by Tony Roberts
“Keep an eye out for anti-tank guns,” Langer snapped. The air was full of diesel fumes and the growling of Maybach engines. Ahead there were small palls of smoke, about ten miles distant. That was where they had to get to, and fast!
A thundering noise above him made him twist his head to look up. Stukas. It gave him a greater sense of security. “Keep on going, Gus, we’ve got company above us.”
“Good old Uncle Hermann,” Gus answered, gripping both steering sticks. “Making sure none of our delicate toys get squashed.”
“Let’s hope they keep on recognizing our identification markers,” Langer said grimly. Every panzer had a marker on the turret roof so as to let the Luftwaffe know they were on the same side. He didn’t want some dirty great Stuka dropping its payload on their ass.
They tore through the countryside, passing the occasional farm or village, not stopping. If any shit happened there, the infantry following close behind would take care of that. Their first test would be the canal, that was for sure.
Ahead, the Stukas were now plastering someone. “Looks like we’re heading for the party,” Gus said. “Hope there’s a brothel full of whores needing rescuing.”
“Keep your mind on steering us away from their male compatriots with their nasty guns.” Langer took a quick look down the turret. “Teacher, you see everything okay?”
“Sure, Carl,” Teacher nodded. He was satisfied with the clarity and visibility of his sights. “We’re ready to go.”
Nodding in satisfaction, Langer looked at the rapidly passing hedgerows and telegraph poles. It was going far too easily so far. The Belgians wouldn’t look to meet the invasion at the frontier as there was nothing for them to defend there. They’d use the Meuse and the Albert Canal ahead as a barrier, and that damned Fort that sat right on the bank of the canal to stop them. Ahead, the Stukas were still bombing someone, and it was now only a few miles distant. It wouldn’t be long till they got there and added their weight to whatever battle was going on.
Orders came crackling through from Heidemann’s command panzer and they split into their respective zugs, their sections. Each were of five panzers, and all five in Langer’s were Panzer IIIs, although most of the tanks in the division were the light Is and IIs. Of the 250 or so panzers the division had, only 42 were the IIIs, and even fewer were the IVs. The Germans were pitifully under-gunned and armored in contrast with the French they knew they’d meet sooner rather than later. They were also outnumbered but they had a couple of advantages, or at least to Langer’s experienced eye they did. One was radio, which meant they could adapt much faster than the French, and they also massed their tanks rather than spreading them thin.
The five panzers swung off right and tore up the dewy grass of the level fields. A line of trees stood ahead and beyond that there were some houses. A thin mist lay across the ground and it got thicker the closer they got to the canal.
“I hope they took the bridge” Gus said grimly, “I wouldn’t want to try to jump across in this bitch.”
Langer smiled weakly. A flight of Stukas headed east overhead, having delivered their payload. They were probably from Aachen airfield. The mist swirled in a nebulous blanket as the tanks plowed on towards the canal.
Suddenly they could see the bridge. It was intact and cheers rose from the throats of the crews. Heidemann snapped through the shouts and told them to shut up and form up on the bank. The infantry were to relieve the paratroopers and once the far side was secure, the tanks would cross. Chastened, the panzers spread out further and growled for the canal bank.
Langer could now see the fighting. The Belgians were pressing hard to retake the bridge. The paratroopers were dug in and blasting away at the enemy with all their might, knowing now that relief was at hand and it didn’t matter if they used up all their ammo. Gus brought the panzer to a halt five feet from the concrete edge of the canal and Langer slid down into his seat behind Teacher and Steffan, slamming the turret lid shut. “Teacher, I think there’s a house just to the left housing Belgians, the one with a white picket fence. See it?”
Langer pressed his face into his rubber-lined periscope and focused on the house in question. He’d caught sight of it just as he was ducking down. Teacher squinted and swung the turret, cranking on the wheel. “Yes, got it. You’re right – a squad of enemy troops are using it as cover.”
Langer asked Heidemann for permission to shoot. It felt odd. He still in his mind saw the Belgians as neutral, which of course they no longer were. Heidemann gave his assent. “Alright Teacher, send an HE shell into that house, ground floor.”
