The distances flown by the bombers and escorts of SAC and the 15th Air Force required long hours of constant attention to detail. Round trip from the Cairo airbases to the north shore of the Black Sea could take over 10 hours. The human body cannot sustain this kind of activity on a regular basis. Benzedrine could temporarily solve this problem.
The loss of this transport meant that for a few months the Mediterranean theatre would be without its Benzedrine. In addition, thousands of addicts would be going through withdrawal at the same time. Casualties increased by five percent for the American bomber and fighter pilots during January through March of 1947. Most of the increase was caused by accidents.
The officer’s clubs and off base bars were not pleasant places to visit. Relaxation became virtually impossible with an increase in flare ups among comrades in arms. Violence in the barracks increased dramatically as thousands of addicts went through withdrawal with no one available to assist, but fellow addicts.
The loss of this one freighter set back the bombing effort significantly during the intervening months. The loss of the Benzedrine is estimated to have caused thousands of additional deaths in a three-month period due to the increase in accidents and manslaughter rates.
Figure 27-Amphetamines Poster
Chapter Eleven:
The Holy Land
Figure 28 - Member of the Arab Legion
Cloak and Dagger
The Soviet advance was starting to wither on the vine in the Mideast. You can only fight so long and cover so much ground. Then, you have to curtail your rapid advance and let your supplies and air cover catch up.
SAC and the 15th Air Force had pulled back from Turkey and were now hitting the Red Armies supply lines hard from the Sinai Peninsula. The Allies had both setup a number of large temporary fields near the city of St. Catherine, Egypt.
The area is on high ground at 5200 ft. and surrounded by mountains that give the city its water supply. The city’s higher elevation resulted in cooler temperatures with highs reaching the low 80s in the summer. All in all, it was a rather nice place to be in the middle of a desert wasteland.
The area is holy to all three major religions, living together in reasonable harmony. History claims that Moses received the Ten Commandments here. Many of the Bible’s events took place near-by. The presence of Western military troops and modern machines did not sit well with the local holy men from all religions. However, the money that the troops brought with them was very welcome.
The raids, launched by SAC and the 15th Air Force, were designed to make life as miserable as possible for the still advancing Soviets. The VVS was playing catch up and was in the process of moving their bases. In the meantime, the US Army Air Forces and SAC were having a field day with almost negligible casualties. The increase in NATO air activity inevitably slowed down the pace of the Red attacks.
The slower pace of the retreat also meant that the press had caught up with the group known as Marsh’s Marauders. First, it was the United Press International, and then the New York Times, clamoring for access to the group.
Some general back in HQ had sent the press after them and Captain Marsh was not happy about the distractions. His company was now near the Golan Heights and looking down on the gathering Soviet Forces. His men were not made for trench warfare and that was what appeared to be in store. He desperately needed to get his company organized and marauding again.
The Turks were far from home and very unhappy. They missed their families, and native foods and smells. The men were simple shepherds and college students who had never been more than a dozen miles from home, much less in another country that didn’t speak Turkish. They had to be kept busy. Sitting in a trench line was not going to do it. His group was going to fall apart if he didn’t do something soon.
He used the power of the press to make his case. He wasn’t overt and didn’t give them any direct quotes. But, he did hint and suggest that it was kind of strange for a group of marauders to be cooped up fighting trench warfare. The Times reporter took the bait and ran with the theme of ‘Marauders Marooned in Trenches.’
The general who sent the reporters in the first place took the hint. He finally ordered the unit to strike out again and to conduct guerilla warfare as it was popularly being called.
Marsh’s Marauders returned to the business of conducting hit and run operations behind enemy lines. Being in the field had a number of advantages. His Turks were kept busy and they were out of the reach of the reporters. He was, however, ordered to transport, feed, and care for 40 carrier pigeons. Marsh was to write a detailed report of his group’s activities every other day. The coded reports were attached to a carrier pigeon’s leg and it was sent back to its home coop in Arish, Egypt.
