- You may be looking for the Western Front of World War I.
The Western Front was the theatre of the Second World War which encompassed the fighting in Western Europe. (PROSE: Warlock)
Fought between the Allied nations and Nazi Germany, the war began as a result of a breakdown of the Treaty of Versailles which rebuilt pressure across the European continent. It formally began on 3 September 1939 after the United Kingdom and France responded to Germany's Invasion of Poland with a declaration of war. Germany therefore launched a campaign against the Allies to secure their western flank, ahead of the planned invasion of the Soviet Union in the east. The success of this campaign closed the Western Front in the first half of 1940. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
The Western Front became intertwined with the Eastern Front when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in mid-1941. (PROSE: Just War) Much of the attention in the West focused on Britain who, unconquered, continued to engage the Germans in other related theatres such as the North Africa Campaign (COMIC: The Instruments of War) and in the theatre of Germany's chief European ally, Italy. (COMIC: Treasure Trail, PROSE: Deadly Reunion)
With the help of the United States, the Allies invaded France in 1944, reopening the Western Front (PROSE: The Taint, The Shadow in the Glass) liberating the conquered nations and eventually invading Germany. (PROSE: Made of Steel) The war ended with Germany's surrender in May 1945 after the Third Reich collapsed to the pressure of both the Western and Eastern Fronts. (PROSE: Just War, The Shadow in the Glass, AUDIO: Just War) The Second World War as a whole, however, would not end until the capitulation of Japan in the parallel Pacific War on 2 September 1945. (COMIC: Sky Jacks)
History[]
Origins[]
The post-First World War settlement[]
- Main article: World War I
- Main article: Treaty of Versailles
The original Western Front of the cataclysmic First World War, which planted the seeds for a repeat of the struggle. (COMIC: The Weeping Angels of Mons)
Between 1914 and 1918, the United Kingdom and France fought against Imperial Germany on French and Belgian soil on the stagnant Western Front of the First World War. (TV: The War Games, PROSE: Human Nature, et al.) Germany and her allies were defeated and the end of the war was marked by Armistice Day on 11 November 1918. (AUDIO: The White Room)
In 1919, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles formally brought the war to an end. George Limb was among the attendees at Versailles. Chief Inspector Patrick Mullen and the Seventh Doctor later suspected that Limb may have had a hand in sabotaging the treaty in some way, sowing the seeds for another conflict. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) The treaty forced Germany to accept responsibility for the war and stripped her of her empire, colonies and much of her European territory. Countries such as Poland gained independence (PROSE: Just War) while Germany became a republic, known as the Weimar Republic. (PROSE: Almost Perfect)
The Allies set war reparations that many Germans saw as too high for them to ever be paid off, and viewed the treaty as a deliberate attempt to cripple the economically and preventing any chance of recovery. Kaiser Wilhelm II was deposed, although buildings and organisations such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute retained his name. (AUDIO: The Alchemists) Nazi Colonel Oskar Steinmann later denounced the treaty as a "draconian" measure intended to punish Germany. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) British agent Graham Greene proposed that he become an agent for German interests, but beyond one trip to the Rhineland, nothing came of this idea. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
East of Germany, Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks continued to establish the new Communist power in Russia following the Russian Revolution of 1917. (PROSE: The Wages of Sin) The Bolsheviks demonstrated their threat to Germany in 1919 when the Spartacist movement, (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) under Soviet influence, attempted to spark a communist revolution in Germany. To the German population, this further emphasised the danger of the Weimar Republic's economic decadence. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)
The political and economic chaos gave rise to a number of political movements, most of which swift faded away, but the National Socialist German Workers Party. The party was founded in 1919 by Anton Drexler and Dietrich Erhart and campaigned on a mixture of nationalism, socialism and anti-Semitism. The membership regularly became involved in streets brawls against communists in the early 1920s. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The party adopted the ideology of fascism, to be enforced by a ruthless military dictatorship which suppressed weakness and emphasised the importance of the fatherland. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
Among the membership was the young Adolf Hitler, who greatly felt the shame of Germany's defeat. Hitler unknowingly gathered two extraterrestrial observers who had an interest in his success: the Timewyrm, who became trapped in his mind after trying to control him, and the War Lords alongside the renegade Time Lord known as the War Chief. In 1923, Hitler led the NSDAP in the Beer Hall Putsch in an attempt to topple the German government. The Putsch failed and Hitler contemplated suicide. However, his confidence was revitalised by the Seventh Doctor, who, although he viewed Hitler as a monster, was secretly on a mission to prevent the creation of an alternate timeline and knew Hitler was a central figure in the course of history.
Hitler was arrested for his part in the coup but used his time in prison to dictate Mein Kampf. He was released after six months. After a decade of "dirty politics", the NSDAP, which also became referred to as the Nazi Party, reorganised and properly re-entered the political stage. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Taking advantage of the discontent engendered by the economy, the Soviet Union and the breakdown of order in Germany, the NSDAP emerged victorious after the elections of 1932. (AUDIO: The Alchemists) Hitler came to power on 30 January 1933 (AUDIO: Neverland) and began to turn Germany into a military dictatorship, the Third Reich, banning all other political parties and crushing any groups or individuals deemed subversive. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, Players, Just War)
Anglo-German relations[]
As Führer of the Third Reich, Hitler's notoriety quickly grew around the rest of Europe. As a young boy, Jocelyn Stevens heard Hitler giving speeches on Nazi radio stations. He remembered Hitler's use of the phrase: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!" (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Green Death) Cecelia Pollard became a member of the League of English Fascists and met Hitler. (AUDIO: A Blind Eye) Her parents, Louisa and Richard Pollard, cut contact with her because of her pro-fascists views. (AUDIO: The Fall of the House of Pollard) London builder's merchant George Ratcliffe of the Association took part in a march down Cable Street in the 1930s, denouncing Bolsheviks and Jews. The marchers advocated a fascist English government emulating the model of the German Reich. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) Sir Oswald Mosley, who led the British Union of Fascists, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) also tried to emulate Hitler by flanking himself with his "Blackshirts" (PROSE: Players) They tried to drive Jews from the streets, which brought them into conflict with Tommy Ramsey's gang. (PROSE: Amorality Tale)
Hitler intended that Germany should build another empire in the east by conquering Poland, Russia and Persia and moving into Asia. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Though this would involve contravening the terms of the Versailles Treaty, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the early 1930s, Ramsay MacDonald, turned a blind eye to the Reich. He instead prioritised domestic economic issues of unemployment rates and political issues concerning the Conservative Party, for which the Seventh Doctor opined that he was an idiot. (PROSE: Log 384) Winston Churchill, meanwhile, was one of the first people to recognise the danger posed by Hitler and the Nazis as well as Benito Mussolini in Italy. Yet his warnings went largely unheeded as he fell out of favour because of his (PROSE: Players) and conflict with his own party while serving the government as Chancellor of the Exchequer. (WC: Amy's History Hunt) In the words of Edward Grainger, Churchill was a "self-glorifying, arrogant has-been... Spouting all that rubbish about Germany and Nazis." Nevertheless, Churchill attracted allies and sympathisers from within the Security Services. (PROSE: Log 384, Players)
The Allies adopted a policy of appeasement. Rather than risk war, the British chose diplomacy and bargaining with the Nazis, giving Hitler the benefit of the doubt. (PROSE: Just War) Churchill opposed the policy of appeasement. After Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland in direct contravention of the Versailles Treaty, Churchill began to fear what plans he had for the rest of Europe, more immediately with Czechoslovakia and Poland. (PROSE: Players) The arrangement suited Hitler very well as it staved off war, giving Germany more time to build up her military. This included the army, the Wehrmacht, (PROSE: Just War) the navy, the Kriegsmarine, (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) and the air force, the Luftwaffe, which was run by Hermann Goering. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) This was despite German companies in the 1920s and early 1930s being forbidden to produce fighter aircraft. (PROSE: Just War)
Hitler in fact admired the British, and viewed them as an Aryan race alongside his own German subjects. In his bid at empire building, Hitler intended to emulate the British Empire, particularly their control over the Indian subcontinent. He sought to forge an alliance with Britain, and many among the British ruling class felt the same way, either hoping to avoid another war with Germany or out of sympathy and admiration for Hitler's cause. However, Hitler remained irritated by "that gangster" Churchill and his allies. Though they were excluded from government, Hitler feared that they could damage his prospects of an alliance. In late 1936, Hitler sent the German Ambassador to Britain, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to secure an alliance with Britain. Ribbentrop hoped to achieve this by winning over the newly-crowned and pro-German King Edward VIII and his controversial lover Wallis Simpson, who spent a lot of time with Ribbentrop at the German Embassy and leaked sensitive British information.
The Count and Countess of the Players also presented themselves and offered the opportunity to launch a coup in Britain that would ensure an alliance with Germany. They provided Ribbentrop with a list of notable figures across Britain with Nazi sympathies, including people in Parliament, the British Army, the Civil Service, the Police and the aristocracy. The conspiracy was uncovered by the Sixth Doctor, Peri Brown and Winston Churchill, who warned the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, and organised for Edward to abdicate. Edward's speech, calling for the listed sympathisers to rise up and form a pro-German government, was foiled by Churchill and his allies in the Security Services. Edward abdicated and he and Wallis were effectively exiled. Edward's brother, the Duke of York, took to the throne as King George VI.
