Dark Earth Timeline

It might have Japan as a rival in the region, that is going to be intersting.

January 1972
January 1: The wreck of RMS Lusitania is raised from ocean floor south of Ireland in a special operation coordinated by former U.S. Secretary of Defence Dr. Clark Savage, Dirk Pitt and Sir Charles Ratcliffe. The great liner, whose sinking in 1915 precipitated the U.S entry into the Great War, its hull patched with arcane waterproofing and partially repaired by remotely operated automatons, is taken under tow to Queenstown.
January 2: A gang of robbers attempt to steal $4 million worth of jewelry from safety deposit boxes in the Pierre Hotel in New York City, but are caught in a net whilst leaving the building by a caped superhero, who deposits them and their ill gotten gains safely in front of a nearby police station.
January 3: The British Cabinet approves a proposal for alternate National Service in the Empire Labour Service for those conscripts unsuited to the military for various reasons, including the limited number of conscientious objectors from the non-conformist churches.
January 4: Clearance of the 'zone rouge', the dead zones in France and Belgium rendered too damaged and dangerous for human habitation in the fighting on the Western Front in World War One, is completed after decades of careful rehabilitative work by French druids.
January 5: The final day of the Thames Frost Fair is celebrated in London, as meteorological sorcerers predict an earlier break in the cold weather, culminating in the traditional ox roast and skating tournament.
January 6: A CIA investigation concludes that Imperial China is increasing its backing of independence movements in Africa as a means of directing American, British and French attention away from the Far East and counteracting Soviet influence in the same groups, rather than any specific designs on direct control and influence.
January 7: Lewis Powell is confirmed by the United States Senate as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, replacing the late Justice Hugo Black.
January 8: British and Australian government geologists and miners working on the restricted site of Lasseter’s Reef discover a new rich gold vein deep underground assayed at ninety ounces to the ton. The deposit is kept highly classified to avoid the type of hullabaloo seen in the ongoing Rhodesian Gold Rush.
January 9: Debut of the new BBC Second World War action drama Bomber Boys, charting the development of RAF Bomber Command through the war and its key campaigns through an array of fictional and historical characters. It quickly attract positive reviews and audience reaction for its grand scope, excellent performances and use of genuine wartime aircraft.
January 10: A Red Air Force Tu-95 Bear heavy strategic jet bomber crashes over the Arctic ice near Severnaya Zemlya whilst on airborne alert over the Soviet High North, after reporting a series of strange anomalous radar returns.
January 11: Howard Hughes unveils the model for an innovative new biplane supersonic jet airliner. Hughes had been secluded from public life for a number of years, apparently engaged in intense study of the works of the Arabian madman Abdul Alhazred.
January 12: SNCF presents a national plans for a new network of very high speed railways employing turbotrains, operating separately but in general concert with the existing high speee network.
January 13: Chicago police arrest a 31 year old man for abduction and attempted murder in Norwood Park Township in an operation coordinated by their new psychic detective office.
January 14: Death of King Frederick IX of Denmark in Copenhagen, eleven days after he had suffered a cardiac arrest. He is succeeded to the throne by Crown Prince Eric.
January 15: Romeo Beneventi is elected leader of the Movimento Sociale Italiano in a narrow victory. Beneventi, a veteran of Korea and Vietnam, seen as the protege of Prince Junio Borghese, is seen as a young and charismatic reinvigoration of the burgeoning Italian nationalist right.
January 16: The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge is formally renamed the Emperor Norton I Bridge, after the well known resident of San Francisco, the self proclaimed monarch of the United States and progenitor of the idea of the bridge.
January 17: US Army Special Forces operating in Cambodia in support of the Royal Cambodian Army capture a number of elusive leaders of the Cambodian Communist Party in a series of jungle raids.
