Second Battalion had swept up into the positions and immediately set to work restoring as much of the defences as possible, in case an enemy relief force arrived to stake its claim to this blood-soaked piece of Alsace.
Two platoons from Second Battalion entered the Castle. Upset that they had not had their opportunity for vengeance, they were delighted to be presented with a final opportunity.
The Legion wounded were massacred but not without Siberian losses, which only egged them on to further excess.
Grenades set the old structure’s contents alight and the few Legionnaires that were dragged from the old castle were summarily shot or bayoneted in short order.
Soviet soldiers smashed up the wooden garden furniture and creating a cleared area in front of a dilapidated bistro bar on the junction of the 9 and 135.
Others ripped the wooden shutters from the ground floor windows to declare their support for what was to come.
Another group of First Battalion survivors collected dead enemy soldiers, creating a mound in the small grassy area that had served as the bar’s beer garden.
Nineteen Mountain troopers were still alive, most taken from the final Legion casualty station, which had been brutally liquidated with knives, up close and personal.
Each of the eighteen men were bound to the corpse of a legionnaire and placed around the base of the mound.
The nineteenth legionnaire, ‘the bastard that shot Astafiev’, was given special treatment, and placed, like a fairy on a Christmas tree, atop the mound.
It took but a moment for the petrol to be shaken over the living and the dead alike, immediately drawing screams of fear from those who were mentally alert enough to know their approaching fate.
Men vied for the privilege of initiating the revenge, and a fight broke out until a Senior Sergeant stepped in, suggesting that those who wanted to participate could do so together and ‘if the three of you fucking idiots don’t stop fighting each other, I’ll have your fucking balls off!’
Matches were struck and, on a signal, dropped onto the fuel soaked men.
Astafiev later claimed that the sound of screaming broke through into his unconsciousness state and that, lying on what counted for stretcher in the shattered Petite Pierre, the minutes that he endured the awful screams and squeals of those being immolated were the worst of his life.
In the centre of the village, the lust for revenge rapidly drained from the Siberians, as they watched their prisoners writhe in agony as they were burned alive.
Atop the pile was Rettlinger, his mind and vision greatly cleared by what was about to come.
He rose as best he could, debilitated by injury and blood loss, encumbered by wrists tied behind his back. Standing upright, he debated throwing himself forward in the hope that someone would shoot and grant him a quick death.
His leg gave way, and the possibility was gone before the decision had been made.
Rettlinger looked at as many of the enemy as he could, despite being petrified, his eyes showing his hatred for all present, and also carrying his determination to die as well as he could.
Flames licked around him and the pain doubled and redoubled.
He stayed silent, a silence that was now only broken by the roaring of flames as all others had now succumbed to the ordeal.
And then, he broke.
The sound.
Unreal.
Awful.
‘Holy Mother!’
Some looked away in disgust at, both at themselves and those who helped create the abomination. Others remained fixed on the writhing man, almost as if to look away would dishonour him.
‘Let him die quickly!’
Some looked at each other, seeking guidance, needing only a nod or a shrug to shoot the enemy officer to relieve his agony.
But no one fired, so Bruno Rettlinger died the most horrible of deaths, exactly seventeen miles from where he was born.
The assault of Neuwiller had arrived unexpectedly, at least for the Soviet Major in charge of the remains of 1326th Rifle Regiment.
Based on his intelligence reports, he had concentrated the larger force to oppose the attempted relief effort from the southern Allied force heading up from Dossenheim, and successfuly so, as the allied push ran out of steam..
His earlier reports had not included news from the defence forces allocated to the southeast and Route 233, and so the arrival of Task Force Barkmann was both a surprise and a disaster for the Siberian soldiers.
The few Soviet tanks left in support were rapidly overwhelmed by a combination of 76mm shells from Shermans and M18 Hellcats of the 633rd, leaving the American tanks free to harvest the infantry left after the air and artillery strikes.
An incursion by two Shturmoviks claimed one of the M18 tank destroyers, but the two aircraft were driven away from the battlefield as three Mustangs arrived, bringing their own modest ordnance to the party and planting it perfectly on the battalion command post in between a cluster of buildings two hundred metres south-east of the main village.
In truth, the aircraft had been aiming at a grand house nearby, not a nondescript clump of trees.
Not that it made any difference to the command structure of the 1326th Regiment. Most of them were assembled for an orders group, and all of them died in the explosions, the first of the one thousand pound bombs alone would have been enough as it penetrated the roof of the hastily constructed bunker, wiping through the second in command before detonating at the feet of the harassed Major.
The Rangers and Engineers swept forward and through the first line of defence with relative ease, destroying pockets of resistance with well-directed tank fire, followed by close infantry assault.
Neuwiller was overrun quickly, and the Ranger combined force, leaving 254 US Combat Engineer Battalion in place with a little armor stiffening, rolled up Route 134, heading for La Petite Pierre.
They pushed on hard and were lucky. No organised resistance was encountered until nearly on the southern edge of La Petite Pierre.
In fact, the advance had moved forward so quickly that both Gesualdo and Barkmann, encumbered by leg injuries, had trouble keeping up the pace.
Gesualdo was, in some ways, more fortunate, as his lead unit ran into a group of Siberians who were determined to stay put, giving him a chance to join up with his men.
Quickly organising some close support, Gesualdo led his Rangers into the smoking ruins of the house that the tenacious enemy had occupied, now converted to a pile of bricks by the ministrations of two Shermans.
As he picked his way over the rubble, his leg gave way and he fell.
Instinctively, his arm shot out, finding the perfect hole down which to slide, before his not inconsiderable frame hit the bricks and the weight of his body in motion strained the bone past its point of tolerance.
Through the diminishing sounds of battle, the snap of his left arm was heard for many yards in all directions, causing more than one soldier to duck in self-preservation.
Gesualdo passed out with the pain, and it fell to his radioman to scream out for a medic, his eyes focussed in horror on the arm, bent at right angles with bones protruding from broken skin.
The Rangers pushed on, encouraged by their NCOs and the few surviving officers, the Soviet forces almost melting away before their advance.
Barkmann heard of Gesualdo’s injury and felt relief that his friend had survived the fight with only a broken arm.
He pressed on, starting to gain on his forward troops, warning them to be aware of Legion defenders ahead.
They now found no resistance; no die-hard soldies selling their lives for a few yards of Alsace. The enemy was not to be found.