Harry Kellogg III - The Red Sky - The Second Battle of Britain

Outside Leinster House, in Dublin:

De Valera had decided to visit his family, and rest for a day, as he prepared to lead Ireland through its greatest crisis, since the civil war. He had little time for his family recently, and had grown distant from his sons. His wife had pleaded with him to try and fix it, and he decided now was the time to do so, as he may not get another chance. He had told his secretary where to find him, if necessary, before she left for the night.

The coup went well at first, with dozens of CIA men, and Garda officers, who had been sounded out beforehand, arrested the entire Dail, except for De Valera. Then, things started to go wrong. They could not find De Valera, and to their absolute horror, Mulcahy refused to have anything to do with the coup… at first. Afterwards, he appeared to reconsider, and asked to phone his wife privately. The Garda officers who were guarding him, allowed him to do so.

Within the hour, the House was surrounded by soldiers, and the CIA men, along with their accomplices, were all arrested.

However, when De Valera ordered a new election, in hopes of capitalizing on the failed coup, he found that he had misjudged the situation very badly. The coup had, in fact, discredited him, and Mulcahy won by a wide margin. The Irish people had been impressed by his calm refusal to join a coup that would have put him in power, and how he helped De Valera regain control.

The Soviets, feeling that now was the time to put serious pressure on the new government, ordered the IRA to launch an armed revolt, murdering many. Leaders spoke out against it as national suicide. The Soviets felt that, as they would soon control the Irish government, the IRA would be a liability, and would soon be destroyed by the fighting, the consensus was that the doomed revolution was a means to an end.

Mulcahy reacted quickly, deploying troops and ordering that all IRA men would face military tribunal for crimes against the state. He immediately handed over control of all the ports and airfields to the Allies, but not before evacuating every civilian possible to the countryside. He then told the Soviet Consul that an attack on Eire would bring Ireland in as a belligerent. He also negotiated the ports deal with NATO to come with a secret clause that brought to an end to partition, after the war’s end. As a sop to the Soviets, who were still reeling from their gross miscalculation, he offered to release all interned Soviet airmen, who requested such repatriation.

When the Soviets found out about the ports agreement, they realized that they didn’t have the resources to invade, and that diverting air assets from the coming battle would not be worth it. Ireland was safe, for now, but the future looked bleak. The IRA splintered into a pro-Soviet faction and an anti-Soviet faction, which proceeded to murder and terrorize each other.

The Soviets, through their fantastic spy network, soon found out about the partition deal and, through back-channels, informed and agitated the Unionists. Having been thus informed at being sold out to the Irish for their ports, many Unionists began rioting and sabotaging the war effort. In Britain itself, despite massive censorship, it soon became apparent that the Americans felt no need to consult Britain about interfering in its domestic affairs. This, in turn, would lead to problems in the future. The only bright spark was that now the NATO Allies knew for sure that, at least, some of the spies at the highest level, had survived. However, none of this would matter, if Britain did not survive the coming attack.

Well it seems its back to the old phony war like after the blitzkrieg through Poland in 39. This time however both Germany and France were occupied. So far it was a different kind of occupation from what the Germans went through. Some French embraced their would be liberators from the bonds of capitalism. All took a wait and see attitude. The Résistance had many dedicated communists in its ranks and they were now the Mayors and police chiefs of the towns they lived in. They have been placed in many positions of power in the national government. It would take time for any kind of dissension to take hold in France. The French have had enough of war. They will wait and see what the future of their newly minted socialistic government brings. The war profiteers were starting to get nervous as the communist version of the Milice started to ask questions and poke around in their business papers.

It was a full week since the raids on the British Maintenance Units and bone yards. The fires had finally stopped and the RAF was madder than a wet hen. They mounted a few raids of their own which did not produce great results. Like the Germans in the Battle of Britain they had no assets on the ground to speak of in France. Most of the trained spies were communist sympathizers and the new amateurs were not up to the task yet. Basically the Resistance had to start from scratch and this meant that the high flying reconnaissance planes could see only so much. These are the same planes that failed to discover the buildup before the Battle of the Bulge.

The Soviets would send up a few Wasserfal missiles that would cause the high flying recon planes to change course and interrupt their shot tracks and their images. Even a Spitfire has to turn slow and easy at over 40,000 feet and a number of Spits and Mosquito recon planes panicked and turn a little too fast and stalled spinning tens of thousands of feet before they gained control and some never did. Dropping 10,000 feet in a flat spin makes you pretty vulnerable to a high flying Yak 9PD and a number where shot down that way. All in all the raids and their effects were not very fruitful and every British plane shot down over France was one more lost for the upcoming battle over Britain. For the damage done it was not a good exchange and the RAF leadership realized this after about two weeks.

So here we are. The Sitzkrieg once more. The calm before the storm. The spasm before the bile rises. Rises from deep down in the gut and up through the throat to full regurgitation.

We had just got back from deep inside the Ukraine. Our mission had been very secret. We had tested the jamming capabilities of the American electronics that had been provided for us to install in our Lend Lease B25J bombers. [11] Air University Quarterly Review, Volume 9 U.S. Army Air Forces, 1956 — Aeronautics For the first time we flew the jamming device turned on and it worked! They shot actual shells at us. 3.7” British made shells with the magic VT Proximity fuse attached. Needless to say before the first test we were very nervous despite the assurances of the scientists in their white coats and even after a speech by Novikov himself we were very skeptical to say the least. It worked, it really worked.

The magic shells were actually worse than a regular 3.7” shell because the jammer send out a signal that made them detonate far below us… a full thousand feet below us. It was very funny to see the crew jeer and shout insults at the gunners below. Now the strange semi dome formations made sense. Now the emphasis on the other planes staying as close as possible to us became clear. Now we knew our true mission. Now we were heartened at the prospects of our survival and the bombers that surrounded us. The months of practice would soon be demonstrated for all to see. Not for some parade but for a practical reason, a very lifesaving reason.