World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First

by Harry Kellogg

  Every night he caught hell in the pub on the subject, “Where are your bloody Yank friends?” He didn’t have an answer for them so he stopped going to the pub. Saved a lot of money but he missed the old days when everyone treated us like kings. No more, though. The Brits were pissed at us for not coming to their aid.

  Oh well, that was way above his pay grade. All he could do is to hang on and do his best at his job. At least Betty was still the same girl he married and loved him. I guess that’s about all you can ask for in a war. He was home in bed every night with a gorgeous woman, who loved him, and he loved her. Much better than the last time he was here. Before they were married he never got past second base, and then he had to go and fight in those goddamned hedgerows.

  Holy crap! That Limey idiot is going to tip that crane over!

  “BACK IT OFF, JACK! IT’S TOO HEAVY!”

  Man that was close. You just can’t lift something that big, not without the proper backfill on the base. I’m glad the Seabees trained me well. That could have been fatal.

  “William, get over here and fix the footing for Jack...Thanks mate.”

  Thank God, he’s not my mate. How does he chew his food with those teeth? I don’t see how he can close his mouth with those teeth pointing every which way. I should have become a dentist. I could be raking it in here. Maybe not they seem to just have them pulled. Modern dentistry is simply not a priority for folks who are fighting for their lives and freedom.

  ***

  We get some insight from these entries into the thoughts of Sergo Peskov, the industrial mastermind behind the Soviet aerospace resurgence; a strange man to be sure, but so were many of his contemporaries in the West. Henry Ford was a major financial backer of Hitler in the early days of the Nazi party and was a well-known anti-Semite with many known strange ideas besides motor cars. Then there was Howard Hughes one of the most eccentric men alive. Sergo was in rare company but was not uncommon among the leaders of industry.

  ***

  Best-Laid Plans

  Sergo peaked through his small window, looking down on the production floor. Thousands of handpicked workers danced around giant machines in a well-choreographed ballet, all designed to make the weapons that would save many civilian lives. Yes, they would take many enemy lives, as well, but they were still instruments of destruction.

  Sergo’s interest in flight oddly, did not include combat. In his heart he was fascinated by things that fly and not things that are used to shoot down things that fly. In fact it was offensive to him that there was a need to do such a thing. Flight was glorious. It was life as far as he was concerned, yet he couldn’t bring himself to participate.

  The injuries caused by the accident in his youth had instilled an overwhelming fear in him that he just couldn’t conquer, no matter how hard he tried. He became physically paralyzed if he even seriously thought about getting on any kind of machine that could fly. If he was tied up and carried on to a plane he was sure his heart would stop long before he reached its door.

  No, he would never fly. He could make things that prevented others from flying over the Motherland for the purpose of dropping bombs. For whatever reason he could naturally see a problem and come up with a most logical solution to fit. What he had always lacked, was a way of communicating those solutions and the power to implement them. Now, he had both.

  His memos were read by Stalin, and Stalin had the power to make his ideas reality. It baffled him, as I’m sure it baffled Ford and Edison, when others could not see the wisdom that was placed in front of them. People who stuck to the old ways just could not see the future. He was not a visionary or an inventor but he could see when someone had a good idea and could visualize best how to use that idea to considerable advantage. That was his apparent talent. Taking great ideas and putting them into action in their most practical application.

  The captured German scientists were an enormous source of this kind of content and the American and British industrialists were exceptional sources of what methodology works, and what doesn’t. It’s actually pretty easy for him to look at something that others have already done successfully and replicate those successes. I mean, how hard is it to just copy what works and learn from what doesn’t work?

  It was just luck that put him in this position. Imagine all those years ago if he hadn’t attended that horrible party and what if Stalin had not spotted him hiding in the corner. For once, his lack of social skills and inability to be politically-correct had not only saved his life, but actually made all he had accomplished possible. For once, his inability to lie or to deceive had actually made him successful; quite amazing when you think of it, which of course, he did relatively often.

  Thank goodness Stalin saw him for what he was and not some kind of threat. He had seen what happens to people who are a perceived threat to Stalin. They simply disappear.

  Take for example the idea of testing and using prisoners for production. How smart is it to just kill potentially useful individuals just because of their ethnic background or political beliefs. If a person is dexterous and nimble why not use them in some meaningful way instead of killing them? Feed them enough and have them perform a function that is meaningful. If you have to kill off useless mouths to feed, well then, kill off the fat-fingered stupid ones. The ones who were too old or too ham-fisted, those are the ones who you discard. Use the young males, and females, who test well for the proper jobs.

  For the ones who show certain abilities train them for more exacting tasks. I’m even considering holding classes for the ones who show promise in design or engineering. A great mind is a shame to squander. It’s not like these workers can cause any trouble with their ideas or their political beliefs. They barely have time to eat and sleep, and they have no contact with the outside world. As far as their relatives are concerned, they are dead. Only their work keeps them alive and fed.

