World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First

by Harry Kellogg

  Baku itself was like a porcupine bristling with SAM missiles and close to five hundred antiaircraft guns of all ranges and stopping power. All oiled and waiting to receive the deadly shells that could mean death to many a bomber crew. The remaining oil production facilities that missed the first atomic bomb attack had been hardened as much as possible. There was still close to 25 square miles of oil production facilities and wells that the errant atomic bomb had missed and Baku was running at 30% efficiency still. It was also being repaired 24 hours a day despite the horrors of radiation.

  Many of the interceptor squadrons were fairly close to Baku because of their short ranges. The jet fighters in particular were grouped around the area outside of the nuclear radiation zone of course. Many were based to the southwest to intercept bombers on the ingress and to the northwest to intercept them after they left the flak and missile killing zone planned for them.

  Ground spotters picked up the massive raid coming from the south before the radar did. The communication lines and radios were heating up with every minute. Counts of the bomber stream and circling jet fighters came pouring in. Many were wild guesses but some were fairly accurate. There was no way to hide this massive moving carpet in the sky droning on towards Baku.

  The area around Baku was as ready as it ever will be. More jet fighters would have been nice but their shortage was not critical. The older liquid fuel Stalin’s Fire missiles started to be fueled and the solid fuel models got ready for launch as well. By now all the malcontents among the Chechen women had been weeded out. They were now a compliant bunch and ready to do their Soviet masters bidding. There formidable skills were crucial in the initial stages of launch. The first few minutes of wire guided flight set the missiles up for success if placed at the best angle for the internal missile guidance system to take over and hone in on the lead bombers.

  They always went for the lead bombers for two reasons. One was to cripple the leadership of the raid; this had worked brilliantly in the first big raid attempted on Leningrad, and the other was to disrupt the formations and to possibly destroy the moral of the following crews. The crews who could find themselves thrown into the position of prime due to the loss of their leader. It would certainly be unnerving to see your leaders picked off one by one and then you become the object of attention for a guided missile coming unerringly towards your bomber. There would be nothing you could do but pray.

  The formation that created and made carpet bombing effective would also increase the havoc of an exploding SAM missile with a warhead of a quarter ton of high explosives. These warhead have already demonstrated the ability to take down as many as 4 bombers with each explosion in other attacks. It would not be too hard to predict that any number of bombers would start to distance themselves from the lead bombers no matter how brave the crews.

  Carpet bombing had only been tried on a helpless and prostrate opponent. The Soviets were far from helpless as has been amply demonstrated. The possible addition of proximity fuses of American make, in the warheads of the Stalin’s Fire missiles was also a major concern. Jammers had been placed in bombers spread throughout the formations, but who knew what counter measures the Soviets and their pet German scientists had cooked up for this defense in depth of their last remaining major oil field and production facility.

  Each of the bomber formations knew who the bombers were that had the jammers aboard and were sure to try and get as close to this unit as possible. No one had any true idea of the range of the jammer or if it would even work. The VVS had made it work over Great Britain but once again the US was playing catchup. Do you show élan and strength and just bore in, or do you test the waters first. With LeMay in charge, you bore right in. Damn the missiles full speed ahead, as it were.

  And it looked like that was exactly what was going to happen. The formations of bombers headed straight for the untouched streets and oil production facilities of Baku. The missile crews checked and recheck their equipment and the short range jets started to launch as the B-29s and P80 jet fighters closed in, climbing in breath taking speed compared to their propeller driven ancestors. This was sure to be an epic battle fought on the enemies turf by SAC against the best the VVS had to offer. Novikov had done an outstanding job of putting a hasty defense together and LeMay had done the same with his attacking force.

  At about 125 miles out from Baku the bomber stream took a 45 degree turn to the Northwest. They were now headed almost due north in a classic dogleg to the left. It took over 15 minutes before someone figured out what was going on and rushed in to inform the Stavka and more importantly Novikov. Normally he would have left the tactics to his staff but this was too important to leave to others.

