Soldiers and Marines Saga, page 61
Three of the Milch Cows will stay behind and look for fuel. The rest are going with the Leopards to serve as mobile machine gun platforms. Also going with the Leopards, and riding on top of them, are a couple of platoons of tough-looking American paratroopers, their faces still smeared with black from their jump.
Riding behind the Leopards in various pickup trucks and other commandeered vehicles are the other two platoons of the airborne company that have just been chopped to the German Major. They will provide Hakken’s Leopards and Milch cows with infantry support.
******
Karl and Jacob talk and talk as they slowly work their way through the trees and the periodic swarms of mosquitoes. Karl is afraid that if he stops talking the pain will get to him and he will sit down and never be able to get back up. So they talk about everything: their attack on the repair train, their families, Schroeder, the army, and their wives, or in Jacob’s case, his former wife, Trudel, and the two children he rarely sees.
Along the way they decided their raid on the repair train is probably going to trigger an intensive aerial search and they will be seen if they don’t reach their camp and hide. That helps Karl to keep going. He doesn’t want to be responsible for Jacob being caught.
The forest was quiet and the sun going down as Karl and Jacob finally saw the site of their cache of equipment and supplies in the distance. It was on the side of a little ravine and hidden in a rocky indentation covered by protruding tree roots.
Karl is in real pain and it was getting progressively worse. By the time they finally reach their camp Karl was only able to move by jumping along on one foot with a make-shift crutch under his arm while a heavily burdened Jacob carried everything.
When they finally reach the cache they do not immediately start setting up a tent and making a proper camp. Jacob is too exhausted from carrying everything and Karl can hardly move.
“Better we stay here and are safe for a few days until the Ivans stop looking,”
That was Karl’s suggestion as he leaned back against a tree and winced as Jacob wrapped his swollen ankle with a piece of gauze from their medical kit. Jacob’s big hands were surprisingly gentle.
“Maybe we get the tent and sleeping bags out after dark and then put them away before dawn, Ja?” suggested Jacob.
Karl grunted his agreement. He was too tired to talk and his ankle hurt so much it has become almost numb. He didn’t know it but when he first sat down he passed out from the pain. After about ten minutes he suddenly became aware of all the insects and that Jacob is asking him something. He didn’t answer, just sort of nodded as Jacob held his head up and gave him a handful of pills from the medical kit and a swig of water from a canteen. All Karl wants to do is not move.
Neither man says it out loud, but they are both worried that Karl’s ankle is broken and the damage permanent.
Their decision to do nothing except remain hidden turns out to be a fortunate decision. Karl and Jacob don’t know it, of course, but an intense search to root out the “criminal saboteurs” had started in response to an order from Moscow. Thousands of the Russian troops stranded in the east have been ordered to move up the railroad line and sweep the German invaders out of the forests around it.
Because their team is the team dropped closest to the distant Chinese border, the bridge and culvert Karl and Jacob destroyed are the first in line to be protected and repaired. Only then can the railroad-carried cranes and other heavy equipment move on up the line to the next repair job.
What it means, which Karl and Jacob also have no way of knowing, is that thousands of Russian troops are moving into the forests along the railroad tracks to protect the repair crews from attacks such as the one they just carried out. They spent the night blissfully unaware of the danger gathering around them.
Karl’s ankle was sore and even more swollen when they woke up a little before dawn. So Karl took some more pills and stayed in his sleeping bag and dozed while Jacob took down their little tent and put everything back in the cache. When he was finished only Karl and his sleeping bag with its camouflaged waterproof cover are not under the overhang.
It’s interesting to watch Jacob, Karl thinks to himself through his drug induced fog. He’s bustling about like a mother hen
Everything changed about an hour after sunup. That’s when they heard the droning of small airplane engines and then the distant whump whump whump of helicopter blades beating the air.
Jacob ran to the cache and retrieved their binoculars. He was trying to focus them when Karl shouted a warning. “Watch out Jacob, don’t let them see a glare off the glass.”
Jacob lowered the glasses with a jerk, and was starting to put them away, when the sound of a light plane suddenly got louder and louder and then extremely loud. He instantly dropped to the ground and pressed himself into the root covered indentation holding their equipment and supplies.
“Achtung Karl,” he shouted quite unnecessarily. “Don’t move.” Every soldier knows it is movement that catches the eye more than anything else.
Karl shouted back. “Of course not. Are you under cover? Get under the roots with our stuff. Don’t look up.”
Seconds later a fleeting shadow swept across the camp site and was gone in an instant.
“I don’t think they spotted us. But stay in there for a minute in case they come back,” said Karl.
A few minutes later Jacob helped Karl out of his sleeping bag and took it to the cache. Karl didn’t even try to stand up. He knew he couldn’t.
Finally, after he ate another candy bar and had another drink of the chemical tasting water from one of the canteens, he made up his mind to try. Jacob tried to help. He grabbed Karl’s elbows and literally lifted him to his feet so that he could stand balanced on one leg.
