Suddenly there was a Russian soldier walking towards him with his hands up in the air. Ihor told him to stop in Russian and a heated discussion ensued. The end result was Ihor took the surrender of over 450 Soviet soldiers.
Ihor had no idea of what to do with his 468 enemy prisoners. They were wearing stolen Soviet uniforms in an effort to disguise their true identities. Ruslan was trying to find his Sergeant.
Whenever he got close to NATO’s lines, someone would see the Soviet uniforms and shoot at the group. Not that Ihor could blame his unit. He would probably have done the same thing. Here he was trying to bring these POWs to someone in charge and he was getting shot at by his own guys as a reward.
The really sad part was that three of the voluntary captives had gotten shot and two had died. Being shot at and the casualties were not good for moral. Luckily Ihor’s grandfather was Ukrainian and had taught the Private to speak passable Russian.
The fact that he could talk to and understand his detainees was a tremendous help. He had no doubt that if he had been unable to communicate he would be dead by now. The situation was absurd to say the least.
The 468 soldiers were what remained of an original force of about 6,000 Ukrainian fighters. To a man they hated the dictator who murdered millions including their families, more than invading foreigners. First had been the Germans and now it was the Americans.
According to the leader of Ihor’s prisoners, in 1941 the Ukrainians joined the Germans against Stalin. After the war it had taken 18 months for these anti-Soviet fighters to reach their homeland.[clxxii] In July, 1947 the remaining 1458 Ukrainians were stopped at the border by a contingent of 30 NKVD personnel and a hundred or so very scared looking Commissars. The former anti-Stalinist[clxxiii] fighters were ordered to return to the front and attack the Amerikosi. The Colonel in command of the intercepting group implied that the men were expected to die in the attempt.
One of the prisoners suddenly shouted, “TO HELL WITH THAT.” a general melee broke out between Stalin’s minions and the fighters. The surviving Ukrainians were unarmed. Hundreds were shot before they could get their hands on the NKVD stooges and Commissars who were trying to prevent them from going home.
After 5 years of intense fighting thousands of miles from his home, Vladim succumbed to a blow to the head. He died within blocks of his family after having been to Africa and back. Many anti-Stalinist fighters died that day.
Their deaths were not in vain. Eventually the former Hiwis [clxxiv] overwhelmed Stalin’s men and took dozens of them prisoner after killing the majority. The last 923 Ukrainians knew their situation was untenable. To a man they decided to surrender to the Americans that had landed in Gdansk.
After all, what was a mere 400 odd miles traveling through their sworn enemy’s territory and being hunted constantly compare to what they had already been through? And so they started their journey to Gdansk. 468 of them completed the trip eventually surrendering to Private Ihor, 468 half-naked men who hadn’t eaten in days.
After 18 hours of trying, Private Ihor was finally able to sneak close enough to a sleepy guard who he recognized from his unit. He convinced the man to get the Corporal, who got the Sergeant, who got the lieutenant, who got the… it took a colonel to make the decision and accept the prisoners' surrender.
The 468 had their first hot meal in months. One ate so fast that he choked to death and now there were 467.
Insurgent Army
A specialized unit in resistance fighting was dispatched from NATO HQ. They spent 14 days interviewing and classifying Ihor Chornovil Ruslan’s 467 POWs. 147 were chosen to continue with the fight against Stalinism. Their assignment was to once again infiltrate behind the Stalinist’s lines were they were to recruit, train and lead Freedom Fighters in an insurgency campaign aimed at disrupting the iron grip Stalin had on his countrymen.
All the soldiers were presented and then given proof that Stalin had ordered the death of millions of Ukrainians in three different purges over a 10-year period. Many of the 147 knew or had firsthand experience watching in horror as fellow villagers and relatives were lined up and shot. The murders were for no apparent reason other than the victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
How can millions be killed by a leader who is clearly insane? How was he able to stay in power? Fear is the answer. The 147 were no longer afraid of death and had nothing left to lose.
