PART XXXIII: Deviations

December 28, 1941. Petrushan, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Serbian Banovina)(1)

"That bastard did it!"

The day's going to shit and it hasn't even started…

The tone in his brother Said's voice told Gani Bey Kryeziu exactly whom the next conversation would center around. Now Gani was no friend of Ahmed Zogolli's, far from it, but he had found it best to limit how much time he spent dwelling on his brother's murderer unlike his brother who had let him set up shop permanently in his increasingly addled brain. (2)

"Coffee first Said…" Gani growled as he rolled off his cot.

Not that we have much of that these days either… Mere days after the Kingdom of Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact, the Kryezius along with all other Albanians in Kosovo became targets of the new pro-Axis Regency due to their potential to foment resistance in Kosovo.(3) Nine months of running and hiding from the Serbs and their German masters had followed, forcing them to abandon many of the luxuries they'd taken for granted. As the leaders of the only anti-Zogist Albanian resistance movement, they'd been able to draw upon sympathizers and the occasional illegal shipment from the Italians via Hasan bej Prishtina(4) and Shefqet Verlaci but those too had become few and far between. Rumor had it, Prishtina and his men had all been rounded up well before diplomats had even begun talks in Vienna. Now they were truly on their own…

Well… not truly…

Adjusting his jacket, Gani stood up and brushed past his brother to get to the pot of coffee boiling over the fire. It was mostly ersatz coffee now, but he didn't care. The taste brought back memories that would make the conversation to follow more bearable.

Best to get this over with

"What did he do now Said? How many defectors?"

Sipping his coffee, Gani couldn't blame them. Without support, his movement's scope for action was incredibly limited. Supplies of everything were constantly running low and the Serbians were "clearing" more and more villages that could support them each day. Whereas his men had to turn these people away, the Zogists fed them and funnelled them to safety in the South. Whereas his men had to constantly avoid Serbian patrols, rumor had it that the Zogists had begun ambushing them with none other than Musa Juka himself leading the charge alongside British commandos.

"It's not just the defectors…" Said's voice trembled as he handed Gani the dispatch. "It's so much worse…"

Gani nearly spat out his coffee as his eyes scanned the page in front of him. "Has this been confirmed?"

"I made sure of it myself before coming to see you…"

"This…this changes everything…"

"Don't worry," Said said putting his hand up, "I haven't told the men yet. That doesn't mean they won't find out…"

His brother paused when he noticed Gani breathlessly whispering the words on the page. "…While I continue to condemn the inter-ethnic violence in Kosovo and Vlora, and I continue to gladly put my life on the line for the Albanian people, the time has come to acknowledge my own frailty…"

"If it were up to me he'd do more than acknowledge it…Blood for Blood…Zog's for Ceno's" Said spat.

Gani ignored him and continued to read it out quietly to ground himself in reality if nothing else. "…I admit that I have not done so to date for I feared for my legacy. Ever since the Italian invasion I dared not think of what would become to our resistance if I should die, but no longer. Now I can continue to dedicate all of my energies to driving the Italians and the Serbians from our lands knowing that if death claims me another king will lead the Albanian people to victory. I know many have expected me to name my son Leka as my successor, but I cannot at this moment. The Albanian people's survival hangs by a thread, we cannot suffer a boy king. Should I die, I implore the Albanian people to vote for a successor capable of leading them to victory…"

Gani's breath hitched as he read the last words, rendering them barely audible "…Should I die, I ask that the Albanian people vote for Tati Kryeziu Prince of Kosovo to succeed me as King of Albania since he has turned 18 and is now eligible according to our constitution…"(5)

So much for "Tutelatory Monarchy" being a mere façade for dictatorship. Kemal Ataturk had been the first to raise that point when Zog set forward the principle and enshrined it in the Albanian Constitution. The amendment's eloquent language surrounding the monarchy's electoral succession was certainly beautiful, but the Kryezius had consistently stressed the point Ataturk had harped on until his death in 1938: there was no accountability. Nobody doubted that Zog's supporters would rig the vote when the time came to elect Zog's son which made his nomination of Tati all the more devastating. By choosing a figure who, though certainly a Zogist and a member of Zog's family, was not his British educated son, Zog was showing that he was more than some jumped up mountaineer and that his commitments to democratic reform were more than just for show.

