The first raid had been a sucker punch. The second raid had been a body blow. Now he has to take a few head shots if his opponent was going to be finally defeated. He was not so naive as to believe that the VVS would fail to get off the deck before the count reached 10 and would come roaring back with all it had. LeMay knew his opponent as well has he knew himself. Novikov and he had been cut from the same piece of cloth. Both were willing to take calculated risks and played the odds; both would also know when to put it all in and It was time. No more feints, no more dancing around, it was time to go toe to toe and both leaders knew it.
LeMay has pushed all his chips into the middle of the table and now it was time to see what Novikov had. It was time to see who would fold first. For the first time in his life LeMay had a small voice in the back of his brain creating the slightest thread of doubt. How improved had the Soviet’s missiles become? How many jet fighters would rise up to face his own? How many losses could the US leadership endure? Every time it had been sustained at over 10% they had pulled back. It had been stressed during the meetings and trainings that both the ground to air and air to air missiles were less than 10% effective yet how do you convince the squadron commanders who’s planes that ten percent would hit, to stay the course no matter what; to knowingly sacrifice your crew for the good of the squadron. Then when the squadron leader was taken out how do you count on the next in secession to step up and put his crew in such grave jeopardy?
All it took was for one squadron leader to veer out of formation taking his formation with him and utter chaos reigned in a tightly packed raid. This was amply demonstrated in the Leningrad Raid. The RAF Bomber command had faced down the Stalin’s Fire Missiles and had not panicked and has still sustained losses of 15%. Historically that was enough to cause HQ to stop the raids until other tactics could be developed. In the case of the bombing campaign over Germany it has been to let the fighters and fighter bombers loose on the airfields and infrastructure of the Luftwaffe and it had worked. Many had doubts that it would work against the far more numerous and initially well supplied Red Air Force.
The Japanese and Germans had been defeated because of the lack of fuel to both train new pilots and to power their fighters to defend their oil production facilities. The atomic bombs had gone a long way towards stopping the Reds oil production. The real question was did they have enough stockpiled to weather the next few months and would their missiles be deadly enough to stop our bombers. Would they be sufficient to make a difference?
LeMay’s supply line was very long and just starting to ramp up. Could he keep the bombers in the air in the numbers needed until he reached the crucial tipping point; the tipping point where one side of the other started to run out of resources; be it pilots, planes, ammunition, fuel or guts. He calculated that he had to reach two to one odds or greater within 60 days to start the long slow slide of attiring the VVS. 60 days of heavy losses on both sides. Would the American public stand for such losses? Would the men themselves figure out the odds and be willing to play with their lives. This raid would be crucial and would set the baseline for future operations. Each side would be at its strongest and each side had the resources to burn in their internal combustion engines, but for how long.
His mission was twofold. Number one was to stop the oil from flowing and number two was to clear the skies of the Soviet planes enough for the coming invasions. The invasions themselves were out of his hands. He was trying to land body blows to make the opponent drop his hands. The coming spring operations were to be the knock out punches. In the fight game you take a lot of punishment yourself trying to land blows to the body of a skilled opponent. He made you pay for every shot you took with jabs and head shots of his own. Sometimes you were forced to lead with your own chin like Rocky Marciano, that new kid he saw fight for the Army. He was cut up real bad in almost every fight but got the job done after his first few blows finally hit home. That kid could take a punch and he could deliver one as well. He knew the boys of SAC could too but could the politicians watching from the sidelines keep from throwing that towel into the ring and stop the fight prematurely. The Brits had and so had we in Western Europe. All strategic bombing has stopped in Germany and France. The Brits were on their knees and were finally getting the help they needed from the USAAF.
Sacrificing the RAF has worked but not as well as planned. Novikov had moved too fast and LeMay had expected at least two full weeks of virtually unopposed bombing on the oil production facilities of the USSR before the missiles and jet fighters of the VVS showed up in sufficient numbers to place the operation in jeopardy. He only got 4 days. Novikov was either a mind reader or very, very good at his job.
Once again the big bombers started to roll and it never failed to send a shiver up his spine of all that power and destructive capability launching on his command. The losses from all forms such as attrition, accidents and combat losses had been seven percent for the last raid. Early indications were that they had destroyed a months’ worth of Soviet supplies. Not bad for a day’s work but much more was needed…much more. The calculations were that he would face over a hundred ground to air missiles, over 400 air to air missiles carried by 100 modified Tu2s Bat medium bombers and the lumbering Pe 9 Beaches, along with 100 or so of those He 162 cloned - Stalin’s Darts and 300 other jet fighters of the Yak 15 Feather and Mig 9 Fargo variety. Add in the estimated 2,000 conventional fighters that could effectively reach 24,000 feet and have enough speed to at least make a pass or two at the bombers and you had a formidable enemy contingent to deal with.
