Four Hours of Fury

by James M. Fenelon

  In response to the growing air raids, Kesselring ordered his commanders to shift their anti-aircraft batteries to better protect the threatened transportation network. Over a hundred of the devastatingly lethal 88mm guns and several hundred lighter-model, multi-barreled 20mm and 40mm guns were set up in positions along the Issel River and the two railroad lines running out of Wesel. These gunners knew their business, having had years of experience combating enemy aircraft in the Ruhr Valley, and favored orchards to conceal their guns from prowling enemy fighters.

  Despite the relentless air raids, crippled rail network, and widespread fuel shortages, reinforcements trickled into I Fallschirmjäger-Armee at the rate of over 3,000 men a week. But instead of experienced front line troops, Schlemm received training units, either in their entirety or cannibalized for the purpose of supplying replacements. While inexperienced, however, the fresh troops had the advantage of not being exhausted from months of combat. And in many cases they were buoyed by naïve notions of National Socialism and held fast to Hitler’s proclamations of Deutschland’s ultimate victory. Schlemm knew their convictions would be put to the test soon enough.

  • • •

  Schlemm realized that he didn’t need to meet the enemy on equal terms. Experience had taught him that a well-positioned and determined machine gun squad in the defense could hold up an entire platoon. The key, though, was “well-positioned.”

  Given the deficiencies in almost every column of his field commander’s ledger, he needed to maximize the terrain to his advantage. Since before the time of the Chinese warrior Sun Tzu’s writings in 500 BC, soldiers have studied terrain and the art of effectively using topography. Schlemm was no different. Unfortunately for him, the German side of the Rhine was relatively open farmland, not ideal terrain on which to anchor a defense—which was also why Montgomery wanted to ford the river there. However, the farms were crisscrossed with man-made features suited well enough for a stubborn defense: dikes that were thirteen feet high and sixty feet wide as well as a railroad embankment stretching across Schlemm’s entire eastern boundary. Both would serve as effective tank obstacles. Schlemm’s soldiers constructed fighting positions every twenty to thirty yards on the reverse slopes of the dike, supported by forward machine gun pits. To the front of the dike they strung double lines of barbed wire to entangle and impede the attackers.

  Schlemm directed his men to turn suitably placed farmhouses into strongpoints. Further inconveniencing an already inconvenienced populace, they evicted residents, dug trenches in gardens, knocked out windows, barricaded exterior doors with furniture and sandbags, and punched crawl holes through interior walls for greater freedom of movement. When completed, some homes concealed as many as four or five machine gun emplacements. Off-duty crews slept in the cellars.

  Artillery batteries set up positions on local farms too, digging in their howitzers in orchards, front yards, or wherever they saw fit. They commandeered the cellars for communication posts or command centers. Many of the farms boarded soldiers in their spare bedrooms, living rooms, basements, and barns, whether the owners liked it or not.

  The disruptive activity made it clear to the civilians that the Wehrmacht was expecting a fight and planned to make a stand. Anticipating the carnage, many families evacuated, departing in military convoys or piling what they could into farm carts or onto bicycles. Some families, however, opted to stay, lingering to work and watch over their farms—their sole source of income.

  Helga Kleinherber’s parents evacuated their family to nearby Hamminkeln after five anti-aircraft guns were positioned in neighboring fields. They made several expeditions back to the house to rescue valuables, navigating sheltered routes through the woods to avoid unwanted notice. The Wehrmacht had posted hand-painted signs along the roads to remind civilians and soldiers, “Achtung! Feind in Sicht!”—“Attention! Enemy in sight!” Careless movement in the open often drew British artillery fire from the far bank. During one visit, the Kleinherbers interrupted a group of German officers conducting a staff meeting at their dining table, which was covered in maps.

  “It was extremely dangerous to be in the open fields during the day,” recalled then thirteen-year-old Friedrich Sons. “My father was once shot at by fighter planes when driving his horse cart to the dairy farm in Hamminkeln. The wagon was hit several times; luckily he and the horse got away unharmed.” The family had another close call when a stray bomb missed their house but destroyed the fruit garden.

