Red Dawn 20+ AH.com archive

From page 16

Matt Wiser

Gtrof: did you ever get in touch with the AF Historical Center? They should have the stuff you're interested in about the B-52 and B-1 raids against Eastern Siberia. The problem with anyone doing a book on the missions, though several books that deal with the air war do have chapters on the flights, is that the BDA imagery is still classified, and artist's impressions based on the photos just won't cut it.

And were the Cobra Chicks as wild in their off hours as the rumor mill said? Hopefully, their flight surgeon enforced the 12-hour rule....

trekchu

Matt Wiser said: And were the Cobra Chicks as wild in their off hours as the rumor mill said? Hopefully, their flight surgeon enforced the 12-hour rule....

They did. A close friend of my wife was one of them, and she said that they sometimes had to have the MPs stop the festivieties.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said:FALCON AMBULANCE: Lots of press on that one, ISTR. There was some staff weenie who wanted a court-martial because all the i's hadn't been dotted and t's crossed. The AF Chief of Staff got involved personally, and that staffer wound up at Goose Bay in Labrador, baby-sitting KC-135s that refueled Buffs and Lancers on their way back from those TransPac runs to Siberia. C-119s...guess where they found a bunch of those still airworthy...AMARC again. Lockheed's old L-1011 factory in Palmdale did the job of getting those Flying Boxcars combat-worthy again, along with the remaining C-123s.

There was lots of press on that one, to the point that the Base commander who ordered it became a general. Well deserved, IMO, they saved a lot of lives there and made Ivan really mad at the same time. That Staff weenie got chewed out by the F-111 squadron commander, and yeah they sent hgim up to Labrador so he'd keep his mouth shut.

The C-119s and C-123s were from AMARC, yes. They had better engines in 'em, though, and had most of the same internals as the C-130s they regularly worked with. That Palmdale plant got bombed a bunch of times by the Reds, but every time they cleaned up the rubble and got back to work in a couple of days. I don't think everyone thinks enough about the buys hwo kept the factories running, because lod knows they did Hurculean jobs doing that.

Matt Wiser said: Did your Dad work on the refurbished D model Buffs, or go to the new-build Hs that Boeing concentrated on? Or both? I'll admit, it was strange after the war seeing a B-52H with a manufacturer's data plate saying 1988. (that was at the first Victory Day airshow at Scott AFB east of St. Louis) Incidentally, my old F-4 flew with the California ANG at March for a few years postwar, but when it was time to retire her, I asked that she be displayed at Castle AFB, and that's where it sits now, on display at the museum there.

My dad did both. The B-52 he flew co-pilot on was a rebuilt D model, but he worked on plenty of Hs too. I know the last of those rolled out of Renton in late 1989. I heard that the Js are out test flying, too. I guess the big 'ol whupass truck is gonna be flying for a while yet.

My old Hornet is in a museum too. My last Hornet stayed with my unit for a while, until we moved to the F-16C and then the F-22. It served the Texas ANG for a while before it was retired. It's at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, which surprised me because I knew where it had wound up. I found out later one of the museum's curators was a pilot in the A-7 unit based in St. Louis, and he knew my squadron and my plane. So, when it was retired, he brought it to the Museum. I'll be honest and say I almost cried when I saw the old warhorse again.

Matt Wiser said: Did the Cobra Chicks thank you in their...unusual manner? Word via the grapevine (via their AF ALO) was that their unit parties often got wild. Not that he participated, of course, being happily married (and his wife safe with her parents in Upstate New York), but their reputation was that they fought hard and partied hard. That's one way to blow off steam. For us in the 335th, Vegas was never an hour or two away by plane, and that was our main R&R spot, with two weeks off every six months. (I got 30 days' leave after the E&E, but that was special-went home to California to be with family) A lot of things went on in off hours that prewar would've earned you an Article 15 at the very least, but once the shootin' started, TPTB looked the other way. And you had to find ways to blow off steam somehow. Some of the Florida towns were like Vegas, ISTR, no tourists during the war, but service people on R&R can get pretty wild....

Oh, I did my fair share of crazy stuff. My base wasn't far from St. Louis, right, and we were of course just up the plains from Chicago and Indianapolis. Any airman or soldier - hell, anybody wearing a uniform - had little trouble getting drunk and getting laid. I didn't get drunk too often, though. I got my rocks off on my motorcycle. I have one of those Buell sportbikes with the Harley engines, and the cops tend to not stop a Hornet jockey getting his rocks off.

The female pilots in my unit were professional on duty and off, though you knew full well they wanted to enjoy themselves when off-duty, and that at times got a little crazy. The base we were on had a high school with a footbal stadium nearby, and when we wanted to play we got to. I came to be a pretty good wide receiver that way. The base squadrons often played against each other, always on Friday nights. In many cases people would watch us play, and one guy would always bring a truckload of Gatorade. That got interrupted one time by a Backfire raid, and the locals didn't like that much - the Tu-22M that passed over the field (Winchester, thankfully) got hit a bunch of times by annoyed locals with pistols and hunting rifles. I wonder how he explained that to his CO.

Also, one of times we got off was the Memorial Day Weekend in 1987, and obviously this had gotten out (probably one of those dumb-fuck TV reporters who never figured out how to keep their mouths shut), so they invited everybody who was off to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They didn't have a race going on - the Indy 500 was canceled during the war - but that didn't stop local enthusiasts, who brought out every fast car they could find and ran a race anyways. I got asked if I wanted to race, but I turned it down. One of my pilots borrowed a '71 Plymouth Road Runner and raced, though. She finished sixteenth. A huge crowd there loved the race there, too. They got drowned out at the start by a bunch of F-16 jockeys, who apparently circled Indianapolis, figuring the Reds would try to hit the race. They didn't.

From then on, the "Road Car Indy", has been a big deal for most of the Midwest. They hold it on the Saturday before the real 500, and its a blast for those involved. I did it myself one time, when one good samaritan let me run his '84 Corvette in it.

Matt Wiser

B-52s...man, those things just keep on truckin'. Eventually they'll likely refit the Gs and Hs with those RB-211 engines and upgrade them to J standard, but they don't call the Buffs "Old Reliables" for nothing. They practically stripped AMARC of everything that could fly, and scavenged every possible part off those that couldn't. A lot of Vietnam vets who returned to active duty after the invasion even picked up their old Huey or F-100 to take it back to a rebuild facility (McDonnell Douglas' Long Beach factory not only worked on refurbishing F-100s and upgrading F-4s, but they became a second source of F-15s when Ivan got too close to St. Louis at one point) or off to war. The F-100s were only a stopgap until the ROK and Taiwanese lines could make the transition from the F-5E to the F-20, but they helped hold the line in that first year.

Well, I won't name names, but there were some times in the 335th when we did get a little too wild...and when the girls came into the cockpit, the CO said "I don't care what you people do when you're off duty, but when you show up at the squadron, keep your private lives private!" And I wasn't the only male pilot with a female back-seater to have a relationship....there were several others, too. And postwar, two or three additional marriages. Off-road racing in the desert was another way to blow off steam; and there was a Chevy dealer in Scottsdale who would rent us four-by-four Blazers or pickups, and a Jeep dealer did the same. Several of the boys and girls bought dune buggies, and West of Phoenix, and either north or south of the I-10 is where we'd go race. And we were always armed, because you never knew if you'd run into any Soviet or Cuban SOF...everyone packed M-16s on those outings. Getting really wild, you'd save it for Vegas....and we had a pretty decent softball team, too.

Backfires over CONUS...I think they did the shuttle from Siberia via Alaska or occupied Canada, and then over CONUS. Never saw any myself, but we knew they were around, and they did show up on the SR-71 imagery. There's a nicely restored one at the AF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, and the Smithsonian has another at their temporary museum at Quantico.

Anyone find an F-15 guy or girl who flew those Gulf sweeps? Finding out if anyone killed that An-74 taking the Quislings to Cuba would be great. At least they didn't get a chance to form a "People's Government" in exile. If they weren't splashed, and they didn't arrive in Cuba.....Bermuda Triangle, anyone? Didn't Fidel offer Hall, Hay, Davis, and the others such a setup?

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: B-52s...man, those things just keep on truckin'. Eventually they'll likely refit the Gs and Hs with those RB-211 engines and upgrade them to J standard, but they don't call the Buffs "Old Reliables" for nothing. They practically stripped AMARC of everything that could fly, and scavenged every possible part off those that couldn't. A lot of Vietnam vets who returned to active duty after the invasion even picked up their old Huey or F-100 to take it back to a rebuild facility (McDonnell Douglas' Long Beach factory not only worked on refurbishing F-100s and upgrading F-4s, but they became a second source of F-15s when Ivan got too close to St. Louis at one point) or off to war. The F-100s were only a stopgap until the ROK and Taiwanese lines could make the transition from the F-5E to the F-20, but they helped hold the line in that first year.

I couldn't believe some of the stuff they were salvaging from AMARC. They took EVERYTHING out of that place. A whole bunch of F-8s went to a plant in Arizona to get redone into A-7Ds. Hueys, B-52s, F-100s, A-3s, A-6s, even a few B-47s as I understand. (Lord knows how those beasts were usable......) They picked the place clean and sent up everything that could fly. I even know of some C-47s that got cleaned up and used for RE transport.

The Long Beach plant got made into an F-15 line because they were worried whether those of us at St. Louis could make sure the plant wasn't blown up. Ivan did try to do that, but the MD guys did a good job hiding it. (they actually planted grass over the roof and trees around it, the idea being they wanted the Russians to think that it was a water reservoir. They even parked cars underground to enhance the illusion. We got told not to ditch in that area, because nobody wanted to rop their wrecked plane onto the plant.) It didn't matter much, because the Backfires never went after the industrial plants and the Bears usually got shot down before they got close enough to hit anything. Our orders with regards to Russian bombers was to take them out on sight. See it, shoot it. I never got any, but two guys in my unit did. One of the A-7 drivers knocked a Tu-95 out of the sky with Zunis. Lord only knows how he did that.

Matt Wiser said: Well, I won't name names, but there were some times in the 335th when we did get a little too wild...and when the girls came into the cockpit, the CO said "I don't care what you people do when you're off duty, but when you show up at the squadron, keep your private lives private!" And I wasn't the only male pilot with a female back-seater to have a relationship....there were several others, too. And postwar, two or three additional marriages.

I know pilots who married, too. I didn't (my wife was one of the first women in the SOCOM, believe it or not. I don't cheat on her for a reason - she can easily kick my ass ), but I know that it wasn't uncommon. By the end of the war, the military had pretty much given up on trying to enforce rules on fraterization between male and female members, because nobody was listening anyways.

Matt Wiser said: Off-road racing in the desert was another way to blow off steam; and there was a Chevy dealer in Scottsdale who would rent us four-by-four Blazers or pickups, and a Jeep dealer did the same. Several of the boys and girls bought dune buggies, and West of Phoenix, and either north or south of the I-10 is where we'd go race. And we were always armed, because you never knew if you'd run into any Soviet or Cuban SOF...everyone packed M-16s on those outings. Getting really wild, you'd save it for Vegas....and we had a pretty decent softball team, too.

I usually had an SMG on me in case I ran into anybody I didn't want to. Most of the guys had SMGs or sidearms. The cops never gave us any grief over that, either - most of them had M-16s or Remington 870s in their squad cars, too, figuring that they might end up running into an SOF. Bet the off-roading was fun. Blazers and Jeeps are good tools for it, too.

Matt Wiser said: Backfires over CONUS...I think they did the shuttle from Siberia via Alaska or occupied Canada, and then over CONUS. Never saw any myself, but we knew they were around, and they did show up on the SR-71 imagery. There's a nicely restored one at the AF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, and the Smithsonian has another at their temporary museum at Quantico.

I never knew for sure, but that's what I figured, too. Those guys must have known that we'd be there to try and take them down, which is why I didn't see 'em all that often. The Russians had tankers, but not that many (one got shown by my old wingman in his F-16), and I imagine that they didn't have enough to fuel a fleet of bombers. Us going after them didn't help, either. The Eagle drivers usually got the tankers and bombers before we did. And the Museum of Flight here in Sea-town has the front and wings of a Tu-22M that bit the dust over Alberta and crash-landed. They I know are looking for a good back half, if anybody is out looking.

Matt Wiser said: Anyone find an F-15 guy or girl who flew those Gulf sweeps? Finding out if anyone killed that An-74 taking the Quislings to Cuba would be great. At least they didn't get a chance to form a "People's Government" in exile. If they weren't splashed, and they didn't arrive in Cuba.....Bermuda Triangle, anyone? Didn't Fidel offer Hall, Hay, Davis, and the others such a setup?

I don't know about you, but as long as those traitors are dead, I don't give a shit if we ever see 'em again. Good riddens, worthless motherf**kers.

Matt Wiser

There was a grand total of two B-47s left in AMARC, and both were pretty well picked clean by that time. (Museums came and raided them for parts for their own B-47s) Most of the other Buffs (Es and Fs) were used as parts sources, and the A-3s helped keep the EA-3B ELINT birds the Navy flew going. I know a couple of former A-6 drivers who joined the 419th (one's my wingie), and he said they flew hard, whether Navy or Marine, they used and abused those Intruders. Thank God the F version was built after the war, instead of that planned stealthy attack bird GD had in mind.

I never saw a Backfire air-to-air, or on the ground, but when we hit Reese AFB near Lubbock once, there were four Bears on the ground doing a turnaround. Got one with Rockeye CBUs, another ate a 750-pounder from my wingie, and I don't recall who nailed the other two, but the RF-4C guys behind us said all four had been taken out.

Yeah, the fraternization regs were the least-obeyed ones military-wide. Some of those off-road trips with my backseater were...intimate after a day of racing. (hee, hee) Couple of times, though, the proceedings were rudely interrupted by small-arms fire-my then wingie's backseater had a Combat Security Police flight leader as his girlfriend, (he got himself killed a few weeks later), and the first time, she came out of the tent buck naked and waving an M-16. She went out into the desert, and came back a few minutes later, dragging a Cuban SF guy feet first, but still alive. The man couldn't believe that he'd been taken down by a gal wearing nothing but combat boots...he asked us to shoot him then and there. When my backseater and I got married after the war, the ground crew hung a "Just Married" sign on the back of our F-4.

If those traitors wound up feeding the fishes in the Gulf, well..hope the sharks dined well. If the Bermuda Triangle bit that An-74, then some hapless ETs have to listen to the Communist tripe that those three and their toadies spouted. Either way, goodbye and good riddance. They wanted to be in the History books, and they're there, all right, but as the worst traitors in American History.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: There was a grand total of two B-47s left in AMARC, and both were pretty well picked clean by that time. (Museums came and raided them for parts for their own B-47s) Most of the other Buffs (Es and Fs) were used as parts sources, and the A-3s helped keep the EA-3B ELINT birds the Navy flew going. I know a couple of former A-6 drivers who joined the 419th (one's my wingie), and he said they flew hard, whether Navy or Marine, they used and abused those Intruders. Thank God the F version was built after the war, instead of that planned stealthy attack bird GD had in mind.

I didn't figure there was many left at AMARC, being that the design was old. As I understand it, the stealthy attack bird got canned in order to build a pile of new Intruders and some Prowlers. I think they made the right call there, we needed more attack birds after the war. The ELINT A-3s I know also became tankers a few times and most apparently were hauling Harpoons under their wings before the war was over.

Matt Wiser said: I never saw a Backfire air-to-air, or on the ground, but when we hit Reese AFB near Lubbock once, there were four Bears on the ground doing a turnaround. Got one with Rockeye CBUs, another ate a 750-pounder from my wingie, and I don't recall who nailed the other two, but the RF-4C guys behind us said all four had been taken out.

Good work, my fellow pilot. I wish I'd have gotten one of those fat pigs. I had 'em go over my airbase a couple times, and then I had that bugger who overflew the stadium. I wished somebody nearby had a Stinger right about then.

Matt Wiser said: Yeah, the fraternization regs were the least-obeyed ones military-wide. Some of those off-road trips with my backseater were...intimate after a day of racing. (hee, hee) Couple of times, though, the proceedings were rudely interrupted by small-arms fire-my then wingie's backseater had a Combat Security Police flight leader as his girlfriend, (he got himself killed a few weeks later), and the first time, she came out of the tent buck naked and waving an M-16. She went out into the desert, and came back a few minutes later, dragging a Cuban SF guy feet first, but still alive. The man couldn't believe that he'd been taken down by a gal wearing nothing but combat boots...he asked us to shoot him then and there. When my backseater and I got married after the war, the ground crew hung a "Just Married" sign on the back of our F-4.

Boy, I bet that guy was embarassed. Get caught by a naked woman? Bet that took his machismo and turned it into mud.

I had a few of those flings, too. I usually found myself doing that in a tent in a field or forest, or even sneaking out of the base a couple of times to have fun. I was in the Midwest, you understand. The best bit I had was out on the beach in Corpus Christi late in the war......but then again, I married that particular woman. It's quite a story, too. I think the fact I was sore for about 36 hours after that fling ought to give a clue as to how good it actually was.

Nice job to the ground crew on your 'Just Married' sign. That would have been another blow to machismo, too - you got your ass blown off by a guy on his honeymoon. I hope the guys let you two have a good honeymoon, too.

Matt Wiser said: If those traitors wound up feeding the fishes in the Gulf, well..hope the sharks dined well. If the Bermuda Triangle bit that An-74, then some hapless ETs have to listen to the Communist tripe that those three and their toadies spouted. Either way, goodbye and good riddance. They wanted to be in the History books, and they're there, all right, but as the worst traitors in American History.

As I heard, they got out on an An-74T that landed in Santiago de Cuba. I've also heard apparently that Davis was eyeballed in Jamaica, but nobody got anything on him after that. He might have been gunned down by a Jamaican soldier or gangbanger for all we know. (God I hope so.)

Matt Wiser

The ex-Navy guys with me in the 419th echo those thoughts; the Es served long and well, and like the C-130 and the Buff, the only thing that can adequately replace the A-6 is another A-6. I have a cousin who flew A-7s beginning in 1986, two years into the war, went to A-6Es postwar, and is still flying the F. She doesn't like it when I jump her in my F-15E...Jacqui's now CO of VA-196 at NAS Whidbey Island.

Yeah, his machimiso got cut down a few notches. I think the Luke AFB security guys hadn't seen anyone delivered into their custody strapped to the hood of a Jeep CJ-7, but then again, none of us on that trip had a pickup, so we couldn't hog-tie the Cuban and toss him in the back. We later heard they called in some of the Mescalaro Apaches to track the rest of the Cuban SOF team, they came back with two scalps and a live one. And I mean two scalps.... We had a good honeymoon, thanks; Remember how some airlines and hotel firms put together packages for servicemembers as a thank-you after the war? Well, we took advantage of one; spent a week in St. Thomas and another in St. Croix. The US Virgin Islands was hardly touched by the war, and to them, it was something they saw on the news, though the islanders sent their share of enlistees and draftees off to war. And we wore ourselves out on that vacation....and our friends could tell how it was: we were worn out, with sunburn all over, and beach sand in our clothes... one of the other F-4 couples went down there, too. Their playtime was livened up when Hurricane Denise blew past the USVI on its way to Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Yucatan...

Remember what Panzerfaust said? Their particular An-74 was being tracked by COMINT, and it never arrived in Cuba. They never showed up in Cuba, Nicaragua, or the rump USSR. Still, if Angela Davis, Harry Hay, and Gus Hall wound up ambient temperature, regardless of the cause, we're definitely better off without them in the gene pool. I personally think their bones are on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico somewhere between Brownsville and Havana, but who knows for sure? The Bermuda Triangle people, of course, have their own ideas as to the fate of that particular An-74.

There were some Badgers, too, that came over via that Shuttle run; IIRC they used some for carpet-bombing of suspected resistance strongholds, while some of the missile carrier versions did try standoff raids against the East Coast (Norfolk, Jacksonville, Charleston, Atlanta, Boston, etc.) And a few Tu-22 Blinders also made the trip; One of the Marine crews from VMFA-232 killed a couple that tried a standoff AS-4 strike on Phoenix. One three-man crew died in the plane, while the other three landed in the worst possible location: right smack in the middle of the Mescalaro Apache Indian Reservation....their fate when they got caught is best left to one's imagination. That Blinder's wreckage is now displayed in front of the tribal government office, along with the carcass of the AS-4 missile that the plane wasn't able to launch.

gtrof

Gtrof: did you ever get in touch with the AF Historical Center? They should have the stuff you're interested in about the B-52 and B-1 raids against Eastern Siberia.

Not yet I did though talk to my friends dad about it. He flew B-52s, but mostly stayed on nuclear alert just in case the Russians decided to pop the cork again. He flew several conventional missions towards the end of the war over Texas and Mexico.

Backfires over CONUS...I think they did the shuttle from Siberia via Alaska or occupied Canada, and then over CONUS. Never saw any myself, but we knew they were around, and they did show up on the SR-71 imagery. There's a nicely restored one at the AF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, and the Smithsonian has another at their temporary museum at Quantico.

There couldn't have been too many. Soviet Pacific Fleet took heavy Tu-22M losses during the campaigning off Hawaii and Alaska. They lost three or four regiments trying to attack the Stenis and Enterprise battlegroups. Anyone see Blackjacks? I swear once in Kansas my squadron got overflown by one of those beasts. Everyone thought it was B-1 till we saw the Red Star on the tail. So I'm pretty sure it was a Tu-160.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Remember what Panzerfaust said? Their particular An-74 was being tracked by COMINT, and it never arrived in Cuba. They never showed up in Cuba, Nicaragua, or the rump USSR. Still, if Angela Davis, Harry Hay, and Gus Hall wound up ambient temperature, regardless of the cause, we're definitely better off without them in the gene pool. I personally think their bones are on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico somewhere between Brownsville and Havana, but who knows for sure? The Bermuda Triangle people, of course, have their own ideas as to the fate of that particular An-74.

Sorry about the absence...another consulting gig in Bakersfield..they're closing out the Tier 2 archives and shipping them to the Partisan Rock museum. I was helping out with the declassification process on some of the records. I can tell you this much, some of what's going to be released soon is going to make interesting reading.

Further information on that An-74, the Cubans reported it missing the day of the ceasefire, and none of the passengers or flight crew showed up anywhere. The sighting in Jamaica turned out to be someone who'd imbibed in too much wacky weed. The other reason that folks are interested in that An-74 is that as I understand it, there were a lot of sensitive documents having to do with the formation of their quisling state, things like who they could appoint to what...some of those folks might still be in politics now.

As for the "people's government in exile"....Castro did offer, but when none of these folks showed up, they grabbed some nobodies who were Auxiliary officers who had been brought out of Brownsville or Mexico before the end and set them up with a radio program...it's still on today...I call it my "comedy hour".

As for marriages..as I mentioned before, I met my wife post-war..she was a tanker with 1st ID, and she got hurt somewhat badly during III Corps drive south. Her tank took a 125 round to the rear turret, and the ammo went off. The blow out system worked..but the concussion slammed her against the breech of the main gun. She had a classic flailed chest with punctures of the lung and pericardial sac. She did the last 18 months of the war in a hospital bed and light duty. We met when she was giving testimony at Reno.

Matt Wiser

This long for the Tier II stuff to be declassified? There must be mountains of that material, and not just documents; photos, videotape, audio, etc. The trial transcripts you can get at any decent college library. And how much of that stuff has been translated? If you don't know Russian, having some help reading the material is a good thing. Doesn't Colorado State and the AF Academy help the Partisan Rock museum with their documents collection? That's what I heard when I was at the AF Academy last.

That "comedy hour" is good for just that, and nuthin' else. If the creeps on that show never again set foot here ever again, good for them. They're still on the wanted list anyway; the FBI, CIA and the crowd airtechie ran with have been pretty good at finding those people and either bringing 'em back for trial, or leaving them ambient temperature. I remember Fidel howling a few years back because a SEAL team went into Cuba, and brought back with 'em one of Fidel's enforcers in the POW camps on the Island. That guy is now in a Supermax for life. If that plane's down at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, those documents are history; I'd bet they were written with water-soluable ink as a precaution against such things, and so...We still need to hear from the F-15 crowd: anyone who flew a fighter sweep over the Gulf that day, speak up! If one of you guys or gals splashed that An-74, you did your country a big favor.

