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So, Charlie Company's 2nd Platoon, ably led by 2nd Lt. Stephen Hernandez and S/Sgt Jack Wilson, is across the Roer River, next stop, the Rhine...
For Your Humble Scribe it's time to stop, do some research, then figure out where the lads are going next. Well, historically I know where they're going if, and this is a big if, they stay with their parent division. Something I've not been particularly sticking with, remember back in the D-Day series when 2nd Platoon wound up on the far side of the Cotentin Peninsula when the rest of the division was still south of Omaha Beach? (No, you don't remember that? Well, alright, here's a link, back when Melvin Katz was a Private and our platoon sergeant, Jack Wilson, had just made corporal. Dang, that was a while ago...)
Anyhoo.
Research, you all get to see the fruits of that labor, but in the background I'm shoveling fertilizer, grafting bits of story onto an historical narrative, fleshing out the main characters, pulling weeds, etc., etc., or, as the Germans would say, usw., which is short for und so weiter, (and so on). Ya know, working. But never fear, I enjoy it, it's been enjoyable telling this story, though a bit heart wrenching at times, I get close to the main characters, and it's war and...
Yes, heart wrenching at times.
Not to mention emotionally draining. I put the characters in situations and then, sometimes, I can see no way of getting them out of the dilemma I put them in and bang, they're gone. Like Oberfeldwebel Ernst Mayer, the German "Stump." (Stummel can be interpreted as "stub" or "stump." I've seen it used both ways.)
Mayer was 5th Company's artillery expert, he had a lot of young recruits in his platoon and after I had Woodstock and Myerson call in the artillery, I couldn't picture Mayer hiding in a hole somewhere, I just knew he'd be out there, rallying the men, trying to get them to hold their positions. Which he did, for the most part, but it cost him his life. Damn, I wanted to go further with his character.
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| A tank¹ crew with their StuG IV in Poland. (Source) |
The StuGs in this story seem to get beat up a lot, odd when you considered that the StuG (in its various versions) was the most successful tank killer of the war (according to some sources). But it was primarily a defensive weapon, cheaper to build than a tank, a nice low silhouette, and a very effective gun in the later war years. But that lack of a turret (making the vehicle less complicated, therefore cheaper) was also a handicap in offensive operations. So yes, they die a lot in my story. But after the Allies cross the Rhine, expect that to change.
If the Germans can find the fuel to properly deploy them that is...
In addition to that source at the top of the page under the graphic (which depicts an armored, i.e. no trucks, everyone rides a halftrack, Panzergrenadier platoon, or Zug) I used the following as a source for the history of the fight in Western Europe. There are some excellent books in this series.
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Now, to wrap this up, and continue with the research, yesterday's chapter was the final episode of "To The Rhine." I'm not sure what the next (and final) phase will be called, but the crossing of the Rhine and the fall of Nazi Germany is in the offing. For you naval types, you can see the tops of the masts on the horizon.
Manfred Sauer and Jürgen von Lüttwitz will be reunited soon as II Battalion/8th Panzergrenadier Regiment has been whittled down to no more than a reinforced company. (Though you didn't get to see that, it happened, trust me.) Major von Lüttwitz's arm is on the mend, for those who wonder. In the late parts of the war, the only way for a German soldier to get out of the fighting was to be severely maimed or killed outright.
Sauer and von Lüttwitz are already on the eastern side of the Rhine, somewhere behind where the photo was taken. (Which is on the bluffs overlooking the site of the Ludendorff bridge, which, the more observant types will notice, isn't there anymore. Though the towers are, if you look close.)
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| The Rhine at Remagen, Germany (Source) |
Hernandez and his lads will be approaching through that terrain you can see above (which is rather more built up than in 1945). They'll be crossing the Rhine very soon. At that very spot seen above. (Of course, the bridge was still standing when they got there.)
Stay tuned.
¹ Okay, not a tank crew, it's a Sturmgeschütz crew. I used the original caption. Sturmgeschütz crews originally didn't belong to the tank arm (die Panzerwaffe) but were artillerymen. Not sure if that ever changed, if someone knows, clue me in.
Odd that they didn't rebuild it. The approaches were still there, and, I should think, the foundations for the towers should still be sound.
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall that Pershings made an appearance at Remagen. The Army did not like the idea of running them across the damaged span, so they had to wait until the engineers built a bridge at Remagen. Which also seems to not be there, anymore.
No doubt the bridge the engineers put in was temporary, no surprise it's not there anymore. As for rebuilding the Ludendorff, no doubt it was a question of money.
DeleteIt was a pontoon Treadway.
DeleteWhich makes sense.
DeleteOh, we'll "stay tuned" Sarge; count on it. We'll (I will anyway) try to be patient, but count our "jonesin" for another "fix" as praise. I expect many of us are nearly as invested in these characters as you are, but you've got the task of playing God.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the research.
Wait, aye.
Boat Guy
Thanks, sometimes I need to stop and figure out which way to go next.
DeleteGetting close to the curtain falls Sarge, "Götterdämmerung" is way too obvious eh? Been a long enjoyable journey to date with lots of tension and suspense. You've made this pandemic/response a little more bearable.
ReplyDeleteYes, May is right around the corner.
DeleteBut I'll start a new story after this one.
The Tale of Kowalski?
DeleteNo, not Kowalski.
DeleteI wish I had more history from the occupation. I remember my buddy's dad saying the old timers in Germany would shed tears when he searched their homes, and took their ceremonial swords and daggers... mostly earned before or during WW1. As a native born Texican, that chapped my hide, even when I was a youth.
ReplyDeleteThis series has been enlightening.... to say the least.
Can't say I blame the oldtimers. OTOH, can't blame the GIs either. They were ripped from their homes to fight the Germans, saw lots of death and hardship. If those oldtimers had voted differently, or hadn't supported the Nazis, then they could have kept their stuff. They didn't, they lost, sucked to be them I suppose.
DeleteDitto on having some occupation coverage, eventually. It might give some recognition to the events where everyone was eager to get home, but stuck on occupation duty. The privations of the vanquished, the relative generosity of the victors, the struggle to rebuild anything from nothing. Not all was love and roses, as there were "unreconstructed" Nazis lurking about. War crimes trials, etc to be held.
DeleteFollowing your main characters a few months into the occupation might result in a chance meeting as they work thru their respective new roles.
And, don't forget that the Brits were living in pretty harsh conditions for a while after the shooting stopped as well, with their own infrastructure pretty well hammered. And back in the states, there were lots of Army Hospitals (now mostly forgotten) where the wounded and maimed were treated long after the shooting stopped.
Whatever you write will certainly be worth reading, and incredibly well researched and illustrated. After all, you have high standards! And meet them!
John Blackshoe
The Occupation, I just might do that. Lots of possibilities there.
DeleteThanks JB!
Yep. The sense of achievement, followed by "Now what?" and that followed by Stalin et al getting even madder and angrier.
DeleteCulminating, in 1948, into one of the most stunning uses of military airpower for not blowing stuff up.
Actually, the title of the post "Now What?" refers to what happens in March of 1945. 2nd Platoon still needs to cross the Rhine, 5th Company must go down to inevitable defeat. The war isn't over yet. In May of this year, we'll hit another "Now What?" sort of post. But for different reasons.
DeleteUnderstand you still have some "near targets" Sarge, but I'll jump on the "Occupation" bandwagon, if only to keep you writing and posting. When the veterans go home on points, the young men they trained will have different but also challenging things to do.
DeleteThe winter of 45-46 was one of the worst ever in Europe, lots of Displaced Persons trying to get home and our "friends" the Soviets continuing to do what they always did. An interesting mix.
Boat Guy
I do like the Occupation angle, my father was part of that.
DeleteJohn, I went to school in an old hospital. I think it was Harmon Hospital, Longview, TX. R. G. LeTourneau saw it from his plane, rented it from the government, and started one of the first schools to take the G.I. Bill of Rights. There was still a bit of the old structures left there when I attended. The ham club met in the old morgue. We used to swim in the convalescence pool. And there was a German POW camp that supported the hospital. I don't know of anything left after President Austin was finished his capital projects... Except Speer chapel.
DeleteMost interesting.
Deletejust started the first of the (R.J. Evans) Third Reich trilogy. Treatise on how a Socialist government begins - sort of what we're seeing today.
ReplyDeletejust had to skip ahead to the last in the series ("The Third Reich at War"). he's an extremely detailed (sort of entertaining, in a way) historian/professor (Cambridge).
Trust me! Yours is a far, far better read.
Some historical works tend to be dry and intensely boring. Informative yes, if you can stay awake. Professor Evans certainly wrote a lot of books.
DeleteI do enjoy the details, easy to get lost in those.
Was he as bad as Isaac Asimov, Destroyer of Forests?
DeleteYou can go check, I have no idea.
DeleteAh, Asimov... There's never an exiting plotline he couldn't bore to death... In some ways the Melville of the Sci-Fi golden era, except that he was actually famous during his writing career, unlike Melville.
DeleteI've read some of his work, liked it. Not enough to read the rest, as I'm not a huge science fiction fan. I like some of the genre, much of it I don't care for. I used to, but things changed somewhere along the way.
