Another Road to Wiltz V4, A Tale of Courage

[Heinrich505]

 

This is an AAR of sorts and a story created around the playing of MarkEzra’s excellent scenario, Another Road to Wiltz V4.  Some of the characters were created by MarkEzra, and I have just fleshed them out a bit in the telling of the tale.  Others came to life as the battle progressed.

As the whole AAR is a “SPOILER,” I’d recommend that you play the scenario first before reading the tale, as some surprises won’t be surprises if you read about them here.  And I strongly recommend the scenario as it has been very nicely done.

So, then, off to a small town called Wiltz.

 

 

Another Road to Wiltz

Capt. Max Dihardt was kicking himself hard for his momentary lapse in sanity.  It was bitterly cold where he was sitting.  And where he was sitting was in a frigging foxhole, just outside of Wiltz, watching a road that he expected the entire German Army to come sailing down, any minute.

And…it was snowing.  Teach me to volunteer, he muttered under his breath, which exhaled in a white cloud.  Never, Never again, he vowed to himself.  He wondered if his new vow was too late for his friends.

He couldn’t even see Wild Bill, and he was barely 190 meters away.  Crazy Ed was way over on the left flank, and Bull Shinisky was back behind him in Wiltz proper, watching the bridge.  What a mess.

Max looked at his watch.  It was around 8:30 AM and still stinking dark.  Hell!!!

The radio crackled to life.  Max was amazed it worked at all in this cold and stared at it for a moment as if it was alive.

“WB to Big D, WB to Big D…sound contacts…over…”

Max wanted his radio operators to go by initials.  Germans wouldn’t get any clues about who was talking if they were monitoring, and he was pretty sure they were.  He knew Wild Bill was calling him.  The Germans didn’t.

“Big D to WD…roger that…size?” he asked.  He was fishing.  Tanks?  Heavies?

“Unknown, Big D…snow muffling things,” was the reply.

And so it was happening already.  Where were the reinforcements that were promised?  General Cota had promised him the sun and moon too, and all he had was his mixed bag of stragglers held together by his friends. 

“Big D to Hoppy…Big D to Hoppy…you hot yet?”  Max was asking FO Hopcroft working Wild Bill’s flank if he had contact with his artillery assets.  Hopcroft was good people. 

“Hoppy to Big D…Negative…,” was the reply.  Max swore quietly.

 

Wild Bill had Sgt. Richardson break up his squad and run a team towards the woods on the flank.  He didn’t want any of the blockheads sneaking around him on the right if the enemy vehicles got cautious.  He watched as several men sprinted through the snow to additional foxholes that were prepared in the tree line.

“Hoppy to Big D…Hoppy to Big D…just made connection…putting quick one on the X…over.”

Max started grinning.  “Roger Hoppy, nice choice,” he replied.  Hoppy was going to drop a quick artillery strike on the intersection just around the bend of the road, around where the vehicle engines were heard.  That might slow them down a bit.  The strike would be coming in around 3 minutes, according to Hoppy’s coded transmission.  He’d pre-registered the coordinates on the intersection earlier.  Of course the Germans did the same thing at intersections – they’d probably be expecting this.

“CE to Big D…CE to Big D…tank engines…over”

The smile that was starting to form on Max’s frozen face went away fast.  Crazy Ed was giving him the word that tanks were now heard on the left flank too.  So, here comes the push, he thinks.  That familiar sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach comes quickly to him.

 

Damn, Wild Bill called it, thinks Sgt. Richardson.  Leonard’s team just opened up on the Germans that were sneaking through the woods.  Bastards.  Richardson could also hear the scream of one of the men.  He knew he’d just sent those guys to their deaths.  They’d have to sprint across the small glade to get back to his position.  Not gonna happen.

Leonard could see the puff of smoke from the enemy rifle.  He fired in that direction as tracers started to rip the underbrush around him.

Captain Dihardt can hear the shooting.  He waits anxiously for reports.  The radio is silent – the men must be busy trying to survive.

 

Sgt. Richardson frantically waves to his bazooka team.  He wants them back from their forward position, as Leonard’s team will surely be overwhelmed by the firepower the Krauts are bringing through the woods.  Knight and his loader start a mad dash back to their Sergeant’s foxholes.

Suddenly machine gun fire opens up on Knight and Fuller.  It is coming from the road, and Richardson focusses on the threat. 

“What the F#$@!” he exclaims out loud.  He sees a US halftrack in the middle of the road, firing a machine gun at his guys.  Damn sneaky Krauts.  “It ain’t one of ours, boys!” he roars.  “They are using our equipment to jack with us.  Aim for the frigging white star!”

His men open up and sparks fly as the halftrack gunner goes silent.  The halftrack backs out of their sight, just as Knight and Fuller throw themselves down into cover, Knight still gripping the bazooka tightly.  How they made it through the hail of gunfire is a wonder.

Wild Bill sees Tully running from the right flank.  The others must be down, he thinks.  It won’t take the Germans long to dust Tully either. 

 

Left Flank

On the left flank, Crazy Ed starts to see that their FO is out of position and might be cut off.  The Krauts are coming in from further to the left, and FO Albert is across the road.  It is too late to call him back though.  The engine noises are getting louder. 

 

Right Flank

Wild Bill sees a hail of gunfire rip up O’Leary’s position.  The crazy Irishman must be down, he thinks, because the BAR goes silent.  He can’t see who got his guys.  Things are going to Hell in a handbasket fast.

 

Left Flank

“Albert to CE…Albert to CE…something just hit one of the mines to my right.  Looks like they are trying that road too…over.”

“CE to Albert…roger that.  Some good news at last…over.”

“AL to CE…bringing some hurt in that area in short order…over.”

CE to Al, appreciate it…out.”  Crazy Ed knows now that his FO is going to drop some arty in the area of the mined road.  The word that the mines actually might be in the right place is very good.

 

Right Flank

Pvt. Citrone hears noises in the woods to his right.  Damn German blockheads are bypassing us, he realizes.  “Follow me, FAST!” he whispers furiously to his two teammates.  He doesn’t wait for them to respond – if they don’t move now then they are dead men.

Pvt. Citrone rushes to the nearby farmhouse and dashes up the stairs to the second floor.  Hopefully he can see better from here as the Germans try to infiltrate past them.  The noisy boot falls reassure him that his friends made it as well.

Wild Bill sees Citrone gesturing wildly towards the woods to the right and realizes quickly what Citrone means.

“WB to Big D…WB to Big D…enemy slipping off to right of my location…over.”

 

Tully’s last stand

Tully is bleeding and desperate.  He abandoned Leonard and Smith in the woods, lying in the snow and screaming.  He had no choice.  Germans were everywhere.  He took a round in the leg in the confusion but made it about 40 yards away in the woods.

Now he hears more Germans and opens up on the trees to the right, trying to make them duck.  He doesn’t see the German armored car rushing across the small glade to his rear.  Moments later the armored car rips his body to pieces.

 

Sgt. Shanley spots a German halftrack in the gloom, trying to force its way off the road and into cover to the right.  He has not seen the US one that Richardson opened up on earlier.  This one has the right silhouette.  He gives the order to his gunner to fire and Mad Max depresses the foot pedals, unleashing 40mm Hell.

 

Pressed into service for anti-vehicle and anti-personnel action, Mad Max is deadly on the trigger of his 40mm AA gun.  Shooting at planes is hard – halftracks move so much slower.  He is grinning as he watches the shells find their target. 

 

In the deadly shower of cannon shells, Shanley sees the arm of the enemy gunner detach itself from the body of the man, and with a death grip on the machine gun trigger, it sprays wild fire into the woods.

The rapid fire of the 40mm cannon lights up the trees with their explosive effect.

 

In the gloom of the early morning, Shanley can now see that a second halftrack is behind the first.  Flickering flames reveal a US halftrack, also ripped apart as the 40mm cannon shells tore through the first and knocked out the second.  It is a two-for-one deal.  Shanley congratulates Mad Max for his excellent gunnery.

Right Flank

Wild Bill has seen BAR fire from the crazy Irishman’s position.  He’s still alive. 

O’Leary finishes bandaging up his partner and chases him off to the rear.  Then he concentrates on the action before him.  A new threat manifests itself in the form of another German halftrack, which seems to have a gun mounted on it.

O’Leary opens up on the halftrack at the same time as Richardson, across the road from him.  The halftrack reverses quickly and backs into the gloom.  He can’t say if he hit anything, but the threat is momentarily over.  He can feel blood wet against his icy cold side.  His only hope is that the cold will slow his blood loss.

 

Left Flank

Crazy Ed is seeing things start to unhinge on his side.  Only three survivors run back from their forward position.  That is 6 casualties.  The battle has just started and he’s losing men in droves.  He hears the crack of a high velocity tank gun and recognizes it for a Panther tank.  Dammit, he thinks, they’ve precious little to counter that beast.

 

Wild Bill sees the death of his friend.  The crazy Irishman takes a 50mm cannon shell in the face and is no more.  There is no time to grieve.

Wild Bill does hear an explosion in the area where the mines were placed on his flank.  He takes small comfort in the possibility that an enemy vehicle has been disabled or blown up.

 

 

[Heinrich505]

The Kid sees them first when a spray of small arms fire ricochets off the steel monster, fired from Murphy’s team, stationed further up on the hill, away from their AT gun position.

“Sssssarge,” he stammers.  “Look, there,” and he points.   

Murphy is looking to the left, for the Panther that ripped up the earlier squad and is firing on FO Albert right now.  “What is it Kid?” he growls. 

“Enemy tank, a REALLY BIG ONE!  And it is covered with infantry.”

“Oh, for the love of Pete,” is all Sgt. Murphy can mumble.  It looks like a frigging Panther, covered with enemy troops, heading right up the road towards their position.  They have just finished turning the gun to the left and now they’ll have to re-adjust again.  He is not sure his gun will be able to take on the frontal armor of a Panther.  Sides, yes, but the front…he just shakes his head. 

The crew get to the business of re-adjusting their gun forward.

Word is flashed back to Crazy Ed.  Tank coming right up the road, with riders.  Crazy Ed is sure his position is now approaching the untenable.  

“CE to Big D…CE to Big D…position disintegrating fast…might not be able to hold much longer…over…”

The radio transmission puts a cold chill of fear up Captain Max Dihardt’s already frigid spine.

 

MP Pvt. Duplessis waves at the tanks of TF Easy as they rumble past his position outside the ammo dump.  He calls over the roar of the tanks to his driver, saying all Hell must be breaking loose if they are rushing all these tanks forward.  His driver nods nervously.

Capt. Ulysses R. Easy is riding the first tank in line.  He is not happy about that position, as this means he will probably be the first to die, but…”Orders Is Orders,” so he leads from the pointy end of the spear. 

He has no real clear idea of what is happening in front of him, but from the flashes on the horizon he is guessing his Task Force was needed many minutes prior to this.  He can’t hear the noise of explosions as the tank engine has rendered him pretty much deaf as well as numb from the rocking and slipping on the rough road, but he doesn’t need to.  He can feel it in his gut.  Bad things are about to happen.

 

Murphy is down, the Kid is screaming with a stomach wound, and only three crew members are still able to work the gun.  The damn Panther got the draw on them as they were starting to turn the gun.   A nearby explosion has rendered most of the crew out-of-action.

