Himmler's War-ARC (19 page)

It was now mid-September and the advance to Germany was far behind schedule. The Germans were fighting tenaciously and it was looking increasingly like a winter campaign was going to happen and that the war would not end in 1944. They’d know for certain when winter gear was handed out. The weather was still warm, even comfortable now that the sometimes intense heat of summer was behind them.

There had been briefings regarding overall strategy and the 74th’s part in it. The Seine crossings would take place on the same day and at several places. The Germans would be overwhelmed and unable to maneuver men and armor to reinforce threatened areas. Jack thought it sounded nice, but then, plans always did.

To the north, near Le Havre and the mouth of the Seine, Montgomery was going to attack the wide mouth of the river as it flowed into the ocean. His force would include the British First Airborne Division, which would parachute behind enemy lines near the town of Bolbec, which the Brits promptly renamed Ballbuster. It was rumored that the overall attack had been delayed while Monty made his usual methodical preparations. It was also rumored that Patton wanted to strangle him. Because of the Seine’s greater width at Monty’s point of attack, he had gotten what few of the landing craft, DUKW’s, that were available, which further annoyed the Americans who would have to make do with inflatable rafts or whatever they could find.

South of Paris, Patton’s Third Army was going to cross near the town of Melun, while north of the city Hodges’ First Army would attack just above the city of Poissy, called Pussy by the troops, at a point where the river looped and the Germans could be enfiladed on three sides of American gunners. Paris had been declared an open city and the troops had been warned that great care needed to be taken to not break the fragile truce. So far, the French government had managed to keep their resistance fighters in check.

The day of battle began with the usual chaos. At dawn, American bombers flew in from the west, crossed over the river and dropped their loads. Almost predictably, the lead planes bombed their targets fairly accurately, while the following planes dropped short of the explosions created by the first. This resulted in the bombings creeping back to the river and then over to the American side of it. Fortunately, First Army’s commander, Courtney Hodges, and V Corps commander, Major General Leonard Gerow, had prudently held their men several miles behind the lines fearing just this thing; thus, only a handful of Americans were killed or wounded by so-called friendly fire. However, it took more time than planned for the engineers and assault elements to reach the river after the bombers left. The resulting congestion on the narrow and miserable French roads meant that the attack was delayed from dawn until noon. This gave time for the Germans to dig themselves out of the rubble created by the bombers.

As Morgan watched from his perch in the sky, scores of small boats, launches, and barges containing men of the 116th Infantry Division surged across while American artillery rained down on the German bunkers. The 74th Armored Regiment would follow the infantry as soon as a beachhead was established and a pontoon bridge was laid down.

Morgan’s small plane was buffeted by the shock waves caused by the artillery, and both he and Snyder tried to squash the fear that they might be hit by an incoming shell. American armor was arrayed on the west side and fired to keep the Germans’ heads down.

As the infantry’s improvised armada started to cross, engineers began to lay down a pontoon bridge strong enough to support the weight of tanks.

German fire discipline was excellent. They waited until the vulnerable small craft were in the water before scores of hidden pieces of artillery and hundreds of machine guns scythed the boats and the men huddled in them.

Boat after boat was hit and Jack heard moaning and realized it was coming from him. Some boats were burning while a few were blown apart, all sending men into the deep and cold river where he could see their heads bobbing as they were swept north towards the sea. Some managed to head towards the German side. The 116th was not an experienced unit and Jack could only imagine the horrors the men were enduring.

Despite the carnage, a number of boats made shore and unloaded their men, who were promptly pinned down by German fire. Worse, many of the boats that were supposed to return and get more men for the assault had been damaged or destroyed and could not be used as planned. The second wave was pitifully small in comparison with the first and the third wave never happened. The men who’d crossed were effectively trapped.

The German gunners turned their attention to the American armor arrayed on the western side and began to chew them up. Jack checked his fuel. They were almost out of gas and he flew the plane back to the landing strip where Stoddard grabbed him.

“Damn it, did you see anything good down there?”