  He did, nevertheless, hate using the children. He had to only because their small nimble fingers could accomplish some of the tasks necessary. Seeing them work day after day reminded him of the times after his accident. With only one good eye, his grandfather thought all he was good for was menial tasks and shoveling manure. Fortunately for him, his grandfather died, and his mother was able to retrieve him from the farm.

  That reminded him that it was time to finish with the last idea he had about another guidance system the British had developed. Sooner or later, the enemy will discover just how the current system worked. This would be a tragedy and he had warned Stalin of such an event. This is why he insisted that they could never use the system for anything but air-defense over friendly territory. All it took was for just one unexploded warhead to be recovered by the enemy and NATO will be better able to develop a defense. It won’t be hard to come up with a way to defeat the system, once they apply a maximum effort into doing so.

  It was Beria’s idea to go ahead with the invasion, even though they had nowhere near the number of missiles needed to protect even their major cities. Essentially it was his idea to bluff the Americans and British into thinking that they had missiles covering everywhere across the Soviet Union. He was totally confident that his spy network would be able to give their forces two weeks' notice of where the next target would be. With that kind of time to plan they could get the few missiles that they had available into position.

  How long this situation would last, he had no idea. Beria said at least two more years. He personally doubted that. In the meantime all he could do was to try and develop the next generation of air-defense weapons. One possibility was to keep using the old German technology and as NATO fails to jam it they may decide to stop wasting their time and equipment and move on to other techniques. Then it was thought that they could switch tactics, and actually use the old radar guidance system from the Fritz. It was a move born of desperation, but it might be worth a try. There was always a small chance that it could work. They would keep bombarding the jamming systems with signals they know the enemy can easily defeat in
the hope that they will stop using the most primitive jamming efforts. Beria believed they would move on to more and more sophisticated methods and eventually forget the old ones.

  Believe it or not, this was a hard concept to explain and Stalin had nearly thrown him out of his office when he tried to talk to him about it. Fortunately he had at least agreed to continue using the old radar and radio control systems. It must be undoubtedly driving the enemy crazy. They must be positive that their efforts are capable of jamming the Soviet primitive attempts are working. Yet the missiles keep finding their targets. Oh how he would have loved to overhear their scientists and engineers squabbling over potential solutions.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight:

  Late Into the Night

  Better Times

  ***

  What makes a great man? What circumstances can create a monster capable of killing millions?

  ***

  When Monsters Dream

  The dacha was eerily silent. Everyone knew he was trying to sleep. It was early morning and as usual, he couldn’t sleep. Even at this hour he was rarely alone. At his insistence he was always surrounded by people. For whatever reason, he was not anxious nor even afraid to be unattended for now. He was comfortable and lying in bed recovering from another bout of sickness. He was alone with his thoughts.

  He was never one for self-examination but attacking Europe and starting World War Three did tend to get one thinking and possibly questioning his decisions. Despite all the fools around him filling him with information they suspected he wanted to hear, he realized that his great army was in dire need of rest and recuperation. Perhaps, he should have waited a few more years to attack, and rid Europe of capitalism. Yet how much more time did he personally have?

  When that strange little man came into his life, he knew this would be the time to strike. Combined with the massive demobilization of the U.S. and Britain, his own army taking up precious resources and Sergo’s promised anti-bomber missile system, the time seemed ripe to strike.

  Now that the U.S. had foolishly let both the atomic bomb and the B-29 bomber fall into his lap, it seemed that all logic pointed towards fulfilling his dreams before it was too late. The fact that the U.S. had very few atomic bombs and his spies had sabotaged their production facilities, only added to his reasoning.

  Yet the looming drought and lack of food, combined with the starving masses in Europe, would force some hard decisions on who would live and who would die. He was used to such decisions and did not shy away from making them. By the time the Americans are able to even try to subjugate Europe once more his successors will have the atomic bomb, the Tupolev Tu-4 bomber and the greatest army that the world has ever seen. They will never even try.

  In a few years, the Soviet system will out-produce their feeble attempts. New oil and aluminum ore deposits, as well as other strategic materials, are being discovered every day within his greater Soviet Union. The entire world will see the advantages of Communism, even without more conquests or invasions. The capitalists will be defeated as their own peoples rise in revolt.

  As long as Sergo and the others, kept advancing their scientific knowledge regarding air-defense there will soon be no possibility of the Americans attacking the Motherland in that manner. They are too cowardly to fight man-to-man with the Red Army. Their only way to defeat us is to use the coward’s way. They will try to bomb us and we will keep shooting their planes out of the sky. No, as long as we can stay focused and defend our skies time is our ally.

  In twelve months there will no longer be a need for subterfuge to defeat the enemy’s bombers. There will be enough missiles to ring all major strategic targets. His new jets will be the equal to anything the U.S. can produce. Combined with Sergo’s missiles, they would be safe from an assault from the air. The MiG design bureau has promised a new model jet fighter that will sweep the skies of the Americans, and soon, he will have missiles that will be able to reach America. They would not dare attack then.

