East Island Campaign - 1st - 8th December 1939

The East Island Campaign was a short campaign of the Third Snow War, fought on the island of "East Island" (Snow Landian: Vostok Ostrov), to the east of mainland Snow Land, the campaign was a preliminary to the seaborne invasion of eastern Snow Land, the Eastern Front, as such the campaign is widely regarded as the first campaign of the Eastern Front, it was fought between the 1st and the 8th of December 1939, after the war was about a weak old.

Background

Several months before the war Wardie land strategists theorised that Snow Land would send nearly all of its forces to the border to deal with a Wardie land invasion from the west, they deduced that such a scenario would more than likely mean eastern Snow Land would be left to the Snow Landian Rear-Guard forces, with highly obsolete tanks, planes and such force. Some strategists began to wonder if Wardie land could take advantage of this and begin an amphibious invasion of eastern Snow Land and launch a two-pronged attack on Snow Land, diverting Snow Landian forces, and surrounding Snow Land City. The plan seemed fool proof, and the Imperial High Command accepted such a plan, the plan would be put in effect should Snow Land ever go to war with Wardie land again.

As tensions mounted during mid-late 1939, Wardie land began mobilising forces, and building strength, one of the forces which was being mobilised was a force of Imperial Marines which would invade eastern Snow Land. The Marines and the new recruits which were to join them were sent to a fairly small and isolated island in Wardie land control located 200 miles south-east of East Island. There they spent several months training whilst landing craft were being sent to them.

After war broke out on the 24th of November they embarked their troop ships and headed for East Island.

The invasion

By early morning on the 1st of December 1939 the invasion force had reached their pre-planned positions, half of the force was stationed off "South Beach", the main assault, and the remaining quarters were stationed off "East Beach", on the eastern coastline, and "West Beach", several miles north of Port Vorvich.

Port Vorvich was picked as the first primary objective, located on the south-west corner of the island, Port Vorvich was a perfect location to build up and station forces for invasion on the Tarnov Peninsula in south-east Snow Land. The second primary objective was the island's capital, Narkov Town, located on the north-eastern coastline, the opposite end, of the island, Narkov Town would be base for invasion forces landing further north up the eastern coast of Snow Land.

The Snow Landians had no idea the attack was coming, the ships had got within range during nightfall, the landings began simultaneously at 07:30 hours, since there were no beach defences or signs that the Snow Landians were aware of the invasion, the battle cruisers held their fire whilst the troops and tanks landed.

Medium Mk I** (A) tank (T2 Medium tank), one of the main types of tank to serve in the campaign

The landings were textbook, there was no resistance at all, the Snow Landian troops on the island weren't even aware the landings were happening, they were around Narkov Town, after the troops and tanks landed and set up a beachheads they headed for their first objective, Port Vorvich.

Port Vorvich was the home base of the Snow Landian 70th Destroyer Flotilla, however the flotilla were out on patrol, so there were no defences of any kind, the Marines took the port with no resistance, battle cruisers and troop ships steamed into the port, a "Ring of Steel" was set up around the outskirts of the port by the troops and tanks, waiting for a Snow Landian counter-attack which never came.

The remains of the 70th Destroyer Flotilla returned that evening, two heavily-damaged ships, the rest had been lost Royal Imperial Wardie land Fleet Air Arm air attack, the sentries based on the entrance to the port saw them coming from miles off, they were pounced upon and quickly destroyed by the battle cruisers after entering the port, they didn't even have the chance to send out an alert signal.

The March across East Island

The first day was a textbook amphibious operation, there was no resistance on any of the beaches, and the first objective had been captured, now the Wardie land-Snow Land Pro-Empire Front forces turned their attention to the second primary objective, the Narkov Town, on the other side of the island, Narkov Town was going to be harder to take than Port Vorvich.

The main obstacle standing in the way of the invasion forces was Mount Narkov, a mountain located in the centre of the island, in order to pass Mt. Narkov it was decided to split the forces in a two and head past each side of the mountain, the forces were hastily split in two and were named Western Force and Eastern Force, the two forces would take their respective side of the mountain, and join up again after getting past the mountain, it was decided to do this for fears that if all of the forces went up one side there was a chance for a possible Snow Landian counter-attack force to take the other side and head straight for Port Vorvich, at least with a force on either side a possible counter-attack would be unable to slip past.

After a few battles the mountain was cleared by the 4th of December, the Western Force also meeting up with the landing forces from the Western Bay landings, to the north-west of the mountain, on that day. The forces met back up on the 5th of December and continued on as one, albeit spread out to cover the width of the island.

Final days

The passing of Mt. Narkov meant that the Imperial forces had passed the main obstacle on the island, and effectively had a straight road all the way to Narkov Town, only one obstacle remained, the remaining Snow Landian force, a sizeable portion of the defending forces had been sent to try and stop the Imperial forces around Mt. Narkov, but had been defeated, due to the fact they were outnumbered and were equipped with obsolete weaponry, such as the MS-1 tank and Berdan rifles, with no air cover or AA weaponry they stood no chance against Fleet Air Arm bombers taking off from carriers such as Auspicious Dragon, part of Winterland Station (the station most of the ships which served in the Third Snow War were part of), lying off shore, and carrier bombers which had been moved to a temporary airbase at Port Vorvich. The lack of air cover or AA meant the Imperial Navy decided to make use of some of the more obsolete carrier planes, such as the biplane Great Lakes BG dive bomber and the Fairey Flycatcher.