by Colin Gee
Above the cab, a man with the same weapon fired back, but lacked the stability offered by the snow and earth around Haines, missing by some distance.
The lorry came to a halt and then started to roll back down the slope, causing others behind to manoeuvre out of its way.
Haines was too busy engaging other targets to notice it roll over, flinging out those who had not jumped or who were already dead.
An American jeep outpaced the remaining vehicles, intent on moving to the tank officer’s left. Biffo pulled the LMG round, all the time chasing the little vehicle with bullets, but not hitting.
In an instant, the jeep exploded, hit by one of the last Soviet mortar shells fired, and the six man crew were scattered to all points in pieces no larger than a shoebox.
Moving the DP back to his front, Haines engaged the nearest vehicle or at least for two bullets worth, as the circular pannier gave up its final rounds.
He made a split second judgement, deciding that the unfamiliar reload would take too long, as the enemy vehicle disgorged seven angry men.
He looked around him, immediately spotting the grenade in one dead man’s hand.
It looked similar to one’s he had used, so Haines pulled the pin and sent the deadly charge downhill.
The Russians went to ground as soon as they saw the F1 fragmentation grenade coming and, as Haines had thrown it too soon, took no damage at all when it exploded.
Haines understood what he had done. A bag around the dead man’s body surrendered more grenades.
Again, the seven soldiers dropped as another grenade came their way, and rose again once it had exploded, only to be cut down by the second grenade they had not witnessed thrown.
Three were put down hard and didn’t rise again.
The other four, all wounded, closed on the depression.
Haines looked around for more means by which to defend himself, his mind finding time to remind him of the 16th/5th’s motto.
'Aut cursu, aut cominus armis'
Acting Major Biffo Haines MC found time to laugh out loud.
'Either in the charge, or hand-to-hand'.
His hand closed around the only weapon he could find.
0925 hrs, Saturday, 9th March 1946, Rivoli, Italy.
Colonel Kozlov gripped his binoculars tightly, knowing Golin’s switch to attack into the enemy left flank was a bad move.
‘Leave the bastards… go around them… for the god’s sake go around them!’
“Radio Mayor Golin immediately. Tell him to go around their flank. He must go around.”
He winced as yet another of his AA trucks was destroyed, the successful Beaufighter clawing its way back into the sky, leaving a stream of black and grey in its wake.
His focus returned to Golin’s force, so he missed the explosion high above the battlefield, as the injured RAF aircraft surrendered to its damage.
British artillery started to beat the zone ahead of the mobile force, causing it to switch direction yet again.
Kozlov was momentarily happy, realising that his command was now back aiming straight at the Castello again, then suddenly realised there was a problem.
“Call 10th Mortars. Tell them to ceasefire immediately.”
“Yes, Comrade Polkovnik.”
He would worry about where to direct their fire next once he was satisfied that Golin’s force was no longer at risk from friendly fire.
One of the vehicles disappeared in an explosion and he knew what he had feared had happened, but such things were more than common in war, and he had done what he could.
Another of the vehicles seemed to be rolling backwards down the slope, until it jammed a wheel, slipped sideways and rolled the rest of the way.
“Go on, Golin! Push on man, push on!”
Somewhere to the mobile group’s front, there was some resistance, and a grenade put down some of his men before the rest swept over the enemy position.
Happy that Golin would now make his ground, Kozlov concentrated elsewhere, and discovered that, whilst he had been watching the hill, he had lost the battle in the valley.
His men and vehicles were in retreat, pursued by bullets from the Rifle Brigade and harassed by repeated strafing runs from the RAF heavy fighters. Although each had spent its rockets, each Beaufighter was equipped with murderous firepower, with six .303 Brownings in the wings, and four 20mm Hispano in the nose.
One such aircraft had circled for a fourth strafing run, turned over the Tagliamento River and lazily described an arc as it came back round to do a further east to west attack.
One of the Quad Maxim lorries took it by surprise, causing the pilot to throw his aircraft to the right and out of the approaching tracer stream.
His approach ruined, the angry pilot spotted an alternate target, dropped his nose, and thumbed his triggers.
0930 hrs, Saturday, 9th March 1946, Castello di Susans, Majano, Italy.
The first man over the edge of the depression was probably more scared than Haines, the youngster’s eyes wide open in fear as he made to plunge his bayonet into the tank officer.
He missed.
Biffo swung the entrenching tool and connected with brutal and terminal force, penetrating the boy’s skull from eye socket to ear and points beyond.
The still running cadaver crashed into Haines, the impact ramming the hard metal of the rifle directly into his wounded left arm.
Haines bellowed with pain.
The next three Russians arrived together and virtually clattered into Haines, the four bodies falling to the bottom of the depression in a disorganised snarling heap.
Two of the soldiers were also mere boys, and at least one had soiled himself in fear, the stench of faeces overpowering to the four men.
Haines lashed out with the spade, one young soldier deflecting the blow with his arm. The sound of the bone snapping was incredibly loud, more so than any other on the battlefield at that moment, before the boy’s screams drowned out everything else.
