Chapter 3.3 - Dancing in Anglia
Although Germany no longer needed to fear the Australian carrier Vanguard as it returned to the Mediterranean, British Naval presence was growing rapidly and the Home Fleet was less than a week away from English shores. The Kriegsmarine decided to use their last week to step up shipment of troops and supplies to Britain while they still had a chance of holding the seas. Rather than sit and let this happen, the Royal Navy decided to take the risk of exposing what ships she did have on station to the Luftwaffe and ordered them to sortie against the German Navy.
Pictured above, the battlecruiser HMS Hood closes in on the German pocket battleship KMS Admiral Graf Spee and fires a lethal salvo from her 15" guns.
The British still had one ship in the area capable of contending with the Germans, and it was a powerful ship at that. Escorted by the cruiser HMS Suffolk and several destroyers, the fast and powerful HMS Hood departed from port in Newcastle and struck out against the German Navy operating near Dover. Although her original task was to hunt and disrupt German shipping, this would not come easily as they encountered heavy escorts including the pocket battleship KMS Admiral Graf Spee 26 miles east of Dover. Masked by poor weather at first, the Graf Spee and her escorts stumbled across one another at a range of just 3km, well within reach of each other's guns. What erupted was a fierce battle as the two sides pounded each other from a relatively close range. Graf Spee took two hits and was left a burning wreck, barely afloat, while two German destroyers were sunk by HMS Suffolk. The victory was not without a price, however - the Luftwaffe arrived just two hours after the battle's beginning and the British ships were subjected to heavy air assault. HMS Hood was hit in her stern and forced to retreat to port while HMS Suffolk took several hits from the light cruiser KMS Köln before a bomb penetrated one of her main gun's magazines. The ammunition storage detonated and Suffolk was nearly ripped in half by the force of the loss. She sank within just minutes of the incident. The engagement was, for the most part, an even match.
Australian forces press harder into Northeast Hampshire while Germans attempt to regain their positions around Southend in spite of British assaults pushing them back.
On land, the situation was currently more in favour of the British. Although Norwich had fallen to the Germans, who were using the important RAF base to their advantage, Jerry had been driven out of Southend. The Germans were making multiple attempts to retake the town before British troops could fully cut off the coastal roads. but it came at a cost. What had started as a suspicion was now becoming well known to the British: German troops were running out of supplies. The stress of so many troops was too much for the limited port facilities at Dover and Hitler's airlifting capability was not yet sufficient to feed the entire Army's march. London's arsenals held plenty of supplies if the Germans could simply breach the City, but all attempts to take her so far had failed.
Guderian received more bad news on the 29th of January - Aldershot had fallen into the hands of the Australian 1st Cavalry and his panzers were completely cut off from the rest of the German beachhead. Something needed to be done and soon. The loss of tanks and men had been painful enough, but now two entire panzer divisions were surrounded by the elite ANZAC expeditionaries who seemed more than prepared to hit the Germans as hard as possible. At last, Hitler responded and approved the shifting of troops away from London in order to try and save the offensive.
Two entire panzer divisions were surrounded at Slough, west of London. Although they held England's crucial rocket testing facilities, that did little for their dwindling supplies of fuel and ammunition.
As New Zealand infantrymen advanced on the trapped German tanks, RAAF bombers dove from the sky, knocking out tanks and men alike with deadly close air support. Major General Herbert Geitner was fighting hard to try and save his tanks from the nearly impossible situation around Slough. Unsurprisingly, the British showed no mercy...
The German Panzer spearhead - formerly surrounded by Yugoslavian and Greek troops - was now a growing salient in the Balkan lines.
In Eastern Europe, the Balkan Alliance was faltering in the face of increasing German pressure. The spearhead had been rescued by German infantry and slowly enlarged into a growing salient. In the north, forces were pushed back even further and it seemed that Yugoslavia was in no shape to hold back even one arm of the German force. If Hitler had not insisted on invading London then it is likely the slavs would have been forced into surrender before Christmas.
German forces march to the harbours of Amsterdam, preparing for overseas deployment.
The Germans were not prepared to give up Britain just yet. Despite the already apparent shortages of supply, Hitler insisted on the dispatch of new formations to Britain and began to divert tens of thousands of newly trained men to occupied Holland, where they would depart from the ports at Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam and Dordrecht. No mercy was to be shown to the British in this invasion.
Pressure increases on the German Pocket. New Zealand infantry and the Australian 1st Cavalry are joined by Danish irregulars and British motorized infantry in the assault.
