Today In Alternate History

'Barbarossa 41' by Guest Historian Chris Oakley
Guest Historian Chris Oakley says, thank you for visiting TIAH. This timeline attempts to portray what might have happened if Nazi Germany and Communist Russia had attacked each other simultaneously in June of 1941. If you're interested in viewing samples of my other work why not visit the Changing the Times web site.

July 8

	On this day in 1941, German troops began evacuating Denmark as part of Hitler's plan to shore up his strained Russian battlefront; also on this day, Soviet fighters bombed Wehrmacht advance positions near Brest-Litovsk.

December 8

	On this day in 1941, German planes bombed London for the first time in six months.

Luftwaffe

December 7

On this day in 1941, Germany's unilateral cease-fire with Great Britain cames to an abrupt end as a British naval patrol in the North Sea fired on and sank a U-boat which had been covertly monitoring operations at the Royal Navy base in Scapa Flow.

December 3

	On this day in 1941, the US carrier task force which had left Pearl Harbor on November 26th returned to Hawaii.

December 1

On this day in 1941, the Soviet Union and Japan signed a formal cease-fire pact, ending the Second Russo-Japanese War.

November 30

	On this day in 1941, the US carrier task force which had been dispatched from Pearl Harbor four days earlier was recalled on orders from CINCPAC.

Pearl Harbour

November 29

On this day in 1941, the US embassy in Tokyo informed the Japanese foreign ministry that the White House was accepting the Shigemetsu government's peace proposal; in turn, the Japanese embassy in Washington told the State Department that Japan would begin withdrawing its troops from China within 72 hours.	Shigematsu

	Sakaibara

November 27

	On this day in 1941, just 24 hours before Cordell Hull's ultimatum to Japan was scheduled to have expired, Prime Minister Tojo was overthrown in a coup mounted by dissident Imperial Army officers with the acquiescence of Emperor Hirohito. A new provisional government headed by Mamrou Shigemetsu quickly made peace overtures to the United States and opened secret truce negotiations with Korean guerrilla leader Syngman Rhee.

Hideki Tojo

November 26

On this day in 1941, a US Navy carrier task force left the Pacific Fleet base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on a mission to guard American installations in the Philippines against possible Japanese attack.

	Pearl Harbour

November 24

	On this day in 1941, Soviet combat forces in Japan wiped out the last pockets of Imperial Army resistance on Hokkaido and started crossing over to the neighboring island of Honshu.

Red Army insignia

November 23

On this day in 1941, Soviet-backed Communist partisans in Korea began a guerrilla uprising against Japanese occupation authorities.

	Red Army insignia

November 20

	On this day in 1941, Soviet bombers flying from airfields on the island of Hokkaido attacked Tokyo for the first time; 87,000 Japanese died in the air raid, among them Imperial Japanese Navy Combined Fleet commander-in-chief Admiral Isoroku.

Isoroku Yamamoto

November 17

On this day in 1941, the Third Battle of Kursk ended with a Soviet victory as Red Army cavalry broke through the German lines at Prokhorovka and drove the Germans into retreat.	Red Army

	Logo

November 15

Red Army	On this day in 1941, the Soviet landing force on Hokkaido captured the mountain village of Sapporo.

November 14

On this day in 1941, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull imposed a deadline of November 28th for Japan to agree with a ceasefire with the Soviet Union and a withdrawal of Japanese troops from mainland China; after that, Hull warned ominously, 'things are automatically going to happen'.	US Secretary of State

	Cordell Hull

November 12

	On this day in 1941, in 1941 the Third Battle of Kursk began in earnest as Red Army tank and infantry divisions launched a counterattack against German troops near Prokhorovka.

November 8

On this day in 1941, Japanese dictator Hideki Tojo rejected Konev's surrender demand, vowing Japan would fight the Red Army to the last man.	Japanese dictator

	Hideki Tojo

November 7

	On this day in 1941, Soviet premier Ivan Konev used the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to call for Japan's surrender.

November 6

	On this day in 1941, Japanese resistance in Nemuro collapsed.

November 4

	On this day in 1941, Wehrmacht troops in Russia began a two-pronged assault on the town of Prokhorovka near Kursk.

November 2

	On this day in 1941, the Red Army landing force at Hokkaido attacked the Japanese village of Nemuro.

October 31

	On this day in 1941, the Red Army commenced Operation Citadel.

Red Army insignia

October 30

On this day in 1941, Soviet premier Ivan Konev gave the Red Army the go-ahead to mount an amphibious assault on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Code-named 'Operation Citadel', the assault's objective was to force the Imperial Japanese Army to divert men and resources from its faltering Siberian campaign.

	Ivan Konev

October 27

	On this day in 1941, the third and final Japanese attempt to capture Petropavlovsk ended in defeat as the Red Army broke through the right flank of the Japanese lines.

Red Army insignia

October 23

On this day in 1941, US forces in the Philippines began bulking up their coastal defenses after General Douglas MacArthur, C-in-C for American forces there, was alerted that the War Department considered the island a potential target for Japanese invasion.

