August 29, 1997
Noting official for the day!
The Freedom-class cargo ship Orlando Freedom is delivered in Portland, Oregon.
The first units of the 70th Guards Motor-Rifle Division begin loading their less-damaged vehicles aboard train cars in southern Mongolia for transit to Europe.
In North Korea, the American 23rd Infantry Division (Light) has its supply lines cut as it serves as the rear guard of the IX Corps retreating from the road and rail hub of Hyangsan in the mountainous center of the country.
Due to the chaotic situation behind the lines, the overburdened and ineptly run Soviet rail system finally delivers the last troop train containing the 9th Guards (my 32nd Guards) Tank Division to the front in Western Ukraine, where it joins 1st Guards Tank Army.
The 481st Tactical Fighter Squadron flies its first close air support sorties since early July, in support of the 10th Mountain Division's defense against the Italian 4th Alpini Corps in southwestern Germany.
The last American conventional troops depart Ukrainian territory as XI Corps withdraws westward; special operations forces remain behind, seeking targets for NATO nuclear weapons, organizing and assisting pro-NATO partisans and desperately searching for Soviet nuclear weapons and their delivery systems.
CIA operatives note the transit of trains carrying armored vehicles across the Dnieper River north of Zaporozhye. Within hours the trains have been located by American spy satellites.
The first flight departs Frankfurt, Germany carrying excess command and support personnel from the 40th Infantry Division, which has been reduced to one brigade by nuclear attacks earlier in the month.
Rifleman Goreng Nassang, VC, still with the 1/7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles in Iran, uses his trusty GPMG in defense of his company's position helping to hold the transport hub of Sirjan, Iran. He uses his gun in indirect fire mode; when combined with other guns from his platoon they catch a company of dismounted infantry from the 108th Motor-Rifle Division's 180th Motor-Rifle Regiment and inflict heavy casaulties and disrupting the Soviet attack.
The Royal Navy patrol craft Leeds Castle arrives off Port Stanley in the Falklands Islands. The ship had been pulled from its South Atlantic patrol ship duties earlier in the war, but the threat of Argentine adventurism has called for its return to the area.
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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...
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