by Gee, Colin
Deniken was an officer and, as such, should not carry a rifle, but he was an excellent marksman and his skills had sent many a German to his grave.
Encouraging his second wave forward, he sprinted for the water, snatching an empty petrol can from the dead fingers of a Russian soldier lying at the water’s edge.
He looked south towards the spot where Grabin was concealed and was rewarded immediately by the sight of a green flare lazily floating back to earth.
Try as he might, he could not hear the roar of tank engines and uttered a silent prayer to his mother’s god that the unknown tankers were competent after all.
As he dove into the water, he heard the crack of 85mm guns and knew they had joined the battle.
With rifle slung across his shoulders and using the petrol can as a buoyancy aid, he doggy paddled as best he could for the far bank, all the while bullets whipped like wasps around the struggling men.
He heard a distinct plop in the water beside him before his world went white and he was tossed skywards.
As the smoke concealed the attackers once more, O’Malley shouted at his men to throw grenades.
These flew from hands and dropped, some in the water and some on the banks.
One trooper was shot in the act of throwing, a random bullet emerging from the smoke and wrecking his wrist. The grenade dropped from useless fingers into the foxhole he shared with his buddy, neither of whom could escape before both died bloodily in a storm of shrapnel.
Screams could be heard as Soviet infantry endured similar deaths and mutilations in the smoke.
The wind started to gather strength and the smoke screen, no longer added to by mortars shells, moved at a walking pace to the northeast. Unfortunately for the defenders and attackers alike, the smoke from the blazing watermill now engulfed them, adding its acrid toxic fumes to those generated by the discharge of weapons and high explosives.
A bullet fanned past O’Malley’s head, kissing the helmet lightly.
He turned slightly left and saw an indistinct figure that he almost cut in half with a burst of .30 cal, the body immediately jerking backwards under the impacts, and was immediately replaced by another struggling shape that received the same treatment.
His eyes streaming from the mill smoke, O’Malley sensed rather than saw the grenade land adjacent to his foxhole and ducked as fast as he could. The man to his left did not hear his shout and was tossed against the side of his foxhole by the force of the explosion, surprisingly unscathed except for a ruptured eardrum.
The young trooper calmly changed magazines on his carbine, launching more bullets into the shapes in the smoke, rewarded with the occasional scream.
As O’Malley emerged from his hole in time to see the young trooper’s death. He was amazed to see him alive but his shout of congratulations was strangled as a stream of sub-machine gun bullets reached indiscriminately out of the smoke and destroyed the man’s face and neck.
Sprayed with blood, the Corporal continued his killing like an automaton, noting his dwindling supply of ammunition.
Deniken came to staring at the grass, front teeth missing, lips split and nose bleeding from the impact as he came to earth face first, neatly scalped and leaking blood from where a lump of the grenade had come very close to ending his life.
The rest of his body was still in the water, bleeding from a number of small shrapnel wounds and bruised from the energy blow of the water displaced by high explosive.
Looking around he saw others on the bank, lying low or firing back, depending on the bravery of the individual.
Behind him others were struggling across the water as best they could, and yet others were still, never to move again.
He had no weapon, his rifle probably consigned to the bottom of the river.
Looking around he saw the remains of a Soviet soldier still clutching a Mosin-Nagant rifle with bayonet attached. Moving sluggishly to his left, he acquired the weapon and pocketed some ammunition, not bothering to wipe the detritus of death from it.
He could hear the tanks on the bridge now, the distinct rattling of the track pins louder than the firing around him, main guns still reaching out to kill the American paratroopers.
Attracting the attention of those around him, he steadied himself, ready to take them forward into the defending foxholes.
Rising to his feet, he yelled his small group forward and they plunged into the thinning smoke even as some of them had the life plucked from them by American bullets.
O’Malley changed magazines but held his fire. It was the last one after all. Ready to hand by the side of his foxhole were one grenade, his M1911, and a combat knife.
He automatically winced as a Russian tank exploded in a fireball, victim of a bazooka team to the south of the bridge.
His attention was drawn to four others moving towards his rear, infantry hanging on for all they were worth and other running figures fanning out in support.
The bridge had fallen and it was time to bug out. He wondered where the order was, but the young inexperienced Lieutenant who should have provided it had broken down. He was mentally shattered and useless, cowering and crying loudly behind the watermill, where he was heard and dispatched by a compassionless Soviet sub-machine gunner.
The sounds to O’Malley’s left changed now and he became aware that his squad was being overrun, soldiers grappling, stabbing and screaming, slashing and shouting, all in a frenzy of close quarter combat.
Suddenly to his front came a group of seven Russians, all seemingly intent on running straight at him.
They saw him too.
Weapons spat bullets in both directions, and found their mark in American and Russian alike.
O’Malley did not feel his left arm break as two PPSH bullets struck home and shattered the lower bone structure, ruining his radial artery in their travel.
Neither did he feel his right ear nicked by another bullet.
