Winter Warriors

by Stuart Slade

  The Canadian unit had been hit in front by artillery fire and a determined infantry assault. The Canadians weren’t Germans whose orders from the top had always been to hold their ground at any cost. Nor were they Russians who held grimly on out of sheer bloody-mindedness. The Canadians believed in a flexible defense. When hit by prepared artillery barrages, they fell back, out of the line of fire. Then they regrouped and regained ground by counter-attack. A sensible tactic; one that the Finns themselves used. This time they intended to turn it against the Canadian troops.

  Ihrasaari’s platoon was dug into position, covering the road when the Canadian unit appeared. Mostly infantry moving back, some Universal Carriers. Ihrasaari had already pushed the bolt on his rifle home and was taking careful aim, selecting his target with scrupulous attention. One of the Canadians was showing initiative, watching the men retreating back along the hastily plowed road. An officer, possibly, an NCO probably. One who was looking after his men and that professionalism would cost him his life. Ihrasaari took a deep breath, held it and then fired. The man spun around and fell down. First blood.

  The bolt on the Moisin Nagant was sticky. They always were. Ihrasaari wrestled with it, bringing the cocking handle up to vertical with repeated blows of his hand then forcing it back. Once the adhesion in the chamber was broken, it worked smoothly enough but that initial bout of struggling took too much time. By the time he’d leveled the long rifle back to aim at the Canadians, they’d gone to ground and were firing back. Their Lee-Enfields didn’t have bolts that glued up with lacquer deposits in the chamber. Ihrasaari didn’t know what size force he was up against. Probably a point platoon for an infantry battalion, but they had more firepower than I do.

  His own machine guns were hammering, spraying their bullets at the Canadian riflemen. There was a streak across the battlefield. One of the Finnish Panzerfausts had scored a direct hit on a Universal Carrier, dissolving it in a fireball. Almost instantly, the Panzerfaust gunner died. A grenade, launched from one of the many launcher rifles the Canadians had, exploded over his head. The crackle of fire from the sub-machine guns that dominated the battle. The Finnish Suomis and the Canadian Capstens exchanged bursts as the gunners tried to pin each other down. The two guns were evenly matched. There wasn’t that much difference between the 7.62 Tokarev and the 9mm Parabellum although the real nitpickers reckoned the extra penetration of the 7.62 gave it an edge. The Suomi was more controllable though.

  It was the racket of the grenades going off that would decide the battle though. As always, the Canadians were throwing them around in profusion. These days every Canadian soldier seemed to have a shoulder bag fall of the evil little Mills bombs. They’d been shocked by the firepower of the German assault rifles and this had been part of their answer, hand grenades used in extra-large quantities. Every time Canadian troops moved, they did so behind a shower of Mills grenades.

  Ihrasaari fired again, cursing the sticky bolt on his rifle and the long length that made it difficult to aim. Long rifles had almost gone from the Russian Army. They used either the M44 Mosin Nagant carbine, the PPS-45 or the SKS; all short, handy weapons. The Finnish riflemen still had the full length 3-line Mosin Nagant, many of which had been captured back in the glory days of the Winter War. Then it had been ‘gallant little Finland’ fighting the hulking Russian bully. Now, Finland was just another German ally, to be treated with contempt and hammered whenever the Allies had nothing better to do. He squeezed his shot off at the muzzle-flash of a Capsten. The snow bank exploded upwards as his bullet plowed into it. Then his own cover erupted as a Canadian Bren Gun zeroed in on him.

  He felt the sting across his face, probably just ice thrown around by the bullet impacts. Time to leave. He slid down the bank and squirmed along to find himself a new position. He froze several times as grenades exploded near him. Those damned grenade launchers. They worked in conditions where a mortar would not, where a mortar round would bury unexploded in the snowbanks. The Finns had rifle grenade launchers as well, but not as many nor were they as effective as the Canadian weapons. By the time he got back to a firing position, the firefight was dying down. The Canadians had driven the Finns back, away from their positions on the road, and had dug in. Ihrasaari guessed they were quite pleased by that.

