He straightened to attention as Rommel himself entered, snapping a salute. Rommel looked tired but happy; Baeck felt a moment of resentment at how Rommel had remained with the main convoy, even though that had been at the Führer’s direct orders. Rommel wouldn’t want to take the credit, and he was a little surprised that Rommel hadn’t simply jumped in and started issuing orders already, but Baeck felt as if he owned the lodgement. He’d commanded the force that had taken it.
His yawn surprised him. “I’m sorry, Herr Feldmarschall,” he said, quickly. Baeck hadn’t realised just how tired he was until he’d yawned. “It’s been a long night.”
“And you will get some sleep once this is over,” Rommel said, waving away Baeck’s concern. Rommel, a real soldier, wouldn’t worry about decorum during a time of struggle. “I have had a message from the Fuhrer himself, who has ordered you to be given the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes” - Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross — “as a reward for your service, which has not gone unremarked in Berlin.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a simple box, revealing an older medal, which he pinned quickly onto Baeck’s uniform. “You did very well…”
“This is your medal,” Baeck realised suddenly. Rommel had earned it for his campaigns in North Africa. “I can’t accept that.”
“Yes, you can,” Rommel said, firmly. Baeck felt a moment of pure pride as he gazed into Rommel’s eyes and saw the confidence and determination there. “It is my pleasure to give it to you.” He slapped Baeck on the back before proceeding to the next order of business. “Now, I need a report from you on what’s happened so far.”
Baeck pointed a hand at the map he’d hastily pinned up in the harbourmaster’s office; the harbour-master himself was currently under guard in one of the warehouses. He had protested the use of British labour in no uncertain terms, claiming that the workers were soldiers, until Baeck pointed out that if that were true, they were without uniforms and could be shot at once.
“We have roughly ten thousand troops and two hundred vehicles on the ground now, with more arriving all the time,” Baeck said, without hesitation. The shipping routes had been well planned, but a single British ship in the wrong place could have ruined their day, and shattered the plan. “I have sent patrols up towards Ipswich in the east, and have surrounded most of Felixstowe itself, with the intention of taking the town formally within the next few hours. So far, apart from one counter-attack, resistance has been light, but sometimes very determined. We caught them with their pants down.”
“Best way,” Rommel said. “What about the civilian population?”
“They are staying largely out of the way,” Baeck said, simply. “We sealed the town and hope to avoid any major confrontation with the civilians, simply ordering them to return to their homes and await orders. I expect that some of the young men will seek to try our mettle fairly soon, but until then, we’re keeping our grip as light as possible, consummate with our own security.”
Rommel nodded, his mind clearly following similar paths. Neither man wanted to be responsible for a massacre, and that was what would happen if British civilians ran into their formations with older weapons, but if it was a choice between keeping the roads open and opening fire, or allowing the British to slow their progress, they would have to open fire and hope that the Fuhrer was in a forgiving mood when he heard about it. Britain wasn’t Russia.
“We have three hundred prisoners in the warehouses now, guarded by my people,” Baeck continued. “Most of them were either administrators for the docks or Home Guardsmen who cannot technically be used as labour; we’ve kept them prisoner until we can decide what to do with them permanently. A handful are women who were apparently plying their trade with the crewmen who stayed here and don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Leave them for the moment,” Rommel said, twisting his lips dryly. “That leads us with one important issue; what are we going to do next?”
A test, Baeck thought. He indicated the map with one hand. “According to aerial reconnaissance reports, the British have been forming a defence line here with the remains of the Home Guard and the regular army forces that were in the area,” he said. “We believe that they intend to fight to hold Ipswich and keep us penned in here while they bring up their heavy forces to crush us. I was under the impression that we intended to seek battle with them at once, and towards that extent I ordered the airfield just west of Felixstowe held and secured as a base for further operations.”
Rommel nodded once. “Good thinking.”
Baeck allowed himself a moment of relief; holder of the Knight’s Cross or not, a word from Rommel in the Führer’s ear would have resulted in him being unceremoniously transferred back to Russia or somewhere else where the women were ugly, the beer was terrible, and the locals were trying to kill him.
Rommel continued, “I brought along a small SS security division to secure the town, one carefully briefed in their role as part of my operational plans.”
Baeck caught the disdain in his voice and nodded. Rommel was disliked by the SS, or at least the parts of the SS that were essentially thugs and counter-insurgent units, rather than the armoured shock divisions of the Waffen-SS, who respected him. Rommel’s history with the SS wasn’t a very good one; when confronted by a unit of the Einsatzgruppen, who claimed to have authority to begin a purge of certain elements of Egyptian society, he’d produced a handgun, informed the SS officer that he was in command by orders of the Fuhrer, and if the SS unit attempted to disobey orders again, Rommel would have them all shot. The incident had made Rommel famous, but had irritated the SS, which had regained its power years later after Rommel had been recalled from North Africa.