He was aware of the bullets hitting the ground in front of him, throwing earth and pieces of grass into his eyes, reducing his vision.
Through his squints he finished his own work, putting down another Russian, the lifeless body flung backwards to join the three already cut down by fire from his BAR.
Three more enemy remained and he pushed the now useless Browning away and grabbed for his pistol, bringing it up and firing, simultaneously dropping another Russian as more PPSH bullets smashed into his right shoulder, wrenching him round like a rag doll even as he discharged the rest of his magazine uselessly into the ground.
He swung back round, suddenly aware of the tattered and bloody apparition stood over him and experienced excruciating pain as he was slammed against the side of his hole by an eighteen inch bayonet forcefully penetrating his upper chest. The blade travelled on and destroyed his trachea, blood pouring straight into his lungs in an instant. The unforgiving steel carried on, deflecting off his spinal column and out his back into the earth wall beyond.
It was stuck and no amount of twisting and pulling would free it, even with a boot planted firmly on O’Malley’s chest, so the Russian holding it chambered a round and fired point-blank to blast the metal free, reloading the weapon as he quickly moved on to do more killing elsewhere.
O’Malley had but a few seconds of active thought before darkness forever overtook the mental pictures of family and home.
It was still there. Slightly damaged and scorched from the heat of the burning tank, but the bridge that had cost so many lives still stood.
In Heiligenthal, fighting continued as the surviving four tanks and their accompanying infantry pushed hard for complete control.
Deniken sat beside the bridge near a burning jeep and watched as his wounded were brought in to be treated as best they could be. The dead were also being reverently recovered and he could not take his eyes off the lifeless form of the young medical orderly who had bandaged his arm that very morning. No marks on her body, just a small trickle of blood from her mouth.
His
newly acquired rifle lay propped by his side, its bloody bayonet testament to the hand-to-hand gutter fight that had resulted from the desperate charge.
They had died hard, these damned Amerikanisti, as hard as the German to be sure.
The headache was extreme now and the bandage seemed to get tighter by the second, squeezing his head.
Grabin had reported to him but he could not remember what was said, except that he handed command of the battalion over to his old soldier.
The Regimental Commander’s GAZ moved up the track amongst the dead and dying, clearly on his way over the bridge.
Deniken struggled to his feet quickly to give his report and, just as quickly, dropped to the ground.
His fight was over for now but he had done his duty and the line was broken.
It would be many hours before the newly-promoted Commander of 3rd Battalion, 49th Guards Rifle Regiment regained consciousness.
Some two hours after Deniken was taken back to the medical facilities established outside of Bienenbüttel, one company of 3rd/77th Engineer Brigade was brought forward by the scar-faced Major Elstov. He was keen to get his valuable bridging equipment secreted in the woods either side of Hauptstra²e, running north out of Heiligenthal, now finally free of the enemy who had been pushed back beyond Kirchgellersen.
The arrival overhead of three USAAF 405th Fighter Group Thunderbolts was perfect timing for the Americans and could not have been worse for the engineers.
A trio of quad-mount Maxim AA guns had been positioned to defend the bridge until more substantial assets could be placed, and they engaged immediately.
Major Eltsov frantically signalled his trucks to scatter and seek refuge in the woods but the previous artillery barrages had made the ground difficult to negotiate at the best of times.
Part of the briefing received by Soviet officers on the allied air forces concerned the use of rockets by ground-attack planes. For the Major, the claim that they were extremely inaccurate paled into insignificance when it came to being on the receiving end of a full salvo from a determined and experienced enemy.
The first P47 drove in hard and released all eight rockets at the scattering engineer vehicles.
Watching behind him as his Jeep rode up on the bridge, Eltsov winced as death was visited upon the troops he led, disproving the inaccuracy claims of the GRU Colonel who had briefed him.
In his rage he screamed at his driver to halt, which he did, bringing the jeep to a stop in a storm of pebbles and dust.
Eltsov slapped the man on the shoulder and pointed off towards a smoking structure nearby. Grabbing his SVT automatic rifle, he ran back over the bridge, only to stop short as the second salvo of rockets arrived, more deadly than the first.
The vehicles carrying the inflatables had been in the centre of the column, and it was these that had been badly handled by the first strike. The second strike had been aimed at them as well but had overshot and fallen as accurately as could be upon the lorries containing most of the prime personnel, his best engineering troops, veterans of combat bridging operations from the Volga to the Elbe. Few of them survived intact as soft-skin transports demonstrated their lack of resistance to high explosive.
The Major winced as bodies were tossed high, whole or in pieces, fire and smoke concealing the area from whence they sprang.
Shouting as loud as he could, he waved frantically at the front vehicles, desperately encouraging them to scatter for cover as he stood exposed on the bridge.
The fourth vehicle stalled, holding up those behind but first three vehicles sprang forward, almost propelled by the carnage behind them, and reached the bridge, timed to the second with the arrival of the third aircraft’s salvo.
