| October 24 |  |
Editor says, what if Adolf Hitler had committed more resources to Plan Z. Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the November 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1944, on this day the German aircraft carriers Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser are sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Flugzeugträger Part 12:
Battle of Leyte GulfOf the German carrier group that had participated in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, only the Tirpitz and the Prinz Eugene now remained afloat. It appeared an unfitting reward for the German naval architects who had managed to overcome immense technical difficulties despite their inexperience in building such vessels.
And with Japan unmistakeably headed for defeat, the question for Grand Admiral Erich Raeder was whether to support the defence of the homelands, attempt a breakout attempt or even perhaps consider a scuttling operation reminiscient of the Dreadnoughts in the Scapa Flow in 1919. But unbeknown to Raeder, the German-Japanese Atomic Bomb project was nearing fruition, and both ships would be required to serve as the delivery mechanism in an audacious second strike on Pearl Harbor. It appeared than Plan Z might well change the course of the War after all.
This post shares some commonality with the sister articles in the Flugzeugträger thread.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Flugzeugtrager Source: Wikipedia Labels: Dark Invader, Lend-Lease, World War 2, America, Second World War. Editor says, in reality the Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku, and the battleship Musashi were sunk. Please note that in authoring this article we have re-purposed content from Wikipedia.
~ Such things in the imagination, in flight, and on drawing boards -- reason why World War II was as hard-fought as it was. Any little, or big, thing then could have seriously altered the last several decades as we knew them. Allied troops wondered such things when hearing from the German refugees ahead the Soviet advance.
~ A "German-Japanese" A-bomb project is an unlikely divergence in and of itself, since Japan didn't really have the resources and Germany, for all its alliance of convenience with Tokyo, would more likely have preferred atomic weapons to remain solely in the hands of "Aryans." As for its "nearing fruition" by 1944, that would have taken better luck and less infighting in the German nuclear effort. Where's the POD?
~ Unfortunately for Hitler...but fortunately for all the rest of us...before the war he had driven away a non-Aryan physicist named Albert Einstein.
~ Don't know much about the German aircraft carriers, but this sounds interesting. Maybe the Italian fleet got stuck in, too? In OTL they had some elements in the Far East, and in this TL they might have been able to send some really big ships.
~ Using an atomic bomb in hopes of scaring the Allies into defeat would work about as well as Pearl Harbor on scaring the Americans into not joining the war in Europe. They would get mad.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
