London, The U.K.
06:36 hours
June 17th, 1946
“The trap has been set, and the bait is in position I presume.”
“Most certainly Prime Minister; it will be something to behold. It all depends on how aggressive the Reds are but from what we’ve seen; they will blunder their way into it no matter what. The common soldier is more afraid of the commissars than he is of death itself. We expect them to come in fast and furious, with everything they have. The only tip-off might be the massive air umbrella we are going to put up, but they should expect that being so close to England.”
“We have tricked the Slav before, and I suspect this will do it again. Uncle Joe will be beside himself if this works and maybe the damage will be so great that he will take pause and possibly even sack his commanders. They have done an excellent job, so far, by the way. They are worthy opponents, as the Germans found out. I do love going up against a good adversary, but war is war. We shall have to plant the seeds of doubt after the plan is carried out and make it look obvious what we had in mind all along so that Zhukov and gang look like fools, for falling into so obvious a trap. We could even make it look like they were assisting us somehow. Likely wishful thinking, but Joe is exceedingly paranoid and mentally unstable.”
“This should push him over the edge, and possibly cause another purge, thus depriving him of his best commanders, once again. My major concern is making sure the bait can get out in time.”
“Don’t worry sir, we have everything well in hand, and expect that the air cover over the area will prevent any interference with the evacuation of the rear guard. There are enough Frenchmen who no longer wish to retreat, and do not want to leave France to make it look convincing for quite a while. If all goes as planned it should be all over in a matter of hours. The Soviets will be so stunned that it will take days to react. And even then, they will be extremely reluctant to get near the coast again. We estimate it will take two weeks for them to recover and discover exactly what happened.”
“Well Admiral, even if they don’t ride into the trap, it will still hold their attention and keep their eye off the ball as the Yanks say, and the rear guard will still get away, to fight again. Uncle Joe thinks this will be his answer to Dunkirk, but we shall make it his Charge of the Light Brigade.”
Between Paris and Le Havre
June 20th, 1946
Northern Group of Forces
“I am worried Marshal Sokolovsky. The Americans have disappeared from the frontlines. We cannot penetrate past the air units of the capitalists, and we are blind as to what lies south of us, as well as along the French coast. It is a stalemate in the air war. We are blind to their intentions and can prevent their ground attack units from attacking, but we are also blind and cannot use our Sturmoviks. We gave their bombers a bloody nose, but they will be back. That was only the British. Where are the Americans?”
“Don’t worry Filipp. The Yankees are just the first in line to get on the boats. You’ve seen the newsreels and reports from England complaining about how the Americans are getting to go on the transports first. Our southern flank is well guarded by the Western Group of Forces. The 1st, 2nd and 4th Guard Tank Armies are in position to overrun the last organized capitalist forces in Europe. We will not make the same mistakes the Nazis did. We don’t need the air forces to crush what forces remain trapped along the coast. We just need them to keep the enemies planes from disrupting our plans. We have stopped the air forces of the capitalists at every turn, and as demonstrated, our tanks are vastly superior to theirs. We shall cut them to pieces and use them for fish bait. They are finished on European soil. It’s time to look towards the oil in the Mideast. We don’t need it, but they do.”
In the English Channel,
8 kilometers off the French coast,
Near Le Havre
June 20th, 1946
04:54 hours
The Soviets have pinned down what they believe are the last surviving fighting units of the NATO in Western Europe, cordoned into a 60-mile perimeter, around Le Havre, France. Assigned to the assault are 753 of the Soviets newest heavy tanks. Model Josef Stalin-3’s and T-44’s are lined-up, tread to tread. 4,623 guns, rocket launchers and mortars, are ready to fire, on command. 453,163 men are manning the guns and tanks, or on foot. They are anxious to get it over with and start the assault.
Just over the horizon, there appears one of the grandest sights ever seen in naval history. The largest fleet of modern battleships ever assembled starts to come into view. The white frothing of bow waves are visible, as these creations of human ingenuity move through the surprisingly calm waters. They are on a mission. This mission means the destruction of tens of thousands of fellow human beings, and their weapons of war.
Overhead, the skies are filled with an umbrella of warplanes many of them coming from the over twenty fleet aircraft carriers combined into another great fleet, whose task it is to guard the safety of the stately floating steel fortresses below. Over 600 ship-borne fighter aircraft combined along with a further 1,203 land-based fighters, into a tightly-choreographed display of military might. All of this power is concentrated in a 50-square mile patch of the English Channel.
This patch of concentrated power, in concert with sixteen- and fourteen-inch naval artillery, is highly mobile and ready to move to where it is most needed. The salvos begin coming in from just over the horizon. They come seemingly, from nowhere, to wreak havoc and destruction, on an unprecedented and unimaginable scale. They possess an accuracy that no other weapons system of the era can match.
According to an after-action report of Operation Neptune, submitted by the German High Command after D-Day, “a cruiser may be compared with a regiment of artillery. Battleships, carrying 38- or 40-cm guns, have a firepower which is difficult to achieve in land warfare, and is only possible by an unusual concentration of extraordinarily heavy batteries.” Only a small number of railroad guns can match their size and range. There are over 450 of these guns in this fleet, moving at up to 15 knots.[20]
Blinded by the air umbrella put up by the NATO forces, the Soviet Tank Armies start their advance anyway. Spotter planes cruise up and down the coast guarded by NATO fighters. The first ranging salvos cause no concern among the Soviet Generals, as they unleash their artillery blindly into the enemy’s enclave, hoping to silence the artillery that remains among the opposing forces. However the naval guns far outrange the Soviet artillery, and concern grows as the salvos from the massive sixteen-inch naval guns start to land far inland. Shells of massive proportions are fired from guns of unimaginable power which have been waiting, since the day they were assembled, to do what they were designed to do.
Then the full salvos begin. One hundred and six sixteen-inch guns from ships with names like the HMS Nelson, USS Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, West Virginia, Alabama, South Dakota, Indiana, and Massachusetts, landing almost in unison with unimaginable accuracy and inflicting unfathomable carnage. Then, one hundred-twenty secondary fourteen-inch guns from ships named the Howe, Duke of York, Mississippi, New Mexico, Tennessee, California, Idaho and others, add to the thunderous chorus, with the spotter planes directing their shells’ flight trajectories. One hundred-thirteen of the Soviet army’s heaviest tanks are, for lack of a better term, vaporized into slag, in the first two salvos. Dozens more disappear, with every salvo afterward.
20
Reference Admiralty Publications C.B. 3148 (Feb. ’45) Gunnery Review — Normandy Bombardment Experience (June/Sept., 1944, Page 29).