On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

May 23, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

The passes in Washington State's Cascade Mountains have cleared enough for Janet Clancy, daughter of the late Vice President Pemberton, her father, two Secret Service bodyguards and the family's cook to emerge from the remote cabin where they have sheltered since the Thanksgiving Day Massacre.

In the early morning hours the Japanese minesweeper Takashima declares the area between the damaged Rhode Island Freedom and the nearby port of Kokura "reasonably clear" of mines. The American freighter is towed into the harbor, where it is determined that the ship has taken on so much water that it has to be partially unloaded to avoid running aground before reaching the pier.

After two days in Swedish military custody, CIA officer David Hudson is transferred to a plainclothes civilian who identifies himself as a police officer. (He is likely an intelligence agent. Hudson knows better than to inquire.) They depart on the afternoon ferry to the mainland.

The Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Brigade in eastern Siberia decides to strike out overland, abandoning the Trans-Siberian Railroad, which is pockmarked with craters from American nuclear bombs dropped by B-2s flying "Golden Spike" missions along the route.

[chico20854]

May 24, 1998

Delayed by the effects of the nuclear strikes of 1997, a second convoy finally arrives from the US two months after it was originally supposed to arrive, bringing reinforcements and vitally needed ammunition as well as a single USANG jet fighter squadron. Accompanying the convoy are several naval auxiliaries that escaped the nuclear attacks on Norfolk and Charleston that have been assigned for CENTCOM.

Unofficially,

When Rear Admiral Scott McDowell receives word that his cousin June Flaherty has been named President he reaches out to her regarding his plan to use his command to assist in the recovery of New England.

Maritime salvage experts examine the mine-shattered Rhode Island Freedom and determine that the ship requires more significant repair than can be economically performed in the challenging environment of post-nuclear Kyushu. Local authorities declare the ship a total loss and, incidentally, seize it as well as its cargo of foodstuffs.

Professor Kristof Cikowski at the University of Lodz conceives of a way to restore operation to the millions of computers damaged by Electro-Magnetic Pulse by means of a hard-wired device to simulate the function of the computer's chip. He approaches University officials for approval to pursue the project.

[chico20854]

May 25, 1998

Canon is silent on today. Unofficially,

First Maritime Defense District commander MacDowell presents his plan to the new President. He provides Flaherty with specific language that enables him to escape control by any authority short of the Joint Chiefs, if he so chooses. Flaherty's staff write the orders, and already completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the job, she signs off on MacDowell's scheme after a few cursory questions and without consulting the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Specialist Cutler, in Germany, is reassigned from his comfortable duties attempting to repair and maintain HMMWVs and other vehicles assigned to 1st Battalion, 188th Air Defense Artillery, part of the 36th Infantry Division to one of the division's front-line battalions, the 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry. Upon arrival he is quickly disavowed of any notion that he is there to maintain vehicles - he is put on duty overnight in a listening post 500 meters beyond the battalion's front line.

David Hudson, the CIA agent who was recently exfiltrated from northeast of Moscow, accompanied by a plainclothes Swedish official, is given a train and bus ticket to the small port town of Kl$desholmen on Sweden's west coast.

In Jugoslavia, the reformed JSA force in the center of the country overruns Soviet positions in the town of Bosanska Dubica, sweeping down the valley of the Una River that forms the border between the republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The cruiser USS Virginia calls in Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, where it takes on fresh water and trades some of its store of frozen fish (which the crew is more than tired of eating) for some fresh mutton. The ship's captain consults with the commander of the Falklands Defense Force on the situation in the region, and obtains permission to remain for a few days to allow the crew some time ashore and to make some minor repairs to the ship. The British are unable to provide any ammunition to replenish the cruiser's depleted magazines.

[chico20854]

May 26, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Overwhelmed by the demands of the job and by the emotions invoked by the prior day's Memorial Day commemoration (a particularly solemn occasion given the nation's losses in the past 18 months), President June R. Flaherty, America's first female President, commits suicide.

In Mexico, the PRI (the semi-authoritarian party that ruled the country for over 75 years prior to the unrest of the mid-90s) calls for the caretaker government to step down, the military to restore order in the capital and the nation to demand dignified treatment of its citizens over the border in the U.S. The appeal is widely popular, but denounced by the PAN party (which holds the reins of the caretaker government) as posturing and detached from the reality of trying to govern a shattered nation.

