by Scott Palter
“Fuck you, Jew-lover! Obergruppenführer Lutze is the man who gave me this command, and he’s the only one who can take it away.” The man was beyond reason with anger and disdain. He was nerving himself to charge the Bren gun. He respected the weapon, but not the man-child wielding it.
And Peiper came running over. Peiper was a trained officer, not a jumped-up HJ. As such, he had a trained command voice. He let out a bellow of, “Halt right there!” He threw himself between Klaus and the advancing SA officer. He may have lacked the physical strength to subdue the man. He straight-armed him to the chest, halting the rush and allowing the habit of obedience to overcome foaming rage. “This is mutiny, you fool. So far all you have been is relieved. Two more steps and you are dead. Get in the sidecar and go back to Strauss. Get briefed by an old SA comrade on why it wouldn’t be healthy to be sending such messages to Berlin. Heydrich was accused of Jew blood, you may recall. Want to guess what happened to his accusers since he came to power?” He let the bear-sized man start to come to his senses, begin to realize just whose soup he was proposing to piss in. “Cross the Reichsführer at your peril. He is not a forgiving man. He rescued me from the death cells. Thousands of others were simply liquidated. I’m still plugged into the SS gossip net. He’s executing Gauleiters. What are you to him, except an inconvenient parcel of pork roast?” Peiper quickly barked an order. The dazed SA officer was sat down into a motorcycle sidecar and driven off by one of Peiper’s young former HJ’s.
Klaus told the remaining SA they were under Peiper’s command until further instructions. He told Peiper that to even out the unit sizes, he would personally take Peiper’s motorcyclists and half the SS infantry. Klaus wasn’t sure putting all the armored vehicles under Peiper was the best possible choice. He was certain the newly promoted SA Sturmführer would swallow Peiper’s orders better than Klaus’s. He was even more sure Peiper would obey him. The man was used to being commanded by NL.
Klaus went to the next item on his checklist. It was time to get moving and get back in the war. Uncle Ivan had taught him this mental system. Arrange what needed to be done in order of importance. If you weren’t sure, guess. There was never enough time in battle so be sure the most important things got done, even if it meant the bottom ones just never got dealt with. Which was part of why units in action degraded step by step to uselessness. Ivan had commanded a brigade for a while out on the steppe, fighting the damned Reds. He KNEW!
……….
SS Doctor Ernst-Gunther Schenck would have preferred to have remained in the Dachau medical detachment, running his vast and varied herb garden. He had accepted his transfer to Hausser’s division in Afrika because this was wartime, because the SS obeyed orders. They weren’t a mutinous street gang like the SA had been.
He had silently taken in what had happened. None of this would ever be put by him into a written report. But the verbal accounts would spread throughout the Waffen SS division, back up to Uncle Paul Hausser and his staff. This NL brigade had insanely deep connections in Berlin. Handle them as if they were made of poison. Gossip about them reaching the wrong ears could be fatal.
1400 hours local; 1300 hours CET
12 September 1940
Von Manstein’s command vehicle, still stalled in traffic but some kilometers to the east-south-east of the last time we were here
The battle situation was continuing to clarify. The British were clearly in retreat after losing last night’s battle. Whether measured by prisoners taken or terrain seized, the results were clear if not yet completely tallied. Where the Corps’s forces were was a bit more complex. Hausser’s division was mostly enroute to the Three Crosses camp. He had the equivalent of a regimental Kampfgruppe there already. He had several mixed arms battalion Kampfgruppen covering supply convoys heading east, trying to find his fast group … which had vanished. It was somewhere east or northeast of the Three Crosses. Radio traffic confirmed this. Positions given were all relative to each other. The terrain seemed to have no features to serve as guides. Trailing in this Kampfgruppe’s wake were Strauss’s brigade, or at least most of it. Also Rommel’s reinforced advance group and Maletti’s fast group. The bulk of 1st Libyan was still cleaning up the battlefield, helped by stray elements from von Thoma and Hausser. Von Thoma’s main force had relieved Rommel and Strauss opposite the main British force. It was conducting a slow advance against what seemed to be a corps-sized force.
