Chapter 1: The Beginning
January 1942
The Heads of Governments of the Allied Nations met in Casablanca of now liberated Algeria to discuss on the next move for the next phase of the war. The Orussian Tsar and his prime minister could not come as the Battle of Tsaritsyn was still under way so in their place they sent Air General Katherine Litvyak. However she too was preoccupied with the battle of city on the Volga. Even with this problem, the conference had agreed that Operation Overlord, the operation for the cross channel invasion of Gallia will not be unleashed until after May 1st 1944. After two months after the conference, Lt General Frederick Morgan was assigned as the Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander although there was no one at that post and Morgan had the job of piecing together the preliminary plans for Operation Overlord.
March 1942
Norfolk House, London
Morgan and his staff had to tackle the some of the war's knottiest problems. The main one was where the boys will land when the invasion is underway. To ease this vital decision they had access to a wealth of information about the coastline. During 1942, the Britannian RAF, Romagnan Sovrana Aeronautica Romagniana, Karlslander Luftwaffe and the Orussian Armii VVS had been taking high-altitude photographs of the neuroi infested coastline opposite the Britannian coast. Add the low-level sweeps done by Spitfires, witches, Bf 109s, M.C. 205s and LaGG-3s over selected areas. While the planes and girls swooped over Gallia, the Gallian Resistance agents began to provide information about the neuroi defense, at the same time, a special team based at Oxford University- the Inter-Services Topographical Unit under Royal Marines Colonel Sam Bassett scoured other sources of information which included appealing to the public via the BBC for holiday snaps and postcards from anywhere from the world. It had very welcomed response as the Broadcasting House was swapped. The Brits needed 50 Liberion servicewomen to be flown to assist the mess.
With all of this information the planners could narrow down the landing area choices. The main concern was the beaches must be in easy range of fighter and witch air cover so that meant Baltland and the Bay of Biscay were out of the question. That only left the planners with Northern Gallia and Belgica.
Well the most obvious choice will be Pas de Calais as it was nearer to Britannia, fighters and witches can hold the skies and it had a port which meant supplies can be unloaded faster. However there was one problem with the port city was infested with neuroi. The Gallian Resistance reported that there massive numbers of neuroi in the area of Pas de Calais
Morgan looked towards the west particularly at the coastline between Le Havre and the Cotentin Peninsula where the port city of Cherbourg is located. The coastline was in easy range of the fighters and witches. They checked this by having fighters and witches fly towards the area with the heaviest load possible. The fighters could do it and the witches could do it as well, there was even a report of a witch carrying a Konigstiger with ease to the Normandy coast while another report said two witches carrying a PT boat with crew on board to the coastline. It was also less defended compared to Pas de Calais. Cherbourg if captured early will provide a crucial port for resupplying the ground forces.
June 1943, 12 months to D-Day
The Combined Operations Headquarters accepted Morgan's choice even though some argued that the landing beaches were too far from the invasion's eventual target, liberation of Karlsland.
Alright invasion area is chosen, now to reassure that Normandy was the right choice. Special missions were conducted to make sure that the sandy shore can support the weight of tanks and other heavy vehicles, these missions were done by a special unit of witches, canoeists and swimmers where they went in the dead of night to collect samples of the soil. At the same time, teams were figuring out how to work out some of the problems like how the hell are they to bring supplies when they haven't captured a neuroi port just yet or how they going to handle the enemy fortifications. This is where usually the crazy ideas come up.
"If we can't capture a port, we must take one with us" Britannian naval planner, Commodore John Hughes-Hallett said. Once the troops land, they will need a port for them to use to bring in supplies so Hughes-Hallett proposed of making prefabricated harbours (later codenamed "Mulberries"). These blocks were to be towed toward Normandy after it was captured. Hughes-Hallett's plans were that a breakwater and outer sea wall was to be constructed 2 km from the coastline which was made off blockships or vast caissons (Big hollow concrete boxes that could be flooded so that they sink). This will create an area of calm water where the special floating roadways made of articulated steel sections (Codenamed "Whales") would lead to piers onshore. Ships anchored at the Whales would disgorge supply filled trucks. It was decided that two Mulberries were needed one for the Orussian-Fusoan-Liberion-Karlslander landing beaches and another off the Britannian-Farawaylander-Romagnan landing beaches.
