by Larry Bond
Highway 5, a four-lane asphalt road, entered the woods from the southwest and came out about five hundred meters to the northeast. Beyond the road and forest, open, boggy ground sloped down to the Vistula River.
Prazmo’s tanks stopped just outside the trees to allow the American infantrymen to jump off.
Reynolds grabbed Ford’s shoulder after they’d both scrambled down off the T-72. “Okay, Andy, first thing is local security. Get a squad from 1st Platoon deployed so we don’t get bushwhacked while we’re setting up. I’ll reconnoiter the area so we can site the Javelins, then…”
Prazmo arrived, and Reynolds noticed that Ford looked uneasy. “Sir, I don’t know if we’ll be able…”
A sound grew from nothing into a howling scream and everyone dove for cover as a jet roared overhead. The delta-winged shape of a Phantom flashed by, the German Maltese crosses seeming out of place on the American-built plane. Although it did not attack, they all knew they’d been spotted.
Reynolds turned back to Ford, still snapping out instructions. He had to concentrate to hear himself speak, because Prazmo was also issuing orders in rapid-fire Polish. A small cluster of senior noncoms and officers nodded at the major’s staccato sentences. They ran off, and the Pole turned back, impatiently waiting for the younger American to finish.
Ford looked stubborn. “Skipper, we may not have time for all this. From what I heard on the horn, the goddamned Krauts are already rolling right through the rest of the brigade.”
Prazmo suddenly shouted, pointing to the south. He shouted something in Polish, his excited tone also carrying a warning. Then he repeated the call in English. “Tanks! German tanks to the south. In Swiecie!”
Oh, Christ. Reynolds used his own binoculars. Among the buildings, he picked out low square shapes moving and firing as 120mm HE shells turned American-held houses into heaps of smoldering rubble. Machine guns chattered over the crack of tank cannon.
He fought a rising sense of panic. There was so much to do. They weren’t ready. He needed more time, but even as he wished for it, he knew he wasn’t going to get it. The Germans were too close and coming on too fast.
He let the binoculars fall back around his neck and turned to Ford. “Get everyone under cover, at least forty meters in from the edge. If they shell the woodline, we don’t want to be caught. Get going, I’ll be there in a second.”
Guided by a young crewman on foot, Prazmo’s driver was already working the T-72 deeper into the woods. Reynolds studied the area once more, then proposed, “What if I take everything east from this spot, and your tanks and APCs cover from here west, back toward Biala?”
Prazmo nodded quickly. “I agree, and have already given the orders to my men.” He pointed south. “Move quickly, my friend. We have about five minutes, then they will be on us.” He hurried off.
“So much for step-by-step deployment,” Reynolds thought, as he mentally tossed FM100-5 over his shoulder. Trotting into the forest, he tried to decide what was important, what was not. The army said it was all important, not to miss any step.
Screw that. What was going to count was getting firepower onto the enemy. The rest of it could wait. Calling “Orders group!” he quickly organized the company. He split up the Javelin launchers, two to each platoon, and told them to deploy in a line, one platoon east of the highway, two platoons to the west. The outfit he’d deployed to the east, the 1st Platoon, hopefully steadied by Sergeant Ford’s calm presence, was somewhat isolated, but the clump had to be occupied or the Germans would just stick to that side of the road and roll right around him. His CP would be with his hard-hit 2nd Platoon. With Lieutenant Riley dead, they needed all the encouragement he could give them.
As the platoon leaders ran off to deploy their men, a whistling howl announced the start of another German artillery barrage.
As expected, the first volley landed short, out in the open, and the thick trees all around them gave Reynolds a feeling of protection, like an awning in a rainstorm. He knew that was deceptive, though, and he could only hope that his men were all back from the treeline. More shells exploded, battering the edge of the woods.
Adams was busy setting up the radio and frantically digging in. Reynolds ordered, “Quit that and get me Brigade.”
The corporal nodded and reached for the equipment, but warned, “Jamming’s heavy, sir. I already tried to do a check once.” He had to shout to make himself heard over the artillery fire.
“Do it again, and do it until you get through. I need contact, bad.”
