Stalemate (The Red Gambit Series) (66 page)

The mine exploded, stopping the huge
Maybach engines in a second, and starting a modest fire in the engine compartment.

In the rear of the Tiger’s turret was a circular hatch
, and this opened slowly as the turret turned, enabling those inside to check on the problems with their tank.

The
tank commander obviously felt that enough was enough, and the hatch dropped fully open, as the turret rear rotated away from the Soviet line of fire.

Even the hull crew worm
ed their way through the inside of the Tiger, so all five men escaped through the same circular hatch.

As the last of the Tiger’s crew dropped to the ground, Harazan made it back to his own platoon’s positions, his wounded buttocks now howling their displeasure at every movement.

Two more Panzer IV’s had been knocked out of the fight, although only one had been destroyed, the second one abandoned when its gearbox failed.

Blagoslavov skilfully manoeuvred the IS-II, spotting an eight-wheeled armoured car moving tentatively through the gardens.

Having fired off an AP shell at a large shape the other side of the roadblock of Tiger tanks, the tank officer redirected the loader.

“Load HE for this one. That will be enough for the bastard.”

Calling the gunner in on target, Blagoslavov watched in annoyance as the HE shell clipped the angled front cowling, and ploughed into a fairytale house beyond, the explosion instantly transforming it into flying pieces.

“Take it steady
, and get it right, Comrade Gunner.”

The calm words helped
, but the SDKFZ 234 did not intend to remain around to be shot at a second time, and it surged forward, disappearing down an alley. The crew had succeeded in gaining an extra twenty seconds of life, as their vehicle was hunted down quickly. Its end came at the hands of vengeful infantry from Din’s 424th, improvising with petrol bombs, which proved very efficient on the open hulled armoured car.

The IS-II did not have a complete shell, rather a warhead and
propellant, which had to be loaded separately, thus slowing down the reloading process.

Sensing rather than seeing, Blagoslavov ordered a reverse move, backing the
Soviet heavy tank through a ruined house and into the road beyond.

A few seconds later, Legion artillery burst around the former position, testament to the skill of the artillery observers.

The IS-II found itself reversing alongside ‘Lohengrin’, the two crews only just becoming aware of each other.

“Job tvoyu mat!
Germanski tank alongside, right. Driver, halt!”

The IS-II jerked immediately to a rocking halt
, and Blagoslavov ordered the driver to rotate on the spot, turning the hull towards the Tiger performing a similar manoeuvre.

It was a race, and one the IS-II won.

The shell misfired, failing to send the warhead at the enemy tank.

Blagoslavov looked from the silent breech to his sights and back, conscious that he was about to die.

‘Lohengrin’s’ 88mm spouted a gout of flame, and a shell was sent on its way, striking the IS-II on the angled front plate and ricocheting upwards, hammering into the barrel from underneath.

Inside the turret
, there was mayhem. The impact threw the breech downwards, driving the weapon beyond its design parameters, destroying the trunnions, and causing the misfire to ignite within the now-displaced main gun.

The loose weapon recoiled into the rear wall of the turret, passing through the area that was occupied by the loader, transforming him into indistinct pieces
, stuck to the deformed metal of breech and turret.

Horrified, Blagoslavov ordered the driver to put his foot through the floor
, and the IS-II sped behind a low building to safety.

The impact had obviously affected the engine, and thick smoke started to mark their movements around the village.

‘Lohengrin’ hunted them down eventually, but had to content itself with destroying the abandoned tank, as Blagoslavov had ordered them out when the engine gave up.

The IS-II burned spectacularly, setting fire to a number of buildings around it, the fire eventually filling the whole area with acrid smoke suitable for any purpose, be it escape or stealthy approach.

Whilst the 5th Legion Tank Regiment had been badly handled, it had achieved its goals, and the way was opened up.

The 110th Guards Tank Regiment had ceased to exist in all but name, not a single tank on its roster, its strength now lying with the forty men crammed aboard a single GAZ lorry heading north on Route 1422.

The Legion and 16th Armored cut the main highways, isolating the 19th Army units, cutting them into small digestible portions, each of which was overcome in turn, and for little loss.

A momentary rally by the 3rd Guards Tanks
, at Obernai and Bernardswiller, enabled much of their Corps to escape, but the resistance was overcome, and ‘Tannenberg’ cut straight across the Alsatian Plain, securing Obernai, Niedernai and Meistratzheim. Further stout defence by an AA unit attached to 3rd Guards, kept the spearheads at bay long enough for a number of rag-tag units to escape up Route 1083, amongst the last of which was the lorry carrying the survivors of the 110th Guards Tank Regiment.

16th US Armored Brigade had discovered that its Pershings were still vulnerable to the massive 122mm guns of the enemy heavy tanks, and some
had also been lost to the deadly 100mm anti-tank gun, a handful of which had been hastily dug in north of Selestat.

But
, on the whole, the mixed force of Pershings and 76mm Shermans performed extremely well, the combination of their tank gunnery and supporting artillery, proving too much for the 109th Guards Tank Regiment and its supporting units.

Whilst still in possession of a number of vehicles, the 109th was vacating the field as fast as it could, occasionally lashing out at its pursuers.

US Infantry linked up with Legionnaires of the ‘Alma’ and the German irregulars of Kommando Alsace in Selestat, the three forces coming together at the base of the neo-medieval water tower.

