Global Conflict

by Tom Zola

  Is there something cooking after all? the lieutenant contemplated, panting. The lack of sleep and food affected his condition noticeably.

  Scheisse, now the Russians attack, when it's almost bedtime, he complained in his thoughts.

  Soviet fighters appeared in the airspace, entangling the German planes in dogfights. Glowing projectiles buzzed across the sky like burning threads. Suddenly a German Messerschmitt Bf-109 spewed fine smoke before she caught fire. The slender propeller machine with the thick crossbeam behind the pilot's cabin lost height, rushed towards the ground, and finally vanished in a gigantic explosion that ignited the surrounding trees. No parachute was seen. All of a sudden, a constant thunder of guns firing and shells exploding started in the distance. The new sounds of war came from the south and mingled threateningly with the siren sounding at the airfield.

  There's definitely something cooking! Engelmann had almost reached the forest where his company was bivouacking. Within the blink of an eye, the enemy artillery fire stopped. The last salvo dug more earth out of the ground behind the hangars. A Bf-109 had apparently rolled into a crater while taking off – some men tried to push it out of the hole. From a distance, it looked as if the ground had swallowed a wing of the fighter.

  When Engelmann finally reached his panzers, he was relieved to find that Nitz and the others were already there. Once again Nitz proved to Engelmann how valuable a staff sergeant he was: all the crews were already sitting in their vehicles, and the camouflage material had been removed. The company was on stand-by for action.

  The lieutenant jumped on Franzi’s hull and climbed through the commander's hatch into the turret. Expectant looks greeted him.

  "Situation report," Engelmann demanded from Nitz. The staff sergeant plucked his mustache and replied, "The enemy will attack up the Belgorod-Kharkov road."

  "They want this airfield," Münster remarked, but Engelmann abruptly cut off his words: "Shut up, Münster. Let Papa do the talking."

  "The regiment has lost all comms with the kampfgruppe. They cut the phone lines!"

  "Damned partisans," Münster spat out. He had opened his hatch and looked out at the airfield.

  "Shut up, for God's sake! Nitz, what are our orders?" The lieutenant pulled his headset over his head and adjusted the throat microphone.

  "Burgsdorff has ordered all units to stand by. He must have sent a messenger to Sieckenius … "

  " … and until then we keep still?" Engelmann finished the sentence. "And do nothing, while the Russians are on the move?" The lieutenant was upset. Then he whispered, "Burgsdorff, that damn reservist … "

  "Stuck here, we are no good for anything. We should be supporting the front line!" Ludwig said, reaping Engelmann's approval, even if he did not say so.

  "If we're unlucky, the Ivans will be here soon anyway," Nitz returned with a painful grimace. One could literally see his tenacious back pain.

  Engelmann stretched his upper body out of the cupola and looked down the apron. The Corps' planes were still taking off with roaring engines. Suddenly, Russian Hurricane fighters, painted olive and with red stars, swept across the airfield and fired at the planes trying to get off the ground. Fountains of soil erupted. Asphalt patches so large that even Engelmann could see them were ripped open and scattered across the runway. The German anti-aircraft guns, on the other hand, remained silent, because with all the blue forces in the sky, the hazard of friendly fire was real. Before the Russian fighters pulled up and disappeared into the sky, one of them managed to hit a German Stuka that had just gained enough speed to be able to get off the ground with his last shots. The dirt fountains breezed in two long rows towards the German bird and struck sparks as the bullets battered it. The hit aircraft went into a spin and tipped over on its nose so that the propeller broke off on the ground. Then the Stuka flipped over and slammed the stern rudder and the cockpit window into the runway and stopped. Immediately a jet of flame erupted, billowing black smoke into the air.

  Engelmann had witnessed the scene with a queasy feeling. He tapped his throat microphone, then leaned down into his vehicle and said, "Battle mode! Turn on the tin can and get me on the air."

  "Yep, Sepp." With these words, Münster turned the ignition key while Nitz switched on the radio. Franzi, the steel monster, came to life, rumbling.

  "Anna 1 to all. Prepare for battle. Stand by to proceed south."

  "Anna 2," Gunthermann's voice cracked in the headphones.

