THE LAST GOOD WAR: A Novel (42 page)

Kaz spoke briefly to Pulaski, who would be in command of the twenty tanks and infantry that would be left behind. Because of the shortage of fuel, they should take up defensive positions on a nearby hill; their task would be to block any Germans attempting to escape eastward along the roads at the base of the hill. Before moving to the hilltop, they should blow up the German tanks, but the communications truck must be saved for Intelligence; it looked too important to destroy. “I wonder,” mused Kaz, “if it is some sort of secret newfangled coding equipment.”

He also gave Pulaski a blunt warning. It was all very well to capture veterans of the early Polish campaign. But he wanted to make sure that things didn't get out of hand. He wanted to find all the prisoners alive when he got back.

19 August 1944. 10:00 hrs. With Polish armor near Chambois.

A
s they reached the heights at Chambois, Kaz ordered his ten tanks into an extended arc commanding the river below. Through the haze and greasy smoke of battle, they gazed down at the grim panorama of war. To the right, the road was cluttered with burned-out tanks, smashed assault guns, and broken carts dragged by terrified horses, straining to break loose from their harness.

The sides of the road were littered with the detritus of war: disabled trucks, staff cars, and ammunition carts that had been rudely shoved off the road. A jumble of small arms and nondescript fragments of equipment cluttered the ditches, interspersed with corpses, both men and horses, some whole, some dismembered. As the wind shifted, Kaz was overwhelmed by the oppressive, sickening stench of death.

Through the shambles, a dozen German tanks were picking their way toward the narrow bridge. One tank was already across, and quickly accelerating towards the escape route to the east. Kaz gave the order: his men were to fire at will at the other tanks as they looped around the bend and came to the bridge, presenting ideal targets. Within a few seconds, a German tank was disabled in the middle of the bridge, its near-side tread blown off. The crew scrambled from the hatches, slipping down behind their tank and thence into the river below to protect themselves from the machine guns and heavy fire from above.

A second tank moved up behind, its treads skidding on the damp bridge as it strained to push the lead tank out of the way, off the bridge and into the river. Its uncertain efforts came to an abrupt end when several direct hits set it on fire. Only one trooper emerged, but, as he got half way out of the hatch, he slowly came to a stop. After a second's pause, he slid back into the tank, his battle suit in flames. A few moments later, the tank exploded, blowing the heavy turret ten feet into the air.

It was at this point that Kaz received a shouted message from his radio operator: the main Polish column, proceeding on their left parallel to the river, had just made contact with Patton's Third Army advancing from the south. The Falaise Pocket was at last closed; the main lines of German escape were cut.

Kaz had little time to reflect. The blazing hulk blocked a German escape across the bridge; most of the crews were abandoning their tanks and fleeing on foot towards the river. But two of the German crews were intent on escape, edging their tanks along the bank of the river toward a strip of white water that marked a shallows. For Kaz and the others on the hilltop, they were now out of range.

Kaz glanced to his right; another German tank was approaching in the distance. Apparently, its crew had been warned of the dangers ahead. They had left the road, and were slowly proceeding on a parallel path toward the shallows, safely out of range of the Poles on the hilltop.

Kaz had to make a decision: would he attempt to block the escape route across the shallows, or count on the main Polish force and the Americans to stop the Germans further east? It was too late to stop the first two German tanks, but their was still time for the third, and, perhaps later, a fourth, fifth and sixth. To take up a blocking position on the far bank, Kaz would have to cross the river. This would be no problem; there was a second shallows almost directly below the hill, where he could cross under the protection of his tanks remaining on the bluff. But he would then have to cross the road and proceed along an open, flat lowland edged by woods. It presented a considerable risk. He had left his infantry behind, and thus would be vulnerable to enemy soldiers who might be lurking in the woods with their
Panzerfausten
—the snub-nosed, single-shot, hand-held antitank weapon. But once they reached the treeless bank opposite the white water, they would be in an ideal position to block approaching German tanks. There was a ridge behind which they could take cover, overlooking the shallows.

