July 6, 1997
Canadian troops moving east for transportation to Europe are redirected and sent west to be held as a strategic reserve in Alberta.
Unofficially,
The Soviet Minister of Defense, at the urging of the Chief of the General Staff, the commanders of the Western and Far Eastern TVDs, the chairman of GOSPLAN and the head of the Military-Industrial Commission, requests a meeting of the Presidium of the USSR, the subgroup of the Politburo that oversees STAVKA and provides political direction of the overall war effort. At that meeting he is joined by the chair of the KGB and the Minister of the Interior (who controls the MVD Internal Troops) and summarizes the grave situation the Soviet war effort is facing. The ability of the Red Army to resist is collapsing in the Far East and the situation on the Western Front is likely to be in a similar situation within days as NATO troops cross the Soviet border in multiple sectors. The situation in the Balkans is proceding slowly, and the expansion of the war into Austria is further stressing the war effort. The North Korean Army is on the verge of collapse and Soviet troops are giving ground in Iran. Within the USSR the economy is in dire straits, ethnic tension and resistance to the war is growing while industrial production is slowing while the GRU reports ever increasing Western armaments production. He concludes by stating that the USSR has not been in such peril since the dark days of 1942 and urges an immediate renewal of the peace talks, with an offer of a worldwide immediate ceasefire in place as a sign of good faith.
The US 11th Airborne Division (less 3rd Brigade) is declared combat ready, although awaiting a full unit set of equipment, short of communications gear, helicopters, parachutes, HMMWVs and LAVs due to the needs of units at the front.
The Soviet 130th Air Assault Brigade, which was devastated by American fighters en route to their parachute drop on Shemya Island, Alaska, reduced to scattered and confused elements distributed all over the island (as well as troops on the nearby unihabited Aliad and Nizki Islands), struggles to overrun Eareckson Air Station, fiercely defended by a force of Alaska National Guardsmen, Air Force Security Forces and station personnel, sailors and Coast Guardsmen.
Cadets of the 10th California Cadet Brigade begin first aid, traffic control and disaster relief training at the El Toro Marine Corps airbase in Orange County.
B-52 bombers of the 43rd and 320th Bomb Wings strike Soviet air defense sites, coastal artillery positions, command posts, communications facilities and army garrisons in the Kurile Islands.
More secret convoys evacuate the Kim family from Pyongyang, each member travelling separately in a military convoy to various secret underground command posts and hideaways. A force of determined North Korean Army troops take heavy losses trying to hold open the last road leading out of the capital.
A Dutch Red Army attack on the nuclear weapons depot at Doornspijk is repulsed before breaching the perimeter.
photo photo
The Warsaw Pact launches an attack on Austria, with the Czechoslovakian 2nd Army and Soviet 28th Corps driving on Vienna and Lower Austria from the Bratislava area and 2nd Southwestern Front attacking from the East. Simultaneously, the 1st Southwestern Front launches a series of spoiling attacks along the lines in Bavaria to tie down Seventh US Army, I Dutch Corps and the German territorials.
In southeastern Poland, XI US Corps makes progress, entering the city of Rzeszow as the force moves forward along the foothills of the Carpathians. To their north, Panzergruppe Oberdorff reaches the Soviet border, the 46th Engineer Brigade assisting the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized)'s Engineer Regiment in breaching the defenses along the Soviet border, one of the first US Army ground units on Soviet soil since the allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1918-20.
NATO forces assembled for the Kola Campaign begin to disperse. X Corps headquarters is flown back to Alaska to command the units responding to Soviet attacks in the 49th state.
HQ, XV Corps arrives in Germany. 7th Army plans to use the command along the Czechoslovakian border in East Germany, replacing VII Corps which is now on the Ukrainian border.
The front in Romania is largely static as Turkish and Romanian troops enjoy a respite as Soviet units are starved of fuel and ammunition, which has been diverted to other fronts. The American 71st Airborne Brigade continues to hold its positions outside Deva, Romania as its S-4 (logistics officer) frantically tries to establish a secure transport route for supplies to travel along, since the Adriatic Sea is now a war zone with Greek and Italian forces interdicting its entrance.
The Victory ship Wayne Victory arrives in Bandar Abbas and begins the discharge of its deck cargo of telephone poles, which are immediately used to repair the city's shattered communications system.
Third Army's Provost Marshall reports that 90 percent of the Soviet POWs captured in May's landings in Iran have now been evacuated to the United States, largely aboard transport aircraft that were leaving the region after discharging troops or cargo.
The carrier Lexington and her battle group are dispatched from the southern Gulf of Mexico into the Caribbean to hunt down the Soviet raider. It is supported by the HU-25 surface search aircraft of VOJ-202 composed of USCG personnel and aircraft, operating from the Muniz Air National Guard base in Puerto Rico.