Breakout (Kirov Series Book 38)

by Schettler, John

  Yet more help was coming from the Yanks. Their 7th Armored Division had moved into the base of the penetration that night, and was advancing toward Poppering. This time, when B-Troop of the Armored Cavalry reached the town, they would get a more fitting welcome from the British. Adair was relieved to learn that the whole division was arriving, and that behind it the US 44th Infantry Division was also on the march, hoping to arrive in the morning.

  Needless to say, with SS troops appearing out of the dark on his southern flank, Adair now gave orders to halt his spearheads. The Canadian armor had passed through the town and was moving southeast. Now it halted and turned about to the southwest to face the emerging threat. They swung through the town of Reningheist, moving quickly to the attack, and soon found the flank of the enemy advance on Poppering. They had over 100 Shermans, which would soon get the attention of General Heinz Harmel of the 10th Panzer, who had just assumed command the two months earlier. British artillery now began to answer the German barrage, and the fight for Poppering was now becoming a “proper battle.”

  In addition to the weight of that armor, Adair also had two heavy battalions of the new Centurion tanks from the 79th Armored, a total of 50 tanks between them. 10th Panzer had about 57 tanks and 18 assault guns, so it was already outnumbered three to one by the British and Canadian Armor, and this without any help from the Yanks, Harmel would soon realize he had stuck his paw into the wrong bee hive. With the Canadians flanking him, he had to suspend his attack and refuse that flank, but 2nd Panzer was up and fighting to the west.

  When General Silvester of the 7th Armored got the report that the Canadians had found the German flank, he huddled with Adair in Poppering.

  “General, why don’t I just swing my whole division through the town here and then head south. We can come in right behind the Canadians and give that attack a real push.”

  As 52nd Lowland Division had been extending its lines to help stop 2nd Panzer, Adair gave the nod to that. Silvester was eager to get into a fight. The Lucky Seventh was just getting started, with less than a hundred miles under its belt since it landed. Before its war ended in the real history, it would travel 2,260 miles burning up over 3.1 million gallons of gasoline, its tanks firing off 68,000 rounds of main gun ammo, its artillery lobbing 350,000 rounds of 105mm caliber or better. The division would destroy over 3200 enemy tanks and vehicles, and capture 3,500 more, taking over 113,000 prisoners.

  7th Armored Division roared through the town and turned south, and in its wake, the first battalions of the US 44th Infantry Division began to arrive by truck. Adair now had the confidence to resume his advance. He would order Guards Armored units at Ypres to begin probing their way towards Tourcoing and Lille to watch that flank. Then he would head east himself, wanting to return to the old town he had known so well from the first war, Ypres.

  Just 10 kilometers to the northeast was the town of Passchendaele, where the British, Canadian and German soldiers would sustain over half a million casualties in a battle that would go on and on, from July to November in 1917. The General had missed out on that party, being sidelined with an injury from a bike accident, but somewhere in the back of his mind he could still hear the pounding rumble of the old artillery that had leveled forests and pot marked the sodden fields of No Man’s Land for months. By noon that day, he was the new master of Ypres.

  All over the field of battle, troops were now marching to the sound of the guns. Even as Silvester threw his division towards the flank of 10th SS, up came the first battalions of the 1st SS Leibstandarte Division. It had marched all night to reach the scene by mid-morning, and it would soon be wrestling with the Lucky Seventh on that flank. The arrival of one division was quickly balanced on the other side. Soon the Americans would bring up 9th Armored, but then the German 17th Panzergrenadier Division would arrive. So the south shoulder of the penetration would evolve to a stalemate, but in the north, the American 11th Armored would have a free hand.

  The division had vanished into the morning mist, its fast moving columns swinging right around the German line that extended from La Panne on the coast to a point some 10 kilometers due north of Poppering. That line was held by the 48th Infantry, 19th Luftwaffe the 712th Coastal Division, which had been moved from its positions to address this threat. When a recon troop of 11th Armored reached Dixmude, that line was fatally compromised. The Thunderbolt division had struck north like lightning, finding no enemy resistance whatsoever. It might have rolled on to Antwerp all on its own, but the need to stop and wait for the fuel trucks to find them, and a certain restraint on the part of its commander as he stared into the unknown, prevented that.

