Second Front: The Allied Invasion of France, 1942–43 (An Alternative History)

by Alexander M. Grace

  “Exactly,” De Gaulle continued. “They can’t afford to take us for granted anymore.”

  “So you accept our proposal, General?” Juin asked.

  De Gaulle paused for a moment, and then nodded. “I do. Now, how can we get back to the mainland? I’m frankly more than a little homesick and definitely sick of dealing with our allies as a government in exile.”

  “There is a cabin on the Strasbourg at your disposal,” Admiral de Laborde announced proudly. “And no more back doors, no more sneaking about in the night. We will sail directly to Toulon, where we will not have to answer to anyone, and you can travel in state to Marseille and set up your government there.”

  De Gaulle drew himself up even taller, towering over the other men in the room and extended his hand to the Admiral. According to Koenig’s memoirs, a tear could be seen glistening in the General’s eye.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM

  0700 HOURS, 31 DECEMBER 1942

  ST. ETIENNE, FRANCE

  PERHAPS IT WAS that not even God had the nerve to refuse a direct order from General Patton. Major Creighton W. Abrams of the 1st Armored Division had heard the story about Patton’s injunction to the army chaplains to pray for good flying weather, which had made the rounds of II Corps like wildfire, and sure enough, when the American offensive had opened the previous morning, only scattered high clouds had remained in the sky and the ground was firm and hard under the treads of the tanks. Doolittle’s 12th Air Force, headquartered at Marseille, had sent hundreds of P-40s and Spitfires aloft to sweep the Luftwaffe back, and waves of B-25s had pounded the German lines near Valence mercilessly while the RAF and the American 8th Air Force in England continued to make the movement of any German unit toward the front a nightmare of delays, detours, and sudden destruction.

  The 2nd Armored and 1st Infantry Divisions, nearly 40,000 strong with over 400 tanks, had slammed into the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division near Privas and had sent the Germans reeling back toward Valence. While the older model tanks that equipped both the 3rd Panzer Grenadiers and the 26th Panzer, which was also committed to the battle, had been more than enough to instill “tank panic” in the lightly armed American paratroopers and the French the week before, they were no match for the powerful guns and thick armor of the Americans’ new Shermans or even their obsolescent Grants. The valley of the Rhone was now littered with the burnt-out hulks of dozens of Pzkw IIIs and IVs. Only the arrival of the newly formed Hermann Göring Panzer Grenadier Division had stabilized the German front at the outskirts of Valence by evening. However, according to the reports of prisoners taken during the battle, this division had performed so badly overall that its commander would be reduced to threatening summary executions of some of its soldiers for cowardice, and it was spent as a fighting force until it could be pulled out of the line and thoroughly reorganized.

  But Patton was not finished yet. When the thrust along the west bank of the Rhone began to lose momentum, he called up his reserve division, the 9th Infantry, reinforced with two battalions of Shermans and two regiments of the Foreign Legion brought over from North Africa, and launched them across the Isère River for a drive up the east bank of the Rhone, which was thinly held by the Germans, directly toward Lyon. At the same time, the 1st Armored was sent on a broad left hook through Aubernas to Yssingeaux and then east to St. Etienne, to get behind the Germans in a mirror image of the earlier German attack. The 1st would be supported by several French regiments and the remnants of the 82nd Airborne, who were eager to redeem themselves, sweeping the rough ground to the right of the 1st Armored’s advance and assigning strong detachments to guard the crossings of the Loire River on their left. With a little luck, the double envelopment of the Germans at Valence could result in the gutting of German offensive power in central France for weeks.

