Red Eagle Bomber Group Commander Colonel Gregor Demistriov knew his time was almost up

Red Eagle Bomber Group Commander Colonel Gregor Demistriov knew his time was almost up. As he scanned the instruments, he knew it wouldn't be long before he was over his target. He also knew he was thoroughly screwed. The 'geniuses' back in Moscow wanted a long-range jet bomber that could carry multiple hydrogen bombs to the United States and return. Well, he thought, they got it half-right. His M-4 started out from their base on the Kamchatka Peninsula with two Type-2 hydrogen bombs aboard. They now had only one.

When the emergency missions briefing was announced the previous day, Col. Demistriov thought it was just another preparedness exercise. There'd been enough of those in the last several months that his entire crew of 6 knew their mission inside and out. He was proud of all of them, all of them intelligent, all of them considered a "New Soviet Man", the best his country could produce. It'd be another day out flying, proving how good they were to him and everyone in the Soviet Air Forces.

When the briefing was done, he looked around at the stunned faces of the bomber pilots under his command. This wasn't an exercise. He and his entire wing were headed on the Great Circle route down the West Coast of the United States, and they were going to destroy cities. The madmen in the Kremlin had finally decided to implement the plans they'd been thinking of for a decade. He wanted to question the general who had just given the briefing, but he knew to do so in front of his men, especially since he was the wing commander, was to invite an answer from a firing squad.

Not that it would've mattered, thought the colonel. He knew the end of the mission would be his death anyway. His bomber, known as the "Hammer" to the Soviets and the "Bison" to Westerners, was a great machine, the best that the Soviet Union had produced until this point. Too bad that with all the technical know-how they'd built into it, they hadn't given it a range that allowed it to complete its mission and return. His only 'options' were to attempt to dead-stick it on the way down and hope for an intact airfield or a long, flat piece of ground, bail out, or crash. The first two choices weren't that good…if he was found by a mob of angry Americans, he and his men would be 'at best' prisoners of war. The more likely scenario was that he'd be killed once they identified him as Soviet.

He was interrupted from his thoughts by his co-pilot, Major Antonin Polov. "Ten minutes to target, Colonel". "Right" answered Demistriov. He took up scanning the skies ahead of him for the signs of American fighter jets attempting to knock him out of the sky. He keyed his intercom, "Sergeant, any sign of fighters?" "None, Comrade Colonel", piped in Sergeant Vasily Korich, the tail gunner. "Nothing to see but what we already did".

'Already did', thought Demistriov, 'That is an understatement of enormous proportions'.

What they 'already did' was drop one of the two Type 2 hydrogen devices they carried onto a target just south of a city named "Tacoma" in a state called "Washington". It was an American Army base called "Fort Lewis". Demistriov remembered his history, that it was named after one of the pioneers of the American West. Well, thought the colonel, it certainly is history at this point. The sergeant in the tail position could still see the three dissipating mushroom clouds over the targets they'd left behind. Two over Seattle, and the one over Tacoma.

The bombardier, Capt. Yuri Deltsin, was watching his bombing radar, ticking off the minutes until they were over the target, a city called "Portland". He's never heard of Portland before. He had a flash of thought in the back of his mind that, by the time he was done with his job, no one else would hear of Portland again.

The minutes plodded on. Finally, Deltsin called over the intercom, "One minute to target, Comrade Colonel. Opening bomb bay doors." He flicked a switch and the two massive metal doors on the underside opened like a two-petaled flower. In a few seconds, the device the plane held in its belly was exposed to the open air. One Type 2 hydrogen gravity bomb, ready to do what it was designed to do: destroy an American city.

"Thirty seconds!" called out Deltsin. "Stand by to don goggles", replied Col. Demistriov. He placed his welder's goggles over his brow, ready to pull them down a few seconds after the bomb dropped. He glanced over to his co-pilot. "Ready, Polov?" "As always, Comrade Colonel" Demistriov noted the young man's face was tight with excitement…or terror. He wasn't sure which.

The bombardier keyed the intercom, "Steady….steady….and…BOMB AWAY! NOW! NOW!" The M-4 lurched upward as the weight of a 3-ton bomb was released. The colonel pushed the throttles forward so the 4 turbojets were sending out maximum power to get him away from there.

Suddenly, Sergeant Korich screamed into the intercom, "BOGEY, COMING OUT OF THE SUN!" The colonel instantly twisted his head to look out of his side window. His eyes grew wide.

"Niechevo!"……

Capt. John Turlock was devastated.

As a fighter pilot with the Air Force, he'd seen his share of death and destruction. Even so, it never struck so close to home. In his current job assigned to the Oregon Air National Guard, his job was to protect his state from any attack from any quarter. He hadn't expected the emergency call that morning…there simply weren't any signs that the Soviets were getting squirrely. So, when he got to the base and was told that Soviet bombers were coming down the coast, headed for the U.S. mainland, he was thoroughly nonplussed.

With horror, he suddenly realized that his wife and child were in Seattle, and they'd be getting hit first, if the bombers made it that far. In the alert room, he tried dialing and dialing for an hour while waiting for the scramble order. He finally had gotten through, and to his dismay found that his wife was still in Seattle at her sister's place on Capitol Hill. As he started to tell her to get out, a sickening shriek erupted from the receiver. It was the sound made when a nuclear device explodes and the phone line melts. His wife and child were gone.

Within minutes, the klaxon sounded and, despite being numb with grief, his training took over and he ran for his F-86 Sabre. He screamed into the clear blue sky, searching for the arrow-shapes of Soviet bombers. He climbed as high as the fighter would go safely, and scanned below and around his plane. All at once, he spotted several shapes below him. Long, swept wings, large tail plane, silver…and heading south. He knew he was looking at Soviet bombers, possible the ones that had murdered his family. He waited, doing tight circles, making sure his plane was between the sun and the bombers. Finally, with a grim determination, he put the Sabre into a screaming dive, headed straight for the lead plane.

