Opening Moves (The Red Gambit Series) (115 page)

The Yeomanry’s D Sqdn lost its last tank to a mortar round which started an engine fire.

Adolphesbrucke dropped into the canal, victim of Soviet artillery fire.

Losing no time, Major Llewellyn organised a counter-attack that started to push back the Soviets on the ground floor of the Rathaus again.

Charging forward, the Welsh threw the Russians back all the way to the main lobby before they turned and held their ground.

Sub-machine guns and grenades did their deadly work and Llewellyn’s life was saved when one of his young fusiliers threw himself on a grenade that had landed at his side. The young man died, the officer lived. Llewellyn promised himself and the boy that he would record the brave act appropriately.

Another grenade landed close and was plucked up and thrown in an instant, returned from whence it had come to good effect, screams of pain marking its effectiveness.

Sensing the need to push hard again, Llewellyn shouted his troops forward and charged, dropping an enemy rifleman with a burst of Sten.

An enemy officer rose and fired his pistol, missing with his first two shots but hitting soft flesh with his third and fourth. Llewellyn, dropped to the ground by the impacts, pressed the trigger of his Sten and put a burst into the disfigured man.

Scelerov was thrown backwards by the impact of five bullets, losing his pistol as he hit the wall hard.

A group of fusiliers ran past him, intent on mischief further down the hallway.

Bleeding and in pain, Scelerov pulled himself onto his knees, extracted a fragmentation grenade and pulled the pin, intending to toss it into the middle of the fusiliers who had gone to ground fifteen yards away.

As he raised his arm a huge weight descended upon him, rugby tackling him and pinning him to the ground with the deadly charge still in his grip under his body.

In the last second of his life, Scelerov screamed not in fear but in anger, his revenge incomplete, and all those months of pain borne for nothing.

The grenade exploded eviscerating the Russian instantly.

Llewellyn received a fragment through his right wrist which damaged his tendons. The blast lifted him off the distorted body of Scelerov, throwing him to the left and stunning him as he hit his head on a lump of stone.

Carried forward by the momentum of the charge, the Welch continued to drive the Soviet engineers and riflemen before them, reclaiming most of the Rathaus.

Combined with the reclaiming of their old defensive positions by the Fallschirmjager, this created a shallow U-shaped area into which the 1st Rifle Corps was inadvertently committing its last force of note.

Without orders, the Hauptmann now commanding the Fallschirmjager secured the southernmost corner of his position and deployed two MG42’s on the right flank of the Soviet attack.

Simultaneously the Captain who found himself temporarily in charge in the Rathaus stiffened the southern wall defences and then organised a firing line in the Rathaus, looking across into the Markt. Three Vickers .303’s, two from RWF and one from the Manchesters bolstered the defence.

In the Markt itself were the Black Watch, with their own Vickers and three more from the Manchesters.

The T34’s of 39th Guards Tank Brigade pushed forward, firing wildly as they advanced. One lucky shell reduced a Welch Vickers to scrap metal in short order.

The Russian tanks opened their formation as they moved into the southern edge of Markt and were brought under fire by C Sqdn of the Yeomanry and the last 71st 6-pdr at the end of Reesendamm.

Fig#31 - Hamburg - Finale

At A - Location of hand to hand fighting by Perlmann’s Fallschirmjager and the Black Watch.

At B - Point from which the Yeomanry’s two headquarters tanks engaged the Soviet tanks and where the CS tank was destroyed.

At C - Deployment zone for T34’s supporting the Markt attack.

At D - II/259th’s probing attack that failed.

At E - Adolphesbrücke struck by Soviet artillery and drops into the canal.

At F - Last ‘D’ Sqdn Sherman knocked out by Soviet mortar fire.

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Light mortars sought out and killed the anti-tank gun but the tanks still died as the Yeomanry Firefly opened up, killing three in quick succession.

A T34 shell struck the 17-pdr gun barrel and deformed it, forcing the crew to evacuate their vehicle.

