World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First

by Harry Kellogg

  Some of the bombs would produce vision blocking smoke for up to 20 minutes. Special IL10 Beast units were being trained to lay down “touch up” smoke screens as well. Smoke screens were used rather sparingly on the Eastern Front, but they were in fact used, and the IL2 Sturmovik came in quite handy in laying them down. Almost impervious to small arms fire and even heavy machine guns they actually cruised at low altitude between the enemy and their forces and put down smoke screens that blinded the enemy to the axis of attack. It worked quite well at times.

  The main job of blinding the Bofors 40mm guns, the 20mm guns and heavy machine guns fell to the Bats and their smoke bombs. Once the smaller AA guns were blind other Bats and Beasts will be called upon to finish the job. At low level the 3.7” radar directed gun is not a threat to fast moving planes flying at under 100 feet spewing liquid flames and cluster bombs. The Sturmovik “Circle of Death”[liii] will make itself known over 10, 11 and 12 Group.

  ***

  This comes to us from the Soviet propaganda machine after the Second Battle of Britain. It is surprisingly accurate, which is unusual considering the source.

  ***

  Practice Makes Perfect

  Since the end of the last war the Soviet VVS had been on a training mission. Every pilot, gunner, mechanic and armorer had been put back into specific training programs designed after the US and RAF flight training schools. Many of the instructors had been trained in the US and Britain as an exchange program since 1944. They learned the techniques used by their former allies and now they had brought them back home to the motherland. Gunnery school for the gunners and fighter pilots had increased their hit ratios dramatically. Much like Richard Bong the Yankee’s highest scoring ace the Red pilots had improved their aerial shooting skills by leaps and bounds. Bong had admitted that he was a lousy shot as he racked up 28 kills to surpass Rickenbacker to become America’s Ace of Aces. He used to say that he would stick his guns into the enemy’s cockpit and pull the trigger he was such a bad shot. When he rotated back to the states for some R&R he went through gunnery school. We he got back to shooting down Japs he no longer had to put himself at risk. The combination of his improved shooting skills and his unsurpassed piloting abilities garnered him another 13 kills to end up with 40 total before he was shipped home to die in an YP80 jet fighter crash as a test pilot. His death was a huge tragedy for the nation yet he was not given his due because the day he died was the day they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. The headline that should have been displayed in page filling type was lost amid the exuberance of Japanese mass destruction.

  The Soviet pilots improved in all categories from flying in formation for the bombers to how to counter the speed and height superiority of some RAF and USAAF planes. Using the captured and Lend Lease planes they learned what maneuvers and counter maneuvers were needed to negate an enemy attack slashing in from a high altitude into your formations at a high rate of speed. It was surprisingly easy for a practiced pilot to counter this kind of Boom and Zoom attack and practiced they became. Time it right and you just turn into the enemies attack from above and he would either have to drastically alter his speed or over shoot you. If he was arrogant he would try and turn inside of you and this is when he would die. No one outturns a Yak3 and no Mustang outturns a Yak9 or La7. Plus at 5 to one odds if you slow down to try and get into a turning fight you will lose. The Red pilots were taught how to counter and defeat the Mustang and the Spitfire.

  The bomber pilots and their gunners were schooled as well. Being already skilled flyers they learned a new set of tactics and maneuvers that they hoped would stead them well. At middle and low altitude the Mustang and Spitfire were very beatable and the new tactics and lessons learned from the US and RAF instructors themselves would save many a bomber crew’s life.

  The Tu2S was far from helpless, losing only 71 in combat out of the original 2000 since 1943. 3 rear and side firing .23mm cannons and 2 front firing meant a warm welcome for any fighter that strays before the planes sights. It was a tough, fast flying machine not seen by the US and RAF in combat. Some very surprised NATO pilots were sure to fall before the guns of the Tu2S Bat. Their numbers now stood at close to 3500 and growing. Both pilots and machines were pouring out of the improved training schools and factories in numbers second only to the Yankees in 1944. They themselves had produced 40,000 planes in 1944 and were on pace to produce 60,000 this year.

