Today is Flag Day and my original plan to celebrate was to upload this drawing I made back in 2018 on Xema but for some reason, my account is now suspended (really love how these centralized "platforms" communicate basic information to you, the user, it sure doesn't make me wish we could return to decentralized chatrooms and forum boards) so I can't do jack on that particular site. Looking through my FurAffinity account, I realized I don't think I ever uploaded this onto here as it doesn't show up in the word searches and I'm not going to painstakingly sort through my gallery. So, I decided I'll just upload this onto FA, SoFurry, InkBunny, and Weasyl instead. This was based on the iconic photo of two US Marines raising the Stars and Stripes on a Guam beach during the battle to retake the island from the Japanese in the summer of 1944 but the scene here is instead US troops landing in Communist-occupied Dakar as part of Operation Jeopardy, a landing meant to take the pressure off of Portuguese Guinea and Liberia.
In the Summer of 1942, the war in West Africa was nearing its climax; after several naval and air battles along the coast, Comintern forces in the region converged on the tiny Allied colonies of Gambia and Guinea. The defending garrisons were holding out against the invaders but were cut off and in danger of being overrun; both Baltic Chancellor Päts and Portuguese king Luis II pressured the Allied Powers to lift the siege of the tiny West African colonies. British general Kenneth Anderson and US general Robert Richardson Jr planned for landings in West and North Africa in a bid to surround and completely annihilate the remaining Communists on the continent. On September 27, an Anglo-Brazillian army under the joint commands of generals George Giffard and Mascarenhas de Morais landed at Bissau in Portuguese Guinea and proceeded to drive off the advancing Communards, saving the two colonies from complete defeat. On October 11, a second, predominately American, force commanded by Russell Hartle, landed on select beaches north and south of the city of Dakar; there was some fighting with the local Comintern garrison in the towns of Ngaparou, Mbour, Somone, and Kayar before the city itself was assaulted with naval assistance by elements of Royal Ingersoll's Atlantic Fleet.
The two landings were dubbed Operations Menace and Jeopardy, respectively, and proved to be resounding successes as the defending Reds were forced to surrender and much of the West African coast was secured in Allied hands. The two beachhead forces linked up on October 19 and marched north to Mauria, all while clearing the interior of opposing forces. With the Torch landings in early November, the Communist forces in Mauria were hemmed in and forced to withdraw to Atlas mountains; they ultimately gave up by January 16, 1943, allowing the Allies to concentrate their forces toward a final push into Numidia. Sandwiched between Allied forces advancing from the both the south and the west, the final remnant of the Comintern armies in North Africa surrendered on May 13. Thus, the continent was freed of enemy activity and now the Allies could concentrate more sarpower and resources on the Mediterranean and Northwest Europe.
