Operation Sealion
Operation Sealion, also called the invasion of England or the invasion of Britain, (COMIC: Who is the Stranger) was the planned but ultimately cancelled cross-Channel invasion of Great Britain by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. It was intended to be the conclusion of the German Blitzkrieg of 1940 against the Allied forces in Western Europe but its postponement and ultimate cancellation meant the Blitzkrieg ended incomplete after the Battle of Dunkirk and the subsequent fall of France. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
History
Background
After the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe following the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, Germany offered to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom and France in October. The Allies refused. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War, Their Finest Hour) Germany thus launched the Blitzkrieg, a "lightning war" against Western Europe, defeating Denmark, (AUDIO: Human Conflict) Norway, (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) France, Belgium and the Netherlands by the summer of 1940. (PROSE: Just War, Timewyrm: Exodus, AUDIO: Just War) 338,000 British soldiers were successfully evacuated back home from mainland Europe after they were cut off by the Wehrmacht at Dunkirk. (TV: Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart, AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion)
The Germans proceeded to occupy the Channel Islands, the only British territory to fall under German control during the war. (PROSE: Just War, Illegal Alien, AUDIO: Just War) Hitler's ultimate aim for Germany was to push eastwards into Russia, Persia, India, Asia and the Far East. Operation Sealion was Germany's plan to knock Britain out of the war and end hostilities in the West by invading England before moving into the East. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
German occupation plans
The Germans planned to begin the occupation after the invasion by arresting civil servants, ex-officers, trade unionists, lawyers and MPs, as well as the liquidation of Jews, Gypsies and other "invalids". Britain would be run as a puppet state, with the former German sympathiser King Edward VIII would be restored to the throne alongside his bride Wallis Simpson, and a National Socialist Parliament would be appointed.
Able-bodied men between the 17 and 45 years of age were to be enlisted in the Voluntary Labour Force (actually a slave labour organisation) and deported to various places around the continent to construct coastal defences, monuments and the defences of the Nazi European fortress. Hitler also considered the British people an Aryan race. Additionally, willing collaborators could be conscripted into the Britischer Freikorps, an organisation with which the Germans had hitherto encountered little success in recruiting British prisoners of war.
As such, blond-haired blue-eyed women were to be rounded up and sent to Race Centres to have Aryan children with members of the Schutzstaffel. Those children would be educated in Germany and sent back to their home countries after they had grown into loyal Nazis. Valuable art, industry and artefacts would be relocated to Berlin. Eventually, a new Aryan population may have replaced the old British population.
However, the invasion plans were ultimately stunted during the crucial stages of the Battle of Dunkirk. Germany had up to that point been led by Hitler's brilliant strategic planning, granted to him by control over the Timewyrm. Before victory at Dunkirk, the Seventh Doctor, seeking to prevent an alternate timeline, confronted Hitler at his command post. The Doctor freed the Timewyrm from his mind. Losing confidence and his augmented strategic abilities, Hitler appealed to the Doctor for aid. The Doctor advised that Hitler halt the German forces, allow the British Army to escape back home and postpone the invasion of England. The British would eventually be willing to make peace with Germany and join forces to wage war against the Soviet Union. Hitler accepted the Doctor's council and issued General Heinz Guderian's Panzer Division an order to halt, granting the British time to evacuate. In his secret diary, Erwin Rommel called the order "utter madness". (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Members of the Reynard Resistance Group, a French Resistance cell led by Reynard, acquired information relating to the German invasion plans and hurried to pass them on to the British. Colonel Reiner of the Gestapo tried to recover the plans with the help of an infiltrator named Ilse. However, the Third Doctor helped the group kidnap the German interrogator, Professor Schmidt. Schmidt was forced to falsely inform Reiner the French had not passed on the plans. The group went into hiding after the intelligence reached Britain. (COMIC: Who is the Stranger)
British defensive measures
The British feared that the Germans would invade daily. (TV: Victory of the Daleks) Winston Churchill was distraught after the fall of Europe but the Doctor convinced him to continue the fight. (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure) Although the evacuation of Dunkirk was considered a miracle, Churchill reminded the British that "wars are not won by evacuations," seeking to prepare the country for harder times ahead. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) He appealed to the United States of America to enter the war and announced to the world that the United Kingdom "will never surrender!" (WC: Amy's History Hunt)
