[chico20854]

August 14, 1997

As nuclear attacks continue to strike Polish targets, a second wave of refugees arrive in the Wieliczka Salt Mine. They join others, mostly locals, who have been sheltering underground since June. The original residents have erected crude huts and tents, but these latest arrivals are forced to stay in vast common barracks in some of the mine's larger vaults and chambers.

Unofficially,

Naval fighter-attack squadron VFA-174, disbanded in June aboard the USS Independence after being reduced to 3 aircraft, is reactivated at NAS Leemore, California and assigned eight F/A-18s (three new production, three from the readiness squadron VFA-125 and two culled from test and evaluation duties). The "new" squadron's personnel are a mix of veteran VFA-174 personnel evacauted from the Middle East, new recruits and staff "borrowed" from the station's staff. It is assigned to the USS Ranger, which is in the midst of trying to reactivate an air wing after the heavy losses it suffered in Vietnam in January.

As the fighting in the ruins of the 1st of May Stadium in central Pyongyang has gone almost entirely underground, the commander of the Japanese 1st Airborne Brigade suddenly orders all Allied forces aboveground. Within an hour the order has been carried out, and one of the war's great atrocities unfolds when trucks arrive and begin dumping bags of dry chemicals on the ground by the entrances to the subterranean network. Right-wing officers soon pour liquid chemicals onto the bags and clouds of choking green chlorine gas, heavier than air, begin to form and sink into the tunnels below. Panicked North Korean troops, badly burned, are shot as they desperately try to escape the choking gas. The defense of Pyongyang has ended.

The headquarters, 2nd Marine Division prepares for the division to be reunited for the first time since the outbreak of war as each of its three subordinate MEBs are en-route to its location.

3rd Guards Tank Army launches another series of attacks westward, including with its relatively fresh 74th Tank Division, in an attempt to break through to Warsaw. To the north, 23rd Army continues its advance, with two divisions of elite paratroops (the 44th Guards Training and 106th Guards) in the lead.

The US 8th Marine Expeditionary Brigade re-embarks aboard amphibious shipping in the damaged port of Syracuse; they are being transferred to the Baltic.

The Albanian minister of defense reports that all the Army's 22 divisions have been fully formed and are in the process of issuing weapons and equipment and beginning training. At this news, the Albanian leader flies into a rage, demanding to know why it took so long, accusing the defense minister of wasting the vast sums dedicated to defense. As the startled communist leader stumbles to explain the diversion of resources to building bunkers, the lack of spare parts for the Chinese tanks, the inadequate numbers of officers, the constant diversion of men to support the economy and low education levels among the ranks he is instead arrested for treason.

The cat-and-mouse game over the North Atlantic resumes when a single Tu-22M2DP slips unnoticed over eastern Greenland and into the air lanes. The picking is slimmer than in the prior week, with a Canadian Air Force CC-137 (Boeing 707) of No. 437 Squadron falling victim to a missile, while the countermeasures aboard a USAF C-5B of the 436th Military Airlift Wing decoy the missile targeted at it. The tables are turned on the Soviets, however, when a USAF F-15 of the 57th Fighter Interceptor Squadron locates the Tu-16 tanker orbiting southwest of Spitsbergen that is waiting to refuel the Soviet interceptor on its return flight. The tanker is downed and the raider is quite surprised when it discovers that the aircraft it is rendezvousing with is an American fighter, which downs it with a long burst from its 20mm cannon.

The 9th Infantry Divison (Motorized), serving as the rear guard of XVIII Airborne Corps as it retreats back towards the Persian Gulf, has been pushed back to the town of Kazerun, in the western Zagros Mountains. The 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment, operating largely independently of other American units but supporting the Iranian II Corps, hangs on to the town of Behbehan as it is pressured by the 9th (my 1st) Army, and the joint American-Iranian armored force north of Bandar-Khomeyni has fought the 7th Army to a halt, taking advantage of the salt ponds of the area to channel the Soviets into a narrower front.