  "Anna 3," confirmed Klaus, commander of the third panzer. The tankers of the company had gotten used to only giving their call signs as confirmation of a radio message, since these were short and thus valuable seconds were saved in battle.

  "Hans, step on it and make our way into the open. I need to get an overview."

  Münster obeyed and Franzi hit the road. The tank lunged forward, left the protection of the treetops, and drove out into the open space. Engelmann held on to one lid of his hatch with his one good hand. Concentrating, he sized up the airbase’s hasty scramble. The last German airplanes had just taken off and gotten into the sky. Meanwhile, the ground crews were in turmoil. The lieutenant saw dozens of men running around like fruit flies in the distance. The radio crackled on; Engelmann's headset was tuned to the company frequency.

  "The airfield is under fire with light arms from the west." Nitz's Leipzig dialect gave each of his words a very special intonation.

  "From the west …?" Münster wondered.

  "From the west?" Engelmann asked the same question, and began to ponder: "Partisans, perhaps?" West of the airfield lay a large forest area of many hectares. Intel had already suspected partisan camps there in the past. Wehrmacht troops had therefore taken action against suspected forces in the forest, but without success.

  "That's not all," Nitz shouted. "The Luftwaffe suspects that Russian airborne troops will be landing here any minute now."

  "Where's here?"

  "Somewhere in the area. Russian transport planes are heading straight for the airfield."

  "They'd never be so stupid and jump right onto the airfield," Münster snorted.

  "Silence, Hans," the lieutenant bellowed, wringing a bewildered expression out of Münster's face. Engelmann looked into the sky. The yellow star up there shone particularly brightly that afternoon, making the lieutenant squint. Minutes later, he recognized a buzzing fleet of large Soviet aircrafts in the distance. The planes were twin-piston-engined Lisunovs with a wingspan of 30 meters, and the olive color typical of the Red Army. The Americans used the same aircraft but called it a Douglas DC-3.

  Immediately the German fighters, who were still in aerial combat with their Soviet counterparts, broke off and went for the crowd of Russian transport aircraft. But the Lisunovs' escort was alert and pushed the Germans away. On both sides, burning planes went down.

  Engelmann meanwhile counted twenty-one Russian transport aircrafts, which gave him sweaty hands. There was a whole battalion up there! And indeed: Russian paratroopers wanted to jump into the middle of the airfield while anti-aircraft shells – the gunners no longer paid any attention to risking blue planes – burst between the Lisunovs and covered the sky with black clouds of smoke. The cargo doors of the transport aircrafts opened and tiny men jumped out. Seconds later, their parachutes drew mushrooms into the sky. They slowly sailed towards the airfield.

  "Prepare to defend against enemy airborne," the lieutenant yelled into the company channel. The other tank commanders immediately confirmed.

  "Ludwig, to the machine gun!"

  Engelmann closed his eyes and focused on the plain and its high grass, which lay between his company and the airfield. That was hundreds of feet of level terrain. Everywhere around him Panzer III and Panzer IV awoke and rolled out of their revetments, but the enemy could not be underestimated. To take excellently-trained paratroopers with unsupported armor was no walk in the park. In addition, the air battle was still hot up in the sky. Two-seater Il-2 Shturmoviks – nicknamed "Black Death" or "Slaughterer"
by the Germans – now thronged the airspace. The German fighter planes were still very busy, therefore they could probably not guarantee absolute protection of their own panzers on the ground.

  The first of the enemy paratroopers landed between hangars, right in the crowd of Luftwaffe ground personnel. A gruesome brawl broke out. From Engelmann's perspective, it looked as if tiny ants were pouncing on each other. And more paratroopers landed – more and more. Every second they struck the earth, freed themselves from their silk chutes, pulled out their weapons, and entered the fight. Shots and screams echoed over to Engelmann. Only now did the lieutenant notice the Russian gliders, which descended silently through the air. They were thick-bellied and had a kind of needle on their muzzle. They were rapidly approaching the ground. Finally, they slammed down on the open field; they furrowed through the meadow for a few dozen meters before they came to a standstill. Part of the small fuselages and the long wings disappeared in the high grass and between the ferns. Engelmann figured that the gliders bring the paratroopers’ heavy weapons.

