North Reich

by Robert Conroy

  Canfield totally agreed, but kept silence. He would not let anyone know his doubts. They were supposed to have arrived just before dawn, but now it was after noon. They were supposed to have mounted up and gotten across the short portion of lake to their goal, the tiny Canadian village of Port Maitland. Two divisions of infantry, all under the command of Lloyd Fredendall were to land and move inland with a third in reserve. It would land in a day or two. This would put more than fifty thousand men in the rear of the two German armies. The Germans would either have to withdraw from their strongpoints along the Niagara River, or weaken their defensive forces and attack Fredendall’s corps. Germans to the west facing Patton would also be threatened by the enemy in their rear. If all went well, they could strike a decisive blow in the liberation of Canada.

  Of course, Canfield thought, when did things go well?

  Many of the landing craft did not have the range to get to the site and back. They would be towed by larger ships, many of which had artillery parked on their decks, making them look a lot like old men of war from the days of fighting sail. Nobody cared. Just as long as they worked and kept the Germans’ heads down.

  When the landing occurred, the artillery would be loaded onto the smaller boats and taken ashore. Additional infantry were stuffed in the holds of the transports.

  After several more hours, they got on their landing craft and the boats moved out in long lines, all pulled by a civilian transport ships. Some of the troops commented that it looked like a mother duck and her ducklings, while others changed the pronunciation of duck to something more appropriate.

  Fortunately, the lake was calm with waves of only a foot or so. Despite that, many men jammed in Canfield’s Higgins Boat got seasick. Most were able to vomit into the lake, but a few didn’t make it which sickened the rest. As befitting his rank, Canfield stayed close to a good spot and managed to hurl his meal into the water and not onto his troops.

  He was concerned that the tiny craft was practically unarmed, with only a pair of.30 caliber machine guns for protection, along with whatever weapons their leading transport carried. American warplanes flew overhead, but there was always the possibility that a kraut plane could sneak through and strafe the helpless column, turning boatloads of men into bloody pulp.

  Targets on land were in range of the converted gunboats and their artillery opened up on the dimly visible shore. Flashes of light and smoke showed where the shells hit and, seconds later, the sounds washed over them.

  “It’s gonna be dark soon,” Dubinski said with a mastery of the obvious. “What the hell we gonna do then, chief?”

  Canfield gasped and spat over the side. He’d been reduced to dry heaves. “When the general wants me to know, he’ll tell me.”

  To himself he wondered which would be worse — floundering around all night in the middle of Lake Erie or trying to find their landing site in the dark and maybe winding up miles from their target. Nor did he feel envy for the men in the holds of the transports.

  The answer came soon enough. There would be no nighttime landing. The landing craft lashed themselves together to provide some stability while their mother ship dropped anchor. The men were cursing and Canfield joined them. They would spend all night bobbing up and down and puking. They would be in fine shape to fight the Germans tomorrow. Worse, this would provide the Germans with another twelve hours in which to react. Damn it to hell.

  This had been First Lieutenant Ted Landry’s second attack from the sea, which is what he facetiously called Lake Erie, and, for a paratrooper, was at least two too many. He’d been taught to jump out of airplanes, not slither through sand and mud, although, as a Ranger, he was trained to do both.

  All of his men had made it ashore, a far cry from the terrible feeling he’d felt just before the attack on the Blue Water Bridge at Sarnia when he realized that one of his men was missing. He could barely remember the guy’s name. Oh yeah, Laughton. The poor man’s body had never been found, not that there was much of an opportunity to look very hard.

  His small company of seventy men was about ten miles inland. They’d landed stealthily and without incident, using rubber boats powered by outboard motors that had been towed by PTs. He’d been able to report back that the area around Port Maitland was, as expected, largely undefended. He also reported that there were no large enemy concentrations inland either. Apparently the Germans were focused on the Niagara River line, which meant that a quick thrust by the invading GIs could put an entire army in their rear. But it would not happen this night, he concluded sadly. The bombardment had begun too late, although he wondered just what were they bombarding since there were no German defenses for several miles to either side of the target area.

