Keynes Cruisers

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May 22, 1939 Honolulu **

More than a hundred men were out on the town for one more night of fun. Some were trying to find agreeable female companship, while more were taking their wives out for dinner, dancing and a night in a fine hotel. They would be boarding the transport Raymond in the morning for a six month contract on Wake Island. Their primary goal was to dredge a channel into the lagoon and then clear enough space in the coral to allow a dozen large ships to anchor. A pier and a loading dock would also be be built.

The contingent was lightly armed with half a dozen rifles for shark shooting during swim breaks and a dozen shotguns for rail hunting.

June 14, 1939 Chester, Pennsylvania

A new cargo ship to the Maritime Commission C-3 design was laid down. She would be ready for sea by early winter.

July 20, 1939 Fort Devens, Massachusetts

The Massachusetts National Guard was at summer camp. Private Patrick Donohue shuffled in the sun as the weight of a M-1903 Springfield rifle bore on his shoulder Devans was not far from Lowell but this was as far west as he had ever travelled. The National Guard had accepted him when the Marines would not. The pay was not as good as he still had to go back to the mill next week, but it was better than nothing.

Fourteen thousand men had mustered throughout Massachusetts for field training this week. That sounded impressive, but the division should have been able to put over 20,000 men in the field. Two-thirds of the gap had official excuses or were medically unable to drill while the remaining 2,000 men had not been recruited. The division had relied on recent recruits like Patrick with bad teeth, bad backs, weak hearts to fill out the numbers. He had been on the rolls for three months and had just gotten to a point where he would not stab himself with the butt much less the bayonet of his rifle.

** Stealing shamelessly from A True and Better Alamo Redux https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=9643846&postcount=1

 

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July 17, 1939 New York Navy Ship Yard

USS Helena (CL-50) slid into the water of the East River for the first time. She was launched ahead of schedule as general overtime for Saturday shifts had been authorized by the Government in January. Her slip would be cleared and a new fast transport would be laid down in her place at the start of the next month. The crew and the yard dogs would spend the next two months fitting out and bringing her up to standard for commissioning.

July 24, 1939 near Wake Island

USS Enterprise, along with three heavy cruisers and five destroyers, were operating in a forty mile by thirty mile box centered ninety miles north of Wake Island. The past week had seen some easy flying as the Devastator, Vindicator and Buffalo squadrons acclimated to operating as a unit. The task force was on its own although a fast oiler with a pair of older destroyers was a day behind. Another day of exercises in the mid-Pacific and then a fly-over of Wake Island with the full air group to relieve the boredom of the civilian contractors before the task force refuelled and headed back to Pearl and then home to San Diego.


July 29, 1939 Hub Hosiery Manufacturing, Lowell Massachusetts

A thousand looms shuttled back and forth, each machine slamming its shuttle into the stop once a second as the weft and the warp threads formed patterns and cloth. Patrick Donohue was on the fourth floor of the mill, trying to keep the sweat out of his eyes as he focused on Loom 761 that broke down this morning. Mr Papadopolous had told him to go upstairs and fix it on his own two hours ago and he thought he had finally isolated the problem, a steel clasp had failed and had allowed a bit of wiggle in the run. Eleven minutes later the loom was working again as the young mechanic cursed at the mundane nature of his task. He would rather be marching, he would rather be at a rifle range, he would rather be doing almost anything other than fixing looms. The only upside was that most of the operators were young women. A mechanic, even a junior mechanic, instead of a mere laborer, was prestigious enough to get them to smile at him instead of ignoring him.

