by Gee, Colin
“We’ll push hard both sides, and then close around their positions like a jaw. Once we’ve done that, we’ll re-evaluate but old man Pierce wants our asses in Neuwiller pronto. We have the promise of some air, but not yet. Arty is available as before. The 712th will plaster the wood line as soon as they’re in range, but remember, the goddamn things fly everywhere, so keep tight and don’t push up too far until they’ve pulled their show. ‘Kay?”
Murmurs of understanding were enough for him to proceed further.
“I have 0820...on my mark... three... two... one... mark.”
Watches were synchronised.
“Right. Keep your heads down, but push hard. Those Legion boys are counting on us. Questions?”
“Yep. Your boys riding or walking?”
Inside, Barkmann scolded himself. His Rangers would know automatically, but not the tank officer.
“Shit. Apologies. Tight in behind, I think, No sense in creating targets for their MG’s.”
Ewing nodded.
“Right, anything else?”
The silence told him all he needed to know.
“0830 it is. Good luck.”
The group broke up, leaving Gesualdo and Barkmann finishing up their cigarettes.
"Task Force Barkmann, eh?"
"So Pierce now calls us, Al."
"I'm honoured to fight alongside such a famous warrior."
"Fuck off."
Both men sniggered, then fell into silence again.
“Something occurred to me before the briefing, Al. Weird.”
“I figured. You think too goddamned much.”
The smile betrayed Gesualdo despite the deadpan delivery.
“Legion Etrangere.”
“Yes, the Foreign Legion. Top of the class, Lukas.”
“No, you pea brain. Look.”
Barkmann wrote it out in his notebook and showed it to his friend.
“Ah, I see... well I'm damned. A sign... or a divine message perhaps?”
They chuckled, and finished their cigarettes.
Barkmann took one last look at the pad before putting it away.
Shaking hands with Gesualdo, they went their separate ways.
As Gesualdo dropped down beside his own NCO’s, he could still recall the message that Barkmann had penned.
‘l e g i o n e t R A N G E R e.’
‘Son of a bitch.’
0836 hrs, Sunday 7th December 1945, Route 233, the Greisbach - Neuwiller road, Alsace.
Ewing’s Shermans were doing great work, burning and smoking enemy vehicles and guns were littered throughout the Soviet positions, marking success after success. Not without cost. Four of the 5th Battalion’s Shermans had been knocked out of the fight in as many minutes.
Ranger casualties had been very light, even to those groups whose metal shields had been knocked out.
However, some unheard command changed all that, as the edge of the woods came alive with spitting fire, a veritable hail of bullets searching the battlefield for soft flesh.
Barkmann’s soldiers started to die.
He dropped into a small gully, his own tank cover left behind, engulfed in flames where some large shell had stopped it dead.
Raising his binoculars, he felt a frustration that the Calliopes had not yet done their job.
Sweeping either side of his position, his company was moving up the slower central route, one damaged tank caught his eye.
“Goddamnit!”
“Sir?”
“One of the 712th has been disabled already, and they still haven’t fired.”
First Sergeant Ford was an old hand, and had an alternate explanation for the one that was foremost in his officer’s mind.
“It’d be easy for them boys to loose off their whizz-bangs and bug out, wouldn’t it? They’re just doing it proper and getting in range, Lootenant.”
To Barkmann, the army consisted of the 2nd Rangers, and then some other units. He considered Ford’s words.
“Fair comment.”
He dropped his binoculars to his chest, and prepared to advance. The 712th then showed what they could do.
“What the fuck?”
The remaining six T34 Calliope tanks started to unload their 4.2” rockets, sixty each, the tube sets aimed simply by adjusting the main gun on each tank.
It was an awesome sight, but more so when the rockets arrived on target.
Whilst the rockets were relatively inaccurate, there were a hell of a lot of them, and the 712th transformed the Alsatian landscape into a montage from the Great War.
Grabbing the radio from his operator, Barkmann spoke rapidly.
“Boxer-Six, Boxer-Six to all units, all units. Press in hard and fast, roll over them whilst they’re still reeling. Out”
The responses came back as he passed the handset on and sprang forward, followed by the rest of his company, green Ranger uniforms contrasted by the snow.
Across the battlefield, infantry and tanks pressed forward, although the tanks sensibly kept close to their infantry protectors.
The 712th pushed in tight, wisely as it proved, for the Soviet artillery started to hammer the ground in front of the ravaged defensive position. Most shells fell uselessly on unoccupied ground.
A bullet tugged at Barkmann’s trousers, the hot metal sliding across the side of his calf painfully. Perversely, it also cut through the euphoria caused by the Calliope strike, and brought his ankle problem to the fore.
He started to limp, but still maintained the pace.
A movement to his front made him shoulder his Garand and fire off three quick rounds. He ran over the spot, but there was nothing.
A grunt nearby drew his attention, and he turned as one of his Rangers slowly dropped to the ground. Another movement to the man’s left drew the remaining five rounds in his rifle. A spray of red indicated that at least one bullet had struck home.