  It occurred to him that maybe the Germans thought the coming attack was a feint. He hoped it wasn’t. He and his men were primed and ready. Landry also felt that Port Maitland, just a speck of a town, wasn’t a bad place to land as it was connected to civilization by a network of well-maintained dirt roads. One led towards the Welland Canal and Buffalo, while another twisted north to Hamilton. A quick and strong move towards Hamilton might just cut off the entire German army at Niagara. Other roads led west towards the Nazi’s lines, but the Germans were too far away to be an immediate concern.

  Landry’s company was arrayed in the fields on both sides of the road leading to Hamilton, which was somewhat larger than a speck at ten thousand souls. He doubted that more than a couple of hundred people lived in Port Maitland.

  As darkness fell, he felt that an opportunity to dash into the German army’s rear had been wasted. He just hoped that his men’s lives weren’t going to be wasted.

  “Company’s coming,” yelled one of his lookouts. His men scrambled to their positions. They were dug in and well concealed by growing crops of wheat and corn.

  A short column of five vehicles moved down the road. The first vehicle was a four passenger Kubelwagen, the German equivalent of a jeep. The other vehicles were General Motors trucks that had clearly been commandeered by the Germans and painted with Wehrmacht markings.

  Landry’s men were on either side of the road and arrayed in a shallow V. He used his walky-talky to communicate his plans to his second in command on the other side of the road.

  The Germans drew closer, driving slowly, but without apparent concern. Their headlights were out in deference to American planes which further slowed them.

  When the Germans were about a hundred yards away, Landry ordered his men to open fire. Rifle and machine gun bullets from both sides of the road ripped through the Kubelwagen and the soft cloth sides of the trucks. He could hear the Germans scream as they died. Some tumbled out of their vehicles and fired wildly before they were cut down, while others, smarter, fled into the fields. He thought a couple of them might have gotten away, but it didn’t matter. The German command would know about this soon enough. He did a count and he’d suffered no casualties. Other than those who might have escaped, there were no German survivors. The couple of Nazi wounded they’d captured died of their wounds within a few minutes.

  The German dead were searched and weapons were taken. The krauts had good machine guns and now Landry owned a couple of them, along with a supply of ammunition. Two of the trucks actually still ran and he had those driven off and hidden. They might become useful and Rangers were supposed to be resourceful. Maybe they could drive the damned things right into Toronto? The German dead were dumped into the other trucks and were pushed out of sight, while the debris was picked up before they set up the ambush again. He felt like a spider repairing its web after snaring a fly, a big fat Nazi fly.

  Damn, it felt good to hit the pricks.

  Eisenhower was livid. “What do you mean we’re not going in, Brad? What the hell is going on out there?”

  Lieutenant General Omar Bradley commanded three army corps, one of which was Fredendall’s. It consisted of three division infantry divisions, and he too had just been informed that the attack had been canceled, called
on account of darkness.

  “An amphibious assault is not a baseball game,” snarled Ike. "It doesn’t get called on account of darkness.”

  “Ike, I’m as shocked as you are. Of course nothing ever goes totally right, so I’m not surprised that the invasion got off to a late start, but I don’t get the order to stand down and have the troops sit all night in the middle of Lake Erie.”

  “Have you spoken to him? Is he on the coast or still at Fort Fredendall?”

  Bradley winced. The men in Fredendall’s command had taken to calling his overly fortified headquarters by that disparaging name. “As near as I can tell, he’s en route from Niagara to someplace south and west of Buffalo.”

  Ike angrily lit a cigarette and glowered. “All of which means he’s out of touch and probably doesn’t really know what the hell is going on. Did you tell him that he should take the chance and land at night? If there are no Germans in the area, it should be safe and any confusion caused by the darkness can be fixed rather quickly.”

