7-14 September '39 - The fall of Warsaw
"Przechodniu, powiedz Ojczyźnie,
żeśmy walczyli do końca, spełniając swój obowiązek"
What are you staring out the window for? Get in here, ol' chap. Have a seat. Fancy a glass of Scotch? I'm not a brandy fellow, you see. If you ask me, we should just send the whole Royal fleet to guard Islay. Anyway, so, let me get the transcripts of today's meting. Oh, yes. Date: 14th of September, the war has lasted 14 days. The press have had a field day with our Rhineland bombing disaster, not to mention that 2 days ago, Warsaw fell.... It looks like Jerry is only ramping up. But, so are we.
On September 12, the last remaining UK divisions to be used for the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) linked up at Dunkirk under General Lord Gort's command. 25 Div. in all. Split into 4 corps. We have two draft plans, two operations. One is from the War Cabinet, the other from Control and his SIS friends. Fair to say Control's operation draft was deemed too extreme.
Operation Alfred:
Control argues that, as the might of the Wehrmacht is on the east-front mopping up the remaining Polish forces, the Siegfried line is vulnerable to attack. SIS, alongside General Lord Gort have drawn up what they believe to be a viable invasion plan. safe to say it was rejected at the meeting. Lord Halifax did not even want to hear about it.
OPERATION ALFRED
The RAF will start a 3 day long air-raid on enemy troops in Freiburg, Mainz, and Saarbrucken prior to invasion. Airfields in Stutgart, Frankfurt, Essen, and Kassel will be bombed 1 day prior to invasion.
British Expeditionary Force (Gen. Lord Gort) - Corp I (Gen. Dill), II (Gen. Brooke) III (Gen. Adam) , and IV (Gen. Lord Gort,) will assault from Colmar into Freiburg, supported by the RAF, enforcing air-supremacy. In one big swoop, Corp I, II, advances into Karlsruhe, with Corp III covering their left flank. A much smaller Corp IV moves towards Tubingen, and Konstanz. French armies stationed in Metz, and Strasbourg, led by Marshal Grandsard, and General Huntziger will engage and stall enemy movement alongside the front.
Operation Bernard:
The War Cabinet put forth the defence operation of France. Now, the French have their own military plans. As always, they are impossible to work with. Therefore they will fortify the Maginot line, British forces -and eventually, Canadian forces- will fortify their left flank. From Sedan all the way up to the Channel. We will provide air support and reinforcement. Canada, you say? Yes, the Canadian army is mobilising to the Halifax docks as we speak. Australian Airforce already in France. The troops should be in in their designated provinces in early October. Oh, Just wait 'til I get to Inda.
OPERATION BERNARD
Corp I (Gen. Dill) will with 9 div. reinforce Sedan. Corp II (Gen. Brooke) will with 9 div. reinforce Fulda. Corp III (Gen. Adam) Will with 6 div. reinforce Lille. Corp IV (Gen. Gort) will orchestrate the operation, and cover Dunkirk in case of evacuation. 1 div. The British Expeditionary Force will cover the left flank of the French army. The Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, and Royal Australian Air Force, will provide air-support for the defence of France. Again Lord Halifax is appalled, he says this conflict is escalating too fast because of Control. Churchill seems to disagree. They've been arguing ever since Neville brought him back. Speaking of which, I am to give you a quick brief on the members of
The War Cabinet:
His Majesty, King George VI
Long live the NEW king! What a bloody mess
that whole affair was, pardon my French. George VI is our honorary leader. His main role to lead this nation and her dominions towards victory. Apparently, Ireland is not backing us. Officially, the US seems to be minding her own business for the time being, fair to say, we need all the moral-boosting he can get us.
Prime Minister: Neville Chamberlain
When Prime Minister Baldwin resigned after the whole mess, the job went to Neville Chamberlain. Both of them have worked hard to secure a peace with Germany. Well, we saw how well that went. Between you, and me, he was just suppose to caretake the seat, keep it warm 'til we could elect some fresh blood. Poor Chamberlain, having to barter with the madness of Hitler. The remilitarisation of the Rhineland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and now Poland. At least now our Neville has taken a firm stand. No more appeasement!