 

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August 13, 1939 Baltimore, Maryland

SS Martti Ragnar, a relatively new Finnish built, flagged and crewed freighter, was preparing to go back to sea again. She had delivered eight thousand tons of wood pulp to America as well as seven hundred tons of copper and six hundred pounds of gold. The gold was heading to a vault in New York as the Finnish government was sending some of its reserves overseas as tensions with the Soviets built up. Finnish bonds had been sold on Wall Street, and the proceeds had already been spent. Sixty eight Brewster fighters had been ordered. Thirty six US Navy fighters were declared surplus so they now were in dockside warehouse, broken down and ready for transport. They would be loaded into Martti Ragnar’s holds over the next four days. Twelve 155 mm guns along with 20,000 shells were also being loaded. Other ships had brought back hundreds of naval mines, thousands of land mines, and dozens of 37 mm guns with numerous crates full of shells.

Most of the Finnish purchases were coming from Europe, but they saw the war clouds rising so diversifying supply made sense. The US Navy had made it known that they wanted to see their new fighter in combat so they had smoothed the orders by creative lawyering where another batch of Buffaloes would be built for the Navy but paid for by Finland. A trio of Upper Peninsula natives would soon join the company of the Martti Ragnar to cross the Atlantic to act as observers and technical advisers.


** http://www.winterwar.com/forces/FinArmy/ArtDevelopment.htm

 

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August 21, 1939

Admiral Graf Spee, a panzerschiffe, left Wilhelmshaven to break out into the open ocean before the invasion of Poland and a highly probable declaration of war. Her sister Deutschland followed three days later.

Warships all over the world were being brought into port for last minute repairs and minor refits while longer and deeper refits were being pushed back. Ships that had been in reserve for years were being called up, first rate ships were heading to distant stations, and merchant ships and liners that had been subsidized to be taken up as armed merchant cruisers were being called into dockyards.

The American cruiser Omaha left Marseilles after a successful goodwill visit. The French Fleet was mobilizing. Three modern heavy cruisers and a pair of old battleships had left port earlier in the day to head to Bizerte and Algiers respectively. Omaha would head to Gibraltar for a day and then return to Norfolk.


September 1, 1939
Germany invaded Poland.

 

[fester]

September 1, 1939 south of the Canary Islands

USS Omaha flashed a short and friendly message to the two German ships she sighted south of the Canary Islands. They were transferring supplies to each other. An inquiry if they needed assistance was sent and politely declined. News of the sighting was sent to Norfolk that evening when Omaha’s daily position report was radioed in.

September 3, 1939

France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.

 

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September 3, 1939 The White House


“This nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well. Even a neutral has a right to take account of facts. Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or close his conscience.

I have said not once but many times that I have seen war and that I hate war. I say that again and again.

I hope the United States will keep out of this war. I believe that it will. And I give you assurance(s) and reassurance that every effort of your Government will be directed toward that end.

As long as it remains within my power to prevent, there will be no blackout of peace in the United States.” **


With that the President put down his papers and waited for the sound engineer to indicate that his microphone had been cut. As soon as he knew he was off of the air, he sighed a deep sigh. This was a day that most men knew was coming and it was a day that most men had hoped to avoid. It was a day that the appeasement at Munich had pushed back, hopefully the sacrifice of the Czechs bought enough time for the Western powers to re-arm. It was a day that promised only destruction.


“Harold, Cordell, do you think that I should have included the segment that we cut out on the expectation that neutrals could trade with neutrals and we have access to the high sea while belligerents operate under cruiser rules? “

“No, we can communicate that with the warring powers quietly but we don’t want to make commitments and obligations unless we must. “

“Very well, can you get a draft of the neutrality proclamation to me tomorrow morning by 9:15 and as well as a meeting the brass to discuss our options tomorrow afternoon. I think the Navy will be busy.”

Yes, I’ll see to that” With that Cordell Hull left the Oval Office for a long night of work.

“Harold, we knew this was coming. Get a good sounding in Conress as to what they’ll let us do. Germany must lose so that aggression is not an attractive option, but we can not get overtly involved. How should we throw our weight behind the Allies with a plausibly story that we are still truly neutral?”


