by Gee, Colin
Not getting any reaction from the Corporal, Sergeant Reddan continued.
“Yer’s just throwing shapes for the lad here, trying to impress. Now tend your front, Corporal and no more of this holy show!”
“Sergeant.”
That was all Kearney managed.
Their small position, covering a modest junction on the Draubodenweg, was abruptly transformed from night into day as the first of a sextet of flares exploded and shed its light over the Inniskilling’s positions and the No Man’s land to their front, an area that was suddenly and very obviously occupied by moving figures, all closing rapidly.
“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! Stand to! Stand to!”
With the light came bullets, lots of them, as the need for secrecy was gone. Soviet heavy machine guns started to bathe the British positions with lead.
Tracer bullets had more than one effect. In simple terms, the fiery tails permitted the gunner to adjust his aim more accurately, as he could see where the bullets were going. An additional benefit was that the sight of deadly glowing lead tested the nerve of the most steadfast of men, and many a bullet that was missing by a yard had the effect of making a soldier duck or miss his shot.
Vickers and Brens started to compete with Maxims and DPs, and the ducking and missing spread to both sides.
Fighting also erupted north of the Drau River, where the much-depleted London Irish Battalion suddenly found itself in a similar predicament.
The whole valley became a whirlwind of flying bullets, mortar shells, and flares; add into the mix the shouts and screams of frightened, dying men, and the Drau had become a living nightmare.
Reddan had no choice. There was no-one he would rather be with less than Kearney, but the space between positions was too deadly to traverse for him to regain his own foxhole, so the ex-battalion boxing champion moved in beside the present encumbent who had knocked out three of his teeth in the process and brought his Enfield into play.
For each Russian that fell, it seemed another two rose to take his place.
The carrier platoon was a carrier platoon in name only, many of its vehicles having already succumbed to the needs of the European Front, subject of a low-key plan that had relocated some equipment to the active front, most of the remainder having become victims of the extreme cold.
However, the Bren guns remained, transforming the platoon’s position into a hedgehog of light machine guns, one that possessed five times the firepower that the attacking Soviets were expecting.
The assault stalled.
0937 hrs, Thursday 14th November 1945, Allied defensive positions at Töplitsch & Puch, Austria.
Walshe remained rigidly at his post, the Bren gun seemingly just an extension of him.
Only the slightest of movements gave any indication that the young soldier was still alive, the barrel shifting imperceptibly as he checked clumps of enemy bodies for signs of life.
The last nine hours and ten minutes had witnessed a transformation during which the boy became a man, the inept fusilier became an adept soldier or, as the pain wracked Kearney thought, a pitiless killer.
The second attack had reached to within forty yards of the front foxholes and there it had withered in sprays of crimson, as the lead elements of the Soviet infantry were flayed to pieces.
An hour later, to the second, the third attack commenced and got within twenty yards. No flares rose until the wave of men was almost upon the Inniskillings but one Russian accidentally fired his weapon and that was warning enough for the Irishmen to rise up and stop the rush in its tracks.
A ragtag group of reinforcements had arrived in the dark of night. Clerks, drivers, and cooks, issued with a bundook and sent up to fill the gaps in the line.
The body of an elderly Pay Corps Private was now frozen solid across the brow of the firing position. He had been killed in the third attack and both Kearney and Reddan bundled the man into position for the extra cover and to hell with the niceties. After all, they didn’t know the bloke.
The fourth attack came on the stroke of five o’clock and was made with less vigour than the others, for it was just the remnants of the infantry battalion that had been hammering away, lead forward by a wounded Major, a commander desperate for his unit’s destruction not to have been in vain.
He died with most of his men, although the Ferryman exacted his price on the Inniskillings too.
Lieutenant Colonel Prescott, OC of the Battalion, fell to mortar fire in the first few seconds, having recently arrived at the crucial hot spot to make his own assessment of the situation.
At the last, the withdrawing Russians were covered by a few surviving Maxims, and it was one of these final bursts that put bullets into each of the three men in the Bren gun position.
The firing died away, leaving both sides to lick their considerable wounds.
Had some higher authority looked down into the small position then he may well have excused the three soldiers from further hardship.
No such relief came.
Only snow and an increasing coldness.
Walshe had felt nothing as a bullet passed through his upper chest, missing everything of note before it exited through his back strap.
Kearney took two in the neck and shoulder. The former was just a graze, painful and messy, but not incapacitating. The latter clipped his left shoulder joint and brought about excruciating pain that forced tears from his eyes.
Despite that, he managed to use his right hand to clip another magazine onto the Bren, as Walshe the ‘Whirling Dervish’, manifested himself.
Beside Kearney sat Reddan, his face wrapped in a crude bandage that was the best that Kearney could do in the circumstances, one that failed to mask the signs of fresh blood and hideous injury.
Hit in the side of the face, the Sergeant had certainly lost his lower jawbone completely. Through his tears, Kearney had quickly looked for the missing flesh, just in case stretcher-bearers made it through to take the silent man away. A second bullet had carried away Reddan’s left eye and made a mess of the right one.
Not a sound escaped from the awfully wounded NCO, but his presence inspired the other two occupants of the position.
