Fortress Falling (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 2)

by William Peter Grasso

  “I beg to differ,” Sean replied, his Brooklyn accent making this attempt at the King’s English sound comical. “In case you haven’t noticed, Fab, us guys of 37th Tank have been kicking Kraut ass left and right for the last two weeks. The colonel’s had us in the right place at the right time just about every damn time. Did you forget the fight at Arracourt already? You ever shot up so many Kraut tanks since we set foot in France? It’s like they forgot how to do this panzer shit. And they wrote the fucking book, remember?”

  “All I know is we’re way out in front of the whole damn division—again—just sitting here and waiting to get our asses sliced up when the Krauts cut in behind us. We ain’t even got enough gas to get back across the Moselle River, either.”

  Fabiano had a point. Fourth Armored Division’s advance had been so relentless the past few weeks it would be days before their supply trains caught up. Fuel was life to an armor unit and right now, life was precious.

  But Sean had a point, too: this didn’t seem like the same German Army they’d been fighting the last four months. It was like their adversaries had all these fancy top-of-the-line tanks but absolutely no idea how to employ them anymore. A Sherman up against a Panther or Tiger tank—or even the latest, improved model of the old Panzer IV—was at a big disadvantage in firepower. The only chance to kill one was to get first shot at their sides or rear, and you still had to be pretty close. Too damned close. Your odds of flanking or getting behind one were slim; their powerful main guns could take you apart from any angle at a far greater range. And your chance of burning to death in an instant was still pretty good, even with the improved armor and water-jacketed ammo storage of the newer models of Sherman tank.

  In the eyes of the American tankers, they were still Zippos—as easy to bring to flame as the cigarette lighters of the same name the GIs carried.

  Yet, the tankers of 4th Armored had been killing German tanks of all types in record numbers since pushing across the Moselle and Meurthe Rivers near Nancy. Lieutenant Colonel Creighton Abrams, commander of the 37th, had a theory: These are the most inexperienced German soldiers we’ve ever encountered. It’s like they’re being sacrificed just to slow us down.

  But Abrams knew better than any of his tankers that the German high command needn’t have bothered sacrificing anyone—even rookies—because his battalion, along with the rest of 4th Armored, would have to halt their eastward advance whether German resistance was present or not. The Americans’ success was their undoing; 4th Armored’s fifteen-mile-deep salient on 3rd Army’s right flank invited a counterattack at its base that could sever Patton’s line, isolate and encircle individual divisions, and invite those divisions’ piecemeal destruction. A straight, cohesive front line could preempt such a disaster. Third Army’s stalled progress at Metz was the anchor curving that line, pulling it back to the west, well behind the present position of 4th Armored.

  Fabiano pulled his lightweight tanker’s jacket tight across his chest. “And it’s getting cold, too. I almost froze to death last night…and it ain’t looking any warmer tonight.”

  “Ah, shut the hell up, Fab. It ain’t that cold.”

  “Oh, yeah? Give it a week or two. I bet it’ll be snowing in this fucking place by then. And we ain’t got no winter gear. The brass said we weren’t gonna need it, remember? We were supposed to be home before winter. And with no gas, we can’t even run the fucking engine to keep warm.”

  Fabiano scanned the night sky warily, as if it were possible to see airplanes in the darkness. “Maybe the next one that drops a bomb on us will do us a favor and just kill us outright…like the one that got Hogan and Linz.”

  “Give that shit a rest, Fab,” Sean replied. “There’s a lot more panzers out there to worry about than Kraut airplanes.”

  They didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes for Sean’s words to be proven true. The tinny growl of Maybach engines drifted through the night air, growing louder as the panzers grew closer. Fabiano slid back inside the turret to man his gunsight.

  “How many you figure, Sarge?” he asked Sean, who was still perched in the hatch, scanning the darkness with binoculars for any glimpse of light the Germans might show. Hopefully, that first glimpse wouldn’t be a muzzle flash.