Bridge and lorry disappeared together as the first pair of rockets struck precisely, the bridge decking units from the Studebakers load tossed and shredded by the blast. The next three pairs turned the east side of the bridge approach into a maelstrom, converting men and machines into pieces and spreading them for yards in all directions.
The planes were gone in the blink of an eye, pursued by lead from the two surviving but impotent Maxims.
In their wake, the carnage was complete, the bridging engineer company now consisting of thirty-seven wounded and shell-shocked men who would never be the same again.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt
CHAPTER 44 – THE COUNCIL
1400 hrs Tuesday, 7th August 1945, Headquarters, US Forces in Europe. I.G.Farben, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany.
The first of them had arrived at 1325 and was immediately shown to the elegant dining room where a modest buffet lunch had been provided and where sat General Dwight D Eisenhower in full uniform. The others arrived in short order and soon the ensemble was complete.
As quickly as was considered polite, the orderlies cleared away the side tables, provided coffee for the thirteen men and left.
The general hubbub of conversation dropped, conversation that had not been about the most pressing matter in the minds of the nine visitors but had just been small talk of family and life. What they all wanted to know most was why they were here.
Eisenhower rose to his feet, two other senior allied officers remaining seated by previous agreement. A US Army intelligence Major took his cue from his General and commenced his brief, addressing both sides of the long walnut table equally, firstly in his native tongue and then in English, a courtesy not lost on the nine.
“Gentlemen, my name is Major David S. Goldstein,” the Jewish officer could not help but leave his name hanging just for a split second, “And I am here to translate for both groups, which I will do honestly, literally and completely, to ensure full understanding.”
Goldstein pulled out a small stack of V-shaped cards and walked towards his own grouping of officers.
“For ease, it has been decided that name indicators would be appropriate and so I will place them out now by way of introduction.”
He leant round Eisenhower placing a name strip and, despite the General not needing any introduction whatsoever, named him, including the position of Supreme Allied Commander. Respectful nods were exchanged across
Moving to Ike’s right the diminutive Major placed out the strip for Joseph de Monsabert, naming him as the representative of the French Government and General commanding French Forces in Germany.
Placing his own marker in the space he had recently vacated to Monsabert’s right, he moved to the other side of Eisenhower in order to complete the Allied ensemble with the naming of Brian Robertson, Baron of Oakridge, presently the British Deputy Military Governor of Germany and Britain’s representative at these proceedings.,
Effortlessly, he moved around to the other side of the long table and commenced his introductions of the guests.
“Franz Von Papen”.
More correctly known as Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen, his credentials were impressive. A former army Colonel, politician, and one time Chancellor of Germany; Von Papen was a name that would be known to every German.
Leaning forward the second strip was placed.
“Adolf Schärf.”
Twice a political prisoner of the Nazis, Scarf was head of the newly formed Social Democratic Party of Austria.
Von Papen noted that with each name, nods from the Allied sides showed acknowledgement.
A strip for the provisional President of Austria.
“Karl Renner”
‘Nods of acknowledgement, and something else.’ The old politician’s senses lit up.
The Prime Minister of Bavaria received his name strip.
“Wilhelm Hoegner.”
‘It isn’t contempt.’
No mention of his former military rank of General-Oberst.
“Heinrich von Vietinghoff.”
‘It isn’t superiority.’
Another General-Oberst status went unmentioned.
“Heinz Guderian”
‘
It isn’t hate.’
The ex-minister of Armaments and War Production needed no introduction.
“Albert Speer”
‘It certainly isn’t subservience.’
Neither did the last leader of the failed Third Reich.
“Karl Dönitz.”
‘It isn’t even mistrust.’
Finally, the last Chancellor of Germany, albeit briefly and not by that name.
“Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk”
‘Grü² Gott! It looks very much like need.’
Goldstein, having finished his introductions, strode to the main double doors and knocked on one, which was immediately opened and admitted two US NCO’s bearing organised files and documents, one grouping of which was placed before each man present.
Each lay where they were placed, untouched by the recipient, as if by common agreement.
His work done, the First Sergeant left the room, the T4 Sergeant taking her place at the stenotype in the corner of the room.
Eisenhower began, and Goldstein translated into German.
“Thank you all for coming here at such short notice. I know some of you have been held awaiting investigations into your activities over the last twelve years and I must stress that such investigations will run their course and where there has been transgression, justice will surely follow. Today you should have been ten and now you are nine, because the individual concerned has been proved to be associated with unacceptable activities. What needs to be done cannot be done at any price. I hope that you will all understand that.”
Ike waited until Goldstein had delivered the translation and deliberately prolonged the pause to let the words sink in. There was no hint of a reaction from those facing him.
“Gentlemen, by now you will all have heard of the events which commenced yesterday morning.”
The pain on the faces of all of those across the table encouraged Eisenhower. His next words were deliberately chosen.