Rhinelander (Kirov Series Book 40)

by Schettler, John

  “Thank you, General Eisenhower. I very much appreciate the support. Now all I have to do is find enough of those gold coins to feed those troops.”

  “We’ll do our best. Remember, I’m holding those five coins we get from Le Havre and Rouen. Now… George? Don’t worry about losing Middleton. I’ll give you Eddy’s Corps if you need it. What’s on your mind?”

  “First order of business is getting through the Westwall and taking Aachen,” said Patton. “And it could be a tough slog. It’s going to need infantry and artillery, but the plan is to take the city by double envelopment, instead of tackling it head on. The armor will operate on those flanks, then the infantry takes the city. Once it’s secure, then I can push on through the Schill line and up to the Roer. It’s not going to be much of an obstacle—no more than 100 feet wide in most places.”

  “What about those dams on the upper Roer? The engineers tell me it could flood to a thousand yards wide if they blow those.”

  “Well, General O’Connor’s Scottish warriors made short work of the Reichswald. I don’t see why we can’t clear a path to those dams with two good infantry divisions. But Ike, even if we get there in good time, what’s to stop the Germans from doing what you say and blowing the dams sky high?”

  “We’ve considered that,” said Ike. “Marshall thinks that if we press them, we can force their hand. In the meantime, the air force is going to take a whack at them too. The idea is to make them shoot their bolt there. If they do flood the upper Roer, the engineers think it may last no more than two weeks. So we need to force the situation, and take that card away from them before we cross the Roer to make our push for the Rhine in your sector.”

  “Which means I’ll be mounting two separate offensives, in two different directions,” said Patton. “So I’ll need to spend my gold coins wisely, and if the General feels generous, he might fatten my purse a bit.”

  “George,” said Bradley. “Let me tell you right now that I won’t need seven points in my sector. I’ve got eight infantry divisions, including the three in the French Corps, and only two armored divisions. That’s just twelve points according to General Lee’s system here. So I may see my way to lending you a couple points. If you can beg, borrow or steal two more from Ike, then you’ll have all you need to run those two offensives.”

  Patton smiled. “I knew I could count on you, Brad. That’s mighty gracious of you.”

  “What are your operational plans, General Bradley?” asked Eisenhower.

  “Frankly, there isn’t much to do. We’re over the Meuse in force, and I’ve pushed into the Ardennes as far as Rochefort. If they give ground, I’ll take it, but all I’ll end up doing is collecting a whole lot of Christmas trees if I continue heading east. So I think five points suits me fine. You can give two more to Georgie, General Lee, with my compliments.”

  There was movement in the hall outside the conference room, and the door opened. There stood Montgomery and Dempsey, a pair of lost sheep arriving late from the south.

  “Well met, gentlemen,” said Monty. “I see you’re all here early. Good. Now I can lay out my plan for crossing the Rhine down south, and catching up to Richie here. That was a masterful effort, General O’Connor, in spite of what happened with Gale. I think we can safely say your operation was 90% successful. Now, let me show you how I plan to wrap things up and end this war by Christmas.”

  Everyone just looked at him, with Bradley a bit slack jawed. Monty had been somewhat isolated from the events in the north, but he could rule the roost in the south, which suited him just fine. Under Lee’s system, he and Dempsey commanded divisions amounting to 22 points in the south, though he had heard nothing of how Lee planned to allocate his supplies. When Eisenhower explained what they had decided, he frowned.

  “See here, Ike. O’Connor is over the Rhine right now, and I’m just 30 klicks from the Saarland. I was counting on Toulon and Marseille to keep Dempsey and I rolling.”

  “You’ll have 14 points under Lee’s system,” said Ike. “That should be enough to sustain 8th and 10th armies. In another 45 days, when we get those northern ports open, then you can count on full offensive supply. Until then, you’ll have to be thrifty, and if you want to discuss it further, you can convene a private meeting with General Lee.”

  If there was one man in the room with a methodical temperament to match Monty’s, it would be Lee, so Ike cleverly diverted the thrust of any protest Montgomery might make in his direction.