Murphy knows they only have seconds to live.  He is coughing up blood while trying to instruct the remaining crew members on how to set the gun up.  They are working feverishly to get the gun ready to fire.  Murphy, lying on his side and peering through the low bushes, can see the enemy tank approaching on the road.  He feels overwhelmed by a total feeling of helplessness.  He had hoped that if he had to die, it would have some meaning.  He wanted to take some of the enemy with him.  Now it looks like that won’t happen. 

“Hurry,” he gasps to his crew.

 

Right Flank

Knight and Fuller are still hunkered down at the crown of the gully.  They crawled up there to take a shot at the German Armored Car that tore Tully apart.  Knight got a shot off with his bazooka and thought he hit the AC, but then the enemy vehicle started firing off smoke pots and everything went gray.  They are still waiting for the smoke to clear and then see about another shot.

“Joe,” whispers Fuller, “I hear boots crunching in the snow.

No sooner has he said this when a German trooper appears, barely 15 meters away.  The two of them immediately open fire.  Joe had to drop the bazooka tube to engage with his rifle.

The German goes down, silently.  Must have been a kill shot, thinks Joe.

 

Suddenly another German looms out of the smoke.  Joe fires two more shots and they miss.  He hears the familiar Tiiiing as the clip is launched out of his rifle, signifying it is empty. 

“Dammit,” he curses as he ducks to yank another clip from his frozen and snow-encrusted web belt.   As he tugs to get it free, the German’s boots crunch the snow even closer.  “Come ON!” he hisses at himself as the web pouch won’t cooperate. 

Fuller’s rifle rips off three more rounds and there is a high-pitched scream, followed by a muffled thud as the enemy hits the ground. 

“Got ‘em Joe,” states Fuller, quietly.  Knight lets out a huge sigh in a white cloud of condensation.  Damn that was close. 

His freezing hands are shaking as he depresses a new clip into the open magazine well of the rifle.  He is not even aware of his hand movements, so practiced are they.  He manipulates the weapon to keep the bold from slamming on his thumb - he remembers the times in basic where he got "M1 thumb" when the bolt shot forward and caught the tip of his thumb.  With the clip locked in and the bolt being held back, he quickly pulls his hand away, the operating rod moves forward and the bolt slams shut with the rifle at full battery.

 

Left Flank

Murphy knows the end is near.  His vision is clouding at the edges and he is having trouble breathing.  All around him he hears the groans of the remains of his AT gun crew.

He can now see the gigantic German tank that is roaring down the roadway.  It is bigger than any enemy tank he has ever seen.  It is NOT a Panther – it is something even bigger.  He instinctively knows that his gun would have done nothing to that behemoth.  He lays his head gently on the snow and waits for death.  It won’t be long in coming.

 

The explosion ends Murphy’s earthly existence.

 

Small arms fire from some of Crazy Ed’s fallback positions now catches the tank riders.  Several drop from the tank and lay still in the snowy road.  The tank commander has his orders, and it appears they are to keep driving no matter what.

Some of the German troopers are firing rapidly at Crazy Ed’s boys to the right of the tank.  Ed knows he has nothing that can stop the giant German tank.

“CE to Big D…CE to Big D…biggest Kraut tank I’ve ever seen, breaking into Wiltz through my position…Sorry I failed you…CE out…”

Crazy Ed doesn’t wait for a reply.  He gets busy with the business of survival. 

Captain Dihardt is unable to reply on the radio.  He can’t form the words.  Crazy Ed is probably not going to make it, along with all those other guys on the left flank.  This is his fault.  If he had never volunteered…

Goodson is high on the ridge, about 78 meters from the giant German tank.  He puts two bazooka rounds into the side of the tank, low around the wheels. 

The tank shrugs the hits off and Goodson and his partner are blown apart moments later.

Crazy Ed knows there is nothing that can stop the monster tank now.  He catches a glimpse of enemy troops in the woods to his left and he and his command staff open up on them.

 

Bridge Position

“Bull to Big D…Bull to Big D…engine noises beyond the bridge…over”

“Roger that, Bull,” replies Max Dihardt.  It was only a matter of time before the Germans worked their way around to press in on the bridge in Wiltz.

Things on the radio get very quiet on the left and right flanks.  Max wonders if Wild Bill has been killed too.

 

Right Flank

Things are not quiet for the bazooka team though.  More German troops try to ease past them, but they are cut down by Richardson’s boys or they turn back.

Just as the smoke seems to be clearing from around the armored car, a 50mm cannon shell rips into the woods near the two of them.  Joe cries out and goes silent.  Fuller knows his partner is hit, but is he dead?  That is the question.

As for the other question, they’ve gotten their answer of sorts.  The armored car is still kicking.  Dammit.

 

 

 

[Heinrich505]

Between the two flanks, Crazy Ed had motioned for a light MG team to hot-foot it over and watch the small road that runs along the top of the ridge.   That fell to Rojetnik and Blake.  They dashed into the woods and took up a spot so that they could barely see the road in the early morning gloom.

They fired at some movement down the road a few minutes before, but then things were quiet.

Then they heard the tank engine.  It was coming right down the road.  Rojetnik knew that Crazy Ed must be psychic, moving them to just the right place.

Well, just the right place, in Rojetnik’s book, would be hiding back in town in some warm bedroom, not on this crazy ridge with a freaking German tank in his lap.

He and Blake ducked down a bit to see if the German would drive on by.  The enemy tank was moving slowly, and Rojetnik figured they were having trouble seeing in the dark.  That meant that someone had to have their head out of the safety of the tank.  It was time to take a look.

 

Rojetnik peered up and saw the German, about 30 feet away, head out of the turret.  “Blake, NOW!” he whispered loudly.  The two of them opened up at the same time.

The German turret was riddled with hits, sparks flying wild as their rounds spanged off the steel beast.

 

Rojetnik could clearly see the German tank commander’s hat ripped off his head by their gunfire…

 

…and seconds later a scream as the tank commander dropped from view.

Rojetnik and Blake ducked down into the trees, hoping that no one in the tank noticed their position.  Their gunfire had to only have taken about 5 seconds.  The tank now moves its turret back and forth, searching for targets.

After about half a minute the tank crew apparently works on getting their wits about them and the tank backs away from Rojetnik’s corner of the road.  The two machine gunners breathe a sigh of relief for now, and concentrate their fire on enemy infantry trying to run down the hill to their left.

About a minute later both are wounded from a tank shell, coming from the main road.  They will have to wait for help, if there is any that will come.  The cold starts seeping into their wounds.  Rojetnik thinks that at least he won’t die alone in the freezing woods.
 

 

In Town - Tank Duel

There is some ungodly squealing of tank treads and the roar of an engine that Henderson has never heard before.  It doesn’t sound real. 

And then he sees it.  “The damn thing is huge!” he exclaims, unaware that he has uttered these words out loud.   His command to fire is drowned out by the blast of his 76mm cannon firing – the gunner didn’t wait for any command. 

Edison is 3 o’clock to Henderson’s tank, on the other side of the road.  The giant behemoth that is slowly – arrogantly? – turning to face them is no German tank he has ever seen before.   In the morning gloom and snow, he can see figures running from the tank.  Infantry. 

Corporal Edison senses movement towards the front of his tank.  The bow gunner is reaching up and getting ready to throw his hatch open.  He has obviously seen the German tank and is panicking, trying to abandon his post.  He is just a clerk, types 50 words a minute and has no combat experience.   

“FIRE!” roars Edison.  The tank lurches with recoil and instantly fills with smoke.  The clerk is thrown forward and then backward from the recoil.  Stunned, he lolls back in his seat, blood running across his face.  He has hit his forehead on something.  Edison has no time for sympathy.  The damn gun on that tank looks like something from a freaking battleship!

Corporal Jackson had been hanging back from Henderson’s tank, not wanting to bunch up, but he’d ordered his driver, some new kid from the pool who said he drove tractors on the farm in Nebraska, to ease forward.  The kid kicked their tank too fast and they roll up on Henderson too quickly.

At this moment, Jackson sees a horrible apparition swing around to face them at the intersection just ahead.  He sees a billow of engine exhaust pour from the German tank as it swings left to face them.  “Lookit that smoke!” he wonders out loud.  The engine must be huge, he thinks.

“Smoke Up,” yells his loader, kicking out the AP round and launching a smoke round into the breech.

“Wait,” Jackson calls, cursing his new crew.  “Put the damn AP back in…”

The gun roars, sending the smoke round racing towards the enemy tank.  “Noooo!” he yells, knowing that the first hit usually wins – they can’t kill with a damn smoke round.  It misses and hits the ground about 10 meters in front of the German.

“AP Up,” shouts the loader as the breech slams shut.  Jackson shouts “Fuuuuu…”

His curse is drowned out as the gunner shouts “Firing,” and the cannon shells is launched towards the enemy tank. 

 

Captain Easy is inside a building next to Henderson’s tank.  He sees a sudden flurry of action among the tanks, and then they all start firing madly, as fast as they can.

“Captain, what the Hell is that?” shouts one of his sergeants, Smitty.  Smitty is pointing out the far window and down the road.

Easy sees the outlines of what can only be a German tank, rolling into the intersection ahead and swinging to face his tanks.  There is a smooth, easy grace to the tank driver’s movements, as if he is supremely confident in his steel beast and nothing can harm him.  Intel never told him about this.

Easy then sees blooms of fire erupt from one, two, and then all three of his tanks as they hurl steel at the enemy.  He also sees – to his great horror – every round ricochet off the enemy tank, sparks flying.  He knows in an instant that his boys are dead already.

Easy sees a giant blast of flame belch from the German tank.  It lights up the surrounding buildings as death comes forth.

The King Tiger replies with an answer of its own – Captain Easy can actually feel the shell rip down the street, sounding for all the world like an out of control freight train.  It misses!

 

Captain Easy hears a new sound, the sound of engines and transmissions screaming, as if the Sherman tanks are alive and shrieking out in horror as they realize they are about to die.  Or is that the men inside them?

Henderson yells “Back, Back and Go Left!”  His young driver’s right foot is shaking with fear and slips off the pedal, slewing the tank to the right as they lurch backwards, but then he recovers and slams the tank to the left, hoping to pull behind buildings.  Henderson has a glimpse of his life passing before his eyes as the kid might have just doomed them all.

Cpl. Edison screams “Back, RIGHT, RIGHT, GO GO GO!” to his driver.  The intercom is no longer needed.  He saw that tank shell rip past them, and figures they are still the prime target for the German. 

Now Edison is just a spectator and his life is in the hands of his crew, such as they are. 

The clerk on the bow machine gun is stirring.  Edison sees his hand reaching up towards the hatch again.

“Shoot your f@#*ing machine gun, you coward!” he snarls at the man.  The clerk’s hand falters, and then firmly grips the machine gun.   Tracers rip down the street, not particularly aimed but perhaps distracting for the German.

Jackson is yelling “Back Left Back Left!” over and over again.  His driver is the sole survivor of a tank crew from a few weeks ago.  He has been paying attention to his surroundings so he is quick on the draw, and he is racing his tank backwards with a cant to the left, crushing hedges and fences alike. 

All three tanks continue to fire their main guns as well, and Capt. Easy sees every shell bouncing off the German tank. 

The King Tiger comes on.

 

The Tiger roars again.  In that instant, Henderson feels icy fingers grip his shoulder.  He knows…

The Easy Eight is hit in the turret by an 88mm tank shell and ripped open in a fiery blast.  Commander, gunner, and loader are all torn apart in the explosion.

The young driver launches himself through the flames, out his hatch, and drops to the street.  He lays there for a second, disoriented.  What to do?  Should I run?  Play dead? 

