Stalemate (The Red Gambit Series)

by Gee, Colin

  Rising up from the gully, he nearly lost his balance scaling the side, but he persevered, and found himself less than five metres from the abandoned magnetic mine.

  He slid quickly over the ground and picked it up, the growling engine of the disabled tank the only thing he could hear in all the cacophony around him.

  Enemy soldiers were twenty metres away, but none had spotted him, so he pushed himself upwards and rammed the magnets onto the rear of the tank, rolling away, and dropping back into the ditch.

  The mine exploded, stopping the huge Maybach engines in a second, and starting a modest fire in the engine compartment.

  In the rear of the Tiger’s turret was a circular hatch, and this opened slowly as the turret turned, enabling those inside to check on the problems with their tank.

  The tank commander obviously felt that enough was enough, and the hatch dropped fully open, as the turret rear rotated away from the Soviet line of fire.

  Even the hull crew wormed their way through the inside of the Tiger, so all five men escaped through the same circular hatch.

  As the last of the Tiger’s crew dropped to the ground, Harazan made it back to his own platoon’s positions, his wounded buttocks now howling their displeasure at every movement.

  Two more Panzer IV’s had been knocked out of the fight, although only one had been destroyed, the second one abandoned when its gearbox failed.

  Blagoslavov skilfully manoeuvred the IS-II, spotting an eight-wheeled armoured car moving tentatively through the gardens.

  Having fired off an AP shell at a large shape the other side of the roadblock of Tiger tanks, the tank officer redirected the loader.

  “Load HE for this one. That will be enough for the bastard.”

  Calling the gunner in on target, Blagoslavov watched in annoyance as the HE shell clipped the angled front cowling, and ploughed into a fairytale house beyond, the explosion instantly transforming it into flying pieces.

  “Take it steady, and get it right, Comrade Gunner.”

  The calm words helped, but the SDKFZ 234 did not intend to remain around to be shot at a second time, and it surged forward, disappearing down an alley. The crew had succeeded in gaining an extra twenty seconds of life, as their vehicle was hunted down quickly. Its end came at the hands of vengeful infantry from Din’s 424th, improvising with petrol bombs, which proved very efficient on the open hulled armoured car.

  The IS-II did not have a complete shell, rather a warhead and propellant, which had to be loaded separately, thus slowing down the reloading process.

  Sensing rather than seeing, Blagoslavov ordered a reverse move, backing the Soviet heavy tank through a ruined house and into the road beyond.

  A few seconds later, Legion artillery burst around the former position, testament to the skill of the artillery observers.

  The IS-II found itself reversing alongside ‘Lohengrin’, the two crews only just becoming aware of each other.

  “Job tvoyu mat! Germanski tank alongside, right. Driver, halt!”

  The IS-II jerked immediately to a rocking halt, and Blagoslavov ordered the driver to rotate on the spot, turning the hull towards the Tiger performing a similar manoeuvre.

  It was a race, and one the IS-II won.

  The shell misfired, failing to send the warhead at the enemy tank.

  Blagoslavov looked from the silent breech to his sights and back, conscious that he was about to die.

  ‘Lohengrin’s’ 88mm spouted a gout of flame, and a shell was sent on its way, striking the IS-II on the angled front plate and ricocheting upwards, hammering into the barrel from underneath.

  Inside the turret, there was mayhem. The impact threw the breech downwards, driving the weapon beyond its design parameters, destroying the trunnions, and causing the misfire to ignite within the now-displaced main gun.

  The loose weapon recoiled into the rear wall of the turret, passing through the area that was occupied by the loader, transforming him into indistinct pieces, stuck to the deformed metal of breech and turret.

  Horrified, Blagoslavov ordered the driver to put his foot through the floor, and the IS-II sped behind a low building to safety.

  The impact had obviously affected the engine, and thick smoke started to mark their movements around the village.

  ‘Lohengrin’ hunted them down eventually, but had to content itself with destroying the abandoned tank, as Blagoslavov had ordered them out when the engine gave up.

