Tsunami-1

[Johnny1A.2]

This time line superficially appears to have diverged from Homeline's path on July 19 1940. However, Homeline geologists argue that the actual divergence point would have to have been centuries earlier, with the effect becoming manifest on 19 July 1940. Either way...

1940 - Mauna Loa, the largest (in volume) volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, began erupting in April, just as it did on Homeline. However, unlike Homeline (and our world), the dormant neighboring volcano, Mauna Kea, also began to display a certain amount of limited eruptive activity, in the form of cinder cone eruptions. The joint activity continued throughout April, May, and into June, and at this point Kilauea began to erupt as well. The cinder cone eruptions around the peak of Mauna Kea were not particularly problematic, but the lava effusions from Mauna Loa and Kilauea were another matter, becoming serious threats to life and property in some areas.

By this point, the Hawaii Territory was in a state of emergency and panic was beginning to set in in some quarters. Assistance was marshalled to help with locals and ships were prepared against the possibility of evacuations. War tensions, at least locally, receded somewhat in the face of the geological issues.

On 19 July 1940, however, events outran all preparations. Massive earthquakes originating under Mauna Kea appeared to trigger answering tremors under both Mauna Loa and Kilauea...and a large slab of the Big Island slid into the ocean.

The devastation in the Hawaiian Islands proper was near total. Immense tsunamis raced outward across the Pacific, bringing devastation to the western coastal regions of North and South America and throughout much of the eastern coasts of Asia. Australia was affected heavily, and much of the Dutch East Indies were devastated as well.

The world was stunned both by the unexpected geological calamity and by the devastation the immense waves generated. Among the effects were the near-total destruction of much of both Japan and America's Pacific naval power. The American Pacific Fleet had been advance-stationed at Pearl Harbor two months before the Event, and most of it was destroyed. Not that it would have made much difference had it remained in San Diego, because San Diego was also devastated. Along with the loss of ships, even more damaging in some ways was the loss of critical shore support facilities.

(Indeed, those ships out in the open sea were scarcely affected.)

The Pearl Harbor attack was wiped from history, and indeed the damage from the Event was sufficient that the Japanese 'Co Prosperity Sphere' fell apart over the course of 1940 and 1941. Japanese naval power had taken a shattering blow, and damage to the home islands was sufficiently devastating there was sufficient public disillusionment that the grip of the military government in Tokyo became too shaky to dare risk war with even a damaged USA. In early 1942, the Japanese military government fell, and Japan fell into a state of semi-chaos for several months.

The occupied territories reacted in varying ways, most of them were themselves heavily damaged, in some areas Japanese occupying forces were ousted, in some they hung on, in some they were forced into semi-alliance with their subject populations. Asian politics was scrambled beyond recognition and would remain so for decades.

The USA, likewise, was reeling. Though the damage was less, as a percentage of the whole, than for Japan, the west coast was in semi-ruins. Insurance companies went broke, stocks plummeted, and the Great Depression, which had been gradually lifting, returned in force. FDR found himself hamstrung, both politically and economically, in his efforts to quietly aid the British, and the emerging Anglo-American alliance basically fell apart.

Facing Germany without significant American aid, and with her empire damaged by the Event as well, and increasingly strangled by submarine warfare, Britain was forced into a cease-fire with Germany by the end of 1942.

To be continued...

[AlexanderHowl]

La Palmas is actually a much more likely (and much more dangerous) tsunami threat. The figures that I have seen have been 50 meter tsunamis hitting the East Coast when La Palma finally goes. The Big Island is a shield volcano, by the way, so it really cannot generate the landslides required for such tsunamis.

The La Palma scenario in 1940 would remove the USA from being part of WW II. Boston, Providence, New York City, Miami, etc. would be wiped off the face of the Earth, and the tsunami would hit seven hours after the eruption. It is likely that it would outrace any warning and, even if it did not, the authorities could not evacuate the Atlantic coast cities in just seven hours. With 1/4 of its GDP erased and a good 1/8 of its population dead or displaced, the USA would have been on its knees.