Blackjacks never did show up on our threat register; never saw any, nor did we ever get briefed on the Tu-160. Wasn't the plane still in flight test when the war began? And IIRC the only Regiment operational on the plane wasn't formed until a couple months before the end, anyway. Most of the Backfires over CONUS were from the SAF's DA (Long-Range Aviation), rather than the SNAF (Soviet Naval Air Force). They were here, and as squadron Ops Officer, XO, and then CO, I saw the SR-71 and RF-4C imagery. And Backfires did show up in the imagery on a number of occasions. Trekchu, did any Army units find Backfires on airfields they overran? The AF Museum's example was flown by a defecting crew a few weeks before the cease-fire, and I don't know where the Smithsonian's specimen came from. It's flyable, but that's all I know.

If memory serves, there was a husband-and-wife team on F-4Es in the 347th TFW on the Mississippi line and later on, Arkansas-Louisiana-Texas.
She wound up eventually a Squadron CO and now runs my old Wing-the 4th TFW at Seymour-Johnson AFB. They were the only such team in the Air Force, and there was some publicity about the couple. Word has it that he wound up leaving the AF when the commercial pilot market opened up again, but he never comes to the Phantom Phanatic reunions. She does, though, and is a very enthuasistic participant.

Pyro

All this talk about the "comedy hour" reminds me of a somewhat humorous blink-and-you-missed-it moment in Canadian history. Back when Ivan was pushing his way through British Columbia and Alberta, a bunch of far left sovereignists in Quebec thought they could take advantage of the invasion and wrote a manifesto declaring the creation of "République socialiste du Québec". Some of the wingnuts even tried to storm National Assembly in Quebec City and overthrow the provincial government. Needless to say the RCMP, and the Canadian Army, came down on them like a hammer the day after, and many of them spent the remainder of the war in cold, dank cell.

To my memory, most of the so-called revolutionaries fled to safer havens in Cuba and the like. However, Henri Gauthier, one of the authors of the manifesto stayed in Canada and wrote "Crimson Tide: A Memoirs of a Revolution." Perhaps some of you guys read it, but for those that didn't, it's essentially a three-hundred page tirade on the class inequity in Canada (particularly among English and French Canadians), and a scathing criticism of the Canadian and American war effort. He even goes out of the way to describe Canadian/American "war crimes" (which are mostly figments of his demented imagination) while outright denying the atrocities in Vancouver, Houston, among others. Mr. Gauthier even had the stones to go on a speaking tour of Western Canada. I couldn't go because I had an exam to study for, but it doesn't take much imagine to figure out what the crowds would do if they had some tar and feathers.

Thanks to men like Henri Gauthier the term "sovereignist" is now associated with "treason" and "scumbag", even in Quebec. It makes me wonder if there would've been another referendum in Quebec had Ivan not invaded. I guess we'll never know.

Matt Wiser

This guy still alive? Or did he get lynched on that speaking tour of what was occupied territory during the war? A few such lefties here had the gall to do similar things in the early '90s, and one got literally run out of Dallas, and a couple others nearly got lynched in Houston and OKC. One thing down here is that if you try and play down what happened behind the ComBloc lines and trump up stuff on the U.S., you've committed professional suicide (that UC Boulder prof is only one of many who've been literally driven out of the country), and you might just find angry vets, people who lived under the occupation, or family members of those who died suddenly picketing your home, tossing eggs, tomatoes, or other produce at the house, slashing car tires, etc. Has anyone noticed that 95% of the lefties making such claims were either (a) out of the country at the time, (b), living in Free America, safe behind the Rockies or the Mississippi, or (c) were too young to be of military age during the war? Bloggers are quite useful in finding out the background of these creatures.

Pyro

He's alive, but now living in seclusion. Not just because of the attempted lynchings and death threats, word has it in the conspiracy circles that he claims the CIA tried to assassinate him, twice. Apparently jail was hard on his fragile psyche, and he's been sliding deeper into his paranoia. Thanks to the wonders of the blogosphere, one person who went to his last speaking tour said he was incoherent and babbling about a conspiracy to keep him from telling the "truth".

I don't put any stock in what he says anyway. He devoted an entire chapter "explaining" how the Houston atrocities were committed by American agents to sway public opinion against the "liberators". I suggest looking up a copy if you want to get a look inside the mind of a raving lunatic.

As for the real heroes of this war: I'm you ever find your way to Alberta, come on over to my hometown and I'll buy you a beer.

Matt Wiser

Given as how the FBI, CIA and "other government agencies" went around after the war, chasing down collaborators and going outside the U.S., looking for those who fled before Brownsville fell, I'm not surprised this lunatic acts and feels that way. Quite a few of his fellow lefties on the wanted list are now residents of Federal Prison, some couldn't be caught and were...liquidated, and some others are still outstanding (mainly those who fled to Cuba or the rump USSR).

If I ever come up that way, I'll gladly take you up on your offer. If there's a military air show in Edmonton or Calgary, and 419th TFW gets an invite to send an F-15E or two, I'll be in one of 'em. Believe me, I've done quite a bit of that over the years; The first Victory Day show at Scott AFB was the first: I was one of the youngest squadron COs in the Air Force, and was requested personally by the AF Chief of Staff to show up. He also said "Bring that backseater of yours, and your wartime wingman." (Don't ask me how he knew about me and Lisa, he just knew) As ordered, we showed up two days before, tail number 73-0512 with a new paint job, 12 red stars on the side, and with wingie's plane right behind. Man, talk about a packed ramp...every plane, helo, and crew there were all combat veterans. Must've been over a hundred planes and choppers there in all, and that's not counting the Thunderbirds, Blue Angels, and Army Golden Knights parachute team.

Pyro

There's a military air show in Alberta, not in Calgary or Edmonton, but Lethbridge of all places. We manage to attract a wide variety of fighters, and bring in people from across Canada and even the Northwest United States. Because my grandfather was in the Air Force in WWII, I make it a point to volunteer to honor his memory. Seeing those jets soaring above has me considering a career in the RCAF.
ReportLike+ QuoteReply

TheMann

Pyro said: ↑There's a military air show in Alberta, not in Calgary or Edmonton, but Lethbridge of all places. We manage to attract a wide variety of fighters, and bring in people from across Canada and even the Northwest United States. Because my grandfather was in the Air Force in WWII, I make it a point to volunteer to honor his memory. Seeing those jets soaring above has me considering a career in the RCAF.

I participated at Lethbridge last year in my F-22. It had a new paint job too, 22 stars on the side of it, tail number 64-4085. My call sign is, and was, "Superbird". I hope one day I get to meet Matt here. It sounds like he had just as eventful a war as I did.

The RCAF, as I recall, has got some F-15Es of their own now. I know they used Hornets, Phantoms and Strike Eagles during the war, but I think they've let the F-4s have an honorable retirement.

Matt Wiser

If the 419th gets an invite, or my wife's wing, the 366th, does, we'll both be there. I have to do the flying anyway because Lisa isn't a rated pilot, but a navigator (she was one of the first navs, of either gender, to command a fighter squadron, and then a wing). Why isn't she a pilot? 20/30 vision in one eye, 20/20 the other. And by the time the reg was changed to allow for surgery to correct her vision, she was past the age limit for flight school anyway. But she likes being a paid backseat driver...
My wing CO's bird at 419 is 89-0487, while Lisa's is 91-0604. Both birds came out of Long Beach, btw.

This one's for The Mann: somebody earlier asked about Blackjacks showing up, and I was wondering if you ran into any, either air-to-air or air-to-ground. The 335 never got briefed on the plane, and we never saw any at all. I mentioned the Blinders and Badgers showing up, ever have any run-ins with those as well? We got a few of the latter on the ground at various places....CBUs, Mark-82 Snakeyes, even 20-mm tore those Tu-16s up pretty good. Check the Pima Air Museum next to Davis-Monthan if you can: they have a Badger, Blinder, and Backfire next to their two B-52s, a B-58, B-47, and RB-47. They also have pieces of a Bear one of the Luke F-15s shot down near Globe, Arizona, but no intact specimen.

Anyone have any crazy, weird, or just unusual war stories? Even in the middle of World War III, there were those things that could make you just laugh yourself sick. Case in point, and this happened in the early days: 10th Air Force (TAC for the Western U.S.) had a supply officer who was very stingy with getting supplies to the various units, and not just Air Force, because there were Marines and Navy flying out of Air Force bases. Maj. Gen. John Tanner took over the 10th Air Force in November '84, just before my shoot-down and E&E, and he had a lot of complaints from the units about the supply situation. General Tanner went to the supply officer and he asked him why the various units weren't getting what they needed, and the supply officer responded, "Because these combat units need to do their paperwork properly. Until they do, they're not getting what they want." Now General Tanner normally didn't have much temper, but on this day, he did. He practically exploded, gave the supply officer (a full Bird Colonel) a royal ass-chewing and kicking, and sent him to Gander, Newfoundland to babysit a radar station (a joint USAF/Canadian facility). We never had any problems with the supply people after that. And Tanner retired as a four-star and Vice-Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He treated us like we were his kids, and any requests, as long as they weren't unreasonable, were filled or granted within a few days. He set up the R&R rotation, knowing that we'd need time off every so often, and he was the first general officer to realize the fraternization regs were useless in wartime, especially this one, and told his JAG to toss any complaints in the trash. General Tanner was like Gen. George Kinney in the 5th Air Force in New Guinea in WW II: he knew what parts of the book to keep and which ones to throw away. And he made sure his staff felt the same way.

Of course, I still laugh at the Cuban SF guy captured by the naked CSP gal on that off-road trip. I'll betcha in the EPW camp, when he got asked by the other prisoners how he got captured, they never stopped laughing at his story.

TheMann

If the 419th gets an invite, or my wife's wing, the 366th, does, we'll both be there. I have to do the flying anyway because Lisa isn't a rated pilot, but a navigator (she was one of the first navs, of either gender, to command a fighter squadron, and then a wing). Why isn't she a pilot? 20/30 vision in one eye, 20/20 the other. And by the time the reg was changed to allow for surgery to correct her vision, she was past the age limit for flight school anyway. But she likes being a paid backseat driver...
My wing CO's bird at 419 is 89-0487, while Lisa's is 91-0604. Both birds came out of Long Beach, btw.

I remember to watch for those F-15Es. If you eyeball a 125th Fighter Squadron F-22A Raptor, tail number 64-4085, that's my bird. I'm not allowed to paint real red stars on it (stealth paint), but I have my stars on it nonetheless. I'm out of Florida now, my Squadron (125th Fighter Wing, now) is based at Patrick AFB near Cape Canaveral. Usually flying over the Atlantic, and hitting Miami for R&R every so often.

(Last time I went down there I went to a rather nice club on the beach, and the guy at the gate recognized me and sent me in, ahead of a long line of people wanting to get in. They gave me cheap drinks there, too.

Matt Wiser said: This one's for The Mann: somebody earlier asked about Blackjacks showing up, and I was wondering if you ran into any, either air-to-air or air-to-ground. The 335 never got briefed on the plane, and we never saw any at all. I mentioned the Blinders and Badgers showing up, ever have any run-ins with those as well? We got a few of the latter on the ground at various places....CBUs, Mark-82 Snakeyes, even 20-mm tore those Tu-16s up pretty good. Check the Pima Air Museum next to Davis-Monthan if you can: they have a Badger, Blinder, and Backfire next to their two B-52s, a B-58, B-47, and RB-47. They also have pieces of a Bear one of the Luke F-15s shot down near Globe, Arizona, but no intact specimen.

I ran into a couple Tu-22Rs once and shot at them with Sidewinders (all I had at that point), which damaged one of them pretty badly. An F-15 jockey apparently got his ass over Nebraska as he tried to get home. My wingman tore up the tail of the other with 20mm fire, but I don't know what happened after that - we were coming home from backing up V Corps trying to smash a Soviet/East German MRD.

Matt Wiser said: Anyone have any crazy, weird, or just unusual war stories? Even in the middle of World War III, there were those things that could make you just laugh yourself sick. Case in point, and this happened in the early days: 10th Air Force (TAC for the Western U.S.) had a supply officer who was very stingy with getting supplies to the various units, and not just Air Force, because there were Marines and Navy flying out of Air Force bases. Maj. Gen. John Tanner took over the 10th Air Force in November '84, just before my shoot-down and E&E, and he had a lot of complaints from the units about the supply situation. General Tanner went to the supply officer and he asked him why the various units weren't getting what they needed, and the supply officer responded, "Because these combat units need to do their paperwork properly. Until they do, they're not getting what they want." Now General Tanner normally didn't have much temper, but on this day, he did. He practically exploded, gave the supply officer (a full Bird Colonel) a royal ass-chewing and kicking, and sent him to Gander, Newfoundland to babysit a radar station (a joint USAF/Canadian facility). We never had any problems with the supply people after that.

I never had much of an issue with supply weenies, usually because over the Caribbean all we needed were Sidewinders, Sparrows and 20mm ammo. I know the douchebag you're talking about, though. Every supply weenie I had knew full well if we asked, we got it 99% of the time, and that 1% was usually some idiot who asked for the wrong thing or went totally overboard. When I was in Florida, one bozo in another squadron was sent to attack a Soviet convoy headed for Havana or Mariel and he asked for a B-61 to do it. :eek: Aside from the fact the B-61 woulda probably blown him up if he tried flying low-level, use of nukes requires NCA authority.

I do know about one Spetsnaz battalion that got ambushed by a bunch of civilian vigilantes in southern Indiana. I knew that one because several live ones got delivered to Camp Atterbury by these civilian vigilantes. They themselves had been put behind enemy lines to wreck havoc, and got captured themselves. Ten dead civilians, but apparently four Soviets KIA as well. I imagine they were embarassed - you got captured by ordinary citizens with guns. Suckers.

Matt Wiser said: And Tanner retired as a four-star and Vice-Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He treated us like we were his kids, and any requests, as long as they weren't unreasonable, were filled or granted within a few days. He set up the R&R rotation, knowing that we'd need time off every so often, and he was the first general officer to realize the fraternization regs were useless in wartime, especially this one, and told his JAG to toss any complaints in the trash. General Tanner was like Gen. George Kinney in the 5th Air Force in New Guinea in WW II: he knew what parts of the book to keep and which ones to throw away. And he made sure his staff felt the same way.

Tanner sounds a lot like our hero out there - Brigadier General Michael Hayman. With him, he made sure that we got everything we needed to do the job, no matter what it was. He also took the "nobody gets left behind" bit from the Marines, and took it seriously. When my first Hornet bit the dust, it landed in a farmer's field near Wichita. The farmer who worked that field plucked me out of his field and hauled me to a nearby town in his pickup, where one of the townsfolk had a shortwave. I got on the horn to the base, and some AF Colonel said that there was enemy guns the area and that they couldn't send me a chopper. He didn't get finished that sentence before Brigadier Hayman cut him off - "That boy is shooting at people and you're doing paperwork, and you have the balls to tell him he's on his own? Get him a fucking chopper out there, NOW!" Sure enough, an Air Force Huey arrived a three hours or so later to pick me up.

With him, you wanted it, you got it, within reason of course. He was so good to everybody that we treated him the same way back - don't make dumb requests, and don't be a troublemaker or an idiot. His mantra was that the lives of his people come first, period, and if they are KIA the bodies of his people come second, period. It's why the 7th Air Force (My AF) had such a fleet of Hueys at the end of the war. We often got smuggled out of hostile areas by civilians too. Brave souls, those people were. The second time I got shot down, I needed to wait overnight for a chopper at Lawrence, Kansas. Meanwhile me, an A-6 pilot downed by an SA-11 and a group of local civilians got word of a bunch of Reds - probably KGB motherfuckers - that had gone to the University of Kansas sorority building. We had little doubt as to what the hell they were doing there, of course. Lawrence was a no-man's land at the time, so both Allied and ComBloc forces were around. These civilians, in a bunch of different civilian transports, hauled ass over the sorority and caught a bunch of these clowns with wet dicks, and most of the others were absolutely terrified (not surprisingly). A poster earlier said he had run guns to civilians, I believe that because these civilian guys were armed to the teeth, and these KGB pigs all got shot. The KGB were supposedly elite guys, but none of 'em could shoot worth a shit.

Matt Wiser said: Of course, I still laugh at the Cuban SF guy captured by the naked CSP gal on that off-road trip. I'll betcha in the EPW camp, when he got asked by the other prisoners how he got captured, they never stopped laughing at his story

Hell, I have a hard time stopping laughing at it. You interrupted a woman in the middle of her having sex, and she picks your ass up for it. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, they say.

trekchu

We once met a bunch of civies that had a fully working Sherman E8 and had gotten shells for the main gun from somewhere, so imagine our surprise when we roll into that village ( sadly can't remember the name, it was 10ish miles south-west of Denver though ) and there is this Sherman Tank, holding a bunch of Nicaraguan and Soviet MRD troops at 76mm gunpoint.... Basically when the local resistance found out that 14th AD was coming, they assaulted the local barracks, and used the Sherman to overwhelm them before they could do anything. It's now on the Army books as the last recorded combat action of an M4.

From page 18

DSS

Say, mmmeeeO, I was in Vancouver as well! I was part of the American Expeditionary Force there! We were there when we liberated you resistance guys! My, were you heroes! In fact, one guy, a medic, saved my life. I have to thank the medics from the war; they saved not just my life, but the lives of thousands of others. The only other comment on the war is: Curse those Soviets! They killed a bunch of my buddies, and I'm not forgiving them till they wave a magic wand and bring them back.:mad:

Matt Wiser

Glad to see someone else from that front: what was your unit? Either 3rd Marine Division, 2nd ID, 9th ID, 25th ID, or the 81st Mech Brigade (WA NG), or the 41st Infantry Brigade (OR NG). All fought up in that corner of the war.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt,
As to your questions; Yeah, we had a few convicted in absentia...including one Vietnamese Major from their security services they brought in to deal with the Vietnamese fishing community down in Corpus Christi. Seems the local Vietnamese were running guns and supplies from FA across the Gulf to the local resistance fighters..including some ARVN and get this, VC vets who were teaching their kids the name of the game..and good god, were they good! I hear they tied down the better part of a ComBloc Motor Rifle division, along with significant air assault assets to deal with them finally.

But this Vietnamese Major, he was a "counter-insurgency" expert..at least, the Soviets thought so. I was told later Mishkin regretted bringing him in. The other Vietnamese wouldn't talk to him..and you can imagine the Anglo reaction....damn near caused a riot..which he reacted to in the predictable Combloc fashion...firing squads and middle of the night killings.

Well, he had been VERY hard on the Vietnamese community down there, and we wanted him..but he somehow got out before we took the place. He was in our Gold Book, I presume somebody wanted to settle a few scores, and his name escapes me, but he was the most prominant of the three we are STILL looking for from the Tier II proceedings. Best guess is that he's living under an assumed name somewhere in SE Asia.

As for ComBloc commanders like the example you mentioned? Not very many, Bella's the only one I have heard of. Most either relished their task (very few) or were too intimidated of what would happen to them and their families if they didn't do what the KGB told them to do (the vast majority).

trekchu

Panzerfaust 150 said: Matt,
As to your questions; Yeah, we had a few convicted in absentia...including one Vietnamese Major from their security services they brought in to deal with the Vietnamese fishing community down in Corpus Christi. Seems the local Vietnamese were running guns and supplies from FA across the Gulf to the local resistance fighters..including some ARVN and get this, VC vets who were teaching their kids the name of the game..and good god, were they good! I hear they tied down the better part of a ComBloc Motor Rifle division, along with significant air assault assets to deal with them finally.

But this Vietnamese Major, he was a "counter-insurgency" expert..at least, the Soviets thought so. I was told later Mishkin regretted bringing him in. The other Vietnamese wouldn't talk to him..and you can imagine the Anglo reaction....damn near caused a riot..which he reacted to in the predictable Combloc fashion...firing squads and middle of the night killings.

Well, he had been VERY hard on the Vietnamese community down there, and we wanted him..but he somehow got out before we took the place. He was in our Gold Book, I presume somebody wanted to settle a few scores, and his name escapes me, but he was the most prominant of the three we are STILL looking for from the Tier II proceedings. Best guess is that he's living under an assumed name somewhere in SE Asia.

As for ComBloc commanders like the example you mentioned? Not very many, Bella's the only one I have heard of. Most either relished their task (very few) or were too intimidated of what would happen to them and their families if they didn't do what the KGB told them to do (the vast majority).

My guess on that is that he was dealt with within the community. I saw that quite a few times. You just kept seeing Com-Bloc Officers doing the rope dance.

Matt Wiser

I'll bet that the latter reason was probably enough to keep some off of death row, but not out of lengthy prison terms. So there were some ex-VC (a lot of them voted with their feet when Hanoi eased out the southerners after April 30, 1975)...I'll bet the survivors have decorations from both Hanoi and the U.S. government. We had a number of ex-VNAF pilots offer their services after the invasion; they'd been out of the cockpit for a while, but once they got to Nellis, it all came back. They essentially reformed an old VNAF squadron: the 514th as the 514th TFS, and they initially flew F-5Es that came off the Taiwan and South Korean production lines, until the F-20s showed up in late 1986. They flew often with the 31st TFS (the ex-IIAF boys), and since both groups had a lot in common, they got along just fine. There's a large Vietnamese community in SoCal, and those people responded very well; there were ex-ARVN and VNAF wanting to join, their kids who had escaped with them (or before) joined up, you couldn't have asked for anything more.

We're having a special show for Resistance Day up here at Mountain Home: normally we only have one a year, but the Governor of Idaho asked for a special one, and the Base Commander (who is NOT Lisa-the wing is separate from the base) agreed. There'll be USAF, Navy, Marines, and Army from all over the Western U.S., and if our Canadian friends want to send an F-15 or F/A-18 or two, they're more than welcome. We already had the Thunderbirds here already, but if the Snowbirds from up north have time on their schedule, come on down!

Anyone here have defectors show up? We were at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, getting ready for the III Corps drive down towards D/FW, when our alert flight got scrambled. They came back on the radio and said "There's an Su-24 coming in. His gear is down and he's waggling his wings." The CO came back and said "Bring him in." Sure enough, the Fencer, with two F-4s as escorts, comes into the pattern, and does a routine landing. The CSPs (with that same gal in charge) head to the plane, and the crew has already popped the canopy. The pilot spoke excellent English, and told the CSPs that he and his WSO wanted to defect. Intel had a chat with them, and their plane was immediately taken and put under cover (lots of tarps and camo netting). Why'd they defect? They were tired of the whole thing, and most of the crews in their Regiment could see that things definitely weren't going well, and this crew decided to vote with their feet. Their plane's now at the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB.

So Colonel Bella was the only one with a real sense of remorse?

Panzerfaust 150

Yep, that was the only officer I met that really regretted it. I am sure others did privately..but even after Brownsville, you had guys in the EPW enclosures afraid to say anything bad because they did not know who the unit informer was. When they did find out, or think they had, we had to get that person segregated fast, he'd usually wind up dead within hours. And, as I said before, many of the enlisted and much of the junior officer corps had a distorted view of the US, a good part of the enlisted folks didn't even know they were IN the US. Maps were considered classified documents in the old Soviet Army. That, of course, reminds me of a interesting story....

It was late, and I wasn't up for spot interrogations, those were the ones we had when somebody first came in. Priorities there were unit ID, location, name, rank, any juicy operational or tactical tidbits that might be of use within the next 4-6 hours sort of thing. Anyhow, some casual wakes me up and says they need me in one of our interrogation trailers. Ok, I say, and I get dressed and go. So, here I am, a bespectacled Sergeant who's half dead comes in, and they bring in this young officer, a Senior Lieutenant in Soviet tanker's gear with a nasty gash in his arm and looking like he'd gone ten rounds with Muhammed Ali. I ask the usual questions...but all he can say is "I'm going to be shot for this." I figured it was Ivan's usual fear of capture...but nope..he was afraid because he'd lost his maps and SOIs in the BRM that he was the only survivor of after the infantry nailed it with a pair of LAWs. He was more afraid of his own army than he was us...tells you something...doesn't it?

The ones I really felt sorry for were the kids the KGB "recruited" for CI ops against the guerrillas. Most of them were middle class kids between 12-15 from broken homes or who had a minor juvie record, the KGB would snatch them, fly them to Gatchina, put them through a 4-5 week course, and then sent back here to infiltrate refugee bands and resistance units. Those kids were thoroughly brainwashed and somewhat feral really. We caught about 50 or so of them alive out of the 400 kids who were snatched. Many of them were shot while evading capture and sadly, they were very effective for the Soviets. I think the DGI had a similar program, but all records of it disappeared when Castro purged it after the war, or so they claim (Yeah, right). In any case, we had to try one of those kids in a special Tier II trial. It was f^*)&g heartbreaking..kid's parents were practically all-American, they'd been in the midst of a divorce, but the war had, ironically, saved their marriage. It didn't save their daughter. She became not only one of these kiddie spies, but an enthusiastic killer. She willingly participated in interrogations of captured high-ranking resisitance fighters, including the famous Mark Billings who was caught near Port Lavaca. I can't say her name, rules. But, she's getting treatment and de-programming while serving a life sentance, she's in some ways, as much of a victim as any kid could be in this mess. All of 14 when she got stated.

