Rhinelander (Kirov Series Book 40)

by Schettler, John

  Guderian nodded, trying to take what Manstein had said as some vestige of victory here, yet it seemed a pyrrhic victory to him. He had hoped to strike such a hard blow that the Allies would take six months to get back on their feet, but when it came down to that cold truth, he had to admit that, while the Army was able to hurt the bear, they could not kill it. They may have kept it out of the cabin this night, but it would be back….

  * * *

  “They hit the 319th Regiment hard,” said Eisenhower. “George, they’re trying to pinch off the entire 8th Infantry Division. I think we should pull them out of there, and straighten the line.”

  “Now hold on, Ike. I just sent CCB of 1st Armored down there, and I can recall the rest of that division if need be. This is no time to get cold feet. We should hang tough in Verviers. Give them that and it loosens up their lines of communication in that whole sector.”

  A runner came up, breathless. “Sir, the Germans broke through to the Aachen Pocket! They linked up last night, and G-2 says radio traffic indicates they’re trying to pull that garrison out.”

  “Damn cagy,” said Patton. “Ike, I think we stopped them. They realized neither pincer was going to get through to Maastricht—only they probably came to that conclusion 24 hours ago. Then they reoriented this whole thing to try and salvage something from this sad affair. Their trading us Aachen for that garrison, which means they couldn’t afford to do exactly what I want to do now at Verviers—stand firm. They’ll get their consolation prize, but as God is my witness, I think we licked them. They threw everything they had at 3rd Army, and they couldn’t beat us. Now they’re trying to salvage this thing and take what they can from it.”

  “You’re always the optimist, George, but they beat up 2nd and 80th Infantry Divisions to a point where I’m going to have to order them off the line. We may not get those two divisions back on their feet for months. I don’t need the same thing for the 8th.”

  “That may be so, but we’ve got the reserve divisions to fill their shoes. 10th Armored is arriving here this morning. This isn’t over. All they’ve done here is piss me off, and you know what I’m like when I get hot under the collar. If you want me to really get after them, then call up 11th Armored too, and I’ll kick the SS back across the Rhine. Once they see that they can’t beat us, even with the best they have, they’ll get religion. Mark my words.”

  Before they could get that debate started, another message came in, or so they thought by the quickness of his steps behind them. Then Ike turned to see Omar Bradley standing there, arms on his hips, and beaming ear to ear.

  “Ike, I was going to send this through channels, and God knows the weather was lousy for a plane ride in here, but I thought you’d want to hear this in person.”

  “Brad? Good to see you. What’s the word? From that look on your face it has to be good news.”

  “Damn right it is. I’ve busted the front wide open in the Ardennes! Corlett’s 9th Corps hit them yesterday morning, and 9th Armored blew right through their 50th Infantry Division. By God, my boys stormed into Marche, and went all the way to Hotton. So I fired up Milliken on the right and the Krauts ran like jackrabbits. They pulled back all the way to the Ourthe River, and I’ve already got a reconnaissance in force half way to Bastogne.”

  Patton and Eisenhower just stared at him, then Ike broke into that patented smile and clasped him by the shoulder. “Good job, Brad. Can you take Bastogne?”

  “We’re close. They had only one decent division on the line down there, the 77th. The rest was all a hodge-podge of Ost battalions, convalescents and grandpas. Once 9th Armored flanked the 77th, it had to withdraw north, and that set the whole thing off like dominoes. Now Ike, you give me two more good infantry divisions, and I’ll run them all the way back to the Eifel country.”

  “Two divisions?” said Ike. “Where am I going to find that with the Germans raising hell up here with ten Panzer Divisions?”

  “I’ll tell you where,” said Bradley. “I may be out of line, but I already ran this by Ridgeway. He says he can have both the 82nd and 101st rarin’ to go if we can find the trucks to move ‘em.”

  He smiled. The pan was nice and hot. Now all he needed was a couple of fresh fish.

