Pearl Harbour, December 7th, 1941
Two waves of Japanese aircraft, with 353 aircraft between them had attacked the US Pacific fleet in port achieving complete surprise. Of the 8 USN battleships in port all had been hit with varying degrees of damage, with only USS Pennsylvania remaining operational. Two more USS Tennessee and USS Maryland had suffered only moderate damage, both would be back in action by the coming February. One USS Nevada would be beached, she would remain out of action for 10 months as a result. The other four, USS Arizona, USS West Virginia, USS Oklahoma and USS California would be sunk outright, California and West Virginia would be eventually raised and returned to service in 1944. Of the seven USN aircraft carriers, three USS Enterprise, USS Wast and USS Ranger were with the Atlantic fleet and one, USS Hornet, was still working out. Of the three ships with the Pacific fleet, one, USS Saratoga, was in San Diego. USS Yorktown had left Pearl Harbour for Midway in December 5th, a fortunate coincidence. USS Lexington had not been as lucky, having returned to Pearl Harbour from a mission to carry aircraft to Wake island just the previous day, originally she was scheduled to return on December 5th but a storm had delayed her by a day. Hit by two torpedoes and several bombs "Lady Lex" would explode and sink with 216 dead. It had been a great success for Japanese arms. At the cost of 39 aircraft shot down the Kido Butai had knocked out 7 battleships and an aircraft carrier, sunk or damaged half a dozen more ships most notably USS Utah, and damaged or destroyed 397 aircraft, with US casualties of more than 2,600 dead including dozens of civilians.
Dublin, December 8th, 1941
Michael Collins read once more the telegraph by Winston Churchill. ‘Now is your chance’, it began. ‘Now or never. A Nation once again.’ He was tempted. Sorely tempted. And he was driving Ireland in that direction already. But the quiet negotiations ongoing for the past 18th months had not made much headway so far, the Orangist government in Belfast was unsurprisingly intransigent. But Winston was right here. And while he would not trust most of the British establishment he did see eye to eye with Churchill ever since 1922. And perhaps Churchill had not thought through all the implications of imminent entry of the United States in the world. More Irish lived in the States than in the mother country. If he acted not, before the US joined the war against Germany, how much public support he would gain in the United States? And how much would that matter in pushing the British to actually follow through with their promises? Perhaps little. But likely enough. Ireland declared war against Japan and Germany the same day...
Smyrna siege lines, December 9th, 1941
Following two weeks of intense artillery bombardment and numerous air strikes, the Axis air forces still held the uper hand in the near east and the Caucasus but only by a small margin which erroding, the Turkish, German and Italian divisions outside Smyrna attacked. The third assault on the city was underway...
Off Malaya, December 10th, 1941
The Japanese were attacking. Everywhere. In the past three days the list of Japanese attacks just kept growing. They had captured the Gilbert islands, invaded Hong Kong, invaded Thailand and made landings in the Philippines and Malaya, just to name the most significant operations so far. The Royal Navy squadron in Singapore under admiral Phillips with Hood, Prince of Wales and Ark Royal had sailed north to attack the landings, but had failed to locate the Japanese, thus turned back to return to Singapore, when its two battleships were located in turn by the Japanese. The Japanese were quick to launch over 80 aircraft, G4M and G3M bombers to attack the British ships only to be met by nearly two dozen Fulmars and Sea Hurricanes launched from Ark Royal. Over twenty bombers would be claimed by the FAA fighters and the two battleships anti-aircraft gunners, with the British ships returning to Singapore with nary a scratch. It wasn't much of a victory but it was the only one so far...
Berlin, December 11th, 1941
Germany declared war against the United States, Within hours she would be followed by Italy with Romania and Bulgaria declaring war the next day. Turkey and Hungary would wait till December 13th before declaring war but would finally succumb to the pressure of their allies. It could be even seen as convenient from the Allied point of view since it removed the need to push through the US congress a declaration of war against the European Axis powers...
Athens, December 11th, 1941
The consul-general of Japan in Athens, was not entirely surprised by the invitation, to the prime minister's office, he was half expecting it for the past several days.
"So it is war?"
"Greece will stand by our allies, following your country's aggression." Dragoumis confirmed.
The consul-general made a slight bow and left without another word. Dragoumis turned back to his other work. The entry of the United States to the war, long term could be decisive. But in the short term problems abounded. Not in the least, that with war in the Pacific significant forces from the Middle East were apparently going east and reinforcements initially slated for the Near East were instead being rerouted to fight the Japanese instead. Just the previous day he had been informed that the Australian government needed their three divisions in Syria back home. It was of course understandable. These didn't make the reduction of the allied army in Syria fighting the Turks almost by half any less problematic...
New York, December 12th, 1941
The ocean liner Normandie, had remained in the New York harbour since the fall of France, with an 150 man strong detail of the US Coast Guard aboard for the ship's protection and to remain where it was a cynic would add. But now, with the United States at war against both Japan and Germany, an 83,000t ship so fast it needed no escort of its own could not be left unused. The decision had been taken to seize the ship. Only when the coast guard went to eject the French crew there was a slight complication as her captain quietly pointed at the French flag with the cross of Lorraine his crew had raised overnight...
Alexandria, December 13th, 1941
The Italian submarine Scire quietly surfaced outside the harbour unleashing three manned torpedoes. A few hours later the harbour would be wracked by explosions as the limpet mines placed by Italian combat divers sunk the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant and the ocean liner Megali Hellas. Human losses were minimal, lieutenant
Luigi Durand de la Penne captured after placing his mine on Queen Elizabeth had warned its captain to evacuate after it was too late to stop the explosion. Overnight the allied fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean was left with a single battleship, Salamis, for the immediate future...
Barajas airport, Madrid, December 14th, 1941
A single RAF B-24 landed in the airport in the middle of night. The three passengers, immediately entered a car to be driven away somewhere, while the aircraft again took off. Juan Negrin, Segismundo Casado and Cipriano Mera were back in Spain...