To ensure that the vehicles had gas to liberate Western Europe, an aluminium alloy "pipeline under the ocean" (PLUTO) was to be laid between the Isle of Wight to a terminal in Normandy. Meanwhile a new tank formation was being formed. It was the 79th Armoured Division which its intent was to provide close support to the assault infantry. Its veteran commander, Major General Percy Hobart, developed special tanks which soon were called the "Funnies". The mainstay of these tanks was the Sherman Duplex Drive which had propellers and a canvas skirt to keep it afloat when it was launched offshore. Another workhorse of the division was the flamethrowing tank, the Churchill Crocodile.
December 7th 1943, 6 months to D-Day
All the developments to date were now well in hand now that a Supreme Allied Commander was appointed. Since the Liberions would the biggest contributor of men and equipment for the invasion, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Tōjō Hideki (Prime Minister of Fuso), Mikhail Kalinin (Prime Minister of Orussia), Silvio Feliciano (Prime Minister of Romagna) and Roderich Edelstein (Prime Minister of Karlsland) all agreed that the Supreme Allied Commander should be a Liberion. After some hesitation, Roosevelt plumped for Eisenhower who had planned the "Torch" Landings in North Africa and was now a full general in command of Allied Forces in Mediterranean.
January 1944, 5 months to D-Day
Bushy Park, London
At Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), Eisenhower gathered a group of intelligent commanders, Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Tedder was the Deputy Supreme Commander and Commander of all Air Forces for D-Day, Air Marshall Katherine Litvyak as Commander of Allied Air Forces in Europe (Technically she is Tedder's boss and she has a say in the D-Day planning), Air General Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory as Deputy Commander of the air forces for D-Day, Admiral Sir Bertram was in command of all naval forces involved for D-Day and General Sir Bernard Montgomery will be the commander of all assault troops. General Omar Bradley, Lt General Max-Josef Pemsel, General Georgina Zhukov (Marshal Georgy Zhukov's younger sister) and General Miles Dempsey were picked as the commanders of the main invasion forces which were the US First, Karlslander Seventh, Orussian Expeditionary Ground Forces and the Britannian Second Armies. Major General Walther Bedell-Smith, Eisenhower's long-standing chief of staff remained at his post with Morgan as his deputy.
However, not everything was smooth as everyone thought. Almost immediately controversies began to come to light with the first was the assault force numbers. Morgan's plan originally envisaged an invasion force of three divisions with airborne support on the flanks; Eisenhower and Montgomery insisted that on increasing this to seven divisions still with airborne support. This made a logistical nightmare as they need an extra 2000 landing crafts and there were very few available. The only nations that any of these in quantity were Orussia and Liberion but the Chiefs of Staff of these nations were suspicious of that Churchill will divert these landing crafts to the Mediterranean operations he hold dear to his heart. However with extreme reluctant the Orussians (Katherine, Dimitri and Georgina had argued with the STAVKA for the landing crafts) and the Liberions released more vessels but not the full 2000.
Another controversy that almost led to the resignation of the normally even-tempered Eisenhower and the usually calm Katherine broke out when the demand Commander of the Allied Air Forces that SHAEF have unrestricted of the Britannian, Liberion, Orussian, Karlslander, Romagnan, and Fusoan heavy bombers (well to precise the Orussians and Fusoans didn't really have any proper heavy bombers) "soften up" roads, bridges and neuroi defences. It was crucial that these lines of communications were wrecked so the neuroi could not flood reinforcements to the invasion area when the first shots were fired.
The Orussian, Karlslander, Romagna and Fusoan air commanders were not giving any problems as they respected the ranks of these two commanders and they knew that these commanders knew what they are doing. However it was the Britannian and Liberion "bomber barons", Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Harris and Lt General Carl Spaatz that were giving Eisenhower and Katherine trouble. They bristled at the proposal that their bombers were being diverted to support D-Day when they were busy bombing neuroi installations deep in enemy territory. Harris reckoned that his Lancasters and Halifaxes can win the war without the need of a ground campaign while Spaatz wanted to concentrate his bombers on the neuroi resources targets. Only by intervention by Roosevelt and Churchill (with a little help from Katherine's murderous side) brought them into line. The bombing campaign on invasion related targets began later in April 1944.
By 1944, Great Britannia was crammed with men and equipment. Since 1942, Marshall (Chief of Staff of the US Army) had dispatched a staggering 950000 US troops to Britain as well as vast amounts of supplies. This doesn't include the 1000000 soldiers and supplies arriving from Orussia, the 850000 men and equipment the Fusoans sent, the 650000 men and weapons from Karlslander not including the 150000 Karlslanders with their own equipment already there since 1940's failure, and finally the Romagna has sent 535000 men and supplies. Whole sweeps of the south were covered from horizon to horizon with row upon uniform rows of tanks armoured vehicles, and aircrafts. There were farmer fields in Kent filled with howitzers and tanks lined the highway in West Sussex. Half cylindrical steel containers sheltering piles of ammunition lined the grassy shoulder of country roads. Depots were stuffed full with everything from boxes of dried eggs to drums of motor oil, brooms to prefabricated Nissen huts. A current joke went that only the thousands of barrage balloons bobbing in Britannian skies kept the island from sinking beneath the waves.
