Opening Moves

With some cunning, the supposed flight to Paris of Ministers Molotov and Bulganin had been used to mask some of the air attacks. The Soviets had indicated five possible routes that the aircraft flight might take, citing security concerns over rogue fascist elements for not confirming the flight plan. In fact, Zilant-4 had flown the southernmost route totally unimpeded. Some allied radar controllers saw what they had been briefed to see, although the numbers of aircraft exceeded expectations. Others already lay dead with their equipment smashed around them.

At times, attacks were met with no resistance and whole squadrons were destroyed on the ground, crews killed as they slept. Some attacks received opposition as allied aircrew drove their mounts into the early morning sky, dodging the bombs and bullets that sought them out.

It was of little surprise that some responses were poorly aimed, and on at least two occasions RAF Tempests clawed friendly Mustangs out of the sky, sending both the young American pilots to a fiery death.

Airfields near the North German coast and through Denmark found themselves under ground assault from Soviet Naval infantry, landed in the night from darkened vessels of all sizes and descriptions.

The allied controlled airbase in Berlin came alive with light as Soviet artillery and Katyusha rockets brought down a huge barrage, destroying every aircraft on the ground and inflicting massive casualties on the base personnel.

In precious few cases were the attackers met fully and equally and, in the space of seventy-five minutes, the western air forces from the Alps to the Baltic suffered grievous casualties in men and machines. In one stroke, a major part of the Allied armies was crippled for some time to come for a modest toll in Soviet aircrew and planes.

In other operations, Soviet sabotage and assassination squads had mixed successes. General Clark’s warning had proved timely for all but one senior commander targeted, although for General George Patton it had been a close run thing, just missing the attack on his command centre, and for French General De Lattre de Tassigny in his Baden-Baden headquarters it had run closer, as his slight wounds from grenade shrapnel showed. Perversely, the attack on General Clark’s Salzburg headquarters was extremely effective in dealing death, and many US military personnel were killed before the situation was restored.

The only real success on the part of the assassination squads was in the British sector at the Headquarters of Bad Oeynhausen, where Field-Marshal Montgomery was severely wounded by sub-machine gunfire before the Russians attackers were driven off, killed, or taken prisoner.

Sabotage units successfully destroyed ammunition and fuel dumps across Germany and the Low countries. One special NKVD unit even managed to wreck the PLUTO facility at Ambleteuse in Northern France and another sunk two freighters in Antwerp harbour.

In all cases, casualties among the attacking Soviet units were extreme.

The groups targeting the symposiums carried out their missions with varying degrees of success.

Zilant-1, landing surprisingly accurately in fields to the north-west of Schloss Ahrensberg, swiftly formed and made their attack, overwhelming a strong detachment of British Military police. Within twenty minutes of the first shot, the Schloss was ablaze and every allied officer and all members of Symposium Hamburg were dead or left wounded to die amid the flames. Few of the attacking paratroopers had perished and they split into small groups, fanning out through the German countryside intent on further mischief before they were hunted down.

At Schloss Neuhaus near Paderborn, the result was much the same, although one aircraft was downed by anti-aircraft fire and one group of paratroopers drowned when dropped off target into the Lippesee. A company of US MP’s defended stoutly but the Soviet troopers stormed forward regardless of losses, killing all before them. No allied officers or symposium members escaped unharmed, although a desperate handful of wounded men managed to escape by swimming the moat.

Some remained inside and were found one by one with inevitable results, but not before one Major from the 82nd US Airborne Division had burst from his hiding place and gunned down the commander and 2-I-C of the attacking paratroopers. Whilst he paid with his life in seconds, almost cut in half by a burst from a PPS sub-machine gun, the net effect was to paralyse the attackers. Instead of fanning out to cause trouble elsewhere, the unit halted as the new commander, an inexperienced young Captain, struggled to gain control. As a result, the Zilant-2 force found themselves besieged almost medieval style by arriving US combat units.