Washington DC, August 1st, 1941
The United States proclaimed an oil embargo against "aggressors" the same day the Japanese army occupied Saigon in Vietnam. While not proclaimed as such it was hardly difficult to read between the lines who was the target of the proclamation. Germany and Italy were under Allied blockade as were the other Axis powers in Europe. There was only a single obvious target...
Over Thessaly, August 3rd, 1941
The quartet of Macchi C202, jumped after the Greek Ierax fighters patrolling. If the Greek fighters looked a little different than the standard birds the Greeks were flying over the last year and a half the Italian pilots didn't notice, since its introduction a few months earlier the Macchi machine had proven superior to every fighter the Allies were flying in the Mediterranean. Pulawski's fighter was the one coming closest but was still a good 30 km/h slower. Then the Greek fighters darted ahead at a 615 km/h they were supposed to be completely unable to make and escaped south towards free Greece. The updated Ierax II with a Merlin 45 engine in place of the Merlin III of its earlier version had just made its presence known to the enemy.
Amman, Transjordan, August 6th, 1941
Emir Abdullah, reviewed the recruits of the three newly raised regiments of the Arab Legion. In their grand majority Bedouin from tribes personally loyal to him, the new regiments would increase the size of the legion from 1,600 men at the start of the war to 6,000 when their training was complete and potentially even more afterwards. Abdullah had ambitions for the future and these did not include a return of the Turks he had helped kick out in the previous war to see them or the mufti of Jerusalem back. And if his idiot nephew Gazi had forfeited his brother had gained in Iraq, he had no intention of seeing it lost to the Hashemites...
Palestine, August 7th, 1941
Moshe Dayan looked at his commander with a mix of indulgence and admiration, but from a safe distance as well, the man for all his undeniable talents and popularity among Jews was stinking from garlic and onions, he had several on a string around his neck and was eating them raw. At least this time he wasn't running around naked. Palmach had been formed with tacit British support back in March after Turkey had joined the Axis. Then Iraq had joined the Axis and the Germans had showed up in force leading Churchill to override British reluctance for purely Jewish combat units and authorize their creation. Wavell had just the man just returned to Cairo from Ethiopia for the task, one already popular among the Jews from his earlier service in Palestine. And thus Odre Wingate became commander of the 1st Jewish brigade group.
Turkish Kurdistan, near Diyarbakir, August 10th, 1941
Another of the Circassian traitors, or maybe he was a Greek for all he knew fell down for exhaustion. A sergeant start kicking him to get up but to no avail, the man remained lying on the ground. The yuzbasi shrugged. His task was to extend the railroad eastwards. If in the process a few or a lot of prisoners died, this mattered little, there were always more where they had come from. The
Amele Taburu where not exactly known in the previous or
this war for good treatment and as things would have it drew certain types of officers and men, ones that would prefer to play overseer and prison guard to actually fighting for their country. Then his shrug turned to worry as the first explosion rang, there were rumours attacks by Kurdish bandits were growing in frequency over the past few weeks. And then the worry turned to terror as the explosions were followed by the unmistakable rattle of a pair of machine guns. It was over within minutes as his men got systematically mowed down. Then one of his former prisoners now armed with a liberated Mauser rifle noticed him. One more shot rang. The guerrillas their numbers swelled by the liberated prisoners disappeared into the countryside...
Iraq, August 11th, 1941
The 2nd Indian armoured brigade group moved north to its planned positions. Along with the 9th British armoured brigade, the former 4th cavalry brigade, recently converted to armour they were supposed to form the spearhead of the coming operation Paladin...
Teheran, August 16th, 1941
Four weeks had passed from the previous Allied ultimatum. Four weeks in which Reza Pahlavi had done nothing caught between Allied and Axis threats and promises. As might had been expected, the British and Soviets were back demanding Iran to sever relations with the Axis and expel all Axis nationals within 48 hours. Shortly after them had come Erwin Ettel the German ambassador demanding Iran should resist the Allies, in which case Germany would provide military aid, otherwise the Luftwaffe would take matters into its own hands...
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