  “I did and he reminded me that he was the commander on the ground and that he had a better sense of things than I did. He added that there have already been skirmishes between his Rangers and Germans headed to the landing site and he feels that major forces are coming right on their tail. I didn’t like the lecture, but it’s something I would normally agree with. Right now, though, we may be missing an opportunity.”

  “What does General Truscott think?”

  Bradley suppressed a smile. Along with being a highly regarded war planner, Truscott had been instrumental in forming the Army Ranger units currently in the field, both in Ontario and in the Pacific.

  “Off the record, Lucian managed to contact one of his boys, a Lieutenant Landry, and he was told that nothing was happening. No major German forces were moving towards Port Maitland. He said that if we strike hard and fast, we can be ashore and well inland before the krauts know we’ve come knocking.”

  “So it’s up to Fredendall to get his men ashore and moving inland as quickly as possible. Brad, do you think he will do it?”

  “I honestly don’t know. This is his first major command and, like all of us, he’s never had so much responsibility. Even though he’s a favorite of Marshall’s and a legendary fire-breather, I really don’t know what he’s capable of when the chips are down.”

  Ike nodded. This had proven to be a dilemma for all the armed services. Men who’d performed brilliantly in peacetime weren’t necessarily good war leaders. Trouble was, nobody knew until the fighting started. Careers had already been destroyed. Admiral Kimmel had been sacked because of his performance at Pearl Harbor along with General Short, and Admiral Ghormley had been relieved for lack of leadership in the fighting for the Solomon Islands. Would Fredendall be the next?

  Nobody wanted to point out that the swaggering Fredendall had never led men in combat because so many other generals, Ike included, hadn’t either.

  “All right,” Ike said softly, “we keep a close watch on Fredendall and be ready to move if we have to. He may be Marshall’s first mistake. Correction, I may have been his first. Tell Lucian Truscott to be packed and ready to move at a moment’s notice.”

  False dawn arrived and the landing craft were cut loose as soon as the shore could be seen. Even though they were heading into the unknown, the men were relieved that they were no longer sitting like children’s toys in a very large tub. Those whose stomachs would let them ate c-rations, while others just tried to act calm.

  Canfield and Dubinski looked around at the clearing sky. “We should have been halfway to Toronto,” Dubinski said. “I should have been on my way to some really good Canadian beer.”

  Canfield agreed but only grunted a response. He kept his eyes on the sky and on the boats carrying the men of his battalion as they moved towards the shore with agonizing slowness. We are so vulnerable, he thought.

  Just then, anti-aircraft guns on the transports opened up, sending tracers towards targets low on the horizon. Canfield saw them, a wave of German fighters skimming the lake not more than twenty feet above the water.

  Armed with machine guns, rockets, 20mm cannon, and bombs, they opened fire as soon as they were within range. Canfield watched in hopeless horror as the tiny landing craft were strafed. He ducked as shells struck his boat. Men screamed both from terror and pain. He raised his head in time to see one plane’s rockets slam into a transport. He moaned as he recalled how many men were jammed inside.

  “Medic!”

  The cry snapped him back to reality. He checked the men. Two were dead and three others were wounded. One had his leg ripped off by a bullet and another had been gutted. His intestines lay like an obscene snake on the bottom of the boat.

  Canfield sensed that the craft was wallowing. Leaving the wounded to be cared for by medics, he went to where the young sailor driving the boat sat. He was transfixed by the bloody carnage. Bodies were in the water around them and men were swimming, waving for help. A bomb had hit a transport and it was sinking. Heavily laden soldiers were trying to jump into the lake.

  “Where the hell are you taking us?” Canfield snarled.

  The sailor was wide eyed with terror. “Out of here. Anyplace.”

  Canfield grabbed him and slapped him across the face. “You take us to land, you understand? Then you come back and pick up anybody you can.”

