First I took a train to Jaroslavl, where the plane would leave at 4pm, this 160km trip took 3 hours (It still does today in 2017, which seems ridiculously long to me)
I thus took the 12:30 train, arrived in Jaroslavl station at 3:40 pm, rushed to the Air Base.
The frozen Volga in Jaroslavl, it was -10,0°C when I stepped off the train, a slight Improvement over the weather in Vologda, at least the sky is clear.
The Government Li-2 took off at 4:10 pm Moscow Time.
At 8:45pm Moscow Time we landed at Kuybyshev (Samara) Air Base for refuelling, a basic technical inspection, dinner, and some sleep, at this point we were still on Moscow Time, at the edge of the time zone...
A postcard of Kuybyshev's main square, it has a surface of 15 Hectares, an additional 2,4 Hectares is covered by the huge Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, a picture doesn't do justice to the scale of this place... when we got there it was freezing (-4,1°C ), we could have landed on the square if that had been necessary...
At 2:45am Moscow Time, we took off once more, towards the sunrise.
After close to 6 hours of flying, we landed on the dirt landing strip of Kopeysk Air Base, it was a bumpy landing, but there is no alternative. The timing was perfect as the sun was up for two whole hours when we landed, as there were no lights along the landing strip, landing at night would have been very hasardous. It was 8:30am Moscow time, or 10:30 local time.
A very fuzzy picture taken from the plane on approach showing a modern factory (built in the mid 1930s) in the Chelyabinsk Region around Kopeysk, it was freezing here too but at -2,3°C it became more beareable, frozen ground
After refuelling, checking the, luckily undamaged, landing gear, and loading a basic lunch on the plane, we took off at 11:30am Local time (9:30am Moscow time).
Another 6 hours later, we landed on the large Air Base at Blinkovo, which boasted not one, but two hardened runways, it was 6:30pm Local Time (3:30pm Moscow Time)
Empty plains as far as the eye can reach, the Air Base is not in the frame. It's not freezing here, and that was a relief for everyone on board, it wasn't exactly warm at 2,0°C, but the sky was clear and bright, and the ground was firm and dry.
By 7pm (4pm Moscow Time), my contemplation of the scenery was interrupted by a Ground crew officer calling me into the office of the VVS Ground Captain
in charge of the skeleton crew keeping the entire Air Base operational, just in case the VVS suddenly needed to station 400 Aeroplanes in the middle of Western Siberia...this being an entirely military base, there was no real civilian activity at all. It seems that our dear Captain
had received a rather unexpected telephone call, bypassing the Bases switchboard and his secretary, straight into his office... It was of course, 'Tri':
"The Germans are in serious need of a lesson in Geography my dear 'Odin'... Hitler has just declared war on Greece... Now I had been hearing rumours that they were putting pressure on Yugoslavia by increasing trade tariffs, but it seems my assumption that Yugoslavia would be next was wrong. Now if the Germans want to get near Greece with their Armies, there are several options, but none are very advantageous... the first one would be to borrow part of the Italian Navy to land a few Divisions from the sea, an honestly more likely alternative to this would be for them to drop paratroopers staging from an Italian Island. The problem with both of these, is that Germany probably won't be able to send enough units into Greece to be able to defeat the entire Greek Army... The second one would be to stage troops in Italian Albania, but they would still need the Regia Marina to take them there... What I think more likely is that the Germans jumped the gun, and that Italy, or even the Bulgaria was supposed to Declare war at the same time. I guess time will tell what happens. Greece has immediately Joined the Allies, it's not clear what they can or will do, except for naval support. At least the Greeks are doubly lucky in their Geography, with Mountains and fortresses on both their Albanian, and their Bulgarian border, they should be able to hold off both of them, if they don't attack at the same time that is. Italy is hampered by the lack of a land connection between Italy and Albania, and Bulgaria isn't really bigger or stronger than Greece on it's own, while being Isolated from the rest of the Axis. But the biggest advantage of them all for the Greeks is that the Germans have no real way to bring their panzers to bear. Well I'm sure there will be more developments soon. Don't call me, I'll call you!"
and he hung up,
In all haste I found an up to date map of Greece, confirming what 'Tri' was saying about it's Geography.
The Fuel tanks filled to the brim, we took off once more at 7:30pm Local time (4:30pm Moscow Time), with no significant wind slowing us down, the pilot was confident we could make it to Irkustk without stopping for fuel.
He was right, and after flying through the night for close to 8 hours, running on fumes, we landed at Irkustsk Air Base. It was 4:30 am (11:30pm Moscow Time), luckily the hardened runway was illuminated.
Before the plane had fully stopped a civilian ground mechanic was running towards the plane... when we opened the door he said:
"Telephone sir, for you sir, it's urgent!"
