[chico20854]

February 13, 1998

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

Having taken longer to gather resources and sufficient recruits, the headquarters, 2nd Battalion and various support units of the 30th Marines completes its formation and begins loading aboard the tank landing ships USS Boulder and Schenectady and the small (former East-)German coaster Johstadt, which have shallow enough drafts to make their way up the river to the small port at Port Royal, adjacent to the unit's home station of Parris Island, SC. Additional troops are ferried by landing craft to the USS Spiegel Grove (I have the USS Hermitage), an antiquated (built in 1956) amphibious assault ship pulled out of mothballs at the outbreak of the war.

Following up on the prior day's flight, the 50th Tactical Fighter Wing launches a raid on Pact military targets in western Poland. Eight F-16s (of a variety of models) take off from Jever Air Base in northern Germany and cross the Jutland Peninsula before heading out over the Baltic, turning south over Bornholm Island to cross the Polish coast. With two aircraft laden with AMRAAM and Sidewinder missiles flying at 10,000 feet as top cover, the rest of the flight stays at low level before splitting into three two-ship teams to strike various targets identified by yesterday's sortie and other methods (radio direction-finding and agents on the ground). One team hits the road junction at Świebodzin with cluster bombs, one strikes a suspected artillery battery with more cluster bombs and the final flight strikes the radio relay site attacked the day before. Within an hour all eight aircraft have returned safely.

The Dutch container ship Nedlloyd Van Neck, carrying a partial cargo of foodstuffs, clothing and used cars from Latin America, strikes a mine in the North Sea northwest of Vlissingen and sinks.

As the situation of the 151st Tank Regiment in Sarajevo grows more desperate (the last of the fuel is being stretched to hopefully last another day), the relief column south of Zenica remains surrounded, unable to advance or withdraw. The division commander's pleas for support from 26th Army and Southern Front are approved, and as the long and desperate afternoon for the surrounded Soviet troops drags on a single MiG-21 flies overhead. The pilot is unable to identify any enemy positions through the overcast and drops his bombs on empty forest before returning to base.