Steffan grabbed the nearest HE shell, clanged it into the breech and slammed it shut, moving back a step. Teacher silently lined the sights up and pressed the trigger. With a deep bark the 37mm spat out its first shot in anger. Langer watched as the impact in the wall sent up a cloud of brick dust and explosives. The wall cracked crazily and slabs collapsed down from above the new hole.
All along the canal bank panzers were shooting away at the Belgian troops who were scuttling madly for cover. Explosions rent the air as the village was pummeled by a sequence of tank shots. Langer decided to employ Felix. “Use the hull MG. Hose that house down, Felix.”
The Berliner eagerly gripped the stock of the gun and peered along the sights. He squeezed the trigger and the interior of the tank echoed to the chatter of the gun. Bullets spattered all over the wall and grounds of the house, and one soldier could be seen falling backwards, his gun flying free.
Now the schutzen arrived and deployed, zig-zagging across the final few yards to the bridge and clattering across it. A couple of 37mm guns were unhitched and swung round to cover them. Langer kept an eye on the far bank just in case any anti-tank guns appeared, but they didn’t. Off to the left in the distance the brooding shape of the fort sat, silent and threatening. It seemed the paras had done their job well. No shot came from the fort, although there was still shooting coming from that direction.
“Panzers, ready to cross by company!” Heidemann’s tinny voice came through the earpieces.
“Gus, get us on the road. We’re going across.”
“Heil Hitler!” Gus roared and the panzer reared backwards and then spun on one track, narrowly missing the next tank. Laughing madly Gus roared for the bridge. “Me first! Me first!”
“For fuck’s sake!” Langer exclaimed, hanging onto his seat.
“He’s crazy,” Teacher commented, bracing himself against gun and seat.
The panzer clattered onto the bridge and sped across the canal, the first of the division’s tanks to get to the far side. “Secure the village,” Heidemann’s voice said, almost lost in the noise of the panzer clattering off the metal road into the village.
A clattering of bullets bouncing off the turret came from the left and ahead. “I see it, machine-gun,” Teacher said calmly.
“Ride them down, Gus.”
“Wheee!” Gus yelled and drove down the gun post. Bullets spat all over them but bounced harmlessly away. The German infantry were pinned down to either side of the road but were relieved to see the panzer roar past them, machine-gun chattering away, peppering the Belgian MG position. Two Belgians span round, their uniforms shredded by Felix’s burst, and the other two burst from their prone positions and dashed madly away, flinging away their guns in their panic.
Langer felt a slight bump as the PZ III ran over the abandoned gun, and then they were past and chasing a pack of defenders who had decided the fight was lost and were fleeing as fast as their legs could take them. “Gus, swing round to the right,” Langer ordered. “Get us off the road now!”
Gus complied, suddenly serious. Something in the commander’s voice told him not to hesitate. There was a large square building there, right on the edge of the settlement, and they turned down the street, putting the building between them and the countryside. The next moment a whooshing sound came and an explosion rocked the air. “God, what was that?” Steffan asked, his eyes wide.
“Artillery,” Langer said soberly. “They’ve got a battery of 105s on the ridge ahead.”
“Shit,” Steffan said. Nobody argued; there wasn’t much else that could be said.
Langer got onto the microphone and snapped out the details. He then ordered Gus to take them to the end of the building and poke round to see if they were safe. Gus crept the panzer forward and they edged round. Fortunately the building shielded them from most of the battery that was pounding the main street, scattering the German infantry and panzers. One vehicle had been hit and was sending up clouds of smoke.
“Stay here for the moment. I expect help to be on the way,” Langer said, wiping his forehead. The whole tank smelt of oil, smoke, sweat and cordite. A few moments later they heard the throbbing of aircraft engines. They cocked their ears. “Stukas,” Langer confirmed, nodding.
