Fury of the Tiger, page 14
"Heinrich, left flank, enemy armor. Engage!"
Another American shell slammed into them just below the turret, but still they weren't powerful enough to penetrate the thick armor. Boll rotated the turret; the long barrel struck a lamp standard and stopped. Two more shells slammed into them, and in that instant, Rolf knew they had to get out fast. Their side armor was good, but a lucky hit could destroy them before they had a chance to bring their gun to bear.
"Franz, reverse, go back!"
The Tiger jerked to a stop, just as a well-aimed shell punched across their front, aimed to offset their forward motion. Franz backed into a narrow street and started retracing their path. They had to find another way through if they were to destroy the rest of the enemy guns. He was about to give orders to cut through a gap between two houses when the radio came alive.
"This is Meyer. All units withdraw. I repeat, withdraw!"
What the hell is going on? We’re winning.
He hit the transmit button with fury. "This is Manhausen, Sir. We can't withdraw, not now. We're inside the village. Give us another half hour and we can wipe them all out."
Meyer’s tone was icy. "I doubt that. We had twelve Tigers when we started the attack. I'm left with six. There are too many of them, and I don't want to lose any more armor. Get out now and return to base. Meyer out!"
He felt numbed. Six Tigers destroyed was a high price, and for what? They were retreating.
"Franz, did you get that?"
"I did, Sir, but..."
"Get us out of here."
"Yes, Sir."
As they left the village, he worked to control his anger.
These piecemeal attacks are useless. The enemy is too numerous. Until we can use all of our heavy armor to deal them a single, knockout punch, we're allowing them to pick us off, tank by tank. When will the High Command learn?
He thought of the Fuhrer and his tardy response to the invasion.
When will our High Command get out of bed?
Chapter Five
SHAEF Headquarters Camp Griffiss, London, England, June 13, 1944
Eisenhower waited while the new arrival, General Omar Bradley, shook the rain off his wet coat and took the indicated chair. The weather for the invasion had been bad; only a small window allowing them to get the first troops ashore. Since then, it had got worse. He put on his customary smile.
"How was the trip, General?"
"It was fast. That's all I can say about it. We were lucky to land my C-47 on the beach, and I had a fighter umbrella all the way back."
Eisenhower nodded. "I know; I ordered it. How's it going over there, any problems I need to know about?"
Bradley looked thoughtful. "Sir, we're making progress. That's about the best I can say. The armor is short on gas and ammunition. We have to get more of everything ashore. Fortunately, the Mulberry Harbors were completed on the June 9. That means the materiel is starting to come ashore a bit quicker, but it's still a long, slow process. Christ, at one time, we didn't even have enough food, let alone fuel and ammo. As long as both those harbors keep working, we're good. I guess you know we've taken Carentan."
"Yes, the news just came in. What about enemy aircraft, any trouble there?"
For the first time, he smiled. "You jest. The Luftwaffe flew a few sorties, but every time they take off, our guys shoot them out of the sky. They don't cause too much of a problem."
Ike smiled. "We have the Russians to thank for some of that. The best Kraut pilots are in Russia fighting on the Eastern Front; those that are left, that is. The Luftwaffe had taken quite a pounding, so I'm told, and they're a shadow of what they once were. Still, they may transfer fighters west to attack us, so keep your AA batteries sharp."
"No sweat, every man with a gun pointed skyward is waiting for a chance to shoot down one of those Messerschmitts."
"I guess so. They'll come, sooner or later. The Germans have a huge shortage of fuel. That's not helping them much. The Brits hit their main oilfields at Ploiesti with a saturation-bombing raid, and the pumps have started to run dry. Our intelligence suggests their aircraft are dangerously low on gas. I guess that goes for their Panzers as well. Any sign of them coming out in force?"
He saw Bradley wince. "None, and that's what worries me. They're too quiet. We've had a few brushes with armored units, but they haven't attacked yet in any kind of strength. We don't know why."
