by Gee, Colin
Pierce moved on to other matters, knowing that his boys would get the job done.
Williams, the Ranger’s commander, unfolded his map and beckoned his officers in closer.
“And that’s that, boys. Leave Charlie at point, but push Dog and Easy in close behind.”
The responsible officers nodded their understanding.
“Move and move fast. Get over the water straight away and give me breathing space, say... all the way up to Route 116 here.”
He indicated the most junior man present, now in charge of Fox Company whilst the normal commanding Captain was treated for a dislocated knee.
“Gesualdo’s Fox boys will move straight over and push north to this road here, securing me a start line.”
The map rustled as Williams repositioned it.
“You two, you got the lead here, Barney, will push Able and Baker through Fox, and drive hard into the flank here.”
Barney Meade, no-one but no-one called him Barnett, acknowledged without a word, his gruff, silent approach to matters hiding the dynamic go-getting combat officer that he was.
He shared a look with the commander of Baker Company and nodded.
Williams continued.
“Timings and comms have gotta be tight here. Watch for the 18th’s boys coming in from the west, as well as some more driving down from the north. I want no foul-ups. Clear?”
It most certainly was.
“General Pierce wants this done quick, so he can pass his armor on and get at Bouxwiller before the schedule goes to pot.”
He folded the map with an air of finality.
“It sure as shit ain’t gonna be us that lets him down, so get your boys moving... watch yourselves... hit ‘em hard... and let’s get it done. Any questions?”
There were four.
Two confirmations of orders, one regarding call signs, and another on what would happen next. All were swiftly dealt with and the leadership of the 2nd Ranger Battalion went on their way.
0515 hrs, Monday, 2nd December 1945, Hattmatt, Alsace.
Major Din was suffering.
His both ears were bleeding, Shockwaves from impacts adjacent to his command position had caused damage to the delicate organs. US 155mm guns had swept his location, a mixture of ground and air burst causing severe casualties amongst the 424th’s survivors, old soldiers that he had managed to extricate from the debacle that had spelt the end of the 19th Army in Alsace.
The Soviet forward command position was in what was left of a modest wood, just west of the Rue des Acacias, north of Hattmatt.
Din had instinctively moved out of his better-appointed headquarters, partially to get closer to the action for better control, and partially in case the enemy had done their reconnaissance properly.
His instinct proved correct, as the command point was destroyed by artillery in the first strikes.
424th Regiment had represented the largest surviving formation in 132nd Rifle Corps, and the Corps was quickly disbanded and its bits and pieces used to bolster other savaged units.
For want of anywhere better to put it, the 424th was taken under the mantle of the Special Combat Brigade, but then quickly attached directly to the 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps, another unit that had suffered badly in the preceding weeks.
The weight of Spectrum Black fell upon units ‘resting’ in a supposedly quieter zone of the front line, and Din’s men found themselves the focus of attention in and around Hattmatt.
Fig#90 - The assault on Hattmatt, 2nd December 1945.
The 424th was under pressure from three sides as Pierce’s plan squeezed Hattmatt hard.
The sound of a Maxim opening up nearby barely registered on Din.
The white ground was profusely marked with patches of brown, black, and occasionally, red, where the artillery had turned over the snow and transformed the landscape and the men clinging to it.
Everywhere Din looked, he could see his men up and firing at an enemy whose numbers seemed to be growing every second.
‘This is hopeless. I can’t hold here.’
“Oleg, report into command. Request permission, on my authority, to withdraw to position three. Bystro! Dawai!”
The signals officer worked the radio and got through quickly.
Colonel Pugachev, commander of what was left of the 22nd Guards Cavalry Regiment, listened sympathetically, still mourning the decimation of his unit near Wolfegg.
He seized the radio from the startled Cossack operator.
“Can you hold for another hour, Comrade Din, over?”
Oleg Stavins turned to his commander for a response but the message had gone unheard.
“Comrade Mayor!”
The injured eardrums prevented his commander from hearing, so Stavins tapped Din on the arm.
He turned, the modest touch breaking his concentration.
More 155mm artillery arrived, clearly moving forwards like a rolling barrage, and away from the advancing American infantrymen.
The ground shook, and the noise of the nearest shells penetrated even Din’s damaged ears.
“What?”
“The Polkovnik wants to know if you can hold another hour, Comrade Mayor.”
Din took another quick sweep around the positions he could see, sensing the pressure on his men, feeling their resolve start to crack, knowing the answer instinctively.
“Tell Polkovnik Pugachev that we’ll be lucky to hold for another ten minutes.”
Din turned again, his attention caught by a different type of motion, as one group of his men rose and fled, leaving a vital hole in their defence of the main road, Route 116.
His arm shot out and he shouted.
“Starshina, sort that out!”
The senior NCO, waiting nearby with a group of picked men, was ready for just such an occurrence and led his men forward to plug the gap.
Turning back to the communications officer, Din saw, rather than heard, the explosion.
As the 155mm shell exploded on the edge of the headquarters position, the Major somehow remained intact and untouched, the wierd selectiveness of high explosives ensuring that the artillery shell did not claim him that day.
