World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First

by Harry Kellogg

  When he asked what could have upset Hap he was told about the news that Arnold was dealing with. No wonder he was under so much pressure. No wonder poor Hap's ticker had stopped. Poor Hap. These were war winning or losing choices that had to be made and made now. It was almost impossible for him to concentrate as he poured over the reports that Hap had just dropped and scattered all over the floor when he collapsed. A few of the pages had poor Hap's blood on them. Poor Hap.

  He had to take command and take command now. The order to start the long planned operation would take a week to be fully implemented, and the RAF did not have much time left. The Soviets would not be distracted and might start to wonder about where the USAAF was and why they had not assisted the RAF with more planes and pilots. Why were the B29s not bombing their cities? Any day now they could shift their forces back to the targets that truly mattered. The kinds of targets whose destruction had help defeat Germany and ground the Luftwaffe. The only kind of target that the few remaining atomic bombs could have a devastating effect on and thus cripple the Red Army for a good 6 months. With Britain effectively out of the war they could shift their attention back to what undoubtedly was the prize...to what really mattered... to their oil fields at Baku and Ploesti. They could be well on their way to ringing their oil production facilities with those cursed rockets that took out our first attempt to use the Bomb in this war.

  The time is now! This is for you old friend...

  "Jensen get me Ike. We have a war to win and I'm sure Hap would have wanted us to carry on. Get me Ike ... NOW! We go and we go big! Operation Hap is a go! Get me Kenny after Ike. We go with all we got, and we go now!"

  Chapter Sixteen:

  The Battle Rages On

  The Dover Scar 1946

  ***

  People at war are a superstitious lot

  ***

  Dover Scar

  The hole where the first bomb that fell on the British Isles was just starting to erode after 4 weeks. It hadn’t been touched since the 1000 KG bomb was dropped prematurely by the TU2 S Bat when the bombardier hit the wrong switch shortly after crossing the Channel from France. Our particular bomb was a split second faster in being released and hit the ground ahead of its twin. The bombs landed about a kilometer West Southwest of the South Foreland Lighthouse in the chalky white Dover soil close to the famous cliffs of Dover. The white scar stands out quite well from the surrounding green grass of a pasture gone to seed. The sheep who used to graze there having been moved and eventually slaughtered and put in cans for soldiers in the British Army to eat.

  The limestone that is just under the surface of a thin film of topsoil is blindingly white compared to the green grass surrounding them. The two bombs formed a distinct pattern with the lead crater shaped like an arrowhead pointing straight at London and the following white scar having created a crack in the stone that for all intents and purposes formed the shaft of an arrow. For months the VVS pilots had been using it as a kind of good luck charm and symbol of an arrow point the way to London. If the British had known they surely would have filled it in but the whole area had been abandoned as the battle raged further and further afield. This one crater among 10s of thousands was not a major concern.

  This was to be the last sortie for Andrei Yurkov and his Yak 3P fitted with drop tanks over Britain. The RAF had long since given up on the tactic of attacking the flights of Soviet planes over the channel to force them to jettison their drop tanks. Just enough escorting fighters were designated as interceptors and they dropped their tanks and took on the attacking Spitfires while the vast majority of planes droned on to their destination on full tanks. The dog fights over the Channel had been a draw for both sides and it did not greatly affect the outcome of later battles over the 52 airfields that Fighter Command had ringed with AA defenses in an attempt to create safe zones covered by a lead curtain of proximity fused 3.7 mm shells. These guns it turned out were the targets of the initial onslaught of over 6,000 sorties a day for over month that the Red Air Force was able to blanket the British Isles with.

  Just as they had done over Berlin, the sortie rate had not slackened for close to 30 days.[lxxii] During those 30 days the AA defenses of Fighter Command has ceased to exist which left the landing and taking off RAF fighters sitting ducks to hundreds of marauding Tu2S Bats, Yak 9 Franks, La 7 Fins, IL10 Beasts and Pe2 Bucks. Then the hunt was on for taking off and landing RAF fighters running out of fuel or rolling down the runway. Even planes on the approach pattern who were low and slow took a beating.

