Western Front Chapter 2:
Feldwebel Wehrt squeezed his large frame through
the hatch to inform us that we were moving out
to occupy a defence sector further up the river
towards Dillingen. A large concentration of
troops and tank units had been reported closing
in on the townships and villages and on the Saar
fortifications around Dillingen and Saarlautern.
We were not sorry to leave the little concrete
cages, generally regarded as sealed coffins as
one well-placed shell or bazooka through the
front armour plate and it was all over. Had the
rocket not missed its target that particular
morning the three of us would have been
statistics. The Notausgang wouldn't have helped
us much.
Just after midnight our company assembled in the
woods up on the ridge and marched off in the
direction of Dillingen. It had been raining for
quite some time and was very cold. The American
artillery was still silent though we didn't
expect them to stay so for much longer. Usually
they came to life just before daybreak with a
noisy barrage then went silent. It was too early
yet for the big show . There were a few random
shots behind us in the direction of Merzig and
over by the ball bearing factory and then it was
quiet. The Yankee gun crews were having
breakfast?? We moved silently through the woods
in single file, our platoon together, but there
were others; the whole of our company was on the
march that early morning.
Five, perhaps six kilometres from our pillboxes
was the Battalion Command bunker, on the crest
of the hill. It was still dark when we arrived,
the rain had stopped and the clouds drifted over
the hills and disappeared. Here and there one
saw a star briefly then it was gone. The
Headquarters bunker was heavily camouflaged,
well hidden away, and one could actually walk
over it not knowing it was there, even in broad
daylight.
We had left the woods and were out in the open
field and were ordered to spread out and dig
ourselves in and out of sight before daybreak.
Headquarters expected the Thunderbolts to show
up with the first light as they had been doing
the previous week with almost clockwork
precision. They were trying to knock out as many
of the Westwall bunkers as they could, to make
it easier for Patton's infantry to walk through
it and be on the Rheine by Christmas.
*******************
"Maybe there are five thousand, maybe ten
thousands Nazi bastards in their concrete
foxholes before the Third Army. If Ike
(Eisenhower) gives me the supplies I'll go
through the Siegfried Line like shit through a
goose!" -
The words of General Patton in September 1944.
He didn't quite achieve his bombastic feat. He
got into the goose's beak easy enough but it
took him until the following March to get
through the bird and to the 'shit'. By then the
German forces had given up the Westwall and
retreated across the Rheine. Then came the visit
of the great man himself:
"Stop the car", Churchill ordered his driver
when they came to the first row of dragon teeth.
The 'Great Man got out, had all his Generals
line up next to him, including Montgomery, Field
Marshal Alan Brooke and other Allied
dignitaries. "Gentlemen", he ordered, "let us
all urinate on the great West Wall of Germany."
-
On March 24 Patton wrote in his diary:
"Drove to the river and went across on the
pontoon bridge, stopped in the middle and pissed
in the Rhine".
Unfortunately for him, when he got off the
wobbly bridge, he slipped and fell flat on his
knees but on regaining his composure uttered to
the waiting US and British war correspondents:
"Thus, William the Conqueror." -
******************
The previous heavy rains had softened the soil
into a soggy mess making it easy to dig into and
we wished it would cloud over again and rain
like hell but it never did when one wanted it.
Amazing how it always cleared up in the morning,
making it easier for the Yanks to bring in their
aircraft and bomb you to blazes.
Two American spotter planes appeared at
daybreak, well up and out of shooting range and
we knew them well. They were slow, heavily
armour plated and were the eyes of their
artillery, relaying to the big guns over the
hills the necessary corrections to get their
missiles on target. They always kept their
distance so that rifle and machine guns couldn't
get near them. A couple of 2 cm would give them
a bit of a jolt but we hadn't noticed any of
them operating in our sector. Such planes could
spot all they needed to see and the zigzags and
dragon teeth must have stuck out like fancy
needlework from the air.
It wasn't long before the first artillery
barrage howled over the ridge from somewhere
near Rehlingen. We figured such long range
batteries must have been brought in from supply
bases deep in France during the previous few
days which was now easy to do in broad daylight
as they were no longer hampered by German
fighter bombers. It had become rare to sight a
German plane lately.
The heavy shells screeched in a terrifying, well
directed pattern. They systematically ploughed
over the slope leading to the river and every
now and then a barrage cleared the crest at
almost tree top level, or so it seemed, to crash
down to the gun positions of our own artillery.
Their ramparts were somewhere down in the
valley, the friendly side of our hill, and some
shells didn't quite clear the ridge but buried
themselves in the soggy ground, spewing up mud
and shrapnel like gigantic mushrooms in a wide
circle around the impact. Instant oblivion if
your foxhole was close by.
