Weltkriegschaft

Chapter III: Part XLIII

Chapter III: The Lion’s Den

Part XLIII

December 4, 1936

In the gray morning mist, the commander of 6. Panzer-Regiment stood atop an armored car near Wivenhoe, watching the bridging work through his field glasses.

Oberst Fridolin Rudolf Theodor von Senger und Etterlin was no stranger to Britain. The son of an ancient line of high Franconian nobility, he had won a Rhodes scholarship in 1911 and read History and Philosophy, Politics & Economics at St. John’s College for the last two years before the war. He had served with great distinction on the Western Front, winning both classes of the 1914 Iron Cross and was made a knight of the Order of the Zähringer Lion by his home state of Baden. He had retained a deep appreciation for the English people, though, and after the war resumed correspondence and frequent visits with many of his Oxford friends. Conversant in half a dozen languages, he had traveled widely between the wars, and enjoyed assurance of hospitality from Edinburgh to Cairo. He was at once monk-like in self-denial and eminently cultured in matters of the soul -- known widely as a lover of opera, Beaux Arts architecture and classical music. A devout Roman Catholic, he delighted in sparring with Protestant theologians on Barth, Weisse and Blumhardt. Professors of Classics, meanwhile, often came calling at his Bavarian estate to take up Virgil or Ovid.

Simultaneously a world-class equestrian, he had been an instructor at the Hanover Calvary School in the bleak years after Versailles, and later an officer in the cavalry inspectorate in Berlin. There, von Senger had forged connections with many of the men who would give birth to the Panzerwaffe within Hitler’s reborn Wehrmacht. With the coming of the present war, he had been singled out as one of the most promising field-grade armor commanders, and already promoted two grades since the previous year.

He had come across to England on the Freiburg -- formerly the French liner Paris -- along with many of the regiment’s tankers, docking at Harwich on December second. By the afternoon of the third, the regiment was rolling westward up the Harwich road. To the north, 3. Infanterie-Division had reached the outskirts of Colchester just before dark, and found the opposite bank of the Colne strongly fortified. This historic city of 50,000 people had been the heart of Roman Britain, and was now a major producer of diesel engines and aircraft parts. Now, it seemed to be shaping up as the key to British defenses in the region.

Winded forward elements of 6. Infanterie made contact at the southeastern edge of the city around 2130. Reports quickly filtered back to Harwich. As British forces had fallen back, they had destroyed bridges and felled trees across the roads. Now, they were safely across the first major river in Essex, and had blown the bridges in the Germans’ faces.

As 6. Panzer clattered down the darkened road trying to catch up with the infantry, Generalleutnant von Weichs had ordered them overland to a point further to the south. von Senger was charged with taking the town of Wivenhoe, which nestled against the east bank of the Colne some 5 kilometers downstream from Colchester.


Colne river, several kilometers downstream from Wivenhoe.


The town was defended by a battalion of Essex regulars and supported by almost two thousand Territorial Army inductees who had been billeted nearby. A confused battle ensued in the dark, as jittery garrison sentries mistook the reinforcements for Germans and lit up with everything they had on the stunned Territorials. At last, von Senger’s panzers came rolling up, following the sunken rail bed running into Wivenhoe.

The sudden appearance of the tanks seemed to shake the British out of their hysteria, and a battery of 2-pounders dug in east of the town opened fire on the tracks. Three Panzer Is were disabled before von Senger even learned that contact had been made. Pulling his units hurriedly back, he reformed his leading battalion to advance cross country along a sweeping 900 meter front. Silhouetted by flares from both sides, 51 panzers crashed through fences and hedges, churning fallow fields to dust as their commanders sighted on the square belfry of the town church. The enemy guns cracked again.


British artillerymen man a 2-pounder. December 3, Essex.


From his headquarters section 500 meters back on an overpass above the railway, Oberst von Senger had seen several columns of smoke and red flames bloom from the low ground just out of sight. He had radioed his company commanders for a report. The guns -- they counted eight -- were well protected behind a series of earthen berms, and were at such close range that even glancing hits were punching through the Panzer Is’ paper-thin armor.