Following the capture of the bridges over the Danube at Erbach an der Donau, 41st Army shifts its main line of effort to the northwest, heading for Stuttgart. Having taken a beating in the Danube crossing operations, it is reinforced by the Italian 3rd Corps on its western flank.

Engineers assigned to the 29th Infantry Division (Light) in Yemen restore the operation of one of the Aden refinery's extraction units, turning out 8,800 barrels of diesel, kerosene and gasoline daily. The unit requires a regular supply of Kuwaiti crude and waterborne service to take the product away; cleaning requirements dictate that these be on different tankers, or at least in separate tanks serviced by separate pumps and piping aboard a single tanker.

[chico20854]

May 27, 1998

The federal civilian government ceases to exist. The Joint Chiefs of Staff assume de facto control of the remainder of the executive branch.

Unofficially,

MacDowell wastes no time consolidating his new command. He abandons Cape Cod wholesale, taking everything and everyone of value from the Massachusetts Military Reserve. MacDowell even manages to scoop up a number of Coast Guard Auxiliary and Coast Guard Reservists who have been operating under Holsbirger's orders. Holsbirger is furious, but there is nothing he can do except hang onto everything he has left after MacDowell makes his grab.

The Soviet 16th Army, its fuel tanks refilled with Romanian diesel, launches an operation to drive the US VII Corps out of Ansbach. Its 57th Guards Motor Rifle Division launches a dawn attack on the outposts of the 1st and 36th Infantry Divisions, supported by the artillery of the 93rd Guards Motor-Rifle Division and the 168th Artillery Brigade. The American corps commander brings reserve companies into the town from outlying positions to the east and west of the city, relying on the scouts of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment to screen his flanks.

CIA agent David Hudson is escorted aboard another small craft in the fishing port of Kl$desholmen, Sweden, which sets sail after dark. Once out of territorial waters the craft is revealed as a CIA high speed transport craft, fitted with a pair of powerful diesel engines that propel the craft at 30 knots west.

Captain Christensen of the replica USS Constitution trades some of her stash of diamonds for a towed 20mm PIVAD gun and 15 .50-caliber M2HB machineguns.

[chico20854]

May 28, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

After slightly over a month in the Upper East Side marauder gang Hells Own, former Corporal Nathan Snyder instigates a fight with one of the other gang members, a tough former street fighter from Queens who seems to enjoy a higher "status" within the group. Snyder defeats the other member after a rough and tumble dustup that ends with Snyder's M9 bayonet at the other gangster's throat.

After a week of evaluation, regional military commanders have proposed several key transportation routes within the U.S. The intracoastal waterway from Norfolk to Brownsville, Texas, the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio-Tennessee-Red River and Columbia-Snake River systems, coastal shipping along the west coast and from Hampton Roads to Maine are identified as the key water routes; strategic rail lines are identified from San Diego to Kansas City, Chicago, Buffalo and Boston; New Orleans to Green Bay and Chicago to Salt Lake City, continuing on to San Francisco.

The fighting for Ansbach, Germany continues as the lead battalions of the 57th Guards Motor-Rifle Division's 170th Guards and 174th Guards Motor-Rifle Regiments, veterans of hard fighting from the war's outbreak, gain the cover of the city's buildings. One of those structures is held by an extremely frightened Specialist Randolph Cutler, who has never seen battle in his months in Germany. The corps commander commits more of his precious reserves of ammunition and fuel to the city's defenders.

To the east, the British defenders of Nurenburg find themselves under increasing pressure from the Hungarians of the 1st Corps and the German 1st Korps is under attack by the Czechoslovakian 1st Army.

US Navy technical teams establish reliable connections between the permanently moored frigate Samuel Eliot Morison and shore, enabling the ship to provide reliable power to critical infrastructure on Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf.

The South African Army destroys what turns out to be the last AWB roadblock on a rural road outside the small town of Loxton. A Ratel 90 of the Regiment Oranjerivier takes out the bunker with three high explosive rounds.

[chico20854]

May 29, 1998

Another day with nothing in canon. Unofficially,

A landowner and his extended family arrive at the border of the Ho-Chunk tribal territory in west-central Wisconsin, demanding access to his family cabin which had been in his family for generations before being appropriated to house members of the Ho-Chunk tribe. He refuses to leave and tensions rise. One of his sons shoots the head of the checkpoint's militia force and the militiamen in overwatch positions in the trees open fire, killing all the adults and several of the children. The tribe adopts the children to raise as tribal members, unwilling to abandon them (the oldest is 7) in the chaos of post-nuclear America.

