On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

April 15, 1997

Advent Storm deep strike aircraft attack the State Chemical Establishments at Dwory in Silesia, setting it ablaze.

Unofficially,

Troops from the 56th New York State Guard Brigade, guarding the Mid-Hudson Bridge in Poughkeepsie, discover explosives on the bridge. A quick-thinking NCO pulls the blasting caps while the police bomb squad was enroute.

The cargo ship Reliance arrives in Long Beach to load vehicles and heavy equipment of the 40th Infantry Division.

photo
The troop ship Barrett is reactivated in Baltimore and moves to the Norfolk Port of Embarkation to load troops for Europe.

The 214th Field Artillery Brigade, an Active-duty unit at Fort Sill, Oklahoma with a single MLRS battalion and a Pershing II intermediate-range missile battalion, is placed on alert for possibly deployment to Germany.

The 164th Engineer Group (Combat) (North Dakota National Guard) is declared combat ready for Germany and begins movement to the front in Poland, ready to support the offensive. In the German Second Army area, the troops of the US 1st Infantry Division (now fully located on the east bank of the Oder) link up with the amphibious landing to the north.

US Navy Rear Admiral Thomas M. Lowell is promoted to the rank of Vice Admiral and assigned to US Naval Forces, Europe in London as the Deputy CINC.

Operation Sand Storm commences, with airstrikes from the Kennedy, Enterprise and America's air groups. The air strikes are quickly followed by an amphibious landing in Tripoli, Libya. (While the landing force was headed to the beach the Marines spontaneously began singing the Marine Corps Hymn, with its line about "the shores of Tripoli"). The landing is guided in by SEALs of Seal Team Four, landed from the submarine Hyman G Rickover.

The last flights carrying the troops of the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) arrive in Saudi Arabia.

The Soviet submarine K-534, operating in the Persian Gulf, attacks the Saudi corvette Hitteen, which was hunting for it following the attack on the Neve Hampton the prior day. The small Saudi ship disintegrates over the explosion of over 250 kg of high explosive. Patrol aircraft of VOJ-204 search for the Soviet sub; the Gulf's shallow waters make visual searching less futile than it would be in the open ocean. The squadron's HU-25 and Fokker F-27 aircraft have limited ASW capability, and ultimately the wily Soviet boat slips away, back out of the Gulf.

In the South China Sea, the convoy carrying the 28th ANZUK Brigade is located by a Soviet Tu-95 Bear recon aircraft flying out of the partially repaired Cam Ranh Bay airbase. The Soviet scout plane vectors the destroyer Vol'nyy on to the Allied force.

The Victor I-class sub K-469 sinks another bulk carrier headed into the Guinean port of Kamsar. The ship's loss is the final straw; the Guinean prime minister meets with the Soviet ambassador to inform him that Guinea will cease selling bauxite to warring nations. The presence of Soviet naval and air units in the city (and their lack of activity to quell the recent rioting) had a similarly telling effect on the prime minister.