As for the defectors? It became semantics for us...except with the Eastern Europeans, whom as time went on, we were supposed to mark them with special tags, put them in a special enclosure and wait for a Free Legion rep to show up with the enlistment papers...A lot of them signed up. The ones that didn't, got sent on to EPW camps. But we made an effort to use defectors as "trustees" in the enclosures and work on seeing that they got recognized for it when they reached their permanant camp.

Matt Wiser

Even in the EPW camps, the KGB still had a reach....not to mention a hold over people's families back home. The DGI, had the same power, or so I've read. Remember that Cuban POW enforcer that the SEALs brought back? His trial was on Court TV, and there were about a dozen former POWs testifying at the trial (most of the POWs were Navy or Marine, so his trial by military commission was by the Navy at Norfolk Naval Base). Anyway, he denied that anything he'd done was a crime, bragged about having...fun with female POWs, just stared straight ahead when POWs told about the torture and beatings, and so on. His JAG defense lawyer tried to defend him, but said after the tribunal was that the man was guilty as hell, and it was hard defending a client that you knew was guilty, and wouldn't help in the defense to begin with. The JAG fellow did manage to spare his client's life, though. It took a unanimous verdict for a death sentence, and it was 9-1 in favor. Just one holdout. I was at Langley AFB across Hampton Roads when that one happened, "flying a desk" at TAC HQ. The two women who were the escapees profiled in the book and movie Open Water were among those on the stand. And one of them said after it was all over that the only good thing that...animal wasn't headed to Death Row was that Fidel couldn't use him as another "Revolutionary Martyr."

Weren't some of those kids who wound up true believers sent to Cuba before Brownsville? I've heard varying stories about that: some say it's true, others call it urban legend. Could they have been on some of the transports that got splashed near the end? One hopes not, as some of those kids could be..deprogrammed, but that takes a lot of time and effort, and isn't always successful, but one would have to try.

That defecting Su-24 crew told us a lot, just over lunch. They'd done some things that they sure weren't proud of, but apologized for it right then and there. We just said "Hey, we understand. You've got the GRU and the KGB watching over you." These two guys had been told that we had women in the cockpit, but didn't believe it. Then Lisa, and a couple of other female Pilots or WSOs, walked in. The Su-24 pilot asked "Is this a joke?" And Lisa replied "No joke, buster. I've got 425 combat missions and 10 kills with my pilot. The two ladies next to me are an all-female crew. 415 combat hops and 7 kills." The WSO asked the interpeter what she said, and when he told him, the man just smiled. The Su-24 pilot, though, looked like he'd just had a coronary. Never found out what happened to the WSO, but the pilot now runs an air charter service in guess where? The U.S. Virgin Islands: sun, sand, surf, etc.

How many here are going to buy Keegan's book when it comes out? I've already ordered two copies (one for Lisa and myself, one for the Mountain Home AFB library).

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Weren't some of those kids who wound up true believers sent to Cuba before Brownsville? I've heard varying stories about that: some say it's true, others call it urban legend. Could they have been on some of the transports that got splashed near the end? One hopes not, as some of those kids could be..deprogrammed, but that takes a lot of time and effort, and isn't always successful, but one would have to try.

How many here are going to buy Keegan's book when it comes out? I've already ordered two copies (one for Lisa and myself, one for the Mountain Home AFB library).

I dunno, we've never confirmed what happened to those kids we didn't find. They just vanished. The Russians found one or two at Gatchina and sent them home...but those kids ID's are closely held under privacy laws. Other than that, those kids are listed as missing...Hell, we have Interpol looking for them.

As for Keegan's book, hate to make you jealous...but the wife and I are getting signed comp copies...as I said..he did come to our unit reunion!

TheMann

^ I got five signed copies on the way - me, bro, dad, grandpa and sis. Keegan promised them to me when I introduced him to my entire war-fighting family.

Matt Wiser

With varying degrees of success, I would imagine. Who in the KGB (or the DGI) had that idea in the first place? If the creep is dead, good-bye and good riddance. If not, then that animal ought to have airtechie's friends find out where he is and pay him a not-so-friendly visit. Anyone still in Fidel-land ought to have the SEALs show up. In this case, don't bother with a snatch-and-grab: just liquidate the sorry sod and be done with him.

Signed copies...you lucky dog. All we got were the preview copies for an advance read..but I'll get in touch with him via the publisher and see if Lisa and I can get signed copies: he did spend three hours with us in the 366th Wing CO's office (which is Lisa's). He did say the AF Historical Center was most helpful in finding vets still on duty (active or reserve).

Did they call you back up for that Navy trial in Norfolk? Given your experience at Tier I and Tier II, helping put cases together, I'd bet the Army JAG got a request from the Navy for either you, or someone with a similar background. Or is that a case that you would rather have avoided? Someone like that who bragged about how many female POWs he'd had "fun" with, or casually describing how he'd beat and torture someone is probably a guy you'd already seen too many of earlier.

Here's a story from the Early days, October-November of '84. The Wyoming Air Guard only has a single squadron (C-130s) and when Ivan got close to Cheyenne (after the ICBMs at Warren AFB had been either removed or at least had their warheads removed and missiles disabled-the base was not targeted by nukes), the AF needed time to get the warhead convoys and the other refugees fleeing via I-80 or I-25 out to safety. Several C-130s had delivered munitions for the Army, who wasn't able to stop Fidel's push up the I-25 corridor, so guess what they did? Their C-130s were jury-rigged as bombers, just by rolling cargo pallets of bombs or artillery shells out the rear cargo ramp. They called it "an ad hoc B-52." One C-130 crew even flew out to Hill AFB and picked up a special cargo. It was from an Army depot in Utah: a 15,000 pound "Daisy Cutter", at the time, the largest non-nuke bomb in the U.S. arsenal. The day before Fidel and Ivan got to Cheyenne, that C-130 dropped their bomb on the HQ of the Cuban II Corps, and wiped it out. That fuel-air explosive was really powerful: the ComBloc accused us of using "Battlefield Weapons of Mass Destruction." Several other times, Daisy Cutters did get used, but those C-130s were vulnerable. And pray your Herky-bird didn't get hit.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: With varying degrees of success, I would imagine. Who in the KGB (or the DGI) had that idea in the first place? If the creep is dead, good-bye and good riddance. If not, then that animal ought to have airtechie's friends find out where he is and pay him a not-so-friendly visit. Anyone still in Fidel-land ought to have the SEALs show up. In this case, don't bother with a snatch-and-grab: just liquidate the sorry sod and be done with him.

Did they call you back up for that Navy trial in Norfolk? Given your experience at Tier I and Tier II, helping put cases together, I'd bet the Army JAG got a request from the Navy for either you, or someone with a similar background. Or is that a case that you would rather have avoided? Someone like that who bragged about how many female POWs he'd had "fun" with, or casually describing how he'd beat and torture someone is probably a guy you'd already seen too many of earlier.

No arguments on the suggestion...I wouldn't mind being there for that. But we'll never know..those records long since met a shredder. The Soviets I think got the idea from their Afghan experiences where they encouraged the KHAD to do the same thing.

Wasn't called up for it...but got a consulting gig for it doing witness prep on some of the ex-Cuban EPWs that had been called at witnesses. They were mostly character witnesses for the prosecution..it seems this fellow was a combat officer early in the invasion...but somehow..his face and the backblast of an RPG got acquainted. You can imagine the results. I guess he did not get the "grim reaper" nickname for nothing.

Matt Wiser

There's probably quite a few people on a "Wanted: Dead" list. I'll bet the CIA Director has a scorecard and just draws a red X thru a name or a picture (if available) once someone's confirmed dead.

That story about maps being classified docs in the old Soviet Army reminds me of something the South Africans and the CSPs told us: they rarely found maps on dead Spetsnatz (or Spetsnatz prisoners-and most of those they caught were wounded), or Cuban SOF. These guys certainly needed to know how to read a map, given their mission. Even the Cuban SOF guy that naked CSP gal dragged into camp on that off-road weekend didn't have a map-and she frisked him down good. They did find maps, but only on officers or what'd Ivan call his Warrant Officers? Ensigns or something like that.

This is for The Mann: I'll have a talk with the base commander at Mountain Home (I think an AF Academy grad will listen to a OCS alum, but who knows?), and see if he'll invite your unit to send a F-22 to the Resistance Day Open House. Usually, the 49th at Holloman sends the Raptor to Mountain Home, but I'll see if he'll make an exception. How'd you like the story about the guy with the A-1, or the C-130s as jury-rigged bombers? That particular A-1 driver has already accepted an invite.

"The Grim Reaper" was the least of his names. Several others are, shall we say, unprintable. So they found ex-EPWs to testify for the prosecution in his case? Interesting. Most of the witnesses were the former POWs, obviously, but wasn't Colonel Bella consulted? He was mentioned during the Court TV coverage, ISTR. Some of the evidence was certainly circumstantial (no rape kits, obviously) but when 9 former female POWs say "The Grim Reaper" is the one who did it to them....the man's bragging about it sure didn't help his case. That JAG defense lawyer sure had an impossible job. A former lawyer (who joined the AF during the war and became an intelligence officer-he didn't want to go back to his former job after the war, so he stayed in) at TAC HQ said that this is one case he would have recused himself from. They did use SR-71 imagery of the POW camp in Cuba, as well.

Panzerfaust 150

Location:Washington DC...We HAD a football team, now it's a
It wasn't the only thing they used Matt...some of that "National Technical Means" information was provided to the court in closed session. I can mention that now because those records are being released to the Partisan Rock museum..just found out we got NRO approval today. It's going to be the first NRO imagery taken during the war that will be released to the public. I can also tell you we had NSA telecom intercepts of said jerkwad on the phone with his superiors in Mariel. That's being released as well. With luck, the .jpegs of the imagery and the .pdf transcripts ought to be up on their website for download tomorrow.

I think the real bombshell's going to be what else came out in that closed session....

Praporshchik, that's the Soviet Warrant rank..I spoke to a few of those guys when we began to overrun their rear area units..they were as capable as any of our NCOs and they really came into their own organizing their men in the EPW enclosures. Hell, even their officers deferred to them. Funny story, I was pulling a guard shift on one of the enclosures for senior EMs (we put the WOs in with them as there weren't that many), and one of the Russkie Senior Sergeants said something that pissed this mountain of a senior WO off...I swear, he grabbed this guy's face and slammed him into the ground..yeowch...

Matt Wiser

I'll bet those transcripts will be...interesting. Just be glad the defense lawyer was a JAG officer with a security clearance: otherwise, some hotshot civilian lawyer would've been blabbing later on. I'll bet some of those transcripts deal with the two escapees who made that 90-mile trip to Key West...won't know for a few days, but I'll wager that's one of the topics of those intercepts. Likely detailing what this creep had in mind for the two if he caught them. And maybe what happened to some of the Cuban civilians who did shelter the escapees-folks who would've gone themselves if they had a chance. We know the Commandant of the POW prison they escaped from was shot on Fidel's orders, and several guards transferred to combat duty here, but did this guy take over the camp? Haven't read anything on that, or was he content to be an enforcer?

I just got off the phone with a friend who flew F-15s out of McChord (318th FIS) during the war: the F-15 Aces are having a reunion next week at Nellis AFB (Vegas), and I asked him to find out if any of his buddies splashed an An-74 out of Brownsville the day before the surrender. They did fly MiGSweep out to a distance of 300 miles off the coast, and they got most of what they were after, but certainly not all. Was it a daytime takeoff or a nighttime one, he wants to know. Because you had Il-76s, An-74s, even Il-62 airliners on that run to Havana, and only about half had any kind of escort. And most of the transport kills were BVR, but not all. He has 14 kills, btw, all in the Pacific Northwest. (Several more probables, but try hunting for wrecks in the B.C. or Northern Washington State Wilderness-good luck!) It's tough enough in my case where I know three kills went down, but looking for 'em in the New Mexico desert or a certain mountain in Colorado is a cinch compared to his)

How many of the fish we wanted did we wind up finding in Brownsville? The F-111 and Navy/Marine A-6 guys did a number on the airfields and Brownsville IAP, and ISTR quite a few pics in USA Today and Air Force Times of wrecked transports and airliners on the ramp at Brownsville. Not to mention that the Rio Grande Bridges were dropped-repeatedly.

Finally, some satellite imagery...those will be interesting, but I'd like to see the BDA pics for those B-52 and B-1 raids on Siberia. Especially the rail yards at Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude. Those were visited often by the Buffs and Lancers.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: There's probably quite a few people on a "Wanted: Dead" list. I'll bet the CIA Director has a scorecard and just draws a red X thru a name or a picture (if available) once someone's confirmed dead.

That story about maps being classified docs in the old Soviet Army reminds me of something the South Africans and the CSPs told us: they rarely found maps on dead Spetsnatz (or Spetsnatz prisoners-and most of those they caught were wounded), or Cuban SOF. These guys certainly needed to know how to read a map, given their mission. Even the Cuban SOF guy that naked CSP gal dragged into camp on that off-road weekend didn't have a map-and she frisked him down good. They did find maps, but only on officers or what'd Ivan call his Warrant Officers? Ensigns or something like that.
You'd figure that in a foreign land full of people who really don't like you, you'd probably want maps and directions to objectives, especially in the deserts of the Southwest. I was always amazed that they didn't have them, because to me its counterproductive. Knowing your terrain is always an advantage in combat, that's not even military training - its common sense. Remember that I have the wife who is a former Special Forces officer, too. It's little wonder they always got ambushed and either killed or captured then - the defenders always had massive advantages.

Matt Wiser said: This is for The Mann: I'll have a talk with the base commander at Mountain Home (I think an AF Academy grad will listen to a OCS alum, but who knows?), and see if he'll invite your unit to send a F-22 to the Resistance Day Open House. Usually, the 49th at Holloman sends the Raptor to Mountain Home, but I'll see if he'll make an exception. How'd you like the story about the guy with the A-1, or the C-130s as jury-rigged bombers? That particular A-1 driver has already accepted an invite.

If he invites my guys, I'll bring a couple F-22s and I'll fly one in personally.

That A-1 driver I sure hope got a medal. Flies to an air base to join up, and uses his old bird as an anti-SOF unit. A good man, and a brave one - I know from experience that going after special forces guys, who often have MANPADS, is not easy, and doing so in a straight-wing prop-driver like an A-1 takes guts. I found it difficult enough to do the job in a twin-jet Hornet. C-130s as jury-rigged bombers is bloody dangerous for the crew of the Herky-bird, but again you gotta give 'em credit for balls. Flying over an enemy force in a Hercules you'd think is just asking to get shot down, but I know they did it. Can't whine about that. If it had been me, I'd have used those Daisy Cutters on bridges, tunnels, canyons and the like, force the Reds to scramble around. I know a bunch of places in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Kansas where a Daisy Cutter could have made logistical hell for the ComBloc soldiers.

Matt Wiser said: "The Grim Reaper" was the least of his names. Several others are, shall we say, unprintable. So they found ex-EPWs to testify for the prosecution in his case? Interesting. Most of the witnesses were the former POWs, obviously, but wasn't Colonel Bella consulted? He was mentioned during the Court TV coverage, ISTR. Some of the evidence was certainly circumstantial (no rape kits, obviously) but when 9 former female POWs say "The Grim Reaper" is the one who did it to them....the man's bragging about it sure didn't help his case. That JAG defense lawyer sure had an impossible job. A former lawyer (who joined the AF during the war and became an intelligence officer-he didn't want to go back to his former job after the war, so he stayed in) at TAC HQ said that this is one case he would have recused himself from. They did use SR-71 imagery of the POW camp in Cuba, as well.

I've never understood what could drive a human being to be that cruel to others. Are these guys all mentally ill? I wonder if it ever occured to any of the dumbasses that brutality against civilians tends to fuel resistance efforts and result in more dead soldiers for them?

I don't even know why they assigned that guy a JAG officer - what hope in hell did he have of defending him? Bragging about raping POWs is about the stupidest thing you could do. Did this dummy think at all that we would leave all of those people behind? We haven't forgotten Gettysburg, guys.

trekchu

I can remember one of these occasions. We once ran into a Soviet Tank Divsion, and as we were pretty exhausted at that stage, ( it was during the attack that almost drove us out of Colorado early on ) we couldn't do much but retreat further. Anyway, we came across that tunnel with the railtracks, and a Daisycutter on that ravine would have collapsed the whole damn mountain.

BTW, Matt, when I saw that plane go down near Brownsville it was late in the day, so it was a daytime takeoff.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: I just got off the phone with a friend who flew F-15s out of McChord (318th FIS) during the war: the F-15 Aces are having a reunion next week at Nellis AFB (Vegas), and I asked him to find out if any of his buddies splashed an An-74 out of Brownsville the day before the surrender. They did fly MiGSweep out to a distance of 300 miles off the coast, and they got most of what they were after, but certainly not all. Was it a daytime takeoff or a nighttime one, he wants to know. Because you had Il-76s, An-74s, even Il-62 airliners on that run to Havana, and only about half had any kind of escort. And most of the transport kills were BVR, but not all. He has 14 kills, btw, all in the Pacific Northwest. (Several more probables, but try hunting for wrecks in the B.C. or Northern Washington State Wilderness-good luck!) It's tough enough in my case where I know three kills went down, but looking for 'em in the New Mexico desert or a certain mountain in Colorado is a cinch compared to his)

Maybe one of those Aces got the Quisling bastards after all. Let's all hope. I'd rather see them hanging from a gallows, but becoming shark bait is just fine too.

And as for the B.C/Northern WA wilderness, I grew up there, I know exactly how hard it is to find anything, but if any of this planes went down on fire you'd find it fairly quickly, unless it landed higher-up in the Cascades, where the rain would stop the forest fires right quick. I could ask some of the guys from Bremerton to have a look if he wants. I know the base commander there well, he grew up down the street from me in Interbay in Seattle.

Matt Wiser said: How many of the fish we wanted did we wind up finding in Brownsville? The F-111 and Navy/Marine A-6 guys did a number on the airfields and Brownsville IAP, and ISTR quite a few pics in USA Today and Air Force Times of wrecked transports and airliners on the ramp at Brownsville. Not to mention that the Rio Grande Bridges were dropped-repeatedly.

My squadron hit the Soviet air base at Brownsville at least three times, and I know there was a mountain of fighters based in south Texas at that point, not to mention three carriers in the Gulf. I'm surprised anything got out of Brownsville at all, knowing how many times we bombed the place. I know I got quite a light show on one of those runs when I got a Mk 82 to land on an IL-78 refueler plane, which happened to be fully loaded and fueling two MiG-29s at that point. That was one big fireball, boy.

Matt Wiser said: Finally, some satellite imagery...those will be interesting, but I'd like to see the BDA pics for those B-52 and B-1 raids on Siberia. Especially the rail yards at Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude. Those were visited often by the Buffs and Lancers.

Don't forget the arms factories at Novosibirisk. I know those ate HE from the Buffs and Lancers several times, too.

Matt Wiser

They did give him a medal, several actually. Several former A-1 mechanics and a crew chief living in Arizona volunteered their services to be his ground crew, just to have a chance at working on a Spad again. It was easy getting the 20-mm guns and weapons control to work again; a new AF paint job, and off he went. That Spad did mainly armed recon, going in and checking out areas that were just too rugged even for the South Africans and the Apache scouts to go into. 9 times out of 10, no contact with the bad guys, but every so often...he'd come back to Williams with ammo expended, rockets shot from his rocket pods, and even a couple Mark-82s missing. This fella had been a commercial pilot who'd restored the Spad in his spare time, but when the war began, wanted to do something. The AF Chief of Staff arranged a wartime commission as a Major, based on how long he'd been flying commercial, and hours in the air. After the war, he was formally given a reserve commission for pension and vets' benefit purposes. (retroactive to the day he flew to Williams)

I'll have a chat with the base CO. If he agrees...pack for a trip to Idaho.

The C-130 guys said at the time it seemed like certain suicide, and they had the Warren AFB chaplain come out and give them a general absolution before going out. They had 10 C-130s assigned as PAA (and two others), and lost four, with 20 aircrew KIA. One of the crash sites is now a war memorial at the WY-CO state line, alongside I-25. And these guys weren't the only ones to use C-130s as impromptou bombers. There was an Arkansas Guard C-130 outfit that did the same thing down there that was profiled in Air Force Times.

Colonel Bella is the only one on record (though he did say a VDV Colonel who got killed in the Wolverines' last raid said it to him) as saying that reprisals were counterproductive, and that it was better to hunt the resistance instead of killing civilians. The "Grim Reaper" and others of his ilk, were probably after revenge, or just the job turned them into animals.
The JAG guy said after the trial in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot that he was assigned the case, with a couple of junior officers as assistant counsel, and that was that. He knew full well that he had an impossible job defending the man, but he felt that it was his duty as a lawyer to try and do the best for the client, even an unwilling one and one that he knew full well was guilty. Cross-examining former POWs was the worst, he said.

Trekchu: thanks for the info. Were you right on the coast when you saw the shoot-down? And did a fighter come down to mark the position (for kill verification purposes), or orbit the crash site?

Panzerfaust 150

trekchu said: I can remember one of these occasions. We once ran into a Soviet Tank Divsion, and as we were pretty exhausted at that stage, ( it was during the attack that almost drove us out of Colorado early on ) we couldn't do much but retreat further. Anyway, we came across that tunnel with the railtracks, and a Daisycutter on that ravine would have collapsed the whole damn mountain.

BTW, Matt, when I saw that plane go down near Brownsville it was late in the day, so it was a daytime takeoff.
Matt, according to the records...the takeoff was logged as 1443 Lima so that gives you a time to work with. But it was one of 8 planes that took off that hour, 4 of them were An-74s. They were flushing the airfield in anticipation of the surrender the next morning. Trek, if you remember what time of day and can get me a approx gridref of where you were, we could get a lead on the An-74 you saw go into the drink. Matt, it's all I got..we asked AF Historical and they told us it was likely whomever got him, it was with a Sparrow, so it was a BVR kill. That should narrow it down for your Eagle drivers...but if anyone knows some Navy guys...I know Ike's BG was operating at what they called "Amarillo Station". Who the hell knows.

As for how many of the big fish we caught when the end came at Brownsvile? I'd say about 50-55% of the guys we were looking for..Many more we caught in the two weeks between the surrender at Brownsville and the cease-fire. We caught an interesting bag at Laredo, the remains of Mishkin's HQ surrendered there, with somebody else in charge, of course.

trekchu

Matt Wiser said: Trekchu: thanks for the info. Were you right on the coast when you saw the shoot-down? And did a fighter come down to mark the position (for kill verification purposes), or orbit the crash site?

Glad to be of service. I wasn't right on the coast, I was about a mile or so inland, but I saw it trailing a huge flame out of a port engine or something and go down in the general direction of the coast. Had no time to look for the fighter, as Ivan chose that moment to counter-attack.

From page 20

Panzerfaust 150

trekchu said: Near Brownsville, a couple of weeks before the surrender. By then I had made Captain and had the Squadron. We ran into a Regiment or so of T-34s in Mexican markings. 14th AD vets call it the "Great Texas Turkey Shoot".

Also, IIRC by the time of the second Houston even the Marines had gotten M1s.

Want weird? Get this..3rd ID got into a fast moving fight with a collection of one off AFVs and some old WWII German and Eastern European gear just south of Houston during the breakout, hell, we got confirmed gun camera footage of a running R-35 out there with a 23mm shoehorned into the turret. Apache crew couldn't believe it...before they wacked it with some HVAR fire. Hell, they had that old missile firing tank Krushchev was trying to foist on the Red Army..an M1 fireballed the sucker.

So, when we start questioning who this was, its a collection of kids between 12-15 and some really old NCOs and Officers, it turns out...this was the collection from Kubianka...their armor museum. They'd formed it into a troop unit..grabbed the kids and some of their instructors...and sent them by sea to back up their occupation troops..when we ran into them...they were in full flight south.

