ALTERNATE HISTORY

WHY THE WAR CONTINUES INTO 1946

The historical end of the Third Reich occurred in May 1945, before the Luftwaffe could bring its advanced rocket and jet aircraft into full combat service. For over 50 years, historians have debated what could have happened if a number of events had ended differently. What follows is just a brief overview of the circumstances that led to World War II continuing another year, giving the Luftwaffe and their counterparts in Japan a second chance. A chance to overcome their numerical weaknesses and training deficiencies through advanced technology and the courage of their pilots. Suspend your disbelief, consider what might have been, and join us as we explore the people and stories of LUFTWAFFE 1946.

THE WESTERN FRONT

June 13, 1944 the skies above Normandy, France
General Eisenhower flies above the D-Day beaches to view the ground situation himself. Flying in a two-seater Mustang P-51, Ike feels safe due to Allied air superiority. In this altered history, a Me-262 Jabo (the German nickname for fighter-bombers) ordered to harass the landing beaches with bombs, stumbles across Ike’s P-51 and shoots it down. In an instant, the entire command structure for the Allies is upset.

Following the agreement reached when Eisenhower was made the commander of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force), Field Marshall Montgomery is named as Ike’s replacement. The ramifications are both drastic and immediate.

June – September 1945, Normandy, France
Seeking to redeem his inexcusable failure to seize Caen on D-Day, Monty directs the majority of supplies and support to the Northern flank of the Normandy beachhead, running headlong into the 21^st Panzer Division and the SS Panzer Corps, thereby losing thousands of men in a battle of attrition through difficult terrain. Without the Southern breakout by General Hodges, which released the 3^rd Army under Patton to strike into France and encircle the German defenders in the Falaise Pocket, the struggle to break out of Normandy lasts into September. When the American forces finally get the supplies and support for the breakout, the Germans fall back to prepared positions, bitterly contesting each yard of ground. The French and American commanders are held in check by Montgomery so they won’t outrun his supply plans.

Bitterly jealous of General George Patton, Montgomery refuses him any command in the European Theater. Patton returns to the US, assigned to train new divisions for the invasion of Japan. Without Patton’s risk taking and constant battling for supplies, the US Army is unable to make the sweeping drive into France that allowed the Allies to reach the Rhine by the end of 1944.

Frustrated by his inability to break out of Normandy, Monty demands more and more air support for his ground forces. Instead of shifting the heavy bombers to strike the transportation nets and oil manufacturing systems of the Reich, Allied Air Command is increasingly committed to daylight carpet bombing in support of tactical advances. The relief from the destruction caused by daylight precision bombing allows Albert Speer, Reich Minister for Production, to increase fuel and armaments production, and to rush revolutionary new weapons into production for the Luftwaffe. When the Allied Air Commanders finally regain control over mission selection in September, it is too late, the Luftwaffe is once again able to challenge the Allies in the air. Without the overwhelming air superiority that the Allies historically enjoyed, their advance through France and the Low Countries is tragically slow, and casualties mount rapidly.

THE EASTERN FRONT

June, Vitebsk, USSR
But what of the Eastern Front? As Stalin and his Marshals had feared, the lack of an emergency threat in the West allowed the Germans to focus their resources on the East. Barely holding an advantage over the Luftwaffe as it was, the introduction of jet aircraft and new long range bombers on the Eastern Front returns air superiority to the Luftwaffe. Coupled with the earlier introduction of new tanks and anti-tank weapons from Speer’s underground factories, the Soviet Summer Offensive of June 1944 stalls at Minsk, while German counterattacks in the south reclaim Odessa and much of the southern Ukraine. This allows Bulgaria, Rumania, and Hungary to remain in the Axis, adding their raw materials, production capacity, and manpower to the forces stopping the Soviets. The war drags on, the toll of death and destruction growing ever greater.

North Atlantic, Autumn 1944
The check in the Allied bombing campaign and the lack of progress on the ground in France allows the German Navy to introduce the Type XXI U-Boat in enough numbers to make a difference. Although the Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) forces of the Allied Navies are still vastly superior, and they continue to sink U-Boats at a deadly rate, enough supply ships are lost that America’s production capacity can’t be brought to bear quickly enough in Europe. The Allied armies are held back by supply shortages. The Germans, with shorter supply lines, and less harassment from the air, are able to contest every yard of ground.

What of the Manhattan Project and the atom bomb? While that topic will be addressed more fully in a special booklet, some of the things that went right for the Allied scientists go wrong, delaying the program by months. These decisive weapons end the war in 1946, but not before the additional air battles that our story is based on.

DISCLAIMER

The creation of an alternative history and supporting fictional material describing what could have happened if certain key events in World War II were changed does not imply any sympathy or support for the despotic regimes or evil policies of the Axis powers. These materials are not meant to glorify or praise the tyrannical regimes that spawned the battles and weapons described herein, but instead to help us to understand how fortunate we are that World War II ended as it did, with the freedom loving people of the world victorious.