by Len Levinson
“As soon as they turn their backs,” Gurtner whispered, “shoot them.”
Surreptitiously, Gurtner and Muller reached for their rifle straps. Ahead of them, Captain Carlson was pointing toward the gasoline tanks.
“I think,” said Carlson, “that if we set explosives on every other gas tank, that ought to blow up all of them.”
“Do we have enough time?” Mahoney asked.
“We’ll have to hurry.”
Carlson stepped off in the direction of the bunker where the explosives were hidden, and just then Mahoney heard the unmistakable snap of a rifle bolt. Instinctively he dropped to the ground as the night exploded. Rolling over, he saw Gurtner and Muller firing their rifles. Mahoney yanked a grenade from his lapel and pulled the pin. Bullets ripped into the ground near him, and he tossed the grenade. Gurtner and Muller saw it coming, stopped firing, goggled their eyes at it, and didn’t know whether to run or try to grab it, as Mahoney rolled underneath the jeep.
The grenade exploded as Gurtner bent over to pick it up, and Muller ran away. Gurtner’s arms and legs were blown off his body, and flying shrapnel hit Muller in the back. Mahoney aimed his rifle at Muller as Muller whimpered and writhed on the ground. Coming out from underneath the jeep, Mahoney walked cautiously to Muller, who was face down, reaching around with his hand to the hole in his back. Mahoney aimed at the back of Muller’s head and pulled the trigger of his M-1. Muller’s head bounced like a basketball as the bullet smashed into it, and then Muller lay still, his head torn apart and blood surging from the wound in his back.
Mahoney glanced at the decapitated Gurtner, then moved toward the bodies of Captain Carlson and the guard. Kneeling beside Captain Carlson, Mahoney saw that he’d been shot twice in the back, but he still was alive, moaning softly.
“Captain Carlson?” Mahoney asked.
The captain didn’t respond; evidently he was in a coma. He wouldn’t be able to tell Mahoney where the explosives were. Mahoney turned to the guard and saw that he was still, the back of his field jacket covered with blood. Captain Carlson stopped moaning. Mahoney felt his pulse. The captain was dead.
Mahoney stood up and pushed his helmet to the back of his head. He was all alone, and somehow he had to blow the gas tanks before the Germans arrived. He ran several possible plans through his mind, but they all collided with each other, and he was immobilized by indecision.
In the distance he heard the sound of engines. Turning around, he saw lights from the German tank convoy. They weren’t worried about an American air attack at night with the low cloud cover and were speeding toward the gasoline dumps.
Mahoney didn’t know what it would take to blow up the gas tanks. He’d heard stories about the volatility of gasoline and wondered if the tanks would blow if he fired a bullet into them. But he didn’t have time for experiments. He should have discussed all this stuff with Captain Carlson while they were driving here, instead of sleeping.
Mahoney noticed something that he hadn’t paid any attention to before: the ridge that the oil tanks were on inclined down to a cliff that overhung the road below. The German tanks would have to use that road to reach the gasoline. He wondered if he could turn the gas loose and ignite it so that it would spill onto the German armored column. It seemed worth a try.
Mahoney ran toward the body of Gurtner, took out his bayonet, and ripped off Gurtner’s pant legs. Tying them to his waist, he dashed to the jeep, lifted out the crate of hand grenades, cradled it in his arms, and ran to the gasoline tank farthest from the edge of the cliff. He set down the crate, took out a grenade, and laid it on the ground. Then with his bayonet he cut a strip of cloth from Gurtner’s pants. He wrapped the strip around the arm of the grenade and tied a knot. Pulling the pin, he placed the grenade under the gasoline tank’s spigot.
Picking up the crate of grenades, he ran to the next tank and did the same thing, while in the distance the sound of the German armored column came closer. He placed armed, tied hand grenades under each of the twenty gasoline tanks on the ridge, then stuffed his pockets full of hand grenades and placed the rest of them near the tied grenade underneath the spigot of the last tank.
