Walther Hokala

Walther Hokala
Personal
Affiliation	Screaming Eagles
Career
Rank	Colonel

Walther Hokala was the aide to the commanding officer of the Crucis March's Broken Wheel Combat Region as of 3025.

History

Colonel Hokala, serving under Major General Paula Winters, was executive officer of the Federated Suns' Broken Wheel Combat Region in 3025. Simultaneously, Hokala was commanding officer of the Screaming Eagles mercenary brigade and was stationed on Skepptana.

Fourth Succession War

During Operation Rat's first wave, Hokala and the Screaming Eagles were tasked with capturing the Capellan world of Pleione from the Third Battalion of McCrimmon's Light Cavalry. While the cavalrymen had occupied a dilapidated Star League Defense Force facility named Thunder Rock, most of the defenders were caught in the open and destroyed by Hokala's aerospace assets. Those troops who managed to make it into Thunder Rock endured a three-week long siege before the Screaming Eagles penetrated their defenses and destroyed half of the survivors in the ensuing fighting, with the remaining Light Cavalry company choosing to surrender soon after. Hokala left two of his own battalions behind on Pleione while the rest of the Screaming Eagles parted for the fighting on Gan Singh, although the entire brigade would be reunited in time for the later battle of New Canton.

On New Canton, Hokala commanded the Screaming Eagles' Second Regiment in their pursuit of the Third Battalion of Trimaldi's Secutors through the Blue Dragon Mountains. The Secutors were outmatched but still managed to deal the Eagles heavy casualties, causing a frustrated Hokala to order an airdrop of supporting FedSuns infantry ahead of the Secutors' advance. While the plan was to have the infantry delay the Secutors for only six hours until Hokala's men could hit them from behind, suicidal attacks from a regiment of New Canton armor slowed the Eagles advance so badly that the infantry were left alone for six whole days. The deaths of two-thirds of the FedSuns infantry during this action, combined with war crimes perpetrated by Colonel Opson Mathis of the First Screaming Eagles elsewhere on the planet, served to destroy the Screaming Eagles' reputation with the Federated Suns.

As a result of Mathis's actions on New Canton, the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns' Transportation and Resupply Command decided to punish the Screaming Eagles by depriving them of supplies. Hokala's complaints to the AFFS liaison officer assigned to his unit failed to generate change and the men of the Screaming Eagles began openly discussing turning to ComStar for mediation or about fleeing the Federated Suns entirely. In mid-December, the First Screaming Eagles were ordered to take the Capellan world of Menkalinan but Hokala's troops outright refused to fight and only changed their minds after fierce negotiations returned some of their promised supplies to them. Going into the invasion of Menkalinan, many Eagles soldiers still considered defecting from the Federated Suns due to their lengthy mistreatment.

Menkalinan itself was contested by both the Free Worlds League and Capellan Confederation, meaning that Hokala's Eagles needed to defeat both the sizable forces of the planet's Capellan militia and the Second Battalion of the First Free Worlds Guards in order to claim victory. Force Commander Kisha Bavara was caught completely by surprise when the First Eagles landed just thirty kilometers from her position but Hokala was equally surprised at the presence of an elite League force on-planet. Initial confusion between the two sides meant that no shots were traded for the three hours it took for the Eagles to pass through the Guards' territory. The mercenaries soon made contact with, and quickly routed, the Menkalinan Militia but at this point Force Commander Bavara received orders to aid the Capellans in their defense against the Eagles – just as the bulk of Hokala's troops were pushing deep into the city of Carosasha.

Hokala cursed his luck and ordered his First and Second Battalions to engage the League troops but his redeployed forces were unable to prevent the destruction of their rear supply and communications facilities. The flagging Capellans took the chaos in Hokala's rear lines as a sign to counterattack and Hokala was forced to order his men to retreat from the fighting, although this was a decidedly unpopular move among his mercenaries. The disunity between the League and Capellan troops allowed Hokala to launch a counterattack the next day which ultimately resulted in the withdrawal of the Guards from the fighting and the surrender of the Militia's remaining soldiers. Most notably, the clash between Bavara and Hokala marked the first time troops from the League and Federated Suns had battled in centuries.

Bibliography

• House Davion (The Federated Suns)
• NAIS The Fourth Succession War Military Atlas Volume 1