  “Well,” said Monty. “When you’ve heard what I’m planning, you’ll certainly agree that the lion’s share should go to me, and of course, General Dempsey here.”

  The Devil’s Adjutant, thought Patton, though he said nothing. Monty has found himself the right man to ride shotgun for him. Dempsey fits the role perfectly. “Suppose you enlighten us on your plan, General Montgomery, so we can start booking travel arrangements home.”

  “Ah, yes, well, we’re over the Moselle at Thionville, and I’m preparing to fatten that bridgehead up with the introduction of 1st Armored Division. My Operation Thunderclap will push due east, skirting over the top of the old Maginot line, and bypassing Metz. There’s no need to expend good infantry trying to reduce those forts. We’ll simply isolate the place and starve them out. Once I reach the Saar, my plan is to push right through this gap, between the western edge of the Schwartzwald, and this woodland behind Saarbrucken. To do this, we’ll cross the Saar in a set piece operation near Saarlauter.”

  “And General Dempsey?”

  “He’ll pinch off Nancy, then secure my right flank as close to the Rhine as possible, anchoring his defense on the rugged country of the Vosges. It’s work for his infantry after he gets there, establishing a line north along the Rhine to protect my right. Then he can support me with additional armor as needed.”

  Everyone noted how Montgomery spoke for Dempsey, and it was clear that the Field Marshal was casting him in a secondary role, as a flank guard and pool of ready reserves for him to pilfer at his whim.

  “Well general,” said Patton. “I expect you can tell us when you actually do cross the Saar, so I can start packing my luggage. According to the map, you’ve got a baker’s dozen in division sized formations, and five additional brigades. That right flank on the Rhine, assuming you get to Frankfurt, will extend 175 miles. That’s a lot of ground for General Dempsey here to cover, and how could you possibly push any deeper into Germany if you do cross the Rhine at Frankfurt?”

  “Those arrangements will be made later,” said Monty. “One step at a time, General Patton. One doesn’t go running off half-cocked without proper planning.” He gave Patton a thin lipped smile.

  “Alright,” said Eisenhower, “I agree that we’ll have to take this in small bites. Moving up to the Rhine is now our primary objective, but there is one more consideration we have to face here. You’ve all heard the news from Antwerp. Suppose the Germans have another bomb? Suppose they have two, or even three more of these weapons? They could sit back and wait for us to build up for a big push, and then plop that thing right on top of our concentration points.”

  No one had an answer for that, until Patton spoke. “Ike, in a situation like that, they would have to come by air to deliver that bomb. Let’s hope that the air force can stop them, or that they’ve already shot their wad with this attack on Antwerp. In any case, we’d better get moving. The longer we wait, the more time they have to build more of those abhorrent weapons. I intend to see that they don’t get the chance.”

  Chapter 2

  Patton’s push south from Vise with his 8th Infantry Division had finally forced the Germans to abandon Liege. Infantry was still scarce enough that they would not leave it to be bottled up in the city, even if it might delay the Americans by doing so. There was good defensive ground to the south, along a small river that fed into the Ourthe Canal, fringed by woods and backed by hills.

  At the same time, the northern push by the 36th Division had compromised the defense at Maastricht. So t
he superb defensive line of the Meuse was given up south of the city, and the line redrawn from the Meuse through Valkenburg to the Siegfried Line near Aachen.

  Early on the 5th of August, Abrams continued his push towards Roetgen, with a full battalion of 40 tanks, including 16 of the new heavy T-26. They were backed by two companies of Armored infantry and engineers, passing through a thin band of woods before reaching the Roetgen clearing, and getting their first look at the forest. At this stage it was a mix of slim conifers and leafy deciduous trees that kept the tanks in a long column, with the infantry on either flank. The Germans had fought for those woods the previous day, falling back in the evening to occupy Roetgen.

