His face, once proudly bearing a duelling scar, was now devoid of a mouth and half a chin, as metal fragments had carried soft tissue and teeth away in an instant.
Skorzeny screamed with the agony of it all, as best as his ruined mouth would permit.
Beside him, his bodyguard, Odelrich, moaning in pain whilst knelt in a prayer position, face rammed into the mud, his only wound the very obvious gaping hole in his lower back.
Skorzeny’s pain lessened and he became quite calm and focussed.
From his sitting position, he watched as the Soviet tanks rounded on the Gigant and other transports, flaying them with machine-gun fire and 45mm shells.
In short order, the last surviving Gigant was nothing more than a large bonfire, effectively blocking the centre of the runway.
Skorzeny saw the two schwimmwagens bound past, heading for a knot of Fallschirmjager. A handful of lucky men scrambled aboard before the vehicles leapt away again, driving hell for leather towards the Vistula.
The cold started to invade Skorzeny’s innards and, had he retained enough understanding of his wounds, the approach of his death by blood loss would have been apparent.
However, Skorzeny saw only surrendering men of his command being exterminated by the jubilant NKVD troopers.
Odelrich moaned and flopped to one side, his legs useless and uncontrollable.
Gritting his teeth, he levered himself on his elbows, covering the few feet to his commander at great expense to his fading reserves of strength.
He visually assessed the injuries to his CO. Odelrich’s experience of battlefield wounds told him all he needed to know, and his horrified look similarly enlightened Skorzeny.
Shouting disturbed them, and both men could see the approaching NKVD soldiers.
Trying to form words with his ruined mouth took Skorzeny to superhuman effort, but he managed.
“Together, old friend?”
“Ja, Standartenfuhrer.”
Odelrich fumbled for one of his M-39 grenades, the pain of the movement causing him to groan and curse.
The bodyguard unscrewed the cap and took hold of the cord.
Tears of pain streaked Skorzeny’s face as he worked his painful jaw one more time.
“Hals-und beinbruch, Kamerad.”
Odelrich coughed up a gobbet of blood and spat it to one side.
“Hals-und beinbruch, Standartenfuhrer… it has been a privilege to serve with you.”
He pulled the cord.
Four seconds later, both were dead.
When the Gigant had exploded, Von Berlepsch had been on his way to it, hoping to evacuate with the motorised team.
Instead, he sought cover as the huge aircraft spread itself in all directions.
Both schwimmwagens drew close and he risked a swift wave, counting himself fortunate to be noticed against the backdrop of destruction.
Bullets zipped through the air, and three men with the Lieutenant went down in as many seconds.
“Come on man!”
Bancke shouted at his officer, indicating the back seat, from where a wild-eyed Romaniuk and another Storch man were firing at anything in range.
Von Berlepsch threw himself on board, ramming into the Polish Major so hard that he winded the man and knocked the G-43 automatic rifle from his hands.
Any sound the man made was lost in the animal scream from the Fallschirmjager officer, as his broken rib sliced at internal tissue with increasing success.
The schwimmwagen leapt forward, almost bowled over by an adjacent bursting shell.
The second vehicle was not as lucky, and a 45mm HE shell exploded against the driver’s door, killing all six men clinging to it.
Containing only the dead, the shattered vehicle rolled over and over, disintegrating as it went.
Behind the escaping group, the NKVD troopers closed in, accepting surrenders and executing wounded, until the survivors consisted of twenty-eight ‘Storch’ troopers, four Polish soldiers, and thirteen Luftwaffe personnel.
As Bancke’s driver slowed to enter the water, the pursuing tanks fired their last shells, none of which came close.
“Propeller!”
Bancke, familiar with the vehicle’s workings, ran to the back and fixed the propeller in placed, folding it down from its normal travelling position. When in the ‘water’ position, the propeller axle came in contact with a drive in the back of the schwimmwagen’s bodywork.
With the extra man aboard, the driver took it carefully, and the ‘swimming car’ entered the water at low speed.
By turning the steering wheel, the vehicle used its front tyres as rudders, and the overloaded car went with the flow of the Vistula, heading northwards to the Baltic.
The last sounds of battle split the night, as jubilant NKVD troops executed all but the sole officer from amongst the survivors.
The officer’s interrogation, under the direct supervision of Colonel Volkhov, was thorough. For the young Leutnant, it would be a long painful night, but a short life.
The opening engagement of Pantomime had been an unmitigated disaster.
The highest point in the ravaged town of Kolberg was the old water tower, which made it the place that the local NKVD commander had commandeered for his personal observation post
“I swear I saw something, Comrade Polkovnik.”
All five men had binoculars pressed to their faces, using the modest light of the stars and moon to search out to sea.
NKVD Colonel Ilya Bakhatin spoke arrogantly to his Polish superior officer.
“Are your soldiers ready, Comrade Mayor General Kieniewicz.”
The General, commander of the 4th Polish Infantry division, answered positively, although he suspected that the NKVD bastard meant something entirely.
By now, Soviet officers and NCOs attached to units within 1st Polish Army, should have been either taken prisoner or met a silent end, the choice wholly theirs, dependant on their reaction to the impending change.
Colonel Bakhatin of the 4th Polish Infantry’s integral NKVD battalion was Kieniewicz’s responsibility, one he had been relishing.
Removing the binoculars from his face, the Polish General took a step back and nodded to the waiting men.
A few rapid sounding steps drew Bakhatin’s attention, but he had no time to turn before a rough hand clamped over his mouth and a cruel blade punched deep into his vitals.
The Polish General spoke softly in the dying man’s ear.
“Die, you Russian piece of shit. Your war is now lost.”
The Polish general whispered to himself.
‘So, now it starts.’
He viewed the bodies of the six slaughtered NKVD soldiers with disinterest.
“If you please, Chorąży.”
The Warrant Officer had been ready for the order since the contingent had arrived on the roof of the water tower and, in short order, he had three flares floating in the breeze, red-white-red, the signal that the liberation of their homeland was about to start.
The 101st Airborne had landed in the right place, and most of the reduced size division was moving according to orders, although some notable contingents were missing.
Colonel Chappuis, commander of the 502nd, had disappeared, along with every man from his aircraft; divisional command feared the worst.
Bud Harper, Colonel of the 327th Glider Infantry, had recently returned to active duty following a broken foot. That foot and the attached leg were now the subject of debate, as doctors in the casualty clearing station fought to save the damaged limb, following Harper’s glider crash.
Overall, the new and leaner 101st had come off pretty well, with less than a hundred men killed or injured in the drop.