January 29, 1998
Corpus Christi, Texas has been abandoned. The blasts at the end of November left 40,000 dead and 100,000 injured. Thousands more - no estimate is ever made - died in the weeks that followed from starvation, disease, and the effects of severe burns and radiation sickness.
Unofficially,
In Korea, the 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is withdrawn behind the lines and given priority in fuel allocation so it can act as a mobile armored reserve to smash enemy breakthroughs.
The final USAF Europe aircraft depart bases in the French-occupied Rhineland, landing shortly thereafter at nearby bases in central and northern Germany. They are laden with as many munitions as can be carried and topped off with as much fuel as they can carry.
French, Belgian, German and American engineers, each working in their own sectors (and with Americans handling the interfaces between nations) complete repairs to the CEPS pipelines across (and under) the Rhine, and shortly before midnight fuel resumes flowing into tank farms in central Germany.
The oiler Platte continues its voyage north, travelling out of sight of the Norwegian mainland.
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A third group of excess merchantmen departs the Heligoland Bight in the North Sea, headed for layup at Cromarty Firth in northern Scoland. It travels at 10 knots to reduce fuel consumption and allow a quartet of offshore oil rig boats to keep up with the formation, which is escorted by the Canadian "destroyer" Assiniboine. (Most NATO navies would classify it as a frigate.)
American paratroops and their Romanian allies overrun a Soviet outpost in the small Transylvanian town of Deda, ridding the area of Soviet occupation forces and, to the increasing dismay of Soviet leaders, cutting two rail lines from the USSR into the Balkans.