Crescendo Of Doom (Kirov Series Book 15)

by John Schettler

  “Manstein settled him down. Remember, the Führer has ordered the entire 56th Panzer Korps to Army Group South, and all the SS units.”

  “Remember? Only too well,” Halder steamed. “So what did this little foray into Syria get us? 9th Panzer Division is practically wrecked! It got the same medicine the British spoon fed Rommel. Now he’s on the offensive again, and let us see how things go in Libya. This time he should have no excuses. Paulus has been pampering him like a first born son! He has all the fuel he could possibly need.”

  Keitel shook his head. “It may not be a question of supplies this time. I read the reports Paulus submitted. Yes, Rommel is well provisioned. But what about that new enemy armor? That is what caused all the trouble in Syria. This new heavy armor has rendered our blitzkrieg tactics obsolete overnight. It trumps every tank we have.”

  “Yes? Well if Rommel cannot best a few British divisions in North Africa, then what happens when the Russians get such tanks?”

  “That is simple,” said Keitel quickly. “We must get them as well. I have seen the new designs—the big cats—that is what they are calling them now. We have several on the drawing boards, the Panther, Tiger and Lion.”

  “They will not do us much good on the drawing boards,” said Halder. “And from all accounts this new British tank would beat them all.”

  “Just like the deployment of those naval rockets that have been crippling Raeder’s ships,” said Jodl. “Something is fishy about it. The Abwehr knew nothing whatsoever about these British weapons programs, and to this day, Canaris claims he can produce no evidence that any such programs are in active development in England. His men have tried to sniff out the production site, but to no avail.”

  Keitel laughed at this. “Canaris couldn’t tell you what day of the week Christmas will fall on this year! The man is a bumbling fool. I will say one thing about these weapons, they have channeled a lot of personnel and resources into our own technology projects. The Army Research Center at Penemunde already has a working prototype for a missile.” His lowered voice carried the note of warning, as this was highly classified material. “The code name is ‘Cherry Stone.’ Have you heard about it?”

  “Good for them,” said Halder, deftly avoiding that last question. “Talk to me about it when I can actually use the damn thing. Until then, it is nothing more than another research project and, as we have seen, they come and go, Keitel. Hitler just cancelled the Oldenburg! Yes, that was a smart decision this time, but that man can change his mind on a moment’s notice, and undo thousands of man hours work with a single sentence. Look what happened to Operation Merkur!”

  “Yet the attack on Cyprus was entirely successful,” said Keitel.

  “Ah,” Halder was unrelenting, holding up a finger in protest. “Yes, now we have Student’s 7th Flieger Division on Cyprus, where the British had no significant air bases, and while they still sit on Crete. Mark my words, one day they will get bombers on Crete, and the Führer won’t like it. In the meantime, the entire 22nd Air Landing Division is scattered all over Syria, and we still have troops strung out on that antiquated railroad system in Turkey. This agreement allowing us right of transit has given us nothing, really—nothing more than a means of diverting much needed military resources to a fruitless campaign in Syria. And now we are to take Mosul and Kirkuk?” He shook his head, clearly unhappy. “I have come to the opinion that all these deployments to North Africa and Syria are reckless and unwise. We could make much better use of those troops when Barbarossa begins—if we have the oil to sustain operations there.”

  Halder pushed the sheaf of documents across the table now, as the numbers would argue as eloquently as he could. “Look at these figures! The Army will need 7.25 million barrels of oil per month for the operations we have planned. Between all our domestic production, and including imports from all sources, we are adding only 5.35 million barrels per month to our stocks. That is a shortfall of nearly two million barrels per month. Well, we won’t get that trying to suck it from the pipelines in Syria.”

  “I see,” said Jodl, who had been listening to the discussion intently, somewhat amused. “So this explains that letter from the Führer. A pity we can’t get our hands on the oil our allies already control.”

  “Quite true,” said Halder. “Soviet troops are already pushing for Maykop. Production has shut down there, and the equipment is all being trucked south to Baku. All Volkov has been sending us is one request for military support after another.”

