Fall and Rise: An ISOT

[jemhouston]

That happened quite a while ago, in both worlds. What is now following isn’t really war.

Pest Control?

[Simon Darkshade]

Something in between shooting an over large rat that wandered into your backyard with a battery of M110s and that great childhood game of “Stop hitting yourself.”

[jemhouston]

Something in between shooting an over large rat that wandered into your backyard with a battery of M110s and that great childhood game of “Stop hitting yourself.”

I was thinking about this when I posted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX39RDxA9dM

[Simon Darkshade]

A little issue that will come up in Part 5 is the @ Duke of Windsor and wife at Biarritz. In DE, he died as PoW in 1930, without there being an abdication crisis, so some of the bad blood isn’t there; it has the makings of a strange reunion, particularly with a living Prince John being part of the DE Royal Family.

Come to think of it, Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian Imperial Family are in Scotland, whilst the @ Kaiser Wilhelm is in the Netherlands…

[Simon Darkshade]

Warsaw had seen infrequent RAF overflights since The Event, with highflying Lancasters and Windsors cruising in the wild impartial skies above the Polish capital even as it suffered under the Nazi jackboot. Each night, the BBC could be heard on the wireless sets hidden in homes across the shattered capital, giving news of change, of hope and of victories. Again and again the message would come through

Hold on. Hold on. Poland has not been forgotten. The morning will come.

On this night, as to the West, Frankfurt burnt and the British Army smashed across the Seine, and in Warsaw as the Nazi oppressors continued to erect the wall around what they intended would be a Ghetto holding hundreds of thousands of Jews, the first inklings that something was afoot could be felt. For tonight, the RAF bombers dropped leaflets, telling that British, French and Polish armies were coming and that Poland would rise again.

They weren’t the only things to drop in that night.

…………….

Lieutenant-Colonel Gustavus March-Phillipps had had more comfortable landings, but the momentary discombobulation was swiftly ameliorated by his headquarters group being able to quickly assemble around their landing sight. Glider insertion from a skyship platform had been judged as the best means of getting his force into Poland on that night, taking advantage of the havoc Bomber Command was wreaking on Jerry back in Boschland.

His deputy in this hastily assembled force was an RN Lieutenant-Commander Fleming seconded from the Commandos in some intelligence role or the other, but right now, he looked to a figure on the other side of him, whose keen almond shaped eyes could penetrate through the night in a manner that a human’s could not.

”Someone is coming up ahead, through the woods approaching the field beyond next. There. They are pausing to make the signal, as appointed.”

”Hantatyë, Master Celebhethil. We may have need of your blade and magery yet on this night, but so far, so good.”

”Indeed. I’ll to my circle, then; we shall endeavour to make contact with Lord Laurefindelë in the second battalion, for they have the more fell duty ahead, even as he bears the Sumorsweord.”

The forward pickets of the British Commandos returned the appointed torch signals from the Polish Związek Walki Zbrojnej and their accompanying SOE agents hastily parachuted in to meet them.

[jemhouston]

Material for a new Bond novel, excellent.

In case you didn't know, the TV series Timeless did an episode where they went back in time to WW2 and they met up with Ian Fleming in Germany.

When they got back, there was a new (to them) James Bond novel inspired by that mission. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6046814/?ref_=ttep_ep4

[Simon Darkshade]

I haven’t come across that, thanks.

The thing in DE is that Bond is a genuine person in and of himself, having previously made an appearance fighting Nazi dinosaurs in the Congo and tracking Count Dracula.

Funny we mention Bond, as he is with the other battalion.
This one has the elf Celebheth, which means Silver Blade, being an original character.

The other one has Laurefindelë, who has been known by other names, which carry the same meaning of ‘Golden Tresses’. I am informed that he was tall and straight; his hair was of shining gold, his face fair and young and fearless and full of joy; his eyes were bright and keen, and his voice like music; on his brow sat wisdom, and in his hand was strength.

The second location being visited by his group, which includes others such as Moshe Dayan, A.D. Wintle and a Commander Bond, is a new concentration camp near the town of Oświęcim.

[Simon Darkshade]

Narvik
June 26th 1940

As Leutnant Unglückselig stood waiting on the dockside for his turn to embark upon the ship that would carry him across to England, captivity, and safety, he finally remembered the French phrase he had been trying to remember through the day.

Coup de main.

The 2nd and 3rd Mountain Divisions had retaken Narvik less than three weeks ago, and in that time had quite naturally little opportunity for the erection of any permanent or major fortified defences and fieldworks. There had been some concern of repetition of the earlier naval raids and the rampage of Warspite, but the Allied evacuation of Norway had seemed to have put paid to that prospect. In any event, General Dietl’s force had maintained outer pickets out in the Ofotfjord and the surrounding heights overlooking and controlling the approaches to Narvik harbour, and these were naturally expected to provide warning of any approaching enemy.

It was thus a circumstance of no small perturbation and confustication to the German garrison when, at 0942, an enormous British fleet had appeared in the middle of the fjord and began shelling the battered remnants of the coastal batteries and other strong points. There had been no warning, nor even any telltale sound, just a normal June morning and then a veritable maelstrom of destruction. Five huge battleships, ten cruisers and dozens of destroyers, all flying battle flags and bristling with guns, had delivered the first punch, but that had not been the most disturbing feature of the day.

Nor, for that matter, had been the sudden appearance of hundreds of English fighters and dive bombers out of an empty sky, swooping down to strike everything in feldgrau that could be seen in the open with withering cannon fire, barrages of rockets and some sort of horrific jellied gasoline bomb. It was a shock, to be sure, and he still couldn’t understand how they seemed to appear out of nowhere without the usual noise of engines, but aircraft and ships were known threats and ones that could be understood.