  Vicar Heinrich Müller, who scolded his departing wife and daughter for evacuating with the “faint of heart,” nonetheless took heed of warnings passed along by German refugees migrating from the opposite side of the Rhine.

  “The conquerors steal like ravens,” they told him.

  Before leaving, Müller’s wife had buried her favorite linen and porcelain under the family’s chicken coop. Now Müller snuck out at night to conceal a few of his own valuables, including several bottles of his favorite brandy.

  But civilians had to worry about more than just Allied thieves. The Tinnefeld farm had half of their dairy cows confiscated by the Wehrmacht, and other farms had horses and wagons pressed into service for hauling military equipment. Bored soldiers ransacked vacant homes or liberally helped themselves to poultry, eggs, and the fruits of family gardens.

  The looting became so problematic, and the number of complaints grew to such volume, that the Führer himself was said to have issued execution orders for those found guilty of pilfering from their own countrymen.

  • • •

  The effectiveness of Schlemm’s defense depended on his ability to anticipate Allied intentions. Across his front line, efforts were under way to develop an accurate understanding of the enemy’s plan of attack. He and his division commanders knew that if they could mass their limited resources at the most likely avenues of assault they stood a better chance of stopping Montgomery’s crossing.

  By day observers scoped the far shore, and by night patrols in small rubber dinghies paddled quietly across the Rhine to reconnoiter the far banks. While patrols often disappeared into the gloom never to be heard from again, several returned having identified likely crossing points; some even located engineering depots stockpiling equipment in advance of the attack. Generalmajor Rudolf Langhaeuser, one of Schlemm’s division commanders, recalled, “Reports from our systematic reconnaissance and careful observation—organized down to the smallest infantry post—left no doubt as to the fact that the enemy was preparing a large-scale offensive across the Rhine river.” Langhaeuser continued, “The results from recon and observation led to the conclusion that the enemy would launch his main attack either near Emmerich or near Wesel.”

  Scouts from units adjacent to Langhaeuser’s division collected evidence indicating that the potential zone of attack extended farther south to include Dinslaken. This focused Schlemm’s attention to a thirty-mile stretch of the riverbank centered on Wesel.

  Schlemm and his staff were increasingly confident they’d established the where; they still needed to uncover the when. The Third Reich’s intelligence services, still very active in France, pressed their web of over 2,000 stay-behind collaborators to find out. Spies had also parachuted into France via captured American bombers or had been smuggled across the borders of Spain, Switzerland, and northern Italy. The missions of these agents ranged from espionage and sabotage to supplying existing networks with wireless transmitters. To deliver their reports when radios failed or were unavailable, some agents resorted to carrier pigeons.

  Most of the agents were French, either sympathetic Fascists or those willing to ink a deal with the devil to get back home. Several refugees were given safe passage into France in exchange for reporting observed Allied troop movements. In some cases agents were aided and sheltered by former members of the Parti Populaire Français (French Popular Party), a Fascist and anti-Semitic political organization active in France during the German occupation.

  In spite of the inevitable double-cr
ossers and deserters, there were notable successes. One intelligence coup purloined an Allied after-action report on MARKET GARDEN. A copy of the document made its way to Schlemm, who found the up-to-date Allied doctrine for deploying airborne troops of particular interest.

  Miles above the skullduggery the Luftwaffe’s aerial photoreconnaissance missions also contributed to the developing intelligence picture. While their numbers were limited, Germany’s advanced jets—Messerschmitt Me-262s and Arado Ar-234s—provided formerly lacking aerial imagery, and they could range across Allied lines with near impunity. Streaking over France, the jets’ equally high-speed cameras photographed Allied airfields bulging to capacity with aircraft and gliders. The airfields were not hard to find; the Luftwaffe had built them.