"It gets worse…"

"How?" Gani groaned. "Is it not bad enough that our nephew has completely abandoned his rightful family for that of his father's killer? Is it not bad enough that he ran away as a boy to fight the invaders and fought like the devil himself for Zog's army in Egypt, winning accolades that make him the fantasy of every woman in Kosovo?"

"He's been spotted with Princess Faiza…"(6)

440px-Faiza_Rauf_by_Armand_(2).jpg

Princess Faiza of Egypt (b. 8 November, 1923)​

"If they get married…" Gani whispered.

"…the perfect storm." "

Gani scowled. "Even if they do not, the prospect of being ruled by a Kryeziu who has fought the Italians and won and is romantically linked to Egyptian royalty would be supported by far too many, even within our own tribe…"(7)

Even with all the animosity between Zog and the Kryezius, young Tati's exploits had been favourably looked upon by even his most stalwart supporters from the beginning. News of his actions as a 17 year old fighting the Italians at the Battle of the Pimple south of Benghazi had circulated widely and seemed to grow with each re-telling. The boy went from simply handling ammunition, to manning a machine gun, to personally accepting the surrender of the Italian general in some of the more recent campfire stories he'd overheard. New reports from the recent British seizure of Tripoli augmented these stories and served to make Tati even more of a larger than life figure than Zog himself, at least in Kosovo.

And that was only with the small majority of Albanians who remained opposed to Zog due to his earlier stance towards Kosovan liberation. Gani estimated that slightly less than half the region had family members who had travelled south to work for Zog in one of his factories or other organizations either in Albania or elsewhere in the world. When combined with the man's ability to go from strength to strength and adapt to every ebb and flow of history, the steady stream of remittances had gone a long way in shifting the attitudes of the everyday people even before Yugoslavia joined the Axis.

For now, the only real anti-Zogist constituency remaining were the more traditional Muslims. Zog's dalliance with the Protestant Parashqevi Qiriazi combined with his modernizations had many of them concerned about the future of Albanian Islam. Either in isolation would have been accepted but together they served to drive most of the nation's religious conservatives towards the Axis.(8) Those who weren't willing to openly collaborate with the Axis did so quietly or redirected their support to the Kryezius since they were the only group that was openly anti-Zogist and anti-Italian. Even without his endorsement of Tati, recent events had this group reconsidering their attitudes towards Zog since he seemed to be the only one standing against the Albanian people's complete and utter extinction. Now that Zog had nominated and thus effectively proclaimed Tati to be his heir and Tati was now romantically linked to a prominent Muslim royal house…

"We must contact Hoxha." Fadil Hoxha had been one of the many Kosovars who had travelled south to Albania first for education and then for work. He'd eventually found a place in Zog's Gendarmerie, going to ground in summer 1940 to found one of the first northern Çetas just across the border from Gjakova. When Yugoslavia joined the Axis, it had barely inconvenienced him to expand his activities into his former homeland.(9) Unlike Musa Juka, Hoxha had been a latecomer to the Zogist cause and had thus avoided the massacres that had accompanied Zog's rise in the 1920s. Musa Juka's blood soaked hands made contacting him completely unpalatable to the Kryezius' political fortunes, as doing so would mean complete capitulation. Hoxha on the other hand had skyrocketed in importance since Serbia's signing of the Tripartite Pact by becoming the leader of all Zogist activities in Kosovo. His proximity and prominence thus allowed him to be the fig leaf needed for their temporary realignment with the Zogists.

220px-Fadil_Hoxha,_commander_of_Kosovo_partisans.jpg

Fadil Hoxha b.15 March, 1916​

"And Ceno?"

Gani scowled "That is why we must act now, and wholeheartedly embrace a new course no matter how distasteful." Taking a deep breath he continued "We will not forget Ceno, but in order to ensure his blood will not cry out to us forever, we must do so for a time…"

Said shook his head and cried out. "No, no, no, brother. There has to be a better way…"

"You know as well as I do there is not." Gani snapped. "When word of Zog's endorsement of Tati reaches the men, half will desert right away and the remainder will follow in a month. Even as it is, we cannot fight the Serbs without outside aid."

