Part 4

It is hard to say how it began or ended, World War III. It is a very confused story and there are many theories. Most people seem to think it was HitlerÕs fault, that he turned on the Japanese just as he had done with the Russians five years before.

Docked in San Diego harbor and festooned with flags for a naval celebration, the Yamato exploded, burned and sank. That was the first incident most people agree. Two Type-X German U-boats were docked at the time and the Japanese authorities blamed the loss of their huge battleship on the German submarines. The Nazi authorities, of course, denied it and broadcast that the huge ship had exploded because of the mishandling of ammunition in its bunkers. (Some historians remembered the Maine.)

Insults and accusation flew back and forth and the U-boat pens on the North Sea coast were bombed by planes from a Japanese carrier then visiting Portugal. Insults and threats increased and there was sporadic fighting on several fronts and frontiers.

In Canada the Germans began withdrawing from the long-stable Western front and shipping their men and equipment home. The Germans withdrew from most of the major U.S. cities and ports. The Japanese abandoned California and British Columbia and pulled most of the Pacific forces back to the home islands. Then the Japanese carrier planes attacked both Rome and Vichy, and the Germans fired long-range rockets over the North Pole at targets on Honshu Island.

Japanese rockets fired from subs in the Baltic rained down botulism and plague germs on Berlin and Hamburg. A revolt against Japanese rule broke out in the Philippines and in south-east Asia. Hitler died, no one is sure how, Goring replaced him and was assassinated two days later. The German government and economy collapsed. In Japan the emperor asked the military leaders to resign and several killed themselves.

After the Pentagon was evacuated and the sex slaves freed, and the Germans were out of all the major cities, Francis Perkins, the nominal president of the U.S., announced that Congress would reconvene in Boston as soon as possible. Fighting continued in Texas and Arizona, but the Mexican forces were being worn down and discouraged by the hit and run American airraids on Mexico City. The black state of Atticus collapsed, deep in debt and confusion.

Then Tokyo vanished in an atomic explosion after chemical and bacteriological agents had rained down on the Ruhr.

The fight went on for several exhausting months before a peace was brokered in the Hague by the remnants of the League of Nations. George C. Marshall represented the U.S. at the conference.

In Canada Quebec was divided into three provinces and a northern territory and Ottawa was re-established as the capital.

Soon exploratory groups entered the three radioactive American cities where weeds had begun to grow and some birds and rodents, including squirrels and pigeons, had returned.

Slowly things began to return to more-or-less normal and in 1948 a little known U.S. Senator from Missouri named Harry S Truman was elected president.