Adams nodded and picked up the handset.
Braving the shells still screaming in, Reynolds darted from tree to tree, locating each of his platoon leaders. Together, they picked spots for the antitank missile launchers. The Javelins were the only long-range weapon he had, and he wanted them well sited. All six had to cover the highway. Each squad also had AT-4 rocket launchers, shorter-range and with a lighter punch. They had to hit a tank from the rear or flank to have any chance of killing it.
“Here they come!” A Javelin gunner pointed toward the open fields separating them from smoke-shrouded Swiecie. Camouflaged vehicles were visible now, emerging from the haze and moving northeast on either side of the highway — right toward them.
The enemy movement caught Reynolds while he was conferring with Ford and Lieutenant Caruso, the 1st Platoon’s leader. He dashed back across the highway at full speed, heading for his CP. His men were still trying to sort themselves out. Half were clearing brush or other obstacles for the antitank missile crews while the rest dug “hasty positions,” scrapes in the ground that barely hid your body. Soldiers often called them “shallow graves.”
Adams looked up as he skidded through the thin screen of brush surrounding the CP and dropped prone. “I got Brigade, Captain, and I’ve told them where we and the Poles are.”
“Great! Good work.” The corporal had also scraped out holes for both of them, and Reynolds rolled into his, frantically opening his map. He studied it, marking points and noting the coordinates. “Get me Brigade again.”
A first muffled whumph told him his Javelins were firing. The first wave of Germans must be just under two thousand meters away. Adams handed him the radio.
“I have an urgent fire mission, tanks in the open, coordinates one seven nine, two five six.” He raised himself up high enough to see, scanning the area with binoculars. “Target is forty-plus tanks and APCs, more stuff in the distance.”
Even as he counted the German vehicles, a small cloud puffed over one and it exploded — ignited by a Javelin missile. More missiles flashed across the open ground, but with only six launchers, they could only kill a few of the enemy at a time.
The German Leopards and Marders kept coming — thundering across the fields at full speed. Reynolds swore. This wasn’t a careful advance by bounds, just an old-fashioned cavalry charge. And against his ill-prepared infantry and Prazmo’s too-few tanks, it just might work, too.
Smoothbore 125mm guns barked from his right. The Poles were shooting now. The deep crack of tank fire was much more rapid than his own missile fire, but the tanks were hitting the Leopard 2s head-on, where their advanced armor was thickest. Prazmo’s BMP infantry fighting vehicles carried wire-guided antitank missiles, but they were an older type that couldn’t penetrate the front armor on the German tanks.
Few of the German tanks were firing yet. They could see little among the trees, even with thermal sights, and they were at maximum range for their 120mm guns, even with a stabilized turret.
Burning Leopards dotted the wheat fields now — maybe eight or ten of them. That was good shooting. But not good enough. The first elements of the German advance had closed to within a thousand meters. Marders packed with infantry followed right behind.
Polish T-72s and BMPs began going up in flames — hit by return fire from the Leopards. Machine guns and 25mm cannon mounted on the Marders chattered, tearing limbs, bark, and leaves off the trees. Reynolds flattened himself inside his shal
low foxhole. The enemy APCs were trying to suppress his missile teams.
Whammm. Whammm. Whammm.
Dirt fountained skyward among the advancing Germans. Reynolds grabbed the mike again. “On target! On target! Fire for effect!”
More shells fell, exploding about five hundred meters to his front. The barrage wouldn’t kill many tanks, but it might slow them down. Even better, the deadly hail of fragments whining outward from each blast ought to keep the panzer commanders buttoned up and half-blind. The artillery fire should also pin the German panzergrenadiers inside their Marders until they, too, were in among the trees and shadows.
While the battle raged ahead, Reynolds continued to work with the map, passing new coordinates back to brigade — walking the barrage north in time with the advancing Germans. Several more Leopards and Marders were hit and wrecked, but it was clear that the attackers would reach the woods with a sizable force. That was bad. What was worse was that it was already too late for Alpha Company to retreat.
