Fox On The Rhine (50 page)

The SS commandos slid back into the darkness to hear the first cries of horror as the comrades of the dead discovered the bloody hell that had consumed their fellows.

Army Group B HQ, Trier, Germany, 27 November 1944, 1121 hours GMT

“It’s General Weitz, Herr Feldmarschall,” said Rommel’s secretary, and he went into his office to take the call.

“Yes, General. How goes the retreat?” Rommel asked. ‘They’ve been massacred! Shot after they were captured, helpless, tied up! My God, Field Marshal, it’s unbelievable!”

“Massacred? Shot after being captured? Slowly, slowly. Exactly what happened?”

As the general spoke, Rommel’s face grew steadily more pale. An entire company of men captured and then horribly massacred in what should have been a relatively safe retreat. Losses were to be expected, but not this. With a sudden and sickening feeling, Rommel realized that this massacre was ultimately his fault.

“And the evidence, you say, points to the American Nineteenth Division?” he asked, his fingers numb as they held the telephone.

“Yes, yes! Our men shot at least a few of the attackers; we have uniforms, dog tags, other evidence. The investigative teams from the SS have been ransacking the site, although they haven’t been able to do much because of the advancing Allies. Shall I bring you the evidence?”

“Never mind, General,” Rommel said, stunned but thoughtful. “I think that your call is all the evidence I need.” He tried to be as reassuring as he could, and finally hung up. His mind raced furiously. He knew that soldiers could be guilty of atrocities in the heat of battle, soldiers of any side. All commanders knew that. It was possible that it was an American atrocity, but it was too convenient, too targeted. No, far more likely this was an SS operation. A message, primarily aimed at him.
I told you not to retreat
, was Himmler’s message.
Follow my orders or suffer the consequences
.

“Very well,” Rommel said, answering aloud. He opened the door to his office. To his secretary, he barked. “Staff meeting. At once. There are developments.” Then he strode down the hall, barely using his cane, to Bücher’s office.

“Yes, mein Feldmarschall?” said Bücher, curiously.

“Retreating German forces were attacked, captured, and then massacred, ostensibly by the Nineteenth American Division last night.” His words and tone were blunt, harsh. He waited and watched as Bücher processed the information, and immediately--Rommel could see it on his face--found himself reaching the same conclusion that he had.

“Mein Feldmarschall--I want you to know that I know absolutely nothing of this. I cannot believe--”

That was what Rommel wanted to know. This was not Bücher, at least not personally. If it had been ... Rommel could still feel his temper boiling up. But instead he held up his hand. “We are all soldiers. We do our duty. What others do is frequently not up to us.” Bücher’s reaction pleased him. SS or no, the man had something salvageable in him. Let him study this issue on his own and reach the conclusions that seemed right to him.

The Desert Fox realized that he had to do the same.

Broadcast House, Berlin, Germany, 28 November 1944, 0800 hours GMT

The AP office in London never missed an Axis Sally broadcast. “It’s mostly lies, and the rest is exaggeration,” said Percy McCulley, the London AP bureau chief, “but there’s often a kernel or two of truth buried inside. Useful way to get some unofficial information.” He turned the radio knobs slowly, trying to bring in the static-filled signal.

The concluding sounds of the Glenn Miller Orchestra faded into the sultry voice of Axis Sally’s propaganda program. “That was ‘In the Mood,’ and I’m in the mood tonight, just like your wives and girlfriends back in America who are so very lonely that right now they’re finding comfort in the arms of the 4-Fs you left behind.” She chuckled in a low, sensual voice. “This is your friend Sally, coming to you from Berlin, with music, news, and personal messages. Tonight we have a sad message for all our listeners. The Nineteenth Armored Division, facing the heroic defenders of Metz, massacred over a thousand German prisoners after they surrendered. Using machine guns on the helpless prisoners, many of whom still carried white flags, the savages of the Nineteenth, led by Colonel James Pulaski, carried out an atrocity.”

“What the hell?” shouted a shocked Pulaski when he heard his name. “A massacre? What is she talking about?”