At the same time, amphibious training exercises began, with troops making mock assaults on parts of the coast that resembled the projected landing areas. South of Dartmouth, eight villages were evacuated and land was requisitioned to create the Slapton Sands Assault Training Area. Not all of the exercises were successful and some were costly.
April 27/28
Lyme Bay, West of Portland Bill
Convoy T4 which consisted of a corvette, HMS Azalea and nine tank landing craft were out for an exercise when…
"Hey, what's that over there?" a Liberion tanker asked pointing towards the waterline as there appears to be something floating above the waterline. Another tanker took out his night vision goggles and looked towards the object.
"Oh shit that's a neuroi and there are seven of them!" the tanker shouted. The word soon reached to the other vessels and panic arises as there were no witches in the area.
"Main guns fire on neuroi! We need to defend this convoy!" The captain of the corvette barked as the neuroi began to close in. The vessels in the convoy began to open fire on the neuroi. However the battle was short as the neuroi sliced three of the vessels before being driven away by witches. Two landing ships sank while one was badly damaged, 639 servicemen were killed in the incident. Alarmingly 10 officers that had special knowledge of the "Overlord" plan were found to be missing. Only after all ten officers' bodies were recovered then the Allied could breathe easily. There was a controversy on what happened to the dead Liberions. Many claimed the servicemen were buried secretly in mass graves near Slapton Sands.
Meanwhile Eisenhower had been tireless in visiting his troops. He wanted, if possible, to visit every single unit involved in the invasion.
"It pays big dividends in terms of morale and morale is supreme on the battlefield" Eisenhower said to explain why he goes from one unit to another. His most memorable was probably the visit to the 501st Joint Fighter Wing's Base in Dover. It was funny to see the witches caught off guard when he came to visit them. The only people that knew of the visit were Katherine and Dimitri. The witches just came back from the beach for some training. Katherine asked the witches to come the common room. The witches were too tired to notice Katherine, Dimitri, and Eisenhower in the common room when they walked. Eisenhower kept quiet until everyone was in the room.
"I must say, do you 501st girls always go to the beach?" Eisenhower asked. The witches slowly turned to the source of the voice.
"Dimitri, didn't Katherine tell you that we were at the beach…" Mio suddenly lost her voice when she saw who it was. There was General Eisenhower, standing in the corner of the room with Katherine and Dimitri flanking him on the left and the right respectively. Katherine looked as she was about to explode with laughter while Dimitri was struggling to keep a straight face. Eisenhower had a warm smile. The witches blinked at least twice to check who else were in the room.
"AH!" The witches screamed as they realized who it was and what they were wearing in front of them. They scramble to cover their exposed bodies.
"What a… n…ice surprise, sir" Minna stuttered as she tried not expose her body.
"Calm down, Lt Colonel Minna, it is just me not your father" Eisenhower smiled.
"Sorry for being so indecent in front you sir" Gertrude apologized as she calmed herself down.
"Please forgive us" the rest of the witches said
"It's alright, you were out training and no one informed you" Eisenhower said. The witches sighed in relief they were scared that they might get disbanded like they almost did last year if it wasn't for Katherine intervening and scaring the plotters.
"However, a certain someone here could have informed you" Eisenhower said as he gestured towards Katherine who finally burst into laughter.
"Katherine! Ma'am! Kathy!" The witches exclaimed. Eisenhower chuckled slightly while turning to Dimitri. (1st A/N)
"Does this happen all the time?" Eisenhower asked.
"Sometimes, if Katherine is bored" Dimitri answered.
May 15th 1944
St Paul's School, London
Eisenhower conducted a full-scale briefing of his senior commanders in front of King George IV and Churchill. US Rear Admiral Morton L. Deyo recalled it being said that the Supreme Commander's smile was worth 20 divisions. That day it was worth so much more. Eisenhower spoke for ten minutes. The mists of doubt dissolved before the warmth of his quiet confidence. After he finished, the tension had gone. Not often did one man be called upon to accept so great a responsibility but here was one at peace at his soul.
"D-Day will commence on June 5th this year" Eisenhower said.
Author's Notes
Most of this info is real like the battle of Lyme Bay
1st A/N : Just guess who said which line