In fact, he barely felt the blast, the vagaries of explosives leaving him untouched and upright, although he nearly suffered injury as Stavins’ head, almost surgically removed from his shoulders, sailed past his own body with inches to spare. It was accompanied by parts of the radios, tables, weapons, and men that had been placed against that side of the position.
Back in the enemy artillery positions, gun layers added extra range again, moving the barrage on another fifty yards, and so Din was not troubled further by their shells.
The only survivor of the 424th’s Regimental Headquarters took up his PPD and, now totally deaf, went out to lead his men in their last fight.
0545 hrs, Monday, 2nd December 1945, north of the Zinzig River, Hattmatt, Alsace.
Barney Meade was screaming louder and louder as his death approached. He had not received a scratch in all the combat he had particpated in during WW2, or in any of the actions he had led in the latest bloody affair.
It was a unit joke that he would make it home without the obligatory Purple Heart.
A Soviet mortar shell, one of the few that the enemy unit had got off before Baker Company overran them, had exploded virtually at his feet.
One leg was missing, with next to nothing left for the medic to get a tourniquet on. His testicles and penis were severed, the same shrapnel having penetrated deeper, shredding his bladder and lower abdomen.
More pieces of metal had punctured his upper body and arms, the one piece that hit his head having opened up the right orbit, from whence his mutilated eye hung.
Fig#91 - Forces involved in the Battle of Hattmatt, 2nd December 1945.
The medic had already put morphine into the grievously wounded Ranger officer, but it hadn’t touched the pain. He selected another ampoule and plunged it into the surviving thigh, exposed when the blast had
torn off Meade’s trousers. This brought almost instant relief to the tortured body, or at least, quiet to the tortured ears of the command group gathered around their dying leader.
The radio crackled.
“Angel 6, this is Washington 6, report, over.”
The radio remained silent as no-one moved to answer.
“Angel 6, this is Washington 6, report, over.”
The unit’s senior non-com held his hand out for the handset.
“Washington 6, this is Angel one-three. Angel 6 is down... hard. We’re continuing the attack, over.”
There was a moment’s pause whilst those bland words were consumed by the Ranger CO in the battalion CP..
“Roger, Angel. Keep up the pressure, Reports are they’re cracking. Good luck. Out”
Williams wanted to ask much more, but now was not the time.
‘In any case, Barney Meade’s goddamn indestructible.’
By the time that Lieutenant Colonel Williams had that thought, Barney Meade was dead.
Part of Baker Company was in prime position, unexpectedly so, and its senior officer on the ground called in the good news to a troubled Williams.
Having overrun the mortar position, two platoons of ‘Baker’ had pushed on along the edge of a rise and found a perfect spot that looked over Hattmatt, as well as providing a position from which they could flay anyone withdrawing from the Alsatian village.
1st Lieutenant Barkmann, the senior rank in the two platoons, did not yet know that he was the senior rank still standing in the company but, for now, he had other problems.
A sudden surge of enemy caught his eye and he readied his men for combat.
Flares rose, illuminating an almost surreal landscape.
One of Baker’s .30cal Brownings started lashing out, an unnoticed group of Russian infantry having approached almost to grenade range. A number of the enemy fell, the rest melting back to safer ground to consider their options.
Which options were the same as for the rest of Din’s unit.
Stand and die, or run and live... maybe.
Most chose the latter course of action, and Barkmann’s two platoons had a field day as they lashed the flank of the retreating forces.
Much of the Zinsel’s ice had been broken by artillery, and most of the retreating Russians focussed on the bridge, perhaps not realising that the water was shallow enough to wade, probably dissuaded by the prospect of being soaked in chilled flowing water.
The bridge was being swept clean by the Rangers of Baker Company, more and more men arriving to reinforce Barkmann’s original force, all immediately bringing their Garands, BARs, and Brownings into action, dissuading any real efforts to cross.
Din arrived with a gaggle of his men in tow.
“What’s happening, Leytenant?”
“Comrade Mayor, the fucking bastards have the bridge covered. They’re up on that small rise in numbers. I’ve no Maxims to cover us, but I’ve sent two DPs to the top floor to suppress the swine. My Serzhant is gathering men behind the bushes there,” he pointed across the road, “Ready for when I give the command. We’ve found some old ladders and stuff to throw across the water so we can get at them.”
Din slapped the man’s shoulder.
“Good work, Comrade!”
The younger man stiffened.
“Do you wish to take command of the attack, Comrade Mayor?”
Just for a moment, Din considered the officer, question, and his response to it.
‘Is Burastov looking for a way out?’
‘No. Not Nikanor Burastov. He’s a fighter, remember?’’
‘Is he just doing what he thinks is right in offering?’
‘Probably.’
‘If I say no, will I look like I’m backing out?’
‘Who cares?’
“No, Comrade Burastov. You continue in charge. I’ll organise the rear party. Send up two reds when you’re over and have pushed them off. Clear?”
“Yes, Comrade Mayor. Thank you.”