Three further attacks had been pressed hard, as a new unit replaced the one that the Inniskillings had gutted.
The 1st Alpine’s second assault would have succeeded but for the timely arrival of more ammunition, permitting silent weapons to spring into life and reduce the assault formations to little more than wrecks of men.
A 3” mortar group arrived, quickly deployed nine weapons, and helped to put the attackers to flight, their barrage brief but perfectly placed amongst the second wave of soldiers. The tally of dead was miraculously low, but nearly a third of the Soviet soldiers lay wounded upon the frozen ground and many of their comrades took the offered opportunity to take an injured man to safer ground and, in the doing, quite happily removed themselves from danger.
The final infantry assault commenced at 0915 hrs and ground to a halt within fifteen minutes. This time the combination of infantry, mortars, and artillery proved far too much for troops whose nerves were already stretched to breaking point.
The 28th Rifle Regiment’s third Battalion broke and ran from the battlefield, except for those who could not move under their own power, already felled by shrapnel or high explosives.
It was these that Walshe sought out with small bursts from the boiling hot Bren gun, killing anything that moved on the snowy field.
Merciless.
Cold.
Without an ounce of compassion.
“Stop it now, Nipper, will yer. They’s had enough, boyo. Let ‘em away now.”
The sole reaction from Walshe was a gentle squeeze on the trigger and another four bullets were sent across the wintry field and into a Soviet soldier struggling with a shattered leg.
“Nipper! Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, will yer let 'em be now!”
The young man squeezed the trigger to no avail and immediately ripped off
the empty magazine, holding out his hand for a replacement.
“Gimme.”
Kearney shook his head and punctuated his decision with a dramatic flourish, flicking the ammo box lid shut.
“Stand down, Fusilier Walshe.”
The boy’s hand continued to hover in anticipation of receiving his needs, but Walshe’s face was already changing as the imposed end to his tirade of violence brought about new and calmer thoughts.
He lit two cigarettes and, without a word, passed one to the wounded NCO.
The Bren was field stripped, cleaned, and reassembled before the medical team arrived and removed the wretched Reddan.
The Inniskillings’ line had held.
1122 hrs, Thursday 14th November 1945, Divisional headquarters, 75th Rifle Division, Kellerberg am Drau, Austria.
“And that’s your full report, PodPolkovnik?”
“Yes, Comrade Polkovnik. I cannot do this without tanks.”
Colonel Ryzhov trusted the weary man stood before him and understood that he and his men had been through hell trying to push the Allied soldiers back from Töplitsch.
Gesturing at the dishevelled officer and inviting him to a seat where he could rest, Ryzhov leant on the table, rocking slowly on his knuckles as he contemplated the alternatives.
His 28th Regiment was badly beaten up but he had to preserve the unblooded 115th Regiment for the later assault at Villach, whilst the 34th Regiment was reorganising after its bitter fight at Feistritz an der Drau, ready for its leading role in the push south-east, a role it could only assume if the 28th Regiment did its job.
His eyes drank in every symbol on the map, its information not yet an hour old.
Part of him dismissed what he saw while another part shouted loudly for attention.
“Mayor Steppin, a word.”
The harassed staff Major almost glided to his commander’s side, his movement effortless despite the weight of papers and orders he was carrying.
“Are these bastards still held in reserve here, Steppin?”
He tapped the small township of Dobriach on the south-east end of the Millstatter See, some fourteen kilometres from where he now stood.
“Yes, Comrade Polkovnik, but I thought you said you didn’t want them anywhere near us?”
Ryzhov pursed his lips.
“So I did, Comrade Mayor, so I did. However, the 28th needs tanks and needs them now, so we’ll seek their release to us immediately. Understood?”
The commander of the 28th rose to his feet and moved forward.
Ryzhov acknowledged his presence with a slap on the shoulder.
“Mayor Steppin will contact Army and get these tanks released to my command... and you'll have your support, Comrade Kozlov.”
Kozlov leant forward, examined the map, and immediately understood the senior man’s reluctance.
Ryzhov put their feelings into words that lacked eloquence but did the job perfectly.
“To the Allied infantry, a tank’s a tank, so the fucking Romanian turncoats'll have a chance to bleed along with the rest of us, eh?”
By the time that Kozlov had put forward a simple plan for employing their erstwhile allies, Steppin returned with confirmation that the 4th Romanian Armoured Group would be sent forward immediately.
Colonel Ryzhov had done all he could for the 28th Rifle Regiment, adding a short company from the 97th Engineer Sapper Battalion, a section of SPAA weapons and nearly half of the 124th Guards Artillery Regiment’s guns to the assault.
Leading the attack was the rag-tag 4th RAG, its cosmopolitan contingent of armour having made the drive from Dobriach in excellent time, although some of its older vehicles were still lagging behind.
Leading the Romanian advance were three Panzer IV’s, two model G’s and one H, the most modern vehicles available to the 4th RAG.
They were flanked by four T34/m42’s and two Sturmgeschutz III’s.
Some way behind, a small group consisting of a Tacam R2, a Zrinyi Assault Gun, and a mechanically unsound Hetzer, struggled to close the action.
