Second Front (Kirov Series Book 24)

by John Schettler

  That decided his mind.

  With Jean Bart lost, he thought, and Casablanca under imminent attack, my only strategy would be to fight here in the Med. If we run for home now, it will only undermine the morale of the French further. So we stay, and we fight. I will issue recall orders for the Hindenburg Group immediately. They will return—but not to Gibraltar. I will want them move quickly to Oran, and from there, we may have enough to keep the Allies from thinking about a sortie into the Western Med.

  It was then that the telephone rang on his desk. He lifted the receiver, wondering, and heard a dry cold voice that he recognized all too well—Himmler. “Admiral Raeder,” it said.

  “Yes, this is Raeder.”

  “Anton is coming to dinner. Lila should be there to meet him.”

  That was all he said, hanging up the phone before Raeder could speak a single word.

  My God, he thought. It is far worse than I imagined.

  He knew exactly what Himmler was referring to. Case Anton was the German plan to seize Vichy France in the event of French cooperation with the Allies overseas. Operation Lila was the plan to seize all that was left of the French Navy at Toulon. Himmler was warning him these operations were now to be put in motion. It was all collapsing, everything he had striven for. It was all twisting in the wind now.

  It suddenly occurred to him that the subtle movement of the Normandie from Toulon to Algiers might have darker implications. What was Laborde up to? All the eggs had been safe in the nest at Toulon, save one, the pride of the French Navy. He picked up the telephone again.

  “Get me Kapitan Adler on the Hindenburg.”

  Chapter 21

  The British had no difficulties at all in their landings at Lisbon. It was only a question of how fast the dockyards could receive the men and equipment. As this wing of the Torch plan was never tried in the real history, it received a new commander as well, a General very eager to continue writing his name in the record books. After saving Tobruk from Rommel, and saving Singapore from the Japanese, if only for a few crucial weeks, Montgomery had returned to the 8th Army, chafing to get more than the infantry under his command. When he learned that his old 3rd Division had been selected to take part in the Torch operation, he put in a request with Brooke to see about a posting to that action. It would be the order of the day, get him back in the limelight, and out of the considerable shadow that General O’Connor cast in the 8th Army order of battle. So his old post was given to General Alexander, and off he went.

  The plan was for the heavy armor to land at Lisbon, then quickly commandeer trains that the Portuguese had been quietly moving to the outskirts of the city. A cover story about work on a bridge causing a backlog was put out to mask the buildup, and it fooled everyone except Himmler. Unfortunately, Himmler could not convince Goring that he should violate neutral Portuguese airspace and bomb those valuable train cars and engines, and Goring would not act unless he received specific orders from Hitler. So 6th Armored Division was going to get ashore, and by the time they arrived, the skies above the port were seething with every fighter the British could bring on their aircraft carriers, with hundreds more landing on Portuguese airfields.

  One thing the British had mastered in the early years of the war was the art of rapid forward deployment for the RAF squadrons assigned to support the campaign. They realized that fighters would govern the front, and a preponderance of fighter aircraft was an absolute necessity. The ratio would be at least four for every bomber, and preferably six. The initial cover would be provided by the FAA, but as soon as possible, Spitfire squadrons would be rushed to Portuguese airfields from England. Number 322 and 324 Squadrons would be the first to arrive, and where they could operate from good bases, the Stuka was dead. Those two groups brought in 72 Spitfires, and soon they ruled the roost over Lisbon.

  The 43rd Wessex landed quickly with the armor, and advanced up the rail lines towards Madrid. There they would be opposed by the first of three German divisions that would react to the invasion, the 337th Infantry. It had been assigned to 7th Army headquartered in Bordeaux for some time, but was about to get its first real combat experience, at least for most of the men in the division at that time. The man in charge, however, General Eric Marcks, had been blooded in Russia, commanding the 101st Light Division, so he knew what he was doing. He left a leg in Russia, replaced with a wooden prosthesis, and it seemed like he was put out to pasture with the 337th. Now he was front and center in the war on the emerging “Second Front.”

