Western Front Chapter 1:
Towards the last week of October we were called
to the exercise yard for the last time with all
our gear for final inspection. New camouflage
overalls were issued and our rifles exchanged
for new Schmeisser automatic pistols. We
thought, with a little bit of luck, we might
have seen the last of our Feldwebel Wehrt, that
he might join the ranks of instructors in the
barracks to give those who came after a bit of a
hard time. But no such thing, he remained in
charge of our platoon.
But there was one member of our platoon who was
unable to attend that morning's rollcall. A chap
called Herbert got sick during the night with
terrible stomach pains and was taken away to the
sickbay, saying he had appendicitis. Came on all
of a sudden and absolute agony. So he'd been the
informer who shared our hut. We would never have
suspected him; he was quite a good mate really
but he fooled us quite nicely. Josef assessed it
spot on: "Das Arschloch is not in the sick bay,
he's in the instructor's quarters having
breakfast with his master." He was probably
right too.
Provided with the usual salami stick and half
loaf of black commiss our company, led by the
commander, a Oberleutnant and his staff, marched
us 10 km to Osterbrock railway station. It was
late evening when we arrived and waiting were
goods wagons and one personnel carriage for
company staff. There was no comfort in the
wagons, just the bare floor boards, not even
straw to lie on so we assumed after one night,
two at most, we would be there. Wherever `there'
was we could only guess. It could be anywhere
along the Dutch border from Enschede to Arnhem
and down to Venlo, or somewhere in Belgium or
perhaps Metz in France. We heard that the
Americans had captured the German city of Aachen
a few days previously, which was now a pile of
rubble. At Monschau in the Hurtgen forest there
was heavy fighting around the Westwall
fortifications - the Siegfried line on which the
Brits sang they would hang their washing. Well,
they were a bit tied down then in Nijmwegen so
would have to do their washing later.
Our train travelled steadily south, passing
through Rheine and heading towards Munster.
There was not much chance of being blown off the
line by marauding bombers from Harris's
demolition squadrons as the travelling
conditions were almost perfect. Fog was
everywhere, blanketing anything that moved on
roads and railways and no give-away sparks from
locomotives to the overhead bombers on their way
to Berlin or whichever city Harris's roving
finger determined was next for destruction.
From Münster the train joined the line to Hamm,
which like many other towns lay in ruins from
earlier raids. We travelled on, skirting
Dortmund and I fell asleep but woke when we
stopped somewhere outside Siegen where we were
shunted into a heavily timbered cutting in what
must have been the Westerwald mountain range. It
was early morning and still foggy and should it
lift we were ordered to stay on the train, so as
not to attract any attention. We were quite
happy to be parked there all day playing cards,
with a midday visit from a Red Cross canteen
with the usual porridge. Towards evening we were
rolling again, in the direction of Bonn, the
river Rheine and whatever came beyond... Nobody
bothered to tell us where we were going and we
weren't frantic to ask. Then a fellow who seemed
to know the area said that unless we changed
tracks we would end up in Frankfurt. I wasn't
particularly interested where we end up
eventually, I was tired and stretched out on the
wooden floor, listening to the wheels rattling
but was hoping we weren't going to Frankfurt.
British Bomber Command would probably be there
as well.
We must have stopped some time before I woke,
not from lack of train movement, but to hear a
strange sounding motor somewhere. The sliding
door was wide open and the wagon full of stale
air smelling like burnt coal. The chap next to
me said it was eight o'clock yet it was still
dark. Then I realised we were parked inside a
mountain. Taking advantage of the stationary
train to perform my morning call under the
carriage I learned from quite a few others
squatting there, that during the night we'd
crossed the Rheine at Koblenz and were now in
the Hunsruck Mountains, parked right next to a
V1 rocket launching site. So that had been the
noise I'd heard.
Together with a few more curious mates we made
our way to the mouth of the tunnel to see what
was going on and were able to view the spectacle
at close range. There must have been more than
one launching site as rocket after rocket was
sent up at close intervals. Actually they were
not fired directly into the air but were
catapulted out of their launching tunnels in a
low level trajectory and once in the air, did a
complete circle. We were told that was to test
the rocket's motor before the missile was sent
on its course by remote control. Not every
missile completed its initial circle without
mishap. Should the engine malfunction it simply
dropped its short stubby wings before diving to
the ground and exploding, ripping out a crater
big enough to drop an average size house in. We
saw evidence of numerous failures but were told
to keep our noses out of something that didn't
concern us and to return to our wagons. "Jawohl,
Herr Oberleutnant."