** from Fireside Chat #14 http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3315

 

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September 4, 1939

USS Omaha continued home. American flagged merchant ships received a general, in the clear message from the US Navy alerting them to remain clear of all foreign warships. Reports of German surface ships and potential submarines were included with the most recent position fixes. This message was intercepted by all belligerent powers.

Strasbourg and the heavy cruiser Algerie left the anchorage at Mers el Kebir to proceed to Dakar. A squadron of light bombers were deployed to Cascablanca to provide scouting support for the cruisers that were beginning to hunt for the potential raider.

On the 4th, Repulse detached herself from Home Fleet and returned to Devonport to equip itself for dispatch to distant stations.


September 7, 1939 Brest, France

The French freighter pulled up to the dock. In her hold was general cargo from the Americas. On her deck was a dozen Curtis Hawk fighters, part of an order of one hundred and seven aircraft. The American factory was slow. These fighters should have been delivered in August, but the acceptance flights found a number of small defects that needed to be corrected before the Army d’Aire would accept the aircraft. Most of the American aviation companies were frustrating to work with as they continually over-promised and then under-delivered. Brewster with their naval fighter was probably the worse. However North American and Consolidated so far had been reasonably good about almost meeting their promises. Their major problems were time frames and not actual performance. This was good as a new order for 200 Consolidated four engine bombers was about to finalized. Grumman was middle of the pack. Vought’s dive bomber actually had been delivered on time and its performance was as good as expected although Bearn was probably too small of a ship to properly use its full capability.

 

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September 9, 1939 Washington DC

The President declared a limited national emergency. The US Navy’s authorized manpower expanded to 213,000 sailors, and reservists were liable to be recalled. Ships from the reserve were to be inventoried and limited re-activations were to be made. Contracting and labor standards were suspended for the duration of the emergency.

September 15, 1939 42.5946761 N , 62.723716 W
USS Buchanan rescued seven Canadian sailors whose trawler had been shelled by a U-boat earlier that morning. The U-boat allowed the fishermen to evacuate the ship as he was operating under modified cruiser rules. Three fishermen died and two were missing and presumed dead but their bodies had not been recovered after their life boat overturned in the heavy swells. The destroyer spent six hours quartering the sinking in a search for survivors or bodies before returning to Halifax to repatriate the survivors.

September 17, 1939 Poland

Warsaw was being encircled and the Soviets invaded Eastern Poland putting pressure on the Romanian bridgehead. Over the next several days, leading technical experts and well connected individuals began to flee with the Polish armies fighting as hard as they could to keep open the few lanes of escape.

In Western Germany, the French Saarland offensive petered out.

 

[fester]

September 29, 1939 Georgia Tech

A long, languid boy stooped on the steps of his dormitory. Books were scattered, an engineering text book above his left shoulder, Leaves of Grass by his right knee, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in his hands. He flipped the page lazily, barely moving in the heavy Indian summer air. The heat had drained his energy out of him so the sophomore had decided to take a break from his studies (poorly proceeding) and read for a while on the stoop of his building. Ted Sullivan’s first year was over with. He survived it but the adjustment from being the smartest boy in his high school class to one of the most common and least unremarkable people on campus had been a shock to him. His grades had suffered as he tried to show his skill and uniqueness on the football field but a broken leg destroyed that dream. He could only scuffle along now and his mind was not on thermodynamics despite a need to get ready for his lab session next week as the last one was a fiasco when his equations only balanced with the addition of a perpetual motion machine.

September 30, 1939 Belle Vernon Pennsylvania

The mine whistle blew. Forty eight men including the younger Jaroscheck brothers ambled out of the elevators and headed to the showers. Another good shift, the same number of men came up the elevator as went down. They had been working hard as the steel mills of the Monongahela Valley had begun working double shifts. The economy was starting to boom, GM was building more cars than ever, the Navy wanted armor plate, and their biggest competitors for exports, France, Germany and the United Kingdom were now off the market as their steel was being used to build shells, guns, tanks and ships.

