Warriors of the North said:
Chapter 8.1: Operation Downfall
While Denmark could do little about the American (and UN) backed independence of Iceland, that did not mean the Danes couldn't still have their say in how the young nation was run. The native administration was still top-heavy with Danish officials, simply because the amount of native Icelanders who had the experience or training to run a government was too small to run it efficiently. Because of this, it was not difficult for the government in Copenhagen to force the issue. Iceland would, at least for now, benefit from Danish 'protection' in their mind.
Thus, the Icelandic government was essentially a Danish puppet. Independent technically, but more properly a nation under control from Copenhagen, not Reykjavik. Greenland remained under American control...though the Americans had other issues to worry about.
Technically a pic of Operation Husky...but it works.
Far away from Sweden and the rest of Europe, the United States had launched what they had, perhaps aptly, titled 'Operation
Downfall'. The invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. Possibly inspired by Sweden's invasion of Germany, it was audacious to say the least. The closest American occupied island to Japan was the occupied Iwo Jima...hardly large enough to supply the masses of men and ships that would be needed to take the Home Islands, presumably heavily guarded, despite the ongoing war in Siberia. The very fact the Yanks attempted this invasion took courage on an unforeseen level.
The Imperial Japanese Navy was rightfully considered the only real competition in the Pacific for the USN. And they would surely fight to the last man to defend the Home Islands, despite the overwhelming numbers the Americans could likely throw at them. Most analysts in Sweden expected the ambitious invasion to fail, considering how lucky
they had been in Germany, and the Baltic was certainly not the vast Pacific.
While observing Japan was important, so to was continuing to improve the Swedish armed forces. With Germany under occupation, the Swedes didn't have a true enemy in Europe any longer...but by the same token, the Red Bear was very close to both the occupation zone, and Nordic League member Finland. So letting the military fall behind out of a sense of apathy was not an option. The force seeing perhaps the most work to be upgraded was the Air Force. Experience in Germany had shown that having a strong, modern air force could tilt battles wildly in favor of the stronger force.
Thus, the Saab company began to develop modifications to the imported P-51 Mustang fighters currently in use (primarily replacing the vaunted Merlin with the more powerful Griffon engine). This was a stop-gap measure, primarily to get more fighters into the air faster. Saab set engineers to work on developing home-designed fighters and bombers for the Swedish Air Force, the advanced design work the envy of the world.
The need for these new designs quickly became apparent.
While it had seemed inevitable for some time, especially as the newly Communist Romania opened a new front, the fall of Hungary was still a worrying development. Unlike the Romanians, the Soviets didn't bother with installing a puppet government. They directly annexed the nation of Hungary, creating a wide border with several non-communist states...Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Poland. Of those, three were Swedish allies, and Poland was at least friendly. The UN protested vigorously at this flagrant violation of the Hungarian's rights...but nothing came of it.
Comrade Stalin listened to none of the protests, and merely began stationing troops along the border(s) with what used to be Hungary. This was understandably worrying at the time, as the Swedish Army was nowhere near large enough to fight the Soviets, while at the same time propping up its allies who were even less capable of fighting. This was especially evident with the massive amount of men and tanks along the Finnish border...who could break the Finnish defenses and promptly charge through northern Sweden and Norway.
No, I'm not going to develop V2 rip-offs. This is needed for developing eventual jet fighters.
Luckily for the Swedish military, a German factory was found just outside Berlin by occupation forces. Hidden quite cleverly, the factory contained highly advanced rockets, remnants of Hitler's efforts to develop new 'wonder weapons'. These rockets were brought back to Sweden (some to Norway and Finland) to be studied. The goal was to hopefully replicate the technology, and in doing so, jumpstart the Swedish rocket industry. While it was doubtful that much could come of such an industry, the fact remained that rocketry had a potential future if the American's were any indication.
