The Long Hard Road

Chapter Thirty-Five: Invasion

Ten Downing Street

London, United Kingdom

1^st June 1942

Hanover nodded grimly to himself as the war cabinet filed out of the room. Some went grudgingly, some went willingly, but they all had acceded to his will. Somehow, the sheer effort involved in the decision to launch the invasion was chilling; for the first time he faced the prospect of political destruction. The people and Parliament might have accepted the nuclear detonations, but would they accept the loss of an entire army? Hanover knew that they would not.

His gaze drifted up to the portraits on the walls. William Pitt the Elder stared down at him; Margaret Thatcher urged him on. Churchill, who had faced a similar dilemma, seemed to be laughing at him. He knew the choice was his; this wasn’t a Harry Potter movie, where the portraits could talk to him.

He lifted the phone without hesitation. “This is Hanover,” he said, staring into the grey darkness. “The operation is approved.”

He put down the phone and took his seat. Even now, thousands of men and thousands of aircraft would be moving, heading into their targets in the Netherlands. Thousands of missiles, from the improved Tomahawks to knock-off Scud missiles, were being launched from Britain, aimed into German-occupied Europe. The American bombers were being launched, ordered to hammer at the German positions in France, and his own aircraft were concentrating on precision bombing.

As he had not done since he was a young boy, growing up with his parents, Sir Charles Hanover, Prime Minister and Peer of the Realm, prayed to God. The die was cast… and there was no turning back.

Battlezone

Belgium/Netherlands

1^st June 1942

“About bloody time,” Squadron Leader Shelia Dunbar muttered, as she took the Eurofighter out of formation and into Germany. She winced as she glanced down at her onboard radar; there were thousands of planes in the sky, all British or American. It wasn’t the first time that only Allied planes were in the sky, but she knew that it wouldn’t last; the Germans would hardly allow them to set foot on Europe without mounting a sustained offensive to evict them.

Or, as she phased it in the privacy of her own thoughts, they were going to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at the British and American forces. She’d fought in the Battle of Britain and she knew the dangers of being swarmed by the German planes; she hoped that the RAF’s new recruits understood as well.

“Eagle-one, you are coming up on your targets,” the controller said. The Germans had a whole series of bridges across their nation, allowing them to move troops and tanks around Germany quickly. The RAF had painstakingly located thousands of targets to hit, selecting them with care and genuine malice, designed to separate the Germans from their western conquests.

The target designator changed to red. A commando, perhaps one of the SAS trainees, had been emplaced, providing her with a target. Behind her, the other planes spread out, their weapons targeted on power stations, barracks, police stations, the handful of communication lines that they knew about… anything that might be militarily useful for any counter-offensive.

“Launching weapons,” she said. The Eurofighter shuddered as it released its bombs; she saw pinpricks of fire flaring against the darkened ground, knowing what they meant for the poor citizens below. Hardening her heart, she swooped around, returning to base. They had to be rearmed as quickly as possible.

HMS Warspite sat in the centre of the English Channel, moving closer and closer to The Hague. In her combat information centre, General Flynn analysed the reports from the SAS teams on the ground and the satellites, which were working overtime. He’d heard that the space station had been moved into geo-stationary orbit, but he didn’t believe the rumour.

“I think we can proceed with stage two,” he said, after the first reports had been completed. German targets had been struck everywhere; even as he watched, more attacks were being launched. “Send the signal.”

HMS Warspite shuddered as her main guns began to fire. The mighty battleship, and the three American battleships beside her, was pounding the German defences on the shore, knowing that a force of Special Forces troopers were already on the ground, providing targets for the bombers.

“The Ark Royal is launching now,” Admiral Somerville said. The Contemporary ship had been adapted to carry some of the new Harriers, equipped with precision bombs. “They’ll be overhead in five minutes.”

Flynn nodded. “Stage two; complete neutralisation of the Germans on the ground from the air.”

He looked up at the big display. Nearly two hundred aircraft were moving into position, from the three adapted Hercules to the dozens of B-29’s armed with precision weapons and JDAM bombs. In five minutes, the Germans on the ground would never know what had hit them.

