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Praetorium Honoris

Sunday, February 7, 2021

The Crossroads, It's Over...

(Source)

Cpl. Charlie Gammell watched with dull eyes as the first flight of B-26 Marauders came over the German position. If he hadn't been so exhausted he might have been startled at the sudden appearance of the twin-engined bombers. But he was just too tired to care.

Gammell had spent the night in the open, the Germans were patrolling, more to keep the Americans away from their positions than to launch an attack themselves. He was close enough to 2nd Platoon's positions to know that something was up. He could see more men, and tanks, moving up. He had a feeling that Charlie Company had moved up en masse in order to push the Germans back.

Again though, he didn't really care. Jeb McCall had died of his wounds sometime early in the morning, maybe about 3:00 AM, Gammell thought, but he couldn't be sure, his watch had stopped nearly on the stroke of midnight.

He had tried to keep McCall awake and talking, but his friend had lost too much blood and, like Gammell, was exhausted from being out in the open for as long as they had been. McCall had told Gammell that he was sorry, he wished he could keep going, but it was just too much.

So Gammell waited, after Jeb had breathed his last, Gammell had dozed off at some point, waking up with the sunrise. He noticed a lot of activity along the German-held road. They had been trying to repair the track on one of their assault guns and now it seemed they were trying to tow it off the field with another of the squat vehicles.

He had seen the German aircraft go down, chased by the shiny Mustang, he had actually felt sorry for the German pilot when he saw the man fall, his parachute had opened far too late. But when he looked over at Jeb McCall's body, he realized that the German had probably deserved his fate. Gammell was learning to hate.

He looked around, trying to identify some terrain features so he could find Jeb's body later, he couldn't carry him, and he couldn't stay where he was.

When the first bombs fell from the Marauders, Gammell patted McCall on the shoulder, then was off, moving as fast as he could, as low as he could.


Leutnant Manfred Sauer, now acting commander of the 5th Company, looked at his three platoon leaders - Feldwebel Klaus Haasen, Unteroffizier Manfred Klügmann, and Unterfeldwebel Karl-Heinz Landau. Sauer was the only officer left.

"Herr Leutnant, most of the men have withdrawn back into the treeline, leaving only one machine gun team and a few volunteers with Panzerfausts along the road. As soon as they can get that StuG either started or towed away, we can withdraw the men who..."

Haasen was interrupted by the roar of three American twin-engined aircraft flying overhead. Much as they had been surprised by the aircraft blasting overhead the day before, these were doubly surprising, for they were dropping bombs!

The command team dove into the ditch beside the road. Sauer took the risk of looking up, he was just in time to see a bomb explode atop the StuG being towed off the field. The towing cable snapped and he watched as two of the crew members jumped from the smoking vehicle, only the commander and the driver had been aboard. No doubt the StuG was lost at this point, but at least her crew had survived.

"Everybody get ready, point your weapons to the north, just above the trees, open fire as soon as the Amis come over. Aim ahead of the..." Sauer's bellowed commands were drowned out by the roar of six aircraft engines as three more Amis blasted overhead. The roar of automatic weapons fire from the German position could be heard over the sound of the engines.

Then those sounds were drowned out by the roar of exploding bombs.


Captain Bill Winston knew that they were in trouble as soon as he heard the left engine cough and sputter. Over the intercom he told his co-pilot, 1st Lt. Ed Hochstetter, "F**king golden BB Ed, watch the instruments, I'm going to try and get her high enough so the guys can jump if we need to!"

Hochstetter saw that the oil pressure on Number One had dropped to zero, he looked over and saw flames licking from under the cowling. He quickly chopped the throttle, hit the fire extinguisher, and was attempting to feather the propellor when he heard Bill mutter, "Ah, shit."

The crew of Lovely Lisa died shortly after the left wing tip caught one of the tall pines in the area and then cartwheeled into the ground, exploding on impact.