Elsewhere, the Mersa Matruh fortress was abandoned according to the Italians. They had gotten a foot path through the minefields, but estimated two days to clear the road and camp for vehicle convoys. This in turn meant that two British brigades had gotten away clean. The Bagush camp must still be garrisoned by someone. The Luftwaffe was reporting flak from there. Orders of magnitude less than before, but still worrisome. The road back from Bagush to Alexandria had been bumper-to-bumper traffic. The air units had had a field day bombing and strafing.
He instructed his Ia to have someone prepare a report for Geloso outlining all this, with a copy to Berlin. He chuckled to himself at that. Here he was a man of the military aristocracy, and his report would go neither to OKH nor the War Ministry. Instead it would go to Heydrich, in theory a glorified police clerk, and in practice the ruler of Germany. However, unlike his late unlamented predecessor Adolph the Deceased, this top dog let professionals do their work without constant micromanagement.
1500 Hours local; 1400 hours CET
12 September 1940
General O’Connor’s command vehicle, east of the original battlefield and rapidly being pocketed from the south by the various Axis advance and fast elements
The situation was getting clearly out of hand. He’d saved a portion of 4th Indian, but was now at risk of losing the bulk of the Western Desert group. He had German light units to the north, and large German units to his south and perhaps southeast as well. He was being attacked by a corps-sized force in front. The two brigades coming out of Mersa Matruh were one long traffic jam leading back to Bagush. Their lead elements were in the camp refueling. The camp itself was in the process of trying to move itself back. Back to where? London was adamant that it could not retreat. Cairo was trying to split the difference, and directing him to an imaginary position at Fuka. He signaled receipt of message and instructed his staff to ignore it. He was quite prepared to be sacked, but he was going to save as many men as he could. If he couldn’t hold a prepared position at Bagush, how on earth was he to create one on the bounce at Fuka?
As is, Bagush was shaping up as a first-class disaster. The nominal defenders were a brigade of 6th Australian Division, plus some pieces of a second brigade, that had been deploying before this was reversed by the Australian C-in-C back in Palestine. Both Australian generals, brigade and corps alike, were giving very equivocal answers on whether their troops would make any serious attempt to defend the camp. Yet it would be many hours before the two brigades withdrawing from Mersa Matruh would be untangled enough to assume the burden. Lovely.
The air situation was worse. The two enemy air forces had come out in strength. Turned the motorway and Barrel Track back to Alamein both into giant truck-wrecking yards. What remained of the RAF had come forth to battle. Came in the small numbers they had, flying planes mostly obsolescent and obsolete. The fighters had shown near-suicidal bravery trying to protect the poor lads on the highway. The end result was that fighter strength in Egypt was down to 3 Hurricanes, 5 Gladiators, and a lone Hawker Demon. This presumed those nine could be gotten back in flying shape by dawn. It didn’t take a genius to surmise that by the end of tomorrow the probable strength of Fighter Command would be zero. Oh, they could try using Blenheim’s as heavy fighters, but that was suicide.
The bombers had suffered heavy losses in order to drop bombs all over the plateau. O’Connor hoped they had killed some Germans. At least fourteen times they had hit British units instead. O’Connor appreciated the difficulty of distinguishing friend from foe in a confused battle of maneuver; that did
n’t help the situation. His men were now shooting at everything they saw in the sky. He had sadly been able to confirm three British planes shot down by his chaps. He was an experienced enough Army man to know that this meant more incidents had been hushed up at company and battalion levels.
This whole idea of fighting in front of the Alamein position was insane. He was getting his forces back there, and damn the consequences to his own career.