On the other hand, the close range allowed the British only a few minutes of shooting before von Senger’s tanks were on top of them. The advance swept onward, slamming into the Essexes arrayed outside the town and pushing onward into Wivenhoe.


Wivenhoe, night of December 3.


Two hours of intense fighting ensued, as I. Panzer-Bataillon systematically cleared street after street. With the 2-pounders overrun, the British infantry had scant anti-tank weaponry -- aside from a single Boer War-vintage elephant rifle that Duff Cooper had assigned the garrison for just such an occasion. As von Senger threw his supporting Schütze troops into the attack, the British withdrew to the town center and the cover it offered. The German column battering its way down Hamilton road toward the railway station found itself stymied at the High street intersection. Several automobiles had been overturned to block the way forward, with tangles of concertina wire stretching out in front of them from sidewalk to sidewalk. A pair of Vickers machine guns sandbagged between the cars were spitting tracers down the road.

Probing the British perimeter, von Senger had found most of the defenders holed up in an area of three square blocks west of High street. He had ordered a halt while he dispatched his second battalion to disperse a counterattack from the north by a large but hesitant force of Territorials. Major Rolf Lippert, one of von Senger’s cavalry protégés, had ordered his II. Panzer-Bataillon up the Colchester road running north from Wivenhoe -- and into a wooded park where the enemy had been loitering since the start of the battle. The two forces met sooner than expected at the outskirts of the town, and the surprised tankers had started firing wildly, swerving across the park trying to run down the dark shapes that seemed to spring out of the ground itself. The startling violence of the performance quickly set the British to flight. von Senger had ordered Lippert not to pursue.

By 0145, von Senger was ready to commence the final assault on the center of Wivenhoe. Standing orders dictated that he try to obtain a surrender, though, so another hour and half elapsed as messages were traded back and forth across the lines. Finally, word arrived that the British major commanding the defense had agreed to negotiate terms at the farmhouse outside the town that von Senger was now using as a headquarters and field hospital. Another hour passed, but the officers on the battle line reported that despite continued messages, no commanding officer was forthcoming. The British were clearly stalling. The disposition and numbers of other enemy forces on the east side of the Colne still wasn’t fully clear, and von Senger couldn’t rule out the possibility that significant units had moved up from Clacton-on-Sea in the dark and were preparing to strike him from behind. Nonetheless, an all-out out fight for the now-surrounded town center would have been wasteful for both sides, and von Senger refused to consider it unless absolutely necessary. He sent word back across the lines: the defenders had fifteen minutes to surrender unconditionally. Still nothing.

Running out of options, von Senger ordered a limited attack on one side of the perimeter, aimed at taking the railway station. Two Schütze companies converged on the station from two sides supported by a four-tank platoon of Lippert’s panzers. The Essexes had clung bitterly to their positions, but were soon driven back. The Germans picking their way through the ruined station house counted 37 kettle-helmeted dead.

At last, just before 0400, Wivenhoe’s surviving defenders had surrendered. Taking the town had cost von Senger 98 killed and a surprisingly high 17 of his tanks out of action. Inquiring as to the cause, he had been relieved to hear that most of the latter losses would be recoverable. As it happened, nine of I. Bataillon’s Panzer Is had merely blundered into a series of dry irrigation ditches in their sprint toward the anti-tank guns at the start of the battle. Their vehicles stuck -- and in one case flipped -- in the line of fire, the crews had thrown open their hatches and taken for the rear.

As his Feldgendarmes marched the prisoners to the rear, von Senger drove forward to the riverside quays. There were no bridges this far downstream, but the opposite bank was lined with concrete pillboxes. Every now and then, one of them would spray a rope of bright tracers across the water at Germans who dallied too long in the open. His men were hard at work emplacing half a dozen PaK 36s along the flood wall.

The positions were at practically point-blank range for the German gunners, and the Colne was rather low on its banks, exposing great stretches of silty sand on each bank. Soon, their slender barrels were puffing orange flashes and thick cordite smoke -- even in the dark, it was almost impossible to miss. More difficult, though, was hitting for effect, as even these hastily-constructed casemates were strong enough to repel anything but a perfect strike.


