Kaiser_Mobius: Another Manitoban on the forums and they aren't from Winnipeg?
I actually live in the country, about 5 km from Brandon.
abdul-jabar: Ah yes, North Dakota, America's most boring state
Personally I've never been very far into Minnesota, but your part of the Lake of the Woods is quite nice
In tradition with Riptide's very good writing I've made a little something myself, although it comparatively it isn't that great, it should be mildly amusing.
---June 2nd, 1945---
He was the leader of one of THE strongest members of the Allies and yet he was being pushed and prodded like this? The Prime Minister had been rushed to this meeting right in the middle of lunch and didn’t even have time for tea. Upon entering the war room he noticed several high ranking officers as well as the minister of defense sitting at the table.
Setting himself down he new whatever the news was, it would be grave indeed.
“What has happened Mr Ralston?” he said worriedly to the Minister.
“Mr Prime Minister, as you know we are in a dreadful situation, the counter offensive being launched by the Allied forces in India is being grinded to a halt and the situation in Burma is becoming hopeless. However this pales in comparison to the news that we have just received from our American friends,” the defence minister retorted.
After a brief pause Ralston continued, “As you know the Americans has been able to successfully decode Japanese ciphers for the past three years. Last night they intercepted a transmission from the Japanese high command.” The defence minister took another rather long pause.
“Well get on with it! What’s happened?”
“They’ve found out about it!” Ralston gasped. “They know about our top secret weapon. I… I don’t know how they managed it; they don’t have a large enough intelligence network here to pull it off…”
The Prime Minister stood up and slowly walked towards the window. He stared out it for a moment and let out a deep sigh, “After all this time, after all this energy, they have found it out. I am beginning to wonder if we shall be able to win this war.” Turning back to the counsel he paused again then asked, “Is there any way the operation can still succeed?”
“No Mr Prime Minister,” Ralston said, propping up his head between both hands, “There is no way the project can succeed now, the Japanese will no doubt take measures to prevent it.”
“I’m afraid, gentlemen, that the balance of this war shall rest in the hands of Joseph Stalin.”
And with that ended the development of what had promised to be the weapon that could force the Japanese to surrender, to end the war, and ensure the protection of the Commonwealth for generations to come. Millions of dollars had been invested in the development of this weapon, which could have been used to build more ships, more planes, and perhaps even to stage a coup in Japan.
Canada had been developing a new rapidly reproducing subspecies of bovine able to carry both rabies and ‘Mad Cow’ diseases while not succumbing to either. They had hoped to covertly transport these cows to the Japanese home islands and insert them in rural areas where they would run rampant. Infecting other livestock and humans and destroying crops in the contaminated areas. The affect, they theorized, would be two-fold. First it would cause mass hysteria amongst the Japanese population, bringing wave after wave of refugees to the cities. Secondly it would destroy their food supply and render rural areas uninhabitable until significant amounts of Japanese soldiers could be brought home to eradicate all cattle from the islands.
Its untimely discovery by the Japanese would be sufficiently ahead of production that public awareness programs and safety procedures could be developed. The marking of all Japanese cattle and the eradication of any bovine without proper tags would mean that the war would have to be won on a different battlefield.
EDIT: Oh ya, and the grain elevators are really missile silos!