Devils with Wings (30 page)

They were twenty paces from their target and could see the three embrasures angled away from them, the home of the three, seventy-five millimetre guns.

The sky lit up to their right, obviously one of the other troops had been successful in their attack on their objective, or at least were attempting to take out a target.

They were now facing west and were situated south east of the target casemate.

Their target was now in front of them, they had approached it from its front left side, so they were invisible from the embrasures, but not necessarily the observation cupola on the top.

Paul quickly shouted instructions to his men. The instructions were brief, they had practiced this so many times, and apart from Weyer being badly wounded, it seemed little different from their last rehearsal. They all knew their respective roles and were in complete control.

“Kempf, set up the MG around the front to cover us, Hempel, you’re his number two.”

Kempf picked up the MG34 again and followed by his new number two, Hempel, scooted to the front corner of the casemate to cover his comrades from an attack in that direction.

“Konrad rear side cover, I will join you shortly.”

Konrad didn’t reply, just made his way into position.

They were now covered from a surprise attack from three hundred and sixty degrees.

Paul didn’t need to say anything to the rest, they were already in action.

Forster had assembled the portable ladder, placed it up against the casemate and was covering the southern arc, while Straube and Kienitz heaved their charges up the ladder.

Straube peered over the top of the casemate, before taking the last step up on the ladder. He lifted the heavy charge and placed it gently on the concrete roof in front of him before heaving himself up on to the top.

He crouched down and moved to the side, casting his eyes over the top of the bunker, it was quiet. He moved the charge across, so it was now at his side, covering Kienitz as he joined him on top of the bunker.

They could see the armoured observation dome at the other end of the concrete casemate, and headed for it as quickly as they could. Straube, who was in front, felt sure he had seen a pair of eyes glinting at them through the observation slit.

“Better be quick Uffz, I think we’ve been seen by the occupants,” he hissed back to Kienitz.

“Once they get a taste of this lot, they’ll have other things on their mind,” retorted Kienitz, as he heaved the lower twenty-five kilogram element of the hollow charge weapon on to the top of the dome.

He could see lights inside the bunker and smelt what seemed like rotten eggs, obviously the consequence of an enclosed space continuously occupied by men.

Straube followed suit with the top half of the device and began to assemble it ready for setting the fuse.

In the background he could hear the fire-fights in the distance, but was sure he could also hear a clambering sound beneath the dome and the sound of someone out of breath.

Time to go he thought.

Just as he had finished connecting the two parts, a fire-fight started below them between the Fallschirmjager’s MG and some Belgian soldiers who had decided to venture out of their bunker to see what was happening.

Straube must have been correct in his thinking that they had been spotted through the domes slits.

They heard a clunk as an object bounced off the steel dome and landed at Kienitz’s feet.

He looked down, his eyes widened in disbelief.

“Fucking hell,” he screamed realising it was an enemy grenade. His reactions were swift, dropping his rifle to the roof of the bunker and in one sweep of his right hand; he had the grenade up and thrown back down to his unknown attackers. The heavy thump of the detonation was clearly heard as it exploded amongst the Belgian soldiers who had launched it in the hope of sweeping the impudent paratroopers off their fort.

It had backfired. That, and the devastating fire coming from the troop’s machine gun proved too much for them and they scuttled back into their protective shell.

Straube had completed the assembly of the device now, and set the ten-second fuse.

Go, go, go!” He shouted, counting out as he charged towards the other end of the casemate, Kienitz close on his heels.

“Nine,” they had reached the top of the ladder.

“Eight,” Straube swung his rifle, on its sling, round to his back and lowered his legs onto the ladder and scooted down.

“Seven,” Kienitz followed suit and they both landed with a thump besides Paul.

“Bugger, sir, that was a close one,” exclaimed Kienitz

“Six,” never mind that Kienitz, it’s time we weren’t here.

