Fox On The Rhine (17 page)

The B-24 is very noisy inside. I wore headphones so I could hear what the pilot said and also to protect my ears from the racket. We lumbered down the runway and took off. Now, the B-24 flies about 270 miles per hour, and I stand there with the window open pointing a fifty-caliber flexible machine gun. The IP, or the Initial Point, which is where the bomb run starts, was actually in England, and we flew right on across the channel to St.-Lô and dropped the bombs.

Well, I don’t know exactly where we were in the two thousand airplanes, but by the time we got there all we could see was smoke. So we synchronized on the smoke and dropped our bombs. We didn’t see any enemy fighters, so I didn’t have much to do. But I carried a couple of empty ammunition boxes, wooden crates that held rounds for my gun, and I threw them out over the side hoping to hit some German over the head. I call them “Digger’s Personal Bombs.”

The raid went pretty smoothly, and we made it back home and landed. I read in Stars and Stripes a day or so after the raid that the German soldiers were stumbling around in the apple orchards, dazed with blood running out of their eyes and ears and noses, due to all the concussions.

But here’s the bad part. Later that day, after I got back from the raid, I was going to the PX and the group navigator was there and he had not flown the raid that day. He asked me if I had, and I told him yes.

He replied, “Well, you know you plastered your own troops.” And of course I didn’t know that and there’s still nothing official, but the scuttlebutt is that General Bradley was really against the raid coming in from north to south because he was afraid the bombs would drop short, which is evidently what happened, according to the rumors. So they agreed the raid would come in from the east side, but somehow the battle order got changed and we came in from the north. I don’t know but I think this may be a true rumor.

Well, Lieutenant Russ took us to the pub that night in celebration of our first mission. I ordered “arf and arf ’ and we had a big old time.

Your son is now a combat veteran and got to fight some Germans. What with Hitler’s death and the breakout from Normandy on schedule, it doesn’t look like this thing is going to last that much longer. I don’t know if I’ll be home for Christmas, but not too long after that, it looks like.

Love,
Your Son
Digger

Normandy, France, South of St.-Lo-Periers Road, 1803 hours GMT

For nearly half an hour the 105-and 155-mm guns of the American army had pounded the already blasted positions of the Panzer Lehr division survivors, a thorough, crushing, and violent barrage. Even so, after the massive aerial bombardment the cannon fire was almost anticlimactic--except that the Germans in the battered tank knew that the guns certainly presaged a ground offensive.

Exploding shells pounded near and far, sometimes showering the panzer with debris, other times echoing dully in the distance. In the driver’s seat, Carl-Heinz felt a curious sense of calm, tempered by a growing impatience for the actual attack. It was not that he wanted to kill Americans, but at least they would be able to take some action against attacking troops instead of just sitting here wondering if they were about to take a direct hit.

He thought of the careful job he had done inspecting the linchpins on the treads and was grateful that he had located and replaced several worn or bent rods. At the same time, he worried about dirt clogging the air intake and wondered if a razor-sharp fragment of steel might already have cut into the tracks or jammed one of the drive sprockets or road wheels. They could be sitting here fully disabled, and he wouldn’t know until it came time to start up the tank and try to move.

Beside him, Ulrich sat glumly at his machine gun, while Fritzi and Peltz waited in the turret, ready to fire the main gun. The lieutenant tapped his fingers against his thigh, occasionally opening the hatch to stick his head out for a quick look around. As the barrage moved on, the officer’s inspections became more frequent, as they knew that the Ami--American--infantry would not be far behind.

Finally the shelling ceased altogether, and Carl-Heinz pressed his eye to the periscope, seeking some sign of the attackers. He was startled by a thumping against the side of the tank, followed by an unmistakably German voice.

“Panzermen? Hallo!”

With a swivel of the scope, the driver saw a panzergrenadier standing beside the Panther. The soldier, a feldwebel, was dirty, though the Schmeisser submachine gun slung from his shoulder was immaculate. Carl-Heinz suspected that he was with the infantry unit that had given their tank company flank protection.

Lieutenant Schroeder tossed open the turret hatch and looked down at the foot soldier.

“We have one machine gun left, over there.” The sergeant gestured across the moonscape of the ground. “We’ve seen the Ami infantry on the way--just wanted you to know that we’ll watch your flank. And ask you to keep your eyes peeled for tanks.”