  Meanwhile the NATO nations had not only cut back on production of new planes but had curtailed pilot training and destroyed thousands of late war planes that will be sorely missed. The British has gone so far as to simply dump planes into the ocean. Thousands were just left to rot throughout the world. Left were they ended their last mission. They were left to decay into an ignominious pile of aluminum and rubber. The planes that had swept the skies of the Axis powers were considered useless and shoved down mine shafts or dumped into the Irish Sea.

  We were flying an interesting but not very glorious mission in our practice raids. When signaled in by our controllers we would fly along a route calculated to cover gaps in a smoke screen. These kind of gap filling missions were considered very dangerous but we had done them before. We had flown a number of smoke screen missions against the Germans with great success. We knew we could do it but it was still a very freighting mission fraught with danger. They all knew about the proximity fuse of NATO and had even seen demonstrations of it from captured supplies. It was not a threat to their low flying IL10s however. The British only used the fuse in their 3.7” AA gun which was a long range gun and not used for low altitude.

  The fuse couldn’t even get itself armed. The machine guns and even the 20mm were not that much of a threat. A well-aimed 20 mm could bring you down but it was not likely. The only real threat to the Beast was the Bofors 40 mm gun. They had to really respect this weapons system. Luckily they were not controlled by radar and even if they were the IL10 flew too low on most missions. Direct line of sight was needed by the Bofors and that line of sight was what their mission was all about.

  ***

  Perhaps you are wondering how we have come to collect all these recordings and even films of these clandestine meetings. It seems that Stalin and many others had hidden cameras and audio recorders in many of their offices. You may also wonder why they would keep the films and recordings when they show such utter contempt for human life and even admit torture and injustice on a scale never seen before in human history.

  Could they be actually proud of their monstrous dealings that have regulated millions to death and torture? Could they have kept them as kind of a trophy like the serial killers they were? One can only speculate.

  The fact is that they did and we have gone to great lengths to acquire them, preserve them, and to record their essence in these books so that humanity will always remember their atrocities.

  ***

  Smell of Decay

  The room smelled like sickness...human sickness, old man sickness. The light was low and the feeling of sleepiness hung over the whole room and its tableau of shadows. He knew Stalin was in the room for he had been summarily summoned. You did not ignore a summons from Stalin and live to talk about it so it was strange that the room seemed empty. Stalin hated to be alone especially at this time of the day. Even Sergo sensed that something was wrong with the whole situation. Then he heard a slight noise like some well-oiled door being slid open and out from what was a blank wall came the familiar large nose, pocked marked face and mustache gradually appeared and was followed by the short frame of possibly the greatest mass murdered since Genghis Khan.

  Sergo could not see what was behind the panel that had opened but from the smell he guessed it was a private water closet for Stalin. Stalin looked a little startled when he realized Sergo was there in the room and Sergo briefly wondered if the guard and secretary out front were going to lose their lives for letting him in before they ascertained just where in the room and what the status of "Uncle Joe" was. Silly name for such a dange
rous man but then again the Americans were a silly people.

  Stalin spoke. Sergo couldn't see Stalin's face and it was beyond his capabilities to determine from just tone of voice what kind of mood he was in or if the question that had been asked, had been a serious one or one of Stalin's "jokes". Sergo didn't understand jokes or humor or irony so he used to just laugh when those around him laughed. He had come to realize by the time he was 7, that most of the jokes and the laugher was directed at him. If Sergo was a normal human being he might have sought out some of his tormentors and demanded justice for the decades of slights. But he wasn't a normal human being. He wasn't exactly a sociopath and not anti-social but almost incapable of reading other peoples physical and verbal clues. As any psychologists will tell you, non-verbal communication and voice inflection are 90% of communication. So he was dreadfully handicapped in this area. Stalin recognized this from their very first encounter and this was the reason Sergo was still alive and still advising him.