“Five”

“Let’s go,” Paul called loudly to his troop. Noise didn’t matter now; the local silence was about to be shattered beyond all recognition.

“Four.”

The entire troop, less Weyer, who was still out there somewhere badly wounded, pulled back from the Maastricht One casemate, about fifteen paces before hitting the deck.

“Three.”

Just as they had gone to earth, one of the seventy five millimetre guns fired, the shockwave blasting past Paul and his men, they assumed that it had been the hollow charge, and were surprised that it had not been more ferocious.

But Straube was still counting.

“Two”

“Keep your heads down, that wasn’t the charge,” he yelled!

“One”

The thunderous explosion immediately followed Straube’s last count as fifty kilograms of destruction ate into the armoured dome, shaking the very foundations of the bunker.

The blast from the detonation of the hollow charge weapon completely engulfed Paul’s troop in a shock wave. The piercing noise and din numbing their eardrums, which, had they not intentionally kept their mouths open, could have done some long-term damage.

They kept their faces down. There were still bits of shrapnel shrieking passed them, the clang on Konrad’s helmet indicating that not all were just passing by.

The eruption above the dome had formed a smoky cloud that now spiralled above it.

Below, the devastation was even worse, the blast knocking two of the gunners off their feet and the crust that broke off the inside of the dome as a result of the hollow charge effect, shattered into hundreds of deadly splinters, killing two of the Belgian gunners.

The violent expansion of energy transmitted downwards, followed by globules of molten metal, the main force punching a hole through the armoured plate, ripped through their fragile flesh, leaving exposed bone and mangled tissue.

There was no one to help the wounded men, not that much could be done for them other than to perhaps comfort them as their lives were slowly extinguished by the extent of their injuries. The rest of the gunners were in shock, concussed by the ferocity of the blast from above them.

Although slightly deaf from the force of the blast, Paul knew that they still had work to do.

He shouted to Konrad, whom he knew had a twelve and a half kilogram charge; his voice louder than he intended, due to the cotton wool effect in his ears from the explosion.

“Konrad, Forster, Straube, with me. The rest of you provide us with cover.”

Paul jumped up and they followed him back to the bunker.

They flattened themselves against its side, clouds of dust still dropping down around them. They needed to be quick, while the occupants were still stunned by the blast.

“Konrad, I want that charge you have put in the nearest embrasure. Stick in there under the barrel,” he said pointing to the nearest seventy-five millimetre gun protruding out of the casemate, the one that had fired earlier.

Konrad took the charge from around his body and placed it under the barrel as far into the embrasure as he could reach and set the ten-second fuse, while his commander and comrades covered him.

“It’s done sir, let’s shift!”

They ran back to the rest of the troop and got their heads down again, waiting for yet another blast.

The explosion shook the ground; again it was worse for the occupants of the bunker. The gun blown off its mountings struck the gunner who had been leaning up against it as he was recovering from the earlier attack on the dome.

A second gunner took the blast in his face as he was trying to peer into the darkness outside, seeking out his tormentors, angry and wanting to hit back. It killed him instantly.

Others in the vicinity, trying to escape from the devastation beneath the dome, and attempting to drag their wounded comrades to safety, were also caught in the blast. But, the two gunners who were killed, their sacrifice was not completely in vain, their deaths had sheltered the others from the worst of the effects.

As for the gun, it was badly twisted, blown off its mountings and would never be fired again.

But Paul was far from finished, “Konrad, Forster, Weyer can only be fifty metres from here go and see what you can do for him. If you can get him back here all well and good, if not, then make him comfortable and get back here quickly.”

“We’re on our way,” responded Konrad, pleased that they could go and help their fallen comrade.

“No more than five minutes,” hissed Paul after them.

He couldn’t afford to be without a third of his troop for too long.

“Right, Hempel, Kempf, cover us again. Kienitz, Straube, with me, and get your grenades ready. We need to keep them off balance.”

