Fox On The Rhine (51 page)

Rommel had garrisoned his fortified line from Switzerland to the English Channel, and still had enough troops to gather twelve panzer divisions as a strategic reserve. The respite from strategic bombing did not extend to the tactical air support for the ground war, but now, fortunately for the Germans, the weather became problematical. Cloudy skies, rain, blustery winds, and early snowstorms proved a great equalizer, removing the Allies’ greatest advantage, and giving the defenders a chance to strike back.

Rommel was keenly aware of the Allies’ supply difficulties and knew that he might be able to launch a single, devastating attack. He, like Eisenhower, faced strong political pressure to act, but this time the pressure coincided with his own military aims. He saw a chance to launch an offensive, the first major German attack since Kursk in 1943.

It was an opportunity the Desert Fox was ready to grasp.

December 1944

Associated Press Bureau Office, Paris, France, 1 December 1944, 0946 hours GMT

Chuck Porter shook his head as he inspected what had once been the Paris AP bureau office. Under the occupation, the Gestapo had used it as a command post because of the already-installed communications lines; on their retreat, they had savagely ripped out every bit of useful equipment and every file cabinet and left the office looking pretty much like a war zone.

“It’s better than it looks, boys,” he said to the three reporters who had accompanied him across the Channel and into liberated France. There’d been a fair amount of competition for the initial slots: Donald Lester, originally from South Carolina, who’d progressed up through the Havana bureau, Steve Denning, an ex-army brat whose father had fought with Pershing in Mexico, and Troy Winter, who’d moved from southeastern Wisconsin to the Chicago office and then international from there. They’d worked on city papers before joining AP, and the youngest had more than ten years with the organization.

“Let’s get busy.” Chuck pointed at some push brooms in the comer. “Now you see what reporting is really all about.”

In spite of the inevitable grumbling, inside of an hour, they’d created the semblance of an office. There was no wire equipment, though, and at the normal rate for civilian service restoration it would take weeks to get back on line. The office had two couriers to carry stories back to London, with military censors waiting for them in Antwerp, where the primary transportation was. Troy had complained about that. “This is 1944, for God’s sake! Two to three days to file a story--hell, that’s like we’re back in the nineteenth century!”

“Nah, look at it this way,” Porter said, leaning back dangerously in an office chair and putting his feet up on the desk, “being cut off means that they can’t send stuff to us, either. Think of it--no orders for filler stories, demands from client papers to find out what happened to their local boys or to get the East Palooka, Indiana, slant on things ... “

“No memos!” added Steve.

“And from my point of view, the very best thing is that we don’t have a single client paper!” smiled Porter. One of the primary duties of a bureau chief was liaison with local client papers. “I’m officially demoting myself back down to reporter for the duration!”

“You mean promoting,” said Don.

“Somebody’s got to teach you boys how to spell and write a decent headline,” grinned Porter.

This was the life, Porter thought. His treasured portable Underwood in its leather case, a notebook and a pen, and a war to cover. “Boys, let’s go cover some news,” he said. “Troy, you’ve got SHAEF headquarters. Don, you get Monty and the Tommies.”

There was an immediate complaint. “Hell, Chuck, Monty’s already got an army of reporters around him. He collects them. What am I going to find up there?”

“Something newsworthy,” Porter snapped back. “Steve, how about some local human interest stuff?”

“Parisienne women after liberation!” Steve replied. “I’ll have to do some in-depth digging!”

“No fair,” complained Don. “He gets French women, I get Monty and a few Canadians. Where’s the justice in that?”

“Justice? You expect justice?” shot back Troy. “I get to sit through briefings and get shuffled from officer to officer.”

“So, Chuck, what are you getting?” probed Steve.

“The Metz story and the Third Army,” he said smiling, putting his hands behind his head.

He held up his hand to stifle the chorus of complaints. “Hey, rank hath its privileges, you know. Besides, I’ll be chained to this desk within a month. This is my last chance in the field, and I’m going to make it count.”

War resembled a huge construction site with occasional smears of blood, thought Porter as the jeep bumped along the damaged road. He pulled the top buttons of his jacket as tightly as he could to protect himself against the cold, but it did little good. The only warmth was the glowing end of his cigarette. He wished he had brought an extra pair of long underwear. December was gray and turning harsh.