German gunners suppress a British patrol sighted on the west bank of the Colne. Morning of December 4.


As the cross-river duel played out, von Weichs radioed von Senger with word that the schedule had been pushed up. The situation in the Channel was still “fluid,” he said, and although HKK had planned landings later that morning at Brightlingsea, at the mouth of the Colne, changing transport conditions had necessitated that a force of torpedo boats do the job in the dark. The force, consisting of Kondor, Seeadler and a pair of minesweepers, had passed the Colne bar at 0230, and disgorged two Pionier companies straight onto the Brightlingsea beach after finding the docks dismantled. The town had fallen quickly, he said, and the minesweepers were now towing a string of pioneer barges upriver to begin bridging work.

Around the time the barges were projected to arrive, von Weichs had called again with a complication. The torpedo boat Seeadler had managed to beach itself on one of the Colne’s treacherous sandbars, and the pioneers had frantically tried to free it before first light, only to conclude that the ship was held too firmly in the muck to have any hope. The barges were on their way after all.

By 0500, the pillboxes had been silenced, and a platoon of von Senger’s men had motored across the river in commandeered launches to complete their destruction. The minesweepers came into view at 0517, and had promptly begun construction work at the Wivenhoe quays. Working under frightfully visible carbon arc work lamps, they had set about bolting together prefabricated sections of a light-use bridge. The Colne was only 50 meters wide here, and the assembly went quickly. The bridge wouldn’t be strong enough to support von Senger’s panzers, but would at least allow him to get enough men across to secure the west bank until morning. Less than two hours later, the first German motorcycle troops crossed the Colne, followed by most of 6. Panzer’s infantry.


Kradschützen cross an improvised bridge over the Colne at Wivenhoe. Early morning of December 4.


Now, it was getting light, and the pioneers were hard at work on another bridge, just downstream of the first one, that would be able to support the weight of tanks, trucks and armored cars. The engineers hoped to have it ready by mid-afternoon.

von Senger lowered his binoculars and looked out over Wivenhoe. Several trails of sooty, brownish smoke were slowly drifting high into the air. The rumble of distant artillery reminded him that in the rest of Essex, the day’s combat was only just beginning. While the Kradschütze motorcyclists pushed westward to conduct reconnaissance, the rest of 6. Panzer-Regiment tried to get what rest it could. While the pioneers worked, the men might be able to get five or six hours of sleep. Then on they would push over the Colne and through the long night back up north toward Colchester. von Weichs wanted the battle for the city decided on December fifth. It seemed that the British were trying to make the river their final stop line in Essex, the Generalleutnant said, and a swift knockout blow to Colchester would undermine the enemy’s defenses all the way to London.

Raising Major Lippert on the radio, von Senger gave his final orders for a defensive line around Wivenhoe, then slipped into the back of his armored car for a few hours’ rest.

Rensslaer - Thank you kindly!

Kurt_Steiner - Wivenhoe park isn't quite this pastoral anymore!

Enewald - Yes, there's quite a bit between Dover and London. The fighting we've been focusing on lately is in Essex around the Harwich landings. German intelligence seems to indicate, though, that the British are placing a priority on trying to stop any invasion relatively close to the beaches.

c0d5579 - Essentially, yes. Colchester is the centerpiece of a stop line that shields London and the interior from the vulnerable coastline of East Anglia.

Next update goes up tonight!

Chapter III: Part XLIV

Chapter III: The Lion’s Den

Part XLIV

December 5, 1936

Cold rain spattered the windows of Adolf Hitler’s chalet above Berchtesgaden on the morning of the invasion’s fifth day. The nervous Führer had slipped out of Berlin during Löwengrube’s first hours, and had been camped out in his study in the Berghof most of the time since. His hair was slightly matted and dark bags hung beneath each eye. The 1914 Iron Cross was pinned to his rumpled gray jacket, and he reclined in one of his floral chintzes -- feet up on the table, and breakfasting on a tray spread across his lap.