  In that 15 minutes the lead planes traveled 55 miles closer to the target. Those 55 miles meant that the short range He 162 Stalin’s Dart jet interceptors were out of position. That 55 miles meant that the vast majority of the Stalin’s Fire SAMs would not be in position as well for optimal interception and if the course of the bombers held, they would not be in range. The conventional Yak 9s, Yak 3s and the La 7s along with the Pe 9 and Tu2S bats armed with the X4 missile could make the adjustment but hundreds of AA guns could not. But of course, neither would the remaining oil fields of Baku which would remain untouched this day.

  Within a minute of being told about the course change Novikov knew what LeMay was up to. He was after the massive air fields newly built near Barda and Yeviakh. More importantly the real target was the supplies and ground crews there. LeMay was doing the same thing to him that he had done to the British. Everyone was so confident that LeMay would go for the jugular, that no thought of what a truly tempting target the supply depots were, had been broached in any meeting or briefing. As the Brits gave no thought to their bone yards so the VVS brain trust gave no thoughts to their true weakness. The months of supplies uprooted from the English Channel area and hastily move to undefended depots were easily observed from the air and were largely undefended.

  The thought of what Stalin would do when he found out, was almost paralyzing him. Reaching deep inside he continued to boom out order after order and at the same time plotted how he could blame this calamity on Beria.

  Novikov knew what was coming. He had seen the aftermath of a carpet bombing mission in Toulouse. Nothing of value would be left for miles around each of his depots and no appreciable amount of supplies would survive. More importantly his prized ground crews and mechanics would be blown to bits. He immediately ordered an evacuation of the two air complexes as his first priority. There was nothing he could do about the supplies. They would be gone in a matter of minutes in billowing columns of smoke and monstrous explosions.

  He ordered his men to use the fastest evacuation route available leading away from the areas that were sure to be devastated in a matter of 15 minutes or less. Luckily the areas that could effectively be carpet bombed were fairly small in square kilometers so that 15 minutes should get most of the workers away from the kill zone. Now if he were LeMay he would send his fighters to track down any surviving personnel, he further ordered that the ground crews were to disperse after they traveled 15 km from the presumed target area.

  Victor whispered in his ear that they should move all fighters capable of mounting a threat to the area over the evacuation sites to defend the troops from strafing P-80 Shooting Stars. Even a Yak 9 if flown properly had a chance of catching a jet going low and slow searching for human targets. If nothing else they would provide a distraction to the much faster US jet fighters and prevent them from doing their murderous business. It would do no good to move the shorter legged Soviet jets to the area. He suggested it was best to keep them over Baku as CAP just in case. Novikov was a master at knowing a good idea when he heard one and then rewarding those who suggested them.

  And so the orders were given and now all he could do was to wait. Wait to see his fate. Wait to hear if all he lost was a few weeks of supplies and spare parts or if he would lose the years of experience and knowledge st
ored in the fragile craniums of his men. Had he lost the incredible advantage that Beria had provided to him with the foreknowledge of what the enemy was planning? Had he failed in his attempt to match wits with the man who destroyed Japan from the air? So far he was losing and losing badly. Stalin would not let that continue for long he was sure.

  ENOUGH! He thought to himself. Get off your ass and save those men! Plenty of time to face the grim prospects of being tortured or making the choice to use his fancy pistol on himself. He really did care for the ground crews and mechanics more than the arrogant pilots.

  “Tell Klokov to move the Pe-9s Southwest at all speed. They may be able to catch some Amerikosi cripples. Have the MiG 9s with the drop tanks cover them. If nothing else maybe we can draw some blood and gain some experience against the Amerikosi jets. Have him use the AR 234 as well to draw off some more fighters. Send some Yak 9DDs to see if they can pinpoint the bases for the fighters. I suspect they have to be based in Turkey and the Red Army will have to attend to that.”

  Now to prepare my personal defense, he thought. Will the attacks come from Beria or directly from the Kremlin at the behest of Stalin? Beria has as much to lose as I do if it is fully discovered what really happened so I believe it is going to come from Stalin...if anyone.