January 18: A US Coast Guard cutter and an RCN frigate jointly halt and detain two Soviet fishing trawlers that stray into Canadian territorial waters around the Aleutians in circumstances that bring them within surveillance range of the US base on Attu Island.
January 19: Debut of the newest and third British television channel, Thames Television, operated by the Associated British Corporation media conglomerate. The highlight of its first day is an extended current affairs report on the prospect of new British airliners in the 1970s and their place in the evolving international supersonic market.
January 20: Sinclair Electronics releases a new model of programmable scientific pocket calculator, maintaining the British lead in advanced consumer electronics to the increasing perturbation of certain international competition.
January 21: Several hundred wedding guests in New Delhi are poisoned after imbibing bootleg liquor made concocted from paint varnish, rubbing alcohol and other non-potable substances, killing over 100 people. Both the Indian and Imperial Police begin investigations into the tragedy, determined to trace those with a hand in the mass poisoning.
January 22: British Prime Minister Stanley Barton indicates in an interview with the BBC that the general election will take place in mid August, setting the scene for an intriguing contest with the Conservatives under Leader of the Opposition Sir Enoch Powell. With general consensus among the three major parties regarding the positive economic direction of Britain, foreign and industrial policy and the primacy of the defence of the realm - dubbed the paramount social service by Barton - it is anticipated that this will be an election fought on the comparative ‘flanks’ of policy, such as science immigration and housing. Barton, who currently enjoys an approval rating of 79%, is heavily favoured to win a third term in office, having presided over a period of strong economic growth characterised by a positive national mood, whilst being respected internationally as a strong, plain-speaking leader.
January 23: Jackie Stewart wins the Argentine Grand Prix, beating the American Steve McQueen and fellow Britons Jim Clark, Graham Hill and newcomer James Hunt.
January 24: A Japanese holdout, Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, is discovered by two incredulous hunters on Guam, who bundle him up and carry him to their home, where he is not met with the summary death he anticipated, but rather a nice bowl of yummy soup made from garlic, coconut milk and a live fruit bat.
January 25: The Rhodesian Army launches a new 'sweep and clear' offensive against guerrilla forces along the rugged northwest frontier, utilising a range of newly acquired helicopters, a pair of Armstrong-Whitworth Warspites, automatic mortars and long range strike missiles.
January 26: Yugoslav flight attendant Vesna Vulovic, 22, miraculously survives a fall of over 33,000 feet without a parachute or any arcane air or slowing after the JAT VC7 she was flying on from Stockholm to Belgrade was blown up in mid flight over the Bohemian village of Windisch Kamnitz in northern Austria-Hungary. The outrage is suspected to be the work of emigre Croat separatists, sparking joint investigations by Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslav police and Interpol.
January 27: Royal Navy test pilots begin preoperational flights of the English Electric Scimitar supersonic carrier fighter-bomber and Fairey Firefly naval strike plane.
January 28: The first Magnavox Odyssey home electronic video game systems go on sale in the United States, allowing users to connect the Odyssey to a television and play a strange simulation of tennis, similar to the children's arcade game Ping.
January 29: A joint report by American and British intelligence to the Combined Chiefs of Staff states that General Secretary Sergeyev’s programme of reforms and modernisation of the Red Army is starting to bear fruit, with the deployment of new combined arms armies to the Central Asian and Turkestan Military Districts being of concern, particularly for the position of India.
January 30: Death of noted American author Dr. Aaron Jastrow at the age of 109, author of The Arch of Constantine, A Jew's Jesus and A Jew's Journey, the story of his trials and travels during the first years of the Second World War before his arrival in Israel; he had been corresponding on a new work with Herman Wouk.
January 31: Introduction of uniform airport security screening across the United States, with air travellers now passing through a series of arcane scanning gates that detect weapons, explosives or other potentially threatening items.

