February 20, 1998
The replica USS Constitution arrives in the Cape Horn area, discharging cargo for Capetown and picking up several American servicemen to replace crewmen lost to malaria.
Unofficially,
X Corps' offensive in Fairbanks makes slow progress as American paratroops carefully blast Soviet troops out of individual buildings. The 11th Airborne Division has few armored vehicles and its supporting artillery batteries are short of ammunition. Adding to the difficulty of the operation is the fact that the battlefield is still occupied by friendly civilians, requiring precision fires against enemy targets rather than more indiscriminate use of area-effect munitions to clear entire sectors.
The final American fighter aircraft of the war is completed, a F-20 Tigershark built at the Beechcraft aviation plant in Wichita, Kansas. Originally intended for delivery to South Korea, the aircraft is instead flown to Dover AFB, Delaware, Air Force authorities hoping that it can be partially disassembled, loaded aboard a C-5 transport plane and delivered to the CENTCOM AOR.
The next round of attacks against the embattled 158th Motor-Rifle Division in Bosnia begins. The Jugoslav forces have moved a platoon of four T-34/85 tanks captured from the division's 151st Tank Regiment from Saarajevo to outside the division's headquarters in Zenica, where they begin to systematically enage the position's strongpoints with precision heavy fire.
__________________
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...
|