Cristoph Scholl and Fräulein Wolf sat tending to him on the adjacent sofa, which was crowded with a great many files and reports, as well as the cluster of telephones by which Hitler had stayed connected to the outside world.

“It is nearly nine o’clock, Mein Führer,” Scholl said. “Herr Krupp has cancelled his call for nine thirty, but General Bayerlein has flown in and is expected at nine.”

Utensils scraped on the china as Hitler shoveled boiled egg into his mouth. “Ah, well it’s about time. Is the Neurath call still on?”

“Let’s see...” Scholl ran a finger down the crowded schedule. “Baron von Neurath is scheduled to call at eleven, regarding the League of Nations declaration. Is that still acceptable?”

“Yes, yes, good.” He was spreading marmalade on a roll now. Bayerlein’s presence always seemed to brighten his disposition. “Tell me, Scholl, when you think this rain will clear up.”

“The meteorologists say tomorrow.”

“Good. A fresh napkin, please?”

Fräulein Wolf sprang up and handed the Führer a monogrammed napkin.

“Thank you.” He ate in silence for some while, and finally set the tray down on the floor next to him. “It must be nine, mustn’t it?”


“Nine exactly. I’ll go check on when the General is expected.” Scholl slipped into the hall, and had started for the foyer when the front doors were thrown open by the Leibstandarte guards.

Striding across the portal with that familiar impudence, Bayerlein held out his arms Christ-like as stewards peeled off his greatcoat, muffler and fedora. An adjutant tiptoed from behind and set a peaked cap upon his head, while another slipped off the Generalmajor’s gloves and handed him a briefcase.

Scholl turned and went back inside the study, but before he could announce Bayerlein’s presence, the echo of boot heels in the hall caught the Führer’s attention. One of the junior adjutants declared quite unnecessarily that the HKK Chief had arrived, and the next moment, Fritz Bayerlein breezed through the door.

“Heil Hitler.”

The two shook hands warmly, and the Führer showed Bayerlein to the chintz opposite himself.

Opening his briefcase, the former lieutenant-colonel unrolled a map of the invasion area, with notes and unit designations penciled in. He had a sheaf of papers, too. “This is the latest word, as you requested, on the progress in Essex.”

“Yes, good.”


Pact gains as of December 5, 0800. German controlled territory in red. German-backed Irish territory in Green.


“We’ve managed to get III Korps -- that is the first wave -- almost completely unloaded into Harwich, and X Korps is two-thirds ashore. The entire eastern beachhead is demanding roughly 6,500 tonnes of supplies per day. Despite slight damage, the port of Harwich is more than capable of that.

“From the Harwich beachhead, our forces have advanced up the entire Tendring Peninsula here to the River Colne. Yesterday morning, 31. and 33. Infanterie-Divisionen made a swing from the north and attacked Clacton-on-Sea, which surrendered later in the day. Aside from reports of small units still resisting in the marshes south of Harwich, the entire peninsula is now secure. Also, Ipswich and the surrounding peninsulas are both secure.

“Our forces have now concentrated on breaching the enemy stop line along the Colne, centered on Colchester. The British have the perhaps equivalent of three divisions arrayed along this line -- from Halstead in the north all the way down to Mersea Island on the Colne estuary. These are not all regulars, though. Rather, there’s one first line division and three divisions of their Territorial Army. The regulars are one of their better divisions, but the rest are largely notional divisions, with many of the units still training in depots at the start of our landings.”

“So how long will it take to penetrate this stop line?”


“We already have, but only minimally. Weichs’ panzers have swung up the west bank of the Colne toward Colchester. That is the centerpiece. The main attack on the city has begun this morning.”

“Have they decided to make the decisive battle, then?”

“It’s hard to say.” Bayerlein sucked on his pen, then drew a wide circle around London. “All we really know is that they can’t let anyone in there. Their decision about whether to throw everything in will depend on how much they can use the roads. By day, at least, the Luftwaffe is keeping them pretty well paralyzed, but we suspect that significant movement still occurs at night.”

“I see.”

