“That road will take you through good woodland cover,” he said. “And it will also put you well north of the present action, where you’ll have a better chance of stopping any breakthrough. Good hunting!”
Conrath started out, ready for a fight, but he would not survive to join the hunt. The Jabos descended on his column before it reached Breteuil, and the shelter of those dark woods beyond. His command car was blown sky high.
Heinz Goring, the nephew of the Reichsmarschall himself, had been riding with him that day, and would also be reported killed in action. Generalleutnant Wilhelm Schmalz, former leader of the division’s Panzer Regiment, would now rise to command. Bayerlein received a call from Schmaltz with the bad news, and he was under a cloud all that day, feeling he had just given the order that sent Conrath to his untimely death. The two men had fought together in Tunisia, and he had come to know Conrath very well. In the old history, the General lived to be 82, seeing a part of the new Germany waiting beyond the torment of these years, but now that was not to be….
* * *
The officers and staff at OB West HQ in Versailles went into full crisis mode on the night of June 3rd. Patton’s strategy of diverting his armored divisions to attack the weaker German infantry divisions had ruptured the front in many places. Now Guderian and von Rundstedt conferred to take the most expedient measures.
“Reserves are all too thin,” said von Rundstedt. “Kluge’s Schwerepanzers have been a godsend, but they cannot be everywhere. He’s stuck his thumb in the dike, but the front is starting to rupture, and there will soon be more holes than Kluge has fingers!”
“You must get the 91st Infantry back,” said Guderian. “They didn’t move today.”
“General Falley said he would wait for cover of darkness, but he should be moving now. Berlichingen was holding Vimoutiers, but he will have to pull out of there tonight as well.”
“It’s 10th Panzer I’m worried about,” said Guderian.
“Goring’s division is coming, but what a hard blow to lose Conrath today.” Von Rundstedt shook his head.
“Schmaltz knows his business,” said Guderian. “He’ll pull the division together. They swung through the woods northeast of L’Aigle today. Tonight they put in a counterattack.”
“What about the British sector?” von Rundstedt eyed the bulge in the front there darkly.
“The British armor was all pushing northwest. We were holding, but then the infantry front on the east end of the bulge collapsed. That sector will be touch and go for the next few days, but 12th SS is coming up through Troyes toward Sens with the 275th Infantry. That should help stabilize that flank.”
“I’m concerned about Student’s troops.” Von Rundstedt pointed to the woodland north of Orleans. “He has a lot of good men in those woods, and if O’Connor breaks loose behind him….”
“If we move them north they’ll lose that good defensive ground,” said Guderian. “The French have been stopped cold. And if we move Student’s troops, the 361st will have to go with them.”
“I think that would be best,” said von Rundstedt. “Those divisions are a long way from the Seine.” He gave Guderian a look, and did not have to say anything more.
“That leaves the three Panzergrenadier Divisions,” said Guderian. “They have been holding firm in the center, and on good ground. We could certainly use their mobility, but they’re holding too wide a segment of the front now. If we move them, the entire center is in motion.”
“Perhaps you would be wise to leave them where they are for the moment,” said von Rundstedt. “They can move if, and when, we decide on a general withdrawal to the Seine.”
“Kluge has been jabbing me in the ribs about that.”
“Yes, even his miracle workers die. I’m told they have less than 30 of those magnificent new tanks left.”
“That unit is still too fantastic for me to contemplate,” said Guderian. “Can you believe it? What we need now is to find out how that brigade got here. Perhaps we could recruit a few more divisions.”
Heinz was joking, of course, but the mystery was still fathomless, and deeply disturbing. Yet there was no denying the reality of Berg and his marvelous new tanks. They had been instrumental in holding the front together, but now Guderian was beginning to think they would soon become an island in the stream.
Part IX
Soldier On
“No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.”
—Erich Maria Remarque
Chapter 25
Montgomery and O’Connor had decided to name their offensive Operation Fortitude , stiffening their resolve to stay in the game in spite of recent supply difficulties. They would not be the beneficiaries of any windfall in supply coming in from the west, still relying on Marseilles, which was now 450 road miles to the south. That math was why the British offensives were coming in fits, with long intervals between them while the necessary supply was trucked up to the front. At present, Monty figured they had perhaps three day’s supply left for this run before the guns would fall silent, and he was determined to make the most of that combat time.
In any bulge in the front such as that created by the operation, the advantage was decidedly in favor of the attacker, as he had interior lines. The enemy defense stretched around the bulge, but from within it, the attacker could shift his hammer blows anywhere, left center or right. The German defense, when they could not effectively counterattack to pinch off such an inroad, was to blunt the spearhead with a strong blocking position or attack, and then pull back the flanks so as to make the front level again. Of course, this meant giving up ground on either flank, and often ceding strategic prizes to the enemy.
Cherbourg was one such prize gained by Patton when von Rundstedt pulled back the western wing of 7th Army. Orleans had been the pearl seized by the French as the Germans withdrew there, and De Gaulle was already crowing about Leclerc’s exploits in that regard.