  Just before the clearing, the road twisted through a couple sharp turns in a stand of dense trees, and the tankers were edgy in the gray light, watching for any sign of the enemy. There was no action until they reached the edge of the city itself, which was actually the border between Belgium and Germany. So as the sun rose that morning through a light mist, Abrams’ tankers would roll over that frontier into the enemy’s homeland. The instant the first tank breached that line, the enemy opened up with small arms fire and mortars, the rounds walking through the outskirts of the town, smashing sheds and cottages as they came. When the infantry ran into mines at the edge of the town, the armor stopped and began to systematically blast away at every house around them.

  Roetgen would be the largest settlement in the realm of the forest, nearly two kilometers wide. If the Germans were here in strength, it promised to be a time consuming effort to root them out of the barns, church towers and cellars. It would not be the first German town liberated from Nazi rule by Patton’s 3rd Army. 2nd Armored had snatched away that honor the previous day when they secured the town of Lichtenbusch, right at the edge of the dragon’s teeth at the entry to the Stolberg Corridor. The troops had fun with the name of the place, thinking it would look comical in the history books, given what they were thinking.

  The German infantry, several companies from 12th Volksgrenadiers, fell back into the town proper under that fire, allowing the armored engineers to come up and clear a path for the tanks through those mines. As the advance renewed, it now met a hail of German artillery fire. It was as rude a welcome as might be expected, and it would set the tone of stiff resistance that would make this push into the Hurtgenwald the meat grinder that it was in the old history.

  Abrams wanted to take his division all the way to Lammersdorf that day, which also sat in a broad clearing, about five kilometers on from the present fighting. The Siegfried line came up from the south, bent around Lammersdorf and then turned northwest towards Aachen, actually running parallel to the road between Roetgen and the small town ahead. Behind that line of bunkers, minefields, wire, trenches and earthworks, the real forest began, the trees thick and tall, in dense stands that climbed small ridges and descend into deep gorges.

  Abrams could not go there, but he had studied the map well and figured to stick to this main road. “If we stay on this road,” he said to his G-2, we can take Lammersdorf tomorrow and pierce the Westwall. Then we have decent ground through Rollersbroich, and right on to Steckenborn, and that puts us close enough to those dams to dismount all the infantry and hump it up this ridge from there.”

  “What about Schmidt? That’s where the main roads takes us, and it’s the only road to the big Schwammenauel Dam. This other road through Steckenborn leads up to the Paulushof and Urft Dams.”

  “So we take both roads. Is the 442nd being relieved this morning?”

  “Yes sir. 28th Infantry Division is coming up behind us. They’re the troops Patton assigned to the dams. We were supposed to turn south at Lammersdorf and cut behind the Siegfried Line all the way to Monschau. It’ll unhinge their entire defense of the western Hurtgenwald.”

  “We’ll see what things look like when we get to Lammersdorf tonight. In the meantime, get word to the 442nd and tell them to hoof it up here as soon as they can. That outfit will slip through these woods like fish through water.”

  Abrams, with the most powerful armored division on the field, had every reason to be confident, but he would not get to Lammersdorf that day. It took well into the late afternoon to just clear out Roetgen, the Germans falling back to the next band of woods crossing the main road.

  By sunset, the first companies of the 16th Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division came up the road behind Roetgen, a welcome reinforcement. Most of the division was still at Eupen, waiting to be relieved by the 28th Division. Patton had changed his mind, preferring to send in his A-Team by backing up Abrams with the Big Red 1. The 28th Division would therefore take up positions on either flank of the salient Abrams was extending into the forest with his drive. A big supply column had come over the bridges at Vise, and so on the morning of the 6th, Patton told his division commanders to crank things up. He would have plentiful supply for the next three days.

  Just east of the town, another band of thick woods cut across the main road, which would restrict the tanks to column for the next kilometer. This time the woods were defended by the 27th Panzergrenadier Regiment of 12th Volksgrenadiers. Before trying those woods, two companies of US tanks, with 25 heavies, lined up to fire into the dark eaves of the forest, just in case there were hidden AT guns there.