Word slowly spreads of the death of the last President of the United States. FEMA's Central Location Service, whose role is to continually track each successor at all times, to make sure all of them are never in the same place at the same time and locate the next successor in line, has broken down and it is unclear if any Senate-approved cabinet members remain alive. (The senior Senate-approved appointee in Virginia is the Acting Secretary of Agriculture, the former Deputy Director of the US Forest Service).

CIA agent David Hudson arrives at the British port of Sunderland, where he is dropped off by the CIA transport he is traveling on. During the voyage he is given a cover identity and a small amount of cash, allotted a month's leave following his long, arduous escape from the USSR, and ordered to begin rebuilding the CIA's network in the UK after he recovers.

As a third day of fighting continues in Ansbach, Germany, 16th Army commits a regiment, the 110th Guards Motor-Rifle, to reinforce the embattled 57th Motor-Rifle Division. The fighting in the city is a ruse, however, for as darkness falls the Soviet's main blow falls east and west of the city. Lead by several volleys of BM-21 and BM-27 rocket fire, the last of which contain HCN blood agent chemical rounds, artillery batters VII Corps' outposts. As the artillery fire diminishes the ground attack begins, the massed tanks of the 19th Guards and 20th Tank Divisions in the armored attack long feared by generations of American soldiers in Germany. The tank assault is successful, pushing back the pickets of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (to the west of the city) and a composite cavalry force composed of the 1st and 36th Division's divisional cavalry squadrons (the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry and 36th Cavalry Squadron (Composite), respectively) defending the city's eastern approaches.

The Soviet nuclear attack submarines - the damaged Akula-class K-154 and the Sierra-class K-231 - that had been operating in the South Atlantic arrive off Maputo, Mozambique. They are distressed to discover that the city's harbor was destroyed in December by South African nuclear bombs and that the surviving friendly shipping has also been sunk.

[chico20854]

May 30, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Despite the desire of X Corps commanders to complete the pursuit of retreating Soviet forces back to Anchorage, they are unable to do so. The command is effectively frozen in place by lack of supply, cut off from overland connection to the rest of the US and Canada by Soviet forces in Yukon, landlocked, and with air supply nonexistent. The corps' soldiers are sustaining themselves by hunting, trapping and fishing as well as relying on the generosity of grateful civilians.

RainbowSix reports that a number of Warsaw Pact prisoners, led by Captain Nikolai Konev, a Spetsnaz officer captured in Norway, break out of the Okehampton POW Camp in Devon.

Having completed the unloading of stores, fuel, lubricants and the portion of the cargo consisting of foodstuffs from the shattered Freedom-class transport Rhode Island Freedom, authorities in Kokura, Japan establish radio contact with US 8th Army officials in Korea informing them that the ship's cargo of vehicles (nearly entirely composed of 3/4 and 5/4-ton trucks) are available for the Americans to pick up at their leisure.

Sunrise finds the lead regiments of the 19th Guards and 20th Tank Divisions cautiously advancing across open ground outside Ansbach, Germany, under constant harassing fire from American cavalry scouts and field artillery. The understrength tank battalions advance along the same frontage that prewar doctrine dictates for full-strength units, avoiding concentrations that would render them attractive to NATO tactical nuclear strikes; the American defense is severely hindered by the near-total depletion of anti-tank missile stocks. Within the town, the commanders of the 1st and 36th Infantry Divisions issue orders for their MP companies to escort excess support and service units out of the city, while shifting hard-pressed infantry battalions to prepare defenses on the flanks. A relieved Specialist Cutler is assigned to create a hardened fighting position in the basement of a gasthaus on the city's eastern edge; he is overjoyed to discover an untapped keg of beer in the cellar. The work is quickly abandoned as he enjoys some of Germany's finest, despite his deep affection for his native Pittsburgh's Iron City.

The DIA first identifies Nhaziern Khazi's band of marauders, one of hundreds of such groups they are tracking the existence of.

[chico20854]

May 31, 1998

Another day with nothing in canon. Unofficially,

42nd Infantry Division deserter Nathan Snyder has found himself a girlfriend within the Hells Own marauder gang in New York - the gang's informal leader's little sister.

