‘Scheisse!’
Rokossovsky and Trubnikov walked outside and took in the chilled air.
The senior man drew in a bracing lungful and surveyed his surroundings.
“No more snow arriving, tovarich. What’s here won’t melt but, if we’re to believe the cloud readers, it won’t snow for another two days at least.”
The Marshal breathed more deeply, as if sampling the air would supply him with insight on the matter.
“Are you sure you don’t want pre-emptive artillery, Comrade Marshal.”
Rokossovsky shook his head.
“I don’t think so, tovarich. Let them settle in where they are now. There will be plenty of time for them to get rid of their ammunition when the enemy starts up.”
The ammunition issue was a constant thorn in their side now.
“Besides, it might pay us to let the enemy think they have us on the hop, eh?”
Trubnikov wasn’t sure about that, but his boss was, so that was good enough for him.
Rokossovsky took in the night sky, clear and crisp, the stars giving a remarkable display.
“Air thinks we’ll have good numbers up over the battlefield at first light. If they come.”
Trubnikov nodded and fished in his tunic pocket, producing an ornate crystal and silver flask.
Flicking the top, he offered it to Rokossovsky who took a deep draught and handed it back before the effects hit him.
He coughed his way through the traditional toast.
“Na zd…zdoro…vie.”
“Na zdorovie!”
The Deputy Front Commander acknowledged the toast with a raised flask and took his own deep pull on the contents.
Trubnikov’s throat expressed its own objections immediately.
Rokossovsky raised an eyebrow.
“Savage stuff, Comrade Trubnikov. What exactly is it that’s burning my insides out?”
After another cough, a reply was forthcoming.
“Apparently, Starshina Fillitov has access to an unlimited supply of it, which was supposedly liberated from an enemy headquarters store. He said it’s Napoleon brandy, but my vote goes for turpentine.”
The two shared a laugh, despite the tensions of the hour.
“Another, Comrade Marshall?”
“I think not, tovarich. We’ll need a clear head if General Nazarbayeva is to be believed.”
It was 0258 hrs.
Chapter 111 – THE WARCRIMES
I knew that, if the feat was accomplished, it must be at a most fearful sacrifice of as brave and gallant soldiers as ever engaged in battle.
The Legion artillery, plus that of the 16th US Armored Brigade, as well as numerous extra batteries attached for the operation, opened fire at 0300hrs precisely, lashing the designated enemy positions with high explosives and deadly pieces of metal moving at high speed.
Some batteries continued to fire upon the old locations, the change of orders not having arrived in time.
Others, better informed, dropped their ordnance amongst the occupied positions of the suspected second line, or those areas where artillery and support units might have displaced to.
Generally, the warning to Rokossovsky’s units had been successful, and few men were killed in the torrent of shells.
Soviet artillery and mortars opened up in reply, shooting blind, but knowing that the enemy had to come certain ways.
The Soviet fire had some success, but the Allied radar troops were in position, and the counter-battery units, silent until fed the right ingredients, served up death to many of the Red Army artillery and mortar crews.
At 0310 hrs, the order was given, sometimes in German, sometimes in French, occasionally in English.
“Vorwärts!”
“En avant!”
“Advance!”
DerBo’s Gebirgsjager Battalion immediately pushed forward on Routes 133 and 178, their mission being the occupation of Dossenheim-sur-Zinsel, Neuwiller-lès-Saverne, and La Petite Pierre, for the purpose of securing the northern flank of the attack.
If all went to plan, the Mountain troopers would hardly be involved.
Part of Pierce’s 16th was in direct support, with the rest of the 16th a few kilometres to the south, tasked with gaining ground as far as Pfaffenhoffen in the first instance, and also to act as a secure northern buffer to cover the main Legion thrust that intended to go to, and through, Hagenau.
The plan was also to threaten the isolation of Strasbourg, an area that had drawn large Soviet reinforcements since Operation Thermopylae had virtually annihilated the Soviet 19th Army. That the remnants of that army, hastily assembled into a Special Combat Brigade, had been slotted into the line on the focal point of the Legion assault was considered a wonderful bonus, for they would remember the Legionnaires, and that would be to the Allies’ advantage.
In addition, the Legion Corps was tasked with threatening Karlsruhe, something that the Allied leadership felt would not be ignored by Soviet command.
Some large Red Army formations lay to the north, formations that SHAEF planners wanted to see moved away before Spectrum Blue was initiated.
Eisenhower had already discussed the possibility of delaying Patton’s attack for twenty-four, perhaps even forty-eight hours, agreeing that the decision did not yet need to be made. He decided against consulting Patton on the matter, knowing only too well what the man would say.
Brigadier-General John L. Pierce was unhappy, and he let his staff know it.
The prongs of his advance had made quick progress, the 16th pushing ahead on a frontage of just under four kilometres.
It was not wasted on him, nor on those who received the same reports, that positions expected to be manned seemed to have been hurriedly vacated, with only a few hastily laid booby-traps left behind by their former owners.
The main southern push had moved over the small watercourse, La Zinsel du Sud, making the junction of Routes 716 and 116 on schedule.
Moreover, at very little cost.
Pierce was not to know that his southern prong should have met resistance on the small river, but an error on the part of one Soviet Colonel, withdrawing past his allotted stop line, meant that the way was left clear.
Not so for the northern force, where the lead infantry and recon elements ran straight into a determined enemy with a lot of firepower. It had stalled at the La Zinsel, but this time the same frozen dribble of water had cost him a whole bunch of his doughs, as well as the 18th’s Armored-Infantry’s battalion commander.
Pierce’s vehicle, an M9A1 half-track stuffed with the paraphernalia of command, was pulled over under snow-laden trees. The breeze was strong enough to stir the branches and occasionally dislodge a white deposit to fall on the cameo below like a one-sided snowball fight.
The 16th’s senior officer had his normal set-up erected; a trestle table surrounded by a canvas screen, with a camouflaged sheet roof strung from the half-track to a pair of poles, all of which provided sufficient shelter and area for him and two others to work.
Consulting the situation map, a solution presented itself immediately.