[chico20854]

May 26, 1997

1st Sqadron, 116th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Idaho National Guard) arrives on the outskirts of Olesno.

General Barnaberi, CENTCOM commander, is pressed by the leadership on Capital Hill on his plans for an offensive to drive the Soviets out of Iran. He replies that the shipping situation prevents him from sustaining any advance that he would launch.

Unofficially,

The Swiss ambassador in New Delhi reaches out to the American ambassador. He has been contacted by the Soviet ambassador, who desires to meet with the Americans to discuss conditions to end the war.

Headquarters, XIX Corps is stood up from the 102nd and 122nd ARCOMs at Little Rock AFB, Arkansas to oversee mobilization and support to civil authorities in Arkansas and Louisiana.

The US Army Provost Marshall declares "5th Squad" an illegal organization, making continued membership or activity subject to criminal prosecution.

The American attack submarine USS Pintado departs Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on its patrol (scheduled initially to patrol an area southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchakta). The boat is never heard from again.

In northern Poland, III US Corps pauses to allow its logistic trail to catch up, recover some of the vehicles that had been lost in the prior day's battle and chase down the enemy light forces (both regular and partisan) that are operating in the corps rear area. One disturbing development is that the corps’ attack helicopter battalions are only able to replace 20 percent of the Hellfire and 25 percent of the TOW anti-tank missiles expended in the battle.

Back in Germany, Seventh US Army is expanding its area of operations, with a complex shuffle of units on the line. VII US Corps, which had been responsible for the Czech border from its boundary with Poland west to the western end of Czechoslovakia opposite the Hof Gap, moves east into Poland, deploying units opposite the Czech 4th Army to defend the NATO offensive’s southern flank. I British Corps moves in to assume responsibility for VII US Corps’ sector, while XV US Corps, recently declared operational, takes up positions in Bavaria, using newly arrived units to keep the Czech-Soviet forces in southern Germany hemmed in. Within those corps some units are reassigned, with engineer and artillery units, in particular, shifted into Poland.

XI US Corps is released into NORTHAG reserve, initially occupying Wrocław. It is not moved farther into Poland because the road and rail lines to the east can not sustain more combat forces; in fact, XI US Corps is temporarily tapped to provide trucks and drivers to move supplies for Third German Army to the east.

The MPs of US V Corps' 18th MP Brigade process approximately 250 POWs captured from the 734th Independent Tank Regiment when that unit was overrun outside Konin.

Over the GIUK Gap, the second sortie by a Soviet Tu-22M2DP long-range interceptor receives a rude welcome, discovering that there are American E-2 Hawkeye early warning aircraft (from the carriers Saratoga, Enterprise and Eisenhower) operating over the Norwegian Sea. The converted Soviet bomber's electronic warfare sensors detect the American aircraft before it can be located and the sortie is aborted.

In the North Sea, Convoy 145 is formed heading west. The convoy has an unusually large escort force, composed of nearly the entire group of frigates, destroyers and cutters that crossed the Atlantic with Convoy 140 and a portion of the escort from Convoy 142. It passes through the English Channel at night.

The Red Banner Northern Fleet dispatches a pair of Foxtrot-class submarines from Polyarnny to lay mines in the North Sea.

In the Balkans, Pact troops continue their preparatory artillery barrages on Romanian and Jugoslav positions as a wide variety of civilian trucks from the Western USSR, Hungary and Bulgaria are pressed into service to bring supplies to the front from the railheads and ports.

The carrier USS Independence anchors at Masirah, Oman for a restand recovery period after many weeks of intense operations.

The trio of convoys carrying the 4th Marine Division enters the Indian Ocean, having traversed the southern coast of Australia after a long transit of the Pacific.

Allied air forces in the Korean theater continue their defense suppression and aerial interdiction of the battlefield. 8th Army commanders report declining North Korean artillery barrages and a higher rate of desertion from the North Korean Army.

The mutiny in the Soviet Far East grows, when the rebellious troops of the 70th (my 122nd Guards) Motor-Rifle Division are joined by the 294th Motor-Rifle Division, which was also languishing in the area around Khabarovsk. The rebels seize control of the city's dwindling food stocks and block the rail and road routes into the city. They are, however, unable to persuade the troops of the city's MVD garrison (the headquarters of the Far Eastern MVD District and the 92nd Convoy Division) to join the uprising, and the KGB Border Guards of the 70th Border Guard Brigade on the nearby Chinese border begins moving in.