What had came as a true shock beyond the ken of ordinary experience was the troops who had seemingly rose up from the mountainside and fell down upon the Gebirgsjager emplaced around Narvik, for one simple reason.

They were not men.

Thousands and thousands of heavily armoured dwarves had charged down forth at the Germans, firing stubby automatic rifles and machine guns and supported by mortars and mountain howitzers. Many of the mountain troops had tried to fight back gallantly as befits good German soldiers, but they were outnumbered, outgunned and beset from all sides; those positions that did offer resistance were swiftly subdued by some form of shoulder mounted rocket launchers wielded by the dwarves or equally devastating grenade guns.

The German troops on the other side of the Rombaksfjord had the distinctly strange experience of being better off facing a surprise attack by several thousand Gurkhas, even as the tender attentions of the furious fighters from the far-off Himalayas would very, very rarely be seen as the lesser of two evils; a ferocious smile and razor sharp kukri was only ever so slightly less disconcerting than a bearded midget trying to introduce a landser’s nether regions to a doubled-bitted battleaxe.

Within an hour of the appearance of the fleet, the swarms of aircraft and the troops, all semblance of organised resistance had ceased. The landing ships carrying the Light Division then appeared from behind their screens of illusion and began to land the division directly onto the dockside, whereupon they proceeded to fan out into the town as per the carefully laid plan. Once empty, they were used to ferry the German prisoners out to the transports further out in the fjord.

The morning would see other landings at Trondheim and at Bergen, similarly using the decidedly unfair combination of concealing magics and overwhelming force to come down upon the Germans as the Assyrians of old, like a wolf on the fold. Royal Air Force bombers and Mosquitoes flying from Scotland and Gloster Reapers out of the Shetlands continued to hammer every airfield in Southern Norway through the morning, following on from the constant bombing of the last week, all working towards a greater purpose.

From airfields across the North of England, hundreds of Vickers Victoria transports took to the skies carrying the first wave of I Airborne Corps. The British and Canadian paratroopers were bound for Sola and destiny.

The liberation of Norway had begun.

[jemhouston]

The Germans are having a bad day, what fun.

[Simon Darkshade]

Considering what else occurs on this day, it turns out to be a little bit of an unpleasant one.

[Simon Darkshade]

Gulf of Suez
June 26th 1940


Ahmed was always getting into trouble and today was no exception. He knew he was supposed to stay away from the British Bofors gun position up on the Attaka headland, as they had been awfully strict over the last two weeks since the new soldiers arrived. Before then, he had always noticed them about, what with the Canal in sight across the gulf, but they had mainly been passing through on their way to more important places. There were an awful lot more of them now, with more guns as well, and wire, sandbags and signs with strange skulls and crossbones on them. Any amount of forbiddance, though, was of little consequence to ten year old boys anywhere in the world. So it was, early on this warm June morning, that he was perched in his own little alcove on one of the sandhills behind and to the side of the little fort. He liked it, as he had a wonderfully clear view of the ships out to sea as they went by on their way to Suez and the Canal.

And now he could see ships alright. More ships than he had ever seen before. Dozens and dozens of huge grey shapes, as far as the eye could see, stretched out to the south.

The Grand Fleet had arrived.

Their journey back from Singapore, well within the range of the battleships, carriers and cruisers, but pushing the destroyers, frigates and support vessels to their limit, had been without event until they had passed Aden and entered the Red Sea on June 24th. The Italian base at Kismayo in Somaliland had been visited by heavy bombers of the RAF and RNAS long before the fleet came within range, reducing it to a smouldering wreck incapable of supporting defence, let alone warships. Upon reaching the narrowing seas of the Gulf of Aden, long before even sighting the Bab al-Mandab Strait, 245 aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm had sallied forth against Assab, smashing every Italian building in the settlement with rockets, bombs and rocket-bombs, and plastering the wharves with ordnance. Massawa's turn came the next day, with those unlucky Italian destroyers, motor torpedo boats and submarines in or around the harbour devastated by over 500 Spearfish, Fireflies, Corsairs, Eagles and Buccaneers, including the first use of napalm in the continent of Africa. Those submarines and surface ships that survived the preliminary air raids did not last long nor cause any inordinate trouble as the main body of the Grand Fleet forged forward at high speed, spearheaded by dozens of the Royal Navy's fast modern destroyers.

It was this vanguard that Ahmed could see on this bright summer morn, followed by the larger cruisers and, somewhat ironically, HMS Vanguard, where two officers stood on the bridge.

"The whole Canal?" asked Captain Povey, erstwhile of the 'downtime' Mediterranean Fleet and flown down to the incoming Grand Fleet as part of their reception committee. He really didn't know what to think of these confounded hell-icopters, however dashed convenient they were. His question was mainly to himself, as, however much one might hear about a fleet of hundreds of ships from the future, the actual sight of it was enough to thoroughly discombobulate the most combobulated chap out there.

"Absolutely, Captain. We've got 25 carriers, 34 battleships and battlecruisers, 72 cruisers and 67 auxiliaries, to get through as the fast element, with the others to follow on a non-emergency basis. It'll be non-stop and we'll be running the convoys damned close together; if it weren't for the fleet's wizards, there would be no way we'd be able to get them all through in this short a time. Back when we sent the fleet out east, we only ran Force W and Force Z through Suez, with X and Y going via the Cape. 32 hours for the whole fleet is remarkable. " Commander Richard Saville thought that Povey was a bit peeky, but all things considered, that was understandable.

"What about...this?" exclaimed Povey, pointing up into the air above, where a destroyer was being lifted by two enormous 'skyships' and swiftly carried to the north. "You can't airlift a ship...It's just not right!"