In Lodz Poland, Professor Kristof Cikowski makes a presentation of his idea to a joint committee of other electrical engineering professors and the university's Communist Party leadership. They view his concept skeptically and are reluctant to allocate scarce resources to his project, but reluctantly authorize him and two graduate students to be exempt from mandatory civil works duties, which normally consume over 20 hours of labor each week, and permit him to scavenge the campus for electronic materials and parts that may be useful in his project.

North of Ansbach, Germany the lead regiments of the 19th Guards and 20th Tank Divisions link up, cutting off most of the American 1st and 36th Infantry Divisions in the town. Specialist Cutler's fire team leader and squad leader are killed by a Soviet mortar barrage, leaving him unsupervised. He retreats to the safety of the cellar and the welcoming tap of the keg it shelters. Responding to the envelopment, V US Corps begins movement south from its winter quarters to the northwest around Fulda. 16th Army rushes troops forward to reinforce the encircling force, denying the commander of the 19th Guards' 99th Reconnaissance Battalion's request to pursue the retreating American support elements. The Soviet force is becoming increasingly constrained by supply shortages, however, with artillery commanders having to ration rounds and the deputy commander for the rear scouring the territory they are occupying for German tank trucks (military or civilian) to augment the Army's to move fuel to forward troops.

To the west of Ansbach, 41st Army and the Italian 3 Corps have captured the town of Esslingen, outside Stuttgart.

The American cruiser USS Virginia departs Stanley in the Falklands Islands, its fresh water tanks full and with a slightly better rested and fed crew. The weather is awful as the full South Atlantic Winter buffets the region.

American advisors detached from the 101st Air Assault Division assist newly-trained Iranian troops of the 9th Airmobile Brigade in their first offensive operation. The IPA force makes a dawn air assault from a collection of UH-1s and various other variants (two-engine Bell 212s and four-rotor Bell 412s, from a variety of manufacturers) on a marauder stronghold in the mountains northeast of Bushehr. The raid is successful, with light Iranian casualties and nearly half the sleeping bandit force captured alive.

[chico20854]

June 1, 1998

The replica USS Constitution obtains a cargo of food and general supplies for the population of the Azores.

Unofficially,

map
The day finds the military in the continental US widely spread on disaster relief, internal security and food distribution duties. There are less than three division equivalents of fully equipped combat troops (the 49th AD, 42nd ID and 194th and 197th Brigades), three other trained divisions (the 4th AD, 17th AbnDiv and 46th ID) and a number of independent regiments and brigades that are trained but lack equipment and a wide range of training units as well as scattered military police and engineer units supporting civilian government functions.

The Joint Chiefs, who have had plenty to do from the moment they took charge, become aware of the new orders concerning the First Maritime Defense District. Flaherty hadn't consulted them. Eventually, minutes of the day reveal that the President, who had committed suicide, had executed some sort of orders regarding the Coast Guard and Navy chains of command in New England.

The major decision the Joint Chiefs make today, however, is to cut the allocation of food provided by military units to civilians to 1200 calories a day, in response to dwindling reserves and the arrival of fresh food in many gardens across the country.

The group of escaped POWs from the Okehampton POW camp splits up, with most of the men following Captain Konev. He decides to head to the safety of the Dartmoor Forest.

With Pact forces continuing their advances in southern Germany, the Royal Canadian Air Force decides to evacuate its remaining base in the region, at BadenSoellingen. (The RCAF base at Lahr was obliterated by a Soviet SS-20 IRBM in November). The USAF dispatches a C-130 of the 180th Tactical Airlift Squadron (Missouri Air National Guard) to evacuate the stockpile of tactical nuclear bombs and the American security element; its departure flight is escorted by the remaining six flyable CF-18s (F/A-18s) of 439 Squadron RCAF. A convoy of ground vehicles leaves at dusk, carrying ground crews, command staff and what tools and spare parts can be hastily gathered.

In surrounded Ansbach the American troops that are veterans of the long retreat across Poland coach the young replacements about how to break out of Soviet encirclement; the terrified Specialist Cutler, obviously drunk, retreats to the safety of his cellar as Soviet mortar barrages disrupt the defenders' activity.