Forty five miles away, the six block long factory in Ambridge saw a meeting. The plant manager and his lead foremen were speaking with the sales teams. New orders to sell prefabricated bridges to Brazil and Argentina were almost ready to be signed. Could the plant fit these orders in at a high priority for if these projects could be completed slightly over budget and ahead of time, a flood of new orders could be available. The manager and foremen were not sure. They were already booked solid for nine months and skilled labor was getting tough to find. They might be able to get some Saturday shifts if overtime was not an issue but then finding high quality steel would be an issue.

Could they move a few secondary railroad bridges to the back of the queue to cannibalize their materials?

Perhaps…

 

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October 1, 1939 Long Island

This was an early victory for the Grumman Company. The Navy was accepting the redeveloped XF4F3 with the Twin Wasp engine as a front line fighter. The French and the British had each ordered 100 planes with appropriate spares based on the blueprints and promises made by the company in September. The Greeks had ordered fifty fighters for immediate delivery. The first batch would be sent to England in early February. After the initial Ally order, Grumman would start full scale production of the US Navy version as the Wildcat would tear apart the Buffalo that had entered squadron service recently.


October 2, 1939 Panama **

The Congress of American Republics in an emergency meeting in Panama issued a proclamation that established a neutrality zone. The zone, would stretch from shore to a line roughly 300 miles out to sea. Raiders, warships and submarines from the belligerents were asked to stay outside of that zone. If they were seen within that zone without permission, the neutral nations of the Americas might use military force to defend the neutrality zone. Practically this meant the US Navy would be the primary keeper of the neutral zone as no other navy had the capability to consistently patrol such a large zone much less project power into it. Most of the remaining decommissioned destroyers in reserve would be quickly re-activated to provide the needed hulls.

**
http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/IntNav.html

 

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October 3, 1939 Paris

Significant elements of the Polish government were filtering into the French capital through ratlines running into Romania and Hungary. Gold, jewels, documents, and extraordinarily skilled specialists had been smuggled out over the past several weeks. Over one hundred thousand men had escaped the combined German-Soviet onslaught and would soon form up as new units in France to take their place in the line. Most of these men would be equipped with French weapons but some of the nation’s gold reserves would be shipped to New York to finance the reconstruction of the Polish Air Force in Exile.

October 6, 1939 Over Essen Germany

A half dozen French Martin bombers flew over the city. The lead bombardier scrunched up his eye as he tracked his plane’s progress over the ground. Anti-aircraft shells had started to burst admidst the loose formation four minutes ago. Thankfully no fighters were seen yet. The University campus was in his cross-hairs and he waited and held his breath for another minute. Finally the trigger was pressed and three thousand pounds of leaflets fluttered out of the bomber.

At the home airfield, all the bombers returned, half had some damage that the ADA mechanics would spend a week fixing.

October 6, 1939 near Adamów, Poland

Silence was in the air. It was not a complete silence as screams of women being raped, screams of children seeing the bodies of their fathers and their brothers, screams of shame and screams of fear rented the air.

But compared to the cacophony of artillery duels and infantry actions it was almost silent.

The last organized units in Poland surrendered as they ran out of ammunition and food. A scratch force equal to a reinforced infantry division had held a corps off for three days. They had learned how to fight the Germans but not fast enough.

 

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October 8, 1939 Mid Atlantic near dawn

HMS Ark Royal in conjunction with Renown and the heavy cruiser Exeter continued to steam west by southwest. The sighting report by Omaha as the war started had led to the Admiralty to deploy a dozen cruisers and three carriers to the southern trade routes as there was at least two German heavy raiders at sea. The Force de Raid and Home Fleet were covering the North Atlantic trade routes against a suspected pocket battleship raiding there.

A trail of sinkings had started in the South Atlantic earlier in the week. A raider was known to be operating south of mouth of the Amazon. Exeter was due to depart from the small but powerful force at nightfall and continue south to reinforce Force G. She had just joined Force K for a three day sweep and then she would resume her southern duties.