  Part VII

  Nordland

  “Artillery is an arm equally formidable both in the offensive and defensive.”

  —Antoine Henri Jomini: The Art of War

  Chapter 19

  Patton would not get his way where Verviers was concerned. Eisenhower overruled him, and ordered that 8th Infantry fall back to straighten and strengthen the line, and allow the shattered 319th Regiment to withdraw. In exchange, however, and most likely for the same reasons, the Germans pulled the 17th SS out of the Vise area, moving south, with the US 45th advancing in their wake to cover that town. It would give the US back another crossing site on the Meuse, but the Germans had destroyed all the bridges, and they would all have to be rebuilt.

  That withdrawal also allowed the Germans to pull their Panzer Divisions off the line, and the 116th and 7th Panzers were ordered to disengage and move into reserve. The pressure on 8th Infantry had finally given the Germans Verviers again, for what it was worth. Three quarters of that city was completely destroyed, the smoke from still burning buildings heavy on the scene, embers glowing in the pre-dawn gloom.

  Days four and five of Rhinelander would see a lot of movement, and the front would begin to reshape as each side yielded ground in one area, and took it back in another. Manstein consulted with von Rundstedt, telling him that as far as he was concerned, there would be no further effort to try and destroy Patton’s 3rd Army. The great battle that had come to be known as “The Battle of the Bulge” would not be fought here, and Rhinelander would become nothing more than a sharp rebuke for Patton’s 3rd Army, and one he would be keen to redress in kind as soon as things settled down again.

  There were many reasons why Rhinelander would not be the great last gasp of the German Army in the war. To begin with, Hitler was dead, and even if Guderian had reviewed the Führer’s plan, it had really died with him. The reluctance of von Rundstedt, the careful pruning of Manstein, had both conspired to limit Rhinelander from the outset. Manstein had only given his conditional approval for the attack, willing to see what might be accomplished if the pincers could close at Maastricht as planned. But when Patton managed to get three armored divisions and an infantry division over the Meuse before that could happen, Manstein wisely called a halt.

  The second great factor inhibiting this gambit was the onslaught that was subsequently unleashed in Russia by the Soviets. Now a full year behind schedule, the cross river assault all along the Dnieper was truly massive, and it would soon sweep the Germans right out of the Ukraine, into Moldavia to the borders of Rumania. Manstein always knew Steiner’s lease here would be a short one, and that his real business would be back on the Ostfront . Thus he did not want to expend the strength of I SS Panzerkorps on Rhinelander , and he kept Steiner on a very short leash, also making sure Bittrich was recalled from his venture west of the Meuse.

  Had Steiner persisted, he might have easily reached the big US POL depot north of Maastricht. Destroying that would have been much like the Japanese destroying the naval fuel tanks farms at Pearl harbor, but it did not happen. The Germans did not even know that fuel depot existed. They certainly expected to find and feast on Allied supplies, but their location was a mystery.

  In the end, OKW would settle for the relief operation aimed at the Aachen garrison, and then begin making preparations to move forces east that were now sorely needed there.

  “We should not have even attempted this,” said von Rundstedt when he came to confer with Manstein. “Yes, I agreed to this plan, but with great reluctance. I still believe that we should have used the Panzer divisions defensively, in limited counterattacks. However, looking at the situation now, we should at least try to take something more for the loss of Aachen. They are still relatively weak east of the city. Why
not push them further, and see if we can clear the area down towards Eschweiler. That way we hold onto a portion of the Schill Line.”

  “Guderian is of the same mind,” said Manstein. “As for the ground Steiner took, I am thinking it is useless. We should fall back to the stronger positions we had behind the Roer. Would you agree?”

  “Certainly,” said von Rundstedt. “I will not harp on this further, but all Steiner did was waste lives, fuel, and ammunition. I hope this quenches Guderian’s fever for the big offensive, but perhaps it will buy us some time. When will you be withdrawing the SS?”