Also, there was a sight by the side of the road south I won't forget...a City of Houston FD truck that had been shot up by something big, A-10s maybe? There were pieces of Ivan all over it...and the thing had burned so fiercely..the only reason we knew it had come from Houston was because the cab hadn't burned, you wish it had...what was left of the Ivans driving wasn't much...but the rest had.

As for the absentia conviction rate...I'd say about 70-80%. That's my estimate as I don't know the official figures. The official conviction rate of those that made their trials...95%. We really had sharp lawyers and defendants who were all but caught with the smoking pistol in their hands. As for that KGB guy...he's a very wanted man, Interpol, Russian Republic FSB, MI-6 (he drew up the lists for the UK too)..not to mention a few unofficial collections of concerned citizens...Would you believe Ted Turner is one of them? Seems after his house got bombed when Ivan tried to hit Fort McPhearson, he got religion and post-war, put a standing reward of 2 million a pop for each unapprehended war criminal...above and beyond the federal reward, and the state rewards if any...there's a lot of bounty hunters and privateers out there.

As for the appeal...well, I was told by a freind at the Solicitor General's office (We worked together in Reno post-war, he was a Army JAG Major then), that the appeal won't be heard by SCOTUS on the merits.

BlackWave

There's a problem with that AH-64 story: Ivan never did get into Georgia, unless you're counting Spetsnatz or Cuban SOF on recon or sabotage ops.

Yeah, it was special forces of some kind. Who else would be qualified to fly them? Really, they managed to get some presence into all the states, even if you count a few men or tactical squads. You have to hand it to the Spetnatz; they did kick some impressive ass, especially in the early days of the war. We'll probably never certainly know just what extent they got around the country, considering it took a while to piece military documents together after they could re-establish government, and even that archive's got holes. And we can't exactly just ask Moscow to poke around in their records. There's a reason nobody can exactly disprove some of the wilder tales of the conflict.

I do know for certain that they managed to capture a few F-18s--possibly part of the same unit. Anyone serve at the battle of Tuscaloosa? Those F-18s that suddenly turned traitor and laid waste to the grunts was them. Say what you like for the Reds, they did know some impressive tricks.

gtrof

Didn't the Europeans run into far more old Soviet-ComBloc equipment during their drives in Eastern Europe? IIRC there was more than one case of Leopards taking on IS-2s and T-34s.

The oldest tracks and AFVs I saw was mostly 50s equipment, T-55s, BTR-40s, etc. Now fifty year old small arms popped up a lot. I managed to collect a scoped Mosian-Nagat, PPSHP SMG, quite a few pistols of various types including a Luger. Took that one off a Russian major.

Matt Wiser

I saw a partial OB when I was at the Air War College: 23rd ID was one: it was made up of Guard and members of the Individual Ready Reserve from all over the West (California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, etc., plus volunteers and escapees from occupied territory). That division got whipped into shape at Hunter-Liggett Military Reservation in California, and then joined III Corps in New Mexico. They had very aggressive leaders at all levels, and our ALO team was impressed. There was an Army officer who lectured about the 44th ID (M) as well: it was formed out of three Guard brigades from both Carolinas and Alabama, and fought alongside 2nd Marine Division and the rebuilt 5th ID in Louisiana and East Texas. (5th ID got shot up pretty badly on the rearguard into Eastern Louisiana, and was replaced by 24th ID on the line) Who eliminated the bridgehead across the Mississippi at Vicksburg? Mississippi NG's 155th Armored Brigade. They were unable to join 1st Cav, but got blooded at Vicksburg. The 9th, 10th, and 14th ACRs were formed mostly by volunteers, with some Guard or regular Army as a cadre, though. 14th fought in the Southwest with X Corps (1st Marine Division and 40th ID from California). Then there's the famous 13th Cavalry (Motorized), or The Hell's Angels, formed in a most unique fashion as we all know.

Oldest MiGs we saw were mostly early model MiG-21s, though a few MiG-19s did show as well. (mostly in our strike cameras as we hit them on the ground) And the oldest armor I personally saw was T-55s, BTR-152s, that sort of thing. Really old stuff. Actually, we liked seeing the older equipment as it was easier to destroy (from the air, at least). Lot of the stuff on the I-27 and U.S. 287 strikes was like that.

I should be hearing from the Navy tomorrow: we may know if the Navy splashed any An-74s out of Brownsville. If they didn't...well, that third kill by 33rd TFW may very well have been the Quislings.

Panzerfaust: I saw the stuff online today about the Grim Reaper (the transcripts, overheads, etc.). If there hadn't been that one holdout at his military tribunal....his neck would've stretched, and rightly so. Turns out he did find two Cubans who did shelter the two escapees, and he had them summarily shot, and their families imprisoned. He also wanted to do some really nasty things to the two, short of killing them, if they were recaptured. If the torment they went through before the escape was bad, what this...animal had in mind for them if they'd been caught, would've made that seem like a rest camp. Now if only the NRO would declassify the imagery of the wartime USSR... like the BDA images of Eastern Siberia where SAC made its runs, or of Baikanour or Star City (where they likely would've sent the NASA people if they caught any). Those images would be a sight for sore eyes. Some of those might even show SAC's finest at work (which is probably another reason they're still classified).

So Ted Turner got religion... how much has he paid out in bounties? The SOF guys who do snatch-and-grabs aren't eligible as they're just doing their jobs, but I'm sure he can reward them in other ways; say, a college fund for their kids?

trekchu

I have a few connections, let me see what I can do about these sat images. At the very least I will try and find out when they will be released.

Matt Wiser

Thanks, let us know if you're successful or not. At least, let us know what's on them. (i.e. BDA for the SAC Eastern Siberia raids, and if there was any kind of special Gulag built at either Star City or Baikanour to house the NASA people-if they'd gotten their hands on any, that is)

Did you guys in 14th AD ever run into the 23rd ID? That division gave 1st Cav and 5th Marine Division a run for their money. III Corps never hesitated to give them a mission, period. We liked them, too: never a shortage of targets if 23rd ID was requesting the Air Force to give a hand.

Civilian vehicles impressed by Ivan or Fidel? Lots of 'em, we found. About half of the supply convoys interdicted by air (and that's all over the place, not just our squadron), consisted of captured civilian vehicles.

That appeal? It assumes that SCOTUS even decides to grant a hearing...

trekchu

Will do. My company is involved in the re-building of DC, so I have to go into the temp capital anyway. I will report back on the matter in two days or so.

As for 23rd INF, yeah we worked with them a couple of times. These guys were some of the most badass troops I ever saw...They sometimes took out targets that were hard even for our tanks.

Matt Wiser

Hope you enjoy Philadelphia. The government's been there much too long, but they want D.C. rebuilt just right. What exactly are you working on? The White House, the Capitol, a museum, or one of the monuments? The Pentagon I know is almost ready for reoccupancy. What I'd like to know is this: where'd they get the dirt to fill in the crater left by 20 KT?

trekchu

Oh, we are working on the most mundane thing possible, we are re-building several of the residential areas, although I am going to Philadelphia to re-negotiate our contract. If lucky we might get to work on the new Smithsonian.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: So Ted Turner got religion... how much has he paid out in bounties? The SOF guys who do snatch-and-grabs aren't eligible as they're just doing their jobs, but I'm sure he can reward them in other ways; say, a college fund for their kids?

He's done that through the Silent Warriors fund he and Warren Buffett set up, and some other things I cannot discuss. I know Steve Jobs does some work along those lines as well, Apple got hammered during the war...damn SAF musta done 5-6 raids on the main plant in Cali.

As for Hollywierd...well, the Soviets paid special attention to the studios for some reason...they launched some fairly large raids for no damn good reason. I know a few A-listers got killed that way, biggest name I remember is Molly Ringwald. Bastards got John Hughes in the same strike, he was working on that Breakfast Club flick...shame nobody will ever see it.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Now if only the NRO would declassify the imagery of the wartime USSR... like the BDA images of Eastern Siberia where SAC made its runs, or of Baikanour or Star City (where they likely would've sent the NASA people if they caught any). Those images would be a sight for sore eyes. Some of those might even show SAC's finest at work (which is probably another reason they're still classified).

There's that and some other considerations...that again...I can't talk about. Let's just say Ivan got his medicine...and then some.

BlackWave

Hope you enjoy Philadelphia. The government's been there much too long, but they want D.C. rebuilt just right. What exactly are you working on? The White House, the Capitol, a museum, or one of the monuments? The Pentagon I know is almost ready for reoccupancy. What I'd like to know is this: where'd they get the dirt to fill in the crater left by 20 KT?

Apparently, they didn't fill in the crater completely, which is why the new mall slopes downwards. Most say the city's just a shell of its former glory, what with material shortages and the economy bouncing around, and there's concerns over cancer levels there. Some areas are no-goes and are permenantly closed off due to the soil being irradiated to ungodly levels. I also wonder how they going to do emergency services--I mean, we only got a police force that wasn't corrupt and ineffective in the last few years, what with the force across the country being massacred in the war and the pummelling the east coast took. Philadelphia came out nice aesthetically, though it didn't take as much punishment as other cities did, but the police they put in after the war were just random schmucks given badges and daysticks. It's only in the last few years they've got an actual budget.

trekchu

The biggest loss in Cali was IMO that they destroyed the Paramount Studios. I was a great Star Trek fan in my day. (OOC: Still am, btw. ) Luckily they managed to finsish the last one.

Anyway, I have been talking to a few Friends at the Ministry of Defence, such as it is right now, and they said that the wartime pictures of the Soviet Union will be classified until at least 2020. Shame that. I have a soft spot for Strategic Air Command.

BlackWave

trekchu said: Anyway, I have been talking to a few Friends at the Ministry of Defence, such as it is right now, and they said that the wartime pictures of the Soviet Union will be classified until at least 2020. Shame that. I have a soft spot for Strategic Air Command.

They certainly persevered. I mean, considering they lost something like 90% of their bomber capability in the war--there was only one or two B2s left at the end, IIRC. And what happened to Omaha? I know it took damage and SAC (or at least the main staff, at any rate) had to relocate all over the place, but everyone seems to say that either it was levelled or only took a bit of a hammering.

trekchu

BlackWave said: Apparently, they didn't fill in the crater completely, which is why the new mall slopes downwards. Most say the city's just a shell of its former glory, what with material shortages and the economy bouncing around, and there's concerns over cancer levels there. Some areas are no-goes and are permenantly closed off due to the soil being irradiated to ungodly levels. I also wonder how they going to do emergency services--I mean, we only got a police force that wasn't corrupt and ineffective in the last few years, what with the force across the country being massacred in the war and the pummelling the east coast took. Philadelphia came out nice aesthetically, though it didn't take as much punishment as other cities did, but the police they put in after the war were just random schmucks given badges and schmucks. It's only in the last few years they've got an actual budget.

Mind you, DC willl look about as good as we can make it, and IMO it's also a symbol for the country as such. As for the Police, I have made mostly good experiences in the last few years, especially in the East. Concerning radiation, according to my Father in law the Fallout got mostly blown out into the Atlantic, and probably rained down over the eastern Atlantic and Western Africa, and the radiation levels are only marginally higher than they were in Hiropshima ten years afterwards. There are als no no-go areas that I have heard of, but then again, most of the work done in the first few years, especially up to 1996 was the removal of contaminated soil. God knows where they put that.

Panzerfaust 150

trekchu said: Mind you, DC willl look about as good as we can make it, and IMO it's also a symbol for the country as such. As for the Police, I have made mostly good experiences in the last few years, especially in the East. Concerning radiation, according to my Father in law the Fallout got mostly blown out into the Atlantic, and probably rained down over the eastern Atlantic and Western Africa, and the radiation levels are only marginally higher than they were in Hiropshima ten years afterwards. There are als no no-go areas that I have heard of, but then again, most of the work done in the first few years, especially up to 1996 was the removal of contaminated soil. God knows where they put that.

From what I heard...landfills on the Mexican border...guess that solves that problem...doesn't it...

trekchu

Panzerfaust 150 said: From what I heard...landfills on the Mexican border...guess that solves that problem...doesn't it...

Oh, my heart is bleeding.

OOC: Not in reality it wouldn't, but my character hates the Mexicans just like any other still communist country.

Matt Wiser

Landfills on the Mexican border? No surprise there: they still (along with Fidel) won't admit to losing the war.

Did your sources say anything about any special compounds built at Star City or Baikanour? Word of such facilities came up at that bastard Khvostov's trial.

Too bad about Paramount, but Orion, 20th Century Fox, and MGM-UA have more than picked up the slack. Didn't Fox buy the Star Trek rights so the franchise could continue? (Fat chance, as they don't want any competition to Star Wars).

Fox News just reported that SCOTUS declined to hear the Grim Reaper's appeal. He's now a resident of a Supermax for the rest of his life. Finally, those ex-POWs can get on with their lives, or try to.

SAC had some high attrition in the early weeks, when they did the first Siberia raids, before going in the back door over China. Ivan never did fully close the back door, and loss rates were acceptable, but it's another reason why Boeing put the Buff back in production, and Rockwell International put B-1B work into overdrive.

trekchu

My sources didn't say much. They alluded that here could have been, might have been such camps but nothing definite. We did get that contract though. The new Smithsonian will have a plaque of "Midwest Construction" on it.

But yes, Fox did by Star Trek, as they needed a new franchise after Lucas was killed. ( OOC: *makes the happy dance* )

BlackWave

Hey, who's seen the news? Apparently, seeing as the economy is finally starting to resemble pre-war levels, the US Navy has announced that it will soon be launching the USS Resistance, the first aircraft carrier to be built since the war, and it will be dedicated to those who fought against the Soviets during the invasion. As the Navy was virtually wiped out during the war and the Sovs were thorough enough to level nearly all the big shipyards, they've been asking the New Congress for cash injection for decades. Many of course protest that the billions being spent on this could be spent on the problems that have been plaguing the country since a new government could be established, such as the half-assed rebuilt infrastructure and the poverty and crime infesting the east coast. But if you think about it, it's a big deal that we've managed to reach this stage, seeing as the military and the economy were all but shattered after the war, and for a few years after hostilities ended America was practically a third-world country. It's not what it once was, but things are looking up.

From page 22

thedarkmaster

Here in the UK we are always happy to see the USN, we remember the efforts put in and the sacrifices made in bringing the food and munition convoys too us, hell guys without that effort we probably would have folded after the loss of most of the RAF.

It is my opinion and that of most of the lads down the British Legion ( uk veterans assosiation ) that the world will be a better place when the US Navy again patrols the seas, hell it would be nice to see them with the Combined Commonwealth fleet ( UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Nigeria ) in joint exercises.

gtrof

IC:Well, Europe and India are on our side, aren't they? I mean, they did help the US get back up in the decade following the war. Even if we do need them, it doesn't change the fact that we can't just throw money at whatever we want, and that we've got plenty of domestic problems that the government seems to be expending less energy on.
But the public has made it clear every election since VA Day that the number one issue is defense. The country is getting a little better every year. If we jump into a full welfare state at the cost of the service branches were are like England following World War II. Plus India is increasing asserting its own power an influence throughout the IO. With China gone they are the most powerful force in South Asia. How long till their needs go past having friendly relations with the US? There was a great article on this in foreign affairs.

BlackWave

gtrof said: But the public has made it clear every election since VA Day that the number one issue is defense. The country is getting a little better every year. If we jump into a full welfare state at the cost of the service branches were are like England following World War II. Plus India is increasing asserting its own power an influence throughout the IO. With China gone they are the most powerful force in South Asia. How long till their needs go past having friendly relations with the US? There was a great article on this in foreign affairs.

I'm not saying that we should totally ignore defence--I'm all for military expansion. My point is that trying to expend billions on military hardware right now isn't a good idea--nobody can disagree with that. Nobody can deny that there are still social problems rampant in the country, and that if the government manages to tackle them swiftly military expansion will become much more viable and cheaper. Furthmore, India has been our allies for decades and is a democratic and free country like us, and their governments and ours have been getting closer, so becoming hostile would be detrimental to all. All I'm saying is, the government should slow down when throwing a good part of the GDP at carriers and bombers that aren't that high in quality anyway, when rushed post-war infrastructure and unemployment is still an issue.
Sucking the USA into a black hole? Mutated German tanks? All in a day's work here...

Chuck Mandus

Matt Wiser said: Only in World War III in America would you have seen an armored task force with such a composition: several Shermans, M-10 and M-36 Jackson Tank Destroyers, two rebuilt Panthers (where and how they got 75-mm ammo for those would be a story in of itself), Centurions, a pair of M-47s, a German Mark IV, several types of half-tracks (one pic in the article had one with a quad .50 mounted), armored cars, you name it. And some of 'em got returned to their owner with new battle scars. And after the war, this AFV collector got some "slightly used" Soviet armor to add to his collection. Even some warbird owners helped out: IIRC some guy flew his A-1 Skyraider to Williams AFB, wanting to join up. Knowing full well it would be suicide to send him over into occupied territory with all those SAMs and AAA, he and his plane were used in a counter-SOF role. Weren't there some other guys who donated their warbirds to the war effort? Several B-25 owners I remember did some stuff in Missouri and Arkansas that really pissed Ivan off, so much so that they were invited guests to that first Victory Day Air Show. And the warbird B-17s, B-24s and single B-29 were used to fly around for war bond tours and the like. Some of the P-51s and P-47s did the same thing, but one Mustang owner wanted more: he got six working .50s installed on his bird, and he went hunting for Soviet helos in Missouri. He got a couple of Hips that were inserting or extracting Spetsnatz....last Mustang air-to-air kills on record.

I remember during my radio stintthen, I did an interview (I didn't DJ all the time) with a few old World War I and II warbird enthusiasts who restored some of those planes that were used, including a B-29. There was one son of a WWI vet who had a Sopwith Camel who wanted to use it in the war but was denied. He took off anyways and wasn't seen until after the war with his plane still intact. BTW, I did go through some of the tapes and there was an interview with captured POW's that were shipped here in Pittsburgh that did recall that some of their unit was taken out by a biplane strafing them, at first they thought it was one of their An-2's or 3's dumping on them by mistake but one saw the old World War I U.S. roundels on it along with a profile of a head of an American Indian Chief with the good luck swastika. The plane is back here in Pittsburgh and when I see it, it matches their descriptions perfectly. From what the POW's said, the .303 British bullets really tore them up.

Matt Wiser

I actually asked my cousin Jacqui about the problems with new ships built since the war, and she did say that there's been some quality control issues, but most of them have been addressed to the Navy's satisfaction. And she should know: her A-6 squadron is assigned to the Abe Lincoln, and she was XO of that squadron before getting the command. Every new ship built since the end of the war has had some issues, but as she puts it, "What new ship doesn't?" Remember that we need a lot of minerals, oil, and other commodities for postwar reconstruction, and much of that comes from overseas, and a strong Navy to protect the sea lanes is a necessity. That may sound strange coming from an Air Force guy, but even us blue-suiters recognize that there's things the Navy does best. And the Navy still escorts the tanker convoys from the Middle East: still some unfriendlies in that part of the world. But nobody wants to mess with a carrier group and and either a battleship or heavy cruiser. Remember when some Islamic Fundie group tried to enforce a "toll" into the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean? It took a shore bombardment from the cruiser U.S.S. Salem and a carrier air strike from Nimitz to teach them a lesson. You still need some gunboat diplomacy at times....The Navy may not be as strong a presence overseas as it was before, but they're still out there. And you never know if a USN submarine is lurking...

I think the carrier Snowman23 is referring to was probably Independence: she was lost about that time, and VA-196's senior CPO was on that ship, and one of the survivors, according to Jacqui. She wasn't a nuke carrier, but the last of the Forrestal class. The Navy lecturer at the Air War College called that battle "similar to a knife fight in a phone booth."

The second SAC mission into European Russia was a strike run: two went in, but only one came out. The plane that got out was a B-1B, but the other was supposedly a Buff. SAC won't even ID the target, even today. One rumor has it they were after the Soviet General Secretary's Dacha outside Moscow, while another has it the target was the aircraft plant in Kazan where Backfires and Blackjacks were made. Another rumor says the target was the Plesetsk Space Launch and ICBM Test Center. My bet is that it was Plesetsk, but until SAC declassifies the mission report, who knows? Btw, all three targets were in heavily-defended areas of European Russia. Word at the Air War College was that whoever tasked that mission was pleased with the results (whatever they were) and wanted a repeat, but SAC said in no uncertain words "Hell, NO!" Even the crew of that B-1B will not discuss the mission, even after all this time, except in classified forums.

Anyone remember the botched Spetsnatz raid on the National Command Bunker at Raven Rock, near the PA-MD state line? They were moving the President, JCS, and the Cabinet around a lot, and Ivan tried to have a shot at the leadership. Nice idea, just don't send a company to do a brigade's job. They got shot to pieces outside, and never even penetrated the bunker grounds, let alone the complex. This may have been a reason for a strike on the General Secretary's Dacha, if that was the above mission's objective. I wonder if Panzerfaust helped interrogate the survivors before he deployed to the front lines?

Panzerfaust 150

Ok,
Some points about the Siberia raids...as well as the other ops. Ok, I can't say more than this...and I am damn serious...don't ask me any more than this..I can say that some exotic munitions were used...non nuclear. But some were very nasty...do the math folks. SAC doesn't want to address this...neither does anyone else. It was war, and it required such actions. But, honestly, there's parts of the old Soviet Union that are STILL uninhabitable.

Matt Wiser

'Nuff said there. SAC did what had to be done. Some of the targets were of that nature...oil refineries, chemical plants, the occasional nuclear weapons R&D facility, etc. The residues from such strikes would be...significant, without any exotic munitions being used. But that does explain the tight security around some of the strikes today. The Irkutsk or Ulan-Ude raids (like most) you can find in any book about the air war, but some of the others..."I can tell you, but then I have to kill you" is the response from aircrews involved.

Was the second European Russia mission the response to the Spetsnatz hit on Raven Rock? My money's on hitting Plesetsk, but....a retaliation in kind for trying to get the President is one to think about.

A replica WW I fighter in combat? Talk about strange! F-4s, F-15s, F-16s flying daily, and someone flies a replica Sopwith Camel into World War III. That'll make a few laughs at the Mountain Home or Hill O-Clubs.

Panzerfaust: I saw those images used in the Grim Reaper's trial. Not just the vanilla overheads, but the computer-generated ground level ones they showed the jury. Makes me glad my E&E was successful. And it wasn't just the people from Gitmo who were there: quite a few who were either shot down over Cuba, or captured here and sent to the island, wound up in places like that.

Chuck Mandus

Matt Wiser said: 'Nuff said there. SAC did what had to be done. Some of the targets were of that nature...oil refineries, chemical plants, the occasional nuclear weapons R&D facility, etc. The residues from such strikes would be...significant, without any exotic munitions being used. But that does explain the tight security around some of the strikes today. The Irkutsk or Ulan-Ude raids (like most) you can find in any book about the air war, but some of the others..."I can tell you, but then I have to kill you" is the response from aircrews involved.

Was the second European Russia mission the response to the Spetsnatz hit on Raven Rock? My money's on hitting Plesetsk, but....a retaliation in kind for trying to get the President is one to think about.

A replica WW I fighter in combat? Talk about strange! F-4s, F-15s, F-16s flying daily, and someone flies a replica Sopwith Camel into World War III. That'll make a few laughs at the Mountain Home or Hill O-Clubs.

Panzerfaust: I saw those images used in the Grim Reaper's trial. Not just the vanilla overheads, but the computer-generated ground level ones they showed the jury. Makes me glad my E&E was successful. And it wasn't just the people from Gitmo who were there: quite a few who were either shot down over Cuba, or captured here and sent to the island, wound up in places like that.

Yeah, those old aviation buffs are affiliated with the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics, (OTL, IIRC, they restored "Miss Pittsburgh," a U.S. Mail biplane), they did some restoration of vintage WWII and occasional WWI aircraft. He's still alive in his upper 80's, still flies too, he flew in World War II.

Matt Wiser

That old gentleman needs to get in touch with the USAF Historical Center at Maxwell AFB. I'm sure they'd be delighted to have his story on record. I'll call AFHC and let them know. He was probably the oldest guy to fly a combat mission during the war. And yeah, the British .303 round had quite a bit of stopping power. And he needs to be invited to a Victory Day air show. It shouldn't take much to get a C-130 or a C-17 to where he is and fly him and his aircraft to Scott AFB for the National Victory Day Show, or a regional one, like they have at Griffiss AFB up in New York. The AF Chief of Staff ought to shake this guy's hand, and probably arrange for some kind of medal.

