Rhinelander (Kirov Series Book 40)

by Schettler, John

  The 80th and 8th Divisions in the south were fighting, but each was double teamed by two strong Panzer divisions. They were not going to stop them, and were relying on artillery, attached tank and TD battalions, and sheer guts to try and hold the line. Every patrol they had made for the last month had confirmed that they were simply facing off against a single German infantry division, so to suddenly be hammered by this kind of mechanized force was a great shock.

  It was actually three divisions piling on to the 80th Division, 17th SS, The Führer Begleit and Grenadier Brigades, with Berg, (now collectively called the Führer Sturm Division ), and the 116th Panzers. At Verviers further east, 7th and 2nd Panzers were attacking to either side of that city against 8th Infantry. Beyond the edge of that fight, all was calm and quiet. The German 319th had not attacked from the lower Hurtgenwald, and the 28th Infantry Division lines were deathly still. They could hear the distant rumble of the enemy guns and the sounds of battle to the west, but here was another US division with all three regiments wrapped around that dark forest edge, and its mobile reserve, the 701st Tank and 603th TD Battalions, were far to the east near Monschau. What the US really needed now was an armored division to get into that fight, but none were at hand.

  Patton had already given orders to rectify that, and Abrams and 1st Armored were already on the move. The bridge game broke up at midnight, and the Generals retired, only to be awakened at 04:00 by the ringing of damn near every telephone in Lucky Forward. Aids were running down the halls of the old fort where the HQ had been set up, knocking on one door after another. They found Patton’s room empty, for the General was already up. He had troubled sleep, frustrated with the frivolity of Eisenhower’s bridge game, the nonsense chatter at the table, interspersed with gloomy talk about supply shortages, radiation at Antwerp, and other ways in which the Army could no longer fight as it did. The weather did not help either.

  He had risen early, knelt briefly while he whispered a silent prayer, then he strode out, helmet on, riding crop in hand, and all his many decorations prominently on his jacket breast. The sound of his footfalls seemed to be in rhythm with the distant sound of the enemy guns, faint and far away. He had heard it at the edge of his sleep, knowing it was not thunder, and the only other man to sit bolt upright without being awakened that early morning was General Richard O’Connor. He had heard it too.

  By the time Eisenhower and the others came into the briefing room, Patton was already at the map directing aids to update it with any report that came in. Ike put his hands on his hips and smiled, seeing Patton in full battle dress.

  “Don’t just stand there,” said Patton. “Begging you pardon, but Goddammit, Ike, I told you they were up to no good. So far we’ve identified four Nazi SS divisions up north, two crossing the Meuse, and two crossing the Roer. Down south here we’ve fingered three Wehrmacht Panzer divisions, one SS division, and one other group that we can’t seem to identify.” He looked at Bradley, who was standing beside Ike, slack jawed as he looked at the map. “Brad, this is no damn spoiling attack.”

  “Alright,” said Ike. “Now we have to decide what we can do about it. George, what have you got in reserve?”

  “I’m going to attack in 24 hours with three armored Divisions.”

  “What? I thought they were all committed.”

  “No sir, I gave orders to Abrams last night before dinner, and told him I wanted his mobile elements topped off, formed up, and ready to move this morning. His division pulled out of Roetgen an ten minutes ago. 1st and 3rd Armored are formed up as well, and ready to roll.”

  “Georgie, you never cease to amaze me. What’s Your story?”

  “Reports are sketchy. Their artillery chewed up all the field lines, but I’ve ordered forward units to use radio. The 80th is getting hit hard. Their 17th SS Division looks like it’s trying to get into Liege to grab some bridges. I’ve ordered the engineers to stand by, but not to blow anything without my direct authorization. I’ll need those bridges to counterattack. Up north, 2nd Infantry is under heavy pressure too, but they’re fighting. My boys won’t run, but they’re taking heavy casualties up there.”

  Ike nodded gravely, all business now. Patton’s G-2 had been correct, in every respect, and he could only thank his luck rabbit’s foot that at least one of his Generals had the foresight to take the intelligence seriously and make some precautionary moves.