On the other hand, he was finally in the war, and even more importantly, a reporter again, if only for a little while. That made up for almost any amount of cold, drear, and rubble.

His few weeks in London had turned into a blur of camping out in one SHAEF office after another, soliciting the web of permits and documents enabling him to cross the Channel to begin a new AP France bureau. After SHAEF came dealings with the French provisional government and a memorable meeting with Charles de Gaulle, who evidently assumed the sole purpose of the AP was to serve as his personal press office, and virtually dictated a series of stories on his own glorious return to la belle France. Porter had met the type before: they weren’t real if they didn’t see their name in the paper. He had flattered and taken ostentatious notes, and finally ended up with a series of elegant documents topped off with the signature of de Gaulle in all the key places.

Paris was relatively undamaged, except for places where Nazi insignia had been torn down. Dictatorships liked advertising, evidently, Porter mused, but swastika billboards grew boring in a hurry. When Porter pulled into Paris, dusty in fatigues and helmet, he was mistaken for an American soldier and nearly hugged to death by young Parisienne
filles
--not that he objected.

He’d had the experience of being cut off from his daily news fix again. The disaster in the air with the new German secret “jet” fighter was still on everybody’s minds; the U-boat menace that had resurfaced with the sinking of the
Enterprise
seemed to be subsiding once again. Neither situation, he was assured by everyone in the command structure, was enough to change the ultimate course of the war, and his sources seemed sincere enough, so that’s what he had reported.

The nearly universal opinion was that the Germans were finished, with the proviso that cornered rats were still able to bite. Porter hoped he wasn’t too late to at least see a little bit of action.

Headquarters, Nineteenth Armored Division, Luxembourg, 0955 hours GMT

“You know, Hank, the papers are going to say ‘Patton took Metz.’ But you and I both understand that’s not true. It was men like yours, and the whole rest of Third Army. Goddamn it, how I love those boys--what a magnificent collection of warriors!” Henry Wakefield agreed politely with his army commander, but at the same time he felt himself growing tense. How much of Patton’s words were just bombast, and how much did Old Blood and Guts really mean? He suspected that was a question that wiser men than himself would be debating for decades, possibly centuries.

Still, he had to admit that George S. Patton had a way of getting things done on the battlefield, and in the army, that Wakefield could only admire. “It was a tough nut to crack, General... but it’s been a fine week since then!”

Indeed, following the capture of Metz, Third Army had lunged toward the Saar region of Germany with its typical aggressive speed. In a series of brilliant advances, units such as the Fourth and Nineteenth Armored Divisions had raced toward the border, bagging thousands of prisoners, striking close to the very Rhine itself.

“But that’s not why I came by, Hank,” explained the army general. “Good news, for once. I’ve got a few companies of tank destroyers available... I’d like to attach one of them to you.”

“We can always use the help, General,” replied Wakefield enthusiastically. Tank destroyers were not as effectively armored as tanks--their turrets were open to the sky, for one thing, making the crews very vulnerable to enemy snipers--but they had better guns than even the 76-mm Shermans and could provide a useful punch against German armor. A company of the big-gunned vehicles would make a big difference in his division’s striking power.

“I thought you’d feel that way. Captain Zimmerman’s a good man--I’ve had my eye on him since Cobra, back in Normandy. He’ll report to you in the morning.”

“Thank you, General.”

“And Hank, why don’t you attach him to CCA? I like knowing we’ve got an outfit there with aggressive command and a little extra punch.”

Patton phrased the idea as a question, but Wakefield recognized it for the order that it was. At the same time, he was rather surprised to realize that he would have made the same decision himself.

Army Group B HQ, Trier, Germany, 2334 hours GMT

“The great German military genius,” observed Gunter von Reinhardt, “is in good staff work.” He stretched one arm and then the other, then shook his head from side to side, clearing his mind from the intense focus of the last several days.

Müller looked up from his own maze of paper. “I wish you’d make up your mind about the placement of the last two panzer divisions,” he complained. “It’s hard enough planning POL resupply with the limited stocks we have without adding in the complication that we don’t know where the trucks will be going.”

“Ultimately, my friend, the decision isn’t mine to make,” Reinhardt said, standing up. “But I will get you the decision as soon as possible. For now, let me buy you a cup of fine gourmet coffee before we return to this fascinating exercise.” He glanced down at the maps laid out on the long conference table, held down with a variety of objects, numerous pencil and pen marks showing the complex strategic discussions that had taken place over the last three days. “We must finish this work, but I, for one, need to clear my head a little bit, or I’m liable to begin to confuse our troops with theirs.”