Jack leaned on the fuselage. “I saw a lot of brave men dying, sir. Some of the guys who landed are trying to inch their way in, and they are using flamethrowers and bangalore torpedoes,” he said. Bangalore torpedoes were tubelike contraptions that very brave men put either under or into enemy defenses and then exploded. “But there are so few of them. When will the bridge be built?”

The colonel sagged. “Our armor is pulling back. The engineers are going to give it up for the time being. We’ve been whipped,” he muttered, then shook his head. “Maybe stalemated is the right word. Go get something to eat.”

Darkness was falling and Jack watched as shadows moved down the road leading to the rear. These were the defeated and the walking wounded, although how some of them could walk, Jack couldn’t imagine. As he drew closer to them, he saw that many had their faces bandaged, or were limping badly. Somehow, a couple of men who were missing arms were managing to head to the rear without assistance.

“Where the hell are the medics?” he asked out loud. They were overwhelmed treating the truly badly wounded, he realized.

He managed to walk to where he could see the riverbank and the sporadic fighting on the other side. Gunfire flickered like fireflies, only fireflies didn’t crackle and snarl. Occasional tongues of flame showed where a GI with a flamethrower had gotten close enough to the enemy. Curiously, it didn’t look like the Germans wanted to come out of their fortifications and fight the Americans who’d landed in their midst. Nor did the Germans have the firepower to wipe them out from the safety of their bunkers.

It occurred to Jack that there weren’t as many Germans as there ought to be or could be. He mentioned it to Whiteside who concurred. “This is not their main line of defense; in fact this loop of ground is pretty indefensible. We’ll attack again in the morning, except this time we’ll be smarter, and we’ll push them back. Besides, we just found out that Patton is across south of us and his presence will force them to abandon these lines as well as evacuate Paris. Maybe they don’t want to die any more than we do.”

That night the Germans did pull back and left only a handful of men to harass the Americans and call down artillery fire. The Germans had built a second defensive line where the river’s loop made a narrow approach the only alternative.

By mid-morning, two pontoon bridges were completed and both men and armor poured over. Again Jack was in the air watching the panorama unfold. The Germans had dug a dry moat across the neck of ground. They blew up the ends, sending torrents of water from the Seine gushing in and filling it. The moat, however, wasn’t deep enough and the regiment’s Sherman tanks plowed through and up to the new defenses, which they fired at point blank. Again, flamethrowers devastated the bunkers. A flamethrower operator was hit and his tank exploded, engulfing him in a pillar of flames. Jack hoped he died quickly. The guys with flamethrowers had to be insane, he concluded.

* * *

“My friends and comrades, it is time to leave,” Colonel Schurmer said to the handful of his men who remained in Paris. General von Choltitz and his staff and the bulk of the garrison in Paris had already departed. The city was still quiet but who knew how long that would last. The Americans had crossed the Seine both to the south and the north and, as soon as they gathered enough strength, they’d be racing to cut off Paris and capture any Germans still inside the city. French troops were reported to be advancing from the west. The designation of an open city would not last forever.

They piled into the handful of vehicles remaining to them. These included three Panzer Mk1 tanks, which were lightly armored vehicles carrying a pair of machine guns each. Obsolete for a modern battlefield, they were intimidating to the semi-trained mobs of French resistance fighters in the city, even though they would slow down the rest of the column. Or at least Schurmer hoped they would intimidate the French. Large numbers of Frenchmen armed with a miscellany of weapons freely roamed the city as de Gaulle’s supporters fought the communists and both began to fight the Germans.

The column attracted rifle and machine gun fire as they drove westward out of the city, but it did them no harm. Schurmer was in one of six Type 82 Kubelwagens, a rough equivalent to the American Jeep. They had been assembled by Volkswagen and were built on a Kafer chassis. Outside of Germany, the Kafer was known as the Beetle.

The vehicles seated four but were not armored and Schurmer felt vulnerable as they drove out of Paris. It was time to leave the fabled city of lights far, far behind and acknowledge that the Third Reich had lost yet another battle.

