James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 15, 2019 20:07:08 GMT
Two Hundred & Sixty–One
Throughout the area occupied by the British Second Army groups of Royal Engineers worked through the day on their assigned tasks. Most of them were clustered inside the operational sectors of General Inge’s British I Corps though there were many inside the Bundeswehr sectors either side of them too as well as some with the Belgians and then of course plenty in the rear too stretching back to and across the Inter-German Border. Thousands of regulars, TA reservists and recently returned-to-the-colours engineers laboured hard with a multitude of tasks that needed to be done. There were those that placed those Sappers at grave risk while others almost ensured safety even in a war zone. Everything done by these men was of great importance and to them their work was even more important than that of tankers and infantrymen at the front fighting in Havelland to push on to reach the edges of Berlin.
Siting, constructing and repairing bridges was one of these essential tasks for sappers. There were rivers and canals over which roadways needed to be laid so that the mechanised forces of the British Army from its combat elements to its support units could cross such barriers. All sorts of structures needed to be placed in the most suitable locations and then laid while there were others already in-place that needed repair from wartime damage or even wear-and-tear. Water barrier after water barrier lay between different parts of the forces involved in ABOLITION providing blockages to movement. Bridges couldn’t be constructed just anywhere due to a need to have them near traffic artery routes as well as taking into consideration security as well from the air but also the ground. In some cases bridges couldn’t actually be laid due to terrain and sappers trained in constructing river crossings put into place small ferries and the necessary support functions for them. There were bridges built in peacetime that remained in some cases, other laid in haste by the enemy during the conflict and then those assembled quickly during the advance. More and more bridges went up over rivers and canals so that enemy action or even structural failure by heavy use of one would allow others to take up the burden. Obstacles downstream from some bridges needed to be dealt with by sappers so that water flowed in the right manner around structures which rested upon the riverbanks and even on the rock below. In other cases there were disabled friendly or enemy armoured vehicles as well as unexploded ordnance or mines nearby on land or in the water which needed to be removed.
Bridges over waterways went up but so too did more across parts of the countryside through terrain features where they might be needed as well. Marshy ground was crossed by more of them as well as gullies where detours around such places would be too long and impede the course of the war. Specialists on construction worked with those with other knowledge when it came to throwing up so many of these structures in addition to making use of what was already to be found.
Other sappers worked to clear minefields and sites of deliberate blockages made along transport routes with obstacles. These weren’t easy tasks and often involved laborious work that demanded careful attention, especially in the case of mines. Nonetheless, where buildings had been brought down next to roads, tree trucks dragged across them or the surfaces blown up to block access this too necessitated attention to be paid. Sappers on these jobs were under pressure to achieve their instructions yet couldn’t rush too much for that would put themselves and others in danger. Pipelines carrying fuel and communications cables for signalling needed to be laid and strung with sappers first assessing the areas where they would run through before setting them up. There was work to be done putting up temporary structures to serve as first aid stations for the wounded and then making sure that headquarters units had working power generation as well as antenna set up in the right place.
Cartographers and those skilled in geographical survey were among the ranks of the sappers fulfilling vital tasks. Not many maps of Germany beyond the Inter-German Border came from first-hand knowledge rather from distant sources and then there had been wartime changes to infrastructure and terrain. The ground itself and the manner in which the rivers ran needed to be surveyed carefully to allow warfare to take place effectively and wasn’t something that could be ignored. Some of this work was done for the purposes of further advances yet much was done to assist combat support arms – siting of bridges and forward air-strips – and also keeping everyone supplied.
Plenty of sappers were right on the frontlines operating in the armoured engineering role. They were armed and travelled in armoured vehicles and faced the same dangers as the combat soldiers they supported. Bridging, clearing of minefields and other obstacles as well as combat demolitions of enemy defensive positions were the missions which they undertook. The sappers here did much of this themselves though they worked closely with gunners serving with the Royal Artillery as well as soldiers in the combat arms to explain to them the best way to destroy enemy positions as well. For example, it wasn’t always the best idea to explode artillery above a trench position but rather to have shells fused for contact burst and lay them along one side of such a structure to cause it to collapse; other fixed positions where opponents were dug into were examined for weak-points by sappers guiding infantrymen to those rather than spending time blasting away at them with little effect.
Armoured engineering tasks for the sappers saw them using tracked vehicles such as the AVRE (based upon the Centurion tank fitted with a whole range of equipment including a short-barrelled 165mm demolition gun), the AVLB (another Centurion-based vehicle with a ready-to-lay bridge atop), Spartan tracked armoured personnel carriers and the CET (a combat tractor). These were highly suitable for the roles which they were used in to assist and transport the sappers around the battlefields when they went forward facing bullets, shells and bombs.
Several Royal Engineers units inside East Germany were soon using captured enemy equipment. A lot of this had come from Polish Army sources but there was also much from the Soviet and East German Army’s as well. They had bridging equipment, mine-clearing tools, tractors & bulldozers and armoured engineering vehicles that in many ways resembled those used by the armies of the West. The sappers found this captured equipment to be generally sturdy and useful yet rather unreliable maintenance-wise as well as certainly not built in any manner with a view for the comfort of its users. Nonetheless, when it was put to use, the sappers made the best of what they had been given as well as diligently making modifications to much of it in addition to doing the same to some of their own equipment based upon what they saw with enemy gear.
Moving through the rear of the British Second Army and closing in upon the frontlines ready to join the fighting there was a brigade-group of soldiers from the Chilean Army. These were some rather high-quality fighting men well-trained and heavily-armed though a motorised force with only some armour.
Chile’s military dictator had sent them halfway across the world in what many of a cynical nature – and who weren’t wrong at all – would see as an effort by Augusto Pinochet to secure his own future. He had taken his country into the war on the side of the Allies early on and sent warships to the North Pacific as well as preparing these troops for their long trip to Germany to link up with the British Army. The national language of Chile was Spanish yet Chile had always been a rather Anglicised country with British volunteers – re: adventurers – assisting in the liberation of the country from the Spanish Empire. Moreover, only a few years ago Chile had provided much behind-the-scenes assistance to British military efforts to retake the Falklands. Sending these troops to Germany as well as proving other aid to the Allies wasn’t just a gesture on the part of Pinochet but a calculated move.
Some apprehension had been shown by the British Army upon the arrival of the Chilean troops to be added to the British I Corps’ order of battle with questions about how useful they might be especially as many seemed to be mountain warfare trained and the armoured vehicles which they had were lightly-armed. Regardless, there were firm political instructions from back in the UK about welcoming the Chileans and SACEUR had also made it clear that with Chile being a member of the Allies willing to send fighting men to Germany where such were needed they were to be treated well and put to use for the benefit of the alliance as well.
Soon enough these soldiers would see some action.
General Kenny had moved his forward command post deep into East Germany now operating in a mobile fashion in the Genthin area, east of the Elbe.
There remained much fighting going on with his forces as the day went on despite the general slowdown taking place with the advance as strength was again concentrated following the advance over the Elbe the other day as well as obstacles met. His troops to the north of the town of Brandenburg were still pushing onwards through with a lot of caution against dug-in defenders spread out of terrain unsuitable for rapid mechanised manoeuvre. Those enemy forces there didn’t stand a chance when pinned down and blasted with waves of firepower yet there were plenty of them there willing to fight as well as other trying to slip back towards Berlin. Brandenburg was now being entered by Bundeswehr troops dismounted but there was also a West German push with their tanks away from there advancing in the general direction of Potsdam. That city was still far off and there were lakes and waterways to the southwest of it providing a good basis for a series of defensive positions, as the enemy was doing, but Potsdam and Berlin behind it were getting closer and closer every day.
Rear-area troops now provided most of the opposition facing his men from the Soviet Army yet there were still scattered groups of frontline combat forces chased all the way back from Lower Saxony that were being encountered. The Soviet Twentieth & Twenty-Second Guards Armys were no more but their shattered remains which had made that long retreat were everywhere. Ammunition issues for them were very serious now with attempts at bluffs being made often with such forces to allow for retreat as they didn’t have any shells for the tank guns or anti-tank missiles for their ATGM-launchers: these bluffs rarely worked and they were further ripped apart.
East German Militia units in big towns were still present as well. More and more of them had been overcome now with Brandenburg being the only large presence on the line of advance outside of Berlin and Potsdam where they were expected to be encountered. Fanatical fighting came from them at times following high levels of indoctrination with men fighting to defend their homes, yet at other times they just rolled over when faced with superior firepower after putting up half-hearted attempts to make a stand.
NATO policy was now to treat the KdA as an organised paramilitary force and those captured as POWs. There were recognisable command structures within, uniforms issued and standardised (in-part) weaponry. The East German Militia were not to be treated as guerrillas or partisans, even common criminals as some calls had been made to regard them as, but as a recognised military arm of a nation state opponent. Such a decision had been taken after a series of unfortunate incidents where captured men of the KdA had been ill-treated and in a few cases faced summary field execution upon allegations of war crimes. This had outraged many and especially the West Germans who didn’t like to see their fellow countrymen, even the KdA who had behaved very badly when on occupation duty, afforded such indignity. There were rules of war to follow, the West Germans had argued and whose call had been echoed by others, and NATO should be at the forefront of this even if the other side had done unspeakable things first.
General Kenny had himself been among the many angry when he had heard reports of firing squads following kangaroo courts conducted by some NATO soldiers in the field as this was very immoral. Moreover, recognising those Militia as a proper military force meant that the British Army was covered by the rules of war in a legal fashion when it engaged them in battle like it did using massive amounts of fire support against them rather than wasting the lives of NATO soldiers digging them out of their positions which they often stubbornly held on to; such things could work both ways.
Examining his maps, General Kenny plotted where and how the fighting would continue on the way to liberate West Berlin. There was the outer ring-road, Autobahn-10, that lay far outside the urban boundaries and then the line of defences that the East Germans were constructing before the edge of the occupied portions of the city. Autobahn-10 looped around Potsdam to the southwest before then continuing onwards in an anti-clockwise fashion away to the south. American-led forces were to commence their approaches from that latter direction, but from the west the British Second Army would advance towards the city. It was looking like that would commence starting late this weekend once the battles in Havelland had been fought.
Berlin, he expected, was to be a final, epic showdown where the cost in terms of lives would be high but the political and military stakes even greater.
Two Hundred & Sixty–Two
HMS Brave had spent the morning and afternoon engaged in a series of short but violent naval and naval-air engagements when operating in the western stretches of the Baltic. As part of a multi-national surface flotilla covering the transportation of ground forces into the northern coast of East Germany, the RN frigate worked with NATO and Swedish warships as well as aircraft to combat challenges to the movements of men and equipment behind the forward defensive positions taken up upon the choppy waters.
Smaller surface contacts were the opponents which the Brave fought against, but also enemy aircraft on occasion too. There had been an ongoing determined effort being made by Soviet forces still active in the Baltic to sink ships and down aircraft since yesterday when CROWN commenced. The sudden declared neutrality of the East German Navy’s high command meant that there were of course no Volksmarine vessels present while Polish-manned ships weren’t at sea either following mutinies when back at their home bases. Therefore it was up to the Soviet Baltic Fleet to try and stop NATO pouring units into East Germany from the north and this came after the many reverses already suffered earlier in the war when at first trying to break out into the North Sea and then stop NATO from entering the Baltic in strength. What remained of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, operating from Polish ports (where the situation was often ‘unstable’ to say the least) as well as those along the eastern parts of the Baltic located in Soviet territory, was lighter forces after crippling earlier losses and these couldn’t meet the capabilities of opposing vessels such as the Brave and others.
Mission orders from the Brave and other NATO warships were to keep the Soviets as far away to the east as possible from the lines of communication coming into the German Baltic coastline down from Sweden, Norway and Denmark too. There was an immense movement of forces down into East Germany thrown this back door route to not only conqueror a lot of enemy territory but also to funnel all the necessary supplies in to maintain combat operations there. Those ships and aircraft engaged in their north-south movements, plus heading back north too to reload men and equipment, needed to be protected from attack and the best defence against this was an offensive posture. Warships were not to stay fixed to a position but rather moving around to deny the enemy the ability to target them too as well as to catch attacking Soviet forces before they had reached striking positions. Such basis methods of warfare had to be continually practised or it was believed that the men on the ground in East Germany would be cut off from reinforcement and resupply leaving them wide open to enemy attack there.
Enemy surface contacts came in the form of small warships. Frigates, corvettes, missile & fast patrol boats and minesweepers fitted with weapons (often in an improvised fashion) came westwards alone or in groups. They had mounted guns and missiles as well as torpedoes too. Such vessels were making long journeys with questions asked upon the Brave as well as other NATO warships about why those bases which they travelled from had yet to be attacked in strength from the air including the fuel facilities at them. The naval facilities on Gdansk Bay inside Poland and the Kaliningrad region as well as along the coasts of the Lithuanian and Latvia SSRs were far away but within range of air attacks. Answers to such questions hadn’t been forthcoming and the surface action took precedence.
There were aircraft too. Not many Soviet aircraft had been sent out over the Baltic, but there were some and these made all sorts of attacks at close-range with bombs and guns in addition to stand-off attacks using missiles as well. There was air cover available for the NATO warships and they had their own air defences, but they struggled more against these than the vessels which they fought for the attacking aircraft were faster and could better hide themselves using terrain over land before making final approaches fast and low over the water.
With those surface contacts, the ability of the Soviet Baltic Fleet to hide its vessels before they struck was very limited. Rough weather could help to avoid radar detection that NATO warships as well as aircraft operating at distance was using to see their approach with waves especially assisting. Regardless, a ship on the surface will almost always been eventually picked up by radar waves especially with moving-target indicator software used in accompanying computers. The Soviets tried jamming and even when this wasn’t overcome or the sources of it directly attacked, the use of such masking only meant the NATO warships could figure out an angle of approach for hostile forces.
In the waters south of the Soviet-occupied island of Bornholm, NATO vessels had seen most of the action as they sought to keep enemy vessels from moving any further to the west. There was an addition motive to make sure that the island wasn’t reinforced by air or sea so that its occupying garrison would soon be of mind to surrender rather than NATO have to fight for the island, yet Bornholm was also a good geographical reference point to run defences south from. It was located far forward and east of the Polish-East Germany border to the south.
Brave had been fighting alongside several NATO warships during her engagements as well as RN vessels including the new HMS Cornwall. That sister-ship had been hastily put to see and commissioned while afloat less it be caught at her builders on the Clyde and bombed there when immobile. Work-ups had commenced afterwards down in the Celtic Sea with a hasty visit being made to Birkenhead at one point following problems with those. There were still civilian contractors aboard and her crew was an odd mixture of old hands as well as inexperienced sailors. Before leaving British waters at the weekend, a lone helicopter in the form of a Lynx HAS3 had been taken aboard: the co-pilot for that helicopter was the Duke of York, fourth in line to the throne. Personally eager to serve just as he had done in the Falklands, Prince Andrew had been given his mother’s approval (this was the Royal Navy after all) to leave his hideaway near Penzance and minders behind to see some action. There had been some discussions on this with the War Cabinet mindful of both the implications of keeping him ‘safe’ as well as the negative political effects of doing that too.
That Lynx with its famous crewmember joined that one flown by the Brave and others from different ships in scouting for Soviet vessels and also attacking them. The helicopters fired missiles and guns of their own while also directing fire coming from NATO warships. Sometimes those helicopters themselves came under fire too as the enemy was far from placid against them like it wasn’t against the warships standing in the way either before the real targets to the west could be encountered.
Despite all of the effort made by a large number of vessels making long journeys, the Soviet Baltic Fleet couldn’t interfere with the mass movement of ships and aircraft into East Germany from the north. There were a very few select successes, but these were minimal. Instead, vessels were sunk and attacking aircraft were downed. NATO had bases to the north, the west and the south now where defensive aircraft flew from with many ships on the water. There were submarines too present taking underwater shots against Soviet vessels before they could strike as well. A massacre occurred with the Soviets being slaughtered and making insignificant gains for all of efforts.
Aboard the Brave, engagements with the enemy slowed down before coming to a halt before the day got late. The frigate had made a sped run back to the west to meet the underway replenishment ship Fort Grange (still carrying her war wound when attacked with the Task Force on the war’s second day) and collect weapons in a hasty transfer and upon returning found that there ceased to be any more targets to engage. The crew wondered as to why this was the case. Had the enemy run out of targets for them to destroy? Were the Soviets marshalling assets for one big night-time effort? Or had whatever remained of the Soviet Baltic Fleet given up? No one knew, but for now the Brave would carry on with her protection duties while CROWN carried on behind her.
There still remained much urgency with the forces assigned to ongoing operations under the CROWN codename. There was intelligence to suggest that Soviet and East German forces in the northern parts of East Germany were of no consequence and Admiral Hoffman had told NATO that the Volksmarine – including the understrength regiment of combat troops it commanded – were the only defenders of the coast, yet there were worries still that some of the intelligence might be inaccurate.
It was hard to believe that the whole coastline and a great distance inland had been left undefended.
Through the three initial avenues of access into East Germany what was still called Allied Army Denmark was funnelling its forces. Swedish Parachute Rangers had during the night landed at Mukran on Rugen Island and on the mainland at Stralsund yet for the time being Wismar, Rostock-Laage and Peenemunde saw the arrival of combat troops and support units behind them.
Moving faster and with more daring than they had done in Jutland, the US Marines which had landed at Wismar had struck inland. The 5th Marine Division had been reinforced by Marine Reservists coming from the Caribbean with those additional men not just bringing their eagerness to fight but also much transport equipment with them too. There had been a lack of a suitable airfield near the city given up without a fight by the East Germans and helicopter landing sites had to be fast constructed ashore, but risks had been taken and the US Marines had sent their tanks forward with Marine Riflemen in wheeled vehicles following them. Late yesterday they had reached the edges of the city of Schwerin to the south while also linking up with French forces which had crossed the Inter-German Border a while ago but focused upon clearing the occupier out of Schleswig-Holstein. Today, efforts were made in getting more US Marines ashore as well as building more landing grounds for helicopters, but there was also some fighting to be done around Schwerin against East German Militia troops. Another important operation was undertaken to send some units to the east to establish fixed communications with the British as well. The US Marines had taken a large chunk of enemy territory at lightning speed but didn’t want to be caught off guard by the enemy counterattack that they were expecting to occur and prove reconnaissance efforts wrong.
The port at Rostock and the airfield at Laage had both come under attack by long-range rockets and tactical ballistic missiles. FROG-7s and Scuds had lanced through the skies aiming for both since last night and continued throughout today. The accuracy of them wasn’t great, but there were quite a lot of them sent by the Soviets in what was believed to be more of an attempt to punish the East German Navy’s betrayal rather than for military effect. Laage was closed for a short period after a lucky hit that caused some damage to aircraft, but most of these attacks struck civilians in Rostock rather than the port facilities or the ships arriving there. In addition, Admiral Hoffman lost his life a few hours after his act of handing over the port to the British when trying to talk KdA forces into laying down their arms resulted in his assassination by a suspected Stasi man who had been killed afterwards in a shoot-out. Those Militia units were then crushed by Royal Marines but it had been a bloody affair. Meanwhile, all yesterday and into today British forces flooded in through the access points granted. The Royal Marines had been first followed by Paras and Gurkhas with the 5th Airborne Brigade and now Foot Guards with 9th Guards Brigade. As had been the case in Jutland with PORTER, the British 6th Light Division moved forward carefully believing in concentration of force so no mad dash inland was attempted especially until Laage could be fully exploited. That airbase had been badly damaged in several air strikes by the 3 ATAF and while the lone runway was in use the patch-up repairs undertaken throughout the war weren’t that great. Nonetheless, once organised, the British hoped to be soon pushing much further south though like the US Marines were waiting for what they were certain would be the inevitable enemy counterattack to come their way.
The big airfield at Peenemunde had been taken in a risky manoeuvre by the US Army where they had flown troops into there trusting the assurances of the Volksmarine that all was in-hand to facilitate the initial landings of US XVIII Corps elements. Men with the 3/27 INF, light infantry who had fought in Honduras and Nicaragua during February, had come in aboard a pair of USAF C-130 transports flying from southern Sweden before rushing from those aircraft once they were on the ground. A parachute assault, even an airmobile landing from helicopters would have been preferred by the Americans here but lack of available troops trained in such and the urgency of the situation had brought about that landing. Those initial troops had been joined by the rest of their brigade who had missed the fighting in Jutland and then other elements of the 7th Light Infantry Division from northern Norway. General Foss, US XVIII Corps commander, had chosen these troops first over the objections of others as the 7th Light Infantry Division hadn’t been entangled in non-combat operations in Norway as much as both the 6th & 10th Light Infantry Divisions. Those two formations were on the way to join their fellow light infantrymen though the lead division had spent yesterday and much of today getting assembled on the ground. They were on the coastal island of Usedom and sharing the island, down to the southeast, was the border with Poland and then the port of Swinoujscie; General Foss sent the 7th Light Infantry Division off in that direction while getting ready to have his follow-on forces operate elsewhere soon enough. From Peenemunde there were opportunities not just to get inside Poland a little but to spread out far and wide across northeastern parts of East Germany. Once he could get all of his transport landed – including many examples of captured Soviet vehicles to work with his HMMWVs and trucks – he saw a massive opportunity to strike inland in several directions taking on any opposition short of a tank-heavy force due to his mobile and well-armed now veteran troops.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
Likes: 8,791
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Post by James G on Aug 15, 2019 20:13:39 GMT
Two Hundred & Sixty–Three
The population of West Germany before World War Three begun was more than sixty-one million making the nation the most-populous in Europe excluding the Soviet Union west of the Urals. It was in the main an urbanised nation though with still a significant rural population. Car ownership was very high and there was an abundance of roads and railways linking the nation internally and to its neighbours in the north, further west and to the south.
Using those transport links, more than a fifth of the population left their homes immediately before the conflict opened and during the first week of the war; roughly thirteen million people fled their place of residence. Such a mass movement of civilians was uncoordinated and conducted with little thought apart from to get away from where the war was expected to be fought. Taking place over such a short period of time as well, the magnitude of this mass fleeing of civilians from war was something that hadn’t been seen beforehand in history.
Chancellor Kohl and his government in Bonn had expected that many citizens would flee in fear of their lives. Public announcements were made for people to stay in their homes yet at the same time in the border areas there was an organised evacuation which took place (up to a dozen miles from the Inter-German Border and the Czechoslovak frontier). Other cases of the West German population fleeing in large numbers were expected in private though one internal report stating that as many as two million civilians might move west and south was dismissed as ‘alarmist’. The decision taken to mobilise and call for military assistance from their NATO allies hadn’t been taken lightly and this had been taken into account… but thirteen million people was just an unimaginable number for the West German authorities!
West Germans knew what had happened during World War Two when the Soviet Army had arrived. That may have occurred across in now what was East Germany, but the stories of the rapes and murders were well-known. What was expected was that the rampaging Soviet Army would come storming into the cities and towns where they lived and unleash an orgy of violence and destruction. There were other fears concerning the war too from those who didn’t live anywhere near to the borders in the east but rather near military bases or in the big cities: air attacks and nuclear war.
Those thirteen million who effectively chose to make themselves refugees moved from their homes all across the country. The border areas ended up near deserted yet from out of other locations nationwide civilians left their homes and decided to flee as well. West Germans fled from Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover, the cities in the Ruhr and the Rhineland, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich in their millions. Some flocked to airports and railway stations while most crowded into family cars abandoning their homes in pure fear of what would happen should they stay. Millions of young men were being recalled to uniform across the country and they too took to the roads heading for their mobilisation centres.
Such a mass movement of people came during the time when NATO forces were pouring into West Germany as well as when the Bundeswehr was fast rushing to deployment sites. It continued though the last hours of peace and after the shooting started as well. Those on the move did whatever it took to make an effort to leave where they believed that they were in danger including disobeying official instructions when on the move from the authorities trying to direct the immense and unexpected flow of people. Vehicles laden with families would break down when on the move or be struck by falling bombs from Soviet aircraft attempting to blast NATO forces also trying to move through West Germany. There were many instances where forward enemy spearheads crashed into areas where civilians were moving though those were rare early on in the conflict as NATO managed to hold onto most of their forward positions near the borders. When the big Soviet offensive occurred late in the war’s first week, many more civilians, still on the move, were caught up in the fighting though following those chemical warfare attacks and the unleashing of thousands of rampaging Soviet tanks tearing forward.
Casualties among the fleeing civilians were immense during those occasions where they unintentionally attracted the attention of invading forces especially for those caught out in the open. Then there was the horrors of occupation by many when they didn’t get far enough away and had to suffer like their fellow citizens who didn’t flee away from where the East German occupying forces unleashed what was in many ways a modern-day Red Terror.
Those West Germans who became internal refugees within their own country and who turned into foreign refugees within neighbouring nations generally moved without a set destination in mind and the few that did rarely ended up where they intended to go. Many wanted to leave the country all together and planned to head to the Low Countries, France of Switzerland. Others moved to the western regions of the West Germany even moving towards those big cities where their fellow frightened citizens had decided to flee from. Many had money with them with the aim being to find a hotel to stay or while others had ideas to stay with friends or relatives… most just hoped to go somewhere that they hoped would be safe with the certain knowledge that the authorities would look after them.
Chaos therefore occurred without proper forward planning from those refugees nor their government. The millions and millions of scared and desperate people were just far too many for any organised manner to be undertaken to not just provide them with somewhere to stay but to feed and care for medical needs either. Diseases broke out when makeshift camps were set up without proper sanitary care with many believing that such a thing could never occur in the First World country that was West Germany. Families got separated from each other and there were also many suicides which occurred among the refugees as well when all hope faded among them. Inside the neighbouring countries where many who travelled through borders which were opened up there were attempts made to help them though there were smaller refugee crisis’s going on within those nations too especially the Netherlands. The Swiss eventually gave up and took the unfortunate but necessary step of closing their border with West Germany but the end result of that was an immense build-up of people on that border and then a domestic political crisis at home.
Incidents occurred among the refugees and with those who lived in the areas where their fellow citizens had fled to over issues such as food, criminal acts and also ugly clashes over race. West Germany was home to many ‘Turks’ – guest workers and their families who weren’t naturalised citizens and certainly weren’t all Turkish either – and racism against them was an issue in the country made worse by the refugee problem and also the crisis of war.
Eventually, as the war progressed, the flood of refugees on the move ceased yet the millions of West Germans who had fled their homes were still in great need and spread out far and wide. Several countries as part of NATO and the Allies begun to provide assistance to the West German Government – as well as the Dutch and the Belgians too – to aid these refugees. Tent cities sprung up in the countryside while public buildings in towns and cities were opened to house more refugees. Food and doctors started to arrive as well after some time. Nonetheless, the millions of refugees were still an immense strain upon the authorities of countries struggling with the physical effects of the war.
NATO operations to liberate occupied portions of West Germany and then drive the invaders back into East Germany and Czechoslovakia meant that millions of those refugees were now free to return to their homes as the danger to them had now passed. That was how their government saw the matter, but not how all of those who had left their homes felt about the situation. There was still the fear of nuclear war blasting apart West German cities that many feared while others had heard rumours – sometimes true, sometimes false – that there was immense devastation throughout the areas where fighting had taken place and also where occupation had occurred. Frankfurt and the urban areas in Lower Saxony were heard by the refugees to be utterly destroyed while Hannover was meant to be still smouldering.
For the time being, many West Germans didn’t want to go back to their homes and wanted to stay where they were.
Those that did return faced long journeys across their country which had suffered gravely not just from the direct fighting but from air and missile strikes throughout the rear areas. They were held up by damage wrought to transport links and then too military convoys moving eastwards. Without petrol for their cars they were moved in buses and trucks in an uncomfortable manner and told what they could and couldn’t do as they made their way home.
Those who returned to their homes soon regretted it.
In the eastern parts of the country, there was damage done on sometimes a truly epic scale to their places of residence as well as the areas in which they lived. Looting had taken place not just from foreign soldiers but from their fellow West Germans as well during periods of lawlessness. While household items of value had been stolen, other housewares of no value at all apart from what they meant to their owners were missing too; there was also purposeful destruction taken place within residences. Other homes had been partially or completely destroyed by explosives, demolitions or fire. Some had seen dead bodies left to decay within them while others had been habituated by soldiers billeted inside. Even where a home was untouched the neighbouring area had seen destruction done and of course there were no local services from electricity to running water to shops open. The former refugees despaired at what they found when they came back to where they had lived and so many wanted to go back to where they had been when they had fled. Within the local communities which the refugees returned to they discovered some of what had been happening while they had gone and understood that it would have been far from the best choice to stay behind and try to live under the occupation which had occurred. Enemy soldiers had been one thing but the East German occupation where attempts had begun to socially cleanse those parts of West Germany had been horrific. People had been executed in public; others had been used as slave labour. Industrial goods had been stolen while public buildings and monuments with a history which the East Germans objected to were destroyed. There were tales from the trickle of their neighbours returning who had ended up living under the brief occupation but then there were the empty homes that no one was returning to with a belief that they weren’t fellow refugees yet to return from the west or the south but rather were missing after being taken away by the occupiers for various unspecified means.
The refugees which returned to their homes in western and southern parts of the country, into the large urban areas in particular, discovered that a lot of damage to their residences had been done in their absence too. There had been some looting out to the east but elsewhere inside West Germany it had been rampant. Homes had been broken into and items stolen while much damage had often been done too. There were questions asked as to who were such people and why had no one stopped them from doing this? War damage affected many places too following long-range strikes by Soviet aircraft and missiles that were not particularly accurate. Just as those who returned to their homes in the border areas found, those who had fled from unoccupied regions discovered that even if their own property was fortunate enough to be untouched their neighbourhoods had taken immense damage and public services were out of action.
There continued to be announcements from the authorities which said that things should be soon getting back to normal now that the fighting was taking place in East Germany and not here within West Germany. Yet those refugees who returned home couldn’t imagine when anything would ever be normal again with seemingly no hope of putting their homes and families, let alone their country, back together again.
Meanwhile, many more refugees still remained displaced not yet willing to go back home.
Two Hundred & Sixty–Four
In later years, Czechs would celebrate April 8th as ‘Liberation Day’. There would be a national holiday in memory of that day that the old regime fell but also to recall that the end of forty years of communist rule had come at a cost too.
Prague was where the collapse of the regime occurred before it was entered by NATO troops as it was Czechs who liberated themselves rather than those French tanks waiting to storm the city’s defences. For Czechs this was something important to remember and so too was that while their capital felt freedom on that day it didn’t mean that the rest of the country had been liberated by that point either.
The French First Army, with its Canadian, Moroccan and West German components in addition to those French troops, had entered Czechoslovakia with the goal of taking Prague. They expected strong opposition during their invasion as the southern element of ABOLITION and such fears had been unfortunately justified. The invasion brought about a vicious civil war that erupted between Czechs attempting to free themselves from the oppression of their government and those fighting to keep the regime in-place. Moreover, as Slovaks attempted to assert their own independence to the east against efforts to stop them from breaking away from the union that was Czechoslovakia, the cost in terms of lives was great. Combat deaths for the invading NATO troops would come mainly from fighting against Soviet and Czechoslovak troops but they were caught up in the civil war too.
The city of Prague, the political centre of the country, had been approached the day beforehand from the west and the south with efforts made to interdict links out of the city to the north and east too. French troops had been positioned to launch an assault to capture strategic points on the edges of Prague such as crossroads and high ground with the combat forces from the other national armies covering the flanks as they made sure that enemy forces wouldn’t pose a risk to that attack. There hadn’t been an intention to push directly into the city in strength though plans were made for small raiding parties to try their luck should gaps open up in the lines of the defenders. Intelligence pointed to Czechoslovak Militia being in great number and the city still being full of civilians; such a fight in urban terrain would be far too costly, the French Army believed.
What wasn’t expected, either by the French nor the authorities in Prague, was that the city would rise up first to free themselves without the need for foreign intervention.
Quite rightly fearful for his own life, Bilak wasn’t in Prague when the end came. He proclaimed that the threat to him from NATO bombers was what had kept him in hidden and secure underground locations throughout the conflict but he truly feared his own people and having a fate such as Fidel Castro had suffered in Cuba. Instead of their General Secretary – only a few months ago put into power by Soviet guns – the people of Prague were ruled over by Communist Party officials who had survived the Soviet-inspired purge Bilak had launched when he had been put into power. These were non-entities who certainly hadn’t endeared themselves to the population with sudden arrests of suspected troublemakers and announcements that the ‘Battle of Prague’ would ‘be fought to the last man’. What those in authority did do, even after all the rebellions launched elsewhere throughout western parts of Bohemia, was arm much of the population of the city who were members of the People’s Militia: the Lidove Milice (LV). Pistols, submarine guns and even heavier man-portable weapons including machine guns and mortars were given to factory workers and other civilians who were all members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and considered ‘loyal’ to the regime. No thought was put into this; standard procedures were followed as the country was facing an invasion and the LV was meant to assist the armed forces in that.
Given arms and with the knowledge gleamed from those who heard propaganda broadcasts from the West that other parts of the country was rising up (the true story of the details of the civil war erupting wasn’t coming through) it really shouldn’t have been a surprise that soon enough the citizens of Prague would revolt. They needed a spark first for the fuse to be lit and that came during the night when further radio broadcasts were made in Czech to them that NATO troops were right outside the city. With that, once dawn came, the first of the shooting started.
For those who lived through Liberation Day in Prague it was one which they would never forget… but their memories were affected when it came to the fine details of the truth of what occurred. Stories would be told and retold, complete with embellishments, of how the whole city rose up as one to defeat their oppressors in a spirit of unity. There would be talk of some of the horrors of the day too when innocents were killed but overall for those who were there they would claim that Czechs were united in taking down those who had long enslaved them in a fantastic victory.
Of course, in reality, Prague was just like the rest of the country during the civil war and it was the same on Liberation Day too. There were many who didn’t support the uprising and others who wanted to stay out of such matters. Many of the women and children killed during the day’s fighting were accidentally killed by those trying to free them not just by troops loyal to the government who fought to stop the destruction of the regime. The role played by NATO troops on the outskirts of the city making sure that all attention had been focused externally rather than internally was forgotten as time went on too.
Fighting took place throughout the city from the centre of Prague into the outlying regions where Czechoslovak Army reservists were manning the frontlines against the French First Army. Gunfire and explosions took place with buildings stormed, monuments toppled and plenty of killing. Huge fires broke out and bodies lay in the streets. There was panic and pandemonium alongside crowds waving flags with one hand and shooting in the air with the other. War crimes were committed when those involved in the revolt killed surrendering opponents in uniform and in civilian clothes; regime troops also killed civilians carrying arms and those not in equal measure.
Eventually, as the day got later and the violence more bloody, LV paramilitary forces in revolt got the upper hand over the authorities and their loyal troops to win the Battle of Prague. They had carried the day due to their numbers and the will to win. There were mass celebrations but also acts of vengeance carried out too. The Soviet Embassy was set alight and so too was the StB headquarters; a massacre of those at the secret police headquarters who had tried to barricade themselves inside took place but the Soviet Embassy was devoid of anyone to be killed there. In Wenceslas Square, there was plenty of celebration despite hundreds of wounded Czechs being treated by doctors and volunteers in buildings alongside this open space as well as efforts to remove many bodies too. Nearby, Prague Castle remained nearly untouched from the fighting after most of those involved in the day’s events had taken the unconscious collective decision to not see it destroyed while fighting for control of such an historical place; other famous sites in the city weren’t so fortunate.