  “As soon as the evacuation of the pocket is completed. While that happens, I’ll order Bayerlein and Schmaltz to see if they can get to Eschweiler.”

  “That should not be difficult,” said von Rundstedt. “As more units come out of the top of that pocket, that builds up more and more strength behind the push to Eschweiler. The Americans will simply have to withdraw. They cannot get reserve units back there to try and stop us, not unless they go all the way south of Aachen and up into the Stolberg Corridor.”

  The Field Marshal was quite correct. The Reichsführer Division joined the action, side by side with the Lehr Division, putting increasing pressure on 4th Infantry, which had enveloped the city weeks earlier, and was now behind the Schill Line, even though the Germans were still in those pill boxes. The Hermann Goring Division continued its attack to keep the US Armor well occupied. It would be just as von Rundstedt predicted.

  As more reports came in that day, Eisenhower could see what was happening, and he wanted to pull back both the 4th infantry and the two combat commands Patton had sent.

  “George, I know you hate to pay for the same ground twice, but look at these casualty reports. Another day of this and I’ll have to take 4th Infantry away from you and rebuild the damn thing. 10th Armored came in up north of the city, so it can’t help. Before we can move anything else up through Stolberg, the Germans will roll right over that position. Move them back—that’s an order.”

  It was a stark admission of the fact that the Germans now had capabilities they had not shown on the battlefield for months. Though it gained little ground, and became, in effect, a massive spoiling attack, Rhinelander had completely upset the tempo of Allied operations throughout the whole of the Western front. Only Montgomery and Dempsey in the south were immune to its effects, as they had no forces adjacent to the battle zone. They would, however, feel the pinch as supplies tightened throughout the remainder of September and into October.

  In the North, the British XXX Corps arrived too late to take any material part in the battle. By the time they came up to backstop the Roermond area, the Germans had already begun their withdrawal to the original start line, slowly shepherded by the three US armored divisions that held that front.

  On the 7th of September, Eisenhower held a meeting at Maastricht. Too much had been upset, and needed fixing, and now he was determined to get his Armies back on their feet, and into positions that were solid enough to fend off any further German attacks. He had to also solve the supply situation, which was going to get very tight after the tremendous expenditures of the last three weeks. Only then would he entertain prospects for further offensive operations.

  “First the news,” he began. “The Soviets just opened a major offensive on the Dnieper. They’ve crossed in five places, and as of this hour, Kiev has been completely enveloped. The Germans are now starting to rush reinforcements east, and among them it looks like the SS and Steiner will be out of our hair. ULTRA picked up troop movement orders for three SS divisions, 1st, 2nd and 12th. That will leave only the 9th and 10th here in the West, and two SS Panzergrenadier Divisions, the 16th and 17th. So that, at least, is some good news.”

  “Probably explains why they pulled back so soon,” said Bradley.

  “No, they just realized they picked a fight with a good deal more than they bargained for,” said Patton. “I put three good armored divisions up there to stop them, and they did exactly that. Well, good riddance. If they show up here again, they’ll get the same treatment.”

  “Let’s be frank here,” said Ike. “They hurt us. 2nd and 80th Infantry have to come off the line, and it’s going to take a month to get them replacements. 8th Infantry took damn near 25% casualties too. Beyond that, the armored divisions are all banged up. This thing put a halt to every offensive operation we had rolling.”

  “Not mine,” said Bradley, glad he could be the one to crow now. “I’m 10 kilometers from Bastogne, but their line is starting to toughen up a bit.”