Pressure on the German pocket around Slough increased and the tanks were forced to pull back to an increasingly tighter perimeter. The Germans were under intense pressure and radioed for constant help. Although the Luftwaffe did its best to maintain air superiority, this was a difficult challenge when they faced not just the RAF but also the RAAF, who maintained the home advantage and could strike with their bombers from relative safety and short range.
Although the Kiwis had operational parity in terms of numbers, the Germans had sizeable numbers of armoured units while the New Zealand infantry carried only the most rudimentary of anti-tank weapons. Given that they were on the assault this naturally provided for some difficulties, but the ANZAC army refused to give in and continued the pressure.
German Armour storms the City of Cambridge and its world-famous university as well as further encircling the City of London.
Not far northeast of London, Cambridge fell into German hands. The news spread like wildfire that German troops were occupying the world-famous Cambridge University. This disaster was shameful to the British, whose sense of invincibility was being irrevocably shaken up by the Hun's bloody advances. Prime Minister Churchill declared that he would retake Cambridge at any cost, but when the night reached its end and the New Year of 1941 dawned, a counterattack on the city had been completely ineffective. Southend, too, fell into German hands and if the Germans could gain fresh supplies, it seemed little would stop them from taking London.
Princess Marie-José, officially the Queen of Italy, would make an important stand for the Allied Cause more out of personal fear than out of idealism.
The New Year, however, brought shocking news. News broke across the world that King Leopold III of Belgium, his wife and all his children had perished during a surprise German air raid on Liverpool. The throne of Belgium was empty and with the nation occupied, there was no easy path to succession. Just two days later, even more shocking news was heard. Somehow, unbeknownst to the Italians, Marie José, the sister of Leopold III and husband of the King of Italy, was reported to have fled the peninsula from Naples into Australian-occupied Sicily along with her three children. How she accomplished this miracle during times of war and in the high-security fascist state of Mussolini were unclear, but she did make it clear that Il Duce's men aimed to see her imprisoned or perhaps even dead; the reasons and implications of this would not become elaborated on for nearly fifteen years, but nonetheless the Australians agreed for the time being to grant her asylum. The British approved of this move - it was hoped that a defector of such high status and repute would help boost Allied morale and hurt that of the Axis. It was also hoped that Marie-José could be offered as a suitable heir to the Belgian Throne, but this was not something that Hitler would allow to pass with ease. When news of Leopold's death reached the continent, Belgian citizenry were incensed and it soon became clear that a popular uprising was in the works in Belgium.
Allied Reserves join the fighting around Slough, including Danish irregulars and a column of British motorized infantry.
Around Slough, Allied Forces continued to push back the Germans as pressure increased. The enemy tanks were soon defending just the town of Slough itself and it seemed nothing could stop the British from breaking through - but the Germans were not done yet. The increased presence of Luftwaffe aircraft over Slough led to many fierce clashes in the sky, but they had succeeded in airlifting supplies to the besieged forces and effectively shut down the RAAF's bombing campaigns. For the first time in two weeks, the German panzers were able to move in the open of daytime without fear of attack and they would exploit this as much as possible...
Australian troops defending the Strait of Messina fall back to Palermo. Soon the Australians will evacuate Sicily entirely and begin shipping five divisions of infantry to England via Sardinia and Gibraltar.
Under the careful watch of HMAS Vanguard and the powerful Royal Navy, Australian operations to withdraw from Sicily were going smoothly. Field Marshal Sir Cyril Bingham-White was infuriated at having to abandon his Italian holdings yet again, fearing that retaking the islands would not be such an easy task in the future. Nonetheless, Britain needed as many men and guns on the front as possible and the Australian divisions included hundreds of heavy guns that the British Army currently lacked. The extra firepower would go a long way to stopping the German Armoured push from succeeding at its goals.
British Infantry entrenched at the City of Brighton and its satellite, Hove. They know German counterattacks are coming, but are not well-equipped to deal with it.
Britain shed plenty of blood to retake Sussex from the Wehrmacht and the British infantry dug in heavily, expecting counterattacks out of German-held Kent. The British were right to expect this, but wrong to think that a few trenches might save them. Allied intelligence had underestimated the number of new men and vehicles Hitler could bring to the front and on the morning of January 5th, an entire division of Panzers crashed west out of Dover and into the British lines at Brighton. Resistance would not last long and within a day the British were falling back across the entire front, fighting a carefully planned withdrawal.
