Moon Above, Moon Below

by William Peter Grasso

  Even though it arrived in the dead of night, the welcome news they no longer worked for Montgomery spread through the American ranks like wildfire. For the next 36 hours, 4th Armored continued its plod north toward Vimoutiers, slowed by frequent but brief skirmishes with exhausted German troops fleeing eastward. Having little ammunition and even less will to fight, the shouts of Kamerad! usually came fairly quickly after contact was made. Wehrmacht prisoners by the thousands clogged the highway as they were marshaled south, further slowing the American advance.

  “Our success is our own worst enemy right now,” Colonel Abrams reported to 3rd Army HQ on his command’s sluggish progress.

  The afternoon of 17 August brought a new, more dangerous enemy: the 2nd SS Panzer division, moving swiftly westward with heavy armor to open a path for the German breakout, collided with 4th Armored’s right flank. Sean Moon and the rest of 37th Tank Battalion, at the leading edge of the American advance, found themselves fighting very different foes on two fronts simultaneously.

  As his tank was off the line being refueled and rearmed, Sean fumed over the contrast. “The Krauts on the left can’t wait to surrender, the ones on the right want to slug it out like it’s the end of the fucking world.”

  Captain Newcomb replied, “It’ll get better once Fifth Division moves in on our right flank later today.”

  “Yeah, if we’re still alive by then.”

  An hour later, Sean’s tank was back with Baker Company as they advanced toward Hill 262. Elements of the Polish 1st Armored Division—part of 1st Canadian Army and the eastern flank of Montgomery’s 21st Army Group—held the hill and its commanding view of the French countryside and the Germans hell-bent on retreat. But they were an isolated force, unsupported by any other British or Canadian troops.

  For the Poles, just getting to the hill had been difficult, slowed by fighting the same brief but frequent struggles with fleeing Germans just like the Americans were doing to the south. But holding the hill, with its spectacular vantage point for artillery observers and air support officers, was proving far more difficult. The same 2nd Panzer Division that was trying to drive a wedge through 4th Armored wanted that high ground, too.

  If the Americans from the south and British from the north could link up with the beleaguered Polish outpost on Hill 262, the Falaise Gap would be closed. Tens of thousands of German troops—maybe as many as a hundred thousand or more—would be caught in the trap and, whether killed or captured, out of the war for good.

  Sean Moon felt a flicker of hope rekindle in his war-weary soul: Maybe if we bag all these Krauts we’ve got a chance to wrap this up by Christmas after all?

  That hope blazed for only a second. A round from a German gun struck the tank to his left, the unspeakable violence of the impact like the blow of a gigantic hammer. The Sherman’s front armor peeled open as if made of paper; her interior became a crematory’s oven for the five men within. Sean’s flame of hope died just as quickly as the men in that tank.

  And they were still three long miles from Hill 262. Through that three-mile gap, the Germans kept flowing like a raging river.

  Captain Newcomb’s M10 pulled up behind Sean’s tank. “We’ve got to get behind these Krauts coming to rescue their buddies,” the captain yelled. “Sergeant Moon, take your platoon and find a way.”

  “My platoon?” Sean said. “What platoon? I’m down to two fucking tanks, Captain. Didn’t you just see Hammond get blown to shit?”

  “Two’s all you need, Sergeant. It’ll be easier for you to move faster that way.”

  Easier, my ass, Sean told himself. It’s just a matter of time…and I can feel mine running out real quick.

  “Get moving before it gets dark, Sergeant,” Newcomb said. “Everybody’s got weak spots in a free-for-all like this one. I’ll plug up ours. You go find theirs.”

  Sean led his platoon eastward, probing for that elusive weak point in the German lines along the hilly terrain. Some fucking platoon, he thought, because it was down to just his tank—Eclipse of the Hun—and Sergeant Iggy Sposato’s Anytime, Baby.