He didn’t quite have 1000 planes. Launching from the Middle East based were 523 B-29s and from Turkey and the islands were 419 P-80 Shooting Stars. The P-80s were going to have to have to keep the Fargos, Feathers, Darts, Beeches and Bats busy, while the Superfortresses were going to have to defend themselves from the thousands of Yak 9s Franks and La 7 Fins. Once one of those Red missiles were launched there was nothing yet devised to help the B-29 survive. It was just luck of the draw whether the missile performed or not. They appeared easy to evade if you were in a fighter or medium bomber and had room to maneuver, but in a tightly packed formation of relatively slow super bombers, you were pretty much dead meat if the missile worked as designed. Many a bomber pilot will be sorely tempted to drop out of formation to see just how hard it will be to evade a missile or two but they would then risk collision and more important the ire of LeMay. Most were more afraid of LeMay than any missile.
This raid should be a real test of the concept of the usefulness of the manned bomber in modern warfare. The words of wisdom uttered early in the war were “the bomber will always get through” was about to be tested as never before. The USAAF has based its post war strategy on that adage. When combined with the atomic bomb it seem a pretty safe bet but then came along the guided missile and the Soviet agent George Koval and all bets were off. When an immovable object met an unstoppable force, what would be the results? The world was about to find out.
William Perl at Home
For the first time since he was married he did not want to go home. Maybe it was because he had just finished the last piece and solved the last challenge to the newest jet engine of the USSR. Maybe it was because he was feeling a little guilty knowing what this engine in the excellent MiG 15 fighter design would do to his former country’s B-29s. It would not be pretty. The P-80 didn’t stand a chance. The swept back wing was the key to more speed and his engine gave it more speed.
As heartless as it sounded he didn’t want to see his wife. She was still the most gorgeous women he had ever imagined being with but now he wanted more. He wanted conversation and real feelings. Oh she was a good actress but she was not smart. Not even a bad conversationalist about normal matters but he wanted to talk about abnormal matters. Oh he didn’t know what he wanted. He just wanted change. He was sure he could get what he wanted but he was hesitant to approach anyone with the ultimate solution.
He wanted Jill Stone. He was in love w
ith her from the get go. She was smart and pretty enough to satisfy his every need. They talked for hours that summer they spent together, but she was not here in Siberia with him. She was in Pittsburg waiting tables the last he heard because no one hired a female physicist.
But here…who knew. There were plenty of female scientists working with him. Maybe here she could be happy at what she wanted to do. As he recalled it was particle physics. He was so busy telling her what he was doing he had not listened to her when she had talked about her own dreams. He had just watched her face light up and how her body has moved when she got up and paced around the room. She was one of those women who did not know how good she looked or cared.
He had not been able to reach her when he decided to make a run for it. She might have come. She was as a committed communist as he was; possibly more so. He wanted to be with her in the worst way. He wanted to talk with her like he did that summer for hours and hours on end.
But how did one approach someone to inquire about getting rid of his current wife and replacing her with another that was still in America? Who do you call for that kind of thing? That had not been covered in his orientation to the Workers’ Paradise here on the other side of the world. He had to have someone approach her and convince her to leave the capitalist life behind and to work for a better world and as a bonus she could be his wife.
He needed a distraction. Maybe he should volunteer to work on that anti-ship missile that the Red Navy keeps bugging Sergo for. He heard that Sergo didn’t want to let the guidance system be used in uncontrolled circumstances, circumstances where the enemy could get its hands on an unexploded missile or more importantly it’s guidance system. He certainly understood that thinking. The US has not wanted to us the proximity fuse in Europe for fear the Germans would get a hold of some. Funny thing was that they did capture a couple of hundred thousand during the Battle of the Bulge but apparently didn’t understand their significance. Barr and Sobel had delivered a fully functional prototype to Beria in 1944 but Sergo concentrated on the Wasserfal and X4 instead. Again the irony is that now the Soviets had millions of American made VT fuses thanks to the overrunning of the storage depots and Barr and Sobel buying millions and shipping them to the Soviets before the war. American capitalists sure are greedy, but then again so were the leaders he had contact with here. Possibly it was just a part of the human condition that nothing could be done about it. The only way to control it was for other humans to control the more greedy ones.
Enough philosophizing and time to think about Jill. Maybe he would go home and screw his “wife” while thinking of Jill. That could work for a while anyway. Come to think of it she did look similar if she had light brown hair. Maybe if he had her dye it from the blond she pretended to be. They were about the same size and if he could just have her not talk during sex. She had a very slight accent that distracted from his Jill fantasy. How do you tell your wife to shut up and screw?
The Choice
They could hear footsteps above their heads. Somehow Sasha was keeping her baby quiet. The soldiers of the NKVD were searching the village and surrounding countryside for this group of people. We don’t exactly know why or what they were searching for but we knew what the results would be as they had demonstrated in the village 5 miles south of us. The villagers were found, shot and buried in a mass grave. No explanation was given. The theory was that one of them was a relative of Lavrenti Beria and he was convinced that somehow, something this person knew would harm him and that all the others who he or she knew might have been told as well. Beria was not one to sort out the wheat from the chaff. His preferred method was to burn the whole field, then salt the soil so nothing could ever grow there again. Now he was searching for the wheat field that he thought required such treatment and this brought the boots above their heads to this exact location.
