by Andy Farman
There were no newspapers and the internet was out of course, so rumour control was holding sway.
After Arnie Moore barked out.
“Sit Up!”, bringing all talk to an end and a respectfully straightening up in the seats as the Commanding Officer entered the room, Pat sat them at ease and spent several minutes dispelling rumours and giving them a picture of what had transpired. None of the families had been casualties and what they were going to do now was to focus on their jobs and the next job at hand in particular.
“Ladies and Gents, Dutch, French and Belgian Brigades are at present containing the enemy airborne bridgehead at Haldensleben, and the NATO air forces and artillery are knocking down the ribbon bridges as fast as they are appearing. They haven’t stopped the enemy Divisions from closing on the opposite side of the river, but they are thinning them out…a bit.”
As Pat used a laser pen to indicate locations on the map, his audience located the place on their own maps.
“It appears that the airborne landings have been made in such a way as to act as stepping stones for a breakout in two places, and towards the English Channel, but our aircraft did get in amongst the transport streams and cause an element of havoc. As result of this there are a lot of enemy between us and the furthest DZ of the northern operation…and this is both good and bad news. It is good because they are without replen and have only what they carried in with them…and it is bad because they are going to slow us down. Our friends in the Light Infantry and Argyll’s are ready to jump off on a northern axis of advance on Helmstedt; we will join them after clearing away the enemy in between here and there. From then on we will fight as a brigade. I am well aware that this operation should be conducted by a full division, but the only free ones are still afloat somewhere between Antwerp and continental America.”
He took a long look at the faces in the room.
“These people we are about to take on are good, but we’ve fought ‘em before and had the situation not altered in Poland we’d have taken them at Leipzig.”
A twelve-foot square area of the cellar floor between the commanding officer of 1CG and the seated sub unit commanders contained a model of Wuitterlingen and the surrounds, courtesy of Sgt Osgood. Wine bottles representing individual buildings made it seem that the place was wall to wall churches, but it was the location and position that was important, not the aesthetic effect. The positions of the buildings, roads and paths was known from aerial photos and maps, but Oz had discovered many of the enemy fighting positions and estimated enemy numbers at roughly forty strong. The lack of patrolling by the enemy bore out the fact that they were loath to spend men and ammunition in patrol actions.
Small country lanes to the west that served outlying farm’s converged together on a small road that ran into the village as its single street, meeting a larger road and forming a T-junction at the villages eastern end. The village contained a bar, a small shop and a Lutheran church; the other twenty buildings were all houses. To the best of their knowledge NATO believed that all the lawful occupants had been forced out by the Russians and had walked to the town to the north, which was still in NATO hands.
“In our first objective, Wuitterlingen, I expect a short hard fight, but once we have taken it we go straight into the advance…and we do not know how many or where the enemy are between Wuitterlingen and Helmstedt, so we could have a hard time of it. We do know the enemy came in with shed loads of anti-tank weapons, so after taking the village the advance will be on foot, one up, two back and only calling on the tanks and APCs for direct fire support.” There were groans from the infantrymen and one company commander held up his hand.
“Captain Llewellyn…I am several pay grades above you and I have made the decision, so unless you are merely asking permission to go to the loo, put your hand down. This battalion defends democracy…it does not necessarily practice it.” Captain Llewellyn’s hand disappeared.
“I fully appreciate how the thought of a leg advance must seem, especially as we have so many armoured fighting vehicles at hand…and as I sit in my vehicle far behind you…with the heater on of course…my thoughts will be with you and your blisters.” He grinned evilly at the Coldstream Guardsmen and the 82nd’s Paratroopers for a second, letting the words settle before getting to the real meat of the orders group, how they were going to do it.
Russia, 100 miles NNE of Moscow: Same time.