"The Tosks (10) will never tolerate a Kosovar on the throne…if we can capitalize on the division…"

"What division?" Gani laughed dryly, cutting off his blubbering brother. "Like it or not, Tati was a member of the royal family before going to America of all places. Fan Noli arranged his mother's second marriage and he's fighting alongside an almost all Tosk army in Egypt. He's the perfect candidate to unite Albania. The Tosks will have no qualms voting for him."(11)

"So you would have us…"

Gani shook his head. "Not forgive...not forget…at least not completely. We will join Zog's men and point to Tati if anyone asks why. We will become better Zogists than Zog' himself and when he has fully convinced himself that he has nothing to fear from us, we will strike and we will rule behind the only Kryeziu who can…"

"And if he dies? What then? If young Tati wants to truly succeed his uncle he will certainly seek to prove that he is no less of a warrior king…"

"Not if he is Zog's insurance policy…" Gani sighed "Even then, the fact remains. Our movement is on its last legs and the Serbs are dead set on driving every last one of us out of our ancestral lands. Like it or not we need Zog…" His sadness then subsided and was replaced by a predatory grin. "At least for now…"

Notes:

1. A rural village in Kosovo.

2. The Kryeziu's hated Zog from the moment he had their brother Ceno bej Kryeziu (father of Tati) killed in July 1927. I highly doubt they went along with his efforts at rebranding himself. Zogolli was Zog's birth name.

3. Remember, no March 1941 coup in TTL. See Part XXVIII.

4. Hasan bej Prishtina was the main leader of the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo, the main Albanian resistance group in Kosovo in the 1920s.

5. See parts IX and XIV for more details on Zogism.

6. Sister of King Farouk, she resisted efforts to marry another Middle Eastern Royal in OTL and ended up marrying Mohammed Ali Bulent Rauf, a man 12 years her senior, in 1945.

7. Historical ties between Egypt and Albania allowed Zog to live with Farouk following WWII in OTL. Even today, Egyptian "royalty" is seen as quasi-Albanian by the Albanians I've talked to.

8. Again I'd like to point out that many Albanian religious conservatives supported the Axis in OTL. Given the changes in TTL, I don't think it's unrealistic to imagine a pushback in this form.

9. Fadil Hoxha is from OTL and similarly travelled from Gjakova to Albania for education. In OTL he worked various jobs and got involved in Communist politics before returning to Kosovo in 1941 where he advocated for Kosovo's unification with Albania despite Yugoslav pressure. He later worked with the Yugoslavs and became a prominent leader in OTL's Kosovo.

10. Tosks = Albanians south of the river Shkumbin. Far more liberal and educated than their northern compatriots the Ghegs. Also widely perceived by Ghegs to be less martial and independent.

11. Fan Noli is Zog's PM at this point and the most prominent Tosk politician. The Albanian diaspora in America is also overwhelmingly Tosk.

HIS 104: Strategy and Statecraft

Ethan Yoder, Student Number: 199303116

TA: Arthur Zhao[/B]

Q: What factors caused the disparate outcome behind the disparate British and American experiences in Southeast Asia from December 1941-March 1942?

The fact that British Commonwealth forces were able to massively outperform their American counterparts from December 1941 to March 1942 has been a popular topic of discussion amongst military historians from the moment sufficient data became available. Even before the dust had settled, both internal and external observers were throwing out possible reasons and leadership featured heavily among them. Though historians downplayed the individual roles played by Douglas Macarthur, FDR, Winston Churchill and Hugh Dowding in the 1960s and 70s, recent historians have reconsidered the importance of their individual actions in favour of broader structural factors. In this essay I will join these scholars in defending the importance of the Commonwealth's and USA's respective leaders' actions as the primary deciding factor in the initial months of the war in Southeast Asia. Beginning with the respective foreign policies of the FDR and Churchill Administration, the two empires followed distinct paths in pre-war planning and the execution of those plans which determined the course of the war in the Southeast Pacific.

The seeds of the disparate American and British performances can be found in their respective commitment to deterring Japanese aggression. War Plan Orange and the Singapore strategy provided the overarching frameworks within which both Roosevelt and Churchill worked. Both featured a proximate yet secure main base in Pearl Harbor (not so secure!) and Ceylon as well as frontline defenses in Singapore and the Philippines. Both powers similarly countered Japanese aggression by sending reinforcements to both their secure bases and their frontline areas, yet it is in this aspect that their approaches diverged. Having had any isolationist or pacifist sentiment stripped away by the outbreak of World War II, Churchill faced far fewer barriers than Roosevelt when sending reinforcements to the Pacific. Without a recalcitrant isolationist US Congress to consider, Churchill was able to redirect substantial forces to reinforce his frontline positions in fall 1941 such as the veteran 5th Indian Division and the 9th Australian Infantry division. Churchill proceeded to further augment these forces following the fall of Tripoli by redirecting 3 more ANZAC divisions as well as the 1st Armoured division, 4th and 10th Indian divisions. Even if the Americans had similar units to send in 1941, it is unlikely Congress would have allowed Roosevelt to detach them to reinforce the Philippines. Sending the Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor proved unpopular enough. (This paragraph needs to be streamlined (no division numbers!) and reordered so it's next to your section on Matador)