Feldwebel Wehrt visited and we asked why we were
stuck in the tunnel. He said our transport had
accidentally been switched overnight but we
would be returning to Koblenz at nightfall, in
the meantime we were to stay inside. All day we
played Skat and 'Siebzehn und vier' by the dim
candle light, the winning and losing vast
fortunes, interrupted only by the visit from the
rocket base's field kitchen with some welcome
hot noodle soup.
Under cover of darkness we left the tunnel and
somewhere near Koblenz were shunted on to our
correct track, at least we guessed so as the
train wound its way upstream past Boppard to St
Goar. Somewhere across the river would be the
Lorelei though unseen in the dark. Some joker
started to sing -
"Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten dass ich
so traurig bin, ein Märchen aus uralten Zeiten
das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn. Die Luft is
..."
Shut up you idiot, can't you see we want to
sleep!" We travelled on through the night,
leaving the main line at Bingen and headed for
Bad Kreuznach, St. Wendel and on to Saarbrücken,
crossing into France at Forbach well before dawn
the next morning. It was as far as the train was
able to go. Metz was 45 km to the west and was
already bypassed by General Patton's Third Army.
The Metz garrison was completely surrounded but
was still holding out, so we were told, but it
could only be a matter of time before the
Americans took that last stronghold before
tackling, what was to be considered the
strongest part of the Westwall, the line from
Saarbrücken to Merzig and up to Trier.
Heavy fighting was going on around Metz. We
could hear the thunder of heavy artillery and
some of their random shells were already close
enough to remind us that our `safe' period was
about to end and death would be our escort
again. We hastily disembarked, assembled on the
loading ramp for a quick rollcall and check up
of gear and then were marched off across the
border and towards the Saar in the direction of
Völklingen, Saarlois and Beckingen. We crossed
the Saar to the eastern bank at Völklingen and
came to a little village well outside the town
late that afternoon. The village was almost
empty, most of its people having already left or
were still being evacuated. Our platoon took up
quarters in a deserted farm house some distance
outside the village but there wasn't much rest
that night. Patton's Army must have gained some
headway during recent days and heavy artillery
from the direction of Metz seemed to have come
much closer. They hammered away all night, most
shells keeping their distance though some came
really close, close enough to make you forget
about sleep.
The big guns were probing for the railway line
from Völklingen to Merzig, and particularly the
road leading to it. We were glad when the order
came to prepare to move out after a hasty
breakfast of the usual porridge and coffee. It
was still dark and we kept well away from the
railway line and main roads, sticking to the
woods and hills and bypassing Saarlautern and
Dillingen. The going was tough and progress
slow. Platoon columns were widely spaced to keep
casualties to the minimum. Wooded areas were
excellent hide outs for a large body of troops
on the move but give hardly any protection from
artillery shells. Tree bursts usually have fatal
consequences, as a shell exploding at treetop
height not only showers the area with massive
chunks of shrapnel but the shorn off branches
coming down with it can cause horrible injuries
and death. An exploding shell in a tree also
echoes through the forest, causing one to lose
all direction of the point of impact. `Don't go
to ground, stay upright, hard against a tree',
we were told. That way the chance of survival is
greater as the body exposure is kept to a
minimum. Even then what one needs most is luck.
As the old army wise crack goes - `Wenn du Glück
hast, kannst du den Finger im Arsch brechen'.(If
luck is with you, you can even break the finger
in your arse!)
The battalion suffered quite a few casualties
that day before we reached Beckingen. Our
platoon was lucky and got there without loss.
Then the company split up and platoons went to
their assigned areas. The hills around Dillingen
to the left and downstream to Merzig and Trier
were prime pillbox country, a forward line of
the Westwall. Most of the bunkers were invisible
until one fell over them but their presence was
everywhere. They were in all sizes, from boxes
containing one machine gun to larger sized
bunkers with two or three big guns in their
Kasematten and even larger ones down by the
river, where one could just see the dome
sticking out of the ground and the communication
trenches the side of them. Some others were
disguised as ordinary houses.
Feldwebel Wehrt was ordered to take our platoon
to the ball bearing factory, just out of town,
up on the hills. The factory had been working up
to a few days previously when the shelling made
it impossible for them to carry on production.
There were still some people there when we
reached the building. It was the manager, his
wife and their young daughter and it looked like
they had just finished loading the family car, a
large Daimler Benz, with some of their
belongings and were in the process of leaving.
