by FARMAN, ANDY
“‘Mornin’.” It said after a pause.
The old man didn’t speak English, and stammered back a query whilst still clutching the rabbit in both trembling hands.
“Bitte?”
“Yer not wrong there mate, it’s just this side of bleedin’ freezin’.”
The British paratrooper wriggled free of his harness and crouched for a few moments before standing with difficulty, hunched over under the weight of a bergen he had just struggled into.
“Nice meeting yer mate but I can’t be gossiping with you all night now can I? So, I’ve got to be off.”
After several moments the old man slowly followed in the direction the paratrooper had taken and stopped at the edge of the wood. He couldn’t make out the soldier anymore, the meadow beside the wood was dotted with abandoned green parachutes and their former owners were hurrying off into the darkness. The 1st and 2nd battalions of the Parachute Regiment had arrived to put a clot in two of the Red Army’s main supply arteries.
Lt Col Reed and Arnie Moore left the battalion CP to visit each of the locations, starting with 4 Company on the left. He had held another O Group for all the company commanders just the last evening, but today was going to be a busy one and he wanted to get around and speak to as many of the men under his command as possible.
4 Company was one of the 82nd’s and was tied in with their neighbour’s right flank, 2LI, 2nd Battalion Light Infantry. To make things more complicated the Light Infantry’s shortages had been made good with a platoon on loan to each of its rifle companies from 2 Wessex.
A small stream with high banks provided a physical boundary between both units, and although it was too dark to see it, Pat could hear the rushing water faintly from the entrance to the company’s CP.
The first thing that caught his attention once inside the CP was an 82nd signaller wearing a beret, not that there was anything wrong in that, they were under cover and not under fire, however, behind the paratroopers badge was sown a Guards flash, the blue, red, blue rectangle his own men wore behind their own regimental cap badge. Pat let it go without comment; this was after all a battlefield in Germany and not Horse Guards Parade in London.
The battalion was stood-to half an hour before first light whilst he and Arnie were at 4 Company, and they remained there until it was stood down without incident a half hour after dawn at which point they crossed the stream to say a quick hello to the neighbours, and of course to also run a professionally critical eye over who was essentially guarding their flank.
They were too far from the stream to easily get back into cover behind its bank when they were challenged and both Pat and Arnie stopped and held their rifles one handed and away from their bodies as they peered toward the sound of the voice.
Pat could not make out the position though until he was told to advance a few steps and halt again, close enough so that the sentry covering them did not have to shout out the number to which Pat responded correctly.
Lying behind the sentry’s trench Pat and Arnie were impressed to discover the soldiers were 2 Wessex territorials and not 2LI regulars and they couldn’t fault the position.
Passing back over the stream to 4 Company’s turf they went from trench to trench, knowing that this was to be a day of days for them all and an end of days for some.
The normal day in the field, once stand-to is over, starts with weapon cleaning and personal administration, but only one man at a time stripped and cleaned his weapon per trench, his mate’s was ready for use during this time. Pat and Arnie exchanged a few words with the men as they worked and found nothing to cause undue concern. For some of the men, those who had arrived in the past five days for the large part, it would be their baptism of fire when the Soviet’s arrived, but each of these men had been paired off with a seasoned soldier.
Leaving 4 Company they came through a jumble of boulders to 1 Company’s left hand platoon, and these trenches had been dug by CSM Probert’s platoon but were now occupied by a mixture of 82nd men and Coldstreamers taken from the other three rifle companies. The majority of Headquarter Company were Guardsmen, as were Support Company, he had an additional Mortar Platoon there from the 82nd, but Pat Reed only had one rifle company remaining that was made up entirely of Guardsmen, 2 Company. The brigade commander, true to his promise, had made enquiries as to the low numbers of replacements for the Guards battalion under his command, and had been informed that the regiments’ second battalion, 2CG, was being reformed and had priority call. As to the question of the lack of recognition for 1CG’s efforts, he was informed that the Defence Secretary herself had reviewed each of Pat Reed’s recommendations and found they lacked sufficient merit for gallantry awards.
