“Order the tanks to advance,” he ordered. “All guns are to concentrate on reducing that antitank position.”
Tank Commander Nishizumi gave the order and his little tank moved forward, followed by five others. The Type 89 Otsu tanks, medium tanks, were neat and manoeuvrable, but he was grimly aware of their weaknesses. The Soviet armour had been far more powerful and capable, but the Japanese Army had been unwilling to listen to the veterans of the tank brigade’s only major conflict.
“Forward,” he snapped, as the signalman waved them out of the compound; a former manor-like house owned by a corrupt headman. The sound of battle grew closer as the tanks motored on, cheered by the infantry, while the air force flew overhead. He allowed himself a moment to relax, then leaned forward as the enemy position came into view.
“Gunner, load high explosive,” he ordered, sighting the weapon directly on the position. The infantry had overrun it, but they hadn’t forced the British out; concentrating instead on preventing the British from repairing the hole in their lines. “Fire!”
The little tank shuddered as the shell blasted through the air and slammed into the British position. Nishizumi chuckled, and then narrowed his eyes in concern; two British infantrymen were pointing a large gun at one of the tanks. A streak of fire lanced out of the gun, and a tank exploded.
“Kill them,” Nishizumi snapped, and swept the machine gun across the British position. Three more little rockets screamed back at them from out of the jungle… and Nishizumi’s world vanished in a blast of fire.
Captain Dwynn stared down through the vision-engaging goggles on his helmet, tracking the Japanese movements. Through a combination of suicidal bravery and training no Jihadi could match, the Japanese had forced their way through the defence lines in two places. They died like flies, but they pressed on.
“Time to engage them?” Chang subvocalised. “If we don’t stop them soon.”
“I think its time,” Dwynn said. The Japanese supply line ran over a bridge, and the Japanese had taken care to build three separate pontoon bridges from local boats, thus avoiding a crush at the end of the bridge. Several dozen lorries were moving up to the bridge.
“The rockets are ready,” Sergeant Vash assured him. “We can fire the minute you command it.”
“Thank you,” Dwynn said absently. The Japanese had built several more bridges further down the river, and SAS teams were closing in on all of them. They waited… and waited… until all of the teams were ready.
“Fire,” he commanded, and Vash hit the switch. Twelve rockets, each carrying a pound of high explosive, struck the bridge and the lorries that were trying to cross it. The explosion surpassed his wildest hopes; the lorries had been carrying shells for the guns.
“Good God,” Chang breathed, as burning men leapt into the water. “We just cut a chunk of the Japanese Army off from any reinforcements.”
“Perhaps,” Dwynn said, as bullets started to crack through the trees. “Time to leave, I think,” he said. “We did good today.”
Corporal Jenkins let go of the clutch and drove the Saracen Armoured Personnel Carrier forward, steering to the sound of the guns. The Japanese knew that the British had no tanks – but a 2015 APC possessed more firepower than many 1940 tanks. Jenkins steered forward, ignoring the bullets pinging off the armoured, and gave the command to fire.
The Saracen had been extensively modified during the insurgency in Iraq and the various missions that had ended the Terror War. This Saracen was armoured against anything short of a main battle tank, and possessed gun ports to protect the soldiers inside when they fired, to keep the all-important death toll down. The hail of machine gun fire swept over the Japanese, steering into the path of their desperate attempt to fight the Saracen vehicles, and slaughtered them.
Jenkins had hoped to meet a Japanese tank – he’d been wanting to try the rocket launcher – but none appeared. Contemporary forces followed the Saracens, securing the breach in the lines and trying to capture Japanese prisoners. After the first few Japanese surrendered and then opened fire, Jenkins simply ordered them all killed. The counter-attack pressed on, and the Japanese had nothing to stop them. Only one Saracen was knocked out by a grenade-stuffed bag that was thrown under the wheels.
General Yamashita knew that the game was over. The sudden appearance of the British tanks – he cursed the intelligence that had informed them that there were no tanks in the region – had defeated his forces. He knew that he could keep fighting, but what was the point? Until he managed to deploy some anti-tank weapons that were actually worth the name, the British held the advantage.
“Order the men to fall back,” he ordered, knowing that it would lead to a disaster. Countless tons of heavy equipment would be lost in the jungle; there was no way that it could be carried over the river. “Special detachments are to destroy anything that could be useful to the enemy.”
He watched as his men carried out the final order. He was proud of them; they retreated in good order, firing at imprudent pursuers with a determination that he found hard to fault. The British didn’t follow with any determination; they worked to secure their defence lines before following the Japanese. The commander of the detachment at Kuala Lumpur would take command of the army; there were some supplies in the city that could not have been bought to the disastrous battle. General Yamashita, however, had one final duty.
Carefully, gently, he laid a cloth on the ground, drawing his sword with a single motion before kneeling on the cloth. “I die for the emperor,” he said, almost regretful that there was no one to hear him, and stabbed himself in the chest.
Oil Mining Complex
Ploesti, Romania
4th October 1940
Oberfuehrer Hauptman looked up in the sky as the night fell over Ploesti. The massive oil complex, source of most of Germany’s oil, was a prize target… and the SS had been entrusted with the task. Hauptman, a capable and vigorous officer who had been rejected by the Wehrmacht, had borrowed as many weapons as he could, ringing Ploesti in a web of steel. Even the partisans hadn’t dared challenge his defences; Ploesti was impregnable. Everyone knew that.
There was something moving in the night sky. He reached for his binoculars and looked up, seeing a star move. For a second, he didn’t understand; stars didn’t move, and then he realised that it was… something out of the world. The British, he realised, as the… whatever it was fell closer. He looked up at it again, caught by its simple majesty… and then the world went white around him.
Chapter Forty-Four: Brighter Than A Thousand Suns
House of Commons
London, United Kingdom
5th October 1940
The last nuclear warhead had detonated in 2010, at least from the perspective of the 2015 British. Then, the news of the explosion near the Panama Canal – a botched attempt to wreck the canal – had flashed around the world in seconds. In contrast, no one in 1940 knew about the single warhead that had destroyed Ploesti – until Hanover announced it before Parliament.
“In order to cripple the German war economy, we made the decision to destroy Ploesti,” Hanover said calmly. The House, for once, was silent; the MPs were hastily calculating their options. “I wish to confirm that the mission was accomplished with a single trident missile, fired from a ballistic missile submarine, yesterday at ten o’clock, local time. Detonation was precise and at low attitude, and destruction was total.