PT-41

oldgringo2001 · 10-28-2012, 09:30 AM

This Earth seems to have been an echo until the night of March 11-12, 1942. In our history and Homeline's, Douglas MacArthur left Corregidor on PT-41, with the rest of his staff on three other PT boats. Some time on that first night, PT-41 became separated from the other boats. This also happened in our history, but in this history, PT-41 was never seen again.

Whatever happened to PT-41, it seems to have been enough to immediately disrupt the cliodynamics of this world and cause not only a shift to Quantum 5, but also a temporal anomaly. PT-41 was rediscovered in its new quantum 49 days after disappearing from Quantum 6, but more than two years have passed on PT-41 in the meantime. The local present is currently January, 1945.

Without MacArthur, there was no Southwest Pacific Theater, and operations on New Guinea were limited to securing the safety of Port Moresby and re-taking Buna. A large part of the war effort which was devoted to MacArthur in our history was available for use elsewhere. Enough landing craft were available to launch D-Day in Europe in May (as was originally planned.) Rommel's wife's birthday was a month away when the invasion came, and Rommel was in the thick of the fighting before the first day ended, where he was killed by naval gunfire.

Instead of diverting to take Rome on June 5, 1944 on PT-41 Mark Clark's Fifth Army cut off a part of the German 10th army.

Stauffenberg succeeded in killing Hitler on July 20, 1944, but was arrested and executed by the SS even sooner than in our history. Himmler quickly assumed power, liquidating Goering, Bormann, and Party rivals in the Second Night of the Long Knives. Himmler still has the services of Reinhard Heydrich, who recovered from his wounds after an assassination attempt in May, 1942.

For all these detail changes, the world still looks quite like ours did in early 1945. Roosevelt is scheduled to meet with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta next month; B-29s have been pounding Japan from bases in the Marianas for months with disappointing results. Japan has a slightly larger surviving merchant marine and most of its battleships and some aircraft carriers, but doesn't have enough trained pilots to use the aircraft it has with full effect.

MacArthur's absence from the war doesn't appear to have altered the outcome much at all, but the General will not be available to head the postwar occupation force in Japan. Arguably this is where Mac made the most history. Still, why did the timeline shift immediately? Was it a miscalculated Centrum move?

johndallman · 10-28-2012, 09:58 AM

"Maybe", said the woman from Cliodynamics, "and maybe not. If it was intervention, it was fairly well done; all of these things could well have happened, and the changes don't greatly favour one side. Well-done interventions are much harder to tell from natural variations than clumsy ones. Got any numbers on historical inertia for this world? Typo-variations*? On-site investigations for any of the changes? Anything solid at all?

* A useful way of studying apparent echoes. Find a printed book that was published, by the same printer, in two worlds. Compare the printer's errors. If they aren't the same, you don't have an echo, but a close parallel.

Witchking · 10-28-2012, 10:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oldgringo2001

MacArthur's absence from the war doesn't appear to have altered the outcome much at all, but the General will not be available to head the postwar occupation force in Japan. Arguably this is where Mac made the most history. Still, why did the timeline shift immediately? Was it a miscalculated Centrum move?

The Research division points to a dusty box of ancient and forgotten records labeled "Korean Conflict" and suggests that perhaps Centrum was making a move in this oft forgotten backwater of the timeline.

malloyd · 10-28-2012, 10:20 AM

Alternately MacArthur might not have been the target. PT-41s commander John Bukeley, was a minor historical figure, and the boat itself fought a few other engagements, which might have been more significant than they looked.

As an English speaking autocrat MacArthur seems like a pretty strange target for Centrum anyway.

adm · 10-28-2012, 10:50 AM

I don't see this change making a major difference in the number of Japanese CVs (aircraft carriers, for those members that are not Naval buffs*). However, if the Solomons are ignored, the Japanese will have more DDs (destroyers) which would help keep the BBs (battleships) and merchant marine alive longer.

They also might retain Rear Admiral Tanaka as a task force commander longer, which might make things harder for the Allies later in the war, especially if he gets promoted to positions higher in responsibility.

*Definitions added after reading what I typed.

Fred Brackin · 10-28-2012, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adm

I don't see this change making a major difference in the number of Japanese CVs (aircraft carriers, for those members that are not Naval buffs*). However, if the Solomons are ignored, the Japanese will have more DDs (destroyers) which would help keep the BBs (battleships) and merchant marine alive longer.

.

I'd actually be surprised at the lsoss of MacArthur having any major effect on the naval war at all.

