by David Healey
However, the tanks were holding back their firepower, avoiding use of their main .75 millimeter guns. A few tank rounds would have gone a long way toward putting a dent in the defenses in the village. But if one of those rounds went astray and hit the church, every last one of the POWs inside might be killed. Consequently, the tanks had been ordered to use only their machine guns in leading the assault into the village.
Even without their main guns, the tanks possessed plenty of firepower. The sight of those tracers sizzling through the cold and dark was dazzling.
Higher on the slope, Cole and Vaccaro skidded to a stop.
“Look at those tanks. Now that’s a beautiful sight,” panted Vaccaro. Both he and Cole paused long enough to watch the attack, using the time to catch their breath and get their bearings. “Give ‘em hell, fellas!”
“Shout that a little louder,” Cole said, breathing hard. “I don’t think the Germans heard you.”
“It doesn’t matter, Hillbilly. Those tanks will put those Jerries on the run.”
“I hope you’re right,” Cole said. “We’ll see.”
The Germans in the village had been expecting the attack, and they were prepared. Soon, the staccato ratatatat of “Hitler’s Zipper” could be heard. The deadly German MG-42 machine guns had an incredible range. Although they were useless against the armored tanks themselves, the exposed gunners on the tanks were being targeted. Sparks flew and tracers bounced as a stream of enemy fire scored a hit on one of the tanks. The big fifty fell silent. It was all too easy to figure out what had happened to the machine gunner on the tank.
Suddenly, a rocket of fire shot from the German position, detonating against the lead tank. An explosion rocked the night, blinding everyone’s night vision. Lying in wait, Kraut soldiers had just hit the lead tank with a Panzerfaust. Time and again, these shoulder-fired weapons had proved more than effective against a Sherman tank.
Cole held his breath, praying that the tank hadn’t already been knocked out. They needed all the help they could get peeling open the village, and the tank made a pretty good can opener.
“They made it!” cried Vaccaro.
“Amen to that,” Cole said.
Sure enough, they could see the tank forging ahead, fragments of burning debris clinging to its armored front. The Panzerfaust had scored only a glancing blow. For now, the nimble Sherman remained in the fight.
The tanks roared ahead, directly toward the underpass where the previous attack had bogged down. In the wake of the tanks, they could see dark shapes just visible against the snow. The infantry was advancing.
“Looks like we’re late to the dance,” Vaccaro said, also noticing the movement on the road.
“Oh, I reckon this party will go on for a while,” Cole replied. “Let’s go see if we can catch up.”
Cole hadn’t taken more than two steps when the guns opened up on the hillside above them. It was the two captured anti-tank guns, being used against the Americans. Although he and Vaccaro had cut the communication lines, it was clear that the Germans on the hillside knew well enough what their role was in this fight.
The muzzle blasts from the two big guns punched holes in the darkness, lighting up the trees on the hillside. In the sudden flash, they could see German troops advancing down the slope. The Jerries were counter-attacking.
Adding to their horror, it was evident to Cole and Vaccaro that the artillery must have been zeroed in ahead of the attack, with their sights set on the entrance to the railroad underpass. Just as the lead tank approached the tunnel, both shots from the German artillery struck in rapid succession.
Hit twice, the Sherman didn’t stand a chance. A fireball engulfed the tank, gouts of flame shooting from the gash ripped into its armor and erupting from the open turret. Nobody could have survived that, Cole thought. The tank crew must have died instantly, the poor bastards.
Beside him, Vaccaro gasped in disbelief.
There was nothing so discouraging to an infantryman as seeing a tank destroyed. If a big can of armored whomp ass bought it, what chance did a guy with boots and a rifle have?
Seeing the fate of the lead tank, the second Sherman immediately began to reverse, getting itself out of the killing zone.
However, it wasn’t quite fast enough. Another pair of shots came from the forest above the town, the flash of the guns again turning the valley into daylight in the way that a lightning bolt does.
