Chapter 390
Field Marshall Alexander's plan for the third day has never been given any formal name, but in the modern day the term of Cannae 2.0 would be an apt one, even though there was no cavalry battle to contend with. His decision to adopt this kind of approach was not entirely dependent on the enemy misinterpreting the situation, he was all to aware that Field Marshall Rommel and General Zhukov were much too professional for that. Instead it was based on both intelligence and a chance find that has been likened to the loss and capture of General Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191 during the First American Civil War. During the night, Signals Intelligence Units had copied wireless messages sent both in code and sometimes in the clear that made it obvious that Berlin was pushing for a renewed attack instead of allowing Rommel to conserve his forces, making it clear that the Axis would renew their attack as soon as they could. The chance find was made by a patrol at roughly midnight. The troops had clashed with and defeated a Soviet patrol, and the Officer leading them had had that rarest of things, a Soviet military map that had the deployments of the entirety of the Soviet forward Corps as of the close of operations of the 2nd day as well as their original line of march inked in. Between those things it was obvious that the Axis plan of attack would be fairly straightfoward. Why such a map was risked in this way in an Army that was more paranoid about maps than the rest of the war put together is unknown.
And that ended up being the state of affairs for the morning of the third day. While the Allies rushed reinforcements forward, such as the rest of IV (ITA) Corps joining the Ariette Division or sending additional anti-tank units to the forces along the neck of the bulge, the Germans did what they could to maintain what Rommel had managed to achieve. In a late-night phone-call that his memoirs recount in exact and vivid detail he managed to convince Hitler to allow him an additional six hours to prepare by way of claiming that he would be able to utilize the Volksgrenadier Divisions better and himself that Hitler had finally lost it. How accurate the depiction in various movies turned out is debatable, as is just how reliable a narrator of events Rommel was, though the gist of it is that the orders that were passed on match his recollections, as did the subsequent course of events.
Six hours are nowhere near enough to move a Corps of course, so by the time the Axis attacked, nowhere near all troops on either side were in place. While this equation still favoured the Allies, things like the fate of 7th Armoured Division's HQ or the Battle of the Last Hill, where an Irish Infantry Company went and made a glorious last stand that allowed the rest of 1st Division to dig in farther back.
The biggest impact the Axis attack would have however happened farther behind the Allied line than anyone could have expected.
~**---**~
Later on he would remember nothing but noise, fire and blood. His diligence as an officer had saved both his life and those of the others assigned to setting up the new CP. Had he lingered but for a minute or two, their vehicles would have been caught up in the blast delivered by Soviet aircraft that had somehow managed to hit the assembly of log bunkers, tents and camouflage netting right in the middle. Without getting noticed by the air defences until it was too late, they had managed to wipe out most of those that commanded the Division.
Brigadier Niemczyk picked himself up floor of the Landy he was in. The final blastwave had hit them just as they had turned into the main road, and though the vehicle had remained upright, his head was ringing from where it had smashed into the window and he had a nasty cut from where said same head had decided to keep on going through the window. With a groan and a number of impressively varied cursewords, Jan slowly turned to check on his driver. Going by the jagged piece of the door that was protruding from his side, he needn't have bothered. After saying a few words and with another curse, he opened the door on his side and staggered outside. The Landy had rolled to a stop only a few yards from where the dirtpath crossed into the main road, so he could easily see the smoke from the raid. He walked, or more correctly staggered back towards the remains of HQ and as he rounded the trees, he could see a scene of utter devastation. People were running around more or less trying to quench the fires, but given that besides the usual nasty smells of war he could also detect the odour of the German's version of Jellypet, that endeavour was fruitless.
“Brigadier!”
Jan looked and saw their resident Australian come running towards him, as far as he was able at least. Thanks to a nasty encounter with a T-34 that had left him with a leg that didn't impair him significantly in daily life but left him unable to get in and out of a tank fast enough, Captain Rockatansky had been posted as a sort of exchange officer with the British Military police, in keeping with his civilian background in the New South Wales Mounted Police. Up until ten minutes ago, he had commanded the company of Redcaps that provided physical security for the HQ and given that he had lost not only the divisional CO but also most of his staff, he looked like a man about to be executed.
“Where's the CO?” Jan asked, though he could guess the answer.
Rockatansky gestured vaguely to where a wall of fire was consuming tents, trees and logbunkers alike. “In there, Sir. He was just down in the dugout when....”
