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ENN Issue 9a
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ENN Issue 9a
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U.S.S. Truman Sunk
Forces Trade Blows in
Atlantic
January 2, 2010
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Missile hit on Truman
bridge [Press Pool Video]
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Stornoway, England (Daily Mirror) -- A
British newspaper reports the USS Harry S. Truman, an American aircraft carrier,
has been sunk by hostile forces in the Atlantic. An unknown number of accompanying ships
in the Task Force have also been sunk or damaged.
 The report - covered extensively in today's
Daily Mirror newspaper - first came to light under circumstances
both UK and NATO military officials are calling "treasonous" and
"criminal".
Later in the day, a U.S. news team
embedded with the Carrier task force released dramatic video of the
missile strike as it happened. The journalists managed to lift off in a
helicopter just as the attack came to an end, landing safely on an
escort ship nearby and transmitted their footage when an uplink could be
established.
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Fires and explosions
rage across the carrier deck after the attack ended [Press Pool
Video]
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However even in light of the reports coming
in from media and NATO sources, American and British representatives have
remained tight lipped.
An accurate assessment without NATO confirmation
is impossible, but it is widely believed the carrier itself was sunk and
two or three additional ships in the task force were likewise lost or
damaged.
NATO Strike Falters
In yet another of a long series of setbacks for the United States and its allies,
an American led airstrike to sink the Russian aircraft carrier Kuznetsov has met with frustrating failure.
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The Russian carrier Kuznetsov
[file]
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A combined assault of bombers, fighters and jamming aircraft met a well-defended carrier battle group during the
early morning hours somewhere north of Iceland.
A NATO fighter escort that can only be described as confused, coupled with what is presumed as superior intelligence
work by the Russians, left the carrier's aircraft defenses all but free from interception.
In the end the attack was abandoned when NATO fighter escorts were unable to secure air superiority. Several MiG's were reported to have been downed but nothing could be confirmed.
It is not know what, if any, Russian ships were claimed, but the Kuznetsov battle group is still feared to be operating north of Iceland.
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Russian Aviation Cruiser & Escorts Sunk
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"One win, one loss and one
tie."
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According to anonymous sources within the NATO headquarters
in Brussels, the battle
for the North Atlantic continues to be fluid and undecided, leading one NATO official to describe the score
as "One win, one loss and one
tie."
The loss refers to the aircraft carrier Truman and
at least one of its escorts, and the tie is presumed to be the abortive strike on Russia's own carrier the Kuznetsov. However NATO
claimed a solid victory with the sinking of the Russian aviation cruiser Ushakov and its two escorts.
In that night action, a NATO airstrike found the Ushakov and its two escorts just after the Russian battlegroup finished sinking another merchant
vessel - part of the RU's campaign of unrestricted maritime warfare for control of the North Atlantic. That campaign has claimed over a million tons of shipping to date with hundreds of lives lost among the crews of those vessels.
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A US Navy drone video of
the crippled Ushakov midway through the missile strike shows
extensive hull damage - NATO believes the
Cruiser sank soon afterwards
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Although the composition and tactics of the aircraft making the strike remains a
closely guarded secret, the attack itself is said to have been composed
of numerous anti-radar and anti-ship missiles.
While a NATO source admits many of the missiles were struck down before reaching the Russian ships, the remaining missiles were more than sufficient to
inflict lethal damage to their targets.
No NATO aircraft were reported lost in the strike while the Russians are believed to have lost the heavy nuclear cruiser Ushakov, the cruiser Timoshenko and a destroyer. Rescue efforts from either side were
doubtful due to the severe weather conditions, the insecurity of the operating area, and the fact that survivability in the freezing waters of the north Atlantic is negligible.
"Maybe if they hadn't sunk that merchant ship somebody could have been around to save some of those poor boys," our source noted with bitter irony.
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