Fig#77 - Soviet and Roumania forces assaulting and Puch, Austria, 0027hrs, 14th November 1945.
1500 hrs, Thursday 14th November 1945, Allied defensive positions at Töplitsch & Puch, Austria.
Fig#78 - Töplitsch and Puch, Austria, 1500hrs, 14th November 1945.
Kearney had declined to be evacuated, reasoning that Walshe would need a loader when, not if, the Russians attacked again.
He had accepted a dressing from the orderly who remained behind to tend the two men, occasionally wincing as the man worked to cover up the wound. The man was a conchie and, as such, had been ridiculed when he first joined the battalion. The contempt did not survive their first action, for the man, whose deeply held convictions prevented him from taking up arms, was no coward, and many a son of Ireland was plucked from peril by the slight effete orderly.
Walshe seemed not notice as the medic cut away at his greatcoat and battledress to get at the shoulder injury.
Satisfied with his work, Lance-Corporal Young RAMC moved off to find other employment.
As the pain of his wound mounted, Kearney started to regret his decision to stay put.
Within seconds of deciding to seek out a relief, his mind became focussed on the arrival of enemy artillery and mortar shells, undoubtedly a pre-cursor to another attack.
And something else.
‘Fuck! Tanks!’
In a rough V shape, the enemy tanks moved slowly forward, their machine guns firing short bursts into anything that looked like it could house an anti-tank team, occasionally stopping to place larger ordnance on a suspicious mound or shadow in the snow.
Behind them, more waves of Soviet infantry moved purposefully forward, buoyed by the presence of the armoured support.
Kearney was woken from his thoughts by the stammer of the Bren gun as Walshe engaged the group nearest the Drau’s southern bank.
“Nipper, have a go at that bastard there, now! He’s got his turnip up, boyo!”
Walshe mechanically looked down the line of Kearney’s good arm and saw the Panzer IV commander leaning out of the turret, engaged in animated conversation with a jogging infantry officer.
The Bren chattered three times, sending bullets into both men.
The tank officer slid inside his turret, his neck and facial wounds spraying blood over his shocked crew until there was little left to leak from his wounds and the man died.
Outside, the infantry Captain had taken five bullets in the groin and stomach, the heavy impacts throwing him against the side of the tank. Robbed of strength by his wounds, he was unable to avoid the fall onto the tank’s bogies where, mercifully, he died instantly, his head crushed between track and roller.
Earth splattered the two defenders as the hull machine gunner attempted to avenge his officer, both Irishmen automatically dropping down behind the frozen corpse.
Kearney eased his wounded arm and risked a swift look over the top.
One of the T34s, attempting to engage the sole anti-tank gun supporting the Inniskillings, suddenly dropped into a rut disguised by a build-up of snow. The HE shell went wild and dropped well short. Unfortunately, for Kearney, it met resistance some ten yards in front of his position, its arrival coinciding with his risky attempt to see the field in front of him.
A flat pebble, the sort that water skimmers everywhere seek out for their best attempt, was forced out of the earth by the explosion and, at high speed, it struck Kearney on his right temple.
Suddenly Walshe found himself alone, and with a bloodied 'corpse' wrapped around his feet.
None the less, the young soldier continued to fire controlled bursts, picking off enemy soldiers with each attempt.
The artillery claimed a success; one of the T34s took a direct hit, smashing in the front of the vehicle and flipping the turret back onto the engine compartment. It was quickly wreathed in flames and debris was thrown in all directions as rounds cooked off and the intense fire mel
ted the snow around it.
The sole six-pounder also added to the tally, striking a Panzer IV as it manoeuvred, putting its AP shell into the rear compartment. With the engine destroyed and a growing fire, the leaderless crew decided to evacuate, leaving the corpse of their young officer to be incinerated within his last command.
Soviet mortars cut short the celebrations and spread the crew and pieces of the gun across the snow.
Kozlov had to admit that the Romanians had done well and that the extra assets that Ryzhov had allocated had made a huge difference.
‘We have them this time!’
Turning to his signals officer, he confidently gave him brief instructions.
“Inform Polkovnik Ryzhov that we are overrunning the line of resistance and that he should prepare phase seven immediately!”
Turning back to his observations, he was rewarded by the obvious signs of the British withdrawing, although the violent end of one of the Sturmgeschutz did not escape him.
Anton Emilian, Major of Tanks, commander of the Romanian armoured force, sat quietly watching as his crew struggled with the repair, the vital track having been severed by the strike of a PIAT round, just as the British infantry ran for their lives.
He carefully examined his dislocated middle finger, stroking it with his right hand, rehearsing the move that would bring it back into shape.
A group of dazed prisoners were herded past him and a small kerfuffle ensued.
An enemy soldier, wearing a Red Cross armband, had moved towards him and one of the Russians guards had ‘tapped’ him with his rifle butt.
The medical orderly held his hands out, palms up, placating the guard, slowly moving in Emilian’s direction.
Young had spotted the Romanian officer’s predicament and had moved only to offer his medical help.
Suddenly, both Emilian and the guard understood the orderly’s purpose and both relaxed.