The 147 were to gather additional fighters using a plan designed by a former conman. The plan was an iteration of the classic Pyramid Scheme. One man recruited five who in turn recruited another five, etc., 5 x 5 x 5 x 5. In six generations, you end up with 78,000 recruits. If only 50 out of the 147 were successful, you still had close to 4 million Freedom Fighters.
Freedom movements gain momentum when potential members see help is on the way. The NATO landings in Trieste, the Baltic and now the Black Sea brought hope to the hopeless.
The Scandinavian countries, France, Poland, Italy, Greece, Ukraine and Yugoslavia had substantial resistance operations during World War Two. The concept was not new. In this war many who enlisted were willing and able to take leadership roles. The final elements needed were a catalyst and a supply of arms. NATO provided both.
Substantial numbers of arms caches started to be dropped to resistance units throughout the former Soviet Empire. NATO was using the newly built and acquired air fields located in the captured territories. DC3 Dakotas took off to rendezvous points throughout Eurasia.
At times, these flights were heavily escorted. At other times, they were flown clandestinely. The VVS was far too busy to commit significant resources in stopping these flights. This decision could prove to be a fatal mistake by Novikov.
These flights were sowing the seeds of freedom throughout the rotting corps of Stalin’s former dominion. These seeds of freedom were far deadlier to the Soviet body politic than any invading army.
Stalin was well aware of the danger of revolt. His greatest fear was internal resistance. It was, after all, the rebellion against the Czar that brought him to power. Ruthlessly destroying any active or imagined opposition was how he remained in power.
So why didn’t he act?
The Toad
The Toad had no idea of what all these men were doing here. She was just trying to hide and not get stepped on. She almost made it when one of the humans picked her up and she did the only thing nature had taught her to do…she pissed on him. The man didn’t like that and threw her quite a distance.
Luckily, she landed in a big puddle of water. She hid for a while and then noticed a pile of soft sand nearby. She carefully hopped over to the pile and dug herself in and waited. The sun had heated up the sand nicely and she was very comfortable.
Something landed right near her hiding place. It was big and breathing hard. Now if toads did experience fright she would have, but they don’t. She just hunkered down and waited.
The thing that was lying near her was a soldier named Yeorgi and he was in a world of trouble. He had no nice pile of sand to hide in. Within seconds she forgot about the thing.
Her instincts told her to wait until it got cooler to venture out. A toad moving around on a hot beach does not last long and their genes would not be passed on as well. Which meant that most toads who’s instincts told them to jump around in the bright sunlight were dead and probably never got the chance to mate.
In evolutionary terms this behavior was eliminated pretty quickly.
The Beach Chair
It was the 25th of July and Yeorgi couldn’t believe his eyes. Who could have a fleet this big and what were they doing here in Novorossiysk?
With the naked eye, he could just see the massive ships. Almost simultaneously a cloud of airplanes formed over the town and beach.
Yeorgi had asked for and gotten leave after his 54th sniper kill. He had now shot seven Americans to add to his score of 47 Spaniards. He was no longer proud of either number and was tired of the killing.
Yeorgi used his ti
me off to make his way to the beautiful beach in Novorossiysk on the Black Sea. Although the town itself had been devastated by the Germans, the beach had cleaned in the year-long hiatus from combat. His Grandparents had brought him here as a child and his memories of those visits had drawn him back.
Just as he was thinking he should leave the beach. Large shells started to land inland on the few Soviet defensive sites near the harbor. The explosions were enormous. Bigger than anything Yeorgi saw in his six months on the Pyrenees Line in Spain. He had heard of the power of the Amerikosi’s ships and now he knew to whom the fleet belonged.
How could they have gotten into the Black Sea? As he finished his thought, he was suddenly launched 30 feet into the air. He landed in the water and was remarkably unhurt. His ears were ringing and everything ached but nothing was broken. The exception possibly being his ear drums.