“So if they believe they can safely move whatever strategic reserves they have at the crucial moment, they may want to hold back. Otherwise, I would try to force a decision as close to the beaches as possible.”

The Warlord scowled down at the map. “Have they made any progress in Dover, Bayerlein?”

“It is -- we are not optimistic at the moment. The port suffered such serious damage in the air raid two days ago that we’re barely getting enough supplies in to prevent the city from being overrun. We have about three brigades ashore, but they are holding on on an hour-to-hour basis.”

A melancholic growl: “Why not more progress?”

Scholl shot Bayerlein a warning glance, but the Bavarian general remained oblivious.

“We had underestimated the degree to which the British had committed to the defense of Kent. It seems they were anticipating the weight of our landings to occur around Dover all along, so the city is boxed in by four or five divisions.”

“I was told there were only four or five in all of Britain!”

“Again, Führer, some of those forces are notional. But the enemy forces are certainly somewhat heavier than we expected. The entire armored reserve is concentrated in Kent. They are investing everything south of London in sealing off that beachhead.”

Staring silently at the map for some time, Hitler began circling his index finger around Portsmouth and Sussex. “Why not go there? A secondary landing to the west would have a clear path all the way to London.”

“I’m afraid we simply don’t have the forces. There’s no way to close off the Channel that far to the west. The good news, of course, is that even as the Dover landings have stalled, they are still diverting forces that would otherwise be able to fight us in Essex.”

“Stalled is unacceptable. How could the air raid get possibly through?”

Two mornings earlier, Scholl had heard that question bellowed, roared, shouted, raved, whispered, muttered and mused more times than he could count.

“They caught us by tactical surprise, Führer, but --”

“Any imbecile would have seen this coming, Bayerlein. This is of course the time for resolution, but I promise you --” his finger jabbed London on the map over and over “-- I promise you when the victory is achieved there will come a moment for accountability.”

“Mein Führer --”

“There’s no need to shield anybody from me, Bayerlein. Everyone must share his burden fairly.”

“Mein Führer, the --”

“And not try to hide behind other people’s actions.”

“Mein --”

“It is dishonorable. That’s what it is. Dishonorable. Now what is it, Bayerlein?”

“Mein Führer, the RAF has played its hand, you see? By spending in a moment all the reserves it had been saving up, it is surely now fully spent. The Luftwaffe accounted for nearly forty machines that day, and we’ve barely seen anything since.”

“Yes, yes.” Hitler gulped water from a glass that Fräulein Wolf brought. “But then I expect any English ships that come out to be sent straight to the bottom.”

“Here is the OKM Staff-HKK memorandum summarizing naval operations. Latest as of less than half an hour ago at the train station.” Bayerlein passed the Führer a single-page report.

His black eyes flickered across the paper. The jaw clenched, he read on.

“The Kriegsmarine was not able to keep everything out,” Bayerlein said simply.

The battle for the English Channel had been in flux throughout the invasion. During the opening hours of Operation Löwengrube, the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine had succeeded in inflicting severe losses on the destroyers and light warships stationed in the immediate invasion areas. Over the next forty-eight hours, battles raged from Eastbourne to Great Yarmouth, as the Germans fought to keep other rapidly-converging enemy warships out of the invasion zone. The light cruiser Königsberg proved its mettle against numerically superior forces, sinking the sloop HMS Folkestone off Harwich, and damaging two destroyers that were later sunk by U-boats. Yet on the night of December second, a larger British force had broken through from the north, sinking several cargo ships and damaging German destroyers. Adjustments were made, and the minefields thickened by day, and for the following two nights, British attempts to enter in force were largely frustrated.

At nightfall on the fourth, though, the Royal Navy had achieved a second major breakthrough. The cruisers Devonshire and London and thirteen destroyers had penetrated the eastern minefields and ravaged as far as Deal during the night.

The destroyers managed to sink several of the U-boat pickets, but when word finally reached OKM at 1735 confirming -- erroneously, it would turn out -- that three Counties were loose in the Channel, Raeder had immediately ordered all surface units into port. The two German cruisers operating in the area, Emden and Königsberg had dashed abjectly into Calais and under the protection of the Gris-Nez batteries. About a third of the destroyers already at sea had scurried under the Harwich guns, while the rest turned tail for Ostend and Boulogne, leaving the smaller, slower Vorpostenboote to their fates.