The inferno stopped as quickly as it started,
then came the Thunderbolts, stubby fat machines,
gleaming silver in the early sunrays, the
American star shining at the back of their
fuselages. Twenty, maybe thirty, winged into the
Saar valley, swooping on the line of bunkers
built deep into the ground, with only their
roofs showing. They knew exactly where the
bunkers were by just following the zigzag line
of the communication trenches and the
unmistakable jaws of the dragon teeth.
They dived on them like vultures on to easy
prey, firing their missiles and deadly cargo of
weapons again and again. Each Thunderbolt
carried an incredible eight 0.5 calibre machine
guns and five torpedo-like missiles strapped
under each wing. Their missiles made little
impact on the concrete structures but drew nasty
dirty mushrooms from wherever they plunged into
the soil. They didn't have it all their own way.
Every time a plane rose after a missile drop,
its shiny, fat belly exposed to the ground, it
was peppered with every available rifle, machine
gun and burp gun from the German fox holes down
by the river. There would have been quite a few
Thunderbolts who never returned to home base,
although they had the reputation of taking a
fair bit of punishment and still make it back to
base. Our artillery started up and gave the Ami
guns a bit of a lashing, taking advantage of the
Americans being temporarily silent due to the
presence of their aircraft.
Looking towards the river and about a third of
the way down the slope was a village, most of it
in ruins, but in the centre stood the church
without its roof though its bell tower was still
intact. By the Saar, in front of the railway
line, one could make out the road and beside it
were tank traps, the dragon's teeth, as the
Yanks called them, and from where we were they
looked exactly like it too: five rows of
uninterrupted concrete pyramids, varying in
height from half a metre to the height of a
tank. Close to the river one could make out the
occasional dirty-grey concrete roofs of bunkers
and the line of defence trenches, a series of
zigzags from bunker to river then returning to
the next bunker up or downstream.
Mid-morning two of our platoons moved out to the
woods on our left after the field kitchen
delivered some hot noodle soup, which was about
the only cheerful thing all day. The sky clouded
over and it started to drizzle and we were cold
and miserable. Our clothes were damp and clammy
and we were told to remain in our holes until
further orders. My foxhole gradually filled with
water and every time I moved my feet there was a
squelch as my boots sank deeper into the mud.
Every now and again the Americans sent a few
random shells over the ridge, some cleared it,
some didn't.
Then Feldwebel Wehrt came along to tell us we
were moving out again, straight down the hill to
the bunker line by the river, though we had to
wait for nightfall to negotiate the slope
safely. Our hill was under constant observation.
and in direct range of the mortar installations
from the slopes across the river. The drizzle
turned to rain and as soon as darkness came we
moved silently and widely spaced out, down
towards the village. The rain got heavier too,
which we hoped would bugger up the night vision
telescopes opposite us.
We entered the deserted village, passed the
church tower and negotiated the shell-holed
cobblestone street and reached the last few
houses. Then heavy guns opened up on us as
though they had just been waiting for that
precise moment. Shell after shell tore in, with
high pitched howls screeches and followed by
huge, ugly, splitting explosions. there came an
awful short screech and an enormous crack almost
behind me which sent me diving headfirst into
the mud. I slid on my belly and came to rest in
a ditch a few metres down the slope and lay
still for a moment. Shrapnel pinged overhead and
thudded into the mud around me, then another
shell hit the ground a bit further back and
following the explosion came a fearsome shriek.
I groped for my automatic which had slipped from
my grip when I hit the slime and found it about
a metre further down the ditch. I got up and
went back to where the scream came from. Wehrt
was there already and so was Erich. The shell
had got two of our men, cutting them down on the
cobble stones between the two last houses on the
exit of the village and they died with their
last horrific screams.
Why had the American guns opened their fire
precisely and accurately as we came out of the
village? We had crept through it almost
noiselessly and they couldn't see us, not in the
dark and with the rain pelting down on us. We
couldn't take the two bodies with us. Wehrt
removed their ID tags and we quickly carried on
downhill in case more shells came our way.
Towards the river and back from the road we made
out the outlines of two concrete cupolas. They
didn't appear terribly big but surely couldn't
be smaller than the crummy thing we'd left the
previous night. They were empty and we were
ordered to occupy and defend them. As we got
nearer we realised they were much larger. There
was a steel hatch on the back, similar to the
pillbox coffin but large enough to walk through
with very little stooping. It was made of about
2 or 3 cm thick steel and was provided with a
wheel lock and a sliding panel which had a
narrow, horizontal viewing slot.
Once inside, a corridor each side of the door
led forward and up to the gun emplacements and
immediately in front was a flight of steps
leading to the living quarters below ground.