"Needs must, sir. We can take eight escorts an hour like that, two in the air at a time, clearing up the canal for the bigger chaps. Think of it as portage, if you will."

"Whatever you call it, if I didn't see it, I wouldn't believe it; I can see it, and I'm still not so bally sure!"

"Look at it this way, sir - if you can't believe what is going on before your own eyes, how d'you think the reports of whatever German and Italian agents are out there are going to be received?"

Ahmed certainly had a tale to tell of that morning.

[jemhouston]

Adjusting to a new reality is always easier when they're not shooting at you.

[Simon Darkshade]

Rather.

I came upon the idea of airlifting destroyers through remembering the old Civilization II error message “Ships cannot be airlifted, silly.” and then crunching how many destroyers were present in my notes and their sizes, as well as the number of spare skyships present in the Eastern Med. It helped clear up what would otherwise be the Mother of All Bottlenecks.

[Bernard Woolley]

Captain Povey!

[Simon Darkshade]

Postwar, he may well command HMS Troutbridge.

[Bernard Woolley]

Spending most of his time fishing off the stern?

[Simon Darkshade]

London
June 26th 1940

“On the downside, we’ve lost our main uranium production facilities in Canada. One year of work and all of it now left behind. However, weighed up against that, we have several important advantages.” Sir Wallace Akers, Director of the Tube Alloys project began quietly.

”First, we’ve got the scientists - Rutherford, Moseley, Chadwick, Cockcroft, Penney, Walton, Blackett, Oliphant, Bohr, Curie, and Maxwell, the Grand Old Man. The Americans, if and when they put a programme together, will likely have as great an array of talent, but not one to put us in the shade. Germany will likely not be a competitor for more than a few weeks at this rate, and the Russians are back in 1940.

Second, we’ve got all the facilities here in Britain still intact and running - the Capenhurst gaseous diffusion plant, the graphite reactor at Valley, the atomic production sites in Cumbria and Scotland, the laboratories at Cambridge, Oxford, London and Manchester, and the coordinating establishment being built at and beneath Aldermaston.

Third, we have the knowledge. We know that a bomb is possible, we think we know how much material is needed, and we have one design that we are quite sure that will work and another that will likely require testing. Compared to where the rest of the world sits, that is a distinct advantage.

Finally, we have, or will have, the material, in the form of our own stocks and production, the French heavy water, the Belgian material in New York and that captured by the Germans over the Channel, plus whatever pitchblende comes out of this mine that is now in Belgian hands.”

”All well and good, but what does this mean? How long?” Sir Edward Appleton appreciated the scientific and production concerns, perhaps more than the other man in the room, but he also knew that a simple answer was needed.”

”Three years. In three years, we’ll have a bomb.”

”And how much will this cost?” growled the familiar third man, clutching a long extinguished and well chewed cigar.

”Factoring in rebuilding the Canadian facilities, Prime Minister, two hundred million pounds.”

”I see.”

Churchill rose from his chair and strode over to the heavily shuttered and arcanely protected window and stared at the steel for a long moment, deep in thought.

”Then you shall have it.”

[jemhouston]

Churchill never had trouble making up his mind. Whether that's good or bad, you tell me.

[Simon Darkshade]

This one isn’t a particularly difficult conundrum.

[Simon Darkshade]

Fall and Rise Part 5

The tenuous twilight war along the Seine Front had crept towards the flashing violence of the breakthrough quite gradually in the days leading up to June 24th. The British First and Second Armies and the Canadians had advanced steadily to positions stretching from Honfleur to Brionne, with vast quantities of supplies coming with them in armies of lorries, along the railway lines (including the 25 miles of new track laid with arcanely influenced haste from Caen to Pont L'Eveque) and in the daily skyship flights. Their push forward had been extremely heavily shrouded by misdirection and illusion magics, along with more prosaic means of disguise and distraction, such as the British Third Army and French conducting probing attacks around Tours and seemingly heavy concentration of tactical airpower in support of the dogged French defenders of Poitiers. RAF Mosquitoes and Buckinghams had been conducting regular high speed flights over Paris, dropping leaflets to the population promising that their deliverance would soon be at hand and that Allied help was on its way. The combination of these factors helped to drag German concentration away from the coast of Normandy in the lead up to the offensive.

Field Marshal Montgomery had set the first objective of Operation Broadsword as the Somme River at Amiens, some 61 miles away, where, depending on German opposition, British armour could then break for Sedan and the Ardennes. The Third and Fourth Armies would attack through Tours, Orleans and Troyes, whilst the Eighth Army would come through the Channel Ports after the initial breakthrough. The aim was very simply to cut off the two German army groups in France and then annhilate them, bringing the war to a swift conclusion, as directed by the Imperial War Cabinet and Supreme Allied War Council. The location of the first assault would allow Britain to deploy the maximal amount of her airpower and also bring some of her seapower to bear upon the decision.

Thus it was, at 2136 on the night of June 25th, 4268 25pdrs, 768 rocket launchers, 1984 6", 896 8", 420 9.2", 125 12", 54 18" and 12 24" howitzers erupted in a terrific hurricane bombardment of German positions along the Seine, with the first rounds arriving in a simultaneous shock to the defenders. From out to sea, they were joined by 10 monitors, 12 cruisers and 6 battleships, who concentrated their fire on the northern flank of Broadsword. After 20 minutes of general bombardment, the artillery shifted to different fire missions, depending on their type and range, whether it be direct support of advancing British infantry and mechanised troops, long ranged fire against German guns and supply lines previously identified by reconnaissance or the inexorable creeping barrage. Up and down the German line came the crackle and acrid tang of spellfire, as the massed force of British battle mages let loose with the unrestrained fury of their war wizardry, blasting enemy positions with hundreds of enormous fireballs, lightning bolts, cones of deadly frost, showers of meteors and storms of icy hail, whilst dozens of elementals of earth, fire, air and water were sent raging against a thoroughly terrified mundane foe and screaming waves of terror spells rippled through the air. From on high came the dragons of the Royal Flying Corps, raining fire, death and ruin upon the German soldiers and seeming like the worst of their nightmares taken flesh.

