“General Eisenhower’s, apparently. He seems to think the Germans are building up forces there in those mountains for a final defensive stand. He calls it their National Redoubt. Any of you know what a redoubt is?”
“Sure, sir,” Lieutenant Pollack piped up. “I know what it means. It’s an enclosed, fortress-like position, defended on all sides. An island that’s just about impervious from any direction.”
“Very good, Lieutenant,” Abrams replied. “That’s exactly right. In this case, a heavily fortified position high in the mountains that would be extremely difficult to overrun. Ike’s worried that Hitler and the entire apparatus of the German state, with whatever army they have left, will withdraw into that redoubt and bleed us dry if we try to capture it.”
“Which we will, of course. Like idiots,” a voice mumbled.
A company commander asked, “If they do that, Colonel, why can’t we just cordon them off and let them rot in hell?”
“Because that’s not what we’ve been ordered to do, Captain,” Abrams replied.
“I understand that, sir, but if we turn south, don’t we run right into our Seventh Army…and the Frog First, too?”
“Both our Seventh and the French First—the whole of Sixth Army Group—have been ordered to turn south, too, toward northern Italy. So, on paper, at least, we shouldn’t be running into each other.”
Abrams scanned the faces of the officers and noncoms around him. They were experienced, battle-hardened men, well used to adversity and bad news. But he’d never seen them so disheartened before.
“I know you all wanted to be first into Berlin,” Abrams said. “You believe you’ve earned that right, and so do I. But somebody else is calling the shots—someone way over our heads—and he’s the only one who can see the big picture. So this battalion, this division, this army will, as always, do what it’s ordered to do. Whether we like it or not.”
But those words did little to placate his angry men. The battalion XO said it best, and he said it out loud: “We’re all being ordered to turn away so Ike’s little buddy Monty can stroll into Berlin all by himself and be the big hero. One for the history books, gents.”
The battalion intelligence officer—the S2—had a question. “Colonel, this is the first I’m hearing about this National Redoubt business, and I read every damn intel briefing that filters down to us. Whoever’s making this call—what intel is he basing it on?”
Abrams replied, “From what I’ve been able to find out, Captain, this is all coming straight out of SHAEF. How they know what they claim to know is a mystery to me. But I can tell you what General Patton said about it.”
That caught everyone’s attention. Whatever their Army commander had to say would be entertaining, at least.
“According to Patton,” Abrams said, “the National Redoubt exists only in Ike’s little imagination.”
To 3rd Army, wheeling its formidable mass to a different direction of advance—and overcoming the tremendous inertia of an organization so massive—was nothing new. They’d done it twice before—and rapidly, at that. The first time was soon after landing in France last June. After plunging deep into Brittany as ordered—away from the eastward thrust in which the rest of the Allied invasion forces were engaged—they reversed direction to become the southern flank of the Allied thrust toward Germany. The second time was last December; they pivoted north ninety degrees to relieve 1st Army elements under siege from the German counterattack in the Ardennes.
This was the third time, as they turned nearly one hundred eighty degrees toward the Bavarian Alps—and the National Redoubt, real or imagined. But unlike their first two redirections, this one was the most unappreciated.
At least the terrain would initially be fairly level, allowing for rapid progress by an armored force. Even the weather was cooperating, allowing XIX TAC to fulfill all of 4th Armored’s air support needs. Both the ground and air forces were chalking up enormous quantities of destroyed German equipment. Enemy units as large as divisions were surrendering en masse.
Getting thousands of prisoners to the rear and clear of the routes of advance was causing all the usual traffic-snarling problems. At an impromptu roadside conference, Lieutenant Pollack briefed his platoon leaders on what higher headquarters planned to do about it.
“The colonel thinks we can make better use of the road network,” Pollack said, “but a lot of those roads aren’t even on our maps, and some of the ones that are drawn aren’t accurate as to how suitable they are for heavy vehicles.”
“What else is new?” Sean Moon offered.