The Japanese could have easily taken the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia without worrying about the US Navy because every ship would have been sent to the East Coast to help with the recovery. The USSR and the UK would not have had US assistance, meaning that Germany would have had a much easier time of it. The UK would have likely sued for peace by 1942 while the USSR may have been driven back to the Urals by the Germans by 1942.

[Rysith]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The Japanese could have easily taken the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia without worrying about the US Navy because every ship would have been sent to the East Coast to help with the recovery. The USSR and the UK would not have had US assistance, meaning that Germany would have had a much easier time of it. The UK would have likely sued for peace by 1942 while the USSR may have been driven back to the Urals by the Germans by 1942.

But that's not what the goal of this world is - it seems like the goal is to end up with an aborted WWII and a series of uneasy peaces an instability around the world in it's wake. The UK and Germany are unlikely to be friendly despite the cease-fire, the United States and Japan are unlikely to be friendly in the Pacific despite their lack of open hostilities, and the German invasion of the USSR is probably even more bloody than it was in our timeline, and is probably ongoing.

In short, a much more interesting world to get up to two-fisted adventure shenanigans in than a world in which the major conflicts have been largely settled.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Rysith

But that's not what the goal of this world is - it seems like the goal is to end up with an aborted WWII and a series of uneasy peaces an instability around the world in it's wake.

...

In short, a much more interesting world to get up to two-fisted adventure shenanigans in than a world in which the major conflicts have been largely settled.

True, true... It's just, I don't know, I somehow always feel dissatisfied with this kind of act-of-God divergences. A personal preference.
That said, I have no objections to the timeline; based on the initial assumption, it's realistic.

[dcarson]

I remember reading about Hawaii and landslide created tsunamis. A bit of googling found

Hawaii has its own history of mega-tsunamis, most recently about 100,000 years ago. “One block of rock that slid off Oahu is the size of Manhattan,” wrote Becky Oskin in Live Science.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...sunami/411970/

So possible.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

La Palmas is actually a much more likely (and much more dangerous) tsunami threat.

Sounds like you've discovered Tsunami-2.

[Johnny1A.2]

Tsunami-1 continued...

The damage caused by the Great Wave (as it came to be called) was both direct (physical), indirect (economic and political), and intangible (social, psychological, and emotional). All were significant.

The worst of it, of course, was in the Pacific Basin. Much of Polynesia and Melanesia were simply gone, as far as habitation went. The east coast of Japan was devastated, but the Japanese Archipelago provided partial protection to coast China. The Dutch East Indies, as noted, were horribly damaged, with huge death tolls, and the waves rolled on into the Indian Ocean, and even wrapped around and did some modest damage in the Atlantic, though far, far less so.

It's true that for a ship, or even a small boat, on the open sea, tsunamis are usually little threat. Many ships, including naval warships, came through the Event untouched. However, ships require support. Docks for repair, coaling and oiling stations, shore facilities for rest and recovery, sources of food and spare parts. These coastal facilities were heavily damaged throughout much of the world.

The USA took it especially badly because it so happened that much of the U.S. Pacific Fleet had been forward-stationed at Pearl Harbor, in an effort to intimidate the Japanese and prepare for a possible Japanese attack. Most of that fleet was within the harbor when the Wave came in, and most of the ships were utterly destroyed. In fact, because the aircraft carriers were among the ships destroyed, the damage on Tsunami-1 was actually greater than from the Pearl Harbor attack that would have happened absent the Wave.

Los Angeles had a population of about 1.5 million in 1940, and its peculiar topography, intermixing hills and valleys and lowlands within a mountain bowl, meant that a large percentage of the city was exposed. San Francisco was partly protected by the local geography, but the Wave passed through the Golden Gate and devastated much of the lower-lying parts of the city and the surrounding towns.