Yes, relatively so. There was a lengthy process of patching and repairing, largely inspired by Raise the Titanic.

Any other ships that might be interesting to raise.

February
February 1: Nazi hunters capture the wanted Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner in in Northern Syria, bundling their quarry into a helicopter and flying to an offshore yacht bound for Israel. Brunner, responsible for the deportations and murders of tens of thousands of Jews in Eastern and Southern Europe, is to be tried in Jerusalem for his crimes.
February 2: Death of former Governor and long time U.S Senator for Lousiana Huey Long at the age of 78. Long, a notable populist and isolationist prior to the Second World War to the point of being briefly regarded as a threat to President Franklin Roosevelt, had built himself a firm reputation as a loyal (if maverick) Democrat after US entry into the conflict.
February 3: Opening of the XI Winter Olympics in Lahti, Finland by King Carl II. His Majesty, himself a winter sportsman of no small prowess, had been influential in the campaign to win the right to host the Winter Games for Finland in 1966, where the Nordic kingdom narrowly beat out the highly favoured Japanese bid for Sapporo.
February 4: An Argentine court sentences serial murderer Carlos Puch to death by hanging for a dozen slayings, seventeen robberies and two rapes. The widespread outrage at his crimes, without parallel in the Argentine for decades, leads to his sentence being expedited, with his execution proceeding on February 28th.
February 5: The 33rd, 37th, 38th, 46th, 47th and 51st Infantry Divisions of the United States Army National Guard are formally returned to state control after their period of active service during the Vietnam War mobilisation, reducing the number of active National Guard divisions to six. The last Army Reserve combat divisions called upduring the war were deactivated in November 1971, whilst the three remaining Army of the United States divisions are due to follow them by October.
February 6: The Royal Air Force begins fielding of new mobile medium range strategic missile squadrons in Malta, Minorca and Cyprus, in the first wave of modernisation of Mediterranean based deterrent and defensive missiles. The deployment of Black Arrow II MRBMs to the Mediterranean island bases not only provides coverage for much of Soviet Central Asia, but also provides for a reinforcement of deterrent options over the Middle East and North African shore. They are scheduled to be followed by squadrons equipped with Violet Friend anti-ballistic missiles and the new very long range Bristol Broadsword multi-role surface to air guided missiles; discussions are underway regarding further deployment of certain weapons systems to the British bases on Crete.
February 7: Establishment of the Pawnee National Laboratory on the outskirts of the Indiana city as a sister facility to the long standing and highly secret Hawkins National Laboratory. The selection of Pawnee is described as being based on the confluence of local facilities, water, power and transport links and its position almost diagonally opposite Hawkins on the other side of Indianapolis is described as purely coincidental.
February 8: Professional hockey goalkeeper Bruce Gamble suffers a heart attack after the NHL game between his Philadelphia Fliers and the Vancouver Canucks and is rushed to hospital, where new medical treatments result in his successful recovery. Recent advances in the treatment of heart disease, including, the use of aspirin, specialist drugs developed from Amazonian plants, arterial stents and innovative arcanely augmented surgical techniques promise to greatly increase survival rates and recovery over the coming decade.
February 9: Ending of a terrible week-long blizzard in Persia that had seen dozens of villages buried by up to two dozen feet of snow. Coming after four years of drought, the snowstorms, which appear to have a natural origin, have resulted in thousands of missing or dead people, with the Shah committing a substantial part of the Imperial Armed Forces and all of his personal mages to the rescue and recovery process.
February 10: An international archaeological expedition discovers the long lost ruins of an ancient temple in the depths of the highland jungles of Sumatra, the latest in a number of finds that increase the evidentiary weight for a suspected antediluvian civilisation in the ancient lost continent of Sundaland. The cooperation between the Indonesian government and the expedition is seen as a sign of the thawing relations between Djarkarta and the West.