  The sailor blinked, as if waking up from a terrible dream. “Got it, sir. Sorry.”

  Minutes later, they spilled ashore. The German planes had disappeared, chased by American fighters. The Germans had lost planes, but they had savaged at least a portion of the invasion force.

  Canfield ordered them off the beach. Like it or not they had to go inland. Additional Americans would be landing very shortly and congestion on the beachhead had to be limited. He’d gotten reports and the casualties weren’t as bad as he had feared. Only seven dead and fifteen wounded out of his battalion of more than eight hundred plus. Only, he thought ruefully. What would it be like when they made serious contact with the enemy?

  A company of Sherman tanks rumbled by, kicking up dust. Now they were beginning to look like a real army. His radioman called him over. He took the phone from the backpack. It was the division commander.

  “Exactly where are you and what’s your status?” Canfield was asked. He gave the answer to the best of his knowledge. They were two to three miles inland and facing no opposition. They had crossed a cratered moonscape created by the shelling. The shelling had accomplished absolutely nothing since there had been nothing to destroy.

  “Fantastic. Now colonel, do you know what a laager is?”

  “A type of beer?” he responded, dreading the explanation he knew was coming.

  The general laughed bitterly, “No, you asshole. A laager is when a military force circles the wagons and that’s exactly what you are to do. Pull in your battalion, circle the wagons and prepare to defend against a major German attack that HQ feels is imminent and that could come from any direction.”

  “With respects, general, that’s ridiculous. I just came down from a second floor roof of a farmhouse and saw nothing. I have men up in trees trying to spot Nazis and they’ve seen nothing either. Sir, I’m convinced we can advance for quite some time before running into any Germans, and isn’t that the point? Aren’t we supposed to get in their rear and cut them off?”

  Canfield could hear the general’s sigh. “That was the plan, but plans change. III Corps is fearful that we will be cut to pieces by a sudden German attack, just like we were by their planes this morning.”

  Canfield caught the word fearful. Was the general saying that the higher command was afraid, a pack of cowards? “How much latitude do I have?”

  “Not much at all unless you want to lose touch with the units on your flanks. Find some decent ground, and yes I know the land is flat, dig in and call it a day.”

  The general hung up. Dubinski stood beside Canfield. “We’re fucked again, aren’t we, chief?”

>   Chapter Twenty

  The Canadian cities closest to Buffalo-Niagara had already been pretty well evacuated and had become virtual ghost towns. Niagara Falls and Niagara-On-The-Lake were deserted, while cities a little farther up the lake like St. Catharines and Hamilton were emptying rapidly, along with a score or more of smaller towns and villages. So too was Toronto as the war, which had seemed like a dark fantasy, was erupting in fury and would soon draw closer. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were on the march, headed east and north, away from where they felt the war was going to be.

  Jed Munro still grieved for his brothers, Wally and Paul. Even though the two men’s killers had themselves died, he felt the pain of their dying. The manner of his brothers’ deaths had further complicated his life as well as those remaining members of the Black Shirts. What had been a force of several hundred now counted only about fifty and that was a floating and declining figure. The soldier they’d killed in the U.S. was no longer anything to worry about, but Jed’s shooting of the Toronto cop was a different matter. The Toronto police wanted to talk with him and the others who’d participated in the restaurant attack, and neither Jed nor the others wanted to be interrogated by the cops.

  Thus, Neumann had strongly suggested that they take up residence at the Gestapo farm north of the city. Munro was uneasy with that. It was the place where he had raped and tormented the Bradford girl and that death was the cause of his brother Wally’s being killed by her cop father.

  They were all safe inside the compound — bored, but safe. The cops wouldn’t touch them. The police wanted to kill them, but they were not about to take on the Gestapo detachment along with any German regulars that might be sent to reinforce them. No, the police had their hands full with the refugees who were clogging the roads and sleeping in the streets and parks. Some of them were even committing petty crimes in order to get food and shelter.