Devils with Wings: Silk Drop (2 page)

“Excellent, you haven’t corrupted their minds yet I hope, Feldwebel Grun?” The entire room laughed, one of the few times the Raven cracked a joke with his troops.

“Their first task was to write home to their Mothers, sir,” responded Max, still stood ramrod straight.

Volkman smiled, even he struggled to get the better of this tough, fair haired sergeant. In the Raven’s mind, he had already identified Max as a potential battalion Oberfeld. Max was not only respected by his men, but also by the officers and his fellow NCOs.

“Thank you Feldwebel, I’m sure their mothers would thank you, stand at ease.”

Max relaxed and resumed his seat on the window sill, noticing Paul’s raised eyebrows, a slight reprimand, as if saying, ‘you’ll say too much one day Feldwebel Grun’. The frown didn’t last for long, and a smile soon slipped from his mouth.

The Raven got up from the table and made his way behind it, the map of Britain behind him and to his left. He took off his cap and placed it on the table, shortly followed by the swagger stick, a fall back to his Prussian, aristocratic roots. In less than a minute it was back in his hand, tapping the side of his leg.

“Oberleutnant Bach, the map if you please.”

The Adjutant unrolled a map that had been held in his hand and proceeded to pin it up on the board alongside its smaller scaled partner. While he was doing this the Hauptman continued. He turned to the map behind him and tapped the southern part of the country.

“Operation Sea lion, gentlemen. We’ve had our warning order for this operation, the invasion of England. Well, it has now been confirmed, the invasion is to go ahead and we will play a full role in it.”

Bach had finished pinning the second map to the board. It was a map of England, but a much larger scale than its cousin, showing just the Southeastern corner of the country.

“Continue with the briefing if you please Oberleutnant.”

Bach faced the first battalion officers and NCOs and picked up from where Volkman had left off.

“The focus for the impending invasion is to be this stretch of the country along the southeast coast,” he said turning to the map and pointing to a sixty kilometre stretch of the English coast.

“A force of one hundred and sixty thousand men will conduct the initial assault, and as inferred by the battalion commander, the Fallschirmjager Division has a key role to play.”

Volkman interrupted. “Now we have a full Divisional establishment, being assigned a Machine Gun, Flak and Sapper battalion, we’ll be in a much better position to create even more mayhem behind enemy lines.”

“The Luftlandesturmregiment will land here,” continued Bach, pointing to Dover, “where they will secure and hold the Military Canal; and the heights of Paddlesworth.” There was a chuckle around the room as the Adjutant struggled to get his tongue around the English words. “They are to hold those positions until the 17
th
Infantry Division hit the beeches at Folkestone and relieve them.”

Volkman raised his hand to Bach and continued the brief.

“Our Regiment will parachute drop an hour later, here,” he said pointing to an area called Postling. “It will be up to us to move towards the Luftlandesturmregiment, reinforcing them until we are all relieved. I’m afraid Brand, Janke, you won’t have gliders as taxi’s this time round, you’ll have to put your trust back in old Tante June.”

Everyone laughed. Both Paul and Helmut had been involved in the invasion of Belgium. Helmut helping to secure one of the bridges across the Albert Canal, Paul landing on top of the supposedly impregnable Fortress Eben Emael, by glider. Less than eighty men had taken on the Fort’s defenders of over five hundred, defeating them and securing the fort.

“We understand sir,” they both replied in unison, smiling.

“The Raven is in good humour today,” whispered Helmut.

“Quiet,” hissed Paul, “listen.”

“Our battalion will be dropped in two waves,” added Volkman.

The three Fallschirmjager Regiments, FFR1, FFR2 and FFR3, were made up of three battalions, but Volkman’s battalion was an independent unit, supported and sponsored by the First Regiment, FFR1.

“Do we know which companies will be dropped first sir?” piped up Paul.

“We’re still working through the details Oberleutnant Brand, but I will take that as you volunteering your company to be the first down?” He didn’t give Paul an opportunity to answer. “I want the battalion, your companies, to be ready to do what is asked of them. That’s why we’re going to train for it gentlemen, and train hard. I want you to give your units a good shake up, get them ready, and work them hard. Start with platoon exercises, working up to company size actions, and then we’ll test the entire battalion, moving towards a full battalion size jump. So, work your men hard. Believe me, I will work you hard.” He remained silent, scanning the room, allowing the message time to sink in. They all knew that he wouldn’t accept any mistakes; failure just wasn’t in his vocabulary.

The Adjutant broke the silence. “There will be a full training schedule posted by tomorrow morning, make sure you read it and digest it. Make your units fully aware of what is planned and what is expected of them. Any questions?”

“Do we know how many aircraft will be allocated to us for the drop sir?” asked Helmut

“We are expecting at least thirty Junkers, so that gives us a drop size of a third of a battalion, so three drops will have us all down.”

“How long will the battalion exercise be for sir?” questioned Paul

“It will be a full forty eight hours,” intervened Volkman. “So we’ll have an opportunity to insert, consolidate, conduct an attack and receive a resupply.”

“Will we be working with any other units?” asked Hoch.

“The Regimental artillery battalion has assigned a battery to us, to suppress the enemy just before we make our attack. It will also provide us with an opportunity to test our coms and coordination with other assets, particularly artillery,” responded the Adjutant.

“Can we have an update on the Luftwaffe’s battle over England sir?” requested Paul.

Volkman took the question, indicating to Bach to stand aside. “Their current targets are shipping moving through the English Channel, along with attacking some of the RAF’s airfields.”

“How are they standing up to the RAF fighters sir?” asked Bauer, who up until now had been silent.

“They are finding it tougher than expected,” mused the Raven, almost to himself. He walked around to the front of the table and started to pace up and down, slapping his stick against the side of his thigh.