On Tsunami-1, instead of the 'day of infamy' speech, Franklin Roosevelt it remembered for his 'we shall endure, and rise again' speech referring to the challenge of dealing with a devastated west coast. Still, it would be months before the effort of simply rescuing survivors and cleaning up the mess would end, reconstruction would not begin in earnest for over a year.

In Japan, after the collapse of Tojo and his cabinet, there followed a period of social confusion and disorder, which culminated in fighting in the streets in spring of 1941. Emperor Hirohito was killed, along with most of the Imperial Family, by a bomb in May of 1941, which sent a shock through the population and paradoxically began a return to stability.

The heir to the throne turned out to be an obscure cousin of the main family, how he came to the throne over other relatives was not perfectly clear in the confusion. The men backing him meant for him to be another more-or-less figurehead, an obscure 24 year old with little experience in politics or public affairs.

Like Octavian, though, he proved to be more than met the eye. Once on theh throne, he outmaneuvered the politicians who had chosen him, and the 'state Shinto' that had been promoted by the previous military government provided him with the tool he needed to rally the public behind him. By 1944, he was firmly entrenched and actually ruling, in concert with a new cabinet chosen mostly by himself. His name was Akitoshi.

In Europe, as noted above, Britain was fighting alone and forced to reach a cease-fire with Germany in late October of 1942. It was not a peace, not even a formal truce. Just a cease-fire. Both nations remained tense and armed, both fully expected the cease-fire to break down quickly. It was simply a breathing space for Britain, while for Germany it was a chance to turn their full attention eastward.

Operation Barbarosa had begun at the same time on Tsunami-1 as on Homeline, and played out much the same way, except that Germany was able to focus somewhat more resources to the east because Britain was unsupported by America, and likewise Russia did not have lend-lease or other American support either in this time line. The result was that Germany was doing a little better in Russia in the fall of 1942 than on Homeline, but still having serious problems on the eastern front.

The cease-fire with Britain enabled the Germans to press harder, and the cease-fire also produced a split in the German high command about policy. One faction saw the cease-fire as a temporary thing, and urged preparing on the west for further battles with the UK, the other faction saw the cease-fire as a chance to get Barbarosa back on track. Hitler vacillated.

On Tsunami-1 as on Homeline, Hitler was a strange combination of madness and sagacity, deranged megalomania and a peculiar strategic sense. In this case, his saner side won out, and German policy ended up being a combination of pressing the Russians harder while accepting a more modest goal than initially sought.

This combination proved effective. Russia, unsupported by American help, was somewhat weaker, Germany, in cease-fire with Britain, a little stronger, and what emerged was a stalemate along a wide line deep in Russia territory.

A turning point came in July of 1943, when a Germany thrust toward Moscow succeeded beyond even their own hopes, striking an area where the Red Army was thinly deployed, and they actually broke into Moscow and captured the Russian capitol entirely by the end of September.

With most of the western USSR, including the rich lands of Ukraine, under German control and the Soviet capitol city finally captured, once again Hitler's saner side prevailed, and the Germans dug in to hold what had been captured.

The Soviet government assembled in a city well behind the new provisional capitol well behind the eastern front, but the USSR had lost much of its industrial capacity, much of its best agricultural land, its capitol, and had taken huge military losses in 1943.

An attempted coup against Stalin by desperate apparatchiks and Party personnel in November of 1943 failed, but Stalin's reprisals and his actions to reassert his control over Party and State led to a massive new purge in the midst of ongoing war, and cost the lives of many of the most officials and officers of the Soviet government.

In the midst of the Soviet troubles, some of the majority Islamic Soviets and non-ethnic-Russian areas of the USSR began to see opportunities.

To be continued...

[Johnny1A.2]

Tsunami-1 continued...

The Anglo-German cease fire lasted longer than either side expected. Germany had no motive to break it, being more than occupied with the eastern front, and Britain needed all the breathing space they could get to recover their strength. In the end, it last over two years. The British did not waste it.