Panic swells in his chest and he jumps to his feet.  The machine gun on the German tank speaks, and the kid is on the ground again, shot up, but not dead…yet.  Henderson’s bow gunner is down too.

“What was that?” calls Edison’s loader on the intercom.  Edison replies, “Henderson’s gone.”

“More back and right,” he yells to the driver, to distract the crew.  His driver backs them behind houses and takes a position on the side street.

 

Jackson’s driver crushes his way through some fences and continues to careen backwards between buildings.  He is only concerned with survival and doesn’t care what is behind him.  He is full out in reverse, transmission gears screaming.

“Holy Crap!” screams Staff Sergeant Burbank, seeing the Sherman backing wildly, slewing from side to side and heading right for his guys.  “Get to the building!!!  RUN FOR IT!!!” he yells, taking off in a sprint.  The men narrowly avoid being crushed by the Sherman.  The tank misses a large tree trunk by maybe a foot.

 

[Heinrich505]

Edison has his tank take cover on the side street.  He saw two men get out of the front of Henderson’s tank.  Probably the driver and bow gunner.  They went down in a hail of MG fire.  Behind his tank, a bazooka team rushes across the street and into a building, waved ahead by their squad leader.  They are supposed to hunt the enemy tank, if it gets close enough.

 

Van Wyk and Jennings dash across the street behind one of the surviving tanks.  They rush into a small storage building.  Jennings kicks out the wooden slats covering the window while Van Wyk jacks around with the bazooka.  The last time either of them had training on the bazooka was in basic.  They are replacements for 3rd platoon, E Company, assigned to the armored infantry attached to this crazy task force.

The two of them were in line for chow when some ugly sergeant came stomping up to them, pulled them from the line, and threw the bazooka at Van Wyk and had some corporal throw bazooka rockets at Jennings.

“Congratulations boys, you’ve now become Specialists,” the sergeant announced.  Van Wyk didn’t like the way the sergeant was smiling.  It seemed like minutes later they were sitting on the back of some tank and bouncing through the dark countryside, freezing to death, and heading to what had to be some very bad place.

Van Wyk is from Los Angeles.  Jennings is from Brooklyn, NY.  Van Wyk hates Jennings because New Yorkers are arrogant jerks and can’t speak English.  Jennings hates Van Wyk because he has a snooty name and because LA is full of Hollywood assclowns – their team is a match made in Heaven.

“Let’s go, Brooklyn, I hear the damn tank coming.”

“Shaddapa ya mouth, LA.  You want hurry, then load the damn thing yourself.”

“C’mon, you frigging bozo.  The damn tank is coming down the street.” Van Wyk’s voice has gone up just a bit, strained with fear.

“All right, all right, keep ya panties on, LA.  I’m coming.”

Jennings mouth is completely dry.  He is just as frightened as Van Wyk but he will never show it.  His hands are trembling as he smacks Van Wyk hard on the shoulder, alerting him that the bazooka round has been properly seated in the tube. 

Van Wyk props the bazooka tube on the windowsill and lines up on the dark mass of German steel that is trundling down the street.  Then he pulls the trigger as he leads the tank just a little.  He can’t recall if he had his eyes open or not when he fired the weapon.

And…the round impacts on the trunk of the only tree between them and the tank.

“You f%^&ing dumbass, you hit the frigging tree, tha only tree…we are dead men,” screams Jennings.

“F*&# You, you butt hump jackass.  LOAD ME!”  Van Wyk is no longer afraid.  He is humiliated.  He needs immediate redemption.

Jennings fumbles for another round – it is dark in the building.  He gets one, finally gets it loaded and…

“Too f*^@ing late, you cretin.   I’ve got no shot now,” squalls Van Wyk. 

“F#*k that” is all Jennings can come back with.  Did he just call me a cretin? he wonders.  The two of them glare at each other, not willing to accept any responsibility for missing out on getting the tank.  The tank keeps rolling towards Henderson’s blown up tank, machine gun blazing at suspected soldiers on the Tiger’s flank.

 

Edison is trying to calm his men down.  “Steady, steady,” he says with a low voice.  “Wait for it…we get one good shot at this.  We are in the perfect position.”  He knows they are just throwing the dice at this point and the odds of snake eyes or box cars are waaay better than catching a seven.  Everything they’ve thrown at this tank has bounced.  He doesn’t want the men to know that though.  They are horribly rattled as it is.

There the enemy tank is.  It is easing past Henderson’s wreck so expertly that Edison thinks their driver must be a damn professional. 

“Gunner, 12 o’clock, take the shot when ready.”  He adds, “You can’t miss it.  Pick your spot.”  The tank rocks with the recoil and Edison strains to see where they got a hit.  He heard a loud Crrraaaang, and it would have been impossible to miss at this range – probably only 20 meters away.  Point blank.

The tank is smoking and it has stopped.  The loader is already slamming another AP round into the breech.  Dammit, no flames, thinks Edison.  “Good hit,” he calls.  “Hit him again.”  He thinks he sees a hole in the lower hull of the giant, but he’s sure it is not dead yet.  Their gun roars once more.

 

“Corporal, movement.  They are bailing out,” shouts his driver.  Edison sees one man leaping from the turret.  Then another leaps from the bow gunner side of the enemy tank.  Edison’s bow gunner doesn’t waste a moment, opening up on the Germans.  He is still smarting from being called a coward and he will have retribution.  The German crew are cut down with no mercy.  He also accidentally rips up the driver of Henderson’s tank, the Kid.  The bow gunner caught rounds as well, but it is too dark to see and none of them heard the crunch as the giant German tank crushed the man’s body to red paste.

 

Crazy Ed calls to his small band of survivors to bail the hell out of their position.  As he jumps and turns, a hidden German MG unit cuts him down.  His second, Tech Sgt. Roth sees him fall, a look of surprise on his face, and he is no more.  Roth takes a moment to double check, but Crazy Ed stares at him with glassy eyes that will never blink again.

Tech Sgt. Roth runs as fast as he can out of the death trap.  He doesn’t know if he will end up like Ed but he thinks only of saving his own skin.

 

Fuller sees Knight motionless and he loses it.  He crawls back to Richardson’s foxhole area.  He is panting and has a wild, glassy-eyed look on his face.

Sgt. Richardson grabs Fuller and starts shaking him, admonishing him for leaving his buddy and, while trying to keep his voice down, he orders Fuller to get back up there and save the fricking bazooka.

Fuller looks at him dully, not understanding.  Richardson gets close up in his face and says, “Those bastards just killed your best friend.  You gonna let them get away with that?”  His face is an angry snarl.

Realization suddenly floods into Fuller’s eyes.  Wordlessly, he turns towards the body of his friend, and begins to crawl back up the slight rise.  Richardson nods quietly in approval.

Fuller can feel his heart pumping in his head.  It is an angry sensation, drowning out all audible senses.  He no longer feels the cold, or sorrow, or anything else but a cold insensate rage that is building inside him.  Fuller reaches his friend and gently turns him over.  Joe is dead, half his face gone from the 50mm cannon explosion. 

Fuller doesn’t react to this horrible vision.  He simply pulls the bazooka from Joe’s lifeless fingers, and then he goes to work, easing forward, looking for the killer of his friend.

Wisps of smoke finally clear, and Fuller can see the armored car, sitting there, watching him.  He thinks for a minute he can hear the enemy crew gloating at the death of his friend, and waiting to kill him too.  He doesn’t care anymore.

 

Fuller lines up the bazooka – Joe’s bazooka – and lets fly with a shot.  He can’t miss.

 

The armored car is ripped open with a tremendous fiery explosion. 

 

There are no survivors.  No screams are heard from the funeral pyre that was an armored car. 

Fuller rests his head in the snow for a moment.  Joe would be proud, he thinks.

[Heinrich505]

Lt. Bull Shinisky has been watching the forest closely, while at the same time trying to keep tabs on the gunfire and explosions happening to his rear and left.  Things have been quiet here, but he knows it is only a matter of time.  Too quiet means trouble is about to spring.

And there it is.  Gunfire from across the river, from one of his BAR positions in the building on the left.  He doesn’t know their names yet.  There wasn’t time when they cobbled together this ad-hoc combat group.  They must have seen something or got so rattled that they fired at shadows.

Scully has been staring out into the morning gloom, peering between snowflakes, trying to determine if he is only seeing shadows or the real thing.

That is the danger when working these outposts.  You always fight the cold and the fatigue while desperately trying to keep your alert level wired tight.  You start to see things that aren’t there.

Scully wipes his eyes again with his frozen crusty glove.  He thinks for the hundredth time that maybe he should take a leak while it is quiet.  Wait…he freezes…what was that?  “Jim,” he calls in a low voice.  He is suddenly wide awake as fear causes an immediate adrenaline hit, all thoughts of relieving himself forgotten. 

“Not sure,” whispers Jim.  “It might…be…KRAUTS!” he yells.  Jim opens up with his M1.  Scully is only a second behind.

Moments later they are both down, cut up by accurate enemy fire.

 

Capt. Easy orders up a squad of engineers.  He wants that German tank knocked out for sure.  The engineers approach gingerly and drop grenades down the open hatch.  It is done.  The German tank commander lies dead in the street next to his crew.  One of the engineers shivers as he quickly counts the number of hits across the front of the German tank that only scored the armor.  It is almost un-killable.

 

Captain Easy finally gets Capt. Dihardt on the radio.  The report is bad.  Left flank is probably completely collapsed.  There has been no word from them for a while.

Right flank is holding, but just barely.  Enemy troops have probably slipped past their positions.  The bridge in town reports that enemy infantry is trying to infiltrate around their roadblock position.

Capt. Easy can hear enemy tanks easing closer in the morning gloom.  He shudders, thinking that if they have more of the smoking beast 40 meters away from him, they don’t have much of a chance to stop the Germans.

 

One of Dihardt’s staff yells and points.  The Captain turns to look to his left flank.  There, on the crown of the ridge that separates his position from the left flank is a halftrack.  He snaps his binoculars to his eyes and…shaking his head, he wipes the lenses clear of snowflakes.  He thought he saw a US halftrack. 

“It’s one of ours,” calls Benson, relief in his voice. 

“Hold on,” cautions Dihardt.  “Something here doesn’t smell right.  We’ve got no troops in that area.  That is where the Germans are coming from.”  He peers through his binoculars again.  It is hard to see in the morning darkness and with snow coming down, even harder.  He sees the outline of a US helmet though.

“Stragglers?” wonders Benson. 

Just then, the US halftrack opens fire on some target back in town.

“Fire, Fire, Fire,” shouts Dihardt’s sergeant.  “They are Krauts!”

The men open up on the halftrack but it is way off.  Their fire will be ineffective, thinks Dihardt.

Then the German MG gunner opens up on their position with a 50 cal.  Benson is ripped open.  “Everyone DOWN!” shouts Dihardt.  As he hits the bottom of his foxhole Dihardt thinks, so this is what it is like on the receiving end of a fifty.

Just over 40 meters away, Wild Bill sees 50 cal fire ripping up Dihardt’s position.  “The Krauts are definitely behind us now,” he says out loud to his guys, “and they are using our equipment.”

Private Atak is staring hard into the semi-darkness.  He is not sure what he is seeing.  “Mugs,” he calls to his partner.  “You see that?”

“I don’t see crap,” retorts Mugs.  Mugs is still angry at being swept up into this goat hump.  He could be back in the rear, with the gear, serving that swill the Army calls food right now.  But Nooooo, he had to be hand-selected by Sgt. Buttface for this job.   Kee-riest, he ain’t no combat infantry.  He’s a damn cook, and now he’s about to get his butt shot off.

