Re: Blood and Iron

The first bombing raids from Okinawa began at dawn.

Do 217s rose into the sky in tight v-formations, escorted by packs of Messerschmitt Bf 109s that climbed higher still, like hawks riding the cold currents above the Pacific.

Their engines snarled through thin air, exhaling black smoke trails that stitched the heavens with grim portents.

From the ground below, on the fishing hamlets and naval yards of southern Kyushu, the sound arrived first as a distant, rolling growl.

Like thunder crawling across the horizon, hesitating before it struck.

By the time the Japanese anti-air batteries spotted them, it was too late.

Shells blossomed in ragged black puffs all around the bombers, but the flak was scattered, uncoordinated. Japanese crews were firing blind.

Radar installations had been systematically destroyed by German saboteurs landed weeks earlier.

Fire control was improvised, desperate.

And the German pilots… they did not waver

And somewhere near Kagoshima

Farmers stood by their rice paddies, mouths open, straw hats in hand, as the squadrons roared overhead.

A grandmother clutching two toddlers dropped to her knees in the mud, wailing a prayer.Not thirty seconds later, the earth shook as bombs fell across the coastal shipyards, smashing slipways and fuel reserves into smoldering ruin.

Storage tanks ruptured in bright orange geysers. Oil ran through the streets, carrying flame with it.

A docked destroyer, its crew scrambling with buckets in hand, split apart under the force of two direct hits. Its midsection belched smoke and then cracked in half like dry wood.

A young Japanese sailor, barely sixteen, stood on the deck as the stern capsized. He tried to scream, but his mouth filled with seawater. He was gone before he realized he was dying.

—

In a bunker outside Miyazaki

Imperial General Kuroda sat hunched over a shaking table, white gloves stained with ink and sweat.

Reports came in by the minute. Coastal batteries overrun. Barracks crushed under precision strikes. Civilian panic in every prefecture south of Fukuoka.

A junior officer stood at attention, helmet under one arm, eyes dark with sleepless terror.

“Sir, the local garrison is requesting permission to initiate general mobilization of civilian militias.”

Kuroda did not look up. He merely pressed his gloved hand to his forehead and exhaled long through his teeth.

“So the time has come to arm children and old men… The sons of the Emperor will have their final harvest.”

He scribbled his authorization and waved the officer off.

Outside the bunker, the ground rumbled again. Dust sifted down from the beams overhead.

Somewhere in the distance, another fuel depot erupted, sending up a roiling column of black smoke that twisted through the grey morning sky.

—

Above Kyushu

A German luftwaffe captain adjusted his oxygen mask, fingers slick with sweat inside his flight gloves.

His Do 217 was stacked with two tons of ordnance; half high-explosive, half incendiary.

Through his canopy, he could see dozens more bombers in echelon formation, their silhouettes grim and steady.

Radio chatter was sparse. Each man was alone with his own thoughts. Alone with the realization that this was the heartland, not some colonial port or island garrison. This was Japan proper.

“Bomb bays open,” his bombardier called out, voice scratchy through the intercom.

The captain’s throat worked. For a moment, he hesitated. Then he pressed the switch.

Below, neat city blocks unrolled like a lattice of fragile straw mats. The bombs fell away in staggered drops, vanishing beneath the fuselage with mechanical precision.

Seconds stretched into hours. Then the first impacts rolled up through the hull; muffled, monstrous, like giants slamming the earth with iron hammers.

—

Tokyo, War Ministry

The conference room was heavy with the sour scent of fear.

Admiral Yamamuro and three staff colonels bent over a table crowded with pins and lines that no longer meant anything.

Every coastal garrison south of Hiroshima was either cut off or on fire.

A low-ranking adjutant burst through the doors, bowing so deeply his forehead nearly touched the polished floor.

“Honored sirs, a telegram from Kagoshima has arrived. The western yards are gone. Half the fishing fleet has been requisitioned for military transport, the other half burns in the harbor. Civilians are fleeing north without orders.”

Yamamuro said nothing for a long time. His eyes roved over the map, seeing nothing.Finally, he whispered, almost to himself:

“We are an island… and the sea has betrayed us.”

—

In the fields outside Nagasaki

A farmer’s boy stood barefoot on a dirt ridge, his hands stained with rice stalks.He watched the sky, mouth parted in awe.

Above, Bf 109s wheeled like metallic swallows, diving on scattered anti-air positions. Their cannons chattered, and tracer lines cut brilliant threads through the morning haze.

One Japanese flak gun tried to traverse to meet them. A Messerschmitt broke from its wingman, dove, and in a blur of motion stitched the emplacement with explosive shells.Men scattered in pieces.

