Breakthrough (The Red Gambit Series) (60 page)

“OK Gerry. Get Demario and Smith down here straight away, with a warning order to prepare for a move a-sap. Also
,
Castelli needs to be i
n on this
, similar warning order for his artillery.”

Taylor
squinted at the map, finding the combination of gas light and sunlight insufficient for his needs.

“Orders out to the
Brazilians,
2nd/1st Mechanised Cavalry and 1st/9th Combat Engineer Battalion to concentrate on Obermelden immediately.”

Taylor
grinned at his
CoS
.

“Once that is done
,
we will go through the niceties of letting our fellow Generals know what we are doing with their men.”

Higgins grinned back at his Commanding officer, a small part of him knowing exactly how Taylor would take it if some other General started monkeying around with his boys.

‘Still, needs must,’
he told himself.

General Taylor sought out the information as to who might command.

“Looks like it’s the 100th’s ball, so get me their Colonel on the line once you have all the boys moving.”

Within a minute, the radio started pumping out orders to the various units.

The artillery of the 315th and 522nd Battalions had been working the
Soviet
positions for twenty minutes precisely, the mix of 105mm, 155m
m,
and 8” shells altering the landscape in and around the hastily scraped defensive positions.

At 190
0 hrs
,
the lead tanks of the 702nd Tank Battalion, easy-eight
Shermans
from B Company, pushed forward, the Brazilian Cavalry not yet having taken the field.

Lieutenant Colonel Petersen, commander of the 100t
h [Nisei] Infantry Battalion
,
had been given a very specific brief by Maxwell Taylor; one that was unequivocal and simple.

Extract the isolated unit.

Kill everything with a Red Star.

Petersen enjoyed the looseness of the orders, as they permitted him to fight the battle as he chose.

General Taylor had been very specific on one point, which Petersen understood
,
and
he
acted to ensure no such thing happened. He h
ad given the artillery strict instructions in order to prevent any friendly fire incidents, with either his task force or the troopers of the trapped Eagles.
Such warnings cascaded down to the lowest levels, each and every man made conscious of the fact that there were also friendlies to their front.

Radio contact with the
cut-off
airborne
troopers
was sporadic
,
but the plan had been communicated and he expected
the 101st to play its part in full.

With the Meldnerbach stream securing their right flank, infantry from his ‘B’ Company were pushing ahead along a wooded ridge line, mortars from the 100th
’s heavy weapons company
waiting expectantly behind them, ready to overcome any resistance.

‘C’ Company tucked in behind the lead armored elements, and the rest of his force was stacked up, ready to deploy in line with the hastily devised plan.

‘B’ Company started to come under machine-gun fire and the mortars responded to the call, accurately sending round after round
on target
until the obstruction was eliminated.

The lead Easy-E
ight, so called because of its E8 variant designation, appeared to kick on and swerve off the road, the sound of the explosion reaching his ears shortly after the visual image.

Through his binoculars
,
Petersen could see the
tank
crew abandon as tracers sought them out, fired from the
Soviet
positions to their front. One
of the
tankers disappeared in an explosion of red, struck by multiple projectiles, but the others made the relative safety of a stone wall
,
a few yards behind their stricken and now burning tank.

The second
Sherman
fired as they made it to their safe haven, a flash erupting at the top of the incline to their front.

‘C’ Company of the 100th oriented to the left side
,
and pushed tent
at
ively forward, immediately coming under more fire from the high ground.

The
US
tank company
brought
more tubes to bear and directly engaged the
defenders
, beating each point down in turn.

‘C’ Company picked up the pace and pushed forward, dropping again when two
Soviet
tanks declared themselves on the ridgeline, engaging the infantry
at first
before
recognising the presence of the American armour.

The
Soviet
commander had improvised with his defences, and the weapon that had claimed the lead
US
tank fired again. The 85mm 52K Anti-Aircraft gun was a large weapon
,
not normally suited to front line engagements, but the Colonel in charge had installed four on the ridgeline covering the approaches. Two had succumbed to the artillery already, but the survivors now engaged the American tanks with some success, a second E8 falling victim to a direct hit from which the crew did not escape.

The next
US
tanks in line were not so easily destroyed, and two hits were shrugged off by the lead Pershing, its own 90mm seeking out and killing one of the reversing T34’s.

Backing up
at speed, t
he other T34 nearly made it to safety but a 76mm shell tore off its nearside track. The disable
d
tank was ripped apart by nu
merous strikes, turret separating
from hull as it exploded spectacularly.