“Can’t argue with you there, Sergeant,” Pollack replied. “But we’ll be coming up on the Saale River in an hour or so, and we can get bottled up there real good if the whole division gets choked down to one bridge. The Stuart platoon’s gone west to scout the open country over that way. I’m cobbling together another recon team to check out what lies east of us.”
Sean asked, “Cobbling together, sir? What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means I’m stealing two Zippos from Third Platoon, with the XO in charge.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Sean said, “but you’re gonna trust the XO—Lieutenant Bridger—to scout our left flank?”
“Yeah, I am, Sergeant. Unless you’d rather do it, of course.”
Sean thought that one over for the briefest of moments. He’d much prefer being on the main road; at least he’d know exactly where on the map he was in case he needed artillery or air support. Even if that meant being lead unit in the column.
“No thanks, Lieutenant. We’ll let the XO do the honors.”
While his army moved steadily southward, George Patton was some two hundred miles to the west, attending to a different duty: the dedication of a newly built and much-needed railroad bridge across the Rhine at Mainz. Keeping his mechanized army fueled, armed, and fed had been a never-ending headache since its march across France began last summer. With the existing rail facilities devastated by Allied airpower so the Germans couldn’t exploit them, trucks had been the mainstay of the Allied resupply effort, with the occasional, short-term assist from a limited number of transport aircraft when dire shortfalls occurred. But the distances involved had become daunting, and the limitations of the vehicles’ carrying abilities had become painfully apparent as their lengthening round-trips took more and more time, resulting in fewer deliveries. Only the mass transport capability of a railroad bringing the goods as near to the front as possible could keep 3rd Army continuously supplied and moving. This new Rhine bridge would be a big step in making that possible.
As Patton stepped up to the blue ribbon stretched across the tracks on the river’s west bank, a proud engineer officer handed him a pair of scissors. Glaring at the engineer, the general thrust the scissors back at him and said, “I don’t want any goddamn scissors to do this job. I’m a soldier, not a tailor. Get me a goddamn bayonet.”
One was produced quickly. Patton sliced the ribbon with gusto, thanked the engineers for their fine and crucial work, and then quickly made his way to the landing strip for the flight back to his men on the tip of the spear.
Sean had been trying to get his tank back to being second in line—his favorite command and control position for a platoon in column—ever since the roadside meeting with Lieutenant Pollack. It had been difficult to leapfrog her way through the seemingly endless stream of Shermans, half-tracks, and trucks; the road was narrow, and the terrain on either side rose up steeply as that road descended gently toward the Saale River crossing near the town of Weissenfels. He couldn’t see the river or the town yet; there was one more curve blocking his line of sight.
I don’t like this one little bit, he told himself. It’s like being down in a hole. Can’t see shit and can’t maneuver hardly at all. Good thing we got an airplane overhead with a better view than we got.
But I’m still at the ass end of the platoon. Can’t control much from back here. All I can do is police-up stragglers.
> Sean’s driver Kowalski nudged Eight Ball into the number three position in front of Vaccaro’s tank just as the leader—Al Meeker—approached the curve. Jimmy Smith’s tank followed Meeker’s at the proper tactical interval of fifty yards.
“Okay, Ski, here’s our chance,” Sean told his driver. “As soon as Smitty hits that curve, cut in front of him and get up behind Meeker.”
The airplane overhead was an artillery spotter—an L-4 Grasshopper, better known as a Piper Cub when wearing civilian colors—and her pilot was on the radio with unwelcome news. “Broadsword Six, this is Critic Four-Five,” the pilot said, calling Lieutenant Pollack. “We’ve got a smoke screen on the river. It’s blanketing the bridge and the edge of town, too. It ain’t our smoke, either. Stand by…I’m taking fire from town.”
Meeker’s tank was already in the curve. Eight Ball was off Smith’s right side, their bows even as they, too, entered the bend.
Then Sean got his first view of what lay ahead.
“REVERSE,” he radioed to his platoon. “EVERYBODY BACK THE HELL UP, ON THE DOUBLE.”
He cursed the terrain they were trapped in: We’re fucking canalized in here. Gonna roll right into a set-piece ambush and we can’t even maneuver to either flank.
