The Invasion of 1950

Chapter Twenty-Seven

London, England

Alex DeRiemer stepped into the underground Cabinet Room and dropped into one of the chairs against the wall as the principles took their seats before the meeting began. His status was uncertain at the moment, much to his concern; Churchill had ordered him to act as a personal assistant, but also to handle some of the intelligence and assessment work for MI6, so that Churchill could have access to up-to-date information. DeRiemer’s correct prediction of a German attack had made an impression on Churchill, but he wasn’t sure if he was actually qualified to do some of the other work that Churchill wanted. The Prime Minister, it seemed, didn’t always trust his own people.

The politics were a tangled web. Churchill had trounced the faction that had wanted to co-exist with Nazi Germany — and Hitler in particular — after the attacks on London and the invasion, and that particular faction was keeping its heads down, well aware that they could be blamed for the invasion. Other groups, however, weren’t too keen on Churchill, such as the party that distrusted him personally, or the clique that wanted to make a compromise peace with Germany. Churchill stood against any such peace and, so far, had the votes in the Houses of Parliament to remain firm in his conviction, but if there was a major disaster, his position could change very rapidly. The question was simple. Did Churchill understand that?

DeRiemer shrugged as the room filled up. Churchill hadn’t hesitated to sack a few dozen people he’d called appeasers, but there were others whose views were more hidden even from Churchill. They watched and waited, hoping for victory, but prepared to sell out for the best terms they could get if the Germans won the war. Somewhere in the darkness, knives were being sharpened; DeRiemer didn’t want to be there when one of the factions finally made its move. It would be disaster.

Churchill tapped the table and the room fell silent. “Stafford, I believe that you were in direct communication with President Taft,” he said. It had been hard for Sir Stafford Cripps, temporary Foreign Secretary, to convince Churchill to leave matters in his hands, rather than talking to the Americans directly. Churchill didn’t like him much, as he had been working to stabilise Churchill’s beloved India before independence, and DeRiemer suspected that the feeling was mutual. “What is the American position on the war?”

“President Taft remains strongly convinced that isolation is the best policy for his country,” Sir Stafford said, his upper-class voice echoing around the room. “Regardless, he has agreed to allow our ships transit through the Panama Canal — which technically he shouldn’t allow as a neutral player in the conflict — and, in addition, the United States Navy will be providing us with some additional escort in the Caribbean, officially because of American concerns about a conflict breaking out there. The French islands remain a constant concern to the Americans, and they have actually considered demanding that the French demilitarise them and submit to American oversight.”

He paused. “He has also agreed to extend us lines of credit regarding the purchase of weapons and ammunition within America itself, and to raise no objection to Americans travelling to Britain and joining our armed forces,” Sir Stafford continued. “There are actually several hundred volunteer units being formed now, although those units are of questionable quality, and there may actually be several hundred thousand Americans coming to join the defences. We have a particularly high rate of volunteers from the American Jewish Community, which is the most vocal in support of us and against the Germans.”

The American Jews had made the Germans an offer back in 1944; they’d offered to pay a bounty for Jews if they were allowed to leave the Reich and travel to America. The Nazis had driven a hard bargain, but in the end, several hundred thousand Jews, many of them Russian or French, had been permitted to leave the Reich with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Their tales of horror, from the concentration camps to the massive slave labour gangs as the Germans built their empire, had shocked America; it had provided most of the impetus to keep the United States Navy strong and active.

“Regardless, unless the Germans do something very stupid, I don’t think that the Americans as a whole will join the war,” Sir Stafford concluded. “I do not believe that Taft would seek to ask Congress for a declaration of war, unless the Germans actually attacked an American ship or American interests in a blatant act of war, and even if he did, it would be hard to convince the American people to support the war.”

Churchill’s great face scowled and DeRiemer could almost follow his thoughts. In 1941, there had been rumours that Japan considered attacking the United States and Hitler might have been dragged in, as an ally of Japan. The thought of the vast, largely unrealised, potential of the American industrial machine was enough to make any British statesman salivate. If Japan had attacked the Americans, they would have joined the war and it would have been over. Instead, Japan had struck north, taken a terrible beating from the Russians, and lost all enthusiasm for further military adventures. The Japanese were locked in a permanent struggle with China, trying to subdue the ruins of the Chinese state. They wouldn’t come boiling out of their Home Islands towards British or American territory now.

