Western Front Chapter 3:
We didn't quite make it to the bunker. As
anticipated the American artillery followed up
on the Thunderbolts and pinned us down in the
zigzag trenches. We'd been almost there and
could see the hatch but to be so close outside
was suicidal when the shells howled in. The roof
was too prominent a landmark and the gunners
over the river could home in on it blindfolded.
When the barrage eased off we made a dash for
the steel door which was closed but we were
relieved to find it was still unlocked. We
hurtled down the steps to the living compartment
and tried to relax.
Remer, our Kapo, was on the phone talking to
Headquarters and was told to be on the alert, to
keep a good lookout on the opposite river bank
and report any developments as HQ had reason to
believe that an assault across the river by
Patton's infantry was imminent. I remembered
then that while we were in the trench during the
strafing, I had noticed two bunkers further down
the valley, close by the river, showed no return
fire to the Thunderbolts. I mentioned it to
Remer who reported it and was told by the
Command bunker that they'd been stripped of
their armaments, they are unmanned and locked up
as they were flooded.
Outside the artillery kept up the barrage and
Remer posted a double watch in the gun gallery.
I crawled into a hammock for some sleep, using
my waterlogged, filthy overcoat as a blanket and
dozed off to the muffled `whoompf' sounds jolly
near the bunker. But I was soon woken up by
somebody kicking me in the back - the usual
'wake up' signal. It was Remer, in a bit of a
hurry. Climbing from the hammock, still full of
sleep I had some difficulty getting my feet into
the wet foot rags and boots and felt chilled all
over.
The alarm had come from the lookout in the
kasematten. (gun gallery) Remer was on the
telephone, trying to contact the Command bunker,
not very successfully as he repeatedly turned
the handle. Finally he gave up and sent me up to
the gallery. In the flickering light of the
candles I groped for my automatic and rushed to
the gun emplacements with kapo Remer and Erich
behind me. Outside the artillery had ceased
firing and mortar fire was homing in on the
bunkers and there was a fair bit of machine gun
and small arms fire coming from the opposite
river banks. Feldwebel Wehrt and a Leutnant
squeezed through the hatch and entered the gun
gallery. They looked filthy and must have hit
the slime in the bottom of the trench a few
times. They were checking how we were coping as
there was no interconnecting phone link between
the bunkers, the logic being that if one bunker
was captured by the enemy its telephone couldn't
be used to convey faked messages.
Wehrt ordered me to take charge of the 2 cm gun
with Josef as my ammunition feeder. Josef and I
had come from Russia together with Wehrt, so he
knew that we could handle the equipment
blindfolded if necessary. The rest of the crew
took to the machine guns. The Leutnant told
Remer to keep the phone manned at all times as
from then on each bunker would take orders
directly from Battalion Headquarters and, also
until order came through there was to be no
firing at random. On his way down the corridor
his passing remark was that by order of the
Battalion Commander our bunker line must be held
at all cost, and there would be no retreat.
So what else was new? We'd heard it a few times
in God forsaken Russia but maybe it was
different in the West? If it came to the worst
and we were captured, at least we could cope
with prison camp somewhere in the deep South of
the USA, toiling in the sugar cane or cotton
fields or maybe picking peanuts or something
instead of rotting away in a Siberian salt mine.
One would expect the Americans to be that much
more civilised - or were they?
There were six of us in the gun gallery, Josef
and I on the 2 cm gun and the rest on machine
guns. Erich stood by the phone and Remer was in
command as we waited for action. Through the
vision slots we watched for any movements across
the river. The American artillery started up
again, hammering shells into our defence
positions and Kapo Remer waited for the phone to
ring.
Thick, brown smoke started to rise from the
opposite banks; their chemical company's
generators had come to life. The dirty brown
stuff fell on to the water and crept steadily
across the fast flowing river, gradually
covering it like a thick blanket. That would be
the moment for their infantry to take their high
powered assault boats to the water, cast off and
make a dash through the murky filth of the smoke
and it wouldn't take them long to reach our
shore. Eighty, perhaps a hundred metres at the
most was the width of the Saar in front of us.