  “All the more reason to get on with Barbarossa,” said Keitel. Once we get over the Don and into the Caucasus, then we’ll have all the oil we need.”

  “That may take longer than you think.” Halder folded his arms. “I do not mean to sound like a defeatist, but these adventures in Syria and Libya have certainly proved to be very uncomfortable setbacks. This will be a most costly operation, and I am not just speaking of the oil now.

  “Sergei Kirov is as hungry for oil as we are,” said Jodl. “If Army Group South breaks through as planned, then that will decide the issue. You must have faith in our troops. Don’t let these sideshows in the Middle East bother you, Halder. In the meantime, what about this business with Mosul and Kirkuk? Is the Führer serious?”

  “The only way we can get anything there in the short run would be to use von Sponek’s troops,” said Halder.

  “The 22nd again?”

  “He had a regiment at Raqqah, another at Palmyra and one at Homs. They could be consolidated in one attack on Kirkuk.”

  “While the British push five brigades up the Euphrates and go for Aleppo? The 22nd had no luck stopping them at Dier ez Zou, or even Raqqah. What makes you think they will do any better 600 miles to the east on the Tigris?”

  “I’ll admit, that force was rushed in without adequate support.” Keitel was twiddling with a pencil now. “But we still have 1st Mountain Division in theater reserve at Italy. Suppose we move it to Istanbul, then by rail through Turkey?”

  “That could take a month, given the state of those rail lines.” Halder was not enthusiastic.

  “But this is just an infantry division,” said Keitel. It won’t need much rolling stock. It should take no more than two weeks.”

  “Then we would have another two divisions stranded in the middle of nowhere, and give the British another nice fat target for their new heavy tanks. If you want my opinion, we should pull out of that whole region. Yes, Hitler wants us to look at the matter, but he offers no resources. Nothing presently scheduled for Barbarossa is to be touched. So here we are moving the few pawns left on the board around, all while the British maneuver for checkmate! Ramcke took over the retreat up the Euphrates, and now he believes he must fall back on Aleppo. The rail lines south from there are already in a shambles with these commando raids—and that is another thing. I am told they have a new aircraft that can hover in place.”

  “Helicopters,” said Keitel with a knowing nod of his head. “Yes, another thing that Canaris knew nothing about.”

  “Well,” Halder pressed on, “supplies are not getting through to Steiner’s 5th Wiking Division, which is the only unit worth mentioning that we still have in Syria. The Vichy French have already lost Damascus, and they are barely holding on to Beirut. Now we are to go gallivanting off to Mosul and Kirkuk? No! I intend to inform Hitler that the resources for such an operation are simply not available—that is unless he wishes to lend me an infantry Korps from Army Group South. We both know what the answer will be, Keitel, so forget the oil wells at Baba Gurgur. Instead we must set our minds on linking up with Ivan Volkov.”

  Keitel shook his head. “Here we have the world’s biggest oil field sitting there, just five or six hundred kilometers from our airfields in Syria, and perhaps only guarded by a few British Indian battalions, with the rest of those forces all on the upper Euphrates. Instead we choose to plow through half the Soviet Army over two or three times that distance, through the Don Basin to Rostov, and then into the Caucasus—either that o
r we take the Crimea first. It’s madness! No wonder the Führer has sent you this message. We should take Mosul and Kirkuk first. What about Student’s 7th Flieger Division?”

  “It is standing in reserve on Cyprus.”

  “Oh? In reserve?” Keitel smiled. “Something tells me you want to pull those plans for Operation Merkur out of the file cabinet, Halder. Yes?”

  “The thought did cross my mind…” Halder returned Keitel’s grin. “But let’s face it, the war is moving east. It’s been decided. So now it is only a question of time, and the clock is ticking. Ivan Volkov will soon get his relief, and with any luck, we will soon get our oil. There’s no sense planning another operation into Iraq.”

  “We have word Volkov got himself into another adventure in Siberia. Some kind of major zeppelin raid is underway, and there’s a big push on the Ob River line.”