It was amazing how they could still keep a car
of that type and actually get petrol for it.
The house was an enormous mansion with three
fully furnished bedrooms with en suites to each,
plus a separate large bathroom. The main bedroom
was fitted with large heavy plate glass windows
overlooking the countryside and amazingly were
still unbroken. The manager told us to make
ourselves comfortable in the house as he was
sure it was of no use to him any more. He
suggested it would be better to destroy the
whole thing when we left rather than let the
Americans move in and enjoy its comfort. He
needn't have worried about that. Once the
American artillery got a proper bearing on the
factory they would hammer it good and proper and
there wouldn't be much left of the mansion
either. They had it in for German ball bearing
factories since they were such an essential item
for any moving machinery.
Once the Daimler had gone we settled down for
the night, searching the house for food mainly
but there was nothing, just an empty larder. It
didn't matter, the field kitchen would be coming
along with it's culinary masterpieces - noodle
soup, salami and black bread. The wardrobes and
drawers were still full of the owners' personal
belongings but we weren't interested in them and
in the German army there was always the
possibility of being shot for that sort of
thing. The Americans could do all the looting
when they arrived, and they would't get shot.
Wehrt ordered me and another chap to go with him
on a quick look through the factory premises to
make sure there wouldn't be any sneaking
surprises coming out of there during the night.
There was still some machinery left though most
of it had been removed but it was getting dark
and we didn't want to get caught in there when
the artillery started up so quickly returned to
the house.
The field kitchen had come and gone with a treat
of noodle soup and goulash for a change.
Sentries were posted and then we settled down
for some sleep. I was tempted to have a go at
one of the flashy beds upstairs but since there
were lots of others with the same idea I decided
to stretch out on the kitchen floor instead.
Anyhow, I couldn't contemplate much sleep as I
was due to replace Erich on sentry duty at the
factory.
The artillery slowly came closer and finally
homed in on the factory proper with a
particularly savage round of four shells in
quick succession. One hit the front of the
mansion, ripping down the entire wall with the
plate glass windows to the bedrooms upstairs and
left the downstairs lounge room in a shattered
mess. Two of our men in there having what they
thought would be a restful sleep woke up choking
and spitting and covered with cuts and bruises
and the blokes sleeping in the upstairs bedrooms
couldn't have touched the stair steps on their
way down either. Josef was one of them and he
wasn't too happy about that and I was glad I was
still on sentry duty. We were all lucky no one
was killed in that house when the shell struck.
There were more hits that night so we abandoned
it and cleared out of the factory complex well
before dawn. We didn't have to destroy the villa
after all; it was done quite nicely by American
artillery fire.
We made our way along the hill top where there
were clusters of strategically placed pillboxes,
well camouflaged and dug in along the slopes.
They were fortified machine gun positions, some
with one gun mounted inside, and some were much
larger with two or three guns in their defence
bays. Most of the smaller boxes could
accommodate a crew of three, the larger ones
could take from five to six and the big ones
down by the river with the communication
trenches zigzagging from one to the other were
built for a crew of 16 or more. They also had
anti-tank guns and a 2 cm behind their
embrasures. It later became our job to occupy
those structures.
Meanwhile the pillbox I shared with Josef and
Erich was small and was already occupied by two
men from the 'Volkssturm', the German version of
`Dad's Army'. They were mighty glad to have us
take over and cleared out in a hurry. The inside
dimensions were not more than perhaps 2.5m x
2.5m and about 1.8m high, accessible from the
rear by means of a small steel hatch barely big
enough to crawl through. Once inside it was
sealed by a submarine-type wheel lock. Inside
was a machine gun mounted behind a 2 cm thick
armour plated sliding panel of the gun embrasure
which had a 6 mm horizontal viewing slot cut in,
through which one could overlook the Saar valley
below and the slopes on the opposite side of the
river.
There was enough ammunition and tinned food to
last the occupants at least a week. The tins had
no date and were probably as old as the
structure itself. They were in a box branded `Eiserne
Ration' (emergency ration) to be opened only as
a last resort, if the way of escape is cut off,
and you have to end up fighting. The last meal
of your life, so to speak, and any premature use
carried the death penalty.