  He finally figured out that Stalin had asked him a real question without any hidden agendas and truly wanted to know what Sergo's thoughts were on the subject. The question was retrieved from where his brain had temporarily stored it and when he finally comprehended what Stalin had asked was a serious question, he answered.

  "Comrade I would say that our concentrating on the defense of the skies above the motherland was indeed the correct decision. How else were the Americans and English going to attack us? Their armies, even at their height, could not hope to do what the mighty Wehrmacht could not do. And now that they were almost pushed off the continent how could their armies be anywhere near the threat that their air forces were? I am no Marshal or even General but even I know enough about land warfare to know that to invade once again from Britain and then to fight continuously for 2500 kilometers to even reach Moscow, would be a feat none have readily accomplished successfully.

  After all comrade, the army is not atrophied or even been starved of resources. They continue to function quite well and are within weeks of conquering Spain. With the Royal Air Force on its knees there would seem to be no readily apparent way the capitalists can successfully attack us but from the air. Hence the decision to concentrate our scientific and manufacturing efforts on the skies would seem to me to be most warranted and wise.

  Later after the British succumb to the inevitable, I suggest we concentrate on possibly becoming a naval power. For now keeping our skies clear of B29s and atomic bombs is victory enough and that was only made possible by you having the foresight to listen with an open mind to the logical ideas I presented. I also give Beria absolute credit for the brilliant espionage work he has accomplished over the years. His spies have been enormously critical to our plans."

  Stalin slid over to the well-padded office chair and virtually fell into it. It took him a minute for him to start to speak.

  "Don't you worry about Beria... he will get what he deserves fairly soon. I have to say I agree with your assertions Sergo. The so called NATO forces would commit virtual suicide if they tried to re-conquer our newly acquired Western lands with the same army they conquered Germany. They could not live with the casualties that the Nazis and we sustained over the years. Not even the British had such casualty rates as we had, fighting literally tooth and nail for every inch. The American public is weak and would not stand for the kind of mass slaughter it would take to even re-conquer the new Socialist Republics in the West. Like the French Vichy their new governments and leaders have a vested interest in not going back to the old ways of capitalistic exploitation. No, land warfare is not the way they are going to try attack the new Republics. Since we are self-sufficient in oil and minerals their navy cannot cut off our supplies.

  I enjoy our little talks Sergo. I do grow more and more weary of the bickering and in-fighting amongst the politburo. It use to delight me to see them squabble for hours and then to jump when I spoke, but it does not hold the same fascination and delight for me it used to. I made Malenkov urinate in his pants once, he was so afraid...and with good reason I might add. Why do I tell you this Sergo? I'll tell you why, because you have no political skills, you do not think like the others and that Sergo is why I tell you these things and why I can confide in you knowing full well you have no idea what to do with such information, nor do you care. Is that not right my robot? Have you heard the term robot before Sergo in reference to yourself?"

  "No Excellency. I am familiar with the origin and the play by Capek. I read it when I was younger and we were allowed such activities. So I am familiar with the term but I have not experienced anyone referencing me as an automaton. I do have emotions Excellency I just don't know how to express them properly so I just avoid the situations. Fortunately for me you have given me an outlet for my...creativity. Although I would prefer to be designing planes that can transport people instead of bombs and be designing great landing fields and all the infrastructure that would be needed to fly hundreds of thousands of people a day to places all over the world I realize that I must concentrate on stopping the Americans and British from delivering their bombs. Later perhaps you will allow me to build my transportation system using the sky when we are through with this unpleasantness, Excellency?"

  "Yes Sergo you shall have the chance to create your roadways in the sky. Imagine a peasant from Gori traveling by plane to all parts of the world. Thanks partly to you Sergo someday I might just give such a trip a try. I understand you have never flown either, yet you dream of putting hundreds of thousands of others at risk. You must have your reasons, and it is not worth my time to find them out. I am getting weary Sergo...leave!"

