Opening Moves

The second tank reversed panicked and blind, crunching into the third vehicle and broke a track, which immediately uncoiled its full length as the drive sprocket rotated at full reverse. A panzerfaust sailed almost leisurely past its turret hitting a telegraph pole and bringing it down on top of tank number three, which had stalled on the impact of the reversing tank. The desperate driver, trying to restart his vehicle, found himself alone as his crew deserted him in search of safety.

McDaniels’ driver halted the M5 HST without orders and the Pfc manning the .50cal started lashing the crewmen abandoning the Sherman’s, who were running in all directions as more small arms fire reached out from the woods, dropping men hard to the ground.

Shocked, McDaniels shouted at his gunner to cease fire, his voice reaching a crescendo of despair as a burst flayed two men into butcher’s meat before his disbelieving eyes.

“They’re our men! Cease fire, they’re our fucking men!”

Shouting at his men, the desperate officer ran towards the tanks, waving his hands, screaming for a halt to the firing.

The handful of surviving tank crew chose two courses of action. Some put up their hands and sought safety in surrender; a few others chose valiant resistance and blazed away with sub-machine guns or pistols.

Either way, fire from the HST’s and the force in the woods did not discriminate between a coward and a brave man and soon all of them were stilled and bloodied.

McDaniels, the only American casualty of the ambush, never felt a thing as a single bullet from a Soviet Nagant revolver took him in the forehead and ended his life.

Stopping to recover the body of their dead commander, a few gunners found time to loot trophies of pistols and medals from the dead Soviet tank crew. ‘B’ Battery then swept past the fire-savaged lend-lease Sherman’s, leaving the junction to the dead men, destroyed tanks and the engineer platoon from 15th Combat Engineer Battalion who had ambushed the over-confident advance guard of the 65th Soviet Army.

0800 hrs Thursday 9th August 1945, The Kremlin, Moscow, USSR.

At 0800 hrs precisely, Beria placed before Stalin his plan for reacting to the intended German mobilisation. In truth, he admitted to the General Secretary, most of the legwork had been done some time before. There would definitely be some small delay before the plan would start to bear fruit but with the assets available, numbers which silently impressed Stalin with the foresight and diligence exhibited by his NKVD Chairman, he had no doubt that the plan would be very effective.

Beria, as usual, maximised his presentation to take the kudos, not informing his leader that the assets had not been placed for this task but another completely different one.

The plan was approved and within a few hours messages had been sent to sympathisers within the International Red Cross from where it would slowly reach the assets.

As with many things devised by Beria’s mind, the plan was simple but the dividends could be huge. Time would tell.

0830 hrs Thursday 9th August 1945, Headquarters of SHAEF, Trianon Hotel, Versailles, France.

It had been hoped that SHAEF would be able to retake control at approx 0400 hrs but the disruption caused by the air attacks on both the airfield and the I.G.Farben building played havoc with the timetable.

Valuable personnel had been killed or wounded and it took extra time for Eisenhower to get his headquarters online.

It was not until 0830 hrs that SHAEF again took control and commenced the normal everyday processes associated with controlling a shrinking army in a losing war.

Towns and cities that yesterday had lain in friendly territory were now behind a line that was relentlessly marching westwards, occasionally checked, occasionally blooded, but presently unstoppable and inexorable.

The first concept of a halt line had never got off the ground, vital sections already having fallen to Soviet advances.

Whilst some new formations were coming online there were still not enough assets in place to be able to do anything meaningful to, in some way, wrest the initiative from the Russian armies.

Clearly Hamburg was vital and McCreery would hold it against whatever the Russians threw at him.

One British Corps commander had stated that it would be a second Stalingrad, and was reminded very succinctly by McCreery that the Russians had won the first rather convincingly.

Canadian and Polish divisions had moved up and stiffened resistance on the North German plain and Eisenhower was sure the Soviet timetable was being wrecked there, which it was. British engineers had developed a penchant for destruction, dropping most of the bridges behind them as they retreated, slowing the Russian advances.

For now, the German divisions in Denmark, complete and ready for battle, were tasked with defending the coastline and probing the landings in Lolland in the east.