The combined effect of the assault was simply disintegration, with not even the doughtiest and most professional soldier of the Heer equipped to face such a force, let alone effectively counter it. First by handfuls, then in their dozens, then in their hundreds, large numbers of the survivors turned and ran for their very lives. Four corps from the assembled field armies - two British, one Canadian and one Anzac - pushed forward, supported by Churchill heavy tanks which proved nigh on impervious to whatever response the remaining shell-shocked Germans could muster. Within 54 minutes, the immediate objectives had been taken and assault troops had stormed across the Seine on boats, allowing sorcerous bridges of arcane force to be thrown up. Now the infantry parted ways allowing for the advancing elements of four armoured divisions to drive forth into the night, even as the guns lifted to their final objective of the night's fire. The German defences along the Seine had been conventionally strong, and in some cases included multiple lines of resistance, but they had not been prepared for what Roon had aptly described as a hole being blasted through their lines.

Forward into the night pushed the Centurion tanks of the leading armoured divisions, with more to follow through the crossings as the night turned through the witching hour into the early morning, and fully mechanised infantry and artillery after them. The dawn would bring new light and new knowledge of what had come to pass, along with the terrible swift sword of British airpower, but for now, in the darkness of the night, there was but the fearful and inexorable clank of the tanks, the monstrous anger of the guns and the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle.


June 25th
Cape Gris-Nez

The night was silent, yet although all was dark, all was certainly not calm. Leutnant Unglücklichesziel sat huddled in his latest foxhole and tried to will himself to sleep. Every hour for the last ten days, there had been the guns, the awful, huge Tommy guns. Sometimes the shells fell just short, causing enormous explosions out in the surf, just beyond the rocky beaches, and sometimes too long, creating fresh craters that had turned the green, green grass of this hellish home of his into a blasted hellscape or something from the moon. Yet the awful guns were the least of it all, really. The Tommy planes came over without the metronymic regularity of the artillery, but through the day and night, screaming along far too quickly at low level or droning far too high above in their hundreds, never destroying the constantly bleeding German troops at Calais, yet always inflicting just another cut, just a few more deaths, or just a few more supply trucks blasted with their infernal rockets and liquid fire. Every effort to bring up new vehicles, new guns or any meaningful supplies, or to establish more than perfunctory defences met with the same response, almost as if they were being watched.

For tonight, though, the Dover Guns had not spoken since sunset, and after being pushed to near breaking point, any respite for the unlucky and effectively helpless targets that were him and his men was most welcome indeed. It was strange, really, to have silence after so long. It even made the summer night air smell pleasantly sweet, like home.

It was a much discommoded Leutnant Manfred Unglücklichesziel who was prodded awake, almost apologetically, by the point of a British bayonet less than half an hour later. As he blinked blearily at the Commandos surrounding him, his heart leapt at the thought that he'd finally be able to get some proper sleep.

"Awfully sorry to wake you there, old crocus. We had to put your lot out to the land of nod so we could get ashore safely, what, but now we're here, we can go about getting your lot over to Blightly and a nice quiet camp. I say, they might even put you up in that new place in Steeple Bumpleigh for a bit. Anyway, I'm forgetting my manners. Captain Bertram Wooster, 8 Commando. Would you mind awfully if we took you prisoner?"

"Anything, anything." muttered the Leutnant. Anything to stop the way this Englisch schweinhund mangled German.

As he was marched away down to the beach, where dozens of LCAs had disgorged their loads of assault troops under cover of a wave of sleep spells, he looked out to the Channel. The clouds that had enshrouded the moon now parted, revealing an armada of landing ships coming in silently and steadily towards the shore. 

High above at 40,000ft, the RAF skyship assigned to aerial control of Operation Dirk, the Eighth Army's landings at the Channel Ports, had a rather better view of the goings on, thanks to her darkvision equipped arcanocameras. The 29th Infantry Division of XIV Corps was landing at Dunkirk, the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division of XXI Corps at Gravelines, the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division of XX Corps around Calais and 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division of XVIII Corps south of Boulogne. Some of the beaches selected would be less than optimal for conventional operations, but in the apparent absence of any German arcane capabilities, certain measures had been deemed possible, and the sorcerous ramps developed under Project Masada now stretched up from the sandy beaches to the clifftops above, allowing jeeps, Landies, lorries, carriers and tanks to drive up with consumate ease. What was not visible from above were the three other brigades of Commandos already pushing inland to link up with the units of the SAS Brigade and Special Raiding Squadrons previously airdropped or inserted into the porous Pas de Calais over the last 48 hours, nor indeed the Rifle brigade poised in Dover to be flown across the Channel in waves by the new helicopters once the order was given.

Aerial reconnaissance had identified only two German infantry divisions in the Pas de Calais as of last week, as most of Army Group B's strength had been drawn south to the Seine, where twenty divisions held the river line and half a dozen were held in reserve around Paris. Their transport, command, artillery and supplies had been mercilessly targeted by the fighter-bombers, attack planes and light bombers of the RAF. In the absence of organised German opposition, ensured by the continual artillery and air attacks since The Event, it was hoped that the assault divisions of the Eighth Army would be able to push inland and create a contiguous beachhead as soon as possible. Another four infantry divisions would be landed in the morning, and then the airlanding of three British armoured divisions by skyships was scheduled to begin.