The Soviet officer, a veteran of many a tight skirmish, found Haines lying on his pistol hand, so tried to use his free hand to gouge Biffo’s eyes from his head.
Haines felt a grubby finger against his lips and took the opportunity to bite it as hard as he could.
More screams of pain followed, before Haines rolled over and drove his head into the officer’s face.
Both men squealed, the Russian as his nose was broken and blood spurted everywhere, Haines as he did similar damage to his own nose.
Spitting the severed fingertip into the face of the bloodied Russian, Biffo pulled the man’s face towards him and got his head butt perfect the second time.
The officer was out for the count.
Wiry hands closed round the tanker’s neck, pulling him backwards, as the last intact Russian soldier tried to throttle him.
Whimpers and curses indicated that the other child soldier was trying to extricate himself from under the pair of combatants.
Haines found himself unable to break the tight grip around his neck, no matter how he struggled.
The other Russian, tears streaming down his face, his broken arm limp and useless, held a small knife in his good hand and rammed it into Haines’ stomach.
White-hot pain gave Haines strength and he broke Russian fingers as he prised the hands from his throat.
The assailant dropped away howling with pain.
Squealing with fear, the one-armed boy pulled out the blade and it rammed home again.
The pain was unbelievable.
Lashing out with his right hand, Biffo caught the boy on his broken arm, taking him out of the fight with a white blur of extreme pain. Again, the young soldier lost control of bowel and bladder.
The knife still lodged in his stomach, Haines struggled to his feet and planted a kick in the side of the would-be strangler’s head.
Whatever he did, it was permanent and quick, and lifeless eyes stared up at the sky.
Picking up the entrenching tool, Haines dr
opped to his knees and brought the heavy weapon down on the wailing Soviet soldier with shattered fingers.
When Stumpy and Killer found him three minutes later, he was still chopping away at what remained of the Russian’s head.
0925 hrs, Saturday, 9th March 1946, Rivoli, Italy.
20mm cannon shells are very unforgiving things but, remarkably, Kozlov was still alive, at least by the basic definition of life.
His injuries were extreme and the two medics were unsure where to start. Electing to work separately, one placed a tourniquet over the stump of his left leg, stopping the blood loss, whilst the other tried to reassemble his face, carefully tying the shattered jaw in place after ensuring that eyes and nose were in their normal positions, not that the wounded officer would ever see again.
Penetrations to his stomach and chest were bandaged, although the piece of metal protruding from his back was padded and left in place, given its perilous position.
They had no pain relief, and so Kozlov suffered indescribable tortures as he was taken from the battlefield.
Around the desperate scene, soldiers of his unit flooded back in disarray, bloodied and disoriented, the only thought in their minds being to reach a place of safety.
Across the valley, and on the hillside, the fighting had stopped.
The aircraft had gone, the only mementoes of their presence being four burning pyres faintly resembling once proud aircraft.
The artillery and mortars of both sides had ceased fire, permitting small groups of men to recover wounded although, in the main, they only found the dead.
Never one to miss an opportunity, 6th Armoured Division’s commander, Major General Sir Horatius Murray, sent a request for a hasty bombing attack on Gemona, anticipating that it would be where the fleeing enemy would congregate.
He was absolutely correct, and USAAF B-26 Marauders from 17th Bomb Group’s 95th and 432nd Bomber Squadrons killed and injured many men who had escaped the inferno at Majano, as well as more from the 75th Rifle Division moving up to take over from the savaged frontline units. However, the killing of over five hundred Italian civilians did nothing for Allied relations with the ‘neutral’ Government in Rome.
Chuikov’s insistence on some offensive action had resulted in no gain of ground, and the loss of his 75th Rifle Division and irreplaceable tank and AA assets from 7th Tank Corps.
Whilst the 16th/5th had been manhandled, the Rifle Brigade bloodied, and the RAF fighters handed a beating, the casualty ratio was 10:1 in the Allies’ favour, and that was before the Marauders visited themselves upon Gemona.
Chuikov declined to order any more such excursions.
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
William Shakespeare.
Chapter 136 – THE DECEIVERS
1554 hrs, Tuesday, 12th March 1946, the Billiard House, Hameau de la Reine, Versailles, France.
The impressive Billiard House, built as part of the Marie-Antoinette estate, was sufficiently removed from the busier parts of SHAEF Headquarters complex as to be perfect for the extremely clandestine work of the disarmingly named ‘Joint Committee on Identification and Interment Procedures’, the cover used by the group manipulating information to mislead the Soviet intelligence apparatus regarding Allied intentions in 1946.
The central document to which they worked was as secret as they came. It was known, tongue in cheek, as the Ash file, and was an exact copy of the file presently receiving the undivided attention of Soviet Military intelligence, as passed to them by a Soviet agent in the Foreign Legion forces.
This was supplemented by the recent Mosquito internment by Sweden, which directed more misinformation into Soviet hands, and, again originating from the Baltic, Swedish protests regarding increased Allied submarine activity in the Gulf of Bothnia.
The RAF liaison officer reported back on successful reconnaissance trips over Northern Russia and the Baltic States, designed to further convince the enemy as to their intentions in the Baltic and Arctic Ocean.
