The Austro-Hungarian Revolutions
Chapter XI – Panzers in the snow
West of Preschau (Presov), Eastern Slovakia, January 19th, 1936
His first warning was a cloud of birds scattering into the cold crisp air from the underbrush far ahead. Something on the other side of the rise had scared them.
‘Driver, stop!’ acting Sergeant Kurt Waldheim ordered into his headpiece, a little cloud of white vapour forming in front of his mouth. His scarf, wrapped outside of the receiver, was stiff and encrusted with ice.
Almost immediately, the sixteen metric tons of Panzer 434 stopped at the summit of the hill. Kurt lifted his Zeiss binoculars and scanned the terrain ahead. He could see nothing but a slight motion in the vegetation ahead, a treetop here and there shuddering, powdering fine snow from its branches. He tried to make out any telltale sounds, but the idling engine drowned all with its brutish droning.
‘Driver, slowly, back us down the slope!’ Kurt wanted to place his tank in a hull down position before stopping the engine, just in case something would start shooting at him. While the Sturmpanzerwagen II slowly edged its way back the way it had come, he reported to platoon, of which he was the point element.
‘Platoon, this is point. Spotted movement ahead, going hull down and full stop to listen! Point out!’
The other three tracks of the platoon were advancing in a line abreast formation behind him, and now hurried to catch up with the point machine. That would give him precious few seconds of relative silence.
Switching back to internal telephone once more, Kurt now spoke to Szaba, the rear gunner turned main gunner after his own promotion.
‘Gun, possible targets in the brush twelve o’clock. Driver, go full stop on Gun’s instruction and shut down the engine.’
Szaba, looking out through the main gun sights, would know better than Kurt when the gun, and only the gun would be sticking out above the rim of the hill. A more experienced Panzer commander might have been able to judge this on his own, but Kurt was still humble enough in his new role to rely on the expertise of his crew whenever possible.
The silence when the Maybach finally stopped felt strange, almost eerie after hours of enduring its deafening racket. For a second or two, Kurt was not certain if had been turned off or not though. Then it hit him like a punch in the stomach followed by an ice-cold shower; the sound of many, many roaring engines and the clatter and chirps of as many tracks was coming from ahead. If for a second he wondered if it was not simply his own platoon forming up from behind, the higher pitched sound of a trio of petrol Maybach’s became audible, clearly distinguishable from the sound ahead which was unmistakeably the lower, “slower” rumble of diesels. Russian tracks had diesel engines, not German ones.
‘Platoon, this is 434! Were hearing what sounds like a lot of enemy panzers, repeat, we’re about to get make contact with enemy Panzers!’
’434, this is platoon. Hold fast, will be with you in a minute!’ Hauptmann Fromm was trying to sound confident and cheerful, but Kurt had no trouble picking up the stress in the platoon commander’s voice. That jarred him.
‘Driver, get the engine going again, for the love of God!’ Kurt shouted, instantly ashamed of the panic, rather than mere stress that was clearly present in
his voice. A fine example he was setting for his own men!
‘Sergeant, should I load AP?’ Szaba wondered over the interphone. The Hungarian, at least, was steady. That calmed the young Panzer commander somewhat.
‘Nah, leave the HE in for now!’ Kurt replied. ‘The General said it would probably kill them just as good and it will save us some… here they come! Gun, Panzer, dead ahead, 300 metres!’
The front ranks of snow-covered underbrush were suddenly crushed by a slim, fast oblong shape. The Red tracks were T-26s, small machines with a long thin gun sticking out of a proportionally huge turret stuck on a small boxy hull. Hardly had Szaba began to acquire the enemy track when another appeared in a cloud of drifting snow, and then another and another.
Feeling detached, almost numb, Kurt heard Szaba call out. ‘Acquired, HE loaded!’
‘Fire!’ Kurt shouted, wincing in anticipation of the blast.
A lance of orange and white fire blasted out of the snubby 75mm gun, extending several metres ahead. The shell was slow enough, and moving away at almost zero deflection, so that Kurt could actually see it as a shrinking black dot, rising in its parabola, seemingly stop for an instant at the highest point and then slowly drop, converging with the enemy track. The full flight took most of a second. It would be a hit, he just knew it…
It was. Apparently Szaba knew his business well, because the T-26 recoiled as if struck by a giant hammer blow, swelled like a balloon for a fraction of a second before erupting in a ball of red-white fire and black smoke. Small fragments flew in all directions while half a dozen enemy tracks stopped dead, their turrets beginning to swivel.
‘Target destroyed!’
A savage whoop echoed through the interphone as the crew cheered their victory, but now seconds counted. Kurt fought down his mounting panic.
‘Gunner, new target: Panzer, eleven o’clock. AP!’ Despite the apparent lethality of the heavy HE shells against the small enemy tracks, Kurt decided it would be better to switch to AP, not the least because the armour piercing shell of the 75mm/L24 gun had a somewhat higher muzzle velocity, which in turn gave it a flatter trajectory and an easier time for Szaba to hit his mark.
‘Loaded!’ Szaba replied, and an instant later: ‘Target acquired!’
‘Fire!’
Again the Sturmpanzerwagen II shook and trembled as it spat fire, and again an enemy track was hit with the first shot; Szaba was turning out a first rate gunner. The effect of the armour piercing round was less dramatic: it went in through the front plate but didn’t obliterate the T-26 like the HE round had. Its small explosive charge simply made all hatches of the Red track fly open, and the Red track commander was shot out of the turret like a tiny, flailing projectile. The turret stopped swivelling and black smoke poured out of the stricken vehicle.