General O'Connor's main objective was the same as that of Broadsword - Amiens. They would strike at the enemy like the Highlanders of old, with dirk and claymore, splitting both their attention and their fire and moving to pocket the German frontline forces. Very soon, after the quiet beginnings of the unnaturally sleepy night, Dirk would begin to draw blood.

........................................

Narvik
June 26th 1940

As Leutnant Unglückselig stood waiting on the dockside for his turn to embark upon the ship that would carry him across to England, captivity, and safety, he finally remembered the French phrase he had been trying to remember through the day.

Coup de main.

The 2nd and 3rd Mountain Divisions had retaken Narvik less than three weeks ago, and in that time had quite naturally little opportunity for the erection of any permanent or major fortified defences and fieldworks. There had been some concern of repetition of the earlier naval raids and the rampage of Warspite, but the Allied evacuation of Norway had seemed to have put paid to that prospect. In any event, General Dietl’s force had maintained outer pickets out in the Ofotfjord and the surrounding heights overlooking and controlling the approaches to Narvik harbour, and these were naturally expected to provide warning of any approaching enemy.

It was thus a circumstance of no small perturbation and confustication to the German garrison when, at 0942, an enormous British fleet had appeared in the middle of the fjord and began shelling the battered remnants of the coastal batteries and other strong points. There had been no warning, nor even any telltale sound, just a normal June morning and then a veritable maelstrom of destruction. Five huge battleships, ten cruisers and dozens of destroyers, all flying battle flags and bristling with guns, had delivered the first punch, but that had not been the most disturbing feature of the day.

Nor, for that matter, had been the sudden appearance of hundreds of English fighters and dive bombers out of an empty sky, swooping down to strike everything in feldgrau that could be seen in the open with withering cannon fire, barrages of rockets and some sort of horrific jellied gasoline bomb. It was a shock, to be sure, and he still couldn’t understand how they seemed to appear out of nowhere without the usual noise of engines, but aircraft and ships were known threats and ones that could be understood.

What had came as a true shock beyond the ken of ordinary experience was the troops who had seemingly rose up from the mountainside and fell down upon the Gebirgsjager emplaced around Narvik, for one simple reason.

They were not men.

Thousands and thousands of heavily armoured dwarves had charged down forth at the Germans, firing stubby automatic rifles and machine guns and supported by mortars and mountain howitzers. Many of the mountain troops had tried to fight back gallantly as befits good German soldiers, but they were outnumbered, outgunned and beset from all sides; those positions that did offer resistance were swiftly subdued by some form of shoulder mounted rocket launchers wielded by the dwarves or equally devastating grenade guns.

The German troops on the other side of the Rombaksfjord had the distinctly strange experience of being better off facing a surprise attack by several thousand Gurkhas, even as the tender attentions of the furious fighters from the far-off Himalayas would very, very rarely be seen as the lesser of two evils; a ferocious smile and razor sharp kukri was only ever so slightly less disconcerting than a bearded midget trying to introduce a landser’s nether regions to a doubled-bitted battleaxe.

Within an hour of the appearance of the fleet, the swarms of aircraft and the troops, all semblance of organised resistance had ceased. The landing ships carrying the Light Division then appeared from behind their screens of illusion and began to land the division directly onto the dockside, whereupon they proceeded to fan out into the town as per the carefully laid plan. Once empty, they were used to ferry the German prisoners out to the transports further out in the fjord.

The morning would see other landings at Trondheim and at Bergen, similarly using the decidedly unfair combination of concealing magics and overwhelming force to come down upon the Germans as the Assyrians of old, like a wolf on the fold. Royal Air Force bombers and Mosquitoes flying from Scotland and Gloster Reapers out of the Shetlands continued to hammer every airfield in Southern Norway through the morning, following on from the constant bombing of the last week, all working towards a greater purpose.

From airfields across the North of England, hundreds of Vickers Victoria transports took to the skies carrying the first wave of I Airborne Corps. The British and Canadian paratroopers were bound for Sola and destiny.

The liberation of Norway had begun.

.......................................


Gulf of Suez
June 26th 1940


Ahmed was always getting into trouble and today was no exception. He knew he was supposed to stay away from the British Bofors gun position up on the Attaka headland, as they had been awfully strict over the last two weeks since the new soldiers arrived. Before then, he had always noticed them about, what with the Canal in sight across the gulf, but they had mainly been passing through on their way to more important places. There were an awful lot more of them now, with more guns as well, and wire, sandbags and signs with strange skulls and crossbones on them. Any amount of forbiddance, though, was of little consequence to ten year old boys anywhere in the world. So it was, early on this warm June morning, that he was perched in his own little alcove on one of the sandhills behind and to the side of the little fort. He liked it, as he had a wonderfully clear view of the ships out to sea as they went by on their way to Suez and the Canal.

And now he could see ships alright. More ships than he had ever seen before. Dozens and dozens of huge grey shapes, as far as the eye could see, stretched out to the south.

The Grand Fleet had arrived.

Their journey back from Singapore, well within the range of the battleships, carriers and cruisers, but pushing the destroyers, frigates and support vessels to their limit, had been without event until they had passed Aden and entered the Red Sea on June 24th. The Italian base at Kismayo in Somaliland had been visited by heavy bombers of the RAF and RNAS long before the fleet came within range, reducing it to a smouldering wreck incapable of supporting defence, let alone warships. Upon reaching the narrowing seas of the Gulf of Aden, long before even sighting the Bab al-Mandab Strait, 245 aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm had sallied forth against Assab, smashing every Italian building in the settlement with rockets, bombs and rocket-bombs, and plastering the wharves with ordnance. Massawa's turn came the next day, with those unlucky Italian destroyers, motor torpedo boats and submarines in or around the harbour devastated by over 500 Spearfish, Fireflies, Corsairs, Eagles and Buccaneers, including the first use of napalm in the continent of Africa. Those submarines and surface ships that survived the preliminary air raids did not last long nor cause any inordinate trouble as the main body of the Grand Fleet forged forward at high speed, spearheaded by dozens of the Royal Navy's fast modern destroyers.