As he dove, he thought that he could try to take out as many as he could, but with just machine guns, it might not happen. Besides, the tail gunners from the other bombers might get him before he could splash one. In a few frantic seconds, he knew what he needed to do. There was nothing for him to go back to anyway. He locked his sights on the lead bomber, tracking it as he closed at near supersonic speed. In the last 6 seconds, he noted with horror the shape of the bomb leaving the plane. He was too late. He simply kept the nose of his plane aimed just behind the cockpit of the bomber, and rammed the Soviet in mid-air. Pieces of both planes blew outward as a fireball erupted high in the sky.

And…a few seconds later, a bigger fireball erupted 3,500 feet over Portland, Oregon.

In that first half-second after detonation, the temperature in the fireball that erupted high over Portland reached temperatures five times hotter than the surface of the sun. Everything flammable from Vancouver, Washington, across from Portland on the other side of the Columbia River, all the way down to the southern edge of Portland, was burnt to a crisp in seconds. The area directly under the burst…downtown Portland…ceased to exist in the space of 3 seconds. Everything within a mile of the burst was turned to so much super-heated gas and plasma and disappeared. Any person in the area that was exposed to the fireball was vaporized, burnt beyond recognition, or burned so badly that survival was impossible, and all within 3 seconds.

Then, the blast wave hit. Anything that wasn't vaporized was hammered with such incomprehensible force as to be blown apart and thrown out ahead of the shockwave, which was travelling at the speed of sound away from the epicenter. Chunks of metal, steel, and whatever else could be carried was hurtled outward at hundreds of miles an hour. The huge mushroom cloud, signature of all nuclear blasts, began to rise over the maelstrom of death and destruction.

The mayor and the municipal staff, hidden away in their hardened shelter, learned of the explosion when the lights went out in the bunker due to the electromagnetic pulse generated at detonation. Within seconds, the blast wave hit with an enormous noise and shaking. Some women (and a few men) screamed as the bunker shook. When the shaking stopped, they searched for working flashlights. They found some, and set to work getting the generators online.

Despite the evacuations of the populace, which were a model for the rest of the United States, there was still a large loss of life. There were some who did their jobs sacrificially to the end. These were police and firemen, as well as those who stayed at their posts at the Bonneville Power Administration distribution center, knowing they were considered expendable. Some stragglers from the evacuation and those who were crazy or stupid enough to ignore the warning sirens were all dead in the blast. Granted, the majority of the population was spared, but they would not be able to go home anytime soon. Those that fled north couldn't go back south, as all the bridges over the Columbia were either vaporized or blown into the river as so much junk. The same was true for the bridges over the Willamette River…all gone.

For those who fled east but not too far north into Washington, they were relatively safe. For those who went north, then east, prevailing winds brought a new danger…radioactive fallout. The fallout from Portland went over Yakima, Washington, across the wide Columbia Plateau, and finally over Spokane. Spokane had been spared when the bomber that was slated to release its device over Fairchild AFB developed engine trouble and crashed in the Canadian Rockies. Even though it was spared complete annihilation, it still received a heavy dose of radiation from what used to be tiny pieces of Portland.

Aftermath

On the "Day called X", millions had been killed, but certainly not as many as could have been, and mostly because of the evacuations. Despite that, the world now had to deal with the consequences of the actions of the two superpowers who had just slugged it out with nuclear weapons. Only the West Coast of the US was hurt…no Soviet bombers made it to the East Coast. Of the Soviets, many targets were destroyed by B-36 and B-47 bombers, including Moscow, which was hit by no less than 4 hydrogen bombs. If a 'winner' could be declared in what the world would call "The Day of Destruction", it would be the United States, since its capitol and government still existed. What was the Soviet Union dissolved into small territories, filled with anarchy and unrest. The Eastern Bloc also dissolved, and many former Soviet satellites such as Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and others finally got to taste freedom a decade after they were 'freed' from the Nazis.

After this, the people of the world decided collectively that nuclear weapons had no place in society. The world decided as one to abolish them universally. Nuclear power research would continue, but only for peaceful purposes. The powers that possessed them, such as the United States, what was the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, would destroy them as soon as possible. It would not be the end of war, but it did end the possibility of destruction on such a massive scale as to portend the end of mankind.

Oh…and as for Portland….

Two weeks after the bombing, the mayor and the staff in the bunker were rescued and taken south to Eugene. Only 5 of the people inside suffered radiation sickness because they were accidentally exposed to unfiltered outside air not long after the explosion. They were dead within a week. The rest of the people from the bunker began to help in whatever way they could, organizing the process of recovery from the devastation. The populace who were evacuated would move about the United States, although quite a few stuck around in Oregon. They were determined that Portland would rise again, better than it was.

Indeed…one hundred years later, on the very anniversary of the destruction, the city of New Portland was dedicated as a masterpiece of modern architecture, ecological cleanliness, and efficient design. The radiation had been cleaned up, the old hurts removed, and the city was bright and brimming with new life. The grandson of the mayor of Portland on that fateful day stood on a platform in the center of the new city, his new city, as he took the oath of office as mayor.

The only reminder of what had been stood in the middle of a wide, circular pond in the center of the city. It was a crystalline obelisk that was placed on what was determined to be Ground Zero for the blast. Going down all four sides of the crystal tower were words in shiny stainless steel that formed an oath that the world swore a century before…."NEVER AGAIN". An oath taken after the horror and destruction of….A Day Called "X".