Sunday, October 11, 2020

Back into the Line

Bundesarchiv

He was an Oberfeldwebel and he looked to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. He sat on a tree stump next to the muddy intersection smoking a cigarette. He watched as the column of infantry from the 983rd Grenadier Regiment trudged into sight from around a bend in the road. These guys looked tired, but their weapons looked clean, their uniforms in good shape. They even had a certain cockiness in their stride.

"You guys the 983rd?" the tired sergeant asked, standing reluctantly he threw a sloppy salute when he realized that the man he had addressed was a captain. What's more, a captain wearing the Knight's Cross at his collar. "Sorry sir, didn't see your rank."

"It's all right Oberfeldwebel, you look like you've been through the wringer. Are you with the 116th?" Hauptmann Jürgen von Lüttwitz, commanding the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 983rd, had orders to replace the men of the 116th Panzer Division, the Greyhounds, who were holding this section.

"Jawohl Herr Hauptmann, all 27 of us. 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, 156th Panzergrenadier Regiment." The sergeant gave the captain a rueful smile. "The rest of the boys are asleep in the woods."

Hauptmann von Lüttwitz started to question what the man meant by that, then he realized, the rest of his company were dead, somewhere in the Hürtgenwald. "I have orders for you to fall back to..." pulling his map out, von Lüttwitz pointed to a small village about three kilometers to the east. "I gather they are reconstituting your division, I heard of a train loaded with new Panthers from the factory at a siding near Bonn."

"Nice, but we're Panzergrenadiers, it would be nice to have new halftracks. Walking is hard on the feet you know..."

Von Lüttwitz had to laugh at that, "We've been on foot since we were formed, excepting of course when they load us on trains to send us to the East. We've been marching for a day and a half to get here. How are the enemy in this sector?"

The sergeant shuddered at the thought of the East, he only had three toes on his left foot, the other two he'd lost in Russia, to frostbite. "Things are getting hotter, the Amis moved a new outfit into the line across from us, they have a vertical red stripe on a green shield, they..."

"Oh yes, their 1st Infantry Division, that vertical stripe is a '1,' a red '1.' They call themselves the 'Big Red One.' Not very clever, but succinct." The captain had faced those men before, a very tough proposition.

"Yes, well, they are far more aggressive than the men they replaced. Just last night I lost my lieutenant and seven other men. An Ami patrol had stumbled into our lines two days ago. We shot them up, they fell back. They left a dead man behind and..."

"The Amis left one of their dead?" von Lüttwitz was somewhat incredulous, the Americans didn't do that.

"Oh, they came back for him, last night. At any rate, after the earlier firefight, I was there for that, I noticed that the dead man had that vertical red stripe, a '1' as you say, on his jacket. He was a sergeant. Anyway, they hit our outpost line last night, killed eight men, my lieutenant among them, and recovered their dead sergeant."

"Then they fell back?"

"Nein, Herr Hauptmann, they hold that position now." Drawing his own map out, the sergeant marked the village he was supposed to head for, then showed the captain a line he'd marked on his overlay. "Right here, this small ravine, is where our main line is now. We've dug better entrenchments, before they were just fighting holes. But they drove us back from this firebreak, here." Once again the sergeant showed the captain on the map where the old line had been.

"Things should be more settled now, my company has 78 men to replace your 27..."

"Seventy-eight Herr Hauptmann? That's roughly half the strength of a full company!" The sergeant stopped as he realized that his own company was less than half the strength of these newcomers.

"Times are hard all over Oberfeldwebel. The 5th Company has left its dead from the beaches of the Channel, through Falaise, and all through Belgium. This is all that is left, and many of them should still be in school, not carrying rifles for the Fatherland." von Lüttwitz wasn't really angry, just tired, tired of fighting, tired of marching, and tired of watching his men die. He often wondered when it would end. If he would be there at the end was another question never far from his thoughts.

"I understand sir, now, if you'll excuse me, we have a bit of a march to make. Come with me, I'll take you to our, er, I mean your positions."

The men of 5th Company saw the men they were replacing, the worn-out remnants of a once proud Panzer division. Their uniforms were filthy and torn, the men were dirty and unshaven but, as Opa Köhler pointed out to one of the youngsters, "Look how clean their weapons are Junge¹. You can always tell a veteran by the smartness of his weapon. Skip a meal if you must, neglect to shave if you have no water, but always make time to clean your rifle."

