146 - Sevastopol Must Fall! - WW2 - June 13, 1942

by Panzer
What?
Rockets?
You said rockets?
You're gonna use rockets to attack them?
Okay okay.
Today?
Wow, how far did it go?
A mile.
Where are you planning on attacking them from?
Yeah, yeah, okay
June 13, 1942
In just a week or two Adolf Hitler is going to launch a huge summer offensive versus the
Soviet Union, but there is one thing he wants to finish off first- Sevastopol must fall!
I'm Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.
Last week, the Germans renewed their attacks against Sevastopol after a lull of months,
a German counterattack in North Africa cost the Allies 218 tanks in one day and changed
the whole dynamic there, Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of the German Reich Main Security Office,
died of wounds inflicted in an assassination attempt, but the real big news, the very likely
game changing news, was far to the east- the stunning American naval victory at the Battle
of Midway, sinking four of the six carriers of the mighty Kido Butai for a loss of one
of their own, and costing Japan its vaunted naval air supremacy.
But what does it mean in the short term?
"Midway, though a catastrophic defeat, lost Japan not a foot of territory and in no way
altered the boundaries of its new empire… they retained their enormous area of conqeust-
Eastern China and Manchuria, the Philippines, French Indochina, British Burma and Malaya,
the Dutch east Indies- together with their ally Thailand, and administered it undisturbed
by Western Allied interference."
Japan's Combined Fleet Commander Isoroku Yamamoto is going to be a bit more cautious in future,
but in terms of intelligence codes, the cracking of which is what gave the Americans their
crucial advantage at Midway, this caution will still not apply.
A really careful analysis of the battle does not give away that their radio codes are compromised,
nor even does a story in the Chicago Tribune about how breaking the Japanese codes led
to the victory at Midway.
The Japanese will continue to make the changes in keying and such, but the basic procedure
remains very much in use.
Their losses do have the immediate effect of preventing any new offensive in the Indian
Ocean, which they've promised the Germans they'll do.
They do still plan, however, to attack overland to take Port Moresby, an operation that was
postponed by the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May.