Opening Moves

Some two hours after Deniken was taken back to the medical facilities established outside of Bienenbüttel, one company of 3rd/77th Engineer Brigade was brought forward by the scar-faced Major Elstov. He was keen to get his valuable bridging equipment secreted in the woods either side of Hauptstraße, running north out of Heiligenthal, now finally free of the enemy who had been pushed back beyond Kirchgellersen.

The arrival overhead of three USAAF 405th Fighter Group Thunderbolts was perfect timing for the Americans and could not have been worse for the engineers.

A trio of quad-mount Maxim AA guns had been positioned to defend the bridge until more substantial assets could be placed, and they engaged immediately.

Major Eltsov frantically signalled his trucks to scatter and seek refuge in the woods but the previous artillery barrages had made the ground difficult to negotiate at the best of times.

Part of the briefing received by Soviet officers on the allied air forces concerned the use of rockets by ground-attack planes. For the Major, the claim that they were extremely inaccurate paled into insignificance when it came to being on the receiving end of a full salvo from a determined and experienced enemy.

The first P47 drove in hard and released all eight rockets at the scattering engineer vehicles.

Watching behind him as his Jeep rode up on the bridge, Eltsov winced as death was visited upon the troops he led, disproving the inaccuracy claims of the GRU Colonel who had briefed him.

In his rage he screamed at his driver to halt, which he did, bringing the jeep to a stop in a storm of pebbles and dust.

Eltsov slapped the man on the shoulder and pointed off towards a smoking structure nearby. Grabbing his SVT automatic rifle, he ran back over the bridge, only to stop short as the second salvo of rockets arrived, more deadly than the first.

The vehicles carrying the inflatables had been in the centre of the column, and it was these that had been badly handled by the first strike. The second strike had been aimed at them as well but had overshot and fallen as accurately as could be upon the lorries containing most of the prime personnel, his best engineering troops, veterans of combat bridging operations from the Volga to the Elbe. Few of them survived intact as soft-skin transports demonstrated their lack of resistance to high explosive.

The Major winced as bodies were tossed high, whole or in pieces, fire and smoke concealing the area from whence they sprang.

Shouting as loud as he could, he waved frantically at the front vehicles, desperately encouraging them to scatter for cover as he stood exposed on the bridge.

The fourth vehicle stalled, holding up those behind but first three vehicles sprang forward, almost propelled by the carnage behind them, and reached the bridge, timed to the second with the arrival of the third aircraft’s salvo.

Bridge and lorry disappeared together as the first pair of rockets struck precisely, the bridge decking units from the Studebakers load tossed and shredded by the blast. The next three pairs turned the east side of the bridge approach into a maelstrom, converting men and machines into pieces and spreading them for yards in all directions.

The planes were gone in the blink of an eye, pursued by lead from the two surviving but impotent Maxims.

In their wake, the carnage was complete, the bridging engineer company now consisting of thirty-seven wounded and shell-shocked men who would never be the same again.

Chapter 44 – THE COUNCIL

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

Theodore Roosevelt

1400 hrs Tuesday, 7th August 1945, Headquarters, US Forces in Europe. I.G.Farben, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany.

The first of them had arrived at 1325 and was immediately shown to the elegant dining room where a modest buffet lunch had been provided and where sat General Dwight D Eisenhower in full uniform. The others arrived in short order and soon the ensemble was complete.

As quickly as was considered polite, the orderlies cleared away the side tables, provided coffee for the thirteen men and left.

The general hubbub of conversation dropped, conversation that had not been about the most pressing matter in the minds of the nine visitors but had just been small talk of family and life. What they all wanted to know most was why they were here.

Eisenhower rose to his feet, two other senior allied officers remaining seated by previous agreement. A US Army intelligence Major took his cue from his General and commenced his brief, addressing both sides of the long walnut table equally, firstly in his native tongue and then in English, a courtesy not lost on the nine.