James Shipman - Task Force Baum

Gräfendorf, Germany

March 27, 1945, 2000 hours

Darkness fell, and Hauptmann Koehl set his field glasses aside in anger and frustration. What the hell had happened to the American force? He tried to pray again, but he couldn’t contain his fury, and his mind tripped on the words. Why was God doing this to him? In five years of war, he’d never experienced anything like this. His instincts for tactics were perfect. Throughout the fighting, he’d possessed an uncanny ability to predict what his enemy would do and to maneuver his forces to lie in wait for them.

But now his mind was a fog. His instincts had abandoned him when he needed them most. They killed my sister, my best friend . He forced himself to concentrate, to search his mind for answers, but the harder he thought, the cloudier the answer seemed to be.

Where was the task force? There was only one bridge over the Main within fifty miles of their position. The Americans knew the route in; why weren’t they taking the same way out? Had they mapped out another escape route somehow? Koehl dismissed the idea. The Americans had attacked at Gemünden. They’d traveled north to Burgsinn only when the bridge at Gemünden was destroyed. No, that couldn’t be it. They had to leave by the same way they had come, and Gräfendorf was the first major town on the route back out from the Oflag. The colonel had chosen perfectly.

Yet hours had passed, and there were no Americans. Had they slipped away to the south? But where? There were no other bridges, as far as Koehl knew. No, they must be stuck up in the winding hills around the Oflag. If he had patience, they would come to him. If he moved the force now, trying to chase their shadows, he might open a route for their escape.

How to wait, though? Each minute seemed an eternity. At least while the light had held, there’d been something to do. He could scan the roads and the horizon. Now, in darkness, he could only sit idly and stew, chasing the elusive shadows of his frustration. He knew his judgment was clouded. The colonel was right. He shouldn’t be here. A part of him wanted to do the right thing and inform Baumann to take charge. No, damn it! He would have his revenge. What happened after that didn’t matter.

Darkness wormed its way across the sky. Koehl checked his watch continuously, his anxiety mounting with each tick of the clock. Where were they? Another hour passed. He couldn’t wait any longer. He climbed out of his Ferdinand and marched out into the darkness in search of the Tiger commander.

He found the captain near the center of the town, perched on a mound of sandbags as he examined a map by flashlight. The light flickered off the mammoth tread of a Tiger and the crouching forms of a half-dozen men. Baumann was pointing out positions to his sub-commanders. He looked up and acknowledged Koehl with a crisp nod.

“How can I help you, Herr Hauptmann? ”

“I wanted to talk about our position.”

“What about it?”

Koehl glanced down at his watch. “It’s almost twenty-two hundred hours. We’ve had no sighting of the American column.”

“That’s true, but they’ll be coming this way.”

“What if they do not?”

Baumann looked at him for a moment and shrugged. “If they do not, then a few hundred Americans make it back to their lines, and we preserve the men and equipment we have.”

Koehl was shocked. What was the tank commander saying? “I’m sorry, I may not have understood you. Are you implying that we won’t shift our position?”

“I’m not implying that. I’m saying it outright.”

“But we have to stop—”

“No, Hautpmann . We don’t have to do any such thing.”

“You would let them get away?” Koehl’s voice rose, and he fought his emotions with difficulty.

“Exactly so.”

“How can that be your decision?”

“Because I’m not emotionally involved, Hauptmann ,” retorted Baumann.

“I’m not either—”

“Nonsense!” shouted the panzer commander, his face growing splotchy in the flickering light. “The colonel briefed me on what has happened to you today.” The captain’s voice was firm, but his eyes were sympathetic. “Listen, I understand. I’ve had terrible things happen to my men… to my family. But our duty is something else entirely.” He lifted his right arm and waved it in a spreading motion from front to back. “Look around you, Koehl. We are in the perfect position for an ambush. If the Americans come here, we will destroy them. But what if they don’t? It’s pitch-black out there. We have no air support, no intelligence on their position. What would you have us do? Take to the roads and grope for them blindly? They’re as likely to stumble across us as we are them. I won’t endanger my command with such a foolish maneuver. And neither would you, if you were thinking rationally.”

“I’m thinking very clearly,” responded Koehl, enunciating each of the words distinctly. “This task force has to be stopped.”

“And why is that, Hauptmann? ” The captain stared at him, hands on his hips.

Koehl didn’t know how to reply. He stared back at Baumann, but he could not formulate a response.

“There is no good reason. You know it, and so do I. Good evening, Hauptmann ,” he said by way of dismissal. “Please return to your company, and I’ll keep an eye on things from here. Never fear. I’m confident the Americans will come this way.”

Koehl turned abruptly and stomped back into the darkness, a hot retort leashed to his tongue. His mind was reeling. Who was this idiot who waited for the enemy to come to him? He didn’t know this Baumann. Did the man have any real combat experience? Koehl might be personally involved, but he damned well knew how to fight the enemy. Combat didn’t function on nice neat lines where your foe acted exactly according to plan. You had to be ready in an instance to react, to modify, to boldly charge forward on a new axis of attack. Otherwise, the enemy won, or fled. I will not let them escape .

He walked through the blackened streets of Gräfendorf, his mind a whirlwind of anger and frustration. He felt betrayed by Colonel Hoepple. His regimental leader had obviously spoken to Baumann, had warned him of his emotions. My commander has lost confidence in me . He’s put another man of equal rank in charge. Nothing was said, but that’s what had happened. Why wouldn’t Hoepple let him have this moment? After years of service, he owed him that much. Instead, they were going to sit here in the darkness like so many logs while the Americans slipped away to freedom.

He reached his Ferdinand a few minutes later, climbing back into the turret and resuming the terrible waiting. His anger rose with each passing minute. There was no way the Americans were still coming in this direction. He was losing his revenge. The colonel had pulled his claws and left him with only his pain and his loss.

A thought entered his mind. A crazy, reckless idea. It was a fantasy, something he’d never considered before. He dismissed it immediately, but as the time ticked by, the concept kept surfacing to bob at the edge of his emotions. He ignored it, shunned it, but finally found himself examining the notion. He started to turn it on its ends, looking at the corners, the edges, working out some of the details. He was a faithful, loyal man. A priest, used to unquestioned subservience. If he followed this impulse, he would violate everything he’d ever known.

He made up his mind. Koehl jumped back out of his Ferdinand and strolled into the night. He visited each of his armored vehicles, issuing orders in hushed whispers. He checked in with the clusters of infantry assigned to his force. Within a few minutes, he was back at his own vehicle. He climbed in and spoke to the driver. “Turn on your machine, we’re leaving.” The Ferdinand’s ignition fired, and the engine roared into life. The behemoth lurched forward and rolled toward the end of the street, scraping with a piercing shriek against the stone façade of a house as it passed by. They reached the end of the street and turned to the right on the main avenue, rolling past Germans staring in surprise at Koehl as they moved back out of the town. The other Ferdinands were close by. As they were departing the city, he thought he could hear shouting behind him, as if someone was trying to get his attention. He ignored them. Orders or no orders, he was going after the task force.