Harry Kellogg III: The Red Sky: The Second Battle of Britain

The American press and government had not made the case as yet, that Stalin was as monstrous as Hitler. The outright communists and deluded left leaning, continued to defend the idea of communism not knowing that Stalinism had taken its place. They continued to whisper in the ears of their neighbors about the evils of capitalism and many of the evils were there for all to see, while the obvious evils of Stalinism were hidden from the American and British public by the massive propaganda machine of the Soviet Empire.

At the end of September the United States Strategic Bombing Survey had been released and propaganda masters of the Soviet Union and the various communist parties and sympathizers made a point of continuously pointing out the negative aspects of a strategic bombing campaign and its large failures. This campaign focused in the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of children and women to no effect other than to make their men fight and die harder to revenge their deaths and of particular focus was the role of one General Curtis LeMay.

The fact that LeMay had just dropped 4 atomic bombs on or near four large cities filled with innocents, did not go unnoticed or unpublicized, by the communist controlled press in occupied France, Greece, Italy and even in Turkey and Spain not to mention the heavily worker controlled docks in the US and GB.

To say the least the merchant marine was being played like a violin by Dmitri Shepilov, the head of Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Communist Party Central Committee. He had almost as much power over the Soviet people as Stalin himself through his control of the printed and spoken word, which meant his life was in danger. His products permeated the docks and union halls in all of the major ports of the world.

By the end of the World War Two the truth about the true losses the Merchant Marine suffered, came to light. It was aided by information leaked by communist sympathizers nad even the New York Time did a multiple day series of articles on the hidden secrets and startling statistics of the staggering losses that had occurred without recognition.

The fact was that the merchant marines in World WW II suffering a greater percentage of war-related deaths than all other U.S. services. These casualties were kept secret during the War to keep information about their success from the enemy and to attract and keep mariners at sea.

Newspapers carried essentially the same story each week: “Two medium-sized Allied ships sunk in the Atlantic.” In reality, the average for 1942 was 33 Allied ships sunk each week.

This had long been known amongst the sailors and their families. The fact that it was kept such a deep secret and was still not known by many outside of the union halls and dockyards was a great source of resentment.

All of these factors combined to magnify the nuisance of the Seehund into the scourge of the Mediterranean in the eyes of the merchant marine services. The fact that the Little Ones were very good at eluding the best that the US and Royal Navies could bring to bear did nothing to increase the urgency the sailors felt for the strategic bombers and flyboys on Crete, Rhodes, and in Turkey. It even extended to the forces on Sicily. Just as the US government played down by 15 to one the losses to the Merchant Marine in 1942, the rumor mill made the Seehund ten times more destructive than it was in reality and ten times more likely to turn a freighter around before it delivered its cargo on just the sight of a strange current or flash of sunlight hitting at the wrong angle.

The HMS Portchester Castle completed its turn and was churning towards the lookouts coordinates. Just after the Captain ordered the firing of the hedgehogs and before the explosions started, the source of all the excitement was spotted floating just below the surface with an occasional wave breaking on top of it. It was a half-filled drop tank tank off one of the jet fighters that the sailors saw often as bits of shining metal, in a clear blue sky, followed by long thin wisps of vapor and often chasing the big bombers.

“Order General Quarter’s number one. Give an extra to Jenkins for having a sharp eye as well. Even though it was not a sub it was a good call.”

“Yes Sar.

The Captain of the Seehund 293 couldn’t believe his luck he was sure the corvette spotted him and was headed right for him. The dive controls had stuck as usual and he was sure that they were going to catch him too shallow. He even heard the small conning tower hit something large and metallic as they crashed dived and then after just one attack the corvette had turned and moved off. How can you be spotted, have trouble with your dive gear, hit a large object with a corvette coming straight at you and live to tell the tale?

Such is the art of war, he thought. The people of his village had always told him he was lucky and maybe they were correct. Only time would tell.

General Ivan Bagramian was home. He sat down to his first trout dinner in a decade. Nothing… nothing beats a freshly caught trout from a mountain lake fried in butter… nothing. Trout can only live in the cleanest and coldest water available. They are like the canaries in the coal mines. If the trout can no longer survive then the water is dying. These waters were filled with trout, wonderful trout, mouthwatering trout.

The first mouthful did not want to leave his mouth. His mouth was so enamored by the taste and texture that it resisted swallowing and wanted to continue sucking the wonderful juices out of the fish.

“You have outdone yourself Alexi. This fish is magnificent. It brings back so many memories of my grandfather and fishing the waters The Seas of Armenia. This fish puts the Rainbow Trout of Kamchatka that Khrushchev brags about, to shame. Just wonderful Alexi… just wonderful.”

“Thank you comrade.”

The trout had come from Lake Sevan and probably was destined to have been eaten by the Fisherman but the soldiers had gotten there first. Unlike many of their other compatriots these group of soldiers had been ordered to catch the trout using fishing line and fly. Many of the other troops were dining on fish that had been blown out of the water using grenades. The general’s chef knew his commander would have none of that kind of fish and a full third of the lake had been designated off limits to the more destructive methods being used.

Ivan Bagramian was from a village named Chardakhluand it was less than 100 km from Sevan Lake. Until his teenage years he roamed these very hills and lakes. He was bombarded from an early age by tales of the Turks invading and masacuring his people, the Armenians. Story after story of the Turk’s atrocities were common bed and fireside fare.

His village is now known as a home of many heroes of the Great Patriotic War. Of the able bodied Armenians of the village, 1250 went to the front. Half of them were awarded with orders and medals, two gained the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union (himself and Hamazasp Babadzhanian), 12 became generals, and seven Hero of the Soviet Union. an amazing legacy for such a small, isolated area.

Bagramian carried the tales of Turkish and Ottoman atrocities with him as he fought with various military units during the First World War, facing the blood curdling cry of the southern invader too many times to count. He fought the Turk hand to hand when he was young now he would command the Front that would stab at the heart of the former Ottoman empire and then on to the Levant and Persia. It was expected that the Turkish army would concentrate and provide the most resistance on its western border, while his forces cut through sparse opposition and swiftly moved onto the prize of the oil in fields in Iraq and the all-important Suez Canal. Zukov would be in control of the entire offensive with Konev having the honor of assaulting Constantinople and the more Westernized part of Turkey while he did the real damage coming in from the back door.