Hitler was furious that the alliance with Britain Ribbentrop had promised him failed to materialise. He flew into a violent rage which prompted the Party secretary Martin Bormann to enlist the aid of the psychic adviser Dr. Felix Kriegslieter, (PROSE: Players) who was in fact the War Chief seeking to gain closer proximity to the Führer. Hitler's more frequent and violent fits of rage, caused by the Timewyrm trapped in his mind, provided that opportunity. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
On 30 November 1936, undercover Nazi agent Professor Kriemhilde Steiner of the Black Science Division unearthed a phoenix egg near the Crystal Palace in London. The Nazis believed the artefact to be the "Eagle of ultima Thule" that would grant the Reich great power. The Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams investigated her dig site and confronted her. When Steiner tried to retrieve the egg, the phoenix hatched, burning her to death and setting the Crystal Palace alight. Churchill later arrived to see the fire and lamented the spectacle as signifying "the end of an era." The Doctor warned Churchill that worse times were on the horizon but assured him that he would be the best man to lead his country through them. (COMIC: The Eagle of the Reich)
Expansion of the Reich[]
In 1937, the Hossbach Niederschrift was drawn up. The document effectively controlled Nazi thinking. Among its key elements was the need for Germany to begin a programme of expansion within five years, before German weapons grew obsolete an the army recruits grew too old. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
In 1938, the Nemesis statue passed over Earth, influencing Hitler to annex Austria. Hans de Flores stood next to Hitler as he "ordered the first giant step towards greatness." (TV: Silver Nemesis) The event became known as the Anschluss. (PROSE: The Danger Men) Despite the Versailles settlement, the Germans met no international resistance in response to the annexation which further emboldened the Reich's ambitions. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) In the same year, Germany also annexed Czechoslovakia. Oskar Steinmann claimed that both Austria and Czechoslovakia welcomed German rule due to the Nazis' commitment to unite the world under the strong ideology of Fascism. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)
Another conference held in Munich tried to settle the resulting crisis peacefully. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain attended, but George Limb opined that Chamberlain let Hitler walk all over him, highlighting the Allies' lack of resolve. Chamberlain returned to Britain where he announced, "I have in my hand a piece of paper..." (PROSE: Illegal Alien) which promised "peace in our time." The Fifth Doctor thought Chamberlain made wrong decisions on this occasion but for the right reasons. (PROSE: One Wednesday Afternoon) Britain guaranteed aid to Poland in the event she was attacked, but given their handling of the Czechoslovakia crisis, Hitler did not expect them to honour the guarantee, and to back down yet again. His own advisers reinforced this idea. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
The Teselecta travelled to Berlin in 1938 where its crew executed Nazi General Erich Zimmerman on the charge of category three hate crimes. The Teselecta proceeded to Hitler's office to inflict on him the same punishment before realising they were too early in Hitler's time stream. Seconds later, Hitler was saved by the TARDIS crashing through his office window. The Eleventh Doctor told him that saving his life was "an accident" and warned him that "The British are coming!" before Rory Williams locked him in a cupboard. The Doctor, Rory and Amy Pond then left Hitler's office and pursued River Song through the streets of Berlin. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
In 1939, the Nazis attention fully turned to Poland, despite the British and French guarantee of aid. Before invading, Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. (AUDIO: An Eye For Murder) Although Hitler fully intended to attack the Soviets, the pact was intended to keep them off Germany's back while Poland, and then Western Europe, were dealt with. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) George Limb was present in Russia shortly before the deal was struck. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
At the end of August, Joseph Goebbels' propaganda apparatus launched an intensive disinformation campaign warning Germans of Polish aggression. The Seventh Doctor (as Johann Schmidt) met Hitler again after the 1923 Putsch and revealed some information from the future in an attempt to influence Hitler down history's correct path. Among the Doctor's revelations was that Britain would declare war on Germany if the latter invaded Poland. Scarcely wanting to believe this, Hitler was overcome by another bout of rage fuelled by the Timewyrm and wrecked his office before falling unconscious.
After Hitler claimed to the Reichstag that the Polish had conducted an unprovoked attack on Germany, the war in Europe began on Friday 1 September 1939 with the Invasion of Poland. On the morning of Sunday 3 September, Britain responded to the invasion with an ultimatum, demanding that the German forces in Poland withdraw. Ribbentrop received a communication to this effect from the British Ambassador. Ribbentrop and an interpreter named Schmidt reached Hitler's office at precisely 9:00. Hearing the ultimatum, Hitler realised that now Britain was serious and he had been given two hours to comply with their terms. He sat silently for ages and then asked Ribbentrop, "What now?" Ribbentrop responded, "I assume the French will hand in a similar ultimatum within the hour." Further enraged, Hitler shouted Ribbentrop and Schmidt out of the room. In Hitler's fury, the Timewyrm began to reassert control again. The Doctor intervened and implored Hitler to resist. The Führer calmed down just as Bormann, Goering and Ribbentrop reappeared with news of setbacks on the Polish front that required Hitler's attention. The calming effect of Bormann instilled more confidence in Hitler. He crumpled the ultimatum up and ordered Bormann to contact the British Ambassador and tell him the terms of the ultimatum would not and could not be fulfilled.
Consequently, Britain and France declared war on Germany two hours after the ultimatum reached Hitler's desk, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) an event which the Matrix recorded as being a part of the Web of Time. (AUDIO: Neverland) In a speech broadcast over the radio from 10 Downing Street on the day of Britain's declaration of war, Chamberlain delivered the news to the British public:
This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
The war[]
Countdown to Blitzkrieg[]
The Invasion of Poland lasted throughout September. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) In that time, Germany made preparations to face the threat of Britain and France in the west. The War Chief and the War Lords, operating as the Black Coven in Heinrich Himmler's castle of Drachensberg, hoped to help the Nazis win the war and then provide them with the technology to lead an army against the rest of the galaxy and the universe in an attempt at a refined repeat of the War Games. The Coven was confident Germany was capable of quickly defeating the Western Allies. All that was required was an ironing out of any mistakes the War Lords knew the Nazis would make: not letting the British escape at Dunkirk, delaying an invasion of the Soviet Union and keeping the United States of America neutral and isolated. However, as the Coven developed the strategy, the Seventh Doctor intervened by tipping off Goering. Goering's armoured column killed the Coven's troops and the survivors were killed when their nuclear reactor in the castle went critical, blowing them up and ending the Coven's influence on German strategy. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
At the outbreak of war and the crushing of Poland, many Europeans fled the continent to the relative safety of Great Britain, including many Polish exiles (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) and skilled scientists. (PROSE: Losing the Audience) Some scientists of Axis extraction were deemed too untrustworthy to take part in very sensitive British operations such as those at Bletchley Park. However, they were still recognised as possessing expertise too valuable to ignore and were held at the Aylesbury Grange Detention Centre. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)
With his warnings about Nazi Germany having been proved to be true, Winston Churchill came back into favour again. (WC: Amy's History Hunt) Finally returning to the Cabinet, he served as First Lord of the Admiralty and gained a secretary, Hetty Warner. He gained a reputation for working long hours into the night. (AUDIO: The Oncoming Storm) The Admiralty viewed Churchill as an ideal Prime Minister and felt it was only a matter of time before he got the job, although they preferred it to happen sooner rather than later. (AUDIO: Human Conflict)
In October, the Germans announced that they were willing to negotiate with the British and French, but the Allies refused, leading to the continuation of the war. Nazi propaganda argued that this meant the Allies were the true aggressors responsible for the start of the war and its continuation. Steinmann was among those who deployed this argument. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) Colonel Fischer also argued the British were the aggressors for having declared war, while Germany's actions were brought about by a need to defend herself, a justification in which he genuinely believed. Churchill argued that the Allies were forced into action by Germany's aggression towards her neighbours. Both men claimed many people in their respective countries did not want war but were bound by necessity to fight. (AUDIO: Human Conflict) Even after the beginning of the war, there were an number of people in Britain who wanted to make peace with Hitler. (PROSE: Inferno)
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A RATS in London in December 1939 disguised as a British Army soldier. (AUDIO: The Oncoming Storm)
The Germans developed magnetic naval mines which wreaked havoc on the Royal Navy. On 22 November 1939, a German bomber dropped a magnetic mine over the Thames Estuary. On 23 November, the Admiralty were able to recover the mine and study it, allowing them to devise countermeasures to its magnetism. At the same time, the British also discovered what they did not know was a Gallifreyan Augur's Stone. Upon touching the Stone, Abel Seaman Philips was granted vast amounts of knowledge. After a few minutes, he collapsed into a long coma. The Admiralty retrieved the Stone and placed it in protective storage in Admiralty House. In December, the Stone was sought out by Reactive Automated Trail Seekers intent on developing their own artificial intelligence. They invaded Admiralty House and retrieved it but the overwhelming knowledge caused them to overload and explode. Aware that Britain's "darkest hour" was upon them, Churchill expressed a willingness to touch the Stone to view the whole of Europe like a chess board and consider where Hitler would strike next, be it the Scandinavian countries, France or Belgium. His staff convinced him this was too dangerous while the Ninth Doctor assured him he would win the war as he was. Subsequently, the Doctor took the Stone away from Earth. (AUDIO: The Oncoming Storm)
By Christmastime, it became more difficult for people to obtain gifts such as toys and sweets. Joan Wright told her daughter Barbara that Santa Claus didn't have enough sweets for every child as a way to explain any shortages. Nevertheless, on Christmas Day, Barbara awoke to find a stocking filled with an apple, nuts, a peg doll and a large bag of barley sugar in spite of the wartime privations. (PROSE: All I Want for Christmas) Supply shortages led to the growth of black market operations. (AUDIO: Casualties of War)
Like the Romans, medieval warlords, knights, barbarians and nomadic tribes before them, the Nazis saw the strategic value of the ancient Kriegeskind Castle. Its high and remote location in the western German countryside made it an ideal stronghold from which to fend off an invasion of German territory. (AUDIO: Old Soldiers)
The Germans deployed an old First World War trick, whereby they imprinted a sector's troop movements on a soft-boiled egg using acetic acid. The egg was then boiled again so the shell absorbed the message but the imprint remained hidden on the white inside. The eggs were delivered across enemy checkpoints by women pretending to be civilians visiting relatives. The British had uncovered this trick numerous times during the First World War; it failed even then and the Germans knew it had failed, but refused to change it. The British were bemused to find that the Germans had employed the same tactic 25 years later with no alteration. In the first two years of the Second World War, the British caught German agents trying this deception tactic three times. The display taught British counter-intelligence important lessons about the rigidity of the thinking behind German espionage. (PROSE: Just War)
The "lightning war"[]
- Main article: Blitzkrieg
In 1940, with a consistent failure to negotiate armistice terms, Hitler launched the Blitzkrieg, a "lightning war" against Western Europe, commanded by himself with Generals Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel at the front line. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Blitzkrieg tactics risked problems with supply lines and the potential for attackers to find themselves cut off and surrounded if they pushed too far ahead. However, it was initially to prove very effective, with the Germans throwing every man, plane, ship, tank and armoured vehicle possible at the enemy in overwhelming force and speed to smash the Allied defences. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) The Germans conquered Denmark (AUDIO: Human Conflict) and Norway. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) In May, Britain, France, Belgium and Holland all faced the might of the German forces who benefited greatly from Hitler's command, augmented by his control of the Timewyrm. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Among them was the British Expeditionary Force, consisting of nearly half a million men. (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion)
The Netherlands succumbed to the onslaught in just four days. Belgium too was overrun and very soon it became certain that France would follow. The German advance sparked a refugee crisis. Roads were blocked by people fleeing from Paris, leading the British to become trapped in traffic and burning away their fuel. Messerschmitts attacked the ground forces and killed strides of civilians in the process. (PROSE: Just War) Among the German forces were Parachute Divisions, who were considered among the elite. (PROSE: Autumn Mist)
The Germans continued to steam roll the French and British armies back until the Allied forces were encircled. Guderian's Panzer Division pressed onward, capturing the port towns of Abbeville, Boulogne and Calais. The Allied pocket was squeezed until all that remained under Allied control was one last port at the town of Dunkirk. The British forces found themselves at a critical state, teetering on the edge of total destruction as Guderian's Panzers closed in. It was not known to anyone at the time but the ensuing Battle of Dunkirk was ultimately to decide the outcome of the war.