  “At least nine enemy Panzer divisions, and who knows what else is yet to come.” Ike rubbed his chin. “Alright, this is for all the roses. It’s going to take more than you have in hand to clean this up, George. We’ll have to call up everything we’ve got in reserve. You say Collins is up near Hasselt?”

  “Now you know why I moved him there with the three divisions he already had,” said Patton. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Well done. Brad, can you spring anything loose?”

  “I could probably squeeze out an infantry division. Collins already has two thirds of my armor.”

  “Alright, do that, and move it up behind Liege. George, Middleton isn’t here, but I don’t think he’s fully deployed on the line up near Venlo.”

  “Right,” said Patton. “I telephoned him ten minutes ago. He’s got Old Hickory in reserve, and they’re eating breakfast early today too. I’m going to bring 30th Infantry down behind the 5th. That should build a nice strong shoulder up there. Now all we need is a couple war chariots to counterattack and push those sons-of-bitches back over the Meuse.”

  General O’Connor had his hat in hand, but now he fixed it firmly on his head, and cleared his throat. “Well general,” he said. “You’ve got them. I’ll move XXX Corps south immediately. It looks like Holland will have to wait.”

  Part V

  Buying Time

  “Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting, and the cost gets ever higher.”

  —Haruki Murakami

  Chapter 13

  A lot of eventful things happened on the first day of September. The Mongols captured the Emperor of China in 1449. The Lady Anne Boleyn was made Marquess of Pembroke, on her way to a brief meteoric rise that was soon to end with her head in a basket. The so called “Carrington Event” saw a massive coronal mass ejection, triggering a huge geomagnetic storm in 1859. General John Bell Hood pulled out of Atlanta after a four month siege, turning it over to the implacable General Sherman. The Kanto Earthquake devastated Tokyo, killing over 100,000 people in 1923. And General George Marshall became the Chief of Staff of the US Army in 1939, as America darkly eyed the rise of the Third Reich, and the flames of war ignited in Europe when Germany invaded Poland.

  Now, on that day, five long years later. Germany was launching a desperate bid to escape defeat by dealing a mortal blow to the Allied armies in the West.

  * * *

  General Omar Bradley had been feeling like an old pair of boots. In the original history, he had been commander of 12th Army Group which at one point balooned to 43 divisions spread over many armies. Then he had been senior to Patton, but here he played second fiddle, shunted off to 5th Army in the battle for France, and now to 2nd Army in the Ardennes. He once had three armored divisions in hand, while the dashing General Patton controlled six. Now it seemed to him that his army was just a reserve formation, cherry picked by Patton at his whim. The latest cut was the transfer of 6th and 7th Armored Divisions to Collins, who would also get two more infantry divisions that had once been promised to Bradley.

  Brad knew that most of this was because the Ardennes sector was a backwaters now, yet it still had to be held. When Patton launched Operation Steamroller to push for the Meuse, Bradley had done his part, taking Dinant, and crossing the Meuse at three places, eventually securing Namur as well, and pushing as far east as Rochefort. Patton had stormed east into Liege, secured Maastricht and then crossed at Vise to encircle Aachen. O’Connor had helped secure Antwerp, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam, and
boldly seized a bridge over the Rhine at Emmerich.

  Bradley had sat looking at the woodland beyond Rochefort, knowing there was no road to victory there. Now, again, it was Patton who had sleuthed out the enemy’s intentions, giving warning on the very eve of this sudden new German offensive. Even now, Patton and O’Connor were taking charge, moving their armored divisions, and his ex-armored divisions, into positions to confront the German threat. And Bradley? He had thought he might squeeze out an infantry division.

  For the last several weeks, his troops had been fairly idle, though he stubbornly kept the 92nd Division on the line, instead of sending it to Collins as he had agreed earlier. Now he decided, almost spitefully, that this would be the division he had just agreed to send up behind Liege, thinking to kill two birds with one stone. He still had a sizable force, 9th, 26th, 34th, 88th, 91st, 92nd, all in Corlett’s Corps, with that last one schedule to be transferred. He had one Armored division, the 9th labeled “independent,” and then he had three more infantry divisions in Millikin’s V Corps, the General replacing Gerow, who went north to the Roermond area. Patton was even cherry picking his corps commanders.

