Devils with Wings

by Harvey Black

  The troop Commander joined Sesson and Halm on the deck.

  “Where are you hit?” demanded Sesson, looking at his comrades pained expression.

  Halm sat up on his elbows and looked back down at his useless leg, “It’s my right leg; I can’t move it.”

  “Lie back, let’s get this wound exposed so we can see the damage,” as he pushed him back down and started to cut away the uniform trousers with his gravity knife, ripping them right back exposing his upper leg to the cool air.

  In the meantime Fischer had acquired a hypodermic of morphine and pushed it into the top of his wounded limb.

  Sesson scrutinised the injury, the black hole, no bigger than his fingertip, was welling up with blood, a steady pulsating flow that exuded out onto his thigh.

  He felt underneath, looking for the exit wound, where Halm was probably losing most of his blood, his fingers discovering a much larger hole where the bullet had exited. Pulling his hand back out, it was covered in a black sticky mess, congealing on his fingers.

  “He called across at Fischer, “Uffz, get his belt off and strap it round the top of his leg, we need a tourniquet on this; he’s losing blood fast!”

  Fischer complied; Sesson was in charge of the patient and knew exactly what he was doing.

  Sesson looked at Halm and could see his pale translucent skin, if they didn’t get the blood loss under control soon, they could lose him.

  While Fischer dragged the belt from around Halm’s waist, Sesson was tearing the black, rubberised wrapping off a first field dressing, placing the large absorbent pad over the exit wound, binding it tightly.

  Hurry, Uffz, we need to get that tourniquet on.

  He then placed a second dressing on the entry wound.

  By the time he had finished, the troop Commander had the tourniquet on and was restricting the flow of blood.

  Fischer called Lanz over to take control of the tourniquet, he had a troop to lead, “grab this, but release it every two minutes, we don’t want his leg dropping off do we?” He said smiling at Halm, the humour for his benefit, trying to relax him.

  Sesson continued to examine the injured paratrooper. The upper thigh looked straight, and judging by the angle of the path of the bullet, he surmised that the thighbone was not broken. He placed a second pad on the lower wound, he was extremely worried by the amount of blood being lost; it could only mean an artery had been hit. Without the belt around his upper thigh, he would bleed to death in minutes.

  Halm groaned, the pain starting to filter through intermittently, only partially blocked by the pain relieving injection administered earlier.

  Sesson tore off the complete leg of Halm’s uniform trousers and placed it under the thigh, binding that to the bandage already there. Sesson rocked back and sighed, the tourniquet seemed to be working; he had done all he could, and believed that Halm would make it through this.

  Halm looked at Sesson through his bleary eyes, asking the unspoken question.

  “You’ll live,” Sesson said, putting him out of his misery.

  Halm felt relaxed, the confidence of his colleague putting him at his ease.

  His thigh was throbbing now and he was starting to feel cold, shivering. He felt sick, but just wanted to fall asleep.

  Sesson saw what was happening and grabbed him by his chin, shaking his head from side to side, “look at me, you stick with us, ok?”

  Someone wrapped a tunic around Halm’s shoulders in an effort to keep him warm, as he was slowly slipping into shock.

  “Let me sleep,” whispered Halm, “I just want to rest my eyes.”

  “No you don’t you bugger,” said Sesson with a smile, “you owe me a few beers. If you think you can welch on that you’ve got another thing coming.”

  A kit bag was pushed underneath his head and his leg was raised above his abdomen, to try and slow the blood loss from his leg to an acceptable level.

  “Keep releasing, the tourniquet,” instructed Fischer having returned.

  “We’re setting up one of the ladders as a makeshift stretcher and then we’re going to move to MiNord, the Group HQ.”

  They lifted Halm onto the stretcher, an involuntary cry escaping his lips as his leg was jarred against the ladder.

  “Sorry mate,” apologised Sesson, we’ll soon have you at the HQ and we can make you more comfortable.”