Captain Hoffman rather enjoyed his posting in Amsterdam. The small Dutch city was peaceful and quiet; there was almost no resistance to German rule. The three divisions that had been stationed in Amsterdam had grown used to peace, even with the new directives coming out of the Fuhrerbunker, warning of invasion.

He smiled. Ever since they had found the hidden Jewish family from the future records, the Dutch had been cowed before the German heel. It was their own fault for not seeking an agreement with the Germans, led by the noble Adolf Hitler, before they ran out of time.

A noise echoed across the sky. He stared into the sky, and then westwards, towards England. The sky seemed to be glowing, sending a strange eerie glow into the night. It was awesome and he wandered away from the headquarters, looking at the light. Half of the population seemed to be on the streets, wondering what the hell was going on.

An explosion billowed out behind him, sending him to his knees. He instinctively grabbed for his weapon, rolling over to shoot the man he confidently expected to be behind him, and saw the entire German headquarters was in ruins. As he watched, three more German buildings in Amsterdam exploded; the SS headquarters, the Kriegsmarine navy base and the Workers Bureau, which had arranged for Dutchmen to go work in Germany for a pittance.

“We’re under attack,” he breathed. The sudden destruction of the German infrastructure was shocking, but he knew his duty. Staggering over to a telephone box, he tried to call for help, but the lines were down. Power was out all over Amsterdam; the fires were burning in all their awful majesty.

A blow connected with the back of his head. He had only moments to recognise the presence of a Dutchman armed with a heavy stick, before his assailant brought it down again, and crushed the life out of his skull.

“Not bad,” Squadron Leader Shelia Dunbar breathed, as the display revealed itself. The Germans had to be reeling under the bombardment; the British had struck thousands of targets, some of them with dumb bombs, others with massive MOAB weapons that had an utterly devastating effect on anything they struck.

She stared down from her lofty height. Fires were burning all over the Netherlands, tiny flickers from her height, each one signifying a hit with a British weapon. Her display showed flights still impound, missiles swooping along the ground, utterly unstoppable by anything known to the Germans.

“Just have to hope we don’t have to destroy the country in order to save it,” she muttered, as the flight left the carnage behind and returned to Britain.

The SAS team was nearly half a mile from the battleships’ targets, but they could still feel the ground shake as four battleships poured fire into the defences along the coastline. Captain Dwynn shivered as another barrage crashed into the ground, shaking everything. Hunkering down in a German trench wasn’t protecting them from the shock, even as they tried to do their jobs.

“I have targets designated,” Chang muttered. Dwynn glanced through Chang’s unit; the massive German guns were still firing. “Transmit?”

“Hit them,” Dwynn ordered. Chang transmitted the fire command to one of the orbiting Hercules; two of them, with the largest bomb loads, had been assigned to support the main landing. Seconds later, the guns were utterly destroyed.

“I have the other targets,” Vash snapped. “Designating now.”

Dwynn hit the ground as a rolling thunder of explosive force blasted over the ground. The Germans had dug an entire battalion of infantry in to support the heavy guns; they weren’t there any longer. As the crescendo went on and on, he covered his ears and cringed down. It ended seconds later, but his ears still rang.

“Report,” he snapped, and waited for their acknowledgements. “I think we got them all,” he concluded. “I’m sending the signal now; they can come in and take over now we’ve done all the hard work.

Brigadier Hampton sent the order and HMS Ocean, supported by HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, both new construction, began to launch their landing craft. Captain Yates shivered as the LST carried the 1^st Armoured Infantry Battalion to the shore, knowing just how vulnerable even the Challenger was to being hit while on the LST.

“I think we must have suppressed them,” Corporal Benton said, as the LST grounded and lowered its landing ramp. Their service in Turkey during Redemption had earned them more and better equipment, enough to expand the Marine force to include more tanks and more Marines.

“Looks that way,” Yates said. “Move us out; we have orders to secure a bridgehead before marching to Amsterdam.”

He scowled at the map. They were on the right side of a river with an unpronounceable name, but they had to secure a city with the equally unpronounceable name of Beverwijk before they could move into Amsterdam. As dawn rose, the Germans had to know that something was up… and there was a German battalion of armoured infantry, perhaps even some Panzers, in the Beverwijk region.