There were no popular leaders of the revolt and Liberation Day ended without a figure that could unite the people of Prague. There were unanswered questions as to where the most recognised opponent of the regime Vaclav Havel was and whether he would lead them? Yet, instead of politics there was celebration instead. Guns were fired into the air by some while others sought out drink; many sudden ‘romances’ begun as well.
A few Czechs sought to make contact with the NATO troops which they had been told were nearby and made radio broadcasts of their own declaring the city free and the regime defeated in Prague. These broadcasts told the French outside that there would be no resistance from the city’s population and in fact there would be assistance in attacking what Soviet and Czechoslovak Army defenders remained outside from the rear. Whether anyone in Prague would be able to do such a thing with any degree of organisation or success was another matter, but those who made those broadcasts were happy and full of confidence.
Prague had been freed.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 15, 2019 20:23:29 GMT
Two Hundred & Sixty–Five
The armoured clash at Juterbog would be something to remember for those American soldiers who fought in that engagement. The national guardsmen from Mississippi who defeated an ambush attempt by massed Soviet armour there knew that they had won a great victory yet at the same time would acknowledge that it had been a close run thing with the very real possibility that if that ambush hadn’t have been spotted they might have been in plenty of trouble. However, they took part in one of the final clashes of massed armour head-on between the US Army and the Soviet Army and won a stunning victory with minimal casualties; that was enough to make them very proud of the performance which they gave.
Juterbog Airbase and the nearby town after which that facility was named lay south of Berlin and north of the Elbe. It was on the right-hand side of the planned march route for the US Third Army and had recently seen much Soviet air activity in conjunction with other airbases throughout Brandenburg south and east of Berlin. There had been transport aircraft making extensive use of Juterbog with plenty of fighter coverage in the skies to try to protect those aircraft from NATO fighters attempting to prey upon them. Such enemy fighter activity had recently been interfering with the air strikes against the crossings over the Oder and the Neisse along the Polish-East German Border. Bombers from the 3 ATAF taking part in the ongoing HAMMER missions there had suffered losses due to a lessening of the areas which Soviet fighters protected – due to NATO advances on land – and the knowledge that those B-52s, F-111s and Tornados were striking for certain fixed locations.
As to what exactly was behind those transport aircraft flights, NATO did not yet know but was eager to find out. There was speculation that the Soviets were flying in troops that they couldn’t get over the Polish border though that would mean that they were being brought in without heavy equipment; others held the view that wounded men and maybe even captured NATO prisoners were being flown out of East Germany instead. Therefore, in part due to this mystery as well as the geography of where Juterbog Airbase was, it was approached today by American troops heading for Berlin.
Those soldiers were with the 155th Armored Brigade, a formation from Mississippi that in peacetime was independent of higher command yet in wartime was meant to be assigned to the US Army’s 1st Cavalry Division. During REFORGER, the 155th Brigade had been sent to the Gulf Coast beaches of Florida instead of with the 1st Cavalry Division to Lower Saxony and spent far too much time there for those who served within the unit guarding against a hypothetical Cuban amphibious invasion that anyone in their right mind knew was never going to occur. Finally transferred to Europe with the US Third Army, these volunteer part-time soldiers from the Twentieth State had come to Germany and were now serving with the 5th Mechanized Infantry Division as part of the US III Corps. Their equipment stored in Belgium for missions with the destroyed 1st Cavalry Division had been already put to use and then lost at Einbeck so everything had to be shipped over from the mainland United States for their use from tanks to infantry fighting vehicles to self-propelled guns to engineering tracks. A little time had been put aside for work-ups when in Europe but the haste of ABOLITION’s launch meant that the 155th Brigade had come over the Inter-German Border to catch up with the rest of the US III Corps and see their first taste of battle today.
Coming up from their crossing points over the Elbe at Elster (General Saint sent his three-division command over the river between Wittenberg and Elster at multiple points), the 155th Brigade went straight towards Juterbog Airbase with the two regular US Army brigades consisting of the rest of the 5th Mechanized Infantry Division on their right aiming for the crossroads at Juterbog itself. The journey was less than half a dozen miles with forward air reconnaissance from aircraft and helicopters almost the minute that the brigade was over the Elbe warning that enemy tanks had been spotted in number up ahead. Bombs, missiles and rockets rained down upon those enemy forces from above with the 155th Brigade’s commander getting plenty of fire support from the air to give those waiting in ambush a rough time while he made sure that his formation was in perfect shape to tackle such opponents. Information flowed in as to how the Soviets started moving once they came under air attack trying to spread out and get ready for American armour coming their way and they did a good job of that even being struck as hard as they were from above and then from long-range artillery support that the national guardsmen were given during their final approach to combat.
Post combat intelligence would identify the Soviet units encountered near Juterbog as being from the 10GMRD. This was a Category B formation home-based in the southern Caucasus and a very long way from home. It was one of those fifth echelon forces that Marshal Ogarkov had moved through Poland and had come to Europe with the majority of its assigned men unlike other formations which were solely reservist manned (or, undermanned). Nonetheless, in trying to get to East Germany the 10GMRD had suffered delays and desertions during the long transfer by rail all the way to Poland, faced guerrilla attacks in Poland from rebels there and then been bombed while waiting to get over the border near Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. The four combat-manoeuver regiments had been merged into two weakened combined arms regiments after such damage done before reaching combat with less than a third of the strength in terms of men and equipment than should have been available. Morale for the soldiers was very low and while they had been issued with plenty of fuel and ammunition (taken from other units still stuck on the wrong side of the Oder-Neisse Line) there wasn’t much fight in them. Only the efforts of their divisional commander brought them into battle but he could only do so much and certainly wasn’t a combat veteran… he followed the standard methods long taught in training when it came to manoeuvre to combat and planned to fight that way too.
The clashes took place from early in the morning into the afternoon in a series of meeting engagements with combat at distance and then up close and personal. There were several gaps between the fighting as the 10GMRD withdrew backwards fighting to break contact and the national guardsmen hurried to catch up and keep tearing them apart. Forward defensive positions across the fields south of the airbase were never fully occupied by Soviet tanks coming out of cover around the small villages at the last minute to make use of them and once the 155th Brigade had gone over the railway line that ran across their line of advance they charged forward. Those fighting positions were driven past and the 155th Brigade headed for the airbase beyond going through woodland and over small hills first.
T-62s and BMP-1s faced M-60s and M-113s in combat and this old Soviet equipment did rather well but the Americans were using very modern combat systems in support as well as now understanding in detail the manner in which the Soviet Army was trained to fight. Command vehicles blew up while others had their signals jammed. Artillery moving into offer fire support was attacked from the air before it could unleash barrages. Soviet flank guards were engaged with long-range anti-tank missiles before they could fully deploy while the advance guard of the main body was avoided by hidden American units so that no warning came to them the battle was to be joined. This occurred when the 10GMRD was on the attack and as it fell back it found that the Americans we shooting mines from artillery into their line of retreat to slow them and then brought attack helicopters into play. Retreating even when under such an attack they found that their national guardsmen opponents gave chase effectively and didn’t allow blocking units sacrificed to delay that pursuit the chance to do their job.
Desperate orders had come over the radio for the 10GMRD to give everything that they had to allow Juterbog Airbase to be evacuated and the divisional commander did his best… at the price of seeing the destruction of what remained of his once proud formation. The Americans tore his regiments to shreds and many of his men started to surrender while others refused to launch suicidal attacks out into the open and claimed radio problems when orders came to counterattack. A lack of willingness on the part of the Americans to close-up and take losses in such fighting was the only reason why that airbase would be evacuated in time and therefore not something which the 10GMRD could be credited with achieving. The 155th Brigade shrunk back from engagements within arms-reach after the first of those occurred killing many national guardsmen in what their brigade commander believed was unnecessary as there was more to win fighting at range where the capabilities of his units were more potent.
There remained further fighting even as the first M-60s smashed through outer perimeter fencing at Juterbog Airbase. Soviet Air Force personnel there had been organised at the last minute into a dismounted light infantry force with personal weapons and nothing more to go up against tanks followed by armoured personnel carriers mounting heavy weapons too. By that point the 10GMRD ceased to exist and its few survivors scattered so the aircraft engineers, ground crews and missilemen (who had no ammunition for what few launchers they had left) made a very brief attempt to hold on. They were immobile and didn’t have the fire power so their stand barely affected the progress of the 155th Brigade apart from what many national guardsmen just saw as nuisance fire. They rolled across the lone runway and on the apron towards badly-damaged buildings from wartime air strikes here hunting down anyone left who wanted to fight while they were mounted in tracked vehicles and their opponents were on foot.
Military intelligence personnel arrived in helicopters not long after the airbase was taken and the national guardsmen moved out and away to the northwest. As the day got later they would link up with their new parent division again in advancing upon Luckenwalde this evening yet enemy forces there would be rear-area troops again holding onto improvised immobile defences rather than heavy armour to be met in combat. The men of the 155th Brigade had done very well indeed taking Juterbog Airbase by defeating the strong mobile defenders nearby… and they knew it too so afterwards they would have quite a swagger about themselves.
Juterbog was only one part of the US Third Army’s fight that day and the 4th Armored Division with the US II Corps met similar opposition to what was faced there in fighting off the length of Autobahn-9. The stretch of highway heading towards Berlin north of Dessau was clear of that civilian traffic south of the Elbe but deployed in cover attempting to deny use of that autobahn were further Soviet tanks and mechanized infantry units. Here the Americans fought for much of the morning in mobile warfare against some more enemy formations which had managed to get past the HAMMER air strikes and try to stop or at best delay the attack upon Berlin. Again though, these were shattered units that had most of their fighting strength sapped before they had managed to get into battle. There were grumbles from some of those US Army officers at the USAF failing to keep their promises of shutting the Oder-Neisse Line but those were rather unjustified; only a trickle of the immense fifth echelon forces assigned had managed to get into East Germany and they were not even at half strength when they reached the frontlines.
Assisted by the 14th Cav’ and plenty of helicopter gunships pouring fire into woodland off the autobahn, the 4th Armored Division fought against a mixed unit of armour and infantry from both the 34MRD and the 96MRD. These were Soviet divisions based at Kazan and Sverdlovsk (respectively in the Urals and Volga Military Districts) with reservists manning them; many of those men supposed to be with the formations hadn’t showed up when mobilised back home deep inside the Soviet Union and even less made it to Brandenburg today. The disorganised nature of how the Soviet units were merged only added to the weaknesses which they already suffered with jammed communications and being mercilessly attacked from their air. They were beaten and beaten again in each engagement but kept coming back to make further attempts at combating the 4th Armored Division. There was a feeling among the US Army officers here that these reservists they were facing were either rather patriotic or just insane for they wouldn’t give up until they were dead.
General Sullivan as corps commander eventually got fed up of the delay and pulled his men back to allow an air-strike where F-4s and F-16s serving with the 8 ATAF in support of the US Third Army dropped several well-targeted fuel-air bombs to cause immense destruction as well as chaos to the enemy. The weather had cleared up making atmospheric conditions just right and those weapons were used very effectively. After the devastation caused by those he ordered the US II Corps back into the attack to mop up whoever remained and get moving up the autobahn towards Berlin.
The US Seventh Army went over the Elbe to the southeast of where the US Third Army was and made lengthy advances against weaker opposition despite being closer to the Polish border where those Soviet armoured forces remained trapped on the other side. Schwarzkopf had his forces swing to the north tearing past hasty defensive positions by immobile defenders who couldn’t make any serious effort to stop them.
Finally free of effective opposition, the American and Spanish units shot forward in what to many was a face to get as far north as possible. Starting from Torgau the US V Corps had the advantage in that yet the Spanish I Corps and the US VII Corps were determined not to be shown up in charging through relatively undefended territory. Those fighting men within the US Seventh Army struggled to keep their guard up when they went for miles without hearing any gunfire or the sounds of explosions and there were a few unfortunate cases where an RPG or a T-12 anti-tank gun would open fire. Such engagements while causing losses were hastily dealt with as those who trying to halt the advance were immobile whereas the US Seventh Army was fully mechanised.
The trio of attacking corps’ each stuck to the main roads with their advances and combat engineers moved with the lead units to assist them in driving forwards when obstacles were overcome. Roadblocks were usually dealt with in advance by Apache and Cobra gunships and then there was the airmobile-rolled 100/442 INF. This battalion of USAR soldiers from the Pacific – garrisoned in peacetime across Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam and Saipan – were tasked to seize key points ahead of the US VII Corps – bridges mainly but also a couple of cross-roads too in platoon-sized assaults as well as a lone company-level airmobile attack. With such assaults from out of the sky the 2nd Cav’ operating in the lead with the 1st Armored Division right behind reached the Schonwalde area by sunset; they were thus almost as close to Berlin as the US Third Army was after travelling twice as far.
In conversation with von Sandrart that evening, Schwarzkopf received further instruction coming down from SACEUR. He had been aware that General Galvin had been getting intelligence on the East German efforts to defend Berlin with their crazy attempt at massive barricades to guard the city to the west and the south and he too had seen the glaring mistake which Mielke had made.
Wasn’t the East German leader aware that he was facing such a mobile opponent as the US Army? Surely it couldn’t have been overlooked that only half of the approaches to the city were defended against and the rest, those to the east, left open to exploitation?
Two Hundred & Sixty–Six
Christmas came early for the intelligence agencies of the West when ABOLITION was launched and NATO troops entered East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Spooks from multiple organisations concerned with espionage activities and military intelligence were suddenly able to enter the country and gain access to people and locations hidden behind the Iron Curtain. There had been much information coming out of Cuba recently yet that had only been second-hand and given over by the Cubans themselves; the opportunity to go into the Northern Tier countries and see things for themselves far outweighed whatever could come from Cuba which had been a Soviet-aligned nation not true puppets like East Germany and Czechoslovakia were.
Many spooks were still involved in the worldwide Great Intelligence War, off playing James Bond and taking the losses that came with gun-play, yet others crossed the Iron Curtain behind the advancing invading armies. There were facilities to inspect from the ground rather from satellite images, people to talk to who had been captured and documentation to be seized so it could be read at leisure.
Santa Claus had fulfilled the Christmas wish list eighth months ahead of schedule.
Not restricted by the operational boundaries of where the British Second Army was operating, British intelligence officers with MI-6 moved throughout both countries behind the ever-moving frontlines. They had security detachments with them in most instances just in case yet as those frontlines moved further eastwards the situation on the ground became much safer as resistance in the rear had been generally crushed before their arrival.
At Magdeburg, MI-6 officers went into the partially burnt-out Stasi regional office in that East German city after West German troops had crushed all resistance from there. There had been a deliberate attempt to destroy the mass of documentation stored there yet those Stasi personnel who had lit those fires to burn all of those records hadn’t been expert arsonists; much of the valuable paper records hadn’t faced the wrath of the flames.
The process begun of removing all of what remained unburnt away to the west and for waiting analysts in Britain. Intelligence had pointed to those files contained details of many foreign espionage operations conducted by the Stasi and so MI-6 would want plenty of time to go over them combined details gleamed with other, external sources of intelligence too.
There were Stasi personnel whom KdA prisoners had pointed out to Bundeswehr military intelligence spooks who had questioned them. As anticipated, there were denials from many that they knew what the Stasi was let alone their service within that organisation – wry smiles lit the faces of many a Briton at hearing this from men who wore the tattered remains of their uniforms – yet others were willing to cooperate and identify key people as long as they were promised safety from retribution from their own people.
British military intelligence officers with the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) paid a visit to Brandis Airbase near Leipzig. The DIS had seen many recaptured air facilities across in West Germany which the Soviets had used as forward points during RED BEAR and then been to other airbases overrun by attacking NATO troops in East Germany too following ABOLITION. Brandis Airbase had been taken by American troops intact though rather than after deliberate destruction had been done by its defenders and was therefore a treasure trove of intelligence information.
In peacetime the facility had been home to a regiment of Sukhoi-25 Frogfoot attack-fighters with the Soviet Sixteenth Air Army yet many different Soviet aircraft had made use of the airbase during the conflict. There were hangars, hardened aircraft shelters and other above-ground structures which like the runway and taxiways had seen aerial destruction unleashed upon them from NATO aircraft yet below ground there remained untouched facilities. The armouries and the aviation fuel storage structures were something where those RAF men seconded to the DIS wanted to look at but better yet there was the operations centre from where aircraft flown from here and other airbases had been controlled from.
To be able to make detailed investigations of such a site which hadn’t seen sabotage in the form of explosions and fire done was something that the DIS had been rather excited about and their officers at Brandis Airbase weren’t going to be let down.
In Czechoslovakia, NATO troops involved in operations through Bohemia had established a holding facility for ‘personalities’ who had come into their custody at Budweis. KGB and StB personnel and high-ranking military officers suspected to have been fulfilling intelligence roles where being detained there before being despatched to POW camps to the West; there were also some civilians from the ruling regime there after being rescued from fatal fates at the hands of their countrymen.
One of those StB officers had come into the custody of Canadian troops and while at first believing that they were ‘English soldiers’ due to their spoken language had let it be known that he had some information which would be of use to Britain. MI-5 officers were hastily sent to Budweis to talk to the man.
The spook informed the MI-5 team who spoke to him that he was a Slovak, not a Czechoslovakian or certainly not a Czech. The situation on the ground in Czechoslovakia meant that ethnicity was becoming a major issue and so the Britons who came to interrogate him let that go for the time being. What he wanted was his freedom to go across to Slovakia as soon as possible where he had heard that the country was up in arms after the arrival of the Italian Army in Bratislava and the independence of the Slovakian Republic had been declared. Of course, he would need a new identity that didn’t mark him as a StB man and also some money too so he could establish himself…
In exchange for these terms, the Slovak said he had access to documents concerning the ‘English Parliamentarian’ that he had first told the Canadians about who had been on the payroll of his country for many years. At first it appeared to the MI-5 team that he was talking about the former MP John Stonehouse whose previous activities were known about, but this wasn’t the case. Again, the politician who the Slovak mentioned was another ex-MP whose espionage on behalf of Czechoslovak military intelligence (an organisation similar to the Soviet GRU rather than the StB) had long since ceased. However, his political party affiliation was different and of course he was someone else entirely different than who it was first believed some further background intelligence was to be gained about. No, this was to be a whole new ‘outing’ of someone who had betrayed their country for money and the MI-5 officers in Budweis would be all ears as well as promising the Slovak anything that he wanted – with no chance of that happening – for all the information which he had on an individual named Raymond Mawby.
CIA officers in Saxony were taken to a trio of KGB men caught in a very out-of-the-way place named Kothensdorf, a village located several miles away from Karl-Marx-Stadt. These prisoners had been captured by an armoured patrol of the US Army’s 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division operating in the security role which had been pointed in their direction by local villagers. Such men had ripped off their uniform markings but didn’t fool anyone those American soldiers nor the US VII Corps intelligence staff; the prisoners were soon discovered to be First Chief Directorate officers here in East Germany.
Soon enough there came some cooperation from one of the trio while the other two only spoke in very good English of various international treaties – signed long ago in The Hague and at Geneva concerning POWs – as to their rights… forgetting of course how respectful the KGB had been of such treaties when dealing with captured NATO personnel. Regardless, the pair who didn’t want to talk were left alone while the one officer who wanted to talk was debriefed.
At first, the CIA found what their prisoner had to be no more than titbits of information about various espionage operations which had taken place in the West pre-war and then internal politics within the KGB during the conflict. He wasn’t the finest of catches ever made though as he wasn’t a defector but rather a prisoner they knew that he was worth quite a bit for he certainly didn’t hold all the cards in their dealings and couldn’t really make demands of them. What he could give them in terms of intelligence about espionage operations would be useful in background information but then as they spoke to him more that learnt that he had knowledge of KGB facilities in uncaptured parts of East Germany as well as throughout Poland and Czechoslovakia too: this was certainly very useful information as when such places were entered by NATO troops the CIA could have men right behind lead units ready to seize people and information.
Personnel from the National Security Agency – often referred to in humour as No Such Agency due to its initials – were all over the occupied parts of the Warsaw Pact countries and busy looking at sites for signals intelligence and communications which were found. Many were wrecked either by NATO bombing or sabotage during the retreat further eastwards of Socialist Forces troops, yet even among ruins there was always intelligence to be found in such places.
Those installations of a strategic value got most of the attention with their arrays of antenna and satellite dishes as well as computers and documentation. There was interest in much of that technology where what was used were clearly copies of systems from the West from espionage activities yet at the same time home-grown ideas of note as well.
Examining what was found and shipping it back away to the West would mean that other communications sites identified from satellite images behind the frontlines and far out of reach could be better understood as well as what signals from them possibly read in the future.
There were multiple locations throughout East Germany and Czechoslovakia where the US Intelligence Community believed that thermonuclear weapons of both a tactical and a strategic nature were stored ready to be fitted to launch platforms should the situation warrant that. As the frontlines moved eastwards every day, more and more of these locations, as well as others unknown previously until they were found by troops on the ground, were the scenes of visits by specialist military intelligence serving with the Defence Intelligence Agency.
Wartime needs for coordination had brought such efforts at examining nuclear storage facilities as well as launch platforms under the control of the DIA due to overlap worries within the various US armed services own intelligence operations. All useful intelligence was therefore meant to be collected and analysed centrally before being disseminated… in theory anyway before infighting commenced between men serving the same country but wearing different uniforms.
Regardless to what happened afterwards, the DIA efforts were wide-ranging and met much success though at the same time often frustration too. While some installations were goldmines of intelligence others were useless after purposeful efforts had been made to cleanse them of anything useful for the DIA. Personnel who knew anything had been evacuated like nuclear weapons long before they could be captured by advancing NATO troops and those who were found at such locations were not those with the knowledge that the DIA wanted. More luck was had locating shot-up road convoys of men and material as well as a few downed transport aircraft used in the evacuation efforts from those facilities where there was always information to be gained from such battle damage despite initial violence done.
French intelligence officers with the DSGE were assigned all sorts of roles within occupied territory and one of those tasks given to them was to locate the whereabouts of a French nationals missing and known to be in KGB custody within East Germany: Jacques Delors, the President of the European Commission.
On the eve of war Delors had been kidnapped by an armed group of men in Brussels in an attack which had left five dead and no clues as to who had taken him and why. Belgium had seen the presence of many rear-area security forces yet an escape had been made and a week later there had been broadcasts made in French (in addition to others in English and German when it wasn’t known he wasn’t a native speaker and just reciting lines) from Delors originating from behind the frontlines. Moreover, a video recording of him in both parts of Berlin – east and west – was broadcast too. These propaganda broadcasts spoke of European unity where peace was discussed at length. They were clumsy efforts made with Delors clearly being seen and heard to be scared with emotional strain being evident but at the same time France had been rather upset at such a prominent countryman of theirs being used in such a fashion to denounce their nation and the Allies.
Other broadcasts had been made by the Soviets westwards during the war to extol their propaganda and sometimes would survive jamming efforts by clever frequency-hopping techniques employed by them to get round attempts to block out those radio and television transmissions. One of the best methods in employed was to use frequencies very close to those used by official methods of broadcasting from European news organisation under censorships with the knowledge that jamming would affect those too which were being used to keep morale up at home. As the war progressed, the Americans brought in some very powerful equipment and Delors wasn’t heard from again on the airwaves yet France remained very interested in getting him back alive or at the very least finding out who exactly had been holding him and using him against France so they could get their just punishment.
Several leads were followed while in East Germany for the DSGE yet everywhere they looked they couldn’t find any trace of Delors. There were suspicions that he might be being held in Berlin or possibly caught up inside the surrounded Karl-Marx-Stadt yet at the same time there were fears too that he might have been taken back to the Soviet Union or even lying in an unmarked grave somewhere.
Shallow graves were of interest to West German investigators with the Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD) as these military intelligence officers looked into what had happened to Bundeswehr military officers captured during the fighting and turned over to the East Germans. Interrogation of such men were the least of the worries for the MAD but rather unsubstantiated intelligence that they had that these officers had been executed en masse.
Unfortunately, the West Germans found out that this was the case. Enlisted men in Bundeswehr uniform had been in many cases worked to death by the Stasi while others had been badly mistreated during labouring efforts to repair war damage done inside East Germany before ABOLITION commenced. Officers of all grades had been separated from those conscripts and taken away to be at first interrogated for information, MAD investigators found, before being summarily executed once the Inter-German Border was crossed. There had been firing squads made up of Stasi personnel who had done this though with the highest level of written authorisation.
Erich Mielke’s name was all over these acts of callous murder committed against innocent men apparently for no reason at all apart from revenge for the invasion of the country which he ruled. The MAD started collecting as much evidence as possible here for any form of war crimes trial though many among their number believed that no matter what, Mielke wouldn’t be spending that much longer alive anyway.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 15, 2019 20:30:58 GMT
Two Hundred & Sixty–Seven
The marshes of Havelland weren’t going to stop the advances of the British Second Army towards Berlin. They were troublesome and so too were the scattered but deadly enemy troops fighting around them, but the onwards progress to the east was made. Infantrymen with the 2 R IRISH battle-group (part of the Tiger Division's 20th Brigade) had a furious engagement fighting enemy troops surrounded and who wouldn't yield so had to be blasted out of their positions while enemy wheeled armoured vehicles with long-range missiles had to be chased and defeated in-detail when caught by tanks with the newly-formed 5 RTR (with the 21st Brigade, 7th Armoured Division). It was artillery and especially air power which was truly coming into play now, more so in the latter case as anti-aircraft defences were now few and far between. Fire-power unleashed at distance blasted those few Soviet and East German troops who stood in the way while tanks and infantry moved in carefully to overrun what remaining armed opposition there was. It was methodical and above all careful as orders had come down from the top that here on the approaches to Berlin was not the place to be wasting lives in needless close-in fighting when the enemy could be pounded first under shells and bombs.
In the centre, the Bundeswehr IV Corps and the British I Corps, with the Belgians now moving in behind them too, edged forwards towards the Berlin ring-road that was Autobahn-10. To their right, after completing the crushing of all opposition around the town of Brandenburg, the troops with the West German VI Corps moved in strength against Potsdam. Their initial approaches towards that city outside Berlin’s boundaries had come from a southwestern direction in the preceding days with the 13th Panzer Division – reservists and security troops now manning heavier equipment from storage – and today they were joined by the two other formations which made up the corps which they were assigned to. There was the 1st Panzer Division (with elements of the devastated and disbanded 11th Panzergrenadier Division now part of it) and the 16th Panzergrenadier Division too (which consisted of reservists and security troops plus frontline Territorial troops who had been fighting since the war’s first days) in this battle.
The West Germans didn’t want to see Potsdam destroyed and they knew that there were many civilians there – Germans too no matter what the political differences between governments were – who didn’t deserve to be unnecessarily killed. Therefore there was little in the way of long-range strikes towards the rear-area support units in that city which supported the fighting forces outside of there. Instead, the Bundeswehr fought through the lakes, flooded waterways and woodland outside the city and took the losses suffered which they wouldn’t have done if they had unleashed artillery and air strikes against enemy guns firing at distance and coordinated from communications sites deliberately located within that city packed full of civilians. West German sensibilities on this issue had brought comprise from General Kenny as overall commander despite his deep misgivings about the whole situation.
Those defenders of Potsdam were located outside of the city along water-based defensive lines around Weinberg, Leest and Werder using the winding Havel River and also village strongpoints as well. These were KdA paramilitary troops in the main though retired East German Army officers recalled to service as well as military cadets were also present. Their equipment came in the form of hand-held weapons such as rifles and light machine guns as well as the odd mortar and anti-tank rocket-launcher. Against tanks, heavy weapons mounted on armoured vehicles and artillery given free-fire permission outside of Potsdam these forces stood no chance once the Bundeswehr could get at them.
General Kenny had his attention focused on that fighting outside Potsdam and then afterwards as the West German VI Corps came closer to the city engaged in more fighting on the outskirts. He had some of his staff officers down there delivering reports following observations of the fighting efforts made by the East Germans. Unlike those in Havelland, the defences here were part of those inner defences of Berlin. There were no huge earth-berms like those still going up just ahead of the British troops to the north of here outside the surrounding ring-road and Potsdam’s defenders were East Germans with no Soviets. The presence of East German Army officers, very highly-trained professionals, leading irregular KdA forces was known about and the abilities of those men commanding the efforts of Militia troops outside urban areas was something to keep an eye on.
Anti-tank weaponry in the form of towed guns and missile-launchers appeared to be a favourite weapons put to use by those professional men and when used well those were often formidable weapons. The general immobility of such systems when faced with NATO air cover to deal with the former and massed rocket fire from LARS launchers attacking the latter meant that there was only a surprise factor with such weapons though. Once they opened fire they could be pin-pointed for attack and movement from concealed positions towards other firing points would mean attack from above.
The fighting quality of the defenders of Potsdam was also noted for its intensity as the city lay right upon the very southwestern edges of the Berlin Wall. Parts of that structure had been torn down by the East Germans especially through the centre of the city in a symbolic effort by the regime yet it remained standing near Potsdam. Dedication from the defending troops was expected and met here as those observers from the British Second Army’s operations and intelligence staffs noted even if in the end it only hastened the deaths of those men fighting as hard as they did.
Then came the fighting for Potsdam itself.
Edging closer to Potsdam in the late afternoon and through the evening, West German troops fought in the outer suburbs and met what remained to be strong resistance where the defenders could use their lighter weapons that had failed them outside of the city. There was hesitancy to use strong fire-power close up like there had been at distance which even upset many Bundeswehr soldiers involved in the fight and cause them to rage against political orders not to endanger the lives of German civilians any more than was necessary. Large buildings that could be levelled by explosives were taken floor-by-floor, apartment-by-apartment and then there were civilians everywhere too. These people had been deliberately kept in-place by the regime and only once those Stasi officers with guns either fell down dead or eventually tried to make a run for it were the civilians themselves able to flee and run in every direction across fields of fire. There were many unfortunate cases where West German troops accidentally shot civilians and then many instances too where all evidence pointed to the Stasi shooting civilians too knowing that Bundeswehr attention would be focused upon the cries of the fellow Germans. By the late evening, with only small parts to the west and south of Potsdam in-hand the West German soldiers were ordered to stop advancing as their commanders knew that in the dark losses to civilians would only become greater.
The deliberate use of civilians of human shields in Potsdam was something that caused outrage among the West Germans and also other NATO senior people who found out what occurred during the day’s fighting for the city. They were left angry, frustrated and sickened by the callous behaviour undertaken by their enemy here in doing such a thing when it was clear that this was a war-zone and civilians should have been evacuated.
Moreover, higher up in the chain of command to General Kenny and above there were concerns that such a sight would be seen in Berlin too when that city was entered as part of the liberation attempt. Potsdam had been entered by the Bundeswehr not just because it lay on their line of approach but due to the communications links which ran through it in the form of all those wide paved roads needed for the final push into West Berlin.
Throughout the invasion there had been aversions of NATO forces during ABOLITION to go into urban areas and only the West Germans had done so – Magdeburg as the biggest example of that – over worries about the friendly casualties to be taken in such efforts. Now, there were fears that this use of (their own!) civilians by the East Germans at Potsdam would be repeated in Berlin with West Berliners being put in harm’s way on purpose. All intelligence pointed to civilians still being there inside the occupied sectors of West Berlin and over in the eastern side too with a previous hope that those people would be moved out of the way once NATO troops got into the city. Potsdam now displayed for all to see that the exact opposite was going to be the case; millions of civilians in Berlin were likely to be kept where they were so that NATO troops would have to fight among them against an enemy using them as human shields and fighting from the homes of those civilians as well rather than out in the open.
News from Potsdam went up the chain of command military-wise but also to the politicians too.
Two Hundred & Sixty–Eight
The game was up.
Ogarkov had finally come to accept that the war was lost and the course of events were now being led by others in a manner which was leaving the Rodina imperilled. Everything which had been tried to reverse the tide of defeat after defeat had failed miserably and therefore the only course of action to take was to no longer actively partake in the war going on in Europe any longer.
The Soviet armed forces were to take a bow and exit stage left from the fighting there packing up what remained and marching home.
The reasons for this were many.
*
First in Scandinavia and West Germany, then through East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria Soviet military might had been ruthlessly crushed with immense losses suffered from fantastic reverses. At sea, in the air and most importantly on the ground there had come a complete defeat of Soviet arms at almost every turn with what successes made initially only compounding the scale of ultimate defeat in combat. The technological supremacy of the West when it came to military affairs, what he had warned about for several years and faced much time in disgrace for correctly prophesying of, had triumphed in a fashion to almost make Ogarkov weep.
Early in the conflict, when those victories were accumulating at a fantastic rate, Ogarkov had told Chebrikov that the moment then had been to push on following the deep advances made into West Germany and reach the Rhine before going over that if necessary further westwards. That had been the moment to do such a thing with NATO’s armies on their knees. Yet, Chebrikov, fearful of an uncontrollable escalation from a nuclear weapons release by the West – which, admittedly, Ogarkov had worried over too – had decided to bring to a halt the offensive then a make those foolish efforts at peace overtures that only infuriated the West… following that their fightback had begun.
What had that then brought? The smashing of Soviet military power on occupied soil and then the resulting invasion of the territory of the so-called allies of the Soviet Union. Those fraternal nations were now causing as much suffering to the Soviet cause as the armies of the West. The East Germans and the Czechoslovakians, especially Mielke in Berlin, had gone crazy when faced with NATO troops inside their borders and the Soviet Army unable to stop them due to the defeats incurred earlier in the war.
Czechoslovakians were killing each other in a civil war where brother was pitted against brother there. There were those fighting to topple the regime – which was now, in Ogarkov’s opinion, defeated with Prague lost – and those trying to keep it in power. The Slovaks were fighting against forces trying to keep their federation together while many in the Czech lands were making attempts now to ethnically cleanse Bohemia and Moravia of Slovaks. The Poles were in open revolt partly against their government but mainly trying to kill any Soviet soldier which they could with the result that they were doing more damage to their nation than NATO bombs had done; Hungary was looking like joining them soon enough in rising up as well. Romania, not a member of the Socialist Forces engaged in the war with West, was now privately threatening to ‘intervene’ in Yugoslavia to stop their neighbour from falling apart like Czechoslovakia was unless Ogarkov acted first there. Bulgaria had stayed out of the war like Romania had though on Chebrikov’s command rather than outright refusal to get involved so that an unspecified plan for that country could be put into play at a later date; now Ogarkov was being told that Bulgaria had opened contacts with the West through – of all people – the Turks.
These were the allies of the Soviet Union in Europe and such was their behaviour. Yet none of those compared in any way to the East Germans under that little Hitlerite Mielke who had deliberately gassed and killed Soviet soldiers when trying to steal special weapons from the Soviet Army for purposes unknown but which could only involve gravely threatening the existence of the Soviet state and its people too.
And then of course Mielke was now acting wholly independently from inside Berlin and just gone and done what he had with regards to making those threats to the West all on his own.