Now, with the Germans withdrawing their tough para divisions from positions west of Orleans, the defense on the western shoulder of the British penetration was strengthening, but the eastern shoulder was still quite weak. Monty saw that clearly, and sent orders cancelling 7th Armored Brigade’s attack to the west, turning it east instead. It was to move through the gap being created by Erskine’s 7th Armored Division, and then Currie’s 4th Armored Brigade was also pulled out of the western attack and shifted east to follow.
The attack rolled heavily into the lines of 15th Panzergrenadier Division, and broke through just before dawn on the 4th of June. To add fire to the pan, German withdrawals further east had enabled Montgomery to summon the 1st Canadian Infantry Division, with 1st Armored Brigade attached. That column was now coming up beneath the right of the British penetration, and it would stand as a strong reserve should there be a breakout in that area.
“We have perhaps three days combat supply,” he told O’Connor. “But if we can get clean through for a good run north, we might stretch that to keep that exploitation moving for five to seven days. It might just get us to the Seine.”
That was the plan. He had perceived, like Patton, that the enemy could not be strong enough to stop him everywhere, and now he had O’Connor throw a heavy right shoulder against the enemy defense. There, the 319th Division, already greatly weakened, was all but destroyed on the 4th of June. Only two half-strength rifle battalions, the Pioneers, and the artillery remained. The rest were dead or scattered to the far fields, looking for some place, anywhere, away from the guns of war.
When the last of the 319th disintegrated, O’Connor saw his opportunity to send in his fast halfbacks. 4th and 7th Armored Brigades both swung west into the gap, motoring through like a herd of buffalo, making a lightning quick dash of 15 kilometers. The flank had now been fatally compromised, and only the arriving 275th Infantry Division offered any hope of restoring a shoulder in the east.
The telephone rang at OB West in Versailles, and it was G
uderian who took the bad news this time. It was SS-Brigadeführer Kurt Meyer of the 12th SS Panzer Division, which had reached Fontainebleau and was waiting for instructions.
“It looks serious from what I can gather from the reports.”
“You are the last mobile reserve we have until Das Reich arrives from Russia,” said Guderian. “This attack is heading your way, but I do not think this armored thrust will want any part of that heavy woodland around Fontainebleau. See if you can make a good concentrated counterattack on their flank as they come up. Catch them on the move. I’m counting on you.”
* * *
When he moved west to the dissolving front of 7th Army, Berg found that the Americans had pushed all the way to Pont Leveque, about 12 kilometers inland from the coastal town of Trouville. The three German infantry divisions retreating in that sector had managed to reform a line between those two towns, extending it another 10 kilometers inland. Berg rolled up, and his superb situational awareness could see that between the inland end of that line and the retreating 91st division to the south, there was no defense whatsoever for nearly 20 kilometers. His choice was to either try and defend that gap, or let the Americans come through and counterattack. He chose defense, with the center of his line fixed at the larger town of Sieux.
It was one thing to read about this war in the history books, seeing it all through the monochrome of black and white photographs, and the memoirs of the soldiers who had fought in the conflict. Seeing it now, on the hot leaded streaks of fire from those 120mm main guns on his Leopards, was quite another thing. The study of war was an intellectual pursuit, and perhaps an exercise of one’s imagination, but fighting that war was a visceral thing. You could feel it in the vibration of the earth itself under the enemy artillery fire, feel the heat, smell the smoke of battle. The sound could be deafening, yet worse still was the sight of one of his vehicles getting hit, the screams of men wounded and dying, the blood….
He had been fighting the battle from his HQ command vehicle, tapping units on his computer screen and pointing to the place they would go to enter that small slice of hell. Thus far his troops had prevailed in every encounter, stopping the enemy advance time and again, but not without a cost. Simply moving from one point to another exacted a toll in steel and blood, for the skies above belonged to the enemy, and they were incessantly prowled by hordes of predatory birds.
Now he saw the Americans adapting. When encountering his heavy tanks, they would fall back, dig in an infantry screen, and call for the seemingly limitless thunder of their artillery. He could see where it was, but had no organic artillery of his own to get after it with counterbattery fire. Then the enemy tanks would simply shift their attack elsewhere, creating another emergency that could only be redressed by maneuver, and the cycle would begin again.
The position he had left to come here, backstopping the 10th Panzer, had now become a major crisis. The weight of two full American armored divisions was too much for 10th Panzer to contain, and behind that attack, a third division began sending forces through to exploit the gap that had been achieved. Twenty kilometers to the west, the Provisional Armored Division had also broken through near Moullers Hubert, and between those two points was the cumbersome 709th Infantry Division.
10th Panzer, arriving just weeks ago as a completely rebuilt division, was now shattered. It had come with 90 new Panzers and assault guns, and only 25 remained. The division was cut in two by the American attack, which stormed through the village of St. Sylvestre, and it was driving up the rail line to Bernay. If it got there, it would be 30 kilometers behind and east of Berg’s picket line, which was running roughly north to south.