  “Are you ready?” demanded Fischer, keen to get moving, get back to the fold.

  “It’s the best we can do, we’re ready.”

  “Sesson, I want you to take point, keep ahead about ten metres. Lanz, Braemer, take the stretcher, Roon, Wagner, tail end, let’s move out.”

  Fischer caught up with Sesson, “all clear?”

  “Yes, but we need to keep our eyes peeled, there aren’t just our guys wandering around I’m sure.”

  “Agreed, you watch front left, I’ll cover the right.”

  They continued forwards, but about half way to MiNord they stopped to change over the bearers for Halm, Roon and Braemer now carrying their wounded comrade.

  They set off again, it was starting to get light, and Fischer didn’t want to get caught on the flat top of the fortress in full daylight, particularly with two of his troop guarding prisoners and two having to heave a stretcher.

  He touched Sesson on the shoulder and they stopped and crouched down.

  “We must be close now, keep the guys here and I will go ahead and try and make contact.”

  Fischer crept forward; he was more worried about getting shot by his own now, than by the enemy. He knew that close to MiNord, there would be a high concentration of paratroopers.

  He saw something. He was certain he had seen movement ahead. He could just see the outline of what he took to be MiNord and was about to continue moving forward when a paratrooper raised his head above the grassy mound in front of him and said.

  “Good to see you Uffz,” said a dirty looking Fallschirmjager in front of him, who he immediately recognised as Pelz.

  “It’s good to see your ugly mug too Pelz, is all well back there?”

  “Yes MiNord has been taken, along with MiSud.”

  “Is Leutnant Brand with you?”

  “Yes and Unterfeldwebel Grun.”

  “Wait, here I’ll get the rest of the troop and you can lead us in.” Fischer shot back to give his team the good news; Pelz then led them all to the HQ complex and to meet his platoon Commander.

  Paul and Max walked up to him as he entered the area under the Fallschirmjager control.

  “Uffz Fischer, I thought you’d got yourself lost,” said Max.

  Soon as he saw that the troop had a stretchered casualty, he called for two troopers to take the stretcher off the two labouring soldiers, and had them take Halm to their company aid post.

  If you could call it an aid post, it was just somewhere to secure the wounded and collectively keep an eye on them until they were relieved.

  “He’ll be in good hands,” reassured Paul, referring to the wounded Halm.

  “Get your men over to the bunker, we’ll have an O group shortly, we still have work to do I’m afraid.”

  “What’s the score so far sir?”

  “We’ve got MiNord and Sud, Maastricht one and two so far. And Cupola one twenty?”

  “The hollow charge didn’t pierce the turret sir, but we’ve put paid to the barrels.”

  “Excellent Fischer, another to add to our toll.”

  “Any more casualties’ sir?”

  “A few, but in our platoon we only have Weyer, who unfortunately is hanging on by the skin of his teeth, it’s not looking good, and Kienitz’s got a minor wound. Now of course we have Halm.”

  “I see you’re missing Roon and Engels.”

  “They’re back at the AA site sir, looking after some prisoners, some are wounded.”

  “We’ll talk it through in a minute, but your troop could patrol back to that area and pick your two men along with the prisoners.”

  Let’s get over to the b
unker and we can plan our next move.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Leeb, sitting directly behind the glider pilot, in tandem with the other six troopers, could see the outline of the fort in the distance. The tow-plane had released them and the glider pilot was now coaxing his engineless plane to the ground and on to its target.

  From north to south, the fort was nine hundred metres long and seven hundred metres wide, an area approximately equivalent to some one hundred football pitches.

  It would not be easy to pinpoint their target.

  Leeb’s troop had to destroy Cupola Nord and its two seventy-five millimetre guns.

