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that's a waste. The Twenty Committee have lots of work for him..
He was never prosecuted since he was a member of the nobility and the government did not want the common folk to realize that the upper upper class could harbor traitors.
He still potentially passed on British military aircraft capabilities to the Japanese.
basically, he should have been hanged as traitor. Of course, this should have been done with a silk rope so as not to chafe, as in "Kind Hearts and Coronets". Laurence Shirley, Fourth Earl Ferrers was last nobleman to be hanged in 1760 and this was done with a silken rope. Those hanged were taken for public exhibition and dissection. Public dissection left no doubt as to the morbidity
Or a mysterious dissapearance.
Only until after Pearl he was dismissed, yet not hanged for treason during wartime.
Story 0766
October 10, 1941 Rostov
Cold, gray rain slammed into the faces of the tired soldiers horizontally. Pellets of water hit barely opened eyes and flowed off the hunched backs burdened by moving 122 millimeter shells from river barges to the recently arrived trucks. Some of the trucks were heading to the front, while others were moving shells into stockpiles just west of the town. Two divisions had occupied the critical river port over the past week and everyone remaining in the city was involved in building its defenses. Some men and women unloaded the barges and the Black Sea coasters that carried critical supplies to the defenders and evacuated the young and the lame out of the city. Others moved supplies within the city and towards the front. Most just dug. One anti-tank ditch had already been completed just outside of the city. Another ring was being worked on five miles from the inner ring. Bunkers and dugouts were hastily being built in the mud. Concrete would not set in the rain so steel, dirt and green lumber had to be good enough.
Cold, gray rain slammed into the faces of the tired soldiers horizontally. Pellets of water hit barely opened eyes and flowed off the hunched backs burdened by moving 122 millimeter shells from river barges to the recently arrived trucks. Some of the trucks were heading to the front, while others were moving shells into stockpiles just west of the town. Two divisions had occupied the critical river port over the past week and everyone remaining in the city was involved in building its defenses. Some men and women unloaded the barges and the Black Sea coasters that carried critical supplies to the defenders and evacuated the young and the lame out of the city. Others moved supplies within the city and towards the front. Most just dug. One anti-tank ditch had already been completed just outside of the city. Another ring was being worked on five miles from the inner ring. Bunkers and dugouts were hastily being built in the mud. Concrete would not set in the rain so steel, dirt and green lumber had to be good enough.
Story 0767
October 10, 1941 0621 Benghazi
The air raid siren ceased wailing. Half a dozen Heinkels had hit the port city before dawn. Their target was the docks. And as the nuisance raids normally did, they achieved little beside disrupting the sleep of the ever growing Commonwealth garrison and logistics operation. A single wooden hoy was destroyed and two lighters were listing from near misses. Two sailors aboard a Polish destroyer were being taken to the hospital after an anti-aircraft gun ashore sprayed the superstructure of their ship with 40 millimeter shells.
General Wavell sipped his tea minutes after the air raid ended. He waited a few more minutes until the morning briefing started. This was a test run by his staff before they had to brief the corps and divisional commanders of the next operation. Sirte would be their objective, but far more importantly, the entire combined Italian-German Army was their objective. His forces were building up while the enemy struggled to maintain their strength.
XXX Corps was responsible for the holding the front near Marsa Al Brega. The New Zealanders were anchored on the coast with the Australian 7th Division in the center and the 4th Indian holding the southern flank. An army tank brigade was the corps reserve to handle any immediate threats. The 3rd Indian Motor Brigade as well as an eclectic mixture of commandos, smugglers, eccentrics and explorers secured the corps flank that hung loosely into the desert. Behind the XXX Corps, the XIII Corps was rested. The 2nd South African Division garrisoned the critical road junction at Adjabiya while the two armored divisions, 2nd and 10th, were in a series of camps south of Benghazi. The 70th, 50th and 3rd Infantry Divisions, an army tank brigade and two brigades of the Sudan Defense Force including a single camel brigade were in the army reserve. These units were mostly in Benghazi. A new corps headquarters was due to stand up at the start of the year but the communications troops had not yet arrived to support that headquarters. Back in the Delta, the 1st South African Division was resting and reconstituting as the theatre reserve.
