Operation Morning

The Yanks are coming!

The Louisiana Exercises

While the devastation of the Vancouver Raids had caught the Americans by surprise, to call the United States unprepared for the Great War would be a misstatement. Hesitant to join the hostilities with their fellow nations in the North Atlantic Alliance, it was always understood that the American Army could only stay out for so long. Already in the process of modernizing their military in the aftermath of the Carnegie Complex incident, the outbreak of the Great War in 1938 served to spur these efforts to greater urgency.

Already seeing the weaknesses in their current structure at Carnegie, the most important and highly publicized of the Army’s exercises was the high profile Louisiana Maneuvers of March and April 1939, wherein the newly restructured military and General Headquarters participated in a series of mock battles and campaigns to test tactics, reevaluate commanders, and begin the slow process of integrating modern technology into their doctrine. While the new Blackbear tanks and Bobcat walkers showed promise, and the publicity of the exercises buoyed morale among the civilian populace, there were several key weaknesses exposed in the way that America was conducting warfare, notedly culminating with the decisive conclusion of the maneuvers when General Patton, commanding the 2nd Armored Division as part of the Blue Force, was able to fully surround and capture General Drum’s entire commanding staff, humiliating both the Lieutenant General and the Red Force as a whole.

As Chief of Staff of General Headquarters, General Lesley McNair immediately took charge of the reorganization of the military’s priorities. Unimpressed by the performance of the new walkers, which had failed to meaningfully distinguish themselves from the more venerable armored cars that the Army had vastly more experience with, he initially proposed that the program be scrapped. However, after much heated correspondence with General MacArthur, citing his experiences at Carnegie, McNair instead relegated the walker divisions to “guard” duty, where they could be further developed and, if needed, deployed in rapid defense of the mainland. Impressed with General Patton’s mastery of mechanized tactics, McNair passed down instructions for the Army, Marines, and National Guard to develop doctrines based around the sort of rapid movements and decisive strikes that had dominated the Louisiana Maneuvers.

While the maneuvers had made clear to McNair who should be appointed to positions of command, the new form of warfare that was needed to grant America an edge was also one that would need massive industrial support to fully replace the outdated arsenals with tools, weapons, and vehicles that matched the needs of doctrine. Drafting several proposals for Secretary of War Henry Stimson, McNair prioritized radio communications above all else, a fact that became the subject of some mockery when it was discovered by the public, joking that the G.I.s would need “frontline tunes” in the trenches of Europe. This joke was later reworked as part of the campaign for greater military funding as the “Frontline Tune-Up”, which found great success with the industrialists who were happy to take on the new contracts. By the time that the Russians bombed Seattle, the American Army was ahead of its modernization schedule by several months, and was more than prepared materially to mobilize.

Wizard At War

While the contracting was a successful effort, it was not entirely the doing of Secretary Stimson. Though he had the necessary connections with the military, the act of bending the ears of industrialists, who were hesitant to undergo the expense of reworking their facilities to produce domestic war materiel, was one he was woefully ill equipped for. Instead, needing a connection to the corporate world, he turned to one Charles Edison, the CEO of General Electric, for assistance. Edison, whose industry was heavily intertwined with nearly every other industry in the United States, was easily capable of granting Stimson the “arm-twisting” that he needed. Considering himself to share the same ingenuity as his famed grandfather, Charles was, however, not satisfied to simply stay on the sidelines.

Already one of the most prominent supporters of the American Business Freedom Act, Edison had been fixated on the idea of America’s armed forces not only being modernized, but being at the absolute cutting edge of technology. He had watched with keen interest the publicity around the Louisiana Maneuvers, even going so far as to fly to Springfield to personally congratulate General Patton on his generalship. Though disappointed with the way the fledgling walkers performed, he saw great potential in the technology. Pressuring Stimson, and being, frankly, owed a favor, President Rockefeller soon announced the appointment of Special Technological Consultant to the Armed Forces Charles Edison.

