The Leader And The Damned (47 page)

'Tiger and Panther tanks... Ferdinand mobile guns... General Model to attack from the north. General Hoth from the south... The pick of the German generals... a huge mass of their elite divisions. This is a colossal force. If it is true we could make our own dispositions and destroy them.'

'Could I ask,' Vassilevsky began casually, 'what is the record of this Woodpecker-Lucy espionage ring so far?'

'The information has always proved correct.'

'So it could be correct again. At some moment we have to take our courage in both hands, and gamble

everything on the belief that Lucy is right …'

'Zhukov?'

Stalin, who was also standing in the gloom of his office lit only by the shaded desk lamp, glanced sideways at the General. Vassilevsky sighed inwardly. Stalin was up to his old tricks — enticing others to express opinions which could be employed against them if there was a disaster.

The trouble was Stalin had never lost his crafty Georgian origins. Treacherous and devious by nature, he saw trickery everywhere — and Lucy could be Hitler's pawn, luring the Red Army into a gigantic trap from which it would never extricate itself.

Zhukov did not hesitate. The only general capable of contradicting Stalin to his face, he spoke out vehemently.

'Woodpecker tells us D-Day is 5 July - three days from now. He further tells us H-Hour for the attack is 1500 hours, a most unusual time for the launching of a German offensive, so it has the ring of truth. I wish to return immediately to GHQ to make our dispositions on the basis that Woodpecker is telling the truth.'

'You would take full responsibility for such a decision?'

'Yes, Generalissimo!'

'We must consider the problem further, gentlemen. Prepare yourselves for a long night,' Stalin replied.

At 2.30 pm on 5 July Colonel Jaeger's old leg wound began to play him up. Perched in the turret of his enormous Panther tank, he was commanding a section of an armoured division of General Model's 4th Army which was to drive a hammer-blow south at the base of the Russian 'thumb' to link up with General Hoth's 9th army advancing from the south. Between them the two armies would amputate the thumb - encircling one million enemy troops.

It was a hot sultry afternoon as Jaeger checked his watch and surveyed the endless rows of tanks drawn up for battle. His leg wound always troubled him just before the start of a great offensive. Looking across to the next Panther he saw Schmidt wiping sweat off his forehead.

'In half an hour it will be really hot!' he shouted jovially. 'Save your sweat for then!'

There was the sound of laughter from the turrets of tanks nearby. Jaeger was a commander who had the gift of breaking almost unbearable tension with a joke.

'Colonel!' Schmidt shouted back. 'Your sweat pores differ from ours. When the time comes you will sweat beer!'

There was another burst of laughter. Jaeger, anything but a stiff-necked, Prussian-type officer, was always ready to bandy words with his men regardless of rank. At precisely 1500 hours he gave his driver the order through his throat-mike.

'Forward! And don't stop till you see the whites of General Hoth's eyes!'

The immense leviathans began to rumble southward on their massive tracks. There was the thump of heavy artillery opening up a non-stop barrage. The endless, mind-wearying steppes of Russia spread before them as Jaeger's Panther pushed ahead of the vast tracked armada. Ignoring the shell-bursts which began to crater the sun-bleached earth, Jaeger directed his Panther straight ahead. South — ever south — until the link-up with Hoth and the pincers closed behind the Red Army cooped up inside its huge salient.

Altogether, on that humid July day, Field Marshal von Kluge had over half a million German troops under his command. They included seventeen Panzer divisions equipped with the monster new Tiger and Panther tanks, countless mobile guns - all backed up by motorized infantry. It was the largest force ever thrown against a single objective.
Citadel
.

H-Hour, the starting time - three in the afternoon - should certainly have taken by surprise the enemy who was accustomed to dawn attacks. It was anticipated that before Zhukov grasped what was happening he would find himself surrounded.

And in addition, the 2nd Army - comprising six Panzer and two infantry divisions - was attacking the tip of the 'thumb', as a diversion to draw Soviet troops away from the main battle area.

Earlier than he had expected, Colonel Jaeger found himself staring at two Soviet T-34 tanks advancing towards him about one hundred metres apart from each other. An average commander's reaction would have been to slow down, to wait for reinforcements to catch up with him. Jaeger was not an average commander.

'Increase speed!' he ordered.

As he had foreseen, he could see the huge gun like a telegraph pole on each tank traversing to aim at him. Their traverse was too slow because the last reaction they had expected was for the Panther to continue on course at higher speed: on a course which would naturally take the German tank between the two Soviet T-34s with fifty metres to spare on either side.

The Russian guns began to move more rapidly to bring their muzzles to bear on Jaeger at point-blank range. The Colonel timed it carefully. Just before the traverses were completed he spoke again into the mike.

'Maintain course. And give me everything you've got. Go like hell!'

The Panther rumbled forward, suddenly at top speed. The guns of the T-34s were traversing a little too slowly. Jaeger was midway between them when the Soviet commanders realized this maniac was continuing to advance past them.

They ordered their gunners to traverse to an angle of ninety degrees. The guns went on turning. Jaeger went on advancing. The Soviet commanders gave the order simultaneously.

'Fire...!'

A second earlier Jaeger passed beyond them. The guns of the two T-34s faced each other. The shells passed each other in mid-flight and detonated. Looking back, Jaeger saw the tanks burning, flames leaping from the turrets. So far he had not fired a shot.

'Continue to advance on the same course...'

