Rhinelander (Kirov Series Book 40)

by Schettler, John

  At Emmerich, 15th Scottish Division was still holding the bridgehead perimeter, backed by both 6th Guards and 8th Armored brigades. Erskine’s 7th Armored waited to attempt yet another breakout there, but they would face the same old foes, the Brandenburgers , lingering just out of Allied artillery range behind that area. As the Rhine then bent south towards Rees, the three parachute brigades of 1st Airborne Division would make the British cross-river assault, right where the 15th Scottish had crossed in the real history. They would be joined by 10 Commando and 4th Special Services Brigades to make a force of five brigades tasked with the seizure of Rees.

  The British had requested that assignment, as the ranks of 1st Para had been fleshed out with all the survivors that had been rescued from General Gale’s 6th Airborne Division. For them, it was payback time, and soldiers who had fought there on the eastern side of the Rhine were seeded into the various battalions, as they knew the lay of the land. This time, the 1st SS was far away, locked in a death struggle in Russia.

  South of Rees, Simpson’s 9th Army took over the remaining river front all the way to Duisburg. Two infantry divisions would make the assault crossings, the 30th between Xanten and Wesel, and the 94th between Wesel and Duisburg, (standing in for the 79th, which fought in the old history.) Behind each infantry division, hordes of bridging engineers stood ready to build treadway and Bailey bridges overnight on the first day. They would be used to sent both 11th and the newly arrived 12th Armored Divisions across at the first opportunity.

  These two new Armored Divisions were both fully equipped with the M26 Pershing tanks, the new heavyweights. Each of their two tank battalions had 45 Pershings, nine Sherman 105’s and 27 of the new Chaffee light tanks, equipped with a better 75mm main gun to replace the old M5’s. That was a lot of muscle, a total of 288 all new tanks between those two divisions. As each of the two infantry divisions also had an organic four company tank battalion and a tank destroyer battalion, Simpson could put nearly 500 armored fighting vehicles into his attack, and if he needed more, the entire 4th Armored Division would be waiting in reserve.

  After the assault crossings had been made, and subject to Ike’s approval the two veteran Airborne divisions of Brereton’s force were waiting to jump the Rhine near Wesel. The honor would go to the men who fought to bring the army here, the 82nd and 101st. The 17th was available, but not assigned as in the old history.

  That was the combined operation Plunder-Varsity, and it would kick off with a massive artillery bombardment in the pre-dawn hours of the 15th. If there was ice and frost on the ground that morning, those guns would melt it in no time at all….

  * * *

  Von Rundstedt knew it was only a matter of time before the storm broke through that long wall of smoke and fog on the river. So when the deep rumble of the enemy guns began to thrum in the darkness, he knew what was coming. The telephones would begin jangling within minutes, officers reporting what was happening, waiting for his orders.

  The German position was in no way as strong as it had been even a month earlier when facing Operation Nordland. Casualties sustained in that operation had been so high, that the entire 9th SS Panzer Division had been disbanded to provide enough manpower to strengthen 10th SS. Nor could Student in the far northern sector rely any longer on the timely arrival of Panzer Lehr. It was too valuable an asset, and had to be held in a more centralized location as the final deep reserve. In the short run, Harmel had to hold the front together in the north, the Brandenburgers had to keep the lid on Emmerich, and Bayerlein would watch everything else to the south.

  News from the north was first to arrive. There the dogged British 43rd Wessex had made a strong push right over the Ijssel east of the town of Brummen. Before noon, they had slapped aside the weak front line troops, mostly Festung MG Battalions, and established a bridgehead four kilometers deep. Von Rundstedt knew their engineers were already toiling to lay down bridges for the armor, and he relayed a message to Harmel to stand ready.

  There were, in fact, ten separate bridges now under construction behind that bridgehead, with four for armor and the remainder being foot bridges for the infantry. The bulk of the Guards Armored would soon be across, coiled like a dangerous steel snake as the infantry continued to expand the bridgehead perimeter. At the same time, the British had crossed at the Oldburgen loop in the river near Dieren south of Brummen. There a battalion of 11th Armored was already across, but the rest of Roberts’ 11th Armored still waited in reserve.

