[chico20854]

December 24, 1997

Food riots begin in New York City as stockpiles of food dwindle. Whole armies of crazed people invade nearby neighborhoods, following rumors of secret stockpiles of food, water, or fuel, and the resultant slaughters leaves tens of thousands dead and dying in the streets. These rumors are sometimes true - a handful of dwellings - usually the upper floors of apartments and condominiums, and the penthouses of the very rich - had stocks of food before the attack. Some owners took what they could and fled. The majority are cleaned out by the owners to eat or trade with, and many are looted by hungry mobs or by street gangs. In many cases, however, the owners left their dwellings and fled or died... and stores of canned food and other valuables remain. Much of Harlem is ravaged by fires which raged through the district during the food riots, while the Columbia University security forces lead the defense of Morningside Heights from the fortifications above Morningside Park.

The Chinese suffer disproportionately during the riots. Largely ignored during the race riots of July 1997 (the Chinese, after all, were fighting the Russians), Chinatown is attacked and pillaged time and time again during the food riots. Hungry, raging mobs use the rationale that only "real Americans" have claim to the dwindling food supplies of Manhattan. Thousands of Chinese flee the island entirely, but thousands more die, murdered in the streets or killed when arsonist fires race uncontrolled through the shabby, crowded, substandard tenements which jammed the streets behind the shops and restaurants. The southern parts of the Bowery, much of TriBeCa and most of SoHo burn to the ground in the Chinatown fires as well. In the Lower East Side, the riots bring wholesale slaughter to the streets, particularly to older people who have been unwilling to flee to uncertain havens before the troubles began.

The inhabitants of Roosevelt Island take advantage of their natural isolation and the experience offered by one of their civic leaders, a retired Marine Corps officer, Colonel Randolph Phillips, to form a militia and maintain a semblance of order. The various hospitals on the island have large stocks of drugs and other items. Roosevelt Island's leaders, knowing the value of such supplies, see to it that several basement refrigerators are hooked up to alcohol-converted portable generators soon after the power went out. Here they store large supplies of gram positive, gram negative, and broad-spectrum antibiotics, saline, D5W and other IV fluids, anesthetics, morphine, and dozens of other drugs and supplies which are nearly impossible to find elsewhere in the city (or anywhere else in the country for that matter).

On Governors Island, the largest island in New York Harbor and the location of a military reservation named Fort Jay, the reservation is abandoned (the soldiers were more useful guarding critical buildings and intersections in Manhattan and Brooklyn than they were guarding the harbor from amphibious invasions).

Unofficially,

A secret meeting occurs between the Belgian Prime Minister and President of France. While nothing is announced to other members of their respective governments, let alone their publics, the idea of a Franco-Belgian Union is proposed by the French President, as a condition for substantial French aid to the badly damaged Belgium.

The container-barge carrier Sian Carrier is delivered in Quincy, Massachusetts to the US government. This is the last ship built in Quincy.

For the second year in a row, NORAD commanders are on watch for visitors from the North Pole that are not in a sleigh. Fortunately, none arrive.

Rainbow Six reports that local commanders order the withdrawal of all police and military personnel from Birmingham, effectively conceding control of the City to the mobs, many of whom have managed to arm themselves with weapons taken from the police or other troops who have been overrun.

NATO intelligence identifies a major grouping of Soviet and Polish forces, under command of the Baltic Front, massing in northwestern Poland opposite the reinforced II MEF. Commanders hastily order the diversion of the US V Corps, which has been pulled back from the front line in anticipation of redeployment to the German interior for reconstitution and to assist civil authorities, to the Szczecin bridgehead.

German territorial troops, mostly security forces and support units, in the areas west of the Rhine, try to manage the flow of refugees trying to reach the perceived safety of French and Belgian territory. The border is effectively closed by French military units but the stream of civilians continues.

The last Transatlantic convoy in the "normal" series, Convoy 314, arrives in the North Sea, carrying a vast array of spare parts, replacement vehicles, munitions, food and the vehicles of two of the medium transportation companies stood up in October. The G-4 (logistics officer) of US Army Europe has had time to carefully prepare for the use and distribution of this bonanza, aware both of the vast needs of his command and that this convoy is the last of the pre-exchange resupply. (Additional ad-hoc convoys will sail for Europe in 1998 and 1999, but this is the final one of 58 North Atlantic convoys organized by SACLANT since hostilities started in Norway in November 1996).

The 12th and 34th Air Armies, Transcaucasian Front's Frontal Aviation components, receive an influx of combat aircraft from other theaters as supplies of jet fuel in other regions dwindle. STAVKA has directed the transfer of a portion of combat-capable aircraft and their crews to the area where fuel is still somewhat plentiful and where Soviet airpower can make the greatest impact on the battlefield.

In the first of many clashes with loyalist forces, the 156th (my 190th) Motor-Rifle Division routs a patrol from the MVD's 52nd Specialized Motorized Regiment, a riot control unit sent from Novosibirsk to investigate the situation in the now-uncommunicative city of Barnaul.