  “There’s more than two out there, that’s for damn sure. They gotta be on the road. We’ll probably see their exhaust flare once they come out of that dip. We’ll hear them a lot better, too.”

  “You want to get the artillery to light them up with illum?”

  “Hell, no,” Sean replied. “Let ’em get closer. If they stay on the road it’ll be another broadside turkey shoot.”

  “But what if there’s a whole company behind them? Or a battalion?”

  “There ain’t, Fab. Don’t let your ears go berserk on you.”

  Kowalski, the Sherman’s driver, asked, “You want me to crank her up, Sarge?”

  “Not yet, dammit. Like I said, let ’em get closer.”

  The night can play tricks on you. Sounds can seem to change direction. Or even seem to come from several directions at once. Without visual clues, your mind tries to fill in the void however it can, even if it’s based on nothing more than hope or fear.

  But as much as Sean wanted to believe the German tanks would stay on the road, displaying their vulnerable flanks to his platoon of Shermans, the sound of their invisible approach was painting a very different picture.

  He radioed his platoon, “All Papa Gray units, this is Papa Gray 2-6. Looks like they’re coming straight at us. Crank ’em up, hold your position, and cover your sector.”

  Coming straight at us: the worst possible scenario. All the firepower and armor protection favored the panzers in a frontal fight.

  “Son of a bitch,” Fabiano said. “I’ll bet those bastards know we’re here.”

  “Negative,” Sean replied. “If they knew where we were, they’d be shooting already. They’ve got the range. Let ’em get a little closer.”

  He knew he was gambling, but it was the lesser of two evils. To pull back now—in the dark—would lead to confusion and open a gap for the panzers to exploit. The only thing more chaotic than fighting in the dark was having to fight and move in the dark; any semblance of order a unit might have would break down immediately. When order broke down, men died for nothing.

  They couldn’t hear the German engines now, not over the rumble of their own. But the panzers were still coming—Sean could feel them out there, somewhere. Close enough to kill, probably. But not close enough to see.

  But where exactly is somewhere? I still can’t make out shit. It’d be like shooting blindfolded. We miss, we give ourselves away. And we’re dead.

  Only one thought kept him from pulling his platoon back: I’m right about one thing, at least—they don’t know we’re here. If they did, they would’ve fired already. You can bet your life on that.

  Hell…I am betting my life on that.

  Then he saw it.

  Didn’t even need binoculars.

  A dim red glint…no, two red glints. Close together. Bouncing up and down like a tank would over the contours of the ground.

  But it wasn’t the glow of exhausts. Before the binoculars even got to his eyes, he registered what he was seeing:

  They ain’t buttoned up. The tank commander and the driver got their heads out…and I’m seeing the reflection of the red interior lighting off their goggles. It’s lighting their faces up like skulls in the funhouse at Coney Island.

  These morons don’t even know how to drive blacked-out. Don’t they realize even a little light travels forever when it’s this fucking dark?

  He called to his gunner, “Fab, target tank ten degrees left, range four hundred yards. Further identified by red light through the hatches.”

  He radioed the other tanks in his platoon not to fire until they’d actually laid eyes on a target in their sector.

  The turret of Sean’s Sherman traversed slightly left as the main gun’s tube inched downwa
rd.

  “Got it,” Fabiano said. “Corrected range three-six-zero yards. On the way.”

  He fired. The Sherman shuddered with the shot’s recoil.

  Hardly a second had passed before the German tank erupted in a brilliant ball of flame. The two tanks trailing her in a ragged wedge were suddenly visible, exposed in the unforgiving light.

  Look at that, Sean told himself. Just like rats in the cellar. You can only hear them skittering around…until you turn on the lights.

  The two Shermans to Sean’s left fired a split second apart. Their shots turned the remaining German tanks into blazing hulks, just like their leader.

  Then came what passed for calm after a fight: the rumble of your tank’s engine; the pops and crackles from the beaten tanks, their ammo cooking off as they burned; the pounding of your racing heart.