  O’Connor wanted to see what the 49th West Riding Division could accomplish, and he told Roberts to send a few battalions down the road from Arnhem to Emmerich to stand ready for any possible breakthrough. That was von Tettau’s watch, and his troops were not the best. Fortunately, the 21st Panzer Brigade was behind him, so the issue would be in doubt throughout the morning.

  The Panzergrenadiers of the 21st did not take long to make an appearance, occupying a low hill outside the town of Didam with several companies. That was on the road that went through the Stockhammer Bosch woodland near Emmerich, so Didam had been a key British objective. That advance would threaten the Emmerich Bridgehead, where the reports were now equally threatening.

  The British had replaced most of their losses from the Nordland operation, and were now attempting to break out there at two places. The first was at Netterden, where the infantry of 131 Brigade, 7th Armored, had strongly reinforced the perimeter held by 15th Scottish, and that attack opened a hole. The tanks of the 8th Armored were on hand to start pushing through, and behind them “Bobby” Erskine was bringing up the steel Rats in 22nd Armored Brigade.

  Further east, Colonel Reeves would lead a strong attack with his 6th Guards Armored Brigade. Supported by “Obart’s Funnies,” a massive division of Royal Engineers that was fully 23,000 strong, Reeves was smashing his way across a narrow canal and pushing towards Anholt, on the main road to the German supply hub at Bocholt. In the midst of all those extravagant armored fighting vehicles, AVREs, Crocodiles, Flails, the two Challenger II’s Reeves still had in action fit right in, just another armored aberration as far as the Germans were concerned. They were there to find and neutralize any heavy German armor that might intervene, and surrounded by several companies of the new British Centurions.

  South of Emmerich, the British 1st Para assault in boats went off without the slightest hitch. The boats now had motors, so there was no paddling across the river, and the crossing was swift and lightly opposed. The artillery was still firing into the wall of fog and smoke on the far bank. Letting up just as the first boats grounded on the frosty shore. It was 1st Para Brigade leading the way, with Dobie, Frost and Fitch, the heroes of Antwerp and Emmerich, getting the distinctive honor of fighting their way over the Rhine twice, landing west of Rees.

  The wreckage of the Rees bridge, destroyed by the 1st SS after it crushed Gale’s 6th Para, still sat partially submerged in the Rhine, its arched segments protruding like the scaled back of a fallen dragon. It was deemed too much to try and repair, so a big Bailey bridge would be thrown across near the village of Honnepel, west of Rees. A Treadway bridge was also being built just east of the city, where 10 Commando Brigade had crossed to engage two battalions from the 180th Division.

  The American 30th Division stormed across the Rhine near Xanten, and was so successful that the engineers had a Treadway bridge across the Rhine by noon and the new 12th Armored was rolling across and already driving to the edge of the Diersforterwald.

  As the tankers advanced, they heard the rumble of hundreds of planes overhead, thinking it was a bombardment group, but instead they soon saw the sky bloom with parachutes. It was the 504th and 508th Parachute Regiments of the 82nd Airborne, landing behind the forest on either side of Hammenkein. The 501st and 506th Regiments of the 101st would land between that town and northwest of Rees. With those four regiments on the ground, the Americans now had a wall manned behind the river crossing zone to prevent any mobile reserves from intervening.

  When von R
undstedt got this news, he shook his head, realizing the worst. “Such power,” he muttered. “They are behind us before we can even muster local reserves to try and oppose the cross river assaults. This offensive will be unstoppable.”

  It was a fair, but grim assessment. The US 94th Division had also carved out two small bridgeheads with their river crossing assaults near Rheinburg, and now there were no less than eight bridgeheads over the Rhine and Ijssel Rivers, simply too many crisis points for the limited mobile reserves to contend with. Von Rundstedt knew this, as did Guderian, and they met to consider how to proceed.

