Soldiers and Marines Saga, page 42
Chapter Seven
Time for yet another morning briefing and conference call with the President and the National Security Council. This is the seventh one since the war started fifty-two hours ago. Even so, many of the members of the Council and the President’s staff continue to think of this as some kind of political event that involves polling and press releases instead of guns and planes and blood.
Their lack of connection with the reality of the situation is frightening. We’re in a shooting war with thousands of American and NATO casualties already and they’re concerned about the latest poll results? Thank God the President is stable.
Finally, when the discussion morphed into an evaluation of the latest polls, I rudely interrupted the speaker with a touch of sarcasm in my voice.
“Excuse me. Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt such an important discussion, but I must. Mr. President, on the line with me is General Murphy, Commandant of the Marines and General Macefield, the NATO air commander. One of us, or one of our senior aides, will always be available to brief you and the Council on the latest war developments.”
Then I continued.
“It will not always be me, Mr. President. That’s because the time has come for me, and Generals Murphy and Macefield, to be away visiting our men to personally evaluate their needs and problems.” Where did the President find these assholes?
To his credit, the President got the message I think and responded appropriately.
“Thank you General, I understand. I’ll have General Spelling keep you abreast of our efforts to obtain equipment and support from our friends and allies.”
******
Major tank and infantry battles swirled all along the entire central front during the entire first day of the war. Throughout both of the Fulda Pass approaches to Frankfurt it was Russian-made T-55s and T-62s with their accompanying BTR troop carriers and BMP fighting vehicles versus NATO’s M60s and Leopards and their accompanying M113s and Marder fighting vehicles.
For the infantry it was the Warsaw Pact’s handheld Saggers vs. NATO’s various handheld TOW missiles and old recoilless rifles. But mostly it was armor, artillery, and air support versus armor, artillery, and air support.
As the sun came up on the second morning of the war, mist was rising from the ground as the sun reached it and Sergeant Ross and the nine remaining tanks of his company were deployed at the far right of the Nickel-Dime along a road in a rolling area of trees and farmland. The new company commander, Lieutenant Randall, was two tanks down, about 300 feet away. The rest of the company’s tanks were deployed beyond him.
Sergeant Ross was the company’s senior surviving sergeant and now commands its Third Platoon. He’s number two in the company’s chain of command now that Captain Richards has been killed and Lieutenant Apostolon wounded.
****** Sergeant Ross
Both me and all the other surviving tank commanders of my platoon are standing in our turrets holding the SAMs we’ve unclipped from the recently installed holders on the side of our turrets. From the rising and falling roar in the forested area to our front it is obvious the German grenadiers we’ve been sent here to support are heavily engaged in an attempt to fight off a Russian combined arms attack including tanks and attack helicopters.
So far so good. Since early this morning I’ve been watching German wounded come out of woods and being moved into the trucks and ambulances parked haphazardly on both sides of the narrow road. They’ve been coming and going all morning. It won’t be long now. Christ, I hate this waiting. I wish they’d get on with it.
We’ve been expecting the German grenadiers to fall back and hand off the fight to us guys in the Nickel-Dime for more than an hour. Sure enough, here they come. The grenadiers are streaming out of the trees in front of our tanks and hurrying towards us. They had barely covered the open area and reached the relative safety of the sunken road when two Russian attack helicopters came in over the distant trees and caused me to pick up my SAM.
Suddenly a Russian T-62 comes charging out of the trees across the way. It gets about twenty yards before it is hit twice at almost the same moment. Freddy was still swiveling our tube towards it when two of the tanks from the platoon on our left fire one after another in rapid succession and the Russian lurches to a smoking stop.
Then more Russian tanks and APCs crash out of the trees in front of us and begin charging across the open area towards the embankment and the retreating grenadiers. Large numbers of cheering and running Russian infantry are running behind them. They apparently don’t know we’re here with our tanks or much about fighting ability of the German grenadiers.
I moved my tube to pick up one of the Russian APCs headed towards us and my Patton lurches back on its springs as Freddy gets a bead on it and fires. A few seconds later he fires at a T-62 and we lurch again just as I am starting to aim my SAM at one of the Russian-made helicopters. I recovered my balance and again started to aim when, to my great relief and with an ear deafening roar, three Belgium F-15s made a noisy low level appearance.
The F-15s were popping flares to distract any Russian SAMs that might rise against them and their wings twinkle and sparkle in red as they roared in from the right and absolutely shredded the helicopters. They disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
A vicious close-quarters tank battle instantly began between the nine remaining tanks of our company and several dozen T-62s and Russian APCs that poured out of the forest into the open area between the trees and the road embankment where we were sheltering. Oh God. Oh God. We’re all going to die.
It might well have been the end of us all except the grenadiers instantly began using their hand-held TOW rockets to inflict heavy casualties on the Russian armor which was in the open without air cover and infantry support. Knocking out Russian tanks is exactly what American tankers and German grenadiers are trained to do.