Instead, the US maintained a small Asiatic "fleet" centred around a single heavy cruiser and a few dozen submarines in Manila to protect the paltry number of infantry stationed on the islands themselves. This fleet similarly paled in comparison to the forces available to Lancelot Holland in Singapore and its commander knew it. Admiral Thomas Hart's decision to move as many units to Singapore as possible before the war played a major role in allowing him to be the only senior commander serving in the Pacific to survive the events surrounding the outbreak of the war. Though Holland's Force Z continues to be popularly connected to the first major British naval defeat of the war, it should be noted that his forces did acquit themselves quite well in the Battle of the South China Sea before the arrival of Japanese bombers later in the morning of December 10, 1941. Not only was Holland able to disrupt landing efforts in northern Malaya and Thailand by engaging Japanese forces, he was also able to sink two Japanese heavy cruisers and knock two battleships (Whether or not the Kongos were really battleships is up for debate…) out of the war for a critical six months. It could also be argued that his vessels contributed to the high number of losses suffered by the Japanese bombers once Holland's fighter support arrived on scene. (12)

Given Dowding's history and role in the Battle of Britain it should come as no shock that American and Commonwealth performance deviates most sharply here. The flurry of activity Dowding engaged in upon his arrival laid the foundations for future Commonwealth victories by establishing an effective early warning and communication system to guard his network of airfields, as well as ensuring that he had enough men and machines to make the most of his strategic position. Though it is ironic that the British had more American built P-40's in Southeast Asia than the Americans in December 1941, even had the numbers been reversed, Dowding's men would have had the upper hand. Unlike MacArthur, whose indecisiveness and poor command structure led to the destruction of most of the available aircraft on the ground, Dowding tried to ensure that his pilots engaged the Japanese under the best conditions possible. Though losses were heavy, Commonwealth pilots managed to exact a far heavier price than their American counterparts despite aircraft that were similar if not often inferior. (Failing to mention the role played by Chennault and the Flying Tigers in the Malayan campaign is a major omission. Though they only did a few missions early on in the campaign, they played a major role in the region from Jan-Feb 1942. You didn't even mention Chennault's relationship with Dowding and the role it played in British preparedness. I recommended Stewart's article particularly for that purpose when you visited my office hours last week!)

Dowding's insistence on preparedness in the air also influenced the RN and the British Army in a similar fashion to how MacArthur's unpreparedness impacted all aspects of the American defense of the Philippines. Though the magnitude of the losses suffered at the Battle of the South China Sea dominates discussion of the RN's performance in the early days of the Pacific War, Dowding's request for more submarines paved the way for the Allies' ultimate triumph over Japan.(13) An eagerness to improve his remaining naval assets' effectiveness, led Dowding to push for codebreakers to crack the Japanese Maru code which they did in February 1942 (Important to note that it was actually a group of Albanians who made the key discovery!). (14) This new intelligence coupled with superior torpedoes allowed British submariners to sink 500,000 tonnes of Japanese shipping in the Pacific War's first six months and devastate their fleet of oil tankers. The sharp disparity between the performance of American and British submarines in 1942 prompted a major crisis in the US Navy which was only resolved the following year due to the stalwart efforts of Admiral Thomas Hart. (15) Even after Hart oversaw the resolution of the largest issues plaguing the Mark XIV Torpedo, American sinkings lagged behind the British until mid 1943 by which point the threat of a Japanese offensive had dissipated entirely. (Valid point, but it would have been more effective if you focused on the campaign in the Dutch East Indies.)

