Long Jump and Baseplate (part 2)
Kesselring has told Goring that the chances of actually catching the Allied leadership is slim, as surely the events in Moscow will give them sufficient warning and that it cannot be avoided due to the difference in time zones. Goring decides to proceed anyway, to make the point to the British at least that they will pay the price of a total war using atomic weapons and nerve gas. However Goring in the early stages of planning orders the cancellation of the planned attacks on American and Allied bomber fields with nerve gas, as his diplomats have warned him, and his General Staff agrees, that the use of chemical weapons on British soil will cause the British to certainly reply in kind, instead of only possibly retaliating for the use of such on the Soviets.
Better to let the Allies know that the Reich can expand the war to the similar horrifying levels that the Allies can and hope that perhaps negotiations on the basis that avoiding mutual catastrophe is better than not is worthwhile. After all, the Soviets are who started the war and if the Allies are offered sufficient concessions along with the knowledge that the Reich can inflict massive damage of its own than maybe a peace acceptable to the Reich and its allies can be achieved. It is a slim reed, but all Goring has now. Long Jump is planned and finalized on that basis.
X-Day (begins 2 hours after events in Moscow due to the difference in time zones)
Much like Baseplate, the initial attack is by a large wave of Buzz Bombs. This wave is much larger however, a dozens of truck launched Buzz Bombs are launched from the Calais area, while 321 medium bombers launch their birds over the North Sea just as dawn breaks. Meanwhile, a large American air task force of B24s is taking off from bases in Anglia, while RAF and RCAF crews are heading to bed after a busy night of bombing transportation targets in the Reich.
As British radar screens begin to show the massive inbound raid and orders are being sent alerting the flak guns and the interceptor squadrons, the next German phase begins. Several squadrons of Do335A6 fighters, a total of 60 in all, which have been stripped of their armor and most of their weaponry and equipped with window dispensers and broadcast jammers, pop up from tree top height just as they clear the French and Dutch coasts and follow behind the Doodlebugs and they cause havoc on the British air defense warning system. However, the British are far better prepared for such a thing than the Soviets were, and fighters are ordered to attack visually and concentrate on the primary approaches to London.
The Air Battle of Piccadilly Circus
Although far better known for its London fame, the term has been used by American heavy bomber crews as the rendezvous and assembly point for the bomber forces of the 20th Air Force before they head toward targets in the Reich. This morning, nearly 500 Liberators are assembling before heading toward their target which is today going to be Berlin. A large force of Mustangs and Thunderbolts will cover the strike force which is going to be the first phase of a several day strike by the US 20th Air Force, the Allied 8th Air Force and the Anglo-Canadian Bomber Command to impress upon the Germans that their capital is vulnerable to the Allied Bomber Offensive.
On a collision course with this force is the third phase of the German assault, which has the mission of attacking Bomber Command and 20th Air Force bases in Anglia. This force consists of 300 He277s which are flying at low altitude to avoid Allied radar. It is below and well behind the Buzz Bomb strike, and with jamming, it and the 600 Fw190s and 120 Me262s flying cover ahead and above the bombers are hidden. General Peltz, the commander of the strike force, orders 400 of his fighters to attack the enemy and cause confusion, and with luck, suck in more of the Allied fighters. His gambit pays off, and as American bombers are still forming up, and their fighter cover is still relatively weak, the German fighters attack. In a wild battle, which sees 332 American fighters join in the fray, and scores of aircraft on both sides fall into the sea, while hundreds limp away with varying degrees of damage or having exhausted their ammunition. The American raid is completely disrupted and the surviving American bomber commanders order an orbit. In all 80 B24s, 120 Allied fighters, and 220 German fighters are lost or rendered damaged beyond repair but for the Germans the battle is a major victory as it disrupts an Allied attack, sucks in reserves that had not already been committed to dealing with the first phase of the German assault and clears the way for the German bombers.
Raid on Blenheim
The German special operations element of the attack meanwhile is underway. A force of 69 Ar234s (after aborts) streaks across the North Sea from their advance bases in Holland. Escorting them are 71 Me262s and they cross the British coast a few minutes behind the leading wave of Doodlebugs from the North Sea. While Allied fighters are dealing with the Buzz Bombs, few notice the German strike force streaking behind them and the radar jamming hides them from the air defense radars and thus fighter direction.
