World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First

by Harry Kellogg

  “Don't worry Filipp. The Yankees are just the first in line to get on the boats. You've seen the newsreels and reports from England complaining about how the Americans are getting to go on the transports first. Our southern flank is well guarded by the Western Group of Forces. The 1st, 2nd and 4th Guard Tank Armies are in position to overrun the last organized capitalist forces in Europe. We will not make the same mistakes the Nazis did. We don't need the air forces to crush what forces remain trapped along the coast. We just need them to keep the enemy’s planes from disrupting our plans. We have stopped the air forces of the capitalists at every turn, and as demonstrated, our tanks are vastly superior to theirs. We shall cut them to pieces and use them for fish bait. They are finished on European soil. It's time to look towards the oil in the Mideast. We don't need it, but they do.”

  Operation Louisville Slugger

  In the English Channel,

  8 kilometers off the French coast,

  Near Le Havre

  June 20th, 1946

  04:54 hours

  The Soviets have pinned down what they believe are the last surviving fighting units of the NATO in Western Europe, cordoned into a 60-mile perimeter, around Le Havre, France. Assigned to the assault are 753 of the Soviets newest heavy tanks. Model Josef Stalin-3's and T-44's are lined-up, tread to tread. 4,623 guns, rocket launchers and mortars, are ready to fire, on command. 453,163 men are manning the guns and tanks, or on foot. They are anxious to get it over with and start the assault.

  Just over the horizon, there appears one of the grandest sights ever seen in naval history. The largest fleet of modern battleships ever assembled starts to come into view. The white frothing of bow waves are visible, as these creations of human ingenuity move through the surprisingly calm waters. They are on a mission. This mission means the destruction of tens of thousands of fellow human beings, and their weapons of war.

  Overhead, the skies are filled with an umbrella of warplanes many of them coming from the over twenty fleet aircraft carriers combined into another great fleet, whose task it is to guard the safety of the stately floating steel fortresses below. Over 600 ship-borne fighter aircraft combined along with a further 1,203 land-based fighters, into a tightly-choreographed display of military might. All of this power is concentrated in a 50-square mile patch of the English Channel.

  This patch of concentrated power, in concert with sixteen-and fourteen-inch naval artillery, is highly mobile and ready to move to where it is most needed. The salvos begin coming in from just over the horizon. They come seemingly, from nowhere, to wreak havoc and destruction, on an unprecedented and unimaginable scale. They possess an accuracy that no other weapons system of the era can match.

  According to an after-action report of Operation Neptune, submitted by the German High Command after D-Day, “a cruiser may be compared with a regiment of artillery. Battleships, carrying 38-or 40-cm guns, have a firepower which is difficult to achieve in land warfare, and is only possible by an unusual concentration of extraordinarily heavy batteries.” Only a small number of railroad guns can match their size and range. There are over 450 of these guns in this fleet, moving at up to 15 knots. [xx]

  Blinded by the air umbrella put up by the NATO forces, the Soviet Tank Armies start their advance anyway. Spotter planes cruise up and down the coast guarded by NATO fighters. The first ranging salvos cause no concern among the Soviet Generals, as they unleash their artillery blindly into the enemy’s enclave, hoping to silence the artillery that remains among the opposing forces. However, the naval guns far outrange the Soviet artillery, and concern grows as the salvos from the massive sixteen-inch naval guns start to land far inland. Shells of massive proportions are fired from guns of unimaginable power which have been waiting, since the day they were assembled, to do what they were designed to do.

  Then the full salvos begin. One hundred and six sixteen-inch guns from ships with names like the HMS Nelson, USS Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, West Virginia, Alabama, South Dakota, Indiana, and Massachusetts, landing almost in unison with unimaginable accuracy and inflicting unfathomable carnage. Then, one hundred-twenty secondary fourteen-inch guns from ships named the Howe, Duke of York, Mississippi, New Mexico, Tennessee, California, Idaho and others, add to the thunderous chorus, with the spotter planes directing their shells' flight trajectories. One hundred-thirteen of the Soviet army's heaviest tanks are, for lack of a better term, vaporized into slag, in the first two salvos. Dozens more disappear, with every salvo afterward.