  The IS-II burned spectacularly, setting fire to a number of buildings around it, the fire eventually filling the whole area with acrid smoke suitable for any purpose, be it escape or stealthy approach.

  Whilst the 5th Legion Tank Regiment had been badly handled, it had achieved its goals, and the way was opened up.

  The 110th Guards Tank Regiment had ceased to exist in all but name, not a single tank on its roster, its strength now lying with the forty men crammed aboard a single GAZ lorry heading north on Route 1422.

  The Legion and 16th Armored cut the main highways, isolating the 19th Army units, cutting them into small digestible portions, each of which was overcome in turn, and for little loss.

  A momentary rally by the 3rd Guards Tanks, at Obernai and Bernardswiller, enabled much of their Corps to escape, but the resistance was overcome, and ‘Tannenberg’ cut straight across the Alsatian Plain, securing Obernai, Niedernai and Meistratzheim. Further stout defence by an AA unit attached to 3rd Guards, kept the spearheads at bay long enough for a number of rag-tag units to escape up Route 1083, amongst the last of which was the lorry carrying the survivors of the 110th Guards Tank Regiment.

  16th US Armored Brigade had discovered that its Pershings were still vulnerable to the massive 122mm guns of the enemy heavy tanks, and some had also been lost to the deadly 100mm anti-tank gun, a handful of which had been hastily dug in north of Selestat.

  But, on the whole, the mixed force of Pershings and 76mm Shermans performed extremely well, the combination of their tank gunnery and supporting artillery, proving too much for the 109th Guards Tank Regiment and its supporting units.

  Whilst still in possession of a number of vehicles, the 109th was vacating the field as fast as it could, occasionally lashing out at its pursuers.

  US Infantry linked up with Legionnaires of the ‘Alma’ and the German irregulars of Kommando Alsace in Selestat, the three forces coming together at the base of the neo-medieval water tower.

  St Clair’s 7th RDM, flank secured on the Rhine, had rolled northwards, supported by 4th Kompagnie of Uhlmann’s Tank Regiment, and the 128mm guns of Bäcker’s special anti-tank unit.

  The Soviet forces had formed a defensive position between Schwobstein and Richtolsheim, centred on the Route 209 Bridge over the Rhone-Rhein Canal.

  Over two hundred of the 7th RDM’s men had been killed or wounded overwhelming the position, along with the loss of two precious JagdPanzers and a Sturmgeschutz.

  It was also here that the smiling and slightly mad Captain Friedrich Bäcker fell, a wayward mortar shell falling close enough to take his life with the smallest piece of metal.

  Caught between two fires, 134th Rifle Corps was battered into submission, marking the largest surrender of Soviet manpower in the war thus far, some five and a half thousand men moving off into captivity.

  132nd Rifle Corps was savaged, although some units, such as Major Din’s, made their way back northwards to more stable positions, None the less, the 132nd was finished as a formation.

  The spearheads that launched themselves out of the Vosges sliced the 3rd Guards Tank Corps into manageable pieces, often catching units between two fires, and grinding the experienced Guards Corps into a mass of dead and wounded. A further harvest of prisoners brought the total to just less than ten thousand.

  Support elements from 19th Army suffered horrendously, particularly at the hands of ‘Tannenberg’, and the roving ground attack squadrons, whose planes, tanks, and armoured infantry swept the Alsatian plain, destroying or capturing valuable
supplies, killing rear-echelon troops, including overrunning the headquarters of 3rd Guards Tanks itself.

  By mid-afternoon on the 26th, the Allied frontline was as far forward as Illkirch-Graffenstaden, the flight of 19th Army affecting others units that might have stood tall in defence. Only a need to rearm and refuel prevented the lead units from ‘Tannenberg’ entering the city.

  Over two thousand legionnaires were casualties, over a third the sort that never rise again.

  Five hundred and seventy-two casualties were sustained by the 16th Armored, a strangely high proportion of those were dead upon the field.

  The Kommando Alsace had also suffered badly, over two hundred of its four hundred and forty men lost to wounds or worse.

  However, the Red Army had suffered worse still. Counting prisoners, wounded and dead, over thirty-two thousand men had been lost, and whole formations removed from the Soviet order of battle.