  The Finns were pleased as well. They’d forced the Canadian units to dig in along the road. That meant they were fixed in place. Ihrasaari’s platoon was one of many that had infiltrated through the snow-covered, frozen lakes and dispersed through the rear areas of the Canadian Third Infantry Division. If the plans had worked, that division had been chopped up into a series of small packets, isolated along the communications line leading to their rear areas. That meant the real work could start, eliminating those small pockets one at a time. Just the way Soviet infantry divisions had been wiped out during the Winter War. Only one uneasy thought disturbed Ihrasaari’s mind. These weren’t Soviet infantry divisions. In fact Russian infantry divisions weren‘t the same as the ones that had been wiped out in 1939. And this was the Continuation War, not the Winter War.

  Headquarters, 71st Infantry Division, Kola Front

  “Captain Still would like to see you, Sir.” Major-General Marcks stared at his aide coldly. There was a time and place for such remarks. This was neither. The aide whitened slightly and spoke again. “Captain Lang would like to see you Sir.”

  “Send him in.” This, Marcks thought, might be interesting.

  “Sir, thank you for seeing me, Sir.”

  “Are your orders assigning you to Colonel Asbach’s command clear?”

  “Very much, Sir, I thank you for giving me this chance. I know I have much to learn and my start here was not good.”

  “Others have been worse. Is there anything else?”

  Lang didn’t reply but rubbed his ear reflectively. It was a well-understood silent question. Was this room secure? Marcks nodded briefly.

  “Sir, the attack we are to launch tomorrow, it’s part of a much bigger operation.” Marcks remained silent letting the Captain talk on. “It’s not just Army forces along the Kola front involved, or the Finns. We are one major part yes, but there is another. The fleet is out, trying to cut the supply convoys to Murmansk.”

  Marcks nodded. He’d heard that as well. Lang wasn’t the only one with well-placed sources.

  “Sir, I have friends in OKW. The whisper there is that the naval part has gone very badly. The American fleet was waiting in ambush and our casualties have been very heavy. Worse, the supply lines have not been cut. I thought you should know this.”

  “Have you told anybody else this news?”

  “No Sir. Other than you, my lips are sealed on this. But I thought you should know. You know what happens when operations turn out to be disasters.”

  Marcks did. The politicians would blame the military high command. High command would deny that its marvelous operations could possibly fail and that they could only be so if they were deliberately sabotaged by the field officers. So scapegoats would be hunted down and given a quick show trial before being hanged. It hadn’t always been this way. Once it had been understood that every so often things went wrong. But those days were long gone. Now failure was treason. Those high up would hang those lower down, or be hanged themselves.

  “You will continue to say nothing of this Captain. This conversation never happened. And I wish you success in your first field operation tomorrow.”

  Curly Battery B, US Navy 5th Artillery Battalion, Kola Peninsula.

  There was another roar as Larry hurled a shell south, towards the German lines. There was no specific target. The great gun was firing at random, it was enough that the shells landed inside German-held territory. Technically, it was harassment fire. In reality it was just to wear the barrel out before the gun was blown up at dawn.

  The trains were being reorganized. The empty shell and charge wagons were being detached from the trains and moved to one side. They’d be left behind and blown up as well. The remaini
ng ammunition was being concentrated into the magazine cars that were left. The surplus fire control car was being attached to one of the two remaining trains. The anti-aircraft wagons from Larry split between Curly and Moe. One of the two locomotives had already been repaired and was moving backwards and forwards, getting the consists sorted out. Come dawn, this whole area would be abandoned. The ASTAC engineers were already planting demolition charges on the lines. That was something the Russians had down to a fine art. When they pulled out, there was nothing left but scorched earth.

  “What’s the word?” Moe’s gun captain spoke quietly in the silence between Larry’s roars.

