Fox On The Rhine (31 page)

“Well, if it’s a waste, sir...” Krueger said with some hesitation. He didn’t even like to think in such defeatist terms. There were problems, obstacles, to be sure, but they were there to be met and mastered, not to be the cause of surrender and despair.

Galland chuckled. “I said it’s a waste so far. And unless we solve the fuel problem, then it will be a waste. Now, most of that work is being done at other levels. We’ll have some role to play, I’m sure, but we’re not the lead agency here. We have other problems. First and foremost, there’s engine production. Airframes are no problem; we can produce them in quantity. But jet engines must be made to critical tolerances and they require some rare metals that limit our ability to produce them. Then there are problems with the workers. It’s relatively easy to get our ‘special labor forces’ to do the sort of work we have around here. But the higher skill work...well, that requires some different motivational approaches. Brute force doesn’t work quite as well.”

“Perhaps the wrong sort of force is being used,” said Krueger, his eyes blazing. This sort of thing he understood well. “The incentives of pain must sometimes be applied broadly, sometimes more specifically, and always with finesse.” He smiled.

“Yes, yes, well...” Galland’s voice trailed off.

Krueger had noticed that some people tended to be inappropriately squeamish about doing what was necessary to motivate workers. It was almost as if they confused the subhuman races with Germans, believing that they were capable of good performance without the incentive of the whip. Krueger knew better. He knew how to motivate workers to do the job.

Galland spoke again. “The engines are manufactured at the Jumo plant at Dessau.”

“I will make sure production reaches appropriate levels at once, mein General.”

Galland looked at him. “Yes, Paul, I believe you will.”

South of the Somme, France, 2047 hours GMT

Henry Wakefield rode in silence, allowing his driver to guide the jeep along the maze of French roads. Sooner or later they would get to Combat Command A, or what was left of it. Pulaski’s men had fallen back ten miles, chased by German armor the whole way. The aggressive young colonel had been handed a defeat that was already being whispered about in the same context as the famous American disaster at the Kasserine Pass in North Africa.

To Wakefield, the truth was much more personal: half the division had been wrecked, with a terrible cost in men. His division CO was dead, along with several senior headquarters officers. Lieutenant Colonel Lorimar was also killed in action and most of the command’s tanks and self-propelled guns had been lost in the savage battle.

Wakefield was now the acting CO of the Nineteenth Armored Division.
Hell of a way to get a command
, he thought, though of course it was a traditional way to get promoted in wartime. He suspected that his position would be temporary indeed, considering Patton’s poor opinion of him. But that was only a secondary, even trivial, worry right now.

The general’s driver paused to squint at a map, then turned down a narrow farm lane. A pair of Shermans, tanks from Bob Jackson’s Combat Command B, recently arrived on the scene, stood guard. Finally the new division CO located Pulaski’s command post, set up in a small barn with three half-tracks parked outside. The vehicles were pocked and scarred, showing the effects of vigorous small arms fire. In the building canvas tarps had been draped across the doors and loft window to keep the lantern light from spilling into the night.

Wakefield didn’t know what he was going to say. Pulaski had been going over a list, but when he looked up at the division commander his eyes were stark and red with grief and pain. “I’m sorry, Jimmy,” said the general.

“They came from nowhere, General... Tigers in the front. They shot my boys to pieces... General King’s jeep took a direct hit. They blew him to pieces, sir! I should have died with them.”

“You had no hint of the ambush? What about your recon?” Pulaski’s head slumped. “Smiggy was out in front, as usual, but we heard nothing from him. The Krauts were hidden in a woods to our left, let us get all the way past them before they moved out. It’s like they knew we were coming, left us a good road. Shit, General, they suckered me! Smiggs is missing now... I guess the damned Krauts got him before we even got close. I’ve got a report for you here... it’s almost done.”

“It’ll keep,” Wakefield said. He drew a breath but didn’t say anything else right then. Pulaski sure looked bad--didn’t the man know he was lucky to be alive? On second thought, maybe he did know. Maybe the fact that he had survived while so many died was part of his misery.