  Coming from Madrid by rail, the 337th detrained near the Portuguese border and sent its recon battalion across to scout out the situation. There it ran into Montgomery, who had come forward to look over the ground near the border, and with him he had the whole of 129th Brigade, including a battalion of the new Churchill tanks from the 34th Armored Brigade attached to the Wessex Division. He was spoiling for a fight, and determined to be the man who returned Gibraltar to the Crown. True to form, he waited to deploy two regiments of the division artillery before he launched a full brigade assault on the German 327th Recon Battalion.

  The Germans there had a high proportion of veterans that had rotated in from the Soviet front, and those men held their ground tenaciously, then began a well coordinated and very stubborn withdrawal. It was typical Monty, using the mass of his brigade as a weapon of attrition, but the Germans had fought on much more difficult ground in Russia, and they acquitted themselves well.

  Meanwhile, the British 6th Armored Division had taken the trains from Lisbon south, along the rail that passed east of Lagos and then ran along the southern coast towards the border. It was here that Hube’s 16th Panzer Division had arrived on the scene after a long rail march along the eastern coast of Spain, through Barcelona, Valencia, Murcia to Malaga and thence through Cordoba to Seville and the Portuguese border on the southern coast just west of the small port of Huelva. The rapidity of this move was due to well practiced experience on the dismal rail net in Russia, and in making it, the Germans had successfully covered Cadiz, and the airfield at Rota.

  The bulk of Hube’s division concentrated near the coast road and rail. He deployed all four of his Panzergrenadier battalions there, with both his Panzer battalions, and they ran head on into the entire British 6th Armored Division coming up the coast by both road and rail. The action was fought for the coastal town of Villa Real, and extended some 15 kilometers to the north, and it was like two knights jousting in armor, with both striking telling blows, and both sides would have dented shields and armor before it would be decided.

  In the south, the US landings were every bit the fine mess that men like Patton, Harmon and others expected. The plan had been altered to lead with the 1st US Infantry, perhaps the best trained unit in the army. It was going to put its 18th and 26th regimental Combat Teams ashore to seize Rabat and Port Lyautey some 80 kilometers northeast of Casablanca. The 26th landed at Mehdia, stormed inland and took its objective. The 18th, however, came in hard at Rabat, took that town, driving out the 2nd Zouave Regiment in the process, and then milled about, trying to sort through crates of weapons and supplies, re-assemble mixed up companies, while one battalion was still foundering about in the high surf. The regiment was leaderless, because its commanding officer, had landed somewhere else.

  The naval transport he was on got fouled up with elements of the 16th RCT, which had been tasked with taking Port Lasfar and El Jadida, nearly 100 kilometers southwest of Casablanca. Colonel Greer had been squinting at the shoreline, then staring at his map. He should be seeing the river mouth near Rabat, but the only report of an estuary was indicating it was 20 kilometers farther north.

  “That can’t be right,” he growled. “The goddamn town is right there. Just put us ashore.” It wasn’t until he slogged off his LVT, waded ashore, and made his way into that town, that he learned where he was. To his great surprise, he bumped into soldier wearing the shoulder patch of the 16th RCT. He was 180 kilometers southeast of his regiment, and when Patton found
him, coming ashore at El Jadida, he read him the riot act, ordered him to get back on anything that would float, and get his ass up to Rabat on the double.

  Those two small ports were just big enough to get elements of Task Force Red ashore, with much needed supporting armor. With Patton there, this “mess,” as he first saw it, was quickly sorted out, and he was personally directing traffic with his riding crop pointing out where he wanted the units to go—northeast, to Casablanca.

  It was then that a fateful decision was made on the part of the defending forces. Reports had been coming in to Kesselring all morning, and now he had a fairly good idea of where the main landings were, to either side of Casablanca. But there was one other raid mounted much farther south at Safi. There Lt. Colonel Rosenfeld had made a pre-dawn assault to seize the small port and the airfield about 4 kilometers north at Sidi Bou Zid.