As the Allies held out, their fate was decided one night late in the month at Felsennest, near Aachen, at Hitler's command post. The Seventh Doctor arrived and challenged the Timewyrm within Hitler's mind. Goading her with taunts of her inferiority and subservience to Hitler, the Timewyrm found the strength of will to escape and the Doctor fired her away through time, ending any influence she had on the course of the war. Losing his augmented abilities, Hitler's confidence was sapped and he desperately appealed to the Doctor for advice while he sat on the cusp of victory. The Doctor advised: "You must let the British Army go!" Reminding Hitler of his admiration for Britain and the British Empire, the Doctor argued that if the British Army survived and an invasion of England was postponed, Britain would eventually seek peace with Germany and the two nations could later commit their combined strength to a war against the Soviet Union. Convinced of the longer-term strategy, Hitler rang a field-telephone with a message for Guderian: "There is to be no further advance on Dunkirk." On Hitler's order, for reasons his generals never understood, the Germans' encircling advance was halted in one fatal last-minute delay. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
After learning the Germans had halted, the British calculated that they had been granted a gap of six days before the advance restarted. In London, Churchill called a tense meeting with Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay of the Royal Navy to discuss their options. The meeting produced Operation Dynamo, an ambitious evacuation effort which involved recruiting civilian boats and sailors to help ferry as much of the 400,000 besieged men as possible away from the beaches and onto the 42 available Royal Navy ships for transportation back to England. In the early hours of 26 May, Ramsay travelled to the White Cliffs of Dover, the hidden naval base of operations in the converted catacombs and war tunnels beneath Dover Castle. There, Ramsay began to get cold feet. He objected to the idea of sending untrained civilians into danger and contemplated disobeying the orders from London, finding himself facing an impossible situation. Unofficially, he cancelled Dynamo in favour of a different evacuation strategy.
As debate raged in Dover HQ, a Nemonite ship fell into the sea nearby, chased by the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble. The Nemonite attacked a German U-boat carrying Zyklon B to Germany for use in the concentration camps. The Nemonite slaughtered the crew, save for one man, Engel, who sent out a distress call before the Nemonite infected him as a host. The British picked up the call and brought Engel back to the base. From there, the Nemonite found another host in Chaplain Clayton and its children swarmed the HQ. They infected the water system and shut down the base's generator.
Finding a temporary safe room, the Doctor realised the date and the time, 3 o'clock in the morning. Knowing Dynamo had to go ahead in half an hour, he convinced Ramsay to uncancel the operation. Power was returned to the base using the captured U-boat and the Nemonites in the water were killed with the Zyklon B. Ramsay and his men contacted HMS Brazen for assistance in the coordination. After reaffirmation from Churchill, Operation Dynamo began. Commodore Jarman, driven mad by the death of his family and humiliation in his career, attempted a mutiny and tried to overload the base's generator. He died from a high drop in a confrontation with Ramsay. The remaining Nemoites were lured onto the U-boat and blown up by Fossbrook in an act of self-sacrifice. Donna later informed his mother of his actions. (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion)
The evacuation efforts took place between 26 May and 4 June. (TV: Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart) 850 civilian ships set off from the south coast of England towards Dunkirk. (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion) The First Doctor witnessed the events. (PROSE: Byzantium!)
The trapped soldiers organised themselves in long lines stretching towards the sea under constant threat from Stuka dive-bombers. Yet the German ground forces still held back. The Royal Navy, aided by the fleet of "little ships", (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) evacuated 338,000 men across the English Channel back to Britain, 100,000 of which came straight from the beaches, although the evacuation generated some controversy. (TV: Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart) Corporal Gibbs, who was among those successfully evacuated along with Captain Clive Freeman, considered Dunkirk "a mess". (AUDIO: The Forsaken) Churchill wrote that Dunkirk gave Britain "a bloody nose", from which the nation was still reeling a year later. (AUDIO: Human Conflict)
Yet for all the controversy, the evacuation was to prove a decisive moment in the war. Kriegslieter had identified the halt at Dunkirk as a fatal mistake in Germany's war effort that required correction but after the events at Drachensberg, the Black Coven were no longer able to intervene. Rommel, in his secret diary, was very critical of Hitler's nervousness despite his success and called the order to halt "utter madness". Churchill reminded the British that "wars are not won by evacuations". Britain's position was still very precarious, but the British Army, the forces necessary to face the troubles ahead, had been safely brought back home. People in Britain viewed the deliverance from Dunkirk as a miracle. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Italy entered the conflict and declared war on Britain. (PROSE: Just War)
"Falling like dominoes"[]
France lasted less than a month before surrendering in the face of the German onslaught. Oskar Steinmann claimed that even Paris welcomed German rule. Victory marches were organised, passing the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Notre Dame in celebration. (PROSE: Just War) Once in Paris, the Nazis began pilfering works of art with which they decorated the lavish hotel rooms in which they took up residence. (PROSE: City of Death) Despite the looting, Paris was largely spared from destruction, unlike other cities invaded by the Germans. Hitler visited the French capital some time after the occupation, during which various hotel wine cellars were emptied. Under Nazi rule, access to numerous luxuries was cut off. Available tea, for example, was comparable to mud. (AUDIO: The Dying Room) Some of the French began collaborating with the Germans. Bernard ran a business which served German officers as well as their wives. (PROSE: The Turing Test) The French Resistance formed to combat the occupation, but innocent French civilians faced the threat of being murdered by the Gestapo in reprisals for disruption or harm caused by the Resistance. Executions took place each dawn. (AUDIO: The Scapegoat)
The occupying forced established a puppet government in southern France, which sat at the town of Vichy in the so-called Zone Libre or "free zone". (AUDIO: Resistance) However, the Germans remained the masters of Vichy France and, by extension, France's colonies in North Africa, including French Guinea (PROSE: The Turing Test) and the city of Casablanca. (COMIC: As Time Goes By)
The Germans turned their attention to the Channel Islands. The British government decided that it was no use trying to defend the islands as they were of no military value. Instead, they were demilitarised in the hopes of sparing them from German aggression. A "second Dunkirk" was organised to evacuate the inhabitants willing to leave. About one third of the population of Guernsey left but the rest stayed, being unable or unwilling to leave behind their homes or farms, and some out of a sense of patriotism. On the warm Friday evening of 28 June at 6:45 pm, Mayor Sherwill just finished delivering a speech intended to reassure the civilians when Luftwaffe aircraft appeared in the skies and began bombing the harbour. The island had no bomb shelters and so people in the vicinity of the harbour took shelter beneath vehicles. Many of them died as the Germans attacked the vans, which exploded in salmon-pink light. The Germans later expressed their regret for the people killed in the raid and claimed their intention had been to prevent the shipping of a consignment of tomatoes. Twenty-seven men and four women were killed, and forty more people wounded.
On Saturday, 29 June, the inhabitants were worried about the possibility of another raid or a gas attack. On Sunday, 30 June, three German planes landed at the airstrip but were quickly chased off by a Royal Air Force patrol. At 6:00 in the evening, the German returned in force and began circling above the island looking for ground defences that were no longer there. By 6:30, Major Lanz had assumed control of the island and he set up residence in the Royal Hotel. Much of the population hardly noticed until Lanz issued a declaration to that effect at a later point. The swastika was raised on every flagpole and tens of thousands of Nazi soldiers arrived in 178 low-flying Junkers. Private transport and British radio channels were outlawed and unlucky islanders were evicted from their homes or had their furniture looted for use by the invaders. A dozen German soldiers billeted in the Doras family's boarding house and paid them in worthless occupation marks; comparatively, the Doras family was treated quite fairly and were among the lucky ones.
The Germans claimed they had occupied Guernsey without firing a shot, ignoring the raid on the harbour two days prior, as well as the subsequent civilian executions carried out on people suspected of being spies or in reprisals for acts of resistance. The island's security was led by the ruthless SS Standardtenführer Joachim Wolff and Oberst Oskar Steinmann, head of the island's prisoner of war camp and the Luftwaffe forces respectively. The British government issued an appeal, warning the island's remaining inhabitants not to risk their lives by committing acts of sabotage or resistance. On an island only twenty-four square miles in size, few acts of resistance, even passive resistance, could go undetected. Marcel Brossier was executed for cutting a telephone wire. One girl also killed herself after becoming pregnant with one of the hated occupiers. (PROSE: Just War)
On Jersey, a force of time travelling Cybermen from the 30th century, which arrived in 1939, fled to mainland Britain when the Nazis invaded. The Cybermen left behind a sleeper force in the Le Mur Engineering factory, which the Nazis began studying. The fleeing Cybermen set up a new base of operations in the Peddler Electronic Engineering factory in London. Meanwhile, the discovery of the sleeper force led to a power struggle in Berlin. Himmler, Goering, Rudolf Hess and other leading Nazis all began vying for a position under Hitler that would give them control of the Cybermen. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
The loss of the Channel Islands represented the first successful invasion of British homeland territory since the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The British assumed the Germans had taken the islands for propaganda purposes but the Germans soon commenced with a considerable build-up of air and naval forces. (PROSE: Just War)
In the words of the Sixth Doctor, the British retreat from the continent left Hitler "the master of Europe," (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure) but in spite of all the odds now stacked against her, and perhaps even against her own common sense, Britain refused to stand down. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) During time spent in wartime Britain, the Ninth Doctor reflected:
the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it. Nothing. Until one, tiny, damp little island says no. No. Not here. A mouse in front of a lion.
