[chico20854]

February 11, 1998

The South St. Petersburg Defense Force, a grange-style resistance group, is organized by surviving property owners in the southern third of the city.

Unofficially,

Additional guerrilla attacks break out across occupied Dutch territory south of the Rhine. The remnants of the military government have coordinated the attacks by teams from the 2nd Amphibious Combat Group and the 104th Reconnaissance Battalion (a long-range deep penetration unit) against six separate French and Belgian installations. The attacks succeed in forcing the defending troops to lock down, allowing other Dutch agents and resupply activities to move freely in much of the occupied region.

The layup of ships at Cromarty Firth in northern Scoland concludes, with over 35 excess tankers and freighters stripped of food, fuel, lubricants, weapons and ammunition and many spare parts. The Canadian "destroyer" Assiniboine, which escorted the convoy to Scotland, departs, accompanied by the oilfield supply tugs Robu Seahorse and James Palmer, carrying the salvaged materiel and the ships' crews.

At sundown the resupply column that the commander of the 158th Motor-Rifle Divison is waiting on to launch his relief effort for the besieged 151st Tank Regiment finally arrives at the Zenica steel mill, the division headquarters. The dreadfully-equipped unit has minimal night fighting capability, so the troops of the relief column are sent to bed early prior to an early morning departure.

The commander of 22nd Support Command, the logistic organization supporting Third Army in the Persian Gulf, concerned about the long-term availability of fuel and other supplies for CENTCOM, receives permission from General McLaren to establish a floating fuel reserve at Diego Garcia. USNAVCENT (5th Fleet) is directed to identify a suitable excess supertanker (there are several at anchor in the Gulf), prepare it to serve as a storage vessel (cleaning tanks that had carried crude oil in preparation for refined products, storing containers of extra supplies on deck and augmenting the crew quarters and onboard repair facilities) and transfer it to Kharg Island, where it will gradually be filled with diesel, jet fuel and gasoline that can be spared from the small stream still being produced by Saudi, Bahrainian and Iranian refinery facilities.