  Panic ensues and shell shocked Soviet troops and armor are caught in the open, as they try to run for cover. But there is no cover, not for miles. The miles of open ground offering no cover leaves thousands of the finest fighting men on earth with nowhere to escape. They stagger over terrain chosen by their tank commanders. Chosen for its lack of obstacles. Chosen for its lack of cover.

  Their fate is sealed. All they can do is to await their appointment with death and dismemberment. They have no prepared bunkers, no trenches, no fox holes, not even a decent-sized boulder to hide behind. They are literally, just waiting to become smoking piles of charred flesh. Flesh that once was alive and loved.

  Outranged and blinded, the Soviet artillery parks are blown to piles of smoking debris. Many of the hapless artillerymen did not even know what hit them, other than the sound like that of a freight train flying through the air straight at them; high-explosive shells, seemingly coming from out of nowhere; ending their lives so very far from home.

  The area immediately outside the outskirts of LeHavre, has been instantly turned into an image of World War One's 'no-man’s land.' Giant craters, filled with smoking and burning flesh, fuel and steel, strewn all across the landscape for miles, and still the salvos continue. It was an inexhaustible rain of death and destruction, on anything, or anyone, caught in the maelstrom of screaming steel and explosives; each shell exploding with unimaginable force and destruction, leaving in their wake a massive crater full of death.

  The noise is indescribable. It is beyond comprehension. Never has such a concentrated and mobile force of human destruction rained down death upon other human beings with such uncanny accuracy. Never have twenty-two modern battleships been joined together, in such a chorus of unimaginable destruction.

  This nakedly brutish display of firepower makes carpet-bombing look like child's play. The shelling is done with pinpoint accuracy, and it is constant at over 450 one-ton shells being fired per minute, at its peak. The salvos continue, until there is nothing to target. Everything larger than a rat is dead, or dying. It is horrific, even to those who have perpetuated the slaughter. Even to those who hate the enemy, with a white-hot passion. Only an atomic bomb can compare, in its magnitude of sheer destruction.

  The salvos fall for only thirty-six minutes, but that's all the time that was needed. In those thirty-six minutes, 739 Soviet heavy tanks were obliterated, 232,624 men are dead, wounded or missing (with fair amount of certainty that most of the missing will never be found, their bodies having been vaporized in the barrage) and 3,542 guns, rocket launchers and mortars are destroyed; all precious resources that the Soviets cannot replace easily, especially such a dramatic loss in manpower.

  Line of Battle Ships on their way to Operation Louisville Slugger

  ***

  We know the inner workings of the Kremlin and the Soviet High Command make the Machiavelli look like amateurs. This is an accounting of such ministrations.

  ***

  The True Numbers Must Never Reach the Kremlin

  Field Headquarters of the Soviet Northern Group of Forces

  Office of Marshal Sokolovsky

  June 20th, 1946

  10:34 hours

  “This is a catastrophe! This is a calamity! How could this have happened? Who is responsible? Where was the air force? Get Novikov on the phone...no wait! What can I do...what can I do? How could this operation have gone so wrong? We have to think of something! We have to find a way to appease Comrade Stalin
! Andrey do something! Think of something; or it's both of our heads!

  “Well maybe we could appease the Kremlin by giving them a quick victory...say Denmark? We weren't supposed to attack until after France was defeated but ...”

  “That's it! Order Bagramyan and his ten fastest divisions to take Copenhagen, and shut off the Baltic to the English pigs. Yes, that will soften the blow. Get General Bagramyan on the line...NOW!”

