I would too. I suspect she would somehow be completely out of her element yet completely at home at the same time.
Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
Part 149, Chapter 2714
Chapter Two Thousand Seven Hundred Fourteen
2nd September 1978
Lake Starnberg, near Pöcking, Bavaria
The house on the shores of Lake Starnberg was pleasant. There was a reason why Kiki’s Aunt Alexandrine Irine, called Adini by her family, had lived here for years. She always liked this place and the house reflected how her family wanted her to live in an accommodation that benefited her station.
“Thank you Kiki” Alexandrine Irine, or just Adini to her family, said with a smile as she looked at the photographs of Ferdinand and Jerrik. Ria’s two little boys.
She was tickled that Ria had named one of her twin sons for her older brother, and Kiki’s father, Louis Ferdinand, who made certain to visit Adini regularly. Kiki knew that these photographs would join hundreds of other pictures of her on the walls of the suite of rooms in this house that Adini lived in. Kiki knew that largely because of Adini’s congenital health problems had made basically impossible for her to have a family of her own. Still, she had taken an interest in the children of her bothers and sisters and their children in turn.
“Nina and Louis” Adini asked with an expectant look on her face. “Irine?”
It was a reminder that despite everything else, Adini had only ever reached the development of a child.
Kiki had considered bringing her two oldest but had thought better of it. At six months of age, Irine was best left at home today as well. While Nina and Louis were now old enough to have questions and opinions, leaving them in the care of Ben, Fianna and Vũ Mai was better than how they reacted when they traveled. They were usually good for the first fifteen minutes, then the boredom and impatience took over. Irine was a baby and because of that was very vocal about not liking changes in her situation. In a few months they were going to Argentina and Kiki was not looking forward to having them on the sixteen-hour flight. Mai was a recent addition to Kiki’s staff. As her family had grown larger, Kiki had figured that three small children were becoming too much for Fianna to handle. Even with additional help it was a good thing that Kiki and Ben had decided that they needed to take steps to make sure that they wouldn’t have any more.
Finding someone with the right qualifications who wouldn’t object to an open-ended stay in Argentina in the near future had proven to be a challenge. Mai, a middle-aged widow whose husband had died of lung cancer a year earlier had said that she had been looking for a change in scenery anyway, the further from her adult children the better. She said that they needed to learn some self-sufficiency before they drove her insane. Kiki was aware that Mai had already completely uprooted her entire life once when she had left Vietnam decades ago for Hamburg. Argentina would just be one more adventure.
“They couldn’t make it” Kiki replied, “Nina has school on Monday, and we would like Lutz to make some human friends as opposed to the dog, so he is going to the day care center in Balderschwang.”
Adini gave Kiki another smile. She had met Arno in the past.
When Kiki had gotten Arno she had been warned about the trouble that would come from having dog that was of a working breed. As it had turned out, between Nina and Louis Bernhard running all over the property that Kiki’s house was on with him, and Arno becoming a very willing partner in crime as it were, it became a question of him having to keep up.
The thought of Arno reminded Kiki of how there was a serious question as to what to do with him. Nina had thrown Kiki’s own words back at her, about how Arno was a part of their family, and you cannot just leave a member of their family behind just because they were inconvenient. While it was nice that Nina had listened for once, the amount of red tape involved in bringing Arno with them to Argentina was a rather large complication.
“Other boys” Adini said as she looked at the photographs of her newest grandnephews.
With a sigh, Kiki considered the actual reason why she had been asked to come here today. Her father had asked her to check on Adini. It was entirely understandable. The house’s staff included a Doctor who Kiki had spoken with before visiting with her Aunt and he had told her all about how Adini was getting the very best of care, but she needed to understand the reality of situation. Namely that Down’s Syndrome came with a host of problems. At the age of sixty-three, Adini had already exceeded the typical lifespan of someone with that condition and Kiki’s father needed to accept that. It was nice that he had just told her the truth, knowing that was all she really wanted. Of course, it was probably in the back of his mind that she far outranked him socially and probably in the Medical Service as well if he were a part of that. If he had tried to snow her then it was very likely that he would become the next Medical Officer at Wilhelm Station in Antarctica or a weather station that the OKW leased from the Danish Government in Greenland.
Looking at Adini and how happy she was looking at the photographs from Ria, Kiki figured that getting new pictures of her own children would probably be a good idea.
2nd September 1978
Lake Starnberg, near Pöcking, Bavaria
The house on the shores of Lake Starnberg was pleasant. There was a reason why Kiki’s Aunt Alexandrine Irine, called Adini by her family, had lived here for years. She always liked this place and the house reflected how her family wanted her to live in an accommodation that benefited her station.