When the first Leopards were just two hundred meters away, the enemy artillery fire slackened. Fearful of hitting their own men, the German gunners had stopped flaying the woods. At this range, the tanks were immense and he felt an urge to run building inside him, but knew that would be suicidal. More important, he would be letting his men down. Men who were counting on him to bring them safely home.
Suddenly the Germans were inside the woods.
“Cover!” A burst of fire scythed the air right over his head and the crack-boom of a close explosion shoved him into the ground.
Spitting out blood and dirt, Reynolds looked up from his hole at a German Marder only fifty meters away. The APC was pointed off to their left.
The tracked vehicle was steeply sloped in the front, but boxy and high in the rear where it carried its squad of infantry. A clumsy-looking turret on the top held a 25mm cannon, a launcher for antitank missiles, and a thermal imager.
The Marder’s turret was slewed in their direction, but aimed over their heads. The gunner must have fired a suppressive burst in their direction on general principles, but now the barrel moved slightly from side to side as he searched for real targets. Its rear ramp fell open and German soldiers in camouflage gear poured outside. Some were already firing their assault rifles from the hip, pumping rounds into 2nd Platoon’s positions.
Still prone, Reynolds grabbed his M16 and opened up. Adams did the same thing, firing in short, aimed bursts. Although that turret pointing their way was intimidating, the shot was too good to pass up. Besides, the panzergrenadiers would spot them at any moment.
One man went down instantly — knocked off his feet by two or three hits. Another screamed and slid backward against the Marder, clutching a face that had been torn apart. The rest went to ground, flattening themselves behind tree trunks or in the tall grass beside the APC.
The instant the Germans disappeared, Reynolds and Adams also dove for cover — just in time. A 25mm burst rippled overhead and exploded behind them, showering them with dirt and bits of wood. The autocannon dipped lower, still firing.
Whooosh.
An antitank missile visible only as a streak of light from the left hit the Marder in the side. Sparks flew out from the point of impact, and part of the explosion inside vented out through the vehicle’s open troop compartment. Moments later, a ball of gray-white smoke cloaked the APC — luridly lit from inside by the flames consuming its fuel and ammunition.
A few more German troops appeared, bailing out of the vehicle — trying to get clear of the flames. Reynolds and his RTO shot at them, but their targets vanished in the smoke, apparently unscathed.
Firing surrounded them on all sides, mixed with sounds of diesel engines. Clouds of exhaust, woodsmoke, and dust cut visibility to almost nothing, allowing only glimpses of the combat. Inside the smoke, bright flashes of light marked a weapon firing or a vehicle being hit. Forms moved through the trees, firing, running, falling.
A storm of gunfire from their left drew the two men, and crouching almost double, they ran in the direction of 2nd Platoon’s positions. A crashing roar from the right turned into a German tank, breaking through a thicket of small trees. They threw themselves back behind a tree, watching helplessly as the armored behemoth passed close by and then rumbled into the murk.
“Shit!” Reynolds whipped around as bullets snapped past his face. There were five German infantrymen following the Leopard. Muzzle flashes stabbed out of the smoke. He snapped his M16 up and squeezed off a long burst, but recoil pulled the barrel up, and his shots went wild. The bolt clicked on an empty chamber.
He rolled right, trying to get behind the tree while frantically fumbling for a new magazine. Too late, his mind screamed. The Germans would be on top of him in a fraction of a second.
Adams popped up beside him and lobbed an egg-shaped fragmentation grenade into their midst.
The grenade went off with an ear-splitting whummp. Two of the Germans went down, bleeding and dead or unconscious. The others, stunned, stopped moving long enough for Reynolds to slam his new magazine home and fire.
Hit several times each, the panzergrenadiers stumbled backward and fell in a heap. Still holding his aim, Reynolds moved out from cover. One good look told him they were dead. He nodded his thanks to the tall, skinny corporal and then scanned the scarred woods around them, desperately trying to reorient himself. He still felt the urge to run, but just to 2nd Platoon. He had to regain control of this battle.
