Fight to Endure: World War II in Beringia

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Entry posted by PlanetOfHats · March 2, 2023

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The city of Victoria is Beringia's second city and has been so for a long time, since shovels entered the ground in 1859. As Beringia's southernmost major metropolis and largest seaport, it was a candidate for capital for some time, and indeed remains the second-largest city in the nation. The community sits atop a rugged peninsula straddling Golden Horn Bay, jutting into the northern edge of the Sea of Japan.

It's easy to lose the skyline beneath the shadow of modernity. The immense tower that is One Mayport Place looms over the city centre, and other modern towers locate around it, among them the triangular Dominion Pacific Tower with its glass-and-gold facade. But these towers stand against the traces of an older history.

Tucked against the back of the great silver wedge known as the Victoria World Finance Centre are a number of four- and five-storey tenements from the 1860s. The new tower, built in the 1990s, was constructed right up against them. Other old tenements like this peek out of the cityscape here and there... and yet in other areas, modernity has simply taken over.

In writing the architectural history of Victoria - and indeed, the entire history of Beringia - a particular pen is dug deeply into the page.

Image source: U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.488.159.009

Beringia extends down to the northern end of the Sea of Japan and includes the island of Sakhalin - both regions coveted by what was then Imperial Japan. When war broke out, Japan viewed Beringia as a natural co-belligerent of Great Britain - and it not only viewed Sakhalin as its rightful territory, but saw in Beringian cities the opportunity for the Allies to attack the Home Islands straight away.

Almost as soon as the war began, Japanese bombers stationed in occupied Korea appeared in the skies over Victoria.

On paper, Victoria was not unready for war, the city being an eastern Royal Navy post and a major centre even in the 1930s. The hill near the city centre is known as Victoria Rock, and in its day it was built up with fortifications - anti-ship guns, anti-air guns, artillery cannons and defensive walls. Other such bastions were located in the area, too. But with Beringia far from the core of the British Empire, many of these weapons were out-of-date, the fortifications were inadequate to the rigors of modern war, and the men manning them simply weren't ready.

Much of the fortification structure built on Victoria Rock is gone now, but the core western station has been restored for display. This station exchanged fire with Japanese ships in the bay and aircraft overhead before being overrun by landing troops.

The bombing raids and the subsequent Battle of Victoria are why the modern metropolis has lost so much of its historic core. Yet survivors exist - none more iconic than Winchester Street Station.

Sitting at the terminus of the Trans-Beringia Railroad, Winchester Street Station has stood for nearly 130 years as of 2023. Astonishingly, the immense station survived the onslaught of bombs. Hundreds of Victoria residents took shelter in the station as bombs and shells decimated much of the rest of the city. The station took a few hits, one blowing a hole in the primary dome - but it miraculously still stood. When Japanese troops made landfall, the fighting culminated in front of the station as Beringian troops fought valiantly, but hopelessly, to hold it.

The Battle of Victoria is commemorated today with a votive column across from the station. Mounted with it is a replica Spitfire, one of a handful that took part in the defense of the city.

Victoria, however, was only the first course. With Victoria occupied, Japanese troops made landfall in south Sakhalin and began taking territory - but as Beringia regrouped, they established a supply route between the mainland and Sakhalin's west-central coast.

The Chaddea region has always been the major centre of shipping to Sakhalin. These days, much cargo travels to the island via a rail ferry based in Sagicha, part of greater Chaddea's northern district. But in 1940, shipping went through Chaddea proper - and rail traffic to Chaddea crossed the rugged Sikhote-Alin mountains to get there. That meant weaving across rocky coast and mountain rivers to make it to port.

Above, the railroad to Chaddea crosses the mouth of the Chaddea River. This bridge hasn't changed much since 1940 - it carries heavy freight and passenger traffic to the seaport in central Chaddea. It also crosses very close to Barracuda Bay, the main body of water opening up into the Strait of Tartary.

The Japanese could read maps as well as anyone else. With their troops bogged down in Sakhalin against dug-in Beringian troops being resupplied through Chaddea, the imperative was clear.

Destroy the Chaddea River Rail Bridge.

Chaddea at the time was no longer Beringia's capital, it having moved to Bolliton years before. From 1940 onward, it became a veritable fortress. Gun batteries were set up throughout the region, reinforcing lighter defenses set up in years prior.

This gun battery was set up on Cape Two Brothers, a rugged outcrop sheltering the city proper and facing out onto the Strait of Tartary. The position was quickly defended with concrete chunks and sandbags, and a pair of old battleship guns were rolled up and hastily set into place. Anti-aircraft guns also operated here, though they're long gone now, leaving only the decommissioned and battle-damaged anti-ship guns. In their time, these weapons duelled with Japanese ships in the Strait.

Today, these guns are rusting away and overgrown, but avid climbers can visit them. They are just one such site around Chaddea - but not the most vital.

That would be the Battle of Chaddea National Historic Site, located just north of the Chaddea River Bridge.

Several fortified sites were set up around the bridge. The National Historic Site is built around the most famous, known as Battery Bravo. Loaded with movable floodlights, modern shore guns and flak batteries, and even a radar site, the battery withstood wave after wave of Japanese attacks on the bridge. The mounted Spitfire is no replica this time - it flew from what is now Chaddea-Sagicha International Airport, just a few kilometres to the north, and took part in several duels over the bridge.

The number of actual raids was too high to count. The Battle itself, in late 1942, was singular but massive, a decisive thrust aimed to destroy the bridge. The monuments at the historic site commemorate those who took part. The reflecting pool is a dedication to all those who lost their lives in defense of the city. The votive pillar is dedicated to the Royal Amur Rifles, the regiment at the heart of the hardest fighting. The Spitfire memorializes the valiant efforts of the Royal Beringian Air Force in defending the bridge. Even the observation tower is a monument: The room at the top holds a memorial to the Yukaghir Rifles, a regiment of ethnic Yukaghirs from northern Siberia who served in Chaddea as snipers, lurking in the woods to hunt down Axis saboteur squads.