  Operation Thermopylae was a brilliant success.

  1816hrs, Friday, 26th October 1945, on the banks of the Apfelbach, north of Heiligenstein, Alsace.

  Indeed, Operation Thermopylae was a brilliant success, but the price had been high.

  A gathering of men, large in number, but nowhere near as many as would have liked to have been there, stood on the banks of the Apfelbach, on the Rue de Stade, next to a line of recently planted poplars.

  Leading the group were the senior men of the Legion Corps, all save Molyneux, who was at French first Army headquarters, basking in the reflected glory, and busy ensuring he received as much credit as possible for the efforts of his legionnaires.

  Lavalle, Knocke, Plummer, and Uhlmann stood in silence, the heaviness of the occasion given more weight by the steady trickle of light rain across the whole of the Alsace.

  Behind the senior officers were others of varying status, such as Aloysius Fischer and Heinz-Sebastian Pöll, Ulrich Weiss and Oscar Durand, Haefeli and Rettlinger, bandaged arm and all, and even an old Irish legionnaire who remembered the man they were there to honour.

  A grave had been prepared, fit for the nineteen men who were to be its permanent residents.

  Nineteen men of the legion, but once of the Waffen-SS, all of whom had died in the ambush of a small column, leading a legion battalion in the rush to join the battles further north.

  The names of the dead were read aloud, each receiving a small personal eulogy provided by a close comrade. Every man there stood at the attention, officers saluting smartly, arms rigid in remembrance of a friend or loyal comrade lost, listening to the soft tones of the speaker.

  Faces were wet, and not all because of the rain, for old comrades were being laid to rest in the rich Alsatian soil.

  The Legion Padre, perhaps a curious choice to talk over the graves of former SS members, arrived at the last name; a man he had met, and who had impressed him with his character, his knowledge of European history, and of life itself. A learned man, and someone greatly admired by his comrades, many of whom were here this day.

  Pausing, the Padre gathered himself, suddenly finding it all very heavy going.

  “And lastly, we place our good comrade and friend, Colonel Jurgen Fabian Von Arnesen, into the care of the Lord, and we give thanks that we were blessed to have him as our friend and comrade.”

  The Padre swallowed noisily, gaining a moment to gather himself.

  “Jurgen Von Arnesen was, by my own observations, and by all accounts, a man and a soldier of the finest quality. That being said, when one of his men has spoken to me about him, I must say that he was held in the highest regard by everyone who served with him,” he stole a look at the silent man to his left and detected the slightest of nods.

  “And I know that he was so proud of his comradeship with all of you, and with those that went before and fell.”

  Selecting some appropriate words to conclude the simple service, he gestured to the men who had volunteered to interr their dead comrades, and soon the only sounds were the working of spades and the constant rain and wind.

  Many of the ensemble waited until the end, and some even helped the grave detail complete their task.

  Some lingered long, but eventually all walked on into the future, leaving solely Ernst-August Knocke beside the newly turned soil.

  The rain grew heavier, the sound of its drops rising with the wind that drove it.

  And quietly, in his own way, Knocke said goodbye to the man who had been his best friend.

  1ST BALTIC FRONT - MARSHAL BAGRAMYAN

  All we know is that, at times, fighting the Russians, we had to remove the piles of enemy bodies from before our trenches, so as to get a clear field of fire against new waves of assault.

  Paul von Hindenburg

  Chapter 97 - THE DIVERSION

  1230hrs, Saturday, 20th October 1945, Headquarters of the 1st Baltic Front, Schloss Holdenstadt, near Uelzen, Germany.

  Marshal of the Soviet Union Hovhannes Bagramyan had the floor, the rest of the room quiet as he outlined the plan to punch through the Allied armies and enter Holland.

  Bagramyan was not a fool. The silence from his senior officers was not just attentiveness; it was also concern that they and their men were to be pitched into further horrors.

  The German War had its own special brand of violence, fought with a shared national hatred, and that inspiration had carried the soldiers of the Red Army through situations when they could easily have floundered.