The younger men watched with something approaching awe as the weary veterans passed by on their way to the rear. As they settled into their new trenches, some of the men looked out at the tall pines, in the daylight it was almost pretty.

Photo by Ilya Yurukin
(Source)
Night would present a far different image.



¹ Kid or boy.

30 comments:

  1. A few of the warriors' Commandments; Never go to your rest with a dirty weapon, or wet feet, if you can help it. Always keep your ammo dry. Make sure your men are all fed before you allow yourself to eat. Never pass up an opportunity to piss, you don't know when you'll get another chance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And if you're in the cavalry, you see to your horse first. In modern times you make sure your vehicle is good to go before you take care of personal needs.

      As to your last, that's something that old guys should take to heart as well. DAMHIK

      Delete
    2. Never go to rest with a dirty weapon or soiled armor, always keep your arrows/bolts (or any missile weapon) dry are ones from the beginning of history itself.

      Feed your men, and if possible, feed them a hot meal before battle is one of the big lessons from the Napoleonic Wars.

      As to peeing and other natural functions, well, yes.

      Delete
  2. As I was reading this I could not understand why the German did not recognize the 1. Then I realized they make theirs a little different almost like our 7.

    I think your writing is enjoyable Sarge because you make the enemy human too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They were also seeing it from a distance as well. The intel types probably knw exactly what it was, but the guys in the field? Not so much.

      The enemy were (and still are) human. Different maybe but still human.

      Delete
  3. Herr Hauptmann sounds like a candidate for surrender. That got me to wonder if there is any record of an officer leading his men to surrender? Or to just lay down their arms and wait to be found. I think that might bring a feeling of shame for a lifetime but at least they'd still be alive. However, what is the preservation of life if lived poorly. (cue Samuel Adams quote)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. History is full of such instances, Burgoyne at Saratoga and Cornwallis at Yorktown spring immediately to mind. By this stage of the war most rational, thinking Germans knew that the war was lost. Just giving up though could mean unpleasantness being perpetrated on one's family, it happened. The captain won't surrender, that much is clear in my mind, but he's war-weary as Hell.

      Delete
    2. War-weary and in a crappy place with your family possibly threatened by your future actions. Thus spells the recipe for stupid, long, drawn out last stands until it's too late to surrender.

      And that's not even factoring in the new rush of the 'Death before Dishonor' Nazis that had been sitting comfortably behind the lines until now.

      I read somewhere that some smart-arse general said the two worst times to meet an enemy is when they're flush with victory or cornered like rats. But Wiki is failing me in finding the quote, so it probably is someone like Grant or Patton.

      Delete
    3. Yup to your first and that IS a good quote.

      Delete
    4. (Don McCollor)...The quote is apt, with the reservation of using guile. The Saracens would retreat headlong before a Crusader charge who pursued flushed with victory until they were far from support with horses exhausted. Then the tables would turn (the Crusaders never seemed to learn). In victory the plan (I think it was a Kipling story) of leaving the Afghans a way they think they can retreat (aka ambush), otherwise they would stand and fight to the last man...

      Delete
    5. Guile is always useful in war.

      Delete
  4. I still have a question of how was the American patrol to easily penetrate the German line? A major blunder by the German LT to place the two covering squads several hundred yards behind the bunker and machine gun. Even if not expecting activity until the next day or following night it was a huge mistake, the price was paid. Was there no forward security detail other than the lone soldier (now dead)?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not really, it was common German practice to hold an outpost line, making the enemy think it was the main line, with the real line further to the rear. That's so when the artillery landed, it hit mostly empty positions. This lieutenant's problem was the unit that had been opposing him before was rather "soft" where the 1st Infantry Division is proving to be far more aggressive. Units in the line for long periods tended to adopt a "live and let live" philosophy, which the officers had to work hard at discouraging. Though the junior officers were also prone to let things slide. "Don't shoot at us, we won't shoot at you."

      The patrol from Charlie Company literally stumbled into the German position, they got hit hard and fell back. The German lieutenant assumed that the Americans would drop artillery on them as a prelude to an assault. The men on duty to either flank of the bunker were tired, and rather lax in their duties. They paid for that. The lieutenant's section of the line had the machine gun position and two flank parties of two men each, as security. Kill one and make a hole, the other is useless.

      It wasn't exactly easy to penetrate that line, lots of sneaking about (which I skipped to make the story flow better) and Stump had to kill a man in hand to hand combat. Where was that guy's buddy? Who knows.

      Delete
  5. Hey AFSarge;

    You could tell the Veteran Hauptmann was surprised that the American left their dead, he knew that was unusual for them and it is, but the Sergeant commented that the Ami's came back that night, recovered their dead and killed the position and his commander. Herr Hauptmann won't surrender, he is a professional, he knows the war is lost, but he still must fight until the end, not out of fanaticism, but because he is a professional and that is what professionals do. You can tell the discipline of a unit, by the condition of the gear, if the rifles are crappy, and filthy then you know the unit discipline is shoddy. the uniforms can look like crap, but if the weapons look clean and serviceable, then you know that the unit is full of veterans that have seen hard fighting but they still have their stuff together and are cohesive fighting force. Man I enjoy reading your stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ah, the curse of the veteran. When you're tired, hungry, low on ammo, need rest and refit, nope, you're assigned to plug a hole or shore up a line. And then some bean-counter behind lines yells at you for being dirty, losing equipment, getting shot up, etc.

    Bleh.

    This is the almost WWI level of fighting that late Fall '44 became, semi-static lines fighting semi-static lines. No fun at all. The Germans trying to shore up the MLR, the Amis trying to take Aachen and recover from the Belgium ploy and and increased tempo in the Pacific and just being on the far end of the supply lines.

    Weary soldiers fighting weary soldiers. Where soldiers just get so tired their brains stop funtioning correctly. They become automatons, kill, eat, poop, sleep, repeat repeat repeat. And no real clear 'victory' or 'defeat' on either side, just a slow, grinding death that eats away at everything.

    Sometimes a nice quick cavalry charge is the better way to go... At least you get over with it quickly, one way or another...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You've described the fighting in northwestern Europe in the fall of '44 very well. A dreary, muddy, soggy Hell.

      Delete
    2. By late '44, the strains of having a 4-front War - Western Europe, Southern Europe, West Pacific and CBI, Central Pacific - were straining even the industrial power of the USA. And we were also running low on manpower.

      Thus the inability to push further east into Germany.

      If we had been able to focus on just 3 fronts, or even 2 fronts, we would have been able to steamroller ahead. But we were spread thin.

      Delete
    3. We were spread very thin, but managed to win on all those fronts. Damned tough go though it was!

      Delete
  7. I really like the photographs of where the story is taking place, a nice touch!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It helps to set the tone, I hope.

      Delete
    2. It also puts us both with the same vision of what the country looks like.

      Delete
  8. How did Clausewitz put it? In war everything is simple, but all the simple things are hard.

    Rings true in much of life outside of war also. Always good food for thought.

    I'll never forget my first look at real live Rooskies bitd. The Enemy! But somehow they didn't look like monsters. They looked like me. One of the blessings of my service was the way the navy gave me an opportunity to see and operate in reality and to recalibrate my brain. Life is hard enough to navigate the way it is. Trying to impose one's disreality on reality is stupid on stilts. That said, I still try to do it from time to time. By the time I tame the stupid they'll be throwing dirt on my corpse.

    As always great stuff Sarge and thanks muchly!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've been watching some weird Yousetubees lately, specifically North Korean defectors talking about differences between them and us (us being the USA and South Korea.) They (the ex-Norks) all say basically they've been raised to see Americans and South Koreans as not-people. What breaks them from being Nork is seeing non-Norks and realizing they (the non-Norks) are human, and thus realizing that much of what the ex-Nork knows is now suspect.

      Seeing the face of the enemy, seeing them as human, hearing them laugh, cry, be angry, be pensive, eat, shiver in the cold, all humanize them. Which can make it hard to treat them as an enemy.

      Oh, did I just describe PsyOps?

      Delete
    2. Shaun - Taming the stupid, I may yet learn that. Some day...

      Delete
  9. Joseph H. Hostnick, my late father-in-law got his 1st Purple Heart in Hürtgen Forest. He was VERY proud of being in The Big Red One.
    I don't think I'll share any of his stories here but I will say your storyline matches both his and my Uncle James P. Godsey's accounts very well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good to know Stretch. He should have been proud of his service, the 1st was an excellent outfit.

      Delete

Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

NOTE: Comments on posts over 5 days old go into moderation, automatically.