Breakout (Kirov Series Book 38)

by Schettler, John

  “Outstanding,” said Patton. “You get me that port. What about the rest of your corps?”

  “Slow going over the ferry sites.”

  “Very well,” said Patton. “We’re losing our daily airlift of gasoline, so we’ll have to take stock once we get across. I plan to consolidate my fuel into the armored Corps, but you secure Le Havre and hold that flank.”

  It was soon the same story everywhere along Patton’s front. The enemy was still in retreat, which was just the way he liked it. Bradley reported that he had crossed with all of Corlett’s IX Corps, and further east, Gerow had two of the four divisions in his V Corps across near Les Mureaux. O’Connor was expanding his bridgehead, and Montgomery was reorganizing at Chalons.

  That night Berg’s modern day warriors would embark at Neufchatel and make the overnight journey northeast. The train was attacked three times, but somehow they managed to keep it rolling, and his brigade reached the concealing woodland south of Charleroi by dawn. They had had more than a taste of the war in the brief time they were here. The hubris was gone, and the jaunt in their step when they moved. Their ranks had been thinned and many had lost good friends. Ammunition was at 50% of normal establishment, and they were grateful for the rest.

  Leutnant Beyer was sitting with his commanding officer on the train, discouraged and still more than confused. “I still cannot accept that any of this could be happening,” he said.

  “Leutnant,” said Berg, “the blood on your coat is certainly real. Were you hurt badly?”

  “No sir. It was just a shrapnel nick—nothing serious.”

  “Well, I suppose we understand what our great grandfathers went through in this damn war, and in a way that no history book could ever teach us.”

  “That’s just it, sir—the history here is all wrong. The Allies never invaded in the Pas-de-Calais. I just don’t understand.”

  “None of us do. The only thing real is the fighting, and the dying. Believe me. I still keep thinking I will wake up and find this was all a very bad dream, but no, I’m afraid it is all too real. At least we get some rest now. We should be able to make it to Aachen tomorrow night, and there I want you to get yourself a good meal in the best restaurant you can find.”

  Beyer nodded, forcing a smile, but he was quiet for some time, a look in his eye that Berg was now seeing more and more of in his men. “We can’t win it,” said Beyer. “The war….”

  “Perhaps not,” said Berg. “As we’ve seen, even our heavy Leopards are not invulnerable. But I don’t see any of the men here we’ve been fighting alongside giving up, so we won’t either. Now we rest a bit. I have no doubt that the war will find us again soon enough. Perhaps when it does, we’ll be able to make a difference in that fight. That’s all we have now, Leutnant Beyer—that and each other. So we must remain strong, not just for ourselves, but for the men that will be on our flanks, all caught up in this same nightmare. We cannot let them down.”

  Chapter 30

  If Operation Cyclone could deliver Antwerp in this interval while the southern armies regrouped and resupplied, it would take a heavy load off Ike’s back. They had trained and experienced airborne divisions, good leaders, adequate airlift, two armored divisions and the Big Red One in the ground element, and so Ike decided. It was a dazzling plan that would surely have a tremendous impact on the war effort if it succeeded, perhaps the most ambitious plan since Dragoon and Overlord first opened up the battle for France. So on the 10th of June, he picked up the telephone and gave General Browning the go ahead.

  Two days later, Operation Comet was ready to take off. They would have plenty of daylight in this season, with sunrise around 05:30 and sunset at 22:00, over 16 hours of light. The weather looked good, both in England and on the continent as a high pressure was settling in over Scotland. It all looked to be the perfect plan, in spite of Ike’s earlier reservations. But nothing was ever perfect in the machinations of war, and it has been well said that no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.

  * * *

  There had been a real hubris in Browning’s assessment of the opposition that would be encountered in Belgium and Holland. While he had correctly related the divisions present in the northern wing of 15th Army, there were more mushrooms growing on the sodden ground than he realized.