The brown muck had not quite reached the near
bank and we still had a good view down to the
river's edge. It was then that our artillery
opened up from the hills behind us. They'd been
waiting for that precise moment and their salvos
were in quick succession, homing in on the
target with uncanny accuracy, right to the edge
of the water. If the assault boats weren't in
the water it would be nearly impossible to do so
now amid the heavy barrage and those who were
would surely wish they were safely across the
Atlantic again. Erich rushed up with orders to
Remer to commence firing. We slid open the
armour plated panel, I adjusted my gun sight on
to the river's edge and hoped Josef's experience
as ammo gunner is sufficient to keep the gun
working. Josef knew what was required I could
tell by the way he slipped the magazine into the
barrel's block. Remer gave the order to fire.
With my foot on the firing pedal I guided
tracers into the smoke screen and the machine
gunners hit the smoke blanket with their random
cross fire. The noise of the discharging cannon
and the cracks of the machine guns reverberated
through the gun gallery like the fury of a
thunderstorm. Then there came a sudden wind gust
which lifted the smoke long enough to reveal the
outlines of fast moving assault craft already
halfway across the river. Josef rammed the
second magazine in the block and I aimed into
the water and could see tracers coming from our
adjoining bunkers hitting the river in perfect
cross fire pattern.
By now our artillery had reduced their range by
some thirty or forty metres and the shells were
hitting the river and near bank causing huge
columns of water spray. The crafts were now
completely exposed to the full effect of the
heavy shelling and tremendous fire bursts from
our defence line. Remer, standing behind me
scanned the shore line with his field glasses
and found the position of one of the generators
and directed me to aim into it. I must have
succeeded as it ceased operating almost
immediately, while our machine gunners continued
their cross fire on to the seemingly demoralised
line of assault craft.
We stopped firing, they had had enough. They
were beaten and knew it was hopeless to carry on
and the few boats who were able to turned back
and tried to reach their shoreline, leaving
scores of upturned and drifting boats behind in
the fast flowing waters. The American assault
that particular day was a complete disaster, and
none of their boats got a foothold on our
sector. They had missed their chance of some
success. Had they chosen to attack a few days
earlier the outcome would have been different as
quite a few of our bunkers would have been
unoccupied and they could have just sailed over
with no particular difficulties.
Our fire ban strategy had paid off and the
Americans were unaware when we had moved into
the bunkers. They suffered heavy losses in that
attack but they would try again tomorrow, or the
day after, as soon as they had their
replacements in position. They wouldn't give up;
General Patton and his Third Army want to be on
the Rheine by Christmas and his boss, Eisenhauer,
would like to be in Berlin soon after. It would
be a hard nut to crack to achieve both
ambitions, the hard nut being the Westwall. We
were lucky that day, our bunker was still intact
and our crew didn't suffer any casualties. We
settled down for the night to wait for another
day. The bunker next to Wehrt's, downstream on
the Merzig side was not so fortunate. An
American heavy gun, a `Long Tom' was in position
on the opposite bank and homed in on it with a
well-placed 155 mm shell which exploded right in
front of the armour plate of the gun gallery,
killing two of its crew outright and severely
wounding two others. The `Long Tom' was a long
barrelled artillery piece, which the Americans
had brought up to crack open the thick walls of
the Westwall bunkers. It was highly efficient
and deadly accurate and able to fire 40 rounds
an hour, a impressive rate for such heavy bored
equipment.
Upstream from us, on the Dillingen side, the
Americans had some success. They had managed to
get a foothold on the German side, landing a few
boatloads of troops and had taken possession of
the two unoccupied bunkers which were supposed
to be flooded. The following day the rain was
coming down heavily and turned into sleet by
midday. In the afternoon we had a visit from our
Company Commander and one of his Leutnants, plus
Feldwebel Wehrt. The Commander informed us of a
planned counter-attack when darkness sets in
with the objective of recapturing our lost
bunkers in the gully. There would be two men
from each bunker, the Leutnant in charge and
Feldwebel Wehrt would lead the attack. So, here
we go again! I could see it written all over
Wehrt's face and, as expected, me and my Kamerad
Josef from Bunker Eight were `selected'. `Kamerad'
Josef wasn't too happy about that and neither
was I but it was Wehrt's decision and the
Leutnant's order and that was that.
