World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First

by Harry Kellogg

  It was a brief drive from Pope Field to Fort Bragg, and from the post gate down a short and winding dirt road leading to the new Special Forces Training Area, called “the Swamp” by the locals and the trainees. General Halderman watched the troops training harder and more intensely than he had ever remembered from his days at West Point. He considered that the training would have to be as such, considering the nature of the combat that they will be engaging in. Then Halderman saw the stacks of Soviet, German and other foreign weapons that another group of soldiers were crowded around, learning the finer points of from their Special Forces weapons instructor. Another group of soldiers were crawling along the ground, obviously attempting to capture some unseen target.

  Then finally, the Jeep stops in front of a large ramshackle building, with two men wearing non-descript fatigues waiting in front of it. And they suddenly stand at attention “As you were” was General Halderman's response. “Let's not stand on ceremony here, gentleman. My name is Dave Halderman. I have some plans I want you to see.” Then Aaron Bank introduces them “I'm Aaron, and this is Russ.” referring to Russell Volckmann. “We're in command of the Swamp. Nice to meet ya. Let's see what you've got...” Halderman follows the men inside the building, to a conference area with a large table. On this table, is a large map of the Soviet Union, and the nations and territories adjoining it. He uncuffs the hard briefcase attached to his hand, unholsters his M1911A2 and puts it on the table, before unpacking the top-secret materials from the hardcase. The two Special Forces commanders looked nonplussed at each other, and they got down to work.

  As they all reviewed the materials, each person made their inputs, trying to come to a plan that would effectively allow them to tie down resources in the Far East, allowing the Allies to roll back the Soviets in Europe and tamp down any future threat from them. “Conventional and airborne forces are to take Vladivostok as a diversion, and that will allow you to insert your forces into Far Eastern Russia to begin harassing their rear areas, especially concerning the Trans-Siberian Railway. Once you cut that in several places, and break up the poor road system in the area, you will be able to isolate and damage the Red Army and NKGB border guard forces at will. But don't be fooled, the Red Army troops and NKGB border guards in that area will be tough to crack, being mostly veterans from the Battle of Berlin, so guerrilla tactics, in addition to finding and arming local oppressed minorities in the area, will be the best way to do this. Death by a thousand cuts. How typically Chinese.” and they all laughed. “Well,” Halderman says, “this is just a rough plan, gentlemen. I expect you to tweak it and change it to serve your needs, to ensure that you win the battle decisively. I will make sure that you get everything you need and that you have the appropriate help, as and when needed. I assume that you put that new translation of Sun-Tzu's Art Of War on your troops' training syllabus? It will give them a way of thinking of war in a completely asymmetrical way...” “We have, and the troops have been itching to apply the lessons that they have learned from the book.” replies Aaron Bank, who continues “I, myself, have been anxious to apply these lessons upon the Soviets, especially with the help of that expatriate Russian Air Corps – we will be meeting with their leader when we arrive there next month, and we will be taking some specialized equipment with us, and training them how to use it...” “Let's hope that they're all that they advertise. I heard somewhere that their leader was a member of General Vlasov's German-sponsored Free Russian Army. I still don't know how to feel about that, having dealt firsthand with Nazi atrocities.” said Aaron. Then Volckmann replies “The enemy of my enemy is my... I'll let you fill in the rest, Aaron and David. Fact of the matter is, in facing the Soviet juggernaut, we have to take the help wherever and whenever we can get it. I cringe, thinking of my old friend, Freddie Marcos, fighting the Huks in the PI, without much of our support, simply because we can't spare it.” Volckmann wears a look of disgust. “Gentlemen, thank you for the great knock-around session, but it's getting late and I'm no longer as young as you two scoundrels are. Where can I lay my head?” Halderman asks, as he packs his briefcase and holsters his sidearm. “We'll get a jeep and check you into the BOQ, and pick back up where we left off tomorrow morning, David” Halderman nods his approval, and they all leave, to continue their work tomorrow, satisfied with what they accomplished already in this short afternoon session...