  "Burgsdorff says we’re off the chain! Our company is to move over the open to the forest edge and take firing positions there. The others will secure the airfield." Nitz passed on the message that had just come in via radio.

  So to the open field with that damned high grass! There, where the enemy could hide easily. The lieutenant thought for some seconds and then gave the marching order. Immediately the panzers of 9th Company started to move. Like primeval dinosaurs, the German tanks mowed down the grass. Engelmann had Nitz switch briefly to the other company frequencies, where he made arrangements with their COs.

  "Move over to the right. We take the right flank, next to the 10th," he finally said into his throat microphone. Anna 2 and 3 confirmed and maneuvered to the right. Together with Franzi, the three panzers lined up in a row next to each other facing the forest on the other side of the battlefield. They pushed their way through the grass while the hostile paratroopers landed in front of them, lined up as if they were pearls on a necklace, and immediately disappeared into the dense ground vegetation.

  "Fire on the gliders as soon as you have a clear sight on them," Engelmann ordered, then leaned over to Ludwig and nudged him.

  "Slant to the left, there's a glider!" Ludwig nodded and aligned the main gun with the target, which was about 400 meters ahead of them in the high grass. Only one of the wings was sticking out of the vegetation. It was tricky to spot the enemy at all.

  "HE, Siggi!"

  "Jawohl, Herr Leutnant." Jahnke loaded the appropriate shell. The cannon's breech slammed shut.

  "Battle mode, Siggi," Engelmann reminded.

  "Yes, Herr ... Engelmann ... Herr Josef."

  "Goddamned kiddos in uniform," Nitz said and grinned sourly. Then Engelmann told his driver to stop. Franzi came to a halt, groaning mechanically.

  "Fire, Theo!"

  Ludwig shot, but missed. A balloon of dirt and fire rose up in the air next to the target. Immediately the next shell went into the loader, and Ludwig pressed the electric trigger again. Score! A ball of flames swallowed the glider; nearby red paratroopers threw themselves to the ground. Münster picked up speed again and accelerated. In this very moment, a hard blow thundered against Franzi’s armor.

  Anti-Panzer rifles. This thought raced through Engelmann’s mind, and he disappeared into his cupola. He quickly closed the lid flaps. With enemy paratroopers nearby, he really didn't have to be out there.

  Muzzle flashes were to be seen all around the battleground. The paratroopers lurked everywhere in this goddamn grass, and could move as they liked thanks to the dense vegetation. Again an anti-tank rifle projectile banged against Engelmann's tank and scorched the steel.

  "Hopefully the armor will hold!" Münster screamed in the racket.

  Suddenly it got loud on the radio circuit. "Tanks from the left! 800!" Klaus yelled.

  Huh? was Engelmann's first thought. He turned to the right side and blinked his eyelids in amazement.

  "What's that?" blurted the lieutenant.

  "Tiger! TIGER! HOSTILE TIGER!" was the only message on the radio ether. Exactly in front of 3rd Company, which still had 38 armored vehicles, the wood cracked as a white-painted Tiger tank, on whose flanks huge red stars were emblazoned, fought its way out of the woods. With the power of 700 horses, the brute’s panzer tracks ground up tree trunks and undergrowth. When the steel monster reached the edge of the forest, it stopped and immediately fired. The shell ripped up the ground at 11th Company's panzers and covered them with dirt like a bell. Instantly Engelmann saw the panzers of 11th Company stop, while those of the 10th had already turned around and gone full throttle. For a short moment, Engelmann was amused by the realization that an enemy Tiger had the same psychological effect on the Germans as a German Tiger often had on the Russians.

  "AP shell!" the lieutenant yelled, and Jahnke executed the order. Münster shouted excitedly: "I knew it was stolen!"

  "All right, now you can say it," bellowed Engelmann.

  "Say what?"

  "What you said earlier."

  "What, hopefully the armor will hold?"

  "Prior to that."

  "Never are they that stupid, to jump right onto the airfield?"

  "Prior to that."

  "From the west?"

  "Prior to that."

  "Yep, Sepp?"

  "Even prior to that."

  "Damned partisans?"

  "Exactly. Do you remember everything you said?"