It seemed like the shooting goes on forever but it was actually all over in a few minutes. The five hundred yards between the sunken road and the distant trees was filled with destroyed and burning T-62s and BMDs. Dead and wounded Russians are everywhere in the field in front of us along with a large number of ground-hugging Russian infantry who aren’t casualties, just scared shitless by the unexpected resistance and trying to hide.
Then, to the surprise of both the Russians and me, as soon as the Russian tanks were destroyed the surviving grenadiers launched a counter-attack.
The Russian infantry, all conscripts, it seems, had gone to ground when the Belgian F-15s attacked. Now, after getting up to move ahead and promptly taking heavy small arms fire from the grenadiers, they were again hugging the ground and no longer willing to get up and move forward. Many were crawling backwards towards the tree line. The war had just started and they’re either real smart or they’ve already had enough.
I could see the Russian infantry who are crawling back towards the trees and open up with my turret’s machine gun. Then, to everyone’s surprise, whistles blew and the grenadiers lurched to their feet and followed the Russians, aiming and firing their wicked little German assault rifles as they ran.
The grenadiers’ counter attack surprised me and absolutely astonished the Russians. I stopped firing for fear of hitting the Germans and just stood there in the turret and watched as the remaining Russians got up and ran back towards the trees with the Germans hot on their heels. We waited, half expecting more Russian tanks to show up to support their infantry even though the Germans grenadiers were in the woods in front of us.
Believe it or not, I was actually hoping the Russian tanks will come out of the woods and attack again—if we have to fight them it is better to fight them right here and right now where we can see them.
Why do I want to fight them now? Because rumor has it that the Russian tanks and fighting vehicles have superior night vision devices.
******
It wasn’t until early in the afternoon that the German grenadiers again began streaming back out of the woods and crossing the road on both sides of our tanks. This time they didn’t stop when they reached us. They continued withdrawing until they disappeared into another stand of trees about a thousand yards to the rear.
That was enough to convince Lieutenant Randall it’s time to pull back. A few minutes later our seven tanks abandoned the road with its high embankments and, one after another, headed towards the deep stand of trees behind us to join the grenadiers. Randall’s tank covered us and was the last to pull back. The two Pattons we left behind were smoking hulks. I had to force myself not to think about them and the guys I knew who were still in them.
We commanders of the platoon’s seven remaining tanks can’t see each other in our new positions because of the trees between us, but each of us can see the fifteen hundred yards of open land to our front. The lieutenant radioed to tell us to go back deeper into the trees if we get forced out of these positions.
“It’s not so bad here,” I said over the tank intercom to my crew after I had Bobby stop and swing us around so our heavier frontal armor faces the on-coming Russians. Except we’re too damn close to the trees across the way.
“Saggers can reach us from the trees on the other side of the road,” I told my crew. “On the other hand, we’ve got trees on either side of us that’ll block their view unless they’re straight on in front of us. And if them muthafuckers are straight ahead of us they’ll have the sun in their eyes and we’re likely to see them if they pop one of them fucking Saggers at us. Now let’s get the camouflage net rigged.”
About three in the afternoon Russian T-62s surrounded by infantry once again started emerging from the woods in front of us. This time they came slowly and cautiously one at a time without all the cheers and shouting. Lieutenant Randall began assigning the targets.
“Willie, you take the one on the right; Joe, you take the tank on the left. I’ll got the middle fucker. Billy, you take the next one who comes out of the woods no matter where he shows. Let us know when you’ve got him dialed in and I’ll give the order. We’re not waiting after four so everybody else standby to take anyone else who shows up. Makes sense to me.
A few seconds later another T-62 broke out of the woods. Then, after a moment, “I’ve got him cold,” someone says, probably Billy’s gunner.
“Fire” shouts Lieutenant Randall.
My Patton rocked back as our carefully sighted tank tube boomed and its muzzle flamed. Everyone fired at almost the same moment and all four of the carefully targeted T-62s were hit along with a fifth who came out of the trees a few seconds later and ended up being hit twice when some of the guys got off a second shot. I don’t know who got his; it wasn’t me We weren’t up in time. Hot damn. They didn’t even reach the sunken road.
“Load, goddamn it. Load.” I screamed into my mike.
While Freddy quickly traversed the Patton’s 105mm tube in a vain search for a surviving Russian to target, I stood in the turret and watched as a huge secondary explosion rocked one of the T-62s and its turret did a lazy somersault as it lifted several hundred feet in the air. Motherfucker! It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
A few minutes later I sensed movement behind me and turned to watch a line of about eighty hunched over German grenadiers cautiously creep up behind my Patton and carefully survey the smoking T-62s in the otherwise empty field to the front. The Russian infantry was nowhere in sight.
Then one of the Germans, He’s gotta be some kind of officer, gave me a smile and a big thumbs up, and began giving hand signals that spread his men out between our tanks. This is a fairly good position for us that just got a whole lot better.
I really meant it when I smiles and waves back to the German and gave him a big thumbs up of my own.
Shit, we probably should’ve joined up with these German muthafuckers when they were in the trees across the way. Combine our gangs so to speak like we did with those asshole Crips when the Latin Kings tried to take over our territory on the other side of 38th Street. Gotta remember that.