Those transports and cargo vessels still at sea had been confused by a squall of radio messages -- ordering them alternately forward and backward, giving often entirely false positions for the major enemy units, and generally sowing chaos and terror among the already overtaxed seamen.

HMS Devonshire, under Captain Gerard Muirhead-Gould, the former naval attaché in Berlin, had led a squadron of destroyers toward Harwich to bombard the port. Dodging fire from the 6 inch guns at Beacon Hill, Muirhead-Gould had brought his ships in close and opened fire at short range, seriously damaging the coastal batteries and sinking several ships in the harbor. Only with the sinking of HMS Acasta and HMS Crusader by German U-boats did the force break off the attack in the early hours of the morning.

To the south, Rear Admiral Max Horton and HMS London led the rest of the destroyers on a raid on the Scheldt estuary. The British knew that the ships gathering there were more lightly protected than those at Calais or Ostend, and fell on them out of the black night with shattering violence. Only with pyres of flame roaring hundreds of meters into an orange sky did Horton move on down the coast to Ostend. Coastal artillery there prevented the British force from getting close enough to bring its own firepower to bear, so Horton split the force -- sending several destroyers to the northwest with orders to sink anything they encountered and put in under the antiaircraft guns at Ramsgate and sally again in the morning once the Germans had resumed their cross-Channel shipments.

London and the rest of the force beat back an attack by German torpedo boats around 0430 off Calais, and proceeded to shell likely targets along the French coast. Horton made one abortive attempt to round the Cap Gris-Nez and devastate Boulogne, but the battleship guns there drove him off.

By first light, the British force was gone, and the damage became clear. Horton’s force had lost three destroyers, but had sunk ten major German ships and two dozen smaller craft. The vessels in the Scheldt were in disarray, and many still burned late into the day. At Harwich, repairs had begun immediately after Muirhead-Gould disengaged, and the damaged ships quickly dragged clear of the unloading areas. Engineers worked furiously to refloat those that had hit bottom and to shore up the battery defenses. Dusk was already less than seven hours away.

Hitler’s face was grave. “How long can we sustain these losses?”

“At the present rate, at least until Christmas. It depends on how quickly the port of Dover can be brought back into operation. The concern of course is whether we can prevent the British from a catastrophic breakthrough.”

“What does that mean?”

“If they were able to get the main battleship force safely past the mines, that would naturally be big trouble. But, we have thus far been able to keep the battleships at bay because they are using them cautiously. More likely would be something similar to last night, but with a larger cruiser force. If they managed it during the day, it would sink much more of our shipping, but would be suicidal. If necessary, we can suspend night crossings, but that will cut into the supplies that make it through to the front.”

One of the telephones next to Scholl on the sofa rang. It was labeled v. Rundstedt Calais. Scholl swept the receiver up to his ear before the second ring. “Führer Direct, Scholl.”

A young man’s voice: “Generaloberst von Rundstedt for the Führer personally. Urgent call.”

“One moment.” Scholl held up a hand to get Hitler’s attention. The Warlord looked at the phone and knew at once who it was phone. He beckoned Scholl for the receiver, and answered.

The call was brief.

The Führer looked lucidly at the three curious faces staring at him. “A large British counterattack at Dover is underway. I advised von Rundstedt to hold the port by whatever means possible.”

Enewald - Something like that

Kurt_Steiner - What perfidious cheating! El Pip would 'av my 'ed, 'e would . In all seriousness, the Luftwaffe has found available torpedoes not sufficiently effective or reliable to field with its anti-shipping units.

Not to disappoint, but as of December 5, the survivors of Sturmabteilung Bräuer have all been evacuated to France to recuperate. Next update is coming along nicely (how long can this streak last?!), and I have a red-eye flight tomorrow night that might let me make some good progress.

Apologies to all for the delay. Still pressing ahead on the next update.