Two Swordfish circled the force looking for submarines. Twelve more biplanes had been dispatched on a 120 mile scouting leg. Each plane had a 15 degree segment. The half circle was shifted slightly to the port side of the anticipated line of advance as the force would approach the Brazilian coast before sweeping to St. Helena and then to Ascension before returning to the Brazilian coast near Rio de Janeiro.

Two hours after the search planes took off, the first scout returned to the landing pattern. The pilot landed the plane barely above stall speed and scarcely above sprint speed for a derby horse. His radio was out but he had no unexplained contacts. The shipping lanes were full of Imperial and neutral ships.

Twenty minutes later, the seventh scout radioed in a sighting report of an oddly acting merchant ship that claims she was an American from New Orleans. The ship was outside of normal shipping channels, and only seventy miles away.

Exeter released more steam into her boilers and her screws began to turn faster, twenty knots and then twenty six knots as she broke from formation and began to chase down this oddity. Most likely she would just be a poorly handled American steamer miffed at having to answer to belligerents but who could know?

 

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October 8, 1939 Luzon

The young, slight man with the freshly shaved head tried to catch his breath. The morning had been a whirlwind of orders and counter-orders as the raw recruits of the Philippines Scouts arrived at Fort Stotsenberg. Angry corporals and loud sergeants had yelled at him and the other three hundred recruits to the Philippine Scouts. Some had arrived three or four days ago, others had arrived with him the previous night after a long bus ride from the train station. They were quickly told that they were worthless until proven otherwise and that their only job was to listen instantly until they were re-issued their brains.

He stood in line, heel to toe with another man. Arms outstretched as a supply clerk passed an item and then the entire line took another step forward.

Shirts, green, cotton, two.

Undershirt green, cotton, three,

Pants, green, cotton, two,

Pants, green, wool, two,

Campaign hat, green, one,

Socks, green, wool, four

Helmet, steel, one,

Boots, leather, right, one,

Boots, leather, left, one

Canteen, one quart, two,

Mosquito net….

At the end of the line, his arms sagged with thirty eight pounds of personal gear that he had to pack into his newly issued backpack in the next three minutes. Any imperfection, any looseness, any forgetfulness would lead to dozens of push-ups or sprints across the parade ground.

The Scouts were being brought up to their newly authorized strength of 13,200 men. The pay was good enough to attract recruits who might actually be worth a damn like this young man, Private Marcos Ibling.

 

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October 8, 1939 Mid Atlantic Mid-afternoon

HMS Exeter continued to break through the increasingly heavy seas at a stately twenty two knots. The large merchant ship still had not stopped, she was running away at eighteen knots. She had closed the distance to the oddly acting ship to only nine miles. All three of her heavy turrets were manned as well as half of her secondary guns. The other two gun crews were resting and available at three minutes notice. A boarding party was getting prepared; armed sailors checking their ammunition one last time while the lieutenant in charge reviewed the prize rules and the rules on interacting with neutrals one more time. The merchant ship failed to heave to after the Swordfish from Ark Royal had requested that she do so. She loudly maintained that she was SS Delmar from New Orleans but she increased speed to eighteen knots and attempted to gain sea room and evade the circling Swordfish to no avail over the course of a eight hour chase.

Ark Royal and Renown were twenty two miles away. The carrier was sending up a constant stream of spotting biplanes and had a strike of eight dive bombers spotted on deck.

As the heavy cruiser closed on the large merchant ship, messages on the radio, semaphore and morse light were sent to “Heave to and prepare to be boarded” . The merchant ship continued to steam away as fast as she could, speed creeping to twenty knots. The heavy cruiser closed to five miles, and then four. The seventh and then an eighth message was sent. There was no response. The forward twin 8” turret swiveled off of the center line. Both barrels were raised from their rest position and fired a salvo aimed 800 yards in front of the fleeing ship. A pair of splashes landed eighty yards apart six hundred and fifty yards in front of the vagrant.