After such ‘luxuries’ as central heating and double-glazing, the house the three awoke in seemed like an icebox by comparison. There were four bedrooms with low ceilings but each held a bed almost large enough to qualify as a double. Patricia and Caroline had found the weight of blankets necessary to ensure a night of sleep untroubled by frozen extremities, was almost suffocating.
The previous day had been spent sleeping for the large part, whilst the wife of the old man bustled about the house, doing her chores and keeping watch.
Once they had slept there were hours to kill and little to occupy them. There was no TV and only an ancient radio set, which required five minutes for the valves to warm up before anything could be heard. Svetlana kept the radio on one station, listening carefully for a combination of folk songs that she alone knew. Patricia helped the old woman with the cooking and cleaning, which left Caroline at a loose end so she wandered the house until she came upon the old man in a back room, cleaning an old, but serviceable rifle. He seemed happy to have the company of a pretty young woman with whom to practice rusty English on as she helped him. He was proud of the weapon, and taking out a wooden box he opened it and removed a brass telescopic sight, explaining how he had been a sniper on the border with China during his service. Once the weapon had been cleaned and reassembled he showed the pilot how to handle it, and its weight came as a surprise to her, but he explained how a light weapon was unsuitable for accuracy at long range.
The day dragged on and Svetlana stayed close to the radio set, even at mealtimes.
Wuitterlingen, Germany: 0730hrs, 12th April.
The assault upon the village had begun two hours before dawn, and the outlying enemy fighting positions were taken out one by one, the last one being overrun before the first rays of daylight had appeared, by soldiers who had trained to fight at night as a matter of course.
The buildings posed a different tactical problem for the battalion, because FIBUA, or fighting-in-built-up-areas as it is known, is an art all of its own. To the uneducated it would seem to be a small matter to merely shell the place flat, but as had been shown at places such as Monte Casino, a surprising number not only survive, but find themselves with all the material to cobble together defensive positions, lying there ready to use.
Good command and control of ones men went without saying, as was communications and a good stock of small arms ammunition and grenades, but the essential ingredient without which house clearing could not hope to work, was momentum. Get the enemy back peddling, and keep them like that and you have wrested the initiative from them. According to the book, the correct way to clear a house is from the top down, and no doubt the author had a stack of grappling irons lying around when he put pen to paper. In the real world detached buildings were taken from the ground upwards, and only in the case of terraced streets could ‘the book’ be adhered to, once the first building had been taken the hard way of course. One reason why it is easier to go from the roof to the ground may seem obvious, it is gravity. Isaac Newton wasn’t thinking about house clearing and FIBUA when he discovered the existence of gravity, or he may possibly have made mention of the problems inherent with tossing hand grenades up stairs.
The technique for countering the possibility of your grenade being kicked back or rebounding off objects, to bounce back down the stairs to you, is to release the spring arm and count off two seconds, which is half the fuse time, before tossing it. It makes for just another of those character-defining moments that make life in the infantry so rich and interesting.
The crack of random rounds as they passed o
verhead punctuated the industrious chiselling away of bayonets behind a field wall. CSM Probert had been preparing ‘mouse hole charges’, each constructed of two, roughly three foot lengths of wood strapped together to form an ‘x’. A quarter pound of PE-4 was attached to each of the two arms that would be upper most, and into these had been pushed detonators, after equal lengths of fuse had been crimped into the detonators open ends. Colin had four riflemen, all with grenade launchers, two gun groups, and the platoons air defence section, now in the rifle role but missiles close to hand, preparing a point of fire behind the old stone wall at one end of Weferlingen’s single street. The men were working up a sweat, using bayonets to remove the cement from between the bricks to make firing loops in the thick, ten foot high wall; well at least ten of them were, anyway.
Guardsman Troper and L/Cpl Veneer were sat in a ditch, apparently keeping a diligent watch upon the skies; they were however looking in every possible direction except the CSMs. The outlying Royal Artillery Stormer air defence vehicles had the job well in hand as regards local air defence, and the two men were hoping that the CSM wouldn’t realise that their Stinger missiles were, for the moment anyway surplus to requirement, meaning that an extra two pairs of hands were available for some manual labour on the wall.