On another note, tonight I will be visiting the dining room depicted in this scene. I'll be sure to post a follow-up!

Chapter III: Part XLV

Chapter III: The Lion’s Den

Part XLV

December 5, 1936

The first sign of distant trouble came when the air support attached to III Armeekorps’ attack on Colchester was abruptly pulled around 0940. The artillery barrage that had been going since first light kept up, and the pre-assault mortars still crumped down into the city from across the Colne, but the reassuring throb of pistons from the east had faded to nothing on the cold air. It had dropped well below freezing during the night, and advancing German units crunched over a thick frost that the overcast-draped sun hadn’t melted.

Over the previous day, III Armeekorps had driven up to the river along a wide front, and even now had elements groping their way westward toward a point where it could be readily forded. Most of 3. Infanterie-Division anchored the northern wing of von Weichs’ assault, trying to set up a forced crossing of the Colne straight into Colchester.

The British were starting to show more fight, and both sides knew that the river would be the most formidable stop line for God only knew how far. Fighting in the broken fields remained sporadic, though, until Germans reached a broad stretch of open country some three kilometers north of the city and the river. There, they had found a large mental hospital emptied of its patients and occupied by a full battalion of the East Surrey Regiment. The sprawling, fortresslike compound was built of heavy brickwork, and proved nearly impervious to the strafing and bombing which the Luftwaffe meted out in its first attempts to reduce the structure. A high square water tower at the center of the institution dominated the surrounding countryside for some distance. Several light artillery pieces had been installed in the tower’s upper reaches, and spotters along the roofline could be seen directing the fire of heavier field batteries positioned about 2,000 meters south along the rail line.

von Weichs had been direct if inartful in his approach. Divisional artillery was brought up to level the place, and orders given to continue firing until the hospital was rubble. What the general-baron hadn’t bargained for, though, was the sheer mass solidity of Edwardian penal architecture. The institution had been designed by F. Whithouse and W.H. Town to withstand biblical calamities, with masonry meters thick and able to shrug off high explosives as ably as many purpose-built fortifications.

After four punishing hours, the compound was still standing, and the German generals’ well of patience had run dry. Bayerlein personally radioed von Weichs permission to take whatever measures were necessary. Just as the sun was slipping over the British bank of the Colne, storm whistles began to keen from all four sides of the hospital. The close-quarters assault was almost operatically bloody.

The fighting dragged on into the night, costing at least 610 casualties before running out of steam as the Germans reeled backward. Before the spent assaulters could be relieved, the garrison suddenly sallied shortly before dawn -- and cut their way through the von Weichs’ thin southern perimeter in the darkness. Several hundred of them made it back to British lines along the Colne.

In the gray hours of the morning, fresh troops moving up from the coast pushed forward, and by 0900 air support had helped them take full control of the river’s east bank. The divisional batteries kept pounding away, trying to keep the defenders hunkered down as von Weichs readied his forces for the main thrusts into Colchester.

Otto Büsing and his cavalrymen waited in a sheltered roadway along a street full of shops, waiting to cross beyond the infantry. The bridges had all been blown, of course, and whole stands of trees felled to block the roads into the city, so it would fall to the Jäger companies to win a foothold on the other side.

After a brief lull, the barrage thundered to a four-minute crescendo. German troops along the east bank pressed themselves low as the ground shook and the buildings across the river seemed to disintegrate in dark showers of wood and plaster. The water roiled as the impacts blasted bricks and shards of mortar into the narrow channel. At last, it was over. Eyes watering from the deafening bombardment, the waiting soldiers got up and stared into Colchester. A factory with a tall smokestack was burning brightly, and large chunks of siding sloughed off its exterior, exposing steel ribbing within. Flames lapped halfway up the redbrick funnel, swirling up into black smoke that mingled with the dozens of other plumes drifting up from the city.

Whistles blew on the German side, and streams of yellow tracers began buzzing across the Colne from dozens of MG34s emplaced on the rooftops of captured buildings. Jäger companies waiting behind cover clambered down concrete flood walls and rushed out onto the river’s silty banks carrying inflatable rubber boats. Setting them into the biting water, they climbed in by squad and began paddling. Across much of the front, the Colne was as little as 30 meters wide, but was still deep enough that an opposed crossing couldn’t be effected any other way. Almost as soon as they had set out, the rafts were halfway to the opposite bank.