Two Rangers leapt into the position, and a burst of Thompson finished off the wounded Russians.
Smoke burned his throat and lungs; the very earth seemed to be alight around him.
Nearby, a Soviet tank, he didn’t recognise the type, burned steadily, the acrid rubber smoke the source of his own discomfort.
Barkmann paused to recharge his Garand, noticing how so much of the snow had been melted away, either in the blasts, or by the subsequent fires.
Ford leapfrogged his position, dropped into a shell hole, and found himself in a horror show.
Not one body was intact.
Even the old hard-bitten NCO exceeded his tolerance, spilling the contents of his stomach at the sight.
He had jumped into a charnel house of pieces, entrails and gore spread evenly across the sides of the hole, with pieces of body here and there, some even recognisable for what they might once have been.
An arm.
A leg.
A... head?
A... something.
‘Oh, you poor bastards!’
Recovering as best he could, Ford picked himself up, both physically and mentally, crawling out of the hole, presenting his Rangers with a bloody sight straight from the darkest of nightmares.
Barkmann dropped beside him.
“Fucking hell, Sarge. You ok?”
Reasonably, the Ranger officer thought his NCO had been wounded.
“Lotta dead bodies in there, Lootenant. Just messy... so fucking messy.”
Barkmann risked a look over the edge of the hole and immediately wished he hadn’t.
“Oh my.”
A bullet zipped his way, throwing up a little earth as it hit the edge of the hole.
It served to focus both men and take their thoughts away from the horrors in front of them.
“There’s one at the base of the tree there. See him?”
Barkmann pointed, but it was unnecessary, as Ford’s rifle spat a single bullet that sped across the no man’s land and shattered a skull.
All around the two men, other Rangers were pushing forward as resistance sl
ackened even further.
A group of three Soviet soldiers sat cross-legged on the bottom of their position, eyes staring at something a thousand miles away, no more aware of their surroundings and predicament than the dead they shared their emplacement with.
None of the three men had dropped their weapons; they remained clutched tight to their chests, as a scared child holds his favourite teddy bear for protection from evil.
A Corporal practised his Russian on the group, but to no avail.
More Rangers screamed and shouted at the Soviet soldiers, who continued to look at something beyond comprehension.
A Ranger BAR gunner shot them at close range.
On the flanks of the attack, the Rangers and tankers pushed in hard, clearing the few occupied positions with grenades or HE shells.
Some Soviet soldiers surrendered, those that were still capable of thinking rationally anyway.
Others, like the group of three, sat shocked and stunned and, like the three, some died because they could neither hear nor understand their executioners.
Very few of the defenders were capable of fighting, but those that were did so to the best of their ability.
A few more Rangers were wounded or killed before the positions were taken, and the firing stopped.
Two of the Russian tanks contained dead men, although the vehicles were operational.
“Concussion and blast, Lootenant.”
The mess hanging from one of the turrets was awful.
“That’s his lungs, Lootenant.”
The blast had driven the Soviet tank officer’s lungs out of his body, to hang from his mouth like pink and red petals.
For men, such as Barkmann and Ford, who thought they had seen everything that combat had to offer, the fight for the Griesbach-Neuwiller road took them to extremes they never wanted to visit again.
Gesualdo limped up, his right thigh gripped tight by a fresh bandage.
“OK, Al?”
“Friendly fire, can you believe it? Goddamned friendly fire!”
Barkmann could not help but grin at his friend.
“Later then... over one of your shit cigarettes. Now, we gotta get moving.
“I hear that. My boys are in good shape. Want me to take the lead?”
“‘Kay. Tie in with Ewing for some close support. I shall pull the 633rd TD boys up now. Let’s go.”
They shook hands.
“Al.”
“Lukas.”
Gesualdo limped off again.
“Sergeant Ford, get the doggies up and moving. We’ve a war to win.”
As the American force prepared to move off again, welcome assistance made itself available, in the form of A-26B’s from the 416th Bombardment Group.
Much of the USAAF unit had been stateside when hostilities had commenced again and, for various reasons, had not come back together until mid-November.
Their A26 Invaders carried a world of hurt, both internally and externally.
Sixteen .50cal machine guns and a 6000lbs load of ordnance.
Twelve aircraft were airborne and, as yet, had not been engaged, so they were able to focus all their power on the Red Army units sat between the Rangers and the position at Neuwiller.
Avoiding the road, two groups of three aircraft swept north-west, screaming over the top of the Rangers, commencing their attack from the red smoke that marked the limits of the Ranger advance.
Each dropped half of their load of bombs, ravaging a large area either side of Route 233.
The next two groups of three repeated the procedure, dropping their ordnance further on.
Both groups then swept back over the area, sweeping the ravaged ground with .50cal rounds.
For the Rangers, it was seriously impressive and professional work, and Barkmann was determined to make the most of the opportunity.
He pushed his men harder, upping the pace of the advance, spreading groups out to the edge of the swept area, in case any defenders rallied on the flanks of the beaten zone.
Careful to protect his men from his own Air Force, he ordered more red smoke put down as they advanced.