  Sometimes, they dashed quickly along open ridge lines, dropping into defilade when German guns looked within killing range. Other times, they were forced by the terrain to crawl single-file down winding trails barely wide enough for the Shermans, where an enemy tank or gun—or even an infantryman with a panzerfaust—could be around the next twist at point-blank range. It had taken them over an hour to travel two miles, and in that time Sean still hadn’t found an avenue of attack the Germans couldn’t easily counter. He brought his two tanks to a halt in the little village of Survie, which was occupied by a company of American infantry. The red diamond insignia on their shoulders marked them as members of 5th Infantry Division.

  “Nice you guys from the Fifth could stop looting long enough to give us a hand, sir,” Sean said to a lieutenant as he climbed down from Eclipse’s hull. “I’m Moon from 37th Tank.”

  “Wasn’t much to loot, Sergeant Moon. Looks like you Fourth Armored guys got to it all way ahead of us.”

  Sean laughed. “So what’s the story, sir?”

  “Don’t really know yet,” the lieutenant replied. “We just got here ourselves. I’m Peterson, C.O. of Easy Company, First of the Tenth Infantry. Are you the tank support they’ve been promising?”

  “If I am, that’s news to me, sir. I’m running recon, looking for the back door into these Krauts trying to throw the Brits or Poles or whoever the hell they are off Hill Two-Six-Two.”

  “Hell, we’re recon, too,” Lieutenant Peterson said. “I guess we ought to compare notes.”

  “Sure, just let me get my guys positioned. Any place special you think we should be, sir?”

  “There’s only one paved road running through here. How about a tank at each end?”

  “That’ll work.” Shouting to Sposato in the turret hatch of Anytime, Baby, Sean said, “Iggy, spin around and go cover the southern approach.”

  “Hook up with Sergeant Bostick,” the lieutenant told Sposato. “I’m sure he’s got a good place picked out for you already.”

  With a roar of her engine and the clatter of tracks on cobblestones, Anytime, Baby about-faced and headed off down the street.

  “There’s an alley by the church on the north end, Sergeant Moon,” the lieutenant said. “That would be a great place for your tank, I think.”

  “Yeah, I see it,” Sean replied. He yelled to Fabiano to make it happen.

  As Eclipse rumbled away, Sean and the lieutenant entered a bar-tabac and spread a map across a small table. The barman looked nervously on, apparently convinced the presence of the Americans would bring death and destruction down on the people of Survie.

  Trying to soothe the barman, Lieutenant Peterson said, “Ça va. It’s okay. You’ll be all right.”

  The barman looked skeptical. So did Sean, who asked, “You sure about that, sir?”

  “No. But what do you want me to tell the guy? That five minutes from now his town could be a pile of rubble?”

  “That might be a little more honest, Lieutenant.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, Sergeant Moon.” Peterson traced a finger across the map and asked, “Now where’d you guys come from?”

  Sean sketched the route they’d already reconned. “There’s no good way around there to flank the Krauts. We’ll either get the shit blown out of us in a big slugfest on one of these ridges or we’ll get trapped in some gully, all lined up like cattle at the slaughterhouse.”

  “What about the Air Force?” Peterson asked. “You tankers have direct radio links to the jugs, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, we do, sir. And they’ve been blowing the shit out of the Krauts around this Hill Two-Six-Two all damn day, but it’s been like the loaves and the fishes: the more you eat, the more there are. And it’ll be dark soon. Them pilots will be boozed up and shacked up until morning. And a lot of shit can happen out here in the dark.”

  They hadn’t realized the b
arman was standing over them with another Frenchman at his side. “What kind of shit do you have in mind?” the barman asked, in near-perfect English.

  “You speak English,” a surprised Peterson replied. “Sorry, but I never thought to ask.”

  “Ça va,” the barman replied. He pointed to the man beside him and said, “Marcel has information that might be of great use to you gentlemen.”

  Sean pointed to the lieutenant and said, “Hey, he’s the only gentleman here. I’m a sergeant. I work for a living.”

  “Forgive me, Sergeant. I didn’t mean to insult the working class.”

  “No offense taken, pal. And I didn’t mean that you wasn’t—”

  “All right, knock it off,” Peterson said. “You can work on your Alphonse and Gaston act some other time. Can we get back to what Marcel has to say?”

