Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6) (35 page)

The wounded man groaned as they dragged him further away from danger.

“Don’t stop. Let’s get him up on the tank while he’s out.”

Although both men were almost exhausted themselves, they managed to get their commander up on the Tiger’s rear.

“Right… you do what you can. I’m gonna back out quickly. We’ve got to get him to a sani quickly.”

Meier moved up and into his position as Jarome did what little he could with the already depleted first aid kit.

The engine roared and Lohengrin started the journey back, Meier steering by memory, and occasionally feeding the two men on the rear into thicker over hanging branches.

Lohengrin got the three of them to the main road, Route 3233, and then stubbornly refused to go any further, both transmission and the Olvar gearbox deciding that enough was enough for one day.

They flagged down the first vehicle that passed.

It belonged to Commandant Emmercy, OC of 3
e
Battalion, 1
er
RDM, and he immediately ordered his medical team forward and, once Meier had pointed out the correct spot on a map, sent a party off to retrieve the two wounded from the barn on the outskirts of Knickhagen.

The three tankers were whisked off to the temporary aid station, quickly established in Wilhelshausen, where the wounded of both sides were being brought, to live or to die, depending upon the skill of the surgeons or the fickle finger of fate.

Emmercy came himself and gave them the bad news, as both Schultz and Wintzinger were gone by the time his men reached the old barn.

It was a sombre pair that received the news of Köster’s survival, albeit in the short term.

Time would tell… risk of infection… shock… the non-committal explanations seemed endless.

Their own wounds treated, the two lay down and were asleep in seconds.

Around them, the ex-SS legionnaires of the Camerone Division, Legion Corps D’Assaut, bled and died, or survived, as the surgeons or fate dictated.

Whilst the battle was technically won, the cream of the Camerone had been blooded, much equipment had been lost, and the impetus of the advance spent and lost in a disorganised and hasty repelling of the Soviet counter-attack.

Molyneux’s interference, combined with the loss of Knocke and Bittrich early on, were certainly problems, but not so much that what happened subsequently could not have been… or as the investigation stated, ‘should have been avoided’.

Whilst superior skill at arms had been a factor in holding the tide, not one of the senior Legion officers doubted that they had been lucky to come away with the division basically intact, and that there were lessons to be learnt across the board.

It had been a sobering experience for all, not the least for Uhlmann.

His efforts had borne fruit, and he received many plaudits for his quick thinking. In the continued absence of Knocke, he continued as temporary divisional commander, and now faced the difficult task of stitching Camerone back together.

Although, personally, I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.

Winston Churchill

“Thank you all for coming.”

Eisenhower stubbed out his cigarette and took a deep breath.

“Gentlemen, yesterday I was handed a report from Intelligence. A copy of that report is on the desk in front of you.”

Some of the assembled generals went to pick up the folder but Ike raised his hand to stop them.

“Please… look later. For now, I’ll give you the bare bones.”

He nodded at Hood, who lifted the cover off a display board, whose figures lay stark and unequivocal, supporting Eisenhower’s next words.

“The Red Army and Air Force are deliberately targeting US troops.”

The losses of the US Army in all areas were twice that of every other Allied nation put together.

Each of the US commanders present had known he was paying a price for the slow slog across Germany, but had assumed that his own situation was, on the whole, no different to the other forces in Europe.

McCreery examined the losses besides his own and grimaced.

His British Twenty-First Army Group had lost nearly twenty thousand men across the board, since the winter broke, and the advance could continue.

Alexander’s Italian Group had suffered twelve and a half thousand casualties, and the French eight thousand.

The German Republican Army had suffered the most of all the non-US forces, with thirty-two thousand casualties overall.

Sixty-three thousand US servicemen had become casualties in the same time period, of which just over twenty-three thousand now lay in the earth.

It was Devers that piped up first.

“Sir, the figures you have put before us are accurate?”

“They are.”

“So, in the last three months or so, the US Army in Europe has sustained just under ten percent of the casualties the entire US forces suffered in the period ’41 to ’45?”

Devers went straight to the heart of the matter, earning a few nods from most, and a ‘goddamn’ from Patton.

“Yes, General.”

Eisenhower rose and went to the board, and Hood stepped back to allow his boss full access.

The Allied Commander tapped the bottom line with studied violence.

“Sixty-three thousands of our doughs… let me put that into perspective for you.”

He turned, selecting Bradley for eye contact.

“In the Normandy landings and breakout, the total dead the Allies suffered is calculated as between forty-five and fifty thousand.”

His finger wagged over the assembly.

“And we all knew we were in a gutter fight then, didn’t we?”

Bradley certainly had.

