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Old 09-13-2022, 02:26 PM
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chico20854 chico20854 is offline
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August 23, 1997

Nothing in the canon for the day.

The 47th Infantry Division retreats east from the Anchorage area, with its cavalry squadron (the 1st Squadron, 194th Cavalry (Minnesota National Guard)) and 682nd Engineer Battalion detached to man a blocking position to prevent Soviet forces advancing north from Valdez from cutting the division's evacuation route east into the Yukon. The 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) is retreating under heavy Soviet pressure northward along the Mat-Su Valley, hoping to delay the linkup of Soviet forces advancing out of Anchorage with those that came across the Bering Strait.

1st Byelorussian Front, opposite the US V Corps, with the 3rd, 5th and 7th Tank Armies, continues its pressure on the US V Corps. While the front's tanks are mostly less modern T-64s, T-80s and T-74s, the collapse of the Chinese front has allowed additional reinforcements and supplies to flow to the front, allowing it to push back the exhausted American (and Canadian) troops, strung out at the end of a long supply line from Dutch and German ports far to the west. To the south, 1st Western and Reserve Fronts, with two Polish and three Soviet armies under command, push back Third German Army.

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In beseiged Warsaw, rations for civilians are cut again, to 1200 calories per day for adults and 600 calories for children under 15.

The ferry Beauport, carrying a cargo of replacement vehicles for British troops, is struck by a mine in the North Sea and sinks.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade has completed its redeployment from Sicily and launches the first of its raids, with two companies from 3-325 AIR raiding Tympaki Air Force Base in Crete. The paratroops land before dawn and are supported by gunfire from the battleship Wisconsin, which not only seals off the area but inflicts major damage on Greek infrastructure all along the southern Cretan coast. The airborne force evacuates after four hours; the final C-130 to depart does not carry troops but instead drops a modified BLU-82 7.5-ton bomb on the runway to crater it and render it useless to the Greeks.

In Iran, the isolated troops of the 1st Marine Division continue to hold the airfield complex at Yadz, supported by vigorous counterattacks on the surrounding 40th Army by the isolated troops as well as the 3rd (my 4th) Marine Division operating north of Bandar Abbas. Heavy air support keeps the Soviet forces from massing to overwhelm any particular sector, and the surrounded division's centrally stationed mobile reserve (built around the two tank battalions, light armored recon and amtrack battalions) is able to respond quickly to enemy attacks. Nightfall begins a parade of transport aircraft into the pocket, bringing in food and ammunition and evacuating the wounded, while KC-130 tankers drain their tanks into the airfields' to support the division's operations.

The Soviet Minister of Agriculture reports that the amount of food grown will be adequate to support the nation but warns that completing the harvest and distributing it is going to be a severe challenge given the lack of trucks and manpower.

The Argentine submarine Salta is dispatched from the Mar del Plata naval base to the Falkland Islands to retreive the naval commando force that has been operating on the islands for several weeks. Orders are radioed to the team to cease patrolling and remain in place until the submarine arrives to retrieve them. A SAS team arrivies in the islands and begins to search for them.
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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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