As for the stairs, they lead down to perhaps the largest monument on site.

HMBS Headstrong is an old interwar destroyer seconded to Beringia by the Royal Navy well ahead of the conflict. During the attacks on Beringia, the Headstrong was part of the defending fleet. She was there during the decisive battle.

On paper, the old and battered Headstrong was not supposed to be a match for the Imperial Japanese Navy. In practice, she barreled ahead and duelled directly with a Japanese heavy cruiser. Her lucky torpedo hits blew the stern off the cruiser and caused it to capsize in the harbour, impeding Japanese landing craft from getting past her. The fortunate hit put a large chunk of the Japanese navy and amphibious troops out of the fight. Eventually the Headstrong was struck by dive-bombers and partially sunk on the river's edge. She was raised after the battle and drydocked, but restored as a museum ship beginning in 1947. Today, visitors can walk her decks and visit her bridge on guided tours.

The Headstrong is a living victory monument.

She and the Beringian forces won on that day in 1942. The Chaddea River Bridge emerged still standing. It would stand through the entire war.

In contrast to the coastal war, Bolliton proper was relatively unbothered. Japan left matters on the Amur to their proxies in Manchukuo, who lacked the manpower for more than a few raids. These were easily contained, but airfields were still established inland - not only for defense, but to train pilots.

John Oszypko Regional Airport, on Big Ussuri Island in metro Bolliton, is one of these Second World War-era aerodromes in a grown-up form. Its triangular layout is based on the typical arrangement of the day - a runway for each wind direction. These days, nobody flies Hurricanes and Spitfires from Oszypko anymore. The airport is a business terminal, serving mainly turboprops and Learjets and connecting passengers to metro Bolliton by ferry.

The airport's namesake, Major John Oszypko, was one of the Royal Beringian Air Force's heroes and the country's third-leading ace. Fighting mainly over the Strait of Tartary and flying a Spitfire, he downed 25.5 aircraft before being shot down himself over Hokkaido in 1945. His body was never recovered, but he was posthumously awarded Beringia's highest honour, the Bering Cross.

His efforts came as Beringia pushed south in the late years of the war.

The battle to retake Victoria was the final true fight on Beringian soil, coming in spring 1945 - just as the Americans launched their campaign for Okinawa. The Allies knew the same thing Japan did at the war's outset: Allied bombers could make it to the Japanese Home Islands and back without much issue. As the Japanese ran out of ships and pilots, Beringian and American forces swept through the Tartary Straight and down through the Sikhote-Alin Mountains, retaking cities and towns along the way before finally arriving in Victoria.

The honour of retaking the city fell to the Kincardine Regiment, an ethnically mixed unit based in the city of Kincardine in metro Bolliton, supported by the Royal Beringian Navy and Air Force and a group of American allies. By May of 1945, the last Japanese forces in the city surrendered. The front page of every newspaper in Beringia featured a photo of an ethnic Nanai corpsman hoisting the Union Jack above the most impressive standing building in town... Winchester Street Station.

Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin model: Antti Pankkonen, John Devins & Keith Devins

Chaddea, meanwhile, is no longer a fortress - but the Royal Beringian Coast Guard maintains an important base there. These days they're not warding off fighter attacks, merely rescuing lost sailors and haranguing fishermen who overfish their quotas. Here, Dauphin helicopters of the RBCG stand ready to take off, with rescue cabling ready to be loaded up.

The port facilities at Chaddea are also used by the Coast Guard's icebreakers, especially during the warmer months when there's less ice to break.

The larger and taller of the two, BCGS Paul D. Anisimov, is Beringia's oldest active icebreaker, serving since the 1970s with little sign of slowdown. Her icebreaking capacity isn't as great as more modern ships in the fleet, but her spacious superstructure provides ample room for Arctic research. The ship spends much of the cold season up north, though her hull's yellow colour has grown faded over the years from the strain put on her. The other, lower-slung ship is a more modern icebreaker: BCGS Ellison Irgen-Gioro, named for a prominent Arctic explorer of the postwar era, is one of three identical icebreakers built in the late 2000s and early 2010s to handle heavy ice far to the north. She can steadily break her way through two metres of heavy ice without stopping and has space for a Dauphin helicopter on her aft deck.

As for Victoria, she wears the scars of war among the glittering regalia of Beringia's second city. Golden Horn Bay is once again a bustling hub of traffic, overlooked by a unique and rugged city abloom with cherry blossom trees - the city is richly populated by Prunus sargentii, a variety of cherry tree endemic to Hokkaido, Sakhalin and Korea. Historic buildings continue to nestle among the glittering towers erected in the years following 1945. Cruise ships happily sail in and out, carrying tourists from around the world.

Many of those tourists come from Japan now. The scars of war do not cut so deep that the bleeding cannot end. Some grievances still exist - war crimes inflicted without apologies, battles that leave bad tastes in the history books - but the Beringia of the modern era looks to Japan as a friend. Freighters from Tokyo and cruise ships from Osaka ply their way to Victoria to visit the city known as the San Francisco of the Far East. A substantial Japanese-Beringian community lives here now, forming an integral and vibrant part of the city's life.

Nevertheless, those who walk the waterfront in the city's centre will inevitably see Royal Beringian Navy ships docked at their stations.

The enemies may be different in the future - Beijing, still surly about the last of the Unequal Treaties, looms large in the minds of Beringian policymakers. But Beringia can read its own history - and it can take away lessons for the history still to be written.