The largest of the Italian-supported puppet armies in Jugoslavia, the Croatian Nationalist Army, musters two brigades as the Italians begin a mass conscription campaign that drafts boys and men from age 14 to 65.

[chico20854]

June 2, 1998

The United Brotherhood of Fishermen seize Cape Cod.

Unofficially,

The reaction to the news of the cut to food allocations is quick and violent. Rioting breaks out in areas around the nation as desperate civilians attempt to seize the food that the military is refusing to deliver. In California, Texas and Arizona the rioting is directed at refugee camps sheltering tens of thousands of Mexican refugees, who are (unfairly) blamed for "stealing the food that rightfully belongs to Americans". The attacks on the refugee camps turn into massacres, as overwhelmed security forces are unable (and in some cases unwilling) to protect their charges.

The American breakout from Ansbach starts at dawn. VII Corps' composite cavalry force composed of the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry and 36th Cavalry Squadron (Composite), outside the pocket on the east side and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, outside on the west, launch probing attacks to discover the weakest points along the encircling forces line. 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry achieves success against the 19th Guards Tank Division, and is able to identify its opponent as the 37th Guards Tank Regiment, locating its headquarters as it becomes apparent that the Soviet force is nearly immobile. (It turns out that the regiment's force of T-62 tanks is, in fact, nearly out of fuel, the convoy of trucks dispatched to refuel them lost in the German countryside). The regimental headquarters' location is quickly passed up the chain of command and within 15 minutes it is hit by a 1.1-kiloton artillery round fired by a 8-inch howitzer of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Artillery, assigned to the 210th Field Artillery Brigade. The American cavalry force, reinforced by the 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (attached from V Corps) launches an attack in the immediate aftermath of the strike and within an hour makes contact with the 1st Infantry Division's 4th Battalion, 37th Armor. Under an umbrella of supporting artillery fire from the massed artillery batteries of VII Corps, reinforced by guns of the 135th Field Artillery Brigade (Missouri National Guard) from 4th Army, the two encircled divisions evacuate the city.

As the final Bradleys leave the burning town, a terrified Specialist Randolph Cutler decides that the evacuation is too perilous and that he is best off in the gasthaus basement with its stockpile of food and quarter-keg of fine Bavarian lager.

The Shiraz state munitions plant in Iran opens a new facility on the outskirts of the city, turning out one ton of TNT high explosive daily.

[chico20854]

June 3, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

As the Joint Chiefs learn the sordid details of MacDowell's coup they have far bigger fish to fry. MacDowell still obeys orders (albeit not always from the Commandant of the Coast Guard or Atlantic Fleet Headquarters) and is maintaining control of a useful cantonment where so many others have simply melted away or turned warlord. The orders granting MacDowell his unique command are never altered.

A luxury hotel complex in Acapulco, Mexico hosts a gathering of shadowy power brokers who seek to take advantage of the situation to enrich themselves and end the chaos that threatens to overtake the entire nation.

The Danish Expeditionary Corps and IV German Korps fall back on Stuttgart under pressure from 41st Army and the Italian 3rd Corps.

VII US Corps, having broken out of Ansbach, retreats through Wurzburg as 16th Army commits the relatively fresh 93rd Motor-Rifle Division to join the 20th Tank Division in pursuit.

In Ansbach, troops of the 57th Guards Motor-Rifle Division search the now-quiet city block by block; the search is slow as the veteran troops search for booby traps as well as booty from the wealthy West German homes and businesses. Specialist Cutler remains in his cellar, hopelessly drunk and oblivious to the situation outside.

The cruiser USS Virginia, patrolling the approaches to the Cape of Good Hope, overtakes one of the Soviet trawlers that escaped the carnage that the ship and the South Africans inflicted on the massed South Atlantic Soviet fishing fleet. The nuclear-powered ship draws alongside and sends a boarding party aboard, which seizes the trawler's cargo of (more) frozen fish as well as lubricants and much of the trawler's fuel, leaving only enough for the Soviet crew to limp into the nearest Argentine port where they will likely be interdicted.

[chico20854]

June 4, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

In the aftermath of the effective final collapse of the civilian federal government, there are no remaining USDA officials to raise the alarm that, as the spring planting season comes to an end, only 40 million acres (seven percent of the 521 million acres planted in 1997) have been planted, mostly on small farms that are more fuel-intensive than large tracts. (This is not entirely a negative, as the smallholdings are more advantageous for working by the masses of refugee labor that are providing much of the power for the American farm of 1998).

