Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  “Viet Minh battalion, I’d guess, certainly more than five hundred men. They’re grouped up ahead, about half a kilometre from here, and the trail is totally blocked.”

  “No way around them?”

  “None.”

  “Very well,” Leforge said, “we’ll give them a bloody nose. That’s what we’re here for, to disrupt their attack, so if we can get these monkeys running, maybe they’ll make the rest think twice about staying. Hoffman, any suggestions?”

  I thought for a moment. The odds were high, at least five hundred Viet Minh and only a hundred of us, but we had the advantage of surprise. We were undoubtedly more heavily armed; and had absorbed the lessons of many battles where the odds were stacked against us.

  “They must be preparing to move, and the attack is undoubtedly building right now. I suggest we prepare an ambush right here, and mine the track. We can detonate it as they come past, and open up with everything we’ve got. That should do it, but if they get any warning that we’re here, it won’t work, and then we’ll have a real fight on our hands.”

  “Agreed, Sergeant Hoffmann. We’ll make damn sure they don’t get wind of our presence. Senior Sergeant Bauer, Sergeant Schuster,” he called. “Pass the word. Make preparations for the ambush right here, and if anyone makes a sound when they’re in position, I’ll gut them personally. Clear?”

  “Sir!”

  Bauer and Schuster doubled away to get the men into position.

  “Sergeant Hoffmann, get your explosives man to mine the path. We may not have much time.”

  “Yes, Sir,” I replied and went to find Petrov.

  Nikolai Petrov was a man of many talents, learned on the battlefields of the Eastern Front, and then honed to perfection in the jungle hell of Indochina. One of his talents was with explosives. He had the instinct to know exactly how much explosive was required for a particular job, never too much, never too little. He also had the cunning to know how to disguise his deadly charges, making them all but impossible to detect, until it was too late, of course.

  “Petrov, we need this track mined, several hundred Viet Minh, so we’ll need staged charges along a section of track, say two hundred metres? Do you have enough charges?”

  “That will be twenty charges at ten metre intervals. I think we have about fifteen charges with us, so that’ll make about fourteen metre intervals. It should do it, Jurgen.”

  “Very well, get it done. I’ll get the men deployed.”

  I went and deployed my section, fifty men, all heavily concealed with criss-crossing fields of fire. The last thing I needed was ‘friendly fire casualties’. I could see Senior Sergeant Bauer doing the same thing with the other half of the company. Captain Leforge was on the radio to Headquarters, calling in details of the Viet Minh location. I did the rounds of my men.

  “When the mines explode, usual drill, hit them with everything we’ve got. I want grenades hitting them, semi-automatic fire, and I want to see those MP40’s earning their keep. You know how it goes, and no time for niceties, kill the bastards! Vogelmann, how are the MG42’s looking, any problems?”

  “All set, Jurgen, just waiting for business.”

  I checked the heavy machine guns. We had eight in the company, four in my section and four in Bauer’s. A lot of firepower for a mere company, but we found the nuisance of carrying them around the jungle, was more than outweighed by the devastating effect of multiple heavy machine guns opening fire unexpectedly on the slant-eyed monkeys. I could just make out two of the tips of the barrels, and the other two were totally invisible, but the enemy wouldn’t see them until it was too late.

  “Good, Karl-Heinz, just watch the crossfire,” I warned him.

  He looked at me reproachfully. He’d learned his trade in the SS-Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler. From the Russian Front to the final offensives in Western Europe, then surviving in Indochina for more than five years, so he wasn’t about to make mistakes.

  “Good.” I went to find Leforge.

  “We’re all set, Captain.”

  “Good, get in position, it shouldn’t be long.”

  I walked into the jungle foliage and took up position with my troops. I wasn’t unduly worried. We’d done this many times before, although a company up against at least a battalion was high odds, and high enough to make me cautious. We waited, and the minutes dragged by. I started to get nervous; the slightest noise would alert the Viet Minh, and we couldn’t survive a prolonged firefight.

