Rhinelander (Kirov Series Book 40)

by Schettler, John

  “The Hun is fighting hard for Aachen,” said Patton. “I reckon there may be 30,000 troops in that pocket, and they won’t give up. That’s just one reason I decided to postpone any crossing of the Roer. I’ve got three infantry and two armored divisions in that fight. 1st Armored is at Alsdorf here, ready to go for Julich when the situation permits, but I’ll need another infantry division.”

  “What’s Collins doing?” asked Eisenhower.

  “I moved him up here, towards Hasselt, but he still hasn’t received his last two infantry divisions.”

  “Can’t say I could keep them supplied even if they were there,” said Ike. “Yes, I think it best to wait on the Roer crossing until we finish up at Aachen. Do you plan on sending Collins in there to help out?”

  “Not exactly,” said Patton. “In fact, I’d like to leave him right where he is for a few days. General, my G-2, Oscar Koch, came to me two weeks ago with a line on what he thinks the Germans have been up to. Those missing Panzer divisions have been concentrating, and in a place that could spell trouble.”

  “Where?”

  “Behind Roermond, hidden in all this woodland,” Patton gestured at the wall map. “And also here, between Liege and Verviers.”

  “Odd,” said Ike. “I would have thought they would be east of the Roer, and screening Koln. They know we’re bound to be going after Julich and Duren soon.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Patton. “That’s where they would be if von Rundstedt was actually calling the shots, but I think he’s been overruled by OKW. Remember, Zeitzler is out, and Manstein runs the show over there now. I think he’s ceded command in the West to Guderian, and General, I think they’re going to attack. The only reason why they would be in those buildup areas is to stage a big offensive.”

  “George, we’ve seen the same intelligence,” said Bradley. “I’ve had one group telling me that this concentration in the south is just using the road and rail net to work into my sector in the Ardenne. There’s no way they’d pull off a crossing of the Meuse that close to Liege. As for that group up north, my G-2 thinks it may be there to try and undercut O’Connor’s position, and make him think twice about pushing on the Emmerich Bridgehead.”

  “General O’Connor? What do you make of that?” Eisenhower looked to the British General.

  “A real possibility,” said O’Connor. “I’ve pulled two Armored Divisions out recently, and thankfully, your General Middleton has covered for that, but I’m a little hesitant to ship them into North Holland, precisely because of what General Patton has pointed out. However, if they were going to try and argue with me for the Emmerich Bridge, I’d expect them to be a good deal farther north, probably here, along what we call the Hochwald Layback. That would put them within fifteen kilometers of the bridge, but we’ve seen no buildup there.”

  “George, are you suggesting they may try to break out there and cross the Meuse?”

  “They still have a small bridgehead at Roermond,” said Patton. Middleton is moving up his 44th Division to reduce that soon, but my G-2 says he’s found the HQ of this 5th Panzer Army under Steiner. And it’s right behind those woods east of Roermond. That ‘Group,’ as you call it, Brad, is now all of five SS Panzer Divisions strong. That’s what Bletchley Park thinks.”

  “What? You‘ve confirmed that?”

  “My Colonel Koch says he huddled with Bletchley Park, and they worked up the order of battle for Steiner’s Army. In fact, when he was in his prime in Russia, that’s how he’d fight, with five of those murderous Nazi meat grinders in one big horde.”

  “Bletchley Park may have picked up orders assigning those units, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the troops are actually there.” Bradley wasn’t convinced. “You can’t have any ground intelligence, because nothing could get over the Roer these last two weeks. Do you have photo intelligence?”

  Bedell Smith, came in with Spaatz and Tedder, the two Air Marshals on the beat. He had a worried look on his face, and a fist full of signals copy.

  “Lots of traffic in the air tonight,” he said. “Not to mention the rain.”

  They could see his hat and overcoat were drenched. He walked up to Eisenhower and handed him a message. “Germans are moving up to the Roer,” he said. “Right up in your area George, near Roermond. 2nd Infantry’s G-2 just said there was a lot of enemy infantry patrol activity tonight. Robertson says he thinks the 64th division is coming out of that bunker line behind the river and reclaiming the west bank. They must think you’re coming for them, Georgie.”