******
The various companies of our motorcycle skirmishers are being deployed by Dave Shelton under Klausen’s direct control to make sure they go where they are most needed. Almost half of them are in the north behind the Belgians, French, and Dutch. That’s not where the Pentagon and most of the NATO staff and the armored division commanders think the main thrust of Warsaw Pact forces’ invasion is likely to come. They still like the Fulda Pass in the center of Germany.
Klausen and I think they’re wrong, but we’re not sure. We expect the Russians and East Germans to hit the three French-speaking divisions in the north, believing, perhaps correctly because of the age of their equipment, that they are the weak link in the NATO defense. Why? Because that’s what we’d do.
What we really want, of course, is for the Russians and East Germans to think they are making sufficient progress in either the north or the center so they move their reserves, the ones that are up near the Baltic Ocean, from East Germany over into West Germany. That’s what we need them to do to clear the way for the counter-invasion blitzkrieg we intend to launch when the coast is clear.
The problem, of course, is that any Warsaw Pact successes we manufacture by having our men retreat to suck in Russians and East Germans may turn into a real Russian or East German success if the retreat gets out of control. That’s why we need to have the skirmishers instantly available to rush in and plug any unexpected gaps. Got to check again to make sure Klausen and Dave understand that and have them ready.
******
West Berlin was quiet, eerily quiet, on the third morning of the war. Wolfie reported the city was totally shut down with no cars and no trams and buses on the streets and only a few people walking about. Most of the shops, malls, and offices are closed. Only the bahnhof is crowded. Our military units, of course, are on full alert and dispersed to their war-fighting positions.
One reason the city is so quiet is that, in the days leading up to the war, all the military dependents and foreign passport holders were evacuated along with many German families, particularly those with children. Even so, today the trains and buses out of the western sector continue to be packed and the lines of cars and trucks at the East German highway checkpoints stretch for miles as they have for the past week.
That the Russians and East Germans continue to leave the road and rail connections open for evacuees surprised everyone including me. We’re not certain why they’re doing it. Maybe it’s because they don’t want us to take out the bridges so they can use them themselves. If so, their plan is working: Dave Shelton pulled the highway bridges off our hit list at the last moment. Now cars and trains full of civilians escaping from Berlin pass right through both armies and the battlefield between them. Weird.
Every German officer assigned to the detachment over the years was asked to evaluate and suggest improvements for our three basic plans for West Berlin—one based on the assumption that the East Germans will try to take West Berlin; another that our forces will try to take East Berlin; and one that neither will attack the other.
NATO agreed. It has always been the best “guesstimate” of NATO’s planners that West Berlin will not be attacked even if there was a war, so long as there is a NATO force stationed there that would fight back.
Are Wolfie and I sure that will be the case? Hell no. On the other hand, just the fact that the analysts at the Detachment, including me, agree with NATO’s planners causes me to constantly worry we might be wrong.
The reasoning I finally came to accept, long before the war started, is that the West Berlin enclave will fall without a battle if the Warsaw Pact wins the war. So there is no reason for East Germany to attack and destroy part of a city it expects it will soon own without a fight. They can, instead, use their forces elsewhere where they might have a greater impact on the ultimate outcome of the war.
At least that’s what I’d do if I was running the Warsaw Pact. I’d put the smallest possible force of my poorest troops around the western sector of the city to contain Berlin’s NATO troops and keep them from participating in the battles that will decide the city’s fate—and send my best troops to fight where the war will be won or lost. It increasingly looks like that’s the Russian plan.
Because I don’t think the East Germans and Russians will attack West Berlin, and to the dismay of some of the German officers on the NATO staff, I decided not to send reinforcements to Berlin. I’m keeping them in West Germany to fight in the battles that will determine Berlin’s future. Indeed, I seriously considered quietly moving our best troops out of West Berlin to reinforce our war-fighting ability where the war will be won or lost.
In the end I decided to do nothing except order intensive weapons and urban fighting training for the city’s non-combat troops such as the payroll clerks, MPs, club managers, chaplains’ assistants, and the American, French, and British army bands. Wolfie Tomas stepped up their training even more and reassigned them to combat units as soon as he got to Berlin. And just in time. With 20-20 hindsight it’s clear I should have acted earlier.
But we do have a plan to make an effective use of our West Berlin troops. That’s why one of the first things I did when I took over NATO was to send an old friend from years ago at the detachment, Wolfgang “Wolfie” Tomas, now a German Generalmajor, to carry it out—which is exactly what Wolfie is doing.
No one knows it yet, but what Wolfie and I have decided on is a lightning strike into the eastern sector by the bulk of the Berlin garrison. In other words, we’re going to play the East German’s game back at them by leaving a token force to protect West Berlin from the East German troops surrounding it and concentrate the garrison’s armor and combat troops on taking East Berlin.
Why do that? Because the Russians and East Germans may respond, as Wolfie and I would not, by moving some of their strategic reserve units east to reinforce or recapture East Berlin instead of west to help fight off our counter-invasion. Wolfie is just the man to pull it off. He helped draw up the initial plan when he was a lieutenant colonel and one of the detachment’s very first German officers.