Just as they closed the trap door to their hiding place Sasha’s newborn daughter started to whimper. No doubt her feelings of discomfort were caused by sensing her mother’s growing terror at the situation that was unfolding over their heads. In addition the soldiers were smashing and breaking things in their haste to find this group now hiding beneath their feet. Yet somehow the baby was being kept quiet. From past experience with this particular child Victor was prepare to smother the baby if need be to save the rest of the group from slaughter. One sickly baby, compared to a dozen others, was not a hard choice for him to make.
It was completely dark as the hiding place was well insulated from light and prying eyes. They had been very careful in both designing and building the space and had actually been through this type of search before and had not been caught. It would seem that the village to the South was constantly renouncing them and slandering them to whatever authority happened to be “investigating” this or that. One easy way to save your life in this day and age was to deflect the insanity that had gripped the world onto someone else. Show the NKVD a shiny object and they left you along. Today they were that shiny object and they had no idea why; all they knew was that they had to hide. Before they let Sasha and the baby into the hiding place they had all agreed that if the baby started to cry it would be killed to save them all. Even Sasha agreed. She might have agreed as an attempt to save herself and daughter but it wouldn’t have mattered. If the baby even started to cry is would be smothered.
Everything was proceeding well. Then just as the soldiers were making the most noise the baby made a fussing noise. One little utterance but you knew what was coming and nothing could stop it. But it had stopped immediately and was not heard by the troops over their heads. It was utterly dark so most did not know what had happened to make the child be quiet. Had it been smothered? Had it stopped on its own? A couple of the women were struggling to hold back tears for they knew that you cannot stop a baby from crying once they started fussing in that manner. Sasha or someone, had done something drastic and immediate, to quiet the child and they feared the worst. There was no groping sounds for a nipple no cooing or sucking sounds, just complete silence; utter and devastating silence.
It seemed like hours before the soldiers left. No one made a sound and they stayed still for another hour after the soldiers had left. As the leader raised the opening a little the others were amazed at what they saw. Sasha had her mouth over her child’s face. It covered both nose and mouth and she was breathing for them both. You could tell the baby was fit to be tide but her mother had matched her exhales with her own and no sound was forthcoming. She then sent a small puff of air from her lungs into the baby’s mouth and nose thus providing the needed oxygen. Then she would suck it out again and in essence exhale for the child as well. You could tell she was exhausted but would not stop until everyone had exited the space.
It seems that Sasha was a member of the Young Pioneers and before the first war a British delegation from the Royal Humane Society Campaign Group for first aid and resuscitation had put on a demonstration of a technique they had been using and advocating since the turn of the century. It was used in many of the swimming beaches and pools of Great Britain. Sasha had been fascinated by the demonstration and had even become an instructor in this life saving technique. She had even saved a boy’s life at Young Pioneer Camp who, had for all intents and purposes, died of drowning. Yet to the amazement of all involved she brought him back to life.
No one knew what this technique was called and no one mentioned it again. Some kind of witchcraft was obviously performed. But the days of witches was over. Was that why the soldiers came? No one really thought so but one never knew. Sasha disappeared in the night with her baby so nothing had to be done anyway.
Far Sight
Vasily had finally got the right parts for the captured Amerikosi radar set. He could see through the subterfuge of the Russian labels and such. It was American alright. Fine workmanship to be sure, but the newest Soviet sets he had worked on were not far behind in quality. Quality mattered at this stage of the war. Previously it was quantity but now the emphasis had bee
n on excellence, at least in aviation and electronics. He had no idea of where all these obviously Western made electronic components were coming from but they were coming now at a faster and faster pace. He couldn’t believe that they had captured so many useful things. It was like someone went to the US and went on a shopping spree.
Crystal diodes, resistors, capacitors, vacuum tubes and relays were showing up by the thousands and when combined with the Russian knack for ingenuity born of scarcity, they were accomplishing some amazing things. The radar set he was tinkering with here in the forward base was just such a unit. It was a threefold improvement over the original Amerikosi unit he had started with. The range was remarkable and his scope was rapidly filling up with very fast moving blips. Yes they were blips and not blobs. Another vast improvement over the earlier models, he was forced to use. These new diodes were a wonder compared to what he had to work with before. We might not be able to make them yet but we most certainly knew how to use them to their greatest advantage.
The raid was not as big as yesterdays. “This is Vasily here. We have multiple and large formations of planes coming from the Southeast and they are being joined by others rising at a fast rate from near Yuksekova, Turkey. He had started to pick up something near Duhok, Turkey and the formation just kept on getting larger and larger as more planes were added. He was picking them up at nearly 400 km, really astounding progress with the new components that he was given to use.
He had spotted and sent out the warning about the turn to the north yesterday. I would think that today they would listen to him a little bit harder and not ignore his warnings like they did of a full 15 minutes on the previous raid. His immediate supervisor had passed the warning up but his superior had not and now he was on his way to Siberia from all accounts. He had actually been given a pair of his boots as a reward. They were excellent boots as well. He needed them here in this place with no heat near Dustan just over from the Turkish border. He hoped the Amerikosi could not detect his powerful radar or at least ignored it.
World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First Page 82
