Operation Long Jump: Terror in Tehran
I was recently reading an article in World War II Magazine, a bi-monthly magazine that offers accounts from World War II that I highly recommend for anyone who loves history from this era, and I discovered something that I had never known happened before.
Now, this might not seem hard as World War II was such a large conflict but I am still amazed every time I discover something new about the conflict given how much I have read about it. I have been reading World War II magazine for 20 years and have easily read over 100 books about the conflict. I have even considered getting an MA in World War II studies yet can’t pull the trigger due to a lack of jobs in the field so finding something new about the conflict is interesting.
The Nazi’s had, thanks to intelligence missions, discovered the timing of the Tehran conference between Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt. In an effort to disrupt the war and hopefully allow for peace terms outside of the unconditional surrender that President Roosevelt had previously stated would be the only acceptable terms, a team of commandos were dispatched to Tehran to assassinate the leaders of the Big Three.
The article explained in detail how the mission was stopped by Soviet Forces, over 3,000 soldiers were in Tehran, but the implications of this are both horrifying and exciting at the same time. Imagine a world where one, two, or all three of the world leaders had been assassinated in Tehran in 1943.
This outcome seems remote and farfetched yet history typically is until it actually happens. The Empire of Japan did not believe an entire city could be destroyed by a single bomb until it actually happened. If one, or all three of the world leaders had been killed in 1943 the entire face of the war could have changed.
I tend to think that the will to fight among the allies would have been bolstered and they would have redoubled their efforts to fight the Nazis and Japanese yet a part of me wonders if some aspects might have changed. I tend to think the Soviet’s may have saw a chance to sue for peace which would have allowed the Germans to concentrate on the Western Front alone which could have been enough to lengthen the war to a point that most citizens wouldn’t have wanted to see the war continue much longer.
This is such a large event that it is almost impossible to plan out how many things would have changed. Politics, war, economics, etc. Literally every facet of the Western World as well as the USSR would have saw some level of change if this operation had taken place.
My thoughts are awash with different outcomes. This is one of those times that I want to hear what you, the reader, thinks might have happened. Leave me a comment here, on twitter, or email me james@whatifhistory.com and let’s chat about What If?