  Halder had to laugh at that. “And all that while he comes begging for more air support in the Caucasus. Why does he bother with the Siberians?”

  “That remains to be seen…” Keitel had the look of one who might know more than he was disclosing, but he said nothing else about it, and the two men leaned heavily over the map table. “Not long now,” he said at last. “We launch Barbarossa on May 15, just as the Führer ordered.”

  “Yes,” said Halder. “The storm has been gathering for quite some time, and soon it rolls east. Now Hitler will get what he wants, that much is certain.”

  “The oil?” Keitel tapped the great fields of Baku again, the obvious aim of all these plans. Hitler had said: “To fight, we must have oil for our machine.” Churchill had echoed that when he said: “Above all, petrol governed every movement.” And had Josef Stalin been alive in this war, he would have repeated the phrase that summed things up from his perspective: “The war was decided by engines and octane.”

  But that was not what was in Halder’s mind at that moment. “No,” he corrected. “Now he gets his war… The real fighting starts in three days, and god only knows how and when it will end.”

  Part VII

  Clash of Arms

  “Remorse has no place in a warrior's mind... A war is like a game of chess… Every battle is like a well-thought-out move on the board. Once it begins, there shouldn't be any emotion involved whatsoever.”

  ― J. Garwood

  Chapter 19

  Brigadier Kinlan received the call from General O’Connor with some trepidation. Ever since the stunning arrival of his force, and their bludgeoning victory at Bir el Khamsa, his 7th Brigade had been an apple in the eyes of the British commanders. When Churchill saw the tanks he was thrilled, and urged both Wavell and O’Connor to make the best possible use of them.

  But Kinlan knew he had a candle force here. Each time it was used, it consumed a small portion of its life and strength. He had agreed to support Operation Scimitar, sending light tanks, and then both his two heavy infantry battalions in the Warrior AFVs, and half his Challenger IIs to Syria. There they had led the attack on the vital airfield at Rayak, stopped the German counterattack with their 9th Panzer Division, and then his men were pulled off the line, replaced by a brigade from the 6th Infantry Division.

  His Gurkha battalion had also been instrumental in the fighting around Damascus, though they paid for their victories in casualties. His men were only human, no matter how well armed they were, and they had already started dying. Thus far, his equipment had held up very well. Not a single Challenger II had been seriously damaged, though they did lose several Scimitar tanks and two Warrior AFVs, all more lightly armored and vulnerable to enemy AT rounds of this period. The German 88s had bruised a couple of his main battle tanks, but it could not mission kill them. The engineers looked over the composite armor, and laid on exterior armor modules to reinforce those areas weakened by the 88 rounds.

  Now, with more than half Kinlan’s force still in Syria, O’Connor was calling to ask if he could make anything more available for the Operation looming to the west. Rommel was on the move again, and the British had a long week to watch his careful advance, digging in to their fortress at Tobruk and bringing up their newly reconstituted Armored forces.

  “We’ve got 2nd Armored back on its feet, and the 7th as well—that’s your grandfather unit, yes? Well, if you would care to throw in with us, it would stiffen my division considerably.”

  “You do realize that two thirds of my force is in Syria.”

  “Of course, I sent them there, but we think we have a lever on Syria further east on the Euphrates. The Germans have only been able to move brigade sized airborne units out there, and we have the whole of the 10th Indian Division, a brigade from the 8th Indian, and all of Brigadier Kingstone’s force on that flank. The Germans set up a blocking force at Dier ez Zour, but we moved them out of that easily enough. Now they are trying to consolidate at Raqqah, further up the Euphrates.”

  “Yes, I know the place,” said Kinlan. “There was a lot of fighting there in our time. A group known as ISIS made it their headquarters in an attempt to control all of northern Syria and Iraq. War just seems to flower in the same old places, like a bad weed, I suppose.”