  “Of course, Lieutenant,” the barman replied. “Allow me to translate.”

  Marcel wove a detailed description of 2nd SS Panzer’s headquarters, which was concealed in a wooded area two miles to the north, near the village of Champosoult. He carefully prepared a drawing of the camp’s layout, right down to the defensive positions and the van in which the brigadeführer commanding the division lived. He even outlined the latrine’s location. The barman translated Marcel’s final sentence: “Cut off the head and the snake dies, no?”

  “Damn right,” Lieutenant Peterson said. “Now, Sergeant Moon, couldn’t we get the Air Force to blow this place to holy hell at first light? That’ll throw the Krauts into a tizzy, and then you tankers should be able to roll right through Champosoult and right up their asses.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Sean replied, without optimism. “All we gotta do is get our tanks over to here”—he pointed on the map to the highway near Champosoult—“in the middle of the fucking night. Half of ’em will get lost. The other half just might end up shooting it out with each other.”

  Peterson grimaced; he knew exactly what Sean meant. He’d blundered through night moves, too.

  “One more thing,” Sean said. “We’d have to make sure that fucking HQ itself don’t move in the middle of the night.”

  “I think that’s something me and my boys can handle,” Peterson replied. “You can even help, if you like, Sergeant Moon. How good are the radios in your tank?”

  “This village is down in a valley, sir. We can get maybe five miles out of our set right now, enough to get this intel back to my unit. Range should get a little better after dark.”

  “That’s better than what I’ve got,” Peterson replied, “so I’m going to have to lean on you for the commo.” He rolled up the map. “Come on, let’s get up on the high ground outside of town and take a look where we’re going…before we lose the daylight.”

  Sean radioed the intel back to 37th Battalion. Then he, Lieutenant Peterson, Marcel, and the barman scaled the ridge just east of Survie. At the top, they found the artillery lieutenant who was Peterson’s forward observer. He had the boxy batteries from his radio spread out on a broad, flat rock open to the sky, as if baking in the waning sunlight.

  “Best I can do for a recharge,” the FO said. “Warming them up gives them a little more juice, keeps them going a little longer. Got to try and make them last until the next resupply, whenever the hell that’s going to be.”

  Marcel pointed to the woods concealing 2nd SS Panzer’s HQ. Peterson asked his FO, “Those woods…are they in range of any of our guns?”

  The FO checked his map, and then replied, “Nope. It’s about a mile too far.”

  Peterson asked Sean, “What about Fourth Armored’s artillery?”

  The answer: “No, I don’t think so. They can barely reach Hill Two-Six-Two.”

  “How come they didn’t move up with you tankers?”

  “Because they ain’t got the gas to do it yet, sir.”

  “Well, then,” Peterson said, “it’s the Air Force or nothing. Do you think the rest of your tanks will be joining us tonight, Sergeant?”

  “If the colonel says so, they’ll sure as hell try,” Sean replied. “They’ll let us know what they’re gonna do real soon.”

  Lieutenant Peterson began to draw his plan on the map. “Okay…if we’re going to do this, I’ll infiltrate my men around the Kraut’s HQ at sunset. Our friends here say there are only a couple of roads heavy vehicles can use to get in and out. It won’t be too tough in the dark to slow them down if they try and make a move. We can make it sound like we’re a whole damn regiment if we have to.”

  Looking down into Survie, they could see Fabiano standing on Eclipse’s turret, waving his arms to catch their attention.

  “Maybe that’s the news we’ve been waiting for,” Sean said as he started down the hill toward the village.

  “We’ll be right behind you,” Peterson replied. “I’m almost done up here.”

  When he got back to Eclipse, he found his crew chowing down on food supplied by the people of Survie. The meal came with a bottle of wine, too.

  “No drinking,” Sean said, “not even wine. We’re gonna get real busy one way or the other real soon. I don’t need any of you assholes seeing double.”

  Fabiano shrugged and handed over the wine bottle, still without a drop missing.

  “You did save me some of that grub, though, didn’t you?”