  For von Salmuth, however, the reports of American armored units in Dixmude told him all he needed to fear. He would have no choice but to pull back the line anchored at La Panne, and the only way he was going to cover that flank now was by bringing up troops in the vicinity of Antwerp. 19th Luftwaffe Division fell back on Brugge and Torhout, and remnants of the 47th Division were mustering at Roeselare. A single company of 12 Tigers rattled into Courtrai. It was a thin shield at best, and if the allies had been able to mount a concerted push at that time, Adair might have simply breezed into Lille and chased von Salmuth’s HQ out of the city.

  It was the active presence of a full Panzerkorps on the southern shoulder of the breakout that gave the Allies pause. All the divisions that had been rushing to the breach to exploit that gap were now involved in a grudging fight with those three Panzer divisions, and the two divisions free to roam, 11th and Guards Armored, both needed gasoline.

  It was this pregnant pause that would allow the Germans a brief respite to try and get a more effective defense in place. Von Salmuth knew he could count on more divisions arriving from the Ostfront . Chief among them was the 9th Panzer, assigned to his front by Zeitzler and Manstein. He had been eagerly waiting for it, but received disappointing news that the situation in the south was so serious that it had to go to Guderian. Both the 9th and 10th SS divisions needed rest and refit time, and they would both be pulled out and sent north into Holland for that purpose. At least von Salmuth could count on two more infantry divisions from the 27th Welle, the 59th under General Poppe, and the 64th under General Eberding. Goring had also sent him the 6th Parachute Division, which was now at Tournai, marching for Lille.

  He had a mind to put one of those infantry divisions into the defense of the Scheldt, and then hold the other near Antwerp, which was an obvious strategic objective for the Allies. Plans were being laid to do a complete demolition of that port, so even if the enemy did take it, von Salmuth believed they would only have a pyrrhic victory. It would be a big job, for Antwerp was a truly massive port, capable of receiving 40,000 tons of supply each day, and with 10 square miles of docks and quays.

  Little did he know that the Belgian resistance fighters of the White Brigade in the city were already making plans of their own to prevent those demolitions and secure the valuable docks, locks, cranes and underground storage areas. And even as they did so, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants were also planning a daring raid to get experienced combat troops into that fight as soon as possible. Everything had to be carefully timed, but the breakout achieved at Poppering was putting pressure on Ike to make a decision on whether to put his plan into motion. There had been stacks of paper files on his desk for months, all coming out of the minds of the new Chief of Airborne Operations and his able staff.

  * * *

  Boy Browning had been pleased to get his four birds back in the nest. The airborne divisions that had done such a bang up job in the Overlord Invasion were all now back in the Kingdom. With Great Britain only able to send two divisions to that operation, it had been decided that the Reserve Airborne Corps would be given to a British commander, instead of Lieutenant General Brereton, as Marshall had suggested. As Brereton had been in the far east at the outbreak of the war, that was where he stayed.

  So Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Arthur Montague "Boy" Browningwas now
the man in charge of four excellent divisions, the US 82nd and 101st, and the British 1st and 6th, now designated the 1st Allied Airborne Army. Pleased with the work done for Overlord , he was eager to “get back in the bath tub,” as he said, chafing to find good operations where his divisions could be employed. His planners would not lack for ideas, and few historians have ever produced the list that will be briefly recounted here. [3]

  As the campaign in Southern France proceeded, they had produced a raft of possible operations. The list of code names ran on and on, Samson , Marshall , and Snelgrove for drops in the Limoges area; Moses, Dickens and Bulbasket as the front swept through the line of Portiers. Haggard to assist O’Connor getting to the Loire, which became unnecessary when his tanks got to the planned LZs a day before the operation.