In Northern Ireland the fighting between Catholic Republicans (supported by the armed fighters of the IRA and Irish Army) and largely Protestant Loyalists (represented on the battlefield by the British Army Ulster Defense Regiment, the civilian Royal Ulster Constabulary and a loose alliance of armed loyalist militias), which has been largely stagnant for many months as neither side can muster sufficient troops and firepower for offensive operations, rumbles to life. The resumption of fighting does not immediately result in any changes of territory held but does increase the misery and suffering of the province's population.

Following up on successful Pact attacks elsewhere along the wide front in southern Germany, the Hungarian 2nd Corps launches an attack on the British II Corps, which is deeply embedded in Nuremburg. To the east, the battered German I Korps withdraws from Bayreuth, abandoning the city to the advancing Czech 1st Army.

In southern New South Wales the Ned Kelly gang launches another raid. Mirroring its original namesake, the group hits the bank in the small rural town of Jerilderie, making off with over AUS$50,000 in cash (of questionable value).

[chico20854]

June 5, 1998

Canon is silent on the day. Unofficially,

The bubonic plague continues its spread through the western US, with outbreaks in Colorado, New Mexico and Nebraska. One of those infected is the FEMA advisor to the Joint Chiefs, whose deputy assumes his duties until he returns to good health.

Anti-Mexican rioting continues in American states that border Mexico as nativists execute a campaign of extermination. Several camps housing Mexican refugees are unexpectedly defended by recently arrived armed men, variously rumored to be Mexican Army troops and members of private criminal armies loyal to various drug cartels.

RainbowSix reports that much of the agricultural land in the Country of Lincolnshire consists of former marshland known as the Fens, which were drained during the 18th and 19th Centuries. Lying just a few meters above sea level, prior to the war the fens were protected from flooding by a series of embankments and over 250 pumping stations; now a lack of electricity means most of these pumping stations have ceased to operate, leaving the fens exposed to the risk of flooding.

A dazed and dirty Specialist Cutler ventures out of his cellar in Ansbach and wanders the deserted and still-smoldering town. Not being entirely within his wits, he is soon surprised by a patrol of the 57th Guards Motor-Rifle Division and captured before he can get a shot off.

In response to the cutoff of trained replacements from the US, XVIII Airborne Corps establishes a small airborne school at Ad Damman, Saudi Arabia to turn out airborne-qualified troops for the 82nd Airborne Division and other supporting units.

[chico20854]

June 6, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

Anti-Mexican rioting continues in Texas and California, with pitched battles raging between armed Mexicans and informal American militias in California's Imperial Valley and near Del Rio, Texas. Both sides are armed with small arms, mostly civilian hunting and semi-automatic weapons. Casualties are modest on both sides, although the civilian death toll is breathtaking, with fighting raging in crowded camps that have not been evacuated by either side, the Mexican defenders wanting the civilians to remain as cover and the nativist militias aiming to exterminate the refugees.

Arriving at Dartmoor Forest in Devon, Captain Nikolai Konev and his group of escaped POWs, desperate for food, weapons and shelter, fall upon a small caravan park, overwhelming the few lightly armed men (and two women) and seizing the trailers, the small supply of food and the men's guns.

XX US Corps, consisting of the 6th and 10th Infantry Divisions (Light) and 43rd Infantry Division (US Army Reserve) and various artillery, engineer and support units, has been pushed back into the Black Forest by the Italian Alpini of 4th Corps. Italian troops have cut the American corps off, although they are unable to make much forward progress in the dark and rough wooded terrain.

Specialist Cutler is beaten by his Soviet counterparts and forced to take them to the cellar where he was hiding throughout the battle. The motor-riflemen take the remaining supplies and Cutler's rucksack, sleeping bag and other personal gear and other items of value from the building, then turn him over to the rear detachment for processing as a prisoner of war.

RCAF CF-18s appear in the skies overhead, operating from their new location at the Dortmund civilian airport. American F/A-18s of the Warlords of VMFA-451, assigned to support II MEF, score a lucrative air-to-air kill when a flight of four fighter-bombers races east, intercepting and shooting down a Soviet AN-26RT ELINT aircraft that was loitering over Poland collecting intelligence on NATO positions along the Oder River.