  But we were professionals, doing our job, and the job we had trained for. Some of us thousands of miles away in the snowy wastes of the Soviet Union, in the forests of the Ardennes; or the ruined cities of Germany, bombed by the RAF and US Air Force, shelled and machine gunned by the Allied forces as they crushed the mighty German war machine.

  There was no noise, and no one smoked to give the game away. No one spoke, even murmured. We were all well aware of the high stakes on which our lives, and the lives of our comrades, rested.

  Then I heard it, initially, a slight noise, and just a disturbance in the natural rhythm of the jungle. It was the gentle footfalls of hundreds of men, moving stealthily along the path. I heard the odd snatch of whispered conversation. They were confident; so confident to be whispering to each other, and they hadn’t even put point men to provide forward reconnaissance. The arrogant bastards, I thought. They may think they own this patch of jungle, but they haven’t won it yet.

  Then they came into view. They were Viet Minh regulars, wearing the distinctive beige uniform with the upturned conical hats. They carried an assortment of weapons, Mauser rifles, German war surplus, like our MP40s and MG42s. Soviet made PPSh submachine guns with stick magazines, more suited to light, mobile jungle warfare than the more traditional pancake magazine commonly used on the Eastern Front. Some of the regulars carried Russian Moisin Nagant rifles, and others were carrying captured French and British equipment, including the familiar Lee Enfield Mark 4. In the middle of the line of Viet Minh walked their officers and commissars, all of whom were distinguished by their headgear, a collection of trilby type hats and forage caps. Each of them, unlike their men, carried a holstered pistol, while the men carried heavy rucksacks. It was as if the officers and commissars disdained to wear the headgear of the common soldier, which they probably did, as the message of Marxist equality was strictly for the peasants.

  In reality, Ho Chi Minh’s new Vietnam was rather different, and it reminded me in many ways of Adolf Hitler’s Germany. They had their versions of the Gestapo, the SS, and the SD. Elections were regarded as something of a fairy story. Adolf would have been quite at home amongst these people.

  They were indeed at battalion strength. The leading men had almost gone past our hidden mines while the end of the line had still to come into view. Leforge judged it would have to be enough. He was crouched near to me, and I saw his hand signal to Petrov. Almost immediately there was a series of massive explosions, and the peaceful sounds of the forest were ripped apart by the noise. Thousands of birds took to the skies in a whistling, twittering swarm, hurriedly escaping man’s destructive folly.

  There was a short pause, and I could only hear slight background noises. Then tons of debris thrown up by the blast settled down over us.

  Amidst the cries of agony from the wounded Viets, our men opened up. Grenades sailed over the jungle foliage, to land in the middle of the human devastation. So far, not a shot had been fired in return. Then I heard the heavy bursts of machine gun fire as the MG42s began sending their message of death. The fire was punctuated by the lighter bursts of submachine gun fire from the MP40s. In the distance, I could hear the crack, crack, as our sharpshooters picked off targets of opportunity; enemy soldiers who thought themselves lucky to have escaped the blast, fleeing down the track only to be struck down by our snipers. I could just make out Private Armand hidden in the fork made by two trees, invisible to the Viets on the path, firing shot after aimed shot at those who survived and tried to flee. He seemed to never mi
ss. There would be a distinctive high crack that rose above the din of the machine guns and grenades. A man would throw up his arms and tumble over, then another crack, another man dead, and on it went, machine-like killing.

  Eventually Leforge shouted for ceasefire and sent our reconnaissance patrol further up the path to check for any remaining Viets.

  The jungle was quiet, eerily so, after the shattering noise of our gunfire. We picked our way carefully out of the jungle to check the casualties. We had to be careful, as some fanatics would feign death to get a shot at the hated white colonialists. We had a simple rule. If in doubt, kill the bastards. I used my pistol to put a bullet in a Viet I thought I saw moving. His head twitched to the side as my bullet took him in the back of his brain, and then he lay still. All along the path our men were despatching other survivors of our attack, wounded or not. The occasional shot rang out, a scream, a groan.

  One Viet Minh, a Commissar by the look of him, took a grenade from a dead comrade next to him and went to throw it. He propped himself up with one arm in his agony, determined to inflict pain on the colonialist enemy. Senior Sergeant Bauer was nearby, watching carefully; the battlefield strewn with bodies was nothing new to him. He saw the movement, rushed over and threw the body of a dead Viet soldier on top of the grenade. There was a muted blast, and pieces of the dead soldier sprayed the ground, leaving the Commissar staring stupidly at his bloody shoulder. The dead body had protected all but his arm, which had disappeared and left a bloody, bleeding stump. His screams echoed through the jungle, until Bauer casually finished him with a three shot burst from his MP40.

  Our patrol came rushing back.

  “Some of the Viet Minh escaped, and there’s a much bigger Viet force following the one we just shot up. They’re coming straight towards us, so we won’t get a chance to ambush this lot. They’re being very careful, point men both sides of the track,” von Kessler reported to Leforge and me.

  He was breathless, as they had been running. What a damn nuisance we’d used our mines and explosives on this action. We had no replacements. Leforge turned to me.

  “Sergeant, I don’t see any alternative but a withdrawal to Mao Khe. We can’t hold off a division.”

  I agreed. We had done our job, and done it well, several hundred less Viet Minh to join the attack on Mao Khe.

  “Form up,” Leforge ordered. “We’re pulling back now. Point men, move out.”

  Von Kessler took his four-man squad and began retracing our steps back to Mao Khe. The main body of men were on their feet, packs and equipment loaded, weapons checked and ready for instant action.

  “Corporal Vogelmann, take five other men to the rearguard, and take two of the MG42s.”

  “Sir,” Vogelmann instantly issued orders, racing to the back of the column with the five men and two MG42s, and the heavy load spread between them.

  Leforge said, “Jurgen, send your fastest two men back to our stores in the town. They’re to bring back another batch of mines for Sergeant Petrov. If we’ve got time, we’ll try mining the path nearer the town. They’ll be careful, but so will we, and we may catch some of them again.”

  I went and detailed two men to dash back to get the explosives, and then I joined my men.

  There was little talk. We’d all done this too many times before to discuss or question any orders. We survived this war by carrying out our missions with a dedicated professionalism; an unswerving attitude to battle that had carried us through many, many bloody fights, where the amateurs and the careless had fallen to enemy fire and their own rank stupidity.

  “Move out,” Leforge shouted.

  The column moved off, heading back to Mao Khe. We travelled back half a kilometre, with only another half kilometre between the town and us. Our two runners met us on the path, carrying packs loaded with mines. They had fourteen in all, as many as they could carry.

  Petrov took over, preparing the load on the march, fitting fuses and preparing the explosives for use. He dropped out of the column with three men. They let us go past and then began preparing their charges. I could see Petrov fitting a charge in one of the bigger trees, a clever move. The Viets would be looking for freshly dug soil. While they watched the ground, the charges at face level in the trees would detonate, hopefully blowing off more than a few of their communist ideas clean out of their heads.

  He caught up with us just as we were entering Mao Khe.

  “All set, Jurgen. We should catch a few of them.”

  As he spoke, there was a roar of explosions that rippled out of the jungle.

  “Seems to have worked,” he said with satisfaction. “That means they’re only half a kilometre away.”

  “Yes, well done, Nikolai, go and join the men. The monkeys will be here soon looking for revenge.”

  He dashed off. Leforge had heard the explosion and was giving orders for the defence to be prepared.

  “Radioman,” he shouted, “get me our air liaison, and I’ll order up a Napalm strike on the area around that Viet division.

  Napalm is a result of a gelling agent mixed with gasoline which we frequently used in military operations as a part of an incendiary weapon. It causes severe burns to the skin and body, asphyxiation, unconsciousness and death. One of the main features was that it stuck well to the naked skin, and hence it left no real chance for removing the burning Napalm from the victim’s skin. We normally used it against dug-in enemy personnel.

  The burning incendiary composition flowed into foxholes, trenches, bunkers, drainage and irrigation ditches, and other improvised troop shelters. In the killing fields of Indochina, it was a lethal killer, and one of the most deadly. Delivered by air, it was normally devastating to a well dug-in enemy.

  “Jurgen,” he said to me.

  “I want an artillery strike to hit them hard, so get on the field telephone. Call down an artillery strike on their estimated coordinates. If they want revenge, we’ll give them a bit more to feel sore about. By the time they get over that lot, the air force will be over with their second course of Napalm.”

  I picked up a field telephone and got through to our artillery.

  “Sorry, Sergeant,” the artillery officer replied, “all our artillery has been ordered to engage other targets. We’ve got a lot of Viets inbound. Try the navy. They’ll be glad to have your business.”

  I thanked him and got through to our ships, waiting off the coast. We had a Dinassaut on the nearby river, a unique French invention that was proving to be very successful in this type of war. Several surplus US tank landing craft, donated to the French by their American friends, were converted into gunboats with the addition of mortars and a range of heavy weaponry. It was a lot of firepower.

  The Dinassaut, or Division d'Infanterie Navale d'Assaut, a Naval Assault Infantry Division, was a type of riverine military unit employed by the French Navy during the Indochina War. Each Dinassaut consisted of approximately twelve craft; the American landing craft modified with armour and using tank turrets as weapons. They used other craft carrying 81mm mortars to be employed as riverine artillery. Used effectively, it was a formidable weapon.

  I gave the coordinates and left them to open fire as soon as possible. We’d done everything possible. We were well positioned for defence, well armed and supplied. We now had to wait for the next move. It wasn’t the Viet Minh who made it, but the Air Force who arrived with two Grumman F8F Bearcats, swooping in over the town for their attack run.

  The Bearcat concept was inspired by the early 1943 evaluation of a captured Focke-Wulf Fw 190 by Grumman test pilots and engineering staff. Compared to the earlier Hellcat, the Bearcat was lighter, had a much better rate of climb and was 50 mph faster. The F8F prototypes were ordered in November 1943 and first flew on 21 August 1944, nine months later. The first production aircraft were delivered in February 1945, and the first squadron was operational by May, but World War II was over before the aircraft saw combat service.

  Our air force had bought many of the American figh
ters and used them effectively in the skies of Indochina. Although their range was somewhat limited, which made them less useful than they might have been. Armed with four 0.50 calibre machine guns or four 20mm M3 cannon, as well as four unguided rockets, the F8F carried a bomb load of 1,000 pounds, which terrified the Viets even more when the bomb racks were loaded with Napalm.

  The fighters had barely cleared the town when their pods of Napalm dropped away, and straight into the jungle where we believed the Viets to be assembling to attack the town. The Napalm hit the ground with a crashing explosion, sending up jets of flame and heavy clouds of oily, black smoke. The aircraft banked around for a second pass and emptied their machine guns on the Viet positions. Then the ships opened fire, their shells landing unerringly on the same target, directed by a naval fire controller who had joined us when the fire control order was passed on. For fifteen minutes, dozens of shells rained down on the small area of jungle, and then they ceased fire. Part of the jungle was ablaze. Clearly, any of the enemy who were still in that area was dead or dying, roasting even before they got to hell.

  We had a brief period of quiet, and there was little to be done. We were dug in, so all we had to do was wait. Then they came. Where the edge of the jungle had been empty, it was suddenly filled with men, charging straight for us, and their ugly, hate-filled faces screaming their battle cries.

  “Open fire!” the shout went up all along our line. First the MG42s opened up, their unique ripping sound sending their message of death into the Viet ranks. The rest of us opened up, MP40s, rifles. As the Viets reached our first line of barbed wire, the grenade throwers went into action.

  We were receiving fire, both from the attackers and from other Viet Minh posted in the jungle, out of sight. Then mortars began.

  The first shell hit thirty metres behind us, destroying a peasant hut. The second was only ten metres away, and I saw one of my men fall to the shower of fragments.

  “Where’s that naval man? I want him here right now. We’ve got a fire mission.”