Ogarkov no longer believed that allies like these were what his country needed.
As a result of the war, the Soviet Union was in many places tottering on the edge of collapse. Governmental control was breaking down in the outer republics of the union in the southern Caucasus, Central Asia and now the Baltic’s too. There were rebellions, revolts and violence occurring with alarming frequency throughout these regions with other worrying signs that such events might occur elsewhere at some point soon enough too in other parts of the Caucasus, Moldovia and isolated parts of Siberia. Where the people rose up they were quickly crushed but then there would come further outbreaks of violence that were bigger than beforehand and needed even stronger responses.
Ogarkov had been busy distracted from the war going on in Europe in recent days trying to supervise the efforts to stop what was starting to look like the beginnings of succession movements from the union in those places. He found his efforts hampered by local intransigence and then the schemes and conspiracies of the security services against those efforts. The KGB, the GRU and the MVD – all needed by Ogarkov to keep the country together – were against him and were making use of such situations for their own gains. Ogarkov had eliminated all their top people when he had taken power but new men were rising all the time in organisations where everyone seemed to always be intent on conspiring against the state from within to gain personal power. He suspected that much of the trouble was actually instigated by those people and then there had been the suspicious deaths of several key people he had entrusted to restore order in such regions which Ogarkov believed were the work of the security services.
Those spooks and secret policemen were needed by him to keep the country together for the difficult times ahead in the immediate future but many of them seemed determined to break apart the union for temporary personal gains. All attention would have to be focused internally within the country and getting rid of those traitors within would be a tremendous effort that couldn’t be undertaken with a war going on abroad.
The beaten, broken and demoralised Soviet Army was another worry for Ogarkov and the state of that was another reason to give up the fighting in Europe and walk away from that.
He feared for the loyalties of his generals with such men in uniform like himself always hating the security services yet the corrupting influence of them was always there. Other concerns of such men were that they might go rogue and decide to act in a nationalist fashion due to what parts of the union which they were from and involve themselves in ethnic conflicts of the nature already taking place throughout the border areas of the country.
As to the fighting men of the Soviet Army, there were worries over them too… at least those who weren’t dead or in NATO custody. There had been mutinies throughout the war of generally a small scale when fighting abroad though the mass desertion of conscripts in Austria had been something frightening due to how fast it happened and with such numbers. When he had been told that a whole field army deserted as one overnight there had been a moment where Ogarkov had actually thought that all hope was lost.
Currently, with the several hundred thousand troops in Poland kept out of the fighting inside East Germany due to NATO air attacks, and who Ogarkov wanted to march back home, those men weren’t in a position to mutiny. They were fighting for their lives against terrorist attacks launched by Poles at the same time as they suffered under those bombing raids. There was no way that they were going to run away at the moment yet when that they got back home that might be very different unless much effort was expended to make those men remember their loyalty and be fearful of the consequences of disobedience, betrayal or mutiny.
In addition, when it came to the Soviet Army so much of that had been destroyed during the war in terms of men, equipment and the whole doctrine of that organisation. A total of ninety combat divisions – ninety! – had been committed to the fighting and were now no more. Tens of thousands of tanks, other armoured vehicles and pieces of artillery had all joined those formations in being smashed in combat to say nothing of all of those trained Soviet soldiers killed or captured. What remained of the Soviet Army – the weakened forces in Poland as well as what there was left across the nation – were needed to stop Ogarkov’s fear of the Rodina falling apart.
*
There had already been moves made over the past several days on Ogarkov’s orders that would assist now in the new orders he would give for the fighting in Europe to be left to others as he pulled his military forces out. Ogarkov had felt it necessary that with the tides of war having been reversed in Germany and NATO’s armies storming eastwards that wounded men and specialist officers inside East Germany should have been evacuated by air from there into Poland to escape the trap which he could then see being set before it was as now almost completely sprung. When ordering the air evacuation, Ogarkov had been preparing for the worst and now that was occurring.
In addition to getting such people out of East Germany and not allowing them to fall into the clutches of NATO, Ogarkov had already begun the process of moving POWs captured in combat across into Poland as well. He had no intentions of letting the East Germans do what he feared to such soldiers from the armies of the West. This wasn’t from any moral point of view or compassion that he had but rather because his country would end up being blamed for their fates when Mielke did what Ogarkov suspected would and try to massacre them all. Prisoners were valuable and the numbers of them under Soviet control would be useful later on…
These evacuations would now be joined by the removal of all nuclear weapons that remained in East Germany as well as in Poland and Czechoslovakia back to Soviet territory too. They wouldn’t be left behind to fall into the hands of those former allies nor the West either but rather taken home with their associated launching systems. Escorted convoys would move those special weapons with the troops marching back east too where anyone who wanted to make a real fight of it would be welcome to make their move…
Marshal Korbutov had never been fit for the role of the commander of the West-TVD… yet at the same time the task being set him admittedly too much for any man to achieve. Ogarkov issued orders for his dismissal and recall so that the Soviet Army, and the people too, would have someone to blame. He would keep his life, Ogarkov decided, because the defeat on the battlefield really wasn’t his fault, yet he would have to shoulder the blame there when really it was the Soviet methods of war which he had only tried to follow which had failed rather than him. His deputy would be entrusted with the thankless role of holding on there in East Germany with what troops were left delaying as long as possible any NATO advance to chase the troops from Poland which Ogarkov would save from the debacle there.
There was much danger in what Ogarkov was doing and he was aware of that.
To give up and walk away from the fight as well as the puppet nations in Eastern Europe who were meant to be allies of the Soviet Union were going to upset many people. Unlike Chebrikov before him, he hadn’t purged his nation of all opponents and knew that he could face extreme opposition from many quarters to his decision. As long as he had the guns of the Soviet Army behind him – what remained of that anyway – he believed that he could stay alive and save his country. The security services lacked central command and while still trying to act independent with their own schemes would whimper in fear when faced with massed soldiers threatening them and forcing obedience to Ogarkov… or so he hoped.
Korbutov and the crazy Mielke in Berlin would get all of the blame for what occurred with the war being lost and the Soviet Union itself wouldn’t face destruction nor invasion from abroad either. Quitting now, Ogarkov hoped that his people would understand, was the only thing that could be done and better than having foreigners inside their nation with their guns. Moreover, not an inch of Soviet territory anywhere was going to be surrendered no matter what.
The West had won their battlefield victories but they clearly lacked the political will to dare invade his country and without doing so any demands which they made could be treated with contempt. They had the military forces to at least try to invade through the North-West or the Far East but certainly weren’t going to attempt that due to the nuclear arsenal that the Soviet Union still maintained. Ogarkov understood the West only a little but was certain that they feared the special weapons his country had active ready to be used to stop an invasion even if he himself feared such weapons too with the belief that with one being used all eventually would resulting in the utter destruction of his country and its people.
He could imagine that once the West realised what he had done in marching what forces he had left away from the battlefields in Europe there would be many voices in the homelands of the enemies that his nation had demanding further steps be taken against the Soviet Union. They would want financial reparations, make claims for suspected war criminals and issue calls for such things as territorial adjustments, changes to the political nature of his country and the elimination of nuclear weapons in Soviet hands. They could ask for all that backed up by threats all they wanted: that wouldn’t happen because Ogarkov had taken power and intended now to hold onto it (his initial plan to concede control to a civilian dismissed) to defend the Rodina not serve the wishes of foreigners.
At the same time, others of influence in those countries would be happy with what they would get by Ogarkov’s actions. They had defended Western Europe successfully and tore apart Soviet military might. Ogarkov was leaving behind KGB personnel who still remained inside Eastern Europe for the West to have their vengeance against as well as the regimes there too. Their fears of nuclear war would bring them to agreeing to terminate hostilities as the Soviet Army was back behind its own borders now where fears of a nuclear response would keep them in Europe rather than marching on Moscow.
Ogarkov would be ready for whatever peace treaty terms the west demanded with counters of his own sweetened by the surrendering of tens of thousands of NATO POWs kept from the bullets of the East Germans.
There remained many things to be done even after Ogarkov started issuing his orders late in the evening of April 8th. He would need to make sure that they were carried out in addition to those people he wanted out of Europe removed by the air evacuation flights and also the effective advance of his armies this time eastwards through a hostile Poland. KGB officers left behind would have to be cut off from all means of escape and then there were those troops on the wrong side of the Polish-East German Border who would have to be sacrificed as well in the final battles with NATO’s armies.
His instructions would face sabotage and even outright disobedience which would have to be dealt with yet Ogarkov believed that they would be followed eventually: he wasn’t exactly alone in thinking that the war in Germany was lost.
Moreover, there was his dependable Colonel Lebed still to complete his final mission there too in gaining some justice for those men killed by the East Germans with KGB assistance during the failed attempt to seize nuclear weapons. Ogarkov hadn’t forgotten about that act of treason and it was something he was still determined to see punished.
As those fateful orders to put active forces out of the war effort were received and acknowledgements came in, Ogarkov had more thoughts on the current situation too. He wondered just how the West was going to react to the most recent threats and demands from that madman that Chebrikov had given power to in Berlin? Such acts as that from Mielke had started the process where Ogarkov had decided to do as he was doing, yet at the same time this particular one would be useful too in causing a distraction of such a magnitude that for some time what he was doing with his beaten armies would hopefully go unnoticed.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 15:29:11 GMT
Two Hundred & Sixty–Nine
The War Cabinet met in London in the early hours of the following morning to discuss the events of the previous day. Revelations made earlier in the week concerning the country’s dire economic situation still played heavily on their minds, but the politicians were forced to concentrate at the moment on the news coming from the frontlines in Germany rather than matters of money at home.
General Vincent gave a detailed briefing concerning what the War Cabinet had already heard from Parkinson when it came to yesterday’s fighting at Potsdam. Thatcher and her ministers were very glad that there had been no British troops involved there as they were rather casualty-adverse recently but there was still regret at the loss of lives among West German soldiers fighting under British command. Moreover, the reported numbers of East German civilian lives lost when almost a third of the city had been fought over were unsettling as well.
It was explained to them how all the evidence pointed to such innocent civilians being deliberately placed in danger by their own countrymen wearing the uniform of the Stasi and overseen by KdA officers too who had then died with them. Those secret policemen had in the main managed to escape the fighting while those paramilitary soldiers had fought against the Bundeswehr and then lost their lives in great numbers after what was regarded as a sacrifice that they had made unawares. The proof of this came from eye-witness accounts by observing NATO officers, testimonies of civilians and debriefs of prisoners in both Stasi and KdA personnel captured. A week ago at Stendal, East German civilians had been caught up in the fighting there and deaths of hundreds of them there at the hands of British artillery and air strikes had been publicised in Soviet propaganda yet due to the general disbelief of almost everyone who heard that the enemy had to announce following so many lies that hadn’t been believed despite the truth. Potsdam was different though; these civilians had deliberately been put in harm’s way.
There was anger from members of the War Cabinet at what had been done the day before on the edges of Berlin. Throughout the conflict there had been so many accounts of atrocities committed by the enemy yet each time there still came shock at such callous acts of terror and mass murder. For the men and women being briefed below Downing Street today they only had fury that their opponents in this war could do such a thing as that to their own people.
And then there was the communique issued during the night from Berlin from Mielke himself which against addressed the issue of civilians and the war.
Tom King read this aloud to the War Cabinet in full when the majority of them had only previously heard it paraphrased. Mielke had certain informed governments – Britain, the United States, France and West Germany – that they could expect to see casualties involving civilians should they dare to move into Berlin (either West or East… or both) in great numbers as the population there was going to be staying in their homes while any fighting commenced for the city. The language used didn’t specify that such people would be forced to do that but it was clear that that was the intent. In effect, Mielke was going to use millions of civilians who called Berlin home as human shields to stop the downfall of his regime.
Foreign Office Minister David Mellor, whose responsibilities as a junior minister covered Eastern Europe, informed the War Cabinet that there were three million people in Berlin on both sides of the Wall before the war begun and that those numbers remained almost what they were. East Berliners hadn’t been allowed to flee the city while West Berliners who fell into East German hands had been trapped where they were as the larger side of the city where they lived while suffering under hostile rule where disappearances, stage-managed trials for ‘political crimes’ and terror were daily occurrences.
Questions put to General Vincent as to what casualties could be suffered in a full-on effort to liberate West Berlin asked for a realistic, truthful number. At first the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff stated that he couldn’t answer such a question due to studies needing to be done but he was pressured into giving such an answer and stated that in the worst case half a million lives might be lost. If the East Germans had troops in every building like it they had tried to do in Potsdam and there was also a need to fight through outer defences of the city first using high explosives then civilians were going to get caught up in the fighting.
There came a flurry of comments to such a statement and both Thatcher and Parkinson were forced to quieten their colleagues overreacting to what had been affirmed was only the ‘worst case’ when it came to numbers and have General Vincent finish what he was saying with regard to how that number didn’t mean deaths but injuries too and had to factor in the intelligence pointing to the East Germans having large-scale demolition efforts prepared among buildings where people lived. Whether KdA paramilitary soldiers – citizens of Berlin themselves – would allow such explosions to take place to bring down buildings full of women and children as well as their own fighting comrades was something that very likely wouldn’t happen. During the night there had come word from Potsdam that such demolitions had been placed and set there but only in a very few cases activated with Bundeswehr engineers now taking those undetonated charges apart. Moreover, there was also the question of the morale of those defenders of Berlin as they were again civilian-soldiers after East Germany’s professional army had been lost in combat – would those men do something like that even when ordered to by Stasi personnel who they knew were fleeing combat at every given opportunity?
Douglas Hurd and Nigel Lawson, two very troubled men following the effects domestically that the war had had upon Britain, speculated over how the public would react to so many lives being lost in liberating West Berlin. Each stated that of course that had to be done to free those West Germans there and the result of that would mean that the East German regime would fall too with the end of such a morally-reprehensible system, but how would be the latter public response to such a great loss of life there?
A proposal at once accepted by the War Cabinet was made by Malcolm Rifkind. The Scottish Secretary suggested that such threats from Mielke be made public and not just to the British people but in propaganda efforts to those in Berlin too from the paramilitary soldiers to the civilians there in both sides of the city. Of course this would have to be worked out with the Allies and the thinking was that many other governments would already be thinking along those lines yet Britain should lead the way here. Not only would the British public and people around the world know exactly what the regime in East Germany really was all about but that would increase the chances of a revolt taking place inside Berlin to get rid of the regime in a similar manner to what had occurred in Prague.
The East German regime, the War Cabinet knew, was one of thorough evil.
It had no democratic mandate especially now in Mielke’s hands and was responsible for war crimes committed during the conflict that sometimes went further than those undertaken by elements of the Soviet KGB. There were mass graves to attest to that of executed captured soldiers and civilians alike, forced population transfers had occurred within West German territory seized and other such heinous crimes. There had recently been news which had come that last weekend East German forces under Stasi control had gassed Soviet soldiers – their own supposed allies! – when trying to seize Soviet nuclear weapons with an end goal there yet undetermined. An agreement had recently been reached among the War Cabinet that gave approval (despite that not really being needed) to an American plan to kill Mielke by any means necessary whenever the opportunity presented itself to do that; usual worries over assassinating a head of state had been pushed aside due to his wartime actions plus the consensus that he wasn’t an elected head of state even by a rigged election let alone a democratic one.
General Vincent spoke of how the current thinking among NATO senior commanders was for Berlin to be surrounded by the various Allied armies approaching it so that all avenues of escape were shut off. There would then be advances made to seize certain strategic points further inwards with the intention of doing damage to the defending forces but avoiding fights in urban areas. This strategy was soon to be put before the NAC meeting in Brussels with Michael Howard there at the moment. Parkinson added to this by stating that this was part of a West German proposal set out for consultation even before yesterday’s fighting at Potsdam with the intention being to starve the city out not just in terms of food but ammunition, any form of external help and hope too. Combined with the propaganda efforts when it came to demonising Mielke in the eyes of Berliners as someone keen to throw away their lives, many members of the War Cabinet at once reacted favourably to this. It was what was being done at Hamburg and also at such places as Leipzig and Karl-Marx-Stadt too where the enemy had retreated into urban terrain but were known to be fast running out of everything necessary to defend themselves in addition to having to worry about the populations of those cities.
Alas, there was a problem with this. Thatcher reminded her colleagues of what she called a ‘small administrative’ matter which had been agreed upon the other day but now was much more than that.
The War Cabinet had readily accepted a request made through government-to-government channels, rather than through NATO, that a portion of their troops with the French Second Army in the Hamburg area be moved southwards to British command. They wanted to send a mixed divisional-sized force of tanks and paratroopers to join the British Second Army so that when West Berlin was entered they would have a national presence back in the French Sector of that city straight away. General’s Kenny and Galvin had already agreed to that and, as General Vincent was now to confirm, those French soldiers were on their way. This was initially agreed as something to symbolise Anglo-French unity and the request from President Mitterrand granted. As King now summarised, the French weren’t going to be best pleased with any attempt to surround Berlin and slowly try to force the collapse of its defenders but would remained committed – just as always had been the case here too – to retaking West Berlin by force.
Furthermore, what would be the reaction of the Americans too? The Foreign Secretary spoke of the reasons behind the delay of the West Germans to even get the NAC to start discussing such a plan as to how to ultimately deal with Berlin had come from American objections. Bush had pushed for ABOLITION and to him, facing pressures at home while serving as Acting President, stopping the advance on the edges of Berlin wouldn’t sit well with him nor the American people. Casualty rates among their own troops were hurting France and the United States as much as they were Britain yet there was a thinking at the highest levels in those nations that the quicker the war was finished with the sooner those losses would cease. They would also be concerned, as King himself was and both Thatcher and Parkinson agreed, that such a strategy to starve Berlin out would drag this war out for a long time indeed if Berliners didn’t revolt and Mielke managed to hold on despite all the odds stacked against him.
The War Cabinet now agreed to see what discussions in Brussels when the NAC met later today brought with regards to this where the opinions and wishes of all the Allies needed to be taken into consideration.
At the end of the meeting, the War Cabinet was informed of further developments on the Continent’s battlefields.
All intelligence now pointed to organised combat-capable resistance in East Germany now being over with. Only fortified strongpoints around cities – Berlin prominent there – were being met along with broken and beaten retreating units trying to flee ahead of NATO armies continuing to press forward. The progress of the US Third and Seventh Armys through southern and central parts of East Germany was covered in a map update with the amount of territory captured in the past few days causing some surprise at the extent of that; the War Cabinet was often focused mainly upon the British Second Army first in Saxony-Anhalt then in Havelland.
General Vincent alerted the politicians as to the Soviet troops just on the other side the Polish-East German border but told of how only a trickle of those had gotten across through NATO air strikes and what had had quickly suffered the same fate as all those who had gone before them. Many enemy soldiers from formations crushed were being rounded-up as POWs or making fatal last-stands everywhere yet nothing was standing in the way any more of the completion of ABOLITION when it came to East Germany… except the situation with Berlin.
Parkinson queried reports he had heard of enemy air activity in the form of large numbers of fighter aircraft covering the operations of transport aircraft at several airbases in East Germany and General Vincent moved to address that too. He told the War Cabinet that it now appeared that wounded soldiers and possibly valuable military officers with special duties and knowledge – planners and intelligence staffs – were being flown out on those aircraft in an evacuation effort. This naturally perked everyone’s interest for it sounded like the start of a bigger pull out by the Soviets which could only mean one thing… were they abandoning their East German ‘allies’?
Caution came from General Vincent here along with similar warnings from MI-6 Director-General Christopher Curwen. There was no intelligence to suggest anything like that and the movement of certain people from a few places didn’t yet have any overall significance to the war effort. There was soon to be NATO air intervention in that anyway as well as intense reconnaissance efforts directed there. All the signs still pointed to the enemy’s effort to keep fighting the war no matter what the losses taken and defeats suffered.
After the War Cabinet briefing, the politicians broke up to deal with other matters.
The Prime Minister was soon on her way to catch a flight to Balmoral to see her monarch. There had been far too much time since the two of them had last spoken with the Queen needing to be informed of actions taken by her government and giving her official consent to those. It was expected that the extremely well-informed Queen would also have many queries to put to her Prime Minister too and so Thatcher needed to be in the right frame of mind to answer those as honestly and concisely as possible too.
Whilst flying, Thatcher knew that she would also be able to reflect upon other news this morning of a domestic political nature as the Labour opposition continued to tear itself apart in recriminations concerning the now-dead National Government. She wished those arguing over such matters with such venom all the ill-luck in the world for doing so while British troops were fighting and dying still on the Continent and there remained that very real threat of nuclear escalation whose victims would be British civilians.
Two Hundred & Seventy
The decision taken during the night by Ogarkov wasn’t known to anybody who was at Sperenberg Airbase this morning. Neither the generals there with the Soviet Army and Air Force down to wounded privates on stretchers being loaded onto transport aircraft had any idea that their country was now withdrawing from the war.
For several days now, this air transport facility, the largest of its kind in East Germany, had been the scene of evacuation flights with aircraft arriving empty and departing fully-loaded. There were wounded Soviet military personnel being flown out of here along with a whole range of unwounded men too: headquarters staffs, technicians and engineering specialists, missile crews, NBC warfare personnel and special forces soldiers. These people were invaluable to the Soviet military but also currently without an urgent operational role in the fighting following the battlefield defeat suffered in East Germany.
Aircraft arriving at and departing from Sperenberg as well as many other air facilities across eastern parts of East Germany varied in size and identities yet were all now involved with transport roles for this evacuation. There were military aircraft flown by Soviet, East German, Polish and Czechoslovak air forces as well as civilian airliners from those nation’s airlines too. The majority of the crews were Soviet even aboard aircraft technically operated by the three other nations and all were responding to higher orders coming from STAVKA rather than any form of civilian control. Airlines such as Aeroflot, Interflug, LOT and CSA (Czechoslovak Airlines) all flew aircraft with a wartime role as they were designed for military uses even before civilian service; the air forces of the Soviet Union and the Northern Tier countries operated many transport aircraft too for moving men and freight.
The evacuation operation at Sperenberg was a mixture of organisation and chaos.
Transport aircraft were supposed to arrive and depart on a tight timescale with certain numbers of men loaded into them before they would then later return here after visiting airbases to the east inside Soviet territory. The lone, patched-up runway was to be used on a continuous basis and movements upon the taxiways and apron similarly damaged by previous NATO air attacks were structured carefully as well. There was meant to be a seamless operations to make the best use of time and capability with those aircraft and to get the men being evacuated onto the right aircraft so they could head to the destination intended for them.
As to the men themselves being flown out of here, they were going to facilities far away were they were expected with unwounded men who fell into certain categories going to different places to others while those wounded with their own destinations which again depended upon diverse factors: what wounds they had. Only those supposed to be flying out of here were meant to go on the aircraft, not those due to depart from other airbases and not with orders to be evacuated either.
There was protection for the air activity at Sperenberg in the form of fighters in the sky meant to be there at all times to protect the airbase from attack and then others meant to provide distant coverage for the transports. Anti-aircraft guns, SAM-launchers and mobile radars & infrared systems were also positioned to defend the airbase and aircraft when they were on the ground from enemy air interference too. Moreover, there was a strong garrison here of air assault troops to defend the facility from enemy actions on the ground as well as to assist the military police units in maintaining order.
All of this organisation met with ‘friction’ though. NATO had been active in using their own fighters to try to attack the transport aircraft as well as engage the defending fighter force – which was flying from Brand-Briesen Airbase before that facility was overrun yesterday like Juterbog and fighters were flying from Werneuchen now – in airborne engagements. They had made several air strikes using missiles fired from aircraft at distance to attack the defences, the runway and parked aircraft. Furthermore, yesterday their tanks serving with the US Third Army had overrun nearby Juterbog Airbase and reached as far as Luckenwalde… only a couple of miles away. That meant that their armed helicopters and artillery firing at distance were also interfering with the evacuation effort disrupting the operation as they caused destruction and killed aircraft as well as men waiting to be flown out.
Worse than enemy attacks were the actions of Soviet military personnel who also interfered with the evacuation. There were men turning up at Sperenberg without orders and trying to force their way aboard aircraft, many trying to use the threat of violence or even actually going further than words, as well as others who were to be evacuated trying to get aboard aircraft early which disrupted the schedule of operations. There were occasions were evacuees attempted to bring personal possessions aboard the aircraft which would get them out of East Germany from small, mundane personal effects to looted electronic goods, jewellery and money. Incidents occurred where wounded men or other officers ahead of those further down the list for evacuation would kill those ahead of them so that they could advance a step further to what they regarded as the safety which would come by being flown out of Sperenberg. Military police officers here with the Commandant’s Service were very grateful for the assistance given by the overworked air assault riflemen in stopping much of this by the use of direct force that was measured too rather than overdone for the latter could have meant even further chaos than there already was.
Throughout the facility on the apron and taxiways there were aircraft lined up everywhere as well as groups of men. Those aircraft needed refuelling, their aircrews sometimes needed changing while others required urgent maintenance. There were a few aircraft where repairs from mechanical matters or damage done by enemy action meant that they wouldn’t be flying as part of the evacuation effort and orders had come for them to be pushed out of the way and discarded like trash. There were orderly queues of men waiting to board aircraft that were in flying condition and unruly men moving about trying to jump the lines in other places. Field hospitals treated wounded men preparing to hand them over to medics aboard aircraft so care would continue aboard the transports yet at the same time there were others injured who had made it this far but no further who were now waiting to be buried in the fast expanding mass grave at an area just outside the perimeter fencing. Trucks and helicopters were arriving on a continued basis bringing more people to the airbase as well as ammunition for the defensive effort here.
There had been questions raised among many as to what exactly was going on here with this evacuation and the manner in which it was being undertaken.
Enquires had come from the East Germans and been ignored but from Soviet military personnel such questions were cut off with demands to obey orders from above and keep the operation underway. Of course, as was the case with any hierarchical organisation requests for clarification as to the meaning of the evacuation kept going further upwards higher in the chain of command when those involved weren’t able to tell their subordinates what was happening. Some people started to realise what was going on despite not being told that this was the start of a mass pull-out from East Germany.
There were other queries over the methods used in the evacuation. It was asked why those aircraft flying in, many of them military cargo models and even civilian freighters too, weren’t bringing in fuel, ammunition and food before taking people out on their return journeys. For some time transport aircraft with ‘rough-field’ landing capabilities had been making use of improvised grass airstrips across East Germany as well as airfields like Sperenberg and others to do that with critical items such as strategic SAMs and rockets for barrage weapons – why were all flights now arriving empty?
Ogarkov hadn’t shared his own wisdom on this issue with those beneath him though, not before he decided to quit the war nor yet since making that decision as his plan was to filter the news out among those who needed to know to prevent chaos. If such aircraft came into Sperenberg and similar sites where the evacuation of men was taking place then efforts would have to be made on the ground to unload, sort and distribute such supplies. All effort was meant to be directed towards the evacuation… and of course there was no point in sending what remaining valuable supplies which were making it into Eastern Europe to the battlefields in East Germany: those who were being left behind to be sacrificed would only ‘waste’ such supplies. This cruel but necessary decision with that meant that those aircraft arrived empty of cargo into East Germany but flew out packed with men.
NATO had started paying attention to the evacuation effort the moment it begun. The airbases at Sperenberg (always a transport facility rather than a tactical fighter base), Juterbog, Finsterwalde and Welzow as well as Schonefeld Airport outside Berlin and the occupied airfields inside Berlin were all seeing major use by transport aircraft with that increased fighter protection. There was signals intelligence to go with radar images and then reconnaissance efforts first made by satellites and specialist high-flying aircraft before commando teams on the ground were sent towards them. Green Berets, the SAS and French special forces all approached these sites as well to get a look up close first and then to hopefully assist with targeting for air strikes.
The thinking had at first been that men were being flown in by air or even that a major logistics effort centralised rather than done in haphazard fashion to isolated spots was taking place before it was realised that men were being marshalled from many spots and converging upon these air facilities to be flown out. Activities on the ground at places such as Zossen and Wunsdorf – important Soviet military headquarters and rear-area bases – where other reconnaissance showed evacuations of those confirmed what all that other intelligence had pointed to of specialist personnel and then wounded men too being flown out of East Germany with haste above Poland and into the Soviet Union.
This was occurring while NATO air power was focusing on their HAMMER operation to deny the crossings attempted by the Soviets of their fifth echelon forces over the Oder and the Neisse westwards. Soviet fighters protecting the evacuation flights interfered with those bombing runs drawing NATO fighters into battles against them and slowing the pace of the bombing runs. Therefore, the previous priorities of both sides became less important as these new ones occurred.
Once the evacuation was confirmed for what it was there came a decision to at once interfere with it. General Galvin had conferred with Lord Carrington and the NAC as well as Acting President Bush too that the best course of action was to attack the aircraft and facilities involved. Counterpoints as to whether it was actually more productive to let the Soviets do what they were doing were met with the response that such clustering of military forces around fixed locations were legitimate targets for attack in addition to their interference with the HAMMER operation. As to wounded men going on those aircraft… that issue was pushed aside due to wartime necessity and the reasoning was that the transport aircraft were strategically-important enemy weapons of war.
The US Third Army had yesterday overrun Juterbog while units with the US Seventh Army had taken both Finsterwalde and Welzow knocking out evacuation flights from those locations as well as the fighter protection flying from Brand-Briesen. Sperenberg and Schonefeld remained in use and were today targeted for multiple interdiction strikes before troops on the ground heading towards them could get to each.
The first of today’s air attacks against Sperenberg came from strike aircraft assigned to the new 8 ATAF. USAF and Luftwaffe aircraft formed the ranks of this command organisation and American and West German aircraft flew over friendly territory for most of their flights before making the last legs of their attack ingress above enemy-held parts of East Germany.
F-4Gs flying very low came first as they undertook a Wild Weasel mission to eliminate air defences close-in. They were getting stand-off jamming support from electronic warfare aircraft flying far back over Thüringen but even then still had a very difficult job to do. Transport aircraft high above them scattered while fighters tried to swoop down and then shells and SAMs flew out of Sperenberg. The Wild Weasels had been spotted by infrared sensors scanning the skies as the defences here were some of the very best and no longer radar-based but using infrared systems that NATO technological might was fighting against but had yet to overcome.
Missiles shot away from the several flights of Wild Weasels attacking in pairs and four-ship flights from multiple directions all at once though many of those were focused upon taking down defences targeted against them rather than general defences. Regardless, plenty of SAM-launchers and anti-aircraft guns were hit by HARM and Maverick missiles knocking them out of action at the cost of two attacking aircraft downed and another trio taking major damage to them from such defensive fire that had erupted to interfere with their dangerous mission.
Luftwaffe Tornado strike-bombers were right behind the Wild Weasels. Again, these aircraft with the 8 ATAF came in low and fast focusing upon defences this time disgorging cluster bombs over other suspected locations of air defences around Sperenberg. It was hoped that their sudden appearance straight after the Wild Weasels had departed would come at a moment when the Soviets were catching their breath and trying to sort out what defences they had left as well as moving some of those remaining from one covered position to another. This was the case yet other defences reacted fast as well. The West German aircraft hit many more defences yet a pair of them were lost with another one badly damaged.
Next in were several waves of F-16s at medium-altitude and not directly attacking the target’s defences from above but rather from distance. HARMs and Mavericks flew away from these too as further missiles were shot towards defences though some of the Mavericks were targeted against both ends of the runway as well with contact fuses fitted to make sure that flight operations from there were to be temporarily stopped.
Finally, the main strike package arrived. Further Tornados flown by the Luftwaffe were joined by several waves of American-crewed A-7s and F-4s all on low-level bombing runs at speed. Cluster bombs were the weapon of choice here following the usage of so many expensive missiles that there wasn’t an infinite stock of but also because of the weapons effects from these: most were set with contact fuses others for delayed action to hamper recovery efforts. Bomblets fell all across the airbase when released from aircraft making speed runs which still faced air defences though those were very weak now.
Above the attack aircraft, more F-16s had joined F-15s in a major fighter sweep of the skies. Challenges to them from enemy fighters were met and defeated due to the numbers of American aircraft used as well as the extensive support of AWACS aircraft safe in the rear detecting and tracking the enemy before they could get close. Rarely were there any form of dogfights but rather air-to-air missiles fired at long range.
Losses were taken during the direct attacks against Sperenberg following those to hit the air defences with another trio of attacking aircraft – all A-7s – downed. However, that represented a loss of seven aircraft flying with the 8 ATAF on this mission when more than seventy had ultimately been committed on strike and fighter missions. Those casualties hurt but the enemy was left with far greater damage with thirteen reported air-to-air kills made (the USAF fighter pilots claimed many more but AWACS radar images were what counted) and then all the destruction caused to Sperenberg.
The NATO air attack brought to a close the air evacuation effort from Sperenberg. Hundreds of personnel involved in that as well as evacuees lay dead or injured from the all-out attack made to shut everything down.
There were burning aircraft on the apron and the taxiways. The runaway was left blocked when one of the transports had been hit trying to escape against the orders coming from the tower to not go out into the open. The air defences had been smashed and several fuel trucks bringing in aviation fuel had been set alight as well causing a conflagration which grew as it found fuel leaving from smashed aircraft.
Military transport aircraft using the airbase caught up in the devastation consisted of multiple types of propeller- and jet-driven models: An-12 Cubs, An-22 Cocks, An-24 Cokes, An-26 Curls, Il-18 Coots and Il-76 Candids. Then there were the civilian airliners too with Il-62 Classics, Il-86 Cambers, Tu-134 Crustys and Tu-154 Careless’. These were all Soviet-built aircraft being put to use to move countless numbers of men but now left in various states of damage and often destroyed outright too. The smaller Cubs and Coots were serious losses but when bigger aircraft like the jet-engined Cocks, Candids, Cambers and Careless’ were hit their eliminations were grievous for they had the capability to carry far greater numbers of men before their sudden destruction.
Far too many of these aircraft had been caught on the ground here by NATO bombing and plenty had been in various stages of unloading too. There were twenty-six aircraft in total when the 8 ATAF attacked as the whole evacuation effort was being rushed and delays had occurred even while there were efforts to keep the tight schedule met for arrivals and departures. Afterwards there would be recriminations for several senior people involved as such numbers of aircraft shouldn’t have been clustered here sitting open to a massed air attack; in addition, the Soviets would quite correctly assume that NATO special forces on the ground had been involved in timing the air strike to catch so many aircraft here.
Sperenberg was closed following the air attack and recovery operations started… only to be at once hampered by a second air attack less than an hour later with a fewer number of NATO aircraft involved but far weaker defences. And, of course, there were NATO ground forces not that far away who this morning during their advance towards Berlin would find Sperenberg up ahead of them.
Ogarkov’s evacuation effort as part of his strategy of disengagement from the war in East Germany had just taken a major blow.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 15:45:30 GMT
Two Hundred & Seventy–One
Throughout the weekend, NATO forces inside East Germany moved to overrun much of the remaining portions of that country apart from Berlin and its surrounding environs inside the outer defences set up there. Striking across almost the whole of the country, troops assigned to the ABOLITION mission continued to crush most of the opposition which still stood in their way. However, there were still some pockets of resistance apart from Berlin which managed to hold out against the overwhelming firepower being unleashed against them and the terrible strategic situation which they found themselves in… without understanding that they had been fully abandoned to their fate.