The Americans viewed Lt Col Reed’s recommendations in a different light as regards their own soldiers and the previous evening he had been pleased to announce the names of men from the 82nd who were receiving medals for gallantry. He couldn’t give the same news to his own regiments’ officers but he did announce promotions that included those on the casualty lists. He could create NCOs from buckshee guardsmen, give existing NCOs the next rank and make Warrant Officers out of senior NCOs, but it took higher authority to approve and confirm the raising of men to commissioned status, or giving an officer the next rank. However, pending confirmation by that higher authority, Captain Sinclair received his brevet majority, young Mr Taylor-Hall became a Lieutenant and a signal was sent to RHQ requesting that they inform CSM Probert of his brevet promotion to 2Lt, as soon as his surgery permitted of course.
Arriving ahead of the US 4th Corps, a large amount of ammunition and stores had arrived the previous afternoon and a newly promoted Colour Sergeant Osgood was busy with a fatigue party distributing 1 Company’s share of it.
All about the battalion location their own defences had been thickened up with US made bar mines and Claymores. The division had replenished ammunition stocks and had more to spare, all they needed now was luck.
Whilst the Iron Curtain had stood, the Red Air Force occupied former WWII Luftwaffe bases in East Germany during its decade’s long face off with NATO. After the reunification, the modern Luftwaffe inherited a dozen airbases that had changed little since the 1940s and promptly closed the majority. Cottbus, to the south east of Berlin was retained and modernised, unfortunately the recent withdrawal from the region had been so rapid as to make the Soviet’s a gift of a fully functional airbase with modern facilities.
The former airbases of Sperenberg, Welzow, Falkenberg, Wittstock, Merseburg, Altenburg and Holzdorf were quickly reoccupied and the runways patched up. It was from these airbases that the close air support against NATO on the Elbe/Saale line had been provided, and would continue as the Red Army began its latest drive for the Channel ports.
Cottbus airbase was of particular interest to NATO due to its proximity to one of Europe’s main east/west trading routes and the roads and rail lines that followed it.
At 0433hrs the bulk of the Belgian Para Commando Brigade had landed at three drop zones around the Twelfth century town of Bad Rouen.
Belgium’s 1st and 3rd Parachute Battalions in company with 3rd Lanciers-Parachutists Battalion and twelve of its jeeps on pallets, landed along with the 14th Parachute Commando Engineer Company south of the town, on either side of the river Spee. Meanwhile 2nd Commando Battalion and 35th Parachute Commando Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battery dropped on Cottbus airbase itself, five miles beyond the town’s northern suburbs.
The fighting at the airbase was bloody, swift and still taking place as the C-130s of the Belgian Air Force’s 15th Transportation Wing landed the GIAT 105mm guns and crews of the brigade field artillery battery.
To the south, the 1st and 3rd Parachute Battalions carried out a simultaneous assault of both ends of the A15 autobahn bridge where it crossed the Spee on the edge of the town.
Being over a hundred miles from the fighting, the reservists protecting the bridge had mounted only a small guard whilst the remainder slept. They were all men
in their forties, recalled after twenty years of civilian life and given the minimum of refresher training. The Belgians took out the sentries without a sound before moving on the trenches and fighting vehicles occupied by sleeping reservists. It wasn’t a completely bloodless victory; apart from the sentries, three other members of the bridge guard fell to silenced rounds or cheese wire garrottes.
With the bridge secure the Belgian Paratroopers’ 3rd Battalion, less its mortar platoon, remained on the eastern bank whilst the engineers prepared the bridge for demolition, and the 3rd Lanciers special forces company, 1’ere Compagnie d’Equipes Specialisee de Reconnaissance mounted their jeeps and went north into the town.
Bad Roulen has two rail lines which enter it and join at a small marshalling yard on the western side of the river. The bridges that carry the railway lines lie at either end of the town park on the eastern bank.