Yet Dowding's contributions to the blockade and eventual surrender of Japan pale in comparison to his influence on events in Southeast Asia: particularly Operation Matador. From the moment he arrived, Dowding recognized Thailand's importance to the successful defense of the Malayan peninsula and worked to facilitate cooperation. Capitalizing on his role in the Battle of Britain, Dowding built a solid relationship with the Royal Thai Air Force's leaders which initially gained him critical intelligence on Japanese aircraft (No mention of Claire Chennault?) before blossoming into the sale of two dozen P-36 fighters and a full-blown Anglo-Thai Alliance in the hours prior to the invasion. As soon as the Japanese invasion fleet was sighted by an RAF Catalina on December 7, Dowding got on the phone to Bangkok and ensured that not only would the advancing troops of the 5th Indian, 9th Australian, and 9th Indian divisions meet no resistance, but they would reinforce Thai troops located on the likely invasion beaches.(16) Dowding's role in Operation Matador provides a sharp contrast with MacArthur's inept approach which left the expected and eventual main invasion beach at Lingayen Gulf grossly under defended when Japanese troops landed on December 22. (This point doesn't really land, MacArthur didn't have another neutral government to negotiate with like Dowding did. A better version of this point would have focused on Dowding and MacArthur's relationships with the Malaysian/Philippine people. Whereas Dowding mobilized months earlier and did everything he could to build allies, MacArthur was not only far more passive but accepted massive bribes from the Quezon regime.)

Whereas the invading Japanese effortlessly divided MacArthur's forces and conquered Luzon, their invasion of Malaya could barely get off the ground. Having planned for only 4 battalions guarding Khota Bharu, invading Japanese forces instead encountered almost the entire 11th Indian division.(17) Though the Indian troops were inexperienced, their sheer numbers, coupled with sufficient air support overwhelmed the initial waves. Japanese forces landing at Singora and Pattani encountered similarly violent receptions, first from the minimal Thai forces on station and then just as they were about to break, thousands of Commonwealth troops. General Yamashita tried to salvage victory from the jaws of defeat by shifting his landings further north, but here too ran into troubles as most of his reinforcements were redirected to secure bases in French Indochina.(18) Bangkok fell easily enough on December 9th, but poor Japanese logistics hamstrung their efforts to crush what remained of the Thai Army while also pushing south towards Malaya. When Yamashita finally brought the full weight of his forces to bear on the new Commonwealth defensive line across the Kra peninsula he found no opportunities to infiltrate their positions and instead found himself launching futile attacks much like the British had at the Somme or his predecessors had around Port Arthur in 1905.

Yamashita's failure to break Lewin's line across the Kra in late December and early January threw the entire Japanese centrifugal offensive into disarray. (19) Though this disorganization was not unexpected due to the offensive's reliance on using troops and ships in one phase immediately afterward in another, the scale of the defeats left the IJA with no easy answers. Their stubborn insistence that they could overcome the recently reinforced Malayan garrison had been key in preventing pacifist voices from calling off the entire Pacific war in the final weeks leading up to the attacks.(20) As the numerical disparity continued to increase in the early months of 1942, it quickly became apparent that the army would need reinforcements to hold their position in Thailand and even more to overcome Lewin's forces in the south while simultaneously deterring the Anglo-Thai army on the Burmese border. However even baseline reinforcements were not forthcoming as the Army lost all leverage to dictate overall strategy by mid-January 1942. For the time being, the Navy's strategic vision took centre stage and redirected the centrifugal offensive away from the Malaysian peninsula and towards the Philippines and Eastern Dutch East Indies.(21)

Though William Manchester and other MacArthur defenders point to this strategic shift as the main reason behind his failure relative to Dowding, the gap was immense before the war even started. Even if the Japanese offensive had gone according to plan, there was no way that MacArthur's poorly prepared position on the Bataan peninsula could have lasted until American forces were ready to relieve it. Due to MacArthur's inadequate preparation and atrocious execution of his existing plans, the defenders of the Philippines were doomed from the war's outset. Whereas the US Far Eastern Army Air Force was caught on the ground, the RAF in Malaya steadily ground their opponents down. Whereas the US and Philippine Armies consistently found themselves at the mercy of their Japanese opponents, the Commonwealth armies seized the initiative and never let go. (What about Ambon, Timor, or Java?(22) Commonwealth performance during the opening days of the Sumatran Campaign was also nothing to write home about…) Eventually, the pressures of fighting Germany in the Mediterranean and the rise of figures like Nimitz, Wainwright, and Hart resulted in America taking the lead in turning back Japanese aggression, but from December 8, 1941 to the Battle of Christmas Island, it was the British punching above their weight thanks to the preparedness of Dowding and others which stopped the Japanese from expanding their reign of terror.