1700 hours local; 1600 hours CET
12 September 1940
In O’Connor’s rear and half a kilometer south of the outer defenses of the Bagush Box
Klaus had caught up with the main SS force under Standartenführer Klingenberg. The superior officer had corrected Klaus and said he was an Oberst, which made no sense to Klaus as Oberst was an Army and NL rank, not SS. Klaus was quite sure, but not about to correct the man. It turned out that while Klingenberg and Peiper didn’t personally know each other, they had mutual friends among the SS officer corps.
The Oberst outlined the battle plan. He was going to break into the British camp. He would take the former members of Mohnke’s battalion back into his own force to give himself another company of infantry, even if it was pure infantry without the usual heavy weapons support. He wanted to take Peiper to command them. Peiper politely demurred. His original lads needed the commander they were familiar with. The SA men in the Panhards responded better to an SS commander than a somewhat youthful NL officer. Klingenberg didn’t make an issue of it. Klaus filed this away for reflection. Officers could debate orders. It wasn’t iron discipline as he’d learned it in the HJ.
The mission for Klaus and Peiper was to loop around the British position and cut the coast road. Interdict as best they could, but don’t risk getting overrun. Interdiction by fire was better than nothing, and preserving the force for the pursuit was the highest priority. It was going to be a race to the British positions at Alamein. That was 130 kilometers away, a day’s hard push. Klingenberg saw a chance to unravel the entire British position in Egypt. Klaus was awed to be deemed worthy to take part in this. As he took off with his guys, the Oberst beckoned Peiper back for a small chat. Told Klaus he’d send Peiper along soon.
……….
Klingenberg waited till the callow youth with the Major’s tabs had departed, then asked Peiper, “Can he actually do the job? I can give you written authority to relieve him.”
Peiper smiled and shook his head. “He doesn’t look old enough to command a machine-gun section, but I’ve seen him in action. He’s a natural, with the devil’s own luck. Oh yes, and a pet of the Reichsführer’s. So save the note. He knows he lacks real training. He takes my advice well enough on the technical aspects. Think of me as his Ia. If the job can be done by a unit this small, we’ll do it. Either way, it is my unit now and I’d rather stay with it.”
“So you’re leaving the SS?” Klingenberg couldn’t believe anyone would do that.
“No. The NL as Heydrich has decreed it is an amalgam of new militia, SS, SA, Heer, and Luftwaffe. We all keep our service uniform and rank but work jointly. It is weird, but at least in this brigade it works. They were heroes on Malta and so far in Afrika. I’m betting they will also be heroes when we cross Suez into Asia.”
Klingenberg felt he had wasted enough time on personnel matters. Peiper jumped into his touring car and had his driver floor it to catch up with his unit, with what he saw as his future destiny. As he did so, he was forced to a temporary halt. Klaus’s detached mortars, the ones Peiper had last seen being added to his force back at the camp, had caught up. He left his car to take command of them. They knew him by face, and had no difficulty following behind him to their Major. Peiper decided it was a good omen.
1830 hours local; 1730 hours CET
12 September 1940
250 meters south of the Bagush-to-Alamein Barrel Track
Klaus had been told to choke off the coast road. No one had mentioned that there was a second road a bit inland. It seemed marked by metal barrels. Wall to wall flows of vehicles were attempting to drive east on this track. Klaus and his men were shooting them up. Many responded by fleeing in their vehicles towards the coast. Many others abandoned their shot-up trucks or autos and fled on foot.
Klaus reported the new situation to the Oberst. He also reported that he was starting to run low on ammunition, especially for the small cannons in the Panhards. Absent a supply convoy, Klaus would have to stop sometime soon and pull back. The Oberst heard him out, but made no promises. Peiper and the SA men promised to be more selective in their targeting, but they were still burning precious shells.