St Clair’s 7
th RDM, flank secured on the Rhine, had rolled northwards, supported by 4th Kompagnie of Uhlmann’s Tank Regiment, and the 128mm guns of Bäcker’s special anti-tank unit.

The
Soviet forces had formed a defensive position between Schwobstein and Richtolsheim, centred on the Route 209 Bridge over the Rhone-Rhein Canal.

Over two hundred of the 7
th RDM’s men had been killed or wounded overwhelming the position, along with the loss of two precious JagdPanzers and a Sturmgeschutz.

It was also here that the smiling and slightly mad Captain Friedrich Bäcker fell, a wayward mortar shell falling close enough to
take his life with the smallest piece of metal.

Caught between two fires, 134th Rifle Corps was battered into submission, marking the largest surrender of
Soviet manpower in the war thus far, some five and a half thousand men moving off into captivity.

132nd Rifle Corps was savaged, although some units, such as Major Din’s, made their way back northwards to more stable positions, None the less, the 132nd was finished as a formation.

The spearheads that launched themselves out of the Vosges sliced the 3rd Guards Tank Corps into manageable pieces, often catching units between two fires, and grinding the experienced Guards Corps into a mass of dead and wounded. A further harvest of prisoners brought the total to just less than ten thousand.

Support elements from 19th Army suffered horrendously, particularly at the hands of ‘Tannenberg’
, and the roving ground attack squadrons, whose planes, tanks, and armoured infantry swept the Alsatian plain, destroying or capturing valuable supplies, killing rear-echelon troops, including overrunning the headquarters of 3rd Guards Tanks itself.

By mid-afternoon on the 26th, the Allied frontline was as far forward as Illkirch-Graffenstaden, the flight of 19th Army affecting others
units that might have stood tall in defence. Only a need to rearm and refuel prevented the lead units from ‘Tannenberg’ entering the city.

Over
two thousand legionnaires were casualties, over a third the sort that never rise again.

Five hundred and seventy-two casualties were sustained by the 16th Armored, a strangely high proportion of those
were dead upon the field.

The Kommando Alsace had also suffered badly, over two hundred of its four hundred and forty men lost to wounds or worse.

However, the Red Army had suffered worse still. Counting prisoners, wounded and dead, over thirty-two thousand men had been lost, and whole formations removed from the Soviet order of battle.

Operation Thermopylae was a brilliant success.

Indeed, Operation Thermopylae was a brilliant success, but the price had been high.

A
gathering of men, large in number, but nowhere near as many as would have liked to have been there, stood on the banks of the Apfelbach, on the Rue de Stade, next to a line of recently planted poplars.

Leading the group were the senior men of the Legion Corps, all save Molyneux, who was
at French first Army headquarters, basking in the reflected glory, and busy ensuring he received as much credit as possible for the efforts of his legionnaires.

Lavalle, Knocke,
Plummer, and Uhlmann stood in silence, the heaviness of the occasion given more weight by the steady trickle of light rain across the whole of the Alsace.

Behind the senior officers were others of varying status, such as Aloysius Fischer and Heinz-Sebastian Pöll, Ulrich Weiss and Oscar Durand, Haefeli and Rettlinger, bandaged arm and all, and even an old Irish legionnaire who remembered the man they were there to honour.

A grave had been prepared, fit for the nineteen men who were to be its permanent residents.

Nineteen men of the legion, but once of the Waffen-SS, all of whom had died in the ambush of a small column
, leading a legion battalion in the rush to join the battles further north.

The names of the dead were read aloud, each receiving a small personal
eulogy provided by a close comrade. Every man there stood at the attention, officers saluting smartly, arms rigid in remembrance of a friend or loyal comrade lost, listening to the soft tones of the speaker.

Faces were wet, and not all because of the rain, for old comrades were being laid to rest in the rich Alsatian soil.

The Legion Padre, perhaps a curious choice to talk over the graves of former SS members, arrived at the last name; a man he had met, and who had impressed him with his character, his knowledge of European history, and of life itself. A learned man, and someone greatly admired by his comrades, many of whom were here this day.

Pausing, the Padre gathered himself, suddenly finding it all very heavy going.

“And lastly, we place our good comrade and friend, Colonel Jurgen Fabian Von Arnesen, into the care of the Lord, and we give thanks that we were blessed to have him as our friend and comrade.”

The Padre swallowed noisily, gaining a moment to gather himself.

“Jurgen Von Arnesen was, by my own observations, and by all accounts, a man and a soldier of the finest quality. That being said, when one of his men has spoken to me about him, I must say that he was held in the highest regard by everyone who served with him,” he stole a look at the silent man to his left and detected the slightest of nods.

“And I know that he was so proud of his comradeship with all of you, and with those that went before and fell.”

Selecting some appropriate words to conclude the simple  service, he gestured to the men who had volunteered to interr their dead comrades, and soon the only sounds were the working of spades and the constant rain and wind.

Many of the ensemble waited
until the end, and some even helped the grave detail complete their task.

Some lingered long
, but eventually all walked on into the future, leaving solely Ernst-August Knocke beside the newly turned soil.

The rain grew heavier, the sound of its drops rising with the wind that drove it.

And quietly, in his own way, Knocke said goodbye to the man who had been his best friend.

All we know is that, at times, fighting the Russians, we had to remove the piles of enemy bodies from before our trenches, so as to get a clear field of fire against new waves of assault.

Paul von Hindenburg