Remnants

(Source)

Tracer fire from a German machine gun reached out from the third floor of a building sitting across the town square from where S/Sgt Brad Woodstock's tank 'Catamount' was positioned. The rounds spanged off the Sherman's armor with little effect. All it really did was startle the infantry advancing behind the tank.

Sgt. Lucas Cole noticed that his squad tried to make themselves small as the German gun continued to fire, with no results except to terrify the younger soldiers. Before Cole could order his men to take any action, the cannon on Catamount boomed.

Woodstock saw through his vision slits that the high explosive round was dead on target. He could have sworn he saw a German somersaulting through the air. "Mark keep loading HE until I say otherwise."

Pfc. Mark Workman came back with, "HE up!"

"Willis, let's move forward, slowly now, I don't wanna outrun 3rd Platoon."

"Gotcha Sarge." Cpl. Willis Hartness answered over the intercom. He too was keeping his eyes wide open, he didn't want to run into any Kraut tanks in this burg. They hadn't seen any German armor in weeks, so he thought they were due. Little did he know just how bad the German supply situation was. They still had tanks, but no fuel to run them!

Oberfeldwebel Wilhelm Hirtzfeld watched as his machine gun position was destroyed by the Ami tank. They had a single Panzerfaust left, if it was up to him he'd wave the white flag right now, but the SS bastard who was currently in command wouldn't like that, not one bit.

"Herr Sturmbannführer¹, we need to fall back, we can't stop an entire tank platoon supported by infantry." Hirtzfeld took the chance that the fanatic might actually listen to him for once. The man wasn't even a combat soldier, he'd showed up a few days before with valid looking orders to take command of what was left of Hirtzfeld's battalion, which Hirtzfeld had been commanding for two weeks.

"Heeres-Feigling, du willst einfach nicht kämpfen.² Take this idiot Gefreiter and his Panzerfaust downstairs. Kill the lead tank and you'll block the road. The others will be stuck. Also, drop that 'Herr' nonsense, we SS don't believe in that formal shit."

Hirtzfeld looked at the man in wonder. Two weeks ago the man had been running the office of the local Sicherheitsdienst, terrorizing the slave laborers at a nearby underground plant making parts for rockets which would never fly. Now he thought he was a combat soldier.

"Go, do you want a written order from the Führer, or what?" Johannes Braun couldn't believe the stupidity of this sergeant. Didn't he know that if they made a stand then the Führer's miracle weapons could still save the day? Cowards and idiots, no wonder we are losing the war, he thought.

S/Sgt. Bob Poole, commanding 3rd Platoon since the relief of 2nd Lt. Damian Lott for incompetence, came up with his radioman, Pvt. Lou Hess.

"Whaddaya got Lucas?"

Cole told Poole about the machine gun nest taken out by Woodstock's tank, then he said, "Ya know boss, why don't we move through these buildings instead of down the street? I feel like a fish in a barrel out here."

Poole nodded then picked up the phone on the back of Catamount. "Yeah, Brad, Bob Poole here. Think you could put some HE into those buildings to our front? I want a distraction while I send a couple of squads into the buildings on either side of the street."

"How do you expect to go from building to building Bob?" Woodstock thought the plan had merit but how could the men get from one building to the next without exposing themselves?

"Think bazooka Brad. I've got a couple and enough rounds to move forward at least a block."

"Hhmm, not bad buddy, not bad. Just don't bring the buildings down on your heads!"

Hirtzfeld told Gefreiter Jürgen Klingenschmitt to head down the stairs at the back of the room, he would follow.

Braun, the SS man, looked at Hirtzfeld with a scowl, "Go, go, you ignorant mutt, kill that tank."

As Braun turned back to the front of the building, Hirtzfeld shot him with his MP 40. "Eat shit you SS bastard."

Braun fell to the floor, he wasn't quite dead yet, so he tried to draw his pistol. Hirtzfeld shot him again. Now Braun was very dead.

As Poole started to deploy Cole's 3rd Squad to the left and Sgt. Ed Russell's 2nd Squad to the right, Hess yelled out. "Sarn't Poole, white flag on the left!"

Poole looked down the street, sure enough, someone was waving a white flag from the ground floor. "Tell the bastards to come out, Lou, hands empty and high."

"Komm ins Freie, keine Waffen, Hände in der Luft!³"

"Everybody hold your fire!" Poole bellowed.

From his turret above, Woodstock yelled down, "If they try anything funny, I'll smoke 'em!"

Seconds later, twenty plus men came out into the street from the buildings on the left of the street. A few moments after that, roughly fifteen more Germans came out from those buildings on the other side of the street.

Poole had Sgt. Cliff Davis' 1st Squad escort the prisoners to the rear. One of the Germans had told Hess what had happened in the building before the surrender. Sure enough, they found a dead SS officer right where the Kraut had said he'd be.

The men who had surrendered were all that was left of a once mighty Panzergrenadier division. The three men killed by Woodstock's tank and the thirty-eight men who had surrendered were all that remained of a division which, at it's peak, mustered 14,750 men.

"We're fighting the shattered remnants of a once mighty army Bob." Brad Woodstock and Bob Poole were sitting in the sunshine on top of Catamount having a cigar, listening to the birds sing.

"Would that the rest of our battles are so easy, Brad."

"Amen, brother. We didn't lose any of our own guys, and I'll take that any day..."

Less than four weeks remain until the Nazis surrender. Hitler blows his brains out in nineteen days.

¹ SS Major

² Army coward, you just don't want to fight.

³ Come outside, no weapons, hands in the air!

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