Grade: Redo, Incomplete

There are no footnotes and only minimal references to the existing scholarship on the Pacific war in your essay. This is simply unacceptable at a university level. You definitely have a solid grasp of the subject material, but you need to show me more. Furthermore, you need to include other American and Commonwealth experiences to create a more balanced/complete perspective. Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers played a key role in the Commonwealth successes on the Malayan Campaign and despite faulty torpedoes, once the Maru code was cracked the Americans sank their fair share of Japanese tankers despite their faulty torpedoes. The Commonwealth on the other hand, had their fair share of bungles as well. Their collapse alongside the KNIL on Java needs to be mentioned at the very least. Finally, it should be noted that the Battle of Christmas Island on March 30, 1942, was a mixed bag for the Royal Navy and the US Navy. Though the RN was able to heavily damage 3 Japanese carriers with their night strike, the next day's airstrikes sank both the Hermes and Ark Royal as well as damaging the Illustrious, and Formidable. Their subsequent battle against the Americans days later was far more important. Here too, the Americans lost one carrier and had another heavily damaged, but they managed to finish the job sinking all three carriers damaged by the British and damaging one more.(23) You need to do more to explain why this battle is considered the point in the Pacific War where the Americans "took the lead."…

Notes:

12. I debated wargaming this out but opted not to. If anyone wants to do it for me, send me a PM. Basically the idea was that the Nelson, Rodney, and escorts sail north from Singapore on Dec 7, miss Japanese submarine pickets and threaten the invasion fleet to the extent that the Kongo, Haruna, and escorts turn south to intercept. AFAIK the Nelsons have better guns, fire control and armour but the Kongos are faster. I'm envisioning a short sharp engagement where the IJN tries to use torpedoes to minimal effect. The same bombers that took out the Prince of Wales and Repulse in OTL sink the Nelson and Rodney in TTL but get massacred by RAF Buffalos afterwards.

13. In OTL, RN submarines headed to the Pacific in increasing numbers following the victory in North Africa. The biggest downside in OTL was that there's no where to refit them locally so they had to return to the UK after a certain number of patrols regardless of damage. That isn't the case with Singapore fully operational.

14. Maybe this is tipping the scales too much, but I don't think it's unrealistic for Jack to remember that the essence of the Maru code was a pair of repeating letters = one ship. I read Blair's Silent Victory a decade ago and I still remember that much and a bit more.

15. Hart's going to be immediately confronted with the disparity in torpedo performance in TTL. I think he'd have no choice other than to listen to his subordinates and the British and arrange the same tests Lockwood did in OTL to resolve issues with the Mark XIV.

16. In OTL the 9th Indian Division lost one of it's brigades to stiffen the green 11th division. In TTL, the additional forces from Hong Kong and earlier mobilization of Malaya allows the 12th Indian Brigade to join the 9th instead of one of the green brigades from the 11th instead. As a result both the 9th and 11th Indian divisions are much better off in TTL.

17. In OTL the IJA planned only for 2 but faced 4. In TTL they plan for more, but end up missing the mark by an even larger margin.

18. With Vichy France effectively not existing by late 1941 in TTL, I think the IJA will try to forcibly secure Indochina much like they did in 1945 in OTL. It's just too risky to leave Decoux and his men sitting in their rear areas by vital bases with the front lines so close. Of course in OTL they had difficulty doing this, even more so in 1941. Japanese plans to shift landings further north to adapt to Matador are from OTL.

19. The Japanese might try to outflank Lewin with another landing in late December/Early January, but by then the 1st Armoured and 4th Indian will be available to beef up the 11th Indian infantry division's positions.

20. You could make a strong argument that the massive number of reinforcements headed to the Far East in TTL are enough to completely derail the Pacific war. For the sake of simplicity, it's not enough in this TL and only minor changes are made (air assets are sent from the Philippines to Malaya). The Japanese don't have enough shipping to send anything else without really stretching their logistics and they were outnumbered in OTL as well.

21. I have a hard time seeing the Japanese throw more troops into the meatgrinder that South East Asia is in TTL without having secured some of the DEI and ensured that their western flanks are secure. Unfortunately for the Japanese they don't have enough to do both as well as they'd like…

22. Note that Rabaul isn't there…With an entire brigade to contend with on Ambon, the South Seas Force gets redirected to Ambon in late January 1942.