It was this vanguard that Ahmed could see on this bright summer morn, followed by the larger cruisers and, somewhat ironically, HMS Vanguard, where two officers stood on the bridge.

"The whole Canal?" asked Captain Povey, erstwhile of the 'downtime' Mediterranean Fleet and flown down to the incoming Grand Fleet as part of their reception committee. He really didn't know what to think of these confounded hell-icopters, however dashed convenient they were. His question was mainly to himself, as, however much one might hear about a fleet of hundreds of ships from the future, the actual sight of it was enough to thoroughly discombobulate the most combobulated chap out there.

"Absolutely, Captain. We've got 25 carriers, 34 battleships and battlecruisers, 72 cruisers and 67 auxiliaries, to get through as the fast element, with the others to follow on a non-emergency basis. It'll be non-stop and we'll be running the convoys damned close together; if it weren't for the fleet's wizards, there would be no way we'd be able to get them all through in this short a time. Back when we sent the fleet out east, we only ran Force W and Force Z through Suez, with X and Y going via the Cape. 32 hours for the whole fleet is remarkable. " Commander Richard Saville thought that Povey was a bit peeky, but all things considered, that was understandable.

"What about...this?" exclaimed Povey, pointing up into the air above, where a destroyer was being lifted by two enormous 'skyships' and swiftly carried to the north. "You can't airlift a ship...It's just not right!"

"Needs must, sir. We can take eight escorts an hour like that, two in the air at a time, clearing up the canal for the bigger chaps. Think of it as portage, if you will."

"Whatever you call it, if I didn't see it, I wouldn't believe it; I can see it, and I'm still not so bally sure!"

"Look at it this way, sir - if you can't believe what is going on before your own eyes, how d'you think the reports of whatever German and Italian agents are out there are going to be received?"

Ahmed certainly had a tale to tell of that morning.

.........................................

London
June 26th 1940

“On the downside, we’ve lost our main uranium production facilities in Canada. One year of work and all of it now left behind. However, weighed up against that, we have several important advantages.” Sir Wallace Akers, Director of the Tube Alloys project began quietly.

”First, we’ve got the scientists - Rutherford, Moseley, Chadwick, Cockcroft, Penney, Walton, Blackett, Oliphant, Bohr, Curie, and Maxwell, the Grand Old Man. The Americans, if and when they put a programme together, will likely have as great an array of talent, but not one to put us in the shade. Germany will likely not be a competitor for more than a few weeks at this rate, and the Russians are back in 1940.

Second, we’ve got all the facilities here in Britain still intact and running - the Capenhurst gaseous diffusion plant, the graphite reactor at Valley, the atomic production sites in Cumbria and Scotland, the laboratories at Cambridge, Oxford, London and Manchester, and the coordinating establishment being built at and beneath Aldermaston.

Third, we have the knowledge. We know that a bomb is possible, we think we know how much material is needed, and we have one design that we are quite sure that will work and another that will likely require testing. Compared to where the rest of the world sits, that is a distinct advantage.

Finally, we have, or will have, the material, in the form of our own stocks and production, the French heavy water, the Belgian material in New York and that captured by the Germans over the Channel, plus whatever pitchblende comes out of this mine that is now in Belgian hands.”

”All well and good, but what does this mean? How long?” Sir Edward Appleton appreciated the scientific and production concerns, perhaps more than the other man in the room, but he also knew that a simple answer was needed.”

”Three years. In three years, we’ll have a bomb.”

”And how much will this cost?” growled the familiar third man, clutching a long extinguished and well chewed cigar.

”Factoring in rebuilding the Canadian facilities, Prime Minister, two hundred million pounds.”

”I see.”

Churchill rose from his chair and strode over to the heavily shuttered and arcanely protected window and stared at the steel for a long moment, deep in thought.

”Then you shall have it.”

..............................................

June 26th 1940
Somewhere over the Western Approaches
The journey of the special delegation from the United States of America had been swift, travelling as it did in the British skyship that had come to America less than a week previously. Harry Hopkins was the de facto leader of the group, as President Roosevelt's personal representative, along with Admiral King, Admiral Richmond K. Turner, Vice-Admiral Victor 'Pug' Henry, Brigadier-General Holland Smith of the USMC, Rear-Admiral Chester Nimitz, who the British had 'suggested' be a part of the delegation, Brigadier-General William Bryden, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, Colonel Carl Spaatz of the Army Air Corps, and a Colonel Dwight Eisenhower, who the British had similarly seemed to recognise and had evinced a curious level of amity and respect towards.

The trip back across the Atlantic had taken a little longer, due to some sort of air currents and other factors that Hopkins had found as alien gibberish, in addition to taking a different route to the north for unspecified security reasons. After travelling most of the distance under the cover of night, they had been met by an escort of some sort of twin-engined fighters almost two hours ago shortly after dawn, which Admiral King had discovered from the 'goddamned Limeys' were known as de Havilland Mosquitoes, and whose presence indicated that they were approaching the shores of Ireland. As they crossed the coast of the Emerald Isle, the Mosquito escort gave way to the slightly more familiar sight of Spitfires, a dozen of which took up position on the flanks of the skyship as they gradually descended from their transatlantic cruising height of well over 40,000 feet. Their sojourn over Ireland lasted barely 20 minutes, and after Dublin blinked below them, they were over the Irish Sea.