DeleteThis has been the first non-critical objective of each day since I found the series last fall ... absolutely compelling. The final set will be even more so. My father-in-law was a T5 artillery mechanic with Cannon Company, 271st Infantry, 69th I.D. They went ashore at LeHavre in February and were in on the final push. He may have talked with his sons about it once or twice, but we (including his daughters) learned far more about his experiences in the ETO from two of his buds, whom we connected with years after he passed. Some funny moments, some somber, as you'd expect.
ReplyDeleteHonors to all who fought for liberty in that "Inferno."
My hat is off to all those who served in WWII.
DeleteEvery time I think about what those men did in WWII, on both fronts, I always wondered why their steel balls did not clank together for the rest of their lives.
DeleteRoger that!
DeleteResearch is important in a story like this, Sarge, and you're doing a fine job of it. Haven't been reading it really deeply, as I'm looking forward to the published version, a fire in the fireplace, my easy chair and a wee dram by my side. I figure a two night max to read it. Right now, I'm skimming it mostly to see if there's a portion I might know something about. Nothing major to report in that area, so good on ya'.
ReplyDeleteSo...All I can say is "Git r done!
I do the research as I've read books where there was little or no research done. That irks me, the story might still be good and most people wouldn't notice. But I do.
DeleteThanks Juvat!
And what you are doing now is something that happened and happens in real life. ACTION! ACTION!!! ACTION!!!!!! followed by everyone sitting around stunned and catching their breaths. Reequip, reorganize, redig, rebuild, and go again.
ReplyDeleteNot having the fresh troops to either prop up a falling line or to exploit a falling line has slowed or stopped many a potential victory.
As to killing major characters, it is what it is. If nobody of big name ever died, the story would not ring true. It's something that the Hollyweird people often get wrong. A 'good' war story is full of interesting characters that die, get maimed, run away, drop out, disappear for unknown or known reasons.
And you do it very well, often in a Lovecraftian way, in that you infer the deaths just around the corner. Like the after-action scene yesterday where we discover people just disappeared in blood and gore. I mean, conceivably some of the assumed KIAs could be alive and just ran away, but more realistically they're atomized by the artillery barrages from either side.
Weird thinking that today, unless it is a really really thorough bomb explosion, you can still find enough DNA and other evidence to identify even the most missing of a person.
Though there's one aspect I don't remember you touching on, and that's Graves Registration troops or the German versions. Did the US allow the Germans, under flags of truce, to collect and identify dead troops? Doubt it overall, but I can see individual commanders possibly doing that. Maybe. Still, a horrid job but someone has to do it.
There were occasions (I know of one instance in the Hürtgen) when a local truce was called so that each side could recover their dead and wounded.
DeleteOther than that I've stayed away from "what happens to the dead" except for one episode in the Hürtgen when the Germans (Sauer's lads) brought in a badly wounded American who subsequently died. They buried him. (I can't remember which post that was, there have been so many.)
(Don McCollor)...In Jeffery Perret's book "There's a War to Be Won" in the chapter 'On Being Killed, Wounded or Captured'...Graves Registration would select potential burial sites before a battle. They were discrete, marking them with rows of small stones..."You may have seen where you would be buried and never knew it"...
DeleteNow that's kinda spooky.
Delete(Don McCollor)...in the Pacific, the Marines had a premonition. Transports are loaded so what is needed most is on top. At the very bottom were pallets of crosses were to mark graves. They would count them being loaded carefully to figure out how bad the planners expected it would be...
DeleteOuch!
DeleteCombat Loading of AKA's.
DeleteYes.
Delete
ReplyDeleteYou are making a proper historical novel Sarge. For me a monumental work, the prototype historical war novel, is winds of war by Herman Wouk.
Take a fictional family and put them right into true historical events.
What a monumental undertaking that was.
Didn’t realize until now the Ludendorff bridge has been gone for a while 😁
Being able to save that and cross is almost a book and it’s self.
Will be waiting when you’re ready. Thanks for all the effort you have put in to entertain us!
Absolutely love Winds of War, the mini-series with Robert Mitchum as Pug Henry was nearly as good as the book!
DeleteSorry Sarge gotta disagree. Mitchum was all wrong as Pug Henry; they should gotten Glen Ford for the role.
DeleteBoat Guy
Reasonable people can disagree, but yeah, Glen Ford would have been perfect. (I just like Mitchum, remember him as Norman Cota in The Longest Day?)
DeleteOldAFSarge: If not an "occupation story," at least a "where are they now" epilogue looking at the survivors at the end of '45 or mid-'46. I'm interested in Opa's story...
ReplyDeleteGreat writing, as always.
At the very least there will be an epilogue. But I'm liking the Occupation idea the more I think about it. I could leverage some of my father's stories of his time in Berlin after the war.
DeleteThe "kids" who are new and trained by Wilson and Hernandez would be the ones in the occupation; all the high-point guys woulda been sent home. The winter of 45-46 was one of the coldest ever, couple that with millions of Displaced Persons trying to get home and you still have a lot of stories.