Supply was good as the port of Benghazi was mostly open and under strong aerial protection. Hurricanes, Tomahawks and the first Spitfires provided aerial cover while a dozen squadrons of light bombers and another dozen squadrons of medium bombers were based along the coastal road between Tobruk and Benghazi. Radar and communication networks had been set up and worked well. Supply dumps were beginning to overflow as shells and fuel were coming forward in increasing quantities. The Italian submarine force was active but the coastal convoys were heavily protected and mainly worried about mines instead of torpedoes.
Across from his army were three corps, two Italian and a single German panzer corps. The two Panzer divisions were at half strength in tanks and two thirds strength in infantry and artillery after the battles that moved the front from Suluq to Marsa Al Brega. German replacements had seldom come forward as tanks and artillery were more urgently needed in Russia than Africa. What strength that had been reconstituted was from the successful cannibalization of a single wreck to keep a dozen other tanks operational and a single ship load of factory fresh tanks that arrived in September. The two Italian corps were in better shape. The mechanized corp of a single armored and a single motorized division was almost at full strength even as their tanks were undergunned and under-protected compared to the new Crusader and Stuart tanks which up the majority of the tanks in the Commonwealth armoured divisions. A line of leg infantry divisions held a series of outposts backed by brigade sized strongpoints across from the XXX Corps. Another leg division was garrisoned in the town of Marsa Al Brega itself. The motorized units, Italian and German, were held in reserve west of the front line.
The enemy had enough fuel to train. A recon Hurricane had spotted most of the Ariette Division maneuvering thirty miles behind the front yesterday afternoon. However their fuel was limited. Special intelligence sources indicated that the Axis African army could maneuver for no more than seven or eight days before facing a fuel crisis. The army had reserves stockpiled in Tripoli but that was almost five hundred road miles away. Smaller reserves were at Sirte where small coastal tankers could dock but even that limited supply entrepot was further from the front than Benghazi. The Axis air forces were skilled as the unskilled had quickly died but outnumbered. They could raid, they could challenge and they could attrite but they could not dominate their own air space. The Italian Navy could and would force convoys through to Tripoli after running a gauntlet of air attacks, submarines, cruisers and minefields deployed and sustained from Malta but they would not push supplies forward in anywhere near the bulk or frequency that the Royal Navy would push to Benghazi.
Once the assault ships were back from Kasos, Operation Misericord would go on the count-down clock. The Polish brigade and the Free French Marines would need two weeks to practice landings and the Royal Navy and allied air forces would need that time to isolate the battlefield and prepare the seas for the next offensive. But as the staffers finished their segment of the briefing, General Wavell asked for another cup of tea as he began his dress rehearsal of the operational concept.
Story 0768
October 11, 1941 Straits of Gibraltar
HMS Marlin and HMS Mackerel arrived at the great naval base after a long slow passage from America. The crews were worked up and ready. HMS Marlin did not know how narrowly she had escaped. U-97 had seen the two American built submarines as he was preparing to be the first U-boat to penetrate into the Mediterranean Sea in over two years. The young skipper maneuvered for a shot but the geometry had not settled when the local guard destroyer had rendezvoused with the two submarines at daybreak. The German U-boat descended and began her penetration into the confined sea with the hope that she could support the army which was under increasing pressure in Libya.
Interesting, fleet boats in the Med. Could they hopefully carry American torpedoes. Perhaps we could find and fix the flaws by first of 1942.
I think that was the original idea, but @fester changed his mind- too much like authorial fiat.
Question for the author- Would medium bombers not all be based back in Egypt?
Aren't they a little large for the Med? Big boats and clear waters aren't the best of combinations.
Game changer. IOTL DAF couldn't get it's hands on Mk5s (or any other models) until late summer [?] '42, given the Jagdflieger qualitative advantage against its opposition.
All Per Wikipedia (all tonnage is surfaced):
RN: U-class: 540 tons 191 feet long
RN: T-class: 1,290 tons 276 feet long
RN: Grampus class: 1,810 tons, 293 feet long
USN:
Mackerel Class: 825 tons, 243 feet long
Gato Class: 1525 tons, 311 feet long
So the 2 Mackerels are bigger than the U-class boats but smaller than everything else built post 1935 by the USN or the RN.