"That is...one hell of a battleship..." remarked Hopkins as they passed over a seemingly vast Royal Navy man of war as they flew in towards Liverpool Bay. "How large would you say that was, Admiral King?"

Admiral King, who had momentarily turned an attractive shade of puce for some reason, was unable to provide an immediate estimation, but as luck would have it, Lord Chatfield, who had changed into his formal uniform ahead of landing, was passing by the pair and was able to chime in.

"In excess of 125,000 tons, roughly speaking. Over 1100 feet long, and carrying the standard modern armament of eight 24" guns."

"My goodness. 24 inch guns?! That is standard for your Royal Navy?" murmured Hopkins.

"Yes, rather. Only that isn't a British ship, by the look of her. That would appear to be a Royal Canadian Navy ship, HMCS America. They have three other modern ships over with the Home Fleet at the moment - Admiral King, are you quite alright?"

King had now turned a deeper red and was overcome by a coughing fit, which thankfully subsided quickly, and he waved away the offer of a restorative cup of tea from the solicitous Chatfield.

The seeming exhibition continued as they came in lower over Birkenhead, with the large aircraft carrier Malta taking up the largest slip in the Cammell Laird yard, until they finally landed at RAF Burtonwood, where a convoy of cars was waiting to take them to their special train to London at Warrington Bank Quay station.

They sped through the sunny English morning at a considerably higher rate than they had been used to in the United States, with the 150mph speed being apologetically described by Sir Anthony Eden as 'not really on a par with the Flying Scotsman, but needs must in wartime.' A little over two hours later, after passing a field of tanks waiting for entrainment and deployment to France, they pulled into Euston Station.

There, awaiting them under the grand Euston Arch, amid high security, they were greeted by Sir Winston Churchill.


..................

June 26th 1940
France

The shift of German forces to counter the renewed British threat over the last fortnight had lead to a stabilisation of the French front in the middle of the country along a rough line from Poitiers to Lyon. Further advances had ground to a halt as the cumulative impact of RAF fighter-bomber attacks and light bomber raids had devastated the already heavily stretched logistical lines of supply of the Heer; pursuing a crumbling French Army was one thing, but now that same force had rebounded back from the brink of the grave, contesting every hamlet and crossroads in conjunction with the Allied dominance of the air. The hedgehog defence advocated by General Weygand now was getting a chance to work, and as the mobile elements of the German forces were gradually attrited, the fighting had come to a relative lull.

Contingency plans for the reinforcement of the French by more substantial elements of British forces had thus diminished in importance, although elements of two corps had been flown into place to stiffen the French resistance in the unlikely event of a renewed German push. All along the front, day by day, the French Army rallied, taking advantage of the relief from pressure to reform, rearm, rest and prepare for the liberation to come.

In the east, the French troops holding the famed Maginot Line had fought on doggedly against the dual threats of Guderian in their rear and Heersgruppe A across the Rhine, but no longer in a pointless struggle, and no longer without support. After the larger part of the Luftwaffe's fighter forces had been destroyed, RAF Wellingtons and the medium bomber forces had begun plastering German positions across the Rhine and their advancing lines of supply from Sedan alike, and they had been joined by hundreds of the longer ranged fighter-bombers, who now operated with relative impunity over the front in Northern France.

The situation was delicately poised prior to the British offensives across the Seine and into the Pas de Calais; after that point, the balance of the Battle of France had been irrevocably changed.


.......................................
Warsaw had seen infrequent RAF overflights since The Event, with highflying Lancasters and Windsors cruising in the wild impartial skies above the Polish capital even as it suffered under the Nazi jackboot. Each night, the BBC could be heard on the wireless sets hidden in homes across the shattered capital, giving news of change, of hope and of victories. Again and again the message would come through

Hold on. Hold on. Poland has not been forgotten. The morning will come.

On this night, as to the West, Frankfurt burnt and the British Army smashed across the Seine, and in Warsaw as the Nazi oppressors continued to erect the wall around what they intended would be a Ghetto holding hundreds of thousands of Jews, the first inklings that something was afoot could be felt. For tonight, the RAF bombers dropped leaflets, telling that British, French and Polish armies were coming and that Poland would rise again.

They weren’t the only things to drop in that night.

…………….

Lieutenant-Colonel Gustavus March-Phillipps had had more comfortable landings, but the momentary discombobulation was swiftly ameliorated by his headquarters group being able to quickly assemble around their landing sight. Glider insertion from a skyship platform had been judged as the best means of getting his force into Poland on that night, taking advantage of the havoc Bomber Command was wreaking on Jerry back in Boschland.

His deputy in this hastily assembled force was an RN Lieutenant-Commander Fleming seconded from the Commandos in some intelligence role or the other, but right now, he looked to a figure on the other side of him, whose keen almond shaped eyes could penetrate through the night in a manner that a human’s could not.

”Someone is coming up ahead, through the woods approaching the field beyond next. There. They are pausing to make the signal, as appointed.”

”Hantatyë, Master Celebhethil. We may have need of your blade and magery yet on this night, but so far, so good.”

”Indeed. I’ll to my circle, then; we shall endeavour to make contact with Lord Laurefindelë in the second battalion, for they have the more fell duty ahead, even as he bears the Sumorsweord.”

The forward pickets of the British Commandos returned the appointed torch signals from the Polish Związek Walki Zbrojnej and their accompanying SOE agents hastily parachuted in to meet them.


