Story Alternate history: World War 1949

How close did the Soviets get to shooting down American transport planes delivering toys for German children during Operation Christmas (December 20, 1948)?
Because I'm thinking of using just such a scenario as the beginning of a Third World War. It would last until late 1949 and over the the course of the war a newly-formed NATO pushes through the Fulda Gap to Berlin and successfully reunifies Germany, Soviet fighters shoot down strategic bombers headed for Moscow, President Truman turns down General MacArthur's insistence on using nuclear weapons against a Russian front that lands on the western coast of the United States, and eventually the Los Alamos National Laboratory is destroyed.
^I'm not 100% sure about the exact timing of these events but rest assured I am doing my best to make sure the war story flows along in a convincing manner.

The US retains its nuclear arsenal, but agrees to share its limited supply of bombs with other NATO countries. Because of the destruction of Los Alamos, the knowledge of how to create nuclear weapons is gone...hopefully forever.


This is a very early draft of the outline, so there are plenty of plausibility and continuity issues to be resolved. For example, "How was the technology for nuclear weapons lost after destroying Los Alamos? Couldn't some group of techies reverse-engineer an existing nuke in the American arsenal?"


I wanted to make a WW3 story without a depressing ending involving a thermonuclear holocaust.

There should be an epilogue that shows the USSR as a fractured mess due to the death of Joseph Stalin and many of his senior officials. The protagonist of the story, a pilot (from a NATO country I haven't decided on yet), flies back to his son in Germany to give him a Teddy Bear, bookending the story with the promise that the children of Berlin will get toys for Christmas.


Hello, McFlabbergasty! This looks like a neat idea for a story, but unfortunately, Original Fiction - including pieces based on history - is not allowed on these boards due to legal reasons. You can read more about that in the FAQ here.