  Eventually, he would have the atomic bomb, and the means to deliver it but even that may not be needed.

  For the most part the army had done its job. As soon as Spain was conquered, he too could demobilize the ground forces and concentrate on the air force and possibly, the navy. These would be the future weapons to keep the capitalists at bay until their ultimate defeat by their own peoples.

  Time is on our side. Soon the world will see the superiority of the Soviet system and the teachings of Comrades Marx and Lenin. Britain should be joining us soon after it becomes apparent that the corrupt capitalist system cannot even feed them.

  He had made the right decision and the time was ripe for conquest. History will prove him justified and he will go down in history as the savior of mankind.

  With those thoughts swirling in his mind, he drifted off into a chemically-induced sleep.

  Economics

  “Hey! What’s going on in there?”

  “You know that guy that wrote that economics book that made it into Readers Digest and then the condensed version? The one named 'Road to Serfdom?' You know, the one that got all the attention a while back arguing against that English guy? You know, the one that Roosevelt liked...Keys or Keynes...or something like that. Well this guy is named Hayek, and he argues almost exactly the opposite.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well from what I can make of it that Keynes guy says the government has a vital role to play when the economy goes in the tank, like what happened in 1928. Things stayed pretty miserable until FDR started putting government money into all the parks, dams, roads and stuff; you know, the public works programs and the CCC.”

  “Yeah I was in one of those. We had some good times. We worked in Tennessee and made some money that we could send home. It sure kept our family from starving and I learned some good skills that...”

  “Okay, I get it. I was in the CCC myself. This Keynes guy’s approach has been taken to the extreme by the new guy in England. You know, that Attlee guy. He wants to have the government take over the mines, the phone system, and the trains...just about everything. In fact I think I read that they had already done it to the Bank of England.”

  “You mean the government is running the banks? Wow! I bet that doesn’t sit too well with those Wall Street types!”

  “Now you’re getting it. The guy talking to Truman has some henchmen in there with him. Some little guy named Freeman, or Friedman and enough southern Senators to choke a horse. They're all beating up on this Keys guy's ideas and trying to convince Truman not to give the Brits any more money until they change their ways.”

  “The hell you say! The Reds are breathing down their neck. How can we abandon them now, for Christ's sake? We just fought side by side, with them. Hell, a Limey saved my ass in those hedgerows. Dashed out from under cover, and hauled me back to safety.”

  “Well, I guess what those guys in there are pitching is that there is no way the Reds are going to get across the channel. The Brits still have a hell of a navy and we can help them out in that area too. All the commies can do is to attack them from the air. Nothing they haven’t seen before. Last time they did alright without us so maybe this time is the same? In the meantime, this Attlee guy gets all the blame and they vote him out and get someone more to our liking with promises from us that we'll lend them money again as soon as they reverse their nationalization program. They'll have to change over to what this Friedman guy is talking about, where the government just plays around with the money supply and the Wall Street types take care of the rest.”

  “Well call me a monkey’s uncle if that don’t sound like blackmail! That's pretty underhanded to let all those people die just so the bankers can get what they want. FDR’s, and this Keynes guy’s, ways worked pretty well for us. Why won’t it work for them?”

  “It does sound kind of nasty and cruel but from what they were saying in the hallway before they went in, 'a little pain now will stop a whole lot of pain later.' I say tell that to the dead k
ids after the Reds clean their clock. The little guy even had a name for it, 'shock therapy,' he kept saying. You know like when they got you in the loony-bin and they hook you up to electricity and shock the crap out of you? It’s supposed to rewire your brain, or something.”

  “Sounds pretty drastic to me.”

  “Hopefully for the Brits, Truman throws them out but in the meantime the Senators are holding up any more money going to England. Even if the money starts flowing again tomorrow they've been stalling for three months now and the Reds are going to attack soon. How many factories are going to be able to reconvert in Britain that fast to make any difference? How many workers are going to work for free when they are rationing bread? I think they’ve run out of time and they'll have to fight with what they got on hand.”

  “God help them, is all I can say.”

  “Amen to that.”

  ***

  This is one of the lesser know yet major victories of the Soviet spy network in Britain. It could easily have cost NATO the war.

  ***

  Taking Stock

  The man had a slight trace of a limp as he walked across the concrete towards the door of the munitions section. He passed by the sandbags, saluted the guard and went inside. The private at the desk looked up and smiled, then stood at attention and gave the visitor a smart salute.

  “Great to have you back Sergeant-Major!”

  “Good to be back Kelsey.” he said, returning the salute. “Will you get me the figures on the 3.7-inch ammo?”

  “I see you’re getting right back into it Sergeant. We all thought you’d want to take it easy until you worked your way back. What's so important about the 3.7-inch ammo anyway?”