On January 9th, the British forces at Portsmouth would come under yet another attack. They could not hold against the rapidly advancing Blitzkrieg.
Now things were becoming desperate for the Allies. Guderian was commiting deployed forces and prioritizing every scrap of arms and fuel he could muster to take Portsmouth. This defied British expectations, which anticipated a German counterattack on Aldershot to try and free the trapped armour. Now Portsmouth was in danger of falling and Australia faced a choice: save Portsmouth or finish off the German armour.
Against the better judgment of local commander Major General Robertson, the Australian 1st Cavalry would be recalled to strike against Brighton and disrupt the German advance on Portsmouth.
Although Australian forces on the ground wanted to finish Geitner's tanks, New Zealand infantry were confident of their ability to defeat the panzers alone and Allied Command ordered Robertson to drive his men due south and cut off the German coastal advance by flanking in behind their lines. The move was a complete success and German panzers were forced to stop their assault in order to turn and deal with the surprise attack. Despite a lack of many real armoured fighting vehicles, the Australians dealt heavy damage to the German column through excellent positioning and use of infantry anti-tank weapons. Portsmouth was spared for the moment, but at what cost...
New Zealand's own anti-tank capabilities were far worse than generals predicted and the assault on Slough rapidly deteroriated. By January 12th the Kiwi Infantry had been forced to call off the bloody assault completely.
New Zealand's attacks from the west had been crushed by a powerful counterattack by Geitner from Slough and the British and Danes were pushed back across the Thames by the evening. Geitner's heroic defence of the town compounded by his willingness to lead, organize and fight from the front made him a minor hero in the eyes of Guderian and Hitler. Now that his tanks had a moment of respite and the skies were comparatively clear of Allied bombers, he ordered his troops to break the encirclement by storming southeast at all due speed. Now it was the Australians who were outflanked as Geitner's panzers arrived from behind their front and Robertson could do little to resist. He began to fall back rather than allow more of his men to die needlessly in this bloody battle. When news reached Hitler that Geitner had personally led his own tank in the spearhead to retake Aldershot from the Australians and for his unflinching bravery and leadership under heavy enemy fire, the Führer awarded the German general the Iron Cross for his courageous leadership in battle. He would be one of the very few generals in German history to win the award, but it would indicate how important Hitler believed the panzer breakout to be. Portsmouth was now wide open to attack as retreating and broken Australians were making their way back to Reading, unable to easily reach the roads to Portsmouth.
Disaster struck. News of German landings near the undefended ports of Grimsby and Hull spread like wildfire across British lines. Britain's navy had missed one last landing of troops by the Germans - would this be their last mistake?
The focus of the British Navy on a southern attack blinded them to the presence of a German force closing in on the east coast. Despite the presence of HMS Hood's battlegroup at Newcastle, scouting patrols failed to pick up the landings until it was too late. German forces landed on Britain's mid-eastern shores on the morning of the 16th. British troops were completely inadequately positioned to halt the attack, with just a single brigade (mostly anti-aircraft) with an attached command battalion positioned in Scunthorpe expected to stop untold thousands of German troops. It was an impossible demand and British divisions would have to be redistributed to the industrial heartland as soon as possible.
December 28th-January 16th
Royal Australian Army:
4,471 Soldiers killed in action
Royal Australian Air Force:
22x Fairey Swordfish Dive Bombers lost
14x Hawker Hurricane Fighters lost
7x Supermarine Spitfire Fighters lost
Royal Australian Navy:
2x Merchant Ships sunk
German Werhmacht:
3,791 Soldiers killed in action
46x Tanks lost
5x Tank Destroyers lost
German Luftwaffe:
15x Messerschmitt Bf-109 Fighters lost
German Kriegsmarine:
1x Merchant Ship sunk
Royal Thai Army:
724 Soldiers killed in action
Royal Australian Army:
4,471 Soldiers killed in action
Royal Australian Air Force:
22x Fairey Swordfish Dive Bombers lost
14x Hawker Hurricane Fighters lost
7x Supermarine Spitfire Fighters lost
Royal Australian Navy:
2x Merchant Ships sunk
German Werhmacht:
3,791 Soldiers killed in action
46x Tanks lost
5x Tank Destroyers lost
German Luftwaffe:
15x Messerschmitt Bf-109 Fighters lost
German Kriegsmarine:
1x Merchant Ship sunk
Royal Thai Army:
724 Soldiers killed in action
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