We gotta go backward. Got no choice.
With a grinding of gears and a roar of engines, the four Shermans of 2nd Platoon began to lurch backward. An anti-tank round screamed into the pavement just yards in front of Meeker’s tank. It struck exactly where she’d been just a second before, pounding the front of her hull with shell fragments and huge chunks of pavement, killing her bow gunner and wounding her driver in the process. Meeker, who ordinarily would have had his head and torso exposed through the turret hatch, had luckily dropped inside for a moment to check that his rookie loader was up to speed.
Despite the scalp wounds that streamed rivulets of blood from beneath his punctured steel helmet and over his goggles, Meeker’s driver kept control of the Sherman. In a few more seconds, they were safely back behind the curve. Only then did he realize that he was covered with the bow gunner’s blood and brain tissue. The whole compartment was.
And only then did he also realize how hardened to the butchery he’d become: A couple of months ago, I’d have been puking my guts out. But now, it’s just, “Tough luck, pal.”
He reached beneath his seat, pulled out a rag, and began wiping the gore from his face. But he couldn’t wipe it clear. He was just smearing it. His hands were trembling too much to do anything else.
The radio frequency became a clamor of screeching voices. Sean picked out Lieutenant Pollack’s urgent voice from the din and replied, “A picture’s worth a thousand words, Six. You better come up here.”
The spotter plane confirmed what Sean had instinctively known. “It looks like two big tank destroyers in the town. I’m making them as Jagdtigers. Can you see them?”
“Negative,” Sean replied. “Can you get some artillery on them? Give ’em a headache, at least.”
“Roger,” the pilot replied. “A couple of headaches, coming right up.”
Fabiano asked, “Hey, Sarge…if they’re on the other side of that smoke screen, how the hell do them Jagdtigers even see us?”
“They don’t, Fab. But you see that steeple sticking up above the town? I’m betting they got an FO up there. And they got this curve zeroed in, that’s for damn sure. So them gunners don’t need to see shit, just shoot on the numbers when their eye in the sky tells ’em to.”
“You want me to take out the steeple?”
“You read my mind, Fab.”
Within seconds, Fabiano reported, “On the way.” Eight Ball rocked with the recoil.
That shot blew a chunk off the spire.
With the second shot, the entire steeple was gone.
One more round from the Jagdtigers struck blindly on the road, all noise, fury, and dust that harmed no one. Then those guns fell silent.
Lieutenant Pollack’s tank rumbled up to Eight Ball. As he jumped over to her deck, Sean told him, “We got ourselves a standoff here, Lieutenant. Head to head, we can’t do shit to them Jagdtigers, but they can’t hit us where we’re at right now either, ducked behind this curve. And they won’t be coming across the river at us, that’s for damn sure. That fucking bridge won’t support those seventy-ton monsters. Probably why they’re stopped where they are—they can’t go no farther. Can’t cross the bridge, can’t swim, neither. Hell, that bridge might not even support us…and we only weigh half as much as them.”
Pollack checked his map. “So we’ve got to get around them,” he said. “We might have just the ticket here, too.”
“How do you figure that, sir?”
“Lieutenant Bridger’s found a place we can ford the river just about a mile east of here. He’s already across.”
“And he didn’t get himself cut to ribbons yet?”
“Nope. Third Platoon should be crossing any minute, too. First Platoon will come after that. You stay here and put on a good show. Make it look like we’re stalled and confused. Between that and the artillery, it should keep those Jagdtigers buttoned up.”
“Stalled and confused? We can do that, no problem, Lieutenant. But there’s one more problem,” Sean added, pointing to the high ground on either side of the road. “We need the infantry to give us some security up on those ridges. Can’t send a Zippo up there. It’d be too easy a target for them Jagdtigers.”
No sooner had Pollack said, “Got that covered already, Sergeant,” a half-track rolled up the road and stopped nearby. Two squads of infantry dismounted, each climbing one of the ridges, blending into the trees at the peaks.