Sharp cracks echoed among the battered buildings and several dark columns of water spouted up in the river. One of the rafts evaporated into a pink cloud that sent hunks of rubber the size of dinner plates tumbling back onto the east bank. The deliberate staccato of Vickers machine guns sounded, and the Büsing could see numerous muzzle flashes in darkened windows and areas of deep shadow that the bombardment had missed. Neat lines of splashes danced across the surface of the water as though someone was jerking lengths of knotted rope up from below.

The first wave of boats touched the opposite flood wall -- under the lee of the riverbank and momentarily safe from enemy fire. In seconds, they began climbing up.

A second wave was dashing across the water now. Wounded men tumbled into the river, which was now dotted with the dark points that were bobbing heads trying to avoid the machine gun fire.

Several PaK 36s on the German bank opened up from sandbagged positions, throwing up dust and spots of fire wherever the gunners could see British muzzle flashes -- but the men scrambling up into the city were being cut up badly. Through his binoculars, Büsing could see the pink-gray puffs of bullets tearing through men, carrying viscera and uniform fabric out the other side. One of them hurled a grenade into a burned-out lorry and blew up the machine gun there. A man next to him yanked his grenade’s pull-cord, but was shot through the neck before he could throw it. The armed potato-masher tumbled backward and over the lip of the flood wall, where it exploded in the midst of a full squad climbing a rope ladder from its boat. Büsing looked away.

In half an hour, it was quiet again. Out of more than a thousand men hurled across the river, barely a company had found a firm lodging on the opposite bank, and Generalmajor Haase had pulled them back. The mortar fire was resumed, and another artillery barrage called to specifically focus on the stretch of Colchester closest to the Colne.

The Germans licked their wounds until noon, when von Weichs ordered the assault resumed. Three battalions attempted simultaneous crossings: at the Colne’s bend around the northeast corner of the city, roughly two kilometers upstream, and a kilometer downstream. The two more southern crossings were still opposed by deeply entrenched machine guns and artillery pieces, and the British waiting across the demolished bridges fiercely beat back the gray waves crashing upon the west bank. Upstream, though, the Colne was narrow enough that Haase’s III. Bataillon succeeded in bulling its way across.

Yet stolid resistance prevented a wholesale breakthrough -- the attack ground to a halt four blocks into Colchester. Orders came down from III Armeekorps that 6. Division’s cavalry was to cross the Colne where the British line had been breached and execute a probing movement father southward. At the southern end of the city, von Weichs said, the Ritter von Senger had lost several of his panzers to well-emplaced anti-tank guns. If those guns could be suppressed, he was confident, the armor could sweep aside any remaining resistance and subdue the city.

And so, Büsing and his men made their way upstream on horseback, and toward the place where the Jägers had carved purchase on the enemy bank. They could hear more friendly artillery rounds ripping in. There was a flash and shower of blue sparks ahead, followed by thick billows of white smoke.

“Probably the electrical station,” one of the NCOs said, binoculars raised.

“Alright.” Büsing raised his Luger high in the air, signaling his men to form up. “On my command!”

They were behind the low wall of a primary school. Ahead ran the western edge of the city center -- houses, shops and pubs broken by lawns and fields. Dark smoke spiraled from a burning lorry that had rolled into a ditch, but the landscape was quiet.

“To the trees near the burning truck. Forward!”

They were off at a gallop southward. Büsing’s eyes were focused ahead, on the column of smoke near their rally point. Further beyond, he could see the spire of a church. Oberst von Senger’s lines couldn’t be more than a mile beyond that. He only had a faint impression of a line of helmets rising from the cold earth just meters ahead. He felt is head slam into the ground some time later, and attempted to rise several times amidst the rush of hoofbeats -- but too much of his blood had already spilled out and mingled with the English soil.

*back from the dead*

Update going up now...