  Abrams scanned the town from the crest of a hill. Allied bombers had hit the town recently, and smoke was curling up from several burning buildings. Combat Command B (CCB) of the 1st Armored and the divisional support units had the job of taking the town with the help of the 504th Airborne Regiment while Abrams’ own CCA, which he had taken over when the original commander had been wounded during the fighting around Valence the week before, swung around the town to strike south through Annonay and into the rear of the German units still holding Valence. The taking of St. Etienne was not a job Abrams envied CCB, using armor in what promised to be a nasty street fight through the town, and intelligence informed him that the defenders were SS troops, not given to easy surrender or retreat. The only bright spot was that the Germans had swept through here so quickly the first time that they had almost certainly never imagined having to fight here again so soon and had not made use of the days since the town fell to fortify their positions.

  Abrams signaled the driver of his Grant to move out along the logging trail they were using to skirt St. Etienne. He had traded in his little M5 Stuart when it became apparent in their first battle that, while the Stuart was much faster and more maneuverable than the bulky Grant, it certainly wasn’t fast enough to outrun an armor piercing round, its armor almost negligible and badly angled, and its 37mm gun no more than a doorknocker useful for getting a German tanker’s attention. Within an hour the column had reached the main road running south from St. Etienne to Annonay at the Rhone, and the tanks and half-tracks poured out of the woods and onto the hardtop where they picked up speed.

  Soon, Abrams could hear heavy firing from up ahead where a French armored cavalry troop spearheading the advance must have run into the first resistance. Over the treetops he could see aircraft diving and dropping bombs while several columns of smoke rose skyward. A jeep came roaring back up the highway, hugging the gravel shoulder as a double column of vehicles filled the roadway. The jeep fishtailed to a stop next to Abrams’ tank, and he signaled a halt.

  “We’ve got about a battalion of enemy infantry holed up in Annonay,” a dirty faced Captain hollered from the jeep over the grumbling of the tank engine. “The French are engaging them. Your orders from General Harmon are to swing right at a farm track about half a mile ahead and head due southeast across country. You have to get within gunshot of the river before nightfall and take up a defensive position there, a laager for all-round defense. It looks like we’ve caught the Germans flat-footed, and the General wants to keep as much of this as possible off the airwaves.”

  “Roger that,” Abrams shouted. “How’s the 9th Division doing?”

  “They’re closing on the river from the south, but it’s heavy going. They’re almost within artillery range of the bridge this road takes over the river to hook up with the main highway up to Lyon. If they close that route off, the Germans will have to fight their way north on this side of the stream, and they’ve already started pulling back from Valence.”

  “You mean they’ll have to climb over us.”

  “Yes sir,” the captain replied, “and, by the way, Major?” he shouted up as Abrams was about to slip the radio earphones over his head again to get on his way.

  “What?”

  “The general says that you’re a colonel now. Can’t have major leading a combat command into battle, he said. Congratulations, sir.” He snapped a salute.

  “Outstanding,” Abrams smiled. “Make sure he gets that down on paper so my wife gets the survivor’s benefits. I’ve got a feeling that the Germans aren’t just going to lie down and let us roll over them.”

  “Too bad we’re not fighting the Italians, sir,” the captain agreed as he eased back into his seat, and the two vehicles parted.

  Abrams pulled his battalion commanders out of the line for a quick conference, and they studied a map of the river valley area. Abrams would have two tank battalions, one of Grants and one of Stuarts, and a battalion of infantry in half-tracks plus an 18-gun battalion of 105mm howitzers also mounted on half-tracks. He also had an attached company of M-10 tank destroyers with their light armor but 76mm high velocity guns. He would put the Grants faci
ng south toward Valence, the Stuarts and M-10s facing north toward Lyon whence any German reinforcements would be coming, and use the infantry to fill in the gaps. If it came up in time, Harmon would place the divisional artillery in a position to fire all around his perimeter, but Abrams had to assume that he’d be on his own for awhile at least.

  “Looks like we’re the cork in the bottle, gentlemen,” Abrams concluded to his officers as they headed back toward their units.

  “And you know who gets screwed,” he overheard one of them grumble under his breath. He had to agree.

