World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First

by Harry Kellogg

  What he assumed was the whole United States navy was invading the park. Almost as far as the eye could see north and south invasion craft, were pouring out of larger ships with some carrying what looked like infantry and others that were carrying tanks. He ran back to his tent and got his binoculars and looked to the north and saw guys climbing sheer cliffs and throwing smoke grenades and making a racket with what he assumed were blanks.

  Others were landing on the beach to his south and running forward and the classic style seen in many a movie about World War Two, “Sands of Iwo Jima” and all that. Waves of squared off boats were driving up on the shore from the water and their bows becoming ramps ejecting squads of men running on the sand for all they were worth. More smoke grenades and blanks were shooting at imaginary enemies, that he assumed were Reds who erupted from in front of the charging troops.

  Quite a show for a Saturday morning in what was supposed to be a wilderness. Marvin had snuck in last night after the normal business hours of the ranger station. It was a long drive from Boston where he lived and worked. He knew he was supposed to let the rangers know he was in the park and approximately where he was going to camp. He had figured that he would do it in the morning.

  Marvin was taking a week off after writing a series of articles for the New York Times on how the US armed forces had been caught napping by the commies. It had not won him a Pulitzer, but it had managed to piss off the Pentagon. And now here the US military was, once again in his cross hairs.

  He supposed this was a practice run for the real deal. But where were these idiots going to invade that had a similar terrain to Northern Maine? Norway came to mind but how stupid would that be. Why would you invade Norway on your way to Moscow?

  No need to speculate, he’d get it out of one of these grunts when he finally reached the beach, or should he go for the guys climbing up the cliffs? Soon the choice was made for him as he was coming back out of his tent after putting on his pants. He was grabbed from behind and roughly put on the ground with a knife to his throat and a GI pinning him down.

  No need to go into the conversation between Marvin and his captors, because there wasn’t any. They gagged him and pushed him down the trail that led to the beach area. He knew it would do no good to protest, so he just went along with the abuse until he could talk to an officer of some kind.

  Then came the blindfold. Great he thought…what’s next, a firing squad? His press credentials were in his pants. As soon as these goons took his gag off, he would inform them that they were dealing with a member of the Fourth Estate, and a reporter for the New York Times to boot. He was roughly guided to a chair and hand cuffed there. Then, they went through his pockets. Not a word was spoken but, when one of the GIs fished out his wallet, there was a pause. He assumed they were reading his credentials and this would all be over soon. They guy just whistled the equivalent of “oh shit” or a variation of the familiar “cat call” most beautiful women experience and ran off to find someone more senior than he. At least that is what Marvin was thinking.

  Good, he thought, that should get him released in no time. After what he figured was over two hours he was not so sure of himself. What the hell is going on? He fumed. They read my credentials and know I’m a New York Times reporter. What was taking so fucking long? I should have been release with profuse apologies by now and on my way to find a phone to call in the story, the story of a practice invasion on a northern rocky shore far from any cities or towns.

  Finally, there was some commotion and what sounded like his surrounding captors snapping to attention. The gag was finally removed. As he was putting his jaw back into shape for a quick rebuke of whoever was in charge, his blindfold was ripped off and he was staring into the eyes of one General Joseph Taggart McNarney.

  The very general that was the Commander of the European Theater in May 1946. The very general that Melvin Douglas Billings has pilloried in a series of articles. The articles pertained to what Marvin classified as the “The Fall of Western Europe” that was overseen by McNarney. His articles had led to the second Truman commission and a series of hearings on the debacle in Europe in May 1946 that allowed Stalin to conquer most of Western Europe in months.

  He had portrayed McNarney as a detached, pseudo erudite who had no interest in his command. In less than three weeks, the Red Army destroyed all the forces under his command. McNarney just looked at him and smirked. The phrase “This was not going to end well” kept repeating in Marvin’s thoughts, even as he tried to talk his way out of whatever McNarney had in mind for him.

  Besides the menacing grin, McNarney conducted himself very professionally and Marvin had visions of actually getting released. Then, the phrase “national security” kept creeping into the conversation and things like detain, secrets, and similar terms became more and more frequent.

  His heart sank as McNarney leaned over and whispered in his ear…”payback is a bitch.” And then left the room.

  Strange Weather

  As noted elsewhere, the fall of 1946 was unseasonably warm and dry. Suddenly, the weather changed for much of Northern Europe on 21 January. Temperatures plunged to record lows in Britain, Northern France, Germany, and much of Scandinavia. 23 feet of snow was recorded in the Scottish Highlands and all over Great Britain. Life froze to a halt.

  Factories shut down as people were trapped in their homes. There was a shortage of coal caused by many factors that were in place even before the weather set in. People were freezing in the dark. Newspapers were regulated to four small sheets daily. The Royal Navy’s submarine fleet was tapped to run their generators and provide power to select cities. Chickens were killed by the freezing weather by the thousands, and potatoes were rationed for the first time. [cix]

  Figure 25 – Near Ashburn

  The end result was that Great Britain became a burden instead of an addition to NATO. She was not making planes to replace those lost in the Second Battle of Britain. She could not feed her troops on the Pyrenees Line. The, just started, NATO counter offensive was delayed by two months due to the sorry state of Her Majesties Empire.

