A short, vicious battle took place between the French and Soviet infantry backed up by the barrelled AAA sites the dug in Soviet’s would have the advantage if they had time to recover from the surprise. ZSU-23-4 self-propelled AAA vehicles turned their quadruple cannon on the French and where they had no effect upon the main battle tanks, they were devastating against the lightly armoured French AMX-10P Infantry Fighting Vehicles and the infantry debussing from them. The French infantrymen used Milan, grenades, their vehicles 21mm cannon, and sheer guts to silence the ZSUs before fixing bayonets and beginning the business of trench clearing. Meanwhile on the far bank the crews of the attack helicopters had run to their machines once it was clear the bridgehead was under ground assault. Fingers flew over switches and the machines began to hum as batteries fed current to starter motors, the humming changed to a heightening whine that preceded the sight of rotor blades beginning to turn, but oh so slowly. The Hind-D nearest the field kitchen was not surprisingly the one most likely to take to the air first. The helicopters rotor blades had just begun to move with a blur when the French finally noticed them, and turrets began to swivel in the direction of the sound of the turbines.
A tank round exploded on the landing field and the first helicopter took to the air as if startled into flight by the detonation of high explosive. It’s was the speedier of the trio of Hind’s and it rose to ten feet, pivoted in the air to line up on a gap between two clumps of trees at the edge of the landing field and adopted a nose down attitude in order to gain airspeed more quickly. It was struck by a chance shell, the 120mm HESH round severed the tail and sent the aircraft cartwheeling into the ground where it caught fire. The French armour got the range of the machines still spooling up, wrecking them before they could get off the ground.
Satisfied that all the attack helicopters were taken care of the tanks moved on, seeking fresh targets and leaving a scene where black smoke boiled up from a field occupied by twisted and ruined airframes, exploding ammunition and burning fuel.
The major of engineers didn’t fight the current; he allowed it to carry him along and struck out at an angle to the flow in a manner that would take him to the eastern shore but without draining all his limited strength. Tank rounds exploded on the sections of floating roadway where they connected to one another, or smashed into the pontoons that bore them. Any vehicles were engaged and able-bodied soldiers on the banks or upon the bridges were cut down without warning, but the only rounds landing near the men in the water were ricochet’s or just poorly aimed.
The flow took him under several bridges which bore vehicles, their movement stalled by events and the reaction of the drivers and crews were mixed. Some officers were trying to get their packets of vehicles backed up, in the hope of regaining the eastern bank and saving the vehicles and the precious stores they carried, whilst in other places the BTR, BMP and BDRMs that had been the escorts were trying to make a fight of it. As more and more enemy armour began to appear, spreading out along the western bank, an air of panic began to settle on the bridgehead. Men were ignoring their officers and abandoning the vehicles, seeking the safety of the east bank. Willingly or unwillingly more men were finding themselves in the water, as a last resort in the quest for safety or as a matter of necessity, their retreat along the bridges being cut off by enemy fire. Many disappeared below the surface never to reappear; only the steadier men and the stronger swimmers prevailed where they had still been wearing all their equipment on entering the river. Those men were able to keep their heads as the weight of ironmongery dragged them below the surface, preventing panic turning fingers into uncoordinated rubber digits as they undid buckles and freed themselves from the ballast.
Obstructions in the water became more numerous, shattered sections of bridge drifting with the current, jagged edged and some slowly sinking were also amidst the floundering soldiers. Behind the major at the Bulgarians bridges the river was on fire, burning fuel had covered half the rivers width and was spreading downriver engulfing all before it. A drifting section of pontoon bridge carrying an ammunition truck was overtaken by the flames and minutes later the truck and bridge section disintegrated.
The river carried the major around a bend, and there in front of him was the last crossing of the Red Armies bridgehead across the Elbe. There were troops and vehicles on the bridge, all moving east and quite obviously the enemy.
Some hundred or so men were in the water along with the major, and he was still over a hundred metres from the shore. Eyeing the NATO troops worriedly he redoubled his efforts to reach the bank but that clearly was not about to happen before the current had carried him to the bridge. He wasn’t alone in his fears and the tension was palpable as the first swimmer reached it. There was no gunfire from either the fighting vehicles or the men walking beside them, and the only action they took was with those men in the river who were clearly tiring and clung to the bridge when they reached it. Canadian infantrymen pulled those men from the water and left them sodden and gasping on the pontoons.
Several hundred yards further downriver the major pulled himself onto the riverbank and lay on the wet earth panting for breath. The crack of tank guns close-by announced that the Canadians had found what they had been seeking, the first of several depots of stockpiled bridging equipment that together would have kept the bridgehead in business even had twice the number of bridges been totally destroyed. Along two and a half miles of the river camouflaged dumps of bridging sections and pontoons had been established. The battalion of tanks and infantry crossed over to the eastern bank, and swung south with the intention of destroying as much of the Soviet’s equipment as possible before recrossing at the Magdeburg autobahn bridge.
Looking back along the river smoke was darkening the sky prematurely, and floating wreckage, including bodies, was thick upon the water. He tried to remember if any bridging units had accompanied the divisions driving west, it was logical that there would be which was just as well, because he was pretty certain that there hadn’t been time to move any of the spare bridging equipment to the western side of the Elbe.
The major couldn’t believe that after all the blood and sweat that had been expended just getting a foothold across this damned river, NATO could take it back with so little effort.
Fighting off despair, the engineer officer stood on legs shaky with fatigue and went in search of his men.
Events on the ground were not only being followed with the greatest interest aboard Sabre Dance Two Four, the X-Band radar returns were being beamed via satellite to SACEUR’s current locale and from there to over a dozen national headquarters. It was electronic, if not visual, confirmation of what the commanders of the various units on the ground were telling them, that the Red Army logistics train, already greatly hampered by the airborne drops, was at least for the time being severed.
For all the courage, skill at arms and élan displayed by the NATO troops, the contest of arms was not yet settled though. They had prevented the immediate reinforcement and resupply of the Soviet divisions in contact west of the Elbe, but to describe those fifteen divisions as being ‘trapped’ would be somewhat premature. Considerable fighting power existed, enough for the Soviet’s to be able to continue the advance and still turn around enough units to clear a path back to the Elbe, thereby re-establishing the supply route once new bridging equipment could be brought forward.
Before midnight the operators aboard the E-8 would see the three divisions further east detach regiments from the hunt for the NATO airborne, and send them west with all three divisions bridging units.