  Allied attempts to preserve the element of surprise were partly undone by the scale of their pending invasion, which made it impossible for them to conceal their preparations. But they tried, using deception and camouflage wherever possible. German intelligence officers diligently pored over photographs to identify supply dumps and bivouac areas while trying to determine which were dummy installations built to draw their attention away from the real sites.

  • • •

  Like they were assembling a jigsaw puzzle, the Germans started with the edges and worked inward, sifting through the shapes, looking for patterns. The collection of reports, photographs, and sightings provided a hazy but discernible image of Montgomery’s intentions. The missing pieces not obtained from rubber dinghies or jets were filled in by years of combat experience and expert terrain analysis.

  Oberst Rolf Geyer, one of Blaskowitz’s staff officers, summarized what their analysis had revealed of the enemy’s most likely courses of action: the first was a British assault below Arnhem; the second was a crossing farther south along the thirty-mile stretch of river between Emmerich and Dinslaken. In either case, Geyer noted, a supporting airborne operation should be expected.

  Kesselring and Blaskowitz both considered the second scenario the more probable. The advantage was obvious: it would allow the British and Americans to protect each other’s advance and reunite after flanking the Ruhr. It was a given that the Allies wouldn’t directly assault the Ruhr but instead use the open terrain to encircle and isolate it.

  “Nevertheless,” wrote Geyer, “in absence of clear indications to the contrary, the first possibility still had to be taken into account. . . . Furthermore it was assumed that the Americans would cross the river simultaneously south of Wesel [near Dinslaken].” Enough uncertainty remained that Kesselring continued to hold several divisions near Arnhem just in case.

  Blaskowitz and Schlemm, in turn, kept their plans flexible. Schlemm placed an infantry division in reserve near Wesel so they could, depending on the scenario, attack toward either the Americans crossing upstream or the British downstream.

  Blaskowitz had a Panzer-Korps available to Schlemm as a mobile reserve of tanks and infantry if he needed them. Tucked inland behind the Issel River, the Panzer-Korps formed the fulcrum of their defensive plan. Commanded by General der Panzertruppe Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz, an aggressive and experienced Prussian, their task would be to swing in like a sledgehammer, smashing the Allies against the banks of the Rhine. But only after Blaskowitz had identified the British main point of attack would he commit the reserves to the battle. Both Blaskowitz and Schlemm expected their adversary to launch feints to draw out the Panzer-Korps units prematurely.

  The sledgehammer consisted of two veteran divisions equipped with approximately ninety tanks and twenty self-propelled guns. It was a far cry from the impressive force that cut its way across Europe in 1940, but if wielded correctly it could do considerable damage. German tank crews still had the advantage in target acquisition, firepower, and armored protection. Their most feared adversaries weren’t Allied tanks, but rather Jababombern—or Jabos, the Allied fighter-bombers that would invariably hound their movement to the front.

  The two divisions contained over 4,000 men each; however, their refitting was progressing more slowly than Blaskowitz needed. They were each only receiving 500 replacements a week. And while these units had priority for receiving mechanized vehicles—they had to be able to move fast—transportation for the infantry ranged from armored half-tracks to platoons equipped with bicycles.

  • • •

  During a conference at I Fallschirmjäger-Armee’s headquarters on Wednesday, March 14, Schlemm briefed Kesselring and Blaskowitz on the state of his preparations to date. He admitted that while most of his fortifications had been hastily constructed, his men had used the four days since crossing the Rhine to advantage and would continue to do so. Positions just inland from the riverbank, as well as those along the railroad line running parallel to the Rhine, had been occupied and reinforced. Of course he was still concerned about his lack of defensive depth, which would be an issue in the event of any enemy airdrop.

  Were more troops available?

