Part 2

1951(January-May)

January 10^th--The main Communist front near Inchon begins to collapse in the face of continued heavy resistance by US and ROK units.

January 12^th--US and NATO ground forces enter Leipzig amid heavy shelling from East German artillery and Soviet armor.

January 13^th--The commander-in-chief of the Soviet navy’s Pacific branch issues a sobering report to the Kremlin on the state of efforts to repair the damage inflicted by the December 28^th U.S. air strikes on Vladivostok. The report states that at least a third of the city’s port facilities are still out of commission as a result of the bombing raid are likely to remain so for at least 2-3 more weeks.

Stalin is extremely displeased by this pessimistic conclusion and orders that the repairs be completed in less than ten days. When the Pacific C-in-C tries to explain that this will not be possible, the Soviet dictator has him court-martialed and shot for treason.

January 15^th--US and ROK divisions breach the center of the Soviet-North Korean lines outside Inchon, cutting those lines in two and allowing US armored columns to overrun the Communist pocket northeast of the provisional South Korean capital.

January 16^th--The Soviet air force bombs NATO positions in and around Leipzig in an attempt to dislodge US and NATO troops from the city.

January 18^th--Soviet and North Korean troops pull back from their positions near Inchon in an attempt to regroup.

January 19^th--US jets bomb Soviet airfields near Leipzig to neutralize the Communist air threat to NATO ground forces occupying the city. That same day, the UN military effort in Korea is dealt a major blow when General Douglas MacArthur is injured in a plane crash en route back to Inchon after an inspection tour of UN front-line positions north of the ROK provisional capital.

January 20^th--General Matthew B. Ridgeway, a veteran of the Allied liberation campaign in Europe during World War and General MacArthur’s top airborne infantry strategist, is named acting commander-in-chief of the UN forces in Korea.

January 22^nd--US and ROK warplanes bomb retreating Communist ground forces north of Inchon.

January 23^rd--NATO ground troops begin advancing northward from Leipzig in a maneuver aimed at isolating several Warsaw Pact divisions stationed along the East German-Polish border. Soviet units move to cut off the advance.

January 26^th--A US Air Force B-36 drops a 15-kiloton nuclear bomb on Warsaw, effectively taking out not only the entire senior leadership of the Polish Communist Party but also most of the Polish military high command.

January 28^th--A new provisional Polish government establishes temporary headquarters in Krakow.

January 30^th--US warplanes destroy an NKPA munitions dump at the town of Haeju.

February 2^nd--Communist ground forces dig in west of the South Korean town of Cholwon after US and ROK infantry units cut off their main avenues of retreat.

February 3^rd--UN ground troops attack the Communist pocket west of Cholwon.

February 5^th--50 Polish political dissidents are arrested and shot in Krakow after attempting to organize a demonstration to protest the failure of Poland’s provisional government to hold the Soviet Union accountable for the nuclear destruction of Warsaw. An additional 20 dissidents are sentenced to lengthy prison terms after being convicted in rigged show trials.

February 7^th--The last remaining Communist forces west of Cholwon surrender to UN troops.

February 10^th--Thousands of Soviet laborers, some of them inmates from Stalin’s Siberian labor camps, are brought to Vladivostok in an effort to expedite the last stage of the repair project at the city’s maritime complex. Despite the Soviet government’s best efforts, at least fifteen percent of Vladivostok’s commercial and naval port facilities are still unusuable as a result of the U.S. air strike on the city the previous December, and there are grave fears among the Soviet military high command that U.S. forces may soon make another air strike on Vladivostok.

But in reality, the United States will not make another major air attack on the city until late April of 1951; most U.S. air combat resources in the Far East are being directed towards supporting UN ground operations in Korea. Indeed, some of the carriers which took part in the December bombing of Vladivostok have since been reassigned to defensive patrols off the Korean coast.

February 12^th--U.S. and allied warships bombard Wonsan, sinking the North Korean navy’s flagship along with two Soviet warships and a Chinese freighter.

February 13^th--Joseph Stalin is hospitalized after suffering a stroke. This event touches off a power struggle among the ranks of the Kremlin elite that will seriously complicate Communist bloc war plans both in Korea and in East Germany.

February 16^th--UN armored and infantry divisions capture the North Korean town of Pyonggang in a lightning thrust across the DMZ.

February 17^th--The NKPA begins a counterattack to retake Pyonggang.

February 21^st--CIA operatives inside the Soviet Union report that Joseph Stalin’s medical condition has taken a major turn for the worse; the report also mentions the mysterious disappearance of one of Stalin’s senior deputies, Georgi Malenkov.

February 22^nd--NATO advance units in East Germany close to within twenty miles of Berlin.

February 25^th--NKPA troops reluctantly break off their offensive to recapture Pyonggang; although several advance battalions had managed to penetrate the UN’s outer defensive perimeter around the city, supply troubles and constant U.S. air strikes served to prevent the North Koreans from further capitalizing on these penetrations.

February 28^th--Kim Il Sung is wounded in an assassination attempt; official North Korean news agencies claim Kim was targeted by Western spies, but a covert CIA investigation suggests the attempt may actually have been the work of rogue elements within his own army. Just hours after the attack, Kim makes a radio broadcast threatening to "burn Inchon to ashes" in revenge.