The general cleared his throat. “I’ve got some good news for you... Ballard showed up. He’s got a few dents, but he’s getting the best care we have.” He didn’t add that the tank commander had been fished out of the Somme more dead than alive. “He’ll be off his feet for awhile, but it looks like he’s going to make it.”

“Frank... alive? That’s something,” Pulaski allowed, but then his expression was wrenched by unspeakable pain. “Damn it, General, I sent him out there, sent them all out there!”

“He was doing his job, Ski, like you were doing yours.”

And I’m doing mine
, Wakefield reminded himself. He didn’t know what else he could say, and that made him think that he wasn’t doing his job very well, not very well at all. Suddenly

the general was damn tired, and he knew the war was far from over.

Excerpt from
War’s Final Fury
, by Professor Jared Gruenwald

In that period of August 1944, the Allies were handed a series of unpleasant surprises based on the creative and revitalized leadership of Nazi Germany.

Führer Heinrich Himmler’s brilliant and unexpected move of negotiating an armistice with the USSR unquestionably gave Nazi Germany a stunning opportunity, a way out of a dilemma that would otherwise have swept the war to an inevitable close before the end of 1944. After all, once they had emerged from the Normandy quagmire, the Western Allied spearheads were able to roll across France without pause, and there is little reason to believe that they would have been held by the Siegfried Line or even the Rhine, without the revitalization provided by the treaty.

The return of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to command also had an unquestionably invigorating effect. The Somme counterattack knocked back the American spearhead and bought enough time for many Germans to withdraw behind another river line. In a series of holding actions, Rommel was able to delay the Allied onslaught until his forces were safely behind the Siegfried Line in the homeland.

His evacuation of Southern France was a brilliant and timely maneuver, as well. When the Anvil landings swept ashore on August 15, the American and French troops found that their enemy had already withdrawn. General Truscott’s spearheads raced up the valley of the Rhone with aggression and speed, but the Germans had too much of a start, and virtually all of them got away. Otherwise, nearly a hundred thousand German troops would have likely fallen or been captured--troops that could be employed to make a decisive difference later in the war. The classic photographs of the Panther tank carrying so many German troops to safety became one of the most famous images of the war, signaling a renewed German spirit.

At the same time, the energy of the Soviet advance was redirected--though not before the Red Army pulled up to the very gates of Warsaw.

By then, Russian troops were taking over for the withdrawing Germans across the continent from Norway to Greece. They wasted no time in establishing powerful airbases in Stavanger, a mere eight hundred kilometers from London.

It is perhaps well that, as yet, the Allies did not know that Stalin, in his deal with the devil, had also gained the initial capability that would lead to the development of powerful and deadly rockets.

From Norway, these rockets were just a short flight from the British Isles.

OPERATION CAROUSEL

September-October 1944

SHAEF Headquarters, France, 1 September 1944, 1030 hours GMT

“Goddamn it, Brad, it wasn’t the boy’s fault!” Patton’s fist pounded on the table as he glared at his army group CO. Omar Bradley--Omar the Tent Maker, as Patton sometimes called him behind his back--had just made the suggestion that James Pulaski be relieved of his command, and the Third Army general’s temper had flared into white heat. “Remember, I’m the one who pushed Jack King into sending the Nineteenth ahead of Third Armored, which set this up in the first place! He was doing his job--and I still think that bridge was worth the risk!”

“We’ve got a division shot to hell!” Bradley retorted. “They won’t be fit to fight for another month, at least. And all this because you saw a chance--”

“That’s enough,” the supreme commander interjected, instantly silencing his subordinates. Eisenhower took a puff of his cigarette, extending the pause. Then he nodded to Patton. “All right, George, what do you want to do about this?”

Patton took a moment to collect his thoughts. The other two American generals, and the fourth man present--Field Marshal Montgomery, commander of all British forces in the theater--waited expectantly.

“We should keep ’em together, what’s left of CCA and the whole Nineteenth Armored. They had a helluva run--they were the first of my boys out of Avranches! They deserve another chance. Pulaski needs to get back in the saddle. With replacements to fill out his command, I know he’s going to be a fine officer.”

Dwight Eisenhower leaned back in his desk chair, still smoking his cigarette as he pondered the recommendation. Field Marshal Montgomery, natty as always and wearing his jaunty beret, smiled a thin, superior smile at the sight of the American officers wrangling with their problem.

