Panzer 413 - Death From Above

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Captain Horace Miller of the 513th Fighter Squadron had his cockpit heat on full blast. After growing up in Florida, attending college at Georgia Tech, and then training to fly in the heat of the Arizona desert, he just couldn't tolerate cold weather. Sure, he'd been stationed in wet, rainy England, then France, but that cold was nothing like what he was experiencing on this cold December day in Belgium.

Christmas had brought the welcome present of clear skies over the rolling hills of the Ardennes. Now he and his flight of four P-47 Thunderbolts were out hunting after a long week of frustration at the fog, snow, and freezing rain and, more importantly, the reports of American units falling back before the Germans. Reports of atrocities as well. The Krauts had come boiling out of their defenses with a taste for blood on the 16th of December.

Now it was payback time!

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MSgt Dixon's engineers had planted mines on the road outside Brisy, right past a curve in the road. The hope was that a big German tank would hit a mine and shed a track leaving it broadside to Mac Peterson's Sherman. To top things off, Dixon had a bazooka team in a small stand of trees near the road. Dangerously near.

Near Brisy, Belgium
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The newest addition to the platoon, Kurt Müller's Tiger 421, was about to round the curve in the road when Willi heard the bang. He reflexively ducked down in his turret as he saw dirt and pavement jump into the air, and 421's left track slither off the road wheels.

Before he could think even further, a streak from his left front slammed into the turret of Müller's tank, right at the turret ring. He saw Müller crumple just as a flash blew open all the hatches on 421. Moments later the driver and bow gunner tried to climb out of their hatches. Only the bow gunner made it.

They couldn't go forward, just as he turned to signal 414 to back up, thinking they'd try to cut across the fields, his bow gunner barked over the intercom -

"Infantry 11 o'clock!"

Followed by the ripping roar of Panzerschütze Peter Schmidt's MG 34. Still crouching in his turret, Willi's eyes followed the tracer rounds spitting from Schmidt's MG. There! Men trying to get back up the hill.

Willi saw the long tube carried by one man swing towards his own tank, realizing at the last second that it was an Ami anti-tank weapon. At the same moment Schmidt's MG tracers went through the man, leaving him to crumple to the snowy ground. The other two men managed to make their escape.

"SHIT!" MSgt Dixon screamed as he saw the German tank open up on his guys. He saw Sal, the man with the bazooka, go down hard. Billy and Sam were running hard to get back up the hill.

Mac's tank turret cranked over to take the second Tiger under fire. Just as the gun was about to be laid on target, the big Kraut tank backed around the corner. Turning to Dixon he screamed -

"Sar'nt Dixon! Get your guys moving, we'll wait for what's left of your bazooka team, but you guys gotta hightail it out of here! We'll be right behind you!"

As Mac climbed out of his turret to man his .50 caliber machine gun, he kept his eyes riveted to where he figured the Germans would move. If it was him he'd head up the hill into the fields to his left, the Krauts' right, but those Tigers are slow. He'll probably head to his left, down the slope.

As he watched, the two survivors of the bazooka team scrambled aboard Tennessee Whiskey.

One of them, Corporal Billy Estes, said, "Climb back in Sarge, I'll man the fifty. Those Kraut bastards killed Sal!"

Mac climbed back in and ordered Louis to start backing up the hill, when they got to the top they'd face front and run like crazy!

Willi's tank ground off the road to the left, into the fields. At that moment he heard a loud pulsating roar coming from ahead of him. As he ducked and looked up, two Ami Jabos* blew past them, very low, and very fast.

Captain Miller saw the lone Sherman backing up the hill as fast as it would go as his element flew up the road to Brisy. At the last minute he saw a smoking vehicle at the bend in the road, gotta be German, he thought as he pulled his stick back, easing in rudder to pull a graceful climbing turn to go back around.

When they were in position, he radioed his wingman, Jack Curtis, to keep his eyes peeled, he was betting there were Krauts in the fields near the road.

"Copy." his wingman responded, then, "Tanks. Two o'clock low!"

"Got them! Watch my six!" Miller's big aircraft smoothly lowered its nose as its pilot lined up on the burning tank in the road. There, in the field, TWO EFFING TIGERS!

"Scheiße!" Willi yelled as he closed his hatch. He heard and felt the enemy rounds smack into his turret as the Jabo walked his fire across Willi's tank and no doubt onto Schäfer's 414 just behind them.

413 suffered nothing more than some scratched paint and a few gouges in the tough Krupp steel of the turret roof. Schäfer wasn't as lucky. Through the rear vision blocks in his turret cupola, Willi could see that the Jabo had damaged Schäfer's tank, smoke was starting to issue from the back deck of 414, just above the engine.