  Kesselring was doing what he could to get more men, he had a meeting scheduled with Hitler the next day to discuss it, but the situation on Schlemm’s flanks was grave. Those units also desperately needed more replacements. Reviewing the disposition of the defenses, Kesselring knew his forces would be unable to repel the invaders indefinitely. Even with the relative certainty of knowing Montgomery’s crossing points, he realized his troops were spread too thin, and too much mass was being arrayed against them.

  He later admitted he felt “like a concert pianist who is asked to play a Beethoven sonata . . . on an ancient, rickety and out-of-tune instrument.”

  Of course recognizing the inevitable end game doesn’t release a soldier from fulfilling his duty. The three generals were committed to resisting the invasion as best they could. But none relished being on the defense. While they appreciated that a solid defensive line could compensate for smaller numbers, by training and disposition their forte was the offense—attacking. After years of chasing their prey, they were now in the position of absorbing Montgomery’s assault without the firepower and agility they were used to. Motivated by a complicated combination of loyalty to the Führer, their professional pride, and a strong desire to avoid a repeat of 1918’s humiliating armistice, they would continue to fight with the troops and equipment available. If any of them had doubts about their chances of holding out, they remained silent.

  Schlemm continued his briefing; his plans for addressing the potential enemy airdrop to his rear were in progress. The first component, fortifying farms near the anticipated drop zones, was well under way. The second, converting the 4,000 men of a reserve division into a specialized anti-airborne battle group, would be completed soon.

  Blaskowitz confirmed the availability of the two reserve divisions. They were poised to launch coordinated battalion-sized infantry and armor attacks at any point along Schlemm’s front, or flank, within five to six hours’ notice.

  The three officers debated where Montgomery’s main attack should be expected. Schlemm believed the main attack would occur near Wesel, while Kesselring and Blaskowitz thought it would be farther north, closer to Emmerich.

  They all agreed Montgomery would certainly use airborne troops. But each general had his own opinion as to where the airdrop would occur. Schlemm, referencing the captured MARKET GARDEN report, cited the Allies’ new unwillingness to drop troops too far away from advancing ground forces. His terrain analysis, coupled with his own airborne experience, led him to believe the Allies would drop close to the Rhine, just northwest of Wesel. Blaskowitz suspected they’d land farther north and more inland, as much as ten miles, to give the bridgehead added depth in the direction of the Ruhr. He’d witnessed firsthand the havoc of an Allied airdrop—during the invasion of Southern France the previous August, his staff had been surrounded and taken out of the fight by American paratroopers. Blaskowitz had barely managed to escape.

  Time would prove that Schlemm had a more acute understanding of their adversaries.

  * * *


  For their part, Allied intelligence officers were desperate to determine what the Germans were up to across the Rhine. The task of developing an accurate assessment of Schlemm’s manpower and the disposition of his units was frustrated by the lack of direct engagement.

  The intelligence staff used every available asset to gain a better understanding of the enemy’s activity. Radio eavesdropping was complemented by aerial reconnaissance flown by camera-equipped Spitfires and P-38s. Occasionally, the intelligence officers were lucky enough to get a captured German reconnaissance scout or deserter for interrogation. But the German situation was so fluid—and ad hoc units were being created, renamed, or relocated with such frequency—that it was challenging to maintain a coherent understanding of what the Allies would be up against.

  The intelligence estimates predicted that by March 10, Schlemm’s I Fallschirmjäger-Armee had already received 18,500 troops, to be followed by another 27,000 before VARSITY’s target date.

  On March 18, the staff of 21 Army Group’s intelligence section were alarmed when communication intercepts revealed the enemy had correctly anticipated not only the use of airborne troops but also where they’d be dropped: “[Allied] preparations of forces on the mainland for an airborne landing must be regarded as completed, so that the possibility of the beginning of one or a number of enemy airborne landings on the Western Front must be taken into consideration . . . in the following areas, in order of probability: Wesel—Bocholt—Doetinchem—North of Arnhem—Veenendaal.”

  The communiqué concluded with a reminder to German ground commanders that “the key to success [lies] exclusively in immediate bold attack with all available forces.”