Yes, they fought hard today. But tomorrow we should clear that rail yard and be looking at the airport. As for 10th Motorized down south, their progress has been slow. The British are fighting Schmidt hard there to keep those two royal palaces. Perhaps I deployed that division too far south. He might do better if I sent him up against the airport. That could force the enemy to give up the palaces if they want to defend that end of the field. Yes. I’ll have him move tonight.
We’ve shown that we can push them, but they’re getting a lot of support up from the south. I didn’t think they would fight so tenaciously for this city. I had hoped to get here quicker, run rings around this place, and get them to withdraw like we did on the Euphrates. Well, they aren’t stupid. They know the value of holding this city, and they are putting all their chips in on this number. It will be as I feared. Baghdad will be my Moscow in the desert, and if I cannot go around it, then I must simply fight my way through it, as much as I would wish to do otherwise.
I will still have the 901st Lehr Regiment, perhaps in another day as they come down on the Mosul Rail. Then I must see if there is any more fruit on the tree with a call to OKW. But I must take Baghdad first. Give Hitler this city, and he will be much more inclined to give me another division to garrison it. If I lose this fight and fail to push them out, then I think this Operation Phoenix stops here, and I will get no further support. So everything depends on this—everything.
That evening, a combined kampfgruppe from elements of both panzer divisions smashed their way into the British Sports Club building, which was now a burning wreck. Reinhardt’s Company of Kommandos worked its way south through the snout of Al Zamiyah and slipped over the high stone walls around the Royal Mausoleum. He was soon standing on the tomb of old King Faisal.
The next morning, the Lehr Regiment renewed its assault towards the main bridge and Royal Ferry site. They broke through south of the bridge, exploiting in both direction to a depth of about 750 meters, but the British 2nd Suffolk Battalion remained cool under fire, the Sergeants moving their platoons back into a good defensive arc just 250 meters from the Royal Ferry terminal. Brigadier Reid had set himself up in the Ginning Mill just a couple hundred meters from the east end of the bridge, and he ordered the position reinforced with Assyrian Levy troops. He also had a small SAS company under Lieutenant More, and he sent them across to set up a defensive position at the west end of the bridge.
His battalion of 25-Pounders boomed away at the Germans in that breakthrough zone, hoping to add to the chaos as their fast moving companies rushed into the breech. That attack had actually broken through the lines of Reid’s troops, and it forced his Punjab battalion to fall back south towards the Brick Kilns in the rail yard. For all intents and purposes, they were now part of Brigadier Barker’s 27th Brigade. He had asked for them the previous day, and now they were his to command from a tactical perspective.
Just east of Al Muthana Air Field, there came the sound of firefighting in the Airport Settlement. Hauptmans Feller and Schultz had taken their two Kommando units along the winding west bank of the Khir, and they found a small foot bridge leading into that settlement. Two companies of the 3rd Brandenburg Regiment had followed them, crossing behind them to fan out through the hovels and shacks, scattering the local Arabs like a flock of crows.
At the same time, Schmidt had moved his 20th Motorized regiment north to that sector as Guderian ordered the previous night, and now they had two battalions ready to support that attack. The defense there was part of the 10th Indian Division, under the man that Joe Kingstone had brow beaten on the Euphrates for his inept and sluggish deployments.
Alan Bruce Blaxland had been given the job of defending Al Muthana Airfield, and the two Royal Palaces three kilometers to the south. He was headquartered in the King’s Western Palace, sitting behind a gorgeous polished mahogany desk in a large marble tiled room, with luxurious thick woven rugs—quite comfortable.
Thus far the Germans had seemed to want to evict him from his plush appointments, so he had placed the whole of 21st Indian Brigade right on top of an elevated railway embankment that ran east of the palace grounds, the men lying prone in a good defensive position for a rifleman. He had his 20th Brigade watching the two good bridges over the Khir, but mostly centered on the second palace, that of the Crown Prince, a smaller estate about a kilometer north of the King’s Palace. Well-watered by the Khir, both estates were surrounded by verdant gardens, and the grounds were meticulously manicured, with well-trimmed hedges and pruned shrubbery.
His last Brigade, the 25th under Brigadier Edward Arderne, was the one that mattered now, because Schmidt was shifting his division north, though Blaxland did not surmise this from his sumptuous post. Arderne had moved his HQ company into the Airport Hotel, about two kilometers from the Airfield Settlement, across the broad open flats of the tarmacs and runways.
A career officer, Arderne was with the King’s African Rifles at Arusha, Tanganyika, before the war, where he spent a good deal of his time indulging in a favorite hobby, big game hunting. He found himself in the Western Desert with O’Connor when the war broke out, gave a good account of himself at Tobruk, and won the DSO and a hefty promotion to his present position. He was a good officer, and so when he heard the sound of his own 25-pounders firing at the far end of the airfield, he got up from his breakfast table, got into a staff car, and sped off to see what was happening.
Soon he saw streams of Arabs fleeing across the broad expanse of the airfield, and knew exactly what that meant. He got there just in time to assess the situation, and order his companies to tighten up their lines and concentrate in the settlement, where it was now house to house fighting—or rather hovel to hovel. Standing with his field glasses, he was astute enough to pick out the two different uniforms of the attacking enemy troops, so he got on the radio to Blaxland.
“I think Jerry moved last night,” he said. “He seems to be throwing his left shoulder at the airport settlement. It looks like there’s men from that 10th Motorized Division here.”
“Well, have you covered the position?” asked Blaxland.
“Yes sir, I’ve pulled in two of my three battalions. The 5th Maharatta is still on the railway embankment.”
“Very well. Keep me informed.”
That was all Blaxland had to say, and then he went back to his own breakfast of two poached eggs, biscuits with marmalade, and a stout cup of tea.
“Anything of interest, sir?” asked his adjutant, a Lieutenant Fitch.
“Oh, that was just Arderne running about on the airfield. Nothing to get bothered over. Any more activity on our front?”
“None to speak of, sir.”
“Good. Looks like they don’t want any part of us. I was Johnny on the spot when I spied that good railway embankment. They won’t get in here, that’s for sure.”
It certainly was. General Schmidt was somewhere else.
Part VIII
Bridges to Nowhere
“Happy roads is bunk. Weary roads is right. Get you nowhere fast. That’s where I’ve got—nowhere. Where everyone lands in the end…”