Dark Earth: 1947

Can we assume a lot of Black Swans are in use with the Royal Indian navy for coastal patrols.

The numbers of Great War superdreadnoughts are not too far beyond those planned historically (16 as compared to 14, knocked down to 12 when we factor Renown and Repulse), but the substantial difference can be found in their corresponding battlecruiser classes (8 to 2).

There are quite a few supporting vessels/smaller escorts remaining in the RN, but one common feature they share is having a very hard war.

1947: Part 2b

The war in the Far East and the Pacific had been a very tough one.

In December 1941, the Japanese tide had surged across South East Asia into the British bastions of Burma and Malaya, Siam, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. 1942 was a year of tough defensive fighting on land, sea and air with the bitter campaign raging for many perilous months. The great victories at Midway, Kokoda, Guadalcanal, Singapore and the South China Sea halted the Japanese expansion, before the Allies could finally go on the offensive in the South Pacific, Malaya and Burma. At the head of the Grand Alliance was the United States of America, which avenged the dastardly sneak attack on Pearl Harbor with victory upon victory, even as it built the largest fleet the world had ever seen.

1943 saw the conquest of Siam, intense jungle fighting in the Solomons and New Guinea, the liberation of Sumatra and the beginning of the great USN advance in the Central Gilbert and Marshall Islands. The following year was one of great victories as the three Allied advances met in the South China Sea – the Imperial liberation of French Indochina and the heroic city of Hong Kong, the Australian liberation of Java and Borneo and the US triumphs in the Marianas and the liberation of the Philippines.

As the Grand Fleet and the Royal Marines prepared for the great amphibious landings on Formosa and the US Pacific Fleet blasted and bombarded Okinawa at the beginning of 1945, the British 12th Army and US Fourth Army began their big push up through Hunan and Jiangxi to Changsa and Nanchang to join up with the Great Yangtze Offensive by the wrathful Imperial Chinese Army. This offensive culminated in the Battle of Wuhan, which saw the destruction of the main field force of the Imperial Japanese Army south of the Great Wall.

The Battle of Wuhan saw the most devastating concentration of firepower to that point in the Battle of China, with the massed barrage of over two thousands 25pdrs joined by hundreds of heavy guns and rockets and Crusader tanks at the opening of the British offensive. British and Indian armoured divisions enveloped both flanks of the strong Japanese defensive line as set piece attacks broke their defences into three separate pockets which were then subjected to a relentless bombardment by heavy artillery and magical attacks.

This was to be only the beginning as now the US Army struck in all its wrath. The fast moving spearheads of the US Fourth Army conducted a huge flanking maneuver and struck the Japanese strongholds in the rear, sealing the encirclement. Japanese positions with saturated with chlorine and mustard gas, dragonfire, vitriol and napalm, strafed and rocketed by Hurricanes, Spitfires, Thunderbolts and Mustangs and blasted by Lancasters, Invaders and Flying Fortresses. Seventeen Japanese divisions were effectively destroyed in the four day battle. Now it was the turn of the Allied tide, with Shanghai, Nanking and finally Peking itself being liberated by the inexorable advance. The Emperor returned triumphantly to Peking on June 27th.

Japan was being bombed round the clock by the USAF and the RAF’s Tiger Force, but the greatest blows were still to come. Operation Olympic, the initial invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, was launched on July 5th 1945, with fifteen American, one British and one Australian division landing on Kyushu. Within 24 days, organized Japanese resistance in Southern Kyushu had been crushed and the first tactical airbases operational. A great naval battle took place on July 30th, with the Allied carrier and battle fleets sending the remnants of the Imperial Japanese Navy to the bottom of Sagami Bay.

On August 4th, a USAF B-36 dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, with Nagasaki following on August 6th and Toyama on August 8th. The Soviet Union declared war on the Empire of Japan on August 8th, launching 2.5 million men of the Red Army into Mongolia and Manchuria. American and Soviet tanks met along the Great Wall and an RAF York dropped an atomic bomb on a secretive Japanese army base outside Harbin. Japan surrendered on August 25th 1945, with the formal surrender ceremony taking place in Tokyo Bay on September 7th.

The occupation of defeated Japan saw Sakhalin occupied by the Soviets, Shikoku by France, Kyushu and Southern Honshu by the British Empire and Honshu, Kai and Hokkaido by the United States. The initial force consisted of 560,000 American, 55,000 British and 40,000 Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, Indian, New Avalon and South African troops. For most of the Allied troops, it was as if they had entered another world when they began to arrive in September 1945.