  "Yes...of course Excellency."

  "I do enjoy your way of relating to the world around you Sergo...no groveling or bragging, just the facts and logical conclusions. You just focus on what we need to accomplish and leave the politics to others. Very enjoyable and refreshing for me to be able to interact with such a...robot."

  "Am I supposed to react or comment Excellency?"

  "No Sergo. That would foul our association and that is the last thing you would want to happen, and quite frankly I would not care for such an outcome as well."

  "Yes your Excellency...should I leave now?"

  "Yes Sergo ... now you should leave."

  Sergo turned and slowly walked to the exit. He had no idea if the interview went well or not. He had no idea if he would live through the day. Such was life under Stalin. He had seen a number of people happily leave Stalin's company only to disappear never to be seen again. He guessed it was one of Stalin's ploys to terrorize everyone around him. He understood that fear was a great motivator. He preferred logic but then again he was incapable of deceit and that meant that he could not instill fear without actually killing everyone around him. He could not "play act" that he was going to kill someone only to instill fear in others. He would have to actually kill someone like he threatened and that was a waste. He could not bluff so therefore he did not threaten. He acted if the situation warranted it and the odds were favorable to survival. All in all he avoided these type of situations and just did his job.

  Why couldn't others be like him? It would be such a better world all the way around. You worked at something you enjoyed and that was reward enough. He could see it even on the factory floor. Some of the prison laborers actually took pride in their work. Even though they were helping to keep themselves slaves they went out of their way to do an excellent job and for what? They almost never got any kind of reward just the self-satisfaction that they had done a better job than anyone else. Vitaly Ginzburg was a perfect example. He enjoyed matching wits with Vitaly yet Stalin was going to have him put in the gulag for imagined crimes. He now worked happily beside him just for the sake of pure science. He did not wallow in pity he just did his job and seemed to enjoy himself. His colleague Semyon Kosberg was scheduled for torture by Beria himself for some slight at a party function. What a waste that would have been. He now is instrumental in bringing the newest jet engine to be m
atched with MiG's newest creation. A truly stunning plane but worthless without the innovations they garnered from the American jet engines found in France and that American William Pearl working alongside Semyon have done wonders with the jet engine program. The captured jet engines were just wonderful creations and thankfully relatively easy to recreate with the likes of Pearl, Semyon and Vitaly on the job.

  The greatest crime to Sergo was waste, especially the wasting of a great mind. He had saved many great minds since 1943. Many who would have been used for suicide missions or as common infantry and wasted to the bullet. What would history have been if such minds had not been saved and put to good use? He thought that America knew this and gave certain kinds of individuals the freedom to excel, men like Boeing or a Ford. He had heard that Ford failed many times before succeeding. Imagine if they ever let their Negroes go to proper schools. How many Gurevichs or Ilyusions were dying of starvation in Africa at this moment? He was convinced that skin color had no part in greatness. Much of it was luck. Just like his story. Who would have thought that being singled out a one of Stalin's horrid "parties" would end with him being in control of so many resources and a confidant of Stalin? Allowed to work on such projects as the Wasserfal and X4 missile. Inventions of the greatest minds in Germany almost abandoned and then resurrected too late to be of use to the Nazis. Luckily he was allowed to take them to fruition. They were pressuring him to design missiles to attack ships as well as planes. Very easy to do actually, but he was very uneasy at the thought of an unexploded warhead falling into the sea and being recovered by the West. Until they designed another guidance system the current one would be rather easy to defeat. No he had to keep the admirals from using their greatest deterrent to the atomic bomb in such a reckless manner.

  They were approaching production of 100 a month and by next month 300. By spring they would be producing 600 a month. Combined with the new MiG, a shield would drop over Eurasia by the end of the Summer of 1947.