“I still don’t understand why you haven’t signed up for the Waffen, SS young man. A tall, fit racial comrade like you shouldn’t be hanging around, waiting to be called up. You should join now! You’ll see the Mediterranean, maybe Afrika! Who knows? I have it on best authority that the Führer has decreed that the party should be represented by its own fighters in every theatre... there’s bound to be a Waffen SS division ordered to Afrika soon. You’d best enlist now... Rommel will have the British in the bag soon and you’ll be too late. Trust me, you won’t regret it. After all, you’re a miller and I’m a farmer – we depend on each other.”
So he had trusted him, the bastard, and he had signed up – and all he had achieved was the order of the frozen meat, then the miseries of the season of mud, and now winter seemed to have come back!
Müller consoled himself by making yet another resolution to kill Herr Blockleiter Bauer as soon as he got his first leave. He wasn’t sure how he would do the deed, but he intended it to be every bit as slow and painful as this shitty journey.
Müller glumly noted that, even in April, the melting snow still held sway, but the welcome sight of patches of green stony ground speckled the landscape as the fearsome Russian winter of 1941/42 slowly gave way to an unsettled spring.
The treacherous Russian weather was obviously the ally of the Russians and, in its own way, was every bit as dangerous as the Red Army which, as they had been briefed in the assembly area, was now pouring through the gaps in the line only five kilometres distant from the battalion workshops which serviced Hauptsturmführer von Schroif and his SS Panzerkompanie.
Up ahead, the columns of black oily smoke pointed the way to the front as surely as the best Zeiss compass. As they crawled slowly down the muddy rollbahn towards Rostov, the rumble and crash of explosions grew louder and formed a continuous wall of noise which soon drowned out even the noise of the tank. Ivan was obviously throwing everything he could at the thinly-held line of main resistance.
Reluctantly, von Schroif opened the commander’s hatch. A blast of freezing air hit him and, on the muddy roadside, he observed the first fleeing fugitives hurrying in the opposite direction, slipping and sliding through the mud and sleet of the rasputitsa. Many were wounded. Others appeared to be unharmed... physically at least. Von Schroif had some sympathy for them. Two hours ago, a deadly barrage had fallen with pinpoint accuracy on the main resistance line and, just when it seemed that things could get no worse, there had come the sound of the infamous Katyusha – Stalin’s Organ.
Screaming down like banshees from hell, they produced a nightmarish enclosed box of exploding fire. The avalanche of high-explosive iron rained down on a designated target area, destroying virtually everything inside the hellish cauldron marked by the barrage. Inside the barrage area, the continuous concussion of multiple detonations was enough to transform the strongest and most dedicated warrior into a shivering nervous wreck.
He noticed that many of the retreating fugitives had thrown away their weapons, which incensed him. His sympathy evaporated and he thought briefly about stopping to round up these haunted men, but immediately thought better of it. For now, these disoriented refugees were beyond salvation as a fighting force, but a few kilometres back, he had no doubt, lay old man Voss and a welcoming committee of military police. They would catch up the residue and turn them into a fighting force once more.
Slipping down inside the tank and carefully closing the hatch behind him, von Schroif began to take an ever closer interest in the terrain outside the tank. They were approaching a bend in the track – exactly the place where Ivan might lie in wait.
Driver Bobby Junge had become an expert in handling the involuntary mudslide which accompanied every attempt to turn a corner in this godforsaken country, but it was still a difficult task. As the narrow tracks of the Mark IV slipped and slid, attempting to gain some kind of purchase, up ahead came the unmistakable and most welcome sound of the 88 mm Flugabwehrkanone, known to the troops as the Acht-acht Flak gun. Somewhere up ahead the familiar bark of the Acht-acht told him there was still some resistance and, as long as a few strong points continued to hold, there was still a chance.
“Where’s the flak gun position, Junge?” barked von Schroif to his driver.
“No movement, same place as last week,” replied Bobby Junge, straining to make himself understood over the intercom as he wrestled with the controls of the sliding tank.
