“Our deployment?” Rudi asked.
“A battalion of motorized infantry will dismount and take up positions here, in this village, on this road and in this stand of woods.” Schmidt stabbed a grimy finger on the map. “We will be with them west of the village at this manor house to defend from the northeast. Two squads of the motorized infantry will be at the house. We are not expecting a well-coordinated attack.”
“Herr Lieutenant, the Poles have surrendered in Warsaw, why must we worry?” The comment came from the always doubting Staff Sergeant Wohler, commander of one of the 3rd Panzer Regiment’s three PzKpfwIIIs.
“Ja, Sergeant Wohler, Warsaw has surrendered but this is not Warsaw. The Poles have not surrendered at Brest Litovsk.” Schmidt’s face darkened at the always questioning Wohler. “Remember, a bullet can kill you just as dead today as four weeks ago. We will not change our level of readiness.”
Schmidt was treated to a round of jawohls and salutes. Rudi left the briefing to find Franz Werner, the loader, inspecting an arrangement of 37mm shells and 7.92mm machine gun rounds.
“We are moving five kilometers up the road, to a big house just west of the village. A motorized infantry battalion is setting up in the village, in the woods to the west and behind the wall on the road that runs to the south. If the Poles attack, we will be ready,” Rudi explained.
“Why not just finish them off, Herr Sergeant?”
“The 31st Infantry will be arriving, and we need their support for any attack. They are more likely to surrender to us than the Russians.”
Within a short time Helga’s tracks clanked as they rumbled to the village. Rudi rode unbuttoned, upper torso exposed atop the PzKpfw III; alert but calm and confident as the sun warmed his black wool uniform. The “village” was a mere collection of decrepit huts, a single general store with a government building but no rail connection. The streets were empty, the Polish peasant had learned to remain in hiding in case Stukas hovered nearby.
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at the manor, another disappointment limited to a simple house with a few out buildings and a stone wall along the road. Rudi maneuvered Helga behind the stone wall, “hull down” and revealing only her turret to the enemy. Rudi focused his binoculars across the field northeast of their position.
Small arms fire chattered to their left in the western woods. Schmidt’s voice crackled on the radio. The Poles were attacking through the forest and Rudi called to his crew, “Get ready boys, they’re coming.”
II
September 29, 1939 1000
Patting the pig emblem on his fuselage, Hans Oswald climbed onto the wing of his Ju-87B. The pig was both a German good luck symbol and the Condor Legion squadron’s insignia. Han’s muddy boots slipped, packages of charts and frequencies narrowly missed a puddle beneath the wing. Emil retrieved the packet.
“You will need this, Herr Hauptmann.”
“Oswald nodded. “Not many targets remaining, maybe more later.”
After a week of pounding from the Luftwaffe, Warsaw had surrendered the day before, every military and civilian structure of value obliterated. Without a Polish Air Force to challenge them, Hans and his Staffel bombed anything that moved.
“They should have given up two weeks ago,” Hans muttered. The High Command had issued an ultimatum to Warsaw on the 15th but the Poles had refused. Their stubbornness was repaid when the Luftwaffe switched from military to civilian targets, the city destroyed, its people left without food or shelter.
The surrender had opened a new military target for Oswald and the others. The Poles massed a sizable force east of the Bug River on the Russian border. Their gathering was either for a last stand, to protect the Rumanian border and allow civilians to follow the Polish government into exile, or prevent a Russian invasion. Though the infantry and cavalry units were intact, they were not a threat.
Strapped in and waiting for Emil to do the same, Oswald opened his chart to study the mission routing. Their mission was to support the Second Panzer Division and its bridgehead over the Bug River near Brest Litovsk. Oswald and the others were to start east at 3000 meters, then swing southeast at a 120 degree heading in the direction of the Pripyat Marshes.
Hans signaled the ground crew that he was ready and began the start sequence. The big Jumo 211Da 12 cylinder inverted V engine spat into life. Hans’ constant worry was flooding the engine or making an error. As the leader of the Staffel, his leadership could not survive such an embarrassment. Folly was just not part of Han’s image. He reduced rpms and checked the oil pressure gauge. Fortunately, there were no problems with “Jolanthe”, so named in tribute to his Condor Legion Stuka. An absence of ground fire also calmed his nerves.
