June 20, 1997
Nothing in the canon for the day. Unofficially,
Headquarters, XV Corps begins a two-week long wargame command post exercise at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.
The commander, XO, two battalion commanders, three sergeants major and the personnel officer of the 5th Training Brigade at Fort Dix, New Jersey are relieved, based on the inspector general's preliminary findings released three days ago.
At Camp Lejeune, North Carolina the 5th Marine Division sends the first of its regiments, the 26th Marines, to Marine Corps Base Twentynine Palms in California for large-unit pre-deployment exercises.
The USAF uses wartime emergency authority to requisition Boeing's Skyfox subsidiary, which owns over 120 T-33 trainers, several dozen of which have been converted to light strike aircraft as well as the facility in Mojave, California that rebuilds the obsolescent derivatives of the 1945-era P-80 Shooting Star fighter into a counterinsurgency plane.
F-111s of the 27th Tactical Fighter Wing destroy the bridge at Khasan in the far northeastern corner of North Korea, the sole rail connection between the USSR and North Korea.
Allied forces on the western side of the Korean Peninsula go on the offensive across the DMZ, with massive support from remaining airpower and the big guns of the USS Missouri and USS New Jersey lurking close offshore.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army continues to make progress; the 28th (my 5th) Group Army reaches the North Korean border near its mouth at Dandong on the Yellow Sea.
US Green Berets continue to support pro-NATO guerilla bands in areas still under communist control, but many of the bands have either been wiped out or linked up with regular NATO forces.
XI US Corps advances through Brzesko before hitting resistance at Tarnow.
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The Public Affairs Officer from the HQ, 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania National Guard) brings a team of local reporters from the division's home state on a tour of areas in Poland the division has recently been operating in, including a bridge destroyed by retreating Russian troops and the replacement bridge that the division's engineers erected to replace it.
The search for Soviet stragglers by KGB troops at the Finnish-Soviet border begins to choke 26th Corps’ supply efforts, as each empty truck driver returning to Soviet territory to reload is subjected to ruthless interrogation, forced to prove that he or she is not fleeing the battlefield.
To speed the advance through Finland, the Northwestern TVD approves the wide-scale use of chemical weapons against Finnish and NATO troops; in one of their first uses the 3rd Battalion of the 36th Brigade collapses when its positions west of Kuusamo are blanketed by BM-21 chemical rockets, immediately followed by tube artillery fire on the brigade chemical defense company’s decontamination site.
42 Commando, Royal Marines are on the line along the coast early in the day while the marines’ helicopters and hovercraft transport the stocks of munitions and fuel aboard the amphibious ships, which to not only their own units but the beleaguered divisions of X Corps.
Turkish forces in Thrace manage to contain the Greek offensive, forcing the Greeks to pause their offensive action to build up supply routes over territory thoroughly devastated by retreating Turks. The pause gives the Turks time to dig in for the anticipated resumption of the Greek attack. To the north, V Corps has withdrawn parallel with XV Corps, both forces holding the city of Yambol. (V Corps on the west and northwest, XV Corps on the east and northeast).
SEEBEEs and Navy salvage crews continue their effort to clear Bandar Abbas harbor of obstructions. The Gurkhas of 27 Brigade reach the center of the city, having driven the Soviet troops out of the overlooking hills and the northern portion of the city. Transcaucasian Front's offensive peters out, without any territorial gains.
In an ironic development, the truckers in Smolensk who were arrested for striking after refusing to carry cargo into Poland are released from captivity and returned to their duties transport food and goods around the city. The city Party committee has received too many complaints that having a significant portion of the city's truckers locked up has been disrupting the production of materiel for the front.
Fighting continues all along the Indo-Pakistani line of control in Kashmir.