"We shall never surrender"[]
With Europe under Nazi control by the summer of 1940, the activity on the Western Front moved to the British isles. The Nazis began planning the conclusion of the Blitzkrieg in the form of Operation Sealion, the cross-Channel invasion and conquest of Britain. Documents found after the war detailed their intentions for the island. First was the swift arrest of civil servants, ex-officers, trade unionists, lawyers and MPs, as well as the liquidation of Jews, Gypsies and other "invalids". The German sympathiser, former King Edward VIII, would be restored to the throne with Wallis Simpson as his queen and a National Socialist Parliament would be appointed. Able-bodied males between the ages of 17 and 45 were to be forcibly enlisted in the so-called Voluntary Labour Force and deported to various places around the continent to construct the Nazi fortress. Blond-haired blue-eyed women would be rounded up and sent to Race Centres to have Aryan children with members of the SS. Those children would be educated in Germany and sent back to their home countries after they had grown into loyal Nazis. Valuable art, industry and artefacts would be relocated to Berlin. The remaining population would be left to rot, with possible replacement by a new Aryan population after it had died out. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
With few remaining allies, (WC: Amy's History Hunt) renewed calls were made for Britain to make peace with Hitler. (PROSE: Inferno) Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) inheriting the critical situation. As fear of invasion swept the country, Churchill almost found himself on the verge of despair. The Doctor convinced him to fight on, adding it could lead to his "finest hour". The Sixth Doctor later recounted that Churchill, in response, "... brightened up, lit one of his big cigars, gave me a victory sign, and went out and won the war." (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure) Seeking new allies, he urged the isolationist United States to enter the war (WC: Amy's History Hunt) and declared Britain's intentions thus:
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may he. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
The British code word, "Cromwell", would signal the start of an invasion. (PROSE: Just War)
Britons became worried about Nazi spies. (PROSE: The Curse of Fenric) A British propaganda campaign warned “Careless Talk Costs Lives”. Anyone accused of collaborating with the enemy was persecuted under the 1940 Treason Act. (AUDIO: The Survivor) Train station names on the south coast were removed to confuse potential Nazi train-spotters. Trains were also unofficially reserved for military use and civilians making train journeys deemed unnecessary were frowned upon. (PROSE: Just War) German spies captured by the British were executed. British, French and Dutch spies captured by the Nazis were treated as military prisoners of war. Although Oskar Steinmann conceded that, under Reich policy, the spies were partially spared so that information could be extracted via interrogation, he argued that the fact that they were spared still meant the Germans were more civilised than the English. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) The Germans attempted to convince British prisoners of war potentially sympathetic to fascism to switch sides and join the Britischer Freikorps (British Free Corps). Hardly any British prisoners ever accepted the offer. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Sir Oswald Mosley, the founder of the British Union of Fascists, was imprisoned for the duration of the war. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) London builder's merchant and Association leader George Ratcliffe spoke out against Britain's part in the war, believing the country should instead be allied to Nazi Germany. He was also imprisoned, (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) under Regulation 18b. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) Sylvia O'Donnell had married a Waffen-SS member named Heinrich after they met in Germany in 1933. He took his wife's surname due to the rise of anti-German sentiment. Sylvia remembered a lot of friendly correspondence between Britain and Germany before the war and believed Churchill had no business involving Britain in the conflict, eventually prompting her to move to Kenya. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings) Though she herself was British-born and grew up in Britain, Elizabeth Klein received abuse and suspicion during the war because her parents were German. She came to favour a German victory. (AUDIO: Colditz)
The Home Guard, made up of civilian volunteers, was established to defend the country from German invasion. Members such as Tom Wintringham also believed it should be used to launch a socialist revolution against the government if any attempt was made to make peace with Germany. (PROSE: Losing the Audience) The Home Guard were stationed at potentially vulnerable coastal areas and important military installations. Robin Sanford was denied active service due to a hereditary heart defect but he was made a private in the Home Guard at the age of 18. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror) Hidden bases full of supplies and weapons were established so British resistance groups could go into hiding and continue operating against the Germans in the event of an invasion (PROSE: Made of Steel) Four citadels were build under the surface of London, intended to allow the British government to continue operations if the worst happened. (AUDIO: The Fifth Citadel)
At the recommendation of Admiral Arthur Kendrick, the British founded the Scientific Intelligence Division (SID). The first British organisation to (officially) combine the work of British Intelligence officers with scientists, its task was to piece together as much information as possible based on all the intelligence retrieved. (PROSE: Just War)
In France, the Reynard Resistance Group retrieved information about the invasion plans and intended to send them to the British. The Gestapo under Colonel Reiner began hunting down the group, which was infiltrated by a German agent named Ilse, posing as a Frenchwoman named Yvette. The Third Doctor was arrested by the Gestapo at this time but turned his interrogation around when he subjected Professor Schmidt to a dose of his own truth serum and pretended to be an inspector working on behalf of the Führer. Afterwards, the Doctor made contact with the Reynard Group.
When the Reynard Group prepared to send their message to the British, Isle warned Reiner and the leaders were arrested. However, the Doctor helped them escape their cell and they kidnapped Schmidt, forcing him to contact Reiner and falsely inform him that the message had not been sent. With the Gestapo now believing them to be dealt with, the Reynard Group then went back into hiding with Schmidt as their prisoner, planning to send him and his serum to London. Reynard claimed he believed Britain was sufficiently prepared to repel the Germans, who would be "in for a nasty shock". (COMIC: Who is the Stranger)
The Battle of Britain and the Blitz[]
- Main article: Battle of Britain
- Main article: The Blitz
Despite the fall of Western Europe, Winston Churchill was determined to defeat the Nazis. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
Britain also enjoyed one clear advantage over Germany: strength at sea. The Royal Navy's superiority over the Kriegsmarine in the English Channel had succeeded in delaying the Germans from launching Operation Sealion. As a result, in the summer of 1940, the focus of the war moved from the air to the sky in what developed into the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe under Hermann Goering began the battle by attacking British military targets for a successive number of weeks, which had to be defended by the Royal Air Force. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) British Spitfire and Hurricane pilots fought against German Messerschmitts, Junkers 88s, Stukas and Dorniers. (PROSE: /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet/) Other British aircraft types included the Wellington, the Whitley, the Hampden and the Blenheim. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
One British aerodrome was located one mile away from the village of Cragwell in West Country. (COMIC: Insect) Another was in Culverton. (PROSE: Last of the Gaderene) A further aerodrome was located at RAF Shandon outside Helensburgh in Scotland. It lay largely beyond the range of the Luftwaffe and served as a training school. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) An ideal tactic for aerial combat was for a pilot to fly at the enemy with the sun behind them so their opponents were blinded. (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune)
While trapped on Earth, an amnesiatic Eighth Doctor saw the desperation of Britain's position and tried to join the RAF. He was rejected as he lacked nationality papers proving he was a British subject. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Alec Whistler fought for the RAF in the battle. (PROSE: Last of the Gaderene) Rachel Jensen was also involved in some action during this time. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) Polish exiles in Britain also joined the struggle. However, because of the poor performance of the Polish Air Force during the Invasion of Poland, their counterparts in the RAF initially did not regard the Poles highly, limiting their activity. Yet many of the Poles were very well trained, determined to prove their worth, and hungry for revenge.
In August, the Heliyon, whose different blocs were at war, travelled to the war-torn Earth. Under Heliyon rules of war, the two blocs chose sides at random from another planet that was already at war; the outcome of that planet's war decided the outcome of the Heliyon war. Additional Heliyon interference in those wars was banned by Heliyon Prime but fanatics attempted to influence the outcome of the Second World War in their favour by preying on the RAF. As they engaged the Germans, several British pilots were killed by the cloaked Heliyon ship.
On 27 August, Churchill contacted the Eighth Doctor (long after escaping his Earth exile) via the TARDIS telephone, seeking help with the mysterious alien force threatening the RAF aircraft engaging the Luftwaffe. Without the RAF forces to spare to assist in the investigation, the Doctor and Liv Chenka enlisted the help of Polish Pilot Officers Jan Ostowicz and Wilhelm Rozycki and equipped their planes with force fields. During the aerial investigation, Liv and Rozycki found themselves briefly abducted by the Heliyon, who were worried by the Doctor's technology. The Heliyon ship was drawn back towards the RAF base for an attack. The rest of the Polish squadron was deployed against it. The Heliyon were fought off and began heading in the direction of London. The Doctor, Ostowicz, Liv and Churchill pursued them, with Churchill ordering the British squadrons to join the Poles in the fray. Losing, the Heliyon ship attempted a kamikaze attack on the city but Heliyon Prime intervened and arrested the fanatics on the charge of war crimes.
In recognition of their efforts against the Heliyon, the Poles were allowed to engage more fully in the Battle of Britain the next day. On the night of 28 August, Ostowicz and Rozycki battled the Luftwaffe. Rozycki was shot down and killed. Ostowicz was saddened by his friend's death but acknowledge that he died doing what he wished and fighting for good. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour)
Both sides suffered heavy casualties (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) but ultimately the British and were victorious. (PROSE: /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet/) The Spitfires became a much-celebrated aircraft and largely replaced the less manoeuvrable Hurricanes as the RAF's main fighter planes. However, Hurricanes shot down more German planes in 1940 than all other British aircraft combined. Hitler never forgave the Luftwaffe for their failure. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
As the months went by, the war settled into a stalemate. Although she could boast a powerful army and air force, Germany's navy was not strong enough to launch an invasion of England. Conversely, Britain enjoyed naval superiority and strength in the air was rapidly expanding, but she had nothing close to the forces necessary to take the fight back to continental Europe. As the winter season drew near, the Nazis temporarily shelved Operation Sealion, claiming they were observing a Christmas truce, but the British expected preparations to resume in the spring of the following year. Oskar Steinmann claimed that London would be taken in one day after German paratroopers descended on the city come the invasion. (PROSE: Just War)
Churchill became dead set on defeating the Nazis. On numerous occasions, he attempted to steal the Doctor's TARDIS, (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour, TV: Victory of the Daleks) even ordering the British Army to retrieve it if possible, with the offer of a reward to anyone who succeeded. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror) He once expressed that, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would give a favourable reference to the Devil." (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
The extra-dimensional Shakers approached the desperate British government, offering aid. A pact was agreed upon and Operation Shaker was planned out. The Shakers would conduct a secret war against the Germans; the British offered them India as Lebensraum in return, with no intention of keeping the promise. The men of the South Mendip Auxiliary Unit, who had been trained to fight a guerrilla war against the Germans, were also part of the Operation. Scientists, meanwhile, studied ways to defeat the Shakers for when they were no longer needed. Ultimately, the invasion never came and Operation Shaker was never put into full effect. The Shakers were trapped in the fabric of the BBC Broadcasting House by factions of the British Government after the threat of German invasion passed. (PROSE: Losing the Audience)
From September 1940, (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) major towns and cities across the UK suffered under an intensive aerial bombardment campaign that became known as the Blitz. The attacks occurred nearly every night and necessitated the blotting out of every light to deny the Luftwaffe a target. When possible, the bombers were guided by moonlight. (PROSE: The Time Travellers) Much of the urban population spent the night in bomb shelters or underground train stations (PROSE: Illegal Alien) or evacuated to the countryside. (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, PROSE: Tell Me You Love Me, WC: Alien File: Eve) Cities were pounded and ordinary people suffered, but the Eleventh Doctor assured Churchill that the whole world was watching Britain and her struggle. Her acts of resistance provided "a beacon of hope" to the conquered and vulnerable peoples of the world. (TV: Victory of the Daleks) Churchill visited a number of the blitzed areas, filling the affected communities with a sense of patriotism and pride. (PROSE: Amorality Tale)
Goodge Street Fortress was constructed near Goodge Street tube station during the war as a secret government HQ. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Web of Fear) Dozens of such tunnels were built for the same purpose throughout London. (AUDIO: Amorality Tale) The government continued to meet and operate in the relative safety of the Cabinet War Rooms, (TV: Victory of the Daleks) although Churchill regularly ventured up at the rooftops at night accompanied by various advisers to observe the bombs pounding London which caused the population so much suffering. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) Ack-ack guns and barrage balloons sprang up to defend Britain from the Luftwaffe. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...)
The Hartung and Ironside Projects[]
In February 1941, the Luftwaffe moved their attention away from London to other English cities, targeting British war industries. This granted London some respite but by the same token condemned other people to suffer and die. Churchill continued to feel the weight of the situation on his shoulders, but he continued to marvel at the persistence of the British public's morale. (AUDIO: Human Conflict)
Although it looked like London had received a respite, bombs still continued to hit the capital late in the month. In the late hours of 1 March, a large number of German bombers took off from the Channel Islands and struck London again. However, the bomber fleet was largely a cover for Emil Hartung as he piloted his prototype stealth bomber Hugin, which caused the vast majority of the damage that night with great accuracy. Hugin's path hit Greenwich, Bermondsey, the City of London and Regent's Park before turning around and striking Paddington, Soho and Southwark, remaining undetected by British radar all the while. Almost every bomb hit something important.
