The Shield: a novel (50 page)

***

Hirshson was done reviewing the base defense plans when his telephone rang.

“Ephraim please hold for Gad,” Liat Cohen’s voice said.

The Chief of General Staff
came on line a couple of seconds later: “Hi Ephraim. How are things there?”

“
Relatively quiet. We have about 25,000 people coming through every day.

“
By the way, I spoke to Alois Brunner, Eichmann’s replacement, and gave him the okay he requested to deport the rest of the European Jews to us. I also told him, and I hope you don’t mind, that the previous formula is still in place. If they kill a Jew a hundred Germans will die and he will be among the first.”

“
Ah, that was a good idea,” Yaari chuckled. “And how did our Nazi respond?”

“
He didn’t. I hung up on him. Since he didn’t call back I’m assuming that he took the threat seriously, as he should.”

“
Good.” Yaari paused. “Anything cooking with the Italians?”

“
Not that we can see. All seems to be quiet.”

“
How is your plan going?”

“
Funny you should ask. I just finished reviewing it. Looks good. It should be on your computer in a moment.”

“
Ephraim, we need you to come here. You can get on the refugee transport tomorrow afternoon. I’ll expect you at the General Staff at 8 in the morning on Tuesday.”

After they hung up Hirshson marked the appointment in his calendar for Tuesday, October 28, 1941.

***

Hirshson’s defense plan was reviewed,
amended and approved – all at the same meeting. He was a bit surprised that the Chief had him come all the way from Italy just to approve the plan. But the meeting was not over yet.

“
Gentlemen,” the Chief of General Staff said in a loud voice to cut through the conversations going on as everybody relaxed, “we are not done here yet. Please pay attention.”

The eight generals and various assorted aides attending the meeting stopped their chatter.

“I will let Zvi explain what our next assignment is.” Yaari nodded at the Chief of Military intelligence.

“
We were ordered by the government to start strategic planning for a European campaign.” Zvi Kaplan paused to let his audience absorb the surprising news. “I will try to present to you the basics of our thinking. Please feel free to interrupt – we are in the early stages and any input is welcome.”

“
What do you mean by ‘European campaign’?” asked the commander of the Navy.

“
At this point it would be any fighting in Europe involving our forces,” replied Zvi Kaplan
.
”The other difference from Hirshson’s plan is that it would be offensive and not defensive.

“
The plan we just approved assumes that at some time in the not too far future the Germans will discover that the Caliph story is bogus. They may try to verify what our intentions are, but it is likely that as soon as they ascertain that they’ve been deceived by Jews they will attack the Brindisi base. It’s arguable whether the Italians will participate, but it’s not important either – to attack us the Germans will have to invade Italy. Hirshson’s plan does exactly what it was supposed to do: make the Nazis pay a very high price on the way to Brindisi and finally stop them far enough from the base to prevent a direct assault on it.

“
As you all remember, our initial plan was to turn over Brindisi to the British sometime in early 1942. By then they should’ve defeated Rommel, though not yet control all of North Africa. If we stall the Germans somewhere south of Rome, the Brits would be able to finish off in North Africa and start their advance up the Italian boot in the second half of 1942.

“
Things have changed since that plan was formulated. Operation Moses is winding down and will be done by the end of December, 1941. The Cabinet decided to establish open diplomatic relations with Britain, the U.S., and the Soviets by mid-January, 1942. Others will follow but that’s not our concern here. The German response is. We assume that as soon as they verify their spies’ reports about us, they will attack. If we follow the old scenario the German army will be well fortified in Italy by the time the Brits are ready to attack. You all know how difficult it was even for the combined British-American forces to dislodge them in our time-line. It will be much more difficult for the Brits alone, made even worse by the fact that the Germans are not as exhausted as they were in our time-line – this is before Stalingrad and the other big defeats.”

“
Why the rush to disclose our presence to the world? If we wait another six or seven months the original plan will work just fine.”

“
If you’ll excuse me, Zvi, I will take this one. It is an important question,” Gad Yaari interjected. “There are two reasons. The first is that the Government decided to do so and it’s not debatable. And secondly, no matter when the German attack happens, if we stick with a defensive plan they will occupy most of Italy.”

Zvi Kaplan looked at his notes
. “I see that you guys are impatient so I’ll make this as short as possible. Of course you will pay for this with some homework.” He smiled. “Okay, here goes the bombshell: the Cabinet instructed us to prepare plans for the event of a government change in Italy. Don’t ask me how. Just assume that the Italian king orders Mussolini to resign and appoints Pietro Badoglio or somebody else prime minister. Also assume that Mussolini is going to be out of the picture and that the new Italian government refutes its treaty with Germany. Any questions up to this point?”

After a moment of silence Ephraim Hirshson said “It would need a miracle for Victor Emanuel to appoint Marshal Badoglio two years ahead of schedule and without Italy being invaded by the Allies. But assuming it happens, the Germans may attack. So what have we gained?”

Zvi Kaplan chuckled. “The key word is ‘may’. Our estimate, which agrees with the Mossad’s, is that if this miracle happens before our identity becomes known to the Nazis, they may be angry but not actually attack. There’s really nothing for them to gain from such an attack, as long as Italy doesn’t become too cozy with Britain. The probability of a German attack will grow from about 40% to a certainty when they discover that the Caliph is Jewish.

“
Our assignment is very simple: devise a military plan, to be implemented after the Italians break with the Germans and before Germany attacks that will prevent German occupation of Italy. Since the attack may happen as early as the end of January, 1942, we will be on our own – the Brits will have nothing to spare to help us. In fact, their perceived military situation may become worse due to the Japanese.”