  So Bradley was in a sour mood, sullen, feeling useless, just like those old unwanted boots. When he went back to his headquarters at Dinant, he stared at the map, trying to think of something he could do that would matter, instead of simply holding Patton’s hat and coat. Eventually, he decided to move forward, all the way to Rochefort, and see if he might continue his push there to put pressure on the southern flank of this unexpected German counterattack.

  Then he realized something. There were three more divisions in the Allied strategic reserve, the crack 82nd and 101st Airborne, and the new 17th Airborne. He knew there was no way Ike would ever authorize another paradrop, not after what had happened to the British 6th Paras. But if he got his pan hot enough, he might just convince Eisenhower to give him some fresh fish.

  It was a very fateful decision….

  * * *

  The 102nd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Valkenberg had also moved out that morning, heading north towards the storm breaking on the Roer. In the old history, it had been down near Monschau and the Elsenborn Ridge, but here it was the one Pawn that Patton had left untouched. Patton knew it could not confront a German Panzer Division, let alone two SS divisions, so he ordered them to move north, but to stop at Sittard and await further orders. The newly promoted Colonel Saunders had command, and he reached Sittard, sending out a few patrols north of that city to watch the roads.

  In the north, the Americans were stubbornly holding in a series of four towns west of the Meuse, Neer and Nunhem, were held by the US 5th Infantry Division. Haelen and Horn were held by the 71st Regiment of the 44th, which was just beyond the Roermond Bridgehead. 10th SS cleared the first two towns, and 9th SS had Haelen by mid-day, but could not take Horn. Both of Bittrich’s divisions were across the Meuse in force, and well concentrated for the big push to break out.

  That concentration in such a small area provided a ripe target for the US Artillery, which was now beginning to focus most of its fire to try and stop the 10th SS north of Roermond. That shoulder had to be held, and from his HQ in Panningen, General Irwin of the 5th Infantry began to order any loose battalions, and all his division assets south towards the fighting.

  South of Roermond, Steiner’s main attack now had all three of his SS divisions over the Roer. The advance of the 178th Combat Engineer Battalion into the tree line northeast of Monfort provided a strongpoint for the US, but elsewhere, Robertson’s 2nd Infantry was slowly being steamrolled, and fully half of Steiner’s force had yet to even engage the enemy.

  General Robertson ordered the engineers to move west towards the Meuse, hoping to hold a crust of the line from the hairpin bend in the river, south to Monfort. That force was composed of all that remained of his 9th Regiment, the 178th Combat engineers, two tank and tank destroyer companies he had sent forward from his HQ near Maasbracht on the river. East of that area, the 23rd Regiment could no longer hold the line. Brigadier Loveless ordered his men to fall back on a wooded ridge, and that move would leave a gap between his regiment and the 9th, four kilometers wide. 1st SS would be looking to exploit it that night.

  In the south, 17th SS probed into the eastern quarters of Liege, but it soon became clear that no concerted effort was being made to try and obtain a bridge over the Meuse. The bulk of the division was advancing past Herstal by dusk, with company detachments covering Liege, along with troops from the 245th Division.

  The Führer Sturm Division had smashed through 80th Infantry, sending its tattered regiments falling back to any safe ground they could find. 318th Regiment, nearest to Liege, had taken 40% casualties. 317th in the center was trying to save itself from being surrounded. Only the 319th fell back in good order, finding the flank of 8th Division troops fighting to hold Verviers. It now seemed that everything from that city to Liege had been busted wide open, but at Verviers itself, the 8th Division was digging in its heels and putting up a stiff fight.

  Knowing that could become a strongpoint, the German plan had been to break through on either side of the city, isolate it, and then proceed north, but Truscott, was going to do everything in his power to frustrate that plan. As always, the first weapon was artillery. A good number of heavy battalions had been gathered to pound Aachen, and now they turned their long barrels about, pointing them southwest towards Verviers. They could just range effectively on the 2nd Panzer Division, the right pincer in the German plan to envelop the city, and the steel rain began to fall. Truscott wanted that division stopped, and he was also fighting to at least preserve the fighting integrity of the 8th Infantry Division.