The city of Schwerin remained the focus of the US Marines operating in the north from their coastal landing site at Wismar. Lead elements of the 5th Marine Division – now with an extra regimental-group of Marine Reservists who had arrived from the Caribbean attached – had reached Schwerin on Thursday but been held back outside by bloody attempts at ambushes from KdA forces. Once the US Marines were able to bring forth their considerable fire power they were able to close in around the city to seal it from outside support and then make raids against internal strongpoints. Fighting the East German Militia forces there within the city was expected to be costly in terms of lives lost to the Marine Rifleman as well as civilians so had been previously avoided.
Away from taking the city, which was regarded initially as only having propaganda value, the US Marines focused on getting southwards in strength as far as Autobahn-24 that cut a lateral path through Mecklenburg to their south as well as also reaching the town of Parchim to their east. This was quite a large area over which the US Marines spread for just one division even with reinforcing elements and relied much upon helicopters to move the men about. Many vehicles were still arriving in Wismar and that was taking time after they had had to be brought down from the western side of Jutland and through the war-damaged port surrendered by the East German Navy but with little capability due to bombing attacks made there beforehand. There were isolated places like Schwerin and then Parchim where stubborn resistance was met to them from local forces indoctrinated enough to believe they were fighting for freedom and also seeing themselves as defending their homes.
However, at the same time, there were other soldiers – mainly Soviet – who had been assigned to rear-area missions in northwestern parts of East Germany long abandoned by their comrades and effectively cut off so far away from friendly units as they were. Aerial reconnaissance would often locate groups of these before strikes were made from US Navy aircraft flying from the carriers in the North Sea and then aircraft flown by US Marines moving in for further air attacks. Afterwards helicopters would bring in Marine Riflemen ready to fight those located and bombed opponents… but also often to take immediate surrenders too. These Soviet troops were found with little or no ammunition, food or communications fearful of their own future with a hostile local population even here in East Germany and ready to agree to capture but safety from the US Marines as well as food in their empty stomachs.
By the end of the weekend, a decision was made that for now the area under the control of the 5th Marine Division would no longer be expanded. Most opposition had now been wiped out and US Marines were operating on the edges now of where other NATO forces were assigned to be. Both Schwerin and Parchim remained in the hands of opposing forces who were clinging on and so options were explored to eliminate them now as long as the casualties could be kept down. Parchim was smaller in terms of size and number of defenders and thus thought to be more manageable yet there had been reports of an ammunition crisis within Schwerin so that city was moved against first to take it communications links.
Battalion-sized attacks were made from several directions all at once with much firepower used with careful targeting against KdA positions even if it was only for intimidation purposes. Return fire came at first but then very quickly started to cease: the enemy fast used up their remaining stocks of ammunition as unlike trained soldiers caught up in such a similar situation the militia troops had no control over their own rate of fire. The brittle outer defences of the city to the north and west fell fast and then those to the south too. Helicopters operating low above the waters of Lake Schweriner on the eastern side of the city met even less opposition and then started to bring in troops there. US Marines strove to meet within the city after advancing on their various axis’ of approach used translators to speak to POWs who told them that the insecure radio reports intercepted about ammunition issues were true – as had been seen – but die-hard KdA men had taken a lot of what was left and retreated to Schwerin Castle. That historic structure had been from where several Huey and Sea Knight helicopters had witnessed SAM launchers made against them when operating over the inland water; Cobra gunships had returned fire against men with man-portable launchers doing damage to that castle. It was to there and then Parchim away to the east that the US Marines would now turn their attention to yet many of their officers realised that the mission here in East Germany was coming to an end now with Schwerin falling like it did.
Unless the 5th Marine Division was assigned to assist in liberating West Berlin…?
British forces with the 6th Light Division had been operating in similar fashion to the US Marines to their right. They had moved south from Rostock and Laage following the course of Autobahn-19 southwards taking large areas of territory against little opposition in most places but meeting some elsewhere. Like in Jutland, there had been a hesitancy to do this for fear of overextending themselves but eventually that worry proved unnecessary: the part of Mecklenburg which they were operating in was ill-defended by any major organised enemy force.
Canals and small rivers running beneath where downed bridges had previously crossed were the strongest opposition which the British faced as they moved southwards. Soviet missile attacks against Rostock had come to a halt and the supply base there was functioning well even though like Wismar there wasn’t that much which could be rushed through Rostock fast so the troops operating from there were moving light on transport.
By late on the Saturday the town of Gustrow – on the western flank of the advance – had been wrestled away from East German Militia who had fired a few shots to defend its approaches but then either gave themselves up or tried to melt back into the civilian population. The next day saw Paras get as far south as Petersdorf and Malchow but no further than those two villages which lay between several inland lakes. The British here faced unexpected strong resistance from a blocking position controlling access over a downed bridge and throughout what was in many ways an isthmus. Soviet tanks and armoured vehicles here without fuel to move but with ammunition, supporting infantry and anti-aircraft guns. Orders had come for this force to hold on no matter what and afterwards there had ceased to be higher communications, but the ad hoc regimental-sized group dug-in as they were refused to be budged. Guns from Royal Artillery units supporting the 5th Airborne Brigade and also the Royal Marines following behind the Paras opened fire yet there weren’t that many of these and they also had 105mm shells where much larger calibre ammunition would have been more useful against an impressive array of fortifications.
The RAF was called in an a trio of attacks launched by pairs of Phantoms operating at low-level, coming at the defences behind and with anti-aircraft guns filling the skies with shells to try to stop them, did some damage yet the Soviet position couldn’t be knocked out using stand-off fire power. Frustrated but determined not to be beaten, the British then sent Gurkha light infantry units supported by light armoured vehicles with the Life Guards to move to the west on the other side of Lake Plauer. These troops followed a smaller road and advanced fast before then coming round from behind the enemy just like the RAF had done. Mobility truly hampered the Soviets here as they couldn’t move their vehicles to get out of the way of the attack now coming from their rear while being restarted ahead of them too. Several units were eventually overwhelmed as the British took on positions piecemeal with Paras and Foot Guards using fire support to minimize casualties rather than rushing forward as before in haste and then the whole defensive line started to crumble away as the day came to an end.
This was a harsh lesson learnt for the British though. Their enemy was beaten and often immobile but when attacked with careless rush those Soviet forces left behind were still fighting on until they could be convinced – often following attack from all sides – that they had truly lost the fight here in East Germany.
There were no airborne or airmobile units with the US XVIII Corps yet its advances made during the weekend were what would be expected if the headquarters had the 82nd Airborne & 101st Air Assault Infantry Divisions under command instead of three light infantry divisions. The large airfield at Peenemunde and then the relatively undamaged if small port facilities at the sheltered Stralsund were used to build up strength following the initial entry made by the 7th Light Infantry Division. Both the 6th & 10th Light Infantry Divisions arrived into East Germany and expanded throughout the coastal northeastern region.
Following their landing first the 7th Light Infantry Division advanced in a southeastern direction through Usedom Island and then made the crossing on the small stretch of the Polish-East German border there to march into Swinoujscie. The port city, which served as Szczecin’s direct harbour on the Baltic, was already in the hands of Polish rebels when the US Army arrived. Under higher orders to make best use of the local politics, the American troops here exchanged pleasantries with and recognised those armed civilians which they encountered as an ally and were forced to look the other way when discovering that local authority figures in the town had been hung from lampposts in public places. There were some Soviet POWs who the Poles were kind enough to hand over to the Americans but these were rear-area logistics men; KGB officers, the Poles said, had been executed when captured too after previously committing acts of terror against the locals. Orders later came for the Americans here to expand further into Polish territory through Wolin Island immediately to their east and to also send patrols southwards in the direction of Szczecin as well. This was only done though after liaisons were opened between the local Poles here and a CIA team hastily flown out to start making assurances to the rebels on the ground about a future status for them; the last thing that was wanted was to upset these well-armed and very-motivated Poles on their own territory.
‘Drama’ such as witnessed at Swinoujscie wasn’t seen elsewhere with the US XVIII Corps as its two other divisions took control of their assigned sector of East Germany where they were to operate. The wrecked but ultimately-repairable airbases at Damgarten and Demmin were reached by small detachments in helicopters while trucks and light HMMWV vehicles moved men elsewhere throughout the region. There was fighting undertaken around the town of Anklam against KdA troops yet those in the bigger locality of Greifswald were nowhere to be found. Other engagements occurred with Soviet troops but these were against scattered rear-area forces meant to be fulfilling logistics roles yet operating for days now without orders and seemingly forgotten about. There were many cases where when met with advancing Americans they gave themselves up yet in the majority of meetings they fought for a respectable amount of time before realising the hopelessness of the situation. Just like the British had found out though, orders had got through in a select few places for units to dig-in and fight with all they had after being told that help was on the way to them as they guarded strategic points.
Rugen Island was well defended at several points especially those facing the East German landmass in the Stralsund area. Soviet forces firing artillery and rockets at distance had to be dealt with by air power and when USAR troops serving with the 205th Brigade attached to the 6th Light Infantry Division moved against them a furious battle was fought. The stubbornness here of the Soviets and their willingness to keep fighting even when put in such a bad strategic position infuriated the Americans enough to withdraw their infantry and then order air strike after air strike to rain not just bombs but napalm down upon their opponents.
The city of Neubrandenburg on the way to Berlin was to be the ultimate focus of the US XVIII Corps according to the orders issued to General Foss as corps commander and he initially sent the 10th Light Infantry Division heading that way with plans to have the 6th Light Infantry Division follow once they had cleared the rear areas. The upper reaches of the River Havel and then Berlin lay further to the south but that was quite a distance for the light forces he had to travel… General Foss didn’t expect that his troops would see any combat in the fight to liberate West Berlin.
The change in axis of advance by the US VII Corps operating as part of the US Seventh Army not to take Dresden but to charge north instead meant that a large area of southeastern East Germany had escaped NATO attention during the week apart from air attacks launched by the 3 ATAF. An armoured dash had been made following Autobahn-13 northwards leaving everywhere east of there from Cottbus southwards to the Czechoslovak border unoccupied. There had been intelligence concerning the concentrating of Soviet mobile nuclear weapons platforms there plus the determination to drive upon Berlin.
In the early part of the weekend those convoys of trucks carrying bombs (with thermonuclear and chemical warheads) plus mobile missile launchers escorted by an impressive armoured force rolled eastwards into Poland. Upon orders coming from Acting President Bush and the NSC, there were no HAMMER air attacks against them or the bridges over the Neisse by American bombers: the RAF’s small remaining strike force with the 3 ATAF had been focused further northwards and then towards Schonefeld Airport too. Enemy forces that intelligence pointed to being without fuel and not much ammunition either had been left behind in that region though and they represented a hostile opponent in control of a large portion of territory.
National guardsmen with the US IV Corps – now with the US Seventh Army – were sent in that direction to destroy them and reach the Polish and Czechoslovakian border behind Dresden and up as far as Cottbus too. The three attacking divisions were all sent into action late on the Saturday and fought throughout the next day too.
Striking on the left was the 42nd Mechanized Infantry Division with its men from New York, North Carolina and South Carolina. All veterans now, these national guardsmen had learnt from earlier bloody lessons how to fight against the Soviet Army. They smashed apart a generally immobile enemy and one with such low stocks of ammunition that any sensible opponent would have given up before combat was met. As planned, following a day and a half of fighting, they reached the Neisse at Forst and Bad Muskau as well as taking Cottbus when the East German Militia units they met there decided to declare ‘neutrality’ as long as their city and homes weren’t directly occupied; this odd situation was played for what is was saving many lives while arms were collected so later military rule could be slowly imposed there.
The 50th Armored Division moved in the centre with its ranks of national guardsmen from Georgia and New Jersey. Hoyerswerda and its KdA defenders were ignored in the push through Soviet units who collapsed after firing a few shots as American tanks and tracked armoured vehicles showed them just how to fight when one combatant has fuel and the other does. Then it was to the Neisse the 50th Armored Division went for and reaching that objective ahead of schedule early on the Sunday. At a small East German village called Podrosche, opposite Przewoz on the other side, Georgia national guardsmen with their 2/121 INF went over into Poland. A floating pontoon bridge was captured after demolition charges laid by the Soviets desperately trying to withdraw fast into the ‘safety’ of Poland didn’t go off and American soldiers entered Poland here like they had done at Swinoujscie. Other elements of the 48th Brigade joined them spreading out from Przewoz into the countryside and they found Soviet troops still fleeing them but an area devoid of Poles… apart from bodies in shallow graves everywhere. A massive war crime had been committed here, that was plain to see, but all POWs taken denied all knowledge and said they had come across the river from East Germany. Higher orders brought the national guardsmen to a standstill for the time being from their little bridgehead but they were happy indeed to be inside Poland yet at the same time upset at the immense loss of live which had occurred in this area.
On the right of the US IV Corps advance came the 49th Armored Division with its soldiers from Louisiana and Texas joined by Tennessee national guardsmen with the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment. A larger area with more numerous troops was struck at by these formations yet they had better access to road links and given increased aviation support too. The sites of the treacherous East German attack on Soviet nuclear forces near Bischofswerda and Koenigsbrueck were soon overrun once the Americans got moving as well as the protecting garrisons where those missile forces involved had been deployed from; the latter were smouldering from thermobaric bombs used for demolition purposes by the Soviets along with other strategic sites in this region to deny any intelligence use from them. Upon discovering that such weapons had been employed in demolition roles the Americans here took extra precautions against such devastating weapons being used against them. They were moving very fast though and not bunched up nor in fortifications where weapons like that would have great effect.
Dresden (approached from the rear) and Bautzen both showed signs of determined defence by East German Militia and were ignored for the time being as the national guardsmen moved onwards. They encountered Soviet troops who fought them whilst tied to fixed positions where only some digging-in had been done and that wasn’t going to stop the American troops here from advancing through them. The Czech border was reached and crossed in several places as part of flank security though attention was to the east and orders to reach the Neisse at or near Gorlitz. That was done so late on the Sunday by the Tennessee Cav’ escorting a combined arms battalion task force of national guardsmen from Louisiana: the 1/156 ARM rode into that border town. Texan national guardsmen were either side of them just afterwards in also getting to the Neisse at Klingewalde and Hagenwerder but everyone received orders from above that stated that they weren’t to go over the river at this stage into Poland. No bridges had been captured intact, but the Neisse was something that could be crossed here easily: the evidence to that was the multiple bridges which the Soviets had put up to try to make up for all of those hit by bombs falling from B-52s during HAMMER air strikes. Regardless of desires for a ‘force-by-reconnaissance’ or an ‘armoured raid’, as requested by junior men on the ground, the Neisse wasn’t crossed here today.
Across the rear areas behind the frontlines there remained many ongoing engagements as NATO forces sought to clear out pockets of resistance. Fierce battles which lasted for long periods of the weekend took place but so too did very short fights where trapped forces gave themselves up. There were fights to the finish, early surrenders and requests to ‘respect neutrality’.
Intelligence teams found that many isolated spots held by Soviet forces in the rear had received just what locations which East German Militia units had been stuck in had been in receipt of too: orders from higher command to hold on no matter what because relief was on the way. That ‘relief’ was of course non-existent and when messages were sent to KdA troops in places like Leipzig and Halle these were judged to be desires to see martyrs for Mielke’s dying regime. However, when sent to Soviet troops starting early on the Saturday morning those messages were seen as an effort to have such troops sacrificed for no good military reason at all. Some surrounded, trapped enemy forces like the East German Militia could be ignored and many Soviet forces too, but not all of the latter if they had long-range fire support weapons within their perimeters as well as a chance at mobility operations which could harass the NATO logistics systems. These thus had to be fought against and pockets eliminated across the rear even if it didn’t mean troops being sent against those forces in close-in combat but artillery and air strikes instead.
Both Leipzig and Halle finally surrendered during the Sunday with the bigger city giving up first then the nearby smaller one. These urban areas with their KdA defenders had long since been bypassed and cut off with propaganda efforts being made to induce their surrender as well as those special forces raids to eliminate their leadership. Such attacks, psychological and physical, eventually had the intended effect with the civilians in both places getting very restless and what commanders left fearful of their fellow East Germans rather that threats from a distant Mielke to their dead superiors. There were some instances of clashes with Stasi personnel who hadn’t managed to flee before both cities were isolated though others cast away their uniforms and pretended to be no more than harmless factory workers…
Karl-Marx-Stadt remained holding out though along with a few smaller spots as well despite all of the pressure being applied against them.
Across the rear areas of occupied East Germany, NATO also focused upon empty POW camps which were located. Many had been spotted from the air previously though other had avoided detection. As feared, at the ones runs by the Stasi for Bundeswehr senior officers there were only bodies but the rest of the Soviet-run facilities had been evacuated of prisoners in recent days with all evidence pointing to them being moved eastwards towards Poland. South Carolina national guardsmen with their 4/118 INF had ran into a convoy moving away from Cottbus towards the Neisse at Wilheim-Pieck-Stadt Guben (better known as Guben without the Stalin-esque hero worship to East Germany’s first and only President). Trucks laden with ill-treated and under-fed NATO prisoners – from the British, Dutch, French and US Army’s – had been rescued when their guards had surrendered after being faced with M-60A3 tanks and well-armed infantrymen in up-armoured M-113s. Those seven hundred men were safety dispatched further to the rear for urgent care but were able to provide a little information on when they had left their past camp and all observations made during their journeys. NATO realised that prisoners held by the Soviets were being removed fast out of East Germany with priority but understood that their enemy was seeing them as potential bargaining tools for the future.
Mielke’s defences of Berlin were constructed to guard against attempts to liberate the triangular-shaped occupied western portion of that city from the west and the south. Those defences were anchored in the southeastern corner at Eichwalde covering Schonefeld Airport behind there. The eastern approaches to Berlin, where the East German capital lay, wasn’t protected like elsewhere apart from natural defensive positions such as several lakes and small rivers & canals with downed bridges.
Schwarzkopf as US Seventh Army commander, had joined his superiors in the NATO chain of command and many astute politicians in Allied countries of looking at that situation with a suspicious eye. Were the East Germans, they asked like he did, that foolish? Neither aerial, satellite or signals intelligence spotted a trap being laid there and the only answer to this situation that could be given was that the secret policemen that was Mielke really had no idea about how modern warfare was fought. He had military advisers but he must have been ignoring what they were saying when it came to the defence of his own capital. Or, that speculation went further, he cared more for the value of holding West Berlin than he did East Berlin. Whatever the reason, Schwarzkopf was given his orders when it came to the eastern side of Berlin’s non-defences and he was to follow them.
At dawn on the Saturday morning when the Schwarzkopf had his troops attack he was careful to make the best use of terrain features to allow his attack to go as fast as possible. The Spanish I Corps had been shifted to the left to continue the drive up Autobahn-13 to where it met the outer defences of Berlin at the ring-road Autobahn-10. They were a small but capable force also tasked with attacking any forces they found lying west of them in who had been concentrating around Zossen and Wunsdorf before air evacuation but their main task – honestly explained to them – was to keep the enemy distracted. The flat terrain and the highway offered good going for their tanks but also many wheeled infantry vehicles too.
To the left came the main attack launched in a narrow channel of farmland and many small roads between Dahme and Spree Rivers. There were lakes at the other end where the gap between those two rivers widened out and then the Spree itself ran lateral across the line of advance but that was in the distance behind East Berlin itself. All reconnaissance showed no enemy forces of any significance within this area from Soviet rear-area forces to East German Militia holding any villages in number. This was the perfect avenue to advance through and get around behind Berlin, especially if the Spree there could be ‘bounced’.
Leading the attack was the US VII Corps with the US V Corps behind at first waiting to be sent either left or right – depending upon Schwarzkopf’s final decision at that moment – once wider ground was reached. Six combat divisions were involved with multiple corps assets plus plenty of helicopter gunships; there was also the 4 ATAF with its aircraft in support now that the 8 ATAF was fully-involved with the US Third Army.
There was no surprise here for the US Army. No trap had been set, intelligence efforts hadn’t missed anything and nothing was going to slow down General Watts’ attack as he took the US VII Corps forward tearing across the countryside devoid of a serious enemy in what would later be deemed in (semi-)popular culture ‘Schwarzkopf’s Gap’. Some breakdowns occurred of vehicles while others fell victim to mines laid in the most strangest of places yet enemy troops just weren’t encountered. This area was off the route of those transport links connecting Berlin to Poland and offered no cover with forests or thick woodland to conceal anything either that the Soviets might have wished to have hidden.
By Saturday afternoon, the US V Corps was fighting on the left (in the centre of the US Seventh Army overall) with the US VII Corps crossing the Spree in an effort to keep going north. An advance going east to attack Furstenwalde had been considered then rejected by Schwarzkopf as he felt his flank there didn’t need to be secured and instead he sent General Burba’s fast-arriving follow-up troops towards East Berlin’s undefended outskirts. Later that day Schwarzkopf nearly didn’t get the opportunity to celebrate his success when he went forward to see the edge of combat for himself – there had been some unfair comment about the US Seventh Army being a ‘château general’ and staying safe far in the rear – and while doing so his helicopter was very lucky indeed. Soviet fighters appeared from nowhere trying to escort strike aircraft assigned to stop the threat to the evacuation from Schonefeld Airport and one lined-up Schwarzkopf’s helicopter for an air-to-air missile shot. A Patriot SAM battery moving with the 4th Mechanized Infantry Division opened fire on those enemy aircraft causing the MiG-29 in question to break away without firing a shot that would have been an easy kill to have made. Of course there had been a friendly fire risk with the UH-60 Blackhawk Schwarzkopf was in being in an area cleared for SAM engagements yet with the fast-changing situation on the ground things were often confused and the Patriot missilemen had just saved their army’s commanding officer.
Into the Sunday, there came a focus upon moving northwest by the US V Corps while the US VII Corps carried on heading north. Much stronger opposition was encountered now from East Germans on the ground including motorised KdA forces from the Berlin garrison’s reaction force as well as static militia troops as well. US Army lead elements had reached Kopenick inside East Berlin and as far Rudersdorf behind it by the end of the day yet there was now heavy fighting being met almost everywhere in more-constricted terrain, especially in the outer regions of East Berlin. Those Americans inside Berlin with the 3rd Armored Division would have a terrible night facing sniper fire and attacks by paramilitary troops with petrol bombs as well. At the same time as they suffered under this from seemingly every quarter they met civilians – many of whom might have been KdA men who abandoned their posts and uniforms – trying to flee to and then through their lines to escape from the city. The majority of the men with that division hadn’t been pushed forward down from the forested hills above Kopenick and remained up there on the heights where they were able to observe much of the city which lay before them; when morning and daylight from these positions artillery observers would take their place.
Schwarzkopf had his US Army troops break into East Berlin as well as get halfway through the process of closing all access from the east. News would come to that the Spaniards under his command had done what he wanted of them and held the enemy’s attention for as long as possible as well as having many successes of their own. Everything was working out just as it should have been and there would only be praise soon forthcoming for him rather than petty insults calling him Patton or alluding to him hiding in the rear like those French generals of World War One.
General Chambers’ US Third Army faced much more tenacious enemy forces as they approached Berlin directly from the south. Around Luckenwalde, the 5th Mechanized Infantry Division with the US III Corps joined the rest of their parent command trying to push for the smashed Sperenberg Airbase at towards Zossen and Wunsdorf to their east. Soviet troops here had some fuel and ammunition, enough to make the fighting on Saturday tough for the US Army here. The efforts to stop the Americans came to naught once ambushes were sprung and fire power could be unleashed against them but there were many furious fights. Rocket batteries fired by the Soviets at close range were really something that the Americans didn’t come off well from when engaged by them with some of the very latest Soviet systems having anti-armour bomblets in their rocket warheads. A-10 attack-fighters coming in low against a non-existent anti-air threat were heroes to many soldiers on the ground who wondered just what was going on with the Soviets making such a show of their capabilities here this close to Berlin and this late in the war.
Just to the west of where the US III Corps came unstuck today the US II Corps, with the West Germans following behind them too, headed for Berlin’s defences east of the Potsdam area. There had been briefings on what had happened there and then the scale of enemy defensive works but much confidence remained with these men moving forwards. They reached Autobahn-10 by Saturday evening and then an armoured patrol with the 14th Cav’ was sent along the highway eastwards to link up with the Spanish pushing for the same stretch of paved road over near Eichwalde. This would have brought US II Corps elements in behind the US III Corps and created a huge pocket of Soviet troops trying to hold south of Berlin and unable to withdraw back to the city.
Night-time combat along that highway, even with air cover, was unpleasant for the American troops assigned and ultimately failed. The highway was covered in mines, the road and the embankments both, and other defenders were hidden just to the north with the autobahn zeroed-in. Anti-tank guns and missiles-launchers opened fire at distance and so did artillery too. The 14th Cav’ called for support and aircraft arrived first followed by artillery counter-battery fire. Some of the East Germans were hit but other remained active after digging deep to provide plenty of overhead coverage. What was needed was daytime surveillance of those defensive positions plus being able to see mines too.
Activity on the Sunday failed to do what hadn’t been achieved on the Saturday… yet that wasn’t the end of the world.
There was a lot of defensive fire power being used by the East Germans to stop approaches being made towards Berlin. What could be seen in the case of those huge earth embankments was taken under fire and men atop them killed in macabre slaughters but other fixed defences which littered the landscape everywhere were really difficult to spot and then once detected had to be carefully broken. This was very unsatisfying for the Americans who had advanced here but General Chambers saw opportunity in this too. More and more East Germans were committed to holding the southern line of defences to keep the salient further south from there full of Soviets from being shut closed. He kept requested external fire power in addition to his own with artillery firing at long-range and air support so as to not endanger his men in direct combat yet the enemy funnelled their into that area to try to replace losses. Eventually they would run out of men and give up the effort, allowing the US Third Army to shut the access to that bulge in the lines for good, but before then so many of Berlin’s defenders were sucked into the trap which their commanders had created.
On the map, by the end of the weekend, the amount of ground taken by the US Third Army wouldn’t be as impressive as what the US Seventh Army achieved, nor as glorious as getting to Berlin ahead of everyone else, but this was thought by General Chambers to be far more valuable than that. The enemy was assisting him in having their men killed and that would mean less fighting for his soldiers to do in the week’s upcoming fighting with the result of less casualties.
British and West German forces with the British Second Army spent the weekend pounding the defences west of Berlin from a distance. They took used artillery and air power against the ones they faced which lay inside the ring-road Autobahn-10 as was the case to the south too. Huge amounts of destruction were caused at distance with observations being made of many defenders dying for no good cause.
Less impressive defences than the earth-based embankments meant to keep out an onrush of armour lay before them though and plenty of reconnaissance was directed towards these. There were bunkers and trenches and signs of minefields everywhere along the highway out front as well right on the edges of West Berlin where the Berlin Wall was behind the embankments. Aerial reconnaissance from aircraft and helicopters was used in the majority of cases with less and less threat to them every time they went back to make more pictures or even record video surveillance.
There were reconnaissance parties out on foot too though. Special forces soldiers often accompanied by engineers went through gaps in the defences via clandestine methods of insertion to look at many defences close up and also at the defenders too. There were cases where alert East German troops had to be killed when they spotted these patrols but also a few men identified as officers were snatched too for interrogation purposes on what they knew.
General Kenny had been ordered to wait for the Americans to reach Berlin so that the city could be attacked when it was from all directions at once and he hadn’t minded for studying the defences and smashing them apart too were necessary rather than trying to rush them. In places there was weakness located and in others strength and this was also vital information as he shunted his forces around. The fight to move against Berlin wasn’t one which he was looking forward to taking part in as commanding general of what would be a third of the attacking troops. Potsdam had been a very unpleasant affair and the threat by the East German dictator to make the fight for the city just as bloody was rather unsettling. General Kenny wasn’t sure on whether things would get that far with Berlin as it had been at Potsdam though. There were efforts made all weekend with broadcasts being made towards Berlin and aircraft dropping leaflets by the Sunday letting the people know there what their self-appointed leader was all about and promising them support if they rose up against him.
When it came to Mielke, General Kenny had his operations staff draw up a memorandum that was to be issued to the troops under his command before they went into Berlin. There was to be a message which his soldiers, no matter what nationality they were, would understand: if that man was found anywhere during any part of the campaign he was to be captured alive, acts of victor’s justice would be punished. The chances of his troops finding one such man in the city and Mielke being captured alive were rather slim, General Kenny believed, but he would still make the effort nonetheless just in case.
Meanwhile, all weekend, the British Second Army effectively stood still where it was sorting out matters ahead of the push on Berlin when the order for that came while watching the enemy be pounded before it. The Americans were advancing as they were but the British had got here first and were making the best use of the time to prepare that they had.
Two Hundred & Seventy–Two
Lebed knew that he was running out of time.
NATO armies were closing in upon Berlin with alarming speed and if Lebed was reading the situation correct, there would soon come a moment where the city was surrounded with all access in and (more importantly) out cut. To be captured or killed in this city when it inevitably fell was not something that he desired for his fate. Yet, he had to finish his mission first and that meant being within Berlin at this time when it was clear that all was lost.
To complete his mission meant that there was to be punishment for the one man behind it all. His few remaining staff, men who hadn’t yet been evacuated from East Germany but like him were to soon be before it was too late, had believed at first that such a person was the East German leader Mielke. No, not at all, Lebed had told them, it was his KGB adviser Lt.-Colonel V. V. Putin.
Lebed and his men were all Soviet Army officers with their true enemies not being Americans or any others from the capitalist West but instead Chekists from the KGB.
Such secret policemen had always been despised and their actions following the Moscow Coup when they murdered Marshal Akhromeyev all the way up their activities facilitating the use of nerve gas by the East Germans to kill Soviet military personnel when trying to steal those nuclear weapons, along with every else in between, brought forth that hatred. Had they not purged the Soviet Army time and time again through the decades of the existence of the Soviet Union? Was it not them who had killed hundreds of Soviet Army officers during the war on false charges of defeatism? All of the hundreds of thousands of lives lost by Soviet Army soldiers during this conflict with the West were blamed by men like Lebed and his superior Ogarkov on the KGB with Putin as adviser to Mielke being a prime example of that.
Consideration had been given during the ‘interviews’ with KGB personnel here in East Germany conducted by Lebed that maybe all blame was being apportioned upon just one man by his Chekists comrades when they all equally shared the blame for what had occurred. Lebed wasn’t a fool and understood how at the thought of sparing their own lives was human nature for those brutally questioned to blame someone else, anyone else, for their own misdeeds yet there was other evidence to back up what had been said about this Putin character as well. Regardless, being close to Mielke and all of his activities which had so shamed the Soviet Army with guilt by association was enough to warrant Putin a death sentence anyway as far as Lebed was concerned. The man was a traitor to the Rodina as decreed by Ogarkov and that was all that was needed for action to be taken against him.
Ogarkov wanted him to be dealt with and such an order was one that Lebed was more than pleased to be the one to carry out.
Putin wasn’t exactly a hard man to track down once Lebed was in Berlin.
In recent days, Mielke had distanced himself from the KGB officer, Lebed’s sources of intelligence told him, and so Putin was no longer travelling with the East German leader all over both sides of the city. Instead, like almost all Soviet nationals within the city Putin was at one of the compounds within the city where those from the Rodina were to be found waiting to find out whether they were to be evacuated from East Germany or not. On the Saturday evening, after having his people search the Soviet diplomatic officers in East Berlin as well as the military complexes, information came that Putin was at the KGB facility in Karlshorst… just as Lebed thought that he would be.
KGB personnel from across East Germany who had managed to get away from the advancing NATO armies but not yet managed to escape from the country had been concentrating at Karlshorst for some time now. The headquarters centre for the KGB wasn’t very large in terms of size and in peacetime had been a command and administrative centre for activities across the country conducted from local field offices with coordination from Karlshorst. However, with most of the sites where those offices had been located overrun by the enemy and East Germany becoming very unfriendly for the KGB, the headquarters complex was home to hundreds of these Chekists. It had been bombed several times by American aircraft causing loss of life and there was a great deal of overcrowding going on where the previous offices had become in effect dormitories for KGB personnel without anywhere else to go and feeling the need to stay together for their own safety.
Lebed had been informed that several Chekists at Karlshorst, possibly Putin too, had been scheming of ways to extricate themselves from their current situation. In a reversal of times long since gone, they needed travel permission from the Soviet Army to pass through the necessary checkpoints before they could get anywhere near reaching the Rodina and those were not forthcoming. Therefore many of them had got their hands on false documentation and were also attempting to secure a source of fast and ready cash so that they could use that too in an effort to get away before it was all too late. Where they could go, whether anyone would be convinced by them and what would happen afterwards were questions that Lebed didn’t think that the KGB personnel had sufficient answers to.
There was a risk though of Putin maybe being able to escape from Karlshorst and disappear where he could therefore escape justice.
Armed with personal weapons and lacking in real military training, those at Karlshorst – estimated to be number between two and three hundred low- & middle-ranking officers – were in no way a real threat to an organised military force which might move against them. Putin was surrounded by men who usually worked in the shadows and who used coercion, deception and fear to get their own way.
However, the current situation didn’t allow for Lebed to move against Karlshorst with a strong military force necessary to take on Putin whilst he was surrounded by his comrades who it could be expected would try to defend on of their own. It would have been a different matter if he had some elite Soviet Airborne soldiers with him or even a platoon of tanks… but that was not the case. Ogarkov, when made aware of the situation, even as busy as he was with other far more pressing matters, had told Lebed that such a thing couldn’t be done right inside the heart of East Berlin for the relations with the collapsing East German regime were very strained and they might just make a move to defend the KGB due to factors unknown at the minute.
Frustrated, but not beaten, Lebed had decided to take a lesson from the Chekists in how to deal with one of their number.
Putin wasn’t going to be easily lured out of Karlshorst and Lebed didn’t have the patience for a waiting game like that. If there hadn’t been American troops between Berlin and Dresden then maybe some game could have been played with contacts of his professionally and personally too: there was a young lady employed by the Stasi as a secretary (but Lebed suspected that there might have been something more to her than that) who Putin had been breaking all the rules by having secret liasions with which Lebed’s men had discovered. Instead, of getting Putin out of the KGB complex, Lebed went inside instead.
His courage was something that no one had ever doubted, not even himself, but dressing up as a KGB man and carrying a very suspicious-looking set of identification papers before walking in Karlshorst was really taking a risk. Bullets in Afghanistan and then Norway had been fired at him from the enemy but Chekists were always a different kind of foe.
Bravado, Lebed had decided, would be best employed to achieve his mission and he always had plenty of that in him. He was pretending to be someone who he was not and going to use the KGB’s tactics against them here where they and a certain officer of theirs felt safe. At any moment when inside the Karlshorst complex he risked running into someone who personally knew the man he was pretending to be or even recognised him personally as a Soviet Army officer. His papers could be checked by someone who wanted to know what he was doing here and exposure as a fraud could come. Lebed risked getting a bullet delivered into his skull just as he planned to do to Putin…
…yet luck shined upon him during the Sunday afternoon when he set about completing his mission. No one recognised him for who he wasn’t nor who he was and those few who wanted to see his papers took little notice of the crude forgeries that they were. There was despondency everyone among these Chekists who quite rightly-expected that they were to be abandoned to their fate to be the victims of victor’s justice here in Berlin to allow the Rodina to survive the fallout from the war.