  “They’re leaving their bunkers to come forward?” Patton didn’t like the sound of that. “That division is second or third tier. General O’Connor here handed them their hats in Operation Comet.”

  “Doesn’t seem like much of an attack, George,” said Bradley. “They’re probably just establishing forward outposts on the river. They know we’ve been planning to cross.”

  “That may be so, Brad, but my G-2 says Steiner is right there behind them, and I’m inclined to believe him. That’s another story altogether. If those bastards come forward, we’ve got a problem.”

  Now he laid out the evidence that had already led him to make certain preparations in the event of an enemy attack, but he said nothing of that. All he wanted to do now was make his case, the aerial photos in the south, the rail movements, the ULTRA intercepts, those heavy tanks, Steiner. “Any armor in that movement up north?” he asked.

  “No General,” said Smith, “just aggressive infantry patrols up to the west bank.”

  “It’ll be coming. I think they’re going to hit us up there, and possibly even attempt to cross the Meuse. They’re moving up infantry to clear their bridging sites on the rivers.”

  “To what end?” asked Bradley. “They must know we won’t be using Antwerp for months, if at all, so where would they be going?”

  “Hell,” said Patton. “We ought to let them go all the way to Paris. Then we turn on them and cut them to pieces.”

  That got a laugh, but then Patton was serious. “Ike, we’ve also identified the 17th SS down south near Liege, along with photos of heavy armor, and you know 2nd Armored was back there somewhere too. If you want my bet, I’d say they’re planning a classic German pincer operation. And to answer the question as to where they’re going, I’d say they’re coming for us—right here—Maastricht.” He pointed his finger at the floor. “This is where they would close the pincers. By god, they’re trying to bag my entire army!”

  “Settle down George,” said Bradley. “They’re in no condition to attempt anything like that, and if they do, it would probably just be a spoiling attack.”

  “Well,” said Ike. “We’ll eat, and discuss this further over a few hands of bridge. Any takers?”

  “Bridge?” Patton seemed flabbergasted. “Ike, that’s what they’re playing out there now, the Germans. If this is a prelude to a major attack, then the bridging engineers will be coming up next. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to have my G-2 get word to Robertson and McBride. Maybe they can clue us in on things.”

  “Fine with me, George, but you ought to eat first. You can be a bear on an empty stomach.”

  Patton offered a forced smile, but before they adjourned to the dining room, he pulled aside his aide Codman, and whispered an order. “You tell Creighton Abrams and Prichard at 1st Armored to make sure they top off the tanks and get ready to move. Get hold of Hap Gay and have him order Rose and 3rd Armored to suspend any further attack on the Aachen pocket, and turn their turf over to 4th Infantry. Rose and Pritchard are to get up to Palenburg and west of the Wurm. Understand? And one more thing. Get hold of Collins at Hasselt. Tell him I want his Corps fired up and ready to move. I’ll be back in the General staff room first thing in the morning. I may be crying wolf here, but I want the whole place ready to rumble when I get there.”

  “Yes sir.” The aid rushed away, and Patton tried to compose himself. He’d have more to say over dinner.

  * * *

 
The night of August 31st, Corporal Romano had a lot to hear on the telephone wires while the Generals were playing cards. He scratched his head, looking for Sergeant Jenks.

  “Hey Sarge,” he said. “I think the Krauts are sending out another code word.”

  “What is it this time?” said Jenks. “First it’s the fog, then pig’s breath. What are they talking about now, the rain?”

  “No sir, the river. The Rhine, sir. Heard it five times now—Rhinelander, Rhinelander, Wacht Am Rhein. That last one is a battle hymn. I think something’s up.”

  Chapter 12

  The troops in the field heard that hymn, a low, dull rumble in the night, the sound of big engines turning over, and heavy things moving in the dark. In hidden positions at the heart of both assembly areas, artillery tubes were elevating, the crews tense and waiting at their stations, the gunnery officers squinting at their watches in the dark.

