Operation Portage
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| Date | Day 2,731 – Day 2,775 (2027) | ||
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| Location | Western and central New York; Northern Ontario | ||
| Result | Buffalo, Syracuse and Sudbury taken; withdrawal to the line of 1947 by the autumn | ||
| Belligerents | |||
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| Commanders and leaders | |||
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| Casualties and losses | |||
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| Civilian dead | c. 83,000 in New York | ||
Operation Portage was an offensive by the joint H&A-EF command into the United States in 2027, during the Second World War, launched on Day 2,731 at the height of the communications blackout that the 1st Vagrant caused across American-held North America. Federation forces crossed the Niagara and the St Lawrence into New York and advanced north-west from the line in Ontario, taking Buffalo, Syracuse and Sudbury. It was the deepest advance into American territory of the war. When the blackout ended the joint command withdrew to the line of 1947, keeping only Sudbury, and the offensive accounted for the larger part of the American military dead of the war.
Background
From about Day 2,715 the Dispatchers of the Knox hive filled American military radio networks with false traffic in American encryption, while parasite organisms cut buried fibre-optic cables and relay towers along the Ohio valley and the Appalachians. Command between the federal forces in the interior and the forces in the east broke down. The blackout was caused by the 1st Vagrant, at the centre of the Knox hive.
The joint H&A-EF command, formed under the Kraków Accords earlier in 2027, had followed the growth of the disruption from about Day 2,700 through the Federation's listening posts and H&A's Dispatcher decoders, which recorded traffic in the Knox network at volumes not seen before. Its North American staff, under General Anders Lykke, planned the offensive with H&A's theatre logistics organisation.
Offensive
The offensive opened on Day 2,731. Federation forces crossed the Niagara and took Buffalo on Day 2,736, crossed the St Lawrence and advanced along the Mohawk valley to Utica, and took Syracuse on Day 2,750. A separate advance north-west from the Mattawa retook Sudbury and its nickel mines, held by the United States since 1940, on Day 2,744. The American forces facing them, divisions of the Atlantic Commonwealth and of the federal government, had no working command between them.
Withdrawal
The blackout ended at about Day 2,760, and parasite organisms were advancing up the Hudson valley. The offensive ended on Day 2,775 and the joint command withdrew from New York; by the autumn its forces were back on the line of 1947. Sudbury was held until 2028.
Casualties
About 118,000 American servicemen were killed, the larger part of the United States' military dead in the war, and about 26,000 of the Federation's. About 83,000 civilians were killed in New York.
Official accounts describe the blackout's benefit to the 1st Vagrant as "significant and entirely coincidental". The joint command's own record states that it acted on its own intelligence.