The town fathers had been working hard over the past few years to undo the damage the communists had done by industrialising the city and ignoring environmental controls. The riverside park had been cleaned up, landscaped and beautified, but the heavily polluted river still had a long way to go. The park had become a tented city housing the lower ranks of the two companies garrisoning the town, and it was the job of the jeep company to prevent them from interfering by causing chaos and mayhem, whilst securing the railway bridges.
By the time the jeep company reached the first rail bridge the alarm had been raised by the airbase, not by radio but by landline as the Belgians carried portable jamming sets that flooded their known frequencies with silent noise, a means of cutting communications without alerting the victims.
The commander of the jeep company watched through a night scope as an officer emerged from a sandbagged CP and listened for the sound of gunfire before hurriedly pulling on his fighting order as he ran to rouse his men.
Before the running officer could reach the park a jeep had drawn level with him and a well-aimed blow across the back of his neck with an entrenching tool sent him tumbling. The jeeps raced for the bridge, cutting down the sentries at the western end and driving across, the vehicles bucking wildly on railway sleepers. The sentries on the eastern bank shared the same fate as their mates on the opposite side, and the bridge was in Belgian hands.
A jeep and its crew equipped with 40mm Mk-19 automatic grenade launchers were left to secure either end of the bridge, along with a Milan equipped vehicle. Two of the company’s snipers found themselves spots where they could best observe the tented area in the park whilst the drivers set up GPMGs. Once he was satisfied his men were in position the Belgian company commander established radio communications with the brigades mortar line, and then settled down to wait for the Engineers to blown the autobahn.
Dropping the solidly built bridge into the Spee wasn’t a particularly scientific event, but the engineers were not looking for marks for grace and artistic interpretation. Cratering charges had been laid on the on-ramps for good measure and when the spans were dropped the ramps were wrecked also.
The roar of the demolition charges reverberated upriver and on hearing it the seven remaining jeeps entered the park in column and accelerated down the main ‘street’ of the tented area, firing into the canvas structures as they went.
The sound of the autobahn bridge being destroyed had brought men stumbling from the tents into the darkness. They could hear the sound of speeding vehicles but the blackout was in force and they were unaware that NATO troops were amongst them until the jeeps opened fire.
As the jeeps cleared the tented area the commander called for mortar fire on the centre of the park, and the Belgian’s on the first railway bridge opened fire. Anyone the snipers saw who appeared to be attempting to establish command and control were singled out and despatched, whilst the grenadiers and ‘gimpy’ gunners began expending rounds as fast as they could fire.
Before the smoke had chance to settle the paratroops to the south were seeding the area with booby-traps and moving north to their next objective. It is far easier to take a bridge by assaulting both ends at once hence the 3rd Battalion remained on the eastern bank. Apart from the two railway bridges there were four road bridges spanning the river within the town limits, hence the 3rd Battalion had remained on the eastern bank.
On the northern edge of the town park the jeep company met its first real opposition. The company commander elected to take the second railway bridge in the same fashion as they had taken the first; using the speed of the vehicles and the firepower they carried to best advantage.
The previous rail bridge had been at street level with barriers to stop traffic whenever a train was due, however the second bridge was raised above street level, crossing 29° above the Spee and the streets running beside it. Access for maintenance vehicles to the top of the steep embankment at the eastern end was via a ramp behind a row of buildings, with a tight turn at the top before a narrow gateway.
The jamming that had blinded the air defences to the presence of troop carrying transports had dissipated with the departing E-2C Hawkeye that had accompanied them. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence for NATO deep strikes to venture out this far and the AAA detachment had learnt by experience that trying to burn through the interference only earned you an anti-radiation missile for your troubles. So the radars had been switched off until the crews were certain that neither they nor the town had been the NATO aircrafts’ target.
The sounds of the autobahn being dropped and the attack on the park alerted the detachment that a ground assault was in progress. They attempted to broadcast an alert by radio but when this failed the crews buttoned up their vehicles, and the ZSUs lowered their quad barrels to the anti-infantry position.