Hans gave the thumbs up, as the crew chief shuffled to his tent 50 meters from the row of Stukas warming up. On their second forward air field since the war began – the Stuka’s range of 700 kilometers required movement of the entire support system eastward exhausting flight, maintenance and supply crews equally.
“How are things looking?” Hans asked.
“Ready to hunt, Herr Lieutenant.”
Hans pushed the throttle forward and began the unpleasant task of taxiing a tail dragger on an unimproved strip. The fully loaded Ju-87B topped off at five tons forcing Oswald to force open the throttle to get Jolanthe moving forward.
His first task was avoiding the holes in the “landing strip.” Unable to see over the huge cowling he kicked the rudders left and right to swerve slightly and keep an eye on the ground ahead of the Stuka. He passed Lieutenant Mueller’s machine, painted a green so dark it was almost black, with a wide yellow band on the rear of the fuselage. The four Stukas would take off in tandem headed toward the Russian border.
An hour into the flight they arrived at the Bug and turned southeast. Oswald was guided to the targets by the Second Panzer Division’s Flivo, a forward observer who painted the target with two green identification flares.
The radio crackled. It was Mueller “Flares from the big farm house 20 degrees to the left.” The breaking of radio silenced would have violated procedure, if there had been enemy planes in the air, but flying over the Bug there was no need for secrecy.
Hans saw nothing. “Jawohl, by the village,” he lied. Oswald ground his teeth. Mueller’s ambition to be first was part of his need to show up his commander in front of his men. “One pass and identify the enemy location.”
The approaching plans had sent the Polish infantry scattering into the woods. To the north the assembled Polish cavalry, both enemy forces pointed directly at the Second Panzer Division. Hans radioed and directed Hans, Mueller and Brittan to pound the infantry in the woods while he led the others against the cavalry.
Hans rolled to his left and began his steep dive to the woods as the Polish infantry scrambled for cover. He released the 250 kilo bomb over a wooden structure at the woods’ edge and braced for the snap caused by the automatic dive brake system. Jolanthe abruptly pulled up, and clawed for altitude before Hans leveled out at 2,000 meters and banked right until he reached a heading of 300 degrees. Off his right wing, he saw the Polish cavalry breaking into the open field in front of the village.
“The crazy Polish bastards are charging the Second Panzer Division.” He shook his head. “Slaughter.”
Silence. Hans called to Emil again without effect then corkscrewed his head to find his rear gunner Emil slumped forward, machine gun pointing straight up.
“Emil?”
Still nothing. Hans radioed the rest of the flight, “Storm Flight, Storm Leader - my rear gunner has been hit.”
“Is your aircraft damaged?” Mueller asked.
“All gauges in the green. “I’m returning to base, the rest make another pass.”
“Jawohl.”
“Crucify the cavalry…for Emil,” signed off Hans as he rolled to a westerly heading. It was a race to see if he could land in time to save Emil.
III
September 29, 1939 1118
The motorized infantry behind the wall were howling, encouraging the diving Stukas.
Memorable events in history were rarely known to the participants at the time. Only years later, as accomplishments and failures were studied, repeated and embellished would they realize their impact on history. Rudi was in the midst of one such moment.
The Polish cavalry emerged from the smoke, lances unlimbered. They spread into a wide line, ranks three deep. Rudi heard the unmistakable sound of a bugle. To his utter astonishment, the mounted horsemen leaned forward on their steads and charged.
“What are they doing?” Came a cry from an infantryman standing behind a MG 34 mounted on a Lafette tripod, its barrel poking through a gap in the wall. The Germans held their fire, waiting for the cavalry to close.
Rudi thought the wave of approaching horsemen reminded him of the movies, something from faraway lands. Instinctively he knew how it would end.
