1929 - The British government, remembering that Jellicoe wanted the Anglo-Dominion Fleet to be based in Sydney but that (as it has been alleged) they felt that basing the fleet in an independent country could pose control problems, decides that siting a base in an independent Tasmania is a better bet. The tiny country, supported largely by sales of its main export, the apple, was too small and weak to be a threat to British control of the fleet.
The plans for the Singapore base are remodelled so that it becomes merely a place for emergency repairs. About 15 million pounds of British defence spending is diverted to Tasmania. Tasmania has a labour government with close relationships to the UK labour governments, so the spending cuts that happened to Singapore don't happen in TTL. The continued flow of cash from the UK sparked skilled migration from Australia when unemployment there rises during the Depression.
The base and the existing abundant hydro power spur the development of shipbuilding, including a Taswegian alliance with Vickers, and allied industries. The Tasmanian government commissions a far-sighted report that identifies future growth industries and starts up an aluminium smelter, widespread technical and scientific training for school leavers, and consumer electrical goods. In a controversial move, the Tasmanian Radical government of 1933 responded to health concerns and started discouraging tobacco use, while at the same time starting an industry to sell opium on the Chinese market. The Radical government soon fell from power and the opium trade was switched to marijuana exporting in response to UK pressure, but the tobacco controls continued . It was Mao's own sentimental preference for Tasmanian produce, sparked by his love of Pieman Pot (TM) , Liawannie Leaf, (TM) and Strickland Spiff (TM) that is credited with curbing his genocidal tendencies and led to Tasmania's lucrative status as the major entrepot to Communist China from 1950 to 1972, despite its distant location.
By the late 1930s, Tasmania's population was still only one milion, but its strong economy and immigration controls had allowed it to pick the cream of the crop moving from Australia, the USA and Europe during the Depression years. Denmark was a particularly strong source of immigrants. The influence of the Radicals, with their emphasis on progressive social policies and education, had encouraged immigration from leading scientists fleeing fascism, the Depression and socially-conservative nations. The University of Tasmania was now the home of giants of science like Turing and Rutherford. Even Einstein had been lured to the island when the government offered the fanatical sailor a yacht to replace his beloved Tummler, lost to the Nazis. These leading lights were supported by the many apprentices and scientists coming out of the universities and trade schools. In 1938, Einstein and his team created history when t
hey split the beer atom in the first scientific breakthrough to be filmed. LINK
As the countries of the world turned to rearming, the Tasmanian shipyards, trained staff, aluminium smelter and new factories for consumer electricals were well poised to take advantage. The modern shipyards and their trained staff had been churning out machine tools for new defence industries as quickly as they had been churning out ships, and Tasmanian Vickers had a production line of modified 6 Ton tanks, A 10T Medium tanks, and an APC using old tooling for Medium MkIIIs. The aircraft subsidiary was in production of planes from Vickers and subsidiary companies like Supermarine. In a major gamble, the Royal and Loyal Taswegian Government built a steelworks at Bell Bay, using coal from NSW and Victoria and iron ore from SA. By being in the middle of the two main sources of supply and closer to the shipyards, it was well able to compete with the Australian and imported steels.
The British government advised Tasmania that given its extremely high proportion of skilled tradespeople working in defence industries, it was not expected to field a large combat force. However, the small Tasmanian forces had pivotal roles in the conflict. Historians agree that it was the attack by the 2nd Tasmanian Armoured Battalion outside Dunkirk on 22 May, when its collection of well-armed medium tanks, SPGs modified from 6 Tonners and APCs threw back the 2nd Panzer Division, that was the only thing that stopped the German army from rolling into the port city before the British army could be evacuated.
On 7 September it was the turn of the Taswegian Air Force to take centre stage. Fighter Command was on its last legs as the Luftwaffe continued to smash the fighter fields. Defeat was staring Park in the face. However, the carrier HML&TTS Tasmania (formerly HMS Hermes) was rushing to the scene with a wing of Hobart-built Spitfires. The effort was led by the head of the Tasmanian air force. Senior Officer Thomas Phew. The Spits flew straight from the deck of Tasmania into the German formations on the dawn of what the Germans were to call "Eagle Day". Phew himself shot down no less than seven aircraft, and his wing crushed the German's last major effort. In Churchill's famous words, "Never in the history of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to S.O. Phew".