The ZSU, or ‘Zeus’, mounted as it was on a PT-76 amphibious tank chassis was as deadly to infantry and light armour as it was to rotary and fixed wing aircraft. Each of its four 23mm water-cooled cannons fired mixed belts of explosive, fragmentation and armour piercing tracer rounds at a rate of 1000 rounds a minute from a high speed, hydraulically stabilised armoured turret, making it very accurate and very hard to kill without anti-armour weapons.
Bad Roulen had two AAA detachments assigned to its sector, one at the airbase and one covering the rail junction and marshalling yards where the coverage there encompassed the autobahn bridge also. Both detachments were standard in size and equipment, four ZSU-23-4s and four mobile SA-9 Gaskin launchers in each to provide short and medium range cover.
As the first Belgian jeep appeared at the top of the embankment there was one seconds worth of ear splitting cacophony as it was engaged and reduced to jagged scrap by a ZSU that had driven out onto the tracks at the western end of the bridge. It was guarding against just such an eventuality using its night sight to watch for any enemy approach. The jeep had not quite cleared the gateway so it was now blocking the way for the remainder, and as it began to burn it illuminated the remaining jeeps which were nose to tail on a narrow ramp with no hope of getting past.
The sentries on the bridge were not equipped with night viewing devices and although they heard the Belgian vehicles rushing up the ramp, they leant across the stone parapet beyond the bridge and were able to identify them by the light from the burning jeep reflected off the buildings backing onto the embankment. The stalled line of vehicles in flickering light, were then taken under fire by the sentries. A second jeep was lost in the act of reversing back down the incline when its driver was hit and lost control. The vehicle veered off the narrow ramp and rolled down the side of the embankment, spilling out its occupants as it went.
The Belgians carried out a hasty retreat, withdrawing back the way they had come, and on finding cover in a side street they dismounted and called for mortar fire support.
Back in the park the neat rows of tents had been reduced to torn bundles of canvas, many of which were burning fiercely. A mortar man working in the dark had in error selected a WP, white phosphorus smoke round, which had burst in the centre of the camp, landing amongst the
jerry cans of petrol and kerosene the cooks used to fuel the field ovens. Burning particles of white phosphorus and burning fuel had splashed outwards to set alight not only tentage, but also soldiers who had been using the tents as cover from view. The sight of human torches in their target area had made even the tough professionals of the Belgian airborne pause, easing their fingers off triggers for a moment, but then the snipers ceased looking for leaders and began shooting the burning men, and the remainder resumed the job they were paid for.
3rd Lanciers normally provided the brigades dedicated anti-tank support, but today they had unshipped four of the Milan’s from their jeeps and left the remainder along with the jeeps, back in England. One pair of the Milan’s was sited to cover the autobahn approaches to the bridge, whilst the other two covered the flanks of the mortar line. Fighting as infantry the remainder of 3rd Lanciers provided the protection for the combined mortar line from the 1st and 3rd Parachute Battalions and a tactical reserve for the brigade commander whilst the two parachute battalions advanced north into the town.
Blocked at the second railway bridge the jeep company commander watched with a sense of frustration as mortar rounds exploded on the railway embankment, on the street behind the bridge and on buildings next to it, in fact the rounds were landing everywhere but on the intended target, the western end of the bridge where the ZSU had been.
The Belgian’s, like all the other NATO airborne forces behind the lines this day had only the ammunition stocks they had jumped in with. They were wasting mortar rounds and the commander called an end to the fire mission and concentrated on finding another solution. The jeep company had started with four Milan equipped vehicles, of which one was at the first railway bridge and a second was lying on its back at the foot of the embankment. He had one of his remaining Milan vehicles on standby, and sent two more of his snipers to the three storied corner house at the end of the side street they had taken cover in. Forcing the street door open the pair made their way to the top floor but they were unable to find a window that allowed them to see the far side of the bridge. They were in the process of dragging a sideboard onto the landing below the attic hatch when the house’s lawful owner appeared at the top of the stairs. The sight of the elderly housefrau made the paratroopers pause in what they were doing.