He turned the spigot on, and sweet smelling gasoline poured down onto the tied grenade and the crate beside it. Then he ran to the next tank and turned the spigot on it too. He ran as quickly as he could to every gasoline tank, turning on the spigots, as gasoline covered the ground around the base of the gas tanks. Mahoney ran back to Captain Carlson’s body and nearly gagged from the stink of gas. He pulled the grenade launcher from Captain Carlson’s back pocket, dropped it into his field jacket pocket, jumped into the jeep, started up the engine, and accelerated away.
He made a wide turn, skidded over the ice on the ridge, and headed for the road leading down the mountain. Looking at the lights from the German armored column, he could see that it was nearing the bottom of the mountain. Mahoney sped beneath the ridge and glanced up. The bottoms of the tanks were swimming in gasoline now, but it was only a small fraction of what the huge tanks still would contain by the time the German armored column showed up.
Mahoney drove five hundred yards past the ridge, braked, and drove his jeep into the bushes far enough so that it couldn’t be seen from the road. Jumping out, he broke some branches off pine trees so he could cover the windshield and prevent it from reflecting light. Then he grabbed his rifle, slung it crossways on his back, and ran toward the woods beneath the side of the ridge. The snow was soft on top, but the layer before the last snowfall was a frozen crust, and he sped over it, dodging trees and bushes.
Finally, he came to the base of the incline. His heart pounding and his headache becoming severe, he grabbed some tree branches and pulled himself up. He climbed, scrambled, and struggled to reach the top of the ridge. A few times he slipped and fell back, but he righted himself quickly and charged forward again. Branches slapped him in the face and made his cheeks bleed. Turning around, he saw the German convoy halfway up the mountain.
Mahoney gritted his teeth and redoubled his efforts. He knew that men’s lives were hanging on his success in blowing the tanks. He thought that maybe he should have blown them when he had the chance, but he’d wanted not only to blow the tanks but also to ambush the German armored column with burning gasoline.
He gasped for breath and snot ran from his nose. His injured leg was hurting again, and he thought he was going to have a heart attack. “I never should have drunk all that brandy,” he said to himself. “I wouldn’t be having all this trouble if I hadn’t drunk all that brandy.”
He looked up and saw the top of the ridge. It was only twenty yards away, and he took heart because he thought he could cover twenty yards standing on his hands if he had to. Reaching for a branch for support, he broke it with his hand, and he fell backwards down the hill. His head fell in the snow, and his feet toppled over it.
He flailed wildly with his arms, trying to grab onto something, and finally connected with the trunk of a tree. He pulled himself erect and wiped the snow from his face. He’d lost his helmet, but he still had his wool cap on, the grenade launcher was in his pocket, and he hadn’t lost his M-1.
Spitting a few pine needles out of his mouth, he resumed his climb. The armored column sounded awfully close, and he didn’t dare look at it for fear it’d be too close for him to ambush. He pumped his legs and took huge gulps of air as he thrashed his way up the hill. He heard the tanks passing him on the left, and he wanted to cry with frustration, but still he kept going. If he hadn’t fallen, he would have been ready for them, but he’d fucked up. Now all he could do was finish the job as quickly as he could.
Finally, with his hands numb from the cold and his face bleeding from scratches caused by branches, he reached the top of the ridge in time to see the German armored column rounding the bend and heading toward the gas tanks. Then, in the corner of his eye, he saw something that made his heart leap for joy.
Although the armored column was nearing the tanks, it was so
long that a substantial portion of it still was underneath the ridge. Mahoney could destroy those tanks with burning gasoline if he acted quickly.
He yanked the grenade launcher out of his pocket and fastened it on the end of his M-1. He affixed a hand grenade to the launcher, inserted a shell into the chamber of the M-1, and let the bolt slide forward slowly.
He looked up and saw the kubelwagen leading the armored column stop near the bodies of Captain Carlson, the guard, and the three Germans disguised as GIs. Mahoney aimed at the big storage tank nearest him as a German officer waved his arms wildly; evidently he’d smelled the gas.
But it was too late for him and the rest of the Germans in the column. Mahoney pulled the trigger of his M-1, and its butt hit his shoulder like the kick of a mule. The grenade sailed through the air, and Mahoney watched it wide-eyed, praying it would hit the storage tank.