  “Of course,” Fabiano replied. “Nothing’s too good for our fearless leader,” he added, pointing to a satchel full of bread, fruit, and cheese. “But maybe you want to look at this message from battalion first. We just finished decoding it.”

  The message was short and simple: his recon party was to meet Combat Command Baker—CCB—at a highway intersection two miles south of Survie. Sean was then to guide CCB to the jump-off point for the assault of 2nd SS Panzer’s rear. All this was to be accomplished in the dark of night, exercising total blackout discipline.

  Sean stuffed the message in his pocket. “Well, at least they didn’t tell us to take the Krauts on all by ourselves.” He asked Hogan, his driver, “How’s our gas holding out?”

  “Three-quarters of a tank, Sarge.”

  “Okay. Should be enough. Give me a couple of minutes to fill the lieutenant in on the plan, and then we hit the road again. Fire the old girl up.”

  In the fading light of day, Sean could see Peterson and the others still descending the ridge. He was walking down the street to meet them when three women on bicycles approached. The youngest and prettiest of the trio was staring at him with a big smile on her face.

  Holy shit! It’s that Sylvie what’s-her-name.

  “Hello, Sergeant Moon,” Sylvie called out as she rode in a circle around him. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “How about that! You seen my brother?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. Two days ago.”

  “So he’s okay?”

  “Oh, he’s fine. Quite fine, in fact. He gave me a message for you. Isn’t this strange I can deliver it now?”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said he was going to kick your ass all the way back to Canarsie, whatever that means.”

  Sean laughed gleefully, and then stopped suddenly. His face turned serious as he asked, “You didn’t tell him what I said, did you? You know, about him fucking himself and all.”

  “Of course not.”

  He smiled again, breathing a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. Thanks. But let me ask you… just what the hell are you ladies doing in this hellhole, anyway?”

  She stopped and dismounted, calling to the other women in French to go rest for a few minutes. Then she told Sean, “We are riding north, to Vimoutiers.”

  “Ain’t this a little out of your way?”

  “Yes, a bit. But we thought it might be less”—she searched for the right word—“less turbulent on this highway. But I see we may have misjudged.”

  “Yeah, this ain’t a good place to be right now.”

  “Sergeant, no place beyond the American lines is a good place right now.”

  “You wer
en’t planning on riding at night, were you?”

  “Why not? Our bicycles have lights.”

  “But…but you might not want to go this way. Not this night.”

  Sylvie regarded him thoughtfully—kindly—before saying, “I understand. Thank you for the warning.”

  He leaned closer and whispered, “You ladies ain’t up to any of that maquis stuff, are you?”

  She gave him a withering look that answered his question yet implored him to shut up.

  “Oh, I get it. Just between you and me then, right?”

  She nodded. The withering look hadn’t faded.

  “Hey, I gotta go,” he said. “Good seeing you again, Sylvie.”

  “Yes, we must go, as well.” Her face softened to a smile, and she kissed him on both cheeks. “It was good seeing you, too, Sean. Good luck to you.”

  Sean got his two tanks to the intersection south of Survie as the sun set, giving him just enough light to find good places to conceal them. Once the Shermans were tucked among the trees well off the highways, they shut down their engines so they could listen for the approaching Combat Command Baker.

  “When they get here,” Sean told Iggy Sposato, “I’ll take the lead element north to the staging area past Survie. You stay at this intersection and make sure every last vehicle in the column doesn’t miss the turn.”

  “So I’m the road guard?”

  “Gee, you catch on fast, Iggy. Now don’t fuck this up. We’re gonna need every swinging dick in the right place when the sun comes up.”

  Three hours later—2200 by their watches—there was still no sign of Combat Command Baker. Sposato said, “They should’ve been here a fucking hour ago.”

  Sean replied, “No shit, Iggy.”

  “What do we do if they don’t show?”

  “What do you think? We find a way to get our asses back home…wherever the hell that turns out to be.”

  It was another hour before the sounds of night—the wind in the trees, the din of insects, and the constant thunder of distant artillery—began to yield to the sounds of motors. Lots of motors.

  “Looks like they made it after all,” Sposato said as he picked up his red-lensed flashlight to play traffic cop.