They again ran forward, thumping up against the side of the casemate.

Paul peered around the corner. Although the furthest two guns could be seen jutting out of their embrasures, the first gun had completely disappeared.

He crept up to the damaged embrasure, smoke still spewing from its interior. The weapon slit was no longer four right angles but a jagged hole of shattered concrete with spikes of steel reinforcements jutting out like broken teeth.

“Get ready instructed Paul; one grenade each, on the count of three.”

They each got a grenade ready, and on Paul’s final count of three, ran round to the front of the damaged embrasure and threw in their grenades, this time throwing themselves flat on the ground in front of the bunker.

The blast came, most of it projecting inwards, into the confines of the gunroom.

Having barely recovered from the last two attacks, the senior NCO, who was partially injured himself, was supervising the removal of the many injured, dragging them to the entrance of the steps that led down into the forts interior.

He was leaving the dead, saving his and his soldiers rapidly depleting energy, to pull the injured to a place of safety.

Although his efforts were not in vain, as many of the wounded had been dragged to the steps, the violence of the grenades ripped into him, taking him in the back and throwing him over one of the soldiers he was trying to help, he was dead before he hit the ground.

Little did Paul know, that had been the last straw for the gunners and they retreated to one of the lower levels to escape the death and destruction that was being meted out to them.

“They’ll not bother us any more, let’s get a marker panel on top of the bunker,” instructed Paul, “we don’t want those trigger happy Stuka pilots lobbing bombs down on top of us. Check out the dome as well.”

Kienitz and Straube picked up the ladder that had been blown away by the first blast and skipped up the steps, much quicker this time without the excessive weight of the hollow charges and ran over to the dome.

There was a hole big enough to put your fist through, but they couldn’t see into the smoke filled room.

They extracted the panels from the bag that they had with them and made the shape of a swastika. This being the recognition sign for the Luftwaffe, informing them that this target had been secured.

Job done, they hastened back to the ladder, keen to rejoin their comrades.

Paul looked at the bunker, the three gun casemate, its weapons that had been aimed north at the bridges of the Albert canal, was in Fallschirmjager hands.

A shiver ran down his spine. He knew enough about the destructive force of the explosives and grenades they had used to know that had the occupants been anywhere near the points of attack, then inside would be complete mayhem, sustaining injuries he didn’t even want to contemplate.

He snapped out of his reverie. There was no time to dwell on it and no time to rest, they had another task to fulfil.

It was four thirty five in the morning; they had been on the ground for no more than fifteen minutes, yet it seemed like hours. They were already exhausted and had an unquenchable thirst that hadn’t been satiated by the water they carried with them, but they still had work to do.

They heard a rustling sound to their east. It was either the two paratroopers returning from helping their wounded comrades or the Belgian gunners had got round behind them and were counter attacking.

Paul and his men were alert, weapons ready.

They heard the password hissed at them, it sounded like the guttural tones of Forster, his voice normally quite deep and booming. His throat was probably dry, like the rest of them.

Paul hissed, “show yourself,” he still needed to be wary, just in case the paratrooper had been coerced into getting the troop to expose itself. But, deep down he knew that the tough paratrooper would rather give his life than entrap his fellow soldiers.

Forster came forwards, bent at the waste carrying one end of a collapsible ladder they had turned into a stretcher.

At the other end was Konrad, equally bowed by the weight of the hefty Weyer strapped to the centre part of the makeshift stretcher.

They placed him gently on the ground.

“He’s unconscious sir,” informed Forster, “but alive.”

“We’ve strapped up his wounds as best we can, but we need to get him to an aid station whenever possible.”

Paul looked down at him, his face a sickly white. He had clearly lost a lot of blood and needed treatment soon if he was to live.

“Ok,” imparted Paul to the group, “we’ll take him as far as the approach to MiSud, dropping him off before we make the attack. Then we can pick him up on our way to the HQ bunker.”