Bob Carruthers - Into the Gates of Hell - Stug Command '41

Despite his long and successful combat experience, even von Schroif now betrayed a degree of nervousness. As he reached the first in the long line of silent vehicles his fingers drummed rhythmically on the cold, unforgiving hardened steel roof of the fighting compartment of the Sturmgeschütz. It was reassuringly solid and a source of immense comfort, and it reflected his pride in German engineering. The Sturmgeschütz was a radically different machine and only a chosen few were awarded the privilege of commanding one. Von Schroif took huge satisfaction in being given command of an entire battalion.

His years in the wilderness, unable to find a place in the tiny post-war Reichswehr , were now behind him. The SS-VT had provided him with a soldier’s career and now here he was, proudly in command of the twentieth century’s latest advance, the herald of a new age of warfare. He took great satisfaction from the fact that he had been chosen to lead a battalion of these priceless new weapons. Armed with a short-barrelled 75mm howitzer, the Sturmgeschütz was the cutting edge of German military engineering. It represented the very latest in military technology, and if anyone was qualified to judge the effectiveness of the new machine then Hans von Schroif was that man. However, that man was now so lost in thought that even in the stillness of the forest he did not notice the soft approach of the figure from behind his right shoulder.

“Everything in order, Hauptsturmführer?”

Startled by the unexpected sound, von Schroif spun around to find the figure of SS-Kannonier Otto Wohl doing his stint of sentry duty.

“Yes Wohl, all is good, thank you… just remembering….”

“I understand you lost some good comrades here, Hauptsturmführer?” Wohl asked.

“We did, Wohl. They’re still here, biting into the grass. I remember all of them, but something else, too…” There was a pause, then, in apparent non sequitur , von Schroif suddenly asked an unexpected question. “How old are you, Wohl?”

“I’m twenty-one, Hauptsturmführer,” stated Wohl earnestly.

The young man was something of a concern for von Schroif. SS-Kannonier Otto Wohl was a well-meaning joker from Munich who typified the laissez faire attitude of that time-honoured city. He served as the loader and radio operator for number 1 gun of the first abteilung . Wohl was something of an enigma. He had volunteered to serve in the Waffen SS , but for a political soldier he appeared to have no interest in politics beyond a basic admiration for the Führer, which was almost universally shared by the youth of his age. His disparaging remarks concerning the other party bigwigs and his non-stop flow of highly questionable jokes was a source of concern for von Schroif.

Wohl had been drafted in to number 1 gun in Wefer’s battery just before the opening of the campaign in Greece. He had joined as a replacement for Karl Wendorff, a Franconian and a genius with the radio who had, to von Schroif’s intense frustration, been urgently seconded to Abwehr on some secret mission or other. No amount of pleading or cajoling had been able to prevent Wendorf from being spirited away from the battalion.

The replacement was the hapless Otto Wohl, who was a great asset as a loader, but criminally incompetent with a radio set. This was doubly frustrating because von Schroif and his team were charged with testing the next generation of radio, the transceiver, a single machine which could transmit as well as receive. Wendorf had been in command of the project and was achieving great results, but following the invasion of France in the previous year he had been abruptly transferred to mysterious specialist duties with Abwehr.

Unbeknown to SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans von Schroif and the millions of men either side of him, German operations had already begun, and Wendorff was one of those men who were to play a part.

In the dark skies over eastern Poland, the side door of the lumbering Ju-52 transport aircraft was thrown open.

“Jump!” came the curt command.

Karl Wendorff threw himself out of the plane.

In marked contrast to the technical superiority they had achieved in most arms and equipment, the style of parachute harness used by the German fallschirmjäger was vastly inferior to that used by the British; and that truth now came home to Karl Wendorff. Wehrmacht paratroopers were required to throw themselves forward out of the aeroplane, and in the resulting face-down position, when the chute opened, control was nearly impossible. The necessity of landing on knees and elbows reduced the amount of equipment the trooper could carry and increased the chance of injury. As a result, they jumped armed only with a holstered pistol and a small ‘gravity knife’. Rifles and other weapons were dropped in separate containers and, until these were recovered, the soldiers were poorly armed.

Now, floating down in the darkness over Russian lines and completely out of his comfort zone, Karl Wendorff felt very alone and very afraid. As he fought to control the chute his heart was pounding fit to burst his chest. During his whirlwind training programme Wendorff had found the intricacies of the parachute jump difficult enough in daylight. Now, as the cool night air swirled around him and the ground seemed to race upwards, all the familiar terrors seemed tripled. To make matters worse, he was disguised as a Red Army bandsman and he was expected to find and retrieve a canister containing a shortwave transceiver.

Wendorff and his comrades formed one of many units of Brandenburger commandos now being parachuted behind enemy lines to disrupt Soviet operations. These tough men specialised in seizing vital rail and road bridges and were trained to kill with guns, knives, grenades and, if necessary, their bare hands. As the plane lumbered through Soviet airspace the others had jumped out to carry out their unspecified missions.

Karl Wendorff was the last to jump. He did not naturally fit the profile of the hard as nails Brandenburgers. He had been seconded because of his command of the Russian language and unrivalled skills as a radio operator. His mission did not involve any form of military mayhem. All he had to do was to set up the radio set and make contact with the contact known as Cobra. He was then to hand over the package of documents strapped to his waist. Exactly what he was supposed to do next was unclear. All he had been told was that unspecified events would be set in motion that would work in his favour, and that he was to adapt to the situation as it unfolded. Wendorff assumed that he was to play a role in some kind of counter-revolution designed to overthrow the Soviet government. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

In Wendorff’s absence, Wohl, already pushed to his limits, had not taken well to this new concept which he christened the ‘schiesseiver’ . Out of earshot of von Schroif, he had made his insubordinate feelings clear to anyone who would listen.

“Load it in the gun and fire it over to the bloody Reds! It’ll fuck up their communication system◦— it certainly fucks up ours!” was Wohl’s hopeful but forlorn suggestion to SS-Hauptscharführer Michael Knispel, his StuG’s gunner.

Radio duties apart, von Schroif was aware that Wohl formed a deadly gunnery team with Knispel. He was lightning fast to load and reload the main gun and seemed to have an innate understanding of what type of ammunition was required, even though he had no visual terms of reference from his position inside the StuG. In action, he and Knispel became part of a triangular machine that was two parts flesh and blood and one part steel. Once in action, he combined with Knispel and the gun in such an all-consuming manner that they were without doubt the most deadly and efficient gunnery combination he had ever seen.