  This port had two direct rail lines coming to it, one from Marrakech to the southeast, and another spur to the north from the main rail line from that city to Casablanca. It was there, at Marrakech, that a French Division was posted as a standing garrison unit, but the German 327th Division had just arrived the day before the invasion. It was to wait there for its supplies arriving the next day before moving to the coast with orders to eventually be transported by sea to take over garrison duty on the three German held islands in the Canaries. This would allow General Kubler to then mount his next offensive move against the British bastion of Tenerife.

  But that would never happen now.

  When word came in of the landing at Safi, the immediate reaction was for the 327th to move there, but Kesselring intervened. “No,” he said to a staff adjutant. “From all reports, there is only a single regiment landed at Safi. The French Marrakech Division can go there by road and retake those ports. Send orders for the 327th to get back on those trains and head north for Casablanca. I will see that the division supplies are re-routed as well.”

  This intervention was going to give the Axis forces their only chance at making a credible defense at the vital Atlantic port. Even as Patton was lashing trucks and armored cars with his riding crop, pushing them northeast, the Germans were riding the rails north, and the two forces would have a meeting engagement when the Americans finally had pushed up to approach the rail line to Marrakech.

  The 327th Division had been formed in Bavaria in 1940 and was sent to France as a garrison unit, quartered near La Rochelle before it was tapped for deployment to Morocco. It moved through Vichy France to Toulon, embarked there and landed at Oran. From there it had moved by rail through Fez to Marrakech. Equipped as a second tier division, it was deemed ready for defensive actions, looking forward to the balmy Canary Island posting when the new orders came in. Major General Theodore Fischer had just taken command, and now he was to find his unit thrust into the crucible of Patton’s “desperate venture.” When light tanks were reported approaching the rail line, Fischer stopped the train and immediately ordered his division to deploy. The troops were literally jumping from the train cars as the American forces approached.

  Tireless, Fischer simply deployed his battalions from the march and ordered them to attack west. They ran right into the 16th RCT with its supporting light tanks and mechanized forces from Task forces Green and Red. These were all forces that would have made the landing at Oran in the old history. Now they were writing it all anew.

  The presence of that division was a saving grace to the defenders of Casablanca, for it looked as though Patton would simply sweep up and take the city from the south until the Americans ran into that line of feldgrau deployed all along the rail line leading south.

  * * *

  Now a decision had to be made as to what would happen with the German position in the Canary Islands. Admiral Raeder had already made his choice as to where he would put his remaining naval assets, and he knew that unless this invasion at Casablanca was soundly defeated, Operation Condor was now doomed.

  “A second American infantry division is now landing north of Casablanca near Fedala,” he told Kesselring. “The 327th arrived just in time to hold off the attack from the south, but I do not think they will stop this invasion alone. That being the case, what do we do about Operation Condor? I can tell you right now, that I can no longer supply those troops. The delivery being made this morning will probably be the last, and I do not think Goring will be able to use his transports to airlift supplies either. The British are moving in Spitfires, and our control of the air is now well contested. If Casablanca falls, that entire position falls with it.”

  “Then we must get the troops out now,” said Kesselring. “Kubler was organizing for an attack on Tenerife, but that must be cancelled immediately. Instead, he can mount those troops on the ships you just sent to deliver supplies, and withdraw to Morocco. The same for all the air transports now mustered on those islands.”

  “The airlift to Morocco would be a dangerous move.”

  “We will simply have to risk it.”

  “And Hitler?” said Raeder, his message obvious.

