News Update: October 15, 1942

October 15, 1942

The German war machine continued its move across the globe this month. Since the defeat of the Soviet Union in December of 1940, the Germans have been largely unopposed in both Europe and Asia. The British and French governments continue to put on a bold face to the world, despite having lost Paris and France's European holdings in late 1939, and the German invasion and conquest of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in June of this year. German and Italian forces continue to push back the beleaguered British, French, Dutch and Belgian troops in Africa and in the Pacific. British resistance in Southeast Asia and India is effectively over, with a few holdout British islands still in the South Pacific, but with more reports of German troop ships in the area.

German engineers completed a new oil pipeline from its fields in annexed Iraq and Persia, guaranteeing to keep the Panzer armies on the move. And move they did, in September: waves of German infantry and tanks crossed the border into Republican Spain, crushing their opposition in the mountains before routing Spanish forces around Madrid and then swiftly taking control of Gibraltar, shutting off the Mediterranean to Allied shipping.

In a move that sent much needed hope to the few remaining free Allied zones, the USA entered the war, declaring war on Germany and promising to send ships into the North Sea to contest German naval superiority. Roosevelt promised that American soldiers would soon be sending the Germans running, and in the first fighting between German and American forces, an American naval task force attempted a landing on German-held Guadalcanal, but the entrenched German soldiers fought them back and denied them a beachhead.

The relationship between the Japanese and the Americans remains wary, but the Japanese still seem to have their hands full fighting what remains of the USSR, following the Japanese subjugation of China. After significant early victories by the Japanese, the Soviet forces have been slowly retaking lost territory near Manchuria and Vladivostok.

Will the beleaguered and tired British forces in Malta be able to survive their naval siege and air assault? Will the Germans roll back the British and Australians in the South Pacific? Will Britain become just another part of the German Reich? Or can America turn the tide of the war?

(Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday/Armageddon)