Nexus Deep (Kirov Series Book 31)

by Schettler, John

  “We thought they would need at least another month before they could move,” he said. “How many divisions?”

  “Two at Oristano Bay, both British, and one reinforced American division further south on the beaches west of Iglesias. Do you want me to order the 15th Infantry to Oristano?”

  “They want to cut off Cagliari,” said Kesselring. Yes, get to Oristano. The 90th has just arrived on Corsica, but I will move it to Bonifacio and get Siebel ferries there to cross the Strait. We must delay them as long as possible. Try and prevent any major movement north until the 90th Division arrives.”

  Kesselring also had a whole series of other questions on his mind now. What was he to do with Sicily? There was only one German division there now, the 15th Panzergrenadier, but should he move Goring’s division there as originally planned?

  Sardinia, he thought. What in God’s name do they want that for? It was clearly reachable from their western ports and airfields at Bizerte and Tunis, but Sicily was the greater prize. The big question now is the Italians. Will they fight? If we can win on Sardinia, I think that would be decided favorably. But if the Allies make a quick victory there, then Italy’s position is fatally compromised. The enemy will be holding a knife at Mussolini’s throat. They could jump directly to the vicinity of Rome.

  Yet not until they clear Sicily. Yes… Cagliari is the only decent port on Sardinia, and if I keep Palermo, and concentrate my air power there and at Trapani, then I can possibly neutralize Cagliari as a debarkation port for any move against the Italian mainland. This will force them to use La Maddalena as their main anchorage, and for that, they will have to clear us off Corsica. Let me see about getting another division there from Southern France.

  Do they think we will simply withdraw from Sicily now? That won’t happen if I have anything to say about it, and at the moment, I am Oberbefehlshaber Süd , commander of all forces in Southern Italy. Rommel has wormed his way into Hitler’s good graces, and he has been given responsibility for the north, which is where he wants to build our primary defensive line. But I could fight them in Italy for months—for a year or longer if necessary. We should fight for everything in the south, Taranto, the big airfields at Foggia, and certainly Naples. That is where the Herman Goring Division goes—Naples. From there it can get to Messina on Sicily easily if the Allies do plan a landing there.

  So, the next game has finally begun, and I must play out the opening very carefully.

  Part X

  Collapse

  “The proud German army by its sudden collapse, sudden crumbling and breaking up, has once again proved the truth of the saying 'The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet.”

  —Winston Churchill

  Chapter 28

  Von Senger waited for darkness on the night of the 15th, but he had spent the entire day mustering all the rolling stock he could find and getting 15th Infantry to the rail yards. He would get a train south, as far as the town of Bauladu, about 15 kilometers north of Oristano, before he then encountered fallen trees piled over the line, with the tracks beyond torn up.

  Colonel John Frost and his men had been busy that night as well. The Germans found no sign of the British paratroopers there, but they were forced to dismount and deploy. Von Senger knew the paras had taken the airfield at Milis, and he was going to take it back. He learned that the 152nd CCNN Battalion had already moved there, and was skirmishing with the paras north of the field. Now he would bring a little more persuasion to that argument, ordering Bushchenhagen to take the field, and then deploy his division for a counterattack towards Oristano.

  He would bring the bulk of his division south, detaching one battalion in the north to reinforce the small port of Algheru on the west coast, and leaving one more at Puerto Torres north of Sassari. As for Cagliari, nothing more could get through there, so the best he could do was order the defenders to hold out as long as possible.

  Bushchenhagen set up his headquarters in the larger town of Abbasanta, astride the main road and rail line north. Led by the Recon Battalion, he organized an immediate counterattack towards Milis, but ran into John Frost and his intrepid paras, well dug in and ready to fight just south of Bauladu. He knew the enemy was simply trying to delay his advance, for the weight of his division would surely prevail in time. But that time was expensive. He needed to get south as quickly as possible, for reports coming out of Oristano were not good. The Bari Division was still fighting in the city with the Division HQ and a single stubborn battalion, but the British had taken the segments of the city closest to the beaches, and flanked it to the west.