March 3^rd--NATO troops enter Berlin amid heavy Soviet and East German resistance; German anti-Communist partisans assist NATO forces with hit-and-run assaults on Communist defense positions in the eastern part of the city.

March 4^th--The Soviet state news agency TASS reports the death of Georgi Malenkov in what it calls "a tragic plane accident". After the fall of Russia’s Communist regime, it will be revealed that Malenkov was in fact killed in an armed clash between pro-Stalin and anti-Stalin factions of the NKVD.

March 6^th--NATO ground forces reach the heart of Berlin. That same day, the Soviet ambassador to East Germany is killed trying to escape the city.

March 9^th--A Soviet defector identifying himself as a confidant to the late Georgi Malenkov enters the US embassy in Stockholm, Sweden and requests political asylum; when questioned by embassy officials, the defector-- later code-named "Storm Drain" by the CIA --indicates he has information on the strange circumstances under which Malenkov disappeared just prior to his death.

March 10^th--In a desperate attempt to prevent NATO forces from penetrating any further into Communist-held territory in eastern Europe, the Soviets explode a 30-kiloton nuclear warhead over Berlin, killing thousands of NATO soldiers and German civilians. While in the short term the nuclear strike on the German capital is highly successful in disrupting Western strategy in Europe, in the long run it will backfire badly on the Soviets as anger over the attack provokes NATO forces to fight harder than ever to push the Communists off European soil.

March 14^th--CIA director Allen Dulles meets with President Harry S. Truman to debrief him on the information provided by "Storm Drain" to the US embassy in Stockholm. According to Dulles, the Soviet defector has told CIA investigators that Georgi Malenkov was attempting to broker a truce between the NKVD’s pro-Stalin and anti-Stalin sides just before he disappeared; Dulles goes on to report "Storm Drain" has implied Malenkov’s death may have been the result of an assassination plot by extremists in the pro-Stalin faction who were convinced he was betraying them by trying to negotiate a deal with the anti-Stalin forces.

March 15^th--Douglas MacArthur is medically cleared to resume active duty with the UN forces in Korea.

March 16^th--French left-wingers and moderates stage a protest rally in downtown Paris calling for France’s withdrawal from NATO. The rally’s keynote speaker declares that if the French government remains part of NATO’s ranks much longer, there is every chance Paris could suffer the same fate as Berlin.

March 17^th--In response to the previous day’s anti-NATO march, French NATO supporters stage a counter-protest in Paris.

March 19^th--General Douglas MacArthur formally resumes command of UN forces in Korea.

March 22^nd--TASS issues a bulletin announcing the death of Joseph Stalin. Mikhail Suslov, a hardliner and member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, is named Stalin’s successor as head of state and general secretary of the CPSU.

March 26^th--General MacArthur’s top air strategist begins making plans for another major U.S. air strike on Vladivostok; on that same day Joseph Stalin is cremated and his ashes scattered near his former childhood home in the Georgian town of Gori.

April 3^rd--Three additional Red Army divisions are deployed to East Germany to shore up the Communist battle lines in Europe as the war with NATO intensifies.

April 6^th--US Air Force B-29s destroy a hydroelectric plant in the vicinity of the North Korean coastal town of Yongampo. The raid also destroys a number of factories in the area, dealing a serious blow to North Korea’s war production.

April 10^th--In the first sinking of an enemy submarine by British warships since 1945, two Royal Navy destroyers depth-charge and sink a Soviet sub off the coast of Norway.

April 13^th--The French National Assembly begins debate on a bill which, if passed, would terminate France’s membership in NATO.

April 17^th--The Soviet defector known as "Storm Drain" by the CIA is smuggled out of Sweden to a safe house in Britain; from there, he will subsequently be flown to the United States to begin a new life under an assumed identity.

April 19^th--Communist ground forces in Europe begin a three-pronged offensive to retake Leipzig from NATO forces.

April 22^nd--Following the plans drafted by General MacArthur’s air staff, a U.S. warplane bombs Vladivostok in an atomic strike that wipes the city from the face of the earth.

April 23^rd--NATO forces in Germany mount a ferocious counter-offensive against Communist troops trying to retake Leipzig.

April 25^th--The French National Assembly narrowly rejects the proposal to withdraw France from NATO. The decision is greeted with angry protests by the French left; at one point Paris riot squads are placed on alert after French communists disrupt a right wing anti-Soviet rally in the heart of the city and get in a scuffle with some of the right wing demonstrators.

May 1^st--The Chinese government stages a "patriotic rally" in Beijing to boost morale among its civilian population and to encourage the PLA’s soldiers on the Korean front to keep up the fight against the UN forces in Korea. Conspicuously absent from the proceedings is General Lin Bao, Mao Zedong’s top military advisor; ‘serious illness’ is given as the official explanation for his absence. Unofficially, Western intelligence analysts are starting to pick up vague hints that all may not be well between Mao and his chief army commander.

May 6^th--The Soviet defense ministry sends a top secret report to premier Mikhail Suslov warning that the casualty rate being sustained by Red Army forces in Korea and Germany is starting to exceed the Red Army reserves’ capacity to reinforce Soviet troop strength in those theaters. This comes as alarming news to Suslov and his inner circle.