  His glider was approaching from the east. The pilot seeing he still had too much height pulled on the ailerons and flew in a large circle at a speed of some one hundred kilometres per hour, slowly losing height. The glider gradually dipped round bringing it nearer to the target when unexpected wisps of light could be seen passing the cockpit. Leeb looked out of the front right of the perspex and could see the anti aircraft position that had opened fire on them, some two hundred metres ahead.

  “Shit Menzel, they’re firing at us, and they’re getting bloody close!” exclaimed Leeb, involuntarily ducking.

  “I know,” replied the pilot as he immediately started to rock the glider from side to side trying to make it a difficult target for the gunners in this early dim light.

  He shouted back to his men to hang on, that they would be throwing the glider about.

  The pilot continued to roll the aircraft to the left and to the right as they shot through the withering fire, with the gunners trying to keep track of them, using the tracer bullets as a guide.

  “Standby, one minute,” he shouted back to his men.

  The pilot also ducked involuntary as tracer rounds whipped passed his cockpit, “we’ll be below them in a moment,” he said, half to himself and half to his Commander.

  He peered forward, getting his bearings in the gloom, ensuring he was on course, making minor adjustments to the joystick and pedals, easier to control now that the AA battery had sought out another target.

  He wiped his forehead beneath his helmet, to stop the sweat that was running into his eyes.

  By now, with eleven gliders descending on the fortress, they had a lot to keep them occupied.

  “We’re going in!” he yelled.

  “Brace! Brace! Brace! Shouted Leeb, “we’re going in!”

  Just as he had finished shouting the warning the gliders left wing support, attached to the body near the front, struck a machine gun post, tearing the machine gun out of position, flinging it to one side with the glider finally coming to a halt next to a second machine gun post.

  The pilot quickly pushed at the perspex cockpit, shoving it up and out of the way and clambered onto the front edge of the glider and bravely jumped down onto the ground, then straight into the machine gun trench where the Belgian gunners seemed frozen in fear.

  He jarred his legs as he landed alongside them and the trench was at just about shoulder height in depth, he almost lost his footing. Leeb, quickly followed suit and along with the rest of the troop exited the plane. He jumped down to join the pilot; they must have made a chilling impression on the Belgian troops trapped in the machine gun trench.

  The soldiers manning the emplacement immediately threw their hands above their heads into the air in surrender.

  Leeb ordered Menzel to get them to climb up the metal ladder and out of the trench and then secure them.

  He motioned them to move towards the ladder, talking to them in German, but using gestures indicating that he wanted them to ascend the ladder.

  They understood the gesticulations and did as they were told and moved towards the ladder, frequently looking over their shoulders nervously, still in shock at what had just happened.

  There were three of them, one appearing to be an NCO, probably a Korporal thought Menzel.

  Leeb had already climbed up the metal rungs and was watching over them as they clambered up and out.

  He pointed to the front of the glider, indicating they should move there, and then flattening his hand, palm down, signifying he wanted them to sit.

  The rest of the troop had exited through the side of the glider, after discarding the side panel and were in the process of gathering the necessary equipment they would need for their part of the mission.

  Two paratroopers had gone to secure the machine gun post they had been struck on landing, and brought a further three prisoners to add to the three already on the floor at the front of the glider.

  The prisoners were mesmerised by the speed of events, watching these professional soldiers going about their business as if it was second nature to them. It was.

  They troopers wandered over to look at the prisoners, who were all very young looking. They were probably a similar age to some of the paratroopers, but lacked the hardness of these tough soldiers who had just descended out of the sky.

  They looked afraid and demoralised and Leeb felt sure they were no longer a threat.

  He instructed Menzel to watch over them, promising to send help once they had completed their mission.

  His men had finished pulling their equipment out of the glider and were in the process of splitting it between them.

  Once he could see that his troop were ready, he sent half of them forward, the ones with the lighter loads, the MG section consisting of Geister and Beiler and Fessman with the ladder and two small hollow charges.

  Behind them would follow Petzel, Stumme and Jordan, the latter two carrying one of the larger hollow charges between them.

