The Bear
35
0700 January 22nd 1947.
The Skies Above Basrah.
Kondo was given no time to rest his squadrons after arriving in Kuwait and he had a lot of work to do in order to thin out the Allied forces. There was already a fairly large force on the Indian border with more troops heading that way.
He began the task with a bombing run against Basrah. Reconnaisance reports indicated a vast array of different quality of troops as well as various Nationalities. This was easy to see as his bombers attacked the much more modern Canadian Motorised division and ignored the Iraqi Infantry which was not as old as some other forces were. There was a strange absence of both British and American ground forces with the only modern troops being Canadian, South African or Brazilian. The less modern troops came from Iraq and Persia in the immidiate region as well as a fair number of Ethiopian Infantry divisions.
1100 January 22nd 1947.
Kwantung Army Headquarters. Mukden, Manchukuo.
The race for Vladivostok would be a close run affair as it had been on the previous occasion. Terauchi would like to see it in Japanese hands even if it was only for a short time as there was always the chance that at least some enemy aircraft could be caught on the ground.
Lt. General Zhang Yisan would lead friendly troops ashore ahead of the Red Army troops trying to prevent them arriving. He would easily defeat the small counter attack from those advancing Soviet forces. Some aircraft had been caught on the airbase but there was no count to be had of the actual numbers destroyed. The single Soviet Submarine flotilla that had been hiding in the port would escape the blockading Japanese ships.
The Red Army had more than enough troops around Vladivostok to take it back easily which Terauchi was fully aware of, but he was still glad to see that the Soviets had decided to over react and start to move considerably more troops east. Operation Tedious was certainly keeping the enemy off guard and it had really only launched minor incursions so far.
0500 January 23rd 1947.
North China Army Headquarters. Lanzhou, China.
While Higashikuni waited for the Soviets to complete their force mustering on his part of the front he kept a close eye on proceedings in India and the Middle East. He gave the go ahead for a further reduction in the defence of Karachi to support the landings further west.
Three more divisions left Karachi and headed for 8. Kaigan and its Transport ships which were waiting off the coast guarded by Carrier Group C. CA Division 3 was guarding the mouth of the Persian Gulf as an added precaution.
2000 January 23rd 1947.
Kwantung Army Headquarters. Mukden, Manchukuo.
The inevitable much larger attack on Vladivostok began a few hours before dawn on January 23rd. Terauchi would try and protect the province if he could.
Fifteen Soviet divisions was a much larger force than defended Vladivostok but dawn would see a Japanese counter attack in the hope of keeping the port and airbase for a little while.
By 0600 hours on January 24th it was clear that the attack on Chongyin to force the Soviet main force against Vladivostok to call off its attack would fail, even with the depleted bombers assisting. This would in turn mean the abandoning of Vladivostok as the invading troops made their way back onto their waiting Transports. Terauchi was pretty sure that the same amphibious assault could be repeated numerous times if needed. The use of the enemy forces in Chongyin meant that no attack towards Korea would be coming anytime soon.
The other Tactical bomber group had moved on to Babolsar province in Persia as the two Dive bomber groups continued to target Erenhot and Xinjing causing ever increasing numbers of casualties to the Red Army.