Burastov slammed a fresh magazine into his Tokarev pistol.
‘Good. I was right.’
The two officers checked their watches and agreed on a time designed to allow the Burastov and the Serzhant to be fully prepared, and for Din to get the rearguard ready.
0601 hrs, Monday, 2nd December 1945, Hattmatt, Alsace.
Din didn’t hear the whistle, the agreed signal, but didn’t need to, as the feeble sound was swiftly submersed in a sea of violent noise, as a sudden increase in firing marked the start of the attack.
To his front and right flank, the Amerikanski were pushing hard, and he knew that the road behind him had to be cleared; otherwise, his command would become just a memory.
He risked a look over his shoulder and managed to recognise that his men were closing with the enemy, although he also took in the many still shapes that marked the expensive progress of the assault force.
One of his men shook his shoulder, bringing his focus back to his own immediate problems.
To his front, a surge by a sizeable group of American infantry had gained a foothold, and the two forces were exchanging grenades at close range.
Flares shot skywards, illuminating the scene, offering better conditions for the professional killing to come.
The sharp explosions of grenades, and the subsequent vision of newly wounded guardsmen focussed him, his concentration clearly affected by the nearness of the artillery round that had wiped out his staff.
Bringing his mind back to structured thought once more, Din saw a greater peril as a group of six M5A1 halftracks bore down on his northern flank. The 18th Armored Infantry force decided to bring their tracks to te battle as the conditions permitted it.
Coordinating with the attack to Din’s front, the armoured vehicles .50 calibre machine guns spouted bullets in all directions, few of which came anywhere near their intended targets as the tracks bounced forward.
The 424th had a few anti-tank rifles, and some of these cracked out their 14.5mm armour piercing bullets, claiming hits on the attacking tracks.
Two fell out of the attack, one immediately after the other, as heavy bullets struck home.
The infantry component bailed out of the rearmost track whilst the machine-gunner remained to use the gun in support of the attack. The other crew member, the driver, was screaming in shock and horror as he tried to clean the bits of a 2nd Lieutenant from his face and body, the effects of two hits from PTRD bullets having had a catastrophic effect on the dead man’s upper body.
The foremost halftrack spilled part of its human contents, many of whom were bloodied by the passage of the armour-piercing bullets through their vehicle. Six men remained inside the smoking wreck.
None the less, Din could see that his flank would be lost in short order.
Again, his eyes moved to the other side of the Zinsel, desperate to find the glow of red flares, but finding only the mix of white snow and grey smoke.
In desperation, he gave voice to his thoughts.
“Come on, Burastov! For all our fucking sakes, come on!”
On the small height above the Zinsel, all was bloody chaos as death and horror strode the hasty positions of the Rangers’ Baker Company.
1st Lieutenant Barkmann was in a world of his own.
No sound, save a gentle buzzing in his ears, his stunned senses even managing to partially mask the vibrations of nearby explosions, so disoriented was he by the glancing blow from a Soviet rifle butt.
His attacker had perished to another Ranger, who in turn had died to a bayonet thrust from behind.
Barkmann’s eyes took everything in as his brain struggled to comprehend the images, whilst it also tried to regain a modicum of control over the stunned officer’s arms and legs.
It failed on all counts.
However, the concussion did not prevent Barkmann from seeing the horrors in front of him and, occasionally, feel a glimmer of recognition of a face.
Corporal Thomas Ward presented
such a horror, rolling around with a Soviet soldier, both men intent on strangling each other, hands and arms bent for the sole purpose of throttling the life from the other man.
A moment of recognition flared in Barkmann’s mind as Ward’s face bulged and changed colour, the Russian’s greater strength proving vital in the struggle.
The smallest part of Barkmann’s brain screamed at him to do something, encouraging an extraordinary effort to save Ward, but it remained unheard amidst the greater mists of his injury.
Ward died.
Another man, a new arrival in the Ranger Battalion, fell to his knees in front of Barkmann, his chest ravaged by a burst from a submachine gun.
The man looked almost offended and affronted that he had been shot.
The corpse toppled forward, falling so that the head smashed face first into Barkmann’s left foot, causing his recent sprain to announce its presence once more.
A Soviet officer appeared on the edge of the position, waving his pistol and encouraging his men forward.
Barkmann watched in befuddled fascination, almost in slow motion, as red weals sprang up on the man’s body, the impacts throwing the wounded man back from where he came.
Drawing on everything he could muster, Barkmann started trying to get his mind back on track, trying to ease himself into a more upright position.
His efforts were thwarted by a heavy impact on his right side, two struggling men smashing into him as each tried to gain the upper hand.
They fell to the ground, one on top of the other, the Ranger underneath coming off far worse. The Russian drove his elbow into the American’s solar plexus as they fell, the combination of the impact with the ground and the weight of the Soviet soldier causing internal damage and driving the breath from the Ranger.
Holding the disabled American in place with one hand, the Soviet soldier brought out his knife and stabbed the helpless man repeatedly in the chest and throat, continuing long after life had left the farm boy from Indiana.