  The Poppering breakout had left the Germans with the bulk of von Salmuth’s 15th Army on the line south of the penetration, from Poppering all the way to the vicinity of Boulogne. There were eleven divisions on that line, and several KG’s that would make up one more. The three mobile divisions forming the Panzerkorps that had been counterattacking near Poppering finished out that order of battle. Eisenhower was still worried about leaving that force active in his rear if General Adair led the ground element northeast to Antwerp. Yet that was where his objective was, and also where the enemy now seemed weakest.

  Von Salmuth held an emergency meeting in Lille to reorganize his command. Thankfully, the Allies did not seem to have enough force in the lodgment to strongly exploit the situation near Poppering. Yet he would have to maneuver his mobile divisions soon, to cover Brussels and Antwerp, and watch that gap.

  It was decided that he would retain command of all units south of the gap, 15 divisions, but all those north of the breakout would now come under a separate command to be given to General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen, to be designated 15th Army of the Netherlands. That force now had eight divisions, with two more arriving from Germany, the 59th and 64th. Adding in the two SS Panzer Divisions that had been moved north to refit (9th and 10th SS), that brought von Zangen’s total to twelve divisions, but there was more there than those numbers indicated.

  A host of smaller ad hoc units were scattered all over the Netherlands, which had been used as a place to train, refit and rest units from every front in the last year. To begin with, Goring had been collecting troops from every quarter to build new Falschirmjaeger regiments, and Holland was fertile ground for the formation of several new units. These were Falschirmjaeger Regiments Menzel, Grossmehl, Laytved-Hardegg, Hubner, Henke, and three more independent battalions under Schafer, Schluckebier and Grunwald. These troops would eventually all coalesce into what would become the 7th Falschirmjaeger Division, but at that moment, it was simply being called “Division Erdmann” after its senior commanding officer, Lieutenant General Wolfgang Erdmann. It was forming along the Maas River near Venlo.

  Another Luftwaffe unit was the 6th Falschirmjaegers, now forming in France. Some troops from that division would go south to reinforce the Hermann Goring Division, but a good regiment would at least be left with von Zangen. Nothing of these Luftwaffe regiments had turned up on Browning’s radar.

  Like the Luftwaffe, there were also a number of SS units forming and training in Holland at that time. Himmler had already scoured the Netherlands to build the 23rd SS Nederland Division, which had been sent off to the Ostfront , but there were many other small units forming and training in military schools there. That was, in fact, one reason why the 9th and 10th SS had been sent there to refit, as they could collect these units to flesh out their ranks.

  First off, Landstorm Nederland was another SS unit Himmler had been building there, consisting of two Grenadier Regiments, the 83rd under Krafft, and the 84th under Lippert with a PzJager Battalion and SS Flak Brigade Clingendaal. SS Defense Battalion Nordwest would also be attached to this forming division. Oberst Rink had another battalion that had been rushed to Ghent to garrison that city. Needless to say, the approach of the Allied armies had the Dutch dreaming day and night of their imminent liberation. For those men who had gone so far as to collaborate by joining Himmler’s ranks, they were planning a special “Axe Day” for punishment when liberation finally came. Knowing this, the Dutch SS volunteers were highly motivated to make sure Germany would not lose.

  Then there were a number of other smaller units: KG von Tettau, which was a collection of training & replacement units, NCO students, under Labhan’s SS training battalion, Zaubzer
with his naval troops, Helle with SS Surveillance troops, Knoche with a company of infantry and three French Char B tanks. There was even a small tank company, number 224, with six old captured French Renault tanks. The best of these weak battalion sized formations was that of KG Eberwein, which was a full strength battalion at this time. The formation was up in the vicinity of Arnhem, west of that city with other small units.

  KG Spindler had formed two companies of ex-artillerymen, now serving as SS infantry. KG Weber was composed of ex-Luftwaffe signal troops from the radar training school at the Deelen Airfield. KG Harder was a group of surplus men trained for tank operations, with a few Kriegsmarine and supply troops thrown in.

