Settling Accounts: Drive to the East

Drive to the East ISBN 0-345-45724-2 is the second book in Harry Turtledove's Settling Accounts series of alternate history novels. It is set in an analog of the Second World War in North America, fought between the United States and Confederates States. It was released in August of 2005. It follows Return Engagement and precedes The Grapple in the tetralogy.

Template:Spoiler As the title suggests it involves that world's version of the invasion of Russia and the battle of Stalingrad with a Confederate push from occupied Ohio into Pittsburgh (Operation Coalscuttle). It also involves analogues of the Battle of Midway, the Manhattan Project, and the Holocaust.

Operation Coalscuttle

Operation Coalscuttle is a parallel to Adolf Hitler's Operation Blue of 1942, which was the advance to Stalingrad and the Caucasus--straight down to the use of foreign divisions to hold the flanks (Romanians in Stalingrad; Mexicans in Pennsylvania).

In this case, Coalscuttle was Jake Featherston's attempt to knock the United States out of the Second World War by driving east out of Ohio and past Pittsburgh, destroying the USA's ability to make steel there. After taking Akron, Canton, Cleveland and Youngstown, General George Patton's army was bogged down in the fighting around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, being forced by Irving Morrell to head straight into the city instead of ringing around it. As the Confederates strove to take the city block by block, Morrell led a counterattack against the weak Mexicans holding the C.S. flanks and routed them, driving all the way to Lafayette, Ohio. By the end of 1942, the USA had trapped the C.S. army in Pittsburgh in a massive pocket and forced back a Confederate attempt to rescue the pocketed force. In early February, the remnants in the pocket surrendered (Patton had been airlifted out on Featherston's order).

Jake Featherston's growing megalomania prevented him from thinking rationally during the urgent period of the operation, ignoring Nathan Bedford Forrest III's repeated requests to withdraw the force from Pittsburgh. After nearly being thrown out of Featherston's office, Forrest began plotting with Intelligence chief Clarence Potter about the possibility of removing Featherston from office with force, as it had became obvious by then that the President was leading the Confederate States of America to an impending catastrophe. This element has strong similarities to a real life plot to assassinate Hitler (see the July 20 Plot).

Battle of Midway

The Battle of Midway takes place in 1942, as in real history, but involves just two carriers. A small American task force of destroyers, including the destroyer Townsend and the carrier Trenton, attack the Japanese carrier guarding the garrison on Midway. The Trenton's fighters successfully attack the carrier, destroying its engines and setting the ship ablaze. Japanese fighters, learning of the destruction of their ship, choose to perform the first kamikaze attack and dive on the American flotilla. The destroyers and carrier respond with a withering hail of AA fire. The Trenton is hit by one plane, but is undamaged. The Japanese planes are wiped out, resulting in a decisive victory for the Americans, something they had not had in the Pacific since the beginning of the war.