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The Earth-X Timeline
18 January 1944 – President Roosevelt has a fatal heart attack. Vice President Henry Wallace succeeds him.
February 1944 – Wallace, a socialist and very pro-Soviet, orders an earlier invasion of France to open the 'second front' that Stalin demanded to relieve the pressure of the German forces in Russia. Eisenhower and the British protest but are overruled. When told of the Manhattan Project, Wallace orders that the research be shared with the Soviets.
11 April 1944 – Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion, is launched.
• At 0500 hours, German intelligence reports massive enemy movements along the Normandy coast to Field Marshall Rommel. Rommel calls personally to wake Hitler at 0530 and convinces him that this is the real invasion, rather than a diversion.
• By 0630, Hitler had ordered a swift reinforcement of troops on the Normandy coast, surprising Allied invaders by 0800. The Allied forces, rushed into the invasion without the two months of preparation on which they'd planned, are incapable of resisting the unexpectedly strong German counterattack.
• By 1100 hours that morning, the D-Day invasion had begun to falter, and, by 1300, it had clearly begun to fail, with the Allies being pushed back to the sea by 50,000 German reinforcements. The air remained relatively allied-controlled, however, until heavy German anti-aircraft guns were moved into place in the late afternoon.
• By 1430, thousands of ships begin to limp into British harbors, bringing back only a third of the men who had sailed that morning.
• By 1800, the beach is again German-held.
12 April 1944 - The initial invasion force is essentially wiped out--well over 100,000 men are killed or captured, including a lot of specialists like the airborne troops. Lots of equipment is captured or destroyed, including landing craft, specialized tanks, and other vital cogs in the allied wheel.
May 1944 – USAAF orders 4,900 P-80A Shooting Stars.
June 1944 – The Russians launch an ambitious attack against the German Army Group Center, but are pushed back by German reinforcements from the west.
August 1944 – The Allies use the forces and landing craft allocated to the invasion of southern France to speed up progress in Italy.
8 September 1944 – First German V-2 rockets land on London.
September 1944 - The American Navy and its supporters in Congress succeed in lobbying for a Japan-first strategy.
October 1944 – First P-80A Shooting Stars arrive in England.
Fall 1944 – German war production steps up under the direction of Albert Speer. Increased oil supplies, minerals, and slave labor from the occupied eastern territories produces improvements in both the quantity and quality of war materiel.
November 1944 – The Democrats had disowned President Wallace at their convention and nominated Harry Truman as their presidential candidate. Truman loses to Thomas Dewey in a close race. Dewey's victory would have been bigger, but Charles Lindberg takes twenty percent of the vote running on an America First Party ticket. The America First Party wins enough seats in Congress to make them necessary partners for a majority.
December 1944 – 700 Me 262 fighters with the improved, much more reliable Jumo 004C engine, in forward bases begin to take a serious toll of Allied bombers. FW 190s are used to protect the jets from Allied fighters during their vulnerable take-offs and landings. A new Me 262 equipped Gruppe is added every month.
22 December 1944 – P-80A Shooting Stars are equipped with droppable, wingtip fuel tanks that increased their maximum range to 1210 miles.
23 December – Lt. Ira Gehr is the victor in the world's first jet to jet dogfight when his P-80A destroys Hauptmann Lindenschmidt's Me 262.
January 1945 – The Allies continue to push north in Italy and east into the Balkans. America decreases its involvement in Europe and focuses on the Pacific. It continues to provide aid to Britain and Russia.
January 1945 – Dewey is sworn in as President of the United States. He almost immediately learns of Wallace's order to share nuclear research with the Soviets and orders it stopped.
February 1945 – With no western front and no serious threat of another invasion, Germany moves more of its forces into Russia.
March 1945 – RLM establishes professional training program for pilots to meet the more rigorous demands of flying jet fighter aircraft, rotating experienced pilots out of combat to become instructors. This eventually improves the overall quality of German pilots by putting fresh, well trained pilots into the air and stopping the practice of the best, most seasoned pilots flying until they are shot down.
April 1945 – The losses become so high that the U.S. cuts back on daylight bombing raids into Germany. German war production increases, allowing work to go forward on advanced aircraft and weapon designs, such as the Horten designed Go 229 flying wing.
May 1945 – Germany officially disbands the French Vichy government and annexes France.
June 1945 – Germany launches a new offensive in Russia.
6 August 1945 – America drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
7 August 1945 – A V-2 rocket with an atomic warhead destroys the British city of Manchester. German espionage had acquired the nuclear research provided to the Soviet Union almost as fast as it was delivered. They had used the information to revamp their own atomic bomb program and accelerated it to a successful conclusion.
September 1945 – Although the German's nuclear capability establishes a standoff situation in which the U.S. will not drop another atomic bomb on Japan, the destruction of Hiroshima, after the long term devastation of the country by B-29 bombing and the near annihilation of Japan's Navy, is the final straw that breaks the military's power in the government. Japan sues for peace and accepts a conditional surrender.
November 1945 – B-29 Superfortress bombers, transferred from the Pacific Theater, make their first high altitude raids into Germany, flying from bases in western England.
January 1946 – In Russia, German and Ukrainian forces continue to fight the Soviets without either side gaining a clear edge. American and British forces engage the Germans in fierce battles in the Austrian Alps. Anzac and Canadian divisions make slow progress against the Romanians and Germans in the Balkans.
The War goes on.
An expanded timeline for Earth-X has been created on the Blacklion website.
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