Survive as a World War II Soldier - Chapter 124



Only Noblemtl

#124

He had companions on his way to Europe, none other than Roosevelt and Anna.

This was because the Third Allied War Leadership Conference, commonly known as the Casablanca Conference, was scheduled to be held in Casablanca.

Anna was there to fill in for Eleanor, who was not feeling well.

The meeting place was Casablanca, just as I remember, but the timing was somewhat different.

The fact that the meeting that was supposed to be held in January ended up being held in May when summer was almost over was, of course, because of me.

There were more than a few things that changed from the original history due to the butterfly effect caused by my intervention.

In Europe, the North African campaign itself came to a quick end following Operation Torch.

The Mustang’s early appearance and the bombing of Berlin meant that not only the Western Front but also the Eastern Front were proceeding somewhat differently from the original history.

Thanks to this, not only the timing of the meeting but also the participants themselves have changed.

Stalin, who had been invited but could not attend because the Battle of Stalingrad was in full swing, expressed his intention to attend, and even people who would not have been invited in the original history were invited.

Anyway, because a meeting was suddenly scheduled in May, I had to cross the Atlantic several times in less than half a year.

I had only recently returned to London after a brief stay over the Christmas holidays the previous winter, but I was recalled to Washington as soon as the Berlin air raids were over.

Of course, it was because of preparations for the meeting.

Well, it wasn’t exactly a bad thing because I did something rewarding every time I went.

Anyway, the war progressing more quickly and favorably than I remembered from the original history made me relax.

Moreover, the ship that my family and I are currently on is the Iowa, the newest battleship selected by the Navy.

Although there are occasional U-boats active, a battleship of this size wouldn’t sink right away with just a few torpedo hits.

In fact, the seal guys wanted to take this Iowa and use it in the operation to retake Wake Island, but who dared?

What mission is more important than transporting the President?

Thanks to Roosevelt, I was able to enjoy a more comfortable transatlantic journey than ever before.

“By the way, are you training on the way?”

“huh.”

“It’s better to do something together than just going. It’s boring.”

“okay?”

I nodded at Arthur III’s words. Well, it’s a bit boring to sail through calm seas for days on end.

Incidentally, Roosevelt wanted to bring King along, but he flatly refused, citing the upcoming Wake Island recapture operation as an excuse.

And although I didn’t know it then, King’s decision was truly the best choice.

It was a few days later that Arthur III lamented that he should have sent the king to Iowa at that time, until the day he died.

Back then, we were just joking around like this.

“King, didn’t that bastard say he wasn’t coming because he didn’t want to ride the boat?”

“Are you kidding me? We spend more days at sea than on land.”

“No, that’s what I mean, you’re saying that you don’t want to go to the sea because you’re so comfortable on land?”

That was the moment.

pop.

Suddenly, on one side of the sea, there was the sound of a bomb exploding and a spray of water rose up.

And then, in a sudden movement that turns the hull,

“Eww.”

“Hold on tight. If you fall, you’ll roll away.”

“Suddenly this···”

“It’s a torpedo. It’s a U-boat.”

The movements of the battleship performing evasive maneuvers were quite violent and hectic.

Having barely gotten used to the shaking, I looked to the side and let out an exclamation of admiration.

“Wow, but still, a seal is a seal.”

All I could do was hold on to the railing and hold on, but in the midst of all that chaos, Arthur III was running towards the bridge in the distance.

I couldn’t lose to a seal. I too held onto the railing and started walking.

We barely made it to the bridge.

“Are you kidding me? Are you crazy? You guys are all out of your minds.”

Arthur III was furious and shouting.

I was curious, but the atmosphere was a bit too fierce to interfere, so I quietly backed away and left the bridge.

And I heard about the situation late,

“They say a depth charge fell from our frigate?”

“uh.”

There was even a story that the entire fleet thought it was a U-boat attack and made frantic evasive maneuvers because they didn’t even mention it right away.

“Fuck, even the seals are crippled.”

It was so funny how, at my words, not only Arthur III but also all the seals around him were speechless and just trembled.

But the seals’ mayhem didn’t end there.

The next day.