  "Every word, Lieutenant. I want to write a book about my experiences later."

  "Aha."

  "I think I’ll call it Lost Victories. Somehow I have to capitalize on this shit."

  "Lost Victories? Stupid title … "

  "What about Achtung Panzer?"

  "Way too attention-grabbing, Hans. If you come up with a reasonable title, I'll offer to proofread your book."

  "Proofread? No, thanks, I'll write it myself."

  "Let's get on with it," Nitz threw in, "let's do something, please. Please!"

  The German tanks fired at the Tiger, but the projectiles bounced off the steely skin like tennis balls, scattered, howling, in all directions and finally painted blazing figures onto the battlefield when exploding. Again the Tiger shot, but missed one more time. Engelmann noticed that the commanders of 10th and 11th companies must have ordered their panzers to retreat. They now blundered straight into the Russian paratroopers, who had spread unnoticed over the entire plain thanks to the dense ground vegetation. Hand grenades and anti-tank rifles brought an abrupt demise to the first combat vehicles. The panzer companies had gone straight into the trap. The tanks tried to regroup and take action against the infantry. MG fire stuttered away.

  Engelmann clawed himself to his seat, looking through his narrow viewing block at the edge of the forest.

  "Swing to the left," he ordered Ludwig, and at the same time assisted the gunner by cranking the lever attached to the commander's side, so that the turret turned faster. The enemy Tiger shot again. The clarion punch of his 88-millimeter cannon snarled across the plain, but he missed again. The shell hit somewhere near the escaping tanks of 10th Company.

  Finally Franzi’s turret was aligned to the Tiger. Münster had let the tank continue the whole time at reduced speed, and now he pulled her to a stop.

  "Aim right between hull and turret, Theo," Engelmann whispered, then he yelled, "Fire!"

  Ludwig shot and hit the enemy tank, but the AP shell didn't scratch it at all. The Tiger swallowed the shell as if it was just being struck with a stone.

  At 600 meters against that beast! What am I thinking? Engelmann blamed himself.

  The Tiger now turned to his panzers. Engelmann only saw smoke blurting of the Tiger’s main gun barrel, then he heard the detonation of the shell as an earth-shaking bang somewhere behind his tank. Only then did the thunder of the shot echo over his company's combat vehicles. Suddenly, however, something tugged with brute force at Franzi. It clattered terribly
, as if a thousand metal pots fell rattling on a stone floor. The whole tank concussed, shaking like a bull in the arena.

  Then Franzi died.

  The engine gurgled, shut down, and all the electronics turned off. Inside it was pitch-dark, only through the many but narrow vison blocks did even a shard of light infiltrate. Engelmann was immediately reminded of an opera hall as the lights were switched off before the show began. His injured hand trembled, but this time he had been able to hold himself on the seat.

  "The Ivan's taking the bread out of our mouth," Ludwig muttered, and Jahnke nodded strongly. Münster pressed the starter several times, and eventually he hammered repeatedly on it with his fist, but nothing happened. Filthy curses left his lips.

  Now, however, some other big gun started to fire – at the rest of 9th Company. Meter-high flower bouquets of dirt shot out of the ground in five-second intervals in between the company's panzers, then the tank codenamed Anna 2 received several hits in a row. The right track got completely shredded; metal parts whirled in all directions. Projectiles slammed into the panzer, cracking the armor. Glowing chunks were ripped off and hurled through the air. After one and a half minutes, the spectacle was over. Anna 2 was standing still with her track destroyed, and Anna 3 had used her smoke launchers to fog herself in and was lying in wait. The enemy Tiger's main gun banged again, but was now, however, zeroed in on the panzers of 12th Company. Its shell whistled threateningly past the German tanks and detonated far back. 12th Company had not fled, but tore into the hostile steel monster with everything it could offer. German 5-centimeter shells hit the Tiger with little effect. Engelmann held his breath. That thing was indestructible! Damned made in Germany quality!

  Abruptly, that other big gun fired again. The Germans had not been able to reconnoiter its position yet. Its bombardment now impacted at 12th Company, where an explosion suddenly erupted from one of the tanks. Scalding hot metal parts were ricocheting around.