Carolina Campaign

The **Carolina Campaign** was an invasion of the states of Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina in 1955 by the Provisional Patriotic Alliance. The invasion, though successful in its goals, was so costly that the Alliance had to give up its gains the following year. This eventually led to the Invasion of Florida by Coalition of the Cross forces.

## Background

### **Outbreak of the War**

Since the start of the war, the U.S. state of Florida was under control of the Provisional Patriotic Alliance. This allowed the Alliance to springboard operations on the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S., and against most locations in the Caribbean Sea, as seen in its successful invasions of Cuba and the Bahamas.

The strength of the Alliance in Florida was such that Coalition leaders became very uneasy about their defensive posture. The Alliance and the Coalition had an uneasy truce since the stalemate off Bermuda in 1952, though both sides knew that this situation could not last.

### **Value of the Southeast U.S.**

The KaK's possession of Southeastern Ports was particularly important to its war effort in Canada and Europe. In particular, textiles produced in this region provided the vast majority of the Coalition's uniforms, tents, and other supplies, besides providing ample amounts of foodstuffs to feed the Coalition's armies. What made these ports even more important was their relatively safety from attack by Fourth Council forces in Canada; only strategic bombers could strike these ports, which seldom happened after the Council was pushed out of Quebec in October of 1954.

However, top Coalition leaders began to realize that their ports were vulnerable to attacks from the South in the Autumn of 1954. Koalition leader Osvald Lindstrom identified three ports he felt were most vulnerable to Alliance aggression: Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington. Alliance leaders had, ironically, came to the same conclusions about the vulnerability of Koalition ports.

## Plans

### **Alliance: Operation Toirneach**

Several planes were drawn up for the neutralization of the Southeastern Ports, but the most feasible plan was 'Toirneach', 'Thunder' in Irish. Toirneach called for a simultaneous invasion of a point north of Wilmington by sea, and a drive up the coast from Florida. The invasion north of Wilmington would breakout to the South in order to meet the drive up the coast in Charleston, thus neutralizing all three ports in one campaign.

#### **Northern Invasion**

In January 1955, Alliance planers decided on three locations which were to be captured by amphibious operations; Jacksonville, Morehead City and Cape Lookout. Besides these amphibious operations, paratroopers were to take the airfields at Bogue and Cherry Point, and were made available for neutralizing fortifications at Cape Lookout, though they were not used in that action. These landings were to be preceded by large aerial bombardments of Coalition ships and naval stores in Jacksonville and Morehead City.

Battlegroup 20 was the naval element for the Northern invasion, and was commanded by Vice Admiral Krüger. The Battlegroup was further split into Five Squadrons:

* Squadron One: *Woblitzee* Class Battlecruisers *Erin* and *Frederick, Kaimon* Class Heavy Cruisers *Wilhelm II, Berlin* and *Normandy* and six destroyers to neutralize the fortifications at Cape Lookout
* Squadron Two: *Ozhogino* Class Battlecruiser *Saxony*, four destroyers and eight landing ships to land at Morehead City
* Squadron Three: