Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  “We need to deal with that sniper, he’ll kill the next man that goes out to load the gun. Bauer, drive the half-track forward and we’ll try and flush him out. Keep clear of the PAK, they need to keep shooting at the T34s. Machine gunners, watch for him and keep your heads down!”

  Bauer roared across the hilltop, it was desperate. We had to get near enough to the sniper to see him, yet keep our distance from the marauding T34s. One saw and fired off a shot that narrowly missed the body of our Hanomag, but Mundt had seen the danger and he sent another shot from the PAK 36 that caused the Russian to catch fire, black smoke belched across the battlefield coming straight towards us and protected us from the vision of the sniper. We reached his approximate position and the two gunners poured bullets in his direction while the rest of us jumped out and circled around warily to look for him. We couldn’t see far inside the black smoke, which meant that neither could he. At first there was nothing, just endless grass and tangled foliage. Then another bullet cracked out, not aimed at us but we distinctly saw the slight disturbance in the grass as the bullet left his rifle. Vellermann was the nearest, he ran up to the spot where we’d seen the bullet come from and emptied a clip from his MP38 into the ground. The barrel of a rifle tilted and pointed straight up, almost a gesture of surrender. I walked over to look into the sniper’s stand, he was sprawled at the bottom of a shallow hole, still clutching his rifle but it has twisted to point up at the odd angle as he died. I nodded at Vellermann, “Good work,” then we raced back to the half-track.

  We drove the short distance back to the PAK 36, Mundt and his crew were busily engaging the Soviet armour, it was easier to keep loading the ‘Stielgranaten’ now that the sniper had been dealt with. There was little for us to do, we kept watch for Soviet infantry with anti-tank weapons but they seemed to have been dealt with by our Panzer Grenadiers, taking them on foxhole by foxhole. Soon the last of the Soviet armour had disappeared, it was time to move. We hitched up the gun and started after the Panzers. Almost instantly we stopped again, a Soviet infantryman had popped out of a foxhole fifty metres in front of us. He hadn’t seen us and was fixated on one of our new Panzer Vs that has stopped only two hundred metres away to attend to a breakdown. The crew didn’t see him, they had opened the engine hatch, smoke poured out and they were scrambling to repair the problem. It was another PTRD-41, he was loading the cumbersome weapon and I had time to run towards him, I heard some of my men coming behind me. Just before we reached him his head turned and he spotted us, several heavily armed SS troopers rushing towards him. He looked down at his gun for a moment, obviously thinking about taking the shot, then put up his hands. We came up to him and one of the men jumped into his foxhole and searched it for weapons, but apart from the anti-tank rifle he was unarmed, probably he had been part of a crew that had run off when our attack started. We were able to talk to him in broken Russian and German, but his actual dialect was a mystery to us, he certainly wasn’t ethnic Russian, possibly he was from Uzbekistan or one of the outlying satellite states.

  “Which unit are you from?” I said to him harshly.

  He spoke in a garbled language. The only sense I could make out was that he was part of the Voronezh Front, which we already knew was the combined arms unit that faced us. It was impossible to get any further with him, I considered tying him up and waiting for one of our support teams to take him into captivity, we had to press on quickly to catch up with our Fourth Panzer Army, but suddenly an armoured car came towards us, an eight-wheeled SD 232 drew up. The hatch opened and von Meusebach’s head popped out.

  “What’s going on, Hoffman?” he shouted down to me.

  I was so taken aback that I couldn’t answer for a few seconds. I’d thought he was in the centre of our Regiment, controlling his companies and platoons and directing them during the battle. Instead he had obviously just come up from the rear. He realised why I was so surprised and hastened to explain.

  “We had a slight electrical problem, that’s why I’m delayed. What are you doing with that prisoner?”

  I told him I was about to tie his arms and legs and leave him for the rear units to collect when they came through.

  “I can’t have Russian prisoners running loose in the rear, Obersturmfuhrer. I’ll take him back to our HQ for interrogation, you may carry on.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  I pointed to the armoured car and pushed the Russian in its direction. One of the crew opened a lower hatch and took the prisoner inside. Without looking at the CO I climbed into our half-track and gave Bauer the order to drive away. Mundt was next to me, manning the MG34. He looked at me meaningfully.

  “Shut up, Willy.”

  “I didn’t say anything, Obersturmfuhrer.”

  Several minutes later, he spoke again. “We need a leader, not a yellow bastard like him!”

  “I know, Willy, I know.” I was tired of all of it, the politics, the posturing, soldiers that seemed to do everything except what they were paid to do, to fight. We drove to the edge of the hilltop and looked down on the steppe that unfolded in front of us. It was almost like watching a war game at the staff college, laid out on a table. Except that this was no game. Hundreds of tanks from both sides wheeled and manoeuvred, tens of thousands of infantry, the fortifications were visible, tank traps and ditches, barbed wire, some of the Soviet armour was hull down, dug into defensive positions where they could shoot at our own armour in enfilade.

  The first of our own Panzers had started down the hillside and some of the half-tracks were already following.

  “Bauer, you know what to do.”