By his count he stayed in the water for a few hours. Even the warm waters of Novorossiysk eventually made him shiver. The shelling from the fleet continued the entire time with planes dropping bombs adding to the mix. There were few Soviet military targets left by this time. There was a slight lull in the bombardment as if a crescendo had been reached in some massive symphony of destruction.
He decided to make for shore. Just as he was dragging himself out of the water, one of the few remaining Soviet emplacements foolishly revealed itself. Yeorgi was wondering why the idiots would start shooting now, when he heard engine noises behind him. As he was running he glanced over his shoulders and to his amazement, he saw dozens of landing craft making towards shore.
The crew of the small cannon were doing their duty and shooting at the boats full of soldiers. A close-in US destroyer practically took Yeorgi’s head off with a volley of 5-inch shells that silenced the brave little cannon almost immediately. Then, as if adding insult to injury a plane dropped a large bomb right on top of where the gun had been.
He jumped behind the first cover he could find even though it was a half-destroyed beach chair. At least it covered him from view. As he peaked through the slats of the shattered seat, he witnessed something few have seen and lived to tell about.
Hundreds of heavily laden US Marines were jumping out of the landing craft, wading, and running ashore. Yeorgi buried himself in the sand like a crab and held still. Within minutes he heard one of the foreigners yelling very close by. Next, he felt a body land on the sand within a meter of his hiding place.
The man proceeded to crawl right over him got up and started running towards the nearest building. He heard very few shots in opposition and guessed that his comrades had beaten a hasty retreat or were dead.
He remained behind his beach chair under his shallow covering of sand and began to wait. He waited so long that he fell asleep. He could not believe he had slept. What woke him up was something squirming underneath the sand below his left hand.
He slowly moved his hand and within seconds the head of a toad appeared. She or he Yeorgi couldn’t tell, looked around and then headed out for the nearest piece of cover.
It was dark, but all around him American soldiers were moving inland along with trucks, armored cars and tanks. The amount of supplies on the beach was staggering. From just what he could see he calculated a whole army could live for a week.
So, there he was dressed only in shorts standing in awe when an American soldier came right up to him and told him in Russian to get off the beach and go home. He must have looked like some ordinary tourist who got caught in the wrong place. He thanked the man and took his advice.
He blended in with the crowds of civilians and started going north. He was headed to his grandparents’ home, the Desmans and his eventual death. [clxxv]
Yeorgi would once again hear the cry of the Desman as he was breathing his last. He would hug his grandmother one more time and shake his grandfather’s hand as he went off to do his duty. Every step he took brought him closer to his fate. Every step he took brought the final cry of the Desman closer. He had 3 more weeks to live.
When Spoons Attack
1 August 1947
William White injured his finger. Much too often when he used his right index finger to type the letters h, j, m ,n, o, p, u and y he made a mistake. William White did not make mistakes when typing. He was the fastest and most accurate typist by far in the CIA stable of typists. Now he was going to lose that distinction to Mary Hart of all people. He loathed Mary. She was one of those prissy, know it all types.
He hurt his finger playing cards. He and his brother and two cousins were playing the card game Spoons. His cousin Marvin slammed down four aces and everyone grabbed for a spoon. William’s lunge for the closest spoon was blocked by his brother’s wrist and more importantly, his watch. It was a big Timex and William hit it square with his finger, the collision hurt like a son of a gun.
His finger had swollen to twice its normal size and half of it turned purple. The next day his pointer just would not bend properly. Of all days for this to happen, this was the worst! It was the end of the month report and he was expected to perform miracles on the keyboard. He was so frustrated that he was on the verge of walking out. Which probably would have gotten him shot for desertion in his nation’s time of need.
He bravely soldiered on, but he could feel Mary watching his every stroke. William started typing …
24 July 1947
Operation Backdoor was an astounding success at this juncture. The Turkish Straits are in NATO’s hands and a 40-mile corridor on either side is in place. The Turks are on the verge of rebellion and an estimated 450,000 Soviet troops are trapped in Turkey.