“Thank you Kiki” Alexandrine Irine, or just Adini to her family, said with a smile as she looked at the photographs of Ferdinand and Jerrik. Ria’s two little boys.
She was tickled that Ria had named one of her twin sons for her older brother, and Kiki’s father, Louis Ferdinand, who made certain to visit Adini regularly. Kiki knew that these photographs would join hundreds of other pictures of her on the walls of the suite of rooms in this house that Adini lived in. Kiki knew that largely because of Adini’s congenital health problems had made basically impossible for her to have a family of her own. Still, she had taken an interest in the children of her bothers and sisters and their children in turn.
“Nina and Louis” Adini asked with an expectant look on her face. “Irine?”
It was a reminder that despite everything else, Adini had only ever reached the development of a child.
Kiki had considered bringing her two oldest but had thought better of it. At six months of age, Irine was best left at home today as well. While Nina and Louis were now old enough to have questions and opinions, leaving them in the care of Ben, Fianna and Vũ Mai was better than how they reacted when they traveled. They were usually good for the first fifteen minutes, then the boredom and impatience took over. Irine was a baby and because of that was very vocal about not liking changes in her situation. In a few months they were going to Argentina and Kiki was not looking forward to having them on the sixteen-hour flight. Mai was a recent addition to Kiki’s staff. As her family had grown larger, Kiki had figured that three small children were becoming too much for Fianna to handle. Even with additional help it was a good thing that Kiki and Ben had decided that they needed to take steps to make sure that they wouldn’t have any more.
Finding someone with the right qualifications who wouldn’t object to an open-ended stay in Argentina in the near future had proven to be a challenge. Mai, a middle-aged widow whose husband had died of lung cancer a year earlier had said that she had been looking for a change in scenery anyway, the further from her adult children the better. She said that they needed to learn some self-sufficiency before they drove her insane. Kiki was aware that Mai had already completely uprooted her entire life once when she had left Vietnam decades ago for Hamburg. Argentina would just be one more adventure.
“They couldn’t make it” Kiki replied, “Nina has school on Monday, and we would like Lutz to make some human friends as opposed to the dog, so he is going to the day care center in Balderschwang.”
Adini gave Kiki another smile. She had met Arno in the past.
When Kiki had gotten Arno she had been warned about the trouble that would come from having dog that was of a working breed. As it had turned out, between Nina and Louis Bernhard running all over the property that Kiki’s house was on with him, and Arno becoming a very willing partner in crime as it were, it became a question of him having to keep up.
The thought of Arno reminded Kiki of how there was a serious question as to what to do with him. Nina had thrown Kiki’s own words back at her, about how Arno was a part of their family, and you cannot just leave a member of their family behind just because they were inconvenient. While it was nice that Nina had listened for once, the amount of red tape involved in bringing Arno with them to Argentina was a rather large complication.
“Other boys” Adini said as she looked at the photographs of her newest grandnephews.
With a sigh, Kiki considered the actual reason why she had been asked to come here today. Her father had asked her to check on Adini. It was entirely understandable. The house’s staff included a Doctor who Kiki had spoken with before visiting with her Aunt and he had told her all about how Adini was getting the very best of care, but she needed to understand the reality of situation. Namely that Down’s Syndrome came with a host of problems. At the age of sixty-three, Adini had already exceeded the typical lifespan of someone with that condition and Kiki’s father needed to accept that. It was nice that he had just told her the truth, knowing that was all she really wanted. Of course, it was probably in the back of his mind that she far outranked him socially and probably in the Medical Service as well if he were a part of that. If he had tried to snow her then it was very likely that he would become the next Medical Officer at Wilhelm Station in Antarctica or a weather station that the OKW leased from the Danish Government in Greenland.
Looking at Adini and how happy she was looking at the photographs from Ria, Kiki figured that getting new pictures of her own children would probably be a good idea.
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Part 150, Chapter 2715
Chapter Two Thousand Seven Hundred Fifteen
4th September 1978
Belitung Island, Dutch East Indies
If Erich had to guess, they were doing the sort of thing that the Dutch had found difficult. Late that night the Company had come ashore on the other side of the headland that bordered the settlement that sat just above the high tide line on the beach around midnight. The plan was for the Company to dig in on along the tree line of coconut grove that ran up to the beach perpendicular to the coastal road and catch anyone fleeing towards the road in a crossfire when the rest of the Regiment landed near the pier. With them not planning on staying long, everyone had limited their rucksacks to extra belts of 8mm JS or 6.5mm and a couple of the 50mm mortar shells which always saw heavy use. It wasn’t until after they landed that Erich realized that in the future he would need to make sure that everyone had extra liters water as well.