  The Scar in Dover, as it became known throughout the VVS, was considered a sign of good luck to pilots who flew over it. Andrei got as close to the Scar as he could for good luck. His Yak 3P was behaving quite nicely. It was a good machine to fly. Very responsive and it was very easy to avoid the high angle attacks that the RAF pilots tried to use against him. The timing had to be right but with so many potential wingmen flying cover for you he did not have a really close call yet. He actually regretted shooting down the 4 fighter planes he was credited with. It just didn’t seem fair to destroy a worthy opponent while he was just taking off or landing. It was like shooting fish in a barrel as he had heard an American pilot exclaim during the last war. Yurei was a triple ace for Mother Russia. All but the four last had been worthy kills. Well maybe not the 109 over Berlin. It was flown by what obviously was a student pilot who could barely keep his plane in the air much less do any combat maneuvers. But a kill was a kill and one more step towards the honors and medals that lead to a larger apartment for his family. The thought crossed his mind of, who would put fish in a barrel in the first place and when shoot them.

  He was due to rotate out. See his family for a whole month and then move on to the Baku area for interceptor duty. He had heard that Novikov was concerned about the disappearance of the majority of American’s heavy bombers and was preparing for an attack in that area after the British were defeated. He was curious about the region around Cambridge. Whenever they did meet opposition it seem to come from that direction yet all reports were that the airport there was not functioning and was put out of working order earlier on in the attack. His Yak 3 was not made for such a long flight the rumors coming back from the bomber pilots and Yak 9D Frank pilots pointed towards an unknown and still quite functioning airfield of some size in that area. Time after time he had heard that the NKVD was fully confident that such and hidden airfield was a myth.

  Well that was not his concern today or for the near future. He was going to spend the winter in fairly warm climes compared to France and Britain. The area of the oil fields in the Caucasus was very nice in the winter. Far away from any combat. Just air patrols over the great expanse of the Mother Land. Hopefully quite boring. The first few days of this battle had been anything but. The RAF pilots were good. He was ever thankful that the VVS had used the intervening 6 months after the end of the last war to retrain thousands of veterans in deflection shooting and practicing constantly on how to elude a faster opponent when he tried to zoom down on you and then zoom away. The maintenance was better and you could just feel the improved quality of the engines and even the cannons jammed less often thanks to the better quality of the ammunition.

  It all helped to make you feel more confident. Add in the fact that the Red Air Force had 5 to one odds at the beginning and that had only gotten better as the battle progressed. As he took a slow right hand turn over the South Foreland Lighthouse he noticed that someone had put a few cannon rounds into the North side. That was uncalled for in his opinion. There were plenty of other targets to shoot at than this giant white tower.

  Andrei signaled his wingman. He still couldn’t get use to the radios they had been given and preferred the hand signals whenever possible. It kept the flight on their toes and always watching the flight leader. This was a good thing in his opinion. He did, however, allowed Oleg in number 4 slot a lot of latitude because he has the best eyes he had ever experienced. He would put up Oleg’s vision against any airborne rada
r system known for a 60 kilometer radius. He was truly amazing at spotting enemy aircraft.

  Time to climb for some height. It didn’t matter that the British radar would pick them up easier. In fact they wanted to get into a fight with as many RAF fighters as they could attract. Their little furball would call in dozens and then possibly scores of Red Army fighters who would either join the fight or wait for the English to break for home and then follow them like a pack of wolves attacking the slowest and wounded along the way and then catching the rest as they tried to land.

  Many an initial battle had been numerically lost only to end up a huge victory for the vultures who followed the supposed victor’s home and shot them out of the sky when they were the most vulnerable. He preferred to be in the position of being the bait. The RAF rose to the occasion less and less now. He sensed that they were about finished. It did take them a good 3 weeks longer than the commanders planned on but it was about over.