“You know the damn sergeant had it out for us the moment we arrived,” he snarls angrily to no one in particular.  Since Atak is the only one with him on the third floor of this house, overlooking that crumby bridge they are supposed to guard, then Atak gets to hear him.

“Shut the F*^&k up, you douche,” Atak snaps back.  “Krauts are out there and I think they got one of our Shermans.”

“Go ahead then, ya frigging Boy Scout.  Signal Sgt. Bull, since ya wanta be a damn hero.  You got anyting ta eat?”  Mugs is so used to sneaking food while serving the soldiers in his chow line that he’s added a few pounds and is not accustomed to being hungry.

Atak ignores him and starts blinking his flashlight at the windows across the street, where he knows Sgt. Bull is holed up.

Sgt Shinisky sees the flashes of light and opens his window.  “What ya got, Lucky?” he calls across the street, silent with drifting snow.

“Sherman,” calls Atak, trying to keep his voice low.  “About 240 meters, just sitting there.”  Shinisky nods and waves that he got the message.  “Not ours” he calls back.  Atak makes an Okay signal.

“Sgt. Bull says it ain’t ours,” he announces with certainty to Mugs.  “Nuthin out there is,” Mugs replies.  “Damn I’m hungry.”

Atak ignores him.  That Sherman out there looks nasty and it has his full attention.

 

Captain Easy has been alerted to another German tank.  Apparently this one is not as big as the previous one.  Thank heaven for that, he thinks.  It is just sitting there, at the head of the road, like a wild beast sizing up the danger, sniffing the air for scent, uncertain.

Then Easy sees the exhaust pour from the rear of the tank as the engine revs.  Apparently the tank has made up its mind and is coming for them.  He checks around to see if his bazooka positions are all set.  It is too dark to see.  He crosses his fingers without even realizing it.

 

Van Wyk is watching closely this time.  He sees the enemy tank rolling down the middle of the street.  “Come on, baby, come ta Papa,” he whispers. 

“You gonna shoot?  Sometime today?” 

Jennings needs to just shut up, thinks Van Wyk.  He concentrates.  A little closer, yeah, come on. 

“Any Fricking time,” baits Jennings. 

“He’s slowing.  Can’t you see, you blind jerk.  He’s gotta stop to maneuver around the dead tanks.  Now let me do my job,” he hisses.

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t hit the F#@*ing tree,” taunts Jennings.

Van Wyk sighs.  Always the last word with him.  The tank has stopped, just as he knew it would.  Van Wyk’s answer to Jennings is the loud roar as the rocket ignites and rips its way towards the enemy tank. Hopefully Jennings is behind the bazooka for the backblast, thinks Van Wyk, smiling.

 

The round hits the side armor of the enemy tank.  It isn’t clear if the round has penetrated or been set off by the skirt armor.  At the same time, a rifle grenade comes from across the street…and hits a tree. 

The surrounding carnage is lit up by the explosions.  Dead tanks and dead tank crew are illuminated as the snow drifts silently down.

On the other side of the street, McDougall lets fly with his bazooka round, hitting the other side of the German tank.  It is not a kill, as he sees the tank slowly turn its gun towards the building they are in.  The backblast from the bazooka round has stunned his loader and him.  He struggles to regain his wits, knowing they are about to be killed.

 

 

The German tank commander must be confused, thinks Captain Easy.  The tank turret keeps swinging back and forth, the beast looking for its tormentors.  It has been hit by two bazooka rounds already.  The crew must know they are on borrowed time.

Captain Easy sees the gun traverse to the right, as the gunner now desperately seeks to line up on the house with a bazooka team inside.  They must have seen the smoke, thinks Easy, as even he can see the wisps curling from a window.  He hopes those guys found a good hiding place.

 

In the dark, the frantic gunner overcorrects his aim, and lets fly a round right into the side of Henderson’s dead tank.  There is a tremendous explosion and flames erupt from the tank, illuminating the dead sprawled around the dead tanks.

 

Captain Easy watches, fascinated by the terrible scene before him.  The German tank driver deftly maneuvers his tank around the wrecks, smashing through a fence in the process. 

At the same time, Van Wyk lets fly another bazooka round that only partially penetrates the tank around the front left side. 

“How’s that, Brooklyn?” Van Wyk gloats.

“He ain’t dead yet, Hollywood,” says Jennings with an ugly smirk, as he shoves another rocket into the bazooka. 

“What?” exclaims Van Wyk, alarmed, as he quickly looks out the window of the shed.  The damn thing is still moving.  “Damn!” is all he can choke out, shock in his voice.

Jennings is smiling a sort of crooked, cruel smile as he slaps Van Wyk on the back again, yet another rocket loaded.

 

Edison has heard the engine of the enemy tank.  He has positioned his tank in what he figures is the perfect knife-fighting position.  They have been sitting here for several minutes, the engine idling, gun loaded, just waiting for the next target.

He hears the bazooka rounds going off, one, two maybe, oh, man, was that three?  If this is another big one, they are really rolling the dice.

He also heard the German tank fire, and now he sees the building across the street lit up.  He wonders what is burning.  It isn’t the enemy, because he still hears the engine.

And there it is, looming through the flickering light.  The gunner makes a small adjustment – he can’t miss at this range.  The gunner hears Edison quietly say “Fire,” and he depresses the trigger.

The gun roars and he sees flames through his gunsight. 

“Kill,” announces Edison simply.  Then, with more feeling, “Watch for the crew!”

 

Through the smoke and flames figures are seen crawling out of the burning tank, their uniforms smoldering or trailing crimson tendrils. 

Captain Easy watches in horror as the Germans hit the ground, some burning, yet they don’t scream or run around.  They are lining up their weapons, which they took the time, even in the flames, to bring with them to continue the fight. 

What are these men? he thinks.  Machines?  Are they even human?  They must be madmen! 

 

The German crew are quickly cut to pieces by nearby GIs in the surrounding buildings and by Edison’s bow gunner.  His forehead has stopped bleeding and he believes he has now redeemed himself in the eyes of his tank commander.

Lt. Conrad and his forward observer team look down from a nearby rooftop at the horror spread below them and eerily lit by the burning tanks.  He has no words to describe it, but it will stay with him in his dreams, if he survives this morning. 

 

[Heinrich505]

Far removed from the Hell that is going on in town, Captain “Red” Bonze and his Recon Cavalry have been working their way up the left flank.  His orders are to recon up the flank and report back.  They never got the word that the left flank has collapsed, so he is blindly moving forward, probably into lines of infiltrating Germans. 

So far, he and his close-knit scouts have been moving forward, leapfrogging around the think forests, stopping and watching, and then bounding forward again.

Red is in his customary M8 armored car, and he’s been up front most of the time.  His men are keeping radio silence as usual.  If they see something worth reporting, then they will.  Everyone is pretty much in eyesight of the others.  He wants it that way.

Then he sees Bader wheel his Chaffee light tank off to the right, rushing in through a gap in the woods.  He is now out of sight, and this worries Red, but since Bader didn’t say anything, he must be just checking something to make sure.

Bader has seen movement, but he isn’t sure if it is their side or the enemy.  He pushes his little tank up through a gap in the woods and then has the driver ease up to a hull down position so he can see the road ahead.

Bader sees a gout of smoke and one of those anti-tank things the Krauts use rips over the top of his tank.  “Who saw that?” he yells.  Everyone has been looking but no one saw where it came from. 

Bader hears the next one.  It is too late.

 

The panzerfaust hits the lower hull of his tank, with predictable results.  Bader doesn’t remember how he got out of the tank, but he is in the snow, desperately trying to get his wits about him.  Those damn rockets are close assault types.  The Krauts have to be near, maybe 20 meters or so in the nearby bushes.

Bader hears a choked scream from inside the tank.  He senses figures around him.  Some got out, he thinks.  “Go GO GO!” he shouts, “We’ll come back for him.”  He jumps up and dashes away from his tank and down the embankment they just drove up.   There is gunfire behind him but the others stay with him.  They duck down in the underbrush, momentarily out of sight of the Germans.  One of the men says “Damn, Bradley was just with us and he didn’t make it.”

Bader thinks, now there are just the three of us.  He feels sick.  Red is gonna kill me, is his next thought.

 

Sgt. Richardson is still holding the furthest outpost on the right flank, but now it is just Fuller and him.  Everyone else in his 1st squad A team have been killed or wounded.  He’s already sent the wounded to the rear after patching them up, but it is now just two of them.

Sgt. Richardson knows that they are staying put only because he wants to.  Wild Bill would easily give them the freedom to flee back towards the rest of the Dihardt’s, but Richardson is not so sure they could do this now, with enemy infiltrated past them in the woods to their right.

He was contemplating a mad dash up the road back to where Wild Bill is, but then that damn Kraut 20mm gun on a track tried to slip through the wrecks near the bend in the road.  That gun got knocked out when the boys on the opposite rise opened up and shot them down off their exposed platform.  Only one guy was seen running back around the bend.

But now, well now they are truly toast.

A damn assault gun is easing around the wrecks in the road.  Richardson is waiting for the 40mm AA gun to open up, but for some reason they are silent.  He looks uneasily towards Fuller but the bazooka gunner is quiet, watching the enemy vehicle approach.  Fuller has the bazooka resting out of sight on the edge of the foxhole.  Richardson has seen Fuller’s work and he shivers involuntarily.

Fuller has only 4 bazooka rounds left.  He knows he has to make them count.  He will not fire until the assault gun is almost at their position.

The German driver eases past the wrecks in the road and now opens up the throttle.  The assault gun is really rushing up the road.  Richardson thinks this is very reckless.  He glances again at Fuller, but apparently the man is waiting for the best possible shot.

As the assault gun starts to pass their position, and the tension is so great that Richardson wants to scream out SHOOT, DAMMIT, the roar of the bazooka sounds and the round hits the side of the enemy gun.  The assault gun continues to rush past.  Dammit, a hit but not a kill, thinks Richardson.

Fuller is calmly loading another rocket now, in a smooth and practiced manner.  Joe was the gunner and he was the loader, so he knows this part well.  And, the damn gun is so close that he can’t hardly miss.

Fuller has the bazooka loaded again as the German assault gun starts to slow and then stops.  Smoke rounds cascade from the front of the German gun, and now gears scream as the enemy vehicle launches into reverse. 

Fuller smiles to himself, and pulls the trigger again.  The bazooka rocket rips into the German gun once more.

 

Richardson sees the German assault gun still backing after getting hit by the second bazooka round.

“Time to go, Fuller.  Pack up and roll,” he orders. 

Seconds later a 75mm shell from a Panther that neither of them had noticed tears them apart.

Wild Bill sees the shot that blasts Fuller and Richardson’s position.  He is pretty sure they bought the farm.  He sees figures running away through the smoke that is building from around the assault gun.  Did the gun get knocked out? he wonders.  Fuller and Richardson will never know.

Wild Bill is sure it is the beginning of the right flank collapse.

 

A wicked artillery barrage now falls on Wiltz.  The rounds come down like rain.  Building after building are blown apart.

Capt. Easy abandons his position and runs for a building further away from the barrage.  He waves at the infantry that are exposed and hiding behind a hedge, screaming they should seek cover right away.

The Captain makes it to cover, and sees the carnage.  A brilliant explosion occurs right where Edison had backed his tank up.  The tank is torn by a direct artillery hit.  There are no survivors.

