“Yes sir, it is my professional opinion that we are under a massive attack, and that the Reds have started World War Three… No sir, I have no idea why they would have attacked, nor what their objectives are.”
One of his colleagues hands him a message.
“Excuse me a second, sir… It appears that we now have a confirmed report of Red Army units now crossing the demarcation line under a heavy rolling artillery barrage…”
“Yes sir, the report says that our units are being destroyed where they stand. Sir we must pull back and fight a delaying action. We cannot stand up to this initial attack with the units we have.”
“Hell sir, all of the units positioned in those forward areas are at half-strength! How are we supposed to stop a Soviet JS-2 heavy tank with our pop-guns, sir?” The captain starts looking through the sheaf of papers that he was just handed “Good God, sir! Many of our few heavy artillery emplacements are being destroyed by those flying tanks the Soviets have! They come in screaming at 250mph spitting 23-mm cannon shells, cluster-bombs and rockets! What, sir? Okay, I got it… Sturmoviks… they are called Sturmoviks.”
With mounting fear in his voice, and an insolence born of it, the captain continues “My question for you is, where is our air cover? These freakin’ Stormo… whatever the hell they’re called, are all over us! You can’t shoot them down from the ground. They’re like flying tanks and they are killing our armor and any strong points we setup with ridiculous ease! It’s like 1940 all over again and we’re the French! We need air support, sir!”
“I don’t even know if we can pull back our forces without air cover. We need air cover and we need it now! We are dead meat with these things flying around!”
The White House
Washington, D.C.
May 2nd, 1946
0300, Eastern Standard time
A loudly-ringing telephone at the bedside rudely awakens President Harry Truman. He groggily picks it up, and on the other end of the line he hears, “Sorry to wake you Mister President, but our worst fears have come true. The Soviets have attacked all along the line of separation in Western Germany.”
Sitting up in bed, shocked, with Bess blearily staring at him, President Truman listens as the Admiral makes his report, “Do you remember our briefing in April, sir…? Yes it is all starting to happen just as we feared. Our frontline troops are being overrun, God help them, and our air assets have been caught on the ground… Yes sir, just like Pearl Harbor. Pretty amazing how we keep getting our clocks cleaned by surprise attacks. Luckily they have no demonstrated strategic long-range bomber capability, or the complimentary long-range fighter escort for any kind of strategic attack. But they do have a hell of a tactical and operational reach, sir.”
“Quite frankly, our troops are getting slaughtered, sir. I urgently recommend that we implement the war plan that the Joint Chiefs were discussing, for just this eventuality.”
Knowing that her being there would only get in the way, the First Lady puts on her dressing gown and leaves the room, while the President takes a moment, putting on a robe, then bids the Admiral to continue, “Well, sir, the short version of the plan is we do a fighting retreat and fall back. You need to issue the order now, sir, to fall back, and to try and save as many soldiers and airmen as possible.”
The Admiral continues with trepidation in his voice, “I know it will mean abandoning millions of allied civilians to the communists but staying and fighting will just destroy what fighting forces we do have left. We must fall back to France and the Low Countries, along the Rhine River, in order to survive to fight another day. As you might recall sir, we only have twenty-two half-strength divisions in-theater. The latest estimates are that we are facing a minimum of 100 divisions between the Soviets and their Red allies…”
The President asked for clarification, “You know, sir; Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania. Yes sir, all those Balkan countries. They are rumored to be well-equipped and sufficiently trained to take out Italy and Greece. As you well know sir, they are just about our only allies, besides France, in the Northern Mediterranean region.”
The Admiral pauses to take a breath, awaiting the President’s reaction to all the information; then continues, “Sir, I believe that time is of the essence and I highly recommend that you order a general withdrawal, towards France. A ‘fighting withdrawal’ would sound better to the press. We need to do it now before our forces are destroyed.”
The President gives his assent and calls for his Chief of Staff to have the paperwork drawn up for him to sign. The Admiral says, “Thank you Mister President” then he covers up the telephone receiver, calling out into the room, “Major Grabowski! Get your ass in here!” A Marine major double-times it into the Admiral’s office. As soon as the paperwork arrives from the White House, issue Combined Chiefs’ General Order Number 4598 authorizing a ‘fighting retreat’ towards France and the Low Countries, for all U.S. forces now engaged in combat, inside Germany. We will make our first stand on the Rhine.”
He gets back on the phone with the President, “You’ve made the right decision, sir, and saved many American and Allied lives. Yes sir, I will have a briefing set up for 0600.”[9]
The C-47 was rattling like normal. No novel or unexpected sounds, just the habitual calliope of moans, groans, wind noises and, of course the welcome roar of the engines. The engine noise was different, as was the placement of side door. It was on the wrong side! Yevgeny was a little disconcerted by this even though he had been practicing with this plane for a number of months. Years of previous training on the Soviet Lisunov Li-2 were hard to change.
This was one of the true Douglas C-47 Dakotas given to the Soviet Union, through Lend Lease, so, it was very old by comparison. For this operation, they were using as many of the surviving American C-47’s as possible. The Soviet version, the Li-2 had a slightly different engine sound, and if a Yankee or Limey fighter approached from the right angle they could see the patched up hole, where the turret was removed. The Li-2’s had a machine-gun turret a third of the way back from the nose, whereas the C-47 did not. They had been planning this operation for six months and were escorted by repainted Lend-Lease P-47 Thunderbolts. Those intentional overflights, far into Western airspace, were designed to give them one more edge in what could possibly be a complete fiasco.
They had been told that all the radio signals given out by their planes were supposedly on the latest Amerikosy frequency. Combined with the fog of war, and all the unscheduled flights all over the Occupied Zones of Western Germany, the flight was expected to be uncontested. Things were very lax in occupied Germany and France. The American troops left behind were not very well-trained, or motivated, and some actively engaged in looting and that involved using the C-47 for transporting their ill-gotten gains. The capitalist pigs were making fortunes by stealing the fruits of their own worker’s labor. And that is, of course, why we will win, thought Yevgeny.