July – September 1946: The Summer of Our Discontent
It had been two years since the assassination of Adolf Hitler and the collapse of Nazi Germany, and almost a year since Orleans. Europe was a very different place from the one envisioned by Allied leaders in the West. In rapid succession, a formidable array of Communist governments were being put into place across Europe, from Romania to Portugal, and aside from their own seeming impotence, there was a growing concern about the power bloc the Soviet Union was assembling. Even as the summer waned, elections in Portugal, Spain, and Italy brought to power governments sympathetic to the Comintern and who quickly joined the Vienna Pact, bringing the total to ten, the number of Soviet European allies. And Stalin was still not finished. The key elections in Poland and Germany loomed, as well as the fate of the Low Countries. In Germany, the Allies were hearing reports that a methodical and brutal denazification of the country was under way, completely unilateral of any Allied involvement. German Communists who had fled to the East or had been kept in camps were reviving their fortunes, preparing for what was seen as another easy election for them in December. The elections in Poland were also critical. Although the Soviets had been unable to persuade Sikorski to return for the elections, the National Democrats were very much on the ballot per Stalin’s “free elections” decree. There was a large amount of grass-roots support for this and other centrist parties. Many were closely watching this country for the results.
Europe – October 1, 1946
Many eyes were also focused on the Pacific, where the two weary belligerents, the United States and Japan, were coming to terms with a very long war. In the field, the United States continued its steady advance with landings on Yaren Island and the seizure of the strategic Port Moresby on New Guinea. With Japanese strength concentrating in Australia, the Solomons, and the Marshalls, New Guinea and other exposed islands were vulnerable. In July, a great victory was achieved at Sydney, where forces under Generals Simpson and Hodges overcame the large garrison in the major Australian city and liberated it. In the air, alternating attacks by over twenty squadrons of fighters and bombers beat down the Japanese air cover. The seizure of Sydney meant that two thirds of the continent was firmly in American hands and in the last six months, fifteen Japanese divisions had been destroyed in Australia.
On the sea, however, the Japanese served reminders of the past potency of the Combined Fleet, decimating Admiral Mitscher’s task force off Bikini Atoll and, in the south, fighting a heavy night action against Spurance’s group, forcing him to withdraw to New Caledonia for repairs. The presence of Japan’s new array of battleships and carriers, a mark of their enlarged industrial complex, had again upset the naval balance in the Pacific.
Japanese Yamato-class battleships hammer Spurance’s task force in surprise night action
For the Japanese, it was a tonic at the right moment. Whereas everything had been going wrong over the last six months, a couple of key naval victories had restored their dipping morale, though it also provoked continued debate in Tokyo, where the Imperial General Staff was meeting to consider the question of peace. There was much at stake, they knew. In Southeast Asia, Japan was already redrawing the map to reflect its post-war aspirations. The government of Siam - renamed Thailand since 1939, had permitted Japanese occupation and passage through their territory to fight in Burma and India. Their leader, the dictatorial Field Marshal Luang Plaek Phibunsongkhram, had kept the Thai from resisting the Japanese advance, always with the expectation of reward when the Japanese victory was had. Now with peace with the British and Southeast Asia under complete occupation, Tokyo concluded it was time to decide how to organize the region. Nationalist army generals wanted to keep all of the territory annexed, though Tojo and others feared Asian resistance. Others wished to weaken any nationalism by either forming a series of smaller countries or by forming a moderate-sized Thailand and keeping the rest. The government’s position, however, was to reward Thailand by creating an enlarged state which fulfilled many of the historical aspirations of that country – granting them Cambodia, Laos, Burma, and northern Malaysia as a strong southeast Asian state which would made a viable ally, though still very much under Japanese influence. Japan would still retain the eastern portion of Indochina – Vietnam, including key bases in Da Nang, Hanoi, and Saigon as well as Singapore and southern Malaysia, and the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Yet this empire was not yet secure while the war with the United States continued. Although Admiral Yamamoto had persuaded the government to institute a second phase of naval reconstruction, including a diverse program of cruisers and destroyers as well as capital ships, many commanders, the more moderate set, felt the tide of the war turning against them. A few generals even doubted the viability of holding on to Australia.
The specter of the Soviet Union was also looming over Japan, an even graver threat than that posed by the United States. Rancorous debate raged back and forth in the capital as generals, admirals, and politicians tried to come to grips with whether seeking peace with the Americans was a sign of weakness or prudence, or both. In the end, however, prudence won out and over the objections of many of its generals, the Tojo government decided upon a third attempt to seek peace with the United States.
The transmitted peace feelers arrived in a United States that was feeling the first true stirrings of its industrial war machine. Men and material were being assembled at a rate that dwarfed any other country. The Army had practically doubled in less than two years and an array of planes and ships continued to be built at a steady rate, negating heavy losses sustained in the Pacific. After Spurance’s withdrawal from the Solomons, which included the loss of the
USS Ranger, the Lindbergh government signed off on the proposed naval expansion, including the six Midway CVs and the four Texas BBs. Plans for expansion of the Panama Canal would also need to be finalized. The administration was also implementing the second phase of its gradual expansion of the Selective Service Act, calling up another few hundred thousand men to arms to fill the demand placed by the continued growth of the armed forces.
Japan’s peace proposal was the third to be dispatched since 1944 and the United States received it far more soberly. Japan and the United States had been at war for five years, and though the frontier islands of Japan’s conquests had been seized, the American homeland protected, and Australia and New Zealand almost completely liberated, the core areas of the Empire had scarcely been touched. The fighting on Australia, which had seen heavy losses in men and planes, would no doubt be dwarfed by landings in Asia. Japan still had plenty of fight in it, as demonstrated by their continued reinforcement of their perimeter and their recent vigor on the high seas. Aside from the war itself, other concerns were coming to the attention of the government. As the Soviet Union planted a Communist stamp on Europe and was assembling an empire that far dwarfed the Japanese, it was apparent to some in Washington that the two most powerful anti-Communist states in the world, Japan and the United States, were fighting each other into weakness while the Soviets grew stronger. In the long-term, the Pacific War was an increasingly dangerous game. When Japan’s 1946 peace proposal arrived, it was greeted with far less objection.
Asia and the Pacific – October 1, 1946
In emergency meetings held between President Lindbergh and his Cabinet, the sentiment was clearly in favor of negotiation, though some, such as Hearst and Kennedy, wanted to seek better terms, particularly over the status of Australia and New Zealand. For others, the sooner peace could be had, the better. Then both Japan and the U.S. could turn their attention to the Soviets. Geopolitical reality was far outstripping pride in importance in Tokyo and Washington, D.C. And for both countries, the Pacific was becoming of secondary importance compared to what was taking place elsewhere in the world. On September 24th, the United States transmitted its willingness to negotiate terms with the Empire of Japan.
Anyway, it's not entirely certain Lindbergh wants to deal with the Soviets, he's too busy trying to build his umbrella! Realistically (storywise) everyone's been fighting for several years - the US longer than most due to the Mexico debacle. Peace must be starting to look more and more attractive. After all, IF the US gets the bomb before Japan and the Soviets in this timeline, they gain a major advantage. Time is on their side.