Sir Stafford coughed. “The good news is that both Canada and Australia have pledged their support, and the first army units should be on their way within the week, but it will be several weeks before we get anyone from Australia now that we cannot use the Suez Canal,” he said. “I have suggested that the Australian troop ships meet up with the Eastern Fleet and allow them to escort them to Britain, while the Royal Canadian Navy and the remains of Home Fleet will be providing cover for the Canadians. It will take longer to add Canadian air units to our order of battle here, but they have been pledged and we will have them here as soon as they can be shipped across the Atlantic.”

Admiral Cunningham coughed. “We can expect the Germans to make an attempt at sinking them,” he said. “It would be an easy way to remove the Canadians from the balance sheet, and it will take the Canadians far too long to build up a replacement army, assuming that they actually can build up a second force. Canada doesn’t allow conscripts to serve overseas against their will, so the Germans will certainly try to influence Canadian public opinion through slaughtering their soldiers.”

“True enough,” Churchill said. “Sir Stafford, what is your opinion of South Africa’s stance?”

“They’re conflicted,” Sir Stafford admitted. “They have quite a large German element within their population, mainly Germans who were considered too unsuitable for the Reich and exiled to South Africa, and that population is not keen on fighting the Reich. They also have their own internal troubles with their black population. Smuts believes that he can hold the state together, but he may not be able to secure a declaration of war. They’ll give us what support they can, short of war, but they may never join the war formally.”

“I see,” Churchill rumbled, his face unreadable. He’d been in South Africa during the Boer War, DeRiemer remembered; what was he thinking now? Did he remember how the Boers had resisted the British Empire and held out long enough to earn the respect and admiration of the world? “Christopher, how do we stand for war stocks?”

Christopher Parkinson, the Minister for Industrial Production, stood up. He produced a vast sheet of notes and glanced down at it from time to time as he talked. He had the incredibly dry voice of the committed bureaucrat and a face like a pinched rat; he wouldn’t have been given a Cabinet post normally, DeRiemer knew, but his senior had been killed by the German raid. Churchill was given no option but to promote him, but it was only a temporary promotion. Parkinson lacked the ability to inspire or lead anyone.

“The reserve of war stocks has been badly eaten by the war,” Parkinson said, his voice as dull as ditch-water. “We built up a massive reserve for the expected war, but the fighting has drained it faster than we predicted, with the net result that we are experiencing shortages in some areas, mainly heavy artillery shells and bombs. Our factories were switched over to war production by order of the Prime Minister the day after the war began, but it will take time to adjust everything to producing war stocks, even though we had plans for a rapid conversion worked out over the years. The Germans have not yet begun to bomb factories, although we expect that will change in the very near future, but the damage they have caused to the transport network is causing shortages and bottlenecks right across the country.”

He paused long enough to wipe his spectacles. “The other major shortage is petroleum,” he said. “The Germans hit one of the main fuel dumps at Scapa Flow and burned most of it off before the fire could be extinguished, while one other fuel deport has actually fallen into German hands. Again, the damage to the transport network has had a major effect on our ability to supply fuel to where it’s needed, although we have had some success in commandeering supplies from petrol stations and some civilian industries that are not war-essential.

“Regardless, oil remains one of our major weaknesses,” he continued. “We normally get oil supplies from Iraq and America, but with the Iranians spoiling for an attack into Iraq, we may lose those oil terminals soon. Once that happens, we will be dependent upon oil coming from America, while German submarines will certainly try to hammer those links. Overall, Prime Minister, we may have enough fuel supplies for six months, but frankly I feel that that is far too optimistic.

“The situation regarding food is actually fairly similar,” he concluded. “We built up our farms as much as possible over the years since Hitler tried to starve us out the first time, but we still import considerable amounts of foodstuffs from around the world. The secondary problem involves damage to the transport network, which means that some areas of the country have more than enough food to eat, while others are continually on the verge of starving. The rationing system remains in place, but it has started to fray as people realise that there may not be enough food to go around. The word on the street is that the rich have enough to eat and the poor… can starve for all they care.”

DeRiemer watched Churchill’s face carefully. There had been abuses of the system and Atlee’s Government had ordered an open investigation, revealing dozens of abuses that could, with some imagination, be blamed on Churchill and his Government. It had poisoned the minds of the citizens in some parts of Britain. Now, with a war on, such distractions could be fatal to the country as a whole.

“I want the system to be as open and fair as possible,” Churchill said, finally. He must have felt some of the taunts that had been directed at him in the past. “Are there any other major problems?”

“The refugees,” Parkinson said. His nose managed to pinch still further. “We ordered people to remain at home, but several tens of thousands were able to leave and escape the German noose; unfortunately they’re now draining resources from wherever they ended up. What exactly are we going to do with them?”