The grenade landed short in a puddle of gasoline, and exploded. The concussion caved in the side of the storage tank. A huge wave of burning gasoline surged from the tank, and the raging fire ran toward the tied up hand grenades. The cloth strips burned away and the handles snapped open. The grenades exploded one after the other, and flaming gasoline burst from the tanks and roared toward the ridge and the road on which the armored column was stalled. Horrified, the German tankers looked up to see an ocean of burning gasoline dropping toward them. The liquid fire engulfed them, and Mahoney could see German tankers in burning uniforms jumping from their tanks. The flames poured into their tanks and covered the ammunition.
One German tank exploded, sending its crew of flaming torches flying into the sky. Then another German tank blew up. It was followed by a third and a fourth. Mahoney watched, his mouth hanging open in awe of the damage he’d caused. Hundreds of tons of burning gasoline flowed down the cliff onto the tanks, and more of them exploded. Soldiers in burning uniforms ran in all directions, diving into the snow and rolling around.
Mahoney wished he had his platoon from Charlie Company with him because if he did, no German would leave the area alive. But Mahoney was alone, and he decided he’d better get the hell out of there before more Germans showed up to find out what was going on.
He removed the grenade launcher from the end of his rifle and dropped it into his pocket, snapping the pocket closed so that it wouldn’t fall out if he fell again, because you never knew when you might need a good grenade launcher. Then he slung his rifle crossways on his back and slipped back from the ridge. He descended it carefully, holding onto branches so that he wouldn’t slip and fall on his face. On the way down, he found his helmet and put it on. He noticed that not all of the armored column had been destroyed by the burning gasoline. Several of the tanks bringing up the rear had been able to pull back, out of harm’s way. That meant Mahoney couldn’t use his jeep because the krauts might see him. He’d have to reach safety on foot somehow, and he had no idea of where safety was.
He reached the bottom of the hill and looked back at the wreckage of tanks still burning on the road. The air was filled with bitter petroleum fumes tainted by the odor of roasting human flesh. Unslinging his rifle, he loaded in a fresh clip of ammunition and held the rifle in both his hands as he headed in the direction he figured was west.
Chapter Eight
Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, commander of the Twelfth Army Group, had been on the road all day and knew nothing of the German offensive. He arrived at SHAEF Headquarters in Versailles late in the evening for a conference with General Eisenhower and his aides on the infantry replacement problem caused by high casualty rates at the front. Bradley and Ike intended to work out a plan whereby non-infantry soldiers could be relieved of their duties and transferred to the rifle companies.
Ike greeted Bradley warmly. They swapped some amiable chitchat and then got down to business. Ike also knew nothing of the German offensive, due to disrupted communications and confusion in the Ardennes.
An aide submitted statistics about the number of soldiers available in non-combat arms for transfer to the front lines. Another aide thought that twenty percent of these soldiers could be made available for combat duty provided WACs could take up the slack. A discussion ensued over how to procure the WACs and how much havoc would be caused by having huge numbers of them stationed near sex starved GIs.
In the middle of the discussion, there was a knock on the door.
“Come in!” said Ike.
The door opened, and a colonel entered the conference room, carrying a sheet of paper. “Sir, I have an urgent message from First Army.”
Ike held out his hand. “Give it here.”
The colonel crossed the room and handed the paper to Ike, who put on his wire-rimmed glasses and read it. He furrowed his brow and laid down the paper on his desk, then took off his glasses. “Bad news,” he said. “This morning the Germans launched attacks at five different points in the Eighth Corps sector of the First Army line.”
General Bradley looked at his watch, and it was 2100 hours (nine in the evening). “They attacked this morning, and we’re just finding out about it now?”
Ike nodded. “Evidently it’s taken them a while to figure out what’s going on. The report states that they’ve had problems with communications due to an extensive enemy bombardment.”
Bradley turned down the corners of his mouth and shook his head. “I’ve been expecting something like this. The Germans evidently have mounted a few local attacks in the hopes that we’ll halt Patton’s offensive in the Saar and send him north to meet this threat.”