“Is e’ lookin’ at us?” Troper whispered, and started to turn his head so he could glance at the warrant officer out of the corner of his eye.
Veneer dug him in the ribs. “Don’t look at ‘im…I read a book see, it says that if you avoid eye contact you becomes invisible like.”
A snowball narrowly missed the junior NCO, causing him to flinch but his mate hissed at him, and they both acted as if it had never happened.
Colin selected another missile from nearby and sent it after the first.
The half brick made contact with the big soldiers’ helmet, bringing forth a startled yelp.
“Oye…what do you pair of idle Mary’s think yer on!”
“We’s the air defence sir!” L/Cpl Veneer shouted back.
“Yes sir…” Guardsman Troper enjoined, and tried to sound convincing by adding something he had heard once, but it didn’t come across quite as eloquently when he repeated it. “…we are a essential element in the air defence mesh that guards the skies above the battalions ‘ed, sir.”
Colin glared at him; his eyes full of menace and roared. “Get your scaly arses into gear or as soon as this lot’s over I’ll bang you up where the sun never shines and the birds don’t shit!” The pair scrambled from the ditch, crawling rapidly over the snow to the base of the wall and began furiously hacking away at the wall with their own bayonets.
Oz joined Colin behind the wall as the last of the loops was completed, breathing hard and the cold air condensing his breath into ragged smoke signals. “The boys are in place, 1 Section is covering the rear of the houses on the left of the street…the rest are reorganised for street fighting.” He had the platoons small 51mm light mortar on a sling across his shoulders, which he now got ready for firing. Colin nodded and depressed his ‘send’ switch. “Hello One, this is One One over.” There was a moment’s pause before the company commanders radio operator acknowledged him. “One...send over?”
“One One…all set, over.” This time there was a longer delay as the company commander was informed that the point of fire was in place and the remainder of 1 Platoon were ready to jump off.
“One, roger your last…One Three is in position but One Two will be a further figures five, over.”
Colin could see 3 Platoon a hundred meters away, lying at the base of the wall, ready to go over it and begin the assault on the first house on their side of the street. The remainder of Colin’s own platoon were to his left, similarly waiting patiently for the off. The delay was due to 2 Platoons inexperienced young 2Lt, Sergeant Osgood’s successor.
1 Company’s Commander was not ready to let loose the young officer on a task such as his more seasoned platoons were to undertake, so 2 Platoon had the more straightforward task of flanking the village so as to be in a position to cut off any enemy withdrawal or reinforcement. The young officer had taken too long sorting out his men after the first positions had been taken, so 1 and 3 Platoon had to wait in the snow, shivering behind the wall.
After a delay of rather more than five minutes, the company commander gave the word to go and from eight hundred metres to the rear the anti-tank section started the ball rolling by putting Milan missiles into the upper floors of the first buildings.
CSM Probert gave the nod to the first assault team, Oz was directing heavy fire into the buildings, and dropping smoke into the street with the 51mm mortar, to hamper the fire from enemy in other buildings, as they went up and over the wall, boosted over by members of the second assault team. Crossing obstacles such as the wall was a team effort; the first men over stood facing the wall, arms above their heads with their palms against the brickwork to steady themselves and to grasp the top. They raise the heels of their feet and two men crouched behind them cup their hands under the raised heels and lift together, boosting the men up to where they can pull themselves up and over. The procedure goes on until there are four men left, and instead of dropping to the other side of the wall the next pair stop on top of the wall, swivel around and lie draped over top where they can reach a hand down for their mates, and use their legs as cantilevers. One at a time the last men run at the wall and jump up to catch the outstretched arms, whereupon they are pulled up.