Bradley was the next to speak. “And Henry Wakefield should be given command of the Nineteenth.” He glared at Patton in challenge but was surprised when the army general nodded in agreement.

“Yes, he should. He’s a good man, steady--just what those boys need right now. And he’s Third Army.” Patton spoke sternly but left unsaid another key fact: Third Army looked after its own. Whether he liked the man or disliked him, he would only pull him out if he couldn’t do his job.

Monty pursed his lips. “I realize this is a Yank matter, but surely that’s an invitation to disaster?”

George Patton opened his mouth to reply, but Bradley spoke first and forcefully.

“The Nineteenth went up against Rommel without knowing it. It was a surprise, they got chewed up, and that’s the way it goes sometimes. We can second-guess this thing to death, but frankly, we just need to realize that they slipped the varsity in on us when we weren’t looking, and the Nineteenth took the brunt of it. No need to shoot the survivors. Henry Wakefield is overdue for his second star and a division command, and I, for one, think he’s done and will do a fine job. We pull the Nineteenth back, rebuild it, then send it back into the game. That’s my recommendation.”

“And mine,” growled Patton.

The supreme commander sighed and crushed out his cigarette. “Brad, we’ll give Pulaski a chance for now, but I’m not completely sold on the man, understand? Let’s keep continuity of command, Wakefield in charge and Pulaski still in charge of their CCA. We’ll let the press know that we have confidence in our officers and this was nobody’s fault. Got it? Henry is acting division commander and a brevet two-star as of now, paperwork to catch up. Everything stays provisional until the Nineteenth gets bloodied again and shows it can do the job. If so, then Pulaski’s in permanently. If he screws up, he’s history. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough,” replied Patton with a nod. “He gets a chance, he’ll do fine.”

Eisenhower gave Patton a hard look. “I appreciate that Third Army takes care of its own. But George, for now I think he should be attached to First Army. I’m recommending that Brad puts him under Hodges.”

Patton clearly wanted to keep arguing, but he growled, “That’s okay with me.”

Montgomery gave Patton a withering smile, as if to say how much he enjoyed his rival’s discomfiture. Patton glared back, then stood up to leave.

Near Reims, France, 5 September 1944, 0910 hours GMT

Henry Wakefield held the communique in his hand, while Jimmy Pulaski waited quietly on the other side of the desk.

The message was brief, but the impact profound:

19TH ARMORED DETACHED VIII CORP. THIRD ARMY. EFFECTIVE 01/09/44.

NEW ASSIGNMENT TO RESERVE CORPS, FIRST ARMY, EFFECTIVE SAME. DIVISION IS TO BIVOUAC IN REIMS AREA AND AWAIT ORDERS.

AUTHORIZED: GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON, CG THIRD ARMY.
CONFIRMED: GENERAL COURTNEY HODGES, CG FIRST ARMY,
GENERAL OMAR BRADLEY, CG TWENTY-FIRST ARMY GROUP

“Goddamn him,” muttered the general under his breath, remembering the blistering tongue-lashing he’d received from Third Army’s commanding general at Sainte-la-Salle. “That son of a bitch wanted speed, and when you gave it to him, you paid the price--and now this!”

Wakefield leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, immediately regretting that his temper had led him to criticize a superior officer out loud. Besides, now that he thought about it, maybe a transfer to First Army wasn’t intended as a punishment after all. But hell, it sure felt like one.

“I’m sorry, General,” Pulaski said miserably. “Maybe you should just court-martial me, get me out of here. Hell, if it would bring any of those guys back, I’d just take myself out right now.”

“Damn it, stop all that self-pity crap,” growled Wakefield, his temper flaring as he found a more convenient target than the distant army general. “You know as well as I do that we can’t change what’s done. The problem now is what the hell do I do with you?”

They both knew the situation all too well: All the components of Combat Command A were shattered, reduced to mere cadres of their original battalions. Lorimar and Smiggs were dead, and Frank Ballard was in a Paris hospital, though he was expected to recover from the wounds he’d taken when a German shell had hurled him into the Somme.