Though Edison’s new position did not grant him direct power over the military, still helmed by General Headquarters, the civilian executive was a full member of the staff, and thus held the authority to attend meetings, be informed of plans, and consult on decisions affecting the implementation of new weapons and devices into official armed forces doctrine. Though he did not initially swing his weight around, it was an unspoken understanding of the Secretary of War passed down to the generals that to displease Edison would negatively impact the government’s relationship with the corporations providing them with their new materiel.

While McNair was able to control Edison somewhat in meetings, the two frequently had vocal disagreements about the plans for modernizing the military, with McNair’s preference for pragmatic, proven designs clashing with Edison’s fascination with cutting-edge experimental technologies and propaganda tools such as super-heavy tanks and massive walkers. In addition to his fixation on “toys” as McNair described it, as the CEO of General Electric, Edison had personal stake in some of the modernization plans - one of McNair’s most reluctant compromises with Edison was to retract his original recommendation to cut back on the use of energy weapons.

Operation Morning

With the United States’ official declaration of war against the Russian Empire, General Headquarters convened with the mission of drawing up war plans to invade Alaska. The Russian-American Company was seen as not only the obvious target for vengeance but also the most advantageous position for America to conduct a war against the Russian Empire as a whole. With the ground needed to carry out this invasion being Canadian, it was quickly understood that the armies sent to this front would need to work in close coordination with the French Republican Guard. Not willing to integrate the entire army into French command structures, the decision was made to reassign several divisions into an “American Expeditionary Force” - units that were structured in such a way that they could be cleanly deployed with French forces when needed without the same degree of oversight as the main army.

Determining that French defenses in Canada were secure enough that minimal contributions would be needed to ensure their ally remain in the fight, the Americans would keep their more “traditional” units in the Armed Forces, McNair anticipating that they would be needed overseas in the European and African theaters where there was little room for “experimental” units to be gumming the gears of logistics. Instead, the AEF would pull from the divisions already set aside for a potential invasion of the mainland, several of them newly formed walker divisions and reassigned National Guard units. With the Canadians holding the frontline, the AEF would be able to cut through the wilderness of Alaska and establish a route directly into the heart of the Russian industry, driving the Russians back across the Bering Strait and allowing both America and their French Allies to bring the war right back to their country. The plan was dubbed Operation Morning, and would be the critical first steps of the United States into a major war in nearly thirty years.

Needing a commander with experience with walkers to command such a walker-heavy army, the single obvious candidate was General Douglas MacArthur. Already regarded as a talented field commander, MacArthur had massive support from American corporate leadership for his role in suppressing the Carnegie Uprising. With additional pressure from Edison, the choice was made easily, and in a matter of weeks, MacArthur and the American Expeditionary Force had been mobilized for Vancouver.

MacArthur’s arrival in Canada with the American Expeditionary Force almost immediately exposed several serious weaknesses with the choice to appoint him. Specifically, to work with the New French Republic and with the general ability of American and French commanders to coordinate their efforts in meaningful ways. While the Americans had, nominally, integrated the French into their invasion plans, these integrations were not done with any kind of consultation with the local Canadian commanders, who were less than eager to be treated as cannon fodder while the Americans dallied in the forests with unproven new vehicles manned by untested soldiers.

Politically, sending MacArthur to Canada was a massive blunder. While he was popular with the corporate interests in America, in French media, his actions at Carnegie made him a living demon, one who had engineered a massacre of the very proletariat that the Internationale was sworn to liberate. The local Canadian commanders gave MacArthur a cold welcome, and while they were receptive to the arrival of their allies with military aid, the once vivid dream of America and France once again marching side by side for the common cause of liberty appeared dim.

Road to Alaska

The commencement of Operation Morning began, not as one would assume, with gunfire and vigour, but with the buzzing roar of sawblades. While Alaska had been inhabited by Russian settlers for close to three centuries, the vast majority of the territory within it was covered over by untamed wilderness. Dotted amongst the expansive forests were villages, mines, and oil fields, loosely connected by almost non-existent infrastructure. In order to fight a modern war in this kind of territory, the AEF determined that it would first have to open a channel into the main populated areas. And so, the Alaskan Road began construction. Tens of thousands of engineers set to work cutting trees, grinding stumps, and paving a six-lane highway into the frozen north.