“If it was just a numbers game,” he continued, “we shouldn’t have a problem. But on a one to one?” He paced back the other way, obviously thinking carefully about what he was going to say next. “The Spitfire is proving to be an exceptional fighter aircraft, easily a match for our fighters, but it is the bombers that are taking the brunt of it. The Stuka’s, in particular, are proving to be vulnerable and are being withdrawn from any further action over England.”

The room was silent, and although their battalion commander hadn’t said anything to worry them, the fact that the Luftwaffe weren’t walking all over the RAF was a little disconcerting.

“We’ll succeed in the end, Reichsmarschall Goring has assured the Fuhrer of success. So, let the air force worry about their task, let us worry about being able to fulfil our role once they have completed theirs. Dismissed.”

The room stood to attention and Hauptman Volkman and the Adjutant left the room, slowly followed by the remaining officers, NCOs and support staff.

Paul called out to his platoon commanders and to Max, to remain behind.

“Feldwebel, I want the company assembled within the hour, I want to update the men and prepare them for the training ahead.”

“Jawohl Herr Oberleutnant.”

Max snapped a salute, turned left and marched out of the room. Paul turned to his three Leutnant’s.

“Once the company briefing is over, I want to go over platoon training plans with the three of you. Once we have the battalion training schedule we’ll look at a company training plan, understood?”

“Jawohl Herr Oberleutnant,” they all responded in unison.

“Right, join your companies. Dismissed.”

All three came to attention, saluted and left the briefing room, following the same route of the company sergeant, Max, to join their platoons and prepare for the company assembly that Max was pulling together. Helmut, who was still in the room, having also briefed his three platoon officers, sauntered over to Paul.

The stocky Leutnant was three inches shorter than Paul’s six foot two, but what he didn’t have in height, he made up for in strength and presence. Everyone knew when Helmut was around, whether it was his constant demands as to the location of food, or his general boisterous nature. He slapped Paul on his back, rocking him on his feet, his usual greeting for his fellow officer.

“Well, busy times ahead I guess.”

“It looks like it. Are you briefing your men now?”

“Yes, I thought I would do it straight away, knowing you would be on the ball, and not wanting them to find out second hand,” he said smiling, playfully punching Paul on the shoulder.

“Anyway, if I do it later it’ll get in the way of lunch,” he said laughing.

“We couldn’t possibly do anything that would get in the way of that now could we,” scoffed Paul

“Have you heard from Erich?” asked Helmut, suddenly serious.

“Yes. He’s fine, but still pissed off at getting a Regimental appointment. He wanted to lead his own company, like us.”

After being involved in Belgium, second in command of a unit securing one of the bridges crossing the Albert Canal, at the start of the Blitzkrieg attack on France and the Low Countries, Erich was subsequently posted to Regimental HQ, as aide to the Regimental Commander. A posting like that could go one of two ways. Advance an officer’s career as a result of exposure at a senior level or through learning the intricacies of running a Regiment. Or, it could be detrimental. Seen as lacking the experience of command and missing out on leading men from the front.

“It does mean he’ll get experience at a Regimental level,” Helmut said.

“Admin is not his strong point though,” responded Paul frowning, “and he won’t be commanding a unit.”

“I tell you what, let’s go and see him.”

“On what pretext?”

“Check over the records of the new recruits?”

“You’re on, tomorrow then?”

“Right, tomorrow it is,” agreed Helmut, “now let’s sort our men out so we can get some lunch,” he added, rubbing his stomach.

CHAPTER TWO

The men had been loaded onto the trucks that were to take them to Hildesheim, where they would join the rest of the battalion ahead of a full unit parachute drop as practice for Operation
Seelöwe, Sea lion, the invasion of England. Although there was an airport at their Braunschweig camp, the aircraft they needed were at the Hildesheim airfield.

Paul had gathered his three platoon officers and Max together around the cab of the front vehicle. It would be a simple journey, via Salzgitter, taking them no more than two hours to get to the Luftwaffe base. It would bring back memories to some of the Fallschirmjager in Paul’s unit, many of them had spent six months hard physical training at the camp in preparation for the glider assault on Eben Emael.

Max was leant against the mud guard of the three ton, Opel Blitz, one of the workhorses of the Luftwaffe, watching Paul brief his officers.

Leutnant Krause was the youngest, at nineteen, and the least experienced of the companies officers and the one with the least confidence. His head of cropped, brown hair, shaved on the back and the sides above the ears, the preferred military style, one Max didn’t adhere to, was nodding vigorously at Paul’s instructions, trying to absorb every word his company commander was imparting. Max had already sussed the new officer out and was concerned. He thought back to when Leutnant Brand first assumed command of a platoon, Max being the platoon sergeant. Although hesitant at times and occasionally questioning his own abilities as a leader, he took command of the platoon with confidence and quickly got the measure of his sergeant and control of the platoon.

Max smiled at the thought. On their very first meeting, he had tried to put the young officer in his place and ensure that the platoon was run by him, Paul following his lead. But Paul wasn’t having it. A quick reference to a recent incident, where Max had been arrested for fighting whilst on leave, quickly turned it round. Since then a bond had slowly been formed between them, underpinned by the fighting in Poland and the attack on Fort Eben Emael.

On joining the company for the first time, some of the older hands had tried to humorously undermine their new, young company commander. When Max had asked if Paul wanted him to say something to the hard-core group of three that were making the waves, he was reprimanded and told absolutely not. After one week of relentless training, forced marches, physical exercise and weapons training, the three admitted defeat and their respect for their new company commander was assured. The other two Leutnant’s, Nadel and Roth, needed some coaching, but other than that, they were fine. They all had good platoon sergeants, Unterfeldwebel’s Eichel, Fischer and Kienitz, and Max would ensure that he tutored them well.