A single squadron has been released with the possibility of more to come from Air Defense Great Britain. Malta is not going to be a Spitfire sinkhole in this timeline.
The mediums might be back by Tobruk but the Egyptian border is several hundred miles to the rear of Benghazi which is at least another hundred direct air miles to the front. 1500 mile round trip combat sorties is in no one's interest for the RAF. As long as the airfields are reasonably secure and the supply line is frequently used, pushing the mediums to Tobruk makes a lot of sense.
and here are the relevant submarine posts:
March 1941
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/keynes-cruisers.388788/page-125#post-15046501
September 1941
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/keynes-cruisers.388788/page-194#post-15678676
Story 0769
October 12, 1941 Western Russia
“Druken”
Twenty seven men pushed the stuck truck forward six inches. Suction from the water now displaced in the newly compressed mud slowed progress off the road. They pushed again and again until the chain could be hooked underneath the front bumper and wrapped around the tree at the edge of the road. Seven minutes later, the truck was back on mostly solid ground after the two hundred meter mud pit had been crossed. Some of that mud was a natural result of the fall rains on the miserable excuse of a road network but most of the mud was from broken culverts and smashed irrigation canals that overflowed into the village. Every single step further east was more painful and exhausting than the previous one.
The cluster of men had a few minutes to themselves until the next truck started to work its way through the mud. This one made it almost halfway before being stuck. As the work gang forced the truck forward, half a dozen mortars started to fire on them. A band of bypassed Ukrainian infantrymen had been observing the German truck company for the past hour from a copse of trees two hundred yards away. As the mortar shells finished exiting their barrels, a trio of machine guns started to fire. Within seconds, every German soldier was face down in the mud. A few were trying to fire back at the remnant attacking them but mud was already getting into the open bolts of their rifles.
Twenty minutes later, seven trucks were on fire and eleven truckers were dead or dying.
Story 0770
October 12, 1941 Montmartre, Paris, France
Anna Marie held the flowers in her hand as she walked through the cemetery. The fresh flowers were held together by a simple metal band. Inside of that band was another note on the French train system. There had been increasing problems from the Michelin factories not getting enough raw materials and the Creusot works were now seeing an extra two trains a day loading and unloading materials at the arsenal. The Germans were thinking about moving the airborne division that had been ruined at Smolensk back to France for occupation duties while it was rebuilt. These observations were the most important that she had to send.
Her German lover had humored her this morning when she said that she wanted to visit Edgar Degas’ grave. She had been enraptured by his works at the last museum they had visited together, so they had taken the Metro to Montmartre with flowers in her hands. He watched his young mistress pause for a moment before the grave and place her flowers along the few other bouquets. She said a short prayer and left. As the fall afternoon turned into evening, they walked back down the hill and found a brasserie where they had a warm soup and a barely aged glass of wine. The Frenchmen around her shot her glances of contempt but said nothing to the horizontal collaborator and her German protector.
Anna Marie held the flowers in her hand as she walked through the cemetery. The fresh flowers were held together by a simple metal band. Inside of that band was another note on the French train system. There had been increasing problems from the Michelin factories not getting enough raw materials and the Creusot works were now seeing an extra two trains a day loading and unloading materials at the arsenal. The Germans were thinking about moving the airborne division that had been ruined at Smolensk back to France for occupation duties while it was rebuilt. These observations were the most important that she had to send.
Her German lover had humored her this morning when she said that she wanted to visit Edgar Degas’ grave. She had been enraptured by his works at the last museum they had visited together, so they had taken the Metro to Montmartre with flowers in her hands. He watched his young mistress pause for a moment before the grave and place her flowers along the few other bouquets. She said a short prayer and left. As the fall afternoon turned into evening, they walked back down the hill and found a brasserie where they had a warm soup and a barely aged glass of wine. The Frenchmen around her shot her glances of contempt but said nothing to the horizontal collaborator and her German protector.
One of the disadvantages of Blitzkrieg, as far as I can see, is that it leaves lots of little pockets lf resistance like these forgotten Ukrainians.
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