There were seven of us led by an Unteroffizier
on loan from the second platoon whose name was
Remer. Apart from Feldwebel Wehrt, the only
other two chaps whose names still stay with me
were Erich and Josef who had shared the pillbox
up on the ridge. We cautiously groped our way
down the steps in the darkness, occasionally
brightened by the beam of the Kapo's torch or
the flare of a match. The living quarters were
pretty basic - a concrete cave 4 metres by 4
metres and about 1.80 m high. Inside were three
hammocks, a table and two benches and, to our
surprise, a telephone placed on the floor.
Halfway up the wall we discovered a light
bracket but it didn't work. Not that we expected
it to; sheer luxury that would have been. But
there was also a bit of good German thinking:
the makers of those gloomy vaults had really
worked things out to the finest detail and right
next to the phone was a whole carton of
`Hindenburg Lichter', (flat bottomed round
candle lights).
We lit a few to lighten the gloom and in the
flicker of the light our Kapo turned the handle
of the talking contraption on the floor and was
flabbergasted when a voice answered from the
other end. It was the Command bunker on the hill
and it was certainly reassuring to know we were
actually connected to somebody outside. We were
given the call sign Bunker Eight. Steps from the
living quarters continued down another flight to
a smaller room which contained a generator and
what looked like a water pump or it could have
been a ventilation device, we never found out.
Both were useless anyhow as the compartment was
flooded to the top of the generator. From the
living quarters another corridor led to a small
steel hatch on which was painted another `Notausgang'
sign (emergency exit) which led into the first
zigzag of the communication trench the side of
the bunker. On the top level, at the end of the
two sloping corridors was the armament gallery,
equipped with two MG 34 machine guns and a 2 cm
flak cannon of the type I was familiar with. The
machine guns were mobile but the cannon was
fixed to the floor and was operated by opening
the sliding panel in the armour plating in the
wall. In addition to what looked like ample
ammunition for both guns there were boxes of
Panzerfausts and stick grenades neatly stacked
up alongside the corridor. Hanging up on the
wall were two canvas stretchers. Obviously the
bunker was designed for a much larger crew than
just the eight of us, more like eighteen or
perhaps twenty.
Feldwebel Wehrt crawled through the hatch,
delivering the password for the night. He told
us to place double watches as heavy troop
movements had been reported on the French side
of the border. American tank formations had
crossed the Nied at Siersdorf and were standing
by at Rehlingen and the western part of
Saarlautern. Rehlingen was exactly opposite us
across the river. Wehrt's opinion was the
American attack could start any day and whenever
it happened our bunkers had to be held at any
cost. `Any cost' meant lives, ours. Amazing how
phrases like that kept popping up. Observing
Wehrt's German Cross in Gold on his tunic I
quite believed he meant what he said.
With two sentries posted in each of the
trenches, it was two hours on and two hours off
and very little sleep in between. Erich and I
had the 10 to midnight watch in the trench on
the left and the Kapo and Josef took the right
one. The trench was one big mud hole, and if it
was mud and slime where it began, further down
the zigzag to the point at the river it was
filled with icy cold water, reaching to the
knees. We were out there again from 2 to 4 am.
The rain changed to sleet during the night and
our soaked overcoats became stiff and crackled
with every movement. But there was no fear of
falling asleep while the American artillery kept
us well down in the mud with their random
shelling.
Erich and I were relieved from watch duty well
before four o'clock and were detailed to make
our way up the hill to the Battalion
Headquarters to collect coffee and the daily
rations for our platoon. It was pitch dark when
we left and we were joined by two more men from
Wehrt's bunker. We needed to hurry and be back
again before daybreak and the inevitable bombing
raid. The survival rate from being caught on the
downward leg of the slope at daylight was very
slim indeed. It was drizzling again and hard
going uphill in the dark. The cold and sleet had
transformed the mud into an ice crust overnight
and one slip and you ended up sliding down on
the belly and elbows, frantically trying to
regain a foothold with the minimum of noise. We
crept into the `ghost village' with much
apprehension, expecting any moment a repetition
of last night's performance. The two bodies were
still where they fell and I made a mental note
that one of us should report their exact
location to the Command Post so that they could
do something about them. By now Wehrt would have
informed them by phone.
We got through the village safely and assumed
that as the American artillery kept silent the
episode overnight must have been purely an
accidental outcome of random shelling. Up at the
Command Post, the field kitchen who had come up
from the village from the friendly side of the
hill, had been and gone again. The coffee was
already filled in canisters and the rest of
provision were packed in rucksacks and stacked
in a row for quick allocation and minimum of
confusion. I grabbed one of the canisters and
strapped it on my back, Erich took a rucksack
and our two mates from Wehrt's bunker did
likewise.