  Further south, Terry Allan’s 1st Infantry was ashore and well established by noon the first day, and he hit four battalions forming a defensive front at mid-day, driving them back. Late in the day, Patton hustled more tanks from TF Abrams ashore, and he wanted to bulldoze his way inland as soon as possible. He would do exactly that, seizing Gonessa, a little over seven klicks inland, and then horse whipping his tanks onward until they reached the outskirts of Iglesias near dusk on the 16th of June. He would take that city with a night attack on the 16th. With all his initial landing objectives secured, Patton now began to organize for his drive east to Cagliari, but he would have competition.

  Tanks and armored engineers of the 1st Tank Brigade had pushed inland quickly from the beaches, reaching the main road south and pushing off in that direction. They were supported by infantry from the 5th Division, and now the first footrace between Patton and Montgomery was underway. Who would take Cagliari?

  Kesselring was watching the progress of the battle with some concern. The Allied plan was very good. The landing at Oristano Bay was strong enough to overpower the Bari Division before the 15th Infantry could arrive. Frost’s gallant defense, retiring from one prepared position to another as he fell back on the airfield at Milis, had delayed just long enough for Montgomery to push the last of the stubborn Italian defenders out of Oristano. The British were now assaulting the airfield there, though it had already been abandoned.

  That was the real value of Southern Sardinia. The airfield at Oristano, and those at Villacidro, Decimomannu, Elmas and Monserato were among the very best on the island. They had been used to throw German an Italian planes into the Sicilian Narrows to harass and attack Allied Shipping, and their loss would be keenly felt. Soon it would be necessary to order those fields to be evacuated, reducing his air presence in the approaches to the Sicilian Narrows by 50%.

  15th Infantry finally pushed Frost out of Milis, retaking that field after dusk on the 16th. That same night, as Frost was setting up defensive positions south of the field, the 7th Gordons came up, and they were a most welcome sight.

  “Jolly good,” said the Colonel of the 7th when he found Frost. “We’ll take over here. Monty wants you down south at the Oristano Field. Get some rest if you can, because I think they’re bringing in transports with the first fighter group.”

  That night, Patton pushed to the rail town of Musei, 25 kilometers inland from his beachhead, and the British had moved south to attack retreating elements of the Bari Division southeast of Oristano at San Gavino and Sardara. That was only ten klicks north of the big airfield at Villacidro, and the Germans sent orders to fly off any remaining squadrons there to alternate fields.

  Monty had to make a decision as to his floating reserve. Rather than wait for Cagliari to be taken, which could take several days, he decided his beachheads were perfectly secure, and ordered 1st Canadian to begin landing at dawn on the 17th of June. The arrival of German troops north of Oristano had compelled him to get as much force ashore as possible. The 4th Mixed Division was still in Bizerte waiting for shipping to return for sealift. That force could land at Cagliari if it was cleared in time.

  Needing armor support up north, Monty also recalled 1st Armored Brigade, leaving a reinforced regiment of the 3rd Infantry to continue the push south towards Cagliari. He was throwing a bone to Patton, who was hell bent on getting that port before the British cou
ld claim bragging rights.

  To that end, a fast-moving battalion from CCA of 1st Armored had landed and ran like a halfback through a hole in the lines of the retreating Italians. They pushed all the way to Decimomannu, just five kilometers from the valuable airfield there, but had to stop when they ran into the Italian 184th Nembo Parachute Regiment. The resistance of the Italian Sabaouda Division was slowly crumbling, for there were only German Luftwaffe troops, a single field battalion and flak units, to try and give the division some support. They were fighting for native soil now, and acquitting themselves well, but the Big Red 1 and TF Abrams were simply too much for them.

  At this time, the Italian senior commander on the island, General Basso, elected to begin moving the 203rd Coastal Division troops north. They were on the east coast, so the going would be slow, but it would at least give him something in reserve for the battle that would surely come north in time.

