Opening Moves (The Red Gambit Series)

by Gee, Colin

  The Divisional Commander called his artillery into action at once, replying in kind to the defenders of Rohlsdorf, at the same time swinging the 1013th Regiment westwards, looking to cross the Curau-Malkendorf bridge, and sending his reserve regiment, the 1015th, up the middle and over the Horsdorf Bridge.

  Under his orders for this advance was 27th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment, whose IS-II’s were a very welcome addition to his force.

  The 1017th left one battalion opposite the destroyed bridge at Rohlsdorf and pulled the rest back to the south-west to form a reserve force.

  The 285th Division had seen little combat in the war against the Fascists but it was a professional unit, well drilled, and its regiments adapted to the new orders immediately, swiftly closing on their allotted routes of advance.

  The ground was flat and relatively featureless, marked only by the occasional knot of trees, clump of hedgerows and small depression.

  Fortunately, that was enough good cover for the British commander to conceal his self-propelled guns and tanks, although most of the tanks were held back to the north-west of Malkendorf enjoying cover in the woods.

  With the services of the excellent 13th Honourable Artillery Company to call on, Lieutenant Colonel Julian Fairbairn-Banks felt confident, despite his limited infantry.

  Fig#13 Malkendorf First Assault.

  On which subject his thoughts immediately leapt to the Germans.

  Within an hour of the broadcast made by the new German Leadership, ex-German soldiers, some with their uniforms and, more alarmingly, some with weapons, reported for duty with units under his control.

  For now he had organised each of them under the command of a British Officer and had them placed adjacent to and covering a bridge, the Horsdorf group of fifty-two men covering the main bridge to his centre left and the Malkendorf group, consisting of forty-four men, covering the right flank bridge, each supported by a platoon from his infantry company.

  The rest of his infantry were concealed in reserve between the river and Malkendorf.

  One platoon of the machine-gun company was placed centrally, able to support either or both bridges, a second platoon again in reserve, this time in Malkendorf itself.

  Topping off his defences was an experienced artillery observer positioned in the church tower, ready to bring fire down on whatever the Russians threw at them.

  Every one of his troops was dug in and well concealed, although he grudgingly admitted that the Germans had completely disappeared. Lessons to be learned when time permitted he told himself.

  Fairbairn-Banks was a professional soldier long in service and drenched in combat experience, from his early days in the BEF through to the surrender of Germany.

  He was by far the tallest man in the 11th Armoured, standing a full 6’9” in his stockinged feet. His men knew him as ‘Barney’, drawn from the barn door analogy, for he was also as wide as a rugby prop forward. His Brigadier cynically called him ‘Sniper’s Heaven’ because of his obvious disadvantages when it came to hiding under fire.

  Even sat down in his Humber scout car vast areas of his upper body were visible unless he really tried hard to bend himself out of shape.

  He now sat in that scout car, radio handset in one hand, binoculars in the other, watching and waiting, counting the yards as the Soviet infantry moved closer.

  Judging the moment to perfection, he gave the order and the killing commenced.

  Using only the German and British units at the bridges, he kept the other units silent for now, believing quite rightly that the Russians would be stopped with just those he alerted.

  The combination of Bren guns and Vickers heavy machine guns did deadly work, with Lee-Enfield’s and Kar98k’s adding their barks to the noisy chaos that descended upon the lead Russian units.

  The Malkendorf unit had found an MG42 from somewhere but were obviously conserving the small amount of ammunition that came with it.

  Leaving many dead on the field, the two lead Soviet companies withdrew to await the next attempt.

  Colonel Leonid Shvpaghin was incandescent with rage.

  His two precious T-60 reconnaissance tanks had already covered the same ground now littered with his dead men, reporting nothing and then had withdrawn to refuel.

  Seeking permission from the army commander to move around the river at its source some 4 miles west near Dakendorf, he anticipated the expected refusal and developed his plans for attack.

  Ordering the artillery officer to lay smoke when the time came, he radioed an order to the Major commanding the 1013th to prepare a frontal assault, but also to send one company to probe westwards towards Curau just in case.

  The commanding Leytenant from the recon troop was demoted to private on the spot and replaced by his Starshina, who was ordered to support the 1013th’s attack as closely as possible with the machine guns of his tanks.

  During combat in Lubeck, Shvapagin’s men had liberated a British Cromwell and he sent this forward to provide heavier support for his troops.

  1015th would let their brothers close and take advantage of the moving artillery to storm forward in the centre, sweeping the way clear for the heavy tanks to cross the river.

  Fig#14 - Malkendorf Second Assault.

  The Colonel brought his heavy tanks nearer the front line, ready to cope with any surprises and to develop the attack once 1015th had captured their objective.

  Mounting the two battalions of 1017th in their trucks, he prepared to use them either as reinforcements should they be needed or close support infantry for the 27th‘s Tanks once they got to Malkendorf itself

  He would have liked more artillery but his artillery regiment had suffered one of the few successful allied air strikes the previous evening and valuable guns had been lost.

  Finally, he deployed his mortars in the thin strip of dense woods west of Horsdorferfelde.