As usual, William’s mind paraphrased what he was typing…
Mathew Ridgeway and his 8th Army would drive like hell for the Caspian Sea. The army would skirt the Caucasian Mountains and trap Zhukov and his command titled the Transcaucasian Front. The soviets would be caught between the 8th Army and the forces commanded by Griswold to the south. Zhukov was rumored to have the best units in the Red Army. Georgy was preparing to attack Griswold and the US 15th Army from his position on the Lessor Caucasus.
Operation Backdoor would put a stop to Zhukov’s attack. If everything went according to plan another 670,000 of the Red Army’s finest would be cut off from Moscow and their supply lines.
Operation Triple Cross
NATO captured Gdansk and is driving south. Walker and the 1st Army broke out of Vienna. Currently Walker’s command is fighting their way north. The goal is to meet up with Truscott and the 5th Army cutting Europe in two along the Vistula River from Gdansk to Bielsko-Biala.
Walker coming from the South would complete what was now being called the European Line. Major Commie forces along the Pyrenees Line and occupying France, Germany, Poland and Italy would be left hanging.
US Army G2 estimated that 2.5 million Reds would be caught in the trap. These soldiers would be desperate, hungry and out of fuel thousands of miles from home. The major concern was that they might turn on the civilian population for revenge and looting. Not that there was much left in Germany to loot.
The key was getting the Reds to surrender peacefully by offering them food, freedom and a one-way ticket back home. All they had to do was fight for their country against Stalinism.
Attack on Pyrenees Line
Within weeks, General Wade Halslip on the Pyrenees Line would join the British Expeditionary Force and its Western European allies. Together the combined armies would attack Marshall Konstantin Rokossovsky and his beleaguered Soviet forces on the border of France and Spain. Months ago, the Reds had been on the offensive. Now the tables had turned and NATO was in the driver’s seat.
30 divisions of NATO troops consisting of mainly British units of the Second Army with attached Spanish Corps, Canadian and Regiments of Western European exiles led by Montgomery were set to attack on 4 August 1947. Hum from what he had heard Montgomery was not that good on the attack… politics he supposed. Heavy use of helicopters for what is called “vertical envelopment” are to
be used. Something to do with those helicopters again.
Ah…another map…
A concerted effort to coordinate with the resurgent French Resistance and Marquis has borne fruit. Over a half a million Frenchman resisted the Germans in World War Two. Many were committed communists who now were part of the puppet government in Paris. A whole new group of freedom fighters would have to be recruited.
At first, French resistance fighters were slow to join the movement as they were reluctant to leave their families again. But a series of atrocities committed by the French Reds and Soviet second line army units suddenly spurred an enormous wave of volunteers. Quite the opposite effect from what the communists intended he was sure.
Research and Development
Let’s see if that Dr. Skinner and his group are staying one step ahead of the Reds in the battle of technology. The group’s ideas of heated balloons over the ships are working for now. According to his report, Skinner feels it’s only a matter of time before the Soviets guess right and NATO ships start to take some serious casualties.
Damn he goes on to say that a few dozen hits by those bird guided missiles and the Navy will probably “reassess” its mission.
His mind wandered as he recalled how the US Navy pulled the plug on the Marines at Guadalcanal when they took some heavy losses. Admiral Fletcher was blamed for what the Marines called the ‘Navy Bugout’. Despite winning the first three carrier battles in history and a fourth at Guadalcanal Fletcher was always tainted by his decision to leave the Marines stranded.
He continued to paraphrase Skinner’s report in his head. It just goes to make the point that the US Navy will ‘Bugout’ rather than take heavy losses and live to fight another day. In this case, a Bugout would mean the abandonment of the US Army in Vienna, the Pyrenees, Poland and Crimea. Basically, the war would be lost with hundreds of thousands of US soldiers stranded in Eurasia.
World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First Page 127