We were now ready for the downhill ordeal. The
Command Post knew about the two bodies and one
of the stretcher bearers volunteered to come
with us as far as the village to note their
exact positions so they could recover them the
following night and take them to the German base
village for burial. We crept into the village as
noiselessly as possible. The slightest noise
such as a pistol touching the metal canister in
the still, cold night air and could be heard
over a long distance. We got past the eerie
church building feeling `glad' to have reached
the bodies again at the end of the village and
parted company with the stretcher bearer. Then
just as we were passing the last of the houses
we heard the first salvos come howling in. I
didn't wait for the crash but leapt a few mighty
steps forward and flung myself into the ground,
tumbling down hill for quite a distance, closely
followed by the rest of our group. The shells
exploded immediately behind us with deafening
crashes and mushrooms of dirt and shrapnel.
It was almost the same spot we'd been shelled
the previous night. As I lay with my face buried
in the ground waiting for the pinging and
pinging of the shrapnel to subside I felt warm
liquid trickling down my neck and stiffened with
fear. Jesus! One of those steel chunks has hit
me and blood was running down all over me. It's
got me in the back of my head, or maybe cut my
neck? Yet I could still move my head and there
was no pain. But when a razor sharp shell
shrapnel cuts into you it deadens the nerve and
you feel nothing momentarily, until the nerve
comes to life again and then the pain hits
you...
The liquid soaked my clothes and ran down my
back and when I smelt it I nearly burst out
laughing. Ersatz kaffee, from the canister on my
back! That's what is was, not my blood. I got up
and unbuckled the canister which had been hit
and holed by a shell fragment and half its
contents was gone, trickling down my back and I
smelt like a walking coffee shop. We had been
lucky this time there were no casualties other
than my coffee container but that repeated
barrage sure was no accidental shelling.
Something or somebody was in that village who
was in touch with the Americans. It was still
dark when we reached the bunker line and it
didn't matter much about the coffee, or what was
left of it. By the time it was dished out it was
stone cold anyway.
As expected they came at dawn, flying low and
using the course of the river as their guide.
The piercing sound of the telephone hollered
through the bunker, reverberating from every
niche. It was the Command bunker ordering us to
man the trenches. I grabbed my automatic and
headed for the trench to the left, closely
followed by Josef. I went straight to the last
zigzag close to the river's edge, some twenty
odd metres away from the bunker's hatch and
stood on the lee side of the corner. The water
in the trench reached almost to my hips but I
thought it was better there in the freezing
water than up close to the bunker with a good
chance of being ripped to pieces. Josef took
shelter behind the next zigzag close by.
It was a hellish position to be in but our guess
was that the Thunderbolts would concentrate
their attacks on the bunkers rather than on to
the trench line and we were right. They came in
close formation and some had already picked
their target well before reaching our position.
They dived three, four at a time suggesting they
knew the exact position of every single bunker
and pillbox along the Saar. Most should be quite
easy for them to find as their dirty, grey
concrete roofs must be visible from miles away.
It wasn't all one-sided though as every time a
plane dived he was met by a hail of tracers. In
a trifle one was diving over us, with tracers
streaking towards him from the trench the other
side of our bunker, which must be our Kapo and
his men. I kept my head well down below the
parapet and saw the missiles leave the plane's
wing and hurtle towards Wehrt's bunker and hit
the ground followed by flashes and explosions. I
didn't see whether the bunker had been hit as I
was concentrating on ours. Two planes pulled out
from their dives and both missiles from the
first narrowly missed it and hit the railway
line. The rapid acceleration as the pilot pulled
out of his dive was quite frightening. The
second plane released its rockets and was
pulling out too but for a fraction of a second I
had his full underbelly in the sight of my
automatic and pulled the trigger and gave him a
burst of ten, maybe fifteen bullets. Most were
swallowed up in his fat belly. I stopped firing
and lost sight of him as a massive explosion and
gigantic shock wave shattered over me and I went
down flat into the slimy water to the bottom of
the trench.
It must have been one of the missiles the plane
had dropped before I took him on, or it could
have been from his team mate. I stayed low in
the freezing water for some time waiting for
more explosions but none came. Thunderbolts
carried five 125 mm rockets under each wing. It
must have been his last one and I was mighty
glad for that.
I didn't see the next one approach. He came from
my right and aimed straight for our bunker,
firing his missile which overshot the target and
skimmed the rampart of the next zigzag halfway
to the bunker where it exploded in front of the
parapet a few metres short of the river bank.
The plane shot straight over the river, climbed
up the opposite slopes at treetop height and
disappeared over the ridge. It was the last of
the bombing for the morning.
Extracting myself from the mud I made my way to
the bunker before the artillery started to
follow up the bombers. Soaked through and
shivering from the icy water, I found Josef
still crouched around the corner of his Zig-Zag,
the one the last rocket jumped over before
hitting the ground. He was as muddy and soaked
as I was and seemed disoriented, and evidently
trying to recover from some shock which was
understandable. He'd been closer to the
explosion and had the missile come in just a
little bit lower it would have fallen right on
top of him...