Then Karl swung his left arm over Jacob’s shoulder and hopped on one leg towards the overhang without his bad leg touching the ground. Jacob helped hold him up on with an arm around his waist.
At the top of the tree sheltered depression Karl sat down, grimacing as his bad leg touched the ground, and then slowly, with Jacob’s help, inched his way down into the ravine—and collapsed. After a short rest, he used his arms to pull himself up under the overhanging tree roots. He was panting and sweating by the time he was out of sight. Jacob wedged himself in next to Karl and offered him a sip of water from a canteen.
Not a moment too soon. A few seconds later a low flying helicopter slowly flew overhead just above the tops of the trees.
****** Oberleutnant Willi Schroeder
Magdeburg airport is an ugly mess of debris and burned out planes. The shelling suddenly stopped about an hour ago and the expected attack didn’t materialize. After a while the Americans got bored and began moving about. That’s when they found the underground fuel storage tanks where the commercial planes park next to the terminal.
I learned about this when a very big and very black American sergeant comes over to one of our Milch Cows and asks Gefreiter Bauer if he can borrow a wrench, a big wrench from the way he is holding his hands and pantomiming. I was just coming in through the rear metal door after taking a piss so I walked over to see what is happening.
“It is for sure you can use our tools, Sergeant. What do you need?” I said.
“You got a big wrench I can use for an hour or so?” the big sergeant asks while making a gesture with his hands. “We found what looks like some underground fuel tanks for the planes, but we can’t get them open enough to get a grenade in.”
We all walked over to the terminal area where six or seven Americans were standing in a circle staring at a metal plate that had been lifted off the concrete exposing a gas hose and gas gauge. There is a big heavy metal cap on some kind of spout. They obviously need a really big wrench to get it off.
“Run back and get the big adjustable wrench we use for the tank treads,” I ordered Bauer. “The big one.”
Bauer jogged off and a few minutes returned with one of the big track wrenches. We don’t have the special size that will undo the cap, but what we have is adjustable and big enough to get around the large fitting on which the cap sits. It takes the big sergeant only a few grunts and turns as he leans his weight against it.
“That should do it,” he said as we looked down at a pipe opening in a concrete vault that is about three feet long and two feet wide. The metal plate that had been covering it has been pulled off and is on the ground next to it.
“Gimme a couple of grenades, Jake.”
The circle of men standing around the fuel connection continues to increase as more and men walk over to see what is happening.
“One frag and one thermite,” the big sergeant announced as he chose two of the grenades offered to him and weighed them in his hands.
“Okay, everyone—stand back,” the sergeant said as he pulls a pin from one of the grenades and shouted “fire in the hole” I wonder what that means and dropped it in. Then he quickly pulled the pin on the other grenade and dropped it in as well.
We all instinctively stepped back a couple of steps. A few seconds later there was a muffled boom and we could feel the airport tarmac shake under our feet.
“Motherfucker.”…. “Holy Shit”…. “Mein Gott.”
For a second we all instinctively turned our faces away and crouched. Then, to a man, we ran about thirty or forty feet backwards.
A few seconds later there was another even bigger ground-shaking boom and we watched in stunned fascination as a big chunk of concrete soared slowly up into the air and then came down to land in the burned out remains of the terminal about a hundred paces away. For a few seconds the flame roaring out of the hole rose as high as several stories in the air. It looked like a super blow torch until it slowly faded away.
Everyone was grinning and talking nervously at the same time. “Sonuvabitch. That fucker almost got us.”… “Lieber Gott” … “Man, did you see that?”
Ten minutes later and the big sergeant was busy with the wrench on a similar fueling port on the next parking place about two hundred feet down from the one that was still sending big puffs of black smoke into the sky.
****** General Roberts
This evening’s conference with the National Security Council was all business and moved right along. The big news is that some, but not all, of the Russian and East German troops in the Warsaw Pact’s “breakthrough salient” appear to be turning around and the Czechs are retreating everywhere. Elsewhere the ground fighting has pretty much died down.
I was in the midst of listening to Jim Macefield report that we now have total control of the air as a result of the paratroop drops and are pounding the front line Warsaw Pact troops, when the President suddenly broke in.
“Hold up a second, General. Something just came in. Um.. Yes, .. Good news. The Czech government has just broadcast an order to its army telling them to cease fire and immediately return to their barracks even if it means abandoning their equipment and supplies.”
Earlier we’d discussed that possibility in some detail so, without saying a word, I nodded and mouthed an affirmative “immediately” to Macefield and Klausen. They instantly grabbed the phones in front of them and began barking orders. Our troops and planes are to avoid attacking or firing on enemy forces moving eastward unless they are absolutely certain they are not Czechs.
Then, starting with our divisions which have been in contact with the Czechs, Klausen and I and our deputies begin calling the corps and division commanders directly.
“Stay on their heels and retake the territory they abandon, but don’t put your men at risk.”