Now three or four of the Red tracks shot back. Their muzzle flashes looked like vengeful eyes blinking at Kurt, who briefly cursed himself for not changing position after the first shot. Still, the hull down position saved the Sturmpanzer, as the enemy shells impacted harmlessly on the forward slope of the hill. One whistled by Kurt, still exposed in his unbuttoned cupola, at what felt like a few centimetres but realistically must have been at least a couple of metres. Still, the shrill whistle of the 45mm shell as it went by brought back vivid memories of the Panzer’s former commander, who’s head had been torn off by just such a shell.
‘Christ!’ White as a sheet, Kurt dropped down the hatch into his seat and shouted into his headset receiver.
‘Driver, full back! We’re moving back to the next hill! Haul ass or we’re toast! Radio, give me the company frequency!’
‘Got it!’ Jörg Holzer, the former schoolteacher answered after what barely seemed enough time to turn a wheel on the wireless. He had a fine crew, Kurt thought. A damn fine crew.
‘Company, this is 434, sitrep: have engaged many enemy Panzers, estimate company strength plus! Report under heavy fire and pulling back!’
’Steady, Waldheim, steady!’ came the calm voice of Major von Rottstein, the company commander.
’Third platoon, hold your position once 434 joins you, I’ll back you up with First! Second; envelop left, Fourth; envelop right!’
As Kurt’s Panzer reached the bottom of the hill, Anton Huber, the driver reversed the gear on one of the tracks, making the giant vehicle slide in a cloud of spraying snow and spin 180 degrees on its axis until it was going forward instead of reverse. Then he pushed the control sticks full forward to climb the forward slope of the next hill at top speed, which at present felt woefully slow. Peering out above the rim of the turret hatch, Kurt watched the top of the hill they had just descend from, fearing all the time to see the silhouettes of T-26s peer over the edge. They were much faster than their lumbering behemoth and could hardly miss it at this close range. Then he had to counter-rotate his seat as Szaba, without orders to this effect, started to rotate the turret backwards to at least be able to shoot back.
‘Rear machine gun, if enemy Panzers show up on hill behind us, pepper them! Maybe it will distract them!’ Kurt shouted.
They were no more than half-way up the hill when the first Red track appeared on the summit behind them. Günther Färber immediately opened up with his water-cooled Maxim, spraying the enemy vehicle with fire. Kurt had the grim satisfaction of seeing his enemy counterpart drop hurriedly into his cupola, but then felt strangely detached as the enemy turret began to track them, pointing the long 45mm their way. They were all about to die in an instant or two, but he just couldn’t believe it was really happening. Not to him. Something would surely happen, a miracle of some sort…
It did. In front of them, three 75mm cannons fired as one, projecting jets of flame and smoke over the rim of the hill which obscured their origin from the crew of Panzer 434. Two of their heavy shells impacted on the T-26 within a fraction of a second, tearing it apart in a huge explosion that sent its flaming hulk tumbling down the opposite slope.
‘It’s the platoon!’ shouted Huber, the driver who was the only one who had been looking forward at the time. ‘We’re saved!’
‘Hurrah for
Hauptmann Fromm!’ shouted Holzer, the radio operator, and got a cheering ‘Hurrah!’ in reply from the rest of the crew.
Moments later, 434 cleared the top of the hill and swung around into a hull down position on the reverse slope, taking its place in the line of four tanks of third platoon.
‘This isn’t over yet!’ Kurt shouted. ‘They’ll be coming over the hill after us!’
And they did. Within the next few minutes dozens of T-26’s began to appear over the rim of the hill where Kurt’s Panzer had had its first postition, and each was hit by a 75mm shell and destroyed almost as soon it appeared. Szaba was grunting with the effort of loading the heavy shells into the breech of his gun, and finally missed his tenth shot, despite the range being point blank. Another Panzer quickly dispatched it, but it shook the Hungarian’s confidence.
Red tracks were now appearing faster than 3rd Platoon could destroy them. Finally, one of them survived long enough to fire its gun, with devastating results. The 45mm armour piercing round went straight through the gun mantle of Panzer 134, setting of a secondary explosion in its ammo store. Like so many T-26s before, it inflated like a balloon and blew apart with indescribable violence.
Suddenly, four more Sturmpanzerwagen II’s joined 3rd Platoons battle line and began to pour fire into the faltering Reds, while 2nd and 4th Platoon thundered out of the undergrowth at the base of the hill, behind and below the charging red tracks. Suddenly the rebel tracks were taking fire from three directions and this, together with their grievous losses finally made their morale crack. The survivors turned around a fled at top speed the way they had come, leaving two dozen of their numbers smoking and burning on the battlefield.
Kurt, who was still trying to regain his cool after the trauma of battle almost jumped when Major von Rottstein’s voice suddenly hissed in his headpiece.
‘Good show, Waldheim!’
‘Thank you,
Herr Major!’
‘
Look, with Hauptmann Fromm gone, Third platoon is going to need a new commander. I’m going to field promote Leutenant Dorfman to Hauptmann, leaving Third without a second in command. You’re it. ‘
‘
Herr Major, I’m only an acting Sergeant, a corporal if you want to be strict!’
’I don’t, and no longer. Consider yourself promoted! Congratulations, Lieutenant Waldheim! von Rottstein out!
It took several minutes before Kurt realized what he was doing and stopped grinning like a complete idiot.