“Once we have secured our rear, we can advance forward against the British defence line,” Rommel said. “What about our dispositions?”
“I concentrated our high-mobility forces along the roads heading towards Ipswich so that we can advance quickly,” Baeck said, tapping the map. “The local commanders have authority to engage the enemy if they see him, but all we’ve seen so far are Home Guardsmen trying to escape the cordon we’re throwing up around the area. I also ordered the recon units to push the limits as much as possible, but with the presence of substantial British forces to the west…”
“They’ll know by now that we’re the main invasion force,” Rommel said, studying the map and comparing it to the one in his head. “What about the paratroopers?”
“Most of them reported success,” Baeck said. “A handful were forced to break off under enemy fire. One group is missing. Some of them were able to make their way back to our lines, others may still be on the way or lying low until our lines reach them. We have seen some British aircraft, but most of them were beaten off by the Luftwaffe while our ground-support aircraft have been moving up to the captured airbase.”
“That will change,” Rommel said, glancing into the blue sky. A vague hum in the distance caused both men to listen carefully for a moment, trying to identify the noise before it faded; it sounded almost like a motorboat. “What about the waters?”
“We saw a handful of British small craft trying to escape us,” Baeck said. “We captured all of the ships in dock and pressed most of them into service, in hopes of expanding our troop transport capability. So far we haven’t seen any major response from the Royal Navy. One hopes that we battered them enough to put them off trying to interfere, but I don’t have access to any information…”
“We pounded Scapa Flow, but for obvious reasons we don’t know exactly how much damage we did,” Rommel said, as Baeck yawned again. “Enough talking, now; you have to get some sleep.”
Baeck was moved to protest. “Herr Feldmarschall…”
“That’s an order,” Rommel said, shortly. He waved a hand at one of his orderlies. “Mayer, escort Oberst Baeck to a place where he can rest and ensure that he gets at least five hours of sleep. Coordinate with his second to ensure that most of the commandos from the Hans Bader get some sleep th
emselves; we can reinforce the defences with our own units. Get Hauptmann Bothe to report to me in an hour and…”
His voice was fading as Mayer escorted Baeck away towards one of the warehouses, where some sleeping areas had been set up; Baeck was asleep almost before he hit the makeshift mattress.
* * *
SS Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl had never seen an English town before, but it looked very different from the Russian and Norwegian towns he knew from his service there. It was strange to his eyes. Some of it consisted of rows of neat little houses. Others seemed chaotic as might be expected in a town that had, until recently, been little more than a fishing town. The British had built Felixstowe up into a major port for trade with the continent, which meant the Reich, and that had had an effect on the town itself. It made him wonder, absently, if he could expect friends or enemies in the British town; there was no telling what might have happened already.
The British were hiding, he thought, as he watched from his armoured car. The SS used Pumas to patrol lightly-occupied territories, such as Norway; Stahl’s men were safe from anything short of an antitank gun, or a Molotov cocktail in the wrong place. The remains of the Home Guard might be present in the town, holding their weapons and preparing to make a stand, or they might have retreated to Ipswich. Stahl hoped that they would make a fight of it; if he managed to convince the British in the town that their army had failed them, it would be much easier to break them to the yoke. The crushing of resistance, both mental and physical resistance, was crucial to the success of the overall campaign. The British needed to feel that they were beaten before they would submit.
He saw only a handful of British men on the streets — no women — and those who saw him looked once and then looked away, probably trying to hide the expressions on their faces. He’d seen that before, in Vichy France; the French Government might be craven, but the new generation of Frenchmen longed for a time when they would be free of the Reich’s control over their lives. Many young Frenchmen were taking the easy way out and sailing to Algeria; the remainder, sometimes, spent their lives futilely trying to hurt the Reich. The British wouldn’t have learned caution yet, he knew; they might make a fight of it…
But they hadn’t, he realised, as his unit secured the Home Guard barracks without a fight. The barracks had been abandoned quickly, leaving some equipment scattered around, but there were no signs of any Home Guardsmen in the building. They’d probably sensed the tightening noose around the town and tried to break out before it was too late; some of them had probably made it, others had been caught by the infantry units that were surrounding the town and sent to the hastily-created detention camp. Stahl wouldn’t have given two Reich-marks for their future; he knew exactly what fate Himmler had in mind for them.
“Secure this location and remain here,” he ordered after they had completed their search. “I want a regular series of patrols through the town, with weapons and armour displayed openly, and if there is any trouble, handle it decisively.”
“Jawohl,” his subordinate said. “Herr Standartenfuhrer, what do you intend to do now?”
“I intend to secure the remainder of this town and then lay down the law to the Town Council,” he said. He’d sent one platoon to the Town Hall, trapping everyone inside the building, but he didn’t want to go too soon and make the councillors feel that they were important. The SS briefings had stated that the Town Council would have limited control over the town and would therefore only be useful to keep the rabble under control. “Remain here; report to me at once if anything changes.”