A couple of hours later I expanded the orders to include assisting the Czechs with food and transportation if they need it. And then, later in the evening after the report of an incident between a Czech unit and some Russians near Jena, I expanded them further to include helping the Czechs fight off any attacks by their outraged former allies.
******
According to the transcripts NSA just sent us, the Russians and East German leadership are still in denial and not all that much in touch with what is actually happening on the ground. It reminds me of that time in Korea years ago when the Chinese commander and his deputy got killed and the Chinese attack stopped for more than a day until Beijing could appoint someone new to tell them what to do. It also reminds me of the conflicting orders the soldiers fighting in Korea received from Seoul and Tokyo when General Walker was killed on Christmas day.
“Yes Comrade Chairman, we were surprised by their suicidal attacks on our airfields just as they were surprised when we concentrated our forces and broke through in the north. War is like that. Full of uncertainties
“But it actually shows how effective our air force is. If it was not effective they would not have thrown away so many of their best troops in an effort to take the airfields.
“It is important to keep the big picture in mind, Comrade Chairman. We have broken through into their rear with the aid of our frontal aviation squadrons and they are desperately trying to divert us from continuing by attacking our airfields and Berlin.
“Their goal, as the staff sees it, is to divert our follow-on units away from supporting our breakthrough and towards recapturing the airfields. We must not let their strategy succeed. That means letting our rear echelon troops, particularly the East German reservists, deal with the fascist invaders while our main force units continue their march towards victory.
“Yes, I am aware some sections of our railroad have been temporarily interrupted just as we have temporarily interrupted some of theirs. But we have already begun moving troops and equipment to make the necessary repairs. They, on the other hand, are not able to do so because all their troops are desperately trying to stop our continuing advances.”
Chapter Eighteen
It’s five in the morning here and late in the evening in Washington. Dick Spelling is at the White House and he and the President just called to again discuss the intelligence reports that have been flooding in during the past twenty-four hours.
NSA’s satellites and intercepts have confirmed our unit reports. The Czech forces are withdrawing from the central and southern fronts and are moving back towards The Czech Republic. I expressed my satisfaction with that and confirmed again that orders have gone out to not attack any Czech forces that appear to be moving back toward The Czech Republic. I look at both Klausen and Macefield as I say it, and they both nodded.
Then we discussed the refugee situation. It’s an unexpected mess. The Baltic ports are jammed with East Germans trying to get to the West on our ships and reports are coming in via the media about Czech refugees in the north flooding into Poland, both to escape the threat of potential battles and to get over the Polish border into West Germany and freedom.
There is still no formal ceasefire agreement with the Czechs even though we have stopped shooting at them and, in some cases, are actually helping them withdraw by providing fuel and trucks.
“Even so,” I said, “It may be time, Mr. President, for NATO to seriously consider guaranteeing the independence of Poland and, perhaps, even The Czech Republic.”
The President’s response surprised me.
“We are, of course, still trying to arrange a ceasefire agreement to stop the fighting but there are serious problems about guaranteeing The Czech Republic’s independence.”
The President then explains why things are “not so simple.” It seems the West German Chancellor not only wants the Russians totally out of Germany, he also wants Germany reunited and the German speaking districts in the north of The Czech Republic as reparations for the damage the Czechs have caused.
The Secretary of State then cuts in to say she still thinks she can talk the Chancellor into an immediate ceasefire without requiring those concessions. Without requiring the Russians and East Germans to get out of West Germany? She can’t be serious.
“You can’t be serious.” I exploded. “That would leave the Russians and East Germans occupying part of the West Germany and that’s stupid, world class stupid. It rewards them for invading Germany and killing our men goddammit.” And it almost certainly encourages them to rearm and start another war.
“The way I see it, Mr. President,” I continued, without giving the Secretary of State or anyone else an opportunity to butt in and say anything, “a peace agreement without a complete withdrawal and reasonable reparations rewards the goddamn communists for their aggression and might well encourage them to rearm and start another war.”
Then Klausen interrupted me and was even more emphatic.
“NATO must continue to fight until all the communists are gone from the Bundesrepublik, Mr. President; otherwise NATO is meaningless and finished. And we will throw the Russians and their communist allies out even if Germany and its neighbors have to go it alone and NATO falls apart because America betrays us by making a separate peace.”
I wonder if the President and his Secretary of State realize they’ve just been seriously insulted.
******
This morning's briefing was the most encouraging since the war started. Hand-wringing political and media discussions to the contrary, the war continues to go well. Entire units of trapped and increasingly hungry and desperate Russians and East Germans are beginning to surrender when they find their escape routes blocked and their supplies gone.
And we are not letting up on the pressure. We continued to free the conscripts and more and more of the communist officers and other ranks are asking for asylum. And we are continuing shell and bomb the hell out of the dumb shits who do not surrender.
East German refugees are flooding the northern ports and, frankly, we are totally unprepared for them. All of the civilian ships and escorts bringing reinforcements to the Baltic coast are carrying as many East German refugees as they can cram aboard on their return trips.
