CHAPTER SIX (1938)
THE UNION FLAG FLIES IN SHAME
THE UNION FLAG FLIES IN SHAME
CHONGQING,
45th VFG HEADQUARTERS,
6th SEPTEMBER
"General Kai-Shek," Commodore Robinson shook his hand. "Always a pleasure."
"And yourself, Commodore," Kai-Shek replied coolly. "To what do I owe this invitation today?"
"Well, General," the Commodore started, remembering that as a foreign volunteer, and a particularly useful one at that, he did not have to call the leader of the Chinese Nationalists Sir. "I must apologise to you, for grave circumstances leave me no choice but to withdraw 45th VFG from China."
Chang Kai-Shek's face was a mixture of sadness and understanding. He had obviously seen this one coming. 45th Volunteer Fighter Group "The Bengali Tigers" had shown the Jap Army Air Service a thing or two about flying about over the course of the war, but the General knew always that China was not their country. He did not expect them to die for it, and conveyed this thought to the Commodore while accepting the man's notice of withdrawal. Robinson shook his hand as he left. He had every right to withdraw the 45th Tigers; they had run out of airstrips to fly from, and the Chinese could no longer afford to construct new ones. Besides which, they were running out of machines to fly with, and in their present state could be of no use to China anyway. But he still felt the pang of guilt at leaving behind an old ally.
Before Kai-Shek left, he had one last thing to say to the Commodore. "You will remember Commodore," he said, an orderly opening the door of his car, "When it is England's turn to fight Japan, that on the Chinese mainland there is a great mass of people who hate their occupiers and who would do anything to boot them out of our motherland. You will remember that, won't you Commdore? Good. I hope to meet you again someday.”
Robinson nodded slowly, understanding, and as the General rolled away in his car, realised that he now had work to be doing. Hong Kong Command had already arranged -- that is, bought -- the use of an airport controlled by the military government of Guangdong. All that was left was the remnants of 45th VFG to fly there; either in their aircraft or in a number of old German passenger planes that had been hired from the country.
The operation was not easy; they landed in the west of Guangdong, refuelled, and headed straight over to Hong Kong. The operation was done in total radio silence and while the passenger aircraft were given escorts of two fighters each, the other fighters were not flying in formation, and were trusting their natural flight skills and a limited set of old maps that covered the area. They arrived in Hong Kong, the first aircraft touching down ten hours before the last, to a hero's welcome. The Bengali Tigers; Britons, Indians, Australians, Americans and Dutch had shot down a grand total of two hundred fifty Japanese aircraft to their own losses of fifty two machines and twenty pilots. The experience they earned in China would be passed around the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm in preparation for a future war.
Their return was overshadowed a week later by the Chinese surrender, the impact of which reverberated around the world; to the Kremlin in Moscow, the White House in D.C., and Ten Downing Street in London. Chiang Kai-Shek and a stream of Chinese refugees arrived in Hong Kong and were treated as guests of the British Empire. Their battle had been long and hard, and ultimately, they had been defeated, but they had given the Japanese a fight that had captivated the imagination of every British citizen.
In Hong Kong, Singapore, and other British Asian possessions, a great anxiety began to come over the Chinese communities there following General Kai-Shek's arrival. The motherland was under foreign occupation, and who could say where would be next? While they felt safe under the guns of the British Far East Fleet, they also knew that this was the last stop; should the Japanese come to Southeast Asia, they would have nowhere else to run to.
The Chinese communities ceased to be merely observers, watching the war in the Motherland. They were now on the front line -- not strictly at war, but with their back to the wall. Should the Japanese sweep aside the British, they would be cornered like rats. To their great credit then, the Chinese in Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Borneo began their own preparations for war: savings, large pots of money that entire communities collected and donated to buy guns, planes and ships. Groups of Chinese ran their own militia volunteer units or else volunteered for the regular defence forces, as reserves. Some, inspired by the 45th VFG (who were now getting to grips with the new Spitfire and its marvellous Rolls-Royce engine) which had moved to Singapore, joined the 1st Mixed Fighter Group, a reserve fighter formation of Chinese, Malays and Indians. Trained by 45th VFG, and equipped with the Supermarine Spitfire, a warplane easily the equivalent of a Messerschmit Bf109 'Emil' or an A6M2 'Reisen,' they would be an asset in their own country's defence.
LONDON
29th SEPTEMBER
29th SEPTEMBER
The area was immediately familiar; George could not say that he had known it personally before, but he knew, somehow, that this was London. It was London with a difference, though, but he couldn't quite tell what. Something being to compel him to walk forwards, and so he did, through the deserted streets that were glum with a sepia overtone. Colour, George thought, had long left this place alone, and now it was all but a collation of browns and grays and other similarly drab colours. Something about it was quite ghostly.