  He accelerated away down the slope, driving at full speed to make us a harder target. Already we could see our own objectives, the Soviet anti-tank crews that were deployed to start shooting at the Panzers. I didn’t need to give the order, Bauer turned towards the nearest enemy strongpoint just as the rest of our half-tracks were doing all over the forward edge of the battlefield, the noise was incredible. Explosions, sharp cracks of shells, machine gun fire and the roar of the tank engines. Everywhere there was smoke and chaos. The crew of the Soviet anti-tank gun saw us and shifted aim. They had a 45 mm anti-tank gun, their M1942 backed up with a Maxim heavy 7.62mm machine gun in support, the distinctive wheeled design with the metal shield to protect the crew. The Maxim opened up on us and Mundt and Wesserman fired back short, accurate bursts that caused the Soviets to dive for cover, except the crew of the anti-tank gun, who ignored the machine gun fire to crouch behind their gun and continued loading. We were a hundred and fifty metres away from them when they suddenly fired the first shell, I felt a brief moment of terror as the shell rocked towards us, I could even see the black disc of its outline just before it hit. I knew we were finished, there was an appalling crash, I must have closed my eyes, I opened them again and we were still alive. Behind me there was a huge jagged hole in the bodywork and another the other side. Voss laughed nervously.

  “Silly bastards loaded with armour-piercing, it went straight through.”

  Bauer had stopped, I looked up and the enemy were rapidly reloading, I knew that this time it would be high explosive. They wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  I shouted, “Bauer, get moving before they can reload!”

  He drove forward at top speed, lurching towards the enemy gun. Our MG34s kept up a high rate of fire, making the Russians keep their heads down. Two of the machine gun crew were already down, sprawled on the ground and the gun had stopped firing, the danger to us was the anti-tank gun. One hit from a high explosive round would finish us, Bauer understood the danger and bore down on it, we were only metres away when they looked up and saw our charging half-track. They immediately fired but it was not an aimed shot, the shell whistled over our heads and disappeared. Seconds later we hit them with a mighty crash, the gun was thrown over and the crew leapt to avoid the meeting of half-track and artillery, the buckled and bent steel threatened to overwhelm them.

  We leapt out of the vehicle with mach
ine pistols blazing, one of the Russians was trying to bring the Maxim into use, another was ramming a new drum magazine into his PPSh. Our only chance was to kill them before they killed us and we fired and kept firing until they lay dead, a crumpled heap of brown uniforms. It was time to move on, I shouted orders and we left the bodies and broken steel and pressed on to the next enemy position. We worked with the other platoons, clearing enemy defensive positions, marking and clearing mines and taking out enemy armour whenever the opportunity presented itself. By nightfall we had advanced several kilometres and had to stop and wait for dawn, advancing in darkness would have been a certain recipe for disaster. We clustered around in a wide circle, like wagons in the old Western movies. We were in the lee of a tank park, having dozens of heavily armoured Panzers between us and the enemy was comforting. Bauer brewed coffee and Beidenberg unpacked cold rations for us to eat. Mundt leaned over to me and said in a loud whisper, “Have you seen von Meusebach lately?”

  I knew exactly what he meant. I was lost for words, torn between my duty to the CO and my contempt for the man.

  “No, Willy, you know perfectly well he hasn’t been around since he took that Russian prisoner back. Muller has been running around in a half-track trying to keep control of the Regiment, but unfortunately he hasn’t a radio in his vehicle so he can’t keep in communication with HQ.”

  He grunted. “We could have done with the armoured car, a couple of our half-tracks were lost. He should have been there to look after them,” he stared at me. “Look, Sir, we need a CO, there’s no room on this front for cowards.”

  “Indeed there isn’t, we’ve taken care of that problem!”

  We all whirled around. For the first time I saw a Gestapo officer on the battlefield. Wiedel, von Betternich’s assistant, together with Muller.

  Wiedel grinned, unusual for him or any Gestapo man. “May I introduce your new commanding officer, Obersturmbannfuhrer Muller!”

  “What happened to von Meusebach?” I asked, not believing that he could have been killed in action when he was so careful to stay away from the fighting.

  “He has returned to Berlin,” Muller replied. “There has been a lot of disquiet at Division about his lack of enthusiasm to get to grips with the enemy, Obergruppenfuhrer Hausser gave him the choice of returning to a desk at RSHA or leading tomorrow’s first battle. From the front.” He looked around to make sure that we understood the significance of his words. “Von Meusebach decided that his health was preventing him from giving of his best to the Deutschland Regiment and this afternoon he began to pack his things to get the train back to Germany, where he can get medical attention and perhaps return to the front at a later date. In the meantime I am back in charge.”

  “Congratulations, Sir,” I said, meaning it.

  “Thank you, Hoffman. We’re due to carry on in the morning. I assure you I will be leading the Regiment. The armoured car that von Meusebach used will be returned tonight and I will be using it to manage the Regiment.”

  He walked away and Wiedel hung back.