  “Huns are advancing all right. They’ve pushed the Russian infantry down south back and bust a hole wide open in the front. There’s tanks and armored infantry probing north, they’ll be here by mid-morning. Just to make life interesting, the Finns have caved the Canadian Third Infantry in and they’re edging east. Looks like the plan is to bag the whole of the Kola Front. Anyway, that’s the bad news.

  “Good news is that the weather has cleared. There’s F-61 intruders up already. They’re hunting the German supply columns. The poor innocent lambs think they can move at night without the Black Widows finding them. Or the ones that haven’t tried it do. The rest of the Kola Air Force will be covering us come dawn. We’ll have Grizzlies trying to blast a way through if we need them. Which I rather suspect we might.”

  “What are our orders? Any changes.”

  “Nope. Still get the guns out if we can, blow them up if we can’t. Err on the side of caution. These guns and their fire control must not fall into German hands. Larry’s a write-off but we’ll try and get the other two out. Take a look at this.”

  Perdue spread a map out on the deck of the battalion command car. “The bridge will be fixed well enough for us to cross by dawn. Then we’ll head north along this line here. It’s a straight run, no real problems except for fuel and the Mikado locomotives can burn wood if they have to. Lucky they’re not oil-fuelled. The Russians are setting up a stop line here, using the White Sea Canal as a base. Once we’re over that, we can set up again and get back to work.”

  “Suppose the lines are gone? If they’ve been hit here, they may have been taken down elsewhere.”

  “I thought of that, that’s why we’re taking some extra cars along. We’ll persuade the AST AC engineers to ride with us, that’s why I wanted to speak with you now. They’ll want to stay and try and hold back the Germans but we need them to help get the guns out. Anyway, it’s a waste of good railway engineers to throw them away as second-line infantry fighting panzers. So, I’ll order the commander to bring his men with us. He’ll argue, then you join in and we all stress how much we’re going to need them around to get the guns out.”

  Larry crashed again, sending another of its dwindling pile of shells south.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: A KILLING COLD

  HMCS Ontario Flagship, Troop Convoy WS-18 en route from Churchill to Murmansk

  “Message from the Yanks, Admiral.”

  “I do hope it’s a bit more informative than the first one.

  Captain Charles Povey took a deep breath. The first message had been “Sighted German Fleet, sank same” which hadn’t been terribly informative. Melodramatic certainly, even by Yank standards. It had at least slowed down the process of planning a battle in which a couple of light cruisers would take on a whole battle fleet. They’d got to the point of getting in to the middle of the German fleet, firing at everybody and hoping the Germans would hit each other in the crossfire. It had worked with MTBs in the Baltic, sometimes.

  “Well, let’s hear it then?” Admiral Vian was impatient. He hadn’t been looking forward to that battle and needed to know that he wouldn’t have to fight it.

  “Americans have finished recovering their carrier planes. They’ve lost more than four hundred aircraft.” A set of low whistles and the sounds of teeth being sucked filled the bridge. “They’re claiming they’ve got the lot. There are some smaller ships, a cruiser and a couple of destroyers last seen heading south east, probably towards Norway, but they’ve been hammered badly and Halsey isn’t going after them. Not with his planes anyway. By the sound of it his air groups are pretty shot up. But all eight battleships and three carriers are confirmed sunk.”

  Cheers echoed around the bridge, spreading throughout the ship as the word passed from man to man. As always, shipboard rumor spread the word faster than even the most sophisticated communications system could manage. Vian shook his head sadly. “We’re at the end of an era gentlemen. After today, nobody will take battleships seriously any more. The Old Queen has handed her throne to her successor. What’s Halsey going to do now? Any offers?”

  “He’s got to pull back, meet up with his support groups and get some replacement aircraft. Then, I guess, he’ll take a swing at the north of Ireland, just to remind the Huns it’s still business as usual, before going home to bomb up again. God knows how much ammunition he’s thrown at those battleships.”

  “Sounds about right. Anyway, our way’s clear to Murmansk. Order the convoy to make full speed, we’ve got a Canadian division to deliver. And, by the sound of things, they’re going to be needed.”