  Von Senger was restless, knowing he had a good position with 15th Infantry north of Oristano, but those troops were now under a great deal of pressure as 1st Canadian came onto the line, very eager to prove their worth. The Canadians had not land at Dieppe, for that operation was never staged in 1942, so this was their first action of the war. They had moved up on the left, through Torre Grande and Nurachi, and tanks from the 12th Battalion, 3 Rivers Regiment, stormed back over the small airstrip at Milis.

  Now Von Senger’s mood improved with the arrival of the first units from the 90th Panzergrenadier Division from Corsica. Kube’s Pioneer Battalion and the 190th Panzer Battalion under Zunger were the first to arrive. They had moved by Siebel Ferry from Bonifacio, and landed at the small port of Saint Teresa. The Italian Cremona Battalion of light armor had come with them, and the rest of the 90th was heading south, where more barges and ferries were gathered at Porto Veccio for the sealift operation to Sardinia. Von Senger asked the Luftwaffe to concentrate heavily over those ports to protect the barges, and the move was planned at night. KG Keyser was next to be lifted, on the night of the 18th, and they would be followed by KG’s Panzenhagen, and von Behr, each being two battalion formations.

  The, on the morning of the 18th, von Senger received a message from Kurt Student. Fresh off the trains from Syria, the 1st Fallschirmjager had arrived in Italy near La Spezia, and Hitler had ordered it to be ready to fly to Sardinia or Corsica at the discretion of the local commander. They would be ordered to fly directly to La Madalenna, which received two battalions on the 19th of June, with a third battalion flying into Porto Veccio on Corsica, where it would complete the journey via Siebel ferry. The shallow draft motorized barges that were conceived as part of the plan to invade England were now being put to very good use.

  As it happened in Sicily, Montgomery had drawn the bulk of the best German troops to his front, and all these troops would eventually move south to shore up the lines of 15th Infantry. It was now clear that Patton was going to liberate Cagliari before 3rd Infantry could get much farther south.

  “Monty took Oristano,” said Patton to Bradley as the two men drove forward. “Since then he’s push no more than seven kilometers north, and that was because they put in paratroops up there. In that time we’ve pushed all of 45 kilometers from our beachhead, and cut those Limeys off coming down from the north.

  “George, you’re supposed to be cutting the Germans off, not the British. And don’t forget, Monty’s up against the German 15th infantry division.”

  “Don’t sell these Italian fellow short,” said Patton. “They’ve been fighting like hell, but they can’t hold against our armor. I want to be in Cagliari tomorrow. All we need is another 15 klicks, but we’ve got to get through the Nembo Para Regiment first. We crack that nut, and it should be smooth sailing after that. Then I can get up north and take La Maddalena.”

  “George, you sound like you’re late for dinner.”

  “Well you heard the briefing—time is money, and I plan on spending mine well.”

  On the morning of June 19th, the 601st Tank Destroyer company rolled onto the tarmac at the Elmas airfield, just five kilometers northwest of the port of Cagliari. The city was now being held by two Luftwaffe flak companies, the Cagliari Commando Battalion, and the Headquarters of the Sabaouda Division. The troops of that division had been largely destroyed, and general Battista feared he would soon become the first Italian senior officer to surrender and yield a major city and port on Italian homeland soil. The value of Cagliari could not be understated, and there were five airfields in that region that would allow the Allies to swarm in from North Africa and set up their hives on the island. From those fields, they could neutralize Italian and Luftwaffe units at Palermo and Trapani, thus opening the approaches to the Sicilian Narrows.

  * * *

  On the night of the 19th, 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 16th Infantry Regiment marched up the coastal road to the edge of Cagliari. They would try to take the port by storm, supported by two more battalions of TF Abrams mech infantry, and two more companies of light tanks. In this action, and at Decimomannu Airfield to the north, the Americans would face their toughest fighting since the landing. The Nembo Paras were putting up a tenacious defense, and the Cagliari Commandos moved from one warehouse to the next, fighting for every foot and building along the harbor.