Chuck Mandus

That old gentleman needs to get in touch with the USAF Historical Center at Maxwell AFB. I'm sure they'd be delighted to have his story on record. I'll call AFHC and let them know. He was probably the oldest guy to fly a combat mission during the war. And yeah, the British .303 round had quite a bit of stopping power. And he needs to be invited to a Victory Day air show. It shouldn't take much to get a C-130 or a C-17 to where he is and fly him and his aircraft to Scott AFB for the National Victory Day Show, or a regional one, like they have at Griffiss AFB up in New York. The AF Chief of Staff ought to shake this guy's hand, and probably arrange for some kind of medal.
Certainly, I'll give him a jingle. I'll bring him on my talkshow (think like Art Bell mixed with Jim Quinn) along with the couple of those POW's that have settled in the area after the war and we can take it from there.

Matt Wiser

Good! I'll get in touch with the USAF Historical Center at Maxwell AFB and they'll arrange things about getting him to Scott for the National Show. If they have any smarts (and they usually do), he'll go in style, with his plane, aboard a C-17. Have any of those former ComBloc POWs done well since they settled here? I've mentioned several in the Utah-Idaho area who've done very well. Of course, our own ex-POWs have done pretty good, considering. I even have two flying for me in the 419th. For them, living well and flying well is the best revenge. (One of them was held in Cuba, and she has unfinished business there: one day, Fidel...) And do you have any guys (or girls) from the U.S. Foreign Legion who settled down? Might be a good idea to have one or two of them on the show as well.

You might also want to ask your listeners if they have recollections of the failed Spetsnatz raid on Raven Rock. If the GRU didn't shoot any of those involved in the mission planning for that, they should have. If Panzerfaust ever ran into anyone involved in that, please let us know, my friend. Or if he knew people who did the cleanup afterwards.

There was one outfit you hear about every so often, in documentaries about the war: I forget their official designation, but they were called "The Devil's Brigade" like a joint US/Canadian unit in WW II. These were a mix of Americans, Australians, some Maoris from New Zealand, and South Africans, and they were used for recon, sabotage, and other behind-the-lines activities in Colorado, New Mexico, and much of Texas. They were known for such things as finding enemy patrols who had stopped for the night, knifing all but one, leaving the survivor to spread the word; and leaving signs on bodies (in the appropriate language) saying "You may be next" after an ambush. All sorts of rumors about this bunch: recruited from prison, all Vietnam or Angola Vets, you name it. Trekchu or gtrof may have encountered this bunch.

BlackWave

BTW, there's going to be a TV movie about the trial of colonel Austin after he was finally tracked down by the new government in the time after the war ended, when the country was still a mess putting itself back together. In case anyone reading this doesn't know--and the history books do gloss over him a bit--he was to the US what that KGB butcher was to the Soviets. One example of what he did was executing surrendered POWs by dunking them into acid vats in a ruined chemical plant, including non-combatants such as medics and nurses, and as well as napalming a town he believed was full of collaborators--turns out it was a vital hub for the local resistance. Of course, during the trial he claimed he was just doing his duty--but then they had him executed for war crimes. Did anyone know him, and is anyone going to see that programme?
Sucking the USA into a black hole? Mutated German tanks? All in a day's work here...

Euroman26

We lived in Denmark, Europe and my dad who was a schoolteacher and had written a letter to the editor in our local paper "Aalborg Stiftstidende" denouching the USSR's attack on the US. Two days a local communist stapped my dad to death then he was walking home.

Snowman23

Matt Wiser said: I actually asked my cousin Jacqui about the problems with new ships built since the war, and she did say that there's been some quality control issues, but most of them have been addressed to the Navy's satisfaction. And she should know: her A-6 squadron is assigned to the Abe Lincoln, and she was XO of that squadron before getting the command. Every new ship built since the end of the war has had some issues, but as she puts it, "What new ship doesn't?" Remember that we need a lot of minerals, oil, and other commodities for postwar reconstruction, and much of that comes from overseas, and a strong Navy to protect the sea lanes is a necessity. That may sound strange coming from an Air Force guy, but even us blue-suiters recognize that there's things the Navy does best. And the Navy still escorts the tanker convoys from the Middle East: still some unfriendlies in that part of the world. But nobody wants to mess with a carrier group and and either a battleship or heavy cruiser. Remember when some Islamic Fundie group tried to enforce a "toll" into the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean? It took a shore bombardment from the cruiser U.S.S. Salem and a carrier air strike from Nimitz to teach them a lesson. You still need some gunboat diplomacy at times....The Navy may not be as strong a presence overseas as it was before, but they're still out there. And you never know if a USN submarine is lurking...

I think the carrier Snowman23 is referring to was probably Independence: she was lost about that time, and VA-196's senior CPO was on that ship, and one of the survivors, according to Jacqui. She wasn't a nuke carrier, but the last of the Forrestal class. The Navy lecturer at the Air War College called that battle "similar to a knife fight in a phone booth."

Ok, good to know. Knife fight in a Phone Booth is a good description. When you got a tightly packed formation during the night being attacked by wave after wave of backfires, and you don't want to hit any escorting fighters, It turns into hell. Iowa sacked a Backfires and 3 Sukhois with the SAMs we had and must have picked up at least 800 sailors from 4 different ships. That was the Bataan Death March of the Navy.

Cant Say I wasn't cheering when I heard about that assault with the Salem. After the Iowa I was assigned onto the Salem for the last month or so of the war. Got to sink frigate with those 8 inch guns. We ran into her while patrolling the Barents. She was escorting two transports that were bringing some VIP men and equipment, not sure what. Why they didn't do it by air, im not sure, but we nailed the Frigate and then called in the coordinates to air command as the Soviets saw what was up and vectored two backfires in against us. We took one missile but she survived. Nothing beats good old Pittsburgh-quality steel.

CiH

Epic thread with a life of its own! :cool:

IC, I'll get around to posting my (rather lame) experiences and some more information from a UK perspective in the next day or so.

BlackWave

CiH said: Epic thread with a life of its own! :cool:

IC, I'll get around to posting my (rather lame) experiences and some more information from a UK perspective in the next day or so.
OOC:Wasn't the UK supposed to be neutral in the movie at first (I think others have mentioned what it got up to in the context of this thread)? I guess you could be an SAS man infiltrating East Germany and Poland.
Sucking the USA into a black hole? Mutated German tanks? All in a day's work here...

CiH

OOC, IIRC (doncha love acronyms!) the UK resisted at first, indeed were the only remaining NATO power to stand with the US when it all kicked off. According to some early posts, as I understand them, the UK was forced out of the war and underwent a period of Soviet-friendly government. There were some enthusiastic collaborators who detailed their experiences early in the thread too.

My IC experience won't be anything as militarily useful as an SAS man, but I'll properly write up my ideas tomorrow evening when I've got a bit more time.

trekchu

OOC: The UK then re-entered the war sometime after the rest of Western Europe drove eastwards to capitalize on Soviet weakness and distraction after things started to go badly for the ComBloc in the US. I started that off, because Europe sitting on the sidelines in a war like this forever is beyond ASB.

Snowman23

OCC: Maybe we should try and make a definitive history/timeline for this, for i mean we have 20 pages of people telling "war stories" and we could use them.

BlackWave

Snowman23 said: OCC: Maybe we should try and make a definitive history/timeline for this, for i mean we have 20 pages of people telling "war stories" and we could use them.

Nah. Given the mass of info here that'll not only take ages, but it'll restrict people a bit. Besides, considering Red Dawn played fast and loose with reality anyway...

From page 24 

BlackWave

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Well, at least the guilty parties paid-one way or another. The poor wretches who survived those horror shows need all the care and support they can get...

The Raven Rock mess was the last time Ivan tried going after our National Command leadership. Supposedly, the one still-classified mission into European Russia by SAC was right after this, and the Spetsnatz stopped going for the President and JCS after that.
Well, they did have the satisfaction of wiping out the original president, the entire Pentagon staff, and Congress and Senate when DC got wiped off the map. Let's face it, the vice-prez was lucky as hell to be out of the city, but we can all agree that he spent the whole thing cowering in bunkers in obscure places while others made the decisions, and did a piss-poor job of trying to reassemble the country until they could put back something resembling a government together. Also, you gotta give them credit for managing to down the vice-chairman and the commander of the USMC in that Chinook--thank god they managed to find replacements. After all, wiping out a key portion of our military leadership definitely helped them seize vast swathes of the country and throw the military into disarray in the first half of the war. BTW, does anyone know what happened to General Palmer? We all know he was lost in the war, along with a load of other military leaders, but people can't seem to decide whether the Soviets got him, if he was caught in the DC bomb, or if he was killed on the battlefield.
Sucking the USA into a black hole? Mutated German tanks? All in a day's work here...

trekchu

BlackWave said: ↑
We all know he was lost in the war, along with a load of other military leaders, but people can't seem to decide whether the Soviets got him, if he was caught in the DC bomb, or if he was killed on the battlefield.
My MoD sources ( want to be unnamed, but let's just say it's someone I know very well and who is not prone to groundless speculation in this area ) think that he took command of a AC Squadron until he bought one somewhere in Virginia when the Red raided what was left of Norfolk.

Matt Wiser

Glen Miller??? Man, talk about retro. AFN also had a pretty good rock channel-1070 AM was their usual spot on the dial. Even though that John Hughes flick got canned (no thanks to the SAF), some of the planned soundtrack did get released. "Don't you (forget about me)" did come out as a single, and for a lot of folks in uniform, that was a pretty decent anthem. Of course, if you were close to a major city (Phoenix, Salt Lake, Nashville, New Orleans, or St. Louis, the local radio stations kept things up pretty much as normal-with the occasional air raid alert instead of a traffic report!

Well, after the initial attack, the new President had no choice, since the Secret Service was calling the shots on where he went, how long he stayed, etc. It didn't take long for the Joint Chiefs to be reconstituted, as there was a list at Raven Rock (or so they say) of Flag Officers eligible for the job. About half of Congress made it to the Greenbriar in West Virginia, along with the Supreme Court. Sure it took a while, but after a year, we had a functioning government. In heavily-guarded bunkers, sure, but we had a government. Only after that failed hit on Raven Rock and the still-undisclosed SAC retaliation did the President start going out into the open. Keep in mind that Congress was trickling back to DC after the Summer recess when the invasion started. Some got caught in occupied territory (and were arrested, and in most cases, shot), airtechie mentioned a few who were...on the other side, and the rest we know about. Either they made it to the Greenbriar or they didn't.

1st Cav took a page out of Hollywood: I was visiting our ALO once in New Mexico (some little town on I-40 east of the Sandias), and a UH-1 comes over, blaring Wagner out of a loudspeaker system. I asked him about it, and he said that General Franks liked the idea, so whenever the 1st Cav went into action, he had several helos overhead blaring Die Walkure out at max volume. Talk about life imitating art! They called the I-40 drive "The Cannonball Run" because there was very little opposition, and it was a speed dash nearly all the way to the Texas line. But further south, along U.S. 60, in places like Vaughn, Clovis, etc., way, way, different.

Well, Ivan couldn't have done much to Norfolk; two years after the end is when I "flew a desk" at TAC HQ at Langley AFB just north of there. There was some damage to the Naval base, but the shipyards were going full bore-that yard is where Missouri and Iowa were reconstructed, and the carriers are still built and overhauled there. The biggest problem they had was clearing a tanker that had sunk in one of the channels: seems some Naval Spetsnatz had hijacked the ship, rigged her with charges, and scuttled her in the channel leading to the Navy Yard. (the Navy base is right on Hampton Roads, but the yard is further south, along the Elizabeth River) They were also cutting up ships that were too badly damaged to repair for scrap-that steel got used in postwar reconstruction projects.

BlackWave

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Well, after the initial attack, the new President had no choice, since the Secret Service was calling the shots on where he went, how long he stayed, etc. It didn't take long for the Joint Chiefs to be reconstituted, as there was a list at Raven Rock (or so they say) of Flag Officers eligible for the job. About half of Congress made it to the Greenbriar in West Virginia, along with the Supreme Court. Sure it took a while, but after a year, we had a functioning government. In heavily-guarded bunkers, sure, but we had a government. Only after that failed hit on Raven Rock and the still-undisclosed SAC retaliation did the President start going out into the open. Keep in mind that Congress was trickling back to DC after the Summer recess when the invasion started. Some got caught in occupied territory (and were arrested, and in most cases, shot), airtechie mentioned a few who were...on the other side, and the rest we know about. Either they made it to the Greenbriar or they didn't.

1st Cav took a page out of Hollywood: I was visiting our ALO once in New Mexico (some little town on I-40 east of the Sandias), and a UH-1 comes over, blaring Wagner out of a loudspeaker system. I asked him about it, and he said that General Franks liked the idea, so whenever the 1st Cav went into action, he had several helos overhead blaring Die Walkure out at max volume. Talk about life imitating art! They called the I-40 drive "The Cannonball Run" because there was very little opposition, and it was a speed dash nearly all the way to the Texas line. But further south, along U.S. 60, in places like Vaughn, Clovis, etc., way, way, different.

Well, Ivan couldn't have done much to Norfolk; two years after the end is when I "flew a desk" at TAC HQ at Langley AFB just north of there. There was some damage to the Naval base, but the shipyards were going full bore-that yard is where Missouri and Iowa were reconstructed, and the carriers are still built and overhauled there. The biggest problem they had was clearing a tanker that had sunk in one of the channels: seems some Naval Spetsnatz had hijacked the ship, rigged her with charges, and scuttled her in the channel leading to the Navy Yard. (the Navy base is right on Hampton Roads, but the yard is further south, along the Elizabeth River) They were also cutting up ships that were too badly damaged to repair for scrap-that steel got used in postwar reconstruction projects.
Meh. Still took a while for the government to return to full strength and authority, and we all know how screwed up the country was in the post-war years. As for Norfolk, the shipyards did take damage--medium to heavy on the sources--and the repairs were rushed, although they did do some updating and reconstruction some years ago. The city itself was badly bombed (which I think is what he meant), especially the suburb , and along with much of the rest of the country the rebuilding was a bit half-assed. However, it certainly came out well compared to other places. Remember, appearances can be deceptive.
Sucking the USA into a black hole? Mutated German tanks? All in a day's work here...

trekchu

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Glen Miller??? Man, talk about retro. AFN also had a pretty good rock channel-1070 AM was their usual spot on the dial. Even though that John Hughes flick got canned (no thanks to the SAF), some of the planned soundtrack did get released. "Don't you (forget about me)" did come out as a single, and for a lot of folks in uniform, that was a pretty decent anthem. Of course, if you were close to a major city (Phoenix, Salt Lake, Nashville, New Orleans, or St. Louis, the local radio stations kept things up pretty much as normal-with the occasional air raid alert instead of a traffic report!
I have "Don't you forget about me" as an LP, on cassete and as a CD. All of them signed. As for Mr. Miller, its something of a family tradition when going to war.

Matt Wiser said: ↑
1st Cav took a page out of Hollywood: I was visiting our ALO once in New Mexico (some little town on I-40 east of the Sandias), and a UH-1 comes over, blaring Wagner out of a loudspeaker system. I asked him about it, and he said that General Franks liked the idea, so whenever the 1st Cav went into action, he had several helos overhead blaring Die Walkure out at max volume. Talk about life imitating art! They called the I-40 drive "The Cannonball Run" because there was very little opposition, and it was a speed dash nearly all the way to the Texas line. But further south, along U.S. 60, in places like Vaughn, Clovis, etc., way, way, different.

We did that too, especially later on. Blasting over the flat ground in Texas having the Ride of the Valkeries blasting from and coming over the radio was, and is loads of fun, war or no war.

OOC: You beat me to it by a minute.

Matt Wiser

Well, I still go to TAC HQ every once in a while, and for a time, you couldn't miss all the construction work. The AF, as far as I know, never had any complaints about the quality of the work at Langley, and neither did NASA at their research center on base. The Navy I do know threatened to keelhaul a few shipyard execs over the quality of some of their work, though....if you're working on a DOD project, or a serious reconstruction job, like rebuilding the Interstate Highways, you'd better do quality work. Commander of TAC a while back vowed to toss some construction company owner down an F-15's intake if he botched a runway replacement at Seymour-Johnson-and this was for a routine job, as they were never bombed during the war. Did that affect his career in any way? I doubt it, as he retired as AF Vice-Chief of Staff. The construction company tried to complain to their Congresscritter, but who do you think Congress would view more favorably? An AF four-star, or someone who won a low-bid contract?

You look at some cities, especially ones not in occupied territory, and you'd never know there'd even been a war. Lot of money flowing in L.A. the SF Bay Area, Chicago, the Twin Cities, etc. Warner Brothers bought what was left of the Paramount studios, built a whole new facility there (along with rights to many Paramount productions and much of their library), and you'd never know the difference. In occupied territory, Dallas-Fort Worth is on its feet again, but Houston, OKC, and El Paso still got a ways to go. And the latter city is more of an armed camp than a city-14th ACR and 44th ID still watch the border-and occasionally cross it on "punitive raids" when things get too hot for comfort. The Mexicans still sqawk about such things, but nobody listens-not on this side of the border, and certainly not in Geneva.

The one Mexican state that is basically a de facto American one is now Baja California: they broke away from Mexico City after the cease-fire, and proclaimed their independence. Mexico City doesn't recognize it, and neither does the UN, but the 5th Marine Division and the 10th ACR watch the border between Baja and the rest of Mexico, at the locals' request. It wasn't until about ten years ago that their tourist industry got back on its feet. TAC's got a presence in La Paz-the 361st TFW is based there with F-16s; too bad they didn't send any Eagles....and the Navy has a couple of destroyers and frigates based in Cabo San Lucas. They're not recognized as independent, but are considered a U.S. protectorate. If that protectorate status is indefinite, so be it. The locals like it, the tourists like it, the military based there like it (officially duty down there is classified as a hardship post-but Cabo San Lucas is the strangest one I've heard of), and so on. There's been occasional rumblings about asking for statehood, but nothing's ever come of it.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: ↑
The one Mexican state that is basically a de facto American one is now Baja California: they broke away from Mexico City after the cease-fire, and proclaimed their independence. Mexico City doesn't recognize it, and neither does the UN, but the 5th Marine Division and the 10th ACR watch the border between Baja and the rest of Mexico, at the locals' request. It wasn't until about ten years ago that their tourist industry got back on its feet. TAC's got a presence in La Paz-the 361st TFW is based there with F-16s; too bad they didn't send any Eagles....and the Navy has a couple of destroyers and frigates based in Cabo San Lucas. They're not recognized as independent, but are considered a U.S. protectorate. If that protectorate status is indefinite, so be it. The locals like it, the tourists like it, the military based there like it (officially duty down there is classified as a hardship post-but Cabo San Lucas is the strangest one I've heard of), and so on. There's been occasional rumblings about asking for statehood, but nothing's ever come of it.
Yeah, there's been a lot of cross immigration as well, two kids in my somphmore World History class, their parents are recent immigrants, good kids and their English is scary good...I mean, grew up here good. Scared me a bit, I thought they were Cuban SOF sent to take me out...VA had to put me on Lexapro for a while. :eek:

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: ↑
I got a phone call from the Naval Historical Center about an hour ago: seems my source there was burning the Midnight Oil, but he said there were two An-74 kills over the Gulf the day before the surrender at Brownsville: both by VF-143 F-14s. Kill #1 we can discount: 0950 Central Time, 325 miles from Brownsville, on the way to Santiago De Cuba: AIM-54 used, Visual ID via TCS camera. Missile hit the tail section, and water impact near 90 degrees. No survivors possible. Aircraft was not escorted. Kill #2 is a possible: again, no escort, 1625 Central Time, 315 miles NE Brownsville, on the route to Havana. AIM-54 also used, fired from 45 miles' range. Aircraft hit in or near fuel tanks, as it fireballed immediately after being hit, and "many pieces" fell into the Gulf. No survivors "certain." Either this kill, or the third one from 33rd TFW, is the Quislings' aircraft. Panzerfaust, did their aircraft make any radio calls after takeoff that you're aware of? Did they try and call for help if they saw missile trails headed their way, for example? Or just give an ETA for Havana? One of the EA-3B ELINT birds, or an RC-135, might have picked up an ETA call and informed AWACS, who then vectored the fighters in.
Sorry, was digging up the copies of the records I have for my dissertation. It's going well, defense is next month...but my adviser likes my chances. He was 6th Light in Alaska from the beginning. Lost an arm to a shell frag..but he's a damn good prof. According to the records...there was a routine call as they went feet wet over the Gulf, as their flight rules said once they made the turn North/South and dove for the deck, there was to be no more radio traffic until they were contacted by Cuban ADF first...that system broke down that day...apparently, according to some RC-135 records...the Cubans shot down three allied A/C...none of them An-74s...(I checked) and got into a furball with two East German MiG-29s escorting a IL-78 out of Mexico. For anyone wondering...the East Germans won, then swung north and surrendered at Key West NAS!

Snowman23

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Glen Miller??? Man, talk about retro. AFN also had a pretty good rock channel-1070 AM was their usual spot on the dial. Even though that John Hughes flick got canned (no thanks to the SAF), some of the planned soundtrack did get released. "Don't you (forget about me)" did come out as a single, and for a lot of folks in uniform, that was a pretty decent anthem. Of course, if you were close to a major city (Phoenix, Salt Lake, Nashville, New Orleans, or St. Louis, the local radio stations kept things up pretty much as normal-with the occasional air raid alert instead of a traffic report!
I remember on the way out of Pearl when the Soviets launched the airborne assault on it, seeing the puffs of white parachutes coming down, explosions in the air and on the ground from artillery and missiles, and air raid sirens still being heard, a guy turned on the rock station and on comes All Along the Watchtower by Hendrix. I still get the chills thinking about it. It was surreal.

trekchu

Matt Wiser said: ↑
*snip*

Well, he didn't work for my Father or me, that's for sure. As said, we am currently working on Washington, but before that we helped with Norfolk, and did part of the Texan and Colorado bits of the highways.

CiH

Here we go, some more information from the UK perspective, with at least another update to follow. Enjoy

Looking back, I don't blame the CND'ers (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) for their reactions when this all first kicked off. Everyone here in the first days was expecting the end of the world, nothing less, when the Soviets nuked Washington DC and the other cities. The reason why there was a million strong CND march in London was almost entirely due to a very human fear and dislike of being glassed, irradiated, burned and blown apart. I would say that well over ninety percent of the marchers came to London for that reason alone. I have no problem with those people. For those who were using CND as a cover for "other" activities and viewpoints, I do of course have a major problem with.

As you all know, in spite of this massive protest and smaller replicas in other UK cities, Maggie Thatcher felt obliged to uphold the UK's NATO treaty obligations, the little thing about supporting another member state being attacked and all, even though NATO at that point was effectively dead in the water. The UK came in sometime in the middle of D plus 2, although what we could do to help you was limited to say the least.

The bulk of our army was in Germany, (British Army on the Rhine or BAOR) with the lions share of heavy equipment positioned to expect the traditional Red Army push westwards through northern Germany, which as we know didn't come because the Sovs "secured" that flank and were very busy elsewhere. With the "neutral" government in Germany opting out of their treaty obligations, they effectively interned BAOR and their heavy equipment for the duration. That's not to say that the lads over there didn't find ways and means to get back home. Slightly later on, after the unwanted regime change here, a lot of them found their way over to Canada, albeit with empty pockets and without their Challenger tanks. Did any of you meet any British Army people 'in theatre' by the way?

We weren't hit by any nukes, good job too, as the UK is basically sixty million people on a postage stamp, so there would not be a lot of hinterland to run to if anything very big and nasty was dropped on us. The whole 'Protect and Survive' thing was a sick joke too. However, conventional air attacks were a problem from a few hours after Maggie's declaration of hostilities. The RAF did brilliantly, at least within the limits imposed by the crappy levels of their war stocks. Postwar, we found out that air-to-air started to run low after the first three or four days, which sucked deeply. To be fair, it wasn't as if the government weren't trying to fix that one, but new deliveries from home industry were delayed by an endless round of strikes and the US weren't sending much of their stuff overseas to allies in the couple of years preceding Red Dawn, as they had their own rearmament issues to take care of.