His reflection was over; he would stop the German. His orders were to block the escape route. And he had waited too long to avenge the losses on that crisp September morning almost five years before. Leaving Jan with eight tanks to maintain their commanding position on the hill, he signaled Ciezki to accompany him. The two Polish tanks picked their way down the steep slope, then crossed the shallows and the road to the caked, cracked clay of the river flats beyond. He and Ciezki pulled up and waited behind the ridge. With little more than their turrets vulnerable, they would have the Panzer at a disadvantage. And they had their new tanks with high-velocity guns.

Kaz wanted to improve the odds even more. He sent a message to Ciezki: hold your fire until the German tank is in the middle of the river and unable to maneuver.

They waited. The German approached cautiously, pausing briefly on the far bank before moving slowly into the river. Kaz and Ciezki rotated their turrets, waiting for a pointblank shot.

Suddenly there was an explosion. Ciezki's tank rocked sharply and erupted in flame. With his head out the hatch, Kaz could feel the sudden burst of heat on the side of his face; he held his hand up for protection as he ducked down and slammed the hatch.

Kaz had been focusing so intently on the tank crossing the river that he hadn't seen a second German tank approaching from the left, along the far bank of the river. Because of the angle, it had a clear shot at Ciezki.

Now, it presented an immediate peril to Kaz and his crew. They swung their turret away from the tank in the river, and opened fire at the newcomer. The German's side was exposed as it moved along the bank; the Poles' first shot hit home, passing between the wheels and into the interior. Smoke began to belch from its hatch.

Kaz quickly turned his attention back to the enemy in the river. The German was struggling with unsteady footing on the slippery stones of the riverbed, and he was completely exposed. Both tanks fired at the same time; each hit its target. The Panzer slipped sideways, its gun pointed at an odd angle, in the general direction of the bridge. It had lost power; its turret no longer moved.

But Kaz likewise faced a crisis; smoke was filling one side of his tank. He pulled himself out of the hatch and staggered several dozen yards, collapsing near a clump of bushes. He became of aware of blood trickling over his goggles.

In the river, a haze of smoke and steam enveloped the German tank. Kaz could discern one tanker escaping from the hatch and throwing himself into the water. His head bobbed up and down as he swept past. His war was over; the current would take him downward toward the main Canadian force. A second man was by now out of the tank. Rather than take his chances with the river, he was struggling toward the bank, less than thirty yards from Kaz.

Perhaps to help him fight the current, he had thrown off his helmet. As he pulled himself up the bank, he was, in spite of his bedraggled appearance, the picture of a Prussian officer—firm chin, broad forehead, and blond, Aryan hair. Like Kaz, he had blood trickling down his face. The blow to his head had apparently been severe; as he rose uncertainly to his feet, he seemed disoriented. He began making his way unsteadily up the beach, limping noticeably.

There was something more than his Teutonic appearance that caught Kaz's attention, something more than the lengthy scar on his left cheek. Kaz had seen that face before. He wondered where. Then he recalled the face in the rifle scope five years before, on that first tragic day of war. Kaz fumbled inside his jumpsuit for his Luger, a trophy from one of Wittmann's men. Staggering closer, the German noticed the Pole, who was by now supporting himself on one elbow. The German blinked. His face hardened into an arrogant sneer. He turned his back on his adversary, and began to limp unsteadily across the dried mud toward the safety of the trees.

Kaz found that he was unable to get to his feet; he was aware of a numbness in his back. He carefully aimed the Luger until it pointed directly between the German's shoulder blades. Now that the Allies had blocked the lines of escape, the German was almost certainly headed toward captivity. Kaz let the Luger sag. Then he thought back to that day five years before, his comrades holding white clothing as they were machine gunned....

But he also thought back to his military college days, with its instilled code of chivalry.

After five years of war, what remained of that code?

