May 10, 1997
The French FAR completes the movement and reception stage of its deployment to Mauritania and Senegal.
Unofficially,
The Freedom ship Albuquerque Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas.
Supply officers at First Army headquarters deny the supply request submitted by the commander of the MP guard company at the Bedford, Pennsylvania POW camp. The commander there requested nearly a battalion's worth of armored vehicles, including four M-1A2 tanks, to "support his mission guarding high-value Pact prisoners".
1st Battalion, The Gloucestershire Regiment is withdrawn from Northern Ireland and returned to the UK prior to redeployment to Poland.
photo
Troops of the 28th ANZUK Brigade are on the receiving end of one of the last North Korean assaults of the 1997 campaign, when the 20th Motorized Infantry Division attemps to bash a hole in the Allied lines. The Commonwealth troops, operating in difficult terrain, contain the desperate North Korean assault, assisted by artillery fire from the South Korean 4th and 7th Field Artillery Groups, which break up the North Korean troops massing for each wave attack.
Gliwice targeted by NATO airstrikes, receiving heavy damage like its neighboring towns. NATO forces under command of the Third German Army advance up the Oder River valley against scattered Pact resistance, composed largely of ORMO, OTK and ZOMO units that lack adequate artillery and air support. Polish forces, however, have held the city of Wroclaw. The NATO commander, General Rudolph Beck, orders the city pounded into submission, committing the German 23rd Artillery Brigade, the US 209th Field Artillery Brigade, the artillery of his subordinate formations and the B-52s of the 416th Bomb Wing into reducing the city.
Saami anti-Soviet partisans attack a Soviet supply convoy travelling the main road to Murmansk, destroying a dozen trucks carrying supplies to 18th Army.
The Norwegian freighter Hugh Mascot, damaged by a Soviet mine in the North Sea in March, emerges from the shipyard in Bremen.
The escorts of Convoy 140 intercept and sink the Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine B-4 as the aged sub ran shallow, running its diesels through its snorkel to recharge its batteries.
photo
Southern Front commits the 58th Army fully to containing the Turkish drive in Bulgaria. The 82nd Motor-Rifle Division's 36th Tank Regiment, equipped with T-64s, attacks west through the foothills on the southern edge of the Turkish salient, with the Bulgarian border guards riding atop the tanks. Simultaneously, the Bulgarian 9th Tank Brigade, released from the 1st Bulgarian Army, attacks the base of the salient from the west, while Soviet Long-Range Aviation commits three regiments of bombers to carpet bomb the roads leading out of the mountains. The attack is successful in cutting off the Turkish lead division, the 8th Infantry. The Bulgarian border guards dismount the tanks and, having been liberally supplied with RPGs by their Soviet commander, hold their blocking positions against Turkish counterattacks from both north and south.
Headquarters, XXIII Corps arrives at Berlin-Schonefeld Airport, Germany.
Convoy 142 forms in the Gulf of Mexico, heading to Europe. A follow-on to Convoy 140, it will carry the 32nd Infantry Brigade, the 118th Field Artillery Brigade and the lead elements of the 50th Armored Divison.
The ships carrying the vehicles, guns and heavy equipment of the 434th Field Artillery Brigade arrive in Saudi Arabia after a nearly month-long voyage from New Orleans around the southern tip of Africa and through the Indian Ocean.
The 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light) is moved into Iran, landing in Khorramshar to reinforce the 24th Infantry Division in pursuit of the retreating 104th Guards Air Assault Division.
photo
The 101st Air Assault Division takes the next leap into the Zagros, sending its Third Brigade to secure the town of Ardakan.