The settlement itself seemed tranquil enough, a small fishing village on the western side of Belitung Island. It was far from the small town on the opposite side of the island that was the main commercial and administrative center. Supposedly, the Dutch Navy sent regular patrols around the island. The problem with that was that it was predictable. The other was that lookouts in the town and elsewhere on the island spread word that the Dutch were coming.
You only needed to look at the pier that served the village to see what was actually going on. Low slung speedboats, built for speed at the expense of nearly all else. Perfect for the strategy of forcing a Freighter to stop by firing rocket propelled grenades across the bow so that it could be commandeered and taken somewhere it could be systematically stripped of anything of value that could be sold off and the crew ransomed back to the shipping company if they were lucky. They were also fast enough to outrun anything that the Dutch had on hand even if they were not long gone by the time that Dutch ship came around the headlands. Of course, the single track that ran around the island which went right past the settlement which the Company had crossed to get into position told its own story. Someone local was getting paid off to look the other way.
That was perfectly in keeping with the history of these islands. They were relatively close to the busy Malacca Strait and the Sunda Strait to be a good base for raiding shipping. During the pre-mission briefing, the topic of why the British Royal Navy had done nothing about this place seeing that their base in Singapore was only six hundred or so kilometers to the north. Apparently it was because the Dutch didn’t trust the British. The Dutch thought that because the British had once claimed parts of the East Indies they might still have designs on them.
It was sort of understandable considering how thin on the ground the Dutch were. The East Indies was the center of one of the most historically profitable industries in in the world, the spice trade. That had been joined by oil, coffee, rubber, and mining over the last five hundred years. That was one of the key consideration of why the Japanese had invaded the East Indies during the Pacific War as well.
Erich had plenty of time to think about this as he waited for something to happen. It was better than thinking about all the ways he could mess this up or Schütze Samual “Sam” Beltz, just out of Cuxhaven who he had made a point of keeping close. What Erich wanted to avoid was Oberfeld Muller’s grim assessment of Beltz, which basically boiled down the idea that they should shoot him themselves to save everyone a lot of time and bother. Perhaps Erich would have taken that for face value, but that wasn’t too different from Muller’s assessment of him a couple years earlier.
Erich had gotten to know Beltz quite well over the last few months. He had confessed to Erich his greatest fear was that the other Marines in the Platoon would find out that Beltz was a classically trained musician and that he had played the French Horn. The trouble was that his pursuit of a career in music had hit a wall and he had found the starving part of being a starving artist to be totally overrated. A Recruiter for the Marine Infantry had told him a load of bilge about how they had places for musicians in the Field Band for someone like a horn player. Like always, the fine print that no one ever bothered to read said that Navy and Marine Infantry were not obligated to honor a damn thing the Recruiter said to get the signature on the dotted line, fuck you very much. They needed riflemen far more than musicians, so months later Beltz was out here in the asshole end of nowhere waiting for the shooting to start because that is where a warm body was needed. He certainly qualified, and it was Erich’s job to stop him from becoming a cold body in the meantime…
An illumination flare arched high over the settlement bathing the whole place in an eerie green glow as it slowly descended. That got the attention everyone awake, not that it mattered because the 12.8cm guns on the Ozelot and the Weißer Thun opened up as well as the 88mm deck guns on the Cuxhaven and Eckernförde. A high-explosive shell hit what must have been several thousand liters of high-octane petrol turning day into night. The light mortars of the Company opened up, dropping 50mm shells into the village. Those had been a direct copy of the Japanese knee mortars of the Pacific and there had been talk of replacing them, but a suitable replacement had yet to be developed.
As Erich saw the boats tied up to the pier get blown to splinters, he heard the jackhammer sound of the 20mm cannons on the landing craft. Someone in the settlement made the mistake of firing back which drew a whole lot of heat. As was predicted, people in the settlement would try to run, so the machine guns in Erich’s Company opened fire. It looked like tonight was going well but Erich knew that this was just the opening skirmish. After this every so-called pirate within a few thousand kilometers would be on the look out and it wouldn’t be as easy.
