[chico20854]

March 14, 1997

The canon is silent again today...

The Freedom-class cargo ship Minnesota Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas and the Warsaw Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The staff of 1st, 2nd and 3rd German Armies present their initial draft of the operations plan for Operation Advent Crown. While revisions are being made subordinate support units begin preparing staging areas and hauling supplies forward in preparation for the offensive.

The Canadian Navy commissions the patrol-minesweeper Shawinigan in Trois Rivières, Quebec, where it assumes local security duties in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

In the Yellow Sea, 7th Fleet launches Operation Speed Trap - unrestricted carrier raids on North Korean naval bases by the carriers Stennis and Abraham Lincoln.

The Divisional Support Command, 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) loads on transport aircraft at McChord AFB, Washington and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for transit to Saudi Arabia. The division's aviation brigade flies to Portland, Oregon, where its helos are shrink wrapped and loaded onto ships for transit to Saudi Arabia.

Headquarters, 10th US Air Force (USAF Reserve) deployed to Tempelhof International Airport, Berlin, Germany to serve as intermediate command between TWOATAF and USAF wings supporting NORTHAG.

The Iranian 43rd Tactical Fighter Training Squadron departs Pensacola, FL for home in its new F-20s. The squadron will fly to Point Salines, Grenada, Recife, Brazil, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Kigali, Rwanda, Mombasa, Kenya, Masirah, Oman and finally home to Dezful.

The Victory ship Wayne Victory arrives in Buenos Aires and begins to unload a cargo of scrap steel.

The Soviets, stung by the loss of a reinforced motor-rifle battalion in central Borujerd, redouble their efforts to smash Iranian resistance in the town. Limited arrivals of trucks constrain the Soviet artillery, which the enraged commander of 7th Army orders to level the city.

The Naval Spetsnaz team (from the Caspian Sea flotilla's battalion) that struck in the Strait of Hormuz arrives on Socotra Island, a South Yemenese territory in the northwestern Indian Ocean.

The Soviet raider Buliny heads west at high speed to withdraw from the range of the land-based South African Buccaneers before they can mass against the lone destroyer. As it speeds off, the Cypriot tanker Sun Saphire appears over the horizon, and the Soviets take the opportunity to set her ablaze with gunfire.