View Single Post
  #350  
Old 11-22-2022, 04:04 PM
chico20854's Avatar
chico20854 chico20854 is offline
Your Friendly 92Y20!
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Washington, DC area
Posts: 1,826
Default

November 22, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

The Freedom ship Toledo Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas.

FEMA commissions another evacuation center, this one a winterization and expansion of the campground at Vermont's Grand Isle State Park in Lake Champlain. The facility should be able to accomodate 1500 evacuees from Burlington, Vermont, Plattsburgh, New York or even more distant cities in New England. More controversially, the site is a mere 70 miles from Montreal; local emergency planners worry that the state may be burdened with supporting foreigners, even if they are allied civilians.

The battleship USS Missouri, operating in the Yellow Sea, is damaged by a conventional torpedo (one hit) in the bow from the Victor III-class attack submarine K-244 and heads for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii for repairs.

The British and American forces outside Nuremburg shift over to a defensive deployment, in many cases occupying defensive positions long planned for employment in the decades-long effort to defend West Germany from a Warsaw Pact invasion.

In Western Poland, corps commanders question the utility of holding bridgeheads over the Oder, pointing out that the NATO forces are in no condition to repeat the spring and summer's conquest of Poland and that the threat of infiltration and small size of the bridgeheads require troops to minimize dispersal, creating a lucrative target for Soviet nuclear weapons. The prior day's attack on Western TVD's bridging assets reduces the Pact's ability to threaten an assault crossing of the Oder as well, all arguing for a withdrawal from most of the positions east of the Oder-Niesse line.

In western Bavaria, the commander of XX Corps, facing off against exhausted Italian alpini mountain troops, requests reinforcements of artillery, engineers and modest armor forces to take advantage of the enemy's weakness and recapture territory. Unfortunately, 4th Army has no assets to send to the sector, such is the shortage of replacements, fuel, ammunition and spares.

Salvage specialists clear the entrance to the Danish port of Esbjerg that had been blocked by the Romanian freighter Ilfov, which had been sunk by Soviet bombs in an air raid over the summer. This effort clears a major obstacle to clearing the growing backlog of loaded ships in the North Sea. The backlog grows larger with the arrival of Convoy 310, which brings another 48 ships loaded with cargo.

Over the Baltic, an A-7E of the US Navy's VA-66, a survivor of the USS Coral Sea's air wing operating from the Danish Air Force Aalborg Air Station, intercepts a Soviet A-90 Orlyonok Ekranoplan craft flying at low level, ferrying a load of supplies into Poland. (Such is the desperate situation of the Pact forces; the craft carries a mere 28 tons of cargo). The A-7 diverts and downs the craft with several bursts of 20mm gunfire. Upon his return to base, the pilot is incensed that the squadron intelligence officer is uncertain as to credit the pilot with a "kill" (taking him closer to being an Ace) or with sinking a surface craft.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade in Kenya continues its fierce attacks on Tanzanian forces near Mombasa, defeating a planned Tanzanian attack before the forces can even get organized for an offensive.
__________________
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...
Reply With Quote