Hugin along with her sister aircraft Munin were more advanced than aircraft than should have been possible in the period. The subjects of the Hartung Project, Hartung had completed the testing phase on 28 February after over four years of work. The SID discovered evidence of the project and embarked on a mission to find out more information, sabotage the project and potentially help Hartung to defect, by exploiting possible anti-Nazi sentiments on account of his partial Jewish heritage. However, Hugin crashed on return to Guernsey and exploded in a crash caused by a fault with the fuel systems. Hartung died just after midnight on 2 March.
The Tomato Network operating on the Channel Islands and the northern French coast sought to gain intelligence on the project for the SID but on 4 March, the network was compromised by the Germans who killed all 30 agents. On 5 March, Admiral Kendrick met with the War Cabinet and they agreed to RAF bombing operations against the Luftwaffe zbV HQ in the northern French coastal town of Granville in the hopes of destroying Hartung's work, regardless of civilian casualties. After 6:30 pm, RAF bombers breached the sea wall and 30 German troops were killed when the fuel stores erupted, and a whole squadron of Messerschmitts, along with two dozen pilots, were bombed at the nearby airfield before they could get off the ground, granting the British air supremacy. The town was hit with incendiary bombs. Even a bomb shelter in the park was hit, killing everybody inside. The townhouse used as Luftwaffe zbV's HQ, built in 1715 by Jean Lassurance, was reduced to a crater. The raid lasted for three hours until the RAF returned home at 9:30 pm without losing a single plane. Every target had been destroyed. Bomber Command announced a 100% success. 1,450 people were killed, including 30 German officers.
Munin, however, was based in a nearby hidden airbase and survived the raid. In another attempt to bring the British to the negotiating table, Standartenführer Joachim Wolff deliberately allowed himself to be captured by the SID to relay the British an ultimatum from the German government: Britain was to reach an agreement with Germany whereby the two nations would cease hostilities on equal terms and join together to face the Soviet Union. The only stipulations were that France be demilitarised, troops be withdrawn from Iraq and armistice terms be concluded with Italy. Failure to reach an agreement would result in the destruction of English cities on the south coast by a new German weapon (Munin). The Germans target was Southampton, with a raid planned before the British could prepare the city's defences. Unwilling to take risks, Admiral Kendrick contacted the Cabinet and announced “Cromwell”, the German invasion. Church bells and air raid sirens rang throughout London and the south coast to warn the population.
The project was thwarted ahead of the Southampton raid on 6 March. With Bernice Summerfield and Roz Forrester working on intelligence gathering, Munin was stolen by the Seventh Doctor and Chris Cwej, who blew it up by exploiting the same fuel weaknesses which destroyed Hugin. Their mission had started after the Doctor realised he had given Hartung information from the future when they met in Cairo in 1936. With the threat of the superbomber neutralised, the invasion alert was called off and another planned RAF raid on Guernsey was aborted. Wolff, in British captivity, took his own life after the Doctor shook his faith in Nazism and Fascism. (PROSE: Just War)
Much of the same event was relived by Bernice Summerfield along with Jason Kane, (AUDIO: Just War) with both versions appearing to have taken place. (PROSE: Paydirt) Bernice was able to remember both experiences. (PROSE: Dear Friend)
Leading Nazi Rudolf Hess embarked on a mission in a plane. (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS) He was captured by the British and imprisoned in the Tower of London. (PROSE: The Domino Effect)
As London, Britain and the Empire continued to suffer under the German onslaught, Churchill became desperate for something that would give Britain an advantage over Germany. It was in this context that the last Daleks in existence arrived in 1941 and located a remaining Progenitor device. Unable to activate it as they were viewed as genetically impure, the Daleks passed themselves off as robotic war machines called Ironsides invented by Dr. Edwin Bracewell, himself actually an android, who approached the British military with plans for the so-called "Ironside Project". Despite his desperation, Churchill initially had his doubts about the Ironsides, seeing them as "too good to be true." (TV: Victory of the Daleks) He called the Eleventh Doctor for assistance, citing a "potentially very dangerous" situation. (TV: The Beast Below)
A Churchill moment - Doctor Who - BBC
Demonstration of the Ironside Project. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
However, the Doctor arrived a month late. By then Churchill had become convinced of the Ironsides' effectiveness. They proved excellent at shooting down German aircraft flying over London and even produced new technologies which augmented the strength of the RAF by creating devices which went as far as to make their aircraft space-worthy. Churchill hoped to one day use the Ironsides in numbers to take the war to Germany. Ultimately, the Daleks were using themselves as bait to lure the Doctor to 1941 and confirm to the Progenitor, via his testimony, that they were truly Daleks. With this achieved, the active Progenitor produced the first Daleks of the New Dalek Paradigm.
Attempting to get the Doctor off their back so they could escape, the new Daleks lit up every light in London, prompting German bombers to set off over the Channel at once to cause as much damage to the city as possible. However, the augmented Spitfires Jubilee, Flintlock and their leader Danny Boy flew into space and engaged the Dalek saucer above the Moon, knocking out the beam and plunging London back under the cover of darkness. The Daleks then set the Oblivion Continuum which powered Bracewell to detonate. With the whole of the Earth threatened with destruction, the Doctor had no choice but to leave the Daleks in order to deactivate the bomb, allowing them to escape the war via time corridor and rebuild their race. However, the Doctor and Amy Pond were able to defuse the bomb by helping Bracewell override it with his humanity. All alien technology was subsequently removed by the Doctor to prevent wide-scale tampering with history. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
Bracewell continued to work with Churchill and the British. Later that year, he brought a mysterious painting by Vincent van Gogh before Churchill. Regarding the painting, Churchill tried to contact the Doctor but reached River Song in the Stormcage facility instead. He warned her about the painting so she could pass on the message to the Doctor. (TV: The Pandorica Opens) The Eleventh Doctor later recruited Danny Boy and the augmented Spitfires to fight at Demons Run. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
Wyckham and Koenig. (TV: Lost in Time)
In June, a small group of Germans, led by Lieutenant Koenig assisted by Miss Wyckham, secretly landed on the south coast of England. They used a piece of Chronosteel found in the Rhineland to block early warning systems, which they hoped would allow the Germans to invade Britain in full force. Clyde Langer and George Woods stopped them, with Clyde returning the Chronosteel to its rightful place with the Shopkeeper and Captain in 2010. (TV: Lost in Time)
According to the Seventh Doctor, the Blitz effectively ended in July 1941 (PROSE: Illegal Alien) as the Germans moved east, (PROSE: Just War, Losing the Audience) although Britain suffered further bombing attacks even after that point, which continued for the rest of the war. (AUDIO: Hounded, Churchill Victorious, PROSE: Ash, Illegal Alien)
In retaliation, the RAF carried out its own systematic bombings of Germany, targeting the industrial centres of the Ruhr and the Rhine. (PROSE: Just War) which resulted in millions of German civilian deaths, far more than the British had lost in the Blitz. (PROSE: The Turing Test) The bombardment of Germany crippled Reverend Wainwright's faith. (TV: The Curse of Fenric) Oskar Steinmann claimed that the Luftwaffe only targeted industrial and military installations (which was false) while the RAF were responsible for many civilian deaths in Germany, and attacked with phosphorus bombs and dum-dum bullets, which German forces had banned the use of. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) Major Poetschke of the 1st SS Panzer Division considered the Blitz justified as it was merely a means of trying to "persuade" the British. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) As Ian Chesterton understood it, British docks had been the Germans' primary target, but all of London's East End had suffered as a result. (PROSE: The Time Travellers)
Stalemate in the West[]
The Germans imposed brutal military law on the occupied territories and established concentration camps across Europ,. (PROSE: Just War) to which they deported those they deemed "degenerates" (AUDIO: The Scapegoat) for use as "subhuman" slave labour. Slaves were made to work helping their conquerors consolidate their grip on the continent by constructing the sea wall along the coastline, including those of the Channel Islands. (PROSE: Just War) in order to turn Europe into a Nazi Fortress. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Jews from all over occupied Europe were deported to death camps, where millions of them were to be systematically murdered in gas chambers for the remainder of the war. It was conducted in secrecy, sufficient enough for the Allies to hear nothing but rumours. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
As the stalemate over Britain persisted, the war began to move away from the English Channel. The Germans moved into Romania via an invasion as well as Bulgaria. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) and faced the British once more in after invading Greece in April 1941. (PROSE: Just War) Fighting also continued in North Africa, where the Italians sought to extend their control over the continent. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) British and Australian forces, with French forces under Charles de Gaulle, clashed with the German Afrika Korps, the Italians and their Tuareg tribesmen allies in the Sahara Desert, Libya. (COMIC: The Instruments of War, PROSE: The Dying Days) The Royal Navy continued to engage in operations in the Mediterranean Sea. (PROSE: The Christmas Presence)
With Britain still undefeated, Germany turned her attention east towards the Soviet Union, seeking to capture Russia's countless resources of land, slaves, oil, grain and metals. In June 1941, the Germans pushed into Eastern Europe in force, bringing the Soviets into the war on the side of the Allies, (PROSE: Just War) lifting a lot of pressure off of Britain relieving the immediate threat of invasion. (PROSE: Losing the Audience) Churchill and Stalin allied their nations against the Germans, although Churchill was reluctant to do so, remembering that Stalin had come to agreements with Hitler a few years previously. (AUDIO: Human Conflict) The German invasion of the Soviet Union opened the Eastern Front. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
As a result of this shift, activity in the west became mostly covert, carried out by spies and other agents. Torchwood agents LeDuc and his alien partner Gabriel travelled from Calais to Paris in search of the Germans' Project Hermod. While travelling through Montroy, Nazi guards accidentally came in contact with Gabriel, whose abilities forced people to take on the form of their innermost self. This inadvertently caused a zombie outbreak which affected the SS ranks. Project Hermod's Oppenführer Hans Grau believed French socialite Madame Berber was responsible, working for Torchwood and the French Resistance. Grau interrogated LeDuc to receive a confession to this effect but when he threatened Gabriel as part of the interrogation, Grau became a victim of the contagion himself. LeDuc estimated that 5,000 Germans would be killed before they could neutralise the contagion. (AUDIO: The Dying Room) Although Turkey was not involved in the war, one of their male agents was also operating in Paris, attempt to blend in by adopted the misguided alias Chanel Parfum. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
The expanding was brought the attention of the alien arms dealer Bragnar to turn Earth. She made a deal to into a radioactive wasteland suitable for habitation by the Gilan by selling hugely destructive weapons to both the Allies and the Axis to escalate the destruction. Seeing the Germans as the more aggressive belligerent, she approached them first. She met with Colonel Fischer in occupied Denmark and demonstrated the potential of one of her weapons by destroying a mountain. A British plane, flying over Denmark on an intelligence-sharing mission to Russia, discovered the mountain had gone, as they were using it as a reference point on the return trip. Informed of the developments by Lieutenant Ian Fleming, Churchill ordered a covert mission to Denmark to discover more about the weapon, and if possible to destroy it or capture it. Despite the urging of the Ninth Doctor that Churchill not get involved, Churchill felt that Britain's situation was too grave to take no action, and that possession of the Germans' weapon would bring the war to a swift end.