Adjacent to the entry hatch was an emergency
exit, which was merely a 30 cm square opening in
the concrete wall leading out to the earth
behind. A spade, crowbar and pickaxe were
fastened to the wall and above the opening was a
painted sign which said `Notausgang' (emergency
exit) but how one could dig one's way out in a
hurry remained a mystery. The whole thing must
have been about as useful as a rowing boat in
the desert. In one corner was a rolled up
hammock, one only, probably to ensure never more
than one of the crew indulged in the luxury of
sleep at a time.
Looking across the river and the wooded slopes
beyond there was no visible evidence of the
American presence. But we knew they were there,
well dug in and camouflaged. Their artillery
fire was becoming more and more accurate,
feeling its way along our hill. If our pillboxes
were as comfortable as a medieval prison cell,
they certainly provided excellent protection
against the heavy incoming shells. We had a
visit from a Company Leutnant with orders to
keep shooting activity to a minimum and confine
it to checking out weapons. The reasons were to
preserve ammunition but mainly to prevent
revealing the position of the various bunkers.
In our case there was not much to hide as our
pillbox was built right to the edge of the slope
and stuck out prominently. A dead give-away for
the inquisitive eyes of American observation
posts on the opposite slopes of the river.
As soon as darkness came we took turns to man
patrol points down by the river bank, to prevent
any American attempt to send over commandos in
the dead of night to do a bit of damage here and
there. The patrols continued throughout the
night, taking usually one man from each pillbox
who were then split up into small groups of
perhaps three or four, led by an Unteroffizier.
They were hazardous trips. Apart from the ever
present possibility of getting ripped to pieces
by the next shell one was constantly aware of
the odd sniper bullet coming from the hills on
the opposite bank. Sniper's guns were equipped
with night vision telescopes and were extremely
accurate. Over the previous two nights, four men
of various patrols had been picked off by them.
It was relatively easy to get down to the river
level but a long exhausting way up again in the
dark and more often than not we got lost on the
slope trying to find our own pillbox.
One evening shortly before eight o'clock a Kapo
came along to collect our rostered third man to
join his patrol. It was Erich's turn. We had
just finished cleaning and oiling our machine
gun and had it back on its pedestal when he came
crawling through the hatch. "Is it working?" he
asked. "We hope it is, we havn't tried it yet,"
I told him. "Let's have a burp and find out," he
said. Then he asked me to put an ammo belt into
the breach, he opened the embrasure hatch, stuck
the barrel through and pulled the trigger.
Perhaps he kept his finger on the trigger a
little longer than necessary for a test shot or
two, or maybe we oiled the gun too well, but the
recoil action and movement of the gun pushed the
muzzle back and slightly upward behind the
armour plate on the inside and the last bullet
hit the steel and went mad ricocheting around in
our confined space, from the armour plate to the
back wall and forward again. Unlike the rest of
us the Kapo was holding the gun and couldn't
drop to the floor and the bullet on its return
zing hit him square in the face, slashing his
cheek from ear to the mouth, an awful mess. We
bandaged his face with what we could find in the
first aid kit, making sure he was still able to
breathe. It looked like there was no damage to
the cheekbone, but the horrible flesh wound
would probably scar him for life. There was not
much else we could do for him. Erich and the
rest of his patrol took him to the company's
command bunker then continued the patrol duties
without their leader. The Kapo would have to do
some explaining to the Commanding Officer in due
course though probably he wouldn't be able to
talk for quite some time in the condition he was
in.
Towards the end of November we had a few attacks
from the American air force, mainly Thunderbolt
dive bombers. They came down the river valley at
day break, dropped their bombs and rockets and
strafed anything they could spot moving. Their
targets were mainly bunkers which they could
clearly discern and our pillbox stuck out like a
freshly grown mushroom. Early one morning we got
a good flogging when a Thunderbolt strafed us,
his rockets only missing us by a few whiskers.
The impact of the shells from his cannons on the
concrete face of our pillbox sounded like a
truck had hit us at full speed. From then on we
didn't take any chances and whenever the silver
lined `bolts' came on the scene, we cleared out
of the box and scattered into the woods on the
ridge and took a few bursts with our assault
rifles. They were most vulnerable when they came
out of their dive from delivering their rockets,
presenting their shiny bellies to our gun
sights. They needed to be short bursts because
should they see where the fire came from it
could very well be curtains for the hapless
gunner, which was what happened to a crew two
boxes downstream from us. They had left their
box and were well prepared for they had taken
their machine gun from the pillbox with them and
emptied a good round into a plane on its way up
from its dive. They shot it down all right but
failed to see the rocket homed at them from the
plane's team mate. After the smoke had gone
there was not much left of the gun crew.