The United States had developed flying bombs, and rockets that could bombard targets from seemingly absurd distances. These weapons had potential, and the Nordic League command, specifically Sweden, hoped that by using the German work (and scientists...Wernher von Braun proved surprisingly cooperative when asked to help develop rockets). This industry was very much in its infancy, though the potential was considered high enough to justify the expense.
On the far side of Earth, the Americans were defying all expectations. By mid-June of 1945, all of the two southern Home Islands of Kyushu and Shikoku were under American occupation, in addition to the Ryukyu Islands. More impressive was the fact that half of the main island of Honshu was overtaken by the Yanks. Tokyo herself was at risk, as the American Marines moved ever closer to the heart of Japan. Swedish Intelligence had yet to fully establish a new cell in Japan, so knowledge on the ground was sparse at best.
All indications were that the Japanese people were fighting hard and not giving the Americans an inch of ground without fighting for it...but by the same token, it was quickly becoming apparent that the majority of the Imperial Japanese Army was fighting in Siberia alongside their Chinese and Manchurian puppets. The bigger question was simple...where was the Imperial Japanese Navy? Surely the Americans had to be having issues supplying the invasion, and bringing reinforcements into position. Surely the Japanese were not holding their navy in its ports instead of contesting the invasion?
And yet, that seemed to be the only option, as the Americans continued their inexorable march across the Home Islands.
Nor were the Americans the only ones launching ambitious invasions of a nation's home territory. Almost like the War of Liberation had kicked off a new trend, the British joined in by invading Northern Italy through the port of Genoa. The invasion force was small, compared to the Italian Home Defense forces, but the troops were battle-hardened from the war in North Africa. These troops pushed the Italians back, almost reaching Venice on the other side of Italy, before running out of steam to continue the assault. Nonetheless, the British managed to take Genoa, Florence, and Milan.
The Italians, never very united to begin with under Mussolini, were beginning to show the strain of fighting almost non-stop since invading Ethiopia. The civilian population was showing serious signs of discontent, while the military did its best to push the British back.
Far away from any wars, the South American members of the UN Security Council (Argentina and Brazil) finally agreed to a formal alliance with Sweden. Combined, they brought an old, but effective naval force to beef up the cruiser-based Swedish Navy. Four battleships, the two
Minas Geraes-class ships of Brazil, and the two
Rivadavia-class ships of Argentina. These ships were old and small by modern standards...but then, so too were the
Gangut-class ships in the Red Navy, the most likely opponent in any future war involving Sweden.
In addition to the improved naval forces, Argentina brought forward an army at least as large as Sweden's, perhaps somewhat larger even. Brazil's army was a meager 18 brigades, smaller than even Bosnia-Croatia or Serbia...but the Brazilian Navy made up for that. Together, the two nations were a welcome addition to the 'New Entente' forming from the Nordic League and UN powers.
In Asia, the seemingly foolhardy Operation
Downfall had succeeded beyond the wildest estimates of UN officials. The American forces had, by the end of September 1945, taken the entirety of the Japanese Home Islands, forcing the Emperor to relocate to Seoul in Korea. The shock of this would take some time to wear off in the rest of the world, especially as the Japanese forces in Siberia continued to push the Red Army (and puppet troops from a restored Hungary and Romania) back. The only comparison that came to mind was the successful invasion of Germany...and that was from a much closer base in Sweden, than the American invasion supplied from Hawaii and Iwo Jima.
Japan refused to surrender...but it was a question of when, not if, that would happen.
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That's what I was talking about. I'm not joking when I say I was randomly mousing over the Pacific, and saw a flash of blue in the Japanese yellow. I thought I was seeing things...since
surely the Americans couldn't actually pull off an invasion of the Home Islands past the IJN that has presumably been built up quite a lot with unlimited access to the Dutch East Indies since 1942. And yet, I found Japan being overtaken by the Americans. Checking the Ledger, even at the time the Home Islands are completely under American occupation, only a handful of Imperial ships have been sunk, with
no American losses. So I have no clue where the IJN is.
Britain did rather less well to be honest...they can't seem to beat Italy.