1930 hours local; 1830 hours CET
12 September 1940
General O’Connor’s headquarters van, west south west of Bagush Box and by now loosely surrounded
The sun had just gone down. O’Connor’s problems were if anything worse. The camp was under attack by what the senior Australian general present asserted was a Panzer division with support of corps-level artillery. O’Connor was extremely uncertain how whole reinforced Panzer divisions seemed to transport themselves around the battlefield as if by magic. London’s intel was usually fairly accurate, and claimed only two Panzer divisions plus elements of a third. Yet he had one pressing him from the west, a second inside the camp wire, and supposedly the main vanguard of a third attacking the Barrel Track. London’s ‘man in Berlin’ had been spot-on for Malta and after. Yet the armored car screen to the southwest reported what seemed to be a second Panzer corps reinforcing the original one at the camp where the assault had failed. A corps was at least two divisions. Two plus two makes four and three more makes seven, which is more than twice what was supposed to be present. It was also beyond what the Navy boffins asserted the Libyan ports could support, given the number of Italians and the huge combined Axis air strength.
London regarded Commonwealth divisions as if they were British, in adding up in-theater strengths. A different bureaucracy in London was solicitous of Commonwealth sovereignty, and granted their expeditionary forces rights of appeal on orders as if they were fully independent allies like the Belgians had been in Flanders. The Australian general was standing on this special status. Asserted he had been left to defend a large camp with a brigade against a division. Given no tanks and insufficient artillery to defeat a reinforced Panzer division. He refused to listen to a British version of ‘reason’. He was pulling his people out. Informing O’Connor as a courtesy. The word Gallipoli came up repeatedly in the message exchange.
O’Connor was able to appeal to the man’s sense of Empire loyalty and get him to promise to try to clear the Barrel Track on his way out. O’Connor was aware that the Australian probably said yes because given the positioning of his men, it was the best way out.
The Australian’s usurpation of the chain of command settled other things. O’Connor messaged the camp HQ to order sauve qui peut. There was simply no longer a possibility of an organized evacuation. He separately notified the two brigades from Mersa Matruh that they were to proceed straight on to Alamein, even if it meant leaving the road to find a path. He begged Cairo to send forward tanker trucks to meet these two brigades, and coordinate link-up without involving him, as he might be out of radio contact.
Finally, he started rapidly reorienting his own force due east. With any luck he could pass south of the Panzer division attacking the Barrel Track, through its soft administrative rear areas. German tank strength must have some upper limit. If the tanks were at the road, perhaps all he faced would be service forces. Perhaps. Hopefully. This is what his planning was reduced to. What on Earth had London been thinking, leaving him this far forward for this long?
2000 hours local; 1900 hours CET
12 September 1940
Bagush Headquarters
‘Oberst’ Klingenberg had just watched the SS flag being run up the flagpole. This had, if anything, gone too easily. The outer perimeter collapsed as if made of wet cardboard. There had been a few sharp engagements with Austral
ian troops. Tough fighters those. For the rest, it had been rounding up prisoners from British service and administrative troops. He’d captured several thousand of these and at least a division’s worth of equipment. Despite last-minute British attempts at fire and demolition, he’d recovered enough supplies for a corps. Maybe for an army. He had also shot his bolt. The northern third of the camp, however, was still British and held in strength. Good troops that refused to be spooked by a few obsolete tanks and a handful of howitzers. He was up against at least a brigade, deployed by good professional officers who knew their business. Thankfully these British seemed most uninterested in pushing him back out. In turn he was content to let them leave at their own pace. For now.
He had radioed Rommel for support. Rommel, it turned out, had his own agenda and was dragging the Italian Maletti with him. Klingenberg was not surprised. Uncle Paul had warned him about Rommel’s attitude problems with other people’s agendas. Von Thoma and Hausser had been more accommodating, but both stressed they were at least a day out. So it was hang on and hope for the best. Klingenberg had faith in his men, more so in his own talents. The British as a whole hadn’t impressed him as being quick off the mark.
2030 hours local; 1930 hours CET
12 September 1940
Kampfgruppe Steiner fighting position, south of the Barrel Track and two kilometers east of the Bagush Box