Foreign Secretary: Lord Halifax
Edward! Ah, a pragmatic and charismatic fellow. The born leader. He went with Chamberlain to Germany to make a deal with the devil. However, came to see the light. He's been pushing for rearmament this year. He even gave Poland our word that we would help them, and then told Germany: There will be "no more Munichs".
Home Secretary: John Anderson
The genius. Economics, chemistry, mathematics, geology, civil servant. You name it, he knows it. For now we have put him in charge of air-shelters and other homefront activities. Good, cool-headed chap to have on board.
Lord Privy Seal: Samuel Hoare
Our all-rounder. He worked on the Children transport case. You know? 10 000 Jewish children fleeing from Germany. Hoare is a left-over from the Baldwin era, but a good one. Fiercely loyal to Chamberlain. He oversees a wide range of tasks. Clever chap.
Minister of War: Leslie Hore-Belisha
Leslie. Doesn't like car accidents. He introduced the driving test a couple of years ago, and it looks to be doing us a proper favour. Not exactly my first pick for minister of war. Pushed hard for conscription but was rebuffed by Chamberlain. Well, he finally got his way, However, I think he's ruffled too many feathers in the process. I hear the army and General Lord Gort do not think too highly of him.
Minister for Coordination of Defence: Admiral Chatfield
The Baron Chatfield! Not a politician but fought in the Battle of Jutland, the Battle of Heligoland Bight, AND, the Battle of Dogger Bank, alongside the great Admiral Beatty. Lobbied for some sort of alliance with the Soviets. Or, at least not sending them into the arms of the Germans. Which of course is exactly what we did.
First Lord of the Admiralty: Winston Churchill
Winston's back! Restored into office and the War Cabinet by Chamberlain. Or, at least, I guess he rather had to. Winston is popular, and he knows war. If you ask ME he's a blundering fool. Responsible for the whole Gallipoli disaster. BUT, he did see this one coming. He's been one of the fiercest critic to our appeasement stance. Pushing hard for rearmament and a stronger foreign policy. Just before the Munich Agreement, he wrote that the government were faced with a choice between "war and shame" and that having chosen shame would later get war on less favourable terms. Now, that's Winston for you!
Secretary of state of air: Kingsley Wood
Older chap, been with us for a bit. Wood is our logistics expert. He has worked in health, and with housing. Now with the air industry. We have been churning out aircrafts the last year because of him. Not too happy about this war though. He was adamant that we could not bomb Germany's industry, as it is
"private property". Thank God we did not listen.
And now on to to our military staff:
CHIEFS OF STAFF:
Chief of the Imperial General Staff: General Edmund Ironside
Nicknamed Tiny for reasons that escape me. The man is huge. Strong, sturdy fellow, he shots from the hip. Been in more wars than you can count, wounded 4 times. Enough ribbons on his chest to make a small carpet. He was supposed to lead the BEF in France, that command went instead to General Lord Gort. He is now next in line to command the Norwegian campaign. Him and Gort don't get along. Remind me to keep an eye on that.
Admiral of the Fleet: Dudley Pound
Another Battle of Jutland veteran. Sank the German Cruiser Wiesbaden. Just what we need here in the War Cabinet. He's been feeling a bit under the weather lately, but he's the best man for the job. WIth him on board we might sink some more German bastards
Chief of the Air Staff: Air Chief Marshal Cyril Newall
Cyril once went into a burning bomb-store to put out the fire. He did, and got the Albert Medal for it. Also supported the sharp increases in aircraft production, including double-shift working and duplication of factories. He supported expenditure on the new, heavily armed, Hurricane and Spitfire fighters. Good chap.
And then of course, there's,
Codename Control. If you ask me, there are too many members of this inner circle. I recon Chamberlain will have to trim it down a bit as we go on.