In addition to the devastating heavy bomb and fire damage, there was substantial devastation wrought by Olympic and the naval bombardment of coastal cities. Hundreds of thousands were without homes and whole cities had been functionally destroyed. The crowded streets and the very large number of bicycles was a sight that struck many members of the occupation forces, not to mention the alien smells of different foods, garbage and the ubiquitous dried fish.

Their days were taken up with myriad tasks – patrols, keeping order, searching for contraband, interrogation of smugglers, hunting for war criminals, eradicating cholera and typhus and the destruction of Japanese military industry. The ports of Japan had been thoroughly smashed by Allied bombardment and carrier raids, but were desperately needed for the repatriation of rescued Allied military prisoners and the return of defeated Japanese troops and settlers from the lost territories of the Empire.

By mid 1946, some sense of progress could be felt, with the reconstruction of Hiroshima beginning to gather pace. The maintenance of law and order and the running of the legal system was left to internal Japanese control, with the Allied field forces increasingly involved with field problems, parades and military exercises. The Japanese education system was reorganized along American lines and trade unions were organized. The reform of the Imperial Diet and the creation of a new constitution were an area of significant friction between the British and Americans, with an eventual compromise reached in the form of a constitutional monarchy with limited reserve powers, a peerage without formal powers and a bicameral parliamentary system.

The Nankaido earthquake of December 1946 caused minor disruption to the process of reconstruction and did not impede the general elections of April 25th 1947. The Liberal Party (the former Seiyūkai) won 162 seats, the Social Democrat Party 148 and the Democratic Party (the former Minseitō) 129, with minor parties and independents sharing the other 61 seats. Full restoration of sovereignty and the cessation of the state of war between the Allies and Japan was some years off into the future, but the first steps had been taken.

from Chapter 1 ‘A Sun Sets’ in ‘The Fall and Rebirth of the Empire of the Sun’ (Hereward Antonine, Cathbad University Press, 1972

Another great update simon darkshade, i have some questions.

So it seems that there are still some rough fanatical Germans out there who do not want to surrender, that make me wonder:

(1) did the Allies failed to hit a Nazi base during the Antarctic Campaign of early 1946 ore was this motership the last ship.

(2) did Grand admiral Donitz not make his radio address saying German submarines must surface and surrender as he did in OTL.

(3) so it seems that the Type XXI submarine did see some combat, but i guess to little to late.

Thanks gentlemen; nice questions

Lordroel:

The mothership was separate from the Antarctic and based forces. Donitz did order the remaining U-Boats to surrender, but the rogue remnant was part of a specially organised Werwolf group drawn from loyalists within the Kriegsmarine. The Type XXIs were used, resulting in Allied technical and tactical countermeasures.

Steve:

The majority of German forces threw in the towel after the fall of Berlin, but a fanatical core of Waffen SS and Wehrmacht personnel fought on under Heydrich, firstly from Antarctica and then from space.

Kraken, megalodons and sea serpents are but a few of the denizens of the depths; they make for a more perilous ocean, which is a small contributor to the size and armament of some vessels.

Japan was hit badly and needed very urgent support to prevent total collapse, which was rendered in the light of the rapidly developing Cold War. There are some distinct differences to its constitution and political development outlined in this vignette.

The Battle of Formosa was motivated by geopolitical considerations and differences in Allied grand strategy. Churchill did not want the Royal Navy and Royal Marines to take a distinctly secondary role in the final stages of the Pacific War. It was a prize as it gave ample space for airfields in range of Japan and China and nominally protected the flank of the Army's advance to Hong Kong and further north. Large issues of postwar roles in China and supporting different sides in the burgeoning civil war also entered calculations.

Cavorite is beginning to deteriorate; it seems that cores only have a limited life, which wasn't encountered until the late 1930s. The gravity well is not remarkably different, suggesting some changes to the gravitational constant - as said before, this is the cause of no end of vexation to scientists. Prior to the 1930s, the radio and telegraphy technology required for a workable 'artificial moon' was not yet beyond its infancy and sorcerous means of communication had mixed success. The pieces necessary to make a satellite were nominally present from the end of the Great War onwards, but the practical application of theory took a long time to come to fruition. The 1920s and 30s were also, for differing reasons, decades where funds went elsewhere. Hopefully this makes some sense.

East Africa is used from the 1950s forward, as can be seen from Tom Fowler's travels, but Woomera has an attractiveness for development work due to its remote location; there are Ministry of Space facilities spread out across the Commonwealth and Empire.

Regards,

Simon

Local colonial units such as the SDF have a public order/defence role; the KAR and similar units from East and West Africa are organised in a more formal grouping as part of the British African Army.