At this point, I was coming to the end of my first year of higher education. When the news broke, everything stopped, people just glued hour after hour to the nearest TV set. There weren't a lot of clear visuals for fairly obvious reasons, the news coverage had that incoherent 'end of the world' feel to it and a hell of a lot was there to be left to a horrified imagination. When the nukes went in, a lot of people went home so there were less than half of us left. We were at the end of our normal lecture programme and the exams had been done, but there were a couple of gatherings where the college authorities tried their best at some sort of reassurance (fat chance!) At the same time, we sort of got to hear some views of the more outspoken lefty staff, which provided even less reassurance.

I'm pretty sure I've got this down accurately as it was said at the time from one learned personage. "I'm naturally appalled at the whole turn of events, but hoping the USA would surrender quickly to spare the rest of the world from the danger of nuclear holocaust." There were a few snide comments along the lines of "Cowboy Reagan brought this on himself." thrown in there as well. There were a few people who laughed along with that, but the majority didn't and we made sure they knew we weren't happy.

Due to the ongoing emergency, there was no point in keeping the place open so we were all sent home. It took three days for a journey which should normally take around six hours or so. The reasons for that were all around and witnessed en-route. The smoke from the Stanlow Refinery at Ellesmere Port filled half the sky as we got into Liverpool. There wasn't a train available as Lime Street Station had been gutted by a direct hit from something stand-off and Soviet in origin. We got buses in the end, but these had to go down all sorts of diversions and minor roads as those motorways which didn't have flyovers and junctions blown out by long range missile and bombing, were closed to civilian traffic as part of the 'transition to war'.

By the time I'd got back home, there was a major government loss of nerve. Maggie had been deposed in some sort of 'cabinet revolt' so some gutless careerist middle-ranking Tory 'wet' no-name ended up in charge. This was before the "New Labour" government and the quasi-occupation. There had been the comedy invasion attempts or large raids on the east coast. The attack on Felixstowe I think came from some East European Speznaz offshoot or something? These were kicked back into the sea with some difficulty, as you may recall I said earlier that the bulk of the army were elsewhere. The remainder, with the Territorials, had their work cut out trying to maintain some semblance of order whilst infrastructure was being hammered into rubble all around them.

I don't know fully what happened next, the whole country is still waiting for proper answers, but there is a strong indication that the nuke word was threatened by Soviet representatives to our under the table backstabbers, which provided sufficient incentive for them to force GB into line with the rest of Europe. They were made to go a lot further by resigning and to submit to certain measures whereby the Soviet government "provided fraternal assistance to the socialist brethren in the former United Kingdom."

Not really our finest hour...

At the point when the Young Octobrists and Communist Pioneers, aka the armed boy scout invasion came in at Great Yarmouth, the moveable parts of our armed forces, the Royal Navy and surviving aircraft of the RAF took themselves off westwards. I guess there were a lot of Harrier pilots low on fuel landing anywhere they could find on your east coast? The royal family, apart from Prince Andrew who was on HMS Illustrious, were evacuated in a couple of the remaining Concordes. Can anyone confirm if there was an attempt made to shoot one of these down on the way over? The story we've got is that it comfortably outran the attempt as it was running at Mach 2 all the way there leaving the MIGs in question wheezing in its wake.

From that point on, things really got shitty, but that will wait until I get back to you a bit later with another update. All the best to you all and thanks for everything. :cool:

TheMann

I know a bunch of the RAF fliers landed in our neck of the woods, and I also know that Prince Charles spent much of the war as a guest of the Canadian government, living in Ottawa in the Governor General's mansion.

The RAF guys who I worked with, who usually were flying Tornado ADVs, were great pilots with decent airplanes. The ADV is not exactly that maneuverable or fast, but they did just fine. Two RAF guys (from No. 25 Squadron, IIRC) saved my ass over Alabama when they got the jump on a bunch of Su-27s flying air defense in their Tornado ADVs, as the Sukhois got into it with me and two wingmen. Four Sidewinders meant three dead Sukhois and a fourth limping home. I to this day owe that brave pilot a good British beer. The Tornado IDS guys could, and did, fly wing to wing with the USAF guys, and a bunch of our allies. Not all the European Air Forces' planes stayed in Europe. A bunch of British, French, Spanish, Italian and German planes flew with us in America, and when they went home we were fully prepared to return the favor. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

As for the pussies who surrended in Europe, I don't think its coincedence that a huge portion of the NATO forces left their nations when they surrended and fought with us in North America, or went and backed up the Turks, Greeks, Cypriots and Israelis that made life difficult for the USSR's southern belly. We knew what side these guys were on, and we knew they would fight just as hard as we were. They didn't let us down, either.

The SAS was a particularly prized bunch. They came over to help the SOCOM crews as they were getting started. The SAS guys effectively acted as trainers and raid leaders, and they did very well of course. You Brits should hold your heads high, and make sure to kick those worthless motherf**kers who thought surrender a good idea. The Horatio Nelson spirit clearly never left the military, though those spineless "New Labour" pussies are another matter.

TheMann said: ↑
I know a bunch of the RAF fliers landed in our neck of the woods, and I also know that Prince Charles spent much of the war as a guest of the Canadian government, living in Ottawa in the Governor General's mansion.

The RAF guys who I worked with, who usually were flying Tornado ADVs, were great pilots with decent airplanes. The ADV is not exactly that maneuverable or fast, but they did just fine. Two RAF guys (from No. 25 Squadron, IIRC) saved my ass over Alabama when they got the jump on a bunch of Su-27s flying air defense in their Tornado ADVs, as the Sukhois got into it with me and two wingmen. Four Sidewinders meant three dead Sukhois and a fourth limping home. I to this day owe that brave pilot a good British beer. The Tornado IDS guys could, and did, fly wing to wing with the USAF guys, and a bunch of our allies. Not all the European Air Forces' planes stayed in Europe. A bunch of British, French, Spanish, Italian and German planes flew with us in America, and when they went home we were fully prepared to return the favor. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

As for the pussies who surrended in Europe, I don't think its coincedence that a huge portion of the NATO forces left their nations when they surrended and fought with us in North America, or went and backed up the Turks, Greeks, Cypriots and Israelis that made life difficult for the USSR's southern belly. We knew what side these guys were on, and we knew they would fight just as hard as we were. They didn't let us down, either.

The SAS was a particularly prized bunch. They came over to help the SOCOM crews as they were getting started. The SAS guys effectively acted as trainers and raid leaders, and they did very well of course. You Brits should hold your heads high, and make sure to kick those worthless motherf**kers who thought surrender a good idea. The Horatio Nelson spirit clearly never left the military, though those spineless "New Labour" pussies are another matter.
OOC:Europe never 'surrendered'...they never went to war in the first place in context of the movie. And I think we had them moving in on the USSR anyway on this thread. Besides, up by yourself against a country with a few thousand nukes pointed at you...
Sucking the USA into a black hole? Mutated German tanks? All in a day's work here...

TheMann

trekchu said: ↑
TheMann: Yeah, James ( my son ) siad as much when he called after going onto Missouri for the first time. He thinks that Missouri is what BBs would bee like today had the Carrier not been invented.
I'd say that's accurate, too. The Missouri is considered today to be the flagship of the Navy's 2nd Fleet, though the crew on thing apparently is mostly Marine Corps. The Navy wanted to keep the ship but also wanted help paying for its rebuilding and upkeep, so the thing's CO is always USMC, it's XO is always USN and a bunch of the crew is Marine Corps. The Navy uses it a lot for a flagship too, apparently. I suppose it is better armored than a carrier is, and post-refit she's probably just as good for command facilities as an CV in the Navy. They changed her classification too - apparently, her new classification is BBN-63.

Your son serves on Missouri? If so, what are his duties on it?

Matt Wiser

That Pearl operation was a one-way ride for the VDV who did it; 25th ID and the Marines from Kanehoe, along with the Hawaii NG, mopped them up pretty fast. And Oahu is a lousy place to try and play guerilla, as some of them tried: little or no game and little or no fruit. Then 25th ID wound up going to the Pacific Northwest.

I found out the name of the shooter from 33rd TFW who may have killed the Quislings' aircraft: he was then-Capt. Don Reynolds, flying Corvette 21, 58th TFS. He's now a bird Colonel, and CO of the 21st TFW (F-22s and F-15Es) at Elmendorf AFB up in Alaska. They told him at the Eagle Aces' reunion (he has 19 kills) who might have been his on his last victim, and he said "Hope they fed the sharks..." No way, of course, to know if they were his kill or not-and that F-14 driver may have done it also.

Hopefully, after the war, and the collapse of the bulk of the USSR, those "neutralists" in the UK either renounced their actions, fled somewhere that more fit in with the fact that they were on the losing side, or (one may hope) Her Majesty's Government, upon its return, saw to it that they were executed for High Treason. Hey, we're still cleaning house over here, and there's no statute of limitations on war crimes, treason, or collaboration with the enemy. Just the fact that someone may have been associated with a collaborator, or leftie causes in unoccupied territory, can be a career-ender, and folks have been run out of town because of that. Still, the Navy was glad to have those RN fast-attack subs and missile boats...hope you guys didn't mind getting them back slightly used. And I believe Prince Andrew won a Navy Cross (presented to him by the Chief of Naval Operations before returning home) doing some crazy helicopter missions along the Gulf Coast. The Mann may have flown cover for some of the Prince's activities-any more info on that?

One of Jacqui's ROTC classmates was a survivor from VF-31 on Forrestal. After the carrier was sunk, they reformed the squadron at NAS Key West, with new F-14s right off the Grummann assembly line, and they stayed there for the rest of the war, handling air defense for South Florida. He said those two East Germans weren't the only ones who flew into Key West in those last days: about two dozen ComBloc aircraft of various types flew there instead of Havana. One of the East German MiGs is now a gate guard there, but in the markings of NAS Key West's resident aggressor squadron, VF-45.

loneranger

I was a member of one of the British Infantry Squadrons sent to help the, "1 Billion Screaming China men". Worst few weeks of my life. I managed to survive the nukes, and I asked for reassignment to the North American theater. Those damn Chinese had it rough, I tell you. I didn't get reassigned, but I did finally get some back up. I was with the first squad that started the push into the Soviet Union it self. We partied for days after securing the front. I'd like to think I was vital to the war, being hard pressed on the homefront, the forces in North America probably eased up a little.

Snowman23

Matt Wiser said: ↑
That Pearl operation was a one-way ride for the VDV who did it; 25th ID and the Marines from Kanehoe, along with the Hawaii NG, mopped them up pretty fast. And Oahu is a lousy place to try and play guerilla, as some of them tried: little or no game and little or no fruit. Then 25th ID wound up going to the Pacific Northwest.
It was, but you know, crazy Ivan, he thought we had yanked most of Pearls Defenses to the West Coast. Silly them, instead they got a hail of lead, lost a parachute division, and then the 25th was sent away knowing Ivan wouldn't try it again! Then we used the Marines for some raiding against targets on Kamchatka like Marine raiders in WWII. I was on the Tico when we did those. Damn, the balls of the admiral who lead that! Think it was Admiral Neil Muldoon, or Mad Mull as we called him. He lost his Wife and his two daughters when they nuked DC, and then lost his son while he lead 3 F-4 Phantoms against a wave of almost 20 Backfires escorted by 12 Fulcrums that where heading against Chicago. They knocked down one Backfire with a long range lucky shot, but all of them where killed. So Mull had nothing except the country, and he vowed revenge. Oh, he got it. We raided Petropavlovsk with the Marines. We destroyed every single thing of military use there with either aircraft form the America, the Marines with demolition charges, or bombardment from missiles of shells from the supporting ships. Nailed the oil storage, the airfields, the nuke storage (placed a time bomb in it, it blew and set up a cloud of radioactive dust of Kamchatka) ships, dry docks, you name it. Then we high tailed it out when word came the whole surface force of the Pacific Fleet was com9ng towards us. We sunk a destroyer with airstrikes and beat of a attack from a Kiev's planes. What a raid, it was WWIII Doolittle Raid. We had 120 Marine Causalities, and 1 missile that damaged a Spruance. They lost a Destroyer, A entire Navy Base, moral, nukes, and so much more to list.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: ↑
That Pearl operation was a one-way ride for the VDV who did it; 25th ID and the Marines from Kanehoe, along with the Hawaii NG, mopped them up pretty fast. And Oahu is a lousy place to try and play guerilla, as some of them tried: little or no game and little or no fruit. Then 25th ID wound up going to the Pacific Northwest.
I think whoever authorized that mission deserves to be shot. It should have occured to the VDV boneheads that one of the Navy's largest and most important bases is probably going to have Marines stationed there, and a lot of them. Kinda hard to play guerilla on a small island against thousands of Marines and Infantry soldiers. Even Spetsnaz probably wouldn't try that one, and those guys did some crazy shit.[/quote]

Matt Wiser said: ↑
I found out the name of the shooter from 33rd TFW who may have killed the Quislings' aircraft: he was then-Capt. Don Reynolds, flying Corvette 21, 58th TFS. He's now a bird Colonel, and CO of the 21st TFW (F-22s and F-15Es) at Elmendorf AFB up in Alaska. They told him at the Eagle Aces' reunion (he has 19 kills) who might have been his on his last victim, and he said "Hope they fed the sharks..." No way, of course, to know if they were his kill or not-and that F-14 driver may have done it also.
So both him and that F-14 driver can now say "I killed those fucking Benedict Arnolds." I guess we'll never know who exactly got them, all that matters is that they became shark bait. Good riddens.

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Hopefully, after the war, and the collapse of the bulk of the USSR, those "neutralists" in the UK either renounced their actions, fled somewhere that more fit in with the fact that they were on the losing side, or (one may hope) Her Majesty's Government, upon its return, saw to it that they were executed for High Treason.
I suppose that some of those people probably figured it was better to be alive than have somebody kill you because of the Americans, but in the UK's case Thatcher was just as strongwilled as Reagan was. Those that actively fought the UK government and then sold out to the Communists - yeah, they should be executed. That would be appropriate. But ya know, when somebody is coming to take over your land, he probably isn't bringing milk and cookies, something which the defeatist wusses never really figured out.

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Hey, we're still cleaning house over here, and there's no statute of limitations on war crimes, treason, or collaboration with the enemy. Just the fact that someone may have been associated with a collaborator, or leftie causes in unoccupied territory, can be a career-ender, and folks have been run out of town because of that.
I'm sure we both know of some dummy who figured it was reasonable to collaborate with the enemies. I hope nobody innocent gets run out of town for it, but I'm sure its happened at some time or another.

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Still, the Navy was glad to have those RN fast-attack subs and missile boats...hope you guys didn't mind getting them back slightly used. And I believe Prince Andrew won a Navy Cross (presented to him by the Chief of Naval Operations before returning home) doing some crazy helicopter missions along the Gulf Coast. The Mann may have flown cover for some of the Prince's activities-any more info on that?
He should have got the Medal of Honor, if you ask me. One time they had to rescue two F-4 drivers brought down by Cuban MiG-23s, and the Cuban AF was really looking to capture the pilots themselves. Oriskany was too far away to be of much use, but Invincible wasn't. Five of her Sea Kings went in without hesitating, despite Cuban Mi-24s in the area. Two of her Sea Harriers went out to cover the helis, and downed one of those Mi-24s. Prince Andrew's helicopter took 23mm cannon rounds in the back, and despite flying on one engine it both got an F-4 pilot and his RIO out of the water, and it got back to Invincible. Apparently one of those 23mms grazed his shoulder too. I can imagine how painful that was.

The Royal Navy held its head high and fought hard. The helicopter guys from HMS Invincible flew more CSAR missions than anybody, because they were better at it than anybody else and they had a whole carrier to land on, dump their resuces and get back off the deck for another run. Their harriers usually did the same. One of them went to a converted Ford engine plant in Hapeville, Georgia, and for the rest of the war Invincible got brand-new Harriers if it needed them and parts from plants in Georgia and South Carolina. Horatio Nelson lived on with those guys, boy. I don't think its conincedence that post-war the Americans and British still have their "special relationship". The pussies in Whitehall got vindicated by the boys of the British Armed Forces. A bunch of them did end up in North America without gear, but they learned pretty quickly to drive Abrams tanks and shoot M-16s. They should be as proud of themselves as the American guys are.

I also seem to recall that Kalinin got sunk by HMS Trafalgar. How do ya like that, suckas?

Matt Wiser said: ↑
One of Jacqui's ROTC classmates was a survivor from VF-31 on Forrestal. After the carrier was sunk, they reformed the squadron at NAS Key West, with new F-14s right off the Grummann assembly line, and they stayed there for the rest of the war, handling air defense for South Florida. He said those two East Germans weren't the only ones who flew into Key West in those last days: about two dozen ComBloc aircraft of various types flew there instead of Havana. One of the East German MiGs is now a gate guard there, but in the markings of NAS Key West's resident aggressor squadron, VF-45.
VF-45 still flies a bunch of MiGs as aggressor trainers, with most of the pieces of them given to us by the unified Germany. They also got some Su-27s courtesy of the Israelis. I have no idea how they got those, but then again the IDF seemingly can get anything they bloody well want. Those guys make for great friends and fearsome enemies. I also bet the Russians probably regret arming the Arabs so well with the Israeli gearjackers next door and the Egyptians teaching American pilots about Soviet gear.

Matt Wiser

I think that Ivan felt that they could afford the Hawaii jump, even if it was a one-way ride for all involved, even the transports-no way they could make it back to Mexico (which is where they staged for the jump). That division was made up of mostly reservists, with old ASU-57s and ASU-85s, but there were a few Afghan vets assigned. Took a couple of days to get most of 'em, IIRC, but the Hickam AFB CSPs and the rest of the military on the island were pretty nervous for a week or so-lots of shootin' at imaginary Russians, or worse-at your own people beating the bush for the VDV survivors. ISTR from the Air War College that it was said we lost more people there to friendly fire than anywhere else in the war. Hickam AFB has a nicely restored ASU-85 on display just inside the main gate, btw.

Yeah, I'm sure there's been too many instances of folks wrongly ID'd as collaborators, or worse, members of auxilary units and those who ran the "Soviet-American Friendship Committees" Ivan set up in occupied territory. At least our defeatists are either in jail, shot for treason or collaboration, or fled the country with Ivan and Fidel, or left afterwards (those who secretly wanted the bad guys to win, or came out of the closet with such feelings postwar).

When I joined the 419th as a newly promoted bird colonel, we got sent down to La Paz in Baja for our two week reserve stint, before the AF reformed the 361st TFW to be permanently based there (last active in WW II). Anyone know why DOD listed both Cabo San Lucas and La Paz as "hardship posts?" Unless it was some idea to give everyone stationed there extra money to spend to pump into the local economy...too bad we couldn't be called up for an extra two weeks or more-we liked it there. Locals glad to see us, tourists returning, you name it. There's been some talk down there of applying for statehood, but nothing hasn't come of it yet. But I imagine Congress will look into it when they return to D.C. in a couple of years. Btw, it's strongly advised to hide any Russian or Cuban descent: seems the Soviet and Cuban "advisors" there were pretty contemptous of the locals during the war, and that contempt was returned in kind. But it's looking more and more like a state, with each passing day. I'll bet that if they can't get statehood, then commonwealth status (like Puerto Rico's) will probably do. Don't be surprised if all that tourist and military money spent down there gets used to lobby Congress...another sign of normalcy, hmm?

It took a year for Ivan to get the slightest use out of Petrapavalosk, that Navy lecturer said. IIRC the Navy wanted to plant an ADM there, but the JCS nixed that part of the operation, saying that enough nukes had been fired off already.

BlackWave

Personally, along with other military analysts, I think the attempted jump into Hawaii was a method of testing the defences and also to get rid of 'suspect persons'--most of the dead soldiers there turned out to be those marked on the KGB list as potential subervises, so I think they knew it'd be a suicide mission. Besides, they did have the pleasure of causing less dramatic pain to the Hawaiin islands--with the US navy overstretched and depleted with very heavy losses as the war dragged on, they were able to keep hitting Honolulu and other cities there with sub-based cruise missiles and hit merchant ships carrying food--plus all the infiltrators they installed on the island were a major pain. They were probably the ones who incited those riots and bombings. TBH, most of Hawaiin islands still look like a bomb site to this day, and Pearl is mostly empty. Petrapavalosk was a good morale boost, but not too big in the long run, as they had removed the most important stuff there for the front and replaced what was lost quickly (although the buildings and the actual infrastructure, as Matt said, were in a different state)--most of the equipment stored there was outdated junk that was only to be used as a last resort, and as far as the Soviet's were concerned it wasn't too big a loss, though still a pain in the balls. Still, you gotta hand it to Hawaii for persevering even when they were in a state of semi-anarchy and food shortages. Do we know anyone who knew the SEAL team operation to try and take the remains of Guam, which IIRC was occupied by the Koreans at that point? It was a failure, but some of them did make it out with the help of the Aussies.

From page 26

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Panzerfaust, did that SAF general get on the list for Tier I or II? He goes by an assumed name now, "Alexi Makhorin". He was deputy commanding general of the Soviet Air Force for the first two years, and after his boss was "retired" in June of '87, he got the job. He's been on record as saying the top brass in the Soviet military knew as early as August '86 that the war was lost, and that the USSR should cut its losses, but the Politburo didn't want to hear of it. When the Defense Minister and his top deputy said that in a Defense Council meeting, they were arrested, taken to Lerfetovo Prison, and shot. The CG, Soviet Army was also shot, "to encourage the others." Just how often did they purge their own senior officers? In peacetime, that's bad enough, but in a war a continent away, that you're losing...

Nope, he was a "protected species" because he cooperated with the intelligence community after he "defected" (Yeah, right, some defection, 4 people got killed grabbing him in a pretty large fire-fight). But, since he was so helpful, we forgot all about his role in the little war he helped plan and execute...yeah, I am not nuts he's still walking and talking...but sometimes..you cut deals with the devil.:mad:

Matt Wiser said: ↑
I'll bet the UK Quislings and ours never figured out just how despised they were by the people they claimed to have "liberated." Some of ours (the ones who escaped the noose and are lifers in Federal Prison) still maintain "We did the right thing." They have to be kept in secure housing, as the other cons treat them with the same contempt as they do sex offenders-kill if given the chance. I recall seeing on CNN when the Union Jack was raised again over Buckingham Palace (we were at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, hard on the heels of III Corps, getting ready to take on D/FW), and the correspondent was asking a Royal Marine Colonel where the Quislings who'd been caught would be sent, and he replied "We just repoened the Tower." He didn't say if they were sharpening the ax in the museum, but....I'll bet they were.

Funny thing about cons...say what you want about them, but they do have a perverse sense of patriotism. They're talking about putting them all in a single prison in the Federal system now. Not a bad idear if you ask me.
As for their surprise...they were a mix of the ultimate cynics and opportunists and true believers who thought their moment had come. Couldn't tell you which one was worse..neither had much to recommend it, at least, the ones I talked to. But, by then, most of them had been told to stick together...or the other auxiliaries in the docket were going to get to them (and they did, no matter what we tried to do to make sure they did not). And funny you mention the Tower...it seems the Royal Marines and Paras who marched in at the head of I Corps into London didn't have much to do, at least that's what I heard..seems a lot of the slower Quislings were dangling from the Tower's buttresses...seems they couldn't find somebody built enough to swing the axe.

Matt Wiser

A lot of them were like that: when we started flying combat out of Williams AFB, there was a report on one of the Phoenix TV stations that a bunch of inmates at the Arizona State Prison sent a letter to the President, offering to serve "Dirty Dozen" style. They wanted only two things: an honorable burial if killed in action, and a full pardon if they lived. Don't know about other states, but this was a big news story back then. Some did get out and join up (the Marines wouldn't take any, but the Army did-in quantity); I may be mistaken, but a lot of them did wind up in the Hells' Angels regiment, or the story goes.

I haven't heard this guy talk, but he was at the Air War College a few years back. And yeah, he did have a lot to answer for. Didn't a few trials have docs with this fellow's signature on 'em? IIRC one of the documents was an order to "maximize" civilian casualtes, and that any opportunity target was fair game. Overunning a few airfields and getting our hands on their documents was a big deal-not just tactically, but postwar, when you guys used 'em at the trials. And Ivan was just like the Nazis-they documented everything. I'll bet some defendants were surprised to see documents with their signatures, just like at Nuremberg. Wasn't the AG the chief prosecutor? Or did the senior JAG from all the services get the job, because I recall seeing both running cases personally from CNN coverage of certain trials.

The true believers are the ones you have to worry about, even now. Like that UCLA prof I mentioned, who was such a pest, protesting on Resistance Day and Victory Day. Too bad he didn't stay in NZ, but after getting run out of L.A., he wound up in Havana; I was fiddling with my aM radio one night, and heard his voice on the air: seems he's in Havana now, with his own radio show. A shame we can't jam it...