  “General Bagramyan, you are ordered to take ten of our fastest and most powerful divisions and capture Copenhagen! Yes, Denmark! I want Copenhagen taken and the Baltic Sea closed to the capitalist navies in FIVE DAYS! I'll send you everything you need...Don't worry about politics Bagramyan, just get moving and ATTACK! Let nothing stand in your way. This is a direct order!”

  “But Comrade General, we cannot attack a sovereign nation until we are ordered too.”

  “I have learned over my long career, that it is better to accomplish a difficult task first, and then ask for forgiveness later, especially after a great victory.”

  “In the meantime, keep this news from reaching the Kremlin. Hopefully, the capitalists will want to wait a few days, before announcing what they have done. All those tanks and artillery pieces, and all those men, lost! What did this Andrey? Is this their atomic bomb at work?”

  “No Marshal, we have ample evidence that it was a massive naval bombardment. From the testimony of the survivors, and evidence from unexploded ordinance suggests that it was done by naval gunfire.”

  “Ships; this was all done by SHIPS? Why they were not discovered and sunk? Where were our planes? WHERE WERE OUR PLANES?”

  A Smashing Victory!

  Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

  The Pentagon,

  Outside Washington, D.C.

  June 21st, 1946

  0810 hours

  “Well Admiral; that certainly floored 'em! How many Reds did you figure we killed?”

  “Over 200,000 men killed, with over 700 tanks destroyed, if we can trust our intelligence assessments.”

  “Quite an operation...congratulations!”

  “Well, thank you, but as you know it’s just a drop in the bucket. It gives the public a much-needed victory. I hope they got it on film.”

  “Yeah, too bad we just don't...”

  “Attention!”

  “At ease, gentleman…”

  “Welcome Mr. President.”

  “Thank you General. Now, explain it to me again, really slowly. Why aren't we attacking after such a smashing victory?”

  “Sir, as you may recall, we had only twenty-two seriously understrength divisions in Western Europe. After the May attacks, we were effectively down to eleven, and again these were about half-strength at most, even being reconstituted with the stragglers from the destroyed units. Our air forces on the continent were largely destroyed on the ground. All our supplies in Europe have been largely overrun, and are being turned against us by the Reds. Our only untouched military force is the Navy. Unlike at Pearl Harbor, the Navy is highly mobile, able to be used for offensive operations and is not just running for its life, or trying to stay alive.”

  “Our other military branches are just not able to respond quite yet. It's only been fifty days, since May 2nd. We're lucky that we have any forces left at all that can try and at least slow down the Reds. My God sir, we just reinstated the draft barely two weeks ago! We just don't have the bodies yet, much less the ability to match up supplies and transport to those bodies.”

  “Yes, we could feed them into the meat-grinder of Western Europe, brigade by brigade, but you know as well as I do that is not the plan. We have to form a strong and cohesive defensive line. That's where all the new units are going; somewhere they will make an impact; somewhere they can be trained and equipped yet still be on the European mainland, so we don't have to pull another D-Day.”

  “Those new brigades are digging in now and setting up defensive positions in depth. We are only talking about three divisions' worth of raw troops. Our veterans have yet to heed the call, but I'm certain they will soon. If we can only hold on until then, we should be alright.”

  “The remaining eleven divisions that have survived the Red assault, are making their way to the defensive line. Because of 'Operation Louisville Slugger', they were able to separate themselves from the Reds, and are making their way south to get rearmed and put into the new line. As you know, sir, the defensive positions were picked a long time ago just for this contingency. We should be able to hold with fifteen full-strength divisions. Even with their recent losses, the Reds are fielding close to eighty divisions, with more coming.”

  “Sir, we have indications that Denmark will be the next to fall under communist domination.”

  “Are we able to assist them?”

  “Not in any significant way sir. We can keep the Reds away from parts of the coast but we can't go too far into the Baltic at this point for fear of Soviet submarines and sea-mines. We could give them a hard time, but we would be risking too much to do so in my opinion. The chances of a major tactical defeat are too great for not enough comparable gain. Again, our only hope would be to slow them down, and delay the inevitable.”

