This Fog of Peace (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 4)

by William Peter Grasso

  Truman paused for a moment, deep in thought. Then he had one more question: “General Marshall, does the War Department consider this an unprovoked act of aggression by the Soviets?”

  “Yes, Mister President. Absolutely unprovoked.”

  “Very well, General. We have our plausible incident. Launch Operation Curveball.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The warning order for Operation Curveball left Sean strangely ambivalent. He’d been chomping at the bit for months to take the fight to the Russians. But the timing of this endeavor seemed all wrong:

  Have the big brass gone soft in the head or what? Patton’s replacement—this General Prestwick—ain’t even had time to figure out his order of battle yet, but he’s gonna be leading the charge when we go ahead and launch this offensive anyway? As usual, Thirty-Seventh Tank is going to be the spearhead of the whole shooting match, and we got a brand-spanking-new C.O., too. I guess we should count our lucky stars that at least our old division commander is still with us.

  Don’t get me wrong—General Prestwick is a good man from what I hear, a real fighter. But he’s walking into this cold. I almost feel sorry for the guy. But we all know the drill. The only thing worse would be taking over while the shit’s actually flying.

  And speaking of shit, that’s what the weather’s been lately—nothing but solid overcast—and it ain’t supposed to improve for another couple of days. There goes our air cover. My brother the ASO is gonna be all dressed up with no place to go. When there are clouds in the sky, there ain’t no flyboys helping out us ground-pounders. We’ll be on our own.

  It’s the middle of September. Before we know it, it’s going to be snowing and we’ll be freezing our asses off all over again, just like last winter.

  I want to kick the Russians’ asses as bad as anybody…but this ain’t looking like the way to get started, that’s for damn sure.

  But Sean knew that short of some unforeseen calamity, Operation Curveball was going to launch in forty-eight hours…

  Whether they were ready or not.

  Colonel Hardy, the new C.O. of 37th Tank, had just returned from the Curveball briefing at Division. As he walked into his Pisek CP, he seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. Sean Moon wasn’t the only man wondering whether Hardy was up to his new job.

  Captain Carpenter leaned over to Sean and said, “Mark my words, he’s going to dump all the planning for this little exercise on his ops sergeant. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a damn good thing.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, sir. But be advised the first thing I’m gonna suggest is that your company rides point.”

  Carpenter smiled. “I wouldn’t expect anything else, Sergeant.”

  Colonel Hardy began the briefing of his battalion cadre. He’d spoken for barely a minute when he said, “Master Sergeant Moon is far more familiar with this unit, its people, and its capabilities than anyone else on my staff at the moment. I’ve asked the S3 to lean heavily on Sergeant Moon’s expertise in drafting this battalion’s operations order for Curveball.”

  Sean caught the look on Captain Carpenter’s face. He knew it meant told you so.

  The colonel continued, “I’ll expect each and every one of you, whether officer or noncom, to give Sergeant Moon your complete cooperation and support.”

  Hardy let the murmur of assent die down before continuing, “We’re fortunate to have some excellent photo recon intel to assist in our mission planning. We’re doubly fortunate to have with us an aviator who’s a veteran combat pilot and a highly experienced ASO who served as an air liaison officer with the Russians in the closing days of the war. And to top it all off, he’s the brother of our own Sergeant Moon. I’m going to have him brief you now on what this aerial photography is showing us. Captain Moon, the stage is yours.”

  Tommy stepped up to the big map and projection screen at the front of the room. Pointer in hand, he began, “A few days ago, photo recon was able to get some excellent pictures of the area between here and Prague before the weather socked in. The photos indicate significant defensive positions straddling the highway approximately twenty miles north of our present position here in Pisek, which puts it a little less than halfway to Prague.”

  After indicating the areas he’d just mentioned on the map with his pointer, he told the projectionist, “First slide, please.” The projector made a whirring noise, and an aerial photograph taken from directly overhead a Russian position filled the screen. It quickly captured the attention of every man in the room.

