Bloody Bush
Page 15
“I’ve never seen anything like that bombing.”
Mahoney lit his cigar stub of the night before. “I got a funny feeling things are gonna get a lot worse,” he said.
General Naughton, the commander of the 33rd Division, entered General Bradley’s office and saluted. General Bradley returned the salute and told General Naughton to sit down.
General Naughton had a thin turned-up nose on a large beefy face. The little red lines on his nose indicated that he was no stranger to alcoholic beverages. “We’ve found out what went wrong,” he said. “Some of our rear artillery units got their orders confused, and they thought they were supposed to put up red flags around their positions too. When the planes came, evidently the pilots saw those flags and thought they were the beginning of the German lines, but of course, as we know now, they weren’t.”
General Bradley looked at him angrily. “Who’s responsible for that?”
“I haven’t been able to find out yet, sir.”
“If they were officers, I want them relieved of command. If they were enlisted men, they’re going to the stockade. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir.”
“This was a terrible tragedy and it must not under any circumstances happen again. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir.”
“I want a full written report on this to be submitted to me no later than twelve hundred hours tomorrow.”
“Yes sir.”
“That is all. You may go.”
Two days later, Field Marshal Rommel was walking in the forest near La Roche-Guyon. Accompanying him was Captain Arno Scherff, who’d arrived that morning from Berlin.
“July twentieth has been selected for the putsch,” Captain Scherff told Rommel as they walked on a path, their hands clasped behind their backs. “Adolf Hitler will be killed at his morning conference, and simultaneously General Fromm will declare a state of emergency in Berlin. General von Witzleben will become Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht and you will become the military governor of the Reich until a civilian government can be formed. We would like you to go on the radio immediately to calm the people and reassure them that everything will be all right.”
“Yes, of course,” Rommel agreed, “But why do we need a civilian government?”
“Well, we want the people to feel that they’ll have a say in the way their country is governed, for a change.”
“Pah!” Rommel replied. “I don’t think they really care about that. I think they just want to get out of this terrible war.”
“After Hitler is dead and his henchmen put in jail, events will take their own course anyway,” explained Captain Scherff. “The main thing is to kill Hitler. Do you agree?”
“Certainly. He’s the source of all our problems.”
“Good. We can count on you then?”
“To the end,” Rommel replied.
The two men stopped and shook hands solemnly, as birds chirped overhead and the breeze made the leaves dance on the trees overhead.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Lehr Division, accustomed to rapid advances and stunning victories, lost twenty-five percent of its tanks and men in the bombing, and was forced to conduct a fighting retreat back to Saint Lo. Fresh American troops, spearheaded by tank brigades, pushed the Lehr soldiers hard, but the men of the Lehr Division hadn’t lost their fighting spirit. Their noses had been bloodied, but that only made them angrier. They were hoping for the opportunity to pay the Americans back for what had happened during the bombing.
They fell back to Saint Lo and reinforced the garrison there, which was the II Parachute Corps commanded by General Eugen Meindl, a tough old soldier. Meindl believed he could keep the Americans out of Saint Lo forever.
The Americans meanwhile drew ever closer to Saint Lo. Staff officers studied their maps and planned strategies for taking the town. They quickly saw that Hill 122, to the northeast of the town, was the military key to the situation. Whoever controlled Hill 122 controlled Saint Lo.
The order was passed down that Hill 122 was to be taken at any cost.
The first battalion returned to the line as the XV Corps converged on Saint Lo. Replacements had brought the battalion up to full strength again, and Charlie Company had a new commanding officer. Captain Donald Greene, who previously had been the exec in a company in the 9th Division, was promoted to captain only a week before the big bombardment, and now had his first company.
Captain Greene looked like a recruiting poster. He had blond hair, was handsome, and needed to shave only once a week because he didn’t have much of a beard. He was a graduate of West Point and the son of a general. It was expected that he’d be a general too someday.
He was tall and athletic-looking, and his uniform fitted him perfectly. The day he showed up at Charlie Company, he had looked like a movie star. That had been the day before Charlie Company moved up to the line, and Captain Greene led them skillfully to their new position, staying in front of them all the time, seemingly impervious to the bullets whistling all around him.
Charlie Company dug in for the night and Captain Greene called a meeting for his platoon leaders at his command post, which was behind a rock formation on the front lines.
Captain Greene spread his maps out on the ground and explained that Charlie Company had been given the assignment of leading the assault on Hill 122. He explained that the hill would be softened up by a massive artillery bombardment, and then the First and Second Battalions would take the hill. Charlie Company would be in the first wave to go up the hill. Captain Greene expressed confidence that the hill could be taken without too much trouble. He wished them all good luck and told them to pass the orders along to their men.
The meeting broke up, and the subordinate commanders went to talk with their platoons. Mahoney stayed behind, looking over some requisitions typed up by his new company clerk, Private Sawyer from Fargo, North Dakota. Mahoney decided the requisitions were in order and brought them to Captain Greene to sign.