Sprinting, pausing, ducking occasionally, Reynolds and Adams worked their way toward 2nd Platoon’s fighting positions. At times the smoke and trees cut off all view, so that they were surrounded by a gray-green wall. The sounds of firing were no help, either, as omnipresent as the smoke.
They kept working their way east, meters seeming like miles and seconds like days. Finally Reynolds spotted Sergeant Robbins, crouched with two other soldiers. With Riley gone, the short, dark-featured sergeant was now in charge of 2nd Platoon.
Robbins spotted the captain and corporal as they ran up. “They’re past us, sir!” Frustration and fatigue filled his voice as well as his face. “We’ve knocked out ten tracks, maybe more, but they just keep coming.” The crack of cannon fire to the south announced the arrival of more enemy tanks.
“What are your casualties?” Reynolds demanded.
“Three dead I know of, probably more. Eight — no, nine wounded.”
Reynolds grimaced. Even out of a full-strength platoon of thirty-eight men, that would have been a heavy toll. But 2nd Platoon was badly understrength when the battle started, and the battle was far from over. On the other hand, his troops had already destroyed a lot of enemy armor. Was it worth the cost, though?
He couldn’t tell. From what little he could see, they’d blunted and disorganized the first wave of the German attack. The woods were full of burning vehicles and German stragglers, either tangled up with Alpha Company or pressing on to the northeast, and he was sure there were follow-on forces moving up. Alpha Company couldn’t stop them anymore. He needed more firepower.
Reynolds leaned over, speaking carefully to Adams. “Get Brigade. Tell them to shift the arty.” As the corporal picked up the handset, he pulled out the map he’d marked earlier. “New reference point is seven four, time on target, airburst. I want everything they’ve got for five minutes.”
Sergeant Robbins, standing next to him, looked at the marked spot and paled. He grabbed the two kneeling privates by the shoulders and spoke urgently. “Find the 1st and 3rd platoons. Tell them there’s incoming mail, airburst. Everyone go to ground. Move!”
The two soldiers disappeared, one to the east, one west. Robbins moved off himself, passing the word down his shattered line while Reynolds and his radioman took cover under a wrecked Leopard 2. Two privates also arrived to share the space, and all four of them kept scanning the woods.
The sounds of tank guns and light cannon mixed with machine-gun and rifle fire. They spotted men running to the southeast, but
Reynolds stopped the others from firing. It was impossible to tell which side those shadowy forms belonged to.
The freight-train roar of heavy artillery suddenly drowned out the gunfire around them and the woods exploded in fire and smoke.
This was no ranging shot, no ragged one-battery barrage. The shells cascading into the narrow band of forest had been carefully timed to arrive on target almost simultaneously.
The air itself exploded, suddenly filled with millions of lethal fragments. Crouched beneath the tank, Reynolds was stunned by the ferocity he’d unleashed. This was more than the brigade artillery battalion firing. Guns from the division, maybe even the corps, must be in on the act.
Tree after tree went down with their tops blown off.
The American shells were detonating ten to twenty meters off the ground, sleeting the air with fragments and shredding anyone caught in their path. Pieces of leaves and pine needles poured down, thick enough to cover the ground like a rug.
As fragments pinged off the German tank’s steel hull, Reynolds tried to imagine being exposed in that hurricane of fire, and failed. At least his troops had been warned. The Germans, though, should have been caught by surprise. Most people killed by artillery die in the first thirty seconds. That’s about as long as it takes trained soldiers to find decent cover. So by now, everyone caught inside the barrage was either dead or cowering in some kind of shelter. Most important of all, the Germans weren’t moving.
When the artillery stopped, the silence it left behind was almost absolute. In that silence, Reynolds could hear a new noise, the bass roar of dozens of diesel engines. He crawled out from under the wreck and moved toward the edge of the woods with Adams at his side. There, grabbing his binoculars, he peered through the clearing smoke and dust to the south.
A new formation of Leopard 2s swept across the open fields, headed straight for them. He stared in horror. Neatly grouped by platoons and companies, the panzer battalion moving up could almost have been on parade. A second rank of Marder APCs followed close on their treads, and Reynolds bet that behind them was a third. Probably with more tanks in reserve.