  “Indeed, well our Russian friends swept out to Raqqah on those marvelous helicopters of theirs, and that got our foot in the saddle there. We’ve already got a brigade up from the lower Euphrates, and Kingstone and our Glubb Pasha pulled off a nice desert crossing to keep the Germans off balance again. The thing is this. I don’t think we’ll need your boys in Syria any longer. You’ve done just what we hoped, and cleared that log jam south of Rayak. Stopped the panzers right in their tracks! Well then, this situation shaping up out west in Libya looks to be a tad more to worry about. Rommel has three good divisions now, and two more Brigade sized units. Throw in five or six Italian divisions, including the Ariete Armored Division, and he can pose a real threat.”

  “So you want another Bir el Khamsa?”

  “Well, we won’t ask you to do all the heavy lifting. Tiger Convoy finally got round the cape with 500 new tanks. Lord knows, if they were Challenger IIs like those you have, this war would end soon enough. But no, I’m afraid we’ll have to make do with our Matildas, and some new cruiser tanks we’re calling Crusaders. My thinking was this—to place your force in reserve. You are presently billeted here south of the old rail head near Mersa Matruh, but I propose to move your force to Sidi Omar on the Egyptian border.”

  “I see… And then what?”

  “Stand as 8th Army reserve. We’re arranging to get your two battalions back from Syria by rail, just as we sent them there. You should have them in hand in seven to ten days time. In the meantime, might you be so kind as to move your current force to Sidi Omar?”

  Kinlan smiled. “General, you give the sweetest orders I’ve ever heard. You know damn well that I’ll move my troops anywhere you need them. But I appreciate the light hand here. As you know, we have considerations beyond the military to think of.”

  “Ah, yes, the secrecy bit. We’ve certainly done our best, but it’s fair to say the Germans know about you, don’t they. What they may be planning to do about it is anyone’s guess. Rommel took one hell of a beating at Bir el Khamsa, but yet here he comes again.”

  So it was decided, and Kinlan was getting his troops into a march column ready to send them west. He would move up the road through Bir Sheferzan to Sidi Omar, and await the arrival of his heavy infantry battalions from Syria. O’Connor had hoped Rommel would take some time sorting out his units once they made contact with the British defensive line, but he rested no more than 24 hours before beginning his attack.

  The Italians opened the action at Tobruk, along the coastal road leading back to Derna. There they threw three infantry divisions at the British positions along Wadi Sehel. The new British commander, General Montgomery, had posted the 20th Brigade of the 9th Australian Division, in a line of 18 defensive strong points between the ragged coast and the main road to Tobruk. South of the road, the 24th Brigade extended the defense to a high point known as
hill 209. It had once been outside the perimeter defense plan, but when Monty took over he immediately ordered the defensive works moved forward so that hill could be occupied by British troops.

  “I’ll be damned if I’ll let them get up there and machine gun the hell out of us,” said Montgomery. “No. Get your engineers to work at once. That hill will anchor the southern line of our perimeter.”

  South and east of hill 209, the line dog legged to run parallel to the coast. There Monty placed the last brigade in the 9th Australian Division, and then posted its sister division, the 6th, south between the Tobruk perimeter and covering the big aerodrome at El Adem. He then had one last division in his corps, the 2nd New Zealanders, and it was his inclination to hold it as a reserve behind the Australians. But O’Connor had argued that the line should extend further south of El Adem, where a substantial wadi ran in a wide arc.

  “I’ll want to position my armor south of the bend of that wadi,” said O’Connor. “It’s a good anti-tank obstacle, and a perfect defensive position for infantry. My guess is that Rommel will have to send his own armor either north or south of that feature. If he comes north, I’ll leave you a brigade of Matildas and the Carpathian Brigade as your reserve. If he comes south, I’ll have 2nd and 7th Armor there to handle things.”

  “Very well, general, but I must give you my opinion that it will need three divisions to adequately hold Tobruk and El Adem.”

  “Don’t worry,” said O’Connor. “If the Carpathians aren’t enough for you, I’ve made arrangements to move a reserve to Sidi Omar.”

  “Sidi Omar? That’s too far south and too far east. You should post it at Gambut if I’m to make any use of it.”

  “Well it is my hope that you will not need to do so, General.” O’Connor gave him a thin smile.

  “If wishes were horses,” said Montgomery, folding his arms.