Lebed found Putin eventually.
He knew the man’s face from several photographs he had seen and was looking too for someone of Putin’s physique. There were a gymnasium inside the complex where the Chekist marked for death was practising his martial arts skills with some of his comrades: Lebed assumed that they were trying to keep their spirits up. To shoot him there in front of at least a dozen, maybe fifteen witnesses wasn’t something that Lebed wanted to do if he was to get out of Karlshorst alive. Instead, he watched and waited.
Putin spent some time with his comrades but eventually separated from them. Lebed remained waiting until his target was presumable heading back to where he had been laying his head and then approached Putin at the desired time when for a few moments they were alone. He could have attacked Putin from distance or maybe struck at him in the night but Lebed wasn’t a coward. He called out the Chekist’s name to get his attention and then withdrew his pistol before pulling the trigger once the barrel was rested against the man’s head. There was a muffled gunshot from the silenced pistol following the explosion of blood and gore before the deceased Putin slumped to the ground.
How Lebed would have liked to confront him with words detailing the treason against the Rodina that Putin had committed. He would have enjoyed hearing the man plead innocence then beg for his life and say that he hadn’t done what he was accused of. Maybe afterwards, when he realised that all hope was gone, there would have come a confession. Yet… there hadn’t been time for that with the meeting between them being so brief inside such a place as Karlshorst. Lebed delivered the richly-deserved punishment, took a good look at the corpse and then concentrated on making his way out of here before the whole place erupted with anger at the death of one of their own.
‘Vengeance will belong to the Russian people’.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 15:53:20 GMT
Two Hundred & Seventy–Three
Neil Kinnock resigned as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition early on the Saturday morning. His distraught communications director, a suave young man by the name of Peter Mandelson, issued a press release to that effect and then spoke to several journalists concerning the reasons behind Kinnock’s resignation.
For a month, Kinnock had been beset by a whispering campaign with the highest levels of his party, not just those fellow MPs of his in Parliament. His leadership style, his judgement and his temper had been repeatedly called into question and he had been unable to do his job. Blame was apportioned to jealousy and treason against not just the leader but the ideals of the party itself too.
Kinnock, those listening journalists were told, had only sought to maintain the trust of his party and the wider British people in not joining a National Government when invited to by Thatcher. He hadn’t opposed the idea on principle, just the manner in which it would have taken place with all authority resting in those Conservative members and those from Labour being no more than glorified mouthpieces of Thatcher’s policies. Kinnock and Labour understood the danger to the country posed by Soviet aggression in lead-up to the war, Mandelson explained, and fully supported the country’s right to defend itself as well as the men and women fighting for freedom from foreign imperialism. However, there had come treachery from those Shadow Cabinet members who had joined the National Government who had only sought personal gain for themselves rather than the good of their party or the British people.
Furthermore, the on-the-record briefing went, other Labour figures with different motives had then attacked Kinnock for failing to stop his frontbench colleagues from joining the fiction that was the National Government so they too could further their own interests. Kinnock had been betrayed at every quarter and was unable to get much support from his Parliamentary colleagues. The only right, honourable thing for him to do was to resign now even at this late stage after trying desperately for some time to re-establish his leadership and hold the now Conservative-only National Government (Mandelson dismissed David Steel as a nobody) to account for their failings during the war effort. Many others, of course, were of the same mind; they all deplored the factional infighting and had been unable to continue alongside Kinnock at the head of the party in such times as these. Moreover, the country’s need for an effective opposition to challenge a government which was running a dictatorship must come first and Kinnock was hoping that there was someone else who could step forward soon to do that though he himself wouldn’t get involved in such matters as a leadership contest, not at this difficult time.
Such were the comments from the Labour Party Director of Communications who afterwards informed those listening journalists that he took was resigning from his post as well.
Mandelson’s comments to those political hacks from several newspapers and other broadcasters were quickly prepared to be relayed to the public through what available mediums there were under current wartime censorship. However, constraints to this came in many forms from several sections of the media deeming that this wasn’t the time for public statements attacking the government in such a nature while the war was ongoing; others had their own interests in seeing the Labour Party left reeling by not providing this explanation given by the departing Mandelson. News of Kinnock’s resignation would be broadcast to the public though much of what his former spokesman said wouldn’t make it onto the airwaves or into print for some time despite the wills of many to see that happen.
The country was at war, the reasoning went, and internal political dramas would only give comfort to the enemy at this time. Other countries as part of NATO and the Allies were not airing their dirty washing in public even with a lot of that present, and so Britain’s political divide wouldn’t be exposed any more than was absolutely necessary at this time.
Mandelson would not be a happy man indeed at such decisions taken behind closed doors.
Tony Benn, the veteran MP and stalwart of the left, a self-described ‘democratic socialist’ yet someone given other, unflattering descriptions by others, had challenged Kinnock for the leadership of the Labour Party back in early February. This was a result of last year’s general election defeat and was an ideological move by Benn who was joined by what he regarded as many in opposing the policies and direction of the party. The collapse in relations with the Soviet Union, mobilisation & Transition to War and then open hostilities where Britain appeared at times to be fighting for its life, as well as facing imminent nuclear annihilation, had brought a sudden halt to the campaign which had been started to have a leadership election where Benn would challenge Kinnock. Party rules meant that in an election where there was already an incumbent this would be a long-drawn out process with nominations needing a certain level of support and that a sustained campaign over a period of time where all voices would be heard and representations made.
The leadership campaign was meant to last until the part conference in October: a long eight months from February.
Kinnock’s resignation changed everything though. There was a no Deputy Leader following Roy Hattersley’s murder at the beginning of March and no replacement made, even in an interim manner, during the disruption caused with Transition to War and then conflict erupting. With no leader as well now, Labour was without anyone at its head during these difficult times.
Benn was known for his often-spoken regard for democracy at all levels and in all forms; this was something which he believed in and had lead him to challenge Kinnock for the leadership in the first place. He wasn’t about to make an attempt to step into Kinnock’s shoes by default without being voted into such an office by the members of the Labour Party, that wasn’t the man that he was. His declaration to his colleagues, friends and enemies alike, was soon delivered though strangely there hadn’t been a clamour for him to do so…
There had been wide discontent within Parliamentary Labour Party, to say nothing of the wider party, with recent events. Feelings were running very high against those ‘four traitors’ – Davies, Dobson, Gould and Smith – yet at the same time there were many who believed that they had done the right thing for national unity in helping to bring under control the chaos that had gripped the nation before war had broken out when restrictions on everyday life had inflamed the public. Dewar up in Scotland had been lucky enough to avoid this guilt by association while the Shadow Foreign Secretary Kauffman had taken a rather dignified stance too in opposing the National Government not on principle but in how it was formed.
Other senior figures on the Labour Frontbench hadn’t come out of the crisis which ultimately brought down Kinnock so well and were left with their reputations stained.
Nonetheless, many considered running for the leadership now that there was an open contest. There were expressed opinions that the country needed a democratic opposition though still there were differences on what form that should take in working with the government or against it. Figures such a Cook, Cunningham, Prescott and Straw within the Shadow Cabinet were mentioned as candidates for the leadership due to Benn not being to everyone’s tastes yet there were also those shadowing junior ministerial roles – names such as Brown prominent there – who put out feelers.
Time was pressing though and very quickly the Labour Party’s administration moved to quickly secure a leadership election where an interim leader and a deputy would be selected by Labour MPs only to serve during the current wartime environment with plans for a real contest to take place once the war was over with. A tight timescale was envisaged with this so very quickly there could be leadership and above all unity in the House of Commons.
As soon as this was announced there came objections.
Not just Benn, but also some of his Parliamentary colleagues, called such a decision against party rules and undemocratic. Other party figures not holding political office but with standing with Labour were up in arms too as such a decision made to have a quick contest were the voices of only a few hundred would matter when elections for the leadership was meant to consider the views of the wider party and the affiliated unions and societies which supported Labour not just with moral support but with money too.
There were promises of legal challenges, abstentions and protests to be launched against this infringement of everything that Labour was meant to stand for!
Regardless, the decision had been made and nominations were to open on the Monday with a closing date of Thursday: the new (Parliamentary) leader and his or her deputy would take up their positions by Friday. The argument was made that time was precious and there was an obligation to have an opposition to the government in these times fighting the war supposedly on behalf of the country but effectively unchallenged.
A brutal political fight that would tear the Labour Party apart had only now really got started and what had occurred before would be looked back with almost fondness afterwards.
Two Hundred & Seventy–Four
Disengagement from the war was proving much harder for Soviet military forces than Ogarkov had believed it would be. Again and again, in countless locations, there were clashes between Soviet and Allied forces were conflict was met when the overall aim on the part of the former was to not seek to do battle with the latter. However, efforts to defend themselves and then, of course, the military forces of the Allies not knowing the opponents intentions made Soviet efforts very difficult indeed.
The airlift out of East Germany had come under intense attack during the weekend and this continued into the fifth Monday of the war despite now being rather limited in comparison to initial aims. Tegel and Tempelhof Airports inside West Berlin along with Schonefeld Airport outside East Berlin were the last major air transport facilities where the big aircraft trying to fly out those to be evacuated could operate from. Thousands of men were under orders to leave from their sites on military and civilian transport aircraft for flights which would take them back to the Soviet Union – not into Poland either – but fewer and fewer aircraft were able to make the journeys back and forth. NATO air attacks on the ground and the actions of their fighters destroyed or greatly damaged plenty of aircraft and with the airlift having to concentrate at such few locations this too decreased the tempo of operations.
And then Schonefeld fell to the invader.
American paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, operating on foot rather than in the traditional parachute role or even in an airmobile fashion, attacked from behind and marched on the airport to seize it. They would have the support of tanks from the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division as well, but coming later to complete the operation due to factors of terrain. This was due to the assault being conducted from a base of operation at Muggelheim in the midst of the Berlin Forest and to the northeast of the airport. The wedge of American-occupied territory which extended into Berlin from its southeastern corner was through this heavily-forested region and there were water obstacles to cross which help up the armoured support assigned to the paratroopers. The brigade of them involved struck on the Monday afternoon after delays all morning getting armour moving and moved as fast as possible through further wooded areas before breaking out in the open expanse of the airport. Soviet defences – as little as they were – were not orientated towards the direction of their approach and the paratroopers soon had air support on-hand before tanks and other armoured vehicles showed up.
Fights developed all across the airport as it was taken with evacuees joining in the doomed effort to stop the seizure as transport aircraft caught on the ground and stuck there were engaged too, including an An-12 which attempted to make an emergency take-off and was promptly engaged by a Dragon missile. Caught by surprise and with American air power coming fast into play, the Soviets lost the airport in an attack which with hindsight they should have saw coming but at the time they had been too focused upon their own efforts to escape East Germany. In comparison, that strike to seize Schonefeld was a coup for the US Seventh Army with Schwarzkopf being rather pleased that the paratroopers involved had done so well and that these were the same men who had several weeks ago fought at Rhein-Main Airbase near Frankfurt and stopped the seizure of such a place as that from the Soviet invader during the fighting there.
Other Soviet efforts to evacuate important personnel from East Germany which had been cut when Sperenberg was knocked out from the air had left many Soviet military personnel trapped much further south of Berlin south of the outer defences of the city. Personnel who had concentrated upon the Zossen and Wunsdorf areas and failed to get out by air had then retreated back towards Berlin – what Ogarkov hadn’t wanted – and there had been uncoordinated East German efforts to save them by holding a section of Autobahn-10 open for them to cross.
During the Monday this route was also shut down when most of the 5th Armored Division with the US II Corps struck eastwards aiming to link up with Spanish forces heading towards them in an envelopment manoeuvre. It was tough going for the American and Spanish soldiers and the Soviet troops which they encountered may have been generally rear-area troops but knowing they were fighting for their lives these men fought back as best they could… to their doom. They couldn’t match the armour which Allied troops moving against them had and they had no air defences left let alone fighter protection to defend against repeated air attacks.
The pincers of the envelopment shut at the usually-calm Lake Rangsdorfer, a place where many who were there said the usually blue waters were left blood red afterwards at a final climatic battle worthy of a Hollywood epic.
Across the Baltic, what little naval forces left active after much combat to the west between Denmark and the northern shores of East Germany had been withdrawn by Ogarkov following a stunning series of defeats above and below the surface trying to stop the CROWN operation undertaken by NATO. Those small warships and few submarines left active had been ordered to return to harbour facilities in the Kaliningrad Oblast, far to the east.
NATO followed this retreat with their own submarines causing losses even during the withdrawal and then there came an air attack against the still-devastated Baltiysk first and afterwards more aircraft hit the port at Klaipeda in the Lithuanian SSR as well. Those ships were meant to take on more armaments, fuel and casualties offloaded but F-111 strike-bombers made low-level bomb runs first and then later ‘lop-tossed’ big GBU-15 guide bombs too. There was an effort to hit the shattered naval forces when as many vessels as possible were in port – no doubt guided by satellite intelligence – to maximise damage done.
Any further part which the Soviet Baltic Fleet might have played in the war in defending the Soviet coast would have been minimal before those air attacks, but afterwards there was no hope at all. Swedish fighters had joined those in USAF colours in providing top cover for the targeted strikes and so too had directed electronic jamming to make sure that any cover offered by interceptors and SAMs wasn’t something to have any effect.
Moreover, alongside the naval strikes there, further NATO air attacks came over Soviet territory here in the Baltic in the form of hitting several key railway links. At Sovetsk the overworked railway bridge above the Neman River was downed when laser-guided bombs from an F-117 stealth aircraft brought it crashing into the water in an orgy of violent explosions. Afterwards there were a trio of attacks by more low-flying F-111s which hit railway switching lines – for transfer between gauges which had caused the Soviet logistics network so much trouble – on both sides of the border here between Poland and the Kaliningrad region. Evacuation efforts of troops rushed into Poland and now being pulled back out again with just as much haste needed these railway links operational but NATO sought to destroy them.
Soviet forces who had received orders to get out of Bohemia as fast as possible and enter Poland to join the exodus from Eastern Europe were not exactly moving from a dangerous wartime environment into a safe rear area. They had to break free of French-led forces chasing them away from the wider Prague area before running the gauntlet of attacks by Czech counter-revolutionaries… and then go through Poland where the revolt there made troubles in Czechoslovakia look like a toddlers squabble.
Getting to Poland first caused Ogarkov’s disengagement of his armed forces from here plenty of setbacks. The French weren’t about to let enemy forces large in number though weak in capability run away from them less they regrouped in the rear and came back for a fight at their time and place of choosing. Rear-guard actions by the withdrawing Soviets were overrun and those at the tail-end of the retreat were hit time and time again by French troops out front on forward reconnaissance missions. Air strikes by French and other NATO aircraft brought down bridges and blocked roads ahead of the Soviets who were pulling out as the Czechoslovak Army collapsed all around them allowing the French to keep drawing blood. Such action was something that the Soviets could ignore nipping away at their heels and their commanders, despite orders not to, kept stopping to deploy blocking positions with larger numbers of forces each time allowing for less and less men to take part in the actual withdrawal. Near the town of Podebrady there was a crossroads which was defended in a major Soviet effort to slow down those chasing them and lure the lead French units into an ambush but this was detected at first by electronic communications interception (sloppy encoding in the haste of the withdrawal played a major role here) as well as on the ground intelligence from French special forces patrols and defecting Czech soldiers. Two Soviet divisions – what remained of them anyway from earlier combat – were caught by the French conducting their own ambush when the Soviets had only intended to sacrifice a lone, understrength regiment.
Podebrady was a rather notable victory for the French Army who had seen plenty of action throughout this war and learnt from earlier mistake on the battlefield as well as most of NATO’s forces.
*
While the Soviets fled following orders to retreat from the battlefields of Europe, the East Germans continued to fight. Berlin remained the centre now of all remaining East German resistance with Mielke pinning all hope on stopping the West from retaking the city even if it meant the destruction of Berlin. He had reunited the city and it was either to remain standing as one or be brought to the ground as one.
Fighting to the south at Schonefeld Airport and along the ring-road took place throughout the day with troops assigned to the US Seventh & Third Armys, while to the west there remained the general standstill in operation with the British Second Army pounding away at Berlin’s defences from distance. However, a small offensive was launched by troops under General Kenny command to further the envelopment of the city with a flank attack launched outside the fixed defences to the north.
Taking the town of Oranienburg wasn’t the objective of the attack made by the Anglo-Portuguese 1st Armoured Division. This major communications centre lay outside of Berlin’s defences and ahead of their line of advance but the weakened division didn’t have enough strength to complete such a mission with dug-in and numerous KdA forces there. Instead, the mission for the British and Portuguese troops assigned was to drive scattered East German forces outside of there into that town proper and away from the northern reaches of Berlin by moving along the autobahn there between the two places. Panic was to hopefully set in among the enemy too as this attack would in theory be the start of an effort to utterly surround the city and link up with the Americans somewhere to the east as well as getting around the edge of the L-shaped defences Mielke had had constructed.
The 22nd Armoured Brigade – British troops from many different formations having being merged into this restructured unit following its survival of the Hannover siege – led the way with the Portuguese 1st Mixed Brigade and the British 49th Reserve Infantry Brigade following them. Engagements were made through small villages and across farmland to the northwest of the city against East German ad hoc formations of infantry and light armour with little or no major fire support. There were Militia units along with East German Army and Air Force rear-area personnel thrown together into supposed combat units but without any real experience among them.
It was hardly a fair fight.
Soon enough there were Chieftain and Portuguese M-48A5 (the 105mm main gun armed Patton) tanks rolling down Autobahn-10 north of the city past the edge of the outer defences. Machine gun bullets bounced off the tanks and so too did the very few heavy weapons like RPG warheads as well: the enemy had few capable weapons. There was a major attempt underway to keep mobile rather than stopping to deploy forward infantry units carried in armoured vehicles with the tanks unless necessary and to leave mopping-up operations to the TA units trailing behind. Speed wasn’t being pushed for but rather the psychological damage that it was hoped would be inflicted upon the enemy with them being unable to stop the attack.
Forward air controllers – RAF personnel alongside some Portuguese AF men who had much NATO training – went with the forward attacking units as well as artillery fire controllers also in their own vehicles. Air and artillery strikes were called-in fast from waiting aircraft and guns standing by to deliver their bombardments to again overwhelm and frighten all opponents. At a little place called Wendemark, a company-sized force of T-54 tanks taken from storage and manned by older reservists was blasted by such strikes long before they could try to make an ambush attempt against the 1st Armoured Division. Near Pinnow and then Briese, further small localities along the course of the highway, closer combat was sought and won by the Anglo-Portuguese force against dismounted infantry making last stands when all links between Oranienburg and Berlin were cut off.
The advance came to a halt afterwards as the few enemy survivors of the fighting along the course of the autobahn when retreating in panic north and south and judged to be no threat were let go. Such men ran away without weapons and without any unit cohesion at all evident to hopefully spread fear and despondency. Maybe the Stasi would get most of them, the British had to concede and silence their tales… but a few would be able to spread tales of what had happened here where it appeared the city was being utterly surrounded.
East German paramilitary and mobilised reservists clashed with their professional West German brethren again at Potsdam following a few days of general inactivity around that city.
A select group of Bundeswehr soldiers, Fernspäher commandoes and combat engineers, supported by panzergrenadiers, attempted to take the Glienicke Bridge which linked Potsdam to West Berlin. This was the famous ‘bridge of spies’ where exchanges of those caught committing espionage in both the East and the West had been traded for one another for many years in tense events. It had remained standing throughout the conflict not bombed by NATO air attacks due to its lack of strategic use by the enemy and then later as fighting arrived at Potsdam because the West Germans wanted to take it and triumph such a deed to their own people.
The Bundeswehr walked into an ambush.
Upon agreeing to the mission using elite troops under his command, General Kenny had told the West Germans that it would be dangerous with the East Germans no doubt understanding why the structure hadn’t been bombed and waiting for an attempt to take it. He had authorised it only with conditions attached due to political pressure being placed upon the chain of command and when afterwards told of what happened even with all of the security measure to try to stop that was left rather annoyed at the waste of live.
Hidden East German snipers – Grenztruppen border guards from the Berlin Wall security force – used night vision equipment to eliminate lead units when the pre-dawn attempt was made to get men onto the bridge and start attacking suspected demolition charges. Mortars then exploded in the air at various heights in a calculated barrage which sent shrapnel everywhere when West German troops broke cover to try to rush the bridge. When such defences didn’t work, the East Germans – putting a lot of effort into this attempt – then blew up the bridge by remote-control demolition bringing to an end the Bundeswehr attempt to seize it. The demolition was throughout and left little remaining of the historic structure for the West Germans to use for their own political purposes.
Following this event, there would be gunfire exchanged throughout the day all across the Potsdam area between troops serving the armed forces of both Germany’s though little major fighting in the still heavily-populated urban areas of the city where the stalemate following Mielke’s threats remained holding.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 16:02:11 GMT
Two Hundred & Seventy–Five
April 11th saw East German forces cut off but holding out in Hamburg, Lubeck and Karl-Marx-Stadt all finally surrender control of those urban areas after being under siege for some time now. Relief was not forthcoming and surrenders started to take place during the later part of the day as the situation on the ground turned into a disaster for them. However, this wasn’t the result of a domino effect where events at one of those cities caused the collapse of opposition at another: there were individual circumstances at each which brought about the end of resistance.
Hamburg had been captured three weeks ago after a furious fight which had taken place right in the middle of the city. Its seizure had been a political operation rather than one of military necessity; the Soviets had wanted to give the Bundeswehr what was thought to have been a fatal blow to morale after all the effort made to defend the place while to the East Germans it was to be the biggest city inside West Germany which was to see the beginnings of a ‘new Germany’. After the initial attacking soldiers, frontline Soviet forces and East German reservists, had left for other missions the ‘security forces’ moved in. These were Grenztruppen border guards troops who escorted the Stasi into the city to begin a reign of terror in Hamburg.
When the defending 6th Panzergrenadier Division had been beaten in battle and that Bundeswehr force surrendered, not all of the surviving men of that formation had given themselves up. There had been small parties and individuals who had left the ranks of their comrades before or during the surrender and taken their weapons with them. Hiding out inside Hamburg had at first seemed easy for them with all the chaos but when the East Germans strove to restore order many of those soldiers were caught and faced immediate execution rather than POW status with the Stasi deeming them as ‘terrorists’. Not all of those troops were captured though and then there were other armed West Germans inside the city as well who also sought to avoid capture by the enemy as well as resisting the rule of the East Germans. Those who fell into the latter category were fulfilling a stay-behind role inside Hamburg and had weapons, communications and contacts within the city so that they could launch a guerrilla war against the occupier. Some successes were made though there were fatal consequences for such intelligence operatives as well as those civilians they recruited into their efforts when they were caught.
Hamburg had thus never been truly pacified despite the great efforts of the East Germans to do so. It was a large city with many ruins left over from the fighting which had taken place to seize it leaving many locations where those who resisted operated from. Brutal crackdowns were commenced against civil disobedience and reprisal operations launched against unarmed civilians for guerrilla actions yet those who undertook those acts which caused such reactions from the East Germans remained active even as their numbers dwindled. Then the external situation with the course of the war had changed with Hamburg cut off from its connections with East Germany before being surrounded by French troops. As before, a siege had developed though this time with the East Germans manning the defences to the city and using many of those positions covering the approaches which the defeated Bundeswehr troops had used as well as many captured weapons too.
The Second Siege of Hamburg had brought with it a lot of violence within the city. Radio broadcasts coming from outside to those inside had called for insurrection from the people and while many would have liked to act against their oppressors they lacked weapons plus also feared more reprisals. Regardless to the general pacification of the population, the Stasi acted against the city’s population again and again arrested and shooting anyone they could for the slightest of reasons. As to the Grenztruppen soldiers… these men were like children in a candy shop.
Their time spent in Hamburg had been all about taking advantage of what they could from here when their officers weren’t looking: women, drink and electronic goods at first though later food when the siege started to affect them too as dwindling supplies ran low. Discipline problems among this usually so politically-reliable force started to break as the Grenztruppen were far away from their comfortable home life and they felt like they were undervalued as well as having been forgotten about. When the Stasi acted against the worst offenders for drinking and looting, then stealing food too there were incidents where such secret policemen were shot trying to enforce order. Men deserted and tried to lose themselves in the city; many succeed for a while before facing ultimately deadly fates at the hands of West Germans… but rumours spread among the others that the Stasi was responsible too.
All the while the French Second Army outside the city played a patient waiting game not willing to get sucked into a fight for urban terrain which had so stung the initial troops who broke the First Siege of Hamburg. They attacked outposts, launched targeted artillery strikes and picked careful fights against the defences while not moving in close. Propaganda efforts soon started to be launched against the Grenztruppen with radio broadcasts on their own radio frequencies extolling them promises of surrender as well as spreading tales of the actions of the Stasi as well as the fall of their own country.
That Stasi force was well aware of the situation which they faced. They were stung by guerrilla attacks and the furious responses of the Grenztruppen reacting to attempts to restore discipline among the manpower force which they needed to keep control in Hamburg. Radio messages to Berlin at first told them to hang on and the city would be relieved eventually when new successes on the battlefield came yet those grew less and less believable as time went on. There was a feeling among the top tier of such men that their time was running out with only bad options left to them and they needed to pick the best of those. Maintaining the status quo could eventually see the Grenztruppen mutiny in great numbers and kill their Stasi overlords. Maybe the local population, aided by enemy commandoes slipped into the city, would slaughter them all in one final orgy of violence. Or Berlin might send instructions to lower-ranking men to kill those at the top in a purge to try to restore order here. Death faced the Stasi commanders in Hamburg… unless they surrendered to the Allies and faced the consequences of that. There was a good chance they believed that they would face trials but prison sentences – which maybe they could contest in a post-war environment of German togetherness – were better than a firing squad.
Therefore, the Stasi would surrender Hamburg peacefully rather than let any more blood be spilt.
Not far from Hamburg, on the Baltic side of the lower reaches of the Jutland Peninsula, Lubeck had been put in a similar position to the larger city across on the North Sea coast.
There had been a siege here first against American and Danish troops trapped inside and one which was overcome early in the war only for the French to arrive in Holstein to surround the city: a second armed cordon had gone up around it this time with East German forces inside. The Stasi and Grenztruppen were at Lubeck surrounded by the enemy though here there were also paratroopers and Volksmarine personnel as well. West German intelligence operatives were operating in the guerrilla role were far fewer in Lubeck and there had never been more than a handful of professional NATO soldiers who had decided to make a run for it at the last minute here. Yet, the civilians had been mistreated in Lubeck just as they had been in Hamburg while another similarity with that bigger city were the promises from Berlin of assistance coming as long as managed to Lubeck hold out.
Admiral Hoffmann's declaration of the ‘neutrality’ by the East German Navy was reacted to very fast in Lubeck when the Stasi struck at Volksmarine personnel throughout the besieged city killing their senior officers on sight (no matter what protestations were made) and rounding up all lower ranking men before distributing them to the frontlines defending the city. Naval personnel were split up and spread out so that they wouldn’t all be together; the manpower wasn’t wasted yet the men still weren’t trusted.
The Stasi should have shot such men.
Information of what had happened at Rostock where the Volksmarine had opened the way for NATO to pour in troops had been spread further than just the deceased senior officers with the base established in occupied Lubeck. Junior men heard about it from those of senior rank before such officers were shot and they were then dispersed everywhere throughout the frontlines manning the outer defences of the city. They started to tell what they knew to their fellow East Germans with the result that those who heard such a story could see that their country was falling apart. Stasi men acted late but effectively in eventually going back after those men again and pulling many back out of the frontlines and away from their countrymen but by then it was far too late: word had gotten out that East Germany was doomed.
Discipline problems struck at Lubeck but in a different manner to those at Hamburg. Here, the professional elite paratroopers caught up in the siege started to follow their lead set by the Volksmarine: they stopped engaging French besieging troops in combat declaring ‘neutrality’. The whole defensive position was one where different units were intermixed and so small sections of the outer lines were no longer active in the defence which caused a crippling effect of such attempts to hold on for the senior commanders. Those in charge were men from the Grenztruppen who weren’t best pleased at Stasi reactions to such events and then colluded to follow the lead set by the paratroopers… and started executing those secret policemen who tried to stop them.
East Germans killed East Germans in a blood-letting that only came to a halt when the outnumbered, outgunned and outfought Stasi started throwing down their arms before the victors of the internal fighting then opened discussions with the surrounding French Army. The city had been held as long as military feasible and the port facilities wrecked so they would be of no use to the enemy. Ammunition stocks and food supplies were running out making further resistance and thus loss of life futile. Those who surrendered the city decided that they could do no more here and believed they were making the right choice – just as the American General Shalikashvili had done so weeks ago – in giving up the fight when all hope was lost.
Karl-Marx-Stadt, down in Saxony, was very different to either Hamburg or Lubeck. This was an East German city rather than an occupied West German one without the resultant hostile population and active guerrilla threat. American troops surrounded the city instead of French forces while there was a major Soviet presence at Karl-Marx-Stadt where there had been almost no Soviets at the two other locations.
Left far behind the frontlines as those moved deeper into East Germany and inevitably towards Berlin, Karl-Marx-Stadt ended up besieged. No serious attempt had been made to take the city by the US Seventh Army when it had drove up the autobahn deep into Saxony following that highway taking the right flank of their advance past nearby cities. Only a seemingly-cursory first attack by advance guards elements had been made with strong defensive fire unleashed before the Americans moved onwards relegating the task of ringing the city and cutting it off to second-line units. Groups of armed men, soldiers and intelligence operatives, had fallen back into the city to join the Militia stood-up to defend Karl-Marx-Stadt though it was the presence of the former smaller in number than the latter which made for the length of the siege.
During hostilities, Karl-Marx-Stadt had been chosen as a centralised location for Soviet intelligence operations. Programmes run by the KGB and the GRU – independent of each other, of course – to make use of hostages to benefit the war had been set up in the city with all sorts of prisoners gathered here at secure facilities where interrogations were made and then there came the broadcasts on the airwaves as well as the letters and videos to be sent home. Some of these efforts didn’t go as planned and bodies started piling up though more hostages had arrived for some time before the fortunes of war turned. In addition, signals analysis stations as well as centres for enemy military documentation captured for scrutiny were centralised around the city as the Soviet Army’s military intelligence had also been concentrated in Karl-Marx-Stadt.
Well-armed but with limited supplies, the large KdA local detachment put up a very good fight in maintaining the cities defences. The top Militia officials were not fooled like their junior men were though by the lies about the ‘Imperialist invaders’ because they were dealing with some of those closer to home: the KGB (and to a lesser extent the GRU) in Karl-Marx-Stadt. The immediate families of the KdA commanders had been taken hostage with their fates dependent upon the steadfastness of the defences. The outer lines protecting the city were meant to hold until relief came in the form of the Soviet Army launching a counterattack which the spooks were expecting and until then the Militia units would give all that they had.
Hedging their bets, and also deciding that their other hostages really didn’t serve much of a purpose anymore unless that was in the event of the city falling and later being witnesses at war crimes trials, those prisoners from the West were gotten rid of. Shooting parties and then men detailed to burn bodies and scatter ashes eliminated soldiers, diplomats, spooks and journalists all held at Karl-Marx-Stadt. There were many hundreds of them who had been abused at facilities across the city and were now seen as useless mouths who were to be killed and the bodies gotten disposed. Then there came the clean-up operation getting rid of other witnesses – Stasi agents mainly who had outlived their usefulness – as well as paperwork and physical evidence. It was truly a herculean task to do this all the while thinking that the activities here would be exposed by an enemy which might break through the outer defences. It wasn’t just hiding what they had done personally that was the issue for the KGB and GRU officers but also a matter of keeping state secrets hidden; these men had been abandoned to their fate by Ogarkov but weren’t aware of that fact as so did their duty.
The shooting of so many people brought attention from the ranks of the Militia units who while not involved caught glimpses of such a thing. There were unarmed, bound and frightened people shot by the Soviets in Karl-Marx-Stadt including many women too. When questions were asked, the Militia soldiers were told by their commanders that those were ‘enemies of the state’ and to mind their own business. Yet, the KdA commanders then discovered that the Stasi presence in the city was afterwards eliminated too. While such secret policemen weren’t going to be missed, they were supposed to be allies of the Soviet spooks in Karl-Marx-Stadt yet had been the victims of outright murder just like the foreigners held here. Combined with their own treatment in having their families held hostage – who might have been killed for all the Militia officers knew – and then the broadcasts being made by the surrounding Americans, the ‘loyalty’ of the KdA here snapped.
They could no longer standby and obey the orders from such Soviet spooks in their city, especially when there came sightings of many of those arrogant Russians killing East German civilians and stealing their identities: the Soviets were preparing to hide in plain sight if the end came.
The fighting which took place throughout the morning of April 11th in Karl-Marx-Stadt was brutal. The Militia were turned on their threatening overlords with no mercy being given. Shootings went on across the city as parts of it erupted into violence where the well-organised Militia took on armed but unprepared Soviet intelligence officers. The KdA had been thought to have been cowed and deceived into looking outwards and this mistake came at a fatal cost to those who had made such an error. By the afternoon, the gunfire ceased. There were no trials of prisoners taken as all those KGB and GRU personnel, as well as some unfortunate Soviet Army signals and intelligence officers still here, were shot on the spot whether they surrendered or not.
A party of Militia officers went out to meet the Americans under a white flag to see what they would offer in surrender terms…
Two Hundred & Seventy–Six
Extract from: My War; The Heroic Deeds Of A Soldier, by General Alexander Ivanovich Lebed. Part 17: An Honourable Retreat
With my mission complete, it was time to leave the German Democratic Republic behind and to join the rest of my comrades in arms in keeping the Motherland secure. The Hitlerite in Berlin wanted, craved for his final showdown with the West and he could have it but good Russian soldiers weren’t going to die there for him when the end came.
My orders arrived from above saying that as soon as the Chekists had suffered their just punishment for their misdeeds I was to take my staff and leave; we wouldn’t be running away though neither would we take our time in getting away. Staying behind and being caught when the collapse came wasn’t something which my superiors wanted due to the knowledge in my head that the agents of the West would want to discover.
There was also the trust placed in soldiers who did their duty that was something mirrored by those above too: we followed orders and they looked after our futures. So much of that had been forgotten in the past but those were times when the changes came for myself and my fellow soldiers to our great pleasure.
Berlin was under siege at that time with the Americans, the British and the vengeful West Germans surrounding the city cutting off as many possible avenues of escape as they could manage to do. Bombs and missiles rained down killing those trapped inside and stopping many leaving. The Americans had pushed their tanks into the eastern edge of the city as well and chaos ruled in places with their helicopters buzzing around everywhere firing guns and rockets.
Nonetheless there were always ways out of there before the end came.