Fleming led the mission to Denmark. His team landed safety and swiftly infiltrated the German compound. Bragnar was located and extracted and Fleming's team made their escape, pursued by the Germans. They were aided by crucial RAF support. Some pilots spend longer than was advisable on this mission and they barely landed back in Britain with any fuel to spare. Inevitably, there were some casualties but Fleming's team successfully travelled back to Britain over the North Sea in a Sunderland flying boat with Bragnar and arranged to meet with Churchill in his old Parliamentary constituency of Dundee. Bragnar directed Churchill to the Isle of Murrah in the Outer Hebrides, demanding a quarter of Britain's gold and jewel reserves for the weapon. Against the Ninth Doctor's continued insistence, Churchill decided to meet with Bragnar on the island. Fischer's Germans following from Denmark pursued Churchill and Connolly towards the harbour before they left for the Hebrides. British Army troops arrived to deal with the Germans, although Fischer escaped.
The British had ordered a squad of bombers to fly towards Murrah while the Germans summoned a warship. Arriving on Murrah ahead of their respective attacks, Bragnar brought Churchill and Fischer into a stand-off. The Doctor arrived and attempted to mediate between the groups. With the fate of the Earth at stake, Churchill and Fischer agreed to talk and came to an understanding while they raided Bragnar's ship with the Doctor to deactivate its shields. Fischer and his men escaped on a boat back to their incoming battleship while the British fled on the Sunderland after the bombers obliterated Bragnar's ship. With the alliance of convenience over, Churchill, with regret but out of necessity, ordered the bombers to attack the German battleship. (AUDIO: Human Conflict)
With the stress of the ongoing war, Churchill was frequently prone to black moods. Major Wheatley grew increasingly concerned given that Churchill was presently one of the most important men in the world. Wheatley sought after a way to control the Prime Minister's emotions. He recruited the aid of a Swami named Kahn Tareen, the host to an entity known as the Black Dog, and attempted to make Churchill believe the Dog had an affinity to him. One autumn night at his home in Chartwell, Churchill was having difficulty writing an inspirational speech about never giving in to force for the boys of his own former school in Harrow, London. During an early-morning circuit of the grounds, he was chased by inside by the Black Dog. Churchill put the matter down to a hallucination brought on by situational stress while the Security Services began questioning his sanity. Fearing for Churchill's safety, Hetty Warner contacted the Tenth Doctor for help.
Under Wheatley's supervision, Tareen released the Black Dog, which escaped, killing several people and running through the London streets. As the group chased it, Wheatley's plan and motives were exposed. He was killed by the Black Dog shortly after, as was Hetty in an act of self-sacrifice, before the Doctor's own "Black Dog", a manifestation of his darkest emotions, was summoned to defeat the hound. Hetty's funeral was held a week later at her home in the north of England. Her death was officially reported as a casualty of the waning Blitz. She was remembered for being able to stand up to Churchill, a feat which not even Hitler could achieve. (AUDIO: Hounded)
Into October, Churchill privately remained concerned about the fact that Bracewell was still at large, fearing his Dalek programming may reassert itself. He considered tracking Bracewell down and sending him to work on codebreaking at Bletchley Park, where he could be supervised by the likes of Alan Turing. (PROSE: The Lost Diaries of Winston Spencer Churchill) Other codebreakers included Rachel Jensen, (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy, The Scales of Injustice) Constance Clarke, (AUDIO: Criss-Cross) and Toshiko Sato's grandparents. (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts) Bletchley code-breakers were offered residence at their working establishments but they were forbidden from speaking about their activities. This was somewhat difficult for some of the men, including Turing, as they had avoided conscription but had no obvious war contribution to speak of, thus garnering suspicion or resentment. (PROSE: The Turing Test) British intelligence served the Allied cause well and they eventually weeded out all the German spies operating in the country. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) Most of their agents were captured or turned themselves in. However, Lesley Kulcade, a "dyed-in-the-wool Nazi" working in MI5, secretly fed information to the Germans throughout the war in support of Hitler's vision. (AUDIO: Subterfuge)
The transatlantic bond[]
On Sunday, 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the United States forces anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. (PROSE: Only Connect) Nevertheless, the Eighth Doctor noted that "America woke up from an isolationist slumber" following the attack, bringing them into the war on the side of the Allies. (PROSE: Fear Itself) Rumours spread that Roosevelt knew the attack was going to happen but kept quiet so he could use it as justification to enter the war. (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go) With the United States finally in the war, Roosevelt and Churchill allied their countries in a great transatlantic bond. (PROSE: Loving the Alien) The US mobilised the massive resources at her disposal to support Britain and the Soviet Union. With the German forces having been stopped outside Moscow and beginning to crack under pressure from fighting both European powers, the entry of the US into the war proved to be a disaster. In effect, it was no longer Britain but Germany who fought alone in Europe. (PROSE: Just War)
The Third Doctor meets Nazis during the war in January 1942. (COMIC: Timebenders)
In January 1942, Nazis in occupied France forced Pierre Vedrun to build them a transmat machine which could be used to cross the English Channel and invade England. His daughter, Monique Vedrun, taken hostage, briefly used the machine to escape, unknowingly travelling through time to the 1970s. The Nazis, an SS group led by Kapitan Ernst Wolfgang Spiegal, quickly recovered her, but the Third Doctor was brought back to 1942 with them. When the Doctor revealed Vedrun had created a time machine, Spiegal sought authorisation from General von Werstberg to use the experiment to bring back weapons from the future, such as the atomic bomb. The General asked to see one of these weapons as proof of the experiment's viability before granting full authorisation. However, the Doctor and the Vedruns were freed from captivity by Marcel Sangenez's French Resistance fighters before Spiegal could proceed.
Spiegal ordered the school building in the village of Eglise de Sangenez besieged and threatened to murder the children inside if the escaped prisoners did not return and complete the experiment. In the little time they had, the Doctor and Marcel infiltrated Vedrun's laboratory at Château de Sangenez and sabotaged the time machine. Meanwhile, General von Werstberg informed Spiegal that the operation was to be halted as its continuation was something the Reich could no longer afford. Spiegal was called back to Berlin but disobeyed the order and proceeded with the operation when the Doctor and Marcel returned in time to save the children. The Doctor's tampering with the time machine allowed him to return home to the 1970s, while Spiegal travelled to England but still in 1942. He was sent to jail by British defence forces. The experiment was ended when Marcel tipped off the RAF, who targeted and destroyed the Château with Mosquito bombers. (COMIC: Timebenders)
The British conducted a raid into occupied France in 1942, where they very effectively deployed a netting trap. (PROSE: Survival) Also during that year, The Times reported a mass attack on Blenheim. At that time, Churchill was due to attend a meeting in Ditchley, Oxfordshire, where he expected to receive a delegation from American intelligence. The usual location for such meetings, Chequers, was not deemed sufficiently secure. Aware of Churchill's upcoming meeting, Lady Louisa von der Eck, a member of the minor German aristocracy, viewed Hitler's war effort as an opportunity to get revenge for Imperial Germany's defeat in World War I.
Using her Utopia window, Louisa created a virtual universe in which Britain lost the last war and became a German vassal state. In this virtual universe, Winston Churchill became an extremist resistance leader with atomic bomb blueprints imprinted into his mind via hypnosis. When the real Churchill arrived in Ditchley, Louisa posed as an old maid in order to trap Churchill inside the Utopia window and replace him with his extremist double. The double, suddenly finding himself the most powerful man in the world, began plotting to kill half his cabinet on the grounds that they were subversive traitors. Louisa extracted the bomb blueprints from his mind and threatened to deliver them to Hitler. However, the Ninth Doctor and the real Churchill escaped the Utopia window from the inside, causing it to shatter. Louisa was dismembered by the shards of glass as she tried to save it. The Doctor then removed the blueprints before the real Churchill could consider utilising them for his own needs. (AUDIO: I Was Churchill's Double)
US troops began to arrive in Britain. Some of them became involved in black market operations and with prostitution. Jack Cooper, then 10-years old, found his mother sleeping with an American soldier. Shamed, Jack set fire to his house and joined growing gang activity on the streets, having developed a taste for arson. (PROSE: Amorality Tale) In Africa, the British finally managed to defeat Rommel's Afrika Korps. After such a long struggle, the victory proved highly satisfying to some of the troops. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) The Americans sent to the West were deployed in North Africa (PROSE: Autumn Mist) in an invasion with spelled the end for Vichy France. (PROSE: The Turing Test) From the west, the Allies organised naval convoys to run supplies to the Russians across the Arctic Sea to Murmansk. (AUDIO: Dark Convoy) The increasingly desperate Germans attempted to develop new weapons to deal with Britain, developing the V1 flying bomb and the V2 rocket. However, the weapons would not be ready for use until 1944 and even the once-stout Nazi Oskar Steinmann did not believe they would make a difference. (PROSE: Just War)
The Germans occupied the south of France in 1943. Although there were members of the French population who joined the French Resistance or stayed sympathetic towards the Allies, others collaborated with the Germans. The Milice, the French Gestapo, was formed, identified by their berets and brown uniforms. People seeking to avoid capture fled south in order to cross the Pyrenees into neutral Spain. (AUDIO: Resistance)
The Germans launched another aerial bombardment against Britain. Fountain Street in London was among those reduced to rubble by firebombs. (PROSE: Ash) The British Army commandeered a village on Salisbury Plain in 1943 for military training purposes, evacuating the inhabitants but promising them they could return after the war. They introduced the Churchill Crocodile, a tank which terrified the Germans. (AUDIO: Sphinx Lightning)
The Allies launched a flotilla against Sicily, and then invaded Italy in 1943. Another flotilla was launched against Anzio. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) The invasion toppled Mussolini (PROSE: The Dying Days) and split Italy in two. The Germans occupied the north of the country and turned against their former Allies. (COMIC: Treasure Trail)
Pilot Officer Randolph Wright was shot down over France in February 1944. He was taken prisoner and eventually died in captivity in Germany. A Gestapo agent took his identity in order to infiltrate French Resistance cells and prevent them crossing the Pyrenees. He was exposed by Polly Wright and shot dead by Resistance members. (AUDIO: Resistance)
The elite of the scorpion-like Wyrresters planned a military operation to Earth in response to their own mounting population crises on their home planet of Typholchatkas. The British and Germans both intercepted a coded radio signal originating from outer space. It proved difficult to translate even for the top codebreakers at Bletchley Park, and Dr. Judson before he began work on the ULTIMA project.