“OK, leave it to the others... Turn off here... Take up a position 400 metres at 3 o’clock to direction of fire,” ordered von Schroif.
Junge responded immediately and Magda began to jump and jolt as the tracks sought some form of purchase and the tank somehow ploughed its way through the mud. Now and again the odd wounded fugitive made his way back to where he hoped safety lay. Somewhere up ahead, inside that wall of smoke, there was still resistance and, as long as a few strong points continued to hold, there remained the possibility that the line could be held... but why a fire support mission?
“Voss... Damn Voss! Has he learned nothing?” von Schroif thought to himself.
Old man Voss was his long-standing, and highly trusted, superior officer. Von Schroif grudgingly admitted to himself that Voss was a wise old fox. He would not endanger his men or their precious machines recklessly. Even in his tired and angry state, von Schroif acknowledged this, but the man was just so obdurate! It was absolutely infuriating!
They had first met at the KAMA facility in 1927 and both had been there watching the first Great Exercise near Munster in 1936, attended by the Führer himself. It was plain for all to see from way back then; the key was mobility, mobility, mobility! Why in God’s name would anyone still ask for the few remaining Panzer IVs to provide fire support? That was now the job of the divisional artillery or the Sturmgeschütz abteilung! The lazy bastards... but no sooner had the thought entered his brain than von Schroif knew to let the anger pass.
In his mind, he surmised what Voss knew for certain. He pictured the tangled remains of the divisional artillery and the Sturmgeschütz battalion after the bombardment by a brigade of Stalin’s Organs. He let his feelings subside as the reality of the situation dawned. This was no place for too much anger, as too much anger got you killed. The intractable mud had forced the big guns to stay locked in the same place for too long and Ivan had done his homework. The early morning whirlwind bombardment had come with pinpoint accuracy. Obviously, Voss knew that there was no divisional artillery left and, as a result, his seven tanks had to do the job they were originally designed for.
Now completely resigned to his mission, Hans von Schroif fell into the familiar survival pattern of observe, notice and remember. Panje huts 200 metres to the east, forest 300 metres beyond that, open ground to the west, a river, a lone beech tree, a single track coming out of the trees and a small hillock beside it with heavy foliage, these were all mental markers that had to be remembered if they had to veer from the mission. And when did they not have to veer from the mission? Yes, maps had their place, comfortably behind the lines or spread out in old man Voss’ Gefechtsstandfahrzeug. He pictured Voss in his converted SPW at a safe distance and swore again! But now von Schroif was getting angry... “Concentrate! Concentrate!”
He decided to use the man he had come to trust as his other eyes and ears – SS-Panzeroberschütze Karl Wendorff. Von Schroif considered him without a doubt the finest radio man in Army Group South. Wendorff functioned like a second brain for von Schroif, a brain which could identify the most important, and filter out the irrelevant, pieces of information from the storm of traffic that swirled around any operation.
“Any radio traffic, Wendorff?” demanded von Schroif.
“...Nothing, Hauptsturmführer.” Wendorff was hesitant. He was always hesitant. His modus operandi was silence, an almost interminable silence, punctuated only very occasionally with words, fine-tuned words, which concisely conveyed carefully selected information which he had decided his commander absolutely must be awar
e of.
Although they both occupied the seats on the right hand side of the tank, Wendorff was the exact opposite of the garrulous Wohl. Perhaps that was why they got on so well, but this time Wendorff was even more reserved than usual. He had heard something, something he had never heard before in any language or code, and he was still trying to compute what it meant. It had emanated from the German side. Amidst the babble of voice communication was this one keyed and apparently meaningless signal repeated over and over: PNKTI.EH.SFTVOCE... PNKTI.EH.SFTVOCE... PNKTI.EH.SFTVOCE.