POSTSCRIPT

T
he Battle of the Falaise Pocket was one of the great Allied victories of the Second World War, ranking close to Stalingrad. At Stalingrad, an estimated 275,000 German and Romanian soldiers were encircled when the Red Army closed the trap on Nov. 22, 1942. During the remaining ten weeks of the battle, about 25,000 wounded were flown out of the pocket, leaving about a quarter of a million men to face death or capture. Stalingrad marked the great turning point of the war in Europe; thereafter, Germans were everywhere on the defensive.

The toll on the Germans in the Falaise pocket is less easily quantified, in part because there is no simple starting point for the count, comparable to the time when the trap was sealed west of Stalingrad. The Falaise pocket was closed only slowly, allowing German columns to move eastward through the gap during the second and third weeks of August 1944, particularly under the cover of darkness.

If one picks the American thrust southward from St. Lô towards Avranches as the beginning of the Falaise battle, total German losses approached those at Stalingrad—200,000 men, of whom a fifth were killed. If, on the other hand, one considers only the German casualties after the trap was more-or-less closed, the total was less than half as large. But, by any estimate, the Germans suffered heavy losses.

One can, however, only speculate on the lost opportunities, on what might have been. There were recriminations among the Allies—Americans and British each accusing the other of insufficient vigor in closing and sealing the neck of the pocket, allowing perhaps as many as 300,000 German soldiers to escape. Many would face the Allies again, defending the channel ports. In those fortified positions, they slowed the Allied advance into Northern Germany.

The lost opportunities may be traced in part to the difficulties of coordination when two allied armies attempt to join head-on. Bradley was worried that Patton's vigorous advances would lead to accidental attacks on British, Canadian, or Polish troops. He became so concerned at one point that he ordered Patton to withdraw one of his northward thrusts toward Falaise. In fact, there was a minor—but harmless—skirmish between Polish and American forces when they finally did meet; it ended quickly when an American officer raised a white flag, signaling a request for parley.

At a critical time—August 14—Bradley became so frustrated by British inaction that he thought to himself, “If Montgomery wants help in closing the gap, then let him ask for it.” Bradley thereupon ordered a major spearhead, under Gen. Haislip, eastward toward the Seine, diverting troops that otherwise might have been used to seal the gap. Soon, he did receive a request from Montgomery to advance north to meet the Poles at Chambois, but Haislip was already on his way to the Seine.

For the Germans, Falaise was a catastrophe. But it could have been more. If the trap had been sprung more quickly—and more firmly—the whole German position in the west might have collapsed, leading to an end of the war by late 1944. Perhaps the partial, bittersweet nature of the victory explains a puzzle. Why does the Falaise encirclement command so little attention compared to the two other great events in the west in 1944: the D-Day landing—on whose success depended all that followed—and the Battle of the Bulge, when the dying Third Reich turned fiercely one last time on its western tormentors?

For the Poles, the battle of the Falaise gap reinforced their pride. Although many were untested in battle, they were chosen to lead the final thrust from the north, to link up with American forces. During one critical battle on the “Mace”—a ridge near Chambois—they were surrounded by Germans slipping through gaps in the allied lines. Raining fire on their enemies below, they stood firm. But then, they had little choice; they did not have the fuel to attempt a breakout. Later, when Royal Canadian Engineers passed over this ridge, they found it dotted with fresh graves. To honor their fallen comrades, the Engineers erected a simple sign: A Polish Battlefield.

But for the Poles, the Second World War was a tragedy. Invaded from the West by the Germans and from the East by the Soviets during the first month of the war, they faced continuous turmoil. First one, then the other, of their historical enemies launched devastating offensives across their land.

The Home Army ended in disaster. Predictably, the Soviets incited them to revolt. “People of Warsaw! To arms! Attack the Germans!” urged Moscow radio as the Red Army reached the Vistula River, across from Warsaw. The Home Army leadership was split: should they act? They were woefully ill-equipped after the recent German discoveries of their weapons caches. But their time had come; they revolted on the first day of August. Thereupon, the Red Army paused and marked time on the eastern side of the River.

This should scarcely have come as a surprise; the objective of the Polish uprising was to preempt a Communist takeover. Stalin wanted the noncommunist leadership eliminated, to clear the way for his puppet regime.