On the radio, Willi screamed "Hans! Get out, your engine's on fire!"

As he watched Schäfer's crew bail out of their crippled tank, Willi wondered what to do next. Two more dead Tigers, the sky was clear, the Amis were airborne, and the roads just weren't safe.

What else could go wrong?

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SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Langanke was lying by a roadside somewhere northwest of  Rettigny. His legs were badly burned but he was lucky to be alive, as far as he knew, the rest of his crew were dead.

The attack by rocket firing Jabos had been quick and deadly, his column of Panthers, halftracks loaded with Panzergrenadiers, and a single platoon of older Panzerkampfwagen IVs had been caught in the open.

Two flights of what had to be British Typhoons had attacked at their leisure. Langanke's sole Flakpanzer had been damaged two miles to the rear and he had nothing else to protect his column from air attack.

Painfully he sat up, he could see his own tank burning furiously, he must have been blown out of the turret when the ammunition cooked off, behind his tank was a second Panther, minus its turret. The rest of his column was nowhere in sight.

Turning painfully, he guessed the rest of his boys had made it into the trees ahead. He couldn't see them, on the other hand he saw no more Allied aircraft either. Looking back towards the farm they had passed moments ago, he saw two figures walking down the road towards him.

Thank God, Langanke thought, maybe they can help me.

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Pierre Dumont and his son René saw the German sitting in the road. He appeared to be badly hurt, the legs of his trousers were still smoldering, and there was a lot of blood on the man's face.

In French, the man asked for help, could they perhaps treat his wounds, he asked. Pierre turned to his son and told him to bring something to bind the man's wounds, winking as he did so.

Pierre found a discarded canteen near one of the burned out halftracks, there were dead Germans all around it. He also found a German pistol, checked that it was loaded, then he chambered a round, then pocketed the heavy Walther. Pierre remembered his service in the Belgian Army in the Great War, he knew how to use a pistol.

Walking back to the German, he handed the man the canteen. Turning towards his farm, he could see René returning.

Langanke drank the water gratefully, he used some of it to clean his face, noting that his hand came away bloody. He must have hit his head when he was thrown from the tank, he didn't remember. Looking back towards the forest, he didn't see any of his men. He wondered if perhaps they thought him dead.

Speaking rapidly in the local dialect, René told his father -

"Papa, Monsieur Gervais is at the house. He says the Germans are shooting people all through Belgium. It's terrible, isn't it Papa?"

Nodding slowly, Pierre agreed that it was indeed terrible. He knew that it was probably those SS bastards. The Boche in World War I had been bad enough, now these SS people, truly monsters.

"Go back to the house, boy. I'll be along shortly."

As he watched his son run back to the house, Pierre had noticed the uniform under the wounded German's white snow jacket. An SS man!

Langanke used the old, stained linen which the farmer had handed to him to bind up his head wound, causing his jacket to fall open. He pulled his collar closed for two reasons - it was cold and he didn't wish to advertise that he was in the SS. Especially as he was alone with this Belgian peasant.

"Do you have anything to eat old man?" Langanke asked the farmer in his German-accented French.

"No, I do not, you filthy Boche bastard. But I do have this ..."

Langanke couldn't believe this man's arrogance and stupidity, who did he think he was dealing with? But the barrel of the Walther P 38 was steady, and aimed at his face.

"Now look here old fellow, just run along, my men will be returning soon. Oh, and give me that pistol, it is the property of the Third Reich!"

Pausing only momentarily, Pierre lowered the pistol from the man's face. Then pulled the trigger, firing a single round into the SS man's chest. The man blinked, then tried to reach for his own pistol.

So Pierre shot him again.

Langanke was cold, colder than he had ever been before, colder than in Russia. He felt like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. He was trying very hard to take a breath, the stupid Belgian peasant had actually shot him.

As he toppled onto his side, still conscious, he saw the Belgian walking away, pausing only to throw the pistol off into the snow in the field by the road. Langanke was tired, perhaps...

No, I need to stay awake, I need ...

SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Langanke lay quivering, but just for a moment, then he went still forever. The war never returned to this small corner of Belgium, the remainder of Langanke's unit were destroyed in early January, only 15 men survived the war out of the nearly 500 that had crossed into Belgium on the morning of the 16th of December, 1944.

Langanke's body was found in the spring of 1945. When the Americans had plowed the roads, his body had been shoved into a drift beside the road to Brisy. His death was but a small payment for the many Belgian civilians murdered by the SS during Hitler's last offensive in the West. Not to mention the many prisoners of war they murdered as well.

A small payment indeed.

Belgian civilians killed by German units during the Ardennes offensive.
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