The bulk of the logging fell to the new walker units. While high command felt that these vehicles were too untested for combat, the technology had been used for industrial applications for decades and proved a natural fit. Paired with a few more heavily armed guard vehicles, they formed effective logging crews that could hold their own for a short time if they encountered enemy forces. 

Pictures taken from above in the summer of 1940 showcase the sheer scale of the operation. The AEF, while being smaller than the other army groups formed at the time, still had well over a million soldiers in its formation. The majority of which, in these early days, were primarily occupied with digging ditches, operating construction machinery, and building retaining walls. The soldiers, surprised at the lack of action, began to humorously refer to themselves as the “American Excavation Force.” Their primary danger was from air raids, which happened regularly enough, but were kept in check by the Air Corps, and their small fleet of attached aetherships from the Navy.

While the Canadian forces had worked with the land, utilizing guerrilla tactics against the Russian invaders, the AEF was a brazen statement, carving a scar across the mountainsides as they slowly drove forward. In the opinions of their allies, far too slowly. In August of 1940, a meeting of Allied General Officers in the theater devolved into shouting, followed by a brief scuffle between an American aide and a Canadian General. The Canadians accused the Americans of intentionally stalling their advance so as to let them do more of the dying. The consequence of this was that in the weeks following, ten US divisions were detached from the construction efforts and instead sent ahead to take up positions along the vague front lines of the theater.

Over There

With Operation Morning commencing in Alaska, the American war machine had only begun to turn its gears towards full participation in the Great War. The Russians were, of course, the first target of their ire, but other enemies also drew their attention in Europe and Asia, particularly their old foe the British Empire. With the British directly threatening the French Republic’s mainland in Calais, and the distrust caused by MacArthur’s deployment to Canada, it became important to the Americans to aid their ally both to ensure their stability and to rebuild good faith between the two great powers.

Having already demonstrated an aptitude for modern mechanized tactics, a familiarity with the more traditional armored elements of the Armed Forces arsenal, and having a notorious tenacity for warfare, the appointment of General Patton as commander on the field of the American forces of Europe and North Africa was a decision made easily. The machines and manpower needed could be easily shipped across the Atlantic, and in a matter of weeks the Americans had established operational bases in former French Libya and the French mainland, ready to assist Italy and France in their fight against the Holy Roman Empire and the now encroaching armies of the Anglo-Japanese Pact.

The United States Navy, having in technicality been the first units activated in the aftermath of the Vancouver Raids, had likewise undergone a rapid mobilization. Appointed as the Commander of the Navy in the Pacific Theater, Admiral Ernest King was an attentive student of the British Royal Navy, and saw several gaps in America’s fleets, both aquatic and aether, that he wasted little time in his new position working to rectify. Taking advantage of the relative peacefulness of his assigned front, Admiral King commissioned and approved a number of new designs for aether warships and upgrades to the existing fleets. For the Admiral, the British Royal Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy were not merely potential enemies that the United States would need to beat; they were a bar of quality that the Navy had to surpass entirely if America was to have a place in the world of the future.

Even the distant colonies of Concord Minor were spurred into a whirlwind of industrial activity, the Americans and Imperials on that world now formally at war - even if they had not yet opened hostilities. Though the garrisons of Concord were less extensive than those on Earth, the Concordian Starborne contributed an American Expeditionary Force of their own to be deployed in Europe, bolstering French manpower and serving as a “learning” unit that would be able to work closely with the veteran French forces and, hopefully, apply that knowledge to American training as well. Already heroes to the French, who were mostly familiar with Concord through the lens of Hollywood, the Concordian soldiers were welcomed to France with open arms, and immediately set to work. In contrast with MacArthur’s frigid reception in Canada, the Secretary of the Colonies met and shook hands with the Mayor of Paris in a widely publicized show of goodwill and brotherhood.

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the forests of Canada to the fields of France, from the Earth to the distant stars, the Americans were coming. And as the final great power ponderously waded into the battlefields of the Great War, with it came nearly 600 million more souls to be engulfed in its unquenchable fire.