  The Americans had tried to sneak over the long narrow Barracone Isthmus, a finger of land that pointed to the northern edge of the harbor. It had one road, which ended in a short bridge to another spit of land which was an open field sport’s ground. Behind that was a canal, with yet another bridge, and then the outer buildings of the harbor. The first one they had to take was the Cement Works, used to build and fortify the moles and quays, and it was itself a solid concrete building, right at the edge of that canal.

  The M5-Stuarts fired away at it, but made little impression. It was going to need fire from the Shermans, but they were having difficulty coming along that narrow road. Three tanks brought their bigger main guns to bear, and forced the Commandos to retreat, allowing the infantry to occupy those works, but the enemy had just fallen back to the next warehouse, and the fight began anew.

  It took two hours to get forward to the grain stores, and then work towards the first big harbor mole, just west of the Coal Yard. Above that was the rail station, with more very sturdy concrete buildings that housed the engines and rolling stock, and between the two, were heavy walled warehouses.

  These terrain features multiplied the defensive power of that single Commando battalion immensely, and the fighting would go on all night at the west end of the harbor. Coming from the north, the mechanized detachment from TF Abrams had to first take the city Power station, then the Phosphates Factory, another cement plant and smelting refractory, all tough fighting, with the bullets snapping off concrete and metal sided walls, and the infantry dismounting to try and make grenade rushes in the darkness. If the Italians were going to fight like this for the relatively small port of Cagliari, the US troopers could only imagine what it would be like trying to take a big city like Naples, or god forbid, Rome.

  At 2AM, TF Abrams had cleared out the refractory, and was probing down Viale Trento, only to take more heavy fire from the first of several Army barracks buildings in the city. The Commandos knew every nook and cranny in the town, and they were using that knowledge to move about with good stealth, and surprise the Americans at every street corner. In spite of their skill and valor, Patton was informed that his men had taken the harbor just before dawn. The hold there was rather precarious, for only D Company, of the 66th Armored Cav, and 2nd Company of the 753rd Armored Battalion had made it to the big tobacco factory off Viale Regina Margherita.

  In spite of the hour, the General took out a nice thick cigar and lit up in the grey dawn, which was exactly what the men of D Company were doing when they saw what was stored away in that tobacco factory.

  General Battista would surrender that morning, but the Cagliari Commandos refused to lay down their arms. Instead they took the road out of the city, c
ommandeering any vehicle they could find, and sped away toward San Gregorio to the northeast. The only forces still fighting were the Luftwaffe Flak guns near Monserrato Airfield.

  The Nembo Paras still held Decimomannu field, but when they heard the Americans were behind them, there was a discussion as to what they should do. The way north was impossible, and they knew they were cut off. Colonel Lucerna considered surrendering, but the 12th Battalion refused, insisting the regiment should fight to the last.

  The first laurels went to Patton and the US Army. They had landed and driven 60 kilometers to Cagliari, half way across the island, while during the same four days, Monty had gone a third that distance, and was still heavily engaged 10 klicks north of Oristano. The Canadians had made excellent progress on the left, but just when it seemed that the German line was breaking, more reinforcements arrived. KG Keyser moved into the small town of Bonarcado to shore up that flank, and the rest of the 190th Division was now mustering near Abbasanta behind the main line of resistance.

  When he heard Patton was in Cagliari, Montgomery turned to a nearby aide. “As usual,” he said, “Patton is gallivanting about while we take on the Germans.”

  “But General,” said the aide. “He was only carrying out your plan. True?” At that, Monty smiled, but ‘Gallivanting’ would not be half a word for what Patton would do next.

  Chapter 29

  The landings on Sardinia had done more than many realized to affect the general morale of the homeland. Instead of bolstering it, and instilling a fervor to defend the sacred soil of Italy, it had the opposite effect. The Italians now saw their position in the Axis as completely untenable. Though Mussolini attempted to shore up the will of his regime and nation to resist, he stumbled in his last important public speech.