Frank Ballard put a hand on his colonel’s shoulder. “Just Nazi bullshit,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You may remember that Colonel James Pulaski is the careless young hothead whose Combat Command A blundered into a brilliant German counteroffensive in Abbeville a few months ago, giving the Allies their worst defeat of the war. Why he wasn’t court-martialed, we don’t know. It may be because Pulaski arranged for the death of his CO, General Jack King. That was a career-advancing move for General Henry Wakefield, a man George Patton once called ‘a fat slug posing as a tank commander,’ and who now commands the Nineteenth.”

In the Ardennes Forest, Private Billy Cooper rubbed his cold hands as his fellows clustered around the tinny radio. “Goddamn,” breathed one of the other privates. “I’m glad I’m not in the Nineteenth.”

“You and me both, brother,” said another.

“Do you know what I think?” purred Axis Sally. “I think Colonel Pulaski has gone crazy. First he kills his CO in collusion with his exec and leads his own men into a trap. The exec keeps him from getting court-martialed because your officers only care about each other--they don’t care whether you live or die--and don’t worry that he’s gone around the bend. His own officers have been reporting that Pulaski was falling apart, and now he massacres German soldiers who had surrendered, in direct violation of the rules of war.”

Colonel Sanger always felt he had a professional obligation to listen to Axis Sally. But when he heard the Nineteenth being mentioned, he immediately sent an orderly to get Wakefield. The burly general came within minutes and listened in silence until she finished. “Goddamn Nazi bitch,” he swore under his breath.

“Men of the Nineteenth Division, your own Combat Command A has disgraced you with this cowardly and despicable massacre. Worse, watch as your own officers cover it up with lies and more lies. And if your commander is Colonel Jimmy Pulaski, the Panicky Polack of CCA, watch out before that maniac leads you all to your deaths. Now, back to music, with the Andrews Sisters singing, ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me.’ Of course, you know your wives and girlfriends have worn out that old apple tree by now ... “

“Turn it off,” said Wakefield. “Get me Pulaski.” The boy was just recovering from Abbeville. Now to be tarred with a prisoner massacre--and that awful nickname--Wakefield was worried about a relapse.

Luftwaffe Advance Airbase, Bitburg, Germany, 30 November 1944,1320 hours GMT

Krueger carefully controlled his rudder, guiding the jet through a shallow turn, back toward the runway he had departed only minutes before. The starboard engine gave him plenty of thrust, but still the Stormbird was difficult to steer in a straight line.

Angrily he cursed the dead weight slung under the port wing, the engine that had burned out as the Me-262 was climbing from the airbase, leading two Gruppen on a hunt-and-kill mission in search of Allied fighters. The malfunction had forced him to send his wingman in command of the two dozen jets, while he made this awkward return, infuriated by the failure of the delicate machinery.

Despite the obstinate handling of the plane, he was able to line up on the runway and make a nearly flawless three-point landing. Rumbling up to the hangar, he popped the canopy and jumped out as the jet rolled to a halt.

“I need a new engine, Willi!” he shouted angrily to his chief mechanic. “And I want it mounted by tomorrow morning!”

“Jawohl, Herr Kommodore!” replied the enlisted man, turning to shout the orders to his crew.

Krueger knew that they had several new engines in the maintenance shed, and that Willi would have no difficulty making the installation. But still, the loss of today’s mission was galling in this winter weather. Chances to fly had become increasingly uncommon. Today was a rare cloudless day, with perfect visibility and light winds, an ideal chance to make life difficult for the American and British Jabos that so relentlessly savaged the German positions on the Westwall. His rage mounted. On the one hand, he knew that the temperamental engines tended to malfunction, but on the other hand, that was the purpose of having a mechanic. His fists clenched as his temper rose.

Though the strategic bombing campaign had been suspended, the enemy air forces were still making life dangerous for the brave soldiers in the front lines. The Luftwaffe fighters had been moved to advance bases such as this one, all along the border, and whenever possible tried to harass the Allied ground support aircraft. Krueger himself had shot down two Thunderbolts and a Mustang on his last mission, but that had been more than a week ago.