”
Ja
. And thanks.”

The feldwebel had no sooner headed back to his own unit than the chatter of machine gun fire broke across the field. Carl-Heinz could see nothing moving through his periscope, so he settled down to wait, listening for the lieutenant’s command and keeping his hand near the starter button. The small arms fire grew to a momentarily furious rattle, then died away. There was a flicker of movement in the viewing scope as human figures crossed the horizon of a dirt mound and vanished into a depression about a thousand yards away.

“Driver--start the engine. Loader--high explosive.” Lieutenant Schroeder’s voice barked the command through the intercom, and Carl-Heinz pressed the starter button, easing the motor into life as he heard Peltz jam a shell into the breech of the main gun. The turret whirred through a minor rotation, the long barrel depressing slightly.

“Fire!”

The gun spit a plume of smoke and bright fire, and almost immediately the distant mound of earth was torn by a violent explosion, a flash of flame in the midst of showering debris.

“Reload, fire!” Twice more the tank sent lethal bursts into the flank of the advancing infantry. Though they could see none of the effects of the shots, Carl-Heinz was certain that the surviving Ami infantry would take a long time to come out of those holes.

“Driver--reverse,” came the next order.

Depressing the clutch sharply with his left foot, easing it out and then pressing downward again, Carl-Heinz started the tank backward. The Panther rolled smoothly out of the notch where it had found such scant shelter.

“Driver--stop. Left turn--forward--
schnell!
” The commands came in staccato cadence, the veteran driver reacting smoothly to each instruction. In seconds the tank was rolling along, perpendicular to the line of the enemy’s advance.

“Driver--right turn. Forward, slow...” Lieutenant Schroeder’s voice was hushed, the entire crew sharing the need for stealth. Through his scope Carl-Heinz tried to study the irregular ground, steering slightly to get around a deep bomb crater, bring the panzer forward until the tracks pressed against the ruins of an ancient hedgerow. The barrel stuck over the obstacle, and the driver pressed the clutch and pushed the gear lever into neutral. The engine idled smoothly as the crewmen scanned the ground before them.

In a few seconds the whistling sounds of artillery fire made them unconsciously shrink into their seats, and the ground shook as the barrage pummeled to the right--the position from which the Panther had fired just moments earlier. As always, Carl-Heinz was impressed by the accuracy and timeliness of the American artillery support--the Panther would have been pounded hard if it had stayed in position after shooting.

Before the shelling lifted, the driver saw another flash of movement in the distance, a spot marked by a flash of fire and the smoky residue of a big gun. He could barely make out the shape of a tracked vehicle and a squat turret distinguished by an unusually large gun.

“U.S. tank destroyer forward, twelve hundred yards,” Fritzi remarked calmly, confirming Carl-Heinz’s suspicions.

“Loader--AP. Gunner, train on target.”

The Panther’s long gun depressed slightly to bear on the creeping American vehicle as Peltz lifted an “AP,” an armor-piercing round, into the breech. The tank destroyer crawled over the embankment of the Periers-St.-Lo road, and for a moment the armored vehicle was silhouetted above the landscape.

“Fire!” Fritzi had anticipated the lieutenant’s command, and the gun spoke even as the order came over the intercom. The shot was true, the tank destroyer lurching to a halt as black smoke spilled out of the hull. In two seconds the entire vehicle vanished in a cloud of greasy flame, and Carl-Heinz couldn’t help but wince at the gruesome fate of the crew. A fiery death in a burning shell of steel--it was a reality that every tanker tried not to think about.

“Jabo!”

Carl-Heinz didn’t know who shouted the warning, but they all heard the scream of a diving single-engine aircraft. Reacting instinctively, backing up at high speed, the driver swiveled the tank around and drove across the rough ground, lurching through a crater, then cranking the wheel around to spin the tank through a desperate evasive maneuver.

A bomb blasted somewhere behind them, the concussion driving the Panther forward with brutal force. They skidded to the side teetering on the edge of a deep crater, but Carl-Heinz gingerly drove them forward onto level ground. He careened through a turn as another bomb exploded off to the side and then couldn’t help ducking in his seat as a barrage of machine gun bullets rattled off the panzer’s thick armor.