  By late afternoon, the newly crowned Lt. General Creighton Abrams had brought CCA of his Provisional Division west, above Eupen to the vicinity of Henri-Chapelle. CCB was right behind it, but the 442nd Infantry Regiment had been left behind in the Hurtgen Forest. Truscott did not think that single division was strong enough to advance further, and get embroiled with two or three German Panzer Divisions.

  Behind Abrams, CCB of the 5th Armored had pulled out of its battle north of the Hurtgenwald and raced south all day. As daylight faded, it had reached the vicinity of Schmidthof, right on the Westwall line that had been blown open weeks earlier. Truscott then ordered Harmon to suspend his attack into Aachen, and pull out CCA to send west. He was slowly going to close the fingers of a mailed fist, with four combat commands, and send them west. If nothing else, he would have more than enough power there to stop 2nd Panzer, bolster 8th Infantry, and build a strong shoulder as the enemy continued to push north.

  North of the Aachen Pocket, Old Ironsides had crossed the thin flows of the Wurm River at Palenberg, and sped southwest in the light rain, through Heerlen and on towards Valkenburg. That would put them in a good position to cover Maastricht from either side, depending on what the Germans did. Six battalions of Artillery from V Corps joined their march column, and 3rd Armored then crossed behind them.

  By sunset on the 1st of September the shock of the enemy offensive had worn off, the measure of its strength was taken, and the US Army was reacting. Patton’s war chariots were on the move, the equivalent of four US armored divisions. The 36th Division was also building a strong Regimental Combat Team, with the whole of its 142nd Regiment, the 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion, and the division recon elements. The danger ahead was still acute, for darkness would only add to the confusion on the battlefield, and the Germans were not stopping for tea.

  That night Steiner’s SS poured through the gap blown in the lines of the 2nd Infantry Division, the point of their advance aiming for Maeseyck on the Meuse. The men had plenty of rest before the operation commenced, and now the banshees would wail on through the long dark night. That attack would pose the gravest threat, because even though Bittrich was across the Meuse with both his divisions, his prospects did not look good.

  While the Germans had cleared the defensive positions out of the towns,
now the Americans were in a belt of woodland behind Horn, and digging in. That part of the offensive was, in fact, the spoiling attack. It was meant to keep available reserves in the north committed there, so as not to permit them to cross the Meuse and attempt to stop Steiner. In that regard, it was working. Both the 5th and now the 44th US Divisions were pulled into that battle, and nothing had crossed at the best bridge in the area, Maeseyck. Steiner knew he needed to get there as soon as possible, not to cross the Meuse himself, but to prevent the Americans from building up a bridgehead there, which they could use to strike at his flank as he continued south.

  The contingency plan in the north was to evaluate the cross Meuse situation on a daily basis, and if it was not deemed productive, the divisions could be withdrawn east of the Meuse, where one of Bittrich’s two divisions should be sufficient to stand on defense, while the other moved south to support Steiner’s drive.

  As situation reports came in to Guderian, he could now see the wisdom Manstein had brought to the strategy table, insisting that the cross Meuse operation was unwise, and the prospects would be much better if the bulk of the forces remained east of the river, using it as a shield as they drove on Maastricht.

  That night Colonel Nelson of the 324th Regiment, 44th Division, sent two battalions across the Meuse at Maeseyck to join the 168th and 159th Combat Engineer Battalions, which had already deployed there to begin building that bridgehead. A bridge had been thrown across the Meuse at Maasbracht, and General Robinson withdrew his HQ, and all of Hirschfelder’s 9th Regiment, west of the Meuse. It was a sullen march, the men of a proud division knowing they had just taken hard punch to the gut. Reports indicated that the enemy had already bypassed Hirschfelder’s position, and there was no point holding in that exposed and dangerously fluid situation. What was left of that regiment would be put to much better use covering the ferry sites at Wessem, Maasbracht, and Stevensweerd, and also backstopping the 114th Regiment of the 44th Division, which was fighting just four kilometers to the north against 9th SS.