Opening Moves

Artem’yev received orders to form a line starting on Winterhausen west to Maisenbach as the 12th’s Combat Command ‘A’ had been considerably more successful, dealing heavily with his comrades from the 243rd Rifle Division, who had had neither the benefit of tanks and heavy anti-tank support nor of favourable terrain.

The Colonel smiled to himself, only just now noticing the bloodstain where a wood splinter had slashed his left thigh.

It also helped that the Americans had been overconfident and inexperienced; a very bad combination.

However, he had seen enough to know that they would learn, and when they got it right, there would be a bill to pay.

Chapter 49 – THE WEAKNESS?

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

Sun Tzu, the Art of War

1355 hrs 10th August 1945, Headquarters, US Forces in Europe, Trianon Palace Hotel, Versailles, France.

“Dear God.”

Apart from the normal analysis post-battle, there was little else to be said that made sense that afternoon.

It would be necessary to know what went wrong so that there were no repeats and early reports suggested some leadership and support failings.

Combat Command ‘B’, 12th Armored had ceased to exist in all but name and regardless of where the blame lay, the loss of life was appalling. As usual, Ike took the weight fully on his own shoulders.

The proposed counter-attack at Fritzlar had gone forward as planned and blunted Soviet efforts, retaking Fritzlar, or more accurately, what was left of the town. However, the drive had only gained one mile beyond the ruins before being halted in turn.

He had spent some of his morning chewing out his officers over the failure of the new 15th Armored to move forward and attack.

Now in his hand he held a report detailing what had happened to one of his formations that had discharged its orders that morning, and it made appalling reading.

‘Perhaps the Almighty had shown his hand and stopped the green division from receiving similar treatment?’

In the main, the air support promised by the USAAF and RAF had proven excellent. Allied fighters had protected the armored columns well, inflicting palpable losses on the Russian air regiments who tried to get through them. This enabled Combat Command’s ‘A’ and ‘R’ of the 12th Armoured to discharge their function and inflict great damage on enemy forces south of Wurzburg, all at a small cost in lives and equipment.

9th US Armored’s more modest attack had also achieved all it set out to do, and at even lower cost in lives, the most valuable of a General’s assets.

The air attacks slated for the cancelled Göttingen operation went ahead, and resulted in modest casualties for Eisenhower’s valuable ground-attack assets as fair exchange for huge disruption to the Soviet drive on and around Göttingen. An overnight RAF bomber raid on Northeim had been confirmed as having wrecked every crossing point on the Rhume River, including the two recently constructed by enemy engineers.

Running north and west from Northeim, every crossing point on the Rhume and Ilme Rivers had now been dropped in an effort to hinder movement and logistics on the northern side of the pocket.

The Russians were doing the same to the bridges to the west of the trapped troops, destroying or damaging every bridge on the River Weser between Reinhardshagen and Gieselwerder.

Fortunately, their efforts to destroy the crossing at Lippoldsburg had failed, partially because of some excellent work by USAAF Mustangs in defence and partially ensured by the presence of two full AAA battalions whose only purpose in life was to shoot down anything in range wearing a red star.

Again, the failure of the 15th Armored could be seen as fortuitous, as the changing situation now meant that a thrust aimed at Beverungen would be more productive. In addition, one of the few successful photo-reconnaissance missions of late had confirmed an absence of significant armored forces on that possible advance axis. A second mission to establish enemy forces around Boffzen and Holminden had similarly turned up nothing of note, making the whole area appear ripe for a more involved counter-thrust when assets permitted.