  He knew his army commander well and Major-General Gusev’s reply was as expected. On receipt of both the refusal of the move to the west and the usual exhortations regarding the price of failure, he ordered the attack to commence at 1215 hrs. At the allotted time, 1013th’s soldiers charged forward, unable to see their objective for smoke, which had been dropping since 1210 hrs. Whilst 1013th’s attack was closing, the artillery switched, the first smoke shells burst off target, needing correction, before the infantry and tanks started forward.

  The defenders of the Malkendorf Bridge started to engage, dropping the advancing Russians to the ground as they desperately sought cover, some never to rise again. An additional heavy machine gun, then another, cut into their right flank from across the river, herding the desperate soldiers closer together around the road and to its western edges.

  Shvpaghin screamed at his battalions, urging them not to bunch up, his mortars to hit the machine gun positions, Soviet communications officers desperately punched his orders out into the radio waves. The Colonel let out a low moan as the unmistakable whine of incoming artillery upstaged the noise of the infantry battle and he winced as accurate fragmentation shells from the 25-pounders of the H.A.C. ripped whole platoons to shreds. The 25-pdr, in expert hands, was a very capable artillery piece as he was now learning, witnessing his lead battalion gutted in front of his eyes, casualties made worse by bunching together, herded as they were by the machine gun fire.

  As Shvpaghin watched his own mortars ineffectively seeking out the heavy machine guns, he saw his left-flank attack go to ground, totally out of steam.

  He ordered the three tanks supporting to press forward.

  The Cromwell tank slewed off the road, track broken by erratic driving, crew abandoning with gusto.

  The two T-70’s moved forward, inevitably crushing the dead and the living alike as they jinked to avoid anti-tank weapons.

  The 25-pdr’s fell silent and, encouraged by the absence of shrapnel and the valour of their tank crews, the 1013th’s soldiers rose up again.

  Ordering the mortars to increase their rate of fire, Shvpaghin ensu
red that the artillery bathed the Horsdorf Bridge with smoke. 1015th were then ordered forward with the IS-II’s in close support.

  A small trail of smoke reached out from a previously unseen position on the north bank adjacent to the bridge, touching the lead T-70 and transforming it in a hearse, the occupants killed instantly as the panzerfaust struck home.

  The second light tank fired down the line of the smoke and was rewarded with obvious strikes on enemy soldiers as pieces of bodies flew backwards.

  They were still firing as a second smoke trail terminated accurately on the front of their turret, killing the commander and gunner instantly.

  The attack stalled once more.

  In the centre, the 1015th fared much better. The mortars had beaten down much of the machine gun fire initially directed at them and the smoke barrage was very effective in masking them from enemy fire.

  However, 25-pdr fragmentation rounds started to arrive and casualties mounted.

  Shvpaghin’s joy disappeared as swiftly as it arrived when the report from his artillery officer stated that the smoke rounds would be consumed within three minutes.

  He looked through his binoculars and weighed up the ground. It could be done.

  “Order Banov to charge, full tilt. Smoke is nearly gone and he must close. He must close!”

  The order was dispatched straight away and the Colonel saw a discernable increase in speed spread through the attacking lines of infantry. The heavy tanks put on a spurt and drew level with the rear of their infantry comrades.

  Gripping his binoculars tightly, Shvpaghin watched as the first wave of infantry started to melt away, victims of desultory fire from the other bank. Enemy artillery was still killing but it was not as accurate as before.

  It was working.

  “Smoke expended Comrade Colonel,” came the report but he did not hear it, watching, and concentrating as his second wave ran over the first and reached the riverbank.

  Checking his mortars were still giving the enemy machine-guns hell, he switched back at the time that the smoke first started to dissipate. Within a minute, the artillery was more accurately laid and a direct strike from a high-explosive shell wrecked the lead IS-II’s engine, starting a fire that produced oily black smoke to add to the fading smokescreen. The driver staggered out to be shot down by a grinning German youth wielding a Kar98k.

  In the Colonel’s vision he could see the men of his second wave, dead and dying, struggling in the water, or hugging the earth in whatever scrape in the ground they found themselves. Grenades were being thrown back and forth, doing the grim reaper’s work without distinction.

  Conscious of the fate of the two T-70’s, the heavy tankers were holding back.

  He ordered the commander of 27th Tanks to press on regardless, to support his infantry, and close Malkendorf. The order was not acknowledged, causing him to turn and examine the burning IS-II more closely.

  “B’lyad!” he shouted and spat with all his might after delivering his favourite expletive.

  “Contact the tank regiment’s deputy. Get them fucking moving!”

  The third and fourth waves were bunching up, repeating the error of the failed flank attack but this time little MG fire herded them and the artillery caused fewer casualties.

  The HAC, positioned just North-west of Rohlsdorf had been spotted by Soviet air-reconnaissance and counter-battery fire was arriving, forcing both of the troops to relocate, and not without loss in men and guns.

  The IS-II’s started forward again, first company deploying into formation ready to cross the bridge, the second company moving to the left to provide support if needed, with the third taking the right-hand position with the same brief.

