Play as · WW2 1939 · L1 · French Pacific Colony · Free French Pioneer

New Caledonia - 1939

New Caledonia in 1939 is the French overseas colony in the Western Pacific - under French administration since the 1853 annexation that the post-1840 missionary-and-trader-and-penal-colony framework had progressively-institutionalized - and operating through the Third Republic colonial-administrative framework that the looming June 1940 fall of France will substantially restructure. Population about 60,000 (substantially distributed between the European-administrative population, the substantial Kanak indigenous population, and the South Asian and broader Pacific-region indentured-labor descendants). The strategic identity is the French Pacific colony with the substantial nickel-mining strategic-economic positioning (about 25% of global nickel reserves), the looming September 19, 1940 Free French rallying under the Henri Sautot administration that will make New Caledonia one of the first colonies to publicly switch from Vichy to Free France (the Norfolk Island broadcasting and the broader Pacific-region political-administrative organization will be the principal regional Free French anchor for the early wartime period), and the substantial post-1942 US Navy and US Army base development at Nouméa that will produce the major South Pacific Allied strategic-staging facility for the broader 1942-1945 Pacific operations.

Starting position

New Caledonia's defense-architecture in 1939 includes the small French colonial garrison and the broader French Empire-administrative architecture. Equipment is light. The substantial post-September-1940 Free French period will produce the substantial Allied-cooperation framework - the Bataillon du Pacifique (the Free French volunteer unit raised in the Pacific French colonies that will fight in the Western Desert and Italian campaigns), the substantial US-French cooperation including the broader US Naval Operating Base Nouméa development from 1942 (Admiral Bull Halsey's South Pacific Area headquarters, the broader US Naval Forces South Pacific Area operations), and the substantial nickel-mining-for-Allied-war-effort production scale-up. The substantial post-1942 US-Pacific-strategic-architecture investment will substantially-restructure the colony's economic-and-political-institutional framework.

What turns the campaign

What New Caledonia in 1939 wants is the French colonial-administrative framework preserved through the looming wartime period, the substantial nickel-mining strategic-economic positioning institutionalized at the level the Allied war-effort requires, the looming Free French rallying institutionalized through the political-administrative framework the post-1940 period will produce, and the substantial post-1942 US-Pacific-strategic-engagement preserved at the operational scale that the broader South Pacific Allied operations will demand. What New Caledonia fears is exactly the historical sequence - the June 1940 fall of France creates the immediate Vichy-aligned political-administrative pressure, the September 1940 Free French rallying under Sautot produces the political-administrative reset, the substantial post-1942 US-base-development at Nouméa requires substantial-political-administrative coordination, and the broader Kanak indigenous-population political-cultural framework will be substantially-affected by the substantial wartime-environment expansion.

Signature challenge