Ike stared off into space for a few moments. “No, Brad, I don’t think these are local attacks. It isn’t logical for the Germans to launch local attacks at the weakest part of our line. They’d launch local attacks at strong points, but if they’re hitting us where we’re weakest it means they want some real estate or are trying to accomplish something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know yet, but I don’t want to wait around and do nothing until their intentions become clearer. Send Middleton two divisions just in case. You’ll have to take at least one of them from Patton.”
“He’ll scream like hell.”
“If he screams too much, just tell him that I’m running this war, not him.”
Bradley left the conference room and walked down the hall to a vacant office. He sat behind the desk and told the operator to connect him with Patton’s headquarters in Nancy.
After several minutes Patton came on the phone. He’d been having dinner with his niece, who was a Red Cross worker attached to his headquarters. “What’s wrong, Brad?” he asked.
“We’ve got a problem, George,” Bradley replied. “The Germans are attacking Troy Middleton.”
There was silence on Patton’s end for a few moments. “I had a feeling this was going to happen sooner or later,” Patton said. “I’ve got some of my people on recon in Middleton’s sector, and they’ve reported that he’s got gaps in his line big enough to run an army through. I suppose you want me to go up there and do something about it?”
“Just send a division, George. That’s all.”
“But Brad,” Patton pleaded, “that’s only a goddamn spoiling attack up there. The Germans want you to do just what you’re doing—weakening my offensive in the south. There’s no major threat up there from the Germans. The problem is that I’m a major threat to them down here.”
“I don’t have time to discuss this with you, George,” Bradley said. “I want you to send a division north right now, and that’s an order.”
Bradley imagined Patton turning red and gnashing his teeth on the other end.
“Yes, sir,” Patton said.
Bradley broke off the connection and then told the operator to put him through to his own headquarters in Luxembourg City, so he could tell his chief of staff to have another division sent into the Ardennes from the Ninth Army in Holland.
While waiting for the call to go through, Bradley looked up and saw General Walter Bedell Smith, Ike’
s chief of staff, taking a seat on the edge of the desk.
“Beetle” Smith leaned toward Bradley. “Well,” he said, “it looks like you’ve got what you wanted. You’ve been wishing for a long time that the Germans would come out of their holes and attack, so we could kill them easier.”
Bradley nodded grimly. “I know,” he replied, “but I didn’t want them to attack in a spot where we don’t have many soldiers.”
~*~
It was after midnight at German Army Group G Headquarters on the east side of the Siegfried Line opposite Patton’s Third Army. General Herman Balck, the commander of the army group, was sound asleep in his bed, when the phone on his night table rang.
He awoke with a start because he’d given orders that he wasn’t to be disturbed at night unless it was a matter of the most extreme seriousness. Looking at the phone with dread, he wondered what had happened. Was Patton tearing up his front lines again?
He picked up the receiver and apprehensively held it next to his face. “Yes?”
“Sir,” said the voice on the other end of the wire, “the Fuehrer would like to speak with you.”
Balck sat bolt upright in bed and turned on the lamp. “Put him through,” he said in a mild state of shock.
There was a bit of static, a loud click, and then the old familiar hoarse voice resounded inside Balck’s ear. “Balck,” Hitler said like a specter in the night, “are you there?”
“I’m here, my Fuehrer,” Balck replied.
“I have good news for you, Balck. All your suffering and deprivations have not been in vain. Today I have launched a tremendous offensive against the Americans in the Ardennes, and I am pleased to report that the armies of the Reich have advanced deep into the interior of Belgium.”
Balck shook his head and looked around the room because he thought he might be dreaming. “That’s wonderful, my Fuehrer.”
“Now I can tell you, Balck, why I’ve been unable to send you replacements these past few months. It was because I was building this huge reserve of men and tanks to attack the Americans. When I ordered you to hold Patton at all costs, it was because I wanted you to keep him out of my staging areas. But from this day on, Balck, we shall retreat no more. From now on, we march to victory!”