[chico20854]

July 9, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Under the protection of the 36th Engineer Group (Construction) and using power from a half dozen hydropower plants in the region, one reactor of the Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant in eastern Tennessee is restarted. The power is carefully rationed to support food and war production and further support reconstruction efforts.

In British Columbia, the 47th Infantry Division receives partial salvation from the sky. The generals calls for help have been answered with a single sortie of a F-111A from the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing's 4007th Combat Crew Training Squadron, flying from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Montana. The bomber drops a single B61 tactical nuclear bomb on the Soviet tank regiment, disrupting its command and control as well as destroying several tanks and unprotected personnel. (The attack is widely considered the only NATO nuclear attack on Canadian territory.) The American division commander, who had no prior notice of the incoming strike, orders an immediate withdrawal, unfortunately through the fallout plume of the nuclear strike. The Soviet troops to the north and west launch an immediate attack, and the withdrawal becomes a rout, with disorganized columns of American troops streaming south, with scattered Soviet detachments in pursuit.

The Army in the United States is making progress in its rushed effort to convert training divisions to light infantry divisions. While in theory there could be a uniform process, in reality it is much more complicated. Each division, composed of basic, advanced and one-station (combined) training battalions, has a unique mix of specialties it instructs - the 70th Division turns out infantry recruits, while the 76th trains combat engineers and the 85th cavalry scouts and tankers, with appropriate allocations of training equipment and appropriate instructors. Transforming an infantry training battalion to an infantry battalion is comparatively simple, but converting an engineering training battalion to an artillery one (and finding any quantity of artillery for it to operate) is a much more complicated effort. Nevertheless, so dire is the situation that officers throughout the Army's embattled training command are putting in long hours planning and executing the conversions.

The 63 (my XVI) Corps commander takes the drastic step of limiting resupply convoys south of the Hollywood Hills to nighttime only, so intense are the ongoing attacks on them in prior days. American troops begin to retreat northward through Los Angeles County, abandoning their remaining positions south of Interstate 105, which hopefully can serve as a wide dead zone that can be covered by automatic weapons fire.

A single CH-53E flight makes it into San Diego in the early morning hours, dropping off water, 5.56mm ammo, grenades and canned food; it is to prove the last resupply flight into the embattled garrison. The surrounded Marines also attempt to salvage the supplies from the beached USS Frederick, but the open ground between the garrison's remaining territory and the beach is too dangerous to cross. The ship's crew and the Marines mutually reinforce each other but unable to establish a secure link. Brigade Ensenada has managed to expand its positions within the depot's central recruit training area, with fighting devolving into hand-to-hand struggles at ultra-short range.

The drive of the Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade north along Interstate 25 towards Albuquerque has effectively come to a halt, the Mexican artillery out of ammunition and the entire force short of spare parts, fuel and ammunition needed to maneuver around the US Air Force blocking force at Truth or Consequences. The Mexican commander, well aware of the existence of the massive nuclear weapon stockpile at Albuquerque's Kirtland Air Force Base, is reluctant to exert too much pressure on the defenders lest they decide to separate him into his constituent atoms.

A group of 18 bikers from the Ataúdos biker gang, offered a reward of five kilos of marijuana seized from the Austin Police Department evidence room, storm the University of Texas Tower, killing the Marine veteran snipers that have held up Mexican control of the capital city. (One of the ex-Marines is thrown over the parapet to her death).

The veteran 20th Tank Division locates and exploits a gap in the NATO line along the Main River near Frankfurt and, in one of the war’s last river crossing operations, throws troops across.

The masters of the mass of miscellaneous NATO naval and merchant vessels gathered in Loch Ewe, Scotland hold a conference to determine what their next steps should be. The supply of fuel in the fuel depot ashore, which had been refilled in the weeks and months following the Battle of the Norwegian Sea, has been largely depleted, burned by the generators keeping life aboard the ships possible. The local population ashore, in one of the most remote areas of the Scottish Highlands (who were only connected by road to the rest of the UK during the Second World War), is too small to produce nearly enough food to support the sailors on the ships. The decision is reached to dispense the remaining fuel to naval combatants that are still seaworthy, reserving a portion for some of the merchantmen, which will transport the crews back home, at least one ship for each of the NATO nations and others to transport citizens of neutral countries (the many Filipinos, for example) home