It was of course 'Tri' calling with his promised developments:
"So remember when I said this would make a lot more sense if Italy or Bulgaria were in on it?...Well Italy has declared that it will join the war on Greece on Germany's side... What happened here behind closed doors is hard to figure out... Either Italy and Germany were best of friends and planned to declare at the same time, with the Germans jumping the Gun, and the Italians arriving late...or...the Italians kept talking about resurrecting the Mediterranean Roman Empire, and the Germans, growing tired of their endless posturing, declared war on Greece, pressing the Italians into joining the war, or losing all pretence to their new "Roman Empire"...I would like to say it was the latter... Now Greece has an actual war on it's hands, one it could reasonably fight to a stalemate, or even win... unless Yugoslavia is incorporated into the Axis, or Bulgaria Joins the war... Another thing...this might actually slow down the Italian advance in North Africa,as the Italian high-command focuses it's attention, and it's resources on Greece... I guess you must be hungry and tired, so I will leave you to it"
And he hung up, we'll have to see how this pans out...Will the British send a single Special Forces Division (maybe Gurkha's this time around) thinking that will turn things around? Will the Greek war save French North Africa? Will Greece conquer Albania? Will Bulgaria join the party? Only time will tell.
A picture of Irkustsk in the morning, this one was framed on the wall in the passenger terminal of the Airport, it's from the Early thirties. When we got there it was 0,8°C and we could see the stars very well, we were in luck with the skies, it had been clear skies all the way. I didn't get to see Irkutsk myself, as I got some much needed sleep instead...
After refuelling, inspection, 'Tri's second call of the trip, dinner, and a bit of sleep, we took off again at 10:30 am (5:30am Moscow Time) with the sun already halfway to it's peak.
Less than 4 hours later, at 3:15pm (9:15am Moscow Time), we landed on the dirt strip of the brand new Air Base of Aksenovo Zilovskoye, here we parted way with some of our compagnons, and some of the mail on board, all bound for units of XX GSK
, based in the hills around the Airfield, as a bulwark against a possible Japanese push west towards Mongolia and Irkutsk. (You may remember that Afanasy Fyodorovich Vatutin, brother of Maj. General
Nikolaj Fjodorovich Vatutin, is based around here, in the shadow of the Stanovoi Mountains.)
During refuelling and checking the Landing gear again, me, 'Devyat' and the rest of the passengers walked around the brand new Air field, men were already preparing the ground for a longer, hardened runway. It's crazy when you know that little more than 50 days ago there was nothing here at all, and now a large Aeroplane can land and there is a shed, and a maintenance crew. 'Devyat' seemed really satisfied with the efficiency and speed with which the base was built.
We warmed ourselves up in a railway carriage that had been parked on a siding near the Airport, as there wasn't enough space in the shed to house all the passengers of our flight, the ground crew and the construction crews... This was the view out of the window, note the smooth hills in the background...With temperatures of -1,1°C we weren't about to walk around outside for an hour until the Li-2 was ready for take-off, so after 'Devyat's half hour tour of the whole site, we went to sit in the carriage to discuss why, and how our work crews had achieved such impressive results. (Actually picture taken by a recent tourist through the window of the Trans-Siberian express in the general Area of Aksenovo Zilovskoye Region before reaching Mogocha station...Thank you unknown tourist for your contribution to this AAR)
At 4:30pm (10:30am Moscow Time), we took off once again.
Underway the pilot was talking about how flying this leg in the afternoon had only been possible since the recent addition of a hardened runway with lights, allowing for a nighttime landing in Tumnin.
We landed at Tumnin Air Base at 11:30pm, Vladivostok Time (4:30pm Moscow Time). I had barely gotten off the aeroplane, when I was called into the brand new command post, for another mysterious call...
"Now things are really heating up... considering Greece is in the Allies now, it seems Bulgarian hesitated for some time, before also declaring war on Greece, and by extension, all of the Allies... Now Greece is stuck with a 2 front war,... I guess the Bulgarians want a piece of that Hellenic pie too... But will they be able to eat it at all? Or will they be stuck on the mountains and fortresses of North-Eastern Greece? In any case, Greece seems doomed, eventually... Whenever the Axis takes over Yugoslavia it will be all over, whether the Greek Army holds of the combined Italo-Bulgarian onslaught, or not. Unless there is some big distraction of course...I think we should really do something about this, these Germans will never stop... but what...
I see no diplomatic course of action that would convince the Germans to back off. But we could deploy more economic sanctions, depriving German industry of much needed resources, but that would of course go at the cost of a sizeable chunk of our income... With a Rare Materials Embargo we could have the greatest effect on the Axis, as they seem to have an already sizeable deficit of approximately 25 tonnes per day, we could add another 18,34 tonnes per day to that, but it would cost us 2,57 million roubles every day and we are already running a 2,35 million roubles trade deficit... to compensate we would have to ultimately end several of our most expensive deals to buy Supplies. The economical fallout on our side would be manageable as an initial calculation shows we would need a mere 2.3 modern Industrial complexes (3.1 in the 1935 standard IC measure) to switch to supply production to compensate for the loss of about 28 tonnes of Supply imports per day. Considering those 18,34 tonnes of Rare Materials could fuel 37,68 Axis Industrial complexes (1935 Standard). I propose that all sales of Rare Materials to Axis members be stopped as soon as possible in retribution for this continued aggression."
