[chico20854]

June 16, 1997

Nothing official for today.

With the collapse of the peace talks in New Delhi and continuing NATO successes, NATO heads of state endorse the Polish Free Congress' territorial claims and authorize NATO troops to cross the Soviet border to support the restoration of those borders.

Private Cutler and his fellow trainees in Company C, 2nd Battalion, 34th Infantry in basic training have their scheduled session throwing a live grenade cancelled as a result of a fatal "incident" the day before, when a trainee from another battalion froze after dropping the grenade at his own feet.

South Korean troops link up with the Japanese and American troops holding the border town of Panmunjom. Allied troops have driven the North Korean Army out of nearly all South Korean territory.

In Manchuria, Soviet forces have some success in slowing the Chinese assault. Nearly all the reserves have been committed and the Soviet troops took advantage of their superior firepower but are unable to eject the Chinese troops from the territory they recaptured.

Raids across the Netherlands strike ten Dutch Red Army safe houses; 75 are arrested and held.

The NATO logistic system is reaching the breaking point. Within Poland and East Germany, transportation infrastructure has improved following the use of large numbers of engineer units (Army, Naval and Air Force, in most cases) from the NATO nations active in the theater, supplemented by civilian construction firms using highly-paid labor forces from neutral nations. (Typical is an Irish or Swiss engineer overseeing Brazilian construction foremen, with Filipino, Bangladeshi and Kenyan laborers). These efforts restore the bridges over the Oder and Warta rivers and open two railroad lines, from Frankfurt-Oder to Kutno and from Gorlitz to Gliwice. Locomotives and rolling stock remain in short supply, and NATO militaries no longer maintained railroad operations units or the labor units and equipment to load and unload railcars. POWs and additional contract laborers are tasked with those duties, but efficiency is low and the rail lines also are being called upon to support the needs of the civilian population of liberated Poland. Polish roads had been atrocious (by Western standards) before the war, and the battles and subsequent continuous heavy truck traffic that followed reduced many of them to gravel. Less effort is placed in restoring them than the rail lines, since the railroads are expected to handle much greater tonnages; the continued poor conditions, however, increase wear and tear on the truck fleet. Much of the long-haul truck fleet supporting the effort is requisitioned civilian trucks, which were designed for use on smooth paved roads; the dozens of different makes and models of trucks in use make maintenance a challenge, especially when, in Poland, improvised or captured repair facilities are used. Captured airfields are, where possible, brought back into use, but often Pact defenders have used massive cratering charges (made up of stacks of excess bombs and missile warheads) to cause severe damage to runways. Air Force squadrons use repaired air bases as forward operating locations, but the captured bases are, in general, too damaged and too far beyond the reach of the NATO transportation system to be used as main operating bases. Airlifting supplies is of limited utility, since the amount of tonnage delivered is actually quite small given the level of effort involved, especially since the USAF is reluctant to commit its heavy lift aircraft to landing in the forward combat zone.

Back in Germany, prewar depots are nearly empty and ports are under strain. Prewar planning had called for the use of the massive port complex in Antwerp, Belgium and the pipelines, roads and railroads leading from the English Channel through Belgium into Germany. With French and Belgian withdrawal from NATO, those routes are closed, forcing resupply from the UK and North America into Dutch and German ports. Rotterdam had been struck early in the war by Soviet missiles and the German ports on the North Sea have been subjected to repeated rounds of air and missile attack. The French and Belgian governments closed their borders to military supplies but permit civilian items, in controlled quantities, across. Those governments take a conservative view as to what constitutes civilian items, deeming diesel fuel, preserved foodstuffs and construction materials as military in nature. While by no means comparable to the situations in 1918 and 1944-5, the war impacts the daily life of the German population.

Panzergruppe Oberdorf reaches the Wisła at Sandomierz. The Polish defenders blow up the railroad bridge outside the town, but Soviet officers forbid demolition of the road bridge (as well as a pair of pontoon bridges) until it was too late, allowing the NATO force across the river.

German and British armored units of First German Army link up with the German paratroops of the 25th Fallschirmjaeger Brigade, cutting off the last route in and out of Warsaw.

The Soviet 11th Guards Army launches a counterattack on the left (northern) flank of Panzergruppe Westhoven that is halted by the commitment of the German 217th Panzergrenadier Division and heavy NATO artillery and tactical air support.

Northwest TVD scours the Murmansk area for additional armed troops to send to the front; the scattered security platoons, groups of recuperating sailors, stragglers from 6th Army and MVD guard detachments are too small and scattered to form into a new unit but are shipped to the front anyhow, fed into the units on the line as replacements. X Corps’ commander General Bryant commits what reserves he holds to buttress the deteriorating line along the Litsa. He commits the 111th Engineer Brigade’s combat engineer battalions to plug the gap that is threatening to open between the two divisions, reinforcing the engineers with the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment and the Luxembourg battalion, hastily transferred from the Rybachiy Peninsula. These forces, combined with sorties from the remaining close air support aircraft and the Soviet’s dreadful supply situation, slow the retreat from the Litsa but cannot halt the loss of territory.

The USS Coral Sea, (relatively) safely ensconced in the protected waters between the Danish islands and the northern German coast, resumes flight operations over Poland, supporting NATO troops of 2nd German Army.

In Thrace, the situation for the Turkish 1st Army borders on disaster as the Turkish withdrawal towards Turkey's border with Bulgaria threatens to become a rout. The 41st Infantry Brigade, covering the withdrawal of XV Corps, is surrounded by Soviet and Bulgarian troops south of Sredets, Bulgaria, and repeated desperate attacks are unable to break the grip of the Pact troops.

In the Persian Gulf, the Soviet 7th and 1st (my 9th) Armies attack the American and Iranian forces opposite them. The effort is successful in diverting aircraft from the battle for Bandar Abbas, but is a half-hearted effort that captures little ground in the plains of Kuzestan and the rugged Zagros.

The Echo II-class cruise missile submarine K-35 in the South China Sea succeeds in sinking another ship, the Liberian-flag tanker Laughlin Ace carrying a load of diesel to China.