We were told to be ready and out in the trench
by 5 PM precisely and meet up with the assault
group in front of Bunker Six, two bunkers
upstream towards Dillingen. We checked our guns
and equipment and just hoped everything would go
as planned. We slipped into the trench at five
o'clock where Wehrt and his men were waiting.
The rain had stopped but it was freezing cold.
Equipped with Panzerfaust, stick grenades and
plenty of ammunition for our assault pistols and
the loan of Remer's torch we made our way
quietly to the neighbouring bunker where we were
joined by two more men and proceeded along the
trench and slipped into Bunker Six, the last
before entering the gully. There we were met by
the Leutnant and two more men. The Leutnant was
by that bunker's telephone in contact with the
Command Post arranging for an artillery barrage
into the gully, on to the bunkers. Then he gave
us a quick briefing on how he wanted the attack
to be carried out.
Our group was to assault the bunker closest to
us and on the far side of the gully another
group was standing by to go in simultaneously to
take the second bunker. He impressed on us that
the element of surprise had to be on our side
for the operation to be successful. We realised
it was a difficult undertaking, since it was not
known how many Yanks had managed to cross the
river and were in them. Feldwebel Wehrt checked
our equipment while we waited. The tense silence
was broken at precisely 5.30 when our artillery
opened up with the requested barrage. The shells
shrieked into the ravine, bursting with a mighty
hard crash. "That should soften up the bunkers a
bit and give the Yanks in there a hard time."
Wehrt was trying to tell us. I was barely
listening to him but was hoping our artillery
men down in the friendly valley would stick to
their coordinates and not stray from their
target and lob a few of those nasties on to our
position. A slight error of a degree or so would
have put a premature end to our mission, not to
mention ourselves. It wasn't so much the
`softening up' the Leutnant was planning. The
bunkers were strong enough to withstand heavy
bombardment. The idea was to get the Americans
to seek shelter inside and have them trapped
when we closed in to lift them.
It seemed an eternity before our artillery
bombardment stopped, leaving the hills echoing
on both sides of the river. As silently as we
could, we moved out into the trench before the
last echo had died away and crept down the
communication trench leading to the occupied
bunker, every step squelching and slipping in
the slime and taking us closer to either success
or doom. Deep down in my mind I was hoping the
Yanks had cleared out when the barrage started
and rowed back across the river and we could
have our bunker back with the least of hassle.
Desperate optimism on my part and not what the
Leutnant and Wehrt had in mind. Their orders
were to bring back prisoners.
To make matters worse it had started to snow. I
wished it hadn't. Dark objects on white snow can
be seen quite clearly over a long distance,
especially when moving. We kept our heads well
below the trench embankment and cautiously
surrounded the bunker. Our advantage was, we
knew the exact layout of the structure and could
locate the hatches in the dark, unlike the new
occupiers who only stumbled on it in the haste
of the day's battle. The Leutnant, Wehrt and
four of his men made their way silently round
the back to the main hatch while Josef and I and
the remaining two men crawled round the side to
the emergency exit. The plan of attack was
reasonably simple, though plans usually are
until something goes wrong. There should be a
short burst from the Leutnant's `Schmeisser'
then both assault groups would go into action
simultaneously. Josef and I crept up to the
emergency exit with the two others covering us
with their assault pistols. To our amazement the
hatch was slightly ajar. The Americans inside
must have overlooked locking it or perhaps they
didn't know of its existence.
I got my Panzerfaust into position, putting the
safety catch ready and waited for the `burp' of
the Leutnant's automatic. When it came Josef
pushed the hatch fully open, I stuck the
Panzerfaust through and pulled the trigger.
There was a streak of flame, a hot flash behind
my back and the missile disappeared into the
black hole. Then came a muffled `whoompf' from
the end of the corridor and I felt the
percussion of the blast hitting back through the
opening. I threw the spent tube away, grabbed my
Schmeisser and pointed it into the opening. At
the main hatch, the Leutnant, Wehrt and his men
had gone into action too though they had a
slight problem because the steel door was closed
and locked. They blasted open the locking device
with a Panzerfaust and rushed in using stick
grenades and their pistols. Josef and I could
hear their muffled detonations reverberating
through the lower corridor and an instant later
a figure staggered out of the dark hole and
emerged through the hatch. I let go a short
blast from my gun over his head into the
concrete wall to force him to his knees and let
him know the exit was well and truly covered, in
case other intentions had crossed his mind.