It was Tegel where I was ordered to depart from, in the previously French-administered western part of the city. That airport was a busy place and somewhere under near-constant attack with wounded Russian soldiers heroically being saved facing death there just before salvation could come. Such images shall never leave with me and I shall carry the mental scars with me until the end of my own days – where I shall hopefully die at home in a warm, comfortable bed rather than such ways as those men at Tegel did.
The horrors of the war there were many and some weaker men faced personal traumas from such sights which overcame them: I remembered my duty at all time. There was a place reserved for me aboard an evacuation aircraft and we were soon in the air away from there and leaving Berlin behind.
If circumstances had been different, then I would have fought at the Battle for Berlin. The behaviour of our so-called allies who committed injustice after injustice to rival those who were meant to be on our own side too – I am talking of the Chekists here – made that impossible though.
How could any good Russian soldier fight for a cause that was as wrong as that of that pig Mielke and his ilk which I managed to leave behind to suffer their richly deserved fate? The crimes which they had committed during the war were too great to forgive when all trust was betrayed in a bloodlust not seen since the end of the first Hitlerite forty years beforehand. Some of our own people had done infamous acts, but those ruling the German Democratic Republic were true fascists.
It was not home which I went to but rather into Poland.
After landing at the airfield at Babimost, located near Zielona Gora, I reported to Marshal Igor Nikolayevich Rodionov upon arrival.
I had been reassigned to serve such a fine officer as he was and was pleased that I had been trusted so well. This was a man who had commanded the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan with honour in his conduct when that was a trait that many others had failed to achieve. He was a senior officer who was well-educated in military matters of all forms as well as a steadfast patriot who would never fail in his duty when serving his nation: my respect for him was full.
I received a shock when arriving in Poland. There were new orders for me which would send me back to the German Democratic Republic!
Of course I was concerned – who wouldn’t be? – but Rodionov was someone who inspired confidence in those serving him and his orders to return westwards made sense as soon as those were explained to me. There would be a journey by motor vehicle to the border and then a crossing over the Neisse near Gubin. I was to not just escort Rodionov and protect him from Polish bandits but to fulfil a different mission when crossing the river with him there: diplomacy.
Tracking down the deceased dog Putin after finding out what he was responsible for – though what is called the ‘point man’ for such a thing there in Berlin – had led me to find out many interesting facts about what the Chekists had been up to. That enemy had been defeated yet there were still our professional adversaries to deal with before the Motherland could truly be safe. What I had discovered was to be revealed to them when Rodionov spoke with them when I was to join him in crossing back over the border once again.
Danger was again to be faced yet I was determined to meet it head on like a true soldier always should rather than running away or, worse, acting like a Chekist and fighting from the shadows.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 16:06:38 GMT
Two Hundred & Seventy–Seven
The fighting in East Berlin which elements of the US Army initially took part in was a ‘bloody mess’: such were the words used by Schwarzkopf to the General Powell back home and relayed to the NSC.
Fighting on the edges of the city’s urban environment had been just as feared with a three hundred and sixty degree battlefield causing confusion as well as plenty of casualties. The loss of lives came to American troops and to the enemy in great numbers but also to non-combatants too. Such ‘collateral damage’, Schwarzkopf had furthered in his comments to the National Security Adviser, was ‘akin to murder’. Troops under his command with the US V Corps were fighting at Kopenick first and then into Wolfsgarten, Johannisthal, Grunau and near Schonefeld Airport through the Monday. Schwarzkopf had taken them into the city following the wishes of those politicians back home – though this was technically a NATO-assigned mission – and with that came death and destruction.
Those outer defences of Berlin which the East Germans had put so much effort into had been outflanked yet Schwarzkopf would have much preferred for those to be taken on directly rather than fighting inside East Berlin. His US VII Corps, the Spanish I Corps and the national guardsmen on the Neisse with the US IV Corps all fought in more open terrain even with the Spanish going up against the fortifications which the East Germans had built with haste. Those troops didn’t have to fight among the buildings within the city like those with the 3rd Armored and 4th & 24th Mechanized Infantry Divisions did.
True to his word, Mielke had decided that Berlin would be defending using its citizens as human shields. The decision to enter the eastern side of the city hadn’t just been about a political point so that the American people could see that the end was within sight; finding out if that threat from the East German leader was true and could be put into action was part of that. There were defending troops – regulars, reservists, paramilitaries and security forces – fighting from almost every single building surrounded by civilians. They didn’t come out into the open and use heavy weapons but rather fought from windows, doorways and rooftops using lighter weapons to deny the ability of the US V Corps to take control of those areas into which they advanced. Bullets, rockets and the odd missile came down from above, the flanks and often from behind too against those US Army men fighting inside Berlin. Every building would have to be cleared out with Americans soldiers sent into them to check the resistance was cleared out after it first appeared that that had come to an end for there was remarkable cunning shown from some defenders in holding their fire and waiting for the perfect moment to launch an ambush.
Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to make the best use of the firepower on-hand and to blast buildings to smithereens. Those could be brought down and their defenders crushed and killed among the rubble. Such a course of action wasn’t possible though because that would block the streets alongside which they lay, be the cause of destruction elsewhere blocking more routes and also kill those non-combatants inside as well who were being kept as prisoners by their own armed countrymen.
At the same time as this was going on with defenders met who wouldn’t give in and couldn’t be blasted out of their firing locations, a mass human tide of people who managed to get away were fleeing towards and through American lines. Not all of those ordered to defend the city were doing so as they fled outwards or even deeper into the city without or without their weapons. Civilians only moved outwards though, heading for safety beyond the combat zones that where the southeastern reaches of Berlin. Tens of thousands of them walked through the rain that fell upon the city all day and past the American soldiers trying to capture their city. There were the elderly, women, children and also a large number of men too who it was thought should have been in uniform. Some were injured while most looked scared. They moved on foot outside during the downpours and struggled in the weather laden as many were with luggage or helping those with them.
At lot of these civilians were caught up in the crossfire.
They often stumbled right into fire-fights in their haste to get out of the city while there were also more than a few cases of Stasi officers opening fire upon their number too with the intention of causing a distraction: American soldiers often went to the aid of civilians wounded like they were. In addition, on more than a few occasions, that dreaded ‘collateral damage’ also occurred when civilians – mistaken for the enemy – were fired upon by the US Army even when out in the open.
Throughout the day, as the fighting continued like this causing plenty of deaths, Schwarzkopf became more and more frustrated. He had an army to run with other US Seventh Army elements in action elsewhere but what was going on in Berlin with the US V Corps took up plenty of his attention. There were those reports of men under his command dying in number during ambushes as well as the civilian deaths which were mounting up as well. He was told that prisoner numbers were remarkable low considering the scale of the fighting and that to him wasn’t a good sign: he feared that POWs were being killed on the spot by his own soldiers angry at what had happened to their buddies.
Yet pulling out of Berlin wasn’t something that Schwarzkopf was going to request permission to do. He wanted to withdraw his forward troops from certain places – Wolfsgarten especially – but his orders had been firm that unless much stronger resistance than had been met was faced than the slow, grinding advance further into East Berlin was to continue. There had been plenty of loses taken but those wouldn’t be enough to justify a pull-out from the city especially with the intelligence reports that an extraordinary high number of mobile enemy forces had been shifted across the city from the west to deal with the sudden incursion in the east. Schwarzkopf could see that the enemy was really struggling now and certainly wouldn’t be able to deal with attacks into West Berlin should those be ordered.
Therefore, it was looking like his troops would have to remain nipping at the outskirts of East Berlin into tomorrow as well. The Spanish were blasting their way through those surrounded defensive lines near Schonefeld ready to add their manpower to the fight and the US VII Corps was still fighting to clear a path even further northwards cutting off the last of the exits out of the city. Hopefully, and Schwarzkopf was relying a lot on hope at the minute, there would soon come a collapse with the East Germans inside Berlin. He had been informed of all the intelligence which suggested that they had been abandoned by the Soviets and Mielke had to be facing great internal pressures with the possibility of more and more of his fighting troops giving up eventually knowing the situation they were in.
Otherwise, this city was going to be levelled if the scale of fighting for it continued as it was with many more deaths to come, not just among the men under his command either.
Two Hundred & Seventy–Eight
More than an hour after dawn at 0700, with the skies having cleared up after yesterday's series of downpours across Germany, the main attack against Berlin begun.
The orders had come through during the night for the previously-stalled British Second and US Third Army's to follow the lead set by the US Seventh Army and strike forwards. Instructions were for Berlin's defences to be engaged and overcome all across the west and the south; air power, artillery and light infantry raiding parties were to be first into action followed by the main bodies of troops adding their strength afterwards. The objectives were to get as far as the outer trace of the Berlin Wall where the urban area lay and beyond that into non built-up areas too.
The political leadership had decided to take the risks involved and sent their troops forward hoping that this one big push would shatter Berlin's defences and allow for 'developments' inside less a full invasion of the city was needed. No one wanted to see anymore building-by-building, street-by-street fighting like was taking place in parts of the eastern side of the city and instead West Berlin was to be approached in strength with the hope that the enemy would crumble before NATO's troops.
It was one hell of a gamble.
Artillery had been assembled for some time now in great numbers.
With the attacking armies outside of Berlin, howitzers, mortars and multiple-barrelled rocket-launchers had been gathered along with plenty of ammunition for them to use. These weapons of war had come from across Europe and other points of the world; there were newer and older guns all transported to be positioned facing Berlin. Many captured pieces of artillery taken from Soviet and Soviet-allied forces were with the hundreds of assembled firing batteries crewed by men who struggled with maintenance issues and gaining enough ammunition to make their deployment viable, yet at the same time eager to have these weapons of the enemy used against them too so that numbers shortfalls could be made up whether possible.
Upon orders to open fire, the artillery went into action. Projectiles with high-explosive warheads arched away from the guns which fired them and then down upon the defences against which they were targeted. Careful planning made for what was a ceaseless, rolling barrage when even as guns were moved to new firing positions to avoid counter-battery fire, others took on their duties firing against the same targets so that there was no let up for the defenders. As to that counter-battery fire which the gunners serving with the Allies faced, it was just as it had been since the armies had arrived on the edges of Berlin: weak and generally-ineffective yet sometimes, with the enemy having luck on their side, destructive in places. That wasn't the case today though. Far too many guns were opening fire upon not just Berlin's static defences but the East German manned artillery within the city too spotted from careful reconnaissance and what little there was of that was quickly silenced. Fewer and fewer return shots occurred as the defenders ran out of guns available for action and crews left alive to man them.
The logistics effort to keep this barrage up was to be an immense strain upon the NATO armies. They had stockpiled much ammunition yet of course that couldn't all be next to the guns themselves and needed to be spaced out and protected too. As the guns moved place those projectiles for them needed to meet them in their new firing positions while more were to be moved into the following position too. Maintenance crews to repair enemy damage though today accidental damage and so too were gunners on stand-by ready to fill in for those who might need replacing. Command-and-control for the artillery was a major issue. Those gunners needed initial targeting, the support networks had to be kept functioning and then there were the new orders that would be called-in throughout the day by the mobile forces when they got moving to be processed so they could have on-hand fire support.
Meanwhile, the artillery barrage went about destroying Berlin's outer defences.
Aircraft filled the skies in support of the attack.
There were those on fighter and defence-suppression missions that went in first though not much work was expected for them to be done with an already-weakened opponent as the East Germans were around Berlin. Nonetheless, should the enemy dare have fighters active as well as make use of what few anti-aircraft weapons they had active or with ammunition for, those would face a furious attack launched against them so that the strike aircraft behind could have clear skies to operate in.
The aircraft on ground-attack missions had been massed like the artillery were. In the past few days there had been many attacks made, but today was the one big strike launched in good flying weather with excellent visibility to identify their targets, conduct post-strike reconnaissance and also be given warning of opposition. From bases near to and far away from Berlin those aircraft all flew towards the city and started delivering their weapons. There were tactical strike aircraft and those of a semi-strategic nature too (the latter being B-52s making bomb runs) as well as many armed helicopters in the skies. Pilots were given good briefs over what they were to hit and also had the knowledge that rescue should their aircraft be downed was rather likely unless they were directly over the centre of Berlin itself as CSAR missions would be flown to come get them. There had been firm guidelines to air defence troops of their own on the ground over safe-passage lanes for NATO aircraft plus warnings too about not shooting down an aircraft outside of those without bothering to check first whether it was friendly or hostile; it wasn't like there were going to be many East German, let alone Soviet, aircraft in the skies.
Hundreds of missions were due to be flown against Berlin today.
Dismounted infantry arranged into infiltration teams moved in against Berlin's defences.
These teams of soldiers had been preparing for their missions since before the NATO armies reached the approaches to Berlin. Others had gone ahead of them, but those had been elite special forces soldiers with a great deal of experience in such tasks as long-range reconnaissance patrolling and such like. The troops gathered, equipped, briefed and then send forwards this morning were 'ordinary' soldiers who had preformed high-risk forward infiltrations throughout the war elsewhere ahead of the massed armies at a very localised level instead of those conducted at a greater distance by those others who usually took all of the glory. However, much preparation had been made for these men to move forwards around Berlin and there was a lot of confidence in what could be done by them.
Their missions were to move around and between the outer defences suffering under the artillery and aerial barrages and then get behind those to attack more further onwards from the ground level. All enemy attention would be focused upon the shells and bombs, the soldiers were told, rather than them sneaking forward with their engineers and intelligence specialists in-tow armed with satchel charges and radios. Plenty more destruction, maybe even greater than what distant firepower could achieve, was meant to be done by these infiltration teams up-close-and-personal. Of course there would be some instances where the circumstances might not turn out to be perfect for these missions with the resultant expected loss of life in certain places yet the general feeling was that the enemy would be in no way prepared for such a major infiltration effort like what was sent against them with thousands of men, wearing many different uniforms, operating over such a large area as they were making their way forward under cover on their own strike missions to help blast away at the defences of Berlin.
And so begun what was to be Operation PINNACLE.
The earth-works, the fortified strongpoints, the minefields, the anti-tank ditches, the weapons positions and above all the troops sheltering in lines upon lines of trenches like this was 1918 all over again met modern military power. There was to be no compassion shown by PINNACLE's planners for an enemy unfortunate enough to be left in the terrible strategic situation which they were along with a military amateur commanding them. They were out in the open with little overhead coverage and certainly nowhere near enough to protect against what was unleashed above their heads and downwards. On to them poured all of that carefully-targeted explosives aiming to not just destroy their positions but kill them too… as well as making sure than those not suffering under such a barrage as that had no intention of joining their doomed comrades.
It was a psychological operation as much as a purely softening-up manoeuvre for all of the massed tank and mechanised infantry forces waiting back in the rear ready to go forward upon command. Whole areas of the defences, large stretches, were left untouched at first when others faced what seemed like the gates of hell being opened upon them. With time the explosions rocked other sections of the defences striking for fixed points and the defenders there though NATO was hoping by that point that such latter places would have seen a marked reduction in the number of men within those defences by that time. This was the whole aim of using so much firepower now early on along with tearing though the husbanded ammunition stocks: to frighten the enemy and cause him to run away in fear.
Inside the city and away from the frontlines outside, a uniformed man in his early eighties surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards refused permission to be taken to a bunker. He stood watching the skies where aircraft made contrails as they flew lazy circles barely bothered by derisory and ineffective anti-aircraft fire. The ground beneath him and many buildings nearby appeared to be shaking to some of those armed Stasi men with him but the aged self-styled revolutionary didn't take any notice of that. He just continued to look up into the skies above the city and said no more after briskly cutting off those warnings.
Mielke was not going to give up Berlin. He silently told those aircraft, their aircrews and their governments too that they would never take this city away from him unless they were willing like he was to make sure that every building had been brought crashing down and no one here was left alive first.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 16:14:10 GMT
Two Hundred & Seventy–Nine
After initial contact using a short-range radio link-up and then a meeting which took place on the western side of the Neisse under a white flag, the party of Soviets which had first come over the border at Gubin-Guben were taken down to nearby Cottbus. Allied military officers as well as senior intelligence officials scrambled towards that East German town to get there to meet with the Soviets which had come across to begin, in their words, 'negotiations' with only those given personal authorisation by General Galvin allowed to deal with the enemy at this point.
In total, thirteen Soviet military officers and civilians ended up at Cottbus this morning. There was a recently-promoted Marshal of the Soviet Union, a civilian identified as being a junior minister in Gorbachev's long-deposed government and then the lower-level soldiers and civilians including a fierce-looking paratrooper colonel. None of the NATO and Allied personnel involved in meeting the Soviets on the Neisse nor with them during the short journey down to Cottbus was able to point out any of these personalities as having any solid connections to the Soviet intelligence services though among those men of lesser-importance – believed to be interpreters, aides and bodyguards – that wasn't something known with certainty.
The senior military man and that former minister (whose names were on file) were certainly not suspected to be overtly influenced by the Soviet secret services though… which was of course something that those two men knew that the West was pretty sure about.
When contact had been made and the trip requested to meet in a location behind the lines followed by the Soviets had said that they wished to have those 'negotiations', this was at once regarded by NATO senior command as an effort to conduct ceasefire talks. Their best people were sent to Cottbus at once yet those men went with firm instructions too regarding what they could and couldn't say as well as to what level of cooperation was to be given to their new 'guests'. They were not to allow themselves to be played for fools and neither for their actions to endanger the Allied war effort at the moment too.
Richard Dearlove was one of those who had been approved to make his way to Cottbus with haste. This senior officer with the Secret Intelligence Service was already on a list of such intelligence figures available to treat with the enemy in circumstances such as this. There were formalities that went with any talks which could lead to a ceasefire between opposing forces, long before any sort of peace deal could be thrashed out, and for his country having someone like Dearlove there was important. He was an experienced spook who had spent most of the war in Germany working with the military high command as well as learning all that there was to know about the enemy. As an MI-6 officer foreign intelligence was his speciality although he did have a diplomatic cover 'legend' when working in Germany back far behind the frontlines.
Sent to Cottbus to assist there and gain as much intelligence with his eyes and ears as possible, Dearlove was present for the opening comments made by Marshal Rodionov when that Soviet Army officer spoke officially of the request for a ceasefire between Allied military forces and those of the Soviet Union; Dearlove certainly wasn't alone in noting how those of other nations supposed equal in the Socialist Forces alliance were left unmentioned. The 'file' on Igor Nikolayevich Rodionov was large yet by no means extensive. His career highlights were known from commanding the Soviet Fifth Army in the Far East and then several years heading the Soviet Fortieth Army in Afghanistan too. He was a soldier foremost though he also had some political connections before the Moscow Coup late last year. At that point he had been the second-in-command of the Moscow Military District (which covered most of the western part of the Russian SSR) and it was believed he was someone close to Marshal Akhromeyev at that point yet little had been heard of him since. Here in East Germany today he was a five-star ranked officer though he had not long ago been a three-star Colonel-General; this wasn't something insignificant at all.
Those actual initial discussions between NATO military officers – General von Sandrart leading those – and Rodionov covered what the Soviets were asking for and were of a military nature where disengagement of opposing forces not just in Germany but worldwide were covered and only a preliminary issue. Dearlove, like other spooks here with him (the CIA, the DSGE and the West German BND all had officers present), paid attention to the short politician who had come with Rodionov and didn't say anything at all. He had been introduced as Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin which hastily-inquired intelligence files showed had been the former Minister of the Gas Industry. The reason for his presence was left unsaid and so too what was his current role; all those like Dearlove here were told was that the two of them were speaking for Marshal Ogarkov. Dearlove spent some time speculating over whether the presence of Chernomyrdin meant that there were civilians making decision back in Moscow now and therefore whether Chernomyrdin had been sent as a symbol of that but such things weren't easy to gauge when nothing at all was said on this subject.
The Soviet Union, Rodionov told von Sandrart and the assembled NATO figures, wanted the military ceasefire which they were asking for now to be something more longer lasting that just a temporary stand-down of military operations. What was wanted was an agreement to meet for in-depth talks on a peace agreement where diplomats could assemble and discuss such things; Geneva was suggested by Rodionov as a location for a conference as that was considered by him to be somewhere neutral and away from the fighting. In the meantime, what he was asking for on behalf of his country was the complete end of offensive military operations to occur very soon – he spoke of the hope that such a thing could take place by midnight tonight – and then there could come too possible exchanges of POWs. Soviet forces were no longer occupying great swaths of the territory of the Allies – Bornholm in the Baltic was the largest location – and there were no Allied forces within Soviet sovereign territory either. The Allies only had to look, Rodionov reminded them, of the withdrawals made from East Germany and western Czechoslovakia in recent days and while as they spoke what few troops remained in Austria under orders were pulling out fast. Therefore, he stated that such a ceasefire and initial exchange of prisoners could be done with speed; as to the POWs he spoke of wounded men and any women held being first to be repatriated.
Such comments as these were surprising in many ways though not in others.
Dearlove was briefed enough on the military situation to see how what Rodionov was offering would work as their troops in Europe were no longer in Norway, Sweden, Finland, mainland Denmark and West Germany like they had been beforehand. Only on Bornholm and that sliver of Austria near the border with Hungary did they remain inside the border of Allied nations. They had been withdrawing their troops on the eastern side of the East German-Polish border for some days and had no active forces engaged in the Berlin area or northern parts of East Germany anymore either. Their plan to cut-and-run, only now seen for what it was, had worked and so apart from air and sea combat Soviet military forces were no longer actively fighting those of the Allies in fixed engagements that they themselves sought but rather only in defence. Dearlove also at once saw the offer of releasing some POWs as a ploy too to gain the trust of the West with a sincere offer which he suspected they would do their best to carry out but not one made from the kindness of Ogarkov's heart.
von Sandrart did only what Dearlove expected him to do and state that he needed higher authorisation for this yet he anticipated that it would be forthcoming with haste and also gave enough hints to the Soviets here that such initial terms would be accepted. Would any ceasefire have an affect upon Berlin, von Sandrart queried? He was given the answer that events there were apparently beyond the control of the Soviet Union; such a response was one that Dearlove again had been expecting.
But then something unexpected happened…
...that paratrooper colonel whose presence here was noted by his tough exterior demeanour as something similar to Chernomyrdin approached Dearlove and the other spooks asking to talk to them in private whilst the waiting game was played.
There was no clandestine approach made by the Soviet Army's Airborne Troops officer who walked up to them with a young Tank Troops captain to interpret for him. He came over with that fellow Soviet Army officer and stated through that English-speaking captain that he had important information to give to them.
Dearlove knew that he was dealing with a man who had blood on his hands. He had met spooks who had engaged in 'wet-work' (a Soviet KGB term that had entered the lexicon of the intelligence world) before, but this was colonel who spoke to him and his fellow civilian intelligence officers a professional combat soldier of rank who had certainly seen some action. It was a cliché to say that this could be seen in his eyes… yet that was true. That wandering gaze to survey everywhere as a battlefield full of enemies was one element of that yet so too was the firm manner in which he spoke whilst looking at his subject sizing that person up for combat. The way in which the colonel – who didn't give his name – held himself was something else too; he wasn't afraid here even behind enemy lines should the situation go awry and it would come to a fight.
The colonel informed the spooks that the war had been started by Chebrikov, the KGB and the GRU. Those were all now 'mostly dealt with', he stated, with only 'a few Chekists' left. What the West had to 'fear' was others like them not least Erich Mielke in Berlin. Such a man had surrounded himself with 'deceased Chekists' and had committed war crimes and other 'infamous acts' to rival what those Soviet Chekists had done. Dearlove listened as details were relayed of the orders given to kill West German military officers coming from Mielke and so too those repressions against civilians also being the work of such a man. The colonel's own countrymen had 'behaved with depravity' yet they had been 'punished' while Mielke hadn't.
Control over that 'little Hitler' in Berlin was no longer something which the Soviet armed forces had. The colonel explained that his actions had been enough for Ogarkov to 'cast-off' Mielke for the 'safety of the Soviet Union'. One of those 'infamous acts' which the colonel had mentioned was something that Dearlove was a little bit prepared to hear. There had already been some intelligence concerned a clash between supposed allies – the East German and the Soviets – in Saxony over control over nuclear weapons and the colonel confirmed that telling of how Mielke had issued orders for that to take place; he also explained what was behind that.
'Nuclear blackmail', the colonel told them, was meant to have been tried against the West to threaten their cities and break their alliance. There was more than that though: 'Mielke and his ilk' had been given the active support in that endeavour of 'Soviet Chekists'. Why had this happened, the colonel rhetorically asked? His countrymen had been making an attempt to 'bring down Marshal Ogarkov' and replace him with another 'Chekist again' in assisting Mielke. This was the type of man who remained as their enemy and they should understand that he was a 'dangerous madman, a rabid dog'.
The colonel would not be drawn into further discussions with Dearlove and his fellow spooks and departed from their company leaving them with answers, questions and doubts. They had been told some things but wanted to know more as well as being left unsure over whether what they had been told was true. Dearlove hadn't known what to make of the colonel refusing to give his name yet talking to them as he had done with no secrecy revealing what had to be state secrets. He hadn't thought that he was talking to a liar though did express a belief to his colleagues that even if that colonel had been telling the truth as Dearlove believed he had that might have only been a truth known to him.
In addition, there was the matter to consider to that this information was being given to them as it was. Clearly Ogarkov had sent a trusted military officer to talk with them on purpose and make them aware of these apparent actions of not just Mielke but the Soviet intelligence services too. There was more to all of this than just one story to be told…
Such a line of thinking was reinforced when von Sandrart returned to Rodionov with some requests for clarifications of the terms which were being asked for. Did the ceasefire which the Soviets wanted on the battlefield cover Soviet military forces cut off inside East Germany and in the Berlin area too? Moreover, what about the intelligence officers – KGB and GRU personnel – inside East Germany as well: were they covered by the agreement Rodionov wanted to make?
No, came the answer, that wasn't the case at all. Dearlove listened through a translator as Rodionov made an effort to explain how the ceasefire wouldn't cover the geographical area west of the Polish border over which he had come. He stated that all Soviet forces west of the Oder and the Neisse were under 'illegal East German command' and he couldn't negotiate for them.
Afterwards, when von Sandrart went back to speak to General Galvin, Lord Carrington and the NAC over the communications link-up to relay that and therefore receive further instructions, Dearlove kept his eyes upon that colonel as he spoke with Rodionov, Chernomyrdin and some of those others. The Airborne Forces officer remained seemingly on-guard waiting for a fight but at the same time betrayed no nervousness even after just speaking with several Westerners like he had been. Chernomyrdin cut Dearlove a fierce look himself too in something which the British intelligence officer couldn't understand a reason for.
Remaining as an observer, Dearlove played no direct part in the agreement subsequently made concerning the Soviet wish for a ceasefire. NATO's high command had given their assent to this – there was a standing procedure on making an agreement for a military ceasefire under NATO authority between the governments of the Allies, though with conditions attached of course – and von Sandrart and Rodionov set to trash that out.
The intention was that by midnight Central European Time there would no longer be military clashes between Allied and Soviet military forces and preparations would begin for a Second Geneva Conference; Dearlove planned to be there like he had been at the first and hoped that things would be very different than last time.
Two Hundred & Eighty
Thatcher brought her War Cabinet together for a meeting this afternoon due to not just the morning's events in Germany but also other developments as well. The Prime Minister had had the full Cabinet together on other occasions recently yet there still remained matters that it was felt should just be discussed by those at the top levels of the government especially when it came to national security concerns too.
There had been a riot right in the heart of Central London yesterday not far from where the War Cabinet met. A crowd numbering two, maybe three hundred people had massed in Parliament Square and launched a violent protest aiming to first come up Whitehall before being blocking in that attempt and so then moving down Victoria Street and into the Petty France area. For such a small number of people, they had caused an immense amount of damage which had resulted in two deaths occurring, one of those being the accidental killing of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State (PUS) at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the other a young policewoman. These rioters had managed to organise their gathering and assemble themselves before dissolving into smaller groups capable of causing chaos on London's streets.
The briefing on this riot by a group apparently called Class War, an anti-capitalist anarchist group, was given by Sir Percy Cradock rather than Sir Anthony Duff; the MI-5 chief had been asked to resign during the night and the PM's foreign policy & security adviser Cradock was for now addressing the War Cabinet while a replacement was sought. Those anarchists had disguised their identities using masks yet following a wave of arrests many had been identified by the Met. Police as having a 'history'. Rather than being detained during TtW as the subversives and threat to the nation which they were, they had managed to organise their riot during which a thrown projectile had struck the Foreign Secretary's principle civil servant when that man was heading home from work and left him lying dead in the gutter. The Met. Police had 'cracked heads' afterwards, Cradock told the War Cabinet, and London was still standing but that wasn't the point: a well-organised anti-war riot had taken place with no notice of that coming where the intent of its attendees was clearly violence against the organs of the state.
Cecil Parkinson inquired over the fate of such people arrested and mentioned those detainment camps set up before the war for subversives: the now-regular War Cabinet attendee Douglas Hurd said that those arrested would be held elsewhere. The detention camps were being closed as fast as possible due to the conditions within those for many of those held being 'not worthy of Britain' and there were uncomfortable murmurs amongst many at the meeting with this talk of those. No one here objected to the dismissal of the Director-General of the Security Service for he had been responsible for those facilities and look what had occurred? Many of the suspected subversives held were aged Marxist academics and even anti-apartheid campaigners instead of those who truly wanted to damage their country from within and also see it struck at from external threats as well.
There was a general feeling that post-war there was going to come much political drama due to what had occurred with those arrests and the subsequent holding without trial just on idealogical motives of many people of influence. Everyone here was happy now that the blame for that was being apportioned elsewhere.
Away from these troubling domestic incidents, the War Cabinet briefing discussed other matters before turning to the ceasefire talks which had commenced at Cottbus.
Foreign affairs relating to the war were covered in several briefs about the situation on the ground in both Poland and Czechoslovakia. The rebellion against the Soviets inside their country continued without pause from the Poles even when they faced much resistance from the Soviets trying to cross their country heading back home. There had been roadside bombs detonated against retreating Soviet forces and shootings of surrendered Soviet soldiers unlucky enough to fall into rebel captivity; such news wasn't being publicised by the West at the minute as the Poles were still the 'good guys'. No one here in London liked what they heard about that though and they were further aggrieved by even worse stories coming out of Czechoslovakia there with the civil war underway. Slovakia to the east was generally quiet with the Italians still in Bratislava and an independent Slovakian Republic being declared but there was violence to rival that of Poland in Bohemia and Moravia to the west. The multi-sided civil war there continued even after most Soviet troops had finally managed to extricate themselves and escape to Poland while the French finished off what remained of the Czechoslovak Army. Massacres continued there in the Czech-speaking part of that country with those not in uniform being the targets of many death squads roving the country seeing 'justice' for ill-defined past misdeeds.
Better things were being heard from elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain with Hungary and Bulgaria looking for ways to make peace with the West and seeking ways in which they could show that they were no longer subservient to Soviet wishes. Neither country had been officially at war with Britain and the Allies so this wasn't impossible yet there would remain many difficulties in the restoring of proper relations especially with both nations still being one-party authoritarian dictatorships.
Military operations around Berlin were talked about with a briefing given by General Vincent. The Vice Chief of the Defence Staff spoke of how PINNACLE had been launched this morning to start eliminating the outer defences of Berlin with artillery and air strikes conducted at distance before a moment was chosen to start moving forwards with troops to clear away what remained. The urban areas of Berlin were still to remain outside the area of ground operations with the expectation that 'something' would happen inside the city to bring about the collapse of East German resistance there. No one was happy to hear this news because that 'something' had been hoped for here before in London with a large-scale mutiny or mass desertions, maybe even Mielke being toppled somehow, yet it had yet to occur and there were still no signs of that happening.
To have British troops fighting house-to-house inside Berlin was not something desired by the members of the War Cabinet.
As to Cottbus, Christopher Curwen gave a short summary of what his man on the ground there in East Germany had witnessed earlier in the day when contact with made with Soviet representatives. He briefed the politicians on the biographies of Marshal Rodionov and Viktor Chernomyrdin along with all intelligence available concerning what MI-6 and the West believed Ogarkov wanted. As to the contact at Cottbus arranging for a ceasefire, Curwen spoke of how that had been agreed to as a temporary matter due to officially be effective at midnight though in effect almost immediately due to the successful disengagement that the Soviets had managed with their military forces.
General Vincent picked up from there explaining the Soviet offer of releasing some POW's at once when the agreement was made with von Sandrart. There came comments in reaction to this from several members of the War Cabinet with them not liking how that was agreed to in the fashion which it was; Nigel Lawson and Ken Clarke both suspected that the Soviets were using such captives in a callous effort to try and win favour. No one disagreed with them here especially when it came to Curwen's follow-up remarks about his officer in Cottbus having an overt discussion with a seemingly-trusted Soviet Army paratrooper officer where terrible acts suspected of being committed by the East Germans were confirmed.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Norman Lamont speculated that this could be a sign of things to come. He believed that there was going to be an attempt by the Soviets to shift all the blame for the war onto the East Germans as well as their own KGB people left behind in Germany to be captured while the Soviet Army sought to disown the war which they had fought on behalf of Chebrikov and his fellow secret policemen. To soften up the West, the Soviet Army were going to be rather accommodating on the matter of POWs as well handing them over fast and making a big deal about that too as they played the poor innocents forced into a war where all the many war crimes documents committed by them were forgotten and everything could be made good by handing over prisoners with haste. Again, no one argued with this line of thinking: there were nods of understanding that this seemed to be the case.
The PM asked about what had been agreed to at Cottbus this morning alongside the military ceasefire, in particular the discussions there about having a second peace conference at Geneva. Moreover, she asked why the West German von Sandrart had led those talks at Cottbus and not someone from the political side of the alliance like Lord Carrington – the Soviets had sent a politician so why hadn't a senior NATO figure from the civilian side gone to meet with Rodionov and Chernomyrdin?
Agreement at once came here that the issue over the lack of political representation needed urgent review with Britain's allies for the politicians meeting in London didn't like the fact that that had happened. When it came to Geneva, Tom King spoke of how he had already sent David Mellor to Geneva as soon as word came from Germany about arrangements starting to be made. His FCO Minister of State would be doing the necessary groundwork there though he himself as Foreign Secretary would be leading HM Government's official representation there. The War Cabinet discussed briefly what King would say and do when he went to Switzerland.
As had been the case with the attempt early in the war at peace talks which the Swiss themselves hosted off their own back, Britain was going to maintain the position that her allies had on that first occasion that there would be no giving in to unconditional Soviet demands. 'Peace at any price' wasn't something that was going to be agreed to not then and certainly not now. The West had suffered gravely during the war with Britain being at the forefront of damage done militarily, economically and socially with that furthered every day the war went on. Regardless, the Soviets were the aggressor no matter what latest change of government had occurred in their country and were also now a defeated party who would be treated as such. The basic matters to be pressed for and delivered in Geneva, something which the War Cabinet expected all of the alliance to agree to, would be for the Soviets to withdraw back across their own borders into their own country (not to have their troops anywhere inside the sovereign nations of Eastern Europe) as well as arms limitation to be legally bound to and financial reparations to be paid.