Wendorff reflected on the strange message. There were the possible traces of words, like punkt, so could it be a friendly attack and a time? But voce? Italian for voice... there were Italians in this sector... Or was it possibly partisans operating behind the German lines and disguising their communications by using German? There was so much traffic that it was hard to provide an immediate answer, but he would try. For now though, there was no point in reporting to the commander, no point in passing confusion on. He would only do that when he had a definitive answer, or a working hypothesis. Karl Wendorff dealt in answers, not questions. Instead, he filtered out the signal for the time being and relayed the most important information.
Von Schroif sensed the slight hesitation in Wendorff’s voice. “You sure?” he barked over the intercom.
“Nothing to report, Hauptsturmführer,” the radio operator replied.
“Excellent,” said Otto Wohl, “now we can pack up and go home!”
This brought a smile to driver Bobby Junge’s face. From his position next to the main gun, Michael Knispel could not suppress a short laugh. What would they do without mad Otto!
“Silence, Wohl!” Hans von Schroif did not smile with them. He redoubled his gaze and picked up his binoculars. That old sixth sense had returned... nothing much up front though. Beyond the Acht-acht, there was no sign of life. There was not even the flup flup of friendly mortars firing in support of the hard-pressed grenadiers up ahead, just the smoke and thunder of Ivan’s massive artillery barrage. Suddenly, something caught his eye, movement in the forest. He hurried to focus... but it was just a frightened deer, rushing through the trees.
But what had flushed it from its hide? With a trained hunter’s eye, at the limits of his peripheral vision, he registered a slight movement off to the left of where the deer had sprung from, in the trees... but his train of thought was halted by an almighty bang and flash and he was thrown backwards and felt a searing pain across his temple and right arm.
Without even thinking, von Schroif knew what had happened. Despite the pain, he gave the hand signal to halt the column and yelled over the intercom. “Halt! Minen!”
Karl Wendorff immediately relayed the information by radio to the following panzers and the column skidded to a halt. Despite the pain, von Schroif immediately returned to scanning the landscape for movement. Scuttling out of the forest and scrambling over the brow of the hillock, he registered the shapes of two men taking up position. One staggered under the weight of what appeared to be a radio transmitter.
“Artillery spotters. Shit!” he muttered to himself.
No sooner had he recognised this new threat than, even with the ringing in his ears, he heard the unmistakable sound of tank engines starting up. They were obviously T-34s, but still some way off. He needed to make a decision, and quick. Load with armour-piercing and await the tanks? Or attempt to dislodge the spotters with some well-placed rounds of high-explosive? But first he needed to assess his own position.
“The right track, sir!” shouted the young grenadier who had been thrown from the front of the tank by the blast. Von Schroif noticed that the young man’s forearm was missing. Instinctively, von Schroif looked around for a source of first aid. His gaze fell upon a medical orderly too nervous to step into the mine field.
“Sani, over here!” shouted von Schroif above the noise of the engine.
Responding to the direct order, the medic at last crept towards the wounded man, but he did so very slowly, each step calculated and agonisingly deliberate.
“Hurry up, man, or he’ll bleed to death.” Then, using his left arm to support his own weight, von Schroif managed to clamber out of the tank and, scanning for the tell-tale signs of anti-personnel mines, he gingerly stepped down to inspect the damage.
“Damn!” he cursed on seeing the right-hand track hanging limply from the Magda’s front drive sprocket.
Fortunately, the cloying mud had absorbed much of the blast and the sprocket itself appeared undamaged, so they could still hope to continue. However, even with the ox-like strength of Michael Knispel to draw upon, fixing the track would probably take a few minutes which he was sure they didn’t have. Von Schroif surmised that the spotters controlled the Katyusha batteries which had destroyed the divisional artillery park. He knew that they would soon be under concentrated artillery fire from the fearsome power of Stalin’s Organs.
The obvious alternative was to evacuate the stricken panzer and clamber onto one of the other tanks in the unit and retreat, but this notion clashed resoundingly with every bone and fibre in von Schroif’s body. No, that was not an option; they would be driving into the zone which the Ivans had obviously earmarked for the target area. He desperately needed to buy time. While von Schroif continued to ponder his options, he was rudely interrupted by a rush of air and a loud zing as a bullet snapped past his head and ricocheted off the steel hull of the tank.