By March 1944, both sides had managed to translate it, discovering instructions for building an alien machine. Allied agents revealed the Germans had acted on the information in "Project Chronos" and so the British began construction of their own Bell ("Project Big Ben") in experiments that were to prove more successful. Aleister Crowley, an occultist working in Allied counter-intelligence, determined it was a matter of the type of energy used and concluded British success was due to the experiment's proximity to ley lines. Evidence was found suggesting an SS commando raid made an incursion to Scotland to use a Neolithic circle to test a smaller prototype, although this was unconfirmed. The British moved their experiments to The King's Guards, a Bronze Age Celtic monument in Ringstone, Wiltshire. Stonehenge, despite being an ideal structure, was deemed too obvious for security purposes. The 14th Wiltshire (Ringstone) Battalion Home Guard under Sergeant Desmond Hughes provided security. Ringstone's inhabitants were evacuated to Chippenham and a cover story was formulated by Military Intelligence. A black out was enforced to avoid detection by German spotter planes while a searchlight shone on the decoy site on Salisbury Plain.
On 21 March, the day of the vernal equinox, Professor Jason Clearfield arrived to observe the activation of the Bell. When it was activated at the moment of the equinox, a Wyrrester emerged and attacked the assembled team, infecting Clearfield with a neurotoxin. The Home Guard battalion were massacred in less than ten minutes, save Private Robin Sanford who was held back by his heart condition. With the brief intervention of the Twelfth Doctor and Charley Bevan who were investigating the origins of developments in 2014, Sanford turned the searchlight on the Bell as the Wyrrester began to summon the rest of its race. The Luftwaffe located the site and began bombing it. The Bell was blown up along with everything relating to its research and the Wyrrester killed. An unexploded bomb landed on The King's Guards, damaging one of the stones. Clearfield was caught in an explosion which burnt one side of his face to the bone but the neurotoxin and the Bell's residual mutagenic energy helped him to survive, with enhanced physical and metal capacities and agelessness. After the raid, the village church bells rang to sound the all-clear. Sanford and Clearfield were the only survivors. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror)
The Western Front reopened[]
- Main article: Normandy landings
In May 1944, the shapeshifting Valbrects led by Reginta sought to invade Earth while the war weakened the planet, gain control of its minerals and ores and enslave the human race. They began by infiltrating a US Army base commanded by General Michael Heyman, with plans to replace the entire US Army and seize control of the planet. The Twelfth Doctor exposed them and Colonel Preston led the defence of the base. The Doctor forced the Valbrects to leave Earth by threatening to blow up their ship with an American bridge-buster bomb. (PROSE: Base of Operations)
The word "debrief" was an Americanism coined towards the end of the war. The computer was developed during the war by British codebreakers. They were kept a secret. (PROSE: Silhouette)
American troops were sent to Britain in advance of the Normandy landings, (PROSE: Base of Operations) codenamed Operation Overlord or D-Day. (PROSE: Trace Memory) In response to events on the island of Guernsey, the Germans committed a significant amount of time and resources to fortifying the Channel Islands. Consequently, the French coast was left relatively undefended and was vulnerable to the oncoming Allied attack. The Seventh Doctor hypothesised that had the Germans fortified the French coast instead, it may have been possible for them to repel the invasion. (PROSE: Just War)
In May, the Allies began an ambitious deception campaign intended to lure the German 15th Army away from the intended target of Normandy to the false target of the Pas de Calais instead. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) Allied deception measures during the war were largely carried out by a covert group known as the Magic Gang. Tasked with tricking the Germans into attacking the wrong targets, they used any resources available to them, creating plywood buildings, painted canvas aeroplanes and inflatable tanks. Entire armies that were no more than illusions were fabricated. (AUDIO: Council of War)
On 17 May, Flight Lieutenant Carl Smithson shot down a Vvormak ship over the village of Turelhampton in Dorset. The ship was not identified and the RAF feared it was a German weapon which threatened the expose the deception campaign with less than a month to go before the invasion. The crash was covered up after the British Army evacuated the villages' inhabitants. Although the crash site was supposed to be preserved and guarded with the utmost secrecy some of the soldiers took "souvenirs" from the ship. The most notable was Gerrard Lassiter, who acquired the Scrying Glass. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
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Paul Reynish ashore at Normandy. (HOMEVID: When to Die)
In June 1944, the Allied troops launched the invasion of Normandy, gaining a foothold in mainland Europe. (PROSE: The Taint) Kenneth James Valentine, who joined the Royal Dragoon Guards in 1941 at the age of 15, was part of the Twenty Seventh Armoured Brigade which landed at Sword Beach. He was wounded in combat and was sent back to Britain where he spent the rest of the war. (PROSE: Trace Memory)
Sergeant Benton, the father of John and Charlie Benton, landed in Normandy after enjoying some embarkation leave. He was involved in some heavy fighting in one Normandy town, where he was blown up by a grenade. There was little to recover of his body for burial. His family received a letter informing them of his death. (HOMEVID: Wartime)
Also that same month, (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) Germany launched V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets against Britain. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Young Barbara Wright was evacuated to the countryside during these attacks after she was burned by V1 wreckage in her street which left a scar on her back. (PROSE: Nothing at the End of the Lane) The flying bombs, also called buzz-bombs or doodlebugs, were robotic planes that destroyed large chunks of London. One also landed in the countryside on a road near Wootton outside Cambridge. (TV: The Time Monster) The V1 attacks took the British completely by surprise and the country had no effective means of stopping them. Although the attacks were ultimately withstood, they highlighted that the Germans were still capable of new initiatives and could possibly launch other advanced weapons in the future. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Gerrard Lassiter fought in Normandy, carrying the Scrying Glass as a good luck charm. It appeared to show him the future. Further inland, the rest of Lassiter's patrol engaged in clearing out Germans from one of the bombed towns. Lassiter fell behind when the Glass depicted his death at the hands of a German soldier. The soldier, Gunther Brun, later appeared and stabbed Lassiter to death, taking the Scrying Glass for himself as a trophy. Yet in the ensuing days, the possession of the Glass greatly unsettled him and he deliberately lost it in a card game against Waffen-SS Colonel Otto Klein.
Two weeks later, Colonel Klein had also become unsettled by the Scrying Glass when he was summoned before Himmler in Berlin. Himmler simply reminded Klein that "Any confiscated material or possessions of prisoners or victims of war belong to the state." Though no mention was made of the Scying Glass directly, Klein was prompted to surrender it to Himmler, who seemed to imply that he knew it was in the colonel's possession the whole time. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
Wing Commander Alec Whistler survived an explosion from what he believed was a buzz-bomb while at Culverton Aerodrome in East Anglia. Whistler was due to embark on another mission and had just proposed Alice Fey, who did not survive. Whistler was left with a scar on one cheek. He resolved to survive the war for his fiance. In the wreckage, he found a jade-coloured crystal, which he kept as a lucky charm. The blast was in fact caused by the crash-landing of a Gaderene encoder transporting embryonic Gaderene to Earth. They marked the planet as they sought another home for themselves, and the crystal was one of the nine keys to their interplanetary breach. (PROSE: Last of the Gaderene)
Lucien, the French Resistance fighter who developed a connection with the Furio, continued to summon her to fight against the Germans. She took down many Luftwaffe aircraft and, on 4 July, burned down a 600-acre forest near Rouen to flush out hiding German soldiers. One, Max, was killed. The other two, Klaus and Jorgen survived but became POWs after capture by Walter Curtis' battalion.
British Army convoy passing by Rouen in summer 1944, as the Furio hunts collaborators. (AUDIO: Scorched Earth)
On 5 July, the battalion stopped briefly in the village of Vestille during the local celebrations. Lucien led a public head-shaving of Clementine for collaborating with the enemy. The Sixth Doctor, Flip Jackson and Constance Clarke intervened. On 6 July, Lucien summoned the Furio to kill them but the Doctor tempted her with news of the "feast" of hate on offer in Berlin. The Furio tried to follow the British battalion to the German capital but halted when Lucien agreed to release her. The Doctor offered her a new home on Skaro. (AUDIO: Scorched Earth)
Also in July, the Sixth Doctor met with Churchill and Air Marshall Anthony Forbes-Bennett in the Cabinet War Rooms and asked to be air-dropped into France. Tracking down the Scrying Glass, he hoped to present himself to Himmler as an occult adviser and be sent on a German raid to Turelhampton to retrieve the Glass, unaware that Himmler had already recovered it and his planned raid was intended to find other "arcane" artefacts that may exist at the crash site. The next day, 148 squadron, which worked with MI6 on covert duties, dropped the Doctor and another agent over Clermont-Ferrand.
Himmler had assigned Otto Klein to examine the visions in the Scrying Glass. Klein determined that they presented a narrative and even appeared to show the future – mystic rituals involving the Glass were among them. Himmler believed the Glass depicted "the glorious future of the Reich" and performed many ceremonies to conjure more images. He gave Klein five days to plan the operation to raid Turelhampton and find more artefacts. Himmler reported the plan to Hitler, who instructed that the Doctor (Major Johann Schmitt of the Fifth Medical Corps) was to take part in the mission. The Doctor subsequently met Himmler in Wewelsburg Castle and was briefed on the mission.
The Doctor was kept separate from the rest of the raid and dropped in Ireland near the Ulster border from where he made his way to mainland Britain. He reached Turelhampton ahead of the Germans but found the Scrying Glass missing, and came to realise that Himmler already had it, hence how he knew to send the mission to Turelhampton in the first place. The Doctor waited for the Germans to arrive. When Captain Voss and his team came ashore, they recovered the ship's hibernation tank with a Vvormak inside but ran into British soldiers and fled. The Doctor feigned injury and was captured by George Henderson but he was let go after one of Churchill's generals recognised him. The Doctor reported that his intelligence had been faulty and that his mission was not over. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
The Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald attend the celebrations in liberated Paris. (COMIC: Trust)
Paris was soon liberated from Nazi rule. The Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald visited the city, where they thwarted a plan by the Darapok Empire to brainwash humanity into destroying itself by destroying their transmitter on the Eiffel Tower. (COMIC: Trust)
Before fleeing form Paris, the Nazis loaded trains with Parisian artwork to be transported back to Germany. Hermann, as a young German soldier, was on the last of these trains to leave Paris one night ahead of the Americans reached the city. The journey was disrupted by resistance fighters, who blew up sections of the railway tracks and attacked the convoys. (PROSE: City of Death)
Ian Gilmore fought in France in 1944. He was haunted by the memory of the remains of two German soldiers having to be scraped off the inside of a pillbox. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) He also fought in combat at Arnhem. (PROSE: The Dogs of War)
As the Western Allies drew closer to Germany, German cities became increasingly vulnerable to Allied air raids. The 1st SS Panzer Division's Major Poetschke believed that, unlike the Luftwaffe during the Blitz, the US bombers intended to destroy the German nation completely. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) The attacks brought down most of the bridges crossing the Rhine and damaged many train lines beyond use, throwing much of Germany's western transport systems into chaos. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Numerous Allied prisoners of war in Europe were held is the castle in the German town of Colditz. Escape plans were made frequently, many of which were successful. An escape committee was run by Flying Officer Bill Gower to decide who could be involved in an escape plan and who would be excluded from the inner circle. POWs caught escaping were sent to solitary confinement. By October, the committee were in the process of constructing a glider concealed behind a fake wall. By this time, Germany's defeat was looking evermore likely, highlighted by increased Allied bombing raids on German territory. This worried Colditz POW Timothy Wilkins, a young war reporter trapped behind enemy lines. He was among prominent prisoners who would be used as hostages following the Allied invasion of Germany. (AUDIO: Colditz) Heinrich O'Donnell of the Waffen-SS was stationed near Colditz Castle for a time. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings)
The Seventh Doctor and Ace became prisoners at Colditz in the same month. Subsequently, Elizabeth Klein, travelling back from an alternate 1965 in which Germany won the war, infiltrated the camp command to extract the Doctor and his TARDIS to tidy up loose ends in her own timeline. The Doctor realised that Ace's confiscated Walkman could be used by the Nazis to study laser technology and tip the balance in the race to develop nuclear weaponry. He ensured to retrieve the Walkman before he and Ace fled Colditz, preventing Klein's timeline from coming to pass. Feldwebel Kurtz pursued them but was ripped apart as he stood in the TARDIS door as the ship dematerialised. Klein, meanwhile, remained at large, an anomaly in the restored timeline. (AUDIO: Colditz)
Simmons and other POWs attempt an escape with the Doctor. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
Many POWs had been sent to Germany. There were Italians, Poles and Russians in captivity as well as English. (PROSE: The Turing Test) The Eleventh Doctor attempted to lead a breakout in a German POW camp. He helped Simmons and other men to build a tunnel beneath the camp. However, the Doctor emerged in the camp commandant's office and the escape was exposed. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
The Battle of the Bulge[]
- Main article: Battle of the Bulge
The Allies had established their main fields at Liége and Luxembourg City. They were there when the Germans launched an offensive in the Ardennes region of Belgium, in what would turn out to be their last offensive of the war.
