[chico20854]

September 17, 1997

The 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division links up with the 4th Marine Division's 4th Light Armored Recon Battalion and 48th Infantry Brigade (Georgia National Guard) north of Sirjan. Its long journey out of the Yadz pocket has succeeded.

As NATO forces retreat, the Polish Government seeks out collaborators and others who did not sufficiently oppose the NATO occupation. In the town of Ciechanów north of Warsaw, which has been used as a supply hub to support the siege of Warsaw, a battalion commander from the 6th (my 22nd) Border Guard Brigade orders most of the town's adult male population shot for aiding the enemy during their stay.

Unofficially,

The survivors of the 40th Infantry Division evacuated from Europe return to Camp Rilea, Oregon and begin forming a new division from new trainees streaming out of the training system. Supply of equipment is problematic, as the demands of worldwide war exceed American industry's ability to produce weapons, vehicles and the myriad items needed to supply a military unit.

A Soviet tactical nuclear attack on American and South Korean positions north of Hamhung permits tanks of the Bulgarian 11th Tank Brigade to break through, wreaking havoc in the Allied rear area and forcing the defenders into the city. The Freedom ship Idaho Freedom, due to depart after discharging munitions and food, is nearly overwhelmed by refugees seeking to escape the returning Communist regime; the ship eventually leaves port with nearly 5,000 people aboard, crammed onto nearly every horizontal surface aboard. (Armed guards prevent entry to the bridge and engine rooms)

German troops fall back towards the Wisla, allowing the relief of Baltic Front in the Torun Pocket. Baltic Front had been cut off for over three months, and the battered formation has sustained 70% losses in action since April.

Pact troops in southern Poland close on the Wisla as well, following the withdrawal of XI Corps, Panzergruppe Oberdorff and the German V Corps. They receive a nasty surprise in the form of numerous Atomic Demolition Munitions, losing multiple tank battalions to the remotely-detonated "nuclear land mines" as well as contaminating miles and miles of transportation routes.

A shipyard in Odense, Denmark delivers the world's largest containership, the Sovereign Mae. At over 100,000 tons, the massive ship can transport over 8,100 containers, moving at 21 knots. The ship is dispatched to Norfolk, Virginia, one of only a handful of US ports able to handle the ship's size (which is too large to fit through the Panama Canal).

NATO's Mediterranean command, AFSOUTH, dispatches another convoy to Turkey, this one carrying the remaining elements of the Portuguese 1st Mechanized Brigade.

Troops of the 1st Guards Army capture the Ghimeș Pass through the Carpathians and begin descending into Transylvania along the rail line and road against weakening Romanian resistance.

The Bulgarian 3rd Army advancing on Bucharest from the south dispatches the 16th Motor-Rifle Division to the west in a drive to cut off the Romanian capital, hoping to link up with Soviet troops from the 14th Guards Army. They are fiercely resisted by Romanian irregular forces; the Bulgarians deploy chemical weapons, sweeping away the opposition (and hundreds of civilians fleeing the city) shortly before dark.