“Today, we are planning to conduct air defense training to shoot down observation balloons.”

Arthur III, perhaps trying to make up for yesterday’s disgrace, explained today’s training with a serious expression on his face.

When we heard that it would be quite a sight, Anna, Roosevelt, and I took our seats on the deck.

As Arthur III said, it was a sight to behold as the observation balloons were taken down by anti-aircraft guns.

I felt refreshed at the sight of the observation equipment exploding.

But soon Arthur’s brow furrowed, for Iowa, still not quite in sync, had been unable to properly handle the observation instruments floating in the air, causing several of them to fall off.

“Oh, seriously. These kids.”

The sailors of the Iowa were visibly tense at the sight of Arthur III, who was muttering curses under his breath while making a face.

It was at that moment that a destroyer appeared from the side and picked up all the observation instruments that Iowa had missed.

“Oh, is that the guy who dropped the bomb yesterday?”

“uh.”

“Still, you’re good at shooting.”

Only then did Arthur III smile, seeming to feel better.

“Did you say next was torpedo launch training?”

“Yes. Of course, we’re not firing real torpedoes.”

“Really? Why? These days, they are still short on budget, so they are firing fake torpedoes?”

Arthur III looked dumbfounded at my joke.

“I’m not even shooting at all. It’s just training with the torpedo tubes empty. What would happen if I accidentally shoot and hit?”

“iced coffee.”

The target ship was the Iowa we were on, and the torpedo launcher was the Fletcher-class destroyer William D. Porter, which had just displayed its formidable anti-aircraft capabilities.

“Huh? What is it? Those guys.”

When Porter suddenly started sending out flashing signals, I immediately knew something was wrong.

First of all, the sight of it sending out a signal as if it was reflected was a sight, and Arthur III’s face turned red as if it was going to burst when he saw that.

And soon after, a thoughtful officer came running up and whispered to Arthur III.

“What? You didn’t remove the torpedo?”

And we were startled by Arthur III’s outburst without any reason to listen.

‘Torpedo?’

‘What does that mean?’

Arthur III threw down his hat and ran up to the bridge, and I grabbed the officer who was trying to follow him.

“What’s going on now?”

“That, that···.”

“I think the President would be curious about this too.”

“Right. Tell me.”

The officer, who had shut his eyes tightly at Roosevelt’s urging, only then began to reveal the details.

“That’s right, they actually fired a torpedo at Porter. So···.”

That caused an uproar.

“Oh, it’s a torpedo!”

Anna screamed in surprise, and one of Roosevelt’s bodyguards looked around with his pistol drawn.

Meanwhile, the author Roosevelt,

“Doug, help me up.”

I thought they were trying to evacuate to a safe place, but guess what?

“Where do torpedoes come from? Where can I see them clearly? This is my first time seeing a real torpedo.”

There has never been a greater chaos than this.

“ha.”

I let out a long sigh and clapped my hands to attract everyone’s attention.

“Everyone, calm down. A single torpedo hit won’t sink this big ship. Especially there. Put your pistol in there. Are you planning on intercepting the torpedo with that?”

It would have been a problem if I had carried it around and installed it for no reason and it accidentally fired.

After calming down the bodyguard who had pulled out his pistol in a panic, Anna and I pushed Roosevelt’s wheelchair.

“What is that dark thing over there?”

“If you stretch out like that, we won’t be able to get along?”

“I don’t think so?”

Iowa steamed at full speed to avoid the torpedo, and fortunately the torpedo exploded behind us.

“Let’s see, if only we had stayed that way…”

“Did it hit the stern?”

“well.”

“But Doug, you said it got better after you intervened, so it’s not so bad.”

“Yeah. They say that the kids from the 6th Air Force aren’t all that useless.”

While Roosevelt and I were talking about torpedoes, Iowa rejoined the fleet. And,

Squeak.

“Doug, isn’t that the main gun over there? It’s going around.”

I answered Anna’s words in a calm tone.

“We have to catch the traitors who attempted to murder the president.”

“Ah. But is it really on purpose?”

“Well, I don’t know. But isn’t the result what’s important?”