4th September 1978
Belitung Island, Dutch East Indies
If Erich had to guess, they were doing the sort of thing that the Dutch had found difficult. Late that night the Company had come ashore on the other side of the headland that bordered the settlement that sat just above the high tide line on the beach around midnight. The plan was for the Company to dig in on along the tree line of coconut grove that ran up to the beach perpendicular to the coastal road and catch anyone fleeing towards the road in a crossfire when the rest of the Regiment landed near the pier. With them not planning on staying long, everyone had limited their rucksacks to extra belts of 8mm JS or 6.5mm and a couple of the 50mm mortar shells which always saw heavy use. It wasn’t until after they landed that Erich realized that in the future he would need to make sure that everyone had extra liters water as well.
The settlement itself seemed tranquil enough, a small fishing village on the western side of Belitung Island. It was far from the small town on the opposite side of the island that was the main commercial and administrative center. Supposedly, the Dutch Navy sent regular patrols around the island. The problem with that was that it was predictable. The other was that lookouts in the town and elsewhere on the island spread word that the Dutch were coming.
You only needed to look at the pier that served the village to see what was actually going on. Low slung speedboats, built for speed at the expense of nearly all else. Perfect for the strategy of forcing a Freighter to stop by firing rocket propelled grenades across the bow so that it could be commandeered and taken somewhere it could be systematically stripped of anything of value that could be sold off and the crew ransomed back to the shipping company if they were lucky. They were also fast enough to outrun anything that the Dutch had on hand even if they were not long gone by the time that Dutch ship came around the headlands. Of course, the single track that ran around the island which went right past the settlement which the Company had crossed to get into position told its own story. Someone local was getting paid off to look the other way.
That was perfectly in keeping with the history of these islands. They were relatively close to the busy Malacca Strait and the Sunda Strait to be a good base for raiding shipping. During the pre-mission briefing, the topic of why the British Royal Navy had done nothing about this place seeing that their base in Singapore was only six hundred or so kilometers to the north. Apparently it was because the Dutch didn’t trust the British. The Dutch thought that because the British had once claimed parts of the East Indies they might still have designs on them.
It was sort of understandable considering how thin on the ground the Dutch were. The East Indies was the center of one of the most historically profitable industries in in the world, the spice trade. That had been joined by oil, coffee, rubber, and mining over the last five hundred years. That was one of the key consideration of why the Japanese had invaded the East Indies during the Pacific War as well.
Erich had plenty of time to think about this as he waited for something to happen. It was better than thinking about all the ways he could mess this up or Schütze Samual “Sam” Beltz, just out of Cuxhaven who he had made a point of keeping close. What Erich wanted to avoid was Oberfeld Muller’s grim assessment of Beltz, which basically boiled down the idea that they should shoot him themselves to save everyone a lot of time and bother. Perhaps Erich would have taken that for face value, but that wasn’t too different from Muller’s assessment of him a couple years earlier.
Erich had gotten to know Beltz quite well over the last few months. He had confessed to Erich his greatest fear was that the other Marines in the Platoon would find out that Beltz was a classically trained musician and that he had played the French Horn. The trouble was that his pursuit of a career in music had hit a wall and he had found the starving part of being a starving artist to be totally overrated. A Recruiter for the Marine Infantry had told him a load of bilge about how they had places for musicians in the Field Band for someone like a horn player. Like always, the fine print that no one ever bothered to read said that Navy and Marine Infantry were not obligated to honor a damn thing the Recruiter said to get the signature on the dotted line, fuck you very much. They needed riflemen far more than musicians, so months later Beltz was out here in the asshole end of nowhere waiting for the shooting to start because that is where a warm body was needed. He certainly qualified, and it was Erich’s job to stop him from becoming a cold body in the meantime…
An illumination flare arched high over the settlement bathing the whole place in an eerie green glow as it slowly descended. That got the attention everyone awake, not that it mattered because the 12.8cm guns on the Ozelot and the Weißer Thun opened up as well as the 88mm deck guns on the Cuxhaven and Eckernförde. A high-explosive shell hit what must have been several thousand liters of high-octane petrol turning day into night. The light mortars of the Company opened up, dropping 50mm shells into the village. Those had been a direct copy of the Japanese knee mortars of the Pacific and there had been talk of replacing them, but a suitable replacement had yet to be developed.
As Erich saw the boats tied up to the pier get blown to splinters, he heard the jackhammer sound of the 20mm cannons on the landing craft. Someone in the settlement made the mistake of firing back which drew a whole lot of heat. As was predicted, people in the settlement would try to run, so the machine guns in Erich’s Company opened fire. It looked like tonight was going well but Erich knew that this was just the opening skirmish. After this every so-called pirate within a few thousand kilometers would be on the look out and it wouldn’t be as easy.
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I might be mis-reading this somewhat, and apologies if so.