The code word "Cromwell" would signal to the British that an invasion had begun. (PROSE: Just War)
Civilian volunteers signed up to the Home Guard to help fend off an invasion, (PROSE: Losing the Audience) which included Auxiliary Units formed by Colonel Colin Gubbins. Individuals with fascist sympathies were imprisoned, including Sir Oswald Mosley of the British Union of Fascists, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) George Ratcliffe, the future founder of the Association, (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) and Sir Davenport Finch, who was placed under house arrest in his Sussex manor after being suspected of outright collaboration. (AUDIO: Operation: Hellfire)
Hidden bases full of supplies and weapons were established to allow a British resistance movement to operate against a German occupation. (PROSE: Made of Steel) Four citadels were build under the surface of London, intended to allow the British government to continue operations if events took a turn for the worse. (AUDIO: The Fifth Citadel) The government continued to meet in the Cabinet War Rooms while London was under German bombardment. The Eleventh Doctor claimed that Britain's continued resistance was watched closely by the whole world and acted as a "beacon of hope" for the conquered nations. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
The extra-dimensional Shakers approached the desperate British government and offered them aid in return for Lebensraum. The British planned Operation Shaker, a guerilla war against the Germans, which was ultimately never put into effect. (PROSE: Losing the Audience) The Daleks also approached the government, passing themselves off as friendly combat servant robots known as Ironsides, invented by Dr. Edwin Bracewell, as part of a ploy to rebuild their race. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
German preparatory attacks
Although Hitler postponed the invasion in the hopes of making peace with Britain, the Germans nevertheless embarked on a number of smaller operations to prepare for an invasion, or to bring the British to the negotiating table before an invasion became necessary, key among them being the Battle of Britain.
Despite victory on the continent, the Germans were at a disadvantage at sea. The Royal Navy maintained sufficient strength to defend the English Channel from the Kriegsmarine and the Germans postponed the launch of Operation Sealion. The war therefore moved into the skies. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) In the summer of 1940, Hermann Goering's Luftwaffe faced the Royal Air Force as the Luftwaffe targeted airfields, radar installations (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) and other military and industrial targets. The RAF, with the help of exiled Polish pilots from the Polish Air Force, fought back. After both sides suffered heavy casualties, (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) the Luftwaffe was repelled before they could achieved air superiority, (PROSE: /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet/) for which Hitler never forgave them. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
Despite the strength of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine failed to reach the strength necessary to launch an invasion. At the same time, although the British enjoyed naval superiority and an expanding air force, the forces necessary to take the fight back to Fortress Europe did not yet exist. The European war entered a period of deadlock. As the winter of 1940 drew near, the Germans shelved Operation Sealion, but the British expected preparations would resume in the coming spring of 1941. (PROSE: Just War)
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From 7 September 1940, (PROSE: A History of Humankind) Germany began an aerial bombardment campaign against British cities which became known as the Blitz. German propaganda claimed the attacks were only directed against military and industrial targets. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) However, civilians suffered under the bombardment. Many people slept in bomb shelters or underground stations during the night (PROSE: Illegal Alien, Tell Me You Love Me, TV: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances) and women and children were evacuated to the safety of the countryside. (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, Ghost Machine, Lost in Time) Recorded as ending on 21 May 1941, (PROSE: A History of Humankind) the Seventh Doctor said it was effectively over by July. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
In June 1941, a small group of Germans led by Lieutenant Koenig and aided by their spy, Miss Wyckham, landed on the south coast of England. They attempted to use a piece of Chronosteel to block the British early warning system but were thwarted when Clyde Langer and George Woods rang the village church bells, alerting the Home Guard. (TV: Lost in Time)