There was no need to worry, the dim light of the
snow outside and a quick flash of Josef's torch
revealed the frightened and shocked face of an
American GI who couldn't believe his luck that
his number wasn't up yet. He'd been wise enough
to leave his rifle inside. But he wasn't alone:
four more followed his example and tumbled out
behind him, their hands well up in the air. We
made them lie down in the newly fallen snow with
their hands folded behind their heads while a
quick search for hidden weapons revealed none.
At the main hatch, things didn't go so smoothly.
When they blasted the lock off the door
Feldwebel Wehrt and one of his men rushed though
and were met by a hail of bullets from an
American assault gun, giving them no chance to
reply. The Leutnant and the rest of his group
fought it out with the entrenched Ami's for a
while then one of his men came alongside us with
a message to work our way through the emergency
corridor, to clear the lower floors of any holed
up GI's and join up with the Leutnant's group in
the upper gallery.
Quite a tall order! There were only four of us
at the lower exit and we were tied down with the
five unexpected prisoners and had no idea how
many more were hiding inside the dark vault.
Josef and I decided to go in, leaving the two
others with the prisoners. No point in asking
the Yanks lying there with their noses in the
snow how many of their mates were still inside.
They wouldn't have given us any information,
even if they understood German and quite a few
did.
We entered the hatch and crawled along the walls
of the dark corridor, finger on the Schmeisser
trigger ready to use. A quick flash of Josef's
torch showed the corridor to be empty but at the
bottom of the stairs, by the living quarters we
stumbled over the body of a dead American. Since
the corridor sloped away from the hatch there
was no fear of anybody having gone down into the
lower part of the bunker as it was flooded.
Cautiously we rounded the corner to the opening
of the living quarters and sprayed the room with
a short pistol blast and another quick sweep of
the torch showed it was empty. So anybody still
inside had to be upstairs, shooting it out with
the Leutnant and his group. We crept up the
concrete stairway, cautiously and almost on our
knees, hugging the cold rough faced walls either
side of the steps. The thought briefly flashed
through my mind that should something go
terribly wrong on the upper level it wouldn't
give Josef and I much chance to get out. We
dropped flat when a torch beam flashed over us
and to our relief it was the Leutnant's. He
waved us up and directed us to crawl along the
tunnel leading to the gun emplacement on his
right where we joined one of Wehrt's men who was
barring the Americans' escape through the
corridor, while the remaining men were fighting
it out with the stubborn Americans in the other
tunnel.
It took quite some Schmeisser rounds and a few
hand grenades to convince the GI's in the gun
compartment to call it quits and give themselves
up, humiliating as it may be for the Oklahoma
kids to surrender to the Nazi Krauts but they
had little choice. There had been eight of them
in the gun gallery and when it was all over two
were dead, one of them caught by an exploding
stick grenade, the other from Schmeisser
bullets. Three more were wounded and there was
the body down by the bottom of the living
quarters stairway. We took three of them
prisoner. Poor Wehrt and his offsider had
received the full blast of the American assault
rifle when they burst through the opening and
were lying where they got hit and bleeding their
life away. Two of the Leutnant's men were also
wounded but were still able to walk.
The Leutnant detailed myself and the two chaps
outside the emergency hatch to take care of the
prisoners and deliver them to the bunker from
where we'd started that night while he and one
of his men went ahead trying to organise
stretcher bearers or perhaps an ambulance for
the casualties. Josef remained to look after the
wounded and assist the stretcher bearers, if or
when they arrived. At first I thought we might
encounter some difficulty in negotiating the
zigzags in the dark with eight unpredictable
prisoners, so we split them into groups, one of
us taking the lead, me in the middle and our
third guard brought up the rear and this way we
managed to get them safely through the trench.
They remained silent with their hands locked
behind their heads and seemed to have come to
grips with their situation. They were probably
too scared to try anything foolish, or maybe
they were hoping for their artillery to start up
so they could make a run for it. They didn't
look too battle seasoned and tonight's episode
might have been their first taste.