The Navy and Marines have just attacked what is supposed to be a pirate village and are now gunning down anyone trying to escape. This might be 2020's sensibilities, but what about the women and children? I would expect there to be a number of non-combatants there too.
Why do I get the feeling that there was, or will be, a journalist in the village who will make a huge song and dance about the "murder of innocent fishermen, women and children by colonialists", and it will probably pop up in the New York Times or somewhere similar?
The Navy and Marines have just attacked what is supposed to be a pirate village and are now gunning down anyone trying to escape. This might be 2020's sensibilities, but what about the women and children? I would expect there to be a number of non-combatants there too.
Why do I get the feeling that there was, or will be, a journalist in the village who will make a huge song and dance about the "murder of innocent fishermen, women and children by colonialists", and it will probably pop up in the New York Times or somewhere similar?
I don't think you are mis-reading and it is not simply 2020's sensibilities. Going off of what is just the standard RoE we've seen established for German forces ITTL, this is a flagrant disregard of the "Spanish Rules" which established a strong consideration of the lives, safety and welfare of civilians in military operations. Now this is the Marines, who we've been hearing for the last 50 odd years are basically semi-rabid dogs, so their not following the "Spanish Rules" to the full extent makes sense, but the failure to identify peoples fleeing or attempt to compel them to surrender is the sort of thing that they had best hope the American observer hasn't seen, otherwise Nixon's about to get an easy PR win, especially as this is going to cause a re-evaluation of the last time the navy ignored the Spanish Rules and shelled the capital of Argentina...
Either way, the person who signed off on this op should be about to get a visit from Tilo. If it was a naval operation and planning, expect similar visitations to befall whatever poor squid authorized it.
The American observer was present, its just that there is more going on here than it seems. There was a reason why no one in that village was considered a noncombatant.
Not a surprise. In OTL, most of goverment of the Dutch Indies was formed by Indos (Mixed Dutch/Indonesians that lived for more than hunderds of years in the East.)
Same here. Has there been any decolonization anywhere?
Well Indochina’s independent, though that’s a German ally now.
Except OP said they were invaded during TTL’s Pacific War a couple of posts ago. So…
Ahhhh…
IOTL at this time, the pirates' main victims were "Boat People" from SE Asia fleeing Communism, ITTL it could be Chinese refugees fleeing from the ongoing Civil War which is causing a humanitarian crisis.
As I speculated before, without the IOTL invasion and occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany, coupled with a later ITTL start of the Japanese invasion of the DEI against a stronger, better prepared Netherlands, means that the Japanese do not achieve anywhere close to what they did IOTL.
The leaders of the IOTL DEI independence movement collaborated with the Japanese occupiers, and after the war the Netherlands wanted to try them for Treason but were unable to because the United States supported the independence of the DEI and held the purse strings that the Netherlands needed to rebuild itself after the war.
ITTL, the Netherlands are far richer and has not been damaged in anyways by war, plus an intact and fully operational Port of Rotterdam is helping the other European powers with imports from other places to fight the Soviets.
With that in mind, the Netherlands can deal with the collaborators in anyways they want to without the interference from the United States.
As history has shown us many times, failed rebellions and revolutions has led to banditry, and this is the case here as the remints of the defeated DEI independence movement is now engaged with piracy.
As I speculated before, without the IOTL invasion and occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany, coupled with a later ITTL start of the Japanese invasion of the DEI against a stronger, better prepared Netherlands, means that the Japanese do not achieve anywhere close to what they did IOTL.
The leaders of the IOTL DEI independence movement collaborated with the Japanese occupiers, and after the war the Netherlands wanted to try them for Treason but were unable to because the United States supported the independence of the DEI and held the purse strings that the Netherlands needed to rebuild itself after the war.
ITTL, the Netherlands are far richer and has not been damaged in anyways by war, plus an intact and fully operational Port of Rotterdam is helping the other European powers with imports from other places to fight the Soviets.
With that in mind, the Netherlands can deal with the collaborators in anyways they want to without the interference from the United States.
As history has shown us many times, failed rebellions and revolutions has led to banditry, and this is the case here as the remints of the defeated DEI independence movement is now engaged with piracy.
Thing is, though, even if the independence leaders all got executed...no independence movement is ever truly defeated just by shooting the leaders. Sooner or later, the sparks flare up again.
And it'd be sooner rather than later. The Netherlands is a tiny country trying to hold down an absolutely giant archipelago with a huge population.
The Netherlands instead of trying to keep the DEI as a colony, could have gone with a more controlled decolonization process with more countries being formed by ethnic, religious, and linguistics lines, then the IOTL Indonesia.