“The US forces alone have sustained approximately 50% of that number of dead since we commenced our attack.”

He left that hanging for a moment.

“So, it is Intelligence’s view… my view… that the Red Army is deliberately targeting US forces, over and above our Allies.”

The men in the room were not unintelligent and needed no more pointers to reach a conclusion.

None the less, Eisenhower supplied it, just in case.

“It’s a political move, for sure. They’re trying to knock us out of the war by using public opinion against us.”

Alexander sought the floor, and Ike motioned that he should speak, using the moment to find and light a cigarette.

“So, by bumping up the resistance to your forces, and inflicting as many losses as possible on your soldier boys, the Russians hope to get the American public to rebel against the war… and make your politicians bring the boys home?”

“Yes, Field Marshal, I believe that is their intention.”

“Is that possible, Sir?”

Eisenhower went to reply, but the exclamation of Lieutenant General Mark Clark beat him to the punch line.

“You’ve seen the demonstrations on the news reels, Sir. You bet your goddamn life it is, Field Marshal!”

Bradley went and grabbed a cup of coffee, starting a minor migration for refreshment.

Returning, he slid one in front of Eisenhower, who acknowledged with a friendly pat on the arm.

The room quietened down again.

“Does the President know, Sir?”

Eisenhower checked his watch.

“General Marshall is presenting him with a copy of that folder as we speak. I have told General Marshall that we will come up with some sort of plan to counter this Soviet ruse, and communicate it to him as soon as possible.”

He took a belt of the strong coffee.

“So, gentlemen, what do we do about this?”

The end result was less than satisfactory,
‘particularly to George’
, which was not unexpected.

Increased commitment by the other nations, including the South Americans who were presently less than happy with the Atomic weapons use in the Pacific.

The military sticking point was that offense offered advantages, and many, vociferously led by Patton, believed that attacks should be increased, not curtailed.

Eisenhower countered with the fact that the politicians would probably not see it that way; the American public certainly wouldn’t.

The air war was to be intensified closer in to the front line, giving enemy field formations additional attention to reduce their effectiveness even further.

General Juin, the French Army’s Chief of Staff, had readily agreed that France should shoulder more of the burden, and proudly stated that his country would put more divisions into the line, relieving a number of US units.

Similarly, Generaloberst von Vietinghoff promised more from the ever-increasing German Republican Army.

By the end of proceedings, Eisenhower at least felt he had a plan to present to General Marshall, one that Truman could see would go some way to reducing American casualties in Europe.

Marshall had already mooted that the proposed invasions of Northern China and Siberia would probably be put on hold indefinitely, with a huge effort to supply and rearm Chinese Nationalist forces likely to be proposed instead.

After the meeting had broken up, Ike took a few quiet minutes to himself, draining the last of the coffee pot and finishing his last cigarette.

The board once more drew his eye.

‘Sixty-three thousand… goddamned Russian sonsofbitches…’

He drained the cup and left.

The attack was carried out by 30 Squadron, SAAF, their B-26C Martin Marauders considered more than capable of dropping the Sankt Georgen Bridge into the flowing waters of the River Gusen.

The Marauders lined up their target, well below their normal bombing height of ten thousand feet, and flew straight in from the west, and straight into a wall of flak, thrown up by a Bulgarian anti-aircraft unit that just happened to be in transit and hiding in the worst possible place for the South African airmen.

Both the second and third aircraft were hit, but pressed on, smoke announcing both their passage and difficulties.

More flak rose up, snatching at the medium bombers, and fourth aircraft simply vanished in a flash, small pieces cascading over the Austrian countryside.

Martin Marauder ‘Ouballie”, coded B-N, the seventh in line, took a shell directly in the port engine.

It did not explode, but caused enough damage to turn the whole engine compartment instantly into a roaring inferno.

Pieces of the engine flew in all directions, one fatally so for the pilot and co-pilot, both of whom had their chests ripped open by the same whirling piece of metal.

‘Ouballie’ rolled left, and lost height rapidly, describing a fiery arc through the midday air. The remaining five crew members screamed out their final seconds, unable to escape from their aircraft, dying instantly as the B-26C slammed into one of the hills that surrounded the picturesque Austrian town, in an area previously known as Gusen-II, part of the Mauthausen concentration camp.

The remainder of 30 Squadron completed their mission.

Three aircraft had been lost, a heavy price to pay for destroying something that the Soviets would probably temporarily rebuild overnight.

The burning wreckage of Marauder B-N warranted a guard detail, and three reluctant soldiers stood sentry over the glowing remains until the following morning, when what they discovered ensured that the sleepy town of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen woke to a very different day.