Sauer ducked as the latest string of bombs detonated, one had fallen on the machine gun team they had left in the first line, at least two more of his men dead, he doubted they would find even pieces of them, it had been a direct hit.

Unterfeldwebel Karl-Heinz Landau swore loudly, "Scheiße! That was all that was left of my 1st Squad, I left Pöge there to direct the fire of the gun, Kleinheisterkamp and Lindner were just kids! Rudi Hahn was there as well, he volunteered to man a Panzerfaust. Ah, damn it to Hell!"

Stabsgefreiter Edgar Pöge and Grenadiers Rudi Hahn, Ulrich Kleinheisterkamp, and Waldemar Lindner had all been killed instantly by the explosion of the American bomb, probably one of their 500-pounders, Sauer thought.

"Everyone, make for the treeline, f**k the crossroads. If I know the Amis, there is more coming. More aircraft with artillery to follow. Everybody, TO THE TREES!!!"


Sgt, Woodrow Sherman was watching the B-26s beat up the German position. He thought he saw the Germans starting to fall back, before he could report that, he saw a figure come around a slight rise to his left.

"Hold your fire!! That's Gammell!!" Sherman bellowed.

Gammell stumbled into the foxhole occupied by Sherman and Pvt. Anthony Duke, he looked like he was on his last legs.

"Water..." Gammell managed to gasp.

Duke handed over his canteen, he started to ask where McCall was when a glance from Sherman made him stop.

Gammell drank long and deep, then handed Duke's canteen back and said, "Thanks Tony. Woody, where's the L.T.? I think the Krauts are falling back to the treeline, nobody's holding the crossroads."

Sherman looked briefly at Gammell, then got on his walkie talkie. "L.T., Gammell's back, he says the Krauts are running." When he saw Gammell shake his head, he corrected himself, "Check that, Charlie says they're falling back in good order."

Sherman listened for a moment, then he said, "Copy, out."

Looking at Gammell, he said, "L.T.'s on his way up. McCall?"

Charlie Gammell shook his head, that was enough, Sherman figured that Charlie would talk when he was ready.


Captain Tony Palminteri was on the radio with battalion, trying to either move the artillery strike further to the east or, failing that, cancelling it altogether. The staff puke on the other end of the connection was unwilling to make the decision to call off the strike. The battalion commander was 'unavailable.' Palminteri severed the connection with a curse.

Shortly thereafter, two batteries of 105mm howitzers shelled the empty positions along the road. Later the artillery would claim that they had destroyed the assault gun. As no one in the airstrike had seen that vehicle hit, the artillery's claim stood.

The men of Charlie Company knew better.

(Source)

The tanks and the infantry moved through the snow as the sun started to go down. The sunset was obscured by a fast moving snow squall which decreased visibility to zero. When the tanks supporting Charlie Company reached the crossroads, they could see nothing. Everything was covered in new fallen snow.

Off to the left, S/Sgt Bradley Woodstock saw a StuG, it looked burnt out, but he had his gunner, Sgt. Jerry Parsons, fire an armor-piercing round into the beast just to make sure. They got a solid hit, he could see the sparks from the projectile's impact. But that was all, no explosions, no crew bailing out, nothing.

"Give him another round, I think he's dead but..."

"On the way!" Parsons yelled over the intercom.

Nothing. Woodstock ordered his platoon to take up positions along the road as he glassed the treeline, which was only intermittently visible in the falling snow.

"Shit, I think the Krauts are gone." Woodstock muttered.


Indeed the survivors of the 5th Company were falling back, hoping to put as much room between them and the Americans as they could before it got fully dark.

"That's correct, Herr Oberstleutnant, at least one company of infantry and perhaps a company of tanks as well. They came on after an artillery bombardment on our old positions. They shelled corpses and empty foxholes." Sauer listened as his battalion commander gave him the coordinates of where he wanted the 5th Company by morning.