"Can you hold them if they do hit hard?"
"Against several divisions of heavy armor, Tiger Is, Panthers, even the new Tiger IIs? I don't know. If they'd done it a couple of days ago, I'd say no, we couldn't hold. However, as long as the Mulberry Harbors keep bringing our equipment ashore, and we get the air support we need, yes, we can hold them. Just."
"You're not too confident, are you, General?"
"I'd be stupid if I were. You know what a Tiger tank can do to a Sherman?"
"I know, but we have air support."
"Not when the weather is this lousy. If they hit us with an entire Panzer army, they could punch through."
"How can I help?"
Omar Bradley grimaced. "Pray that the weather breaks so the fighters can fly, and we keep those Mulberry Harbors operating. Also, that the Jerries don't group their heavy Panzers into a single unit."
Ike didn't answer for a few moments, and then he stared back at Bradley.
"When are you going back?"
"First thing in the morning. They're timing it for when the tide is out and there's a wide strip of beach to land on."
He nodded. "Then I wish you luck. I guess our best move would be to step up attacks on their armor and fuel dumps."
"Yes, Sir, especially the heavy armor. The men are scared shitless of those Tigers. Just the name is enough to worry them."
"I'll advise our air controllers accordingly. With Carentan in our hands, maybe things will be easier for you."
"Unless they take it back from us. You know the Germans are past masters at the art of counterattack. Sure, we've taken Carentan, and we're about to link the American landing beaches, and then roll up the Cotentin Peninsula. But tomorrow may be a different story."
"I hear you. You know that some people say if we keep hitting them hard enough, they'll break and start running back to Berlin."
Bradley looked skeptical. "I doubt it. They're more likely to hit us with their heavy armor and try to wipe us out. If that attack comes, and they have enough Tigers, it's anyone's guess."
Ike grimaced. "Just keep hitting them, and I'll do what I can from here. Good luck on the flight back."
Bradley saluted and left for the return flight to Normandy, leaving Ike to his own thoughts.
The Tigers, always the Tigers, Hitler's bogeymen, always lurking in the background, and a story to frighten my troops! But if they do come, my fighters and bombers will slaughter them, bogeymen or no bogeymen, provided the weather clears, and if it doesn't clear? I don't want to think about that.
He was still thinking of the fearsome enemy armor when he picked up the phone and asked to be connected with Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force. It took less than twenty seconds for Tedder to answer.
"Arthur, you'll have to get your aircraft up, and locate their heavy armor. We must destroy it now."
"General Eisenhower, you know how bad the weather is. Most times they can't get off the ground."
The English voice was calm, filled with patient reason. He didn't give a damn.
"Get 'em up, Arthur. I don't care how you do it. Right now we're winning, but if we give them a chance to use their armor, we could lose everything."
He heard Tedder say he'd do his best, and he put down the phone. It was the dark threat that loomed over the entire invasion. The Tigers.
* * *
The attack on Carentan the day before had been a fierce and bloody action, part of Bradley's strategy to link the American invasion beaches, Omaha and Utah. After the 101st Airborne fought their way into to the town, the Germans finally withdrew, and the generals breathed a sigh of relief. For the 745th Battalion, it had been a bloody, grueling nightmare. Grant was drinking the first decent coffee he'd enjoyed in several days, courtesy of Margot Caron, when the messenger found him.
"The Major wants you, Sarge. Right away."
He tossed the remains of the coffee into the mud, gave Margot a rueful glance, and ran after the man. Battalion Headquarters building was in chaos, and he found Morgan standing outside with Lieutenant Bligh. Morgan's Sherman was parked only a few yards away.
"Sergeant Grant, we're moving out shortly. Get aboard your vehicle and join me back here!"
"What's up, Major?"