  “This is a shot of the defenses on the west side of the highway,” Tommy said. “As you can see, there’s a pretty large collection of towed artillery and anti-tank weapons already emplaced. We’ve counted all the pieces for you. The total is twenty-seven, not counting any that may be concealed from an overhead view by camouflage. If you look closely, you can also make out men who are apparently tending to a few dozen horses. And this is only one side of the road. Next slide, please, Corporal.”

  “This is the east side of the road,” Tommy explained as the new slide came up. “Doesn’t look much different from the west side—slight variance in terrain and tree cover, roughly the same number of towed artillery and anti-tank weapons in place—but let me point out something. We’ve now seen the entire Russian position straddling the highway—about fifty guns, give or take—but there are only a handful of trucks visible, and, at least at the moment these photos were taken, no tanks or Katyusha rocket-launching vehicles. So you might ask, How the hell did all this hardware get there? We think we have the answer. Next slide, please.”

  At first, the new slide seemed like just a stretch of empty highway. Then Tommy pointed to a small feature just off the side of the roadway. “You can’t tell what this is without some extreme magnification…but we were able to do you one better. Next slide.”

  What popped onto the screen next wasn’t an overhead photo; it was an oblique shot from low altitude. What it showed brought guffaws from the room.

  “That’s right,” Tommy said, “it really is a couple of cows towing a howitzer. We figure the teamster is well aware the airplane is overhead and is trying to get to the cover of trees. But cows don’t usually move very fast, so the recon pilot was able to get this shot.”

  Sean rose to ask a question. “All those guns in those first two slides…how do we know they’re not decoys, Captain?”

  “Glad you asked that, Sergeant. Next slide, please…”

  When the slide came on the screen, it showed another low-level oblique shot, this one of a line of guns emplaced practically hub to hub. Crewmen could be plainly seen performing maintenance on them. Some were even gawking at the airplane racing low overhead.

  Tommy said, “According to the intel people, you don’t generally waste time and effort pulling maintenance on decoys.”

  Sean seemed convinced, muttering, “Ain’t that the truth?”

  “Notice something else, too,” Tommy continued. “The way the guns are emplaced right next to each other rather than dispersed the way our artillery does it. That’s standard for all Soviet forces because their fire coordination isn’t all that great. Putting all the guns close together is the only sure way they can mass fires. Are you with me so far?”

  Hearing no questions, Tommy pressed on. “We can summarize what we’ve seen as follows: there’s a relatively immobile artillery ambush set up about halfway to Prague. It’s not likely to move anywhere quickly, not if its means of mobility is primarily horses and livestock. Now, the weather…we know it’s crummy right now, but it’s supposed to break within forty-eight hours. Once it clears, the Air Force can take care of any bunched-up emplacements fairly easily. Until then, well…it’ll be up to our artillery.”

  He went back to the map. “Now let’s talk about what we didn’t see in our photographs: large numbers of wheeled vehicles and armor. We know there are large tank parks here”—the pointer tapped the map—“in the Prague suburbs. But that�
��s just it…they’re parks. We haven’t seen the tanks in them actually moving anywhere, and the same goes for the Katyusha rocket launchers. That’s probably because they’re conserving their very scarce gasoline. Of course, if they do have gas, that means they can pop up anywhere along our route of advance. Remember, these photos are two days old. There’d be plenty of time to reposition their tanks south from Prague.”

  He asked for questions once more. There were none, so he turned to Colonel Hardy and said, “That’s all I have, sir.”

  “Very well,” Hardy replied. “Thank you, Captain Moon.” Then he went on to discuss another aspect of Curveball. “Units of Fourth Armored Division will be covering our rear as this battalion advances northward. Exact unit designations and call signs will be distributed by 2200 hours tonight. As to the protection of our flanks, that job will fall to tactical air…”

  He paused, sensing the sudden unrest in the room. When Sean saw no officer in a hurry to speak up and ask the obvious question, he did it himself. “Sir, this outfit is no stranger to being out in the front of advances with nothing but air support to cover our flanks. But air support depends on weather, and if that weather doesn’t break in the forty-eight hours it’s expected to, we’d be in deep shit right out of the box. So are we going to hold off crossing the start line until we’ve got the weather on our side?”