Eight days of foul weather had kept the air forces on both sides grounded, and now it was exceptionally aggravating to have this opportunity canceled by mechanical failure. The engines were still the weak link of this magnificent aircraft; it was inevitable that, on one of these days, his own airplane would be one of the offending laggards.

Why did it have to be today?
he thought.
Someone will pay
.

He advanced into the hangar, his temper flaring. He picked up a wrench and strode toward his hapless mechanic.

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

The two key events of November 1944, Galland’s Gambit and the Metz Massacre, had a dramatic effect on the military campaign to follow.

The devastating losses suffered by Eighth Air Force on the ill-fated raid of 12 November inevitably had a chilling effect on the entire strategic bombing campaign. Of 2,576 bombers launched on that fateful mission, more than seven hundred were shot down, and an equal number landed with serious damage and casualties. This was a loss rate higher than any other mission, and was clearly unacceptable to USAAF command. Flyer morale crumbled, and bitter recriminations flew among the American generals. Although reports were muffled, news of the debacle even leaked into the press at home.

Galland’s Gambit, as the attack came to be known, thus paid off in an immediate cessation of daylight bombing raids. The Me-262, still plagued by engine design flaws, production difficulties, and worker sabotage, was a machine that nevertheless gave the Allied air forces serious problems. Its appearance in the skies during 12 November took the Americans by surprise; though the British had had some inkling that the machine was in the works, their warnings to the U.S. airmen had been ignored.

Responsibility for the Metz Massacre was assigned variously to the American Nineteenth Division’s Combat Command A and to the Nazi SS, each side furiously blaming the other. The propaganda target, however, was not the American forces, who were affected relatively slightly, but rather the German regular troops, who, like all soldiers on the battlefield, tended to be a powerful conduit for rumors of all stripes. Dramatic and lurid rumors, such as this was, tended to have a strong effect. Whether the Germans believed that the Allies would in fact massacre their prisoners wholesale, as opposed to the occasional atrocity committed by both sides, or whether (as even some contemporary rumors had it) the SS would do it instead, made little behavioral difference. Feeling they had no option but to stand and die, they stood, and often they died. This behavioral change stiffened the resistance the Allies faced as they continued to push their way slowly through the Westwall.

The American naval reinforcements proved of little use in the European Theater, as by now the Germans had lost all control of the seas. Even their U-boat campaigns were stifled by the loss of the French and Norwegian ports. Though some vessels, equipped with the revolutionary snorkel devices that for the first time allowed the subs to perform their entire missions while submerged, were able to leak through the Allied blockade into the Atlantic, most of these subs were intercepted and destroyed before they could reach the sea lanes. The remainder of Halsey’s fleet was most useful, perhaps, as it went into patrol off the coast of Norway and proved somewhat of a deterrent to Russian ambitions.

For their part, during November, the Soviets made use of their skills at winter operations. They moved huge air assets and many ground troops into Scandinavia, projecting their air power far beyond the Norwegian coastline. The Soviet fleet, bottled up in Leningrad for nearly the entire war, moved forward to Oslo, and set up a base there just a short sortie from the waters of the North Sea.

At the same time, on the ground the battles had degenerated into bloody campaigns in the autumn mud and rain. The successful but costly offensive at Aachen had ripped apart a great portion of First Army. Subsequently, in an attempt to move south of the city, Courtney Hodges’s men found themselves trapped in a grueling campaign in the Huertgen Forest. Here the offensive was measured in dozens of lives for every yard gained. And though the harbor of Antwerp had finally been opened to Allied shipping, even that mighty seaport was barely able to slake the supply needs of the insatiable armies. A steady bombardment of V-1 rockets was not successful in closing the port

Generals such as Patton and Montgomery continued to dispute the course of the war, which Eisenhower was necessarily managing in light of an increasingly difficult political environment as well as military concerns.

Concurrently, the German position in the Westwall was growing more solid by the day. Reinforcements from the Russian front made some contribution, though it wasn’t to be an overwhelming force; OKW decided to maintain nearly 80 percent of the eastern front troops in readiness for the eventual Soviet attack that all thinking Germans suspected to be inevitable. Still, the treaty bought some time, and some desperately needed increase in Wehrmacht strength.