A surprising number of French civilians were also heading east. These were people who’d worked with Germany and didn’t want to face the wrath and vicious justice of their countrymen. It would be hell to be on the losing side, he thought, which would be his fate if Himmler couldn’t pull something out of the mess Germany was in.

He tried not to cringe as badly aimed gunfire rattled off the street and the vehicles around him. Thankfully, the FFI, the resistance, were such poor shots. Most Frenchmen were. He did not think highly of French martial abilities after their utter and shameful defeat in the debacle of 1940. Thankfully also, they aimed at the tanks and the bullets that did strike armor simply bounced off. The two men in the back seat of his vehicle aimed submachine guns in the general direction of the buildings they were passing, but did not fire. Few French civilians were in view although he felt that thousands of eyes were watching him.

Schurmer was disappointed that the Seine Line had fallen so quickly, but had learned much that would serve him well on the Rhine defensive works and the other fortifications being built before that great river. He was not confident that the Allies would be stopped before the Rhine.

A young Frenchman carrying a lighted Molotov cocktail raced towards the lead tank, his mouth contorted in anger as he screamed something unintelligible. A gunner from the second tank fired a burst that nearly cut the Frenchman in half. The incendiary cocktail ignited in his hand, covering him in flames. The dying man writhed and screamed before falling still. So much for de Gaulle being able to control his countrymen, Schurmer thought. But then, who could control a Frenchman? It would be easier to herd cats.

A rude roadblock suddenly came into view, made up of overturned cars and piled debris. A score or so Parisians, men and women, were on it and in the buildings alongside. They opened fire with rifles and shotguns as the column approached. Two of Schurmer’s little tanks paired up and blazed away with their machine guns. Several resistance fighters fell and the others melted away, dragging their dead and wounded. The two small tanks bulled their way through the flimsy barricade and the other vehicles followed through the opening.

Another partisan with a death wish and a Molotov cocktail rushed up. This one was more successful, hitting the lead tank and inundating it with flames before the guns of the second tank killed him. Schurmer cursed. The damned French would proclaim him a martyr and name a road after him. How about Rue de Fool, he thought. Before the war there had been nearly three million people in Paris, many of whom even admired Germany, and now they all hated the Reich.

The burning tank’s two-man crew jumped out and climbed onto the remaining tanks, and the column drove on. The men appeared unhurt and Schurmer was thankful. He laughed as one of them waved at him.

Safe, Schurmer thought as they reached the countryside, was a relative term. Being alive for the moment did not constitute safety. He did wonder just how far out of the city the truce extended and for how much time now that the damned Americans were across in two places. Thank God the little prick Montgomery had gotten his arrogant little nose bloodied to the north.

Schurmer got his answers a few moments later. They had just cleared the city proper on a road he thought was called Sebastopol Boulevard when he heard the sound of airplane engines over the motors of his vehicles. He turned and stared in horror as a pair of American P47’s turned to strafe the column.

“Out,” he yelled as if anybody needed any urging. His men were already tumbling out of their vulnerable vehicles.

The remaining tanks were lightly armored and were ripped by the planes’ machine guns. They wheeled and commenced to destroy the Kubels while Schurmer and his men hid in a ditch.

Fortunately, the Americans got tired of their fun when the tanks and Kubels were burning, and flew off. Perhaps they didn’t see the score of German soldiers cowering in fear. Or maybe they were out of ammunition. He was thankful the Americans hadn’t carried bombs.

Schurmer stood up and dusted off the dirt from his uniform. He checked his men. Several were wounded, but, thankfully and miraculously, none had been killed. Even the men in the tanks had moved quickly enough to survive. These were all good men and the Reich was going to have great need of good men to confront the coming ordeal.

He turned to his aide and said very loudly. “Willy, didn’t we used to have an air force, too?”

The young lieutenant shrugged and the men grinned. “I think it was just a rumor, Colonel.”

Shurmer formed his men up. “Since we have no choice unless you wish to stay here and become prisoners of war, or, more likely, be hanged by the French after they castrate you with a dull spoon, we will begin to walk back to Germany.”