The two shells struck with devastating force, obliterating what was left of the first Sherman. Luckily for the second tank, it had reversed just in time. The impact showered the tank with clods of frozen earth and burning debris, but the only casualty was the crew member manning the machine gun, killed instantly by shrapnel.
Rather than advance into certain death, the surviving Sherman took a different tact. Driving right into a roadside ditch to give the tank at least some protection, the Sherman finally brought its .75 millimeter gun into play. There weren’t any American prisoners in the forested hillside above to worry about—but only German targets. The Sherman crew didn’t need as long to aim as the artillery pieces above took to reposition. Less than a minute after running to ground in the ditch, the Sherman opened fire. On the hillside above, splintered trees flew. Direct hit or not, the tank had given the German gunners something to think about.
“Chew on that, Jerry!” Vaccaro shouted.
“Keep your head down, City Boy.”
Now the Germans fired back, but far overshot the tank. Their shells crashed into a field, empty except for a small barn that was destroyed, sending chunks of stone and wood flying through the night.
The duel had begun.
However, the GIs were not sticking around to watch the duel play out. On foot, the American troops headed for the village kept their heads down, listening to shrapnel whistle through the darkness. Nobody could see a damn thing in the dark now that the explosions and muzzle flashes had wrecked their night vision.
The tanks hadn’t succeeded in pushing into the village; now it was up to them.
The real fight for Wingen sur Moder was about to begin.
Chapter Sixteen
Cole and Vaccaro ran to join the assault, latching onto the troops moving toward the underpass. By some minor miracle, they found their squad and Lieutenant Mulholland.
“Cole, is that you? Damn, I thought you were Germans sneaking up on us.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, sir.”
“No disappointment there, believe me. We’ve got plenty of Germans as it is, right in front of us. Did you cut those telephone wires?”
“That we did, for all the good it did. Those Kraut guns are just getting warmed up. They didn’t need anyone to tell them what to do. They already had their guns sighted in.”
“You’ve got that right. They’re tearing us up.” Mulholland shouted orders, “Everyone, spread out and get ready to climb over those railroad tracks. We’re not taking the tunnel. At this point, it would be like trying to run through a sausage grinder.”
It went without saying that with the enemy artillery having targeted the underpass, trying to go through it would have been suicide. Not only that, but the burning hulk of the tank partially blocked the entrance to the tunnel. There was no way past it without being singed. A sickening smell of burning flesh drifted in the pre-dawn air.
Down in the roadside ditch, the surviving Sherman was still firing at the German position on the hilltop. Already, the plan of attack had gone to pieces and the officers were having to improvise.
The soldiers fanned out and began climbing the embankment and crossing the railroad tracks, then rushing pell-mell down the other side.
All the while, the German machine guns kept up their deadly ratatatat. As the tracer fire lit the scene with an eerie glow, Cole could see soldiers falling as the machine-gun took its toll. Some of the wounded or their companions called for a medic. Other crumpled forms lay still and silent.
“Follow me,” Mulholland shouted.
; The lieutenant led his men up and over the railroad embankment and they raced toward town. By now, dawn approached, tinging the horizon a deep shade of blood red. It was a warrior’s dawn, if Cole had ever seen one. Despite the red dawn, the morning was cold as ever. The bright colors promised as much warmth as a can of paint.
They cut away from the road, getting out from the machine gun’s line of fire. It was a feeling like stepping out of a downpour or hailstorm. Slowly, as the light grew, houses, outbuildings, even fences began to take shape as the squad advanced. With any luck, they could start to flank the German defenses, which had been set up to cover an attack from the road. That didn’t mean the enemy didn’t have defenses set up elsewhere.
“Keep your eyes open, everybody. If we can see them, they can see us.”
In the murky pre-dawn light, six figures suddenly appeared from a ditch and charged at them, shouting as they ran. Rifle shots crackled.
“Krauts!”