  The British forces were to have taken a major role in the planned offensive. A number of units that were on their way to the front were returned to Britain to assist the civilian government.

  The effects on the Soviet Union proper were hard to determine. There were rampant rumors of widespread starvation due to crop failure, but nothing confirmed by NATO. The anecdotal stories were coming from refugees, who were prone to tales of woe. The intelligence agencies felt that the refugees were trying to garner more food for themselves.

  In contrast, the Southern portion of France was very rainy, yet very warm as was Spain. While Germany was a disaster, the Soviets appeared to bringing in enough food to keep riots from occurring. From all reports, Poland was in a situation similar to Germany, with just enough food provided by Stalin to keep social unrest at bay.

  The Soviet army did not appear to be suffering on any front. The offensive in Turkey and Iraq continued unabated much to the delight of the NATO planners. The middle of March brought warm weather, once again, and flooding to many parts of Britain. Slowly, the offensive in the Pyrenees started to push the Soviets back. If this timeline was any indication of how long it would take to free Western Europe, the American public’s patience would run out in 1948 or 50 at the latest.

  The US had presidential elections coming up in 1948, and if significant progress had not been made by then the government of Truman was sure to fall. In Britain, a no confidence vote was called after the Coal Shortage Fiasco. With the conservatives again in power, Winston Churchill was named Prime Minister for the second time.

  The British change in government brought in a massive influx of cash from the US. The Southern cabal of senators had been starving Britain to punish Atlee for his socialistic tendencies. The Senators finally relented to the will of Truman. This cash came just in time to stave off a deep depression in the whole of free Europe.

 
; The weather had caused a three-month hiccup, but NATO forces were finally back on track. Unbeknownst to the Kremlin, the American production numbers were on the rise and now stood at 75% of wartime levels at the end of March. There would be enough materials in the form of bullets and machines to do the job. It took nine long months for the American giants of industry to be convinced that yet again they had to forgo profit and assist the world in ridding itself from tyranny in the form of a dictator. Now, the American public had to be convinced that the lives of its young men were worth the price.

  America, the sleeping giant and its industrialists had been re-awakened and was hungry for bear meat.

  Chapter Ten:

  Other Fronts, Other Problems

  Figure 26 - Meme left – Antoine right

  Marseilles Finest

  Meme and Antoine were running faster than they had ever run before. Antoine was slightly extending his lead on Meme. The reason for their haste, was their very lives. Ahead of them were three very big Russian Cossacks who had their backs to them. Seeing the back of your enemy is a sure way of staying alive in a war.

  The Cossacks were busy trying to service their machine gun that had just killed a half a dozen of Meme and Antoine’s squad. The death of their squad members didn’t really matter to Meme and Antoine as they were both psychopaths in the truest sense. Both were products of the docks of Marseilles and were educated by the Milieu, the French organized crime.

  As young men they had made a pact and on the same night had killed their guardians in Alicante, Spain. Then, they boarded a ship for Marseilles and fell in with the Milieu, under the tutelage of Paul Carbone. He turned his two protégées into perfect killers and enforcers. Things were going well for Meme and Antoine, when Carbone was replaced and a new mayor took over in Marseilles.

  They were arrested and deported back to Spain to stand trial for a dozen murders. As they were waiting to be hung they were offered a reprieve if they chose to join the army and fight against the Red Army that was assaulting Spain. They readily agreed.

  Somehow they managed to make it through training without killing anyone, including their drill sergeant. They were sent directly to the Pyrenees Line to face the Red Army. Their unit was one of the first to encounter the Soviet style of warfare. They had survived along with 20 others of their 200-man company.

  The war on the Pyrenees Line for the Spanish troops had so far been a series of retreats. Retreats from one mountain top to another. Things changed when the American’s used their atomic bombs on the oil regions of the USSR.

  Now, their unit was leading the first attack by a Spanish division that would actually take ground from the Reds and not give it back. This attack was the start of a long offensive to retake Western Europe. To their South, the British were watching and waiting for their opportunity to close with the Soviets. To their north a polyglot of former western soldiers were poised to bring freedom to their countrymen. These units consisted of Germans, French, Dutch, Danes, Belgium, and even a few Andorrans and Luxembourgers. These units were going to take territory back from the Reds and hold it until relieved. There would be no retreat.

  As Meme and Antoine’s squad had been the first to advance, the hidden machine gun they were racing towards had decimated their unit. The fact that they were enthusiastically racing towards certain death was a testament not only to the oratorical skills of their now dead Captain, as well as a confirmation of the powers of rhetoric on weak minds. May be they finally needed something to believe in after 24 years of only believing in themselves.

  Antoine slit the first Cossack’s throat as he ran past him. Quick as you please, the Commie was dead almost before he hit the ground. Antoine then leaped off a hillock and landed with both feet on the upper back of next Cossack. He propelled the man head first into a rock shaped like a giant ax head. When the enemy’s head met the rock, the rock won, leaving a shower of blood and skull misting in the rarified air north of Huesca, Spain.