Captain Greene sat in a slit trench, with his helmet off. He was reading a letter, and as Mahoney lowered himself into the trench, he could see that the handwriting was a woman’s. Mahoney figured that Captain Greene must have a fancy high society girlfriend someplace, and when Captain Greene married her there’d be a hundred officers on hand wearing swords and funny uniforms.
“I got some things for you to sign,” Mahoney said, sitting on his haunches beside Captain Greene.
“Ah yes,” Captain Greene replied, folding the letter and putting it in his shirt pocket.
He took the requisitions, looked them over quickly, and signed them. Mahoney puffed his cigar and studied Captain Greene as the latter signed his name. Mahoney thought there was something too perfect about Captain Greene, and that Captain Greene appeared to be playing a part in a Hollywood movie. Even his voice sounded false, as though he was an actor speaking lines. Captain Greene was friendly toward his men, but somehow it didn’t seem heartfelt.
Well, I guess this is the kind of person who becomes a general, Mahoney thought, as Captain Greene handed the requisitions back.
“Here you go, sergeant,” Captain Greene said.
“Thank you, sir.”
Mahoney took the requisitions and carried them back to Private Sawyer. He thought about the attack on Hill 122 in the morning, and wondered how it would go. The Germans were dug in up there and they could direct their fire easily at the attacking Americans.
As always before a battle, Mahoney wondered whether he’d be alive after the attack. He knew that according to the law of averages, sooner or later a German bullet would find him. If it wasn’t the next hill, it would be the one after that, or the next town, or the next river to cross. He’d seen too many men die to believe that he stood much of a chance of surviving the war.
I’d better stop thinking about this shit, he told himself as he trudged across the field. Otherwise I’m liable to drive myself nuts.
Dawn broke over the battlefield, and Hill 122
was wreathed in mists. The men of Charlie Company were issued bandoliers of ammunition and hand grenades as the artillery bombardment began. Soon the smoke of exploding shells mixed with the mists of morning, and Hill 122 disappeared behind the haze.
Mahoney hung around Captain Greene and felt the tension building. Shells whistled over their heads to Hill 122 and a few companies of tanks showed up to lead the attack and provide cover. Charlie Company was five hundred yards from the base of Hill 122, and that was as far as the tanks would go. After that it would be Americans on foot against Germans dug into the ground.
Captain Greene strutted around, alternately looking at his watch or through his binoculars. Major Bowie showed up in his jeep to confer with Captain Greene and shake hands with some of the soldiers. The tension was building and Mahoney could feel it in the air.
Far in the rear on a hill with artillery batteries was General Bradley and his staff, looking at the battlefield through binoculars. He had promised to take Saint Lo about ten days ago, and it was now or never as far as he was concerned.
All along the front, men and officers got ready for the attack. They knew that by sundown they’d either be on top of that hill or lying in their graves. Chaplains roved among the men, conducting last-minute services and absolving the men from their sins.
At ten o’clock in the morning, General Bradley decided the hill was softened as much as it ever would be. He passed the word along to take Hill 122.
The tanks moved out first, and Mahoney watched them go, roaring their engines and sending out black clouds of diesel smoke. They arranged themselves in a skirmish line three tanks deep, staggered so that the tanks in the rear could have clear fields of fire. They shot their cannons and machine guns at Hill 122, and the German eighty-eights opened fire on them.
The tanks moved steadily forward, and American bombers swooped down from the sky to drop death on the eighty-eight emplacements. They looked like weird flying insects as they dived from the sky and laid their eggs, then climbed high to avoid antiaircraft fire.
“Let’s move out!” Captain Greene shouted, walking in front of his company. “Skirmish line!”
Charlie Company formed a skirmish line behind the tanks, and Captain Greene threw his arm forward, the signal to get going.
Charlie Company moved out behind the tanks. All along the line, other companies moved out at the same time behind their protective wall of tanks. The Hammerhead Division marched across fields and orchards toward Hill 122. The Battle for Saint Lo was on.
Mahoney, as first sergeant, could have brought up the rear or taken any position he liked. He double-timed over to the second platoon and found Cranepool, who was moving cautiously with his head turtled down into his shoulders and his carbine tipped with his sharp bayonet.
“How’s it going?” Mahoney asked, falling in beside Cranepool.
“I can’t put up with this shit much more,” Cranepool said. “I think it’s time I went to OCS.”
“What I’m hoping for is a nice little wound,” Mahoney said. “Maybe a bullet in some part of my leg where it won’t hurt anything but will get me evacuated.”
Charlie Company followed the tanks toward Hill 122, and Captain Greene stayed in front of his company, holding his forty-five in his hand. Mahoney looked at him and thought it would be an affront to nature if such a fine young gentleman were shot down, and yet Mahoney knew that if Captain Greene stayed conspicuously in front like that, Charlie Company probably would receive yet another new commanding officer before long.
High up on the hill, the Germans saw the American attack underway. Although they were being battered by artillery fire and aerial bombardments, they knew they had to start fighting back or else be overrun.
