Opening Moves

When the evaluation was done by intelligence, it was felt that Soviet Night aviation had been dealt a crippling blow for some time to come. Communications and logistics would definitely be disrupted and the effect of that should shortly be felt in a positive way by those facing the Soviet armies in the field. Higher than predicted allied losses, particularly in ground-attack and fighter aircraft, meant there could be no repeats, and as Eisenhower and Tedder firmly believed, should be no repeats.

The purpose had been to hit back, not lose their offensive air capability.

^{Washington did not receive the Medal of Honor for his actions that night, receiving the Silver Star instead. Lassiter and Mackenzie attended the White House in November that same year, having recovered reasonably well from their wounds, and were the first US aviators to be recommended for and awarded the Medal of Honor in the extended conflict that had become known as World War Three.}

Chapter 48 – THE RIPOSTES

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.

Ernest Hemingway

0545 hrs Friday 10th August 1945, 12th US Armored Division and other Assault formations of the US Fifteenth Army, Ochsenfurt- Goßmannsdorf, Germany.

Allied Forces – 494th Field Artillery Battalion and B Company, 92nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Battalion and 2nd Platoon, 152nd Signals Company, all of Combat Command ‘A’, and 495th Field Artillery Battalion of Combat Command ‘B’, all of 12th US Armored Division and 573rd AAA Btn [Mot] temp attached to 12th US Armored Division, all of US Fifteenth Army, US Twelfth Army Group.

Soviet Forces – 3rd Battalion, 912th Rifle Regiment and 2nd Battery, 975th Artillery Regiment, both of 243rd Rifle Division of 34th Guards Rifle Corps of 5th Guards Army, and Special Grouping Nautsev, 1st Regiment of 3rd Guards Rocket Barrage Division, both of 2nd Red Banner Central European Front.

In this instance the cavalry had a dangerous job, but a job they did well and with minimal casualties.

Pushing out, using the Main River as a secure right flank, they dashed towards Soviet infantry drawn up in cover in woods to the south of Goßmannsdorf who seemed to be preparing to move out in their own advance.

M5 Stuart tanks and M3 halftracks fired into troops about to embuss in their British-made universal carriers, causing chaos amongst the weary soldiers, chaos that was added to by the sound of artillery dropping to their rear. The bridge southeast of Goßmannsdorf had been destroyed two days previously.

Causing casualties with their fire, the cavalry darted in and out, braving anti-tank rifle and machine-gun fire but little else of note.

Captain Bortsov, the officer in charge of 3rd Battalion 912th Rifle, noted the obvious inexperience of the Amerikanisti, clustered together in one killing zone to his front, moving most certainly but confined to an area no more than five hundred metres across.

Perfect.

His artillery support officer received his orders and calmly relayed the coordinates to the officer in charge of the unit designated as support for this day’s bloody work.

Curiously, the enemy force to his front slipped to his right flank in one graceful movement, clearly meaning his riposte would fall on unoccupied ground.

Revising the orders and reorienting his own troopers to meet the possible attempt to outflank, he received with stoic acceptance the news that the radio was not functioning properly. His country had never been at its best when producing quality electrical items, although he suddenly remembered that the artillery officer was very proud of his new Canadian built Type 19 set, the same radio set his own command vehicle had enjoyed until it had been destroyed in the American air strike.

Bortsov was not to know that communications were being jammed by a twenty year old bespectacled American Corporal sat in a halftrack a kilometre away.

He watched with some annoyance as a regiment’s worth of Katyusha rockets arrived, ploughing up ground and bushes but doing no damage whatsoever to his intended target. Standard artillery rounds also arrived, 76.2mm he estimated, meaning that some of the divisional artillery had joined in the shoot.