"The Germans have counterattacked at Carentan. Intelligence says they brought up two regiments, and one of them is some kind of elite unit, the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division. They're all over our boys; so we need to get in there fast and push them back before the invasion strategy goes down the toilet. They'll have anti-tank missiles, and maybe even a STUG or two, as well as the usual anti-tank artillery."
He stopped and looked around as a corporal dashed out of the Headquarters building, a semi-ruined Normandy farmhouse, and handed Morgan a message. He glanced at it quickly.
"The two companies on the left flank are falling back, so we need to get in there fast. Move it, guys."
He sprinted back to Minnie Mouse. Angel had the engine ticking over. He vaulted onto the hull, climbed into the turret, and gave the order.
"Move out! The Jerries are attacking Carentan."
"Tigers?" Vernon called out. The question was not unexpected.
"Nope, Panzergrenadiers."
Angel slammed the vehicle forward, and they raced to join Morgan, who was already four hundred yards away. Bligh was in his wake, and Daniel Kuruk's Cochise brought up the rear. They were heading for Carentan, and after the bloody action the day before, every man knew the importance of the town. Behind them, swarms of Shermans were forming up. Mechanized infantry kept pace riding in half-tracked White M3s. Purple Heart Boxes they'd nicknamed them, due to their abysmal armor plating.
Further back, a company of self-propelled howitzers pulled out to join them. Whoever was running this show was serious, no question. Ahead of them, the town was already in flames, lit up by artillery strikes, decorated with crisscrossing lines of tracer fire, and garlanded by lines of vehicles rushing to join the battle.
He heard the sound of explosions behind him.
"The Jerries just hit our HQ with artillery," Morgan announced over the radio net, "They're calling up a company from Second Division to take care of it."
Margot!
He strained to look back at HQ, but all he could see was a patchwork of smoke and flames roiling into the sky, as yet more shells hit. The Headquarters building was ablaze, and he could see the shadows of vehicles moving around, weaving an intricate dance as they attempted to escape the onslaught.
Please, God, don't let anything happen to her!
Shells hammered toward them from the German lines, and he automatically began assessing what lay in front of them. Another shell landed and detonated with a blast that tore down several trees. PAK 40, no question, capable of turning a Sherman into scrap. Then he saw it, the long barrel poking out from behind camouflage.
"Solly, anti-tank gun dead ahead, twelve o'clock, open fire."
There was no shortage of shells, not since the Mulberry Harbor had arrived, allowing streams of replacement to come ashore. Solly fired HE, and the other tanks around them found targets. The night became a cacophony of exploding ordnance. He missed. The enemy gun fired again, and the shell smashed into a Sherman that was racing alongside to keep pace.
"Solly, hit the bastard."
"I'm trying, but we're running over rough ground. It's like trying to shoot from a fairground ride."
"I don't give a shit. They're creaming us. We need to finish them."
Dale shouted, "HE loaded."
"Fire."
This time the shell hit its target and plastered the German crew over the French soil. Another gun cracked out and then from much nearer, a panzerfaust missile came toward them. He grabbed for the machine gun, stitching a line of shells into the shooter who was stupid enough to stand watching for the hit. The missile struck the right side track, and their vehicle slewed to a stop, but Grant had killed the shooter, and the danger had receded, for the moment.
A recovery crew came up from the rear. An engineer ducked over to them and inspected the damage with a shielded flashlight.
"It's just the track. You need a couple of new links, but you're out of action for tonight. We'll tow her back in, and you can borrow a spare vehicle while we fix her up."
"I'd sooner ride in Minnie Mouse. Can't you fix it sooner?"
He stared at Grant. "Yeah, I know the way it is. We'll have her repaired by tomorrow. It's just for one night."
The crew climbed out and watched the engineers hitch up the tow chain, and they rode their vehicle backward all the way back to the camp. On the journey, he called Morgan and reported in. The sounds of battle were loud in his headset.
"Understood, Sergeant Grant. If there's any way you can get back into the battle, we could do with more armor. These Krauts are putting up one hell of a fight."
"Any losses, Sir?"