  No less than nine operations were planned to seize the Brittany Ports, Dunhill for St. Nazaire, Dingson for Vannes, Hands-Up for Lorient, Grog to seize the busy road junction hub at Quimper and Cooney to grab the hub at Rennes. Derry would take Brest; Samwest, Swordhilt and Beneficiary would net all the smaller ports on the north coast, ending with St. Malo. Not one was ever teed up. The intrepid tankers had always pushed their spearheads into the drop zones before the plans could be launched, and Patton was also holding on to the transport fleet to help supply his armies.

  When the front swept north of the Loire, twelve more plans [4] were laid to assist the advance to the Seine, but the German withdrawal made each and every one unnecessary. Five more plans were cancelled, all intended to help Monty advance to Dijon. He never had the supply. Now, with the Allied armies sweeping up to against the water barrier of the Seine, three more plans were already in the works. Rupert planned to seize St. Dizier on the British end of things. Wolsey and Benson were plans to take both San Quentin and Laon respectively in the US sector. In all those cases, Eisenhower wanted to wait and see if the Germans were going to stand or continue withdrawing before he committed the airborne troops to these daring raids behind the enemy line. None of those operations would ever get off the drawing boards.

  Yet Eisenhower’s need for a major new supply port to settle all his supply problems had set his mind on Antwerp. Operation Linnet had been proposed to drop north of Tournai behind the front lines in the Pas-de-Calais, but now the Poppering gap had already opened the road to that area. Looking east to the Westwall, the planners had devised four more operations. First Linnet was moved to gain a bridgehead over the Meuse near Aachen, and dubbed Linnet II . Operation Caliban would look for bridges north of Maastricht, and operations Berbang and Brutus would seek to find them near Liege and Namur. Then, if the Germans attempted to withdraw to the Westwall, Operation Noah would drop on the road hub of a town that would be famously held by one of their own in the old history, Bastogne.

  Amazingly, not one operation was ever planned for the target that the Allies really needed—Antwerp and the clearing of the Scheldt. Instead, far reaching plans were proposed to get bridges over the Rhine. Operation Comet would look for them between Arnhem and Wesel, and Fabian and Gobbo would drop the airborne troops even farther north into Holland to pave the way for the advance made possible by Comet . More plans had them dropping to take all of Holland as far north as Emden, Operations Amherst , Archway , Larkswood and Howard .

  “Goddammit!” Eisenhower would swear when he was handed all the briefing folders on those operations. “Who the hell is dreaming up all this nonsense? They’ve got plans here for taking bridges over the River Ems in north Holland! I’ve looked through this whole bunch, and only one plan has any merit as far as I am concerned—this Operation Comet . Yet even that is premature. We need Antwerp, and to use it, we’ll have to clear the Scheldt. Now, I’ve discussed this with Monty, and he’s of a mind that a combined amphibious / airborne assault can deliver that port, and take both Walcheren and Beveland Islands at the same time. That’s where I want these plans focused—not on Holland. I want to see an operation that gets us into Antwerp—now!”

  Part X

  History’s Shadow

  “One sees shadow ever retreat to hidden places, only to return in the wake of the war between dark and light.”

  —Steven Erikson

  Chapter 28

  General Browning had finally answered Eisenhower’s call for a good operation aimed at Antwerp. Weeks earlier, all the airborne divisions had been pulled off the line and replaced with regular infantry divisions arriving from the US. Now it was Ike’s idea to commit the airborne troops to the seizure of Antwerp. Montgomery had reviewed the plan and helped select suitable landing zones, intent on getting British units into a prominent role for the battle.

  6th Para was available in the UK, scrubbed from the Overlord landings when the more experienced 1st Para got that job. Now both divisions would be available for what was then being called simply “Plan 15.” The fourteen other plans before it had all been shunted aside by Ike as entirely premature. Only one was held out for possible consideration, Operation Comet , the plan to get bridges over the Rhine between Arnhem and Wesel. Yet before Eisenhower would approve it, he wanted Antwerp. Now Browning was there to explain how he would give it to him.

