook again but this time not from firing but from being fired upon. He heard feet go running past the door to his billet but continued to lie in bed. He never noticed it when he fell asleep, somehow he managed to stay asleep even during the cannons firing and the ship being hit. However when he finally awoke it was to the sound of cheering throughout the ship, he grabbed the nearest sailor and asked him what had happened.
"The Yanks are running is what happened!." Niall decided to make his way to the bridge to find out more information, the Admiral noticed him as he came in.
"Take a good look Mr O'Doherty. A fighting ship in victory, a costly victory but a victory all the same."
"Costly Admiral?" He asked as he looked out at the damaged Cú Chulainn. Nothing major but one of the gun turrets was stuck facing one direction and there were a few fires along the deck as well as holes in places were there hadn't been any before.
"Yes Mr O'Doherty. We lost the Wolfe Tone and the Lúnasa, Vinegar Hill is damaged but can make it Pearl where the worst of the damage should be fixed. A couple of the Battlecruisers went down too as well as some lighter cruisers and a couple of Destroyers, but you should see the other guy. Four Yank battleships are sunk, three battlecruisers and five light cruisers. All Destroyers sunk. They've still got a large enough fleet in this part of the world Mr O'Doherty but we've definitely knocked the back bone out of it."
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So Questions, Comments etc?
This one was fun to write, I did kinda cheat on the Naval battle but I genuinely felt I couldn't write it up very well.
Actual In-Game fight was pretty close to this. Brits and Japs got caught by the Dutch to the south of Hawaii but beat them while I engaged the Americans with my entire Pacific fleet sans one BattleCruiser. A light cruiser here BTW is just a Protected Cruiser. I had a few out there and so did the Americans.
Also the ANZACS are under my control but for the purposes of a Post-War arrangement any territory they take will be classed by me as either Aussie or Kiwi controlled.
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