  “If you commit all the mobile units piecemeal,” said Guderian, “all you will do is plug a few holes in the Dyke. They have ample reserves ready to cross into those bridgeheads, and their engineering is superb. They will have ten or twelve bridges over the Rhine by dusk today.”

  “And as many over the Ijssel,” said von Rundstedt. “Then what do you suggest?”

  “Concentrate whatever reserves you have to make one good counterattack. That will force a battle there, and perhaps we can use the time to restore the front with infantry. If the 180th can get back and join the 84th, that could strengthen the line. Reinforce against the Emmerich Bridgehead, and get von Tettau back to the Stockhammer Bosch. We can run the line from those woods north to Doetinchem.”

  “The problem is where to attack,” said von Rundstedt, his frustration evident. “There are airborne troops behind the 180th now. Believe me, none of these bridgeheads will be contained for long.”

  “There is a chance,” said Guderian, always hopeful. “I suggest you attack here….” He put his finger firmly on the map.

  Chapter 32

  “Get von Tettau back to this line. Then pull 21st Panzer Brigade out and position it here to backstop that line. Harmel’s division should move against the British Guards, but the Brandenburgers must stop this push from the east end of the Emmerich Bridgehead. Concentrate them. They will do the job.”

  “And the 180th?”

  “It must get back. Hoffman’s Parachute Regiment is on the line of the Issel. [5] If it can get there, that is the best we could do. As for the 84th, let it hold where it is behind Wesel. We must preserve as much of this infantry as possible.”

  “That leaves Panzer Lehr ,” said von Rundstedt. “You suggest we move it here, to Zelhem?

  “I can see no other good option,” said Guderian. “From there, it can combine with Harmel’s 10th SS to attack their Guards Division. We must hurt them somewhere, and it will take at least two good divisions to accomplish that.”

  “Very well, let us get these orders out, and may God help us, because I think this may very well be the last good fight we can make in this business. If we fail, they will go all the way to the Elbe.”

  * * *

  That was, of course, what happened in the old history. The cross-Rhine operation here formed the northern pincer, while further south crossings were being made at Remagen, Koblenz, Mainz, Oppenheim and Worms. With the cities of the vast industrial Ruhr sector seeming a safe haven, the German Army was largely trapped there in a big pocket, and that virtually ended organized resistance on the west front.

  Here, at this moment, the Germans were struggling to save troops close to the Rhine that might soon be destroyed if they could not fall back to the second line of resistance. At the same time, they were trying to get some concentration of mass and power to strike a counterblow, and all of this against about 40% of the actual force the Allies were preparing to throw at them. Thus far they had only faced the leading edge of the Allied assault. While O’Connor’s hand would soon be played out with the commitment of Roberts 11th Armored, General Simpson’s 9th Army still had six divisions in reserve.

  The day deepened to a slate grey sky, the clouds darkening with dusk. With the Germans pulling back to their second line of resistance, the work of the Allied infantry was to clear the ground they were yielding, and sweep away any rearguards or stragglers. Some units would not get back. KG Junghan’s battalion was caught in a marshy area behind a loop extending from the river called the Alter-Rhein. The troops would wait out the last night of their war listening to the frogs and crickets, and the mutter of gunfire in the dark.

  The glider pilot battalion cleared through the still smoking ruins of Rees, where they found and reclaimed, equipment, berets, helmets, and other cast off items left behind by Gale and his 6th Paras. 4th Special Services Brigade, with a baker’s dozen Royal Marine companies, had been waiting all day for the completion of the Treadway bridge about two kilometers east of Rees. German artillery fire had interfered with the work, scoring a spectacular hit on one section that would set the project back six hours.

  Frustrated and unwilling to wait, Brigadier Leicester worked to collect all the boats from the far shore that had been used by 10 Commando Brigade, and he was determined to put his Marines across that night. CCB of the 11th Armored Division was also lined up on the road leading to that bridge, but the engineers would work all night to get it completed. Meanwhile, CCA of that division had been assigned to the big Bailey bridge west of Rees, and it was already crossing. They were told that the 506th Regiment of the 101st was being counterattacked by German troops in halftracks, so they were eager to get inland and even the odds.