Cole leveled his rifle and dropped one of the enemy, but they were too close to get off another shot. He reached for his Bowie knife, thinking that maybe he could stab one of the bastards.
But there was no need. A burst of machine-gun fire came from their left. The line of Germans went down. Not all of them were hit, however. Some had thrown themselves to the ground instinctively and managed to dodge the deadly burst. They began to get back up.
Cole had a new round loaded and started to aim.
But Mulholland had gotten in the way.
“Not so fast, Hans!” Mulholland grabbed a rifle away from one of the Germans, then dragged the soldier to his feet. Vaccaro grabbed another German. “Hands up! Hände hoch!”
The Germans did as ordered. Soon, they had three prisoners standing before them with their hands up. Three bodies lay inert in the snow. Vaccaro went over and poked at them, but they didn’t move.
Mulholland made the prisoners get on their knees in the snow, hands on their heads.
Cole watched the Germans warily, keeping them in his sights. “We ain’t got time for prisoners, Lieutenant. We ought to just shoot ‘em. Stand back and I’ll take care of it.”
“Hold it, Cole! Battalion could use some intel. We’ll send these three back to see what they can tell us.”
Cole didn’t lower his rifle. It was as if the weapon had a mind of its own. They were in the middle of an attack. Prisoners required guarding. He told himself that he was being practical, not cruel. He was a hard man, but not a monster.
But truth be told, he had seen too many good American boys killed. In his mind’s eye, he could picture all the bodies in the snow from this bloody Battle of the Bulge. What a goddamn waste. He couldn’t seem to take his finger off the trigger.
The Germans must have seen something in Cole’s stance. He wasn’t a captor, but a killer. Beneath the rim of his helmet, his eyes glittered in the light of the winter’s dawn and the fires burning in town.
One of the prisoners began to plead quietly, “Bitte, bitte, bitte.”
Mulholland looked over and saw Cole standing there as if frozen in place. “Cole, that’s an order!”
“What about those poor bastards at Malmedy, Lieutenant? Do you reckon they ever had a chance?”
“Dammit, Cole! Don’t make me say it again!”
Reluctantly, Cole lowered the rifle. “Have it your way, Lieutenant. You want me and Vaccaro to take these Krauts to HQ? We’ll be back here in no time.”
“Hell, no. I’m not sure they would make it with you guarding them.” Mulholland looked around. He turned to another soldier in the squad. The man had been wounded lightly in the arm. “Private, take these prisoners back to HQ. See to that arm while you’re at it.”
“Yes, sir,” the private said. “C’mon, Hans. On your feet. Looks like it’s your lucky day.”
The lieutenant turned back to Cole and glared at him. Now that it was getting lighter, the anger in his face was clear. “If it’s Germans you want to kill so badly, Cole, then follow me. There’s plenty more of them in the village.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cole felt chastened. The lieutenant was right. What had he been thinking? He realized that he had been fighting this war too damn long.
With the Americans now entering the village, the narrow streets had been turned into a battleground. Some of the Germans were veterans of the fighting in the Soviet Union and were all too familiar with street fighting. Wingen sur Moder was no Stalingrad, but the battle for the town was becoming just as vicious.
Very efficiently, the Germans had placed machine-gun positions at the street corners, giving each machine-gun nest a clear line of fire in several directions. All that the attackers could do was scurry from house to house, trying to stay under cover until those machine guns could be knocked out.
“Every last one of these houses has been turned into a damned bunker,” Vaccaro said. “They can hit us from any direction. What the hell are we supposed to do?”
“We take this village one house at a time, that’s what,” Cole replied. “Now, cover me.”
Without waiting for a response, Cole dashed toward the nearest house. It was tall and narrow, offering a good vantage point up and down the street.
His movement was met with muzzle flashes from the windows, then bullets plucking at the snow around his feet, but he managed to reach the back corner of the house and hugged the wall. He stayed there for a moment, gasping for breath and realizing that he still felt pretty weak from the flu. Suddenly, he found himself having a terrible coughing fit. Hell, maybe he ought to still be in bed instead of being out here, fighting the war.