The others grinned. The dive-bomber sound was unmistakable. The Belgians no longer had an air force; it had been wiped out within a couple of hours of the invasion. The British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force would be their only airborne danger now. There came the sound of guns being discharged and then the gut-churning scream of diving Stukas. Explosions rocked the ridge. Langer peered through the periscope. “Go, Gus. They’re being blown to hell.”
Gus slammed the tank into first and they shot forward, emerging from the shadow of the huge building, their own troops running forward in their wake, eager to keep the reassuring bulk of the armored vehicle close to them. Ahead the ridge was wreathed in black smoke. Flames licked skywards and a couple of Stukas were still peeling away from their flight path to plunge down onto the hapless Belgian artillerymen. They had no air cover and were exposed.
Langer saw one bomb blow a gun apart, its component parts flying lazily through the air. The crew would have been obliterated if they had still been standing by the piece. “Go, Gus! Up at them!”
The tank lurched onto the slope, roaring up to the summit, a climb of fifty feet. Trees and hedges had stood here, but many were now blazing stumps or had been uprooted and flung many yards away. Broken bodies in mid brown uniforms lay scattered or shredded about, and a few were staggering about dazed, totally stunned by what had happened. Hands went up as the panzer crested the rise and the panorama of Belgium opened out before them.
Langer slammed open the turret lid and emerged, glancing round. No Belgian troop was in any state to fight. The row of 105s were wrecked, on their side or their barrels bent and broken. The Stukas had done their job effectively.
An officer, clutching a bloodied sleeve, staggered forward, a white rag on a stick. “We surrender,” he said in a pain-filled voice. He spoke Flemish.
Langer nodded. “Offer your surrender to the infantry behind us, Captain,” Langer replied in faultless Flemish. “We must be on our way, as I’m sure you understand.”
The captain nodded, his face twisted in agony. “You speak my language well,” he said.
“Thank you.” He glanced at the other Belgians who were crowding round their captain, many of whom looked frightened. “You are all brave men,” he said clearly for all of them to hear. “You credit your country.”
The captain looked surprised. He slowly saluted, amazed at hearing such from the German tankman.
Langer saluted back. “Good luck to you all,” he said, and, checking that the schutzen were now close enough to take care of the prisoners, barked into the microphone for Gus to continue onwards down the ridge westwards. They had broken through the border defenses and were now free to thrust into Central Belgium.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They rested near the River Meuse that evening, tired but pleased to have advanced so far. They had been held up briefly but the word was that the frontier had caved in and the forts had all surrendered, and now all they had to do was to defeat the advancing French 1st army that was heading north to help the Dutch and Belgians.
Langer sat in front of the small fire flickering away, heating up the iron pot that Gus had somehow commandeered from somewhere – the giant driver had said something about a Belgian farmer having offered it in return for the panzer not driving through his barn, but with Gus you didn’t know whether he was embellishing his story or not. Whatever the truth, the panzer had suddenly through the day acquired the iron pot and it had been dangling from the driver’s side as they tore through the countryside.
It was now cooking a stew, made up of the various pieces of meat and vegetables the crew had contributed and Gus was overseeing the alchemy that would turn it, so he said, into a gastronomic delight.
Felix was yawning, next to Langer. He’d been working on the tank for an hour or so. There had been a loose sprocket that he had finally tightened, and a matter of a leaking fuel pipe that again he’d managed to fix, but the tank, like many in the company, was showing signs of wear and tear already. Fortunately most of the problems were minor and could be fixed by the mechanic in the crew. Two weren’t there, though. Both had been hit in the day’s fighting and were write-offs. One had blown up from a direct hit and the other had been struck by an anti-tank gun and had lost most of the left hand track as well as the driver’s side of the main body. The driver had been smashed to a bloody pulp, the only casualty.
Teacher had lit his pipe and was calmly smoking, looking out over the camp, which was a myriad of glowing fires. Steffan was being tutored by Gus and was doing most of the stirring with an improvised ladle which appeared to be a shovel.