  Further south, Wesel was secured, and the engineers had repaired the holes blown in both the main road bridge, and the railroad bridge. 12th Armored was already across, and linking up with the 508th Para Regiment of the 82nd. The decision to commit the airborne troops had paid good dividends. It had cut off the river line defense, prompting the Germans to try and withdraw it, and this rapidly deepened the bridgehead. Everyone knew that these were now bridgeheads that would stand inviolate, and never be eliminated by the enemy. The Rhine had, in fact, become just another river, like the Loire, the Siene, and others.

  Just north of Wesel, a new German KG under Karst had been trained in anti-airborne tactics. When they finally learned of the American landings, the leapt to their halftracks, intending to race into the midst of the drop zone and shoot the place up with the MG-42’s and 20mm flak guns. Unfortunately for Karst, the tanks and APCs of CCA, 12th Armored, got to that drop zone first, and when the German halftracks arrived, they faced a wall of spanking new M26 Pershing heavy tanks. The result was no surprise, and Karst saw his halftracks gunned down in a sharp rebuke, soon to withdraw into the gathering shadows of the coming night.

  Yet the Germans showed they had some fight left in them, particularly when the Freiburg Brigade of the Brandenburg Division massed to counterattack the breakout Colonel Reeves was engineering. The attack was so violent and persistent, the infantry advancing fearlessly in well timed rushes supported by heavy fire from the halftracks, that the spearhead of the British advance was completely stopped. All nine centurions that had been flanking Reeves were left smoking ruins, and even on of the two precious Challengers took a lucky hit that had jammed the rotation of its turret. Reeves pulled back, wanting to get away from any close in combat where German infantry could get into positions to shower his tanks with Panzerfausts from close range. He would wait for the Funnies to catch up and renew the attack in the morning.

  The Germans used this sharp attack to help extricate the 1222 Regiment of the 180th Division which would have been cut off and trapped had Reeves and the 6th Guards gone another three kilometers. The entire sector between Rees and Wesel was a desperate attempt by the Germans to get they infantry back to the secondary line, hoping the darkness might allow them to infiltrate through the American Paratroopers.

  Many ad-hoc Kriegsmarine units were trapped near the Rhine on the Dykes they had been holding. In other places, shattered remnants, odd broken platoons, would filter back hoping to find friendly lines. The result of this would also allow the Allies to join their various bridgeheads, and by dawn on the 16th of November, an unbroken lodgment from the vicinity of Rheinburg all the way north to Emmerich was now one massive bridgehead over the Rhine. Behind it, coming up t
o the west bank of that mighty river, six reserve divisions of Simpson’s 9th Army were coming to deliver the final blows in the coming days.

  The commitment of all the German reserves was completed when Panzer Lehr came up next to Bittrich and the 10th SS in the north to block the Guards armored. By morning, the German appeared to have restored their front, in a miraculous feat of arms, with inexperienced troops taken in hand by veteran NCOs and officers, and pressed to do much more than they should have been able to accomplish. Yet it would just be another wall, thin enough in places that it would soon be easily broken again, as the Allies began to deliver one hammer blow after another on the 16th.

  The battle of the Rhine, as it would come to be called would be the last dance of the German Army in this sector. Undaunted by the appearance of Panzer Lehr , O’Connor pushed more chips out onto the table and spun the wheel of fate. The Guards would renew their attack, and behind them he moved in the 29th Armored Brigade of Roberts’ division. Fighters swooped down from above, delivering bombs and napalm. Now forced to hold the line, the tougher German troops would face the rending fire of a thousand enemy guns, the artillery relentlessly pounding away, as trucks continued to deliver the shells from crated stacks stretching ten miles along the roads behind the front.

  It was now to be a simple case of sheer mass that would overcome the German defense. This line would not hold any longer than the many fronts established in the long battle across France. It would be just another killing field, with lives lost on both sides by the thousands. Attrition was a General that the Germans, with all their craft of war and rugged determination, simply could not defeat.