  Hardy could tell that the room was in complete agreement with Sean. Reluctantly, he answered, “Those are not our orders, Sergeant Moon. We’re to jump off at oh-six-hundred hours, the day after tomorrow, rain or shine. We won’t be delaying for the weather.”

  He expected Sean to be dissatisfied with his reply, even combative. But instead, Sean’s reply was matter-of-fact: “Okay, sir, that’s what I needed to know.”

  The battalion XO, a major named Lowe who’d only arrived in the unit a few weeks ago, said to Hardy, “There’s something I need to know, too, sir. Allow me to play devil’s advocate for a minute. The United States hasn’t declared war on anyone, so these orders we’ve gotten to launch this offensive…are they even legal? And if we follow them and it all goes to shit, are we going to find ourselves charged with war crimes if Washington decides it needs a scapegoat? I mean, we’re going to be hanging the Germans and Japs we just defeated for following illegal orders, aren’t we?”

  The room got eerily silent. Some expected Hardy to respond by relieving his XO on the spot. Others, especially those who had had a soft time of it in the shooting war, were suddenly terrified at the prospect of being labeled war criminals, something that had never occurred to them before. But the men who’d actually done the fighting—men like Sean and Tommy Moon—just sat back and let their sad wisdom wash over them. They’d seen more than enough to know that what happened in combat wasn’t always what was written in the history books:

  History was the sole property of the victors…

  And victors were never called war criminals.

  The trick was to be the victor.

  Colonel Hardy was ready to advocate for someone other than the devil. He replied, “Good question, Major Lowe. I’m glad you’ve posed it, so I can put it to rest right now. First off, our orders come from the highest levels of our government, so for our purposes—and theirs—you can bet your ass those orders are legal. A soldier’s duty is to follow lawful orders, and that’s just what we’re going to do. We’re not being asked to commit war crimes…we’ll be imposing justice on those Russian war criminals. And as far as your concerns about this operation going to shit, well…we’d only have ourselves to blame if it did, wouldn’t we? So let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. Are there any other questions?”

  There were no hands.

  “Then we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Hardy said. “Let’s get to it.”

  As the battalion staff rearranged themselves into working groups, Tommy had a question for his brother. “You didn’t seem too upset about not waiting for the weather to clear. What’re your plans for flank security if it doesn’t and we can’t fly?”

  “It’s simple, Half. Ain’t nothing we ain’t done before. We just hope and pray the bad weather’s fucking up the enemy more than us.”

  Major Lowe figured he was in for an ass-chewing—maybe even a sacking—when Colonel Hardy told him to shut the office door. With just the two of them in the room now, he decided on preemptive action.

  “I realize I haven’t worked for you very long, sir,” the XO said, “and I want to apologize if I was out of line back there in the briefing. But I did feel it was a legitimate concern that needed to be aired and resolved…for the sake of morale if nothing else.”

  “Actually, I’m glad you made the point, Major,” Hardy replied. “But I’ve got to tell you, I’m not too thrilled with the way you did it. If you ever grandstand like that in front of the entire staff again, it’ll be your ass. Playing devil’s advocate like you did is fine for brainstorming sessions or chatting with the padre but not battalion briefings. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Perfectly clear, sir.”

  “Outstanding,” Hardy replied. “So let’s get back to that question of declaring war. I’m here to tell you that Uncle Sam has absolutely no intention of declaring war against the Soviet Union. What’s going to happen the day after tomorrow is no different in concept than all the other incidents between us and the Russians since this fuckup of a joint occupation began. It’s just going to be on a somewhat larger scale and with more permanent consequences. And this is the time to do it, while the Russians are too weak to give us any serious resistance.”

  “Too weak, sir? And we’re not?”