The canteen was on around-the-clock status in Rommel’s field headquarters. The coffee was ersatz, but it was hot and it was available even though it was past midnight. Tonight there were also sandwiches and some stale cake. Müller piled his plate high.

“Do you think this will work?” Müller asked.

“Do you know, I really believe it might,” Reinhardt said thoughtfully. “It’s an audacious plan, and one with a degree of unavoidable risk, not even mentioning the well-known adage about first contact with the enemy. Still, this type of plan has certainly worked before, and that without our Desert Fox in command. I’d say we have a good chance of victory, and I can’t imagine any plan better. And after all
, ce n’est pas victoire, si elle ne met fin a la guerre
. Montaigne. It’s not victory if it doesn’t end the war. Of course, the current definition of victory is survival.”

“But we’re still outnumbered,” Müller said through a mouthful of cake. “And according to your law... what was it, Langer’s Law? ... aren’t we already doomed?”

“Lanchester’s Law. Remember, the force difference is critical, but the force at the decisive point is what ultimately counts.” Reinhardt paused. The situation was far more complex and had far more variables; he had an innate distaste for oversimplification. On the other hand, Müller looked more cheerful, and perhaps that was an outcome worth achieving, even at the cost of semantic exactitude. “A lot depends on our work. It is amazing, is it not, how much paperwork is involved in taking a plan that originates as a few sweeping arrows on a large map and turning it into the operational orders that make units and men move on the battlefield?”

“And how much more effort it takes to move them around during the battle than it does to push counters across the headquarters map,” interjected a deeper voice.

Reinhardt looked up to see Rommel’s scarred face smiling down. He shot to attention. “Field Marshal! We were sharing a cup of coffee--may I fetch you some?”

“I would be eternally indebted for a cup of coffee. I would even be indebted for a cup of what they serve here. May I join you?”

“Of course, Field Marshal. We would be honored.” Reinhardt pulled out a chair for his commander, then quickly got a cup of coffee and piled a few of the stale brown-bread sandwiches on a blue metal plate.

“Thank you, colonel. Gentlemen, how goes the planning?” Reinhardt immediately answered for the two of them. “Very well, sir. We should finish the order lists by morning and have detailed guidance ready for dissemination.”

“And the most important part of the campaign--how goes the supply planning, Colonel Müller? I think you have the harder job this time, with no disrespect to your colleague. You have to spin straw into gold, or preferably into gasoline.”

“Just call me Rumpelstilskin,” Müller said. “I mean--” Reinhardt raised his eyebrows at the unaccustomed witticism from Müller. It must have been his fatigue; he knew how much Rommel intimidated the pudgy supply officer.

Rommel laughed. “Good for you, Rumpelstilskin. You see, I am very easy to please. Only deliver miracles on a regular basis, and everything will be just fine. So tell me about your miracles.”

Müller took a deep breath. Reinhardt could see some anxiety forming on his round face; he hated to do briefings, far preferring the meticulously prepared memorandum. But he was on the spot. “Sir, even with the Rumanian fuel influx, the key to the supply situation is our ability to capture Allied depots and resupply on the move. I’ve been coordinating with Gunter, and there have been some deviations from the initial sweep to make sure we are able to keep up supply. But it makes me very uncomfortable, because I can’t predict capturing enemy supplies with the same accuracy with which I can predict our trucks moving up behind the tanks. Worse, the intelligence information--sorry, Gunter--can’t tell me exactly where the Allied supplies are located. There must be a major depot somewhere between here and Antwerp, but where exactly it is, I cannot tell.”

“Of course not,” murmured Rommel. He knew that was a point of vulnerability in any attack. “So your orders are, Colonel, that I must make sure to locate and capture a certain minimum level of enemy supplies?”

Müller always had trouble knowing when his leg was being pulled. His eyes grew wider. “Orders? No, sir, not orders ... “

Rommel laughed along with Reinhardt. “I must disagree, Colonel. In fact, those are orders, because I must follow them, mustn’t I?”

Sweat actually sprung out on Müller’s face. Finally, he seemed to realize that he was being toyed with, took another deep breath, and said, “Well, Field Marshal, if you put it that way, I suppose they are orders.”