On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

March 31, 1998

The 76th Guards Air Assault Division, which fought throughout the Norwegian and Kola campaigns, is withdrawn from the Murmansk area to the Leningrad area in an effort to improve the local security situation there.

40th Army, safely out of direct contact with Allied forces in Iran, reorganizes its remaining helicopter assets. It combines its four pre-war helicopter regiments (the 50th, 181st, 280th and 335th) and two independent squadrons (205th and 239th) into a single regiment, the 340th.

Following the loss of half the division's combat strength, the remaining troops of the 97th Guards Motor-Rifle Division are ordered to withdraw to Ploesti and secure the invaluable oilfields and refinery infrastructure, the largest and most intact in Europe.

Unofficially,

David Tokugawa, a highly successful salesman from Los Angeles who was gambling in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving, maneuvers himself into a position of leadership in one of the many bands of survivors who coalesced in the weeks after the Thanksgiving Day Massacre through a series of events that are poorly understood.

In the Yukon, the Soviet 1st Arctic Mechanized Brigade assumes occupation duty in the recently captured capital. The brigade's hovercraft have been heavily attrited by combat and lack of spare parts, and the terrain to the south is not as favorable to their use as it was in the Arctic tundra.

The Sierra II-class submarine K-443 rendevous with the Soviet fishing flotilla which is still operating in remote waters of the southern Pacific. The fishermen have arranged makeshift sails for their craft and adapted the engines for operation with a mix of fish oil and methane generated from organic waste.