Chapter 348
As the rest of the 7th Armoured Division the 2nd Royal Scots Hussars were standing ready on the north of the Danube. Since the initial river crossing the 8th Army had bled to widen the bridgehead and now the big push north was about to begin.
However the 2nd RSH Battlegroup (the Regiment being joined by 1st Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles and the Battlegroup being named after the senior Regiment) had been given a special job and Colonel Niemczyk was currently with the Brigadier to try and find out again why his command was being sent on point of what he considered to be a fools errant that led them nowhere.
“Sir, all I would like to know is why the Division is being diverted.” Niemczyk asked again.
This time the Brigadier relented. He pulled out a map of northern Austria and pointed at a spot on the map. “That's why, Colonel.”
Niemczyk glanced at the map and saw an insignificant little down that was sitting right on the border between Germany and Austria.[1]
“And may I ask Sir what the significance of this town is?”
“In itself? None whatever.” the Brigadier said but before Niemczyk could say anything he went on: “None whatever except for who was born there.”
The Brigadier made the appropriate words and Niemczyk felt his eyebrows rise. “Bloody hell! Are we sure about this?”
The Brigadier nodded. “That we are, Colonel. I dislike political targets as much as the next man but here...”
“Oh I do agree, Sir. If anything it might discourage the Germans from sending anything against the ANZACs and the Canadians. Consider any complaints withdrawn, Brigadier.”
With that the Colonel nodded, saluted and left the barn/CP. Outside he quickly walked the half mile to where Battleaxe was parked in the near middle of the line that would form the vanguard of the 7th Armoured Division. Again.
“Anything new, Sir?” the loader asked. Outside the tank Niemczyk was “Sir” or “Colonel”, inside he was only known as “boss”.
“Something new indeed my lad.” he said in reply. He climbed up and filled in his crew.
Admittedly it was quite a distance from their current position and the 51st Highland Division would have to take Salzburg to make it all work but to take the town where the Austrian had been born was something that merited telling to one's children.
“Sergeant, our humble Regiment has been selected to make history.”
The groans coming from inside
Battleaxe even as Niemczyk climbed through the hatch told him what his men thought of the idea.
Battleaxe being re-supplied.[2]
“Why us, Colonel?” his driver asked and the Colonel replied only with the Regimental motto. “Strike sure.”
That was all they needed. The Regiment had been through much, it had been in every action the Division had taken part in, and the motto, while inspired by Bomber Command befitted a Regiment that more often than not was the point of the brigade, if not even the Division or the Corps.
Three hours later the Regiment was moving. Colonel Niemczyk was forth in line, on the western-most road of the three the Regiment was advancing on. Speed was low as they had to let the accompanying Infantry of the Royal Irish Rangers to keep up.
Not that it mattered much. Less than three miles down the road the first resistance was encountered. This was not surprising, the attack was part of the general advance of the entire 8th Army out of the Bridgehead and the enemy was well aware of this.
Unlike in Italy however there was more than one way to go. The extreme western flank of the Allied Army (22nd Army Group, 5th and 6th Armies, the numbering being the result of an effort to confuse what passed for enemy intelligence gathering) would accompany the centre, and on the right flank of the 21st Army Group there would be movement.
The objective of this offensive was to push into Bavaria, in order to allow other Allied forces to take the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Field Marshal Alexander knew that knocking out a country that was little more than a German colony would do little on the front immediately but the forges and weapons factories of Skoda and the others would be far more useful for the Allies in their hands or at least denied to the enemy.
What he knew and the likes of the Cavalry Colonel didn't know was that London desired that the Czech half of the country be liberated soonest as there was a plan to install a local administration.
Alexander doubted that it would be that easy but he also knew that support for the Junta that ruled was far far less than what it had been and exploiting that would at the very least make things easier. Other forces would also attack into Bavaria from the region north of Vienna and Czechoslovakia that had already been occupied and the long-term strategic targets of 'Munich and Nuremberg' would surely fall eventually.
Little did the Field Marshal, or anyone on either side of the front for that matter know that Nuremberg would be the probably fiercest, brutal and most costly single battle of the war, to this day still a synonym for urban combat.[3]
~**---**~
The 2nd Royal Scots Hussars had different things in mind while the above was going on. They had advanced less than three miles before the first shell bounced off
Battleaxe's Armour, though the gun had been an old Pak36 that the Germans were mounting on half-tracks and the shot had been at a distance. What it told the British was that German mechanized Infantry was nearby.
When
Achilles, two vehicles down suddenly exploded and high plumes of smoke were visible behind the line of trees where the Infantry was now engaging the Royal Irish they also knew that armour was present.
Sure enough; a group of seven Panthers came into view, and judging by the length of the barrels they carried they were sporting the newer, longer gun.
Niemczyk looked around and saw one of them, aiming his gun at Battleaxe.
“Target! Tank, at 11!”
“On target!”
“FIRE!”
The 17 pounder and the 75mm gun fired at the same time. The German shell merely took off the wireless antenna but the 17 pounder shell penetrated the frontal armour of the German tank under the driver's hatch, with predictable results.
Even before the Panther had stopped moving
Battleaxe was looking for a new target.
Another three British and five German tanks were killed in this little engagement before the remaining Panthers and German Infantry withdrew.
The other column of the 2nd Royal Scots Hussars Battlegroup reported similar engagements. Major McCandless, commanding the other reported that they had taken a few prisoners and they had identified their units as the 11th Panzer and the 90th Panzergrenadier Division, known to once have been the 90th Light that had been with Rommel for years.
It told the Colonel that they were up against some of the best in Army Group Centre and that they had hit the extreme right of Rommel's Army Group.
Only partially true but close enough as it would turn out.
The 7th Armoured was luckily spared having to go into Salzburg. Resistance was minimal, mostly centred around the airbase and a few government buildings here and there but as any armoured unit the men of the Division weren't too comfortable with fighting in built up areas. True to it's Cavalry connections the Royal Armoured Corps preferred the ground as flat as possible.
Axis forces put up weak resistance resistance but ironically Rommel, in a misjudgement that would come to cost him dearly, misjudged the 8th Army's push as the main one and so played into Alexander's hands.
Against expectations Salzburg fell easily to the Allies, being only defended by a few companies of at best third-rate German reserve troops and with that the last significant Austrian city had fallen to the Allies. However as soon as the 8th Army crossed into Germany proper, an occasion that went unremarked upon in spite of later legend, restistance became incredibly fierce.
Not only had the Germans realized their mistake but also the 1st SS Army (five Divisions, of which two, the 2nd and 12th, were armoured) was very motivated for defence (in fact it would be these units that were crammed into Nuremberg when the 31st Army Group and parts of the future 34th and 35th Army Groups (both comprised of Indian Divisions with the exception of a composite Sino-Indian Infantry Division) besieged that town) but also reserve and generally unengaged units from the north and from France were beginning to move.
The Danube had failed to hold back the 'Anglo-Asiatic hordes' and now Germany was suddenly strapped for troops.
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Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?
[1] The Allies officially withdrew recognition of the Anschluss. To them Austria is an independent but Axis country and will be dealt with as such. That's a legal fiction of course but an important one for Allied propaganda.
[2] Actually unnamed Comet belonging to the 11th Armoured Divison.
[3] Think Stalingrad, only without the cold and with smarter leadership on the attacker's side.