  How could the British stay in this war after losing the battle for the sky over their heads? Nothing moved on the roads or rails during the day and we were even setting the Night Witches loose at night. Any RAF fighters that were still functioning were very well hidden and did not venture forth often and they would then be followed back to their hiding places. Even the new planes coming out of the factories were not allowed to be moved during the day.

  He had flown top cover for a couple of squadrons of IL10 Beasts that had been vectored into a couple of dozen brand new Meteors hidden in a wood near the factory waiting to be transported that night. When he had expressed his concern at finding the correct woods much less the planes hidden within it, his commander had hinted at spies and Lavrentiy Beria being involved. Sure enough they did not see anything in the woods the first pass until a few Beasts dropped some PTAB bomblets and then all hell broke loose as the IL10s dropped their external fuel tanks and did their Circle of Death ballet over the patch of still burning woods blindly reaching out with 23mm cannon rounds until another target appeared from under the camouflage.

  It was very good camouflage to the naked eye. If the spy who spotted and then reported them would not have been involved they would never have seen them in the woods. The jets on either side had not played a major role as of yet. Both sides’ models had very limited range so they consequently never met in battle. The US Shooting Star had great range but except for a few occurrences, did not appear over British air space. He suspected that was why he was being pulled out of the Channel area and sent to Baku. The American’s were sure to attack from somewhere soon. He had heard a major bombing campaign would be launched in the spring from Iberia or possibly some of the islands in the Mediterranean. He was just a fighter pilot however and had no firm proof of anything.

  Ten more minutes and then he would turn for home...or at least the French coast. He would go to sleep dreaming about the good life waiting for him near the Black Sea. It would be a major change from the intense fighting he experienced over Britain. A very welcome change he mused. Maybe he could bring down his family to enjoy the warmer climes in Baku. He felt in his bones that this part of the world was in for a very hard winter. He had felt this before near Moscow in 1943 and he was proven right.

  “The Façade” by RangerElite

  Home Front in WWIII 1946

  0930

  Emergency Meeting Of the Security Council of the United Nations,

  U.N. Temporary Headquarters,

  San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

  According to the by-laws governing the operations of the United Nations organization, the only Soviet diplomats with portfolio allowed to operate inside the United States were those who were assigned to this body. However, because the ongoing hostilities between their nation, and the Western Powers, their movements were scrutinized in a way they had never before experienced here. In a perverse way, it made them feel at home.

  As all the diplomats from the permanent members of the Security Council began to file into the chamber, the tension was so thick that it became difficult to concentrate on the issues at hand. After all, the meeting had been called at the behest of the host nation, the United States, which could not bode well for the Soviet delegates. As the ambassadors all took their seats, the delegate designated as today's meeting chair gaveled the session into order.

  All of the old Security Council business was disposed of and the meeting quickly moved onto the emergency matter at hand: the attempt by the Soviet Union to take control of the United Nations by installing ambassadors from the European countries that they have overrun, especially trying to suborn France's seat on the Security Council with Stalin's own handpicked French representative. The other three permanent members and the representative of the exiled government of France all objected strenuously, precipitating today's emergency session.

  The meeting began with the ambassador from the government-in-exile of France railing against the Soviet Union's motion to replace him as lawful representative of the Fourth French Republic to the United Nations Security Council. Each of the other permanent members of the Security Council had their turn, with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Republic of China using their vetoes against the Soviet proposal, with the ambassadors to the Soviet Union and the United States of America yet to speak. The ambassador for the United States makes his impassioned veto and as the representative of the Soviet Union stands up to speak, the other four members of the Security Council stand up and walk out. It was understood that this would be the final snub to the Soviet Union in its quest for legitimacy, and adjournment of the emergency session and the final dissolution of the United Nations as a working body for the adjudication of international disputes. The United Nations, as it existed that day, would never meet again.