They had howitzers hidden in bunkers and mortar squads who’d pre-aimed their weapons on the fields of approach below. The order came down to open fire, and they began to hurl high explosives at the advancing tanks and men.
Mahoney could see the puffs of smoke on the hills ahead, and knew that the Germans were opening up with their heavy stuff. He knew that the whistling sounds would come next, and then the explosions. You couldn’t run and hide and you couldn’t stop and hope the Germans would go away. You had to keep moving and take the hill.
Mahoney adjusted his helmet on his head and got ready for the bombardment. He imagined a shell landing on top of his head and blowing him to bits, but he ground his teeth together and pushed that vision away. Gripping his carbine tightly, he advanced with Charlie Company toward Hill 122.
The Germans shells started landing in their midst. First there were a few explosions, then several, and finally the shells were bursting everywhere.
“Hold your lines!” Captain Greene shouted. “And keep moving!”
The earth shook and the heavens rained down high explosives. Mahoney narrowed his eyes and looked straight ahead, his breath coming in short gasps as he saw tanks being blown to shreds and groups of men thrown into the air.
“Keep moving!” he yelled. “Don’t stop moving!”
To his right, Mahoney saw a young private break ranks and start running back to safety. Mahoney went after him and cut him off.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going—young warrior!” Mahoney screamed. “You’d better get back on that line.”
The private’s lips were trembling and his eyes darted around like those of a frightened animal. “They’re gonna kill me!” he said in a quivering voice.
Mahoney pointed his carbine at the private’s nose. “I’m gonna blow your fucking brains out if you don’t get back in that line! Move!”
The private looked as though he didn’t know what to do. Then he turned around and walked slowly back to where he’d come from. Mahoney leapt behind him and kicked him squarely in the ass.
“I said move!”
The private double-timed back to his position as shells fell on Charlie Company. The tanks roared louder as they picked up speed, and the soldiers walked faster to keep up with them. The tanks shifted into high gear and Captain Greene pumped his forty-five up and down, the signal to double-time.
Charlie Company began to run behind the tanks. German riflemen on Hill 122 began firing at the Americans now that they were within range of their Mauser rifles. Bullets ricocheted off tanks, and artillery shells burst all along the lines. Mahoney ran around shell craters and jumped over the bodies of dead soldiers. Wounded soldiers screamed and writhed on the ground as the attack moved forward. Mahoney looked ahead and saw the base of Hill 122. They almost were there.
In the sky, a few squadrons of Luftwaffe fighters arrived from the east and attacked the bombers, but American fighter planes intercepted them and the dogfights began. American artillery pounded Hill 122 but the German soldiers continued to unleash a fury of lead at the attacking battalions.
The bottom of the hill had a moderate incline, and the tank commander decided to take his tanks up as far as they would go. The tanks climbed the hill and the American soldiers followed them. After fifty yards the tanks ran into the first line of German fortifications, and rolled right over them. Some of the Germans panicked and retreated up the hill, while others stood fast and were ground into the dirt by the treads of the tanks.
“Marching fire!” shouted Captain Greene.
The soldiers held their rifle butts to their hips and began firing every three steps. This let loose a hail of bullets that continued without letup as the Americans climbed the lower portion of the hill.
Mahoney followed the tanks up the hill, feeling like a target. He didn’t like this kind of mass attack where every soldier had to stay in line and move at the same rate as everybody else. It was the most effective way to take an objective, but Mahoney knew the generals behind the lines had established that a certain percentage of American soldiers would be killed. They probably wrote off twenty-five percent of the soldiers before the attack even began, and Mahoney didn’t like to think that he might become part of the twenty-five percent at any moment.
Finally the tanks could move no more. The hill became too steep and there were too many obstacles like trees and rock formations. Charlie Company passed between the rows of tanks and got in front of them, with Captain Greene still in front.
“Skirmish line!” he shouted, holding his arms straight out from his sides. “Take the high ground! Follow me!”
Charlie Company adjusted its line and advanced up the hill. The ends of its line linked up with the lines of other companies and other battalions. They felt naked and helpless now that their tanks no longer were providing protection, but they followed orders and ascended the hill because they had no alternatives.
The Germans saw the American soldiers in the open and raked them with machine gun fire. The mortar rounds rained down on the GIs and the attack faltered. Mahoney felt numb and terrified, as though he were going to be killed at any moment. He saw German bullets kick up dirt and stones in front of him, and he thought, fuck it, this is as far as I’m going.
Mahoney dived to the ground and looked up the hill. He saw a large trench and bunker network about two hundred yards ahead, and this was where most of the fire was coming from. The American artillery couldn’t hit this bunker because it was too close to the American troops and the tanks couldn’t fire at it for the same reason. The trench only could be taken by individual foot soldiers exposing themselves to fire.
Mahoney decided that an attack plan would have to be worked out, because the trench was long and well-fortified. A mass charge simply wouldn’t do. The Germans would cut them down like paper soldiers.