  Fabiano poked his head from the turret for a wider view of their victory. He whistled softly—the sound of relief, perhaps. Or maybe he was mimicking the sound of a shell in flight. “I guess you were right, Sarge,” he said. “They really didn’t know we were here, did they?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Stupid bastards,” Fabiano added. “They must be pretty damn green. That ain’t no way to probe in the dark.”

  “You ain’t complaining, are you?”

  “No way, Sarge. No fucking way.”

  Chapter Four

  Advanced Landing Field A-90 came alive as the sun rose, providing an eerie backlight for the thickening ground fog. The engines of the 301st’s P-47s thundered to life, as if defying the poor visibility that threatened to keep them from flying. Their propellers churned the fog into a swirling white mist like something out of a ghost story. Each of the twelve planes was laden with three napalm canisters for the attack on Fort Driant’s southern turrets.

  In his cockpit, Tommy Moon watched the gauges as Eclipse’s engine settled into a smooth idle. Tech Sergeant McNulty, Tommy’s crew chief, leaned into the cockpit to shout over the mechanical din into his pilot’s ear. “Maybe I don’t understand hypodermical situations so well, Lieutenant, but why the hell can’t Patton just bypass them forts?”

  Tommy shrugged. He had no doubt hypodermical meant hypothetical. If he’d learned anything in the past year, it was how to make sense of McNulty’s strange grasp of English. Maybe it helped they both came from Brooklyn and shared that same sense of urban subtext. But even with the translation in place, he still couldn’t answer the question.

  “Don’t know, Sarge,” he replied, tapping the shiny silver bar on his collar. “First louies aren’t high enough in the food chain to understand the big picture, I guess.”

  “Well, sir, if this soup don’t burn off real soon, the big picture ain’t gonna matter, because you guys won’t be going nowhere.”

  Wishful thinking, Tommy thought. By the time we all taxi out to the end of the runway, the fog will thin out enough to take off, at least. And maybe with a little luck, it’ll be nice and clear by the time we’re over Fort Driant.

  McNulty began the final check on Tommy’s seat belt and shoulder harness. “I’m telling you, Lieutenant, if I was you, I woulda said the hell with it and flown straight to Switzerland a long time ago. I ain’t shitting you.”

  The look on the sergeant’s face gave no indication he was joking, either.

  “You’d really do that, Sarge? Take a perfectly good airplane to a neutral country and sit out the war on your ass?”

  “Who’s gonna know it was a perfectly good airplane, sir? Maybe she got all shot up and could only fly south. It’d be your word against nobody’s.”

  “I’d know, Sergeant. I’d know.”

  McNulty gave one last tug on a shoulder strap. His look of righteous certainty had faded to something that looked more like regret—or maybe even shame—for speaking those words.

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right, sir. Forget I ever said anything, okay?”

  “Forget what, Sarge? You say something? I can’t hear you over all this noise.” A wink and a smile went along with the words.

  Tommy had been right about the fog. Once all twelve jugs were lined up, ready to take the runway, it had thinned enough to allow single-plane takeoffs at a lengthened interval. Usually, planes would roar into the air fifteen seconds apart—often two at a time—when visibility was unrestricted. Today, with the initial climbout in this pea soup, they’d spread themselves so as not to blindly collide with each other. It would take longer for the three flights of four planes each to form up once airborne, but at least they’d all be there.

  This morning’s mission on Fort Driant would be a dive-bombing attack, the best way to ensure an accurate delivery of the napalm. With the fort only thirty miles away to the north, the ten-minute flight to the target would be a continuous climb to 8,000 feet, the standard altitude to begin the run. Plummeting down at a steep angle, they’d release the napalm canisters at 3,000 feet and pull out of the dive, screaming down to 1,500 feet before finally leveling off and making their escape. The squadron’s pilots had done it so many times before. All they needed was a good enough view of the ground to find the target.

  To Tommy’s surprise, their view of the ground around the target was excellent. No fog, just a few patchy clouds. Driant’s distinctive bell shape stood out clearly, a gray imprint on an earthen background. Blue Flight would go first, followed by Red Flight and Green Flight.