The Marauder’s exploits would then be disseminated to the hungry NATO press corps, and from there to the free world as it were. His group was one of the few highlights in this the tenth month of the war. The American and world press were frantic for any kind of victory. Much like Doolittle’s Raid, Marsh’s group was that bright spot in a long story of retreat and defeat.
His current operation would be a gold mine for the press. A real show stopper. They were going to bag a Soviet General and bring him back for interrogation. At least, that was the plan. The idea actually came from one of the Turks, who love this cloak and dagger kind of stuff…literally.
The Turks were to use some camouflage cloaks and their daggers to sneak up on the guards and silently kill them before snatching the Red General. The whole plot was made for a movie starring Earl Flynn or that new guy, John Wayne.
Things didn’t quite go as well as planned with Said jumping at the wrong moment while covered by his cloak to avoid a scorpion. The movement caught a guard’s eye and he had to be killed sooner than planned. The guard’s absence was noticed. As the alarm was about to be raised, they stormed the tent containing the General and his aids.
The commotion had awakened the General and he confronted the first two Turks that entered the tent with his pistol. He was in his underwear. Said and his cousin had no idea the man was the general and target of the operation, and dispatched him quickly with their daggers. The Americans in the company took over the inside job of clearing out the headquarters tent while the Turks provided distractions and cover fire.
All in all, the count was two colonels and one major but zero generals. They did get many a valuable document as they left the tent with their captives. The colonels were drunk which made it easier to get them to cooperate. The Major had to be bound, gagged, and carried from the scene.
Hulls and Hearts
NATO’s strategy was to fall back slowly and to draw the Red Army in and stretching their supply lines to the breaking point. This strategy was very familiar to the Soviets themselves. They had used it over the centuries to defeat the Golden Hoard, Napoleon, and most recently Hitler. The key, in NATO’s case, was to disguise the strategy. It was a delicate balance designed to not give away the obvious plan. NATO had to offer just enough resistance to keep the Red Army pushing forward thinking it was on the verge of a breakthrough.
The Soviets started the battle for the heights over Golan with a rolling barrage intended to force the soft targets under cover. Soft targets in this case were the human bodies of the Jewish soldiers. Stalin had ordered up to the front his newest and best tanks. He believed this would be the final battle before reaching the Suez Canal. Beria and all intelligence sources reported that NATO was almost totally spent. All that stood in Stalin’s way of a free run to the canal was a haphazard group of Jews, dug in on these heights.
Unbeknownst to Beria, these Jews were veterans of World War Two who had come to the area to forge a homeland. The soldiers were serious fighting men who did not care about the strategy of the NATO generals. They were fighting for what they considered their homeland. Joining them were two thousand Arab inhabitants of the area who did not want the Godless Communists to occupy their collective Holy Lands. The Arabs were very serious f
ighters as well.
Following the rolling barrage, two groups of 50 Soviet T-44 medium tanks fanned out to make their way up a valley. Both groups encountered some antitank ditches. Not wanting to hold up the advance, the commander of the southernmost regiment ordered his tankers to dismount and improvise crossing materials to fill in the ditch as quickly as possible. To their great surprise the Soviets had dismounted in full view of dozens of enemy machine gun emplacements.
The Soviet commander finally spotted some movement and ordered his tank crews back to safety, but it was too late. As soon as they started to retreat back to the safety of the tanks, all hell broke loose in the form of 30 and 50 caliber bullets that do a fine job of killing people. Half of the tank crews were cut down in minutes before the remainder of the tanks could react and shell the now exposed machine guns. The damage had been done. The attack was halted for a crucial two hours.
During the lull in the attack, the Jewish defense forces, as they were calling themselves, maneuvered a battery of abandoned 105 mm howitzers into place. They started to heavily shell the Soviet positions. The Soviet artillery answered in kind. This war of opposing ordinance lasted another hour. The artillery duel that was being waged prevented the newly arrived Soviet engineering units from addressing the tank ditches. Finally, the sheer weight of the Red Army’s artillery delivery systems silenced the Jew’s improvised artillery emplacements. Soviet engineers, under the cover of the tanks, created breaks in the tank ditches and the T-44s started to pour through.
