July 4, 1997
The megapunk band Terminal Illness holds a "Release Dain Dangerous" concert on the Boston Common. Band members decide to omit the request for a permit, inviting the police to do something about it. A directive is issued by an emergency meeting of the city council to prohibit the concert and disperse any megapunks that gather at the Common. The success at enforcing the directive is short-lived, and by early evening 80,000 megapunks fill downtown Boston. In the greatest blunder in the history of the Boston Police Department, Chief Elliot Washington orders the arrest of Terminal Illness. Fifty veteran officers, armed with riot shotguns (loaded with rubber bullets and tear gas), approach the bandstand from the rear. As the officers rush the band members, Greasy Fellow (the band's backup guitarist) drops one of them with a roundhouse swing of his guitar. Six shotgun blasts answer his defiance. The crowd, already whipped to a frenzy by the music, charges the bandstand. The officers fire into the crowd trying to disperse it, with no visible effect. In a crazed rush, the megapunks overrun the officers. City riot units cannot regain control of the Common, and the mayor requests aid from the governor.
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Italian troops of the 4th Alpini Army Corps and 3rd Army Corps cross into Tyrolia, taking the Austrian garrison units by surprise. Italian airmobile and airborne troops capture mountain passes and tunnels, and alpine troops quickly link up with them, overrunning the defenders.
Unofficially,
A-10s of the 343rd Tactical Fighter Wing engage Soviet invasion forces in Alaska. Patrols of the 172nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic) clash with Soviet hovercraft of the 1st Arctic Mechanized Brigade as they screen the Soviet invasion fleet, in the world’s first hovercraft vs. hovercraft battle.
American strike aircraft once again destroy the bridge at Khasan, cutting the sole rail line between the USSR and North Korea.
South Korean troops are now 25 km from central Pyongyang as resistance stiffens, bolstered by the increasingly urban terrain that favors defenders more than the open fields south of the city.
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7th Fleet launches Operation Kickback - the American submarines Chicago, Honolulu, Key West and Columbus strike Soviet Naval Aviation bases in Pacific (from Vladivostok to Petropavlovsk) with submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles. The strikes are quite successful, overwhelming the air defenses of the region following the recent carrier strikes.
A combined British-American force assaults Olsztyn in northeastern Poland. The US 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment skirts the city to the north, then turns south, while the British 6th Armoured Brigade repeats its armored thrust into the heart of the city that had failed in Warsaw weeks ago. This time the result is different, with demoralized Polish defenders slipping away into the forests south of the city.
Overnight into the 5th all the C-130s that NATO can muster in Europe drop airborne troops throughout 1st Byelorussian Front’s rear. The US 4th Ranger Battalion conducts a raid on 1st Byelorussian Front’s rear headquarters, killing or capturing the staff responsible for the front’s logistical support. The 240th Fallschirmjäger Brigade, only partially reformed after the battle of Inowrocław, captures the airbase at Biała Podlaska, with its 10,000-foot runway and adjacent rail line and highways. The 27th Fallschirmjäger Brigade lands from helicopters along 5th Guards Tank Army’s main supply route, establishing a network of company-size ambush positions along roads and travel routes in an attempt to paralyze the Soviet force by cutting off all supply movement. To the north the 26th Fallschirmjäger Brigade does the same to 7th Tank Army’s rear, while the 25th Fallschirmjäger Brigade drops along the Bug River, capturing bridges on the border.
The NATO troops from the Lapland Offensive, once returned to Norwegian territory, are directed to garrison locations to rebuild and rest. 10th Mountain Division has taken over 60 percent casualties overall and many of its infantry battalions are almost empty shells. Prince Jungi’s mechanized force is in desperate need of maintenance, some of its tanks having towed their broken down counterparts out of Finland. Both take in a trickle of replacements while the veterans sleep for days on end and the commander of the 10th Mountain Division's cavalry squadron is evacuated to the US, relieved of command. SACEUR directs that Allied Forces Northern Norway, upon evacuation to Norwegian territory, release X Corps' troops and the marine brigades for service elsewhere in the Alliance area, as well as aircraft not needed for the air defense of northern Norway.
The Victor II-class submarine K-517, a survivor of the Battle of the Norwegian Sea, arrives in the Indian Ocean.
General Suryakin in the Transcaucasian Front requests an additional two regiments of trucks to support his troops fighting in the Zagros Mountains.
A flight of eight Boeing AT-33E Skyfoxes - 1950s-era T-33 trainers converted to counter-insurgency light strike aircraft - departs Mojave, California for NAS Beeville, Texas, the first leg of a ferry flight to Howard Air Force Base, Panama, where they will replace A-7s in the 156th Tactical Fighter Group (Puerto Rico Air National Guard), freeing up those aircraft for service in the Balkans, Korea or Middle East.
The fighting along the Indian-Pakistani border intensifies, unlike in the continual skirmishing of the prior months. By sundown Indian troops have crossed the border in strength south of Lahore, cutting off a Pakistani salient.