Despite his wound, the young grenadier was alive to the situation. He raised himself to his feet and, with his good arm, pointed towards the nearby hillock. “Over there, sir!”
They were the last words young Fritz Müller ever spoke. This time, there was no mistake. No sooner had he uttered the words when a second Russian bullet smashed into his temple and he sank lifeless to the muddy ground. For young Fritz Müller, there would be no reckoning with an over-enthusiastic Blockleiter back in Hamburg.
The Sani stopped in his tracks and gaped in shock at the stricken body. He realised a fraction too late that his immobile form made a perfect target. There was a distant crack and the medic sagged to the ground beside his erstwhile patient.
Seizing the opportunity, Hans von Schroif dived behind the tank and picked up his binoculars. Once more he felt an acute pain and he was forced to operate with his left hand as he homed in on the crest of the hillock. At first he could see nothing, but with his hunter’s eye he soon distinguished the long antennae of a radio set attempting to find the direction of the strongest signal.
“So, there must be an operator...” And, moving down... there they were... two men... “Looks like one has a sniper rifle...”
There was another danger too. He couldn’t see any trace of them, and he still couldn’t hear properly above the shrill whine from the explosion that reverberated in his eardrums, but the sound of T-34 engines revving up was unmistakable.
“Grenadier!” he shouted to one of the infantrymen who had taken up positions around the stricken tank. “The engine noise, where is it coming from?”
“Over there, sir!” replied the Grenadier, pointing to the forest, up and beyond the opening where the single track emerged.
Despite the overwhelming numbers that the Ivans had been able to bring into the field, the Panzerwaffe still held the initiative in Russia. Superior organisation and communications saw to that. The Red Army was improving, but it was still something of a blunt instrument. Soviet battle plans were set and, of necessity, they had to be followed to the letter. On the Soviet side there was none of the flexibility built into the concept of the Aufstragstaktik, which allowed even junior German commanders to take decisions on the spot. The situation was changing rapidly, but many of the Russian tanks could not take advantage of their tactical superiority as they had no radio and communicated by means of flags.
“So what would Ivan plan to do? What would Ivan do?” von Schroif thought to himself frantically.
“Quick, the artillery spotters will soon be ready to report
back! So, if I’m the Russian commander, what would I do?”
“Load with high-explosive, sir?” asked Otto Wohl.
“Not yet, Wohl, await my order.” Von Schroif continued to ponder the situation, lost in his own thoughts.
“I’d probably be trying to work out what the panzer commander would do... What would the panzer commander do? In this situation, the panzer commander, if he were to do it by the manual, would order all his tanks to slowly reverse back along their tracks to avoid any more mines... So, knowing that, what would Ivan do?”
It was this ability to think himself into the mind of his enemy that distinguished von Schroif from so many other panzer commanders on the Eastern Front, certainly in the Panzerwaffe. There were persistent rumours of an equally adept white-haired adversary on the Russian side, a KV-1 commander christened Der Weisse Teufel (the White Devil), but von Schroif dismissed such defeatist nonsense as mere campfire stories, forged in fevered imaginations after the heat of battle.
Von Schroif knew for certain that the Russians would be slavishly following a rigidly predestined battle plan... so now all he had to do was deduce what the Russian Commander would have ordered. Quickly resurveying the immediate environment, he observed, noticed, paused, thought and, with a sharp intake of cold Russian air flaring in his nostrils, arrived at his best guess.
“If I were the Russian commander, I would assume that the column is going to retrace its steps... and so I would lay down a barrage about 700 metres behind where the last tank is now... I would hold my T-34s out of sight in the forest and send them down the track, around the hamlet, and drive them into our left flank. Now, what is the best way to counter that?”
Tiger Command! Page 2