The British worked miracles with the industrial capacity they had in that time. They repaired the fleet, and began construction of a submarine fleet to operate against the devastatingly effective German subs. Britain still controlled most Germany's access to the world ocean, other than for submarines, and they were building new planes at a great rate, too.

In early 1944, with Russia occupied by Stalin's internal purges and rising revolts in several of the less loyal regions, Germany was able to turn their attention back toward the west. Hitler's impulses remained on a leash, for the moment, he knew that restarting the fighting on the west was risky, but he also knew that the British were getting stronger with each month of rest.

There was also a substantial pool of thought in German military circles that felt that even if the USA was marginalized for the moment, confrontation was likely down the road, and they saw neutralizing Britain as a vital step in preparing for that future day. Still, Britain was now fortified and a cross-Channel invasion was still a daunting prospect.

The cease-fire broke in February of 1945, when something happened in the ocean off the west coast of Ireland. Berlin maintained that a British submarine had fired on a German submarine. London maintained the opposite.

(In fact, the two submarines had been shadowing each other, and actually collided. It was an accident, but both were lost with all hands, and each state blamed the other.)

Fighting resumed, mostly air and naval, and went on through most of 1945 without definite result. Neither side was strong enough to force the other off the field. Germany had greater industrial capacity and more resources, but much of it was tied down in their restive and by-no-means pacified eastern empire. Britain was well-fortified against invasion, maintained control of the surface seas and had produced a modest but growing force of capable submarines, which were beginning to bite into the German U-boats. Britain simply did not have the necessary manpower to plausibly invade Germany, and the same daunting cross-Channel challenges applied. Germany had the personnel and resources to invade Britain, but not sufficient to guarantee success and not without risking a catastrophic loss of control of their Russian empire.

A war of attrition was looming, one in which Germany looked to be the eventual winner, but only after agonizing years and tremendous cost. There was substantial public sentiment for seeking another cease-fire on both sides, but the circumstances were not favorable.

Still, the very long-term prospects for Britain looked bleak, and both sides knew it. The equation changed on April 5th, 1946, when Britain, messaging the Germans through neutral Spain, invited the Germans to send a ship to observe a weapons test in the open Atlantic, under flag of truce.

Thus is was that on May 1, 1946, German observers aboard a German battleship saw a mushroom cloud rise up from the 18 kiloton detonation of Britain's (and Tsunami-1's) first atomic bomb.

To be continued...

[Michele]

Interesting and complex. I'll keep reading.

WWII-era submarines, however, are not submarine hunters. The British would increase their destroyer fleet, opting for longer-ranged classes. That's not a big problem for the resumption of the hostilities: a British destroyer is involved with a German submarine, and each side accuses the other of having fired first. With torpedoes, it's entirely possible that the destroyer sinks the submarine, and then the submarine's torpedoes sink the destroyer.

Also, British "control of the access" to the oceans by Germany is an unclear point. If there's a truce, then the British don't stop German tankers bringing South-American oil to European ports. If OTOH the British do blockade the German trade, that's a hostile action, incompatible with a truce. Maybe you meant that Britain could still, on resumption of the hostilities, control the German access to the oceans?

Also, the British could conceive the bomb and produce it in Canada. However, it would be nice to know that the USA are, openly or covertly, bankrolling the British. Otherwise, with the naval program, the RAF program, the fortification campaign, and the A-bomb, they'll be stretched rather thin, economically.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Tsunami-1 continued...


Thus is was that on May 1, 1946, German observers aboard a German battleship saw a mushroom cloud rise up from the 18 kiloton detonation of Britain's (and Tsunami-1's) first atomic bomb.

To be continued...

To understand the context of what happened next, we need to step back a few years and look at what was happening in North America after the Great Wave.

As noted above, the greatest tsunami in history (actually a series of several waves) wrought tremendous damage all around the Pacific Rim. Though the United States was far less heavily 'invested' on the west coast in 1940 than it would be later on Homeline history, the damage was still considerable and the death-toll numbing. It was easily the most lethal natural disaster in America history, by a very large margin.