Langer eased one of his aches and stretched out on the ground, looking up into the sky. It had been a frantic day, one headlong dash trying to gain as much territory as possible. The Belgians had been driven back in confusion, not having been fully prepared, and the way to Brussels was invitingly open, provided the French and British were slow in reacting. Langer recalled the mess and confusion of the last war, but from the British side which he had been on. They’d been flung in haste to stop the German advance at Mons which had been a terrible battle, and had been pushed back by sheer weight of numbers. This time things were a little different; the British had been in France since September of last year and as a result would be already rushing forward to whatever place they were required to fight, while the French were heading directly for the advancing German troops. Langer knew this, and wondered where they would run into them.
“You think tomorrow will be like today, Carl?” Teacher asked quietly, leaning towards the scar-faced Feldwebel.
“I expect so, until we hit the French. It’ll be their best troops, too. We’ve got to take them on head-on and stop them from retreating south.”
“You honestly think we’ll defeat them? Numbers are on their side, both in men and in tanks. They’ve got bigger tanks and guns, too. This is madness, if you ask me.”
“Madness, yes, but the commanders seem to think we’ve a chance. They’re banking on the enemy keeping their attention on us and not on Guderian and Rommel sneaking in through the Ardennes.”
“Seems very risky, I mean, sending tanks through a forest!”
Langer shrugged. “Guderian’s the tank expert; he should know the capabilities of the panzers. Not a bad plan if you ask me, fixing the best French forces here in Belgium and then sending in the real attack behind them and cutting them off from the rest of France.”
“The French have more tanks, Carl.”
“Aye, but they don’t use them in concentrated groups. They spread them out. We choose the place of attack and by the time they react we’ve won the fight. Don’t forget we’ve got radio and they haven’t. Our tanks are better designed, too. The Panzer III is better in battle than any French tank, no matter we’re outgunned and out armored. We will have initiative and will react faster.”
“I wish I shared your confidence,” Teacher said softly. “It’s our lives on the line, after all.”
“It always is, Teacher. That’s the lot of the soldier, to fight the battles created by the generals and leaders.” Langer grinned in the fire light. His scar crinkled. “So we fight to
survive as well as carry out orders.”
Teacher grunted. “You have an attitude that surprises me, Carl. I would have thought you’d be more cautious about what awaits us tomorrow. Look what happened in the last war! We mucked it up.”
“That was because the High Command lost their nerve at the vital moment and sent troops off east just as they were needed on the Marne. This time we’re faster and more mobile and have a plan not to take Paris but to defeat their army in the field.”
Teacher shook his head. “You’re well informed for – forgive me for saying so – a common soldier. You must have had a superior education, yet here you are in the ranks. Why aren’t you an officer?”
“No offense taken, Teacher. I fought in Spain but I’m not saying what rank I attained there. I don’t think there’s any greater teacher than the battlefield for a soldier. I hope we all live to learn more in the next few days.”
Teacher sucked thoughtfully on his pipe, then looked away as Gus announced the stew was ready for eating.
* * *
They had gone over the Meuse and in the face of stiffening resistance their progress had slowed. The evening saw them at another camp, this time near the village of Corswarem, a few miles north-east of the town of Hannut. Intelligence reports had identified the arrival of the French forces ahead of them, and of concern to the tankmen was that it appeared the French forces contained a good number of Somua tanks.
“Well, we’ll find out tomorrow whether we’re good enough to beat the Frenchies,” Teacher said. “Any idea what the plan is, Carl?”
Langer scratched his head, studying his map in the firelight. “Basically it’s to mass together and charge like silly bastards right down their throats. We’re here,” and he jabbed his forefinger at a spot on the map, the others peering with interest at the dirt-stained paper, “while the fourth are to our south down here. Facing us is what intelligence believe is the 3rd DLM with their Somua and Hotchkiss tanks. We can take the Hotchkiss tanks but the Somuas are another matter. Teacher, I want you to target their asses. Gus, you’re to try to get round their rears and as close as possible. Hopefully we’ll be too many for them. That’s our only chance – to beat them by sheer weight of numbers. Otherwise one-on-one they’ll whip us.”