Despite the best efforts of Oz and the Milan crews the enemy was not entirely silenced. Colin followed the first assault team over, dropping into the snow beside one of his section commanders, the Lance Sergeants eyes were staring blankly up at the Company Sergeant Major. The rest of the platoon was adding the weight of their fire as the first mouse-hole charge was placed against the side wall of a pleasant 19th century house and the fuses lit. Colin paused to take cover behind the section commanders body until the charge blew, creating a five foot hole for grenades to be thrown through, these were followed by the entrymen once they had gone off. The entrymen fired indiscriminately into anything that could conceal an enemy as they went through the entry hole and ducked to one side out of the silhouetting light. A face appeared briefly at the hole and Colin heard the soldier shout “Room clear!” and the remainder of the first assault team sprinted across the road, disappearing through the entry point. Colin resumed the task of stripping the body of its ammunition and grenades, stuffing them unceremoniously inside his smock, before removing the magazine from the dead man’s weapon and adding it to the rest. 3 Platoon had quickly taken their first house across the road and were knocking a hole in its roof. Slates slid down the steeply slanting roof to shatter on the pavement below, but Colin was watching the action on his side of the street, the other side of the road was somebody else’s business.
There was a flurry of firing from the upper floors, interjected by grenade blasts as the Russian paratroopers contested the hallway and stairs. Had they had more time they would have dismantled the stairs, using a rope to pass between the floors and using the materials for barricades, but NATO had reacted too quickly for such advanced preparations.
The soldiers did not clear every room by first throwing in a grenade, some had collected rocks of roughly the same size as a fragmentation grenade, and to conserve their grenades they would occasionally toss in a rock, accompanied by the shouted warning, “Grenade!” It had the effect of causing any waiting paratroopers to duck, allowing the guardsmen to enter the room, firing into the corners of the room, furniture and any enemy in view. The cries of, “Room clear!” could be heard until the eventual “House clear!”
With one man acting as his runner, CSM Probert entered the house where he received a sitrep from the first team, he had one man walking wounded but there were three enemy dead, one wounded seriously and a prisoner. He listened as the report was made, merely nodding and clapping the NCO on the shoulder when he had finished, before taking the stairs two at a
time.
Despite being two men down, Colin decided to up the pressure on the enemy and ordered a mousehole charge placed against the wall to the neighbouring house in the upper front and back rooms. In the confines of the house the blast of the first one was almost stunning to the attackers, but devastating to the defenders in the room beyond. Flying debris killed both Russians who had their backs against that wall, looking upwards and awaiting the sound of their attackers on the roof. As soon as the room was taken, the second charge was fired, and half the upper storey of the second house was taken in less than two minutes.
3 Platoon did not have it so straightforward with their second house, there was a narrow alley running between the two and they had decided on a roof to roof assault using a ladder they had found, to span the gap. They asked the Milan crews for help with an entry point, and a 6.7kg missile blew out a ten-foot section.
After an hours fighting Pat Reed decided that 1 Company was winded, half the village had been taken but the church, a probable strongpoint with its thick walls and the open ground provided by its graveyard required fresh troops so he passed 4 Company through them and into the assault.
Unlike the houses previously encountered, which had received minimal defensive works, the three hundred year old church had been prepared for defence. Wire mesh from garden fences and chicken coops had been secured over the empty windows, the beautiful, ornate stained glass windows having been removed by the Russians, to guard against glass shrapnel. The wire mesh prevented grenades from being thrown through into the building interior. Gravestones had been removed to clear the killing zone of the churchyard so not an inch was uncovered by fire, and the stones stacked 9’ high and 6’ deep in front of the single door, as a barricade it would take time to clear. CSM Probert had no doubt that dead-drops had been prepared below the windows inside, ready to ensnare or impale anyone coming through those possible entrances. The fact that the church steeple, which housed at least two snipers, grenadiers and a couple of machine guns, would need to be dealt with first, went without saying. A troop from the Dragoons was ready to begin dealing with the steeple, after which they would start on the tower it sat upon.