  The Wehrmacht also had small ad hoc units in Holland, including a lot of flak and garrison units at various posts, an odd assortment of troops amounting to a regiment in actual strength. Some were as far away as the Maas River in the vicinity of Boxmeer. KG Feldt had the weak 406th Landesschutzen “Division,” another regiment in actual size in the vicinity of Kleve and the Reichswald Forest east of Nijmegen. Two other “divisions” were forming from excess service troops, convalescents, trainees, and other cast off fragments. The first was the 245th under Lieutenant General Sanders, described in the official records of the campaign as “a collection of chaff that even a mild wind might blow away.” The second was the176th under Major General Landau, a newly formed unit, but in slightly better shape. Both were near Roermond and Maastricht at this time, still forming.

  The net effect of this was that there were five Luftwaffe, four Army, and three more SS regimental sized formations in theater that had not been accounted for in Browning’s assessment, a rabble that could build three or four full divisions. They were all simply lumped into a category called “division fragments, stragglers and convalescents,” but they would give a much better account of themselves when it came down to the battle forming like a storm on their near horizon.

  Beyond this underestimation of the enemy’s strength, Browning’s meteorological teams had also missed a storm of another kind. In fact, they had incorrectly interpreted the high pressure forming over Northern Scotland as a sign of impending good weather, and they would completely miss the effect of the low pressure over Svalbard which would start seeing wind flow clockwise around that high, to rise with increasing strength by the 19th of June—the onset of the famous “Channel Storm.”

  That may not have mattered if the operation could have actually launched on the 10th as Browning wanted, but there was a problem getting Eisenhower’s go ahead, and also collecting all the transport aircraft needed in the 9th Troop Carrier Command. Patton had been stingy, holding on to the five carrier groups of the 52nd Wing to make one last delivery to captured airfields close to the Seine. The lack of those planes would therefore delay the kickoff of the airborne operation until June 15th, and that delay ate up 60% of the moonlight Browning had been counting on for a night drop. Thinking that any further postponement would lead to yet another cancelled plan, Browning decided the drop would be made in daylight instead, which surprised most of his airborne commanders.

  Even when the 52nd wing finally arrived, the total number of transports available could not deliver the totality of the force Browning wanted to commit on a single day. That meant the drops would be staged over two or three days. The men would get to ground, but then, on the 18th of June, the winds would begin rising with the wail of a banshee, and for the next crucial three days supply drops to the distant airborne divisions behind enemy lines would be impossible….

  So the writing was on the wall insofar as Operation Comet was concerned. The combination of many factors would all cast their shadow on this operation: a daring and impetuous plan that had been fleshed out in little more than ten days, a hubris that underestimated enemy strength, the echo of troop movements made by the Germans in moving those SS divisions into Holland, and unforeseen bad weather. If Browning had thought to consult with Anton Fedorov before he took his leap, he might have been warned of the many things that had led to the failure of the old historical Market-Garden operation. While this one was quite different, particularly in its principle objective, history was stubbornly conspiring against Browning from the very first. This was the shadow of uncertainty that lurked between the bright light of victory and the black darkness of defeat.

  In the old history, Browning would say that the failure of Market-Garden was attributed to the fact that they simply tried to go “a bridge too far.” Yet in fact, it was the accumulation of many small factors in the equation that led to its undoing, and the math on Browning’s chalkboard here was failing to take account of them. It remained to be seen if they would sum up to break this operation, which still had many things weighing in on the Allied side.

  Knowing the ground operation was still somewhat weak, the British had added a few more units, landing at Dunkerque during the five day delay. Most notably, the 8th Armored Brigade, newly rebuilt in the UK, added a good deal more punch to the advance.

  “By God, Jerry’s on the run,” said Dempsey when he met to discuss the situation with General Mark Clark. “Look at that gap between Poppering and Ghent. Adair has taken his Guards Division up through Ypres and on towards Courtrai [7] and Roeselare. The German divisions further west are being cut off.”

  “Yes, but there’s good defensible lines up there—all those damn canals, particularly the Leopold Canal near Brugges. My bet is that they’ll make a stand there.”