Earlier that day, a fast thinking Jewish ex-American officer, commandeered 10 new British tanks that were shipped to the area for testing under combat condition by the Vickers Company. Through a series of miscommunications, these tanks were too close to the frontlines. The tanks were headed as fast as they could towards the docks to be shipped back to a safer location. The Jewish officer was former US Army General Mickey Marcus.[cx] No one said no to a well-known former General backed by 500 of his closest friends. The tanks were ready for full field trials and had a full stock of ammunition and fuel. Another week’s worth of ammunition and spare parts, were available as well.
Marcus knew about the tanks through his connections and had planned on “borrowing” them one way or another for the planned Jewish state that was forming when the Soviets attacked NATO. Marcus, along with his second in command Moshe Dayan,[cxi] had no intention of falling back and letting the Reds take over their planned nation.
The recruitment of the local Arabs had been Dayan’s idea. Both Jew and Muslim did not want their holy sites desecrated. Every former member of the British-led Arab League[cxii] was convinced by their Arab leader, Major General Pasha el Jundi, to join with their Jewish cousins in a fight to save the Holy Land. A very strange and effective fighting force had been formed weeks before the Soviets had reached the Golan Heights.
The ten former British Mark Centurion tanks were split up into two squads and arrived in time to greet the first Soviet T-44s making their way up a valley. An experienced ex-British tanker name Michael Brandt, who had trained in the Centurion, was the first, and as it turns out, the last to fire a shot. These tanks were the prototypes of what would become the Centurion Mark III and were fitted with a stabilized 20 Pounder cannon. This stabilized gun could be fired effectively while the tank was moving. Firing while moving was considered a giant leap in the state of the art tank design. These prototypes were also the forerunner of the American Patton M-50 tank soon to be introduced to the Soviets.[cxiii]
The Jewish manned tank struck first. As was the case in most tank-to-tank encounters, he who shoots first and most accurately, wins. The Soviet T-44 exploded, separating its turret from the hull. The turret flew 20 feet into the air. Ever the professionals, the Soviet tankers did not panic and sought out the source of their comrade’s demise. The five tanks under Dyan started to back up the valley taking shots as they retired. Soon a dozen Red Army tanks were smoking piles of metal.
General Marcus was leading the Northern group and was able to setup in the hull down position. This position required finding a ridge or some other earthen mound that hid the body of the tank, yet permitted the turret to see over the cover with a clear field of fire for its 20 Pounder gun. The turret had very thick armor and was very hard to hit squarely enough to penetrate the metal skin. Dutifully the Soviet tanks obliged, and fell one by one to the concealed Jewish tanks until ten T-44s were destroyed and the remainder fell back.
One Jewish tank was destroyed when its engine stopped, exposing it to the guns of a dozen T-44s. There were now nine Centurions left facing close to 40 remaining T-44s and another 30 T-54s moving into position.
In Jewish tank number 4, the driver saw what he was up against and jumped out of the tank and ran. The fleeing driver was promptly replaced by an Arab driver, who soon won the respect of all for his adept skills in maneuvering the 52 ton tank. Arab replacements continued to fill in for wounded crews throughout the three-day battle. Fully 20% of the crews were eventually Muslims and became fully integrated into the tank hulls, and the hearts of the Jewish tankers.
In the final analysis, the Jewish/Arab Stand on Golan was not a military success. It slowed up the Soviet Army for three days. Much like the French led by De Gaulle in the defense of France[cxiv], it had no real effect on the war’s outcome. The Brigade became known as the Hulls and Hearts Brigade and would have a profound effect on future Jewish-Arab relations. The Brigade was formed in a week, fought for three days and was overrun on the fourth. Out of the 5,251 Jews, 1,489 survived the battle. Out of the 1,602 Arabs, 467 survived.
