[chico20854]

October 13, 1997

The 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division (reinforced with the British 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment) and 5th Special Forces Group are dropped into the Tabriz area of northwestern Iran in the second day of Operation Pegasus II.

Polish authorities order the immediate evacuation of the small town of Klobuck, west of Czestochowa, to protect the population from fallout from the strike on the nearby city.

Unofficially,

In what the court's press office characterizes as a "working justice's retreat", the nine justices of the US Supreme Court spend the Columbus Day weekend at a luxury resort in Ashville, North Carolina.

Despite the completion of training all pre-war divisions and brigades, the US Army's Combat Training Centers remain at work, now with newly-raised combat units. The National Training Centers (at three sites in California, Washington and Arizona) and Joint Readiness Training Centers (in Arkansas and Louisiana) have transitioned into supporting a 90-day rotation for new units, with 30 days spent on platoon and company/troop/battery-level exercises, another month on battalion-level and the final month forming combat-ready brigades. (Division staffs are prepared for war with command post exercises at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas).

Troop trains depart northern China with additional reinforcements for the western fronts - the 20th Guards Army, which in pre-war times had been part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.

The USS Des Moines completes its minor repairs in the Korean port of Pusan, including replacement of the heavy cruiser's gun barrels with ones with new liners, flown into Korea by priority airlift.

The 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment's scouts locate a blocking position thrown up by the Polish 4th Border Guard Brigade and call in supporting strikes. A pair of F-16s, one Dutch and one American, soon arrive and hit the Polish positions with B-61 tactical nuclear bombs, throwing the Polish unit into disarray and allowing the Americans to slip past the disoriented border guards.

The USS John F. Kennedy, HMS Illustrious and battleship Wisconsin continue their patrolling in the Aegean, taking up station between Crete and the Greek mainland. The force attracts considerable attention from light Greek naval units, which are dealt with by a combination of standing air patrols and gunfire from the battlewagon and escorts.

The Greek Army's operations begin to grind to a halt as a result of shortages of fuel, ammunition and spare parts. The nation had been able to sustain a war on the Turkish front, but the addition of the Macedonian operation combined with the Allied naval blockade and destruction of the nation's refineries are more than the fragile Greek economy can sustain. Generals order a halt to offensive operations.

In Romania, active combat in the lowlands has largely ended as 1st Ukrainian Front transitions to an occupation force, Danube Front pivots to complete the defeat of and occupation of Jugoslavia and Southern Front pivots the last of its forces to face the Turks. In the mountains the dispersed companies of the American 71st Airborne Brigade are hardening their positions; in nearly every case they are joined by remnants of the Romanian Armed Forces who are eager to continue the fight against the Soviets and their Hungarian and Bulgarian allies. US Air Force transports attempt daring low-level night airdrop missions to try to provide a minimal level of resupply to the scattered paratroops.

In the freshly divided and largely defeated Jugoslavia, chaos reigns. A Soviet Spetsnaz team assaults the command post of the Jugoslav National Army, and while unable to force its way into the complex it is able to disable the bunker's external communications. In Macedonia an uneasy truce holds between Greek and Albanian troops (in the west) and Bulgarian and Greek troops (to the east). The first truck convoys of looted grain, coal and consumer goods have already reached the Bulgarian border, looted from Jugoslav civilians by Bulgarian officers. The central mountains of Jugoslavaia are essentially a lawless no-man's land, with armed bands of Jugoslavs turning on communities from other ethnic groups. The Italian occupation authorities are pressed by their political leadership to expand the area under their control, but the overstretched Italian Army is unable to fully control the area it has occupied; it resorts to incorporation of ethnic Croatian militias into its forces, looking the other way at the atrocities they commit. The Albanian Army likewise raises ethnic Albanian militias in the areas of Kosovo and Macedonia it controls. The Albanian high command is struggling to support the three divisions it has committed and looks on the militias as useful proxies.