Churchill eyed him. “I expect you to treat them as you would any other British citizen,” he said, a dark tone in his voice. “I do not feel that we can blame people for retreating from the Germans, not after the rumours of German atrocities spread, and you will not penalise them for their actions. Find them something useful to do if you can, but you are certainly not to drive them back into the arms of the Germans, understand?”

Parkinson started to say something, caught Churchill’s eye, and fell silent. “Now,” Churchill said, “Admiral; what is the current status of the fleet and the convoys?”

Admiral Cunningham frowned as he answered, “We have taken most of Home Fleet’s destroyers and assigned them to convoy protection duties. The Germans didn’t launch any major U-boat attacks for a few days, which was lucky as we didn’t have any convoys organised and scrambled to put an escort system together. The Germans are attacking convoys now, but we’re hitting U-boats as well and some of our ships have been using American flags, just to provide some measure of protection. Overall, however, we have had some serious losses, and it will only get worse despite the high degree of protection. We don’t have enough convoy escort ships, and if they send one or more of their battleships on a raiding mission, they’re going to blow through convoy defences and annihilate the convoy.”

He paused. “We have continued to raid their supply lines at night and even risked a night bombardment of their positions, but they’re cutting back on their night time convoys, so that’s going to be less effective as time goes on,” he said. “Until we get the reinforcements, we’re just going to be able to hold our own against the Germans and preserve as much as we can of the remaining fleet.”

Churchill stood up.

“The situation looks grim,” he said firmly. “Regardless, the night always looks darkest before the dawn, and we must not despair. They too have their problems; they too have issues with the inflexible laws of supply and military logistics. They can be beaten, gentlemen, and we will defeat them. We will burn them out of England and show Hitler’s enemies that though he is evil incarnate, he can be beaten.”

On that note, the meeting ended. “I need a word with you, Prime Minister,” Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies said. The Director of MI6 leaned closer. “This concerns Percy and Alex as well.”

Churchill waited until the room was cleared of everyone but the four of them. “This had better be important,” he said, shortly. “I’m due to address Parliament in an hour and then inspect a Guards Brigade before they leave for the front.”

“I have a source within Hitler’s inner circle,” Menzies said, without preamble. “Actually, he’s connected to one of the inner circle members, so while we hear some things, we don’t always hear everything. The warning about the invasion plan reached us a day after the invasion began…”

“How very useful,” Churchill sneered.

“And we just received another update,” Menzies said, ignoring the Prime Minister’s jibe. “There are two components to the warning, sir; one is good news, and the other is extremely worrying.”

“This air of mystery is becoming tiresome,” Churchill said, annoyed. “What’s the good news?”

“The good news is that the feared invasion at Dover is a German decoy rather than a real attack,” Menzies said. “The Germans intend to force us to keep one eye on them, but they don’t actually intend to establish another beach head, particularly into the teeth of the Dover defences. The bad news… is that Otto Skorzeny is still alive and is hidden somewhere within London.”

“I see,” Churchill said. DeRiemer wondered how he managed to remain so calm; a man with Skorzeny’s reputation was nothing to laugh at, not even in the heart of British power. If he had organised the assault on Downing Street, no wonder it had worked so well and killed the Prime Minister himself. “How reliable is this source?”

Menzies considered for a long moment before he said, “We’ve had indirect contact with him for almost ten years. He sent Belgium a warning about the German invasion, but Hitler changed the date and his second warning was actually ignored until it was too late. He made contact with us later, and sent us information that proved to be accurate although always limited. After the war, he supplied us with information from time to time, but always kept himself firmly to himself.”

“I see,” Churchill said. He looked down at the table, and then back up at Menzies, holding him prisoner with his eyes. “Where is Skorzeny now?”

“We don’t know,” Menzies admitted. “Himmler has a secret source within Britain and that source is helping Skorzeny, but we don’t know who it is or why they’re helping him. Himmler is apparently playing this one very close to his chest.”

“We thought that we had wiped out the German spy networks within hours of the hostilities opening,” Sir Percy Joseph Sillitoe said. The Director General of MI5 looked worried. “The warning of a network so well hidden that we cannot find it is rather… worrying. We thought that we had wiped out the remains of the German force that attacked London, but if some of them survived and managed to escape detection…”

“Yes,” Churchill said, dryly. “I want you to find Skorzeny, whatever it takes, before it’s too late. If there is any truth at all in the superman Radio Berlin claims he is, he will not have gone to ground forever.”