	Douglas McArthur

October 21

	On this day in 1941, Soviet troops defending Petropavlovsk started a counterattack against the Japanese.

October 20

	On this day in 1941, Japanese forces in Siberia began their third and final attempt to take Petropavlovsk.

October 19

On this day in 1941, two Japanese intelligence agents were arrested in Honolulu after the FBI received an anonymous tip that the agents were secretly taking photographs of the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.

	Pearl Harbour

October 17

Soviet Premier	On this day in 1941, Soviet ruler Ivan Konev declared victory in the Second Battle of Kursk.

Ivan Konev

October 16

On this day in 1941, the Wehrmacht defenses at Kursk collapsed as Red Army cavalry punched through the left flank of the German lines; future military historians would define this moment as the crucial turning point in the Second Battle of Kursk.	Chief of Staff

	Franz Halder


Hitler blamed then-German army chief of staff Franz Halder for the collapse and sacked him even though Hitler had repeatedly overruled Halder's strategic recommendations for averting that collapse.

October 13

	On this day in 1941, the Second Battle of Kursk began.

October 11

	On this day in 1941, the German defenses around Strogino collapsed, enabling the Red Army to retake the city.

Red Army insignia

October 9

On this day in 1941, US Pacific Fleet commander-in-chief Admiral Husband E. Kimmel got a written directive from President Roosevelt giving him full authority to take whatever measures he deemed appropriate to secure Pearl Harbor's naval base against attack. US Army Hawaii Territorial Defense Command C-in-C General Walter Short was given a similiar directive authorizing him to do anything that needed to be done to strengthen the Hawaiian Islands' ground and air defenses.	Admiral

	Kimmel

October 7

	On this day in 1941, the German army unleashed a ferocious counterattack against Red Army infantry and armor divisions trying to retake Strogino.

October 5

	On this day in 1941, Soviet ground forces launched a three-column attack to retake Strogino.

Red Army insignia

October 4

	On this day in 1941, Red Army troops in Siberia repulsed a second Japanese attempt to take Petropavlovsk.

Red Army insignia

October 2

On this day in 1941, deposed Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin was executed for what an official TASS bulletin described as 'conduct detrimental to the welfare of the USSR and her people'.

	Joseph Stalin

September 30

US President	On this day in 1941, US naval intelligence officials advised President Franklin Roosevelt that they had obtained credible evidence the Imperial Japanese Navy was planning an attack on the US Pacific Fleet's headquarters at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Roosevelt found this hard to accept until US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J. King told him that evidence had also been found the IJN had developed a torpedo capable of operating in Pearl Harbor's shallow depths.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

September 27

On this day in 1941, the Red Army recaptured Kotlovka from the Germans. This marked a crucial turning point in the war on the Eastern Front and gave a much-needed boost to Soviet morale.

September 24

	On this day in 1941, the Red Army encircled German positions near Kotlovka.

Red Army insignia

September 21

On this day in 1941, acting CPSU First Secretary and Soviet armed forces commander-in-chief Ivan Konev ordered the Red Army to mount a multi-front attack on the German lines outside Moscow.	General

	Ivan Konev

September 17

	On this day in 1941, with Wehrmacht and SS divisions less than 40 miles from the outskirts of Moscow, Adolf Hitler inexplicably ordered a halt to the German advance in Russia. This would turn out to be as great a tactical mistake for the Third Reich on the Eastern Front as the four-day suspension of ground operations near Dunkirk in June 1940 had been on the Western Front.

Adolf Hitler

September 15

On this day in 1941, the Japanese expeditionary force in Siberia was handed its first serious defeat when Soviet troops repulsed an Imperial Army attempt to seize Petropavlovsk.

September 13

General	On this day in 1941, Red Army general Ivan Konev officially assumed the leadership of the Soviet government; in his first official act as new Soviet head of state Konev, who had let the coup which toppled Joseph Stalin's regime five days earlier, fired Vycheslav Molotov as foreign minister and brought Molotov's predecessor Maxim Livitnov.

Ivan Konev

September 12

On this day in 1941, in response to the Japanese capture of Anadyr' five days earlier, President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt placed all US territorial defense outposts in Alaska and Hawaii on precautionary alert and ordered a top-to-bottom review of defense readiness for US Army and Navy installations on the west coast of the American mainland.	US President

	Franklin D. Roosevelt

September 8

	On this day in 1941, Joseph Stalin was overthrown in a military coup shortly after word reached the Soviet high command that the German army, now in control of most of Moscow's suburbs, had begun the final assault on Moscow itself.

Joseph Stalin

September 7

	On this day in 1941, Japanese marines in Russia captured the Bering Straits coastal town of Anadyr'.

September 5

On this day in 1941, the Wehrmacht overran the Moscow suburb of Kotlovka, putting the Germans one huge step closer to capturing Moscow itself.

September 4

	On this day in 1941, the last members of Joseph Stalin's cabinet were evacuated from Moscow.

Joseph Stalin

September 3

Japanese Troops	On this day in 1941, Japanese troops in Russia's Siberian territory captured the industrial city of Magadan.

entering Magadan

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Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These fictional news items explore that possibility.

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