February 11: USAF FB-111Cs escorted by F-15 Eagle fighters strike a suspected communist insurgent camp in northern Cambodia, marking the combat debut of the F-15. The air strikes come as US forces in South East Asia continue to wind down to a sustainable peacetime level.
February 12: Publication of Je l'ai fait pour la France, the first volume of the memoir of wartime hero Rene Artois, recounting his numerous hair raising adventures and narrow escapes whilst running both a Nouvion cafe and a highly active Resistance cell. Now largely retired, Monsieur Rene leaves the day to day operation of his cafe to his sons and enjoys his fortune, largely derived from the postwar sale of a Van Gogh masterpiece, 'The Cracked Vase'.
February 13: The Volkswagen Beetle becomes the top selling automobile of all time, passing the Ford Model T with the 20,364,757th car produced at the Wolfsburg plant in Germany; it is also produced at facilities in Mexico, Brazil and Ottoman Turkey. North American sales had markedly increased over the 1960s, driving demand for further Beetle production as one part of the ongoing so-called 'German postwar economic miracle', although its success in Europe and the Americas has not yet be matched elsewhere in the world.
February 14: President Kennedy becomes the first American head of state to visit Taiwan, landing in Taipei on the first leg of a series of state visits to American allies in Northern Asia, including Japan and Korea. The President, accompanied by Mrs. Kennedy, Presidential Scientific Advisor Chien-Shiung Wu and Secretary of Transport James Woo, is met by the Premier of the Republic of Taiwan, Sun Fo, and President Chiang Kai-Shek at the airport. Kennedy's whirlwind stopover in Taiwan is thought to be substantially motivated by the official signing of an agreement for the purchase of 18 Boeing 2707 supersonic airliners by China Airlines.
February 15: A fabled historical diamond reputed to be among the five most valuable diamonds in the world, the Pink Panther of Lugash, is apparently stolen at a mysterious break in at the Watergate Hotel in Washington DC. MPD's finest sleuth, Inspector Jonathan Gadget, is assigned control of the investigation, and enlists the help of famed French detective Jacques Clouseau and SFPD Commander Harry Callahan, both of whom happened to be staying at the Watergate.
February 16: Opening of a new Austin car factory in Regency Park, Adelaide by South Australian Premier Sir Thomas Playford, with it being hailed by Playford as the latest example of industrial growth in South Australia, joining the automotive Rootes, Holden and Morris plants Woodville, Elizabeth and Tonsley, the RAN Navy Dockyard at Port Adelaide, the ICI chemical factory at Gillman, the Armstrong-Whitworth Australia aerospace plant at Parafield, the Phillips and Kelvinator electrical goods manufactories at Hendon and Finsbury, the Weapons Research Establishment at Salisbury and Hills Industries in Edwardstown as some of the major industrial facilities in Adelaide.
February 17: Beginning of Exercise REFORGER 72, the eighth annual NATO exercise for the reinforcement of American, Canadian and British forces to Western Europe and largest Western Alliance military exercise of any sort since the British Exercise Warhammer in 1963. The REFORGER airlift is the first such exercise to feature both the Boeing C-240 Skylord ultraheavy strategic transport airlifter alongside the Lockheed-Martin C-150 Galaxy eight engine superheavy military cargo aircraft C-150 Galaxy (each capable of carrying eight MBTs or 250t of cargo).
February 18: A terrorist gang attempts to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to France in an ambush in Paris, but are driven off after an intense gun battle with the ambassador's bodyguards. Subsequent investigations by the Sûreté Nationale and Interpol into the outrage identify the head of the gang as an international terrorist with the nom de guerre of Carlos.
February 19: Publication of Citadel of the Sky, the first novel in a new historical fantasy series for children and young people by renowned English author C.S. Lewis.
February 20: The RAF Red Arrows aerobatical display team completes its transition from English Electric Lightnings to the new Supermarine Spitfire, with the supermaneuverability of the advanced jet fighters providing an additional attraction for airshow audiences in Britain, the Empire and the wider world and providing an interesting contrast to the innovative capabilities displayed by the Hawker-Siddeley Harriers of the Royal Flying Corps' White Lions and the variable geometry de Havilland Vanguards of the RN Blue Eagles.
February 21: Completion of a new level of the top secret deep level nuclear shelter beneath the White House amid regular revisions of plans for continuity of government, with the new facility providing equivalent protection to Strategic Air Command’s Deep Underground Support Centers.