Another 85mm shell ricocheted off the lead Pershing, a modest silver scar
revealing
its impotency.

The Pershing hit back, the shell passing within millimetres of the gun itself but failing to strike metal, hurtling into the sky beyond without noticing that it had obliterated two of the crew as it went.

Bathed in the essences of their dead comrades, the horrified gunners broke and ran.

The surviving 85mm engaged the lead tank, adding a second scar alongside the first.

‘C’ Company’s mortar section dropped their shells right on the money, twisting flesh and metal with ease and knocking out the defenders last weapon of note.

The Lieutenant commanding the
defending
infantry ordered a hasty withdrawal
,
and the ridge was vacated.

The Nisei infantry pushed forward, both companies coming under fire from stragglers but keeping up the pressure, conscious of the limited amount of daylight available for their needs.

The
Soviet
commander had launched his own attacks at 1900
hrs
, intending to compress Crisp’s position and pushing his perimeter
back
further from any possible rescue attempt.

On the ridge line south-west of Eggenthal, soldiers from the
4th Guards Mechanised Corps
threw
a handful of
the 101st troopers out of the ‘Good Night’ Farm, a prominent range of buildings that commanded both the ridge and overlooked the Eggenthal-Oberhelden road.

The modest but impressive looking Red House sat two hu
ndred metres south of route 12, and was a vital position, whichever uniform you were wearing.

It was now in the possession of
the infantry of 4th Guards Mechanised Corps
,
but they
had paid a heavy price to displace the defending buffalo soldiers of
King
Company.

This was not going according to planning, as Crisp had banked on retaining the Red House
,
and using Goodnight Farm as a start point for his own push
towards linking up with P
etersen’s force.

A swift orders group was called and found Crisp fired up and ready for business.

“OK, the Re
ds have fucked up plan A. Here’
s plan B.”

He had pencilled in his plan on the map and used the markings to pass on his orders.

He started with the Item Company Commander
from the 370th
.

“Your boys simply must take it back and hold it
,
Abraham
. We can’t have the enemy sat there covering this road.”

Crisp emphasised the road he meant, the one down which it was intended to evacuate all the wounded.

The wounded captain understood perfectly, his facial wound restricting him from anything other than an indistinct ‘yes sir’.

Abraham
Isaiah
Johnson was descended from a line of black soldiers, the fi
rst of which had fought
with the 54th
Massachusetts
, surviving the debacle at
Fort
Wagner
, only to fall at B
oykin’s Mill on 18th April 1865
,
in one of the last engagements of the Civil War.

“I will give you some mortars
,
and you can have first
call
on any artillery Petersen can provide.”

Moving quickly on, Crisp brought in Reeves of George Company.

“Bill,
you leave a platoon behind in town
to support our friends in King C
ompany,” he nodded at the black officer who sat waiting his turn.

“K
eep your right flank tight on Abraham’s boys and help him if he needs it ok? But, your job is to open the road here, all the way to this point,” Crisp redrew a small cross in a heavier hand.

“No further forward than that. Beyond that is an artillery free fire zone. Clear?”

“Crystal, Boss.”

The first time Johnson had heard the expression he
wondered
if it was some intended sleight but now he knew it was standard fare for the Eagles troopers.
However, he couldn’t bring himself to follow suit.

Captain
Williamson of 370th’s King Company
was next in line.

“
Ben
, again,
leave a platoon behind in your positions. H
ang on tight to Bill’s flank here. I want you to sweep the whole ridge up to here and not beyond. Stay inside the road line, probably best to stay inside the
wood line
. Support the attack on ‘Good
Night’ from
the ridgeline here
,
but I need you to take and hold this ground here as a priority.”

Crisp tapped the gentle curve of the woods, sat next to and commanding the important link road.

“Yes Sir.”

Turning to the next man in line, Crisp knew he was dealing the officer a bad hand but someone had to do it.

“
JJ
, you get the farm.
Bring everyone you have.
I will give you HQ’s mortar and machine gun platoons too, but you have to take the farm.”

1st Lieutenant Timmins appreciated the extra help, but Crisp was not finished.

“I will also come up to you as soon as things in town are sorted, but at the start it’s all yours.”

The normal commander of Easy
Company was an experienced Captain, presently lying on a stretcher in the battalion aid post, both
legs amputated below the knees;
one by the surgeon’s
scalpel
, the other by
Soviet
shrapnel.

Crisp would have preferred to use George or Fox Company but could not spare the time to reorient his forces.