It wouldn't change Coral Sea or Midway and little of the "island hopping" was actually in support of the Phillipines landing. It was more about neutralizing Japanese support bases and power projection capabnilities.

The Japanese Merchant Mariune was devastated by aggressive long range submarine warfare. Again not Mac-related.

Really, the ponly major naval action I can see being changed is Phillipines sea and that might be more a matter of having the same naval/air forces meet in another place and time for a highly similar result.

RyanW · 10-28-2012, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Really, the ponly major naval action I can see being changed is Phillipines sea and that might be more a matter of having the same naval/air forces meet in another place and time for a highly similar result.

There might not be nukes dropped on Japan without MacArthur. With the Army's main advocate in the Pacific gone, the theater would be even more of a Navy show. The Navy's starvation plan would not have the enormous casualty estimates that the Army's invasion plan did, and Truman might pick it over the nuclear attack.

If that happened, the situation would be worse than our timeline for the Japanese. The nuclear bombs destroyed two cities, the Navy's plan would have essentially destroyed Japan (so would the Army's plan, but with greater cost to the US).

oldgringo2001 · 10-28-2012, 09:18 PM

Quite awhile ago I put up something on another site called "It's the Douglas MacArthur Show!" the point being that MacArthur's campaigns in World War II were really a waste of resources. He got bailed out of the Philippines because FDR thought he couldn't afford to leave him there, providing a Republican martyr.

I sketched out this world as a puzzle world. Just why would such a small change have such a big parachronic effect? The history of the war doesn't seem to be all that different, so far. Perhaps this is world is resistant to parachronic shifts, and the anomalies are a symptom of the change. Is this normal-seeming world an ur-world, liable to shatter into a thousand pieces as is posited for whatever the root worlds for Camelots and Atlantis's may have. In other words, some people may be afraid to screw with this world's history--and if some of them are Centrans, they just may be rightly afraid.

None of the changes I described for PT-41's history are implausible. Rommel just happened to have taken advantage of the bad weather to visit his wife for her birthday, which was June 6. Staffenberg's bomb killed lots of people in the same room as Hitler; maybe it's our history that's been screwed with and Hitler was supposed to die on July 20. I gave Japan fewer warship losses because there was no battle of Leyte Gulf. With a lesser submarine effort from Australia and without the Fifth Air Force attacks on shipping supporting the Japanese efforts there, the Japanese haven't lost as much of their merchant fleet as they did in our history. Of course, they could have lost more ships somewhere else.

If someone wanted to remove MacArthur humanely from history, PT-41 would be a dandy time and place to do it. His wife and his four-year-old son were on board as well.

A for nukes, infiltrating the Manhattan Project on any world is a tall order. Unless Infinity has a really well-placed agent, divergences in the development and deployment of nuclear weapons are going to be extremely hard to follow until the mushroom clouds begin to bloom.

Flyndaran · 10-28-2012, 09:54 PM

The simplest explanation is that a random banestorm took it.

Phantasm · 10-29-2012, 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The simplest explanation is that a random banestorm took it.

Which begs the question: where did it go?

10-28-2012, 09:30 AM	#1
oldgringo2001 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Silicon Valley	PT-41 This Earth seems to have been an echo until the night of March 11-12, 1942. In our history and Homeline's, Douglas MacArthur left Corregidor on PT-41, with the rest of his staff on three other PT boats. Some time on that first night, PT-41 became separated from the other boats. This also happened in our history, but in this history, PT-41 was never seen again. Whatever happened to PT-41, it seems to have been enough to immediately disrupt the cliodynamics of this world and cause not only a shift to Quantum 5, but also a temporal anomaly. PT-41 was rediscovered in its new quantum 49 days after disappearing from Quantum 6, but more than two years have passed on PT-41 in the meantime. The local present is currently January, 1945. Without MacArthur, there was no Southwest Pacific Theater, and operations on New Guinea were limited to securing the safety of Port Moresby and re-taking Buna. A large part of the war effort which was devoted to MacArthur in our history was available for use elsewhere. Enough landing craft were available to launch D-Day in Europe in May (as was originally planned.) Rommel's wife's birthday was a month away when the invasion came, and Rommel was in the thick of the fighting before the first day ended, where he was killed by naval gunfire. Instead of diverting to take Rome on June 5, 1944 on PT-41 Mark Clark's Fifth Army cut off a part of the German 10th army. Stauffenberg succeeded in killing Hitler on July 20, 1944, but was arrested and executed by the SS even sooner than in our history. Himmler quickly assumed power, liquidating Goering, Bormann, and Party rivals in the Second Night of the Long Knives. Himmler still has the services of Reinhard Heydrich, who recovered from his wounds after an assassination attempt in May, 1942. For all these detail changes, the world still looks quite like ours did in early 1945. Roosevelt is scheduled to meet with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta next month; B-29s have been pounding Japan from bases in the Marianas for months with disappointing results. Japan has a slightly larger surviving merchant marine and most of its battleships and some aircraft carriers, but doesn't have enough trained pilots to use the aircraft it has with full effect. MacArthur's absence from the war doesn't appear to have altered the outcome much at all, but the General will not be available to head the postwar occupation force in Japan. Arguably this is where Mac made the most history. Still, why did the timeline shift immediately? Was it a miscalculated Centrum move? Last edited by oldgringo2001; 10-28-2012 at 09:40 AM.