CiH

Yeah Panzerfaust basically had it correct with his description of how it all ended here. He put it very eloquently as well. "opposed administrative movement", what a lovely phrase!

The catalyst was of course Germany (West Germany at that time) doing a complete back-flip in their choice of government. It was something to do with a too blatant KGB presence during their elections in 1987. The good German people then felt they were living under something that was too close to Soviet occupation. (They were even sending defectors from the DDR back over the Inner German Border at one point during the Green/Leftist coalition government!) Once the Bundesrepublick had a government that was a lot less friendly to the Soviet way of doing things, all the other Central European states suddenly found the will to dump their left-leaning and soviet friendly regimes as well with a string of elections and landslide victories going the other way. The Soviets were alarmed, but could not do a lot, as they were deeply heavily over-extended by then in their various wars in China and the USA.

As for the UK, things went a bit differently, due to it being under quasi-occupation. The groundwork was laid over the previous 18 months, but more intensively over the final six months with almost all the active SAS and SBS cadres roaming around and conducting a little war of their own. Also co-ordinating with resistance cells, providing expertise, training, materiel and the rest of the things needed to make these groups effective.

There was a thin screen, supported by an air-bridge, of such British and Canadian forces that could be spared from the main front on the American continent building up in Eire. The Irish government were neutral, but horrified by the turn of events in the north and not at all reassured by the Soviet definition of friendship, so were secretly glad of those UK forces who arrived there, and pleased to turn a blind eye to their presence.

The moment when I think the New Labour government might have realised the writing was properly on the wall was with the mass collapse of the leftist/neutralist governments across Europe over that amazing six week period. This of course freed up the residual remaining BAOR manpower pool who could move again, (Which had shrunk down to nearly zero by then, but were partially built back up again by those returning soldiers that the main front could spare.)

Meanwhile in the UK itself, the situation was building to a head, even without these external actors being present. The lemming geniuses of the New Liability government had been working overtime over the last three years, managing to piss off practically everyone. This even went for those people who were originally less than favourable to the previous Thatcher government and were ambivalent about her being deposed. (As in the original resignation, not the subsequent covert assassination!) At the point that our armed forces decided to move, there was a perfect storm of a more or less 24/7 armed insurrection, which had graduated from terrorist style attacks, to open gun-battles at company and platoon size, along with a massive general strike sponsored by those of us who did not have the means to militarily oppose the idiots in charge.

A pincer movement of the Eire-based forces, along with the reconstituted BAOR "borrowing" RO-RO ferries with the blessing of the Dutch, French and Belgian port authorities took place. The scenes when they arrived had to be seen and experienced to be believed, although there was a lot of TV footage of the landings both at Milford Haven and at the ferry terminals at Harwich and Folkestone. If anything, the vast crowds of the joyfully liberated held up matters. When the east and western forces did get themselves moving, they encountered the same emotions with every town they entered. There was a nasty spate of civilian casualties with over-enthusiastic people mobbing around and being targetted by stay-behind forces of the departing government. These were usually the last desperate acts by those Soviet or Warsaw Pact security forces or hired scum who literally had no place to hide or go to.

I wasn't there, but I wish I had been a fly on the walls of the New Labour government residences, albeit a fly with human-like sentience and a dark sense of humour. Once the allied forces had landed, they weren't interested in putting up any kind of stout defence of their dearest ideological convictions. No, they were looking for the quickest way to vanish or hide away. A small handful did manage to get to some of the last remaining hold-outs in the north of Scotland and a flight going in a Murmansk-bound direction. A lot of the smaller players and minor functionaries tried to hide themselves among the general population, but with only partial success. The real die-hards who still sought to hurt and kill even after the situation was rationally hopeless, were those Warsaw Pact forces and security specialists who had been abandoned by their masters, along with a handful of real psychopaths who had been recruited from the native population for their 'talents'.

It took about three weeks from the first infantryman's boot touching the pier at Milford Haven, to the Union Jack being raised over Buckingham Palace. It took about another month to clear out the last holdouts and tidy up. Of course, although we, as in the newly reinstated ex-government in exile were technically at a state of war with the Soviet Union, there was a fair bit to do before we could return the favour.

The country, after even a limited attack with modern stand-off munitions at the start, and three years of a piss-poor occupation with the systematic looting and neglect that went on in the well-known Soviet fashion, was a wreck. A lot of work was needed to get it back to the point where it could support a war-effort even at pre-war levels. Germany and the other Euro's, although now a lot less friendly to the Sovs, weren't going to rush to war either, as their readiness had suffered in the years before. The European front had to wait until the following year and a decent pretext, in the form of the growing revolts and crisis in the Warsaw Pact countries, before they and we were able to wade in.

This isn't the final 'rounding things up' update I promised. That is half-written and still to be posted, which details among other things, where I was during those eventful weeks in the summer of 1987.

Matt Wiser

Any of 'em still around in the UK? I imagine that it's the kiss of death for one's job if it comes out that he/she was associated with the Quisling government. Here, it very much can be a career-ender, and worse...death threats, slashing one's car tires, groups of vets picketing houses, things like that, if it comes out that one was either a collaborator, one of the lefties cheering on Ivan from the free zone, or worse, served in an auxiliary unit in any kind of leadership capacity. It's especially nasty on college campuses, where professors used to flaunt ultra-leftist ideas openly before the war; not anymore. I'm sure the ones who did get away got a nice dacha from the Soviet leadership, and a place both in the history books and on both the most wanted and most despised lists, with rewards on their heads to match.

Hey Trekchu: the AF is planning on building another runway at Mountain Home AFB, to give it three runways; see if you can get your company to bid on the contract, and you can spend some time up here. There's talk of another wing being located here: the Idaho ANG wants to move from Boise Airport to Mountain Home, so there'd be some additional new construction besides the runway. They fly A-10s at present, but flew RF-4Cs during the war.

Just saw this on Fox News: a company doing deep-water oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico just found several wrecks in the Gulf about 200 Miles SE of New Orleans; one of the wrecks is an Ivan Rogov-class assault ship. The Mann: this might be your victim from that failed amphib operation you guys broke up.

trekchu

Thanks for the heads up, Matt. I will send an application.

Anyway, I remember those Brits. Some of them fought beside 14th AD in southern Texas in the last few days, and I can remember that they were always searching Sovie supply dumps for Tea...

CiH: You won't believe how we howled with laughter when the Germans rolled over the Inner German border. There we are, slogging through Texas, when the Colonel comes running during a lull in the fighting and screams all about how the West Germans entered the war. At that time we been in action for months and not heard about the turnaround in Europe. So we think the worst of course. Then the Colonel says that they are fighting on our side and are cutting through the remaining Warzaw Pact forces like a blowtorch through butter. That was a really nice day.

Matt Wiser

It's not just the runway, but there's also another hangar, some additional maintenance shops, an engine test area, and additions to the Officer's and NCO Clubs. One company is being asked to do all the work, as there's been some...unhappy results when several outfits team up for such projects. Needless to say, those companies can forget about doing any kind of work on a USAF base again. So the winning company gets a lot of work, and the locals are happy, as that means more jobs for the base and the community as a whole. (another sign of a "return to normalcy") Be warned: there's a company based in Portland (OR) that did a lot of work on McChord and Fairchild AFBs, along with NAS Whidbey Island, and both service were very pleased with the results, so you may have competition for the contract.

We found out the same way about the West Germans (and the French, Dutch, Belgians, and Italians) coming in. The Marine Air Group CO (335 flew with Marine Air Group 12 for the duration of the war) comes in and tells the squadron COs and XOs. At first, we said "Huh?", and then there were lots of smiles. There was some grumbling, but that was a big sign that we'd really turned the tide. No way could Ivan fight a three-front war: North America was really going bad, China was a mess, period, and now, Central Europe. Too bad the Politburo didn't listen to reason (the Foreign Minister this time) and cut their losses. A lot of people on all sides would still be alive if they had. And the Foreign Minister? That SAF general said in a Newsweek piece that the man, who had been staunchly loyal to the General Secretary, shared the fate of the previous Defense Minister.....he's in some unmarked grave outside Moscow, I reckon.

5th Marine Division had some Royal Marines: they were serving as exchange officers and NCOs before the war, and they volunteered to help form the new Division. One of the NCOs got killed in that fight in the Clovis Stockyards, and one of the officers wound up taking command of a battalion of the 28th Marines because the CO had been killed, the XO and several staffers wounded in a artillery barrage on battalion HQ. 3/28 Marines had a British CO for the rest of the war, from Clovis, NM all the way to the Rio Grande. One of our ALOs said that this guy was never at his HQ, but was always somewhere at or near the front. The Marines in that battalion liked that a lot. And he never wore a helmet, just his Royal Marine beret.

trekchu

Matt Wiser said: ↑
It's not just the runway, but there's also another hangar, some additional maintenance shops, an engine test area, and additions to the Officer's and NCO Clubs. One company is being asked to do all the work, as there's been some...unhappy results when several outfits team up for such projects. Needless to say, those companies can forget about doing any kind of work on a USAF base again. So the winning company gets a lot of work, and the locals are happy, as that means more jobs for the base and the community as a whole. (another sign of a "return to normalcy") Be warned: there's a company based in Portland (OR) that did a lot of work on McChord and Fairchild AFBs, along with NAS Whidbey Island, and both service were very pleased with the results, so you may have competition for the contract.

Even if we don't get that contract, there are dozens of others, not to mention civilian construction that is picking up again too. I will not use my contacts to gain favours. There has been too much of that.

Matt Wiser said: ↑
We found out the same way about the West Germans (and the French, Dutch, Belgians, and Italians) coming in. The Marine Air Group CO (335 flew with Marine Air Group 12 for the duration of the war) comes in and tells the squadron COs and XOs. At first, we said "Huh?", and then there were lots of smiles. There was some grumbling, but that was a big sign that we'd really turned the tide. No way could Ivan fight a three-front war: North America was really going bad, China was a mess, period, and now, Central Europe. Too bad the Politburo didn't listen to reason (the Foreign Minister this time) and cut their losses. A lot of people on all sides would still be alive if they had. And the Foreign Minister? That SAF general said in a Newsweek piece that the man, who had been staunchly loyal to the General Secretary, shared the fate of the previous Defense Minister.....he's in some unmarked grave outside Moscow, I reckon.

I admit it took me some time to forgive them for not helping us from the start. It wasn't until I went to holiday to Germany after the war, ( Missus has some relations there ) and talked to the vets there that I realized how f**ked up the situation was under the greens. Hell, the Social Democrats over there bent over backwards to get Germany into the fighting once they realized what the Sovs where up to. (OOC: In the mid 80s they really would have, and be it only to preserve West Germany as it was. )

Matt Wiser

If you submit a good bid, it should be OK. Just remember it goes through HQ TAC at Langley AFB, not Mountain Home. The guys from Portland are busy now, with the AF reopening the old Larson AFB near Moses Lake up in Washington, and a lot of work is going on up there. If you point out that the Portland guys are busy enough at Moses Lake, HQ TAC will likely be favorably inclined to you guys. CINC-TAC just wants quality work done on his bases, and no hanky-panky involved, period. You might come on up for the Victory Day air show, just to have a look around and see what's planned for the base. No Thunderbirds-they'll be at the National Victory Day show at Scott AFB-but we'll have some decent flying anyway.

You're not the only one with that kind of feeling. The ones who came over here to fight, I've got nothing but the highest respect for, especially those who defied their governments to come over. But looking back, one does understand that most of the military there wanted to fight, but their Soviet-leaning governments wouldn't allow it. Hopefully, those Soviet cheerleaders, when they got run out of office, ran to Moscow and stayed there. In West Germany, so I understand, the military gave the Greenies and their "Socialist Unity" partners a choice, resign en masse, or there'd be a coup, especially with so many of their government ministers and officials suddenly revealed to be on the KGB's payroll. They chose to quit instead of seeing the Leo Is and IIs in the street....And wasn't the openly pro-Soviet mayor of Hamburg fished out of the Elbe, wired to a cement block, when he didn't take the advice to quit? ISTR a CNN story about that back then.

Panzerfaust: how far did the purges reach into North America? That defecting Su-24 crew I mentioned earlier said that there'd been a number of SAF and Soviet Army senior officers arrested, and either sent to penal battalions or just simply shot. They were on their third Regimental CO in two years: one was KIA, the second was arrested and "disappeared", and the third was some Party hack who only flew the minimum flight time for the month, and wasn't much of a combat leader. Btw, they despised the Cubans.

trekchu

As far as I have heard from the relatives, the Army knew it was backed by a vast majority ( IIRC post-war analysis showed something about 70% once they had woken up ) supporting the new elections. Apparently the constitutional workings of the new elections that threw the greens out are a bit dodgy, but I'm not complaining.

OOC: The Green Party did indeed advocate dissolving the Army and leaving NATO in the late 1980s, but they had a snowball's chance in hell getting elected back then. They woke up to reality since though and became a viable electable party. Just so you know.

trekchu

As for the contract, thanks, it will help much.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Just saw this on Fox News: a company doing deep-water oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico just found several wrecks in the Gulf about 200 Miles SE of New Orleans; one of the wrecks is an Ivan Rogov-class assault ship. The Mann: this might be your victim from that failed amphib operation you guys broke up.
Hmmm. If the Rogov has a great gaping hole in the foredeck, it's probably the one I put a Mk-84 into. But yeah, 200 miles SE of New Orleans would be about the right spot where we hit the amphib operation. I hope some aquatic life is enjoying the man-made reefs.

trekchu

TheMann said: ↑
Hmmm. If the Rogov has a great gaping hole in the foredeck, it's probably the one I put a Mk-84 into. But yeah, 200 miles SE of New Orleans would be about the right spot where we hit the amphib operation. I hope some aquatic life is enjoying the man-made reefs.

They do. I was diving in the Gulf a while back, and I came across a frigate or something, and it was teeming with fish and all sorts of plants.

Matt Wiser

Well, those particular wrecks are in 900 to 1100 feet of water, but some are shallow: a charter boat captain found a Kashin-class destroyer and a Krivak frigate in only 75 feet of water, closer to shore. Before I left active duty and joined the AF Reserve, I met a Pararescue Jumper (PJ) who did SCUBA for fun-and was from Mobile; he dived on those two wrecks...lots of fish swimming around, corals and other growth, and a few sharks....he had to kill a Tiger that got too close for comfort. I'll settle for snorkeling, thanks very much. No pics of the wrecks have been released yet, but they will be, once the Navy and the Russian Republic are informed-the wrecks are technically war graves, so the adage "look, but don't touch" applies here.

Lots of old bases that were closed in the 1960s or 70s have been reactivated; San Francisco's old Hamilton AFB was reopened within a month of the war starting, and the old Wendover AFB in Utah (where the unit that dropped the A-bombs on Japan trained) was also reopened. Stead AFB outside Reno is another, and those are just the ones I know about, because I've flown to those bases at one time or another-usually for an air show. Wendover-gawd! Out in the middle of nowhere, the Bonneville Salt Flats (where land speed records are set-and sometimes very spectacular crashes happen) to the east, mountains to the west, not much else, other than the casinos on the Nevada side of I-80. ISTR they reopened Wendover because of the bombing and gunnery range south of there-only people based there are the SAR folks and others who support the range. They do keep the A-bomb pits and the Enola Gay hangar in pretty good shape, though. Been to SF for the airshow that coincides with Fleet Week, however. They've changed since the war: their protests are now once every three or four months instead of the "cause of the week" prewar. And they know not to raise any cackles about Victory Day or Resistance Day-because they sure don't want to be seen as unpatriotic!

Just how many of those Greenies over there were on the KGB's (or Stasi's) payroll? IIRC from the news that most of their government ministers, and half of their parlimentarians were either on the take, or suspected of doing so.

trekchu

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Just how many of those Greenies over there were on the KGB's (or Stasi's) payroll? IIRC from the news that most of their government ministers, and half of their parlimentarians were either on the take, or suspected of doing so.

Can't tell of the top of my head, but I'll e-mail my wife's cousin. He works for the agency that deals with the STASI files.

BlackWave

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Just how many of those Greenies over there were on the KGB's (or Stasi's) payroll? IIRC from the news that most of their government ministers, and half of their parlimentarians were either on the take, or suspected of doing so.
According to my sources, they were mostly innocent but naive. They get infiltrated as the war went on, though.

Sucking the USA into a black hole? Mutated German tanks? All in a day's work here...

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Panzerfaust: how far did the purges reach into North America? That defecting Su-24 crew I mentioned earlier said that there'd been a number of SAF and Soviet Army senior officers arrested, and either sent to penal battalions or just simply shot. They were on their third Regimental CO in two years: one was KIA, the second was arrested and "disappeared", and the third was some Party hack who only flew the minimum flight time for the month, and wasn't much of a combat leader. Btw, they despised the Cubans.
Not surprising...most of the pact forces despised the Cubans, who as my grandfather put it, subscribed to the motto, "8 men shooting and 40 men looting". As for purges...they really began to pick up speed after USAEUR broke out of Houston. Our SIGINT guys would pick up intercepts of whole division staffs being machinegunned in ditches because a staff officer ordered a artillery battalion to move 3 klicks back from the front. By the end, a lot of Ivan's commanders were more reliable than any damn good. And they went to all levels...three separate times the Plains TVD commander was relieved for reasons of "ill health", twice his staff suffered the same fate...and on at least four occasions, we heard KGB regimental commanders saved their brethren the trouble and did it to themselves.....

CiH

Okay, just to clarify a few of the comments from earlier firstly. The remark made about the Tower of London being reopened for business by that Royal Marine Colonel was a joke for the benefit of the camera, nothing more. The most blatant and easily caught evildoers were held at the army military training corrective centre at Berechurch Hall Camp in Colchester to await their eventual trials.

The hanged quislings in the tower incident was the aftermath of a particularly heinous random spree-shooting by a handful of the remaining Warsaw pact security forces who were beyond caring and off their heads on something or other. When they ran out of ammunition, an enraged crowd got stuck in there and not *all* of the baddies were left intact enough to hang.

In general, when it came to squaring accounts in a judicial fashion. there wasn't a death penalty applied, unless it was in the heat of the moment of attempted arrest. We've tended to give out the longest jail terms deemed appropriate for the crime. That's not to say there's been more than a little unsanctioned payback. There is one story which personally affected me which I'll tell you about a little later on. There is an unofficial group, made up of ex-resistance members, sort of working in the shadows who specialize in 'dealing' with quislings that are still on the outside in various creative and non-judicial ways. They call themselves "Traitors Gate" inspired by the incident in the Tower of London I described just now.

Anyway, I'm padding here, time to get back on topic with my life and times during this eventful period. I was released on licence from Camp Eden at the tail-end of an epic illness, but that devious git Grimshaw had made sure that I wasn't going to get away scot-free just yet! Instead of going home, I was transported to Catterick Garrison, the former British Army base and thrown in with a band of the equally unwilling to form a training unit for eventual shipping overseas as a member of a "volunteer" Shtraf battalion to fight with the Soviets!

The conditions were a bit better than at Camp Eden, at least it didn't endanger my shaky health any more. There wasn't any actual training being done, just sitting around in an atmosphere of great uncertainty as things in the wider sense were starting to fall apart properly by then. The rumours were too fantastic to be believed, as if there was an Operation Zeelowe on its way right now. With the hope was fear, as we were still being closely minded by armed members of the quisling forces. We knew that we could be forced to fight against people that we had no inclination to fight and the number one topic of conversation was escaping, although we were very careful about what was said to whom. After about a month of waiting around, the remaining government in London finally decided to make use of our limited talent and motivation.

One August morning, we were put into buses to be driven en-masse to Orgreave Colliery near Sheffield. We were given (wait for it!) armbands to wear with our civilian clothing, indicating our membership of the 'People's Auxiliary Constabulary' and a standard police baton, nothing else. Our deployment was possibly one of the last spasms by the New Labour government to try to restore order as they saw fit. The people we were being sent against, were striking miners. In a supreme irony, these were the very people who were in the vanguard of opposition to the Thatcher government prewar and had been considered fairly loyal in the early days of the New Labour regime. Now even these potential foot-soldiers of the revolution had been alienated by London's incompetence and arrogance. The miners, I found out postwar, had gone on strike, having been unpaid for weeks and barely receiving any supplies even on a barter basis. A common bitter joke going around just before the final downfall went "Aye, we're the first proper socialists in the world, we've achieved perfect communism and abolished money at last!"

Our first reaction would have been to drop the batons the minute we were off the buses and rush to join the miners. However there was a little 'problem' in the form of our handlers, who were armed, and ringing us to make sure that there was no backsliding. However as we were marched closer to the picket lines, it soon became apparent that there were some members of our little band that we had never seen before, men with an unmistakable aura of toughness and competence about them. Suddenly, a series of shots rang out and several of the handlers went down, picked off by hidden snipers. Someone yelled "GET DOWN! GET DOWN!" in a parade-ground voice of command that compelled us to drop to the ground instantly. Concealed weapons were produced, more shots rang out, as our surprised handlers struggled and failed to cope with their demise. Then it was all over. It was as if a boot stamping down on the bit of the human brain that contained the emotion of joy had been suddenly lifted.

We ran over to the miners picket lines cheering. They saw what had happened and we immediately threw our lot in with them. The special forces guys did not stay long, as they had other business in the area, but made sure that those people best able to use them were given the weapons of the recently culled handlers, gave some basic tips about improvising defences to the rest of us before they went. We waited for a week expecting more trouble. It didn't come. When there weren't power cuts, we avidly watched every TV broadcast going, had the radio on permanently using the last precious set of dry-cell batteries that were still left from pre-war days and followed the progress of the reoccupation by this countries' legitimate government. A recce platoon of Scimitar light tanks from the BAOR force, nosing cautiously up the road one misty September morning was the very first personal contact with the forces of the liberation that we had. There was just enough alcohol, carefully hidden for better times, that re-emerged to create a hangover, the like of which I had not experienced since 1984. We were free at last.

I'll pick up a bit of speed in the aftermath. In common with almost all the young men of vaguely military age in Britain, I attempted to enlist. Unfortunately with the abundant manpower supply, the recruiters could pick and choose and I was initially rejected due to my manky eyesight. There was a brief issue with some of my paperwork too, as my release papers from Camp Eden were marked "Reformed and willing to prove it" which was a blatant lie by the camp authorities to get me off their books before I died in there. Then my still-knackered immune system was smashed around by another infection which sort of helped by proving my authenticity as a victim of the camps, but rendered any future involvement with the war effort in a serving capacity impossible due to poor fitness levels.

I recovered slowly, made sure I got properly better and sought to reboot my life from the interruptions and tribulations of the past few years. I do count myself lucky that I was not directly in the path of the attack on the States, especially in one of the nuke zones. I don't do self-pity.

I subsequently got some work helping with the War Crimes Commission as an expert witness and court clerk and document controller which kept me busy for the rest of the war and a fair period afterwards. I had some satisfaction in giving testimony against the survivors of the people running Camp Eden. Barry Grimshaw was not amongst them. He had been arrested by the New Labour authorities just after I had been "released" and was being held at Catterick, without any of us knowing. He was being investigated for corruption. Camp Eden was supposed to be a 'model' camp, even within the imperfect remit of the occupation government and a certain amount of resources had been allocated for this purpose. Barry and a few of his favourites on the camp staff had misappropriated most of these for their own use. The clusterf*ck reality of conditions at Camp Eden had reached the notice of someone in London, so just before the end so he was arrested. When New Labour collapsed, Grimshaw was left to his own devices and being fully aware of his rather dim future prospects, decided to end it all. The liberation forces found him hanging in his cell. (Some joker put on his death certificate "A genuine suicide with no auto-erotic component to the death identified, unfortunately."(!))

The War Crimes Commission carried on and as it slowly wound down, I got into writing for my own benefit more and more. Some of it was relating to my experiences. There are some attempts at recording a proper history, a small trial run of which you are seeing here. I also starting writing freelance on more enjoyable things, reviving my interest in the home and personal computer scene, which had been stopped dead by the outbreak of war and only started to come back again after 1990. If you get any of the UK computer gaming magazines, there are a fair few of my reviews and articles in there.

I also managed to keep my cache of leftist literature which was shipped back from Camp Eden. This came in increasingly useful as time went on.

There was the first wave of big name trials. I'm pretty sure we got all the bigger fish. At least those who didn't get away to the rump surviving soviet statelet in Russia. We did our best with the middle and lower order quislings, but it was inevitable that a lot of these were missed. There have been a few of them trying to come out of their belief closet to try to re-brand themselves as respectable people.