Six aircraft swept overhead, the 416th circling with impunity, no ground fire of note to concern them, and definitely no enemy aircraft to challenge their mastery of the airspace over the battlefield. They repeated the attacks, moving the bomb line forward by seven hundred yards
This time the secondary explosions were obvious.
Reports from the Squadron Commander indicated major damage to a Soviet tank unit that had been concealed, but not well enough to avoid the attentions of the Invaders.
Barkmann knew that Ewing would be listening, but he also remembered that assumption was the mother of all fuck-ups, so he confirmed that the tanker had heard the report.
“Roger that. We’re on it, Boxer Six.”
Ewing was a career soldier, and understood that the Ranger officer was a competent man who was just playing it by the numbers.
Amidst the burning Russian tanks to his front, one still exhibited life, its turret turning from side to side.
Inside, a soviet tank commander, fresh to the battlefield, condemned his men with his exhibition. Urine and faeces dripped down his legs, creating a smell they could recognise, but it was his inability to make a decision that brought their premature end.
Ewing had no such problems but, in truth, he hadn’t just been bracketed by 500lbs bombs.
The commander of the 5th Battalion’s tanks got a shot away; a high-velocity armor piercing that did just what it was supposed to do.
The young Soviet tank officer was the sole survivor as firstly the shell and then the vehicle innards it displaced, scythed through the four men, two in the hull and two in the turret.
0931 hrs, Saturday, 7th December 1945, in and around, La Petite Pierre, Alsace.
“Sturmbannfuhrer?”
Derbo looked at the orderly bandaging his leg and nodded at the enquiry.
“Feels fine, Willi... thank you.”
He stood up and tested the leg, wincing at the initial pain, but soon getting himself under control.
He patted the old medical orderly on the shoulder.
“I owe you a drink, Kamerad. Are you free later, say, eight o’clock in the promenade bar?”
More than one of the weary Mountain troopers managed a laugh, and more than one was too exhausted to hear.
Rettlinger’s perimeter had shrunk as the Soviet attackers redoubled their efforts, and no one there was under any illusions as to what would happen next.
He was still clinging to the two road junctions, having pulled all his men into the five hundred metre long oval that covered Route 9's junctions with the 135 and 7.
Actually, he had pulled back nearly all his men, for a small group had become isolated in the village cemetery, on the northeast edge of St Petite Pierre; they were still fighting.
It seemed that the heaviest combat of all rolled through the monuments and headstones, the screams of the frightened and the dying often louder than the sounds of the weapons doing the Grim Reaper’s work.
The fighting had started to lessen, but it had taken nearly an hour for silence to descend on the positions.
Eight men filtered back from the bloodbath in the cemetary
The Castle Lützelstein had already been abandoned, its defence pointless, a few white flags left to shield the handful of wounded that had remained, unable to be moved. They retained their weapons, just in case, and each man had a grenade, should something more unpalatable than death threaten them.
Some seven hundred metres from where the ex-SS officer moved amongst his men, another commander was exhorting his troops to one final huge effort.
“Listen to that, Comrades, listen.”
The sounds of exploding artillery, and the crack of tank cannons were timely.
“That’s the enemy trying to get through to this bunch that we’ve bottled up.”
Astafiev favoured his right leg, a growing bruise on his thigh indic
ating where he had contacted the tree stump that lay hidden beneath a layer of snow.
“We’ll make one last effort, a final attack. We will overrun them,” the emphasis on ‘will’ made a number of faces swivel his way, “And then prepare this position against the forces that are coming to relieve the SS swine.”
The former identity of the defenders had become known some time beforehand. That information quickly passed from mouth to mouth, bringing an increased savagery to the Siberian’s attacks.
“Comrade Mayor Toralov.”
He looked at the once-immaculate figure, now black from head to toe, and carrying a dozen wounds.
“Comrade, I need one last effort from you.”
Toralov stiffened by way of reply, his broken jaw not permitting anything above a grunt here and there.
“You’ll command the wounded, who’ll all be assembled at this point here.”
Astafiev indicated a pair of houses that had yet to burn, although they had not escaped unscathed.
“On my command, you’ll open up upon the Germanski and keep firing until you see us on their position.”
The Major nodded and eased the PPD on his shoulder, looking around at a few of the men who would share the duty with him.
“The rest of 2nd Battalion will hold behind this position, ready to come forward to prepare the defence, once 1st Battalion has overrun the last defenders.”
The sound of aircraft gave him pause, and the Soviet Colonel looked up as a number of twin-engine aircraft swept over La Petite Pierre without engaging which, for the 415th Rifles, was good, as they bore the white star of the USA.
“Air support, Kameraden. Air support at last. Help is not far away now, so we must stand firm. They’ll come again, and it will be all-out so be aware. We must hold out, not long now, but we must hold out. If we fall, our Amerikan allies will have a hard time of it.”
Such was the perimeter that the Mountain Battalion now occupied, that Rettlinger could see every pile of bricks or scrape in the snow that was held by his men.
The last enemy assault had overrun the new battalion medical post and Koch’s platoon had been unable to take it back.