Ulrich sighed. “The next one will get us, I have a feeling.”

Carl-Heinz ignored his comrade as he heard Schroeder’s voice in the intercom. “Any damage?”

“She’s driving well, sir,” he replied, while Peltz, Fritzi, and Ulrich all confirmed that their own stations were still functional.

“Driver, reverse... back to our original position,” ordered Schroeder.

Shifting smoothly, Carl-Heinz guided the massive vehicle over the rough ground, soon parking them between the mounds of dirt that in fact provided very little cover. They all saw the new craters, though no one commented on the accuracy of the American artillery.

Once more they heard the machine guns and knew that the panzergrenadiers were heavily engaged. For a long time they watched the flank, and once or twice Ulrich added the Panther’s hull machine gun to the engagement. They saw some foot soldiers drawing closer, and again the main gun dropped high explosive shells into the advancing troops.

This time the panzer evaded by rolling to the right, again moving out just before the inevitable artillery barrage thundered down upon their firing position.

Carl-Heinz guided the tank by turning the big three-quarter round steering wheel. He brought them around another embankment, and they surprised dozens of American infantrymen who had taken shelter in the trenchlike depression of a lane. Ulrich pressed the trigger on the hull machine gun as the main cannon belched high explosive shells. Driving at full speed, Carl-Heinz raced the tank down the road as those of the enemy lucky enough to survive scrambled out of the lane.

A loud clang rocked the hull with deafening force, and the driver looked to the side to see an American infantryman scrambling backward, carrying the long tube of a bazooka. The turret machine gun chattered before the fellow could get to shelter, and the infantryman tumbled backward, torn by a fusillade of lead. Fortunately for the tankers, the rocket shell of the man’s gun had caught the Panther near its thick frontal armor--weeks ago the Germans had learned of the lethal effectiveness of the bazooka against the side and rear armor of a tank.

Swiveling the periscope--once again operating smoothly, because of his quick grease job--Carl-Heinz saw American soldiers advancing past both sides of the tank. The troops were quick to throw themselves into craters as the turret wheeled in their direction. A look to the right showed that the panzer-grenadier machine gun nest was overrun--or else the German infantry had retreated. In any event, the driver was glad to get the order to pull the Panther back to a position of greater security. Though he drove forward, Schroeder and Fritzi kept the turret turned toward the rear, using the machine gun and cannon to keep the enemy infantry from offering aggressive pursuit.

Soon they had found a new position, and were heartened by the sound of Schmeisser fire off to the side, since that meant that at least some of the German infantry still survived. The tankers added their gun and their armor to the defense, and the GIs--though through no lack of courage--were unable to close in on the defenders.

By late afternoon, it was clear that the American attack had bogged down. Lieutenant Schroeder had brought the Panther to another sheltered firing position near the barely recognizable rubble of a stone farmhouse. The small arms fire had become desultory, and the weary tankers didn’t have the energy to congratulate themselves. It was just another day for the German army in Normandy.

Nineteenth Armored Division Field Headquarters, Normandy, France, 27 July 1944,0735 hours GMT

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Ballard looked at the long line of Sherman tanks with joy. He loved tanks, loved the way they sounded, loved the way they smelled, loved the way they felt as they rumbled over the ground. As commander of the Thirty-eighth Tank Battalion, Combat Command A, Nineteenth Division, VIII Corps, First Army--God, how he loved to recite the litany of command--he commanded his HQ platoon, a mortar platoon, a jeep recon platoon, and an M4 mortar half-track platoon, an assault gun platoon, and three powerful armor companies and a light armor company.

It was a full battalion, an armored fist that formed half of the one-two punch of an American armored division. Ballard loved the boxing analogy, and he was confident that the Thirty-eighth was a match for any tank force in the world. Naturally, he had heard the reports: the German Panthers and Tigers had better guns, thicker armor. He supposed that that in part was true, but at the same time he had faith in his Shermans. They were fast, reliable, excellent at cross-country maneuver. And now each of his three M4 companies had four tanks with the 76-mm gun, with its long barrel and wicked-looking blast suppressor around the muzzle. And with his command tank, that made for a lucky thirteen, he realized with a chuckle. He would love to have a chance to put those up against anything a panzer division could throw at him.