The boy didn’t scream. He simply clutched his hoe tighter, eyes wide and dry. Somewhere deep inside, a voice he didn’t know he possessed whispered: The gods are leaving us.

—

Onboard the supercarrier Wilhelm I

Bruno watched the reports come in from his command tower, his face carved from granite. A young naval signals officer, barely older than Bruno’s youngest sons, brought him another stack of decoded intercepts.

The boy was pale. His hands trembled as he saluted.

“Thank you,” Bruno said simply, his voice cutting through the tension. The youth withdrew, leaving him alone with the ever-growing mountain of confirmation.

Okinawa had not been a culmination. It was only the opening of the vise. Now, Japan truly felt the iron hand closing around its throat.

Beside him, Heinrich pulled out his battered flask again.

“So it begins,” he muttered.

Bruno did not take his eyes off the horizon, where new waves of bombers lifted from the carrier’s deck, their engines roaring with dreadful promise.

“It’s already begun.”

Bruno did not speak further. He simply handed the letter over to Heinrich whose eyes bulged in disbelief as he double checked its contents, and then tripled checked them.

“What the hell is this? This is utter madness! They can’t be serious!”

Bruno sighed, reaching for a nearby pack of cigarettes, which lie abandoned on the desk. He struck a match and took a long drag, exhaling the sweet nicotine he had denied himself for the better course of nearly two decades.

“Alexei’s hopes of sparing civilians were noble; almost painfully so. But he never understood the Japanese mind. When the homeland is threatened, there are no civilians. Only war.”

Heinrich stared at the paper. It took a heartbeat too long to understand; and when he did, his eyes didn’t widen from surprise, but from horror.

“You can’t possibly mean…”

Bruno put the cigarette out in the nearby ashtray that was full of other spent devices like it. His face was as expressionless as a monolith as his voice carried the weight of a million souls yet to parish.

“If this is the war they want, I will give it to them. And I will conduct it the same way I have endeavored to fight every battle in my life. We will fight until the very last, but it will not be our blood spent on the shores of Japan. Let the world understand this truth: it is better that the Reich be feared than respected — if it cannot be both… I think it is about time we deploy our strategic arsenal.”

Heinrich’s hand trembled as he lifted the receiver. When he set it down, neither man spoke.The silence was not peaceful; it was the stillness before a guillotine drops.

“This is Generaloberst Heinrich von Koch, under the orders of his royal majesty Generalfeldmarschall Bruno von Zehntner, authorization for deployment of missile forces in Okinawa to strike the following targets: Osaka, Kobe, and Nagoya…. That is all, over and out.”

Silence persisted between the two men as Bruno lit another cigarette, and smoked it without the slightest trace of emotion on his face. He looked over at his watch and saw the amount of time that had passed before putting it out like he had the one before.

“It is about time… Shall we go watch the fireworks?”

Heinrich’s expression turned stern as he followed after Bruno who had already begun to depart.

“That isn’t funny….”

Bruno’s voice was filled with a somber and lamentable tone. As he exited the carrier’s hull and stood upon the deck. Pulling out a pair of binoculars as he looked into the distance.

“It wasn’t supposed to be….”

—

On the island of Okinawa, sirens blared across the island. But this was not the alarm raised in anticipation of an enemy attack.

No, it was something unique that spurred every hand on the island to jump into position and frantically get to work.

On the shores, heavy trucks rumbled into place, each cradling a missile under canvas and steel. As crews scrambled around them, the launch systems hummed to life.

Their guidance systems working in tandem as they calculated the arc and trajectory needed to hit their targets with precision.

And then they fired. Hundreds of missiles shot straight into the air, and turned towards the Japanese mainland.

The missiles split off into three separate directions mid air, barreling straight towards their targets and then came the explosions. Each one producing a mushroom cloud, smaller than the ones dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Bruno’s past life, but no less fierce in their fire.

The cities Heinrich had listed were struck by the missiles. Each of their payload on par with 44 tons of TNT. And when Heinrich gazed upon the destruction in the distance, he could help but shield his eyes and turn away.

“What in the name of God!?!”

Bruno however continued to look at the fires burn in the distance, and the mushroom clouds disperse. All the while his face and tone were as cold as ice.

“Thermobaric air burst warheads, fired from medium-range ballistic missile platforms. This is just a small sample of what I have been preparing for the world should they dare to invade the fatherland with any serious intent. Unfortunately for the Japanese, they managed to provoke their use earlier than intended….”

Heinrich said nothing… He could say nothing… He just understood, with a clarity that struck like ice in his gut; this was not the end of Japan.

This was the beginning of the world’s end.

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