The cruiser’s crew waited expectantly, as it should have become obvious to the most idiotic sailing master that the warship wanted to grab their attention. By now, most were expecting their quarry to be a German raider engaged in subterfuge. Perhaps code books were being burned, perhaps cipher machines were being sunk in 10,000 feet of water, perhaps…

And then a single 5.9 inch gun roared back at the cruiser. A single shell floated through the air, and then another, and then another. By the time the second shell was fired, Exeter began to heel over to present her full broadside. By the time the third shell was fired and the first shell landed four hundred yards long and six hundred yards wide, all six heavy rifles were swinging to a point where the director though the target would be in less than a minute. She fired all six main guns in a ladder pattern. The first pair of shots were over, the second were over as well, finally the third was slightly wide and over by one hundred yards. Another pattern was fired after an slight adjustment was made. Two shells landed short, one punched through the false flag before landing in the sea, and the last thee shells went long. A clean straddle on the second salvo from one of the better gun ships in the Royal Navy.

Regular fire commenced. Six shells arced skyward every thirty seconds. The raider fired one or two 5.9 inch shells as she could bring her guns to bear against the snaking cruiser whose engines soon pushed her through the water at thirty one knots. Exeter’s powered ammunition loading system and well trained crew allowed her to send twelve rounds out for every shell landing near her. The captain opened the range as he was confident in his directors and wanted more warning time against torpedo launches or mine deployments.

Within twenty minutes Altmark was in flames and her desultory return fire had ceased seven minutes ago. At least a score of eight inch shells had exploded in him, cutting down both crew and prisoners. A partial radio message was intercepted but Exeter’s jamming stopped it after the first eight seconds. Exeter took two shell hits. The first hit A turret’s face and failed to penetrate. The second penetrated the bow before detonating, causing minor splinter damage and no impairment to her fighting ability but killing three men and wounding seven others in a damage control party.

Exeter lowered boats to begin rescue opreations without regard to whom they were pulling out of the choppy sea. Skuas and Swordfish circled clumps of desperate men hanging onto debris, life rings and raft portions that were not immediately visible. Within an hour, Ark Royal and Renown had also lowered boats and performed the duties of honorable sailors. Once a ship had sunk, the enemy was the sea not the man. Over four hundred men were rescued from Altmark. By nightfall, Exeter turned west to make for Recife to drop off the survivors and refuel. The surviving merchant sailors would be repatriated while the German prisoners would be transferred to British and Imperial merchant ships, along with a naval guard, for interment somewhere in the Caribbean. After that Exeter continued south to the Falklands. Ark Royal and Renown continued their sweep.


The hunting groups now knew their quarry was alone and unsupported in the vast South Atlantic.

 

[fester]

October 13, 1939 San Diego California

The large four engine, high wing bomber prototype was ready. Two had already been delivered to the Navy last week with only a single bomb bay and seven defensive machine guns. This bomber would be handed over to the Army Air Corps in the afternoon for testing. Twin bomb bays and a dozen machine guns would allow her to pack a punch and defend herself against fighters that she could not outrun.

French, British and Polish orders had already been entered. The engineers were busy at their desks making modifications based on the foreign requirements. Deliveries were due to start in May 1940 and go through the end of the year at a rate of eighteen export bombers a month. The Consolidated factory floor would be crowded as Catalina production was ramping up for the Navy and for export. If the Army Air Corps and Navy liked the new bomber, an expansion or a new factory would be needed to produce the combined forty five bombers per month that all of their customers would want.

 

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October 14, 1939 St. Helena

HMS Neptune left some of the most isolated land on Earth to join HMS Shropshire and HMS Sussex at Capetown.

Several thousand miles away HMS Cumberland and HMS Ajax patrolled off the mouth of the River Plate while HMS Achilles watched German merchant ships holed up in Argentinean ports.