Checking his map, he saw that they only had five kilometers to go. Turning to the StuG platoon commander, Sauer said, "Anton, position your vehicles here, you've got a good field of fire to that bend in the road, any Amis that come around there should be easy meat. Kill them, then fall back to the next position..." Sauer searched his map, then pointed, "...here. Any questions?"

Obergefreiter Anton Krausse checked his own map, marked the positions on his overlay, then nodded. "Got it, Herr Leutnant. Are you boys continuing the march?"

"We've got five kilometers to cover, what would take you minutes will take us hours in this weather, so yes, we're continuing." Sauer paused, looking back down the road. He realized that they were lucky to still have a force capable of fighting after the losses and mishaps of the past few days. Then he looked at Krausse.

"Hals- und Beinbruch, Junge¹! See you in the morning!"

Krausse nodded, then snapped to attention and saluted Sauer, "Danke, Herr Leutnant."

Sauer returned the lad's salute then turned and barked, "Let's go boys, we've got ein kleiner spaziergang² ahead of us!"

The 5th Company marched on into the gloom of the forest, slowly they disappeared into the darkness and gently falling snow. Sauer realized that the only reasonable defensive position remaining for Germany in the West was the Rhine. Would the fools in Berlin let them fall back that far? Better yet, would they see the writing on the wall and surrender?

Sauer doubted it, he had a gut feeling that the war would continue until nothing was left of Germany.

Not even the German people...




¹ Break a leg, lad! (Literally "break your neck and leg.")
² A little walk.

Link to all of The Chant's fiction.

62 comments:

  1. A.O. Smith, of Milwaukee was the prime contractor for bomb casings. They even made " Pumpkins ", and three rather special casings. They made real good 500 pounder casings, didn't they? Our Germans showed their Germans what for, it appears.

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  2. With the hard frozen ground like a rock surface, and the low level drop, those 500 pounders would have detonated directly on impact, being ground level air bursts, in effect, wouldn't they?

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    1. For a low level strike like that there would have been a delay built in, otherwise the aircraft would be flying through their own explosions. I chose not to go into too much detail on that, this is a story, not a textbook.

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    2. I was thinking more of the effect on the Germans on the ground. I wonder if they used parafrags in the ETO? You are very correct, you don't want to be there for the boom!

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    3. Most of the Germans had withdrawn into the treeline, the bombs fell on mostly empty positions, well, except for that one MG position.

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    4. You can get a surprising depth of penetration from dropping a bomb from low height at 300 knots. Of course, if the angle is wrong, you can bounce or skid the bomb along the ground, even up to bouncing the bomb back into the plane if one is low enough.

      Thus, the creation after the war, of spring-powered air-brakes for bombs. In the EU and the Pacific, slabs of wood across the rear of the bomb were used as makeshift air-brakes for low-level horizontal bombing. Weird, but it worked.

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    5. We still use something similar.

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    6. on sea the skipping effect was actually used to great effect by US bombers to target Japanese shipping
      it was called exactly like that: "skip bombing"

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  3. Major showed spider sense at its best. Had his company not retired out of the foxholes, there would be not much to retreat.
    Now, to the Rhine!

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    1. Through bitter experience he knew what could be coming.

      Also his parent battalion had, by now, set up new defensive positions further to the rear. No doubt the battalion commander wanted his troops consolidated.

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  4. Also, date/hour timestamp on top of the post would be nice.

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    1. Blogger is rather limited as to time and date formats. Best I can do is day and date on the top and time and author (in a very small font) at the bottom. It's been that way since day one. As to the date of the story, change 2021 to 1945 and you're there.

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  5. Ah.....Marauders, got Flak-Bait in that photo. Wonder how that plane stayed up with such a short wingspan, no wonder it was called the Widow Maker back then. Good to see Gammell make it back Sarge. Oh.... -27 up at I-Falls right now, -15 out the back door.....(brrrrr).

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    1. Look at the Mitsubishi MU2. It is another highly loaded wing. Not much single engine performance. I used to wash one when I was a kid in high scruel.