  Whole segments of bridges had already been constructed and loaded up onto great flatbed trucks. In front of them, Panzergrenadiers would advance with assault boats, ready to try the swift stream of the Roer and the wider flows of the Meuse. Inside Roermond, long columns of halftracks and trucks lined every street—the 9th SS Panzer Division. They were ready to cross the bridge that the Germans had stubbornly held, and 19th Panzergrenadier Regiment would be west of the Meuse by dawn. To the north, 20th Panzergrenadier Regiment would make the assault boat crossing to secure a small bridgehead so the bridging companies could get busy. Behind them was all of 10th SS division, and Willi Bittrich eager to push them over that river.

  Up came the stubby barreled heavy Nebelwerfers, emerging from the eaves of the Elmpterwald, they would stop and form a long line, two kilometers behind the Roer. Then the great dark host followed, 1st and 2nd SS Panzer Divisions moving up to the river. Those two divisions alone held over 30,000 men, as much as everything Patton had pocketed and surrounded by five of his own divisions at Aachen. They would attack side by side, on a front about nine kilometers wide, the only initial obstacle being the Roer. Hundreds of assault boats would be used, and behind them came those pre-fabricated bridges. Two major vehicle bridges were planned, and four foot bridges. In the meantime, it would be work for the German artillery and Panzergrenadiers.

  At precisely 04:00, a thousand guns and rocket tubes would fire, and soon the thrum of vehicle engines and the clatter of moving infantry was drowned out by a tremendous roar. In the north, 40 battalions of artillery made the greatest German barrage of the war in the West, and for the first time, the startled soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division would endure the kind of pounding that they routinely delivered on the heads of their enemies. There was a very high percentage of heavier caliber artillery, 155mm or better, and those big guns thundered away, the rounds tearing up the ground as they walked through the lines of the GIs.

  The American infantry was in fox holes and using most any building in the area, but there were very few hardened defensive points. After all, they had not seen a credible German counterattack for six months, and had no reason to expect one there. The last two weeks had been lazy times, watching the wide swollen flow of the Roer, reading letters over and over, playing poker in the fox holes with cigarettes used for chips. 2nd Infantry was not the 106th. It was a veteran unit, but they were in no way ready for what was coming at them out of the darkness that morning.

  That storm of artillery fire heralded the attack, watched by a fat gibbous moon, near full, and very low as it began to set. At 4:26, that moon would be down, and all would be inky dark, except for the fire and fury of that artillery. Supply trucks exploded, jeeps were hurled into the air by near misses. Men died. The barrage fell heaviest on the 9th Regiment closest to Roermond, its lines just behind the Roer extending southeast. Then came 23rd Regiment, also heavily pounded in the 2SS crossing sector. 38th Regiment should have been in reserve behind those two forward deployed regiments, but there had been too much ground to cover. Instead it was east of the 23rd, on the Roer forward of Heinsberg, its right flank at the confluence of the Roer and Wurm.

  That barrage went on for over two long hours, all while the infantry was dragging their assault boats down to the river, and preparing to cross. Sunrise would be at 06:49 that morning, and at 06:30, there came a great heavy roar with one more intense barrage. Then the far bank was hit with smoke shells, and a violet haze hung over the entire river valley, slowly becoming a thick grey smoke, dampened by a persistent light rain.

  Steiner’s legionnaires went into the river, the men scudding the boats into the water, and leaping in. All the while, the German artillery continued firing into the great smoke screen they had laid, but very little fire was coming back. Here and there, a desultory mortar round would plop into the river, but the attack had come as a complete surprise, at a time and place the troops had never expected.

  They were not ready.

  In F Company, II Battalion, 9th Regiment, the Company CO was dead, and of the nine rifle squads that had been getting ready for breakfast, only enough men to make up three squads remained alive. The rest had died under that terrible artillery barrage. D-Company had four squads left, and both had turned and fled southwest, away from the terror of those heavy killing rounds. Easy Company came off the best, losing only a third of its men. But that was half the battalion or more down and dead, arms and legs blown off, medics scrambling forward to the fox holes, only to be hit and blown sky high. III Battalion fared little better, with twelve squads blown to hell of the 27 squads it fielded that morning.