Worse still, there are people who were proven to be full-paid up members of the forces of wrongfulness, who did their jail time, but are trying to act as if they did nothing wrong and the rest of us have got a faulty memory. One thing I might mention, that my cache of original wartime propaganda material is one of the largest surviving collections still remaining. At the time it was produced, the material had a low value among the general population and was quickly 'recycled' for other uses. The words 'toilet' and 'paper' echo eerily through my brain for some reason. This low survival of primary material tends not to help when it comes to recalling 'who said what' back in the day. Which is where I come in!

I have another book coming out, based on my primary sourced reading material. This is intended to be a pretty damning account of the cruel words spoken and written in support of the Soviet occupation of Britain between 1984 and 1987. Many of these words were spoken by people seeking to re-establish themselves back in society and positions of power, pretending that the unpleasantness was nothing to do with them. Look out for "Useful idiots and faithful servants of the Soviet Empire" when it comes out shortly. I think this one will get a US publishing deal, by the way.

The source material has already helped the satirical magazine 'Private Eye' actually win a libel case against one of the most pernicious idiots. This person was a former member of Parliament prewar. He was a Scottish Labour party man, on the extreme left and something of a fanboy of certain Arab Baathist dictators prewar. This person had a reputation for being court-happy if someone took his name in vain. He was successful before because people picked the wrong cause to fight him on, usually corruption. This guy was one of the few people in New Labour actually not on the take, he was a true believer. However when he tried to sue us, my material came up trumps with some very nasty articles that he wrote in one of the propaganda rags, which drop-kicked his lawsuit all the way back to Hampden Park. It had a nice bonus of restarting a War Crimes investigation in that direction. Even if this comes to nothing, there's enough damage done to make sure he crawls back under his stone!

Payback is such fun!

On a more personal note, I met my partner Liesel when I was working full-time for the War Crimes Commission. She was a camp inmate herself at a notorious women-only camp and I was interviewing her for a possible prosecution against the staff members there. Her family background was one of the most incredible of the cold war period. Her father was a devout communist, trade union official, who actually defected TO East Germany in the late 1960's. He really was a true believer in the most blindly devout and religious sense. Anyway, he married a local woman and Liesel was the fruit of that union. When the occupation went down, and the UK was dumped in the Soviet sphere of influence, he was invited to came back to the UK to explain the benefits of the soviet socialist lifestyle to UK citizens. Kind of a charm offensive thing I guess.

Liesel revolted against this. There was partly a normal teenage reaction to parental authority, but she was also perceptive enough to spot the difference between the propaganda and the harsh reality. There weren't many allowances made even for a child of a favoured party member. Liesel was busted for running a resistance safe house. She was spared a death penalty because of her connections, but was sent instead to a living hell of a camp.

With what I found out, I'm glad I wasn't born with a womb to be frank. This camp was run by a bunch of sadistic bull-dykes who kept their prisoners as comfort women in some twisted form of a lesbian separatist utopia. If you did not accept it, you would be sent to an even worse camp which was nothing more than a drive-through brothel for visiting members of the Warsaw Pact security forces seeking a little 'rest and recreation'. Liesel was not a great help with the trial as she was tightly wound up and did not talk a lot about her experiences at all. However, a relationship of sorts slowly developed from that. I was able to talk about my time at Camp Eden and this gave us something in common I guess.

She was closed up tight for about six months, until she found out where her former 'lover' was. That person was living openly and trying to brazen out her role although a trial was pending. Liesel got a pistol from somewhere, got the address, went round one evening and shot her in the face. The bullet was a soft-nosed job, it didn't actually kill that person, but it did take half the jawbone off so Ms Nasty-Knickers looked like Freddy Kreuger, she was left in constant pain and had to be tube-fed by all accounts. Thinking about it, here's something that might be better than a death penalty? Liesel got back, she was visibly a lot more relaxed. She was able to open up (hem!) in other ways that she could not beforehand with me and insisted on this, right away. When the police eventually came around, they had to wait until we had finished!

The Crown Prosecution Service were very understanding. They got a lot of these sort of cases. Liesel got a two year suspended sentence, so no jail time. She's a lot better now and we are very happy to be alive together. A decent counsellor helped there as well. There is one boy of ours, Lucas, who is going through his first stage pilot training in the Royal Air Force. He did not get my manky eye-sight fortunately. He wants to fly a Typhoon Eurofighter, but I remind him that it isn't the end of the world if he doesn't get into that particular cockpit.

The whole business that culminated in her being sent away originally was the end of her father. His party position didn't exempt him from the full stress and anguish of being a parent to a 'disappeared' child in the camp system. When he asked about her, he was told to mind his own business and never speak of her again. He lost faith from there and died of complications from liver cancer postwar.

I think that concludes my tale, in an even more than epic installment. See you later.

Matt Wiser

Hey Trekchu, was that frigate a Krivak, with a Kashin destroyer about a half mile to the west? If so, those were the same wrecks the PJ dived. You might check the Naval Historical Center for info on the ships and who sank them. That PJ said that the Krivak was in pretty decent shape, though with a missile hole in the port side just aft of the superstructure. The destroyer, though, had been blown in half, with the bow section sitting upright on the bottom, but the stern on its starboard side, and a large field of debris between the two pieces.

The Cubans may have been despised by the Russians, but there was no denying how tough they were in the first few months of the war. I remember when flying CAS for 3rd ACR's flight up up from El Paso and then Alamogordo, and the Cubans were the main component of the invasion force there: they didn't stop for nuthin', no matter how much armor or other vehicles they lost, how many casualties, they just kept on going. And it wasn't just there; Louisiana, Colorado, etc. But those were their Cat 1 and 2 divisions. The Cat III and mobilization-only ones, though, where discipline was less than stringent....

Looks like someone's in constant demand by lawyers-seeking to prove if person X was a collaborator or worse. There's a lot of that here, too. I know an ex-POW who kept all the propaganda material his captors gave him, instead of using it as toilet paper as most other POWs did. He uses that material on his blog, especially when collaborators or leftie cheerleaders think it's safe to come out of the closet. He got a medical retirement from the Air Force a couple years after the war, because his shoot-down injuries had been undertreated while in captivity. In his day job, he teaches history at the USAF Academy.

jacobus

It took about three weeks from the first infantryman's boot touching the pier at Milford Haven, to the Union Jack being raised over Buckingham Palace.

What flag did the New Labour collaborationist regime use?

Pyro

Oh yeah, with the upcoming release of the Captain America movie next week, I'm just wondering if any of you that served in forces during WWIII got any of the "Captain America" comics published during the war. Many of the editors and executives of both Marvel and DC Comics were killed when the nuke hit NYC, so no new comics were published for about a year. However, many writers and artists across the unoccupied United States and Canada survived, and if memory serves, Stan Lee himself was in Los Angeles at the time and continued the Captain America title himself to use as morale booster. Heck, I hear hundreds, if not thousands of comics were smuggled across the Rockies and the Mississippi into the ComBlock-occupied states.

Can any of you confirm this? I'm a bit of a comics nut after Time-Warner revived DC Comics, and a resurrected Marvel reluanched several of its titles including Avengers and Iron Man back in the mid 1990s.

From page 28

CiH

The reason some of us in the States are somewhat familiar with that scoundrel is that it's said that Ivan brought him over here, as he made some TV appearances on that "People's Television and Radio Service" that Ivan set up in the occupied zone. That ex-POW I mentioned said that some Brit did come over and met some POWs at the camp he was in (not that the POWs had a choice...), and the man said he was a member of both the prewar parliment and the "People's Assembly". I'm surprised the Justice Department over here hasn't gotten an indictment of this guy.

Our mutual friend was deselected as a member of parliament and disowned by his local Labour party association pretty quickly after the liberation. He did do some prison time for aiding and comforting the enemy as well. More than a couple of people said that he was lucky not to get the same treatment as William Joyce, aka "Lord Haw-Haw" did after the Second World War.

I guess he's not been killed off yet (although he loudly and constantly claims many attempts on his life) as people want to keep a reminder of just how stupid and annoying the average fellow traveller was.

One thing which became apparent afterwards, was that the Occupation government were careful enough not to give this man any real power or job responsibility. He was a big mouth with a talent for pissing people off prewar as well, so they tended to pack him off away on overseas "goodwill" tours as much as possible.

As a result, the problem is pinning anything really substantial on him by way of a war crimes investigation. We know he was socially friendly with a lot of the really evil bastards, ("Onward, victory! Victory in Washington!" and all that crap) but he doesn't seem to have any signatures on any death warrants discovered so far.

He keeps trying to worm his way back into public life, formed a fringe party to try to get back into parliament but even this split apart from in-fighting. The Private Eye incident didn't help his chances either!

Matt Wiser

If there was a serious attempt on his life, given the quality shooters we'd send after him, (in theory, honest!), he'd be in his workers' paradise: a plot six feet by six feet by three feet....Not to mention that there'd be those over in the UK who would rejoice at seeing him dead, and doubtless would try themselves, if given the chance. We've gone after people here for less than what this clown said and did; some are still in Federal Prison, others are....ambient temperature. If he did get snatched and brought here, the grand jury indictment would be unsealed, and that's that. The only question then would be if this guy acts as his own lawyer, and defends himself straight into Federal Prison, or gets some legal talent to help him out, and maybe go from a life sentence (about 50% get that) to x number of years (usually 20-40, but there are some stiffer sentences: one leader of a "Soviet-American Friendship Committee" in Oklahoma wound up getting Life plus 150 for his misdeeds). And even the ones acquitted wind up heading for either Havana or Moscow, as many were doubtless guilty, but as they say "not enough beyond a reasonable doubt" to convict. And the Supreme Court (still at the Greenbriar while the final stages of D.C's reconstruction wrap up) hasn't been sympathetic to appeals claiming "cruel and unusual punishment" as a result of such lengthy prison terms.

trekchu

One of these aquitted lives near me. He claims that he was pressured into doing it by the old "gun is always right" thing. I don't believe him though, because it's a bit convenient that all the evidence against him disappeared a few weeks before his trial.

gtrof

Has anyone dabbled in the AH material about the war that has come out in the last five years? I read Red Star Victorious and was disappointed. However Watch on the Miss was excellent. Looks at the results of a much earlier 3rd Army offensive in the west, they concluded that it might have been possible to trap the northern most ComBloc forces. Might have shaved a year or two off the war.

BlackWave

gtrof said: Has anyone dabbled in the AH material about the war that has come out in the last five years? I read Red Star Victorious and was disappointed. However Watch on the Miss was excellent. Looks at the results of a much earlier 3rd Army offensive in the west, they concluded that it might have been possible to trap the northern most ComBloc forces. Might have shaved a year or two off the war.

Hammer and Sickle over America is interesting--well-written and researched. It has a POD of several, the main being that that convoy near Denver is destroyed by a Soviet airstrike, cutting off vital supplies to the Rockies, allowing the Sovs to eventually overrun the entire US and dominate the world. It's very dark, and basically is about what would happen if the Soviets continued to smash our teeth in instead of us rallying. And personally, while WoM was a good read, IMO we didn't simply have the supplies or co-ordination back then to trap the enemy forces there. Slow them down a bit, maybe, but nothing as drastic as it suggests.

Matt Wiser

I agree, Red Star Victorious was pretty disappointing. Watch on the Miss, though, was pretty good; the author started out as a tank platoon leader in the early days, didn't he? And wound up a Lt. Col. before it was over. I believe he wargamed it out with several other battalion COs who thought they were on too tight a leash. Gen. Colin Powell wanted to pull something off like that, because one of the guys in 334th TFS served as his ALO for a while, and Powell was furious at 3rd Army for not letting cross the Mississippi when he could. Powell was running VIII Corps at that time, I believe. And when did he get 3rd Army? Early '87 is the earliest I find in books mentioning him in command.

There is a guy who teaches at a community college in Twin Falls, east of Mountain Home, who was also acquitted. He claimed that he had been given a choice of serving in an Auxiliary Unit or going to a labor camp (it took place in Oklahoma), and he chose the former. The evidence against him was pretty good, but he had a good lawyer, who was one of the types who became a specialist at defending accused collaborators. But it was a double-edged sword: one of the guy's defense witnesses wound up implicating himself in a few nasty things, and wound up getting fifty years at his own trial. I'm actually surprised the man's still alive, let alone teaching. People have been either run out of town or lynched after getting off at trial. Emotions aren't as strong now as they were back then, of course, but still...all it takes is one trial to bring up a lot of bad memories.

How'd the Army determine partisan ranks, not just in wartime, but for vets' benefits and so on? IIRC from reading about MacArthur in WW II, he made every guerilla chief in the Philippines either a Lt. Col. or a full Col.

Pyro

A friend of mine scored tickets to an advance screening of Captain America in Calgary (apparently, there are advance screenings of the movie in every major city that was under ComBloc occupation) and invited me to go along with him. All I can say is wow-- just wow. Heath Ledger made an excellent Cap, and Ed Harris a chilling Red Skull. I definitely wouldn't suggest taking your kids to see it, Steven Spielberg went out his way to make this movie a "war" movie first, and a "superhero" movie second. The scenes of the Siege of Denver are frighteningly realistic and stir some unpleasant childhood memories for me.

I remember reading in Multiverse: The Comics Magazine how that revamp of Captain America's origin to fit WWIII was very controversial among older fans, ended up selling like hotcakes upon its launch in 1993. Pre-relaunch comics are somewhat rare these days so I cannot draw a proper comparison, but I definitely like how they make his sidekick James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes a partisan in the vein of the Wolverines and made the Red Skull a KGB agent who definitely takes after the infamous Colonel Sergei Khvostov to a tee. The other relaunch titles Iron Man and Avengers hit the stands without much fuss. Probably because Iron Man's revamped origin is close enough to his old one. Fantastic Four's a pleasant read. Spider-Man's popularity never really recovered to it's pre-war levels, even with the relocation to LA. Uncanny X-Men and the Mighty Thor were pretty much DOA.

As for DC, I hear there's a Superman movie in the pipeline but I would prefer a Justice League film myself. The 1995 crossover, Invasion: Earth, is pretty much a science fiction version of WWIII. Just substitute the Soviet Union with Mongul and his "Alien Alliance", and replace the United States and her allies with the Justice League and the other DC heroes, and you get the point.

Anyhow, I highly recommend spending the $10 to see Captain America in theatres this Wednesday. I'd love to hear the opinions of some veterans.

jacobus

I wonder what kind of markings British collaborationist aircraft and vehicles had? Most of the British forces' weapons, ships, etc. were of course in the hands of the British forces answerable to the Royal government-in-exile. But I guess they had something to get around in?

A good symbol for the New Labor forces would have been a red star, with three yellow leopards.

Matt Wiser

Didn't the collaborationist British government have practically no air force or navy? IIRC the Royal Navy took everything that could cross the Atlantic under its own power-even merchant ships were ordered to sail for North America-(what couldn't be sailed was scuttled) and the RAF, along with British Airways, flew to airports in Canada or the U.S. East Coast. Didn't the Government-in-Exile set up temporary quarters aboard the QE 2, until more suitable arrangements could be made with the Canadians? ISTR this in a documentary on the History Channel about her long service in peace and in two wars.

The Reds had a new U.S. flag planned: it was basically the same as Old Glory, but with the stars replaced by a single Hammer and Sickle. The only places you can find those now are in museums, thank heaven. Victory Day celebrations in what was occupied territory found a lot of those getting burned on impromptou bonfires.

Knowing people who flew missions during the Siege of Denver, it'll be an interesting thing to see. Spielberg's done some great work, and it was said that he originally wanted Saving Private Ryan to be a D-Day story, but decided to set it during the Battle of Houston in that June of '88. One thing about it: he didn't spare the details of that landing by 2nd and 6th Marine Divisions south of Galveston....

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: How'd the Army determine partisan ranks, not just in wartime, but for vets' benefits and so on? IIRC from reading about MacArthur in WW II, he made every guerilla chief in the Philippines either a Lt. Col. or a full Col.

A lot of guesswork and hairsplitting...it's not perfect, but they do do a lot to make it fair. The kid I mentioned was discharged as a Staff Sargent because he'd been helping to coordinate three or four different partisan bands of about a dozen people each..he wasn't the guy...but he was involved..that's NCO work. So, voila, he's an E-6.

Matt Wiser said: Panzerfaust, you mentioned someone who'd been with 6th ID up in Alaska earlier...that was another division that had to be literally rebuilt. One brigade never made it out of Alaska, while another got ground to pieces somewhere in the Yukon, and the survivors were lucky enough to get away-all those MiGs, Sukhois, and Hinds roaming around. Just like the Army, the AF up there just got plain overwhelmed. Getting caught on the ground at Elmendorf by a three-regiment Backfire strike didn't help things any-all those AS-4s incoming...

Yeah, my faculty advisor, he said they'd had to fight their way out of Fort Wainright....right from the damn motor pool. They fought their way as scattered bands down the old Alcan to Vancouver, with half the Russian army behind them...he'd gotten hit not far from Vancouver and did the rest of the war either in a hospital, or after that, doing QC at the H&R M16 plant in Worcerster, Massachusetts.

Pyro said: A friend of mine scored tickets to an advance screening of Captain America in Calgary (apparently, there are advance screenings of the movie in every major city that was under ComBloc occupation) and invited me to go along with him. All I can say is wow-- just wow. Heath Ledger made an excellent Cap, and Ed Harris a chilling Red Skull. I definitely wouldn't suggest taking your kids to see it, Steven Spielberg went out his way to make this movie a "war" movie first, and a "superhero" movie second. The scenes of the Siege of Denver are frighteningly realistic and stir some unpleasant childhood memories for me.

Been told seeing it may not be a good idea for me by my VA doc...acute PTSD having to do with my work at the Tier I and II trials.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: Didn't the collaborationist British government have practically no air force or navy? IIRC the Royal Navy took everything that could cross the Atlantic under its own power-even merchant ships were ordered to sail for North America-(what couldn't be sailed was scuttled) and the RAF, along with British Airways, flew to airports in Canada or the U.S. East Coast. Didn't the Government-in-Exile set up temporary quarters aboard the QE 2, until more suitable arrangements could be made with the Canadians? ISTR this in a documentary on the History Channel about her long service in peace and in two wars.

Yep, that's right. QE 2 went from Southampton to Halifax with a mountain of RN ships, - crap, just about anything that floated that could be used in a war - and when the RAF bugged out on them we made sure there was lots of tankers in the Atlantic to refuel the British fighters. Those two pilots in the Tornado ADVs who saved my bacon were among those who flew over. QE 2 stayed the British Government for about three weeks, before the CF Air Command scrounged one of their Airbuses to fly the government to its new base in Toronto.

The Invincibles were the British flagships, but in practice they tended to end up being ASW escorts for the American ships. HMS Hermes was lost doing that. I think that's why Britain bought that refurbished Essex after the war - they decided they needed to have more capability than a Harrier carrier could provide. Their Phantoms got better range than our F-4s, but they were slower as a result - Spey turbofan engines have their drawbacks. That didn't stop them from being deployed with some of the carriers, though. My bro says that when he was on Kitty Hawk's last deployment before she took the AS-4s, they had an RN FAA squadron on board, Spey Phantoms that quickly got modified to use American weapons. I best know the Tornado ADVs because I flew with them a few times. Decent airplanes with very good pilots at the controls.

The French, Spanish and Italians flew and sailed a lot of stuff over, too. All of the NATO E-3s got out, too - we were glad those got over here, we needed them. The French even got their three prototype Dassault Rafales out - and by the end of the war, they were rolling off the lines of a plant in a Detroit suburb. My squadron was told that the AF was seriously considering equipping osme of the squadrons with Rafales. I never flew one, but I hear they wer pretty good planes. They must be if the AF Brass is gonna consider a French Airplane. :eek:

Matt Wiser said: The Reds had a new U.S. flag planned: it was basically the same as Old Glory, but with the stars replaced by a single Hammer and Sickle. The only places you can find those now are in museums, thank heaven. Victory Day celebrations in what was occupied territory found a lot of those getting burned on impromptou bonfires.

They shouldn't even be there, if you ask me. The Russkies got driven at the cost of God knows how many American and Allied lives, and we should have forced the USSR to raise the Stars and Stripes.

Matt Wiser said: Knowing people who flew missions during the Siege of Denver, it'll be an interesting thing to see. Spielberg's done some great work, and it was said that he originally wanted Saving Private Ryan to be a D-Day story, but decided to set it during the Battle of Houston in that June of '88. One thing about it: he didn't spare the details of that landing by 2nd and 6th Marine Divisions south of Galveston....

Speaking of this, Matt, I know that Tony and Ridley Scott are working on a movie exclusively about the Air Forces in WWIII. One of the researchers for the movie came to interview me about it, and I told him my story. I also told him about you and your backseater eventually getting married. I get the feeling you'll get a visit from those researchers, because this guy's eyes lit up like sunshine when I told him about you and your backseater.

I've been hearing as well that the producers want to shoot as much of it in real life as possible, and they have been trying to get as many aircraft as they can to help them shoot the movie. I know that they have been at AMARC getting as many flyable planes as possible. The AF likes the idea and apparently likes these two guys, so they are co-operating fully.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Knowing people who flew missions during the Siege of Denver, it'll be an interesting thing to see. Spielberg's done some great work, and it was said that he originally wanted Saving Private Ryan to be a D-Day story, but decided to set it during the Battle of Houston in that June of '88. One thing about it: he didn't spare the details of that landing by 2nd and 6th Marine Divisions south of Galveston....

From what I read...Spielberg was badly affected by the attacks on LA during the war by the SAF...he lost a lot of friends...George Lucas, Tom Cruise, Roy Scheider, it affected him and many say his movies took a darker turn..then there was Richard Dryfuss. That was a really sad one. The SAF caught him in a snap raid in an area where they were filming a PSA for war relief...his death was caught on camera.

Pyro

Matt Wiser said: the Reds had a new U.S. flag planned: it was basically the same as Old Glory, but with the stars replaced by a single Hammer and Sickle. The only places you can find those now are in museums, thank heaven. Victory Day celebrations in what was occupied territory found a lot of those getting burned on impromptou bonfires.

I remember witnessing one of those bonfires when I was five years old (I think). Looking back on it now I wonder what plans the Soviet Union had for Western Canada. Being too young to remember the exact details, I wonder if British Columbia and Alberta were to become part of a "Socialist Republic of America" or Ivan was planning to take all of Canada.

BlackWave

Pyro said: I remember witnessing one of those bonfires when I was five years old (I think). Looking back on it now I wonder what plans the Soviet Union had for Western Canada. Being too young to remember the exact details, I wonder if British Columbia and Alberta were to become part of a "Socialist Republic of America" or Ivan was planning to take all of Canada.

According to my sources and personal knowledge, the northern territories would have been left untouched--they didn't have the strength to occupy them all, and they didn't think them as worth it anyway. As far as Ivan was concerned, the US was the most important and juiciest trophy.

Matt Wiser

Lisa and I will be waiting to hear from the Scott brothers. If they want to come up to Mountain Home and Hill, we'll arrange a backseat ride in F-15Es if they want one. They can't use our F-4, though: she's at Castle AFB's museum as was previously mentioned. But there's enough Es at AMARC to repaint a couple. Of my 650+ missions, we shared about 500+. And we weren't the only such couple-one other in 335, and several F-4 crews in other units, and there were a few F-14 ones, along with several A-6 and F-111 crews that tied the knot postwar. They may also be interested in this: SAC had two all-female B-52 crews by the Summer of '86, and in '87, an all-female B-1 crew. All three made it to the end. Postwar, all three crews were offered lots of money by certain magazines to pose with less than their normal flight gear on...they all politely declined.

IIRC Colo. State Sen. Erica Mason was given an E-5 when she got her discharge. She did ask for a posthemous rank award to the two brothers, but I haven't heard if they got it or not. I called Sheriff Lori Sheppard today: she gladly has her discharge papers framed in her office: because she wound up leading a band when the original group got too big, she was made a 2nd Lt.

There were exactly four F-15s that survived Alaska out of Elmendorf, and two A-10s from Eielson (Fairbanks). Everyone else either caught on the ground or lost in the air. The four that survived were the QRA that got off the ground, while the A-10s (and the F-4Es that supported them) were just plain overwhelmed. The highest-ranking pilot to survive was the Captain who led that QRA flight, but the highest ranking A-10 driver was a 1st Lt.