However, the Allies have their own surprise. Operation Doublecross has been effect every since the capture of the German Ultra machine in Ankara, and by August practically all of the German intelligence agents in the British Isles have been turned. Between interrogations of them, instructions sent to them by Berlin, and their own signals intelligence the Allies have figured out the the American Diplomatic code has been broken, and the planned meeting of the Allied leadership is actually occurring in Dublin on this very day. Blenheim Palace has been made an elaborate flak trap, while several squadrons of British jet fighters are scrambled when it becomes clear that a mass attack is under way probably as cover for the attack on the little town of Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
The German strike arrives on time and on target and into a blistering ambush of flak, but in spite of staggering losses, over half the bombers, they still manage to wreck most of the what was once the greatest of English Country Houses. However, they are jumped along with their fighter escorts as they attempt to egress by British Meteors, and only 3 of the bombers and 10 of the escorting fighters ultimately return home. A British press release later that day reports the attack but also reports that the deep shelters and a hurried evacuation prevented any significant casualties and the Allied meeting continues as planned.
The attack on London
Allied flak and fighters shoot down most of the Doodlebugs but still 49 hit the London area and kill dozens of people and injure hundreds more. However, minutes after the last Buzz Bomb has been destroyed or reached its target, the Germans launch the second element. A total of 24 A8 missiles are launched from a wooded area near Sedan, France, while another 60 of the A4 missiles are launched from truck mounted launchers near Calais. Half have high explosive warheads but the other have payloads of tear gas. A total of 21 of the A8 and 46 of the A4s hit London, and the missiles loaded with tear gas detonate using the new German proximity type fuse to deliver their bomblets that explode of the streets of London, splashing tear gas in a fine aerosol over several neighborhoods and creating considerable panic before calm is restored once it becomes clear what the gas actually is.
This demonstration of capability has a very sobering effect when the report reaches the Allied leadership in Dublin.
The Air Assault on East Anglia
The German heavy bombers have 49 American, Canadian and British airfields as their targets, the homes of B24, RB29, Lincoln and Lancaster bomber groups, where nearly 125,000 air and ground crews make their home. While heavily defended by flak, they are not nearly as well defended as the City of London for example, and as there have been only a handful of nuisance attacks in the war to date against them, most of the flak crews are relatively lax while most personnel have never experienced a serious air raid threat. The German bombers, now numbering 274 bombers after more aborts and several crashes, is coming in low and divided into 49 strike forces of 6 aircraft each loaded with cluster bombs, while escorted by 4 fighter each. The mission is to hit maintenance areas, hangers, and living quarters and they are to ignore the aircraft, which will be well dispersed and many will be in revetments. The objective is to damage the Allied Bomber Forces ability to maintain itself but more importantly to make a point, as each bomber also carries several bombs filled with tear gas.
The Germans strike comes with little warning, in some cases only a few minutes, just enough time for many personnel to still be milling about from sleep (at the RCAF and RAF bases) or drop what they were doing and try and process the idea that an attack is coming. At the American bases, most of the aircraft are already in the air carrying out their missions of the day (indeed many are fighting for their lives at Piccadilly Circus not too many minutes before) and ground staff equally caught off guard. Most however dive into air raid shelters and trenches or into ditches or any other available cover as the German bombers sweep overhead. The damage inflicted is mostly minor, although the gas bombs create many scares, but at Great Ashfield, home of the 95th Bomb Group, several cluster bomb strikes catch several hundred men as they are dashing for shelter, while at Earls Colne, bomblets walk across a housing area of British Lancaster crews still trying to get out of their beds. In spite of these local disasters only 4,000 casualties are inflicted in all and Allied flak and fighters manage to down a third of the German attack force either over the target or in the flight home.
However a report generated after the strike points out that if the Germans had used nerve gas casualties might have been as high as 50% of the personnel in the target zones and while disastrously expensive, the Germans make their point.
By the end of the day the German aircraft have landed at their forward bases, refueled and those that are airworthy are flying further east to their home fields in Poland and East Prussia or dispersing to their air defense bases in the Reich itself.
At great cost the Luftwaffe has struck back and made the point that if had meant to, it could have dealt a severe blow indeed. The air raid scheduled against Berlin by Bomber Command is postponed as well.
That same day a peace proposal is submitted to the United Nations and the Western Allies specifically through Switzerland and Argentina
