Breakthrough (The Red Gambit Series) (13 page)

The radio was in his hand in an instant, send
ing back a contact report as his
tank dropped in behind the farm building, screening him from the Shinhoto Chi-Ha
that
had engaged the Stuart tank.

He dismounted and moved to the corner of the building
,
from where he immediately spotted a second
Shinhoto
.
The
47mm gun was engaging the next
US
vehicle
in line, with more success it seemed, as a burst of smoke followed the sound of metal on metal.

Climbing back in
to his tank
again
,
he informed the unit commander of the latest development and was told to reconnoitre further forward around the flanks
, if safe to do so. W
hich order he immediately interpreted to his own ends, determining the move totally unsafe and electing to remain in place until the medium tanks took care of business.

Li’s mouth was still working overtime
,
but the man was clearly calming down
,
as his pitch started to descend to more normal levels.

Cigarettes appeared and Hardy tried to calm his men further, all made jittery by the panic of their gunner.
He spoke softly to the man.

“
Ok then, Teo Li, you've been in action before.
What on ear
th got into you?
You’ve seen a Shinhoto before, haven’t you?”

The look from the frightened Chinese was a mix of disbelief and contempt. “That no
Shinhoto,
Hardy Sergeant. That bigger
tank.”

This started the rest of the crew off again and the chatter again climbed in pitch and intensity. Hardy, his dislike of serving with the Chinks
reinforced
, dismounted once more and moved to watch the armoured exchange.

An M4A4 had stopped to engage the Japanese tanks and was
rewarded with a first shot hit, splitting
the track of the stationary tank adjacent to the road. A well aimed reply struck the Sherman on the glacis and ricocheted skywards with next to no damage done, a gleaming scar the sole testament to the strike.

The American gunner nonchalantly adjusted his aim and dispatched the Shinhoto through the hull, watching as three
panicked
crew
members
abandoned their tank before putting a second shot into the smoking vehicle.

Hardy thought the shooting was impressive and nodded approvingly when the second
Sherman
killed the other Shinhoto with its first shot.

Inside the two lead Shermans
,
the relaxed atmosphere generated by easy kills evaporated in an instant as first one then the other gunner brought their sights to bear on a third enemy tank.

The first gunner remained speechless, transfixed by the sight.

The second gunner had the presence of mind to report the new target.

“Enemy tank, two o’clock, range 900 yards.”

The Commander looked for the new target and found it, euphoria turning quickly to fear.

Never having seen one in the flesh before didn’t mean that the vehicle wasn’t instantly recognisable
,
and every man that saw it knew that death was a moment away.

Hardy had turned back to his own vehicle when the sound of a heavy gun reached his ears, accompanied by the
thundering
whoosh as it slid closely by its intended target.

“What the fuck?”, although somewhere in the recesses of his memory he recognised the sound and his stomach flipped.

The two M4’s were reversing, smoke pouring from their labouring engines and from
smoke grenades lobbed by the crew to cover the withdrawal.

Hardy knew the answer before he looked, just in time to
hear
the big gun roar
again
and the first
Sherman
explode into a fireball from which no-one escaped.

It was
the sound of
a Tiger I’s 88mm gun
that
he had recognised, and sat on the road
eight hundred
yards away
,
was a fully operational example of the deadly German tank.

By the time Hardy had composed himself
,
the tank had eaten
fifty
yards off that distance, firing on the move without success.

The American battalion commander contemplated relieving the idiotic Lieutenant who was screaming about Tiger tanks
. B
efore
he made the decision,
the man
’
s radio transmission ended abruptly
.

The second Tiger’s arrival gave Hardy the impetus he needed
,
and he was in his tank
in seconds,
issuing orders, anxious to get his tin can out of the way of the leviathans.

Swiftly conversing with the
unit
Commander
,
he pushed out to the right, heading towards the river, looking for a way round on the right flank, as other’s were looking on the left.

             
Hamuda calmed his men, listening intently to the reports of combat coming from the tanks of 2nd
Company
,
marrying them with the evidence of his eyes
.

             
The American Sherman
and Stuart
tanks were expanding their line and firing rapidly, presenting excellent flank targets to his company’s Panther tanks. A fact he reported, keen to get into action before 2nd Company
claimed too many. Through his episcopes he could already see six American tanks burning
,
but there were plenty more.