Van Wyk screams as artillery shrapnel rips into the shed they are hiding in.  Jennings scrabbles over to his position to check him.  The man is dead. 

So much for Hollywood, thinks Jennings.  Now, to get the bazooka and get the heck…

The next hit is directly on the shed.  Jennings will never get to taunt Van Wyk again. 

Captain Easy can’t believe his eyes.  Moments before he actually had a cohesive position that was holding the Germans up.  Now, everything is in shambles.  That damn artillery – he should have seen it coming.

 

On the right flank, the Panther tank that killed Fuller and Richardson drives right on past the 40mm AA gun, sweeping them with machine gun fire.  They are apparently on some timetable and can’t be delayed to finish off the gun. 

Mad Max climbs back into his gunner seat.  His sergeant is down.  He is looking for something to shoot.  Payback is in order.

 

None of the leaders now have any sort of clear picture of the situation.  Captain Easy has been out of radio contact as he relocated away from the artillery strike.  On the right flank, Wild Bill has been ducking in his foxhole and trying to avoid a rampaging Panther tank, as has Captain Dihardt.  The left flank is gone.

Red Bonze is reconning way off on the left flank, having lost a tank to an ambush by infiltrating Germans.  Pops Dixon has slowed his advance on the far right, as his engineers have picked up engine sounds near the bridge that runs into Wiltz.

That leaves Lt. Bull Shinisky, still guarding the bridge into Wiltz.  He is warily watching what has to be an enemy-crewed Sherman, just shy of the bridge.  The whole situation is maddening because the AT gun he had ordered hidden near the road has failed to get a shot on the damn tank.  The enemy Sherman is just sitting there, broadside to the AT gun, probably about 50 meters or so away.  He wants to scream.

“Hey, LT, something going on at the ford just up from our position,” calls out Chase, his radioman.

“What now?” growls Bull.  He checks in that direction with his binoculars and sees…Krauts…wading through the waist-deep water of the ford.  “That’s just what we need,” he spits out.

Why would the Germans’ cross the river at that point?  Have they lost their bearings in the woods?  And, are they insane?  That water is just barely above freezing and they are wading waist-deep in it.  Their clothes will freeze for sure.  It is snowing and even with all his clothes on, Bull is shivering from the icy cold wind that is twisting through the frozen trees.

 

To Be Continued...

[Heinrich505]

LT Bull Shinisky is pulling his hair out.  The Germans are swarming the other side of the river and the AT gun still won’t fire.  They can’t be that blind, can they?

Bull sees his lone outpost man break and run.  He’d been holding well, until the Germans started to swarm the woods near his foxhole.  Now, the man decides he has held the enemy off enough and he breaks and runs.  He makes it maybe 30 meters before he is cut down.  Bull doesn’t know if the guy is dead or wounded.  What is that guy’s name? he wonders.

That does it.  Bull is fighting mad now.  He waves to Anderson, off to the right in a foxhole concealed near the river.  Anderson nods when he sees Bull point in the direction of the enemy Sherman.  He was under orders not to fire until armor drove onto the bridge, but apparently those orders have changed.

Anderson lines up his shot, hefting the familiar weight of the bazooka.  Might be about 130 meters, give or take.  The high silhouette of the Sherman is helping.  Never had to fire on one of our own tanks before, he thinks, and fires the bazooka.  The round drops short.  Anderson’s loader is hurriedly loading the next round.

 

Sgt. Roland has been debating about taking a wild shot through the underbrush towards the area where the enemy Sherman has to be.  He wants the shot to be perfect.  They really can’t afford anything less.  Once he fires, the enemy will know where he is hiding.  There are already Germans behind them in the woods.  His position is fast becoming untenable.

“Can you see anything?” he asks his gunner.  Scott has forgotten how many times he’s been asked this in the past 7 or so minutes.

“Maybe the rear drive wheels,” he patiently replies…yet again.

“I’m taking a big chance on this,” states Roland.  Geez, thinks Scott, all this guy does is “take a big chance” on every frigging thing. 

“Take the shot?” he asks.

“Take it!” says Roland.

Scott depresses the trigger and the gun bucks and roars.  Scott sees the hit on the rear drive wheels of the enemy tank.

 

The tank roars to life, starting to turn the turret in their direction while it lurches forward.

“Miss!” shouts the sergeant.  “Hit it again!” 

Miss my Ass, thinks Scott.  I hit the damn thing, right where the sergeant wanted me to.  Scott hears the breech swing open, a deadened clang as the casing is ejected, and the familiar rasp of a shell being shoved home.  Bucky is right on the job, thinks Scott.  A better loader one cannot find.

 

Scott doesn’t wait for the sergeant – he’s already been told to fire again and the flat side of the Sherman is now visible, as the tank driver pulls the tank forward.  The turret had started to swing away from them, and a bazooka round impacts nearby.

The gun bucks again, flame whooshing from the barrel, and the enemy tank takes a hit broadside.

“Yeah!” exclaims Scott. 

 

It is a kill.  Flames start slowly and then build as hatches are thrown open.  The crew are trying to escape their flaming coffin.

Sgt. Roland gives Scott “The Eye” and starts to say “Wait for my comma…” when enemy rounds rip around their position.  Charlie lets out a loud grunt and topples over, blood splashing the other gun crew members. 

Scott is now on auto and he fires the gun several more times, without receiving a command, because Roland is on the ground taking cover.  Scott has no idea how Bucky knew but he is reading minds this night.  Scott is just pulling the trigger but Bucky is throwing HE into the breech now, and Scott sees the German tank crew getting torn up from his gunfire.

 

Someone yells “Left” and Scott turns the wheel levers to swivel the gun in that direction.  He sees several German infantrymen who are retreating across his line of fire.  They were probably the ones that were shooting at him moments ago, he thinks.  The gun roars again and he thinks he hears screams as the Germans are cut down. 

 

Germans are infiltrating from behind the AT gun position.  Another gun crewman gets wounded. 

Sgt. Roland hears the roar of a tank engine and looks up just in time to see a German assault gun racing past their position at top speed.  There is no time to warn the gun crew or even take a shot.  The German must have figured his only chance at breaking past the AT gun position was to race past at top speed.

Scott sees the assault gun race past and orders the men to turn the gun to the right, but they are too late and can’t see the vehicle any more.  The air turns blue with the curses of the gun crew.

Lt. Shinisky sees the mad charge of the German assault gun.  It has stopped just short of the bridge.  It is a very good target now.

He is waving like a madman at Anderson to take a bazooka shot at the gun as it sits at the head of the bridge.  Anderson had his head down, trying not to get shot by advancing German troops, and he only sees Bull’s signals by accident when he slowly raises his head to see what engine was roaring.

Anderson immediately figures out the situation and takes a fast shot at the German.  The shot goes high.  The assault gun then lurches forward and, engine screaming, it races across the bridge.  Evidently the commander didn’t want to wait to see if the bazooka man would miss on a second try.

The assault gun roars past Bull’s position so quickly that he and his squad are not able to toss grenades onto it.  The enemy gun then stops at the break in the road, facing the church, unsure of how to proceed.

 

Anderson is angry at his miss.  He missed the damn Sherman and now he missed the assault gun.  He sees Bull in the window, waving frantically towards the rear.  Anderson knows what comes next.  He and his loader, Benson, are being ordered back along the buildings to hunt for the enemy gun.

“Let’s go,” he says simply, and he leaps up and sprints away from the river, the loader slightly behind him because he is lugging the rockets.

Anderson picks up momentum and uses a building wall to stop himself.  His loader drops on the ground in front of him, panting.  “Holy Crap,” gasps Benson, and Anderson sees what caught the loader’s eye.

Wordlessly, he brings the bazooka to his shoulder, lets out his breath to steady the weapon, and squeezes the trigger.  The round flashes from the tube and cuts into the side of the assault gun. 

“Yes!” shouts Benson.  Anderson is not sure.  There is no movement and no fire.  Is it a kill?  Benson is already shoving another rocket into the tube.  Now Anderson sees the hatches fly open.  The crew, what is left of them, are bailing out.

[Heinrich505]

 

Sgt. Jackson is aware that he and Peterson, commanding a Sherman 105, are the only armor left in town.  This makes him feel nauseous.   He’s hidden his tank behind a house so he can see anything coming from the left flank, but this leaves him open on the right.  He thinks Peterson has that covered, as he’s heard the big 105 booming several times. 

Jackson sees the side silhouette of a Panther rushing down the side street.  He knows the reputation of Panthers.  He’s only got a quick shot at the side.  He thinks it will work.  He gives the order to fire and his gunner slams a shell right into the side of the Panther. Perfect!

Jackson is watching the enemy tank for signs of life while his loader rams another AP shell into the breech.  With all the excitement and their focus on the Panther, he doesn’t see a German armored car rushing up the street, and about to get a shot on his flank.

“Damn fine shooting!” he commends his gunner.

They are dead and they don’t even know it.  Tracer rounds from a 30 cal across the street start ripping up the side of the armored car, but this will only prove to be a distraction.

 

The explosion is loud and final.  Jackson hears the hit and quickly turns to the right.  A bazooka team from across the street has slammed a rocket right into the side of the armored car, thereby saving Jackson and his crew.  The survivors of the armored car bail out and some are cut down by the machine gunner across the street who initially sprayed the armored car.

Jackson looks into the frightened faces of his crew.  He wonders if his face is as pale as theirs.  Not likely, he thinks, as everyone’s faces are sooty and grimed from the constant smoke venting out of the tank after it fires.

“We gotta buy those guys a lotta beer!” is all he can gasp.  The pucker factor is alive and well in his tank.

 

“Sarge, TAAAANK!” yells the driver.  “Twelve o’clock!!!”

“Whaaaa…another one?”  Jackson is ripped from the momentary revelry of being saved by the bazooka team, and looks forward again.

Jackson feels the turret turn as his gunner makes fast corrections and then the tank gun roars again.  There was never time to give the command.

“Hit” calls out the gunner. 

“He’s backing,” calls out the bow gunner.  Jackson can see the enemy Panther showing frontal armor now.  It seems to be personally searching for him.  That 75mm cannon looks horrible.

 

The Panther takes a snap shot and Jackson’s tank explodes in flames.  Jackson and his turret crew are the only ones to climb through the flames and run for cover.  They are bleeding and burned but they don’t realize this, as shock and adrenaline are working overtime. 

Captain Easy hears the explosions all around.  He sees the light from the fire that used to be one of his task force tanks.  Well, he thinks to himself, you’ve sure botched things up royally now.  Task Force Easy is pretty much non-existent.

 

Jackson can’t stop himself from running.  He’s never had panic take him over like this.  As he runs, his men follow.  A bright spot lights up the smoke that is obscuring the street from Jackson’s burning tank.

An angry Panther is stalking down the street, and Jackson’s men are the target.

 

A huge explosion goes off behind Jackson.  He heard the first scream when the machine gun opened up.  The second scream is from more of his crew.  He can’t stop running though.  Another burst from the Panther’s turret machine gun and Jackson lies, five feet from the door of a house, eyes staring vacant.

 

In quick succession, the charging Panther takes a rifle grenade to the front…

 

…and then a bazooka hit to the right side.  The driver throws the tracks into reverse as the tank puts a shell into the house where the bazooka round came from.

 

The Panther then backs down the road and right into a bazooka rocket that hits in the rear.  