  Each of the companies had lost two tanks for various reasons en route to Malkendorf and so a total of fifteen 122mm guns prepared to destroy anything that opposed them.

  Behind the lead company came the 2-I-C’s T34, the rest of the regiments support troops remaining out of harm’s way.

  Fairbairn-Banks wiped the blood from the lenses of his binoculars and tried not to look at the padre, whom the finger of his god had selected as the sole casualty of a short shell from the HAC’s guns. The pious man had been kneeling in prayer in the churchyard when a defective charge propelled a High Explosive round from a 25-pdr barrel less distance than intended, dropping it neatly in front of the padre just as the Lieutenant Colonel was moving position.

  ‘Barney’ could not help the wry thought.

  ‘Perhaps it was a miracle that there was enough of the man left to carry in a blanket.’

  None the less, he had been a likeable man and a popular replacement for old Father O’Reilly whose heart had given out in Normandy.

  No time for further reflection, Fairbairn-Banks turned over the battle to the young Major commanding the twelve concealed Achilles tank destroyers, suitably arranged to cover their intended killing grounds around the bridges.

  Some of the IS-II’s were firing big HE rounds at his infantry and obviously causing casualties. A panzerfaust leapt from underneath the Horsdorf Bridge, detonating against the turret side of the least cautious member of third company.

  Apart from a scorch mark on the turret, the vehicle seemed none the worse but took no further part in the battle, the crew placed beyond the skills of the surgeons already snowed under with wounded carried back to their aid station.

  First company took the bridge steadily as infantry cleared the tenacious defenders from its environs, rushing over the wooden structure in support of the tanks. Many fell, victims of grazing fire from the no longer subdued machine-guns.

  Those who made it across the bridge fell headlong into a position manned with Germans dressed in all manner of attire, wielding weapons from bayonets to medieval broadswords taken from the nearby Schloss. The slaughter was atrocious, hands clutching at throats, fingers gouging out eyes, the blood, faeces, urine and bile of the dead mixing with the vomit of the living as a hundred men became feral beasts in the name of self-preservation.

  The fighting was so intense that no-one paid any attention to the heavy crack of big guns and the resultant clangs as missiles burrowed into metal and converted expensive killing machines into just so much scrap metal.

  The young Major had timed his shoot well, waiting until most of First Company was across the bridge and the second company had turned side on to follow them. As a bonus, third company had their field of fire reduced by their living and dead comrades.

  Only one IS-II of First Company was still in full running order. A PIAT shell struck the leviathan but it shrugged the hit off, slaying the British AT gunners as they desperately reloaded. Exerting more than enough pressure on an anti-tank mine, the right track flopped uselessly away and the crippled beast slewed to the right, exposing its left side to a second round of shots. Five were targeted upon the IS-II and the nearby British infantry had a first-class view of a real tank brew-up, so much so that the heat forced them to relocate, at the cost of several wounded from vengeful Soviet infantry.

  Second company had lost four tanks, although one of those could still fire.

  The 17-pdr’s of the Achilles were a weapon to be feared and more shells rode the battlefield in search of victims.

  The 27th was an experienced formation but even these men could not stand such losses and the survivors turned to run, creating what smoke they could and carving a bloody trail through the infantry that had naturally migrated to them for safety.

  Having had the satisfaction of watching the lone Soviet spotter crash in flames after the attentions of a De Havilland Mosquito hunting party, the relocated HAC gunners set up their artillery as quickly as they could and reported in their readiness to join the fray again.

  The observer had a nice plum target ready and waiting.

  Shvpaghin watched silently, bereft of any emotion save total shock. His eyes saw but did not understand, the visuals of the destruction of his command not digested until he was shaken from his doldrums by the arrival of
accurate artillery on his infantry reserve, all nicely laid out in trucks for the killing.

  As the two battalions were butchered and more of the retreating IS-II’s fell victim to whatever monster guns the British were using, he became aware of his second in command approaching grim faced.

  Not taking his face away from the continuing slaughter in front of him, he merely requested the officer’s report.

  “Comrade General Gusev orders you to his headquarters immediately Comrade Colonel.”

  Shvpaghin turned to his subordinate, with whom he had served since the early days.

  “And what else Alexander?”

  “I am to place you under arrest and relieve you of your weapon.”

  “I see.” He turned back to face his destroyed division, now strangely calm, assessing perhaps 60%, or even 70% casualties in men and all but two IS-II’s immolated.

  “So, what will you do Comrade”, his eyes glued to the binoculars he was now using to cover his tears. Tears not for himself but for the men he had led for so long.

  “I will come back in a little while my friend.”

  Shvpaghin nodded gently and turned to shake the hand of the man who was his friend.

  No words came. No words were necessary.

  The Colonel turned back for one last look at his command and saw Major Banov, bloodied and dirty, staggering back up the road.

  ‘Another of the old team’ thought Shvpaghin and he saluted the apparition smartly, which salute was returned as best as the severely wounded Major could accomplish.

  Taking his treasured Walther P38 pistol from his holster, he looked skywards to a hot sun obscured by the products of his ruined heavy tank regiment, aiming his final words at a god he hated beyond measure and put a bullet in his brain.