“By the way, Sergeant Moon,” the lieutenant said, “that was a hell of a good call, pulling the column back like that.”
“We still lost a guy, sir. Got one wounded, too.”
“Yeah, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. See you on the other side.”
Sean knew what his commander meant, but he couldn’t resist needling him: “The other side of what, sir? You talking about the river…or the afterlife?”
“The river, Sergeant. The river, for cryin’ out loud.”
As Pollack drove off, Vaccaro climbed off his tank, walked up to Eight Ball, and clambered onto her deck. Pointing to the infantry on the ridges, he said, “They were your doing, right, Sean?”
“Nope. The lieutenant’s.”
“Really?” Vaccaro replied, genuinely surprised. “You mean to tell me the jewboy thought that one up all by himself?”
The look that came over Sean’s face made Vinny Vaccaro wish he’d thought twice before uttering those words. “That’s exactly what I’m fucking telling you, Vinny. And if I were you, I’d lose that jewboy shit right quick. Now get the fuck back to your vehicle and stand by for my instructions.”
As Vaccaro hurried away, Fabiano asked Sean, “What’s his fucking problem?”
“Beats the crap out of me, but it’s something we sure as hell don’t need right now, Fab.”
“Well, maybe you can help me with this, then, Sarge. You suppose that flyboy up there knows the difference between one type of Kraut tank or another? I mean, suppose those things on the other side of the smoke are something we ain’t never seen before—with armor we couldn’t cut through with a blowtorch—and they’ll slice us to shreds no matter what direction we try to take ’em from?”
“I ain’t about to hear the words super weapon again, am I, Fab? Because we don’t need that shit right now, neither.”
“Just saying, Sarge, that’s all.”
He read Sean’s skeptical look and added, “Hey, anything they already got can kill us just as dead as some super weapon. Right, Sarge?”
“Affirmative. But at the moment, I’d be more concerned that the company’s making a detour based on recon by none other than our beloved Lieutenant Bridger.”
Fabiano smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. “Bridger’s leading the way? Oh, my aching ass.”
/>
Sean climbed a tall tree at the peak of the rise beside the roadway. The smoke screen had dissipated, affording him a good view of the river, the bridge, and the town of Weissenfels. As he shimmied higher, the infantrymen providing flank security on the ridge looked up at him like he was nuts.
“Try not to fall on us when they shoot your ass out of that tree, Sarge,” some smartmouth said.
“It’s gonna take one hell of a sniper to do that, kid. And he’s gonna need x-ray eyes to even see me through all these branches and shit. I ain’t real worried.”
It didn’t require x-ray vision, but Sean did need binoculars to see the muzzles of two 128-millimeter guns, each protruding from its own alleyway on the town’s riverfront. No doubt, behind each muzzle was a Jagdtiger, masked in camouflage netting and shadows. American artillery shells kept up a desultory barrage, raining bricks and timbers down around the Jagdtigers. With the chances of a direct hit on the sheltered tank destroyers practically zero, the shells had as much effect as throwing pebbles at a flesh-and-blood tiger.
But at least the cannon-cockers ain’t wasting much ammo on a lost cause, Sean thought. Just a handful of rounds a minute.
Fabiano called out from Eight Ball’s turret: “Hey, Sarge, we got Tac Air coming in. The grasshopper’s got the artillery ready to put down smoke markers, but he can’t get close enough to adjust. He’s getting his ass shot up big time. And our ASO’s over with Lieutenant Pollack. He’s too far away to see shit.”
“Tell ’em I’ll call the shots, Fab. I got eyes on everything from up here. We don’t need no smoke. The grasshopper will just have to relay to the jugs for me.”
A few moments later, Fabiano yelled, “No dice, Sarge. The grasshopper’s going home. Can’t barely keep her in the air, he says.”
Sean could see the little L-4 turning slowly back to the west. Well, he don’t look like he’s on fire, anyway. But I’m not sure how you can tell when one of them slowpokes is shot up from down here on the ground. They always look like they’re staggering through the air to me.
Our Ally, Our Enemy (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 3) Page 16
