“However, surrendering a force like this requires organization and negotiation. The Russian commander, what's his name ... Rokossovski .... knows that as well. He wants a meeting so we can make the arrangements to surrender our forces. That meeting will be our chance to see what we can negotiate. We have a few cards we can play. Russia has been bled white, they'll want to avoid casualties if they possibly can and we are in Russian soil, they will not want the Americans dropping hellburners on us if it can be avoided. If we can make an agreement out of that, get our people treated decently, then it’s the best we can achieve. If not..”
“We fight”
“Exactly. But remember this, our country has capitulated and we are under orders to surrender. If we fight, we do so as lawless brigands and bandits. And that. General Skorzeny, means we would have no right to expect mercy from anybody.”
Khabarovsk, Siberia, Russia
The bands had been practicing their display for weeks and had got it down perfectly. The two, one Russian, one American, stood side by side on the parade ground belting out a long series of military marches. The spectacle was that only one band was playing at a time, they were switching program between them, never missing a beat with the transitions. Unless the spectators looked, there was no way to tell which was playing at any given time. Few thought to do so, it didn't really matter who was playing and, anyway, the spectacle in front was too, well, spectacular.
The American units were drawn up in front of the parade stand. One by one, the color bearer of each was stepping forward and the regimental color was dipped and cased. Then, carrying the furled color, the bearer stepped back while the Russian units opposite held their salute. The ceremony was marking the end of an era. The 84th Infantry Division was going home, and with it FUSAG-Russia, the First United States Army Group Russia was standing down. The men would be leaving by the big C-99 transports that had brought them, their equipment, the tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, trucks, would stay, donated to the Russians. A generous gesture, one not entirely prompted by the truth that it would cost more than the equipment was worth to ship it home. But, the men were going home, after five years away. First in, first out was fair enough but not too much of a sacrifice for the others. SUSAG-Russia would be following within months.
Some of the crowd were watching the figures on the parade stand. Two figures in particular, the dour, glowering figure of President Zhukov and, next to him, the dashing General Patton. Thunder and Lightning the Germans had called the pair and they had never worked out which they feared the most. Fighting Zhukov was a grim death-grapple with an enemy who never gave up and never gave in. Once battle was joined it went on until exhaustion prevented its continuing any longer. Fighting Patton was a different matter entirely, an exchange of maneuvers, a slashing exchange of blows, of American units that could mysteriously chance their facing through 90 degrees overnight, who would turn up hundreds of kilometers from where they were supposed to be.
Colonel Yvegeni Valerin was one of those who watched the Generals, not the parade. One of Zhukov's staff officers, it was his job to sort through the vast mountain of equipment that the Americans were leaving behind. Some of it was destined for the units reclaiming the captured territories in the West. The armored personnel carriers for example, they were proving a major revolution in fighting the groups of bandits that infested the area between Moscow and the pre-war frontier. Then there was the task of patrolling the new borders, making sure that the soil of Mother Russia was protected again. The American armored cars were good for that. And the artillery, Valerin was a good Russian soldier and a good Russian soldier never threw artillery away. Something the Germans had learned to their cost when the Russian Army lined their guns up wheel-to-wheel and blasted holes in the German positions by sheer weight of steel. Then there were the trucks. The scale of issue of motor transport in an American unit had stunned the Russians. Even in an infantry division, it seemed that nobody in the American Army walked.
But the American tanks? The M-26 in all its versions was hopelessly obsolete. It even had a gasoline engine, something the Russians and the Germans had dumped early on in the war. The later M-46 had a diesel engine and a new 90mm gun, one that outperformed both the German 88mm and the Russian 100mm. Well, the early versions of the 100 anyway, the Americans had sat down with the Russian designers, shown them a few tricks and some new ammunition concepts and the 100 had suddenly become a feared tank-killer. In exchange, the Russians had taken a look at the layout and armor on the M-46, shuddered and started to show the Americans a few tricks and the concept of sloping armor plate. The full result of the co-operation wasn't available yet, but would be soon. The American's new M-48 was much more Russian than the Americans liked to admit while the new Russian T-54 was much more American than the Russians liked to concede.
No, the American tanks and so much else of the donated equipment would be scrapped, its metal going into the blast furnaces that fed the huge armament industries around Khabarovsk. When Valerin had arrived here, back in 1942, it had been a small Siberian town, a backwater noted only for its vast railway marshaling yard. However, that yard had made it suitable for relocation of the industries that had been evacuated from the west and provide homes for the refugees who had fled from the Germans.
Then, the Americans had started to arrive, a trickle at first, then an ever-growing tide. When the Americans had arrived, they built things. Like a runway so large everybody else thought they were joking — until the first of the six-engined C-99 transports had started to land. They'd been landing steadily ever since, an Air Bridge the Americans called it, pouring men and equipment directly from American factories into the Armies fighting in Russia. The heavy stuff had come by sea, landing in the port of Vladivostok but the men and the priority equipment had come by air.
The Americans had done more than just build an airstrip. They'd started building factories so that they wouldn't have to fly common articles from America. They'd started to build oil refineries so they wouldn't have to ship refined oil products in. Their ''production engineers” had gone around the Russian built factories and suggested changes, a few things here, a few there. And Russian production had soared. Now Khabarovsk and dozens of towns like it in what had once been the wilderness of Siberia had become thriving industrial centers. Lately, the Americans were speaking of something else. Oil. Their petroleum explorers had come to Siberia and looked around, then got very excited. Siberia was oil-rich. Getting at it was going to be a problem but where there was a will there was a way.
Now, the Americans were going home. A wise decision. They had done their share; they had helped Russian hold the line against the onslaught from Germany. But, Germany had been defeated and now, Russia had to be recovered by Russians. Only there was something else happening. With Russia-in-the-west occupied, Russia-in-the-east had become an economic powerhouse in its own right. And now Japan, freshly installed along its recently-conquered Chinese border was eyeing that powerhouse.
Flight Deck B-36H “Texan Lady”, Final Approach, Sheremetevo Airbase, Russia