The mountains, visible from Tumnin Air Base, behind them should be the Tartar Straight, but I don't have the time to hike until I can see the sea... Especially with temperatures of -5,4 °C upon landing.
After the third call from 'Tri' refuelling and another short walk to look at the brand new infrastructure, and the construction site were crews have been building a second runway by day, we boarded the plane once again, for the last stretch of the Journey. The plane left the runway at 12:30 (5:30pm Moscow Time).
We finally landed in Vladivostok at 4am (9pm Moscow Time) on the 17th of November, and the others set about looking over proposed projects for Infrastructure improvement, as always, even with their sizeable budget, there are always more proposed projects than we can build, first the completed projects were reviewed:
-Transsiberian railroad, Kuybyshev-Omsk:
Infrastructure has been upgraded to 'Level 7' in Melekes and Iskaly.
-Eastern Finnmark Coast, Murmansk-Petsamo railroad:
Infrastructure has been upgraded to 'Level 4' in Polyarny, Zapadnaya Litsa, and Petsamo.
-String of Lakes/Rivers around lake Salvijärvi, Petsamo-Lulea railroad:
Infrastructure has been upgraded to 'Level 4' in Kolosjoki, Nautsi, and Ivalo.
-Lake Ladoga East Coast, Tihvin-Sortavala-Viipuri-Leningrad Railroad
Infrastructure has been upgraded to 'Level 5' in Olonets and Svirstroy.
-Volkhov East Bank railroad:
Infrastructure has been upgraded to 'Level 8' in Malaja Vishera and Proletariy.
-Lovat East Bank Demjansk-Vitsyebsk railroad:
Infrastructure has been upgraded to 'Level 8' in Parfino, Marevo, Andreapol, Toropets, Velikie Luki and Haradok.
-Dvina North Bank Riga-Vityebsk railroad:
Infrastructure has been upgraded to 'Level 8' in Dominikovo and Drozdy.
-Moskva peripheral railway network:
Infrastructure has been upgraded to 'Level 7' in Istra, Taldom, Dmitrov and Podolsk and to 'Level 8' in Kolomna. (It seems one construction crew got lost and improved the province right next to the one it was supposed to, or maybe a bureaucrat made a mistake...No matter, this will be just as effective as what was proposed)
Machine Gun Bunkers (Level 1) have been delivered in Izborsk.
Work continues with both strengthened concrete trenches and a few Anti-Tank Bunkers planned (Level 2).
Mostly the same rules and objectives were used to determine the next 25 projects, with some minor changes: The Weather has become so bad that work close to the Arctic has been stopped until spring, temperatures having dipped well below -12°C in the whole region. The Russians amongst the crews have been railed down to work near lake Ladoga, where the temperatures are slightly less freezing, and the others have been sent home. Local crews have been hired to improve supply lines in the Far East for the first time. In the following 24 provinces work will begin (21), or continue (3), adding an extra track or another hardened road.
-Transsiberian railroad, Kuybyshev-Omsk:
Infrastructure will be upgraded to 'Level 6' in Magnitogorsk and to 'Level 7' in Oktjabr'skij.
-Lake Ladoga East Coast, Tihvin-Sortavala-Viipuri-Leningrad Railroad
Infrastructure will be upgraded to 'Level 3' in Pryazha and to 'Level 5' in Vidlica, and Salmi.
-Lovat East Bank Demjansk-Vitsyebsk Railroad:
Infrastructure will be upgraded to 'Level 8' in Sumilina and Vityebsk.
-Dniepr East Bank Vityebsk-Smolensk-Homel-Kyiv-Dnipopetrovsk Railroad:
Infrastructure will be upgraded to 'Level 8' in Dubrouna, Horki, Chavusy, Slawharad, Karma, Chachersk, Homel, and Ripky.
-Moskva peripheral railway network:
Infrastructure will be upgraded to 'Level 7' in Yegoryevsk and Zagorsk, and to 'Level 8' in Podolsk, Istra and Taldom.
-Nikolaevsk na Amure / Tumnin Air Base side-branch of the Trans-Siberian Ralroad:
Infrastructure will be improved to 'Level 4' in Obluchye, Sofiysk, Imeni Poliny Osipenko, and Chegdomyn.
We are making good progress towards the 'Level 8' objective for our Defensive line, as well as in Finland. The First Defensive line that is being upgraded is the Leningrad-Novaya Ladoga-Vityebsk-Homel-Kyiv-Dnipopetrovsk-Zhaporizhzhya-Mykolaiv defensive line, a continuous river line with only two already fortified gaps less than 100km wide.
After a 2 hour meeting, the men scattered, some flew back to Tumnin to have another look at the ongoing construction. Me and 'Devyat', along with most of the others, went to the hotel to sleep...a mere two hours before sunrise...
Tomorrow, we will be visiting the city's fortifications, as well as discussing the Far east strategy in general.
Greetings,
'Odin'