Quite frankly, he was surprised that Stalin had attacked when he did. He had a feeling that the pock-marked butcher was not feeling so well… or so invincible and saw the end coming. He could not stay up and drink like he used to and missed many days of work with the Ruling Circle having to take over the day to day operations. He didn’t even seem to take pleasure in the once almost nightly movie viewing sessions. Thank goodness we only had one last month.
The British were on their last legs, and Zhukov is just about to break out into the plains of Spain. His ultimate goal will be to rid the continent of the last resistance of capitalism and to capture Gibraltar. Then a thrust through Turkey and into Egypt and the Mediterranean is a Soviet lake like the Baltic and Black Sea.
But where are the Americans? Yes, a few squadrons of USAAF jets were in Britain but not in the numbers expected by any means. It wouldn’t have mattered with the strategy they had devised but the first few days might have been filled with much heavier losses, but the end would have been the same. The Americans could not take the losses that the Brits, and we could sustain. 10% losses and they stop fighting. A far cry from what we are used too and the Germans as well. Their public is horrified at seeing bodies coming home where as ours understand the noble cause that is being fought over. Their consumerism has made them fat, dumb and too complacent. That will end soon.
I wonder how the British people would react to a 2000 plane raid that just flew over London and did not drop any bombs only leaflets. That would be quite an impressive sight. And he could do it. He could mount such a raid and still keep the pressure up everywhere a nest of anti-aircraft guns tried to shoot his brave pilots down. A hail of bullets, rockets or napalm was all it took to destroy them now. Now he knew how the Germans had felt near the end. Losing control of your skies is a terrible thing in modern warfare.
The only problem in the future was the location of the American super heavy bombers. He had been truly filled with fear when Beria had confided in him his concerns for the Transcaucasia Front. When Beria had contacted him about the clandestine meeting, he feared that he was plotting against Stalin. Would it be a trick or would he be serious, and if he answered wrong would he be tied to one of Beria’s chairs for the short time he had left on earth screaming in pain? When they finally met he was almost relieved when Beria expressed his real concerns. What the hell did he mean when he said his “assets had been compromised” in North Africa? If he lost his agents why didn’t he say so? Bureaucratic double talk from the master.
The window of vulnerability will be short, only three weeks, but it will be critical. He was moving heaven and earth to shift his units to cover the vital oil fields north of the Black sea and Caucasus Mountain range. Luckily, the new Borscht units were headed there anyway even before the realizations that the back door was wide open. Those improved versions of the German He 162 would suffice until the modern jet MiG was ready. The Borscht was cheap and fast to make and easy to fly. Not the kind of plane you could use for the offense but the perfect point defense weapon. Combined with the Stalin’s Fire missile, the renamed Wasserfal, they could put a stop to any raids until the full force of the VVS got into position. The soft Amerikosi cannot endure real losses and will halt any bombing campaign with what they will deem unacceptable losses.
In the past that had meant anything more than 15%. He had units of Sturmovik keep flying after 80% losses, and the pilots volunteered for the next mission and almost certain death. No, the Americans knew nothing of real sacrifice, and will wither if they incur truly heavy losses, and they will tuck their tails once again if they even dare but first we have to not even give them an opportunity. He will have to check on a few of his commanders and possibly create a few widows if things are going too slow.
He would take a good long examination of the Fourth Air Army’s commander Vershinin and his efforts. He did not like the way he look at him the last time they met. A kind of a smirk or unwarranted grin had passed between them. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on it, but he could put more than his finger on Vershinsin.
I could see that the Red planes were hunting for us. Looking real hard, flying slow trying to catch a glimpse of something that would give away our position, a mirror catching the right angle of possibly a canopy, things like that. A few were flying so low and slow just inviting us to shoot at them. We knew better. We had heard of other units that maybe even shot down one or two but the vengeance delivered upon them was awful to behold. I curse the inventor of napalm.[41] Wicked stuff and we never should have started using it on the Japs or any other human. No better way to get yourself killed and fried alive than to shoot at a flying commie plane in those days. They had us so outnumbered and seemed to hate any kind of ground fire. They swarmed like bees at this point if you shot at them.
We were planning at least one more go at them just cause we were stubborn. Kind of like those two German fighters that buzzed the D-day landings. Fighter Command was keeping most of us grounded and under cover and spread out, what few of us that remained that is. My squadron was down to 5 Spits. Hell we had a hundred pilots but no planes. When I think of all those planes we dumped in the ocean. I was on the HS Formidable off the coast of Australia when the word came down after VJ Day to just dump all those beautiful Corsair IVs off the flight deck. I pushed my own bird off. If we kept them we would have to pay the Yanks under Lend Lease so it was decided to just dump them. It broke my heart and we could certainly have used them now.
Oh god I wish I had my old bird back. Not that the Spit is so bad but you just got used to all that power of the Corsair. I think if we had all those Corsairs back we could have won this round, but we didn’t so we had to make do. We drew straws to see who would get to fly if word came down to gather. Even with having the best air command system in the world it’s hard to overcome the odds we were fighting.
That same day we got word that Ivan was attacking the radar stations. We had to scramble for that. That was probably part of their plan. I remember taking the plane out from under the camo and waiting for operations to give the go ahead to take off. We had to do it quick because you never knew if one of those Red bastard medium bombers would show up. Our area seemed to be filled with ones that had sharks mouths painted on the nose. I finally got the word to head for London. Bang-on I thought, it seems they were going to try and gather for a large attack and hoped to catch and isolate some of the attackers.
It took a long time to form up as we were now spread out all over the place in ones and twos so we could hide better. Who would have ever thought that we would have to hide from anyone after defeating the Germans, but hide we did. With only bits and pieces of all these scattered squadrons meeting for the first time it took us a while to form up properly. By that time the word had spread and the Reds came from all over to mix it up. It was utter chaos with planes flying all over with no thought of control or even proper wingman behavior. My wingman thought I was his wingman and both of us took the initiative and lost each other from the get go. It was like something from out of that movie Wings from the thirties but at four times the speed. Planes cart wheeling out of control and heading for the ground in flames. You had to dodge pieces of flaming wrecks falling all around you.