  Major General David H. Halderman

  *****

  Chapter Three:

  Rushenko's Flying Circus

  20 July 1946

  0503

  Foreign Personnel Training Field & Forward Airbase

  of the Air Force of the Free Republic of Russia

  Attached to 5th Air Force

  U.S. Army Air Forces in the Far East

  Urum-chi, Sinkiang Province, Republic of China

  General Yevgeny Rushenko was restless in his cot, constantly wondering if all this was real. Three short years ago, he was a junior lieutenant, flying Yakovlev Yak-3's in the Red Army's Aviation Regiments, was shot down by German antiaircraft artillery over Minsk, and was captured and taken to prison camp where he languished in pain and misery, and where he was recruited to join Vlasov's army in exile, fighting on the side of the Germans. At first, he was apprehensive about turning his back on his countrymen, but that gradually faded as his instinct for survival entrenched itself solidly within him. As time went on, this turned into a conviction that he should help free his Russian brothers and sisters from the yoke of communist oppression and Comrade Stalin's tyranny. Starting as a foot soldier, he was eventually returned to his vocation as a combat pilot, having been retrained to fly the Messerschmitt Me-109G-6 Gustav fighter. He shot down a few Soviet aircraft over Germany, before he was again shot down, this time not to return to the air, by the end of the war. At that point, there was bedlam. Everyone was scrambling to cut a deal, or find some safety, some running to the Allies, some running from them, all not wanting to be returned to the vicious regime of Iosef Stalin, where they KNEW that they would killed, as they were deemed traitors and past rehabilitation. So what are one's choices when you are marked for death?

  So he began tramping around, using his talent for languages to lay low among the displaced persons moving about around the world, his only companion being his Mauser HSc .380 ACP pistol. The closest he felt to home was when he once moved with a group of displaced Jews, who had been liberated from the horrors of the Nazi Konzentrationslageren, and came from all across Europe, now making what they called in Hebrew “Aaliyah”, or return to the homeland, to Palestine. They never judged him, or asked him what he had done, they always welcomed his help and he theirs. He got along very well with the Russians from this very diverse group, always reminiscing of a home only now half-remembered, and perhaps idealized far too much. Yevgeny had actually considered going to Palestine with this group, even considering trusting this group and offering his flying expertise to them. And then there was the ambush. When they had arrived in the Balkan Mountains, between Bulgaria and Greece, a large party of bandits attacked the group while he and some of the stronger members of their band had gone foraging and hunting for food. The stark and utter devastation they discovered in the camp upon their return was mournful. He led the survivors from there to Piræus, so they can find passage to their promised land. He parted ways with them, realizing that, once and for all time, settling down with them was never meant for him. He realized his true purpose in the remains of the broken camp. He would fight to free the oppressed, especially in his own homeland, and fight for the innocent, who are not able to defend themselves. He knew that the NKVD would chase him down like a dog, they would not rest until he had been 'liquidated', they would make him an example for the proletariat masses that they kept enthralled with terror, but he had made the determination that he would turn and fight, fight with greater purpose than he had ever had before.

  Yevgeny Rushenko made his way to Istanbul by early December, 1945, and stayed a couple weeks with some White Russian
expatriates that he came across. In that time, he was able to clean himself, refresh and recharge himself, load up on clean clothes, provisions and ammunition for his pistol, and he was on his way. From Istanbul, Yevgeny signed on as a crewman on a tramp steamer headed to Limassol, Cyprus, then signed on aboard another ship, headed to Latakiya, in the former French mandate of Syria, having very nearly been caught by SMERSH, the undercover agents of the NKVD, in Limassol. As soon as he made his way to Latakiya, he started hitching his way east to Ramadi, Iraq, where he was able to hustle an old worn jeep from a couple of RAF chaps in a card game. He used the jeep to drive south, along the River Tigris, to Basrah, then across the Shatt-al-Arab marshes into Iran, travelling and making money along the way, finding Westerners and, either fleecing them in games of chance, or working as a personal pilot to them. He had proven his versatility in being able to fly anything with wings, a tail assembly and a motor.