  “The problem with dropping on Antwerp,” he said, “is that the terrain offers few good landing zones. The city is ringed with old forts that have been reinforced by the Germans, and it also has strong AA defenses. So drops to the immediate west would come down near these three German forts, [5] and then have the considerable water barrier of the Scheldt to cross to get at the harbor. That would mean rafts or rubber boats would also have to be dropped with the troops.”

  “That doesn’t sound very promising,” said Ike. He was beginning to think this would end up being just one more cancelled operation for the Airborne Army, but Browning’s enthusiasm gave him pause.

  “Indeed…” Browning continued, unphased. “Now then, drops east and south of the city would have to fall beyond the line of eight other forts, [6] and then the troops would have to fight their way through that fortified line to get at the city. This is really an operation requiring heavier ground divisions, including armor—a job for the Guards. We’ll use that area only for purposes of defending our right flank, and preventing the Germans from reinforcing Antwerp from that direction. That leaves the area north of the city. The northwest sector around the town of Schooten is surrounded by woodland, and therefore quite unsuitable. But due north there is good ground, flat and open, if broken by small irrigation canals. Such terrain did not proved overly difficult for the airborne troops in the Overlord drop, and so that is where the landing zones were fixed for this plan. They’ll be close to key objectives just south of Eeekeren and Wilmarsdonck, including the main docks.”

  Eisenhower looked over the map, and this time he nodded. The area was close enough to the objectives, and it looked good. “What about AA defenses?”

  “We’re going to smash them,” said Browning. “Fighter command is going to sweep the area with Typhoons and they won’t quit until we stop seeing enemy tracers.”

  “Can the troops get into the city from that direction?”

  “Only one fort near Merxem guards the main road south into the city, and the troops could also advance along the rail lines running south to the harbor area.”

  It wasn’t perfect, thought Eisenhower, but it was the best bet if such a landing would be made. Now the breakout turned his head to reconsider. “Could the ground forces get there first from the south? If so, the dangerous mission for the airborne troops might not be needed.”

  “Possibly, but consider this,” said Browning. “Your principle objectives, the ports, docks and locks, are all on the north quadrant of the city. To get there, the ground forces will have to penetrate that line of fortifications, and then fight their way through the whole of the city. That could take a good deal of effort, and it would be very costly. At the same time, Jerry will be demolishing everything we want. But with good airborne troops taking those objectives by storm, all they have to do is hold on unt
il the ground forces clear the city and link up.”

  That made sense to Eisenhower, and now he came to see the Poppering breakout as the signal to get the airborne plan up and running.

  “How soon can the ground element be oriented and ready to go?”

  “Our Guards Armored Division has already pushed out all the way to Ypres, and your 11th Armored has flanked the northern shoulder of that penetration and forced the Germans to pull back towards Brugges. The newly arrived 2nd Canadian Division from Monty will be on that front working with your armor to push for Breskens.”

  “I’m told your Guards ran into SS Panzer troops east of Ypres.”

  “Yes, I’ve spoken with General Adair on this. In fact, I’ve briefed him on what we’re planning. He seems to think this was just a detachment sent as a blocking force. We’ve identified the remainder of that division much further west, on the southern shoulder of the breakout, near Poppering.”

  “Well that does little to console me. What about this big concentration of German Panzer troops in that area? That’s already tied up our 7th and 9th Armored Divisions, and all the infantry. You can’t very well turn your Guards Armored northeast and go racing off 20 miles to Antwerp. We’ll need to watch your flanks, and you’ll have to take Ghent along the way. You could get hung up there, and don’t forget—Brussels will be to your south when you do get to Antwerp. We can’t leave it open. The Germans will certainly use it to build up reserves on the shoulder of this drive. We won’t have anything to cover your ass, if you’ll pardon my French.”