Sacramento [ERROR: This should read San Diego.] and Los Angeles were devastated. San Francisco was more lightly struck, the waves penetrated San Francisco Bay and wrought havoc. Even the Golden Gate Bridge was sufficiently damaged that it had to be torn down and replaced. To the north, Seattle was partly sheltered by the local land, but still enormously damaged.

All told, over 235,000 people were either confirmed dead, or missing, when the damage was assessed. The USA had lost more people in that one natural disaster than it had in most of the wars it had ever fought. Subsequent American historians would generally consider the Great Wave second only to the Civil War of 1861-65 in terms of its catastrophic harm, and the latter was spread over four years, while the Great Wave took only a day.

The monetary damage was difficult to calculate. Some insurance companies that had high exposure to the west coast region went bankrupt, a few reinsurance companies went down as well. Still, economists would later puzzle over some of the impacts, because they were as much psychological as physical.

In the short term, the fading Great Depression returned, as stocks plunged and panic gripped the country. Historians would later conclude that this effect was as much psychological as pragmatic, the economy collapsed not so much because of the damage to the west coast as because the public overreacted in panic and dread. The effect was real enough, though.

As the remaining months of 1940 passed, an initially desultory and confused cleanup and rescue effort began to come together. FDR declared martial law throughout the west coast States, and gradually an effective relief effort came together.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was expanded enormously, as one response to the disaster, and taking in recruits of men previously considered too old. Congress actually voted in a 'draft' for the CCC, enabling compulsory service for unemployed young men as laborers. Other organizations somewhat along the same lines were also put together, such as a 'Service Corps' made up of older men with experience in medicine or rescue work.

Over the course 1941, the reconstruction effort began to show results. Los Angeles Harbor was repaired, as was San Francisco. New facilities rose in Seattle and San Diego, and new military facilities began to be built as well, establishing the nucleus for a substantial naval presence in the Pacific.

Many people, both in the USA and outside, took note that life in the expanded CCC had military overtones, though it was technically a civilian organization. A generation of young men were getting a 'primer' in military life without actually being in the service, and this was did not go unnoticed.

The economic impact of the reconstruction began to undo the downturn as 1941 drew to a close. Enormous quantities of raw materials were purchased, finish products needed. The men of the CCC were paid, not lavishly but paid, and they spent money.

Indeed, the pay structure of the 'new' CCC was interesting. The government provided room and board, so the modest pay went farther than one would expect. Furthermore, a second salary was also paid in an escrow account in the name of the man. After two years employment, he received this money, but he forfeited it if he quit during the years or broke various rules.

Enormous progress was made in 1942, reconstruction proceeding faster than most people had dared hope. FDR's talent for reading the public and tapping just the right tone to motivate served him and the public well, he was able to motivate the reconstruction almost with a war-effort intensity. In the process, in many ways the restored west coast infrastructure was a modernized, improved version of what had been destroyed.

In 1943, FDR convinced Congress to authorize CCC work to 'rebuild and update' much of the east coastal infrastructure as well, including, interestingly, naval facilities.

Franklin Roosevelt's health was failing him, however, and just as on Homeline, there was considerable discontent within the Democratic Party over his vice-president, Henry Wallace, for many of the same underlying reasons. (The details varied because the world situation was different.) Just as on Homeline, Wallace was defeated at the Democratic Convention by a party rebellion in 1944.

Events were sufficiently different, however, that instead of putting Truman onto the ticket, a little known congressman from Kansas named Brant Shelby became FDR's new vice president. Shelby was on his first term in the House of Representatives when he was chosen as the compromise between Democratic Party factions.

Just as on Homeline, FDR easily won the 1944 November elections, and just as on Homeline, less than a year later FDR was dead. Brant Shelby was now President of the United States.

To be continued...