The brilliant efforts in the air and on land were matched by the Tasmanian victories at sea. It was, of course, the severe damage by the Blackburn Sharks of Tasmania (formerly HMS Hermes) and subsequent attack by the home-built modified Arethusa class cruiser Hobart that sank the Admiral Scheer in the Indian Ocean; it was Hobart that found Bismarck after the Suffolk and Norfolk had lost her trail; Tasmania that, with a strike by her Skuas, slowed the Conti di Cavour and allowed her to be caught and sunk by HMS Renown.
But the Royal and Loyal Tasmanian Navy's greatest day came on October 25, 1944. The Japanese Navy had thrown its greatest gamble, and won - Kurita and his Centre Force had evaded Halsey's fleet and was about to turn into Leyte Gulf and destroy the US amphibious forces. The US invasion would stall; the war would be extended for a year or more. From the bridge of Yamato, Kurita saw that only a few escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts barred him from his goal. Historians, bar a few US fanatics, univerally agree that such small ships could never have held off the mighty Japanese battle fleet.
It was then that Hobart, HML&T Launceston and Tasmania loomed out of the smoke of the burning US light forces. The two modified Arethusa looked, at the distance, like KGV class battleships followed by a British armoured carrier. To Kurita's horror, he believed that the British Pacific Fleet was about to strike. At the same time, his own forces came under attack from a wave of single-seater torpedo fighters.
Exactly what Kurita would have done we will, of course, never know. While one flight of Firebrands ran fast and low to strike Yamato with two torpedoes, crippling her screws, another flight dive bombed and destroyed the flagship's bridge. With the admiral dead and the two "KGVs" barring the way, the Japanese fleet fled, leaving their flagship to be sunk that night by the destroyers of the First Tasmanian Flotilla.
However, saving the US at Leyte Gulf was not Tasmania's last major contribution to victory. Since 1941, "heavy water" from the Tasmanian hydro electrical system and Einstein and his brilliant team of atomic physicists at UTAS were to form a vital part of the Allied research and development of nuclear weapons. "Without Tasmania, there would have been no gadget" was the final word from Oppenheimer.
The end of the war found Tasmania in an outstanding financial position. She had suffered comparatively few lost personnel; she had been racking up financial reserves from the sale of armaments, and of food for the US Pacific forces; she had been buying in the Australian wool crop left stranded on the continent; and unlike other countries that had given their troops cigarettes that later led to vast numbers of deaths, she was to have a healthy workforce in the future.
It was then that Admiral Crichton, head of the navy, rose to Premier. The admirable Crichton was to serve as the model for leaders like Lee Kuan Yew in the way that he realised that Tasmania's main strength in the post-war years would be, even more than before, the education of its people. Unlike Yew, Crichton had the advantage of an already highly trained populace led by men like Turing, who returned from his war years in the UK to find a long and happy life with his partner in the less socially-conservative island to the south. Along with two expatriate Americans, he formed a computer company in 1973, naming its first product after the main fruit of the island - the apple. By 1990 Tasmania, the "Singapore of the South", had a population of 5 million people, its people working in IT, biotech, banking and education.
The tiny nation had also taken to the world stage in its two major sports. Sailor Paul Elvstrom (who emigrated from Denmark with his parents at the age of seven) won an unprecedented four Olympic gold medals. He then skippered the 12 Metre yacht "Derwent III" (designed by Bernhard Einstein, who had inherited his grandfather's love of the sport) to victory over the fast but unreliable Australian challenger "Australia II" and then the American defender "Liberty" to win the 1983 America's Cup. Tasmanian cyclists like Danny Clark performed well on the world stage, creating a cycling culture that saw Richie Porte winning two Tours de France and placing third in the world time trial championships.
It was 1990 that was the pivotal year for Tasmania. Australia was struck down by recession. Riots and unrest, sparked by comparisons with the tiny but prosperous country across Bass Strait, ruled the land. Taswegian protests against the attacks on its embassy in Canberra fuelled the tension until on March 23, Tasmania was forced to undertake "preliminary defensive measures" with a sudden strike against the RAAF bases, the RAN's Garden Island dockyards, and a paratroop descent on Canberra. The unexpected collapse of Australian defence led to the larger continent being declared a Tasmanian Colony on August 1 1990, now celebrated across Australia as "Union Day".
Tasmania's rise to the world stage, its benevolent rule of Australia and other outstanding efforts for world peace and development caught the world's attention even more when Hobart-born Mary Donaldson became future Queen of Denmark in 2004. The marriage cemented the old ties between the Danes and the Taswegians and led to the countries uniting in 2024. In a surprise move, the Tasmanian prime minister was then elected head of the European Community - a symbol that the tiny island at the end of the world was now truly a world leader.