“Control, can you confirm that the Germans have no tanks?” He said, as they received their final orders. He scowled; he had to move quickly, with the nine tanks of the first group, while the rest of the force was receiving new orders. Confusion was already setting in; he could only hope that it would be handled before the Germans managed to mount a counter-attack. It had been nearly four hours since the attacks had begun – they had to know that something was wrong.

“Negative,” the voice of the dispatcher came back, after a long pause. “We cannot confirm anything at the moment?”

“Can you confirm my orders?” Yates asked sharply, and cut the connection. He muttered orders into his radio, detailing the formation. Even if the Germans hadn’t all been killed, they would be hardly likely to have anything that could really bother the Challenger.

“I came here with a girl,” Benton said. “It’s… very different.”

Yates sniggered. “Let’s not go to the red light district,” he said. “It would only upset them.”

Without warning, the Challenger shuddered. “What the hell was that?” Benton snapped. “Sir…”

“There’s a Panzer dug in ahead of us,” Yates said, taking a moment to admire the German commander’s bravery. He had to have known that his position, dug into a Dutch building that had been ruined the first time around, was suicidal, and he’d done it anyway. Even as he watched, the German tank moved backwards quickly, moving faster than he would have believed possible.

“Armour piercing,” he snapped. “One round, rapid!”

“Firing,” Gunner Grant said. Sergeant Josephine Grant was one of the toughest Marines; Yates, who knew that all female marines had been offered the chance to withdraw from the mission, respected her. “Target destroyed.”

Yates nodded; the wreck of the German panzer burned merrily. He refused to think about the men trapped inside. “We’re moving on to Beverwijk now,” he said, and issued orders to the other tanks. “We don’t have much time, but we can make it if we push it hard.”

“We have plenty of time,” Benton said. “What’s the rush, boss?”

“At this rate, everyone else will get to Berlin first,” Grant said. “Pour it on, Sam.”

Field Marshal Kesselring knew that he was lucky to be alive. His change of headquarters, two days before the invasion had begun, had saved his life; the British intelligence services hadn’t caught up with him yet. He also knew that the communications network had been badly damaged, but enough survived for him to pierce together what was happening.

“They’re coming, Mien Fuhrer,” he said, wishing that that communications cable had been cut. Testing suggested that a lot of the lines into Amsterdam and Rotterdam remained intact; there was just no one there to receive the calls. “We have missile and aircraft attacks all over Germany and France, and they’re making a major offensive in the Netherlands.”

He paused to listen to Himmler’s reply. “They’re landing paratroopers at Arnhem,” he snapped, when Himmler had finished. “Mien Fuhrer, I have hardly any communication with forces west of Arnhem; they’re gone, or they’ve been cut off. The road and rail network is in shambles, utterly ruined. Mien Fuhrer, we have to start moving troops north from France.”

Himmler protested that it had to be a diversion. “Mien Fuhrer, if they can make a diversion on this scale, we’ve lost anyway,” Kesselring protested, wishing that Himmler would return to being his cold calculating self. God alone knew how many deaths the Wehrmacht and the SS units had suffered; the British seemed to take delight in targeting the SS units from the air. “We have to move now, before we lose the capability to do anything at all…”

Himmler reluctantly gave his assent. “Thank you, Mien Fuhrer,” Kesselring said. “I’ll report to you as soon as I can.”

He put down the phone and turned to the map, which was being updated as fast as the information flew in through the telephone lines, which themselves were being hammered. The entire western region of the Netherlands had been marked in red, even though basic logistics suggested that the enemy had only just begun to land his real armoured force. The paratroopers had to be counter-attacked as swiftly as possible and he barked orders, knowing that the older forces near Germany’s borders with the Netherlands were only just up to the task.

“Get me General Adolf Galland,” he snapped. “Now!”

He waited impatiently, snapping out other orders. The operator had to work hard to set up the connection; the direct links to the forward air bases had been severed by the British attacks. He frowned as he looked at the map, bringing the forces from the West Wall back to Germany would not be hard, but the forces assembled in France had taken a pounding. He issued orders for them to return and issued similar – illegal – orders to the forces near Denmark.

“We need a mobile reserve, now,” he snapped. “Move it.”

“General Galland, Herr Field Marshal,” the operator said. Kesselring took the phone and listened.

