Chapter 24
“We all thought the war was over.
When we got those orders, I thought some of us were going to desert or rebel. I’ll admit, after meeting some of those Russians, I though they weren’t half bad, and I didn’t want to fight them.
Instead, we all grabbed are gear and began marching. Every one of us.”
Major Patrik Malone speaking to New York Times Reporter Angie Morgenthau, October 8th, 1945.
When General George S. Patton ordered his men to march on and attack the Soviet front lines, all the other Allied commanders thought he was joking.
Known by his superiors for having a hot head and a big mouth, his actions were initially dismissed by Truman and Eisenhower, believing he would order his troopers back before any fighting could begin. Having been reprimanded and sidelined many times though out the war by this point, this was exactly the type of action it was believed he would make to scare off an annoying Russian messenger or get his seniors attention. Indeed, that is exactly what it was believed he was doing at first.
What nobody outside of Patton’s inner circle knew, was that this was not a bluff.
Dressed as an Allied soldier, the assassin had gotten to within 25 feet of Patton before attempting to shoot him with his rifle. The General would never learn if the assassin was a Nazi holdout, a Soviet spy, or an Allies agent sent to finally shut him up. What he did know was that, in the minute between the assassin being shot by an unbelievably quick reaction from sniper John Cockburn and actually dying, he had muttered deliriously in Russian and Ukrainian. Once two soldiers who spoke the languages were able to confirm the assassin had been speaking two of the main languages of the Motherland, as well the discovery of Peter Gondal, the sentry who the assassin had killed and whose uniform he had taken to blend in with the crowd, that is when Patton knew he had to act.
An hour after the assassination attempt, Patton sent a message to both General Eisenhower and Washington D.C. describing what had happened.
The assassin, with a clear line of sight between himself and Patton, had aimed his rifle at the general. Amongst the crowd of over 200 soldiers walking and mingling about, nobody noticed him.
Nobody, except for John Cockburn.
Having been walking towards Patton exactly across from the assassin, he saw the barrel pointed at his general, and by extension himself, and had immediately reacted, drawing his pistol and firing 4 shots.
All 4 hit their targets.
As all the soldiers ducked, they were about to shoot Cockburn when he started screaming about what he had seen. As Patton and a medic went to check on the dying assassin, that is when they heard his dying words.
The message ended with a postscript that John Cockburn was being given a field promotion, and that Patton was going to make it permanent once the fighting was done.
Nobody even bothered to read Patton’s message until four hours later, when Allied troops attacked Soviet forces.
The initial fight lasted 47 minutes. In that time, it is believed 412 Soviet soldiers died, compared to 2 American jeeps and a tank track that was repaired within the hour.
These rather stunning statistics were brought on by two factors. One was the element of surprise afforded by Patton’s quick action. The other was an airstrike called in by Patton redirecting a bomber fleet to the Soviet positions.
The bomber pilots would later state that they had been told they were being redirected to a Nazi holdout position that was refusing to surrender.
Whatever the truth was, Soviet forces were thrown into such disarray by the bombing that, when Patton and his troops appeared, they could not mount a proper defense. Instead, scattered soldiers fired off pot shots with their rifles, mostly hitting the Sherman tanks that had been ordered to shield the infinity. Said tanks then opened fire on the unprotected soldiers.
Carnage ensued.
Word on the new war would reach Moscow, London, and Washington at roughly the same time.
In Moscow, Stalin would immediately order the entire Soviet military to attack Western forces. Right after issuing the command, he would send a speech out over Soviet airwave.
“The Capitalists have shown their true colors. Without even waiting for the Fascists to finish their fight, they have turned on us, attempting to destroy us at what they believe to be our weakest.
But we shall show them the truth, the truth Hitler has learned.
I have ordered our armies to continue west. On through Germany. On through France. On through Spain, Portugal, and Britain.
Soon, our flag will fly over the White House itself, and all of our enemies will keel beneath the might of the Russian Bear.”
In London, Churchill ordered Montgomery to activate Operation Unthinkable. In less than an hour, 82% of all Nazi POWs had agreed to take up arms against the Soviets. For many, their only condition was that they got to go home as soon as the fight was done. This was considered an acceptable deal by the Royal government, and German soldiers were soon being sent with British reservists to the new front lines.
In Washington, Truman was furious. He immediately sent out orders relieving Patton of his command, as well as ordering Eisenhower to go to the front lines personally to stop the advance. He then called the Soviet embassy, trying to find some way to make things right.
Instead, he received a declaration of war.
Knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it now; he sent a second message to Eisenhower.
‘Activate operation Unthinkable.’
In Tokyo, Tojo sent out a similar order.
‘Attack.’
Chapter 25
‘The Reds Have Attacked! The Reds Have Attacked! The Reds Have Attacked!’
That was the message spread across the United States. Within a matter of hours, America’s shakiest ally turned into its greatest enemy.
On the home front, known and suspected Communist sympathizers were rounded up and placed into the camps that had, just the day before, been used to house the Germans and Japanese. Any who refused or demanded a trial often wound up in the local morgues. As for the people who had been housed in the camps, POWs were given the option to now fight for their captors. This was an offer most accepted, especially when they learned the alternative was being housed with the Communists. As for the Japanese American civilians, now that there was a new type of people to intern, they simply went home.
For Europe, most people simply took cover as the ashes blew up all over again. The scorched earth policies of both the Soviets and Nazis had left Eastern Europe little better off than it had been during the Dark Ages, and with the renewed fighting, it was now looking like it was going to reenter the Stone Age.
Ingred Straselberger’s journal, which would be published and disseminated across the world once the fighting was over, captured just what it looked like at the ground level.
‘I have been hiding in this basement for 2 days now. I do not know if it is Father Peter’s house or not, as it has all been destroyed. Before I came here, I could hear the Russians. They were laughing like drunks, singing, although I could not tell what.
I fear what will happen if they find me. Ashla told me about the boarding school and what happened to all those girls.’
It was a story as old as war and fighting itself. The one thing no soldier can resist is alcohol, and the one thing no drunk soldier can resist is a beautiful woman. Stories like that were told from Norway to Sicily. Even the most vehement Nazi enemy would be hard pressed to declare which was worst between the Germans and the Russians once all the fighting was over.
In Asia, the civilian population there had already grown used such atrocities under the Japanese, but never at the level they were under now. Believing that this was their chance to make up for all their losses incurred throughout the war, the Imperial Military made a push in all directions, with orders to remind everyone who controlled Asia and the Pacific. Within two days of war starting between the Soviets and West, Japan made its move to retake the East.
It was a move made one day to late.
When word reached MacArthur and the other Allied Commanders in the Pacific theater that war had begun again, a split-second decision was made that would ultimately save three years’ worth of blood, sweat, and tears from being undone.
The order was given that every weapon captured from the Japanese from throughout the war, as well as any and every Allied surplus weapon lying around, was to be given to every man, woman, and child willing to fight. Anyone who could shoot a gun, man a canon, drive a boat, even control a tank and fly an airplane was to be given an opportunity to do so. At a speed that would go down as the fastest building of an army anywhere in history, over the course of a day and a night, civilians from China, to Vietnam, to the Philippine Islands were armed up.
When the Japanese offensive began at dawn, few plans had been made. The idea behind it was that local commanders would draw up whatever strategies were needed to break through the Allied lines, stretched thin by the fighting going on everywhere all at once, and then encircle and destroy any resistance.
While some minor victories would be incurred, the Japanese Empire would never grow its boarders beyond 59 kilometers during the entire offensive. Instead, in all places it was beaten back by those who had already been crushed by them once and were unwilling to relive the experience again.
End of Part One.