He peeked inside a pharmacist, one that he did not recognise, and what he saw chilled him to the bone: two children lying still in their cots. Their mother was nowhere to be seen, and as he looked over into the cots, George realised that they were simply in fact small fruit crates, packed with straw, marked with the stamp of "Made in Britain," and, quite alarmingly, he saw that both children had died -- when, he could not place, but it must not have been long ago. He backed out of the room in fear and continued on his way down. What was one long street curved off into another street somewhat abruptly, and George found himself in a totally different environment.
There was dust and smoke, and flame was all that stood between his vision and total darkness. Through the smoke he could hear cries and coughing, and summing up his courage, he stepped through. Rows and rows of houses burned freely, some collapsing in on themselves. They were surrounded by firemen. "Give us an 'and 'ere Mr Barnaby!" one shouted to the other, and a water hose switched its aim to burning building.
George strode up to them. "I say man," he tapped one on the shoulder. "What is going on here?" He was ignored by the fireman who continued desperately with his work. "Didn't you hear me?" George asked again, somewhat louder. He thought that the chaos around him may have obscured the fireman's hearing. "Do you know who I am?" he asked again angrily. "I say, would you give me an answer?"
He received none. It was as if he wasn't there, and before further inquiry could be lodged, he was compelled to leave again; back onto another street, back into the dim sepia and away from the burning flame that had illuminated his last place of travel so brightly. There was one large building ahead of him, and that very thing that had compelled him to travel thus far was once again persuading him to move into it. So he did; inside, rows upon rows of hospital beds, occupied by faceless men. It was not a hospital, that much could be told from the sanitation. It was utterly disgusting, and yet while the floor was sticky with blood, the rows of beds were in perfect alignment with one another.
There was a sickly smell and an even more sickly feeling that made George's hairs stand up on edge. Something was not right, and without the aid of that compulsion within him, he turned to flee. The road behind him that had been empty not longer than ten seconds ago was now occupied. Lines upon lines of troops in uniformed marched proudly through the street. While their uniforms were pressed and cleaned, their faces showed a different mark, and were lifeless, with hanging jaws and dead eyes. Dirt and blood covered their faces but did not conceal their unnatural nature. They were dead men walking, quite literally.
George thought at first that they may well just ignore him, like the firemen earlier had done, but he could have been no further from the truth. That which had earlier compelled him to move had now apparently undergone a change of opinion and George found himself rooted to the spot, as in unison, hundreds of heads turned to face him. The soldiers broke ranks and drifted towards him. There was no escape. Soon they were upon him, their cold hands running over his body, covering him in their own dirt and their own blood until he was soon no more than one of their own...
George's eyes shot open and he suppressed a cry. He was in bed, thank God, and the only thing that covered him now was a cold sweat. It had, after all, just been a nightmare, but George could not bring himself to sleep. Dragging himself out of bed, he went into the drawing room and lighted a cigarette, reflecting on his dream. He pieced it together whilst smoking and came to the conclusion that the issue of a future war with Germany and Japan had been affecting him too much; that he was now dreaming about it was something he would rather avoid. Stubbing the cigarette out, he stood up to look out over the window of Buckingham House, something he enjoyed to do while being reflective.
Across London, on the Thames, he made out a shadowy figure traversing the river. He tried to place it, and then realised that it was H.M.S. Hood, returning briefly from a tour East of the Suez, flying all her colours. The giant steel monster moved so ponderously through the Thames, George thought it might run aground, but her crew were apparently easily capable of handling the vessel.
It was then that King George VI knew that so long as there was a British Royal Navy, London and the Empire was secure.
Although upon reflection, King George would have good reason to be worried about the future security of his realm. Mr Hitler was pushing the Czechs over the problem of the Sudetenland, a strip of territory on the border between Germany and Czechoslovakia populated by a great number of Sudeten Germans, who, seeing what had happened in Austria some months before, clamoured for a reunification with the Reich. It was last friday that the Czechs had gone into private Government negotiation about the issue, and yesterday Mr Neville Chamberlain, Britain's Prime Minister, had personally gone to meet Adolf Hitler to discuss the issue of signing the Treaty of Munich.
He went again the next day, and returned. As his plane landed at the airstrip, it was besieged by members of the press and of the public alike. When Mr Chamberlain held up that piece of paper that he claimed had guaranteed a "peace in our time," some unnidentified hawk had yelled out -- symbolically but also perhaps quite unoriginally -- "no negotiation with Nazi tyrants!" and this comment was met with great approval by the members of the public present. As Chamberlain looked around the throng of people who had come out to meet him, he saw that his decision had been firmly unpopular.