‘J-Cip’, as it became known, was also responsible for clandestinely recruiting Finnish, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian speakers and giving them secret courses in military radio procedure and terminology, which secret courses were subsequently deliberately revealed to known Soviet agents in the UK.
It was also the group to which Rossiter had, on Donovan’s explicit order, revealed the Achilles/Thetis file. Whilst the collective whistle had been well and truly whetted, the decision was made not to use of the head of GRU West’s son for now, giving them more time to develop something of true worth.
As the latest D-Day, Tuesday 26th March, approached, the group became anxious to ensure that all that could be done, had been done.
SAAG, noisily announcing its growing readiness to move, was monitored by Soviet eavesdroppers and a picture of an all-arms army, ready to take to the water, was established by both GRU and NKVD listeners.
Some reserve Soviet formations were moved up tighter to 1st Baltic Front, as Allied units in Northern Holland became noticeably more active, supporting the notion of an imminent assault from the Low Countries through the North German plain.
In Northern Norway, Allied patrolling increased, suggesting that combat was imminent in Scandinavia.
A Soviet reconnaissance flight, sent as an act of desperation, achieved the unachievable, and took photos of Harstad, confirming an agent’s report on a large assembly of military transports, all of which rode tight to the load line, indicating each carried its full share of the manpower and hardware required for an invasion.
Each had been painted to reflect a fully laden vessel, a masterstroke of subterfuge beyond the detection ability of the Soviet Naval Aviation photo interpreters at Severomorsk.
Permitting the Soviet Yak-4 aircraft to escape from Norwegian air space grated on the Spitfire pilots of 331 Squadron, RNoAF, but orders were orders, and it miraculously survived their attack.
Building up a picture of Allied intents, Soviet reinforcements moved to Kirkenes, sparking a brief but intense exchange with Finnish forces, north of Lake Radjejavri, when Soviet units accidentally crossed the national boundaries.
All of it was the work of ‘J-Cip’, but still they were not satisfied.
Major General Kenneth Strong, chairing ‘J-Cip’ called for a final statement from each man present before calling for a show of hands to the latest proposal. His US counterpart, Major General Harold R. Bull, agreed with USMC Colonel Rossiter, resisting any attempts to bring more people into the committee, preferring to seek opinion and advice without exposing the workings of ‘J-Cip’, thus avoiding the inherent risk of more people knowing its real role.
De Walle and Gehlen both thought it an excellent idea, provided any potential new member was already screened to the highest level, and came from a section of the intelligence services.
Colonel Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki, the Polish presence in ‘J-Cip’, was simple in his approach.
“Nie!”
Dalziel, annoyed by the Polish officer’s curtness, voted for further inclusions with the security codicils.
Horst Pflug-Hartnung, Oberst and Intelligence Officer advising the German and Austrian leadership, followed suit.
Last to go was Brigadier Tiltman of GC&CS, their cipher and cryptanalysis specialist.
“So long as the buggers don’t flap their lips, why not?”
The vote was agreed without the need for Strong’s input.
0917 hrs, Thursday, 14th March 1946, Map room, GRU Western Europe Headquarters, the Mühlberg, Germany.
The cigarette smoke hung heavily in the air, reflecting not only the number smoked, but also the length of time that the group had been working.
Nazarbayeva had called a break, to permit bladders to be emptied and lunch to be taken on board.
It turned into a working lunch for the dedicated team of GRU officers, working on divining Allied intentions.
Munching on bread and pickles, the GRU General whispered to her aide, less in
formally than normal as they were not alone.
“So what are we missing here, Comrade PodPolkovnik?”
“Something totally conclusive… something unequivocal, Comrade General. Something else…”
He shrugged and bit deeply into a baked potato.
Turning to the chalkboard, she read the notations aloud, growing in volume, drawing everybody’s attention back to the work in hand.
“Enemy transport vessels confirmed in Norwegian ports, probably in Northern English ports too.”
“This Second Allied Army Group is very active, not just new units either, and all suggestions lead to some sort of reinforcement move to Holland.”
Poboshkin waved his half-eaten potato at the entry.
“Our forces have already reacted to that, reinforcing Bagramyan’s Front.”
She nodded.
One of the Major’s added his comment.
“But we only have names of units, Comrade General. There is nothing on composition, and we know the Allies pulled a similar maskirovka to confuse the Germans in ’44. We cannot guarantee this SAAG is what it seems.”
Nazarbayeva encouraged free speaking within this group, so her best minds always seemed to have something to say. With no standing on ceremony or fear of punishment, outspoken opinion was the healthy norm.
“So, Norway. The transports were laden. What are they carrying? Not a fictitious army surely?”
Poboshkin narrowed his eyes.
“Actually, Comrade General, we have not seen the original photos. The report is a written report from Naval Intelligence and the photos are copies. Perhaps we should get the originals?”
“Yes, we should. Comrade Kapitan?”
The young Lieutenant rose immediately and left the room to order the originals sent to the Mühlberg.
The discussion continued.