DeleteI once spoke to a couple of German ladies who were part of a Flak crew who rode their bicycles from Berlin to Stuttgart to get home.
Boat Guy
Not a surprise.
DeleteThe Occupation will probably be the last section of this book, not a whole new book. I don't want to slide out from under my area of "expertise."
Let me second the idea of an Occupation angle to this. I know almost nothing about that time period between the surrender and the Berlin Airlift. It would intigue me about how the GI's treated the former combatants, how the Soviets interacted with the Allies. It would be very good.
ReplyDeleteAnd I would like to see how Opa turns out.
I like how you all have not forgotten Opa.
DeleteI'm liking the Occupation aspect to this story, a lot.
On the occupation of Berlin don’t know if I showed you this before but it is eerie. It is the forgotten home movies Hollywood Director George Stevens made while in the army in Europe.
ReplyDeleteThe 16 mm weren’t even discovered until after his death by his son going through the attic.
German company restored the film and added a few sound effects.
Notice the family in the apartment in Berlin just having lunch with the wall knocked out
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwy8SzVmWGc
I've seen those. My Dad was there from late '45 to '48. Went through the Berlin Airlift as well.
DeleteHis pictures of Berlin were sobering, the city was in ruins.
When I went to Berlin in 1992 I stopped at the stadium. And that too is an eerie feeling. The allies deliberately avoided bombing it because that was where German POWs were to be held.
DeleteI went there and you see all these Garish concrete statues outside of the “ideal Aryan man“
I’ll post some pictures on Facebook if you want to see them.
Have you ever watched Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will? Lots of that sort of architecture in that film. Nazi propaganda for the most part.
DeleteThank you for doing this, Sarge. Being somewhat of a "Navy brat", I never read much about the ground campaign in the ETO. I read a lot about the Air War 'cuz I was an airplane kid, but most of my WWII knowledge involves the PTO and the Naval campaigns.
ReplyDeleteThanks for helping to fill in my database!
When I get to the Pacific, you can help keep me straight!
DeleteReading Ian Toll's trilogy on the Pacific Theater has already given me some ideas.
Having survived The Bulge and Hürtgen Forest my Uncle Jim and Father-in-law Joe (Purple Heart) were both at Remagen. In comparing their stories they must have been withing a few hundred yards (or less) of one another.
ReplyDeleteJim had a brick from the Ludendorff Bridge tower set in Lucite sitting on his office desk. It was a fund raiser item from some veterans organization. I asked F-i-l Joe if he'd like one. "Hell, no! Never want to see that bridge or any part of it! Saw enough of that damn thing in person."
I understand that, completely!
DeleteHey Old AFSarge;
ReplyDeleteYou do your research and it shows and your storytelling brings the research to life and it is a "Gift". An idea is to do occupation post is a good one, I had done a lot of post on occupation Germany, Germany was in turmoil, they had no "morality" for a couple of years, as penance for the camps and Nazism. What started the rebuilding was the Berlin Airlift when the Americans realized that the Soviets were ahead in winning the hearts and minds of the Germans and finally in 1949 when they had their own currency, you don't know how liberating that was to the German Psyche.
When were the Soviets winning the hearts and minds of the German people? The Germans hated the Soviets. Of course, in those days the Reds had the Germans by the balls, that's one way of winning hearts and minds...
DeleteHey Old AFSarge;
DeleteThis was more so in Berlin but in Postwar Germany the socialist/communist were offering to help the Germans rebuild and(Get closer to the orbit of the Soviet Union). Granted a lot of Germans hated the Soviets, despised them, but when the Americans at the time were not interested in any long term plans for Germany and the postwar policies reflected the lack of hope for the Germans as it were, but the Soviets and Stalin pushed too hard with the Berlin question and tried to squeeze the Allies out of Berlin whom the Soviets viewed as "Their city since they captured it" and they were hoping that with Berlin fully "Socialist" then they can do the same with the rest of West Germany and push the allies out of Germany and the Soviets move in "Peacefully of course". The Soviets had seen the full demobilization of the American Military and figured that we didn't have the political will to save Berlin and Germany. They Gravely miscalculated, The Berlin Airlift used all the reserve airlift capacity that the Nescient Airforce had and we kept the city supplied and showed to the eastern half of the city that the Allies were here to stay.
My father was there.
DeleteMy vote is bring back Opa. Whatever gets us there is fine.
ReplyDeleteRetrospective story? Maybe Germany from 1918 to 1923? Terribly interesting period.
Oh, we'll see Opa again.
Delete(Don McCollor)...your story reads much like the nonfiction "Those Devils In Baggy Pants" Never knowing what will happen till the next page...then one more guy you liked might go down...
ReplyDeleteGood book that.
Delete