The front page of the Daily Mail too was crushing in its criticism of Mr Chamberlain's initiative. Her headline proclaimed proudly: "England to Czechoslovakia: Stand up to Nazism and we shall support you!" The rest of the article went on to claim how Britain would back a resisting Czechoslovakia, a statement it was probably unqualified to make. The hawks in Britain had become a larger, and a more influential group since their last protest against German aggression. They were still, however, outnumbered by those who wanted to see a lasting peace in Europe and Asia, but they had become quiet as of late, perhaps re-evaluating their position, perhaps building up their strength. Or perhaps they simply had nothing to say.
Those who flirted with hawkist thought in Britain found an unlikely ally in France, who had already gone past the stage of flirting and whose population were openly antagonistic toward Germany. While France had taken very heavy casualties in the last war, she was still up for a scrap with her old enemy and if not for Britain's restraint would have marched her Army into the Rhineland had Germany so much as touched the Sudetenland.
It was not to be, though. Britain asserted itself well during the Munich Treaty negotiations, and they were, under Italian observation, signed. On the 1st of October, 1938, German troops marched into the Sudetenland to be met with Sudeten Germans, goaded onto the streets by National Socialist Sudeten German Worker's Party, crying with joy at their reunification with the Fatherland, and so one of the most potent industrial regions of Europe fell into Nazi hands and Hitler's excercise in brinksmanship had played off. Churchill remarked in the House of Commons that “freedom is on the retreat.”
ENGLAND,
BIRMINGHAM
10th OCTOBER
BIRMINGHAM
10th OCTOBER
Birmingham, the second largest city in England and possibly one of the greatest industrial cities in the world, had been chosen as the site of national defence, due to its central location and wide infrastructure links to the rest of the country. This was to be the site of the new “Ministry for the Defence of the Realm,” an Office of Government directly responsible for the defence of the country. The two hundred thousand troops who presently guarded England's shores were merged into the regional defence armies and given the MDR Badge, which denoted their defensive nature. On top of this, all of the fighter formations; all twelve fighter groups that constituted the aerial defence of England, were put under MDR Control in Birmingham, although they were still strictly Royal Air Force formations and would be listed as such. While the MDR ostensibly came under the control of Imperial General Headquarters, IGHQ was specifically to deal with Operations overseas, and MDR was to deal with the actual defence of the realm from their Headquarters in Birmingham, although they did not control any naval forces, which were still under the wings of IGHQ and the Admiralty.
This system, confusing in operation, gave great clarity to theatre generals and operation planners in IGHQ. They knew that the responsibilities of the realm had now been transferred to the Ministry, and all the resources necessary to do so as well, which lifted a great burden from their shoulders and made it easier for them to plan operations overseas, which is where, after all, most of the fighting would happen. The purpose of the MDR then, aside from political jargon that dominated the press, was to achieve greater clarity of operational ability for the British military. Let the MDR handle home affairs, and let IGHQ handle foreign affairs.
On 15th October, Imperial General Headquarters notified the press of several changes in command structure. Three “Theatre Chiefs” had been identified and had been granted overall control of all forces in their Theatre. They were as follows.
Theatre Chief Mediterranean – Field Marshal Archibald Wavell
Theatre Chief Europe – Field Marshal Harold Alexander
Theatre Chief Asia – Field Marshal Edmund Ironside
While control of IGHQ still rested with Field Marshall Sir Cyril Deverell and the rest of the Chiefs of Staff, these three commanders were responsible for military operations in their own region, and had a great amount of flexibility with their post. The actual meaning of this requires one to look deeper into the implied meanings. At the start of 1936, both the Mediterranean and Asia could not said to have been defended by more than a couple of divisions. Near the end of 1938, the change was rather different. Almost two hundred and fifty thousand troops guarded the British Mediterranean and the British Far East now, and it was only appropriate that such commanders were appointed to command such large amounts of troops. Some of them were very young for their positions, but had been chosen for their prodigious skills; men that the British Empire could depend upon to defend her borders to the very end. All in all, recent events might suggest that they would eventually have to.
In the Mediterranean, Mussolini had built up a great number of troops in Italian Cyrenaica, some five hundred thousand by any reasonable account, and his Navy sat ready for action along the ports that straddled the approach British convoys would have to take. With large numbers of cruisers and at least six battleships, the Regia Marina outnumbered the Mediterranean Fleet at a ratio of two to one, and it was more modern, too. Telling the crowds in Rome of how he dreamed of an “Italian sea” and of rebuilding the Roman Empire, which he reminded his people had “crushed Britannia in its infancy,” he gave great worry to Mediterranean commanders, who knew the importance of their station, the lifeline of the Empire. They began to press for more resources, and aside from receiving the Long Range Group, a number of four-engine bombers which would have the range to attack Italian forces across vast desert, they got little else. Mussolini's chest beating, it was thought, was not just an idle threat but an active and immediate intention to attack the British Empire. To this end, plans were drawn up to defend Egypt and to defeat the Italian Navy at sea.
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