The War Cabinet expected that there may be some objections to those points taking different forms from some members of the Allies, but at the same time the major NATO powers allied to Britain – the United States, France and West Germany in particular – would certainly agree to enforcing these upon the defeated Soviets. Political changes inside the Soviet Union or territorial adjustments were far distant goals probably unobtainable with the Soviets being a nuclear-armed state and still fighting beyond not inside their own borders, but those three initial demands were what the War Cabinet would have King push for in Geneva alongside his fellow Allied diplomats.
It was inconceivable that the West would allow for anything less than those, of that the PM and the War Cabinet were certain.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 22:17:39 GMT
Two Hundred & Eighty–One
Inside the public park that was the Tiergarten within West Berlin, anti-aircraft gun positions had been dug into the pre-war pretty landscape of this open space. There were guns pointing skywards consisting of calibres from 57mm to 30mm to 23mm. Radar-guided and visually-guided systems that these were, the guns were generally immobile now; some of them were very old weapons with a long history of being kept inside warehouses waiting for war to come. Their crews were East German reservists recalled to active duty now supposed to assist in the air defence of Berlin using these weapons… but they had very little ammunition for those guns.
These reservists all wore the uniform of the Luftstreitkrafte (LSK), the East German Air Force, and were under orders from senior officers yet at the same time the men in the Tiergarten had Stasi men watching over them. Those state security personnel were here to maintain order as they were elsewhere by making sure that orders were obeyed, no one shirked their duty and anyone suspected of acting against the wishes of the state soon felt the reach of order. In the past few days when aircraft had appeared above Berlin, the gunners here had followed orders and opened fire into the skies trying to strike at those attacking NATO bombers. Several guns had run out of ammunition though and hadn't been able to open fire.
Unbelievably, the Stasi hadn't seemed to understand that. It was simple to the gunners: if they didn't have the shells for their guns then none could be fired into the sky. Orders had come for them to fire though and when the men manning those particular guns that stayed silent didn't they had to answer to the Stasi. Several crews had thus paid the ultimate price for not obeying their orders while those who had survived had watched in horror as this had occurred.
The shooting yesterday of those crews in field executions in front of the rest of the gunners had meant to make them obey their orders in future. However, all that it had done was instead make those remaining gunners realise that the Stasi were murderous psychopaths.
Aircraft returned again this afternoon above Berlin and the anti-aircraft gunners in the Tiergarten received orders to open fire. Those that had ammunition fired what they had skywards but there were some crews that hadn't received a delivery of shells earlier in the day. As expected, across came the Stasi officers afterwards demanding to know why those certain crews hadn't obeyed their orders.
It was carefully explained that for certain guns there were no shells. The bigger 57mm weapons and the smaller 23mm guns had been sent shells but there were none for the 30mm cannons. The senior LSK officer on-scene, a captain who was a reservist like his men, showed the Stasi the delivery manifest with the confirmation that there had been no 30mm shells delivered earlier. Those guns could not fire without ammunition: it was as simple as that.
The captain was shot without delay and the Stasi then ordered that the gun crews who hadn't fired be lined up ready to face a summary field execution on charges of disobeying their firm orders to open fire when told to.
Before the condemned men could even begin to be assembled ready for their punishment, their comrades moved to their assistance. There were far more gunners than there were Stasi officers and they moved themselves between the executioners and those who were meant to be shot. Guns were pointed by both sides at each other with Makarov-PM pistols fielded by the Stasi and AKMS (variants of the AK-47 with a folding stock issued to gun crews for personal protection) assault rifles held by the LSK men. Shouts were made and threats issued alongside the pointing of weapons from so many men at plenty of their fellow East Germans.
With the realisation that they had lost control of the situation, the Stasi withdrew. They pulled out of the park and radioed for assistance declaring that they were facing a mutiny which needed urgent attention to crush before it could spread any further. During that pull-out though a shot rang out, followed by one in return and then an immense fusillade of gunfire. Whether the Stasi fired first or the LSK gunners did so was argued over afterwards for some time before further events in the Tiergarten made that distinction irrelevant.
Now there really was mutiny and unless the Stasi were going to be able to move fast and with decisiveness it was certainly going to spread from that one location to many others.
Two Hundred & Eighty–Two
An alert message had been transmitted to the admiral commanding the naval task group built around HMS Invincible earlier in the evening regarding the situation yet it was only after receiving confirmation at midnight that the officers and sailors with the RN flotilla in the Baltic were informed of the ceasefire. There was no wild scenes of celebration for this was a ceasefire not the absolute surrender of the enemy and instructions were for them to continue to carry out their duties; the RN was still in dangerous waters where there remained the possibility of an attack occurring regardless. However the news when it came was still something that at once allowed a wave of relief to sweep over the men serving aboard the assembled force of warships, submarines and support vessels gathered in the western and central parts of that sea.
They had managed to survive even if so many of their fellow sailors with other vessels hadn't.
The Invincible was the only survivor of the three light carriers fielded by the RN before open warfare with the Soviets commenced. The two others – Illustrious and Ark Royal – had been blasted apart by enemy cruise missiles and then gutted following furious fires. Many aircraft now flew from the Invincible with Sea Harrier attack-fighters and Sea King helicopters (anti-submarine warfare and airborne radar versions) operated by RN aviators serving with the FAA branch and also a couple of RAF Harriers as well. The big ship remained in the Kattegat north of Zealand with those aircraft operating from her flight-deck providing protection not just for the carrier but for the other warships in the Baltic rather than ground attack missions now that what fighting there was on land south in East Germany was far away from the coast.
The warships with the flotilla were a mixture of destroyers and frigates which had all seen much wartime service like the carrier. Many had been out in the North Atlantic combating Soviet submarines in the war's first few weeks but when those had run out of torpedoes and missiles or been sunk the RN warships were tasked to join others who had stayed in waters closer to Britain to enter the Baltic. The waters around the Danish archipelago had been cleared of enemy naval forces and landings supported in Jutland and then later on the shore of East Germany by these warships. Afterwards they had assisted in pushing Soviet warships far back to the east as well through the central parts of the Baltic so that maritime resupply could be sent to those fighting on land. Aircraft and submarines had been encountered as well as surface contacts often in confusing engagements where the electronic sphere was dominated by but not wholly controlled by the RN and its NATO allies; losses had come at times.
Below the surface there were a few RN submarines active. Small diesel/electric patrol vessels had been involved in the fighting combating ships above and other submarines below as well as inserting special forces swimmers with the SBS on more than a few occasions as well. There had been a lot of success achieved however, just as it always was with wartime submarine actions, some failures too and a couple of losses had been taken. With the crews of warships when their vessels were hit by enemy weapons there was a chance of surviving yet with submarines it was a different matter and those aboard the RN vessels which faced enemy torpedoes or mines a hit upon their submarine to kill it would almost certainly result in a total loss for all crew members.
Supply ships, tankers, electronic warfare ships, survey craft and mine warfare vessels also serving with the RN in the Baltic had been engaged in their own tasks which had seen many of those face the enemy as well despite their role being to not get directly involved. Their supporting tasks with the combatant vessels dragged them into the fight at times while at others they were unexpectedly called upon to defend themselves. This occurred while they were to maintain their assigned tasks in the rear keeping the RN in the fight here.
The RN here was surrounded by the naval forces of their allies and they all too started receiving messages just after midnight that a ceasefire had been declared with the Soviets. There were still ongoing military operations against the East Germans everyone was reminded though those were down in Berlin and, of course, the East Germany Navy hadn't been an active threat for some time now. Senior commanders wanted just like the RN admiral did to instil among their subordinates that the ceasefire didn't mean that there was to be a complete stand-down and everyone could get ready to sail home at once yet there was to be some latitude given especially since offensive military operations for the time being were off the table.
Far to the north, up in the distant Barents Sea, HMS Warspite acknowledged the transmission when it came informing the submarine that there was now a ceasefire in effect.
The captain was very relieved to hear that news when it came. The war patrol here had been long and dangerous in the high-threat environment which the Warspite had operated in attacking the vessels which she had while also assisting in protection efforts of the US Navy carrier group. Combat had come at unexpected moments and there had never been a period where relaxation from the stress could come for the crew even when they were in their bunks. Several times the submarine had turned from the hunter to the hunted when the enemy had appeared determined to strike at the Warspite and there had been some close calls that had put her crew of one hundred and fifteen at grave risk.
There had been orders for the Warspite to leave here station by the end of the week and head to Scotland for ammunition resupply due to low stocks following the combat action undertaken during the submarine's war. Seven torpedoes were left within the arsenal, more than enough for one engagement the captain believed, but those orders still stood so that the Warspite could have a full load of weaponry.
News of the ceasefire changed all that though: the Warspite was ordered back home at once.
HMS Active was just over a hundred miles away from Savannah when work came over the SATCOM link that a ceasefire with the Soviets had taken effect. There was little instant reaction from the frigate to this news as it continued steaming inbound towards the port on the US Eastern Seaboard.
Trailing behind the RN vessel came a convoy of seventeen more vessels, three of those were warships – two from the US Navy and the other in Belgian service – and the rest empty merchantmen. All involved, including the Active, had made this trip before into Savannah after coming from Le Havre. Back and forth ships such as these went from the United States to France laden one way with military supplies and other goods and then returning empty most of the time ready to again ship what was needed for the war effort in Europe. The journeys had been very dangerous early on in the war but at this late stage there was an extremely low risk involved. Nonetheless, the Active and the other warships were with this convoy because these were precious cargo vessels that couldn't afford to be lost even if they were currently empty on the return leg of their trip.
The ceasefire agreed at Cottbus didn't mean that those ships were suddenly safe and could disperse back to what they had been doing pre-war nor that the Active could either just sail away home. The war wasn't over and there was always the possibility that there would be someone who might not honour that ceasefire or have received word of it… or even that the ceasefire might not hold. There were cargoes waiting to be loaded at Savannah and people back across in Europe waiting for what these ships would bring them.
Therefore, the Active, like the RN flotilla in the Baltic, was to now remain fulfilling it's assigned mission in spite of the ceasefire. No offensive hostile action was to be taken against any Soviet forces if they were encountered (the chances of that at the moment were minimal to say the least) unless they struck first. The Royal Navy was going to do its very best to not endanger the ceasefire signed with the Soviets yet at the same time its personnel would maintain their professionalism at all time.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 22:25:27 GMT
Two Hundred & Eighty–Three
NATO air attacks upon Berlin were killing civilians, both in the eastern and western sides of the city.
In military terminology this was called 'collateral damage'. It was unintentional and not something desired but those deaths still occurred when bombs and missiles rained down upon the city. Those air attacks were focused against military and 'regime' targets inside the city with care taken to make sure that the weapons used only struck where they were intended to rather than against innocents. What would have been the point in killing Berliners? Regardless of all the effort made to avoid such a thing, there were civilians who unfortunately lost their lives in the strikes against Berlin.
Sometimes the weapons used malfunctioned as they came crashing to the ground. Other times there was faulty intelligence upon those targets or the efforts of the air defences caused those losses among civilians. Some where killed when their homes were hit while others lost their lives inside shelters. On other occasions there was a deliberate effort by Berlin's defenders to use civilians as human shields relying upon the fact that NATO wouldn't bomb such places where they were… but the targeteers behind those strikes weren't aware of that fact.
NATO was bombing military targets inside Berlin and therefore the strikes kept coming even when intelligence pointed to civilian casualties occurring during their attacks. There were command posts identified and signal relay stations for the defenders of the city. Other reconnaissance had pinpointed headquarters and accommodation facilities for the internal security forces of the Stasi and the KdA on both sides of Berlin which were again targeted for attack. Launchers for both tactical missiles being fired out against NATO forces surrounding the city and the remaining SAMs which were providing air defence were bombed.
Again and again, these strikes came at night and – in ever greater frequency now too – in daylight as well to wear down the defenders of the city on the inside as well as what was going on around the outskirts too.
Those defenders of the city were busy killing as well… each other now too.
The Stasi had failed to control events originating from the Tiergarten in West Berlin. Those air defence gunners from there who had turned upon their oppressive Ministry of State Security overlords late yesterday had finally been overcome using force when they remained within that open parkland and most of them viciously slaughtered when they had tried to hold onto their positions, but there had been a couple of their number who had managed to get away from there and through the incomplete cordon which had been thrown up around that area. They had told their stories to some other men in uniform which they came across and in a few cases such tales had been retold though of course second- and third-hand versions were heard.
In addition to the spreading of those tales of what happened in the Tiergarten from those directly involved being able to influence events in the city, there were actual witnesses to the machine gunning and mortaring of the Tiergarten from other security troops who were involving in maintaining that leaky cordon around the area. They saw how their fellow soldiers were killed in the manner which they were including the immediate summary execution of not just those who surrendered but wounded men captured as well.
This occurred during the night often when those air defence gunners were dragged away into nearby streets to be killed. Even in the darkness though, such events were seen by men serving with the Grenztruppen and the Hugo Eberlein Guards Regiment. These were supposedly loyal men who had many privileges and relied upon heavily by Mielke and his organs of state control. These soldiers had been out across West Berlin patrolling there and keeping those scared citizens under control; one of those ways was to watch over the collecting and burning of enemy propaganda leaflets dropped over the city.
The soldiers could read what was printed on those leaflets.
From outside the city came the constant rumble of artillery fire and many more aircraft dropping bombs there than there had been inside the city. They noticed too that the Soviets who were usually so prominent within Berlin were either all gone nor or hiding in their own barracks facilities. This came alongside the radio broadcasts that went over many frequencies, including those used by the security troops at times, from the West informing everyone listening that the Soviets had initiated a ceasefire with NATO.
While these security troops who formed the elite force of soldiers designed to maintain order within Berlin were being exposed to the truth and becoming upset by what they were seeing, there were the larger number of armed men as well within the city also being affected in same manner as well.
KdA soldiers and the militarised East Berlin police were in both sides of the city as well spending their time manning roadblocks and the guards on residential buildings keeping people inside them. They too could hear the barrages going on outside the city as the NATO armies blasted away at the defences there, they were tasked to pick up and destroy those leaflets calling upon them to surrender and they heard the broadcasts which came over the airwaves constantly.
Moreover, these were ordinary people tasked with paramilitary duties but still civilians at heart. The level of propaganda they had been exposed to on Stasi orders had been high but many of them knew when to close their ears and just nod along. Ordered to execute those breaking curfew and put others – women and children – into harm's way from falling bombs was part of the duties which they were assigned to do under the threat of having not just themselves but their families too punished for failing to carry those out. Such orders were followed but many of those who carried them out saw the results of these and were silently morally outraged at what they had done before there was often internal rage held against those who had ordered them to do that.
Again, like at Tiergarten, what was needed was a spark to turn this aggression, which was much more wide-ranging that that held by those air defence gunners, into something more. If such security forces all across the city decided that they no longer wished to follow orders then everything would come crumbling down.
Where was the spark to come from though?
Two Hundred & Eighty–Four
The second stage of PINNACLE commenced just over twenty-four hours later from the beginnings of the artillery and air attacks as well as the ground infiltration efforts. In the mid-morning, long after it had gotten light and hopefully when the East Germans had convinced themselves that an attack wasn't going to come today, NATO's armies moved forward against Berlin's outer defences. To the west and to the south the British Second and US Third Armys advanced to contact against those smashed defensive positions while to the east the US Seventh Army re-started it's advance against improvised blockages ahead of them which were nothing on the scale of what was to the west and south.
Troops from Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Chile, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United States and West Germany all moved forward into battle today under centralised command and control. Their aim was to smash through what remained of the East German positions outside the city and close-up against the urban areas smashing all opposition before them.
Standing in the way of this tsunami of tanks, armoured vehicles and infantry were a mixed force of East German troops most of whom would be considered second-, or even, third-rate. There were Grenztruppen soldiers, KdA paramilitary forces, militarised police units and third-line East German Army reservists to the west and south while in the east there were some surviving soldiers of the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment there too with this Stasi formation which had once boasted eleven thousand motorised troops but was now down to just a fraction of that number and worn down from heavy fighting.
In peacetime these troops answered to organisations such as the Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of the Interior and even the Socialist Unity Party's Central Committee: East Germany had long ago adopted the Soviet notion of divide-and-rule among security forces. Their weapons were old and their training outdated, both of which were far from suitable for facing the NATO armies opposing them. Different commanders from the various bureaucracies were in charge of them spread around the outskirts of Berlin just as they were inside the city itself who had diverse deployment plans and varying levels of access to ammunition and food supplies for these troops. All answered to Mielke in theory yet many were obeying instructions coming down from their usual chain of command even at this late stage where the end was nigh for the East German regime.
Tied to a static defensive posture, the defending troops had been pounded again and again by the forces of the Allies without being able to effectively strike back let alone move from their positions when those were exposed. Men had been marched into trenches and bunkers and told to hold on with the limited ammunition they had been given for their inadequate weapons. Food and water was sent to them on an infrequent basis and those who objected to such things as this, let alone their orders, faced swift and fateful punishment. Many soldiers cracked under the pressure and went mad causing all sorts of disruption up and down the line by killing each other and those in neighbouring positions while others took their own lives.
Now those soldiers deployed as they were were going to have to try to stop the careful but powerful advance of NATO and Allied troops assigned to the PINNACLE mission… and were doomed to fail in such an attempt.
West of Berlin, General Kenny had the British Second Army attack on a wide frontage following a plan of attack to pierce the enemy defences where the infiltration efforts yesterday of his men on the ground – backed up by aerial and electronic reconnaissance too – had shown the East Germans to be weakest. His planning staff had chosen spots to strike at not just where the most-forward positions were weak but where the few mobile forces that the East Germans had behind would struggle to reach. He lined up his for attacking corps commands with reorganisations among them so that a multi-echelon advance could go forward with penetration troops first then the first wave of breakthrough forces followed by second- and third-wave exploitation units as well.
Once PINNACLE got going, General Kenny paid attention to the progress of all of his attacking forces though especially to the British I Corps as they raced across the Doberitz Heath. The progress of the West German IV Corps, the Belgian I Corps and the West German VI Corps was important too yet his attention kept coming back to how the attack led by his British Army troops was doing charging towards and then across the open heathland in the direction of the distant RAF Gatow as well as towards the southern approaches to Spandau (the Belgians were moving towards the latter location from the northwest). The Doberitz Heath had long been a military training area for the armed forces of the Prussian and Nazi militaries and the Soviets in modern times as well. It was open countryside criss-crossed by tracks and narrow roads with solid earth too that tracked vehicles could make use of. There were defensive positions which the East German had dug all across it but those defences had taken a pounding and were now under armoured assault.
The reports from General Inge's headquarters came in throughout the morning and by midday word came that elements of the Tiger Division had reached the other side. Leading tanks with the 4th Armoured Division had reached the other side with that formation plus the other troops assigned (the 3rd & 7th Armoured Divisions, the 5th Infantry Division and brigades of Dutchmen and Chileans) were making their way through the remains of the defences across the open area. The East Germans had mined their wide anti-tank ditches and had extensive trenches manned by light infantry but the 'preparation' of those defences beforehand by artillery and air strikes had smashed them apart. There were further reports of defenders running away to the rear oftentimes gunned down by Stasi forces acting in the Soviet fashion as 'barrage troops', but the good news was that the Doberitz Heath had been crossed.
Such progress by the British I Corps meant that during the afternoon they pushed into West Berlin – knocking down the stretches of the Berlin Wall still standing – into semi-suburban regions there on the western side of the River Havel up ahead. The airfield at Gatow was fought over and later taken by the Gloucestershire Regiment battle-group while on the right British troops meet those attacking Bundeswehr soldiers with the West German VI Corps operating north of Potsdam through a heavily-forested region. On the left, the British I Corps had some of its units strike north once they were across that heathland charging for the edges of Spandau. When combined with the Belgian attack, a salient started to form by the end of the day west of Spandau towards suburban Falkensee. Radio intercepts pointed to East German troops in that area as well as in Spandau being told to hold firm where they were rather than withdraw; General Kenny saw this a double-edged sword. Those troops (estimated to number about three thousands, maybe more as quite a few were placed directly ahead of Spandau) staying in position meant that they could be cut off eventually and would have to conduct a defence of three sides yet at the same time it would have been good news too for them to try to withdraw where they came out in the open to be struck at from their air. Nonetheless, he couldn't expect everything to go perfect with this attack.
The British, Bundeswehr and Portuguese troops with the West German IV Corps further to the north of Spandau operated on the left of the Belgians who were moving through Spandau Forest and instead advanced towards the town of Hennigsdorf which also rested along the Havel. Hennigsdorf was home to twenty-five thousand people and most remained trapped in their place of residence with several hundred too forced to stay at the huge LEW locomotive and railway carriage industrial facility: those civilians were meant to be there as part of the KdA force for this already heavily-bombed industrial facility but were the wives and children of the workers sent to man the frontlines on the edge of the town. Their Stasi guards made sure that those civilians were out in the open now daring the West to attack the facility so a propaganda victory could be scored…
Intelligence from special forces teams on forward patrol ahead of today's attack had spotted such a callous move and so no more air strikes hit the industrial site. There was also no direct fighting for the rest of Hennigsdorf to be done either as the forces assigned to the West German IV Corps were busy moving either side of the town and especially to the north where the road and rail bridges over the narrow Havel Canal were down. Those structures would have been preferred to have been put to use by the approaches to them either side were still something which could be utilised and the attacking troops with the 17th Panzergrenadier Division which fought here took them and entered West Berlin here by nightfall.
The attacks made eastwards by the British Second Army had been no more than a dozen miles forward at the most taking them through East German static defences and inside the boundaries of West Berlin. Care had been taken to avoid urban fighting where civilians (East Germans and West Berliners) were stuck in their homes as those dug-in troops of Mielke's dying regime were crushed away from those. The resounding victory was a credit to the staff work put in with planning, intelligence and logistics and the British Second Army had done very well indeed today… and there was to be similar success elsewhere around Berlin too.
Where the US Third Army attacked south of the city the defences inside the Autobahn-10 ring-road there couldn't stop the multi-national, multi-corps advance here either.
The Bundeswehr and US Army forces – along with a detachment of Brazilians too taking part in what was far from a propaganda effort but a well-trained if small force – struck northwards between Potsdam and the Spanish-occupied Schonefeld Airport. Stretches of countryside but also medium-sized towns lay in this area all of which was defended by across the former rather than through the latter the US Third Army moved. Tanks and tracked armoured vehicles moved in what appeared to immobile defenders to be a tsunami or armour at times and when anti-tank guns and RPGs struck those charging steel monsters little affect was had. Anti-tank ditches were crossed like they were nothing while minefields were traversed by specialist vehicles also armoured blowing up carefully-placed charges with contemptuous ease. Only night-time and urban terrain brought a halt to the US Third Army and ahead of them what men had managed to flee from their weapons and those shots of Stasi blocking troops ran in fear of their lives in the direction of Berlin.
General Chambers found that just like his counterpart British General Kenny, casualties among the attacking troops were remarkably light. Intelligence estimates on the capabilities of the enemy – or, more correctly, lack of capabilities – had suggested that this would be the case but to witness this was something happily unexpected regardless. There were no long lists of dead and wounded among the ranks of the US Third Army yet that wasn't for lack of trying from the East Germans; they had unleashed waves of ultimately ineffective fire against the US Third Army.
The enemy that he had faced was an immobile one though with older equipment and a lack of air cover plus what were found to be severe ammunition shortages. Those soldiers had stayed inside their positions until the very end despite earlier efforts to get them to either abandon them or mutiny in number but at the end of each engagement the East Germans had emerged the losers. In each and every clash there had been the result of a NATO victory with troops under General Chambers command and he was a very happy man at the end of the day even with Berlin's urban areas now directly ahead of his troops.
Schwarzkopf had his US Seventh Army spread far and wide and not condensed tightly around Berlin like those of General Kenny and General Chambers. His Spanish I Corps was at Schonefeld on Berlin southeastern edge, the US V Corps was just inside the outskirts of East Berlin and stuck fast after tough urban fighting, the US VII Corps had pushed forwards along Autobahn-10 as that highway wound it's way northwards behind Berlin… and then the national guardsmen with the US IV Corps were on the Polish border from Cottbus to Gorlitz. Such a wide geographical spread of his troops meant that the weak defences east of Berlin in open ground couldn't be taken full advance of and neither could the matter with numerically weaker defenders not bunched up either. A massive reorganisation was needed shifting his forces around and extraditing parts of the US V Corps from inside East Berlin too: politics had come into play though with some his troops needing to stay where they were due to considerations above his pay grade and the rest needing time to move while still fighting the enemy.
Throughout the day, US Seventh Army forces engaged in PINNACLE fought generally stationary battles to the southeast of Berlin and inside that small portion of East Berlin as well with the national guardsmen staying on the Polish border. Only the US VII Corps – which Schwarzkopf reinforced with the 4th Mechanized Infantry Division and a brigade (the 197th Brigade) from the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division temporarily reassigned from the US V Corps – maintained any major forward advance using their mechanisation and the weakness of the enemy. The narrow advance which had gone along the course of Autobahn-10 was widened by attacks made westwards where there was open ground in multiple locations hitting the enemy forces there who could fight against such attacks. At places such as Honow and Hoppegarten, the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment with its wheeled armoured personnel carriers, towed artillery pieces and out-of-date ATGM-launchers.; there were some man-portable SAMs as well. These Stasi soldiers were faced with up-armoured M-1 Abrams tanks, tracked M-2 Bradley armoured fighting vehicles and a lot of US Army armed helicopters in the form of Apaches and Cobras. The Americans troops which they fought too were combat veterans who had taken on and beaten the best that the Soviet Army had to throw at them in multiple engagements for a month now.
The East Germans here didn't stand a chance in the moments that they were caught in the open and when withdrawing to populated areas were only saved by the orders stopping the Americans from bringing down civilian structures – full of innocents – atop of their heads when they sheltered in such places.
At the village of Seeberg, next to a crossroads on the autobahn, American troops with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment right at the most northern edge of the US VII Corps area were involved in an 'incident' that had been foreseen with PINNACLE but not thoroughly planned for.
An armoured patrol in tanks and armoured reconnaissance vehicles engaged what they believed was an enemy force attempting to escape from the Berlin area and heading eastwards for the dubious safety of Poland. BTR-70 armoured personnel carriers and BRDM-2 armoured scout cars – wheeled vehicles – fired upon the Americans and they returned that fire overcoming such a weaker force.
Those troopers with the 2nd Cav' detachment were joined by infantrymen from the 1st Armored Division soon enough and discovered that they hadn't fired upon East Germans as first suspected but rather Soviets… KGB men. Those who had survived the barrage of tank shells and ATGMs which had blown up their vehicles, and then the rocket attack by a flight of Cobra gunships to finish them off, all wore KGB uniforms of the Third Chief Directorate. There had been move then sixty of them in nine vehicles which also carried four bound prisoners as well: three of those prisoners had been killed along with most of the KGB men while the survivor identified himself to the Americans as one Oskar Fischer. One of the cavalry troopers was an intelligence specialist and that name was known as the former East German Foreign Minister. There was no doubt a story to be uncovered behind what Fischer was doing with those KGB people and where he was being taken for whatever purpose, but that was something else entirely.
NATO troops had fired upon Soviet forces after the ceasefire had come into affect.
Schwarzkopf, von Sandrart and eventually SACEUR all got involved following this incident. The men of the 2nd Cav' hadn't done anything wrong and no blame could be apportioned to them. They had been fired upon first and returned fire while convinced they were fighting East Germans not Soviets. That case of mistaken identify hadn't meant anything anyway for such a thing was allowed to be done by the terms of the ceasefire agreed at Cottbus if one side fired upon the other first. Moreover, that agreement signed with Rodionov and Chernomyrdin representing the Soviets had specifically excluded their own soldiers left inside East Germany. KGB men too had been engaged in combat not Soviet Armed Forces personnel which the ceasefire covered.
The clash had happened though and there was some concern among NATO commanders and then Allied politicians when they were later informed about it. The engagement at Seeberg was small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things and it wasn't thought that the Soviets were aware of it afterwards (nor might they care when they found out it had been KGB personnel who had lost their military control role) but the incident was still enough to attract attention.
Talks among senior NATO military personnel at once commenced as to how to make sure that no further incidents like this occurred again even with the private realisation that such a thing might be impossible to stop especially when fighting moved into Berlin where there were known to be many more Soviets still trapped there who were abandoned by their leaders but still had hopes of escape.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 22:31:55 GMT
Two Hundred & Eighty–Five
To have not consulted with the Poles around Szczecin before NATO become involved, even indirectly as they did, with the situation there was a serious and fatal mistake yet something quite unforeseen too.
There was an agreement with the Soviets made at Cottbus that was wished to be stuck to when it came to this city and the communications links around it in the northwestern corner of Poland and only cursory care was paid when dealing with the Poles when that should rather have been of greater importance. Those rebel forces fighting around Szczecin weren't part of the ceasefire agreement made at Cottbus nor interested in the first stages of POW transfers but rather freeing their country from very unwelcome hostile foreigners.
As a result, when fighting erupted around Szczecin late in the day on April 13th, there were losses suffered by the Soviets and the Poles had been the case for almost two weeks now yet this time helpless NATO soldiers lost their lives too.
Initially one of the cities where the Great Polish Rebellion had broken out in force, Soviet 'pacification' efforts had managed to crush the disorganised and lightly-armed rebels in Szczecin within days. Unlike in Poznan, Wroclaw, Lodz, Krakow, Gdansk and Gdynia but just as was done in Warsaw those citizens who rose up were overwhelmed by force of arms and then suffered brutal reprisals. The position of Szczecin along the coast and also in close proximity to the border with East Germany had meant that combined efforts of the Soviet Army and the KGB, plus 'loyal' Polish security forces too, had overcome the initial uprising and maintained Soviet control over the city. Szczecin had been regarded as important by the Soviets when they were trying to hold on in East Germany and this had occurred before Ogarkov had seized power and ABOLITION had got going.
When the attempt had been made to push a Soviet fifth attacking echelon of troops through Poland towards East Germany again Szczecin had been of importance due to its geographic position even after links with the sea where cut when Swinoujscie fell to rebel control. Soviet troops maintained a hold upon the city with its road and rail links plus the outlying airport at Goleniow. After the failure of that reinforcement and then Ogarkov's decision to begin the air evacuation of specialists and the wounded from East Germany, Goleniow Airport had become an important diversion field for aircraft on the way back to the Soviet Union while Szczecin functioned as a transit station for withdrawals made across northwestern Poland of rear-area troops.
Rebel forces had remained disorganised with no unifying figurehead nor central authority. Their strength in terms of men, arms and ammunition, let alone heavy weapons or the necessary command-and-control to make them an effective fighting force was poor and thus something that the Soviets were able to counter. Swinoujscie on the Baltic shore had only been lost due to a sudden and traitorous act of defection by Polish security forces there and that wasn't going to happen in Szczecin: those men had been disarmed and detained.
At the weekend, American troops had then arrived at Swinoujscie and afterwards cautiously started to advance inland towards Szczecin. Those were light infantry units with air power in support but little in the way of heavy armour. The Americans had failed to get anywhere near Goleniow Airport before the ceasefire yesterday when operating to the east of the Oder and remained a considerable distance across to the west inside East Germany engaged in other missions there against opposing KdA forces and sometimes under-equipped Stasi units too. The Cottbus ceasefire meant that the Americans moved no further towards Szczecin inside Poland as it was only Soviet forces making a fighting retreat there not non-existent Polish military units but there was still fighting in and around Szczecin where previously decimated rebel groups tried to launch a wave of attacks.
The expectation of the senior Soviet Army officers at Szczecin had been that they would be able to now finally withdraw from here back home while the ceasefire went on and peace negotiations took place in Switzerland. What they hadn't anticipated that in those talks at Cottbus Szczecin would have been something up for discussion.
Rodionov and Chernomyrdin had made an offer – one accepted by NATO at once – to make an exchange of prisoners as soon as possible. Each side held tens of thousands of the others soldiers as POWs but a token exchange was to be made of badly-wounded men who were taxing the medical efforts of each side. These were to be enlisted men and conscripts with injuries that would certainly preclude them from rejoining the armed forces in which they had previously served and also who might not be expected to live that much longer either. The number of one thousand from each side had been agreed upon with von Sandrart and instructions had gone out through the Soviet side to find this number of POWs and then send them to the mutually-agreed exchange site that could facilitate a rapid transfer. Medical units would work together it was agreed and all air and ground transport used by the opposing sides would be covered by the terms of the ceasefire: the chosen location was Szczecin's airport.
For NATO, finding one thousand wounded POWs who fit the description of those to be handed over to the Soviets was a challenge but that was nothing in comparison to the effort involved to get them to Goleniow Airport for the morning of April 14th.
Conscripted Soviet soldiers from the Soviet Army as well as Soviet Air Force and Air Defence Forces ground personnel who were suffering from major wounds but who were in a fit state to travel had to be quickly located at various medical establishments and then transferred to airfields across Germany. Then there would come the gathering of aircraft to fly them across to Poland in transports which could safety land and then lift-off again from too the war-damaged facility near Szczecin.
Many objections came with regards to the haste employed, the humanitarian aspects of moving wounded men who might be endangered by transfers and flights as well as giving them over to what was regarded as substandard Soviet care. In addition, the use of transport aircraft tasked for aero-medevac which were usually moving wounded NATO soldiers and sending them to an enemy-controlled facility far away in Poland – a country known to be in rebellion against the Soviets – instead brought further protests from many military officers wearing the uniforms of a multitude of NATO and Allied armed services.
However, there was political pressure for this to occur not just to get in exchange an equal number of wounded men back but to show that prisoner exchanges could be made and also to assist in the upcoming talks in Geneva due to start on Friday. The airlift of Soviet wounded soldiers – one thousand and eighteen were eventually sent – was to happen no matter what for these reasons despite objections and the difficulties which would be faced in terms of the logistics with these planned aero-medevac flights.
As NATO did, the Soviets sent more men than agreed too.
In the case of the former the number had been rounded up just a little when certain facilities were emptied of men but the latter made a deliberate effort to send far more men than agreed at Cottbus: three hundred plus more. The rationale behind this was that many of the NATO POWs carrying wounds who were to be moved through Szczecin and onto Goleniow Airport would die during their journey and Ogarkov had made it clear with firm orders coming down that NATO were to get their one thousand men no matter what. The upcoming peace talks were of great importance and there was to be plenty of effort made into giving the West what it wanted – within reason, of course – and to break their word would do the Soviets no good in those.
Transfers were made from places such as the areas around Kostrzyn, Zielona Gora and Legnica: towns in the western reaches of Poland soon to be evacuated of Soviet military forces but where groups of POWs pulled out of East Germany as bargaining chips had ended up. The POWs were to travel by rail and road in escorted convoys up to Szczecin first then to the nearby airport as there was very little air transport available at the moment in western Poland after so many aircraft had been lost during the air evacuations from East Germany.
The territory across which the convoys carrying the POWs crossed was regarded as 'bandit country' by the Soviets. The links between the islands of their military rule where final evacuation efforts through Poland were commencing were weak with the countryside and many towns in the hands of a diverse range of rebel groups who had taken down the local communist authorities and security services after first engaging the Soviets. Bands of armed men sometime acting like brigands rather than the romantic notion of revolutionaries fighting for freedom which was being used in propaganda in the West was the reality with women fighters and child soldiers taking up membership of these groups. Massacres were committed across this region of Poland and homemade bombs went off; the rebels were hunted down with armed helicopters at times yet when the tables were turned they used illegal methods to punish enemy captives.