Earlier he had seen the two tanks approaching, one behind the other before they separated to avoid bunching into a solid target. Jaeger could clearly see the marks of their tracks and he guided his Panther along the same avenue.

Minefields!
The everlasting gut terror of all tank commanders. By keeping to the track course of the burning T-34s Jaeger knew he was safe from mines. The wisdom of his judgement was vindicated a moment later when he heard a series of explosions.

To his left and right three Panthers were disabled or destroyed. One had a track sheared off the chassis and stood motionless in the battlefield. Two more were burning where they had encountered mines. Jaeger wirelessed back to the remainder of his squadron.

'Follow in my tracks. Precisely. Pathway through major minefield.'

As he completed his instruction to his operator Jaeger began to worry. Instinctively the incident he had survived told him something strange was happening.
Minefields
….

The Russians had sown no fewer than 40,000 mines
in a single night
, each mine capable of disabling a Panther or Tiger tank.

They had sown these lethal weapons in each sector where they knew the Panzer divisions were coming. In the early hours of the morning of 2 July inside the Kremlin, Stalin had finally decided to trust the Woodpecker signals. Given the go-ahead, the Soviet generals had reorganized their entire defences inside the Kursk salient, converting it into the greatest military death-trap in history.

The Germans still fought hard. Low-flying Stukas equipped with cannons swept over the battlefield, wiping out a large number of T-34 tanks. Across a vast area savage tank duels were fought but Hitler had lost the vital element of surprise.

It does not take all that much skill to win a battle if you know in advance exactly what the enemy plan is. The two men who really won the turning-point battle of Kursk were absent from the field of carnage. Woodpecker was at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia. The middle-aged, shabbily-dressed Rudolf Roessler was in Lucerne.

Even so, the Russians did not find it a walkover. Fighting continued to rage from 5 July to 22 July as the salient became a charnel house. The casualties on both sides were enormous. Medical personnel on the German side described their field hospitals as slaughterhouses.

Throughout the long days and nights the sound was deafening as the artillery continued to pound, the tanks to fire and the bombs to fall. The earth was desecrated, turned into a desert - a desert littered with shattered planes, tanks, and men.

Colonel Jaeger survived the holocaust - and saved Schmidt. Two Panthers had been blown up under the Colonel and he was in the turret of the third in the midst of chaos and milling confusion when he saw Schmidt, hit by a sniper's bullet, topple over the side of his turret.

'Halt!' he ordered.

Clambering down onto the churned-up earth he ran across as Schmidt's tank detonated a mine. A huge length of track splayed out and slapped, onto the ground. Schmidt, sprawled on his side, looked up.

'Get out of it, Chief! The medics will come for me...'

'Shut up and keep still!'

Jaeger gathered up Schmidt in both his arms and carried him to his own tank. He had reached the Panther when he felt a thump against his leg. He ignored it, hoisting up Schmidt as his wireless operator reached down to grasp the injured man.

'Colonel! Your leg!' the wireless operator shouted to make himself heard above the mind-numbing thunder which never ceased.

'Get Schmidt inside! I can get up myself. That's an order...'

Blood had soaked through the trousers covering the upper part of his leg and the pain was starting. There was a ping against the side of the Panther. That damned sniper again! Gritting his teeth, Jaeger hauled himself
 
rapidly up to the turret, inside and closed the lid.

'There is a bloody spy at the Wolf's Lair - and I'm going to track the bastard down when I get out of here.'

Jaeger was talking to Schmidt in the next hospital bed a week later. By using the Fuhrer's name the SS colonel had managed to get them both transported to a hospital in Munich. He had a definite purpose in choosing this location for their recuperation.

'Why are you so sure now?' Schmidt enquired. 'Kursk!'

'So, we lost the battle - it doesn't mean we lost the war..

'I fear, my old friend,' Jaeger said sombrely, 'it means just that. At Kursk, history - it is not an original phrase - trembled in the balance. We
should
have won, but the Bolsheviks knew our order of battle in advance. I forced my way into the presence of Field Marshal von Kluge afterwards. He agreed with me. The Fuhrer was right, there is a top-level Soviet spy at the Wolf's Lair.'

'Well, there's nothing you can do about it,' Schmidt observed.

They occupied a small two-man ward and both were recovering from their injuries. Jaeger had been shot in the upper right leg, the bullet embedding itself only a few centimetres from the place where he had been shot during the final stages of the 1940 campaign in France.

The doctor had suggested he be invalided out of the army when final recovery took place. He was exhausted by his exertions in so many campaigns. Jaeger's reaction had almost put the doctor into one of his own beds. Grabbing the walking-stick by his bedside the Colonel had thrown back the bedclothes and rested his good leg on the floor.

'You may be a good doctor but you're a bloody lousy psychologist!' he had roared. 'I have a specific job to do - and by God I'm going to do it!'

He waved the stick in a threatening manner. Hauling the bandaged right leg out of bed he stood up, supporting himself by the stick as he hobbled forward menacingly. The doctor backed away from him until the wall stopped his retreat.

'Colonel, you should be in bed...'

'I should be in the Cauldron - searching for a lead to the man who put me here, who left so many thousands of my comrades dead amid the flies and dust of Kursk. I have only one instruction for you, Doctor, get me mobile at the earliest possible moment.'

'I can only do that if you rest, stay in bed...'

The doctor's face had lost its normal colour, confronted by Jaeger who was the picture of ferocity. Holding on with one hand to the bottom of Schmidt's bed, Jaeger raised his stick with the other to emphasize his command.