They knew he meant Company A.
"Not yet, thank God." He glanced around them and flinched, "Jesus Christ, Jankowski, over there, kill the bastard, three o'clock. Yeah, him, you crazy Polack!"
Grant stared at the destruction. Tents, vehicles, and a couple of Shermans, part destroyed during the attack. He turned to a soldier who was leafing through a thick military manual.
"What happened here?"
"Bunch of Krauts hit us. That's what happened. After Division pulled out toward Carentan, they hit us like a tornado. Machine-gunned everything they could find, dynamited our equipment, and then left. I mean, jeez, it was all over so quick."
He nodded his thanks and went looking for Margot. He found her vehicle, or what was left of it, a tangle of twisted metal. The paraffin stove was nearby, ruined and bent. There was no sign of Margot. He ran around, looking at the heaps of bodies, staring at the faces, but there was no sign of her. Perhaps there never would be.
He knew she was dead. They'd killed his brother in the icy seas off Slapton Sands in Devon, and when he'd found someone special amidst the carnage of Normandy, they'd killed her, too. He felt his anger grow in intensity until he was ready to explode. There was only one way to go, so he found the engineer who'd towed in Minnie Mouse.
"You said there was a spare Sherman around here. How is it for stores?"
The guy nodded and pointed to a solitary tank parked nearby.
"She's ready to go, fueled up, full stock of shells; you can just drive her away."
"What's the story, where's the crew?"
The engineer looked around, and when he spoke, his voice was low, "This is just for your ears, right?"
Grant shrugged. "Sure."
"They were taking five, brewing up a can of Java next to a clump of trees. Problem was, they were too far from the rest of the Battalion, so I guess they wanted some peace and quiet, probably a high stakes poker game. An Allied fighter came over and mistook them for Krauts. Shot the shit out of them. When he went away, they were dead, every last man."
Grant felt a chill at the useless waste, the terrifying irony of death at the hands of your own side. They'd trained on the M4s, traveled thousands of miles across the Atlantic to Britain to fight Hitler, then that last, perilous crossing of the English Channel to attack the French coast, and all for nothing.
"It was one of ours?"
"A Brit, so someone said who saw it fly away. What does it matter? Brit, American, French, Polish, whatever, they're dead just the same."
"Yeah."
He went across to their new tank. The rest of his crew followed him, and they climbed aboard. Once he had the headphones and mike adjusted, he fed in the frequency for the Company A net and reported to Major Morgan.
"Sir, we have a replacement vehicle. We're ready to rejoin the Company."
Morgan chuckled. It was a company in name only.
"We need you back here ASAP, Sergeant Grant. They're hitting us real hard. If we don't push them back soon, we'll have to withdraw."
"Withdraw! We only just took the damn place."
He could hear in the distance, explosions, shellfire, and the sound of men fighting a desperate battle to survive.
"Tell that to the Krauts. Get back here, Grant. We need you."
"I hear you, Sir. We're on the way."
He switched to the crew net. "Driver, advance. Hit the gas. Our guys are in trouble."
"You got it."
The race back to Carentan was like driving into hell. A storm of gunfire came from both sides, artillery, tanks, anti-tank guns, machine guns, and all backed by the faint pop, pop of semi-automatic weapons as men fought to stem the tide. Away from the immediate battle zone, the countryside was dark, shadowed by the distant conflagration, which is why they almost failed to see the enemy assault gun.
"STUG!" Vernon shouted from his position next to Angel.
Grant hunted for the enemy armor and found it, lurking in a thicket of small trees that camouflaged its bulky outline. The assault gun was not quick to deploy. With no moving turret, the vehicle had to be moved to make anything other than a small change to the aiming point. Not so the Sherman. The turret rotated as Solly tracked their 75mm main gun onto the target.
"Load AP!"
"Shit! I have HE loaded," Dale shouted.
"Leave it. Make the next one AP. We'll use what we have."