  Looking pretty good so far, Tommy told himself as he led his flight to the IP—the initial point, the start of the bomb run—over the Moselle River, a few miles east of the fort. Clear skies, no flak, no Luftwaffe. Just pray no trigger-happy GIs start shooting at us.

  Down they went, Blue, Red, and then Green. Twelve ships in all, thirty-six napalm canisters.

  All dead on target: Fort Driant’s southern turrets. Easy Battery.

  One hour later, after the napalm fires had burned themselves out and the American artillery had swept the ground ahead of them, infantrymen of 5th Division attacked Fort Driant once again.

  As they trudged up that towering hill, they couldn’t help but notice that the fort at its peak hadn’t suffered the internal explosions they’d been promised. It seemed every bit as impregnable as the last time.

  And like the last time, their attack was repulsed.

  As they retreated, the three big howitzers of Easy Battery added insult to injury by firing on their assembly areas. The napalm fires might have blackened the domes of their turrets, but that was the extent of the damage. They were still fully operational.

  Chapter Five

  George Patton wasn’t thrilled to see the jeep of General Omar Bradley—his boss, the 12th Army Group Commander—pull into the courtyard of 3rd Army Headquarters. Since the failed attack on Fort Driant earlier that morning, Patton was more in the mood to fire a division commander or two than entertain his superior. He knew Bradley wasn’t stopping by just to say hello, either.

  Bradley got right to the point. “I don’t need you getting tied up in some medieval siege of a fortress city. Please tell me you’ve come to your senses and decided to isolate Metz rather than decimate half your divisions trying to take the damn place.”

  “I don’t fight wars of attrition, Brad,” Patton replied. “You know that.”

  “All too well, George. All too well. That’s why I want this one stopped immediately.”

  “Dammit, Brad, if Ike would give me the gas I need I could be across the Saar in two weeks. Fourth Armored is already—”

  Bradley cut him off. “I know damned well where Fourth Armored is. It’s got its neck stuck out way too far. You need to pull them back right away. Your army is all over the place, just asking to get sliced up, enveloped, and destroyed.”

  “Just get me the fucking gas, Brad, and we’ll be in Germany before—”

  “You know that’s not going to happen, George. Ike’s made up his mind. The gas is going to the northern flank for now.”

  “To fucking Montgomery, you mean.”

  �
�Yes, to fucking Montgomery,” Bradley replied. “You’re going to have to recognize that sooner or later.”

  For a moment, Patton’s demeanor was unlike anything Bradley had ever seen before. He was striking a most unpatton-like pose, as if quietly accepting he was on the short end of the supply train. There was no sign he was going to rant and rave, as he usually would. He seemed almost reasonable.

  “I’ll tell you what, Brad. If Ike can do the Brits a favor and give them my gas, then maybe he can get them to do me one in return.”

  Bradley’s eyes narrowed skeptically. Reasonable, my ass, he thought. This is just another one of his little games.

  Patton continued, “The RAF has those blockbuster bombs, right? Twelve thousand pounds of TNT, I’m told. Have Ike get his British pals to put one of those things right on Fort Driant.”

  “What good would that do? You’ve been bombing and shelling the living daylights out of that fort for a couple of weeks now. If you added it all up, you’ve probably dumped a hundred times that much explosive on the place. And it hasn’t done a damn bit of good.”

  “But Brad, we’re talking six tons of HE, all concentrated on the exact same spot, at the exact same time! Not scattered all over the place like our little bombs and artillery shells. I don’t care what kind of steel and concrete they made that fort out of. The Brits blow up dams with those bombs, right? Nothing could withstand that blast.”

  Bradley dithered a few moments before replying, “I don’t think it’s a good idea. The last I heard, the Brits prefer to fly their heavy bombers only at night. The target would have to be well lit up for them to even find it.”

  “No problem,” Patton said. “My artillery will light the place up all you like.”

  “Forget it, George. The Brits will no more fly through an active artillery area than our boys will.”