On the outside, I was talking as if nothing had happened, but inside, I couldn’t help but laugh.

I guess we’ll be teasing those seals for at least another 50 years.

##

Casablanca, where we arrived after a not-so-boring voyage.

The people who came and grumbled before the meeting even started were frogs.

“Who would dare to join hands with those damn authors?”

From Charles de Gaulle to Henri Giraud.

The two, who had reconciled at some point and appeared holding hands, discussed the issue of the US military supporting Nguyen, a Vietnamese independence activist.

“Was that something that required someone’s permission?”

“Of course, our France···.”

“Really? Where are the French troops? You’re not going to tell me that France has joined hands with the Japanese Empire to fight against our United States, are you?”

“That’s not it···”

“Isn’t Vichy France a puppet state?”

“···”

The men, at a loss for words in response to our calm answer, trembled and bit their lips.

Then, as if something had occurred to him, de Gaulle opened his mouth.

“Okay. Then America is the Reds and…”

“If you ask me if I held his hand, yes. Why do you think Stalin is here now?”

At the words, “If you’re going to talk nonsense, go away,” the frogs became quiet again.

It was Roosevelt who took advantage of the gap to beat up those guys.

“I’m the one who should ask you two. Where in the world is there anything for free? When Britain received Lend-Lease, it gave gold and other precious metals. Do you know where we, the United States, dig the ground to build tanks and airplanes? The blood of our soldiers is more valuable than gold. What on earth does France plan to pay in return?”

“···”

“And do you think that if Japan withdraws, Vietnam and Cambodia will all just go back to the way they were in the past?”

“But England···.”

“Ha, ha. Then shall we begin the armistice negotiations now?”

Britain had lost nothing to Nazi Germany, except its pride, and had long since regained all of North Africa that it had lost to Italy.

Our America? Honestly, even if Nazi Germany were to wake up dead, there’s no way we could cross the Atlantic, so what are we worried about?

The ones who should be expressing regret now are none other than those who, like France, lost their homeland to Nazi Germany and formed a government in exile.

“And when the war is over, do you really think that Southeast Asians will realize that they were right and go back to how they were before?”

“···”

“Okay. We won’t give up on Southeast Asia. As you said, we can’t say it’s our land right now. But we can’t give up on Algeria in Africa.”

Well then, that’s right.

The Indochina Peninsula was brought up to solidify the North African issue.

“Do as you wish.”

Anyway, Africa was not a matter of interest to us Americans.

More important to us than that was the negotiation with the Soviet Union. If we wanted to change the structure of Northeast Asia after the war to the way we thought it would be, unlike the original history, negotiation with the Soviet Union was important.

“Should we formally add Korea to the Allied Forces?”

What we offered for him was the Provisional Government of Korea.

These are the people who were not even invited in the original history, but this time they were invited by the United States.

Of course, not everyone welcomed Ahn Chang-ho, who came as a special envoy of the Provisional Government of the Joseon Dynasty.

“Not the Republic of China, but Joseon?”

“What country are you attached to?”

In particular, countries with colonies in Southeast Asia, such as France and the Netherlands, could not hide their discomfort.

They said they would give up their interests in post-war Southeast Asia and agree to do as we planned in front of the United States…

‘I bet he’s thinking of reaching out somehow.’

France was particularly strong in its use of informal speech.

“No, the country isn’t even in a proper state···.”

“Isn’t that the same for you? I heard you’ve set up a government in exile in London.”

“···”

I was subdued in an instant.

“Our Joseon is at the forefront of the war against Japan and is cooperating with the United States. Of the nine bombers that participated in the Tokyo bombing raid, three were operated by our provisional government’s aviation unit. As far as I know, Germany and Japan are allies. I believe that’s why the United States sent troops here to Europe. Am I mistaken?”

Although we are pursuing a Europe-first policy, as Ahn Chang-ho said, the exact reason why the United States participated in the European front was because Germany, an ally of Japan, declared war on us.

The Casablanca Synagogue, which began in this way, ended up half differently from its original history and half the same as its original history.

in result,

“Damn. Do I have to go here after all?”

Marshall Praise