Rudi shouted, “Wolfgang, the 34’s.” Wolfgang Braun, the gunner, began traversing the charging cavalry with Helga’s twin co-axial mounted MG 34’s. Jürgen Kroening, the loader, worked the traversing hand wheel. On both sides of Helga, the other PzKpfw IIIs and the motorized infantry joined their effort. The combined fire rattled man and beast alike. The horses tumbled to the earth as if tripped up by an invisible wire. The lucky few that avoided the withering fire attempted to retreat.
The battle required less than 15 minutes. After waiting for a second attack, the panzer platoon ventured onto the field, their co-axial and hull mounted machine guns firing at anything that moved. Crouching in the panzers’ shadows were the infantry. The panzers’ 37mm main guns remained silent.
Rudi sat, surveying the field as if in a dream. Men and animals were frozen in hideous poses while some horses flopped on the turf, struggling to rise without effect. The horses innards, disgorged in the midst of the slaughter, stretched across the fields like giant worms.
The sights proved less memorable than the odors: the mixed scents of excrement and urine, the stench of cordite, burning flesh and smoldering horse hide would remain with him for weeks. Amidst it all a rider-less white horse galloped on a collision course with Helga then skidded to a stop. A magnificent animal it briefly reminded Rudi of home and horses he knew so well. The creature turned to reveal an enormous gash in its flank as it tumbled to the ground, eyes wild and red. Rudi’s eyes watered from the animal’s pain. Removing his Walther pistol he aimed at the beast’s head and ended its misery. Mission accomplished he ordered Adolf to continue.
The few Polish survivors surrendered without a fight, leaving Rudi to consider the battlefield and place it among the battles of history. Admiring the cloudless and deep blue sky, he was reminded of the Karl May books he devoured as a young teen; he had been inspired by the action filled tales of the Old American West. It was one such tale, that of General Custer at the Little Big Horn, that came to mind on the Polish field. Once he had yearned to visit the Great Plains, places like Nebraska, North Dakota and Texas, but Herr Goebbels warned of America’s racial impurity and Rudi’s desire waned.
Thereafter, whenever Rudi heard claims of desperate Polish cavalry charging panzers as evidence of their pathetic efforts to stop the Blitzkrieg, Rudi invariably spoke. “I was at such a charge near Brest Litovsk and I can tell you that at least in my sector, the Poles were not charging in an organized attack. They were not fools trying to poke holes in our panzers with lances. They were trying to break through us, to flee to the south to Rumania. It was the same as Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn.” Listeners merely stared then offered him more beer.
0
Emil did not die that day. His shattered elbow was serious, but not fatal. He had been unlucky; a round from the disorganized Polish infantry firing into the air penetrated Jolanthe’s armor and breached the Stuka’s rear cockpit.
The war with Poland was over. The Third Reich had all Polish opposition, with minimal casualties. Emil was going home to recover, his future with Hans and the Luftwaffe was unclear.
Emil would spend the next months “recovering” in Munich with his arm in a sling and medals weighing down his tunic. He also would not want for companionship from grateful frauleins. Hans would ferry the Stuka back to the rear for maintenance, re-fit, overhaul or whatever term HQ used. In his deepest wish he would be transferred to the fighters and amidst it find a fraulein of his own. Hans would be returning to the Reich a hero.
IV
September 30, 1939 0800
Lieutenant Waltraud Shriver flew 300 meters above the Polish countryside, searching for the village where the lead elements of the Second Panzer Division had bedded down the prior evening. He guided his Fieseler Storch Fi 156C-2 army cooperation/spotter plane effortlessly through the clear morning sky at barely over 110 kilometers per hour.
Waltraud had waited an entire day for the arrival of the new Schwartz two-bladed wooden propeller to be installed on his Storch. Mercifully, the damaged prop was no fault of Shriver’s. Ground personnel had literally slammed into it when re-positioning a field kitchen.
Airborne, Waltraud remained in radio contact with the advancing panzer division’s headquarters. After locating the village, he was to loiter and warn the 3rd Panzer Regiment of approaching Poles. The rear echelon expected more defeated soldiers to run for Romania.
