Peter Idone: Red Vengeance

“Something like that.”

“Well, don’t fuck yourself up trying too hard. Some guys aren’t going to make it. Griener and Hermann have it written large all over them.”

Angst had the same feeling about the two but would never admit it openly.” I’ll keep it in mind.”

“You better,” Braun cautioned, and then disappeared around the corner of the zigzagging trench. Angst entered the gun pit and slid his carbine through the loophole. He removed two stick grenades from the small pile of extra gear and placed both within easy reach on a ledge he had carved in the earth. Without the aid of binoculars, he could see the T-34s maneuver on the steppe, as though on parade. The Russians wanted to show off what they had in store for them, it was obvious. Nothing would stop them now. Angst was more tired than afraid at the moment. It was a struggle, fighting the urge to sleep, to close one’s eyes. What a precious commodity. He started to drift; the heat and his surroundings became opaque, almost null, when suddenly a noise made him jump. Paul Hermann’s form filled the opening of the rifle pit.

“Corporal Angst?”

“What is it, Hermann?”

“Are we all that are left of this platoon? I mean us and Corporal Minnesinger’s squad?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Angst told him.

“And the rest of the battalion is no better off, is it?” Hermann asked fearfully.

“Probably not,” Angst said, without giving any thought to his words. He immediately regretted his carelessness. Hermann’s eyes grew large with wonder and fear. “Jesus Christ have mercy on us all.”

The sound of desolation in his voice was gut-wrenching. Angst found himself on the verge of another crying jag.

The Sturmgeschutz III self-propelled assault gun lumbered forward slowly. Sergeant Ulrich Pieper emerged halfway out of the command cupola and observed the ground immediately in front of the vehicle. The assault gun had advanced to within half a kilometer to the rear of the second battalion’s battle station.

The engine groaned as the Mark III chassis shimmied from weight and stress. Before Pieper and his crew left for this jaunt, the assault gun had been resupplied with more fuel and extra shot—thirty-four rounds of armor-piercing and twenty-two rounds of high-explosive ammunition, including several magnesium star shells. Engaged in operations for nearly twenty-four consecutive hours, since the Russian armored breakthrough, the vehicle should have been laagered, not sent out on another mission. The machine had been rebuilt several times already from parts salvaged from other worn-out and damaged Stug IIIs. As far as Pieper was concerned, she was a good weapon, and he had absolute faith in her.

After the vehicle had settled into a depression, Pieper spoke into the microphone and ordered the driver, Kurowski, to stop. The 75 mm tracked gun maintained a relatively low center of gravity. Slight hollows, indentations, even furrows in the terrain all helped to reduce even more the assault gun’s low profile against the horizon. There was no cover on the steppe, and every advantage had to be taken.

Pieper observed the situation as it developed through powerful field glasses. He counted five T-34s crisscrossing the eastern horizon. One and then another found access into the balka and disappeared from view. He followed the course of a KV1 that had driven to the far left flank of the battalion sector. From this distance the heavily armored tanks appeared as small and inconsequential as beetles.

Below him, the loader’s roof hatch opened. Hofinger, the gun loader and wireless operator, poked his head out.

“I just talked with Schroeder and the acting CO of second company, a Sergeant Lustig. The main tank thrust will be directed at his sector. He sounded adamant.”

“Does Schroeder agree with this assessment”?

“The map certainly bears in favor of the sergeant’s argument. There’s a negotiable exit right in front of his company.”

Pieper set down the field glasses and thought for a moment. The battalion commander, Captain Raeder, had said virtually the same thing, only his maps could not logistically support his theory. The Russians would keep the first and third companies occupied on either flank while concentrating on the second; once the second company was taken care of, the roll-up would begin in earnest. The division, maybe the entire corps area, would find itself encircled.

“Get on the radio and tell Schroeder we will advance to within a half-kilometer of the battalion battle station. And Hofinger, contact the Luftwaffe liaison officer on the brigade wavelength. I definitely need air support this time around.”

“Right,” Hofinger said, and disappeared below. It was only logical and fair that we get air support Pieper thought, we won’t be able to pull this off on our own . There were thirteen tanks and endless reserves of Red infantry to grapple with. He began to formulate a plan. Soviet tank crews were poorly trained and largely inexperienced. That was because German gunners did not allow them to live long enough to gain the necessary experience, he thought smugly. Only there were so damned many of them—hundreds, if not thousands, converging over the entire length and breadth of the southern front. Two or three tanks would pass over the trenches and work their way deep inside the battalion sector as fast as possible. These tanks could then interfere with any countermeasures put into effect to support the threatened main line. Not that the regiment possessed any reserves for local counterattacks. The battalion command post would be a primary target , Pieper thought, and while the T-34s sought it out, there I’ll be. Once that problem is solved, we can advance closer to the company battle stations. Enemy tanks disabled by antitank mines could then be picked off at our leisure.

The Stug III had advanced for only one-third of a kilometer when the harassment mortar fire suddenly changed. There was a pause for no longer than it takes a man to draw a breath—in such an instance, maybe his last—when something new began, like the opening chords of a crescendo.

“It’s started!” Pieper called down into the cramped interior of the hull.

The entire defensive line erupted in a dense concentration of fire and smoke. More than the heavy mortars were involved this time. The Russians had brought up 122 mm howitzers and were pouring down a curtain of fire. Nothing could be seen except for the gushing fountains of earth and billowing smoke. Pieper ducked below and closed the hatch overhead. All anyone could do now was to remain still and weather the storm.

The barrage continued with intensity for thirty minutes before finally tapering off. Pieper, up in the cupola again, could barely see through the haze of dust and smoke when the sound of Wilms’s voice crackled over the radio. The crew became a rapt audience as the signalman gave an immediate account. Nine tanks had lunged from the balka’s exit point, fanned out across the second company’s front, and raced unimpeded across the eight-hundred-meter stretch. Most of the tanks, including a KV1, carried assault troops on the outer hulls. Streams of infantry ran behind, using the armor for cover. All at once, in one great body, the Red infantry sprouted over the rim of the balka and followed in the wake of dust kicked up from the machines as more climbed out of the assault trenches that had been dug further to the east. The landscape teemed with a phalanx of green-brown figures, rifles lowered. There was a collective shout of “Ooray!” and the entire mass broke into a run. Pieper could hear the long sonorous cry from where the assault gun was positioned.