  Field lines were completely torn up, but at Division HQ, General Walter Robertson’s staff was receiving frantic radio calls saying the enemy was mounting a major river crossing operation. As soon as he heard that, Robertson knew this had to be something big. The thunder of those gins was enough to cement that in his mind, and now he had to react quickly. There were no casualty reports at that early hour, but it was clear that the forward line had been pounded senseless, and badly hurt by those enemy guns.

  They weren’t ready….

  Robertson cursed aloud, knowing that it had been hubris, as much as the thickened flow of muddy water in that river, that had led he and his men to be so complacent.

  “God damnit , he said to Brigadier General James Van Fleet, his Deputy Commander. “Jimmy, we just got caught with our pants down. Where’s that combat engineer battalion?”

  “Sir? The 178th is back near Linne, south of that big U-turn in the Meuse. The 168th is at Maasbracht setting up that bridge south of the Wessem Ferry.”

  “Alright. From the sound of the pain I’m hearing on the radio, they hit 2nd and third battalions damn hard, but 1st Battalion up near Roermond came off better. They’re about to be cut off if the enemy is crossing here in force. Let’s get them out of there—order them to fall back and reestablish their left flank right on the nose of that big bend in the river. As for the 178th Engineers, get them forward towards St. Odilienberg. Get that tank company outside up into the woods astride the road to set up a blocking position. We’ve got to start building a shoulder, because they’re going to go right through the 9th Regiment, as God is my witness.”

  It wasn’t God’s watch that morning, but the Devil’s.

  * * *

  The barrage in the south was every bit as intense as that in the north, with 35 battalions firing werfers, heavy guns, and all divisional batteries joining in. It would smash into the lines of the 80th Infantry Division, inflicting very heavy casualties. At Division HQ, McBride would not know how bad it was for hours, but men enough to flesh out 28 of the 81 squads in his 318th Regiment close to Liege were already dead or dying on the line under those guns. 317 Regiment, where Berg’s troops and the 116th Panzer Division were on the attack, would suffer even heavier losses. D-Company was reduced to a single squad, and I-Company could not stand up even that many riflemen, completely wiped out. There was nothing left but the HQ squad, three BAR teams, a few mortarmen and a single scout car.

  General McBride had all three
regiments on the line here as well, reaching east towards Verviers. The Germans had stayed just forward of the thin flow of the Vesdre River, which was no more than 100 feet wide. They already had eight preexisting road and rail bridges there, and would quickly throw down numerous foot bridges to aid the infantry crossings.

  17th SS advanced across the Ourthe Canal easily enough, storming into the suburbs of Liege at Grivegnee. They pushed relentlessly, the dark uniformed infantry racing through the streets, tossing grenades into windows as they passed each building, and sweeping up to the old Fort de la Chartruse near Bonne Femme, and the WWI graveyard beyond it at Robermont. There a silent stone relief sits in a great arc before the graves, inscribed with the words “Pour le Patrie – Pour l’Humanite.”

  On the right flank of the SS, Brigadier Berg was punching through the line near Fort de Chaudfontaine, which today is a wooded hill that has been transformed into an amusement park called “Fort Adventure.” In our time, the area harbors wellness centers, a “Dude Ranch,” swim club, and even a Coca-Cola factory by the river, all frowned over by the great basilica and monastery of Notre Dame de Chevremont.

  Now the only adventure at those forts would be the desperate attempt by the men of the 80th Infantry Division to hold them, each man hoping he would not be joining the rows of white crosses in the grave yard at Robermont. On the hill above, the old bells were sounding the alarm at the basilica, as if history itself was crying out its warning.

  Berg’s Leopards came up on the ready reaction company, 80th Recon troop, that had been unlucky enough to rush forward towards the river after the artillery lifted. Now the troopers gaped in awe at the sight of those massive tanks rolling towards them, the long barrels turning this way and that, spitting deadly fire as the tanks charged. They saw shells fired by an M-36 90mm tank destroyer bounce harmlessly off that heavy frontal armor, and a feeling of doom came over them.