I was mighty glad when we got them back to the
bunker where our Leutnant waited. The crew there
had a generator working and for the first time
we saw the faces of our prisoners in the
unsteady light. They were young chaps in their
early twenties like ourselves. Three were
Negroes and one of the white fellows was a
Leutenant who spoke a bit of German. Our
Leutnant made them empty their pockets, and what
came out was mostly cigarettes and chewing gum,
American dollars and, surprisingly, quite an
amount of German banknotes. It was amusing to
watch the prisoners' amazed faces when they were
told to put everything back into their pockets
except the German money. The GI Leutenant then
offered his counterpart a packet of good
American cigarettes - Lucky Strike, I think -
but our officer politely thanked him and
declined. 'Arshloch! why did he do that?' We
would have gladly taken those cigarettes; they
would have been a change from our Junos, but the
American Leutenant didn't offer them to us and,
besides, we couldn't let our leader down.
Perhaps he didn't smoke or maybe he assumed his
authority with us would have suffered had he
accepted.
The Leutnant informed us that two ambulances
were on their way to pick up the casualties and
would be coming along the Merzig road with full
headlights and floodlit Red Cross markings on
their roofs. This apparently was the way of
informing the enemy across the river that
American casualties were involved and it seemed
to work on the western front. It was very rare
for an ambulance vehicle to be fired upon, but
it certainly wouldn't have worked on the Russian
front where a brightly lit Red Cross vehicle
would have had little chance of survival.
The attack on the second bunker by the assault
group approaching from the other side of the
gully hadn't gone exactly to plan either. Unlike
ours, it was locked when the Americans got to it
and they tried to crack the hatch open with a
demolition charge, which presumably didn't work
so when our guns opened up, they must have
abandoned their efforts and taken to their
boats, leaving behind two of their mates, cut to
pieces by the German barrage. All German
positions had been ordered to cease fire to
allow the ambulances to carry out their mission
without interference from enemy fire or sniper
pickings and our Leutnant then ordered us to
take the prisoners without delay up to the
Battalion Command bunker. This way he hoped
further casualties would be avoided and was good
thinking as a group of eight prisoners and three
guards struggling up a snow covered hillside
would be easy pickings for the snipers from the
opposite slopes. Through their night vision
telescopes they would have had little difficulty
to make out who was carrying the guns and who
were the prisoners. They sure wouldn't have
trained their sights on their own men though
firing on the guards during a cease fire
wouldn't have given their own casualties much
chance to be picked up by the German ambulances.
We were damn glad to get through the `ghost'
village without being harassed by the American
artillery and reached the battalion bunker
safely. Our food carriers were there with six of
our wounded, the walking wounded from the day's
battle. The food carriers had told Headquarters
that when they approached the village they
thought they noticed a few short flashes coming
from the church tower's belfry. They didn't take
much notice of it as the American artillery
didn't open up but they'd been unaware of the
ambulance operation going on in the gully which
had probably saved them from attack.
Headquarters said they would investigate the
flash signals and commandos were sent into the
village. They hid in the ruins of the church and
waited for the mysterious torch bearer to make
his way up into the belfry to send out his flash
code as soon as the early morning coffee
collectors approached.
There were two of them and unsuspectingly they
walked into the trap and were caught red handed.
The one handling the torch went up the tower
while his accomplice placed himself at the
bottom of the steps to give his mate ample
warning of any approaching danger. The fellow
below got it first. When confronted by two
German commandos he pulled his pistol and tried
to shoot it out, rather than give himself up but
was cut down by a short burst from an assault
pistol. His mate in the belfry, realising their
game was up, didn't bother coming down and shot
himself through the head. Both were civilians
and neither carried any identification. Most
likely they were members of the Maquis, the
French Resistance Movement, who had infiltrated
the Saarland from across the border.
Down in the gully the Americans hadn't wasted
time. They had used the cease fire well and had
sent over a team of engineers, waiting it out on
the banks for the ambulances to finish their
mercy mission. Then they'd crept up to the
second bunker, the one they'd had to abandon,
and went at it with flame throwers, then welded
the access door shut and rowed back to their
shore. They missed sealing off the emergency
hatch, probably didn't know of its existence or
maybe couldn't find it in their hurry and in the
dark. Apart from blackening the concrete
structure they couldn't do much further damage
and the bunker was empty and stripped of all its
gear anyhow.