[chico20854]

April 28, 1997

Esfahan falls to Soviet 4th Army. The commander of the detachment assigned to evacuate the Iranian Crown Jewels is killed in the fighting.

Unofficially,

A POW camp for Pact senior officers is established in Bedford, Pennsylvania at a requisitioned luxury resort. The press quickly discovers that the contract is a boondoggle to benefit the financially troubled hotel owner and that fewer than 20 colonels and generals have been captured by all NATO forces worldwide, only 7 of which have been evacuated to the US to date.

The final elements of the US III Corps cross the Oder River into Poland, the first American corps to fully deploy into the nation. The corps is facing the Soviet 3rd Shock Army and Polish 1st Army. The corps' 31st Air Defense Artillery Brigade is deployed towards the corps rear to protect the bridges that are the corps' lifeline to friendly territory, while the 89th Military Police Brigade patrols the corps rear area, evacuates captured enemy soldiers and refugees and escorts supply convoys. The roads and brigdes are maintained by detachment from the 411th (USAR) and 937th Engineer Brigades.

The first battalions of the 23rd Infantry Division arrive on the front lines in Korea. Assigned to IX Corps, the Americal Division is thrown into action holding the line against the North Korean onslaught. Losses are moderate and the division’s performance under fire is considered barely acceptable. (In this regard, the unit’s lack of training, nonstandard equipment and the perilous state of the logistic and personnel situation all hampered performance.)

A trio of convoys depart California. One, leaving San Diego, carries the reinforced 24th Marine Regiment, which is tactically loaded in amphibious assault ships. The second and third leave Los Angeles and Long Beach, respectively, carrying the remainder of the 4th Marine Division and 4th Marine Air Wing. The 23rd Marine Regiment's equipment is carried in the naval-owned transports of MPS Squadron 3, which had carried prepositioned equipment already discharged in the CENTCOM area. The remainder of the force is carried aboard a wide array of requisitioned merchant shipping, including seven Freedom-class ships and the troopship Golden Bear, in peacetime a training ship for merchant ship cadets.

The workers at the Gdańsk shipyard, the original members of the Solidarność trade union, form an ORMO regiment to defend their home city from a possible German onslaught.

The escort carrier Langley and frigate Connole are detached from escorting the westbound Convoy 133 to reinforce the badly depleted screen of Convoy 136 following the wolfpack attack on the 26th.

In the central Atlantic, the Enterprise battle group concludes its unsuccessful raider hunt near the Canary Islands and heads north.

While aircraft from the USS John F Kennedy and America bombard Libyan air defenses and oil installations, the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron (the 5th Operational Squadron) gets word of the American fleet's approach. It deploys a line of diesel submarines in a line south of Crete to detect the fleet's approach (and attrit the American force as the opportunity may present itself). Soviet subs sortie from Tartus and Latakia in Syria and Patras, Greece.