  Fighting the Western Allies was different, but no less bloody; in fact, with the air attacks that wrought havoc on a daily basis, many of his men thought the new war was worse.

  ‘Perhaps they need to hate again?’

  The commander of the 1st Baltic Front halted for a moment, dealing with that thought.

  He moved on quickly.

  “With those diversions in place, it is my intention to launch a series of sequential attacks on this river line, the Hunte, moving progressively south.”

  The Colonels and Majors now understood that this was where they would be employed.

  Zagrebin of the 77th Engineers exchanged a rueful look with the commander of the 4th Guards Tank Brigade, Arkady Yarishlov.

  “Starting at Pfennigstedterfeld, 11th Guards Army,” he acknowledged Galitsky and Semenov, commander and CoS respectively, “You will launch attacks designed to commit the enemy reserves forward or force them to change position.”

  “At these points,” Bagramyan tapped the map to punctuate each name as he went, “Wildeshausen, Hölingen, Colnrade, Goldenstedt, Barnstorf, Rechtern, Dreeke, Drebber, and finally Heede, and Hengemühle.”

  “11th Guards will take 3rd Guards Mechanised Corps and 22nd Guards Rifle Corps under orders, to be employed only as blocking formations once an attack is halted. Clear, Comrades?”

  “Yes, Comrade Marshal.”

  Although, in truth, neither man understood exactly why they were being given two prime formations, and then being restricted on how to employ them.

  “The timetable for your attacks is to reflect the need to draw the enemy reserves southwards all the time. I need 11th Guards to create a timetable in the minds of the Allies, one to which we will conform, until we strike and open them up like a ripe peach.”

  “Comrade General Christyakov,” the commander of 6th Guards Army came to attention, “Your Army is my breakthrough formation, ready to exploit the gap once it is made.”

  Outlining a different area of the front, Bagramyan continued.

  “Here, you will follow the descending frontline with some assault formations; openly, not hidden in any way. I want the Allies to know of them.”

  He stopped at two large wooded areas.

  “Here, this is where I want you to hide the rest of your units. My plan is in the process of approval with the Stavka, and I have requested a Tank Corps to be assigned to you as an essential part of the breakthrough.”

  Christyakov beamed at Rybko, his CoS, having just been handed his largest and most important command since he had taken to soldiering.r />
  “Also hidden in these two woods,” he checked the names, “Wietingsmoor and Freistattermoor, will be Special Group Obinin.”

  Major General Obinin, the temporary commander of 2nd Guards Tank Corps, had already been briefed on his part, so he was not fazed by the announcement. In truth, the man was bordering on total mental exhaustion, but the front he presented gave no indication on how close he was to breaking.

  Bagramyan paused to sip some water before continuing.

  “Special Group Obinin will be responsible for breaching the Hunte River defences, and capturing intact the rail bridge here,” the group leant forward as one, “At Barnstorf.”

  Each man could mentally envisage the sights, and smell the smoke, that would envelop the small German township, whose only crime was to possess an undamaged rail bridge capable of sustaining the weight of heavy armour.

  In each man’s mind’s eye, the Soviet forces swept over the defenders in a glorious wave.

  Then the euphoria of the moment was gone, replaced with the fatalism of the experienced soldier,

  More than one in the room looked at the map with a jaundiced eye.

  ‘Barnstorf.’

  “Comrade Obinin has already submitted a plan of attack based upon the best intelligence available, and it may be that we will obtain three bridges over the Hunte as a result of this assault.”

  Returning his attention to Christyakov, the cunning Armenian Marshal smiled encouragingly.

  “6th Guards will commence deploying its concealed forces as soon as the forcing of the Hunte seems likely, timed to cross as soon as the river line is ours, keeping up the pressure, and forcing the Allies to keep moving westwards. You will concentrate your Army as soon as possible, passing them over the river immediately the opportunity presents itself.”

  It was Zagrebin’s turn to receive attention.

  “Our comrades from the 77th Engineer Bridge Brigade will commence their work as soon as you give them the signal, either repairing the existing, or laying new bridges, whichever will give us the most benefit at the time.”