 

A second Panther roars through the smoke from Jackson’s dead tank.  It cuts down the bazooka man that hit the first Panther.  Lieutenant Kay had been hiding in a nearby building but the sight of two Panthers roaring down the street, seemingly impervious to bazooka rounds, is too much for him.

LT Kay breaks from cover and starts running down the street.  His trusty Sergeant instinctively follows, and they find themselves running down the street alongside the angry Panthers that are shooting up everything they can see.  This cannot end well.

 

Corporal Peterson saw the rampaging Panthers as they steamed out of the smoke from Jackson’s tank.  He ordered his driver to reverse fast, before they were seen.  The Panther was distracted by Jackson’s crew running in headlong flight across the street.  Peterson was able to back safely into the side street.  In point of fact, they probably owe their lives to Jackson and his crew.

Peterson knows the tanks will be rumbling up the street.  He has the gunner get ready for a snap shot.  “We won’t have much time for this,” he tells his gunner.

And there it is.  The gunner yells out, but the Panther is rushing by at speed and he cannot turn the turret fast enough.

“Don’t bother,” exclaims Peterson.  “Get ready for the next one.  We know it is coming.”

 

The gunner had the turret on fast revolve and as he stops it, he has turned almost to the 3 o’clock position. 

“There it is!” he yells suddenly.  Through his gunsight he can see the Panther.  It has slowed or stopped for some reason, and the road rises just enough that the gunner can see over the wall to the church compound and through the wide gate opening in the wall to the church.

“Let ‘em have it!” bellows Peterson.  The gun roars as the HEAT round, one of only 5 they have in the tank, rips from the barrel and crashes through the rear of the Panther.

The flames are instant and bright.  Two smoldering figures are seen floundering in the flames, and then running from the tank.  They are ripped apart by BAR gunfire from a nearby house.  There is no mercy.

 

[Heinrich505]

In what seems to be an instant replay, the wounded Panther now makes a dash for the first Panther’s position. 

Peterson sees the second Panther cruising past their position and he orders his driver to chase.

“Open it up, Roy,” he shouts, “Chase him down.”

The tank lurches forward but the gunner is now turning the turret again, as if to repeat the previous shot.

Blake sees it all happening again, and he yells out “He’s stopping behind the burning Panther.  I think I’ve got him.”

“Do IT!” shouts Peterson.  Before Roy can slow or stop the tank, Blake lets fly with another shell.  The crew is rewarded with a brilliant flash of flame from the rear turret of the Panther.  It is another fine shot by a tank gunner in an unfamiliar tank, commanded by a corporal who was orphaned from his crew less than a week ago.

“Yes, Yes, Yes!” exclaims Peterson.  “Damn fine crew!”  His sentiment is genuine and the crew starts to gel even more.  They are liking this brash corporal who seems to know just where to hide and just when to strike.

The artillery observers see the whole thing from a nearby rooftop.  It looked like both Panthers had a free shot at the ammo dump just a little further down the road.  Now they are both blown up by some amazing work from a Sherman 105 that isn’t even supposed to be tank hunting.

 

Captain Easy is not resting easy.  From his forward position, he sees a tank duel that ends with Jackson’s tank blown up.  He remembered Jackson, a good guy, quick with a smile.  Now he is probably dead in his tank. 

Next thing he knows, he is face down in the snow, with something pinning his legs down and some confused shouting in his ear.

It is his sergeant, Barkley.  “What the F*&^?” he manages with a confused look on his face.

“Captain, you went nuts!” he shouts in Easy’s face.  “You grabbed the bazooka and ran out the back door, yelling something about ‘getting the bastard.’”  I hadda chase you down and tackle you.  There ain’t no rounds for the damn bazooka.  IT IS EMPTY!”

Easy sees the Panther as it is trying to maneuver around another dead tank.  A chill goes up his spine at how close he came to buying the farm.  He pats the sergeant on the shoulder with a snowy glove and manages an embarrassed “Good Man.”

Barkley grabs his arm and yanks him to his feet, yelling “Follow me!” and, half dragging the Captain, they rush to the relative safety of another nearby house.

Easy sees two other Panthers rush past the house he is now hiding in.  The one Panther casually shoots up a bazooka team as it cruises down the main street.  Then both disappear around the burning wrecks in the nearby intersection. 

They are probably at the ammo dump by now, he thinks angrily to himself.  His whole task force shot up and he is cowering in a house.  He again looks at Barkley and nods his appreciation once more at the man for saving his life.  For how much longer remains the unanswered question.

“German infantry coming down the far hill,” remarks Barkley.  “There is another Panther hiding up the street.”

 

Easy now sees a Panther moving slowly towards them, supported by one of those small tank hunters, the ones with a damn machine gun on the roof that they control from inside the gun. 

Barkley grabs Easy once more and drags him out of the house, yelling “Everyone OUT!”

There is a mad scramble for better cover.  The Panther and small tank hunter rip up two houses full of GIs.  Some manage to run and some are cut down in the process.  Easy thinks this must be what the end of the world looks like; bleeding soldiers – His Soldiers – everywhere, chaos, blood-curdling screams, and men running as fast as their legs can carry them with crazed looks of fear on their faces. 

He hears a craang as the Panther takes a hit from something, but it keeps on going down the street.

Easy is suddenly so tired.  He just wants it all to end.  The horror of his men being slaughtered is overwhelming him.  If he dies, so be it.  He just wants to rest.  Barkley will have none of it.  Easy is dragged into yet another building for cover.

Easy wonders out loud, “Where is Smitty?”  “He got hit back at the last house,” is Barkley’s reply.  Easy has no words to reply.

 

Easy’s nightmare is still going strong. 

The Panther arrogantly rushes down the street but stops near Easy’s building, seeking prey on the other side of the street.

Sowden, one of the “Lost Boys” that were left behind when their tank broke down, has caught up with the task force.  He positioned himself in an alley, waiting for something like this to happen.

“Fire!” yells Bob #2, the numerical used to differentiate between Sowden and his loader, as they both go by the name Bob.  Sowden does just that, and the rocket runs true, impacting on the weaker side of the Panther. 

“Load,” calls Sowden.  Bob #2 is shaking snow off another rocket and trying to quickly load the bazooka.  Sowden watches as the damn tank is backing but also turning the turret.  “Ya better hurry, Bob #2.  They’s hunting us now.”  Fear is in his voice.  The front armor is not the place to hit these babies.

Sowden feels the familiar slap on the shoulder and instinctively pulls the trigger, launching a second rocket…A HIT!  But, on the front armor.  Not a kill.

“Dammit!” he shouts.  The Panther is backing now and firing at them.  They both duck for cover, but there really isn’t any.

The width of a wall away, Captain Easy sees the drama played out through a window.  “Don’t these things ever die?” he curses, frustration in his voice.

The tank throws smoke and backs between buildings.

 

The commander of the wounded Panther suddenly realizes that he has backed into a walled off courtyard.  There is no escape here.  He orders his Panther out, and it pushes into the thick cloud of smoke from their smoke pots.

At the same time, Barkley has shoved Captain Easy out the building to rush for yet another location.  Timing is everything, as Barkley and Easy now run headlong down the street.  Out of the corner of his eye Easy sees the turret of the Panther turning towards him.  “Just let it end,” he gasps as his leaden legs pound through the snow.

The German gunner opens up on Easy and Barkley.  Rounds chew up the ground around them.

[Heinrich505]

Corporal Jenner, squad leader one of the breech teams, had the bright (?) idea that if they could get across the street, they might be able to lob a satchel charge onto the wounded Panther that backed out of sight.  Without checking with anyone, essentially since there was no one with rank close enough to order him not to, Jenner and his men rush out of the confines of their building and dash across the street.

Jenner had not counted on the German rushing out of the smoke like he just did, and now they are committed.  It is a dash into the mouth of Hell, and his stomach is in his throat.  He is actually running right at the damn tank, so maybe they just toss the satchel charge as they run by…his mind is swirling with the new plan as he hears a blast from behind.

 

Peterson sees men in the building beside him frantically waving and pointing.  He has heard a bazooka round explode and he knows what is happening.  Another German tank is trying to run the gauntlet. 

Peterson points to a small opening past the building edge, and his gunner, Blake, eases the turret slightly towards 11 o’clock, when suddenly, THERE IT IS!

Peterson and Blake see the Panther rush out of the smoke, and start to grind through a wall.  This is slowing the German down and Blake wordlessly lines up the sights on the side of the enemy tank.

Peterson yells “DO IT!” and the gun roars again.  Another HEAT round rips from the barrel of their gun and tears into the side of the Panther.  “GUT SHOT!” Peterson informs the crew.  The tank is motionless now.  Peterson is ecstatic and his mood is infectious.  His crew is flying high.

 

Jenner’s men have almost made it to cover.  They dash across the front of the Panther, even as a Hetzer assault gun rushes to aid the Panther.  Jenner and his men rush past the lifeless body of Jackson, dead only feet from cover.

At this moment, LT Kay has decided that things are too hot for this particular building and he is ordering his men out and away from the Panther.

 

LT Kay’s men are now dashing down the street, trying to use the Panther as cover.  Jenner’s men have made it in the dash across certain death.

The hatches are flying open from the Panther. 

 

German tank crew come face to face with men from Kay’s squad.  It is total pandemonium.  Big Chuck Sampson opens fire at point blank range with his BAR.  GIs and Germans run past one another in a frantic bid to survive.  Sparks fly from the side of the German tank as Chuck sweeps his BAR across the German.

 

The German commander goes down, cored from Big Chuck’s gunfire, and now Chuck starts to clear out, running after his squad mates.

 

Peterson’s gunner, Blake, sees figures rushing around the enemy tank.  Peterson sees them too.  “HE” he calls to the loader and receives the confirmation from the man, as an HE shell is slammed home in the breech.

“Go!” yells Peterson, and a 105mm shell impacts near the tank, taking out friend and foe alike.  Big Chuck goes down, victim to friendly fire.  The German crew are no more.

And still the Hetzer comes on, hunting, always hunting.

 

The light machine gun team watches, powerless, as the Hetzer rolls on by their position.  They are the last outpost before the ammo dump.  Grace turns to McKenzie and says, “Man, those MP boys are in for the shock of their lives.”

McKenzie has no love lost for MPs.  “Maybe they can arrest them for fraternization with Kraut babes,” he says with a grim smile.  “Oh, wait, they wouldn’t get to first base…no nylons.”

Grace gives him a terse smile.  Then they start looking for the German tank crewman who ducked into the church building across the street.  The tank is now the problem of the MPs.

[Heinrich505]

“Hey Mort, would ya lookit that?” says the MP jeep driver.  “They’ve been hunkered down behind the hedge ever since they came crashing out of the woods about 15 minutes ago, all crazy-eyed and talking about how their whole group was wiped out by the Krauts.   They ain’t said a word since we gave them some of our ammo.  Now they up and take off like scared rabbits, racing for the ammo dump.  What gives?”

“They gotta know something we don’t,” says Mort.  Mort Duplessis is a police officer in New Orleans, and when he signed up, the Army, in their wisdom, made him a Military Policeman.  Wow, never would have seen that coming.

Mort has that sixth sense that all police officers seem to have.  “Pop the clutch, Benny, and back us out of here.  Make for the house to our left.”

Benny is a Sheriff’s Deputy from Florida.  He has the same feeling that Mort has.  “Consider it done,” he drawls, and the jeep lurches back through the hedge.  Something bad is coming their way.

LT Mack sees the stragglers come rushing into the gate.  He’s been an MP for quite a while now.  He is Army though, all Army, never did a job in the civilian life.  He has all the same instincts that Mort and Benny have, honed from all those years of service in the MPs.