  He turned to the pilot, who was guarding the six prisoners, “will you be ok watching these on your own?”

  “I’ll be fine, they’re in no fit state to do any fighting, look at them; they’re scared out of their wits.”

  Leeb looked at the prisoners huddled together, sneaking a look at the mud spattered faces of their captors. He could see they were too shocked and scared to start a fight.

  “Ok. I could do with you with us, but I daren’t leave them wondering around behind us.”

  “Get off Uffz, I’ll be fine.”

  Leeb turned and left, catching up with the leading section, which was waiting for him.

  They started running east towards the area where their target should be located.

  They stopped after a minute to re-group.

  Leeb crouched down and they all followed suit.

  “The Cupola is about fifty metres east of us. You know the score, Geister and Beiler, cover, Petzel, Fessman, Jordan, Stumme with me.”

  Leeb jumped up from the ground and led them forward to the Cupola, its turret had been raised and the two seventy-five millimetre guns were looking northwards, seeking out targets to prevent this German invasion.

  As practiced many times, Leeb ran to the left of the armoured doors at the rear of the Cupola, and Jordan moved to the right, with Fessman covering the rear, as the ladder and the two small charges would not be needed yet.

  Petzel and Stumme ran forwards to the steel door, the concrete monolith extending at least twice their height above them.

  Petzel placed his hand against the thick, cold, steel door, almost sensing the activity behind it as he heard the guns above rotating.

  He placed his ear up against the armoured doors, listening to the thrumming of machinery transmitted from the encased confines of the battery.

  He moved away and between them they placed the fifty-kilogram charge against the steel doors.

  “God help them when this goes off,” Petzel volunteered to his colleague.

  “It’s going to spoil their breakfast, that’s for sure,” responded Stumme.

  After setting the ten-second fuse, they ran for cover round the side of the bunker, Fessman joining them from his exposed position at the rear.

  They flattened themselves against the bunker wall and holding their hands over their ears waited for the explosion they knew was to come.

  Even expec
ting it, the force of the blast still shook them to their very core, the ground trembling beneath their feet.

  Whooomph, the remnants of the discharge, the element not eating its way into the protective layers of the doors, shot out picking up the dust and detritus surrounding the rear of the bunker, projecting it at a velocity in excess of five thousand metres per second over the rest of the troop.

  They had buried their heads in their hands, grasping clumps of turf, pulling themselves down, but still it tore at them, trying to wrestle them from their place of safety.

  The hot blast ripped through the steel door. The searing, molten slag splayed out killing many of the Belgian gunners hiding behind its perceived invulnerability.

  A young gunner, only having completed his training three months earlier, took its full impact; a slug of heated metal, scouring his upper face, the skin pared back exposing his cheekbone and the pale white of the frontal bone of the skull.

  Still alive, he was thrown back against the rear of the bunker wall screaming as he went, clutching the remnants of his face, his service with the Belgian army ended that morning.

  A second gunner, having heard a clunking sound up against the door, was mimicking Petzel, his ear up against the door straining to interpret the activity outside, was equally unlucky.

  The blast blew the door off its hinges, smashing it into his body, crushing him up against the concrete wall, the steel door completing the entrapment.

  A third soldier, who having only eight weeks to go before his conscription was fulfilled, and he would be demobbed, missed the direct force of the explosion. But, the rapidly expanding gasses were too much for his fragile brain, which, acting like a sponge, absorbed the full force of the shock wave, rupturing the blood vessels, the blood immediately pooling inside his skull, he was dying as he fell.

  The rest of the battery was either just dazed, wounded themselves or also dead. The battery would not function again, its role in helping to hold back the German invader ceased at that moment in time.

  Once the explosion had expired, Petzel and Stumme both rushed back to see the state of the damage, to see if it had indeed, blown a hole in the door.

  Returning quickly back they passed on the good news to Leeb, that the charge had done its work.