  Awaiting the Soviet diplomats when they arrived back in their temporary accommodations was a note from the United States Department of State. It gave the last Soviet citizens left legally on U.S. soil 24 hours to vacate their accommodations and leave the United States, or risk arrest as enemy agents. They were gone in less than 12.

  “Red Star on the Run” by RangerElite

  0127

  In an apartment safe house of the Communist Party-USA,

  Near 43rd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue,

  The South Side of Chicago

  Richard was now a marked and hunted man. Ever since the Soviets had started their War of Liberation back in May, the FBI had been aggressively searching for him, as one of the identified members of the Communist Party-USA (member card number 47644) and the editor of the CP-USA weekly publication, The Chicago Star. He was now subject to arrest and detention, as an enemy agent of the Soviet Union, but his good fortune, and what he believed were his unparalleled skills as a survivor, helped him avoid such a fate. He had been on the run ever since, but every move was now fraught with danger as more and more of his comrades, especially his fellow community organizers in the Negro community, were being rounded up and imprisoned.

  Even still, Richard refused to leave Chicago, preferring instead to continue to publish the propaganda paper, when and where the opportunity arose. That was the blessing, and the curse, of the True Believer, was the inability to see the pragmatic long view, in favor of short-term gain. Both were useful in their own right, but only one afforded the ability for a complete victory. Richard himself had attempted to agitate some worker riots on the South Side, which were promptly put down by the police department's flying squads, assisted by Military Police units of the Illinois National Guard (the Posse Comitatus Act had been temporarily suspended by Congress, in its last session), by virtue of the truncheon, and rifle shots fired in the air. Unfortunately, there were a few deaths that resulted, and the ones that did occur were a tragic propaganda blow to CP-USA. As a result, support for the party was beginning to decline now, from their inability to secure moral support or financial backing for strikes, especially from among the Negro community, who wanted nothing more than to work and feed their families, and to be left out of the polit
ical fracas. Even the staunchly loyal original members of the CP-USA of Chicago, the “Old Guards”, were distancing themselves from the Richard's extreme violence, and his attempts to start the revolution in Chicago.

  But this time, Richard had gone too far. Last night, close to being captured, he had gotten into a shootout with the Feds and two of his comrades were dead, and he saw a couple Feds go down. If that was indeed the case, they would be searching harder for him now, relentless to capture or kill him, for injuring or killing their own. Richard will not yield. In the ratty tenement apartment, he had close at hand a Tommy gun and a Colt .45 automatic. He was not a rat, refused to be tortured, and resolved not to be taken alive. What he did not know was that there was a combined task force, composed of the Chicago FBI's Special Intelligence Section, and the Chicago Police Department's newly-established communist-hunting intelligence section, the “Red Squad”, gathering intelligence on Richard and his associates, stalking them back to where they hid.

  A fierce, hard, pounding on the door. “RICHARD DAVIS BELZINGER! THIS IS THE FBI! YOU ARE WANTED IN THE MURDER OF TWO FBI AGENTS! YOU ARE SURROUNDED AND CAN NOT RUN, SO SURRENDER PEACEFULLY!” No immediate answer. Two rapid shotgun blasts, and the splintered door is kicked in, and just as quickly, Richard Davis Belzinger calmly stands up, holding up the Tommy gun to his shoulder, and fires it until the 50-round drum magazine is emptied. Sometime between the moment that he calmly puts down the Tommy gun, and the time that he attempted to reach for the Colt .45 pistol, five .45 bullets entered his chest, ripping huge chunks out of him as they exited.

  As he lay bleeding, fading slowly, he saw standing over him the new FBI Special Agent in Charge, Eliot Ness. Ness had been brought out of retirement in Cleveland and recruited into the FBI, to command the Chicago office's Special Intelligence Section. His mission was hunting down the communist cells in his hometown. “This is for my men you murdered last night, you bastard!” And the Colt .45 jumped in Ness' hand...