  Bridge Wing, USS Charles H. Roan, DDE-815, North Atlantic

  Captain Hubert Wilkens knew that what he was seeing would haunt his sleep for the rest of his life. The sea was covered with wreckage, some shattered, some burned, some just strewn around. As Charles H Roan’s searchlight flickered across the scene it saw many other things as well. Bodies floating in the sea; hundreds, no thousands, of them. Some were just floating in the sea. Others were sprawled across wreckage.

  “Air temperature is 15 degrees Fahrenheit Sir. With wind chill, it’s about ten below. Water temperature, 26.45 degrees. That’s a killing cold, Captain.”

  Wilkens nodded. His eyes scanned across the dreadful scene. He could feel the bitter cold biting through him, even here in the shelter of the bridge wing, wrapped up in the warmest clothing the United States Navy could provide. Perhaps it was a mercy that the water was so cold, the sheer shock of going into it could kill a man and even if he survived that, his survival time was measured in a very small number of minutes. It was a quick death.

  “Sir, movement out there!” “Where away?”

  “Directly on the port beam Captain.” The searchlight scanned across and illuminated a crude raft, made from timber strapped to what appeared to be oil drums. It had sides, giving whoever was on it some protection from the wind. Behind him, Wilkens heard the whine as the power-operated 40mm quad mount swung to bear on the raft.

  “Taney Justice Sir?”

  “No. These are surface sailors, not U-boats. Anyway, there’s a lot they can tell us. If anybody is alive on that raft, we’ll pick them up. Get scrambling nets over the side. Detail a rescue team to check the bodies there for survivors.”

  The Roan pulled alongside the makeshift raft and four figures climbed down the nets. There was a pause for a couple of minutes then a voice came over the radio link. “Sir, twelve men here, three alive, just. An officer, two ratings. We’ll need some help to get them up. They’re literally frozen stiff.”

  Wilkens gave the orders and looked at the scene. The sea seemed jelly-like somehow, as if it were on the point of freezing and only kept from doing so by its constant, restless motion. Already Roan was accumulating ice where the spray was hitting her rails and plating, freezing solid in an ever-increasing white coat that was adding to her topweight by the minute. The northern North Atlantic wasn’t a friendly place for destroyers. Across the TBS radio, he could hear other destroyers from the Battle Line screen searching the field of floating wreckage; hunting for any other sailors who had beaten fearful odds and survived long enough for the destroyers to pick up. There were a few triumphant calls as more isolated patches of survivors were found and brought on board. They were pitifully few. In his heart, Wilkens guessed that the death toll here had to be the worst in naval history. H
ow many? Twenty, thirty thousand men? The Germans had overly large crews on their ships.

  “Any idea how many?” His voice echoed around the frozen bridge.

  The OOD knew what Wilkens meant. “We’re running a count Sir, so far, less than a couple of hundred. Message from Admiral Lee, Captain. The Battle Line is casting to the south east and east but they report no contacts. Looks like the fly-boys got the last of them. He’s ordering us to finish sweeping this area for survivors before rejoining the Battle Line.”

  “Make it so.” Wilkens thought for a second. “Close up antisubmarine crews, maintain full sonar watch. If there’s a Type XXI around here, I’m not giving him a free shot. If the sonar crew as much as sniff a submarine, we go for it.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Wilkens stood on his wing, looking out across the debris field to the dim shapes of the other destroyers methodically searching. After a while he felt his engines pick up slightly. They’d reached the end of the wreckage field. If there were other survivors out there, they’d lost out.

  “Any sign of any of our pilots?”

  “No sir.”

  That figured. Most of the lost Corsairs and Skyraiders had either blown up in mid-air or plowed into the sea so fast their pilots had little chance of escape. The chances of survival when pressing home attacks from wavetop height were very poor. In this battle, ships, planes and men had survived together or died together. There had been very few who had found a middle way.