1500 hours Zulu (1600 hours Zone)
The Oresund
Between Sweden and Denmark
Stretching between the Swedish cities of Heisingborg and Maime to the
east and the northeastern tip of the Danish island of Sjxland to the west, the
Oresund, a strip of water two miles wide, divides the southern tip of Sweden
from Denmark. This narrow sound is the deepest of several that connect the
Baltic Sea with the Kattegat and the approaches to the North Sea.
It is also one of the rock-bound bottlenecks that have hampered Russia
since that country became a seafaring empire. As with Japan in the far East,
or the Bosporus and the Dardanelles connecting the Black Sea to the Aegean,
the fact that the straits are controlled by neutral or hostile foreign powers
has long hampered the projection of Russian sea power to those regions where
it is most effective–the open ocean.
When General Vladimir Vorobyev and the marshals behind the resurgent
Soviet empire first began planning Operation Kutuzov, it was assumed that
Norway would fall within a week to ten days of the invasion and that, at that
time, Sweden and Denmark could be bullied into surrender without having to
deploy a single soldier against them.
Two weeks after the first Soviet forces poured across the frontiers in
Finnmark, it was clear that neither Sweden nor Denmark was going to surrender
without a fight. The war was spreading, whatever the Moscow planners did to
stop it, and unless something was done to break the deadlock, the Soviets
would soon find themselves fighting a defensive war. Within the Motherland,
the situation was not good; food was scarce and strictly rationed, gasoline
impossible to get. The people would put up with great privations if the news
from Scandinavia proved to be good, but once it was clear that the Soviets
were on the defensive, that the war might drag on indefinitely, the public
mood could quickly change.
So the decision was made to expand the war. Sweden was invaded by
amphibious army units operating across the Gulf of Bothnia on the night of
June 18.
Four days later, early on the twenty-second, and with final preparations
in place, elements of the Morskaya Pekhota, the Soviet Naval Infantry, landed
on beaches at Koge and Karlslunderstrand, a few miles south of Copenhagen.
Soviet desantniki, airborne forces redeployed to the Baltic after their
operations in Finland and Norway, descended silently out of overcast skies in
the fields outside Maime and Heisingborg, on the Swedish side of the straits.
The Swedes were already fighting for their lives, heavily outnumbered and
stretched to their very limits in southern Sweden, and the new assaults left
them reeling. The Danes, while not unprepared–their military had been
mobilized and on the alert since the events leading up to the invasion of
Norway and Finland two weeks earlier–were still caught off guard by the
sheer, ruthless viciousness of the attack. The seaborne landings were backed
by parachute landings throughout Sjxland, by naval infantry unloading from
Russian cargo ships in Copenhagen’s waterfront, and by the appearance of
thousands of Spetsnaz commandos in civilian clothes. The Spetsnaz forces,
especially, effectively paralyzed Danish resistance as they took over central
telephone offices, radio and TV stations, military headquarters, and even the
Christiansborg Palace, where the Danish parliament was in emergency session.
After twelve hours, fighting was still savage across the entire length
and breadth of Sjxland and the issue in the Danish capital of Copenhagen was
still in doubt. All major military installations overlooking the Oresund,
however, were in Soviet hands, and by late afternoon the first elements of the
Soviet Baltic Fleet were entering Danish waters. Russian naval infantry
captured the strategic island of Bornholm almost as an afterthought, while
more troops debarked from the packed cargo holds of Soviet merchantmen
directly onto the docks at Trelleborg and Maime. Strike aircraft–Su-24
Fencers, Su-27 Flankers, and MiG-27s–circled endlessly, delivering bomb
loads, strafing ground targets, and providing close air support for both
Soviet troops on the ground and the swarms of Hind gunships stooping from the
leaden skies over Sweden. A desperate sortie by a squadron of sleek,
canard-winged Swedish Saab Viggens was stopped cold high above the cold waters