10-28-2012, 09:58 AM	#2
johndallman Night Watchman Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Cambridge, UK	Re: PT-41 "Maybe", said the woman from Cliodynamics, "and maybe not. If it was intervention, it was fairly well done; all of these things could well have happened, and the changes don't greatly favour one side. Well-done interventions are much harder to tell from natural variations than clumsy ones. Got any numbers on historical inertia for this world? Typo-variations? On-site investigations for any of the changes? Anything solid at all? A useful way of studying apparent echoes. Find a printed book that was published, by the same printer, in two worlds. Compare the printer's errors. If they aren't the same, you don't have an echo, but a close parallel.

10-28-2012, 10:20 AM	#4
malloyd Join Date: Jun 2006	Re: PT-41 Alternately MacArthur might not have been the target. PT-41s commander John Bukeley, was a minor historical figure, and the boat itself fought a few other engagements, which might have been more significant than they looked. As an English speaking autocrat MacArthur seems like a pretty strange target for Centrum anyway. __________________ -- MA Lloyd Last edited by malloyd; 10-28-2012 at 10:23 AM.

10-28-2012, 10:50 AM	#5
adm Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: MO, U.S.A.	Re: PT-41 I don't see this change making a major difference in the number of Japanese CVs (aircraft carriers, for those members that are not Naval buffs). However, if the Solomons are ignored, the Japanese will have more DDs (destroyers) which would help keep the BBs (battleships) and merchant marine alive longer. They also might retain Rear Admiral Tanaka as a task force commander longer, which might make things harder for the Allies later in the war, especially if he gets promoted to positions higher in responsibility. Definitions added after reading what I typed. __________________ Xenophilia is Dr. Who. Plus Lecherous is Jack Harkness.- Anaraxes

10-28-2012, 09:18 PM	#8
oldgringo2001 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Silicon Valley	Re: PT-41 Quite awhile ago I put up something on another site called "It's the Douglas MacArthur Show!" the point being that MacArthur's campaigns in World War II were really a waste of resources. He got bailed out of the Philippines because FDR thought he couldn't afford to leave him there, providing a Republican martyr. I sketched out this world as a puzzle world. Just why would such a small change have such a big parachronic effect? The history of the war doesn't seem to be all that different, so far. Perhaps this is world is resistant to parachronic shifts, and the anomalies are a symptom of the change. Is this normal-seeming world an ur-world, liable to shatter into a thousand pieces as is posited for whatever the root worlds for Camelots and Atlantis's may have. In other words, some people may be afraid to screw with this world's history--and if some of them are Centrans, they just may be rightly afraid. None of the changes I described for PT-41's history are implausible. Rommel just happened to have taken advantage of the bad weather to visit his wife for her birthday, which was June 6. Staffenberg's bomb killed lots of people in the same room as Hitler; maybe it's our history that's been screwed with and Hitler was supposed to die on July 20. I gave Japan fewer warship losses because there was no battle of Leyte Gulf. With a lesser submarine effort from Australia and without the Fifth Air Force attacks on shipping supporting the Japanese efforts there, the Japanese haven't lost as much of their merchant fleet as they did in our history. Of course, they could have lost more ships somewhere else. If someone wanted to remove MacArthur humanely from history, PT-41 would be a dandy time and place to do it. His wife and his four-year-old son were on board as well. A for nukes, infiltrating the Manhattan Project on any world is a tall order. Unless Infinity has a really well-placed agent, divergences in the development and deployment of nuclear weapons are going to be extremely hard to follow until the mushroom clouds begin to bloom.

10-28-2012, 09:54 PM	#9
Flyndaran Untagged Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon	Re: PT-41 The simplest explanation is that a random banestorm took it. __________________ Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.