23. Again, if anyone wants to wargame this, be my guest. In OTL the IJN stationed the Kido Butai south of Java and I figured they'd do the same in TTL as well to try and catch forces in the region. I'd also wager that if the British were bringing significant carriers to engage, the Americans would send the Lexington and Yorktown to join them. Coalition warfare being difficult, they end up engaging separately and thus you get the pyrrhic Japanese tactical victory and a strategic Allied victory (no invasion of Christmas Island). More on this in coming updates.

January 2, 1942. Shlisselburg, German Occupied Russia)

So this is how it ends…

Part of General Kurt Student wished that the Dutch sniper's aim had been a little better eighteen months ago. Far better, that part reasoned, to die with the Fallschirmjaeger on the cusp of victory (24) than dying in droves here on the Russian tundra. There were simply too many Russians. No matter how many they killed or imprisoned, more and more seemed to materialize out of the aether.

All better supplied than us…

It wasn't supposed to be this way, their initial victories had been crushing. Within a week of launching Operation Barbarossa, Student's paratroopers had all linked up with the Panzers of Army group north to annihilate their Soviet opponents. Despite their best efforts, Soviet counter-attacks could not re-establish a line at the Dvina. It had been a costly endeavour, mostly for Student's men who found themselves constantly outnumbered, but for a few weeks it seemed that taking Leningrad would merely be a matter of marching. Pskov, Tartu, and even Tallinn had all fallen with minimal fighting. Rumors of a line across the Luga loomed on the horizon but they were confident. Perhaps too confident. (25)

Definitely too confident

Instead of marshalling his troops for another drop closer to Leningrad, Student allowed his assets to be further divided. (26) Some of his best troops were diverted to take a bridge near Kiev, and most of his transport planes found themselves supporting Panzer divisions instead of dropping paratroopers. What remained of his command had traded in their parachutes for wagons and had fought as regular infantry for the remainder of the campaign. They eventually breached the Luga Line, albeit at a terrible cost. Only to find another behind it and another one after that. Then they lost their best divisions and the rest of the transport aircraft to Operation Typhoon: a last-ditch gasp to take Moscow before winter set in. Rumor had it, Guderian reached Moscow's suburbs before being forced back.(27)

Deep in his bones, Student knew that this was the end. They were fighting the Russians' war now. The Soviets might not break through the German lines this year or maybe even the next. But who could say what would happen in 3 or 4 years? The cream of Germany's youth would die here, their blood fertilizing the fields of future Soviet collective farmers. As far as Student was concerned, they already had. His command was a shell of what it had been in June 1941. Eventually they'd be rotated back and reinforced, any day now according to the rumors, but his divisions would never be the same. Rumor had it, that Hitler wanted another massive paratrooper contribution to his planned offensives in Summer 1942. Then again, at the rate his men were dying, it remained to be seen exactly how "massive" it would be, or where it would be. Would they try to take Leningrad again? Moscow? Baku?

The only thing that was certain is that his men would once again be jumping into the teeth of a Soviet foe that was now far better prepared. Operation Barbarossa's opening days, coupled with the earlier Winter war had cleared the deadwood out of the Red Army. They'd shown their true colours here against Army Group North, defending Leningrad with every fibre of their being no matter how many comrades Student's men cut down. The lightening war that they'd trained for and needed to occur to be victorious had come to a close. This was a war of attrition. A war Germany could fight but not win and a war that Stalin's callous heart and Russia's broken spirit was uniquely suited to fight.

Student would see it through to the end, but for the remainder of his days he would think back to Norway, Eben Emael, and the news from 1940. If only…if only…

Fallschirmjager_worldwartwo.filiminspector.com_30.jpg

General Student inspecting the remnants of his command in TTL​

Notes:

24. Student's not really thinking straight here.

25. I struggled with this one, but for the sake of keeping things moving, I decided that the German paratroopers aren't enough to really change the strategic situation that much. Basically, they end up annihilating the Soviet armies in Lithuania together with Army Group North during the initial weeks of Operation Barbarossa. This forces the Soviets to smarten up and cut their losses, pulling everything back to the Luga line far earlier than OTL. This move in turn makes the remainder of the Leningrad campaign far more of a slog for the Germans.

26. Student's "oil drop" deployments were a fault of his in OTL. I could definitely see him splintering his force if asked even after taking heavy casualties. These drops speed up the Germans some, but not enough to win in 1941.

27. Basically the Germans get a bit closer to both Leningrad and Moscow in TTL but not enough to take either city. Feel free to criticize me, but I didn't want to get bogged down on the Eastern Front. There will be more than enough changes to WWII elsewhere as I've already demonstrated.