  “Supply is still not a concern for the Soviets who are still living off the land, and off of our supply depots. We have to pull them deeper into Southern France, and eventually increase the length of their supply line. It will take at least six months before they develop infrastructure and will be able to take advantage of their newly-acquired territory. Believe it or not, the people of some of the conquered countries have vaguely communist sympathies at the moment and we don't expect much in the way of partisan attacks in the short term. The Soviets have been remarkably restrained compared to what they did in Germany. From what we can gather, they've been treating the civilian population pretty well, even by our standards.” [xxi]

  “From what MI-6, and the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe's G-2, tells us, we cannot expect any serious sabotage efforts until the fall, at the earliest, and then only if the Soviet soldiers strip the countryside bare, and go on a rape, pillage and burn campaign. There is a tremendously strong wait-and-see attitude; 'Workers’ Paradise', and all that crap.”

  “General Kenney, where are we on planning the bombing campaign?”

  “Well, sir, it's just going to take time to ramp up our forces again. We'll test their air force, within the next thirty days, to see how they plan on countering the B-29. As of May 1945, we estimated that they had no real counter to the Superfortress, but who knows what they've cooked up in the meantime. As you know, sir, our plan is not to hit them from England, so we have to develop our other bases first. We are shooting for October, to begin the destruction of the Soviet Empire. We will hit them, and hit them hard, but in the meantime, we have to concentrate on building up the necessary infrastructure, and counting on the Army to keep them away from our new bases.”

  “We know that Stalin is aware of our lack of atom bombs, and the means to deliver them, so we have to be very careful in using the four we currently have on hand. If the correct target presents itself, we may try and fly a raid, armed with a couple of atomic bombs. This will be just to let the public know we are striking back, and to encourage any rebellions among the Soviets' newest allies. Per your policy, we will stay away from using the atomic bomb in Western Europe.”

  “We have extremely limited knowledge on where a good target might be, that is within fighter-escort range. I'm not sending in naked bombers, until we know their defensive capabilities. The few conventional bombing raids the British have launched were met with stiff resistance, but nothing we haven't seen before. Their losses were acceptable. They have yet to reach very far into enemy territory, nevertheless. Their raids have involved less than 300 bombers, and the losses were under 15%, which is high, but again, acceptable at this stage in the war.”

  “It does more harm than good to bomb blindly at night on our former allies in Europe. Their factories are still in ruins,
and their cities burned out. We must be patient, and wait until we can reach out and hit the Soviets where it hurts, hitting them hard, in conjunction with our counterattacks.”

  “Admiral, it sounds like the navy will be our left jab, for the time being. Moving and sticking, and moving to keep 'em off balance. Is that the plan?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. Using our mobility, we will use our conventional forces to run interdiction raids, concentrate on supply depots, and to keep them away from the coasts, as much as possible, and we will be able to greatly assist at the flanks of the projected defensive line, which is being constructed, as we speak. We will be busy, sir, and I'm sure old Ivan will feel our jabs, until we can follow up with a right hook.”

  “Let me put this into boxing terms. The Navy and Marines keep jabbing, and moving, and wearing 'em out. The Air Force goes for the body, and makes 'em drop their hands. Then, in the end, the Army starts throwing haymakers, until we connect with the head. We wear 'em down, and then knock 'em out. Is that about it gentlemen?”

  “YES SIR, MISTER PRESIDENT! YES SIR!”

  ***

  Sokolovsky tries to make a purse out of a sow’s ear but Stalin is not fooled. We believe that during the war Stalin was very reluctant to change his command staff. Many errors were committed in the previous war and Stalin had the good sense not to purge his commanders in the midst of hostilities. It is safe to say that you were safe in times of war but peace could mean your doom.