  “Damn Hitler,” said Kesselring. “If we ask for permission, you know what he will say. But those troops are elite fighting forces, the only air mobile divisions in the army. To leave them to wither on the vine out there would be criminal! If, however, we can move them quickly to Morocco, then they can strike north. We will leave a small garrison on the islands. Hitler does not need to know we have withdrawn the bulk of those troops. We will merely say that certain elements have been dispatched to retake Safi. But I want the 2nd Luftland Division, and 7th Flieger, out of there—now. Kubler’s mountain regiment will go by sea, and we will leave it to him as to what garrison he can leave behind.”

  “The British will take them all back in short order,” said Raeder dejectedly. “Everything we fought for.”

  “In time,” said Kesselring. “But not until the outcome of this big invasion is determined. They won’t have the shipping to conduct landing in Portugal, Morocco and the Canaries as well. So we will hold those islands long enough to keep the Führer from exploding, and when the British do take them back, that will be the fortunes of war.”

  “There is no rail connection north from the southern airfields. The nearest rail line will be at Safi.”

  “Then that is our first objective.” Kesselring took off his gloves, leaning over the map. Then he offered up his patented smile. “So the war in the West has finally begun.”

  With that decision, Raeder’s dream of holding that knife at the jugular of the British convoy routes to Freetown and beyond would now evaporate. Döenitz would no longer be able to slip his U-boats quietly into Fuerteventura to refuel under the reassuring umbrella of German air cover. Instead, the FAA and RAF would roost on those islands, and make all the waters in every direction a no man’s land for the wolfpacks. That was a major strategic loss insofar as the battle for the Atlantic was concerned.

  The loss of Gibraltar certainly stung, but in its place, the British now had a growing military presence in the Azores, on Madeira at Funchal Harbor, and in the Canaries where two Brigades of the 78th Division were still digging in on Tenerife and La Palma.

  Soon FAA recon operations would begin to spot the German withdrawals. General Kubler was at the Grand Harbor when he got the order to get his men out. The small supply convoy was already in the harbor, but the boats would never be unloaded. Raeder’s little supply fleet had been making night runs out to the islands, mostly using Siebel ferries from Tan Tan and Tarfaya. But these were larger ships provided by the French and Italians, and the Germans needed to get them moving fast if they wanted to be safely away before dawn. Frustrated and angry, he reluctantly passed the order on to his three battalion commanders.

  We fight like hell for these islands, he thought, never get the naval support promised, and only half the air support we need, I take the lion’s share here, and now I must throw all that red meat back to the British. So now we go back to Morocco, back to the desert, and this news of an Allied landing at
Casablanca is behind all this. Something tells me we will be fighting our way north soon, and through some of the worst terrain in Africa.

  Ordered to leave some garrison capable of defending the island, he gave the assignment to his Pioneer battalion, knowing he would probably never see any of those men again. They had come here, flush with victory, but as Kubler made his last rounds on Gran Canaria, driving the entire coast road to look over the defensive positions, he had the haunting thought that, with this withdrawal, his men would now move from one defensive fight to another.

  The Americans, he thought. Now that they have come, this war will look very much different. Now we fight not simply to win, but to survive.

  Part VIII

  Lighting the Torch

  “Use steamroller strategy; that is, make up your mind on course and direction of action, and stick to it. But in tactics, do not steamroller. Attack weakness. Hold them by the nose and kick them in the pants… If you don’t succeed, I don’t want to see you alive. I see no point in surviving defeat, and I am sure that if all of you enter into battle with equal resolution, we shall conquer, and live long, and gain more glory.”

  ― General George Patton

  Addressing the troops prior to landings for Operation Torch.

  Chapter 22

  With Patton heavily engaged with the 327th Infantry south of the city, it was the 3rd US Infantry Division that would land the next blow, arriving off Fedala and points northwest on D+3. It had come all the way across the Atlantic from US ports. Roosevelt and Greer, with two thirds of Allen’s 1st Division at Rabat and Port Lyautey, would be glad to see them come, for they had been unable to push the French north or open the road to Tangier, and it was all they could do to simply hold the port and airfield. But first 3rd Infantry had to get ashore.