  The sun was getting low over the Massif Central to the west, casting longer and longer shadows across the fields as Abrams surveyed the ground ahead. CCA was halted in the last heavily wooded ground, and he had slipped forward with some scouts in jeeps mounting .50 caliber machine guns. There was about two miles of gently rolling, open ground between his observation point and the river. A narrow road paralleled the river heading north, and it was crammed with German vehicles, artillery, tanks, trucks, and even horse-drawn wagons. Then his eyes hit on what he had been looking for: a broad bowl-shaped area surrounded by low knolls, about three-quarters of a mile in diameter, its outer edge less than a mile from the river road. If he could rush CCA into that depression, the knolls would serve as breastworks, and he could shift forces from one point to another to meet any enemy attacks. He rushed back to his jeep to get his orders out.

  CCA came rolling out of the woods in line abreast, over one hundred vehicles with the setting sun at their backs, every gun firing wildly while the artillery and mortar batteries fired over their heads. The effect of the concentrated fire on the close-packed German column was devastating, and immediate panic resulted. The advancing line soon became ragged as the tanks would pause to fire with greater accuracy, but in a matter of minutes virtually every German vehicle in sight was a burning wreck and dozens of men had even plunged into the swift-flowing, icy waters of the Rhone in an effort to escape.

  Abrams quickly called in his units to take advantage of the enemy’s undoubtedly temporary confusion to occupy his defensive position. The tanks and tank destroyers took up hull-down positions around the perimeter while the artillery and mortars spaced themselves out as best they could in the center, and the infantry began furiously to dig individual fighting pits. Abrams also sent out platoon-size patrols both north and south, well equipped with bazookas and mines to provide some advance warning of the approach of the enemy. It would take some time for word to reach the nearest German headquarters that the road was cut and still more to organize a serious counterattack, but the attack could not fail to come. This was the only game in town for the Germans, so the stakes didn’t matter any more.

  Abrams was called to the western perimeter just before sunset by a nervous infantry captain who had spotted movement to his front. Fortunately, his men were well enough in hand that they didn’t open fire immediately, for it turned out that the intruders were a force of about 100 American paratroopers from the 509th and some 200 French who had been wandering the woods since the German offensive, trying to find their way back to friendly lines through the aggressive German patrols. As haggard as the refugees looked, Abrams was glad to have them and ordered up K-rations and a supply of ammunition for them as Lt. Col. Bentley and Colonel d’Ormesson spotted their units around the perimeter, helping to flesh out the defense.

  Abrams did not have long to wait. In the gathering dusk, several probes from the south, in company strength, tested the perimeter, but they were easily spotted in the light of the still-burning vehicles, and driven back with considerable loss. Abrams was concerned. He had to make a decision and had chosen to put his heavier Grants on the southern side, on the assumption that most of the available German armor was trapped at the front near Valence. But what if he was wrong? He would not know for certain, of course, until it was too late to do anything about it.

  1000 HOURS, 31 DECEMBER 1942

  LYON, FRANCE

  In the view of General Alfred Gause and Colonel Siegfried Westphal, Rommel’s chief of staff and chief of operations, 1942 was not ending on a particularly auspicious note for the Third Reich in general or for themselves in particular. The Field Marshal had roared off to the front early that morning after the American offensive had started, and they had not heard from him since. Enemy radio jamming had prevented all but the most sporadic contact with either the 3rd Panzer Grenadier or the 26nd Panzer Divisions, but they now appeared to be cut off by armored forces that had slipped in behind them. That opened the possibility that Rommel had been either killed or captured. In any event, if Rommel had had any plans for dealing with the enemy attack, he had not shared them with his staff, and it was now up to them to issue orders to divisional, and even corps commanders in his name. They were used to this sort of thing from North Africa since there the unit commanders understood the Field Marshal’s eccentricities and did not bridle at taking direction from their juniors; but in France the scattered units forming the ring around the Allied lodgment were commanded by men used to a much more structured hierarchy, and precious time was being lost in useless bickering and posturing.

