May 4, 1997
The IPA command concludes that the Soviets captured the Iranian Crown Jewels when Esfahan fell.
Captain Pete Fanning of the 101st Air Assault Divison is awarded the Silver Star for bravery in the prior day's operation and receives an on-the-spot promotion to Major.
The 82nd Airborne Division continues to clear the area around Bandar-e-Khomeni and Khorramsharh.
Unofficially,
The Freedom-class cargo ship Bronx Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas and the Des Moines and Charleston Freedoms are delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
The Headquarters, 4th Armored Division is formed at Fort Carson, Colorado. The unit begins to receive troops and equipment and uses facilities left behind when the peacetime resident 4th Infantry Division was airlifted to Germany in 1996.
The 8th Armored Cavalry Regiment is likewise activated at Gowen Field, Idaho as a new unit. Staffed with personnel from throughout CONUS, many fresh from various training programs, the regiment is initially issued obsolescent or substitute equipment for training purposes - the primary tank is the Cadillac-Gage Stingray, with a mix of M113 and Peacekeeper armored cars as substitute APCs. The two formations are part of the US Army's effort to face the demands of high-intensity warfare in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
The 118th Field Artillery Brigade (Georgia National Guard), which had failed its predeployment readiness evaluation in January and spent the next several months retraining in Florida (accompanied by a fairly extensive purge of unit leadership), is declared combat ready and moves to Jacksonville, Florida to load for Germany. Some of the brigade's troops believe that the evaluators were ordered to pass the unit so it could be rushed into action regardless of its actual readiness for action.
The disastrous Soviet jamming effort is stopped, but the damage has been done. Warsaw Pact lines begin to fail. A gap opens between the 3rd Guards Motor-Rifle Division, on the left flank of the 8th Guards Army and the Polish 2nd Mechanized Division (on the Polish 2nd Army’s right) and 2nd Squadron, 116th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Idaho National Guard) slips through. Within hours the rest of the regiment enters the gap and two battalions of the 27th Fallschirmjäger Brigade land in the woods north of Wrocław.
USAF F-111s of the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing, operating from Eindhoven, Netherlands, strike the small but important rail junction of Tunel, 35 km north of Krakow. The attack severely disrupts the rail yard but also devastates the surrounding community. Menawhile, NATO electronic reconnaissance aircraft identify the 3rd Guards headquarters.
The remaining two Soviet subs of the wolfpack in Baffin Bay (west of Greenland) are intercepted by the attack submarine USS Annapolis. The ultra-quiet Sierra II slips past the American boat, but the older and louder missile boat is located by the Americans. The Los Angeles-class boat launches a pair of Mk 48 torpedoes which sink the Soviet sub. The other Soviet boat does not come to its companion's aid, slipping away in the noise of the sinking boat and moving ice overhead.
Convoy 136 loses another ship, the Cypriot freighter Frantiz M, to a mine as it crosses the North Sea.
photo
The wreck of the Soviet 5th Squadron (and Black Sea Fleet) flagship, the missile cruiser Slava, slips beneath the waves.
The Bulgarian troops facing the Turkish First Army begin to waver as they continue to get pounded by artillery. The fighting prevents the Bulgarian Army's logistic troops (thinly equipped in the best of times) from pushing forward ammunition and rations to the troops on the front line.
The aircraft Constellation joins the Abraham Lincoln and Kitty Hawk in launching air strikes on Soviet defensive positions in the Kuriles, in a drive to increase Allied access to the region as well as forcing the Soviet commanders to dilute their limited resources.