  A heavy rain started just after dawn, so there would be no help from the P-47’s that day. But the US brought in artillery fires to either side of the road, the rounds snapping trees and sending a shower of broken branches and splinters down on anything below them. It was the last place the Germans wanted to be, particularly when they knew the relatively safe and heavy bunkers of the Siegfried Line were just three kilometers behind them.

  The newly arrived 16th RCT from 1st Division was tasked with moving out north of Roetgen to clear the woods on that flank, and they soon came up against the fortified line, just 500 meters into the woods. A relic of the first war, where fortified lines could hold for months, the Siegfried Line had fallen into disrepair between the wars. Metal had been pilfered from the obstacles and doors for use in the Atlantic wall, so in one sense, the Allies had already penetrated the bones of the line when they landed in the Pas-de-Calais.

  As for the rest, many bunkers had been flooded with rainfall over the years. Of those where the doors remained intact, some were missing keys. Equipment for the ventilation systems would not run. Vegetation clogged the firing slits, and no AT gun above 37mm could be used. By this time, those guns were mostly missing from the TO&E of most German units, so there would be little or no AT fire coming from the bunkers.

  Hitler had ordered the line repaired before his death, and thousands of laborers had worked to clear overgrowth that was blocking fields of fire, re-digging trench lines, building earthworks with log roofs, re-sewing minefields and re-stringing wire. Farmers had dumped tons of dirt over the dragon’s teeth in places so they could run their carts over them, and all this had to be cleared to expose the dull white concrete teeth again. 37mm AA guns would be used instead of AT guns, and that was the heaviest caliber gun installed in the bunkers, except in the high ground fronting Aachen in the State Forest. Here, special work had been done on the bunkers to install several artillery size guns.

  Looked at on a map, the entire area around Aachen resembled the skeletal maw of a great white shark, with serrated rows of teeth lining the edges. The bottom jaw was the Scharnhorst Line south of the city, the upper portion being the Schill Line to the north. The fortified lines surrounded the entire city, meeting one another again on either side. 2nd Armored Division had been hammering at that line all the previous day, finally punching through near the town of Schmidthof on the road to Stolberg.

  They might have passed on the lessons learned—that the Dragons Teeth were blunt, tough obstacles that would resist demolition charges and remain standing. Artillery would not harm them, and engineers found that simple Bangalore torpedoes were useless in attempting to clear a path through them. It could take up to 50 pounds of explosives st
rapped to a single concrete tooth to demolish it, and they sat in rows, twenty deep, one every few feet, a perfect obstacle against armor and vehicles.

  As for the concrete bunkers themselves, once behind those eight foot thick walls, the German troops were simply immune to shelling. The tanks fired point blank at the bunkers with no effect. Tank destroyers chipped away at one bunker with as many as fifty rounds, and still could not suppress the enemy MG fire when the infantry advanced. Creeping in close, the troops fired bazookas, which had even less effect. Then they mounted beehive explosives near the steel doors, and when that failed, someone got hold of a case of Teller Mines and the infantry got behind one bunker and stacked them up by the dozens to detonate them in one mighty blast, but the doors held and the structure remained unphased.

  If shock would not break those bunkers, they next turned to fire, using napalm, white phosphorus rounds, and flamethrowers aimed at the embrasures. The enemy would still not surrender. The bunkers had multiple rooms, side passages to lower levels, hidden ventilation shafts, and the troops inside would simply retire to these positions under any heavy pounding, the worst discomfort being the powder shaken from the concrete walls making breathing difficult as the Americans hammered at their redoubt.

  “Hell,” said a Lieutenant. “Get a call into Colonel Hutton. We’ll have to bring up the 155’s and hit those damn bunkers at point blank range with high explosive rounds.”

  They tried that on one position, hitting it with 15 rounds from a big self-propelled 155. It smashed through five feet of concrete, leaving the bunker looking like a broken tooth, but there were still another three feet to get through after that. Thankfully, the German platoon inside that one had had enough after that pounding, and they stuck a white flag out of the forward embrasure, preferring captivity instead of death by immolation when the GIs moved in with flame throwers to try and finish what the 155’s had started.