  Meme used the same hillock to launch himself, feet first, into the last Cossack who was about to raise his gun to kill Antoine. He caught the Red high on his chest with both feet and rode him to the ground. When they hit the ground, Meme’s weight crushed four of the Commie’s ribs, driving them into the man’s lungs. He slit the guy’s throat for good measure. Then, he looked around to see what he could steal or appropriate as was his right for a job well done.

  Most often, the Commies did not have anything of value on their person. But, every once in a while you got lucky and found one who had killed an American along the way. They usually had a lighter and a good watch as their treasure.

  The sprint the two had just made uphill in this weak air would have won Antoine a silver medal at the upcoming 1948 Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland. And the jump they had each made would have been a Bronze and fourth place. These two were sleek killing machines destined to long lives of crime after the war no matter who won, for there was crime in the Soviet Union even under Stalin.

  The remainder of the squad came wheezing up and a replacement officer arrived shortly thereafter. Then a battery of Stalin’s Organs started to play their tune and everyone dove for cover. The barrage of rockets and joining artillery went on for an hour. Then, the Soviet’s started their counterattack. The remaining 77 men of Antoine and Meme’s company did themselves proud and withstood the attack.

  Help came in the form of a heavy weapons platoon that quickly setup its American made weaponry with the officers pointing out killing zones and overlapping fields of fire to the gunners. The Spanish artillery down in the valley fired for effect over the heads of Antoine and Meme’s position. The shell detonations were noted and guns were re-adjusted by a Spotter sent along with their new commander.

  The officer actually had a radio. This was a new twist for the veteran Spanish unit. They were delighted to see the Soviets get a measure of 105 mm high explosives dropped right in the middle of their rallying point. This put an abrupt end to the second Soviet attack.

  It went on like this for days until Antoine and Meme’s company was sent to the rear and it was someone else’s chance to attack the next mountain and keep it. The mountain that Meme and Antoine had attacked and then held was the first to be wrestled from the Red Army and held permanently since 1944. The Reds had had a solid 18 months of being undefeated in a major attack.

  It would seem that the long road to the liberation of Western Europe had begun. The fighting started to move, once again, from mountain top to mountain top. The salient point was that the NATO offensive had begun and seemed irreversible, albeit very slow.

  It was unfortunate that this mountain’s name was unknown or forgotten and even the battle was almost lost to history as well. In the end, it was just another pile of rocks. A pile of rocks that the self-named species of homo sapiens, continued to kill one another over and just as abruptly, abandon.

  The War on Drugs

  The freighter slipped slowly under the waves. She was the second victim of the mini sub Babushka #275 piloted by Captain Yevgeny Glinka. His crew of one, Seaman First Class Ivan Levkov was in ecstasy. This meant a big bonus for his family. Two ships sunk in a patrol brought you big rewards. Not for the last time, he was glad he volunteered to go to sea with the submarine legend Captain Yevgeny Glinka.

  The Captain was new to submarines and had not sailed in World War Two. However, he was the leading submariner for the Soviet Navy, by far, with over 22 sinkings in his much larger B-30 submarine. His usual command boat was a converted German Elektroboat. Most of these early Elektroboats were being used as filling and supply stations for the Malyshka mini subs.

  After a spectacular first voyage Captain Glinka, was allowed to actually use his Elektroboat as a killing machine. His brief foray into the world of mini subs was both for propaganda purposes and technical data gathering.

  The sinking of another freighter would not have made much news or damaged the NATO war effort except for one fact. The ship was filled with a six-month supply of
Benzedrine, the commercial version of amphetamines marketed by the British pharmaceutical giant, Smith, Kline & French.

  The modern war effort had been fueled by amphetamines since the 1930s, when Germany experimented with various drugs to make their soldiers, airmen, and sailors feel stronger and to combat fatigue. Amphetamines fit the bill. 13

  A product named Pervitin was given out like candy to the military of the Third Reich. Common names for the product were “Tank Chocolate” and “Pilot’s Salt”. From all accounts, the use of amphetamines was responsible for the fury of the Blitzkrieg. As World War Two dragged on, the Germans reduced their use of the drug due to the appearance of addiction among the troops.

  Meanwhile, the Allies were just getting started and were playing catchup in providing their troops with drugs. By 1940, America and, especially the British were including the drug, in various forms, in the ordinary kits given to every member of the military services. It is said that the British version, called Methadrine, won the first Battle of Britain by keeping the “so few” awake to defend the “so many.”

  Most battles from the middle of World War Two to the final victories were fueled by amphetamines, that are, indeed, very addictive. Maintaining the supply of these drugs to the front was an unwritten priority. Many a veteran went home and had to deal with going cold turkey. Simultaneously, he was having to deal with the effects of combat and all the various forms of shell shock. Mankind was not made for modern warfare it would seem. Our leaders needed drugs to keep us physically and psychologically able to sustain our killing of each other.

  Drugs had been used in one form or another for eons by various tribes and nations to increase pain tolerance, raise the psychological threshold for war, and energized warriors. Now, it was also being marketed as a weight loss product and sleep aid.