“I can imagine, Captain.” he said and groaned when the pain from his head wound cut through the throbbing pain that was the rest of his head.
“Sir, you need to see a medic! MEDIC! MEDIC!”
“Blast the medics, I....” he paused, and then it hit him. “Bloody hell!”
The young lad from Five was now in effective command of one of Parliament's Armoured Divisions.
Apparently someone had heard Rockatansky yelling, because when he focused back on the real world after what had been no more than a few seconds, a medic was fuzzing over his head wound. The medic knew him better than to suggest that he sit down, instead he stopped the bleeding and wound a bandage around the Brigadier's head even as Jan was already giving orders.
“Right, Captain. Who's still a walking wounded and above?”
“Besides you? Major Faulkner I've seen, he's trying to coordinate fire-fighting, and besides him...”
The Australian rattled off a few more names of other staff officers even as the ever-present rumble of Artillery in the distance became loud enough to be heard over the roar of the fires. Jan knew he needed to be quick. He nodded the medic in thanks and dismissal at the same time and then turned back to the Captain.
“This it what we'll do. You'll stay in charge here. Get those fires out and rescue who you can, but don't risk yourselves. Find Faulkner and tell him that I'll be going to the alternate as soon as I can find a working car somewhere.”
Minutes later he was driven, at the insistence of Rockatansky as he was in no shape to do so himself, to the alternate command post. There it was a lot less bedlam than he had expected. Colonel Markham had been doing a splendid job of setting up affairs, and Jan wondered what would have happened had he left with him as originally planned.
The Colonel only had to look at the Brigadier. Outwardly remaining the ever complete professional, he knew that the General was likely dead from the way Niemczyk looked and the sudden loss of contact mid-sentence. So by Queen's Regulations, until someone more senior appeared, this fairly junior officer was in command of the Division.
Over the next ten minutes he watched the acting GoC 7th Armoured Division take command in the midst of an increasingly awful situation. The enemy forces were punching into and through the Allied lines in half a dozen places, but so far the Division was holding on.
“Sir, Corps had promised to send us what reinforcements they can spare within the hour, but...”
“Looking at the situation, it's not going to be much, if anything.” Niemczyk replied. “Never thought I'd give my left hand for a bunch of Italians, but they would come in really handy right now.”
He sighed and leant over the map table. “Right, this is what we will do. Issue preliminary orders for the Division to pull back to.... this line here.” he said and indicated temporary stop line from yesterday, “We have the advantage of position there. Tell the units on our flanks, we can't afford to loose contact with them.”
“Yes, Sir.”
~**---**~
... Cavalry Charge. Another thing was probably the application of what would evolve into standard Allied missile tactics. The PIAT launcher wielded by the Allied troops in 1944 was a very different beast to the one they had used during the fighting in Italy. In basic principle and operation little had changed, but the entire thing had changed in size and power. Nick-named the 'Stinger' by some supposedly humorous soul, the Portable, Infantry, Anti-Tank, Mk.VI(i) was actually an inch shorter than the Mk.V. Though of larger calibre, it had maintained the weight and was in the end an almost entirely new weapon that was likely put into production as the Mk.VI(i) to disguise it's existence from the enemy. Whatever the reason, the tactics employed on the second day of the Battle of the Fulda Gap are today part and parcel of warfare as conducted by missile-equipped Infantry during defensive operations.
A series of ambushes, usually conducted by three men in a wheeled light vehicle who would fire once or twice before running to do it again another few hundred yards down the road, critically slowed the enemy all along the front and the trickling of losses helped erode the numerical superiority the Axis had in tanks before they ran into the main line of resistance.
7th Armoured Division was benefiting directly from that as it allowed the acting GOC of 7th AD to pull both himself and his command together. Such the day was spent, but what happened on the night of the third day was what would eventually lead to the famous globe from Hitler's office ending up in the Officer's mess of the Royal Scots Hussars where it remains to this day. Soviet and German sources describe Allied resistance that day as 'fanatical', some even make special mention of the performance of the Italian troops that day, something which has become sort of a foundation myth for the modern Kingdom of Italy. By the end of the day the front had stalled.
It was then that things fell apart for the Axis powers. Both sides were nearing exhaustion, but the Allies had slowly been gaining air superiority throughout the afternoon and had more of a reserve in men and material left, which gave them an advantage. By the next morning Allied forces launched what was meant to be only a limited counter-attack. What they did not know was what had happened at dawn thanks to a roving British fighter-bomber...
tbc