February 22: The Club of Rome publishes its study on The Future of Growth, incorporating the work of the World2 'super computer' in its forecast on the interaction between finite resources, growing populations and demand and the potential for further variables, such as the current concern over global cooling.
February 23: Signing of the Antarctic Seals Preservation Convention and the Convention on the Prohibition of Dumping at Sea is Oslo, Norway, along with an agreement in principle to extend the moratorium on whaling for another ten years. The general international mood among the delegates is one generally positive towards regarding the preservation of marine species, with the role of whales and seals far different from the monstrous megalodon and great white shark, both of which are thought to have been successfully exterminated.
February 24: A fire aboard the Soviet Hotel class SSBN K-19 causes the submarine to surface and the crew to abandon the boat 650nm southeast of Newfoundland. Royal Navy aircraft and surface ships operating from Floating Fortress 2 move to provide aid.
February 25: Ceylon plays its inaugural Test cricket match against Rhodesia in Salisbury on the same day as the First Test between India and the United States at Eden Gardens in Calcutta. The Indian team under the Nawab of Pataudi is favoured to win its first series against the mighty Americans, with a strong line up of Sunil Gavaskar, Majid Khan, Zaheer Abbas, Pataudi, Shatrusalyasinhji, Imran Khan, Wasim Bari, Safraz Nawaz and three of the four members of the 'spin quartet' in Venkataraghavan, Bishan Bedi and Chandrasekhr, with Prasanna as twelfth man.
February 26: Birth of twins, a daughter and a second son to Princess Victoria and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace, with both mother and children in the bonniest of health. The joyful occurrence of male and female twins does not provide the possible complication to the line of succession that so concerned elements of the court upon the birth of Prince Richard and Prince George to Her Majesty the Queen in 1966, given the presence of the firstborn heir Prince William.
February 27: Publication of an article in The Spectator entitled The Future of National Service?. It outlines the recent British debate, not on the utility of conscription (which is accepted as a sine qua non of the defence of the British Empire by all major parties), but rather on its mechanics. The article's author, unusually writing under the pseudonym of John Bull, argues for a modernisation of the mobilisation and deployment wave system along with reforms to the structures of the Army Reserve, Territorial Army and mobilisation cadre regiments; his main contention is that the best use of National Servicemen would be in direct service in reserve formations. An editorial note at the end of the article states that a reply from A.N. Other will follow in the next issue.
February 28: A special joint operation by the FBI and the Bureau of Narcotics to arrest a gang of notorious Mexican marihuana smugglers fails to net its intended quarry, instead nabbing two bohemian young men driving a strange fibreglass van.
February 29: The United States Joint Intelligence Committee issues a Top Secret Majestic report on follow up to the interstellar signal and recent UFO activity, including the Indianapolis Incident.

It is indeed and he will be getting the Eichmann treatment fairly directly. Quoting that reminds me that I fell asleep before finishing the sentence on that event, so I'll fix that up.

In general, Nazi hunting is taken rather more seriously and there is much, much less scope for even fellow travelers to get swept under the carpet (a la Hans Globke). Germany retains capital punishment and has used it against Nazis convicted in various trials.

The DE C-150 is a larger aircraft than the @ C-5, but fits into its overall ‘category’, being an eight engine superheavy, akin in many respects to the An-225 of @.

The C-240 is bigger still, being similar in dimensions to the Saunders-Roe Queen and able to haul a very large amount. It does, however, hit the point of diminishing returns when compared to the real aerial heavy lifters, the skyships. They are slower, but can take 5000t of cargo or a few dozen tanks. In turn, skyships cost a lot more than aeroplanes, so the general path taken is to mainly focus on conventional strategic airlift and build up certain niche capacities to augment it.

What is the purpose of Reforger? To get troops and equipment across the Atlantic as quickly as possible. This takes a mix of aircraft and ships.