It is 1946. The greatest conflict mankind has ever known has entered its seventh bloody year. Tens of millions have already fallen, yet the war rages on. No corner of the globe has been spared, the shadow of battle hovers above every land. Millions have been left homeless, driven from the charred carcasses of once great cities. Millions more cower beneath the iron heel of foreign rule. Awesome weapons of destruction rain down upon the earth, blasting the land itself into a blackened cinder. Mankind stands on the edge of midnight as the wheel of history turns toward its darkest hour.

In England, the stalwart British continue to defy the German Luftwaffe, refusing to submit to the ever increasing terror attacks of V-4 rocket-missiles and jet bombers. From the rubble of London, Winston Churchill plans the next campaign, the campaign that will break the stalemate in France and put an end to the brutal bombing of the British Isles.

In Japan, the Japanese marshal their meagre resources, reeling from the Allied offensive that has driven their armies from much of mainland Asia and continues to threaten their strongholds in the Philippines and New Guinea. Prime Minister Tojo demands Admiral Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy to plan one last, decisive attack that will drive the Allies to forget any plans to invade the home islands. Within his Kyoto palace, the Emperor ponders the destruction of Tokyo and wonders when the Americans will again visit the hideous power of the atom upon Japanese shores.

In the USSR, the Soviets have mobilized their entire populace to the purpose of war. Soviet factories churn out tanks and planes faster than the German army can knock them out. Teenage Soviets armed with new AK-46 assault rifles flood the front lines as Stalin lowers the draft age in the USSR to thirteen. The communist ruler of Russia knows that it will cost many lives to drive the Germans back across the contested republics of Ukraine and Byelorussia, to exterminate the Axis forces still infesting strongholds in the Crimea and the Caucasus. Stalin knows he must use his people and his land to play for time, time for his scientists to find a defence against German wonder weapons and time for him to develop his own. Meanwhile, on the front, Russia continues to bleed as the sons and daughters of the Motherland slowly push the dreaded armies of the Axis from their homeland.

In America, Douglas MacArthur enters the second year of his presidency. Propelled into the White House by the scandal surrounding the disastrous attempt to invade ‘Fortress Europe’ through the Normandy beaches in 1944, MacArthur’s first year as president has been a time of tragedy and triumph. The Japanese have been driven from Burma, Hong Kong and Nanking. The US Pacific fleet has finally begun to gain the upper hand following the stalemate at Midway and the Japanese attack on San Francisco, chasing Japan’s warships from the China and Philippine Seas. Allied forces have successfully landed in southern France, pushing back the Germans and the French soldiers of the Vichy regime, driving so far north as to capture Paris and split the country almost down the middle. Yet the US has also suffered terrible defeats. Japanese kamikazes launched from immense submarines have fire-bombed Los Angeles and destroyed the Panama Canal. Japanese forces continue to occupy Alaska despite every effort to cut off their lines of supply. American forces in Italy find themselves unable to gain ground against the determined, unnatural Axis defence they first encountered at the ancient monastery of Monte Cassino. Most devastating of all, however, has been the destruction of New York. In retaliation for the atomic bombing of Tokyo, and to display in no uncertain terms the response should such a weapon be used against Germany, the Luftwaffe drops their own ‘disintegration bomb’ on the United States, obliterating much of Manhattan in a maelstrom of fire as the German device ignites the very atmosphere above the city. Never before has terror been so rife within America, but MacArthur is determined that the United States will remain steadfast and resolute in the face of her enemies.

In Germany, the iron fist of the Reich clenches to deliver the next blow against its enemies. Deep beneath the Thuringian countryside, Sonderbeuro 13, Reinhard Heydrich’s insidious cabal of scientists and engineers, continues to develop wonder weapons for their Fuehrer, weapons that will turn the tide of the war. From his castle at Wewelsburg, Heinrich Himmler leads the Schwarze Sonne, the occult commanders of the SS, in their arcane efforts to ally the Third Reich with powers inhuman and infernal. Within the marble walls of the Reichschancellery, Adolf Hitler watches as his empire is beset on all sides even as he plans his next attack. Even as British and American bombers pound the industry of Germany, Hitler plots out ambitious campaigns to seize the resources needed to keep his war machine running, conceiving the battles that will bring him his Endsieg – his final victory.

Next Page >>