  He quickly made his way through Afghanistan, into India, where he stopped to rest in Delhi, in mid-March. By this time, he was starting to hear disturbing rumors coming out of the Russian expatriate communities strung out through South Asia: the Soviets were massing to wage war on their former Allies, to solidify their hegemony as the sole super-power throughout the world. Yevgeny was truly disturbed by this, and it was at this point that he decided to make contact with the United States government, to offer them his services and contacts. He was rebuffed by the Americans, and they must have forwarded his location to the NKVD, because he was nearly caught again, so he ditched his trusty jeep, and made a run directly east, to Imphal, then northwest to Lhasa, Tibet.

  After languishing in what he thought of as his own version of Tibetan hell, Yevgeny once again started out, attempting to make his way to Shanghai to the huge Russian expatriate community there, where he knew he would be better able to serve his overriding purpose. He made it as far as Chungking on 2 May 1946, when he heard the news that the Soviets had begun to advance in strength across the River Elbe. He knew that he could no longer turn away, for his conscience would no longer allow him to. He sought out the American Legation and repeated his offer to them. He would fly against the Soviets, for the greater good of his Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian, along with other Soviet-oppressed, brothers and sisters. This time they agreed. He began making trips all over China, even making trips behind Soviet lines in Manchuria, to recruit pilots of all type and ratings, to fly with him to truly free their homes and families, and not for the cult of personality that was Comrade Stalin. Increasingly, by word of mouth, word of Yevgeny Rushenko's “Free” Russian Air Force spread far and wide throughout the Siberian wastes and the Far East, and as far as smoldering Japan. Soon, he had more personnel than equipment, as recruits poured in from all over the displaced person's communities, the Russian expatriate communities, and other Asian nationals, such as Chinese, Indian and Japanese, training to be pilots and aircrew to fill the small number of billets that were opening with the importation of American, British and former German aircraft that were being donated to his cause.

  There was nothing that Chiang's government and military could do to stop him from forming his new air force, and as such, tacitly approved its formation and forward operating area. When the Chinese coup occurred, Rushenko's forces, not wishing to anger their Chinese hosts, voluntarily laid down their arms, and submitted to Chinese custody, while Rushenko himself went to Peking to negotiate a settlement and pact with the Chinese government, in exchange for asylum, protection and use of forward operating areas. This was all agreed upon, on one condition: that Rushenko's air forces subordinate themselves under the United States Army Air Force's 5th Air Force, to be posted to the huge new airfield being built in Urum-chi, in Sinkiang Province, as a bomber penetration force pointing in the directions of the Soviet Far East and Soviet Central Asia. Rushenko agreed to all of this.

  *****

  1900

  24 July 1946

  Hsu Hai-tung's Residence

  Yennan, Shensi Province,

  Republic of China

  This is the sixth trip made by Sun Li-jen to see him, since Sun ousted Chiang Kai-shek from power several weeks back. At first, Comrade Hsu was suspicious of Sun's visits, but he came to realize that Sun respected him, as an adversary and as a potential ally, and more importantly, that Sun had the best interests of all of China in mind, not just those of “his” own people, or special interests. That compelled Comrade Hsu to reevaluate his position, especially since Comrade Mao Tse-tung had been just recently elevated to the Chairmanship of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Hsu detested Mao for his radical ideas, and his willingness destroy the very people he claimed to want to save from the capitalist yoke of oppression, to satisfy his thirst for power and control.

  The most encouraging things that Hsu gleaned from his conversations with Comrade Sun, was the fact that he really wanted to grant the same freedoms to the Chinese people, that free peoples all over the world enjoyed, and while they disagreed ideologically, they need not be enemies. In their now numerous discussions, they covered an entire spectrum of issues, everything from free and fair elections, safeguarded from corruption, to the formation of an national army, not beholden to the various warlords and governors, but to the Chinese people, to the issue of land reform, where Sun suggested that credit could be extended to the people to purchase their own land, if they chose to do so. Hsu could not help but wonder how much like a communist Sun sounded, without actually being one. Hsu also thought that this was a man whom he could support for the good of China, because Soviet adventurism in Europe would bring China low, if they were drawn into the fight, as the Soviets wanted.