The Town Hall was larger than he had expected, but much less grandiose than any similar building in Germany; the British didn’t seem to go in for vast imposing buildings leaking their power and glory into the air. The SS unit that had surrounded it had been carefully briefed and were remaining polite, but very firm; a single handcuffed man had been left by one of the gates. A bruise on the side of his face revealed that someone had punched him.
“He took a swing at Werner,” one of his soldiers said, when Stahl quirked an eyebrow. “We knocked him down and left him there.”
“Carry on,” Stahl said, as he entered the Town Hall, he walked past a small group of civilians into the heart of the Town Hall, the meeting room for seven councillors, three of which faced him as he stared at them. “Which one of you is the Mayor?”
“That would be me, sir,” one of the men said. Stahl had believed that all English Mayors wore chains of office, but this one, carrying himself with an air that suggested that he had seen armed combat, wore nothing but a simple suit. “Welcome to Felixstowe.”
Stahl bit back a laugh at the Mayor’s tone. The Englishman wasn’t scared, but he was angry, very angry. He might not try to resist — intelligence suggested that the British civilian authorities had been ordered not to offer any resistance and keep as much of the country running as possible — but he certainly wouldn’t help, at least not until Stahl found a lever that could be used to make him collaborate completely.
“Thank you,” he said, dryly. “As the designated representative of the commanding officer of the local German forces, operating under the authority of Fuehrer and Reichskanzler Adolph Hitler, I am declaring Felixstowe an occupied town under the commonly accepted rules of war. I demand your cooperation in making the transfer to German authority as smooth and painless as possible.”
The Mayor said nothing. “If you refuse to cooperate, I will be forced to administer this town myself, using my storm-troopers to enforce my will,” Stahl said, pressing against their determination to resist. It would be so much easier to operate if the local authorities acceded. “If that happens, I cannot say that the persons in this town will be respected…”
“Enough,” the Mayor snapped. The frustration in his voice almost made Stahl smile. The Mayor might want to fight, but he knew that it was futile. “What are your orders?”
“My orders are very simple, at least for the moment,” Stahl said. “This town will remain under your control, provided you obey orders and work to keep your people peaceful. All remaining Home Guardsmen and soldiers within the town are to surrender at once. All weapons and radio transmitters are to be handed in at once. The people in the town who have work in the docks are to report to them at once for their orders, for which they will be paid a fair wage in Reich-marks; those who have no occupation in the docks are to remain at home unless they have no choice but to do otherwise. The local policemen are to be disarmed and registered, but after that, they are to continue keeping the peace…”
He went on, completing the list of initial requirements; they didn’t have to hear all of them, not yet. They wouldn’t want to assist the SS in rounding up the Jews and everyone else in the Black Book. They would help until they were so implicated in Stahl’s actions that they would have no choice except to make the jump from reluctantly cooperating to outright collaboration. When that happened…
“Please impress upon all your people the importance of obeying these rules,” he said, in conclusion. “You have a lovely town and it would be a shame to damage it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Near Ipswich, England
The tent looked nothing like a secure comfortable base, yet Captain Harry Jackson was absolutely delighted to see it as the remains of the Felixstowe Home Guard staggered towards safety. They were following directions they’d received from a small motorcycle unit that had been scouring the country looking for survivors, but until now there had been no sign of organised resistance. A pair of armoured cars were parked near the tent and hundreds of soldiers were milling about, being organised by sergeants and several senior officers. The entire scene was chaotic, with hundreds of men moving in all directions; even the sight of a small armoured column failed to restore Jackson’s spirits.
The escape had been nightmarish. They’d fallen back, only to be pursued by the Germans, who had chased them right out of Felixstowe. Halfway there, they had been engaged by a force of German parat
roopers who had been trying to make their way back into Felixstowe, and had been as surprised to meet the British as the British had been to meet them. Jackson didn’t know what orders he’d given, although he was certain that he had issued orders; his mind was a complete blank. They’d been lucky not to have shot the motorcyclist who’d met them. The rider had told them that several other units hadn’t been so lucky.
A small desk had been set up in front of the tent, and Jackson pulled himself up into a straighter posture as he took in the face of the man sitting there, trying desperately to organise his forces. He ordered Wilt to find his men somewhere to rest for a few hours and walked over to the desk, waiting until the General looked up to salute.
“Captain Harry Jackson,” he said. “Felixstowe Home Guard.”
General Barron returned the salute. “I’m pleased to see you,” he said, his voice grim, but tightly controlled. “What was it like back there?”
“The Germans have taken the port and probably the town,” Jackson reported grimly. “They have some armoured support and have been unloading freighters ever since they landed.”
“I see,” Barron said. “Do you have any idea of the enemy’s strength?”
“I don’t know, sir,” he said. “I think they will have at least a few thousand men. They stopped us outside the gates, sir…”
The Invasion of 1950 Page 14
