“Most of the planning has been underway on a theoretical level for a very long time as you know, Mein Führer. The conversion of dozens of merchantmen and seaworthy barges into landing ships is well underway already, along with the construction of specialised assault craft for the initial attack waves. Our thoughts are that mid-to-late September would be the optimum time for an invasion.”
“The exact date…?”
“The seventeenth of that month seems most appropriate: Herr Müller, our chief technical advisor assures me that the weather patterns should remain the same regardless of how we change history, and we should be guaranteed ten full days of clear weather from the 16th of September. That’ll be more than enough to establish a solid beachhead that can be resupplied: the RAF is practically destroyed, and without the RAF, the Royal Navy will be massacred if it tries to interdict our forces.”
“This will be a difficult operation?” A foot soldier during the First War, The Chancellor was largely ignorant of naval matters.
“Not particularly difficult, Mein Führer, in terms of seaborne operations… although no seaborne invasion is truly simple: most of our forces are required to cross less than forty kilometres of Channel, although some bound for the Portsmouth area and The Solent will have a bit further to go. All of that will be under the cover of naval guns and air power: both Bismarck and Tirpitz are already operational, as will be Derfflinger and Von der Tann by then. With the capital ships we already have, their added firepower should be more than sufficient to create havoc on the defending beaches. We also have attack aircraft from the carriers Graf Zeppelin, Seydlitz and Hindenburg available to strike where land-based aircraft cannot effectively reach.
“There are more than one hundred thousand men available for the initial assault, including twenty thousand fallschirmjäger to take key defensive positions such as bridges and airfields in Kent and Sussex. Two complete panzer divisions will also have been completely re-equipped with Panther tanks for the invasion, along with the 1st and 3rd SS Shock Divisions. Our kampfgruppen will be hitting their supply bases, railheads and fuel dumps in rear echelon areas and all over Britain, and we can bring England completely to her knees within a few days once the full power of the Wehrmacht is unleashed. The moment that Britain is ours, Mein Führer, the security of Grossdeutschland will be truly assured for a thousand years!”
Hitler nodded slowly, still vaguely dubious but somewhat mollified…perhaps the loss of these few jet aircraft was really not so bad after all. “Very well, then,” he said finally as he closed the folder in his hands. “Barring accidents or unforeseen problems, we shall set the date for Seelöwe as September Seventeen.” He nodded sagely at his own final decision. “Begin final build-ups and planning for that date.”
“With regard to these newcomers, I leave things to you for the time being, Herr Reichsmarschall.” He added darkly with a deadly serious gaze. “I’m sure you can see as well as I, the necessity of destroying this enemy completely… I trust that you’ll take to that with requisite endeavour and remove this minor problem from my mind…” That statement chilled both men present to the core: it was a very thinly-veiled warning that The Chancellor didn’t expect to need to hear about the problem again.
8. Reality Checks
Luftwaffe airfield near The Berghof
Berchtesgaden, Germany
Tuesday
July 2, 1940
A small, private room was fitted into Reuters’ converted T-1A transport between the cockpit and the Reichsmarschall’s ‘office’, and inside that room were four folding cots, a small refrigerator and basic cooking facilities for the preparation of tea and coffee and simple meals. It was upon two of those cots that Reuters and Schiller reclined later that evening, preferring the privacy of their own aircraft to the more comfortable quarters (and obligatory political machinations) on offer nearby at the Berghof.
“He’s very unimpressed,” Schiller observed softly in the faint illumination of a single, low-powered lamp fitted above the bulkhead door to the cockpit. He picked his words carefully despite their relative privacy… it never paid to assume other ears weren’t listening this close to The Führer: one never knew who might be listening, after all.
“I expected no better,” Reuters admitted sourly, “could’ve been a good deal worse in fact. The important thing now is that we make sure Thorne and his cronies are no longer problem.”
“The remaining Flankers…?” Schiller theorised, thinking as he spoke. “They could lob-toss some thousand kilogram bombs in from low-level before their point-defence weapons could react…”
“No,” The Reichsmarschall replied quickly, cutting off his train of thought. “We’re not going to risk the rest of the jets just yet… with any luck we won’t have to… and any air attack would be a very bloody affair regardless of whether we go with conventional aircraft or the jets — or both, for that matter. In any case, a lob-toss attack might not be accurate enough.”
“‘Not accurate enough.’?” Schiller repeated the words with mild disbelief as a question. “You do remember what a tonne of high explosive can do, don’t you? Remember those poor old army beginnings and those nasty old live-fire exercises?” The light sarcasm in the so-called ‘questions’ raised a broad and somewhat exasperated grin from his friend and superior officer.
“Yes, Albert, I know what a thousand kilogram bomb can do to a target… and yes… we could probably drop them onto the correct end of that runway without a great deal of difficulty. Getting the Flankers out afterward might be more of a problem however,” he added pointedly, “and if the targets we want aren’t there at the time…?” He left that question hanging for a few moments as it hit home. “We know what they have there now — the aircraft and some of their air defences at least — but when we do spring our next attack we’ll also need to know exactly what’s going on there on the ground at the time.”
“And how do you suggest we manage that?” Schiller enquired with a smile. “Scapa Flow’s the Home Fleet’s home base, and thanks to our ‘friends’ at Hindsight, it isn’t the easy pickings it should’ve been this early into the war. There are regular anti-submarine patrols by air and sea, and the Royal Navy’s use of sonar is a damned sight better and more frequent than it should be, too! Even with one of the new Type-Tens, we’d be lucky to get a U-boat within visual range of anything on that base, and I wouldn’t fancy being a member of the aircrew on any reconnaissance aircraft trying to get within range either — not for the five seconds they lasted, anyway…”