“Let’s see what their problem is,” he announces.  He runs out to the gate to see what the heck is wrong. He’s got Mort and Benny out on the road and he is worried.   There was lots of shooting in town and now he hears engines getting louder. 

 

Mort sees it first.  It looks like a small bug or a turtle.  “Yaaaah!” he yells as he opens up with his 50 cal.  He can see sparks flinging all across the side of the enemy gun.  Benny is yelling too, but he is now partially deaf from having the fifty going off right above his head.  Benny drops the jeep in reverse and smashes through a fence to put more distance between the Germans and him.

LT Mack was about to call out to Sgt. Roth and find out what spooked him, and then the fifty opened up.  Never mind, he says to himself.  It was bad, whatever it was.

From his spot next to the gate opening, he now sees what all the rest of his MPs see – a damn German anti-tank gun is BACKING into their compound.  They are apparently trying to get away from the fifty, and, Mack thinks, that makes good sense. 

 

Lt Mack knows his men have no AT weapons.  They’ve only got grenades.  He orders the only tactic he has available – A charge.  His men charge with him, no hesitation.  They are caught up in the chaos and confusion that combat entails.

“Get close and hit ‘em with grenades,” Mack yells.  It is their only hope.

Suddenly shells start raining down from the rise in the road.  What the F*#$? thinks Mack.  Germans?  But the shells are hitting the side of the German vehicle.  He can’t quite make out the armored vehicle back on the road, but it has to be one of ours, he imagines.

“Get close but watch out for the shells,” he yells as he keeps running forward.  “It is our armor on the road.

Corporal Winegardner was detached by “Red” Bonze about 10 minutes ago and told to go and find out what was happening in town.  There had been no radio contact and lots of shooting going on over there.  Red didn’t want to overextend his flank with further recon if the town was already taken.

Winegardner is jockeying an M8, a fast, light “HE Chucker.”  They can’t do much against frontal armor of most tanks, but they sure can make a mess of infantry if need be.

Winegardner arrived in town just at the time that Peterson was duking it out with Panthers and Captain Easy was being shunted from building to building.  Winegardner got off a long shot against a Panther but then decided to hide amongst the buildings.  Right behind a Sherman 105 seemed a good spot.

Then a Hetzer whooshed past the Sherman and his gun.  He’d seen them before – they were deadly but pretty much blind to the sides.  Winegardner, always somewhat of a daredevil, shouted to his driver to chase the enemy vehicle. 

Norris has always imagined himself a racing car driver.  In fact, he drives the M8 pretty much like he is working the corners at Indy, so he had no problems with Winegardner’s order.

The M8 ripped around the corner of the wall and was at top speed in moments, snow flying from the back of the treads like rooster tails.  Everyone was holding on for dear life and there was a smile of total contentment on Norris’ face.

Winegardner has his head out of the turret, goggles on, and he sees the road dip ahead.  He can’t see the Hetzer so it must already be in the ammo dump compound on their left.

“Whoa, Nellie,” he calls on the intercom.  Norris puts on a face of disappointment but he brakes hard.

Now Winegardner can see the road ahead, and it is clear.  Where is the damn…Holy Crap, it is already in the ammo dump.

“Bob-eeee, left left, maybe 10 o’clock.  See him, backing between the storage buildings?”

“Yep, got him,” replies his gunner.  The first shot is a miss, but the next 6 are hits to the side armor. 

“They gotta be screaming like rats in a church belfry,” laughs Winegardner.  Every hit from their 75mm high explosive shells has to sound like the peal of a church bell, scrambling the brains of the German crew.

 

Smokey calls out, “C’mon, kill ‘em, why doncha?  My arms are getting tired.”  He is the loader and his face seems to be the one that gets blackest with all the gunpowder going off. 

“Yeah, yeah, quit yer bitchin,” answers Bobby. 

“This is number 7, for crying out loud.”  The round is slammed into the breech.  Bobby punches the trigger and the round is launched out of the tank. 

 

“Flames, I see flames,” shouts Norris. 

“Confirmed,” announces Winegardner.  “Great job, everyone!  Load another, Smokey, and then have a seat.”

 

Bobby’s gunnery is stellar. 

[Heinrich505]

Red Bonze decides to continue on his recon mission with only Sgt. Snider’s Stuart tank to back him up.  They make it to the crossroads to complete their recon mission, shooting up a German truck.  Red huddles over a map with Snider and the two decide to return through the left flank road block area.

Red eases up on a copse of trees and finds the broken bodies of the AT gun, bled out and silent.  The silence is broken with the horrific craang of a shell hitting steel, and Red looks to his left in time to see Snider’s burning Stuart.  Bodies lie in the snow next to the flaming tank.  Now he is alone.  He’s no idea where the kill shot came from.

 

With its engine roaring, yet another Panther decides to make a try for the deadly intersection.

Peterson had been holding back much of the German infantry that was finally moving into Wiltz.  His 105mm gun had been deadly, causing many casualties.

Peterson and crew react too slowly this time around.  Maybe it is fatigue, maybe it is coming down off the adrenaline high, but for some reason, his crew is sluggish when he orders them to pull alongside the building to ready for another German tank.

Peterson hears a loud bang, and figures the bazooka team two houses up might have gotten lucky.  He is wrong.

The Panther, already sporting holes in the side from previous bazooka hits, suddenly looms into view.  Peterson yells “Left, Left, Left!” and Blake starts to rotate the turret while Roy suddenly struggles with the gears.

Peterson can see it all going wrong now, things moving in slow motion.  He actually sees the flash of the Panther’s cannon, and then he is stunned, lying at the bottom of the turret.

 

Peterson has no idea how he got out of the tank.  He is aware of a cold wind, and he hears another loud bang.  The bazooka boys are right on it, he thinks.  Maybe that damn Panther is dead now.  The machine gun fire knocks him down.  He can’t move, but he is still alive.  He hears more screaming from inside the tank.  Probably the driver and bow gunner.  Peterson feels like he has let his crew down and now he gets to experience them dying too. 

 

Sowden takes aim with his last rocket.  He has hit the damn beast twice already, both flank shots, and still it lives.  “Last one,” calls Bob #2 as he smacks Sowden on the shoulder, perhaps with too much enthusiasm.  “Clear,” yells Bob #2 as he throws himself away from the rear of the bazooka and covers his ears.  They are inside a building and that means dangerous backblast.

“Take that, you Mother-fu…the roar of the bazooka rocket drowns out the rest of his curse.  Through the window he can see it is another hit.  Three hits.  Damn fine shooting but it counts for nothing if it isn’t a kill.

Several units break at the same time.  Having that Panther right in their midst is too much.  German infiltrators open fire and the slaughter begins.

Sowden has enough, and although there is a back door, he bolts out the front.  Bob #2 instinctively follows him, and they are both cut down about 30 feet from the building.

Jenner orders his men out the side door to try and throw a satchel charge on the Panther.  It is pointing the other way and this is their moment.  Doug and The Beast rush out the side door with him.

Suddenly Jenner falters, ducking down by the wall.  He is shaking and Doug and The Beast are right there with him, now uncertain about how to continue.

Jenner yells something unintelligible and bolts for the front door of the building.  Doug reacts the same way.  The Panther is turning the turret now and things are looking really horrible.

The Beast starts to crawl towards the Panther.  He’s got a satchel charge in his hand and it appears that he is actually below the tank gun and can’t be seen. 

German infantry from down the street open fire and rounds ricochet around him, some tearing at his uniform and gouging his flesh.  He is wounded, and leaving a trail of blood, but he keeps crawling, and the tank can’t depress their gun any further.  They might be immobilized, as the tank is not moving.

Staff Sergeant Kemp sees this terrifying drama taking place and he orders his men out of hiding to fire at the German infantry that are trying to end The Beast’s heroics.  Several Germans scream and fall and the others start to run into a building.

 

The Beast pulls an arming cord and hurls the deadly package towards the Panther.  The Beast’s mind is clear of any thoughts except that the throw has to be perfect.  He doesn’t think of living or dying; his life is not flashing before his eyes.  He is focused on the simple act of doing his job well.

 

The charge goes off against the side of the Panther.  Was it a kill?  Was all this for nothing?

 

The Beast starts to turn away.  He is losing blood and enemy fire is still snapping all around him.  He is pretty sure the tank is dead.

He hears the clang of hatches being thrown open, and he scrabbles around while still prone.  Suddenly, The Beast finds himself face to face with the German commander of the tank he just killed.  They are at point blank range.  He fires first but misses.

 

The German commander empties his magazine into The Beast’s face.  Gold-colored shell casings pour from the German’s pistol as The Beast’s head drops into the bloody snow.  Jenner saw the whole thing.  He is ashamed that he ran and left The Beast out there alone.  He vows that if he survives this day, he will make sure everyone knows of these heroics. 

Suddenly he realizes that he doesn’t know The Beast’s real name.  Everyone has always just called him that, because he is so big and imposing, and that was what he liked to be called.

 

Corporal Jenner is screaming words of hatred as he empties the entire clip from his Thompson into the back of the Kraut who killed The Beast.  The rounds that missed are cascading off the side of the dead tank.

Most of the other tank crew survivors are shot as they run or blown up with hand grenades.  One escapes for the moment.  If there is time, he will be hunted and put down.

The GIs are angry and their blood is up.

Another German tank starts to work slowly down the main street.  The men are strained to the breaking point, and they start to run from cover.  There are so few officers left, and even they, LT Kay included, are starting to run.

Captain Easy shoves Barkley out the door this time, and they sprint across the street, joining the tattered survivors in a headlong retreat from the town and into a large wooded area near the road.  Easy takes a shot in the side and Barkley gets hit in the leg, as German infantrymen swarm through the town to hasten Easy’s Task Force from the edge of Wiltz.

Easy manages to somehow stop the rout when they get in the woods.  They will hold out here, he decides.  He is lucky.  The Germans stop and lick their wounds. 

 

Pop Dixon and his halftrack of engineers arrive near the bridge to Wiltz.  They have reconned way up the right flank, and have returned.  These are the first Germans they’ve seen, and the MG gunner makes fast work of the lone outpost.

[Heinrich505]

Epilogue

Captain Easy and the few survivors of TF Easy hold out in a forest area west of Wiltz.

 

 

Daylight comes to Wiltz.  German troops are still advancing warily.

 

Early morning and the snow still falls among the carnage.

 

The bridge is still in US hands.  A dead enemy Sherman and a frozen body can be seen in the center right.

 

Captain Dihardt’s position, overlooking the right flank road block area.  Wrecked enemy vehicles can barely be seen on the road.

 

A low-flying US recon aircraft catches a picture of the last stand of Crazy Ed’s left flank road block area.  The burning tank is Sgt. Snider’s, and Red Bonze’s armored car can be seen in the center left of the shot, just to the left of the small island of trees in the middle.

 

View from the small farm across from the ammo dump.  The MP guards are still in evidence.

 

Brooklyn and Hollywood, found by advancing US troops when Wiltz was cleared of Germans.  The destroyed hulk of Edison’s tank is in the background.

 

Taken by a German combat camera man who was later captured.  The camera man sat atop the destroyed King Tiger to take the shot, showing evidence of the vicious fighting that took place on the main street through Wiltz.  Bodies of both sides have not been removed yet, so this shot was taken during a lull at the battles end.