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    2. On my way home this morning, I was going to stop at the Wal-Mart, here in Baraboo, WI. But, as I got off the freeway at my and Wal-Mart's exit, the thermometer in the dash on my X-Ray150 said it was minus 21. It is only -12 here on WI 127, where I live, so Spring is on it's way!

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    3. Nylon12 - Lots of factors go into the design of an aircraft, but yeah, she looks tough to fly.

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    4. STxAR - There's also the B-24, another high wing design, more than a few of those in aviation history.

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    5. Nylon12 & StB 1 - Sounds cold out that way.

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    6. StB 2 - I'm sure you mean the Cessna 150 and not the Ford F150.

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    7. Speed is how it stayed up. Which is why later versions had a longer wing, just about 10' extra, which cut down the overall speed of the aircraft, compensated by boosting the HP of the engines.

      It had a high speed for a medium bomber, flew like a fighter plane. Unfortunately, the slow speed for landing was still higher than most other aircraft, which made landing with a damaged plane very tricky. It had, even after the fix, a high stall speed.

      Something we see in jet fighters post war, especially.

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  6. Gammell isn't a boy, if he ever was one. Cool under fire, smart decisions... He really has risen to the occasion. Sauer Jr.

    I remember reading the resigned "Shit" was when it became obvious you weren't getting out. Usually when you had done something stupid. Did you ever hear the phrase "a Marauder a day in Tampa Bay"?

    Massive amount of death in that combined attack. Wow...

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    1. Copy that on "a Marauder a day in Tampa Bay," she was a high performance aircraft. Once the pilots were used to her though, she was an effective instrument of war.

      I credit Gammell's maturity to being a farm boy growing up in the Depression. If you didn't hunt it or grow it, you got nothing to eat.

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    2. The Depression was the crucible that forged many a strong heart - tough times make tough people, or they break them and the broken don't survive.

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    3. I read somewhere that the amount of 4F's was about 50% due to malnutrition during the war. Another plus for a farm boy. All my uncles that served grew up on the farm.. Dad was stout too, he never did have much fat.

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  7. Hey AFSarge;

    Arty unwilling to readjust to a new target and shell an empty crossroad......where have we heard this before....the more things change, the more things stay the same. Also I followed the source for "Flakbait", excellent read, and there was another name for the planes by the pilot, and it was a sign of respect, they called the planes the "Baltimore Bitch", if you didn't give the plane her due with attention, she would give it back to you in spades. I had remembered reading that in a book many years ago from some B26 pilots because the B26 was a hotrod of a plane and you had to pay attention and not lollygag. Another Awesome read.

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    1. The B-26 is a personal favorite. I actually played some small role in assisting the Smithsonian find some artwork to accompany the long-anticipated reassembly of Flak Bait and getting her on display out at Udvar-Hazy. I've visited the old girl a couple of times there, she was still in the "back room" in pieces the last time I was there. (December 2018)

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    2. The moment that pretty much broke Major Charles Whittlesey in WWI (commander of the Lost Battalion) was being shelled by his own side. Until then the biggest problem was water. After that, he had enough wounded and dead as to weaken the position for German Stormtroopers to possibly attack.

      Being shelled by your own side is an ungood thing. Friendly fire isn't.

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    3. Never has been, never will be.

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    4. It was also known as "The Flying Prostitute" because it seemed that it had no visible means of support due to the stubby wings.

      - Victor

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    5. Yup, I remember that nickname.

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    6. Finally got a chance to check out the Flak-Bait source link after zooming in on the picture. All those combat markings is pretty darn impressive. Are those individual bombs dropped, or missions? Either way, it's a lot!

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    7. Missions. Yup, they flew 200-plus.

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  8. “Kill them, then fall back..”. I feel like we are going to be seeing this material again.

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    1. Eventually it will become, "try not to die, then fall back."

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    2. "Kill them, then fall back,' translates from 'MilSpeak' to 'CommonSpeak' in most languages as "Serve as a door-stop, slow them down, hope some of you survive."

