“Bitte?”
“Yer not wrong there mate, it’s just this side of bleedin’ freezin’.”
The British paratrooper wriggled free of his harness and crouched for a few moments before standing with difficulty, hunched over under the weight of a bergen he had just struggled into.
“Nice meeting yer mate but I can’t be gossiping with you all night now can I? So, I’ve got to be off.”
After several moments the old man slowly followed in the direction the paratrooper had taken and stopped at the edge of the wood. He couldn’t make out the soldier anymore, the meadow beside the wood was dotted with abandoned green parachutes and their former owners were hurrying off into the darkness. The 1st and 2nd battalions of the Parachute Regiment had arrived to put a clot in two of the Red Army’s main supply arteries.
Lt Col Reed and Arnie Moore left the battalion CP to visit each of the locations, starting with 4 Company on the left. He had held another O Group for all the company commanders just the last evening, but today was going to be a busy one and he wanted to get around and speak to as many of the men under his command as possible.
4 Company was one of the 82nd’s and was tied in with their neighbour’s right flank, 2LI, 2nd Battalion Light Infantry. To make things more complicated the Light Infantry’s shortages had been made good with a platoon on loan to each of its rifle companies from 2 Wessex.
A small stream with high banks provided a physical boundary between both units, and although it was too dark to see it, Pat could hear the rushing water faintly from the entrance to the company’s CP.
The first thing that caught his attention once inside the CP was an 82nd signaller wearing a beret, not that there was anything wrong in that, they were under cover and not under fire, however, behind the paratroopers badge was sown a Guards flash, the blue, red, blue rectangle his own men wore behind their own regimental cap badge. Pat let it go without comment; this was after all a battlefield in Germany and not Horse Guards Parade in London.
The battalion was stood-to half an hour before first light whilst he and Arnie were at 4 Company, and they remained there until it was stood down without incident a half hour after dawn at which point they crossed the stream to say a quick hello to the neighbours, and of course to also run a professionally critical eye over who was essentially guarding their flank.
They were too far from the stream to easily get back into cover behind its bank when they were challenged and both Pat and Arnie stopped and held their rifles one handed and away from their bodies as they peered toward the sound of the voice.
Pat could not make out the position though until he was told to advance a few steps and halt again, close enough so that the sentry covering them did not have to shout out the number to which Pat responded correctly.
Lying behind the sentry’s trench Pat and Arnie were impressed to discover the soldiers were 2 Wessex territorials and not 2LI regulars and they couldn’t fault the position.
Passing back over the stream to 4 Company’s turf they went from trench to trench, knowing that this was to be a day of days for them all and an end of days for some.
The normal day in the field, once stand-to is over, starts with weapon cleaning and personal administration, but only one man at a time stripped and cleaned his weapon per trench, his mate’s was ready for use during this time. Pat and Arnie exchanged a few words with the men as they worked and found nothing to cause undue concern. For some of the men, those who had arrived in the past five days for the large part, it would be their baptism of fire when the Soviet’s arrived, but each of these men had been paired off with a seasoned soldier.
Leaving 4 Company they came through a jumble of boulders to 1 Company’s left hand platoon, and these trenches had been dug by CSM Probert’s platoon but were now occupied by a mixture of 82nd men and Coldstreamers taken from the other three rifle companies. The majority of Headquarter Company were Guardsmen, as were Support Company, he had an additional Mortar Platoon there from the 82nd, but Pat Reed only had one rifle company remaining that was made up entirely of Guardsmen, 2 Company. The brigade commander, true to his promise, had made enquiries as to the low numbers of replacements for the Guards battalion under his command, and had been informed that the regiments’ second battalion, 2CG, was being reformed and had priority call. As to the question of the lack of recognition for 1CG’s efforts, he was informed that the Defence Secretary herself had reviewed each of Pat Reed’s recommendations and found they lacked sufficient merit for gallantry awards.
The Americans viewed Lt Col Reed’s recommendations in a different light as regards their own soldiers and the previous evening he had been pleased to announce the names of men from the 82nd who were receiving medals for gallantry. He couldn’t give the same news to his own regiments’ officers but he did announce promotions that included those on the casualty lists. He could create NCOs from buckshee guardsmen, give existing NCOs the next rank and make Warrant Officers out of senior NCOs, but it took higher authority to approve and confirm the raising of men to commissioned status, or giving an officer the next rank. However, pending confirmation by that higher authority, Captain Sinclair received his brevet majority, young Mr Taylor-Hall became a Lieutenant and a signal was sent to RHQ requesting that they inform CSM Probert of his brevet promotion to 2Lt, as soon as his surgery permitted of course.
Arriving ahead of the US 4th Corps, a large amount of ammunition and stores had arrived the previous afternoon and a newly promoted Colour Sergeant Osgood was busy with a fatigue party distributing 1 Company’s share of it.
All about the battalion location their own defences had been thickened up with US made bar mines and Claymores. The division had replenished ammunition stocks and had more to spare, all they needed now was luck.
Whilst the Iron Curtain had stood, the Red Air Force occupied former WWII Luftwaffe bases in East Germany during its decade’s long face off with NATO. After the reunification, the modern Luftwaffe inherited a dozen airbases that had changed little since the 1940s and promptly closed the majority. Cottbus, to the south east of Berlin was retained and modernised, unfortunately the recent withdrawal from the region had been so rapid as to make the Soviet’s a gift of a fully functional airbase with modern facilities.
The former airbases of Sperenberg, Welzow, Falkenberg, Wittstock, Merseburg, Altenburg and Holzdorf were quickly reoccupied and the runways patched up. It was from these airbases that the close air support against NATO on the Elbe/Saale line had been provided, and would continue as the Red Army began its latest drive for the Channel ports.
Cottbus airbase was of particular interest to NATO due to its proximity to one of Europe’s main east/west trading routes and the roads and rail lines that followed it.
At 0433hrs the bulk of the Belgian Para Commando Brigade had landed at three drop zones around the Twelfth century town of Bad Rouen.
Belgium’s 1st and 3rd Parachute Battalions in company with 3rd Lanciers-Parachutists Battalion and twelve of its jeeps on pallets, landed along with the 14th Parachute Commando Engineer Company south of the town, on either side of the river Spee. Meanwhile 2nd Commando Battalion and 35th Parachute Commando Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battery dropped on Cottbus airbase itself, five miles beyond the town’s northern suburbs.
The fighting at the airbase was bloody, swift and still taking place as the C-130s of the Belgian Air Force’s 15th Transportation Wing landed the GIAT 105mm guns and crews of the brigade field artillery battery.