  Head Shot

  Alexander Pokryshkin found himself once again in a fighter plane on his way to a one sided fight with a supposedly superior enemy.[lxxxviii] So many times before that had been the case and so many times before he had triumphed. He has over 500 sorties and some say close to 100 kills in the last war with a not so insignificant number of them being Nazi aces. He wondered to himself that if you shot down another ace do you get to keep his score and add it to yours? In that case he had well over 300 kills.

  During the latter part of the war he actually would announce that he was flying a mission over an open channel. He was known as “one hundred” or Sotka and when he announced he was in the air there was no opposition to his missions. He personally shot down four 50 plus kill German aces in individual combat while flying inferior aircraft. On one occasion in 1942 two German aces jumped his Yak 1 flying the far superior Me 109 G2s. He barrel rolled on both of them and shot them down one by one. Nobody in 1942 did barrel rolls anymore, maybe that's why they worked. Barda had 46 kills to his name at that time and lived to get another 110. Keiser died with 9 to his name.

  Pokryshkin was known to give away a significant number of his kills to fallen comrades. The Soviet VVS monetarily rewarded pilots for every plane shot down. Manny other Soviet aces also engaged in this common practice of giving their kills to fallen comrades. Each kill was rewarded with a substantial monetary bonus, and on the day of a pilot's death all regiment kills would often be credited to him in order to give his family some support. Many other Soviet pilots were getting killed in 1941 and 1942 when Pokryshkin was in the thick of the fighting and no one knows how many he gave to his fallen comrades.

  He did however have one glaring error in his emotional makeup; He did not suffer fools lightly and that was constantly getting him demoted and denounced by good communists so he never obtained the rank he deserved. Oh he won metals and praise but more often than not, he was demoted shortly after or even just before he got his latest medal. He is the only one to win Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union 3 times for combat actions. He shot down more German multiple aces than any other pilot. He seemed to be able to find them like magic and best them in one on one combat; many times in front of multiple witnesses. Experte Feldwebel Hans Dammers and his wingman UnteroffizierKurt Keiser (7./JG 52) fell to his guns along with, 9-kill ace Unteroffizier Heinz Scholze (4./JG 52), Leutnant Helmut Haberda (an experte of 5./JG 52 with 58 victories to his credit, on 23 July 1943 Pokryshkin shot down the 56-kill experte Uffz, Hans Ellendt, of 4./JG 52, and one of his last victories was Hauptmann Rudolf-Heinz Ruffer, credited with 80 tank-kills in Stukas and HS 129s.

  To make his feats even more incredible he flew much of the war in the US P-39 Aircobra that despite its formidable name was not regarded as even in the top twenty fighters of World War Two. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter. America’s top 3 out of four Aces flew the twin boom P-38 lightning, which many uninformed historians dismiss when compared to the P-51 Mustang. In the right hands a P-39 or P-38 could fly circles around an unskilled pilot. America’s Ace of Aces Richard Bong made a fool of the leading P-47 ace in front of a huge crowd when on leave in Australia and Pokryshkin bested Germany’s experten regularly throughout the war in what was by any measure a decidedly inferior aircraft.

  Pokryshkin was flying a MiG 9 jet fighter with drop tanks and was closing in on the last of the B-29 bombers that had just bombed his airfield. He was not in a good mood and the last time he was this angry he had shot down 3 Ju 88s in a single pass and two more Ju 87s that same day. He didn’t know if he was so angry because of the idiots at HQ were fooled by the Amerikosi or by the fact that his long time mechanic had been wounded in the raid. Whatever the reason, he was going to seek revenge and god help anything that got in the way of his 30mm cannon shells.