Captain John Morgan of the Second Armored Company
, Third Regiment of the Second Battalion of the British Seventh Armored Division, Eighth Army was standing in his Crusader tank’s hatch observing the battle developing about a quarter mile in front of him. In the last week his company, with the support of several infantry and artillery units, steadily pushed Rommel’s forces west, towards the town of Matruh. They were now about 40 miles west of the village of Fuka, still about 300 miles east of the Libyan border. Morgan hoped to be in Matruh by nightfall and, if the German resistance continued to be sporadic and ineffective, to reach the border in two or three days.

Something was going on in front of him. It looked like the lead tank of his scout platoon had been hit by something. Morgan scanned the horizon and identified a Panzer IV, or at least the top of its turret, sticking out above a rocky outcrop on the south side of the road. The targeted tank spun around. Apparently it was only a
damaged track – easily repaired if not under fire. The tank’s commander was well trained: as soon as he realized what was going on he stopped the tank and found his opponent before the panzer had time to fire a second shot. The Crusader’s 60mm gun fired and Morgan enjoyed the fireworks’ display as the German tank exploded. By now he was used to this: the new guns seemed to penetrate the German armor regardless of the point or angle of impact and most of the time ignited the ammunition inside.

The commander’s hatch of the
damaged Crusader opened and a man climbed out. He jumped to the ground and went to the left side of the tank. “Good”, thought Morgan, “examine the damage and do something about it.”

In the meantime two other tanks of the scout platoon started moving forward to shield the crew while repairs were done. They didn’t make it on time. Two machine guns opened up from both sides of the road about 200 yards in front of the stuck British tank. The commander was hit and the rest of the crew would have no chance if they tried to leave the tank now.

As the two other machines were trying to target the machine gun nests, all hell erupted around the rest of the column. It looked to Morgan like the earth opened and hundreds, or maybe even a thousand, German soldiers in black SS uniforms jumped out of concealed trenches. Molotov cocktails (which Morgan recognized only as bottles filled with gasoline with a lit rag attached) flew at his tanks. Machine guns opened up on all sides moving down his supporting infantry.

“
Mayday, mayday!” Morgan yelled into his radio. “We were ambushed by a superior force.”

The brigade operator responded: “Please give us more details.”

Morgan had to switch between his company and headquarter frequencies and report on what happened while organizing a defense. At moments like this he wished that tanks had space to carry a radio operator.

Twenty minutes later the remnants of his force –
three Crusaders, two trucks with infantry, one six pound cannon and a truck with ammunition – were in full retreat. They needed to go back only about a mile before encountering the main body of their battalion. The Germans were hot on their heels and attacked the battalion which, despite the warning Morgan gave them, was not ready. It was a rout.

The tent housing battalion HQ was hit by a German artillery shell at the s
ame time Captain Morgan’s force was attacked. German infantry was pouring from the desert and tanks were appearing from hidden dugouts to support the assault.

John Morgan tried to contact the division HQ, but it was either too far away for his tank’s transmitter to reach or wasn’t listening on his frequency.

***

Gad Yaari picked up his phone: “Yes, Yaari here.”

“Sir, this is Colonel Simha Shalom, Military Intelligence. We have disturbing information from the Egyptian front. Our drones picked up a battle close to the Libyan border – the British have been seriously beaten. That was about two hours ago. As far as we can see - and judging from radio intercepts - the British command either doesn’t know what’s going on or doesn’t care. There are no signs of preparations to stop the advancing Germans.”

“
Good surveillance job. Colonel, please transfer a full report, including aerial imaging, relevant maps and estimates to my computer.”

Next Yaari called Liat Cohen and gave orders for a general alert and a limited emergency staff meeting. The Chief of Military Intelligence and the General commanding the new North Africa command were in his office an hour later. The Navy and Air Force commanders arrived soon after them.

Yaari let Colonel Shalom do the information presentation. After he was done and had left, the Chief of General Staff asked, “Well, Gentlemen, any ideas or observations?”

T
he Commander of Military Intelligence spoke first. “The Brits’ situation looks lousy. As you ordered, our liaison in Cairo notified their command of the threat. His official rank is only Colonel and he’s nominally responsible for training, so the good General Auchinleck either didn’t get the message or didn’t think it important enough to act upon. Since the Colonel is also nominally a member of the Jewish Brigade and Auchinleck has no knowledge of our presence, I can see how the warning was ignored. We asked the Foreign Ministry to instruct our ambassador in London to warn Churchill as soon as possible.

“
To tell you the truth, I don’t think all these warnings will do any good. Look at the map: If the Germans keep moving at their current pace, they’ll be in El-Alamein by tomorrow evening. The only thing that can stop them is fuel shortage, but I have a nasty suspicion that Rommel hoarded fuel while slowly retreating and will have enough to keep going. The Brits can disrupt his advance to some extent using their air force, but they really don’t have enough aircraft to do serious damage.”

“
Okay,” Yaari was looking at the map. “Let’s assume Rommel reaches El-Alamein by tomorrow night.

“
In his place I would go directly for Cairo and send a minor force to Alexandria.”

“
What do the Brits have to oppose him?” asked the Commander of the Navy.

Zvi Kaplan pulled out a sheet of paper from his briefcase: “
In theory they have most of the Eighth Army in the area. The problem is that it’s disorganized. Their command suffers from overconfidence and stupidity.

“
Instead of being patient and amassing a significant armored force armed with the new guns, they threw them into battle piecemeal – as they became available. Rommel was surprised by the kill rate the British achieved, but he learned and adapted. The almost twenty thousand Muslim SS troops he got allowed him to develop a tactic similar to what the Russians used on the Eastern front: deep, layered defense with massed infantry attacks using anti-tank weapons - Molotov cocktails in Rommel’s case. Apparently the Muslim soldiers don’t mind dying – maybe the Mufti promised them seventy virgins in heaven.