| December 7 |  |
Editor says, what if Franklin D. Roosevelt had died in 1939 before he could deceive America into abandoning neutrality? 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 September 2011 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1941, on this day of infamy the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on the major British military base in Southeast Asia devastating the Royal Navy's Far East Fleet which was moored in the Port of Singapore.
Day of Infamy based on comments by Allen W. McDonnell and Timothy McFaddenWith Hitler the master of Western Europe, Great Britain was the only European Power able to defend its imperial possesions. But in reality little was preventing the Asian nations from achieving their independence through the armed forces of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.
In fact, the Phillipines had already been granted its independence by President Charles A. Lindbergh, a strategic decision which enabled the United States to withdraw from the Pacific Theatre. This isolationist decision had enraged the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill who had not in his own words "become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire". Until 12/7 at least, he had confidently expected to see the British Empire "preserved for a few more generations in its strength and splendour".
Accordingly Churchill had sent three thousand British agents across the Atlantic to infiltrate Washington Society and reverse the US policy of isolationism but that slow burn strategy was as dead in the water as the sailors of the Far East Fleet. The head of British Security Co-ordination the Canadian Spymaster William Stephenson was issued with urgent orders. And a team comprising Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Noel Coward, David Ogilvy and Ivar Bryce was tasked with assassinating the US President. Problem was that his successor, Vice President Frank Lloyd Wright was a man of the same isolationist mindset, and therefore additional measures would also be required .. and fast.
This article is a continuation of the Inteprid thread.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Intrepid Source: Wikipedia Labels: Singapore, Lindbergh, Isolationism, Second World War, Pearl Harbour. Editor says, in reality Pearl Harbour was attacked and the United States was dragged into the Pacific War.
~ Would Churchill have gone this far? Also, even if the assassination succeeded, how would the Brits get away with it and not drag America into the war AGAINST Britain for the murder of the President?
~ A little too out there for me. sorry. Just can't see Winnie ordering the assasination of a US president.
~ I don't know...Churchill was certainly ruthless enough, but would have known that if the truth came out, the US would be gunning for the UK, very seriously. A US-Axis alliance would have been the end of Britain.
~ "Deceive"? Sounds like something the Birchers would say.
~ Hear, hear.
Also, FDR's death in '39 would have put his VP John N. "Cactus Jack" Garner in the White House. Garner was a conservative Texan (read "KKK") Democrat who would have beena formidable opponent for any Republican in 1940, even "Lucky Lindy" (who by that time, after the kidnapping and murder of his son, didn't seem quite so lucky).
~ Conservative Garner vs Lindbergh would set an overall platform of staying out of the war, which would definitely set the national mood. Add an assassinated president on top of that, along with the closing days of the Great Depression and FDR's stroke, and we've got an America that is reeling. If word got out about Britain being behind it, we'd have been buddies with Hitler in an instant.
~ If Garner had become President,I think he'd have lost to Willkie in 1940. Frank LLoyd Wright?
~ Assuming that there was no US support for Britain in the form of Lend Lease, or at the very least moral backing there is little chance of Britain being in a position to do anything much at all by lte 1941. I think in the absence of the clear support of FDR for Britain and the knowledge that he hated Hitler and would give some support at least morally Churchill would have sturggled to gain enough support to even become PM. Inevitably IMO the pro-peace Lord Halifax would have become PM after Chamberlain's fall and made peace with Hitler. This would oddly have helped Britain in terms of Singapore as the end of the European war would have allowed Britain to shift forces to the other obvious military zone in the east. However, I think such a peace settlement would have allowed Britain to keep her empire but probably insisted that Britain did not interfere with Japan in other territory, Hitler would have been courting Japanese support for his attack on the USSR, hoping for Japanese intervention in Siberia. Japan, having lost to the USSR in the late 30s would only have risked such a war once she had been able to secure sufficient power and resources in East Asia and Australasia. With no US interest in the region and Britain beaten Japan would have had no need to attack Singapore, simply occupying Indochina, the Dutch East Indies and (in this scenario) the Philippines. The Dutch possessions give them the oil they desperately need. They only need to take out Singapore if the British are likely to move against their operations in the Dutch East Indies.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