  It was in that moment that Hsu decided that he must be a patriot first and not an ideologue, and he must convince others to do the same. He has suggested to Comrade Sun that he would place his regional forces at his disposal, and swear allegiance to Sun's new government. In addition, he confided in Sun that he had an idea for a battle plan that would drive the Soviets out of Manchuria and, once and for all, crush Mao's radical wing of the CCP, all in one great battle. But, as he did not know who to trust, Hsu would have to formulate his plan in absolute secrecy, answering alone to President Sun. To this, President Sun agreed, and placed one of his most trusted aides at Hsu's disposal, to act as a messenger between Yennan and Peking. President Sun agreed to all of this, on the condition that Comrade Hsu make a nationwide speech on the radio, announcing his support for the new government. Hsu simply asked when would be convenient for the President to do so...

  Hsu Hai-tung

  *****

  Late in the day

  26 July 1946

  In an abandoned coal mine,

  Somewhere in Soviet-occupied Manchuria

  This is what now constituted a "People's Congress", committee meetings in the dark, hunted now more than ever before, with a completely shattered command structure and facing more and more defections to the new Republic of China Armed Forces, with the most devastating being the defection of Hsu Hai-tung's Yennan Route Army. Mao has sworn his revenge on Hsu and his traitorous followers, and to all who have abandoned the people's war. How could he have been so blind as to not see the coup that deposed Generalissimo Chiang coming from within his own ranks? But none of that second-guessing did anything to remedy his situation right now...

  The issue at hand was the disruption of recruitment of new troops for the army of the new government and blocking the reforms that they are attempting to implement, starting a new propaganda campaign that decried this government as more of the same corruption. This dog Sun was smart, but even a smart dog must be made to heel; bending him and his reforms to Chairman Mao's, and by extension the Chinese Communist Party's, will is a step in that direction. In order to make this happen, Mao must discredit Sun, and his government, first, and that was increasingly becoming an insurmountable task.

  On the military front, Mao was becoming increasingly irritated with the Soviets, and their decreasing material supp
ort for his war. Though his manpower numbers were decreasing, he was no longer being supplied with first-rate weapons, ammunition and equipment from the Soviets themselves, but with second-rate weapons, ammunition and equipment captured from the Allies in their lightning attack across Europe. This was causing severe logistical hardship on Mao's troops, with the additional issue of hampering his operations because of it. This is another reason why Sun's counteroffensive against his forces have been so successful, so much so that Mao's forces have been pushed back behind the Soviet lines in Manchuria. Comrade General Chou En-lai was working on a new plan of attack, and they were retrofitting some special equipment that the Soviets had just delivered to them, just for this attack. It was sure to be a nasty surprise to the government forces who will no doubt be facing it. Mao Tse-tung smiled at the thought, as the meeting came to order...

  *****

  0530

  27 July 1946

  Expatriate Force Assembly and Training Centre

  RAF Nicosia

  British Crown Colony of Cyprus

  It was another warm and humid Mediterranean dawn, and Group Captain Eleftherio Panagakis, of the Royal Hellenic Air Force, has had to face some very hard truths lately. The first truth that Group Captain Panagakis is confronting is the fact that he will have to treat with an ancient mortal enemy in order to defeat a newer and far larger and more insidious one: collaborating with Turkish forces, in order to defeat the Soviets, and their Bulgarian, Yugoslav, and Greek communist allies. Not only will he have to work with the Turks, but he will have to work with people whom he had be at war with in the few years previous, such as non-nationalist Germans, Czechs and Slovaks, as well as Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian Royalists, along with Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians and Macedonians. And let's not forget the Albanians, escaping the horror of Enver Hoxha's brand of Stalinist iron rule. They all had something at stake: remain free, or risk liquidation at the hands of the Soviets or their staunchly communist allies.