  “No, Major, we’re not. You mentioned morale just a minute ago. Now I don’t know what morale was like over in First Army, but you’d better get used to the fact that you’re in Third Army now, where we do things right. You’re about to learn what a crack armor outfit like Thirty-Seventh Tank is capable of. Now, do you have any other questions?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. Then go be my XO and bring back nothing but good work, Major.”

  The good work Colonel Hardy expected was in full swing, even at 0200 in the morning. Tanks were being fueled and armed, last-minute repairs to every type of vehicle were in work. Weapons of all types were made ready, from .45-caliber pistols to the 203-mm howitzers of division artillery. Radio gear was checked and rechecked.

  Sean had foregone a chance to nap so he could make sure the operations order was ready for Colonel Hardy’s approval by 0600. That way, any changes necessary could be quickly written and the order released in its entirety to all companies in the battalion by midmorning.

  Gotta give them the whole thing at once ASAP, Sean knew from hard experience. None of this frag order bullshit, where information trickles down in bits and pieces all day, leading to all kinds of misunderstandings and generally confusing the shit out of everyone. If they get the whole thing in the morning of the day before, they’ll know it by heart when it’s time to go.

  They’d just been handed the initial intel report on the captured Russian captain and his men. The report said little: the captain wouldn’t say a word; his men—who couldn’t seem to shut up—weren’t even sure where they were let alone what they were supposed to be doing. The papers the captain carried were simply transit orders for his target acquisition company, authorizing its trip from Vienna to Prague.

  In other words, Sean thought, we got into a fight with a bunch of lost Ivans who had no idea what the hell they were supposed to be doing.

  I hope the rest of them we run into are just as confused.

  But he needed a short break, a cup of coffee—anything to clear his head for a few minutes before diving back in with a fresh outlook.

  You catch your own mistakes that way.

  He went looking for his brother and found him poring over maps and aerial charts for Curveball’s area of operation. “Gee, Half,” Sean said, “I hope all this mission prep for the flyboys you’re putting in ain’t for nothing. The weather,
you know?”

  “It always clears up eventually, Sean.”

  “Yeah, let’s just hope it clears up in time. Been meaning to ask you…what’s going on with you and Sylvie?”

  “I wish to hell I knew,” Tommy replied. “She just finished some cloak and dagger bullshit for some secret outfit I’m not supposed to know anything about. Then she took off…supposedly to France.”

  “She coming back?”

  “Beats the hell out of me, Sean. Sometimes, I think I’m just chasing a ghost.”

  Sean poured himself more coffee and took a big slug. Then he said, “You know, Half…she seems like such a sweet kid. But inside she’s tough as nails. You and me been through a lot of shit, but at least we had plenty of company doing it. The stuff she did…hell, she did it all on her own. That’s her style…and she ain’t gonna change, neither.”

  “Yeah, I know. But how the hell do you live with someone like that?”

  “Simple, Tommy. You give her the space she needs. If she comes back, fantastic.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Then you know where you stand, little brother.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Even in the darkness of the 0500 hour, Sean could sense the overcast hadn’t broken. In an hour, the lead vehicle—a Sherman from Captain Carpenter’s Charlie Company—would cross the start line, kicking off Operation Curveball.

  And they’d be doing it without air support until the skies cleared.

  Sean told Colonel Hardy, “We need to go to Plan Biloxi right now, sir.”

  Plan Biloxi: the option where 37th Tank split in half and diverted to secondary roads—one half east of the main highway, one half west—to surprise and defeat the artillery trap they knew lay twenty miles ahead, enveloping it in an inescapable pincer.

  “Negative, Sergeant,” Hardy replied. “It’s too soon to make that call.”

  “With all due respect, sir, it’s better to make it now. It’ll be a whole lot less confusing than trying to shift gears later on the fly. Even if the weather does clear by some miracle while we’re still in the middle of executing Biloxi, we ain’t lost a thing. We can still call in all the air and artillery we want.”