 

Left Flank

LT Crazy Ed was killed and most of his men are dead, wounded, or missing in action.  It will be hours before the following US troops can retake Wiltz, so most of the wounded will perish in the cold.

The only survivor from Crazy Ed’s command squad is TSgt. Roth, who, accompanied by Pvt. Heverly, a veteran from the only infantry squad of stragglers, managed to cross the entire battle map and attach themselves to the MPs guarding the ammo dump.  Thinking they were safe there, they almost got killed when the German Hetzer roared into the dump, finally destroyed by an M8 that came to their rescue.

Both being veteran soldiers, they are re-integrated into combat units despite their shaken mental status, as every body is needed to bolster up the front lines.

Most of the bodies, including the AT gun team, are marked and recovered, due to the diligence of Captain Red Bonze, who drove through the Left Flank area in his armored car on his way back from his recon mission.

 

Right Flank

LT Wild Bill holds his blocking position until relieved by follow-up troops.  Several key members of his unit perished in the bitter fighting.  He doesn’t find out about his friend Crazy Ed until hours later.  He is saddened by the news – they were close.

Sgt. Richardson and Bazooka team Knight and Fuller were killed, but several of Richardson’s squad were patched up and managed to make it back to Wild Bill’s foxhole where they survived.  No survivor saw Knight and Fuller’s heroics – they died in obscurity after destroying several German vehicles with their bazooka.

Mad Mike, the gunner, had to take over the gun crew of the 40mm AA gun when Sgt. Shanley was wounded.  He refused to relinquish the gunner seat though.  His gun had only 5 HE and 15 AP shells left when relieved, which attests to the ferocity of the combat.

Wild Bill tries to arrange a promotion to Sergeant for Mad Mike, but knowing he’d have to give up his gunner status, Mad Mike tells Wild Bill to “F^$% Off,” but respectfully.

Wild Bill reflects on all the guys he lost.  He tries to remember them all.  Richardson and his team, including Knight, Fuller, Leonard, Tully and Smith, all dead.  He saw the crazy Irishman, O’Leary get blown to bits.  There may be others in the woods that bled out and he will never know them.

 

Bridge Blocking Position

LT Bull Shinisky seems to have drawn the longest matchstick in the battle.  His command suffers relatively few casualties.  He, too, hears of the death of Crazy Ed, and sits alone for a long time, remembering all the good times they shared.  He doesn’t think he will get close to anyone else, because it hurts so badly when someone you know dies.

LT Shinisky makes the rounds to check on the men.  The AT gun crew and the outpost got hurt quite a bit.  He doesn’t even know the names of the men involved, but he sends out men to search for the bodies or check on the wounded.  The two machine gunners will not be found until months later, after the war by civilians.

The gunner of the AT gun, Scott, was the one who gave the order to abandon their AT gun when they were about to be overrun.  He spiked the gun himself and then fled back to a fallback position near the bridge.  He had Burgess with him, one of the ammo bearers.

Scott had to abandon Sgt. Roland when they fled their position, but he assured Roland he would come back for him.  Roland was badly wounded and so was Nell, another gun crewman.

After the battle, Scott made good his promise and returned for Roland and Nell.  Roland was taken to the rear for his wounds, along with Nell.  Roland always harbored ill feelings towards Scott, especially after being “abandoned” by him.  He will tell others that Scott ran from the enemy, trying to disparage Scott’s name.  Unfortunately for Roland, he has already made such a poor reputation for himself that everyone knows he is a dick and they shut him down.  He wrangles an assignment in Intel to avoid going back to the front lines.

Scott makes sure LT Shinisky knows what heroics were performed by the ammo bearer.  Burgess patched up several of Roland’s crew and his fellow ammo bearers, and then fired off all his carbine rounds at the infiltrating German paratroopers. 

When his carbine was empty, he ran inside the building and patched up the BAR team of Scully and Jim Croft.  They staggered back through the underbrush to safety while Burgess took Scully’s BAR and then held off more Germans. 

Burgess is still holding the empty BAR when their position is relieved.  He refuses to relinquish the weapon and LT Bull makes him the lead man of a BAR team after hearing how well he performed under extreme combat stress.

Atak helped slow the German advance across the ford upriver from his position near the bridge.  He and Mugs took some serious return fire in the process.  Atak suddenly noticed that Mugs was no longer upstairs with him.  He figured that the punk had bugged out on him and he stayed at his post.

Atak will find Mugs at a nearby aid station after the battle.  Mugs is proudly showing off his wound, allegedly from enemy fire.  It looks suspiciously like Mugs might have gouged his own arm with wood splinters, but Atak doesn’t want to press the matter.  Good riddance, he thinks.

No one is looking very closely at Mugs’ wound though, so he is put in for a purple heart, but not by Lt. Shinisky.  The signature is suspiciously blurred on the paperwork.  Mugs is returned to his Chow Line and gets back to the business of serving swill to GIs while regaling them with his combat experience.

Atak asks to be transferred out of his cook unit to LT Shinisky’s unit and is immediately recommended for combat infantry with the “Diehardts” at the specific request of LT Shinisky with Captain Dihardt’s concurrence.  His request is granted.

 

Lieutenant Mack and his intrepid band of Military Policemen are hailed for their gallant defense of the ammo dump.  HQ is impressed by LT Mack’s charge to go hand-to-hand with an enemy tank destroyer and decorations will follow.

 

Pops Dixon is wounded when he and his engineers attempt to move into Wiltz and try to relieve it.  Enemy fire is too concentrated and his men carry him to an aid station near LT Shinisky’s bridge unit where he is treated.  He recovers from his wounds in the rear and has to listen to some cook who serves bad food while telling tall tales of combat experience.  What a jerk!

 

The recon performed by Dixon’s men and Red Bonze is instrumental in helping the US forces retake Wiltz and begin a push to dent the German advances.

 

Red mourns the loss of Snider’s crew.  He is also sad for the two crewmen lost by Corporal Bader when his tank was hit by a panzerfaust.  His sadness is tempered when he is reunited with Corporal Winegardner and hears of the major part the commander of the M8 had in saving the ammo dump.

 

Captain Dihardt comes through the action relatively unscathed, but he never forgives himself for the death of his friend, LT Crazy Ed.  Despite the best efforts of Wild Bill and Bull Shinisky, Dihardt draws inside himself to mourn Crazy Ed, knowing that if he hadn’t volunteered his unit for this blocking action, Crazy Ed would still be alive.

 

Captain Ulysses R. Easy is found with the remains of his task force in the woods just outside the city limits of Wiltz.  He commands just 10 men out of the approximately 90 he started out with, the sad remains of his task force.  His wounds are serious and he has lost a lot of blood.

HQ considers Captain Easy to be a hero, having held out against overwhelming odds and seriously blunted the German offensive.  General Cota wants to shower the Captain with decorations and accolades.  Easy refuses all personal decorations, demanding instead that all such honors be given to his men, the living and the dead.

The Army decides to avoid any sort of embarrassment that Captain Easy might be about to create, and they gently relieve him of his command and reassign him to an Officer Candidate Unit at Penn State University, believing that he needs to recover from “combat fatigue.”  Easy’s Army career is ended quietly.

Jenner and Doug are badly wounded from a tank shell as they attempt to flee along with the other stragglers and Captain Easy.  They are found by advancing German troops and well treated.  Jenner ends the war in a POW camp, but he suffers partial memory loss from his head wound and never recalls the heroics of The Beast.  

Doug is so traumatized by the battle and subsequent humiliation at being a prisoner of war that he tries to climb the wire and is shot by a guard, dying shortly after that, and only months from the end of the war.

The Beast remains nameless and his amazing heroic action goes unrecognized.  The same can be said about so many of the others from Task Force Easy as well.  Snow continues to fall, gently settling on the dead and starting to cover them with a silent white blanket.  Most of their bodies will be recovered by Graves Registration from where they lay, scattered around the houses and stores in a small town named Wiltz.

The war goes on.

 

Heinrich505

 

[MarkEzra]

From start to finish a great story told with great art!  Thanks for all your work.  You are one of CM's Wargaming Family shining stars!

[Heinrich505]

MarkEzra,

  I'm glad you liked it.  High praise indeed.  Thank-you very much.

  It was quite a battle.  Sorry about Crazy Ed.  Captain Easy almost bought it so many times - it was amazing he survived. 

  Not sure what happened with the one picture.  I was having trouble with the internet last night.  I've attached the correct shot here.

Heinrich505

 

View from the small farm across from the ammo dump.  The MP guards are still in evidence.

[Kuderian]

Wow @Heinrich505, those are fantastic pictures! Are they jazzed up or au naturel? Your framing and vistas look very professional.

Thank you Sir.

[Heinrich505]

Kuderian,

  Thanks for the kind words.  Glad you enjoyed the shots.

  I take them from the game and then adjust them a little using Corel Paintshop Pro, depending on the effect desired.  I used a variance of white balance all the way through to make the shots look "cold," as I wanted to push the frigid conditions the guys were experiencing.  I like to enhance the vibrancy just a bit for the shots with explosions in them, and this works really well with backlighting when there is a burning AFV.  Other than that, they are pretty much untouched.  The borders are added once I get the shot cropped just right and zoomed in a bit.

  On some of the very early morning shots I had to bring up the brightness just a bit so that you could see a little better what the characters were seeing.  As the battle went on, night started to turn lighter into early morning so I didn't have to adjust it anymore.

  Programs like the Corel one make doing this sort of thing look very nice, but first you have to do a lot of in-game freeze-frame to get just the right angle and catch the action as it happens.  That can be tricky. 

Heinrich505

[sburke]

Finally got to read through this start to finish.  Excellent job bringing attention to an outstanding scenario.  I had the privilege of doing extensive playtesting on this and found it to be different every time, but always exciting  Very high replay value.

As to the AAR - great job bringing the pixeltruppen to life and illuminating how desperate the fight is.  Riveting read and excellent screenshots.

 

So what's next?    I need something to read over coffee.

[Heinrich505]

sburke,

  Thanks for the very nice review.  Always appreciated.  The scenario is really amazing.

  There were several times where I just wanted to bail and retreat the guys from those two forward roadblock areas.  Then I had second thoughts because it appeared that I'd been bypassed and infiltrated and I thought that if the guys started running for the rear, they'd be ambushed and cut down.  So, I had them stay put.  This was a death sentence for the one roadblock group, but incredibly, the right choice for the other.

  At times I found myself just enjoying how well-made the map was.  As I drove Pops and his engineers way deep into the right flank, everything looked so wintry and beautiful.  I almost forgot that I was playing a game as I was enjoying the scenery so much.

  Thanks for the playtesting.  This scenario really shined and deserved an AAR with a storyline. 

  Not sure about what's next, haha.  We shall see.

Heinrich505   

[MarkEzra]

For Future CMFI..."A Walk in the Sun" scen 1943 based on the movie and "A walk in the Snow Scen" Dec 1944 Northern Italy... based on an actual German counter attack.

[Bud Backer]

On 2017-03-26 at 3:59 PM, Heinrich505 said:

 

  Programs like the Corel one make doing this sort of thing look very nice, but first you have to do a lot of in-game freeze-frame to get just the right angle and catch the action as it happens.  That can be tricky. 

Heinrich505

I think you just said the key thing (above, italicized) right there. What you've done is a monumental amount of work. Never mind that you're still doing what anyone else would be: playing the game to win. Nice job! 

Edited May 12, 2017 by Bud Backer
Punctuation

[Heinrich505]

Bud,

  Thanks for the kind words.  High praise indeed. 

Heinrich505