             
An American
M5 Stuart
tank emerged from the buildings
five hundred
yards to his front. Fearing discovery
,
Hamuda asked for permission to open fire,
and his headset crackled with a new voice, that of Major Yamashio, giving 1st
C
ompany permission to engage from their flank position.

Selecting the enemy Stuart tank as his first target
,
he warned his company to prepare.

The Panther’s gunner took careful aim and waited for the order.

Two seconds later it came and the firing button was pressed, sending a 75mm armour-piercing shell on its way.

             
The Panther’s 75mm gun could penetrate the M5 Stuart many times over
and
its
high-velocity shell
pass
ed
through the vehicle and
buried itself in a small mound behind the American tank.
Its
journey through
the
US
light tank had been catastrophic.
On its arrival at t
he glacis plate of the Stuart
,
the AP shell
had
easily penetrated the metal
plate
before messily destroying the co-driver
, proceeding
on
to amputate Teo Li’s left leg at the knee
and finally
smashing the rear-mounted engine virtually in half
,
before exit
ing
the back of the tank.

             
The crew
bailed
out
at speed, all save Li
,
whose screams of pain and fear harried the fleeing tankers until a second shell from the Panther smashed the tank into silence
.

             
The Stuart driver was struck down by a burst from Hamuda’s hull machine-gun, the gunner walking the tracers across the ground and into the running figure. Using the distraction
,
a breathless
Hardy
found
refuge in an animal pen
, diving over the wall into the
deposits
of the previous occupiers.

He lay there, trying to make himself as small as possible, not knowing what it was that had killed his tank and men.

             
Other Panthers were also engaging and
five
more
Shermans
had been destroyed.
The Japanese gunners were doing their best and, whilst they were not up to the standard of German panzer crews, being sat in an invulnerable tank
,
killing enemy armour with side shots
,
wasn’t too difficult.

             
Caught between the 2nd
C
ompany’s Tigers and Shinhoto
s to his front, and the Panthers of 1st Company to his right, the American comman
der rightly called a withdrawal of all three comp
anies committed to the advance.

The accompanying Chinese infantry had
already made their own decision, withdrawing to safety
immediately the Shinhoto’s had opened fire.

             
To the rear of the column
,
a battery of 105mm Howitzers was brought online and targeted
on the enemy tanks to the Battalion C
ommanders front.
The 81mm mortars of the
Provisional
battalion’s mortar platoon commenced dropping smoke to the right f
lank of the unit, trying to mask
the Panthers from their quarry.

             
Hamuda ordered his company to switch positions to counter
any enemy artillery fire
,
and to try and seek better firing positions. T
he euphoric commander of
2nd
Company
committed an error, and
did not
shift his company
until the first heavy calibre shells started to arrive. The battery’s third salvo caught another Japanese tank, a basic Type 97 Chi-Ha, throwing
the wreck
on its side and killing the crew with the concussion.

             
By now
,
2nd
Company was scattering, permitting the savaged allied tankers to withdraw in good order, leaving nearly half of their number on the field,
twenty
-three
wrecks testament to the capabilities of the gunners and their German weapons.

1st
Company found themselves without targets as the American tankers used the terrain to mask their retreat
. Some commanders
contented themselves with the occasional shot at moving trees and bushes without further success, something which Hamuda called a halt to as it wasted ammunition.

One of
2nd
Company’s Tigers halted and its deadly 88m spat a shell out. Hamuda noted the sudden pall of smoke from beyond a group of huts
,
which
quickly
turned into
the traditional fireball that
t
ended to mark the demise of a
Sherman
tank.

His professional eye swept the field, counting out the pyres and concluding that the two companies engaged had destroyed
twenty-
five
enemy vehicles in total. Only two of the four tigers of
2nd
Company had engaged
, whereas all of 1st Company’s Panthers had taken the America
n unit under fire. Hamuda’s
own tally amounted to two tanks destroyed and another hit. He had already decided to employ the German system for recording tank kills
,
and was looking forward to displaying two kill rings on his gun barrel. Some of his unit
’
s tanks had possessed rings earned by their previous owners
,
but his own late production Ausf G had
apparently
been a virgin until this day.

Across the river
,
the Allied artillery made
a
spectacular
kill.

During
1944
,
the top armour of the Tiger
I was increased to 40mm.
The tank struck by the shell was a pre-44 model, whose armour was still the 25mm production standard thickness, which yielded easily to the force of the strike.

The whole crew were killed instantly and
Hamuda knew he had just watched
the 2nd Company commander die.