Cancellation
As 1941 stretched on, no invasion was forthcoming. The British still continued to face the Germans abroad. In April, the British Army fought against the Germans in Greece, but they were forced to evacuate again on 23 April. (PROSE: Just War) The Royal Navy continued to operate in the Mediterranean Sea (PROSE: The Christmas Presence) and the British and Australians fought against Erwin Rommel, an old foe from the days of the Blitzkrieg (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) in North Africa, (COMIC: The Instruments of War) where Benito Mussolini's Italy sought to build an empire. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
After continued failure to bring Britain to heel, Germany turned her attention towards Eastern Europe and launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union in June 1941, relieving Britain of much of the pressure brought on by the threat of invasion. (PROSE: Losing the Audience) Despite the tremendous start to the campaign, the Germans quickly began to push beyond their capabilities. In December, the onset of winter brought their advance to a halt before they reached Moscow. A counterattack by the Red Army led to Germany's first major defeat of the war. The need to stabilise the Eastern Front, plus the entry of the United States into the war, forced the Germans to conserve many of their resources and divert them to the more pressing theatres of war. Consequently, they ceased their aerial bombardment campaigns against Britain and abandoned their plans to invade. (PROSE: Just War)
Aftermath
Ironically, when a cross-Channel invasion did come, it was launched from England against the Nazi Fortress in France. The British launched a small-scale raid in 1942, (PROSE: Survival) and came back in force on 6 June 1944 during the Normandy landings. (PROSE: The Taint, The Shadow in the Glass) Some optimistic Nazis hoped the development of the V1 flying bomb and V2 rocket would be able to force Britain's surrender. Not all of them shared this optimism, however, and Oskar Steinmann claimed the new weapons was merely psychological at best. (PROSE: Just War) Britain withstood the renewed air attacks up to February 1945 (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) and the launch sites on the continent were finally overrun. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
After the war, Nazi documents detailing the intentions for Occupied Britain were discovered by the Allies. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Alternate timeline
In an alternate timeline in which Hitler never lost the power of the Timewyrm, the order for the German forces to halt outside Dunkirk was never issued, the miraculous evacuation never took place and the British Army was totally destroyed in the encirclement. The Luftwaffe defeated the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain whilst destroying much of Britain's war-making industry and infrastructure. Freak storms, summoned by Hitler using the Timewyrm's powers, decimated the Royal Navy.
With the Germans having achieved land, air and naval supremacy, Operation Sealion became a reality. The Channel storms gave way to fine weather which gave the Kriegsmarine the advantage. General Strauss's 19th Army spearheaded the invasion and established a beach-head on the south coast of England between Folkestone and Worthing. The landings met with minimal opposition and the Germans easily swept aside their opponents as they fought their way towards London. The United Kingdom succumbed to the might of the invasion in just six days.
The subjugation of Britain began with an arrest of political opponents, including Winston Churchill who was executed as a war criminal. The puppet government under King Edward VIII and Oswald Mosley was established, and the deportation of able-bodied men, racially-desirable women and resources deemed worthwhile went ahead. The remaining population continued to underwent severe austerity under the brutal authority imposed by the self-serving thuggish recruits of the Britischer Freikorps.
A number of MPs and government individuals escaped to Canada and formed a government in exile. An underground resistance movement consisting of Colonel Gubbins' Auxiliary Units also emerged but had a difficult time finding the strength and ability to strike back.
Joseph Goebbels wrote about the German success in The Thousand Year Reich - The Glorious Beginning, published in New Berlin in 1947. Other records of the invasion were also held at the British Museum, which was emptied of much of its artefacts and renamed the Reichsmuseum.
In 1951, the Festival of Britain took place in London, with much of the same exhibits on display as in the prime timeline, such as the Skylon and the Dome of Discovery. However, it was a much gloomier affair, with swastikas adorning the exhibits, ongoing austerity, a relatively small number of attendees and harsh surveillance. The Seventh Doctor and Ace arrived in this timeline to discover the corruption of history. After learning what they could about the course of events, they travelled back in time to observe the career of Hitler and the Nazis to prevent the interference which brought their victory to pass. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