  The escorting P-80 Shooting Stars were out of position when he started his first pass and a short burst of 5 rounds tore the B-29 named Wet Willy in two. The shot was a brilliant deflection shot and the bombers gunners could not follow his jet fighter fast enough to get a good shot at him. He then side slipped and dove on another bomber who’s gunner did get a good shot at the now slower jet fighter and nicked his left aileron and threw his aim off a bit. Only three of the six 30 mm cannon rounds hit the outside port engine and sent the giant bomber on a death spiral towards the earth spewing its crew behind hanging from their parachutes. All got out but the plane made quite a splash as it pancaked and broke apart after falling 20,000 feet.

  It takes a long time to fall from 20,000 feet and by the time the second bomber hit the water Pokryshkin himself was dead. A SAC jet fighter pounced on the MiG 9 named One Hundred as he was lining up on his third victim. The first burst of 50 cal bullets from the Shooting Star missed and Pokryshkin might have been able to maneuver out of harm’s way, but so intent was he on decimating his prey, that he chose to finish his own kill and that was his last mistake. The last burst of his cannons did hit home and killed 3 crewmen of the B-29 named the Lucky Strike but the plane itself survived and made it back to make an emergency landing.

  The second burst from the American jet took Pokryshkin’s head off. No need to say much more than that. He died instantly feeling no pain. Ironically his MiG 9 kept flying straight and true for another 15 minutes in a shallow dive that outpaced any pursuer. It finally broke apart when it hit the sound barrier and Pokryshkin was unceremoniously buried at sea with his head landing 49 miles west southwest from the remaining pieces of his body.

  Taran

  Taran is the Soviet version of a ramming attack. Boris Kobzan was the best in the world at this tactic.[lxxxix] He survived 3 such attacks during the last war. His La 7 was built to ram the B-29. His unit has been practicing for almost a year against the big bomber. Practice run after practice run using plywood targets and even the German Gigant glider towed behind dual TU2S to get the speed needed to duplicate the American bomber. The VVS Tarans were as ready they could be and as luck would have it they were in position to give it a go. The Reinforced La 7R Fin was much faster than its much heavier gun carrying brothers. It was lighter in every way except where it counted. They were reinforced to withstand a massive air to air collision with a much heavier opponent. It was designed to cut like a knife through the tail sections of the B-29. Some of which were almost as big as the whole Fin itself. In addition, it had a rocket engine installed that gave it a 3-minute burst of speed rivaled only by a true jet fighter.

  Boris was not a good shot but then again, he didn’t have to be, did he? He was probably the best pilot in the world at crashing into another plane. It was a very strange claim to fame but there it was. He flew with such precision that he could put his plane, closing in on the targ
et, at a combined speed of over 600 miles an hour, in precisely the place and angle he needed. In his last ram attack, he actually was able to land his plane quite nicely after taking down a Ju 88. It really was a remarkable skill to be able to crash into and opponent and live, at the kind of speeds that modern planes had to obtain to stay in the air.

  The formations of Amerikosi bombers were in a shallow dive to gain speed and to get out of range of most of the Soviet fighters and interceptors. The tactic had worked very well and the Tarans where the only conventional Red Air Force planes in contention for an attack at the moment. The MiG 9s had got a few but not anywhere near enough. A number of the Fargos had gone down in flames to the guns of the P-80 jet fighters who found themselves in the enviable position of being in the majority for once in this war.

  What this decrease in altitude did mean, was that the Fins were in their element. At 15,000 feet, the La 7 had no equal outside of a jet fighter. They gained speed on the pack and had the best angle of attack on the bombers imaginable. Luck plays such a big part in the art of war and for once in this bombing raid, it was with the Soviets. The American jet fighters were still consumed with dealing with the MiG 9 Fargos and the Tartan squadron following Boris each had time to pick their targets. They were not harassed and came boring straight in. This allowed them the luxury of lining up their attacks and then side slipping to throw off the aim of the big bombers gunners.

  It’s hard enough trying to hit a small fighter plane coming in from the front quarter high and low. Add in a sideslip and you're pretty much untouchable. The reason that fighters weren’t successful more often in this kind of attack was twofold. The escorting fighters usually prevented you from taking the time to line the attack up and second it was even harder to hit a target with your own shells when you were side-slipping towards it.