In addition, there was war damage done too from NATO aircraft that had attacked transportation links. The 3 ATAF had struck hard and on many occasions before the ceasefire causing great destruction to bridges over rivers and also much of the railway infrastructure.
Delays therefore immediately occurred in trying to get the POWs up to Szczecin and there were also instances of combat where rebel forces were encountered. There were incidents where NATO wounded POWs were killed in bomb and gun attacks by Poles targeting the Soviets who were transporting them across Poland and northwards who, of course, didn't always fire first. No one stopped to ask at this point whether the Polish rebels would have held their fire if they had known who was in those trucks and trains, but that didn't matter.
Almost a hundred of those POWs being sent to Szczecin by the Soviets for onwards movements to the nearby Goleniow Airport were killed in the attacks made by Polish rebels yet this wasn't something that NATO intelligence would discover for some time. However, they fast became aware of the fighting around that city which occurred the evening before the planned exchange of wounded where many more prisoners from NATO's armies lost their lives when so close to eventual freedom.
Three separate rebel groups were active around Szczecin. There were Polish soldiers who had deserted among their ranks yet generally these were civilians with a little or no previous military experience yet all of whom considered themselves to be patriots. Ideological motives rarely separated the groups – they all wanted the Russians out of their country – but geography did due to the large number of Soviet troops in the area controlling the outskirts of Szczecin. They were a law unto themselves and acted with what they regarded as their duty to fight the foreigners occupying their country in any way possible without abiding by the rules of war. Their enemies hadn't followed those with the shooting of civilian hostages for deaths inflicted and the demolishing of homes in further reprisals so nor would they. Every chance taken to strike at the Soviets whenever and wherever they could was taken…
...including the arrival into the city of a couple of trains up the hastily-repaired railway line coming from Kostrzyn to the south. Those faced a series of attacks using light machine guns, mortars and RPG's from one of those rebel groups southeast of the city centre near the switching yards at Zdroje where the Soviet crews and whoever was aboard them were the targets. As they always did, the rebels here took losses but they watched as fire spread through the trains and Soviet soldiers lay dead all around them. Those trains hadn't been known to be carrying wounded men and there wouldn't have been a hesitation to attack them had the rebels known that for it would have been expected that Soviet wounded, not NATO POWs, would be aboard.
Truck convoys moving in a northwestern direction from distant Zielona Gora and Legnica were attacked too as they got closer to Szczecin. These smaller strikes using roadside bombs and assault rifles didn't cause as many casualties as those against the trains had done and the Soviets had much more luck in hitting back especially when they pursued their enemies after their ambushes were called off. Nevertheless, wounded soldiers from countries in the West being brought towards Szczecin for air evacuation tomorrow by the waves of C-9s, C-130s and C-160s were killed in these strikes too.
The Soviets would later total up four hundred and sixty-three dead NATO soldiers who had been killed when in their custody before they could be handed over to the West at Goleniow Airport. Tears were not shed for these soldiers nor the two hundred and fifty plus Polish rebels yet there was rage over the loss of more than seventy of their own men. This was the feeling at Szczecin though, not elsewhere such as Legnica where Rodionov and Chernomyrdin were nor back in Moscow when Ogarkov discovered what had occurred.
The Soviets were going to be short of their quota of POWs to hand over to NATO tomorrow and that was regarded as something likely to have an averse affect on the upcoming peace talks. As far as they were concerned, everything depended upon giving immediate concessions to the West now that wouldn't cost the Soviet Union dear so that when the real negotiations to end the war in an official capacity begun good faith had been established; how else could the country survive a peace treaty that would favour the victors in the West if not by setting the agenda (and sticking to that!) early on?
Relations with Polish rebels had been coming in a different form for the Allies than what the Soviets faced.
Before the war, intelligence operations with regards to Poland had been limited behind the Iron Curtain even with all the best efforts made due to the rise of Solidarity and the subsequent martial law imposed. At times the CIA and MI-6, as well as Mossad too, scored some successes but Poland was a closed society ruled by a military dictatorship where the KGB had penetrated the internal dissent even more than the Polish SB could. World War Three brought a further crackdown across the country with the KGB and the GRU expanding their influence and taking over the country at first from the shadows before later moving out of those. Poland was officially at war with the Allies and at the moment there was no ceasefire in-effect despite Poland having no armed forces involved as nationally-independent units anymore.
When American troops with the 7th Light Infantry Division had entered the country at Swinoujscie a CIA team with Poland specialists had followed them and been active in that area. Directives from back in the United States controlled their activities in trying to work with rebel groups there in opposing the Soviets with little focus on doing damage to the regime of General Jaruzelski. The Soviets were doing that anyway and there was an expressed hope that through other means, rather than working with rebels to make sure they didn't start opposing the actions of American troops in their country, contacts could be made with General Jaruzelski or someone else with some power in Warsaw to get Poland to abandon their Soviet 'allies'. That was a long-term strategy as part of a larger geo-political move also for the post-war world with thinking done about what would come after the conflict. The CIA and other intelligence agencies of the West had to also prepare for a situation where that regime, even a united Poland, might not survive so other options were being looked at too with what remained of the Solidarity leadership (if any) at Gdansk and Gdynia being one possibility and the still-unrecognised Government-in-exile in London which had been there since 1940 another option on the table.
Therefore while the effort was made to contact rebel groups on the ground and allow them to deal with the CIA – as a sign to them that they were taken seriously – this was very localised and only in the immediate area where the US Army had some troops. Grander plans at high political and diplomatic levels were made for relations between the Poland and the West with hopes for the future rather than the activities of those rebels fighting against the Soviets in their country at the ground level.
There was no contact with any of the rebels around Szczecin at this time and that wasn't something of an immediate priority following the ceasefire yesterday with the Soviets. When intelligence later came of what happened there to NATO POWs killed by Polish rebels – a story which the Soviets made sure later came out – relations were sure to be soured. Many other factors would come into play and that deaths there weren't deliberate but this was not a good omen for later events at all.
Two Hundred & Eighty–Six
When the KdA had turned on the KGB at Karl-Marx-Stadt and eliminated those Soviets there before then surrendering the city to the US Army, they hadn't done NATO intelligence efforts any good at all. The Militia troops had set about killing every single officer wearing a KGB, GRU and Soviet Army uniform which they could find within the city before surrendering to the Americans besieging their city in an orgy of violence. Much of that had been organised murder worthy of criminal prosecutions because disarmed and bound men who had surrendered had been shot based upon their nationality without any pretence of a trial let alone after facing charges for alleged crime.
Almost six hundred Soviets had been killed at Karl-Marx-Stadt with most of them deserving such a fate in the eyes of many yet this was still a war crime by international standards that had been committed by the paramilitary East German forces in the city.
In killing all of those Soviets, the KdA had left no one who knew anything about what had been going on at Karl-Marx-Stadt for investigators with NATO intelligence services to talk to. There were just cold, stiff bodies for them to view rather than live, frightened prisoners for interrogation. In unleashing their fury against those who had been using the city as a refuge and making a very concise effort to cover up their own war crimes, East German Militia forces found that they hadn't made any friends with spooks from the intelligence services of the West who wanted to know where the bodies of all of those hostages were and also the details of what had been going on here.
To not have all of the answers which they sought was more than frustrating for those spooks tasked with discovering what exactly had occurred in Karl-Marx-Stadt.
American troops who arrived in Karl-Marx-Stadt were national guardsmen from Arkansas and Texas. The 39th Light Infantry Brigade was a second-line ARNG formation assigned as others were now in this late stage of the war to rear-area duties with the US Seventh Army; the 33rd & 45th Light Infantry Brigades with national guardsmen from Illinois and Oklahoma were under command too. Where combat troops were needed to be deployed yet not expected to see much action throughout occupied regions of East Germany these recently arrived troops were sent.
Two battalions of dismounted infantry from Arkansas serving with the brigade arrived following the surrender by the East German defenders with the brigade commander Major-General Melvin Thrash also having his operational headquarters in the city. His third Arkansas infantry battalion was in nearby Zwickau with the brigade's combat support assets (gunners, engineers and others) deployed supporting the forward elements of the US Seventh Army; there was additionally a battalion of Texan infantry under command. All of these American soldiers were armed with personal weapons as well as having access to heavier armaments yet their task was to operate in support of AMCC efforts inside East Germany in policing the peace. If trouble came then the national guardsmen were expected to meet it yet it was hoped that they wouldn't have to.
Karl-Marx-Stadt was an industrial city along with a large higher educational presence as well. There was the Wismut company which focused upon the large Uranium mining industry throughout Saxony centralised in the city along with other industrial concerns and there were many universities too. The population had been forced to stay in-place when the city had been besieged and once that was over there were few that actually left as the war had moved on from Karl-Marx-Stadt. These people all had roofs over their head and aid supplied in the manner of food and medical care arrived through the AMCC, while the national guardsmen from Arkansas patrolled the streets following the collapse of all central order after the KdA had 'voluntarily' disbanded.
The East German citizens here though very quickly became restless. They were told that they had been liberated and were generally pleased at such a thing but that was still an abstract concept for many. What they wanted was to go back to their jobs and to not rely on donated food parcels which they had to wait in line for but to rather work for food in their bellies. Parents wanted to send their children back to schools while there was quickly an urging of the part of some politically-minded citizens to start organising something which they had long wanted: democratic representation, what their fellow Germans in the West had.
Denying East German citizens such things as these weren't what the Allies, let alone the troops in Karl-Marx-Stadt, wanted to do. Acting under guidance from the AMCC plus his own judgement, General Thrash dealt with this issue with what many would call 'kid gloves'. East Germany was still at war with his country but the civilians in this city weren't the enemy by any stretch of the imagination. These were people who hadn't elected their government and lived under the oppression of their own national authorities and also the control of the KGB when used as human shields. Acts of resistance against his men from Arkansas were very minimal and rarely violent with no one here wanting to take up arms against who they regarded as having liberated them.
Still, the people wanted to work, they wanted their own independence (to be able to provide for themselves and their families) and they had aspirations of a political nature. Orders from the AMCC, though what General Thrash also knew was a lot down to his own government's pressure, meant that the Uranium works for now remained closed along with many other industrial enterprises. There was war damage to be cleared giving some people the chance to work – clearing rubble in places outside the city and getting the local utilities up and running – while others weren't going to be stopped from establishing free enterprise if they wished to do that. Volunteers who wanted to form a local police force were politely told that they couldn't do so at the minute but those who wanted to start a political party were allowed to do so: as long as it wasn't any thinly-disguised version of the deposed Socialist Unity Party.
What wasn't wanted here was to upset the locals – even when disarmed as they had been – into revolt which the Americans here didn't have the manpower to deal with sufficiently. That would also cause political problems elsewhere especially among the West Germans too who were taking more and more of a role in the workings of the AMCC every day… leading that to become what many people were now referring to as an instrument of reunification efforts.
The national guardsmen assigned to Karl-Marx-Stadt weren't just active within the confines of the city but rather were operational throughout the general area as the 39th Brigade had their presence in Zwickau too as well as in the mountains bordering Czechoslovakia. Their area of operations covered a significant portion of western Saxony and meant that patrols were made out of the city to ensure the security situation. There had already been incidents where KGB men who had escaped from Karl-Marx-Stadt had been encountered and so too Stasi and East German government officials escaping detention.
The long siege of Karl-Marx-Stadt had come with a very porous cordon and that had meant that the Americans were going to be busy for some time here, especially when it came to who those who had managed to get away were.
National guardsmen serving with the 3/153 INF – men from southern Arkansas – went into the Struth Forest to the east of the city early this morning as part of an operation by two of that battalion's infantry companies to conduct sweep operations against any 'hostiles' which might have made themselves a base of operations up in those hills and under that cover. Two separate attacks against 39th Brigade elements where gunfire had been employed had happened near that forest in the past few days resulting in injuries to Arkansas national guardsmen but thankfully not fatalities. The aim was to nip any form of resistance in the bud there and make sure that if those hostiles were found they were eliminated or even driven off if they had enough wits about them to get away.
ROE for the Americans was simple: if armed resistance was encountered it was to be engaged no matter who was behind the trigger.
The small-scale operation by the 3/153 INF turned out to be just what their officers and senior commanders expected. The terrain was confining to operate in but there were enemy forces there who opened fire upon several detachments of national guardsmen. Remembering their training, the men from Arkansas used fire-and-manoeuvre tactics as well as their radios to work together to overcome the enemy and also to effectively pursue those who fled; Texans with the 2/141 INF under the command of the 39th Brigade assisted in the latter.
Casualties for the Americans came in the form of seven men killed and three times as many injured – quite a butcher's bill – but anti-personnel mines laid by the enemy as well as several RPG attacks against vehicles used by the Texans on the eastern edge of the forest were mainly responsible for that number. In return, the national guardsmen were left confident afterwards that they had eliminated their opponents killing or capturing most with only stragglers possibly managing to escape. That enemy were a mixture of Soviets and East Germans: GRU and Stasi officers were identified as being those who had been fought in the Struth Forest. What they were doing, where they had come from and where they were going would all hopefully be understood when the captured survivors were interrogated (the NATO-Soviet ceasefire didn't cover the East Germans and any Soviets inside East Germany either) to find that out. Regardless, the suspicion was that they were trying to reach either Czechoslovakia or Poland eventually – neither would have been a good idea for them – somehow making use of what appeared to be hostages.
Those hostages were prisoners who had been with the enemy which the national guardsmen engaged, several of whom who had unfortunately lost their lives while all showed signs of serious mistreatment.
Among these was a Frenchman and an Englishwoman...
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 22:36:06 GMT
Two Hundred & Eighty–Seven
RAF Tornado F3s with No. 29 Squadron flew this morning on long-range missions from their base at Lossiemouth in northern Scotland eastwards out over the North Sea and above southern Sweden providing distant fighter coverage for the NATO transport aircraft flying aero-medevac missions out of Szczecin. Several flights where pairs of these interceptors were airborne at different points were kept flying using external fuel tanks and refuelling from VC10 K2 tankers so that they could maintain a watch over those transports flying into and out of Poland. The Tornados flew armed with their usual loads of multiple air-to-air missiles and the aircrews had been briefed to treat this as a combat mission yet no engagements were expected nor sought.
After a month of war, 29 Squadron – while still flying – was able to conduct operations without expecting at any moment to see the appearance of hostile aircraft and therefore the need to suddenly go into combat.
Those unarmed transport aircraft heading into Goleniow Airport outside Szczecin loaded with Soviet POWs wounded in combat and the flying back out again with injured NATO prisoners released by the Soviets did so through most of the morning of April 14th. The task for the Tornados was to be available to assist in defending them if something went wrong and they came under attack. There were NATO airborne radar aircraft over Denmark and several mobile radar stations on the ground in Sweden keeping watch with the Tornados as a reaction force.
Those transports taking part in what was deemed Operation MERCY LIFT were a mixture of different aircraft wearing the markings of several air forces.
The USAF had sent a total of seven C-9A Nightingale aircraft with each capable of carrying forty wounded men into Szczecin and forty back out again. Three similar C-9B Skytrain-2 aircraft flown by the US Navy which had been operating during the war as casualty evacuation aircraft though with a lower capability of passengers were also used by the Americans in this mission. Four French Air Force C-160NG Transall aircraft were on MERCY LIFT missions as well as two more operated by the Luftwaffe. The air forces of Belgium, Canada, Egypt, Morocco and the Netherlands provided nine versions of the C-130 Hercules to transport loaded men and the RAF had another a pair of their own C-130s – Hercules C3 variants – as well.
The twenty-seven aircraft were all making use of the lone runway at Goleniow Airport, one which had been bombed several times during the war but recently seen many repairs done there. They flew from NATO-controlled airfields across East Germany at staggered intervals before entering holding patterns on the western side of the Polish-East German border. Afterwards, Soviet Air Force flight controllers inside Poland took over the control of those aircraft guiding them in to land; English was used to communicate by all those involved including those Soviets.
On the ground the priority was meant to be the unloading and loading of wounded. All sort of vehicles were at the airport near Szczecin which had brought NATO prisoners here and were to afterwards take away Soviet POWs too. Transferring men as fast as possible and with as little discomfort to them as possible was supposed to be what MERCY LIFT was all about.
However, there was still a war on despite the ceasefire. The NATO aircrews were all military officers who were under instructions to take note of everything that they saw without doing any overt intelligence work while those Soviet military personnel paid attention to the aircraft coming in here when they were on the ground. No great revelations were uncovered nor was anything of any real value gained but being up close and personal to the enemy – for both sides – was still an opportunity to observe them going about their business.
One of the US Navy Skytrain jet transport aircraft left Goleniow Airport with an extra passenger: a Soviet Army sergeant convinced the Americans to allow him to defect aboard their aircraft as he was a medical orderly who had been with the some of the patients who vouched for him. No one authorised this apart from the reservist who piloted this particular aircraft and was therefore in command and there was no hint that the Soviets on the ground were aware that that man had decided to flee Poland and head to the West. Senior NATO commanders were not best pleased afterwards at this occurrence as they had an agreement with the Soviets to transfer wounded men… but nothing came of this for the aircrew involved and the defector managed to get his chance at freedom.
Away from the flight-line, senior NATO and Soviet officials met under the Cottbus ceasefire terms and 'managed' the transfer from one side to the other of the wounded. Medical records of those being handed over were exchanged along with medical supplies for the continued treatment of patients who were on certain drugs to deal with their injuries.
Translators were on-hand – speaking in English, French and Russian – to assist in this as comments were made by doctors about certain patients who they felt needed specialist care. In addition, an apology that struck the NATO officers as very sincere came from the Soviets as to the lower number of patients they were transferring than expected. Eight hundred and eleven live POWs were handed over to NATO along with the bodies of another two hundred and seventy-five who had recently been killed. The Soviets stated that attacks by 'Polish bandits' had killed these men who were on their way to be transferred to NATO with almost another two hundred bodies soon to be recovered pending later conveyance too.
Surprise was expressed that a third of the wounded being sent to Goleniow Airport had been killed as that was a rather large number but all the Soviets would say was that the rebel attacks had been very fierce and Marshal Ogarkov himself wanted to pass on his apologies for this.
The RAF Tornados watched as the aircraft flew back from Poland westwards to various locations. Most headed back towards East Germany where they had come from though there were two Swedish and the lone Moroccan aircraft that headed for Sweden. These were all C-130 aircraft laden with wounded soldiers who were to be met on the ground there and at once taken to hospitals waiting for them.
During the flight above the Baltic one of the TP.84s (the designation used for the C-130 Hercules) in Swedish markings declared an in-flight emergency due to several electrical problems. The aircraft was a very long way from its destination at Kallinge Airbase and needed to divert at once for the sake of the aircrew and the passengers. A return to Poland would have been best or possibly a landing on Bornholm; both options were out of the question though and so the aircraft headed for Peenemunde on Rugen where the USAF was operating from.
There was a little bit of frustration on the part of the RAF that they were unable to assist in anyway with that aircraft in trouble though what really could have been done? When the news came that the transport did make a successful landing there relief did came.
At the same time as that issue, aircrews with 29 Squadron were operating with clear skies out ahead of them to the east. There were no reports from the AWACS aircraft supporting them of hostile contacts at all over the Baltic and all contacts detected at long-range over Poland were other transport aircraft pulling the Soviets out of that country and also from the few western parts of Czechoslovakia that the French weren't currently occupying. There were no interceptors coming out of the Baltic Republics and Kaliningrad nor strike aircraft looking to hit NATO warships on the surface of the Baltic. Reconnaissance aircraft weren't darting forward on high-speed runs and intelligence-gathering aircraft which normally kept their distance using stand-off systems to do their own reconnaissance were missing from the morning skies too.
This was all very strange for the RAF who had spent seemingly years, but in reality only a month, engaged in combat missions with the enemy always in the skies even when they lost aircraft at a prodigious rate. The ceasefire was holding though and if it turned into a real peace then 29 Squadron would no longer be over the Baltic and nor would any Soviet aircraft on offensive missions which needed countering either.
Peace was returning to this part of the world.
Two Hundred & Eighty–Eight
The supply of food, or more correctly the lack of food supplies, was what brought down Berlin eventually.
The troops defending the city against the NATO armies surrounding Berlin as well as the citizens inside both sides of the city needed to be fed and the East German authorities were unable to do this. There had been serious shortages getting food supplies to the armed men and the non-combatants for some time now with irregular deliveries being made to fill bellies. With the city cut off and under siege like it was, plus under attack from above, the struggles to manufacture and then transport food where it was needed were just far too great. There was hoarding of some supplies and theft of others. NATO bombs fell upon what few production facilities that there were left and the distribution network was another target for their air strikes. Getting raw materials into the city was also becoming impossible…
Bullets were the focus of those at the top in-charge: making sure that their troops had those was the top priority. While that was important, the supply of food just couldn't be ignored like it was not when there were millions of people – armed and unarmed – within the city all of whom needed to be fed on a regular basis including those who manned the guns from which those bullets flew.
What rations had been issued had first been issued at the rate of once a day to civilians in West Berlin, twice a day to East German civilians in the eastern half of the city and three times a day to defending troops on the frontlines as well as those deployed on internal security duties. This food was generally very basic and often made many people – especially what was given to civilians – very ill with all sorts of medical complaints. As the siege intensified, all civilians went to one delivery a day and armed men twice a day with the quality and quantity greatly decreasing. Some people stole from others while there were small-scale riots as demands were made for more. Punishment of withdrawing of rations was used to try to control both civilians and troops so they would behave and this, of course, had the opposite affect.
Then there came a further cut in rations with civilians being given what food there was once a day every other day and the armed men just getting one issue of rations per day. Commanders of the troops defending the city complained that this couldn't continue if their men were to hold the city and told of how their men were sometimes deserting and on other occasions stealing food from each other or civilians. Those officers who commanded security troops keeping civilians from rebelling issued dire warnings that the people would revolt in numbers more than their demoralised soldiers could handle.
If anyone higher up was taking any notice as to these warnings then nothing was done about this.
Yesterday, when the civilians in East Berlin were supposed to be fed and internal security forces manned their stations to protect and try to bring some order to the planned distribution, no deliveries came. They were told that today that would occur instead and no answers were forthcoming as to why there hadn't been any food yesterday nor how those in West Berlin were going to be fed when they were expecting to be.
Today, no food came.
By the afternoon, messages came down from above that the civilians would be fed tomorrow instead. There was a further message concerning the rations for the security forces throughout both East Berlin and West Berlin: your rations have also been delayed until tomorrow too.
When the inevitable food riots started among the civilians in East Berlin who had crowded ready to be given their rations, many security units moved in to break up the crowds with their usual violent approach… many other units didn't. Officers couldn't control their men to get them to attack the crowds while others ordered their men not to interfere because they worried as to whether their own troops might turn on them. Across East Berlin, the security situation suddenly and spectacularly collapsed.
Down the heavily-populated Karl-Marx-Allee, across Lichtenberg, through Pankow and almost everywhere else in the eastern half of the city the people rioted. They wanted food and they would smash and burn anything that stood in their way of getting that. Security troops who stood fast and others which turned and fled came under attack. Gunfire into the crowds only dispersed them for a time while on other occasions the crowds were so thick that those at the rear pushed forwards unaware that deaths were occurring up ahead of them. KdA personnel were unwilling to join the police in combating the crowds and some of their number led civilians in places to attack the lines of the police.
Who were the civilians fighting? Where did they intend to get the food from which they were rioting to have?
Those questions couldn't be answered because this wasn't an organised rebellion of people led by leaders after a clear set of goals. It was a true riot, one which came from desperation and chaos. Sometimes the civilians could suddenly stop and cease their orgy of violence – long-term hunger meant many were weak – for no apparent reason but most of the time they just continued onwards attacking the symbols of oppression which were in front of them: anyone who stood up to them. Stored supplies of food or some of it in transport when found, moreover just the suspicion that the rioters had food within their grasp, would set off even further bloody conflict which saw the death count rise fast and uncontrollably.
Alerts went out across East Berlin and then through the rest of the city for police reinforcements and other security forces to move against the rioters with haste. Again, there was chaos though this time it was officialdom in chaos due to the confusing nature of reports coming from so many different spots. There was enemy air activity going on over the city at the same time especially around a certain point of West Berlin where attention had to be paid to if the city was to remain resisting.
Thick smoke from fires started and the sound of firing bullets were what would define the afternoon across East Berlin along with the screams of those wounded and the cries of those who were hungry too.
Those riots, which would only grow in scope and spread, would be fatal for the honestly futile chances of Berlin holding out in the face of PINNACLE with so many NATO troops surrounding the city. In addition, once they were going on the East Germans wouldn't be able to deal effectively with what happened early in the evening at the occupied Tempelhof Airbase when American paratroopers, who had been waiting most of the day for the weather to clear up, were air-dropped over that facility after most of the air defences had been silenced.
Berlin was now about to fall.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Aug 16, 2019 22:40:49 GMT
Two Hundred & Eighty–Nine
Tempelhof Airbase was recaptured by American paratroopers with the US Third Army in an airborne assault conducted just after 4pm local time. Meteorologists had promised that the wind and rain would cease over Berlin by the early evening and the weathermen had been right allowing for transport aircraft to deliver paratroopers first and then more men in an airmobile role – along with equipment – soon afterwards safely and in number to the facility deep inside West Berlin.
The 'Airborne Orphans', as the men with the 1st/82nd Brigade had been calling themselves since they had been away from the command of their parent formation the 82nd Airborne Division since February, led the way followed afterwards by the 173rd Airborne Brigade. A combat drop was made with opposition coming at once from enemy troops on the ground who had faced air attacks all day including several fuel-air bombs dropped at the last minute before the paratroopers went in. The damage done to the defenders had been great though and their positions carefully attacked with selective bombing using plenty of expensive weaponry.
Tempelhof was generally overrun by the Airborne Orphans by the time that the old soldiers serving with the 173rd Brigade arrived with many of those men more than a little jealous that their younger comrades-in-arms had once again taken all of the glory. There was much respect though for the Airborne Orphans had fought in Nicaragua than multiple fights across Germany and come out on top every time. Along with the 173rd Brigade came a company of national guardsmen from Georgia with the 1/122 INF; their dozen HMMWVs rolled out of the back of Hercules transports which made rough landings on the patchy runaways at Tempelhof with such four-wheeled vehicles mounting TWO missiles now finally about to preform their long-awaited mission. The M-551 Sheridans attached to the 82nd Airborne Division had been almost all destroyed in fighting at Rhein-Main last month and the anti-armour rolled HMMWVs with their ARNG crews were hear to provide mobile fire-power instead.
Taking Tempelhof was one thing, holding it against the East German counter-attack when that came was a whole different challenge. The enemy was far from finished as an opponent who could put up a fight when needed and that was certainly seen at Tempelhof just like it was at selective places around the outside of Berlin. The famous semi-circular shaped terminal complex at the northwestern edge of the facility was fast abandoned when East German Militia struck there with heavily-armed KdA forces taking the Americans by surprise with a furious assault. There were hundreds of them driven forwards by Stasi officers who had indoctrinated this particular unit to fight against 'Imperialist invaders' but who quickly made themselves ghosts when that fighting occurred.
The Airborne Orphans reacted with haste blunting the enemy attack and were given fast assistance by some Cobra gunships which had just arrived at Tempelhof. Some of those HMMWVs with their missiles raced to assist as well firing their heavyweight projectiles into the terminal building when the East Germans fell back there trying to make a stand inside. The situation was soon stabilised afterwards and the KdA contained but their counter-attack had cost many American lives. The only good news was that all intelligence pointed to no more major enemy forces being anywhere near Tempelhof afterwards and a decent perimeter could be set up before further enemy forces arrived. A battalion of towed howitzers, a battery of multi-barrelled rocket launchers and helicopters to be based here were arriving to assist in further defensive efforts to make sure that when the enemy returned, they would be met in even greater force than beforehand.
The intention – from higher command – was to have the enemy focused upon Tempelhof and the American paratroopers here inside West Berlin.
Across Berlin's suburbs to the west, the south and the east, the fighting there continued throughout the day while civilian disturbances and the Tempelhof operation went on internally. The British Second, US Third and US Seventh Armys pushed into suburban areas with caution looking for weak spots to exploit. When stubborn opposition was encountered, especially with civilians nearby in number, NATO troops for the most part ceased their forward movement though didn't withdraw from forward positions.
Therefore, in rear area headquarters, the frontlines when displayed upon tactical maps where all over the place. Many units were engaged in fighting on three sides – ahead and on both flanks – while others struggled to make sure that they didn't have to conduct an all-round defence by stopping enemy units trying to move against their rear and cut them off. Artillery and air power was used less liberally than beforehand as the outer defences had lone been blown apart and overrun and now instead there were buildings full of innocents trapped right at the frontlines. Keeping the lines of communications open to troops fighting at the front so that ammunition, fuel and other supplies, plus reinforcements too, could be delivered became difficult in some places where enemy units would attack these from the flank and needed to be engaged and then hunted down.
Infantry units spent most of their time out of their armoured and wheeled vehicles operating on foot at the advance continued at a snail's pace. Tanks used up far too much fuel when idle as they needed to keep their engines running so that they could function as stationary heavy fire platforms but also ready to dart forward at a moment's notice when needed. Everyone was thankful that the air threat was near non-existent now; infantrymen usually armed man-portable SAMs were using other heavy weapons while multiple-barrelled anti-aircraft guns were used in the defence-suppression role where possible.
There was at lot of confusion at times during the fighting when it came to reacting to what the enemy was doing as well as other human factors. NATO units would face sudden and furious attacks in the most unexpected places even when their commanders had tried to drill into them to always be on their guard because the threat could come from anywhere. That it did while at other places where the attacking troops would expect an enemy to make a stand due to terrain there was no fighting to be done. British and Belgian troops around Spandau in the west as well as American and Spanish troops at Johannisthal in the southeast in particular made great gains in terms of territory taken only to be suddenly brought to a halt at unexpected points. East German soldiers may have withdrawn from some places and fought stubbornly at others, yet many of them were surrendering in number too. Individuals, small groups and sometimes large organised units of men would throw down their arms and give up all day in random fashion not always when they were on the verge of defeat either. Civilians meanwhile, those from West Berlin now doing what others from East Berlin had previously done, took the chance to try to get away from where they had been long held prisoner and escape through the frontlines into NATO-controlled territory.
When it came to those civilians, problems were caused. These were West Germans who had suffered grave injustices under East German occupation and were desperate in their efforts to flee with some of them facing danger at the last minute not just from sniper fire at them from the East Germans but NATO troops engaged in combat striking them in collateral damage actions no matter how careful they tried to be. Many civilians wouldn't follow instructions to head further into the rear where they were told food and medical care was waiting from rear-area support services but wanted urgent attention now from the soldiers who had just liberated them. Among the civilians were also a few of the enemy too who hid themselves within the ranks of those frightened innocents fleeing either to escape justice or for other purposes… like planting improvised bombs or making attempts at assassinating senior NATO officers.
The die-hard nature of a certain few of the enemy disguising themselves as non-combatants caused chaos where that occurred and resulted in some ugly incidents where NATO troops lost control of themselves and committed some acts which many would call war crimes: suspected perpetrators of such acts were summarily shot by officers or MPs could get involved. These actions made all civilians suspects with some being subjected to invasive personal searches or being told to remain where they were – in those buildings they had once called homes but had been turned into personal prisons – for the time being.
At the same time though, it must be remembered that these certain events with how civilians were treated weren't happening everywhere. Most of the time liberation came with cheers and relief giving the fighting soldiers a great morale boost knowing that they were liberating friendly West Germans after fighting against East Germans for nearly two weeks now. Everyone was looking forward to getting the job here finished and soon too, especially if that could be achieved out in the suburbs rather than deep in the urban areas of Berlin.
Thankfully, that was now looking more and more likely.
Two Hundred & Ninety
Extract from: My War; The Heroic Deeds Of A Soldier, by General Alexander Ivanovich Lebed. Part 19: Evil Defeated
Evil needed defeating, that was what Marshal Ogarkov told me and as a loyal soldier I carried out such duties. My view was that sometimes evil needed more than just a crushing and overwhelming defeat: it needs to be exterminated so that it can never rise again to threaten the Motherland.
The Chekists were evil and so too were their bastard children which had been created in the German Democratic Republic.
After Cottbus, I was assigned the important duty of supervising that attempts to deal with the problems coming from the collapse of all order west of the Oder and Neisse Rivers where there came bands of desperate groups heading east for Poland after undertaking nefarious actions during their travels. There were KGB, GRU and Stasi men who wished to run eastwards taking with them money, looted goods and hostages to buy their way over the border and then continue onwards back towards the Motherland where they could further spread their poisonous evil.
Stopping this was more than just a duty but a pleasure too.
My new duties had come with an improvement in rank: the insignia of a General-Major on my uniform suited me well. I had the responsibilities of a general officer and many men under my command spread over a wide area. There were those coming across from Germany into Poland in vehicles, on foot and sometimes in helicopters and light aircraft. Every single one of them was deserting their post and in direct violation of field orders for conduct in war.
The women they brought with them as hostages from civilians to those who the West used in a military function – disgraceful! – had all been violated: the punishment for rape is death.
Men used as hostages had been mistreated: the punishment for mistreating prisoners is death.
Taking hostages regardless of how they are treated is not allowed: the punishment for illegally making others prisoners is death.
Unless those we caught could prove they had not raped, had not physically attacked the helpless or not taken part in seizing hostages then they were as guilty too: the punishment for the guilty is death.
Those who arrived in Poland came with stolen property on them as well as often in trucks and private automobiles which had been taken from their owners; the punishment for theft and looting is death.
The cowards who ran away from Germany had all abandoned their posts. They were under orders no matter what uniform they were to stay inside the German Democratic Republic. Instead they had disobeyed those orders and ran away: the punishment for desertion in the face of the enemy is death.
Such wartime regulations, legal rules for military conduct, were enforced without hesitation. The task assigned to myself and those under my command was to deal with the issue and to enforce those regulations when it came to the Chekists who arrived in Poland. To not do so would have been to betray the Motherland. Even when sometimes we did not have enough bullets to hand for our rifles we still performed our duties using bayonets. Justice could not be allowed to be delayed by such trivialities as supply problems.
After those Chekists had all been punished, the bodies of the dead were buried and then what they had brought with them dealt with. Vehicles were destroyed so that Polish rebels could not use them while weapons were to be put to use with the Soviet Army. Money, jewels and electrical goods were passed up the chain of command for proper disposal in an orderly fashion. Confiscated alcohol was poured away while food and cigarettes distributed among my men to keep their spirits up. The hostages were another matter.
We had men, we had women, we had children. There were Soviet citizens, East Germans, those who came from the countries of the Allies and then those from neutral nations not involved in the war. Politicians, diplomats, foreign spies, soldiers and ordinary civilians among them. All were frightened, mistreated and in need of more help then I nor my men could give them.
Addressing the issue of providing for these people and eventually sending them back where they came from would be much work but again all part of my duty.
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