The date of the final shot fired by Michael Brandt, the Jewish ex-British tanker, was 23 March 1947. Two days later the Holy Land fell to the Godless.
Halted Near Lake Hammar
Bagdad had fallen on 25 January 1947 to a ragtag conglomerate of what had once been five Red Army divisions. The distance and terrain had taken its toll on the proud Soviet units that Marshal Bagramyan had started the campaign with. Another three Divisions were diverted to the southwest from Bagdad and on their way to the Suez Canal via the Syrian Desert. The desert in this area was very similar to the Steppes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Cossack troops once again led the way.
The British colonial troops assigned to defend Kuwait City and the British oil fields were a veteran lot consisting of New Zealanders, Indians, Australians and a contingent of Gurkhas. In sum, they had one well stocked and rested division standing between the Soviet Red Army and the life blood of the British Empire. The fact that NATO had “required” the British to allow the Soviets to get this far unopposed, had severely strained relations among the NATO Alliance.
In the end the British knew they had no choice but to let the Soviets march on Bagdad virtually unopposed. Now it would be different and Bagramyan would have a fight on his hands.
The Colonial Division was under the command of an extremely experienced man, the former commander of the New Zealand Corps throughout World War Two. The newly knighted Sir Bernard Freyberg gave up the Governorship of New Zealand to once again answer the call of duty. The Australian brigades had their noses out of joint, but in true Aussie fashion made the best of what they considered a bad situation.
The NATO forces had set up their defensive line just southeast of Lake Hammar in Iraq. It was a marshy area that would limit the use of armored vehicles in the coming battle. The line was solid and well thought out. Sir Freyberg was well suited to use his troops to maximum effect. The first defensive line was located 180 miles northwest of Kuwait City.
Royal Navy aircraft being launched from ground bases near the frontline were providing cover for the NATO forces. The American’s had scrounged up some F4U Corsairs for the Royal Navy and the British had their own Seafires.
The first Soviet units staggered into the Colonial Divisions defenses in the late afternoon. These Red units were working in a dream state having been constantly moving for a month. They didn’t know what hit them. Some lead units were decimated in
ten minutes, while others just turned and ran on seeing the carnage occurring in their front.
The Royal Navy made a rare late afternoon attack. Usually naval air forces don’t attack at night or when they can’t reach their aircraft carriers by dusk. In this case, they had airbases on land to return to and they chanced the unusual mission.
Without their own air cover the Soviets took a beating. The British Corsairs used the horrific combination of napalm and rockets to turn back these lead elements. The Soviets withdrew for the night. They gathered their forces the next day and waited for their air support and supplies to catch up. While waiting, they probed for any weakness in the NATO lines.
The allied defensive setup was classic, with the marshes anchoring the east flank and the rugged high desert on the west of the NATO lines. The Colonial Division had no lack of supplies or leadership. They did however lack manpower. The Soviets were bringing five divisions on paper to the expected assault. Attrition had reduced their effective strength of the Soviets to three full divisions. This made the odds three to one in favor of the Reds. This was considered a good ratio for the attacker and the odds were on the Soviets side.
Unless reinforcements arrived, or some other element came into play, the Red Army had a very good chance of reaching the oil fields of Kuwait and driving the British Colonial forces into the sea. The British seemed destined to use their colonial troops in hopeless causes and to lead suicidal attacks. Hopefully this will not be the case for this division that was far from home and far from immediate reinforcement.
The Suez Canal was considered politically more important. With the Americans supplying the Empire with 70% of its oil, Kuwait’s 10% was not considered vital. Freyberg, the commander of the Colonial Division had been told in secret, that other operations occurring soon, would relieve the pressure the Soviets could bring to bear on his position. He was told that things would be changing quite rapidly in the next 30 days.
World War Three 1946 Series Boxed Set: Stalin Strikes First Page 104