 

[fester]

October 14, 1939 Belle Vernon Pennsylvania

In the front yard of a small two story, three bedroom balloon framed wooden house with freshly painted white clapboards and red shutters sat a 1936 Ford. Vladimir had picked up the car this morning after the Fayette County National Bank approved his loan application on Thursday afternoon. It was replacing a 1923 Model T.

People were spending money again in downtown Belle Vernon. Pretty girls were laughing as their young men took them to the drug store for a fountain drink. Young boys had new baseball gloves. Housewives allowed themselves to order a pair of shoes that were more beautiful than practical, and now the miners with money were buying cars and houses that they could not afford for the past decade. The mine was working a full single shift with a half second shift four days a week. And for those who did not want to go underground, the riverboats along the Monongahela were always looking for crews to bring coal and limestone to the great integrated steel mills downriver.

Mr and Mrs. Jaroschek sat in the front seat as the three children still at home went on the back seat. They would take their new car for a drive down to Uniontown. Beers for the adults and ice cream for the kids to celebrate a good day, a marker of their refound security.

 

[fester]

October 15, 1939 Southeast Atlantic

The boat crew hurried back aboard their ship. Ten minutes after the whale boat was secured, the seven thousand ton merchant ship began to evenly sink beneath the waves as demolition charges blasted the bottom of her single hull. The merchant crew had been made prisoners of Graf Spee an hour earlier. Their captivity was made easier as her captain did not attempt to be brave and send off a raider signal before lowering her flag when he saw the triple 11 inch guns pointed at his ship armed only with a pair of rifles and half a dozen pistols.

Three hundred feet away and four decks higher than the merchant captain, Captain Langsdorff spared one last second to see the sinking ship gargle its way under the waves, an air bubble coming up from a hold bursting through the surface. Hunting had been decent in the Capetown to Freetown trade routes, but he knew that success meant danger.

He would take his ship to South America in a few days. With the loss of Altmark, fuel and perishables would occupy more and more of his mind. He had enough fuel for another month in the South Atlantic before needing to head home with sufficient reserves to allow for some tactical maneuvering. If he could arrange for a German merchant ship to meet him at sea to transfer a thousand tons of diesel fuel and hundreds of dozens of eggs and other fresh food, that would make his supply worries fade like the light of the day.

 

[fester]

October 17, 1939 Wake Island

Eighty eight men were climbing aboard the light cruiser Detroit. She had dropped off a company of construction engineers and a small detachment from the Army Corps of Engineers. The construction engineers were tasked to create a hard surface landing strip capable of handling heavy bombers. The Army detachment was tasked to investigate the resources on the island that could support a garrison of 1,200 men and then determine what items and projects would need to be imported.

Thirty three of the original dredgers extended their contracts to complete a dredge to the Pan Am seaplane base. The rest of the original dredgers would return home soon enough, exhausted but satisfied as the liberal use of dynamite had blasted enough coral to clear a large shipping channel. The new shipping basin could accommodate a dozen decent sized merchant ships. Their final task was underneath them as they walked up a gangway to the deck of Detroit from a recently completed pier.

 

[fester]

October 27, 1939 Gothenburg Sweden

Three large warehouses had become impromptu aircraft assembly plants over the past few months. Seversky EP-1 fighter planes were being delivered at the end of each month. Two Swedish squadrons were getting ready to receive their first machines. The fighter was only adequate at best compared to other foreign designs but she was far better than the handful of biplanes available. Another two dozen Fairy Battle bombers were being slowly put together. A dozen would go to Finland and a dozen would form a light attack squadron for Sweden.

The Brewster warehouse was a cacophony of noise and curses in at least three languages. The “surplus” fighters had seen all of their US government supplied equipment ripped out before they were shipped. Mechanics, technicians, engineers, and pilots were in a constant struggle to re-equip the fighters with Finnish owned equipment. The pilots were split between wanting a heavily armed fighter and a lightweight hummingbird so a few different variants were being tested at a small airfield just outside of the city.