Over six feet tall, blonde and blue eyed with a reputation for sweeping the ladies off their feet, Shriver suffered from one disability in Germany and the Luftwaffe. Shriver was a second-degree Mischling, a mutt. Two years earlier he learned his maternal grandmother, Anna, was a Jew. A decade had passed since he laid eyes on her, her immigration to America with her second husband, also a Jew, permanently separated the Shriver family.
Shriver was not alone in the Luftwaffe; Field Marshall Erhard Milch was rumored to have a Jewish father. He protected his position by swearing his mother’s seven children were fathered, not by her Jewish husband, but by her own Christian uncle. Hitler personally approved the issuance of an official German Blood Certificate to Milch as incest was less a taint on the Nazi party than Jewish heritage.
Perhaps due to Milch’s true ancestry, the Luftwaffe was more tolerant of bloodlines, Shriver earned special permission to serve in the Luftwaffe but not in a combat plane. Instead he flew a Storch, a surveillance plane with no munitions and no means to attack the German soldiers who were sworn to wipe Jewish blood off the continent. Known as the “flying Jew” from those below him, Shriver was determined to serve capably and honorably by warning ground forces when the enemy was collecting against them.
The short range reconnaissance duty appealed to Waltraud. It was outside the bizarre tug of war between the Luftwaffe and the Army. The German press had made much of the close cooperation between the branches during the Polish campaign, but reality was much different. Lacking common radio frequencies, panzer units could not request aerial support. Instead a Luftwaffe representative Fliegerverbindungsoffizier or Flivo, was attached to the ground unit and requested all missions on behalf of the ground units. The two hour lag between Shriver calling in locations of the enemy to the ground then the flivo requesting a sortie to the planes reaching their target was the most inefficient part of blitzkrieg.
Waltraud circled south of a small village in search of the 3rd Panzer Regiment. Motorized infantry waved, as Shriver and his Storch popular with the panzer troops who depended on him to be their eye in the sky. Above the battlefield no one noticed his tainted blood. He looked at the battlefield strewn with dead Polish soldiers and their horses, the result of his efforts and the German soldiers who fought so ferociously.
Waltraud nosed the Storch downward, picking up speed. He swooped, wagging his wings in salute even as the heinous odor of rotting flesh reached his cockpit. Waltraud yanked back on the yoke, using his excess airspeed to balloon upwards at an unusually steep angle, away from the carnage. From the ground, the Storch’s maneuvers appeared to be airshow aerobatics. The 3rd Panzer Regiment applauded, impressed with thei
r spotter’s skill.
8
September 29, 1939
Ianu Cohnescu looked up as Drago Gropeano entered his family’s shop. Approaching sixty Drago was the town’s lumber man and owner of the only radio along with being a lifelong friend of Ianu’s father, Saloman.
The Cohnescu family and Gropeano family had been neighbors for over half a century. Originally from the Russian town of Berdichev which was part of the exclusive Jewish settlement known as the Pale of Settlement, the two families had survived the various pogroms that sought to eliminate the “Yids” from sacred Russian territory.
The Pale of Settlement had been abandoned during the Great War as it passed from Russian to Austrian then back to Russian and finally German control. Faced with an ever moving military line, the Cohnescu and Gropeanos fled Berdichev just ahead of another pogrom, thousands of their neighbors dying at the hands of the new but temporary Ukrainian government. Fleeing hundreds of kilometers to the southwest, the families crossed into Rumania settling in the town of Letcani, twenty kilometers west of the Rumanian city of Iasi and the Prut River.
Ignored among the millions of refugees milling about Europe looking for new homes, the Cohnescu and Gropeano became part of a close knit community, adopting portions of the new culture while holding onto parts of their own. Ianu was born in their first year in Letcani, his Rumanian name an attempt to fit within their adopted home.
“Ianu,” Drago raised his hands toward the young man who was barely eighteen. “Is your father here?” He stepped around the metal hoes and the sacks of meal that were pushed tightly together so as not to block the path to the stove slid neatly into center of the store.
“He is at home, the weather is affecting him.” Even though it was only early September a brutal wave of wet and cold had swept across the Prut. Saloman was susceptible to the damp cold and sudden changes in the weather forced him to take to his sick bed.
French Betrayal (Reich Triumphant Book 1) Page 9