  “They might, but your 11th Armored could easily flank that position.”

  “Unless they manage to stitch a defensive front together along the Ghent Canal.” Clark was never the optimist.

  “That’s why we’ve got to get your 82nd Airborne Division onto that drop Zone northeast of Ghent,” said Dempsey. “Taking that city is the key that really opens the door to Antwerp. We simply must control Ghent in the first 24 hours of this operation. From there it’s a straight shot to Antwerp, just 30 miles.”

  “But you won’t want this road through Lockeren and St. Nicholas,” said Clark. “It will see you arrive on the wrong side of the River Scheldt. Adair will have to go due east, through Termonde [8] and then turn to come at the city near Boom. That’s where the bridge over the Rupel is. That’s actually two water barriers running in parallel, first the Brussels Canal, then the River Rupel. It’s over 1600 feet getting across those, and we’d better hope the airborne troops can grab that bridge.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about your 101st,” said Dempsey.

  “Then there’s that wide open flank near Brussels,” said Clark. “Our 1st Infantry may have to go into that city to anchor things, and I can’t imagine the Germans will leave the place empty for long.”

  “All the more reason to go now, as quickly as possible. The longer we wait, the sooner the Germans will begin sending in new units. A big gap like that creates a vacuum that literally sucks in all nearby forces. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a good deal more maneuver from those Jerry Panzer divisions south of Poppering. After all, they’ll have to cover Lille. It’s wide open now.”

  Yes, nature and war both abhor a vacuum, thought Clark, and he still didn’t think they had enough units available to fill the yawning space they had broken into so suddenly. In his mind, this drive northeast was ill advised, though he never said that to Eisenhower. He was still chewing on the plan, and it was leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

  Five days, he thought. That’s all the time we have to find units to watch that flank. This is going to take some creative thinking, because we’re still wrestling with 15 German divisions in Belgium and the Pas-de-Calais. Now we’re out to conquer Holland, and it’s just too damn premature. If this plan works, I’ll be a happy man, but if it doesn’t… Then we’ll have all those airborne divisions out there that will have to be rescued. I don’t like it.

  Part XI

  Chance Encounters

  “The ancient covenant is in pieces; man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling imm
ensity, out of which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty. The kingdom above or the darkness below: it is for him to choose.”

  —Jacques: Chance and Necessity

  Chapter 31

  They had been up north of Jan Mayen, safely away from the war, and out storm hunting for the last ten days. Yet weather there in early June was fairly mild, with winds averaging eight miles per hour and little more than two inches of rain for the month.

  “This is going to be more of a challenge than we thought,” said Fedorov. “We’re in for mild weather up here, and it could last for a while.”

  “Well,” said Karpov, “we have plenty of supplies. The crew loves all that fresh bread, cheese, and salami we took on in Sweden. We have the time, but might we look somewhere else? Do we have any data on the weather for 1944 in the Atlantic?”

  That set off a bell in Fedorov’s head. “Yes!” he said, his eyes bright with realization. “Of course, why didn’t I think of it earlier—the Channel Storm.”

  “What was that?” asked Karpov.

  “Shortly after D-Day, the Allies began building their artificial harbor, towing segments of concrete to serve as breakwaters and quays. But about two weeks after the landings in Normandy, there was a tremendous storm in the Channel that caught them mostly by surprise. It wrecked a good deal of their work—the Great Gale—dragging ships into one another, capsizing and grounding boats, wrecking the pontoons, and lifting and rolling the artificial piers weighing hundreds of tons. It lasted three days….”

  It did not take Fedorov long to find the days, June 19-21, 1944, the days of the ferocious Channel Gale. “There’s our storm, Karpov,” he said. “They said it was the worst summer storm to come out of the North Atlantic in 40 years.”

  “But can we be sure it will happen like that here? I mean, look at what has already happened with Krakatoa and Vesuvius. They didn’t exactly obey Mother Nature’s appointment schedule.”