  “Brad, that was outstanding, but I’m going to have to order you to stand pat now. Remember that point system Lee was trying out on us? Well, I’m willing to bet you’ve spent your entire allotment making that push. That’s the difficulty now. You were all supposed to get seven points, and we just blew through that with this fight the Germans forced on us, and then some. Hell, they came within four kilometers of the big POL depot north of Maastricht. If we had lost that, things would even be worse. Now I have to tell you that I don’t have a pocket full of loose change to get you all whole again. We need time—to rest, refit, and lay in supply. So Brad, as to your request for those airborne divisions, I’ll have to deny it. They’ll stay in strategic reserve, because this thing could have been a whole lot worse than it turned out. The Germans crossed the Meuse up north with only two of those SS Divisions, but what if Steiner had pushed three more over that river? They could have busted out there and Collins and O’Connor would be tangling with them somewhere near Eindhoven by now.”

  “Not with this news from the East Front,” said Patton. “Any idea on what they’ll do with the rest of the panzer divisions?”

  “There’s the latest,” said Ike, pointing to the wall map with updated division locations. “They finally stopped that push towards Stolberg.”

  “Damn right,” said Patton. “Because they ran into the rest of 2nd Armored. They may still be able to punch, Ike, but they can’t back us off. Once they got a dose of our artillery, they called it quits.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, George. We fired off millions of artillery rounds, including 200,000 rounds with those new proximity fuses.”

  “Damn lethal,” said Patton. “Our guns were always accurate, but those new fuses have increased our effectiveness by a good measure.”

  “Well, I’m going to have to ration the artillery now. Normal daily round usage was 20 per gun, and we nearly tripled that in the last week. I’ll have to cap it at five rounds now, so we won’t be poking the bear in the belly until that changes. That all depends on how soon we get both Rotterdam and Amsterdam up and fully functional. Antwerp is being abandoned. We still have people dying there of what they call radiation sickness, and they continue to hit the place with those damn V-1 rockets. Every time they do, they churn up all that smoke and soot into the atmosphere again, and it persists. When we do get those ports open, Lee tells me we can go from seven to nine points per army—which leads me to my next topic. I’m going to introduce a new Army level formation between 3rd Army and the British 1st.”

  “What’s wrong with the present corps structure?” asked Patton.

  “Nothing really, but General O’Connor here is going to shift three divisions into North Holland. That means he will only have enough left to secure the Rhine between the Emmerich Bridgehead and Arnhem. So we’ll have to extend our front even further north, to link up with the British 1st Para Division near Rees. To do that, I’m creating 9th Army, composed of two corps. George, I’m tapping your shoulder for Middleton’s VIII Corps, the whole lot, and to that I’ll build one more corps from reserve divisions in theater now, and new arrivals in the coming weeks. I think I can build 9th Army to ten divisions, and it will cover the front from Roermond, through Venlo and then to the Rhine near Rees.”

  Patton never liked losing control of a division, let alone an entire corps, but the fact was that his Army had ballooned to 23 divisions, and it was extended over to
o wide a front for his HQ and staff to manage it effectively. Middleton had been edging farther north in recent weeks, and that corps was not at the heart of his offensive plans, so he conceded gracefully.

  “Fair enough,” he said to Eisenhower. “I’ll be able to focus on the ground between Roermond and Duren more effectively.”

  “That was one reason why I wanted to make this move.”

  “Who gets 9th Army?” asked Bradley.

  “There were two candidates, Hodges and Simpson, and I think I’m settled on Simpson. He’s all brass tacks with his operations.”

  “A good choice,” Patton agreed. “Hodges is a good man, but damn temperamental. Simpson runs things by the book. He’ll get the job done up there.”

  “Brad, what do you think of him?”

  Bradley was just a little more eloquent. “He’s steady, prepossessing, well organized, earthy, a great infantryman and leader of men, and that Army has some first-rate fighting units assigned up there.”

  “Alright, Simpson gets the job,” said Ike. “9th Army is really only a corps sized formation now, but we’ll build it over time. So here’s the score. Simpson covers the area from Roermond north, including the stretch now occupied by 30th Infantry. George, you’ll continue to hold the front between Roermond and the Hurtgenwald. How are you disposed?”