The SS concentration camp at Auschwitz was a relatively new facility, having been built in the first half of the year, and having only received its first prisoners a little over a month ago, followed by a larger consignment of Polish prisoners from Tarnow. The unspeakable horrors that were to come in another time and place were as yet not manifested in their full satanic extent, being confined for now to the dreams of the most evil of men and the nightmares of others, but the camp was still a place of oppression, of starvation, of bestial inhuman cruelty and of profound misery for those imprisoned within.

Its defences, but a pale shadow of the fences and minefields of a future that would never come, were yet partial, and designed to keep the wretched denizens within, rather than keep those without from a forced entry. The SS camp guards, cruel and sadistic as they were towards the defenceless, were not prepared to face a real fight, not in equipment, training or temperament.

Thus was the situation on the night of June 26th, 1940, a still and warm night here in Southern Poland, far from the fire and fury in France.

Still, but not empty.

For in the fields and woods beyond the camp's fences, a force of one battalion of British Commandos, one of Free Polish paratroopers, and a combined force of SAS troopers and commandos from the Israeli Army, along with over six hundred men of the Armia Krajowa stood poised to strike back against one of the purest manifestations of utter evil that had ever blighted the Earth, to liberate it and banish the very chance of what might have been. Lieutenant-Colonel March-Phillipps and his force held their extraction airfield three miles away, where they would load up on the waiting skyship, along with every man now held within that evil place.

A tall and straight elf lord stood in the trees. His hair was as of shining gold, his face fair and young and fearless and full of a terrible wrath and his eyes were bright and keen and fixed with purpose. On his brow sat the wisdom of ages, and in his hands was strength, and a drawn silver blade that glowed blue in the moonlight.

"Are you ready, Captain Dayan?" he asked in a voice like music to the eye patch wearing Israeli commando, who nodded grimly in reply. "Commander Bond?" The tall, slim man in black fatigues replied similarly wordlessly, the scar on his right cheek stretching as he bared the teeth of his cruel mouth in anticipation of what was to come.

"Very well."

Lord Laurefindelë, he who had fought many battles in ages past and long forgotten to man, stepped forth from the trees and uttered a Word of Power. The gates of Auschwitz exploded in fire and tempest, and the wire and watchtowers collapsed into ruin.

Forth now from the woods and fields came the force of Englishmen, Poles, Scotsmen, Irishmen, Welshmen, Israelis, and men from half a dozen other nations. Leading them forward, afire with fell fury and glowing with ancient power, was the elflord, and others of his kind, and those German guards who beheld them were filled with terror at their might. There was much firing of machine guns, mortars, and bazookas, as the German barracks were raked with a storm of fire, and with mighty spells of arcane flame, lightning and ice called down by the elven warrior mages. No quarter was offered to the SS men there, and Laurefindelë seemed taller and more terrible as he went on, and he sang as he slew.

Finally, the last resistance was over, and into the prisoner barracks went the men of the Home Army, speaking to their countrymen in their own tongue, and Free German commandos of the King's German Legion, offering succour to their erstwhile compatriots in the struggle against Hitlerism. The prisoners were shepherded out through the destroyed gates, as other commandos and paratroopers laid explosives and long delay mines to thoroughly destroy this place of darkness, and out into the night they went as free men, liberated by warriors of Poland, and soldiers of the King.

As they made their way to the now landed skyship for their extraction, the elflord turned to take one last look at the burning ruins of the camp.

"Would that we could do more."

"Aye, my Lord." spoke Commander Fleming. "Would that we could. Every little victory is a victory still, though, and we struck one blow against the dark this night. More will come."

"They will indeed. This place and these men will do no evil here again, not in this age. The real victory will come."

With that, they strode off into the night. Behind them, Auschwitz had fallen to rise no more.


.......................................
June 26th 1940
Adlerhorst

"Mein Fuhrer, the situation on the Western Front has shifted. The English enemy has managed to break through across a broad area over the last two days, and they have also landed substantial forces all through the Pas de Calais. In the south, the enemy has managed to encircle Paris and is pushing forward on Reims. They are pushing across a broad front in the north, with advanced reconnaissance units reported in action at Lille, whilst our forces at Amiens are on the cusp of being surrounded. Their main thrust has, at its last known point, penetrated as far as Saint Quentin."

"Everything will be put right with Von Rundstedt's counterattack. He has assured me that he was going to strike at the treacherous English schweinhunds with his reserves at Compiegne."

"Mein Fuhrer...Von Rundstedt..."

"Von Rundstedt could not muster enough reserves for a decisive attack. It did not take place...and his adjutant has informed us that the Generaloberst was...eaten by a dragon."

"What?!"

"Mein Fuhrer, we know this is unbelievable -"

"You're damn right it is unbelievable! You cowards! Traitors! Swinish losers! How can you betray me -"

Adolf Hitler was warming up to quite the performance, a rant the likes of which...you've never seen the likes of which. In his head, he was already putting together the greatest hits: the downfall of Prussian military idiocy, his genius and the preposterous lies that his useless underlings were feeding him. Unfortunately, this process was interrupted by a strange noise from outside his command bunker. It was something that he absolutely wasn't expecting to hear.

Laughter.

Only, this wasn't any kind of laughter. It started slowly, then erupted into complete and utter hysteria, before suddenly being cut off with a succession of thumps.

"What the - "

His exclamation was cut off by the heavy steel door blowing up and a chorus of extremely bad German accents calling some gibberish through it

"Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!"

That didn't even make sense!

Suddenly, Jodl guffawed and bent over double, and Keitel turned to face the corner.

"What is going on? This isn't even funny!"

"We'll just have to do this the old fashioned way! Woof woof!"

The last thing Adolf Hitler saw before being knocked unconscious was an extremely dashing British officer swinging into the room on a rope, his boot aimed right in the Fuhrer's face.

"Heil honey, I'm home!"