      This would have been a good place to use mines, if they had them. Instead, the StuGs are serving as 'smart mines' with as much chance of surviving as an actual mine in the road.

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    3. It's a narrow road through a forest, disable one Sherman, you've stopped them all until you can get the disabled one out of the way.

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  9. Sauer is getting quite bitter, no? Bitter Sauer is someone I would not want to deal with. "Herr OberstLeutnant, why are your men so ragged? This is the German Army!" Sauer replies by sticking a knife or gun into the officious prig, and his men wipe out the others at the checkpoint. That, that right there is what you get when you embitter a man like Sauer.

    Thought McCall wouldn't survive. To survive he'd need to be still and taken care of, which you can't do when being humped over hill and dale. 200 yards... So short a distance, so long a distance, and sometimes you just can't put one more foot in front of the other. (Been there, done that, thanks to people with a pickemup truck I got back...)

    And now we enter into the slow chase. Much like two sailing ships engaged in a chase. Jockeying for best position for wind, jettisoning weight to gain just any speed. A chase that could last days, weeks as the two ships act and react. That's what we have here. Two forces acting and reacting, as one slowly slips eastward, while the other slowly oozes after them. The Germans can't do a mad speed dash because they're on foot, the Amis can't do a mad speed dash because that's what jammed them up last time. Slow speed chase, both sides losing men and equipment, jettisoning anything to get away or get closer.

    Sad.

    As to the golden BB, well, lose an engine at speed and low altitude, yer dead. Major engine fire in a Marauder or an Invader? Well, I just point you in the direction of the excellent movie "Always" for that outcome.

    Funny, the Marauder and the Invader look so similar and have such similar performances...

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  10. The Martin B-26 has always been a favorite of mine. It was a very high performance aircraft in its category. It was overpowered and had too small a rudder for the engines but would have suffered other problems with a bigger rudder. It was fast enough to give the German AA and Fighters a hard time. If I had been in the AAF, I would have liked to fly them. But, alas, I was 30 years too late for that so I got to fly tactical C-130s.

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    1. (don McCollor)....BillB. The C130 is a worthy successor to the old DC3. The book "Icebound" tells of a doctor being airlifted for cancer. They never saw it land, but above the howling wind they could hear the engines powering up up on final approach, then engine pitch change as she was on the snow. Landing on skis. At the South Pole. Air temperature sixty degrees below zero. In a whiteout..

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    2. BillB - I think she's a beautiful bird. I've got a real soft spot for the C-130 as well. Flew on them a lot out in PACAF.

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    3. Don - Concur. A great aircraft.

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    4. The name of the doctor evacuated from Antarctica during the middle of winter was Dr. Jerri Nielsen. She self-treated her breast cancer while stationed at the South Pole until she could be evacuated. This happened in 1998. She died in 2009. I've also read Icebound. It's a good book.

      Link to Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerri_Nielsen

      - Victor

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  11. i do miss the udvar. fuking virus. where else does one see a shuttle parked way over there in a corner. Wait, was that a b-36?

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    1. I know, one of my favorite spots on the planet.

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  12. I had forgotten how dangerous the B 26 was to neophytes.

    Of course it was the big week, a prelude to Normandie, that pretty much cleared the skies of Luftwaffe.

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  13. And the Enola Gay! And the engine exhibits!

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  14. I'm a few posts behind, but "it's over" in the title? Are you done or is Sauer done?

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    1. The battle for the crossroads is over. Probably Part 2 of the book as well. On to the final act, crossing the Rhine.

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  15. (Don McCollor)...I think is was in "One More River" the German engineers watched in awe and horror as American engineers flung a pontoon bridge across the Rhine in a single day. Americans were used to real rivers like the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Colorado, and the Columbia, The engineers had probably already worked building damn on some of them. So the Rhine was no problem....




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    1. Wouldn't be the first time Germans watched in horror as an enemy army threw a bridge across the Rhine in short order. Julius Caesar did it as well.

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