  “I trust that you had something to do with this, Wiedel.”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes we have to intervene in areas where we would be least expected to get involved. In this case, someone reported that your CO was a coward who was causing difficulties to the Deutschland Regiment, von Betternich passed it up the line to SD Berlin and they contacted Himmler’s adjutant who issued the ultimatum. None of us was surprised that von Meusebach opted to pack.”

  I thought he was re-joining Muller, but he hung back.

  “What? What is it?” I asked him.

  “How have you found things on the first day, any real problems?”

  “Apart from the Red Army, do you mean?”

  “I mean anything to suggest that they were better informed about our movements than they should have been.”

  I thought about the artillery barrage, timed to start an hour before our own barrage, nothing could have been calculated better to cause us the maximum difficulties. I told him about it.

  “Yes, we heard about that from the front commanders. Anything else?”

  “They were dug in on our exact line of advance, yes, they certainly knew a lot more than they should have done. Was it Lucy?”

  He nodded. “We’re almost certain, there were too many coincidences. The artillery barrage you referred to, the way their defences seemed to anticipate our lines of advance, it seems that the mysterious Lucy is something of a thorn in our sides. Very well, we’ll keep looking. If we need any help from your platoon, I’ll radio Muller.”

  “In that case I’ll have to hope that his equipment is not working.”

  He grinned. “Still bitter, Hoffman. Remember, there was nothing any of us could do to save one life, no matter what you think. We cannot override the authority of Reichsfuhrer Himmler. But if we can unmask this Lucy traitor, we can save thousands of lives of your comrades, perhaps even stave off defeat.”

  I looked at him quickly. The Gestapo had arrested and executed people for saying less than that. But it was no slip of the tongue.

  “Yes, I see you’re surprised. I’ve been reviewing the intelligence from our over flights of the salient. The battle today was just the first of many you will need to win to take your objective. Do you know that the Soviet defences go to a depth of seventy-five kilometres?”

  I was shocked, I’d seen the extent of some of their preparations but hadn’t realised that they were even bigger than I’d seen, much bigger. “Are you saying we’ve got to do the same again all the way through to Kursk and beyond?”

  He nodded. “We’ve counted eight full lines of defence so far, there may be more. They’ve anticipated every step we’ve taken and are going to take. We need to find this Lucy and fast. I’ll call you if we get any developments.”

  He walked away and I sat thinking about what he’d said. I couldn’t tell the men, it would wipe out their morale if they knew the scale of what we faced.

  In the morning we continued with the attack. We fought on for three more days. As Wiedel had predicted each day was like the last, we had to put maximum effort into taking every metre of ground, the Soviets clung on tenaciously, refusing to retreat until they were almost wiped out to the last man. Now that we were deep inside the Soviet defences, they were able to use their anti-tank guns to devastating effect on the weaker side armour of our Panzers and the losses were mounting, losses that we couldn’t replace. The Panzer Vs that the Fuhrer had held up the attack for so long for proved almost useless, they were constantly out of action with engine fires and mechanical and electrical failures. On the evening of the fourth day, we were called to a Regimental Officers’ briefing. Muller presided as CO once more, Glasser, his adjutant fastened a map to the wall of a ruined barn that we were using as a briefing room. The CO pointed to a village many kilometres to the southwest of Kursk.

  “Men, this is Prokhorovka. It is our objective for tomorrow, General Hoth has decided that this is where we will place our maximum effort. Every tank within his command will be used to press home this next attack, about six hundred in all.”

  We stood there stunned. When the battle started we, the Fourth Army, comprised more than twice that number, almost fifteen hundred tanks. We’d lost more than a half of our armour for the pitiful few kilometres we’d advanced so far and already this operation smelled like an all or nothing last-ditch attempt. It wasn’t an admission of failure, but it certainly suggested that defeat may well be not too far away.

  In the morning the wind came up and blew dust everywhere, visibility was reduced to a few hundred metres. We began the advance, as usual following the Panzers, giving them protection from the Soviet anti-tank infantry and other defences that lay across their path. Our mine clearers had been in action during the night and the lines of advance were marked with small flags. The Panzers travelled at speed and began firing as soon as the Russian targets came into view but the battlefield soon descended into chaos. The smoke from the explosion
s and the burning tanks, frequently the fuel caught fire and sent even denser cloud of black smoke into the air mixed with the dust storm to form an impenetrable fog.

  “How’s your vision?” I asked Bauer, we’d narrowly avoided running into a ravine and I was anxious that we would wreck our vehicle by hitting some other unexpected obstacle.

  “I can manage for now, but at least it stops the Red Army from being able to see us,” he said happily. “It’s like a destroyer smoke screen, Sir.”

  “It’s stopping us from seeing them too, Bauer. If we can’t see them we can’t destroy them.”

  I had no wish to leave whole divisions of Russians in our rear, ready to cripple out supply lines and enable them to come at us from two sides at once, but all we could do was keep following the Panzers. We pressed on and I estimated that we were less than a kilometre from Prokhorovka. A tank rolled out of the smoke and dust and rolled past us, I could hardly believe it, the compact, angular shape of a Russian T34 with its red star emblazoned on the turret. I shouted urgently to Bauer.