View Single Post
  #54  
Old 01-01-2022, 06:28 PM
chico20854's Avatar
chico20854 chico20854 is offline
Your Friendly 92Y20!
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Washington, DC area
Posts: 1,826
Default

January 1, 1997

The meeting of NATO defense ministers concludes, issuing a statement that NATO heads of state have declared support for a Polish government in exile. The London-based government had operated in exile since September 1939 (when it had been run out of Poland by the Nazis) and still retained some items that supported its legitimacy - the presidential banner, the presidential and state seals, the presidential sashes, and the original text of the 1935 Constitution.

The British 1st Airborne Brigade is formed at Aldershot, England.

Unofficial:

photo
The US Navy orders the reactivation of Forrest Sherman and Decatur-class destroyers, held in mothballs for over 10 years (including DD-933, the USS Barry, which was a museum ship at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC). The reactivation places a further burden on shipyards already overloaded with ships damaged in the fighting in the Norwegian Sea, but the 17 ships would partially replace the losses of the last month.

The declaration by NATO heads of state also includes a call for the neutralization of the Soviet threat in the high north and authorization for NATO forces to sieze Murmansk.

The last Belgian forces are repatriated from Norway, where they had fought as part of the Allied Command Europe Mobile Force (Land). Tensions between Belgium and NATO rise as disputes arise about the disposition of property, personnel and equipment in Belgium and Germany. (An example of the tit-for-tat is the Belgian refusal to allow NATO to remove office equipment from the headquarters in Mons in retaliation for the German Ministry of Transport to authorise the transportation of ammunition stocks from ammunition dumps in Germany, ammunition that happens to be increasingly needed at the front and which was partially funded by NATO).

Turkish forces break out of the mountainous terrain along the Black Sea cost, capturing the town of Grudovo (Sredets), in position to threaten the road and rail lines to the vital port of Burgas.

NATO sealift planners conclude a major effort to adjust their fleet resources, eliminating the sizeable Greek merchant fleet and other nations that have left NATO and adding in the smaller Jugoslav, East German and Romanian merchant fleets, as well as the couple dozen Pact ships seized in port or on the high seas since the outbreak of war. The Romanian fleet is the most problematic, with nearly 40 percent in the Black Sea, mostly stuck in port lest they be sunk by the superior Soviet Black Sea Fleet while racing for the Bosporus.

The US submarine Bluefish slips through the Bosporus submerged underneath a supporting Turkish navy transport, en route to start a campaign against Soviet shipping in the Black Sea.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
Reply With Quote