“Adolf, this is it,” Kesselring said. “It’s the real invasion, it has to be.”

Galland spoke with a heavy heart. “They’ve knocked out some of our bases,” he said. “I can only put two thousand planes in the air.”

“Only two thousand,” Kesselring said. He remembered when two thousand planes would have seemed like a miracle. “Send them, General; send everything you can. We need time and the Luftwaffe has to buy it for us. We need intelligence and the Luftwaffe has to get it for us. We need air support, and the Luftwaffe…”

“I understand,” Galland snapped. “We will do what we can, Herr Field Marshal.”

Galland didn’t bluster, like Goring, or make false promises. Kesselring knew that he would do what he could. “Thank you, Adolf,” he said. “We know that you will give us your best.”

“Enjoy the war,” Galland snapped. “The peace is going to be terrible.”

He put the phone down. Back in his headquarters, Kesselring returned to worrying about the future. There just wasn’t time!

The AWACS operator called in the contacts in a stunned tone. Squadron Leader Shelia Dunbar took one look at the display and started to bark orders, ordering her formation to prepare for the fight of their lives. She cursed the efficiency of modern radar; she hadn’t wanted to know how many enemy aircraft there were, making their way towards the invasion zone.

“Two thousand,” Flying Officer James Brooke breathed. He sounded dazed. “Two fucking thousand.”

“Silence,” Dunbar snapped. The speed was closing far too fast for the AWACS; she knew that she had to issue orders on her own authority. “Activate datalink; share targets.”

There was a short pause as entire squadrons linked into the data network that was being built between the RAF aircraft and the Royal Navy ships near the coast. “Select targets with ASRAAMS, stand by to fire,” Dunbar said. The AWACS controller said nothing; Dunbar smiled at the thought of the roasting he would get from his senior officers later. It wasn’t as if the AWACS was in any danger.

“Fire,” Dunbar ordered. Almost every aircraft in the air launched missiles, sending a wave of unstoppable missiles towards the German aircraft, hacking them from the sky with ease. The Germans had learnt much, deploying counter-measures with skill and verve, and they had some successes, but not enough. The wall of ASRAAM missiles found their targets… and Germans died by the thousands.

“Here they come,” Brooke said. The survivors hadn’t given up; they were still attempting to close. The RAF closed in on them, firing cannons and a handful of missiles, attempting to defeat them as the wall of Luftwaffe planes slammed into them. For a long chilling time, Dunbar lost track of everything, but the desire to kill…

“The ships are engaging,” the AWACS controller said. The Royal Navy ships were firing massive blasts of machine-gun fire into the sky, each one guided by a sophisticated radar network that picked German planes up with ease. Dunbar cursed as she ran out of ammunition, blowing the tail end off a JU-88 bomber that had been attempting to bomb positions in Amsterdam itself.

Suddenly, chillingly, the sky was clear. Dunbar and the rest of the RAF let the surviving Germans go; the slaughter on both sides had been horrific. Dunbar checked the timer; the entire battle had lasted only ten minutes.

“It felt longer,” she muttered, as she sent a notification to the AWACS that she had run out of ammunition and was returning to base again. “Dear god, it really did feel longer than ten minutes.”

General Robert Flynn set up his command post in Beverwijk as the day drew to a close. The battle had been shockingly brutal, far more brutal than he’d really expected, but the Germans had fought bitterly. SS units, in particular, had fought to the death; there were still holdouts in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

“Fuck me,” he muttered, as he collapsed into a chair. The SAS paratrooper division had fought hard at Arnhem, seizing one of the bridges that would be needed intact, and they’d made it, holding out against increasing German pressure. He’d feared he was going to lose them when the Germans had begun their major air offensive, but they’d held.

He shook his head in awe. They’d bled like nothing on Earth, but they’d held, and a mechanised infantry battalion had finally relived them from fears of losing the bridges they’d seized. He wasn’t certain how useful they would be, but having them intact counted for something, didn’t it?

He smiled to himself, and then allowed himself to think of the future. Almost the entire stock of precision weapons had been poured onto the landing zone and Germany. Admittedly the damage they’d inflicted would take the Germans weeks to repair, but the Allies had their own problems to overcome.

He shuddered. The long hard road into Germany still lay ahead…