20th August
We now return not to Bratislava, but to a distant beach where a landing operation was under way.
The assault craft sped towards the suspiciously quiet beach, the men inside, the General, his aides and his press attaches, more excited than nervous. This was it, this was the day. Looking out at the beach ahead the General was concerned, it was not as he remembered it. But then it had been many years, years of harsh total war, but now he was back to bring liberation and democracy.
Meanwhile, actually in Bratislava, Tiso and Tuka have taken a few days off and gathered the mental strength to ask again about the Italian Front.
"General Viest, could you give us an update on the Italian Front?" Tiso asked.
Tuka nodded his appreciation at the wisdom of ignoring General Catlos as much as possible.
"It's not good, the defensive line is only 50% effective" Viest admitted.
Tiso and Tuka had expected bad news, but this sounded like a disaster.
"How bad are the casualties?" Tiso asked, fearing the worse.
"None." Catlos said, joining the conversation.
"But then why is our defensive line so weak?" Tuka asked.
"Well it's a bit complicated...." Viest started to stay.
Back at the coastal assault.
The landing craft came to a dramatic halt and General MacArthur stormed ashore. Well more waded as the landing craft had hit an offshore sand bar rather than the beach, but he was sure that could be edited out of the final cut.
Finally making it onto dry land he adopted his pose and grandly declaimed "I have returned!" He looked around, Manilla was not as he remembered it, a lot less tropical and more green and hilly. Also there was a worrying lack of grateful natives.
Further back in the landing craft the two British liaison officers compared notes.
"He does know this is Messina doesn't he?" Sergeant Miller asked.
"I do hope not." Major Mallory replied. "Hopefully he believe he's in the Philippines."
"Well shouldn't someone tell him he's in Italy?"
"He's having so much fun, it seems a shame to ruin it." Mallory said.
Back in the Slovak General Staff shed/bunker.
"So what you are saying is that our German masters decided they didn't have enough forces to defend all of the front." Tuka read from the notes in front of him.
"Yes." Viest confirmed.
"So they decided to put all the troops in one half of the front line so they could at least defend that bit properly."
"That was the plan." Catlos said.
"And they thought this would work because the Supreme Commander Allied Forces in Italy is terminally confused and his deputy is an idiot."
Catlos and Viest nodded.
Meanwhile at the beach.
"I can see he's enjoying himself, but we do have a war to fight." Miller observed.
"In fact we don't Miller. Our job is explicitly to make sure those two chaps over there doesn't have anything to do with fighting the war and leave it to the professionals." Mallory explained.
As he talked, General Clark was trying to get out of the Landing Craft but kept getting distracted by the shiny rivets in the hull. When he did focus on the beach he then tripped over his own shoelaces.
"Won't the Pentagon be a little annoyed at us cutting their senior officers out of the war?" Miller asked.
"It was their idea, they've transferred all US troops to General Alexander's command and asked us to make sure these two don't find out." Mallory explained.
Looking up, Mallory noticed MacArthur was dangerously close to recognising that he wasn't in the South Pacific.
"Back to work Miller." He said.
Meanwhile in Bratislava
"And then this 'cunning' plan fell apart when the British just attacked the bit of the line that had been left empty." Tuka said.
"Yes, it was a nasty shock to all involved." Catlos explained.
Well that's not gone well has it?
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Notes:
The US did send it's entire Italian army, bar two HQs, to British control. Those two HQs, MacArthur and Clark, are indeed mucking around in Sicily doing very little. Italy was defended that badly.