Inside the house, the Germans could hear him. He could definitely hear them inside, shouting excitedly to one another. The angle was all wrong for the Germans in the house to get a shot at him. However, he couldn’t just hide out here all day. Vaccaro was right about every house being a bunker. At any moment, somebody might spot him and pick him off.
One of the Germans leaned out of an upstairs window, trying to get a glimpse of where the American had gone. Cole raised his rifle and fired, sending the enemy soldier tumbling to the snowy ground.
There was another open window on the ground floor, but none of the Krauts was dumb enough to stick his head out. Cole got down low and crawled under the window. Across the way, he spotted Vaccaro, giving him covering fire. Bullets smacked into the house. Cole just hoped to hell that Vaccaro didn’t shoot him by accident.
From his position under the window, Cole pulled the pin on a grenade and lobbed it inside. The ear-splitting blast was almost instantaneous. He heard screams and curses despite his ringing ears. Leaping to his feet, he fired through the window at anything moving in the smoke.
There were still Germans upstairs, though, and they weren’t too happy. He could hear them shouting angrily and rushing down the stairs. The interior of the house echoed with automatic fire. Cole ducked back down; his single-shot Springfield wasn’t any match for that. Now what?
He needn’t have worried. In the confusion, Vaccaro had scrambled across to the house. He emptied a clip from his semi-automatic M-1 into the interior of the house, and then for good measure, tossed in another grenade.
“Fire in the hole!”
Another blast tore through the downstairs, followed by more screams. The grenade had silenced the enemy within. This was going to be an ugly business, repeating the same process from house to house. Not all of the attacks on the houses were one-sided victories, like this one had been. The growing number of American bodies in the streets was evidence of that.
“You all right?” he shouted at Vaccaro, even though the City Boy was just a few yards away. Neither of them could hear a damn thing, thanks to the gunfire and grenades.
“I don’t have any holes in me, if that’s what you mean.”
“All right, then. I’m going in.”
Cole slung the rifle, put both hands on the windowsill, and levered himself inside. His boots came down on something soft. A dead Kraut. In the light fr
om the window, he got a good look at the face. The dead German was young—maybe just a teenager—and quite handsome, blond, his blue eyes now staring. Cole felt a twinge of regret, and just as quickly snapped it off like a light switch. Start thinking that way and it will get you killed, he thought. A few minutes ago, this German lad had been trying to shoot him. Hell, not so long before that, Cole had been more than ready to shoot those German prisoners. What the hell had gotten into him? It seemed like sometimes he got in a killing mood and it was hard to shake.
Vaccaro came in through the other window. Cole unslung his rifle. Together, they made their way from room to room, making sure that there weren’t any surprises. The air smelled heavily of cordite and fresh butchering. They found a handful of dead Krauts, killed either by the grenades or their rifle fire. One of the Germans was still moving, but he was badly wounded, barely even conscious. Cole finished him off with a mercy shot, then started upstairs.
Unlike the downstairs, the second floor was thankfully free of any dead Germans. The furniture was a jumble, everything having been dragged toward the windows and piled up—mattresses, bed frames, dressers, linen chests. Basically, anything that had a chance of stopping a bullet.
Cole peeked out one of the windows. Below, spread-eagled in the snow, he could see the body of the German he had shot. Beyond, the house offered a commanding view up the street toward the Catholic church, which wasn’t more than two hundred feet distant.
“Hey, isn’t that where the prisoners are being held?” Vaccaro asked, joining him at the window.
“That’s what the lieutenant said,” Cole replied.
“Do you think the two of us have a prayer of getting to that church?”
Cole thought about the machine-gun nests lining the streets, and the other well-defended houses between here and there. “Hell, no.”
“Then what’s our next move?”
Cole thought about that. “We’re gonna stay right here and do what we do best.”
“Yeah? What is that, by the way?”