We've also drawn up the draft plan for
PLAN R 5. That is the Codename for the invasion of Norway through Narvik. This affair is a bit fidgety, but bear with me. This is just a draft plan, as the details will change as we get closer to the date of execution, which for now is 1th of april 1940. We would need to divert some forces from the French defensive. Massive mobilisation from the Royal Fleet, RAF. Have a quick look.
PLAN R 5
The Home fleet will set sail for Narvik (top). Backed by the Northern Patrol fleet in the Voring Bank (middle), and The Reserve Fleet in the German Bight (bottom). RAF will provide air-support from south Norway to the German Bight. The fleet,led by Grand Admiral Pound will be escorting The Auxiliary fleet, carrying the North Western Expeditionary Force, led by General Ironside and consisting of 10 div: 4 div from the homefront, 2 Canadian div. (currently en route from Halifax),and 4 div. from the British Expeditionary Force in France (currently waiting to be relieved by our North African troops). MAIN OBJECTIVE: Capturing and holding Narvik. FUTURE OBJECTIVE: Pushing south via Bodo and linking up with the 5 Norwegian div. This plan will be initiated in the event of a German declaration of war against neutral Norway, then we are ready to coerce them into either accepting an alliance with us, or outright invading them.
We've had a look at our production line, and it seems like Britain is busy spitting out ships. We've also added some more convoys and escorts to that list. On September 10th, Sir Wood was assigned the task of outfitting the nation with more anti-aircraft and early detection defence.
It would almost be easier to show you the provinces we will NOT be reinforcing with AA. heh, but this is no laughing matter! As of now, Sir Wood is in charge of 20% of our national workforce. Think about that, we just put nearly a quarter of the nation's men to work. All of these implements should be in place by March 1940 at the latest. I would like to see Jerry try to fly a plane over our heads then. Now, there is a downside to all of this. It must have first priority. Over new equipment for the men, over combat ships we've just started building. There will be no upgrades for the next few months. Hopefully our English boys can manage that. There's also been talk about initiating a general mobilisation, those talks. however, were put on hold for now by Chamberlain and Lord Halifax.
Ah, yes, India. We have sent word for the Hong Kong fleet, it departed late on September 7th to Rangoon to pick up the British Raj divisions and send them to North Africa. There they are to relieve the British forces there. Those forces are to link up and be shipped to Toulon, France to reinforce the BEF. All of this is kind of up in the air, chap. But we are moving heaven and earth to move them ASAP to the front. Same with Canada. 2 divisions are moving towards Halifax, Canada. To be shipped to Dunkirk...The Royal Navy Auxiliary Fleet just rebased in Dover, that way we should be able to evacuate through Dunkirk fairly quick if disaster were to happen. It will not.... Let me look through these papers. Bla, bla, we rebased the home fleet to Sunderland. bla, bla, let's see....
We did some troop movement in Africa, nothing too fancy. pulling back 4 div to Alexandria. Eventually, they will be swapped with Rajput divisions once they get there. All very exciting if we can pull it off.
Oh, Here comes the big one. As you know, The Soviet Union declared war on Poland on September 13. 18:00. and immediately commenced a large scale invasion. Big things are happening with that nation this week. Looks like they've reached some sort of ceasefire agreement with Japan after their last border skirmish. As a result, they have shifted their greedy eyes upon poor Poland. Russia and Britain is not at war, and we want to keep it that way, they seem to be on the same page. But, good grief, our list of enemies seem to grow thicker by the week.
Germany has captured almost all of Poland within these two weeks. That is unprecedented. Control's predictions were right on the money. The Polish boys must have taken one hell of a beating. Surrounded by the Nazi bastards, and now the Communist army, lead by Kliment Voroshilov, Stalin's best-friend. Remind me when this war is over, why we fought it. We must see to it that Poland gets her freedom back. I will personally shake the hands of every last one of the soldiers who fought the battle we should have been fighting.
Hopefully, soon, we will get to give Jerry a jolly good spanking. That's it for this now, chap. Next week we will see what the might of our fleet can do to the U-boat threat, and of course, a closer look at our enemy: The Third Reich...
i'll see you here in the office next Thursday.
Take care, and
England expects.