  The biggest problem at the moment was the attitude of General Haller, commander of LXIII Corps, the only major unit at the front that was not trapped behind the Allied advance. When it had appeared that the armored fist of Rommel’s offensive would sweep all before it, Haller was given pretty much a free hand in the deployment of his three infantry divisions. One was left in Lyon to deal with a popular uprising fomented by the Communist FTP, a second sent off to the southeast toward Chambery to link up with the Italians in the Alps, and the third southward to Grenoble, leaving a yawning gap between Grenoble and the Rhone. It had been into this gap, covered only by scattered infantry and recce battalions, that the right wing of the American attack had plunged. Rommel had ordered Haller’s two advanced divisions to pull back and hit the Americans in the flank while the division in Lyon should move south to meet them head on, leaving mopping up operations in the city to the SS police units that were arriving along with dribbles of reinforcements. Haller had protested that Allied carpet bombing was making the roads impassable, which was plausible enough, except that Haller apparently had a view to gaining laurels for himself (which had been lacking from a decidedly marginal performance thus far in the war) by capturing Grenoble. He argued that this would create a strategic threat to the Allied lodgment that would require them to pull back their 9th Division, thus serving the same purpose. As of the moment, however, the French garrison in Grenoble had managed to hold out against Haller’s attacks, and the Americans showed no sign of going to their aid when the chance of eliminating a German Panzer Corps, now designated the XIV under Fritz Bayerlein, another alumnus of the Afrika Korps, presented itself

  Rommel, of course, could have compelled Haller’s obedience or had him relieved on the spot, but his staff could hardly accomplish this, and Rommel was nowhere to be found. It remained to the staff to try to scrape together a breakthrough force from the units at hand. Unfortunately, there was very little at hand. The Führer still refused to release the 29th Panzer Grenadier Division from reserve at Rouen, but with virtually every railroad bridge and culvert in northern and central France destroyed by Allied bombers or partisans, troops from the north or from Germany would never arrive in time. The only units currently available were most of the newly created 1st Parachute Division and a battalion of the new Tiger heavy tanks, and it was these that Gause ordered down the road toward the pocket, knowing almost nothing about what they might encounter on the way.

  1130 HOURS, 31 DECEMBER 1942

  NEAR ANNONAY, FRANCE

  Some idiot had actually smuggled a little party horn in his pack and had begun tooting it as midnight approached, to the nervous laughter of the other men. It had taken Abrams and two sergeants major several minutes to find the culprit and destroy the offending article. The moon had set now, and, even though the Germans theoretically knew where his blocking position
was located, there was no point in giving them the present of precisely fixing his placement.

  There had been half a dozen separate attacks on the perimeter, all from the south, since sunset, and none had made much progress. Abrams could hear the dull rumble of heavy artillery fire from down around Valence as the rest of II Corps pressed the Germans hard, and more from the east where the 9th Division was probably pounding the bridge over the Rhone, the Germans’ only other escape route. Only a few more hours, he kept telling himself If the weather held, the fighter-bombers would be up at dawn and could keep any enemy relief columns off his back, but for the moment, he was all alone.

  Suddenly, there was a flurry of firing from the north this time, and Abrams’ stomach knotted up. It was the outpost on the road toward Givors, and he could hear the chatter of machine guns and the occasional whoosh of a bazooka. So tanks were coming this time, he thought. Then there was silence once more. He trotted over to an M-10 tank destroyer and hauled himself up on the back deck. The TD’s turret had an open top, something Abrams had never understood, since it made the crew totally vulnerable to artillery bursts, but it enabled him to snatch the commander’s radio headset and raise the mortar battery. He told them to stand by.

  Even though his eyes were accustomed to the dark, the night was now almost completely black. The faint starlight made the broad Rhone glisten off to his right, and the disabled enemy vehicles or clumps of trees were slightly darker patches on the landscape, so he strained to hear what might be approaching. He felt it before he could hear it, a vibration in the ground, and he had to check to make sure that the tank destroyer’s engine was turned off. It was. Then came the distinct and unmistakable squeal of bogie wheels.