At dusk on 15 December, US Lieutenant Wiesniewski led a raid behind the German lines but it went poorly and most of the Americans were killed. Their bodies were taken by the Sidhe's "Black Dogs" to their realm. Wiesniewski fled back to the American lines after an encounter with one of the Black Dogs.
At dawn on 16 December, the Germans enacted Operation Greif, a deception tactic whereby Germans dressed in Allied uniforms to infiltrate the opposing lines as fifth columnist, causing confusion among the Americans as artillery shells began to rain down on the forest. German tanks and Parachute Divisions attacked the American positions down Losheim Road. Although the paratroopers were not the elite forces they had been in 1940, and had since become the butt of jokes told by the SS and the Infantry, they overwhelmed the Americans in several areas across the Ardennes and threw them back. Over the ensuing days, they captured Lanzerath, Bucholz Station and the 2nd Division's airfield. They began surrounding one of their main targets, Bastonge, as the Americans prepared to pull out of the rest of the area completely and form better defensive positions further back.
At Baugnez crossroads, Major Poetschke of the 1st SS Panzer Division rounded up his American prisoners and ordered them to be killed. Poetschke believed stories about the brutal treatment of German prisoners by the Allies. This provided Poetschke with his own justification for treating Allied prisoners in kind and the American prisoners, including Red Cross medical personnel, were shot. Dan Bearclaw witnessed the massacre and was able to escape to warn the other Americans. The bodies, Sam Jones, among them, were taken by the Sidhe. The Eighth Doctor (earlier in his personal timeline, not yet affected by amnesia) attributed the massacre to the failure of Standartenführer Jochen Peiper, Poetschke's superior, to control his men.
SS Sturmbannführer Jugen Leitz, in charge of a team of SS troops detached from the main attack, saw signs of the offensive crumbling even after the early successes and felt resigned to the fact that it would fail, and even considered inevitable that Germany would lose the war. To him, the Ardennes offensive was merely a means of delaying the Allies while another offensive was drawn up and for him to further his experiments. These experiments concerned a breach which had opened up between the dimensional planes of the Sidhe and humans, hence the numerous Sidhe encounters. The Sidhe king, Oberon, who personified chaos among his people, sought to spread the Earth war into his people's realm simply to bask in the disorder. He secretly met with Leitz as well as US Colonel Allan Lewis, in charge of Intelligence and Reconnaissance, forming a triumvirate without the knowledge of their respective armies. Oberon began helping the commanders produce vehicles capable of crossing the breach. Leitz and Lewis were led to believe that moving the war into the Sidhe realm would spare the resources in a contested area from damage or destruction. Leitz received the backing of Himmler and his Inner Circle at Wewelsburg, who would have preferred to perform the experiments themselves. However, Leitz believed the work would prove useful to the Western Allies during a future conflict against the Soviet Union. Leitz continued to meet with Lewis, allowing the latter to apply the same transdimensional capabilities to selected American vehicles such as Sherman tanks. While the breach remained open, the Sidhe laid responsibility on the human race as a whole rather than the warring factions in the Ardennes.
On the Schnee Eifel, Emil Metz was among the German paratroopers who succeeded in fighting the Americans off the ridge. As the paratroopers combed the area in search of any Americans they had missed, they were kidnapped by the Sidhe.
Soon, Oberon, Leitz and Lewis prepared to put their experiment into action. Leitz and Lewis met up and agreed to send their men into battle, giving them to shift the fighting into the Sidhe plane. Although planned in secret, Lewis later let slip fragments of information regarding his meeting within earshot of Sergeant Jeff Kovacs, who warned Dr. Ray Garcia and the Doctor. The Doctor was also approached by the Sidhe queen, Titania, their representation of order, and asked for aid.
The Doctor, Fitz Kreiner, Wiesniewski, Garcia and Kovacs raided the small provincial town of Noville outside Bastogne. They stole a German Tiger tank and immobilised the pursuing Panthers and King Tigers, and used the stolen tank to recover the TARDIS from the river. Leitz and Lewis sent their men to engage each other in battle in the southern Schnee Eifel at a crossroad the Americans named Skyline Drive. Before the planned engagement began, Kovacs fired on some German troops, opening the battle prematurely and frustrating Leitz and Lewis' strategy. In the confused confrontation, Leitz and Lewis were killed and their modified vehicles were rendered unusable. Seeking to close the rift, the Doctor and Fitz travelled back in time to the USS Eldridge at the time of the Philadelphia Experiment and brought it forward in time. Pursuing them, Oberon was ripped apart during the flight of the Eldridge due to the electromagnetism-based lifestyle of his species. Those same electromagnetic properties allowed the massive steel warship to close the breach, after which the Doctor buried it beneath the forests of the Ardennes.
The fighting at Skyline Drive wore down after the breach closed but Garcia became one of the final casualties after he tried to treat the wounds of a dying German soldier, who stabbed his wound-be saviour. Enraged, Bearclaw shot the German several times in retaliation. (PROSE: Autumn Mist)
The battle was largely fought by the Americans (PROSE: Autumn Mist) but some British troops were also involved. George Woods fought at Ardennes the age of 16. (TV: Lost in Time)
On 20 December, the Eighth Doctor (the later one suffering from amnesia) contacted Turing again. He was arrested by Military Police out of fear that he may compromise British Intelligence but it was quickly determined that he was not a threat. The Doctor offered his assistance in investigating the new code and asked that he and Turing be sent to France to conduct these investigations closer to the source.
By 24 December, Colonel Herbert Elgar claimed that the Ardennes offensive was "making everyone in Paris feel jittery," mostly due to the French memory of the previous German invasions. However, there was little chance of the Germans advancing deep into French territory, and elsewhere the Germans were on the retreat. American Marines confidently claimed it would "all be over in a month or two," after which "nothing [would] ever be the same". On that same Christmas Eve, the Doctor, Turing and Graham Greene (under the alias Mr. White) arrived at a military base north of Paris and met Elgar in the Hotel du Parc. In conversation, one of the Marines declared that after the war, there would be no more 'poor' people, which the Doctor dismissed. In a bout of drunken pessimism, Greene declared that "The gloom, degradation and purgatory of the postwar era will in time make the war seem almost an indulgence." He believed the code was connected with the mass murder of Jews taking place in the death camps (PROSE: The Turing Test)
The offensive eventually collapsed, as numerous contemporaries had predicted, (PROSE: Autumn Mist, The Turing Test) leaving Germany open to Allied invasion. (PROSE: Made of Steel, Cabinets of Curiosities, et al.)
Victory in Europe[]
In February, a V2 rocket hit Piccadilly. Adam Wheeler helped people at the restaurant leave the area but when he found a bottle of whisky and passed it around to the rest of the orderlies, a policeman had him arrested on charges of looting. The broken street windows were boarded up and members of the Home Guard patrolled the area to ensure the safety of passers-by. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious)
The Allied leaders, Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, gathered at Yalta to discuss the partitioning of Europe. Official photographs showed them smiling but this was staged for propaganda purposes. (PROSE: Byzantium!)
The British invaded Germany in 1945. Just as the British forces planned to do if the Nazis invaded Britain in 1940, groups of Nazis went into hiding in secret bases full of supplies and weapons. These resistance groups called themselves Werewolves. (PROSE: Made of Steel) According to Mahalia Nkansah Hernandez, the Russians and Americans were "racing across Germany to begin the Cold War." The Amber Room looted from Leningrad was not recovered, as it had been spirited away, but was presumed to have been destroyed in a fire. (PROSE: Cabinets of Curiosities)
Eventually, the Allies overran the Nazi missile sites and atomic research facilities. The German pioneering work on rocketry was far in advance of any Allied capabilities. The Seventh Doctor suggested that rocketry could still have won Germany the war even late in the game if the Allies had not stopped the research in time. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The Ministry of Defence gathered together individuals with the necessary expertise to begin reverse-engineering the German rockets. (PROSE: Numb)
Colonel Rook was part of the invasion and played a part in liberating unidentified German artefacts that were related to the Wunderwaffen. (AUDIO: Hunters of Earth) Other Allied troops recovered more minor commodities, such as German chocolate bars. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) In April, American troops liberated Dusseldorf. (AUDIO: Persuasion)
On the Eastern Front, the Red Army reached Berlin and attacked the German capital. Hitler and many of his generals and ministers retreated to the Führerbunker beneath the Reichschancellery, where the Führer killed himself on 30 April 1945 after finally realising the war was lost.
On the same day, the British reached Hamburg. They were unaware that they arrived too late to capture Martin Bormann, Eva Braun and her unborn child after they secretly fled Berlin and then boarded a submarine bound for the secret Nazi base in Neuschwabenland, Antarctica. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel met with Marshal Zhukov and signed the documents of Germany's unconditional surrender, signalling the complete destruction of the Third Reich. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) The Allies' victory over Germany was marked by VE Day on 8 May 1945. A major celebration took place in Trafalgar Square in London. (PROSE: Magic of the Angels) Churchill appeared alongside the Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace where he addressed the nation. He told the British people that this was their victory. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) The Seventh Doctor and his companions Ace and Hex were present in London for the celebrations. Prior to this visit, Hex had never heard of VE Day. The celebrations lasted into the night. (AUDIO: Casualties of War)
Aftermath[]
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