Kluge could see disaster looming, and he sped off to personally order the 91st infantry to retreat towards Thieberville with all speed. That town was in the center of an undefended gap between Bernay, where the 17th Luftwaffe was digging in, and Berg’s troops to the west. If they could get there in one piece and reestablish a line, he had some hope that he might re-stitch the front together again after this disastrous withdrawal.
On the 5th of June, the American 6th Armored Division flanked the 17th Luftwaffe Division to the east through the woods near Beaumont le Roger, and then sent detachments another eight kilometers, half way to Neubourg. That put them no more than 30 kilometers from the Seine in the west.
At the same time, the German 12 Panzer Division had emerged from the massive woodland masking Fontainebleau and attacked the two advancing British armored Brigades as ordered. They checked the advance of both brigades for a time, with Panthers and Cromwells dueling in the muggy heat of the day. It was an equal fight until Erskine came up at mid-day with the whole of 7th Armored Division. ‘Bobby and the Rats’ had come to the rescue, and with a force that was just the leading edge of what O’Connor was now planning to roll up through that gap.
“Now’s our chance,” he said to Monty. “We should throw all the infantry against the shoulders of this breakthrough, and then move every armored division we have right up through the chimney.”
Thinking to spring a trap on the advancing British. The young hardy boys of the 12th SS had leapt right into the cauldron. They would now face an overwhelming tide of British armor when 6th and 10th Divisions began moving up in seemingly endless columns. They were simply not going to stop, or even seriously impede, the British attack, which was now just 40 kilometers south of the suburbs of Paris.
Looking at the map at OB West HQ in Versailles, von Rundstedt could see that the time for a serious decision had finally come. Patton’s breakthrough at Beaumont le Roger was 40 kilometers east of Berg’s Brigade, and he would not be able to do anything to stop it in the short run. Das Reich was coming in the east, but it would not arrive in time to stop the British from reaching either Paris or the Seine. With unrest in the city building as news of the battle rippled north, the Germans knew their lease on everything south of that great river had now run out.
“Well,” said von Rundstedt, “the Landlords are hammering at the door, and it’s time to pay the rent. Look at all these divisions we still have on the line between these two enemy pincers. I think we must Take action immediately, and order the general withdrawal.”
“Agreed,” said Guderian, though he knew this would now be the most dangerous moment of the entire campaign in France. “We must pull out tonight, and also get all our security detachments ready in the city. The key bridges and access roads we will need must be secured. There could be as many as 20,000 French resistance fighters just waiting for the Allies to get within shooting distance.”
“Then I will send the coded order at once,” said von Rundstedt.
That order was Rückschritt, Operation Backstep, the signal for all units to make for their designated crossing point on the Seine. It was now going to be a contest of legs and trucks, desperate holding and delaying actions, the ravaging attacks by circling crows above. The entire front would soon dissolve into a madness of chaos and motion.
Guderian had just come in from the city, and now he pulled off his gloves. The weariness of war in his eyes was soon chased by adrenaline. It was going to be a very long night. Staffers were rushing to send out orders, and he leaned heavily over the map.
“Now we see what we are really made of,” he said to von Rundstedt.
* * *
The long lines that had sketched out the front now began to dissolve into columns of grey, yet nothing had license to move on the ground without first paying the toll. The P-47’s would rule the day, descending in droves, slashing, burning, bombing. The road net would inevitably pull many units into key communications hubs. Verneuil was a typical example, fed by eight roads and three rail lines. There the smoke and fire of burning vehicles rose over the city like a pall.
Much of the infantry in 232nd Division was using horses to move the heavy equipment, and the panic and fear sent them rearing up and straining at the harnesses to escape the carnage when the fighters would come. Some were mercifully obliterated by a direc
t hit, but those felled by shrapnel, had to be unhitched, blood everywhere, as the infantry tried to salvage a 20mm gun or towed artillery piece. In the end, much equipment was simply abandoned as the troops sought to save their lives first. Soon the roads were littered with dead livestock. It would take months for the locals to eventually clear and bury them, and eliminate the stench that hung over the land wherever the Germans columns had retreated.
Moving much of the time under the cover of a forest, Panzer Lehr got underway with only three attacks by the Jabos. Other divisions, particularly the slower moving infantry, were hit twelve or fifteen times in a single six hour march. Some units, like the newly arrived 17th Luftwaffe, were in heavy woodland positions, and it would take them time to extricate themselves and find roads north. Berg’s Brigade would be hit fourteen times by the fighters as it moved northeast to Pont Audmer.
Only in the far west, near the delta of the Seine, was there any semblance of a line intact. In the center, Chartres would become a major hub receiving the 352nd and 276th Divisions. In the British sector, 12th SS would now attempt to withdraw back under the protective cover of Fontainebleau Forest, but one regiment was cut off, surrounded on three sides and still fighting with the British. Everything else, all the infantry that had been holding the eastern shoulder of the British penetration, was now streaming north towards Fontainebleau.
Breakout (Kirov Series Book 38) Page 21