Four T34’s now remained, spitting death from their machine-guns, bullets flying in all directions, keeping the enemy’s heads down as their own infantry reached the Markt and plunged forward.

The Russian ‘Urrah’ leapt from five hundred and fifty throats as they charged headlong into the Markt.

Fire erupted from the Rathaus and a huge audible sigh went up from the Soviet ranks as metal met flesh and bone, sending man after man to the ground.

Instinctively the waves of Russians moved to their right, away from the withering fire that claimed more lives every second.

Again the collective anguished gasp as two MG42’s and other weapons spat death from the right hand side of the Markt.

1st Lieutenant Ames, Royal Artillery, was not to be outdone and dropped his shoot on the money, wiping out a score of Russians with every burst.

It was the nearest thing to mass murder Ramsey had ever seen.

In less than five minutes, an assault force of over five hundred men had been reduced to a few witless survivors trying to scrape holes in the ruined road or sitting glassy eyed amongst the bloody wreckage that used to be their comrades and friends.

Some Soviets closed with Black Watch and Manchester firing positions in the Markt, more for the protection offered by getting close than for aggressive intent.

Swiftly the battered and shocked men were either shot or bayoneted, even those surrendering, for this was no time to be encumbered with prisoners. Once dealt with, the Scots and Mancunians went back to the business of killing at range.

The slaughter was soon over and the infantry withdrew leaving piles of corpses behind.

The 39th Tanks had been wiped out in all but name, one running tank withdrawing, its crew taking the young wounded Colonel back to the aid post to be either saved or to die in peace.

1930 hrs Sunday 12th August 1945, Altstad, Hamburg, Germany.

The Battle of the Rathaus ended at roughly 7.30pm, although there was sporadic firing and men died from then until night descended and the area became quiet.

The Allied camp licked its wounds and took stock of whom and what had been lost.

Young 1st Lieutenant Ramsey’s body was recovered as best could be done and wrapped in a canvas for evacuation. His battery of the 71st had suffered appallingly and would contribute very little on the morrow.

Brown of the Yeomanry still hung from his turret, it being too dangerous to do any more than watch the glowing hull grow cooler in the late evening air. Half the tanks had been lost but they had given a fine account of themselves and were still high on morale.

555th Engineers had nil effectives now, those who were not dead on the field having been evacuated over the Bride, now the sole means of communication, rearming and reinforcing left open to Llewellyn Force. CSM Richardson’s burnt body had been recovered and was removed to the west bank with those of his dead men.

The Manchesters had done well, very well. Captain Arthurs could not be found and the credit for the defence went to his second in command.

Fallschirm Batallione Perlmann had suffered modest casualties in comparison, those units that had been situated on the Jungfernsteig relatively unscathed whilst those adjacent to the Markt had been savaged badly. Perlmann has refused to be evacuated, remaining in his command post to be fussed over by the battalion doctor.

For the Royal Welch Fusiliers, it was a mixed day. Support and Admin platoons illustrated this well. Support platoon had done fine work, moving on to counter-attack within the Rathaus, sustaining surprisingly few casualties. Admin platoon had three men left standing, the rest either on stretchers or in the lines of dead arranged at the Alterwall, adjacent to the Bride.

‘A’ Coy had sustained the fewest casualties, mainly because of the Russian tactics, but the dead company commander had been very popular and would be missed.

‘C’ Coy had lost 50% of its effectives, but with a high proportion of wounded men.

‘D’ Coy had suffered the most, now with only thirty-four effectives, and too many of those absent lying dead.

The Black Watch had arrived the day before with one hundred and twenty-seven men.

Ramsey stood back as Sgt MacFarlane went through the roll call, smiling at the humour in McEwan’s voice, sighing with emotion as Young Munro did not reply to his name and imagining the faint sound of the pipes when Sinclair failed to answer the roll.

Himself included, ‘B’ Company, 7th Battalion, The Black Watch now consisted of forty-six effectives.

Dismissing the parade, Ramsey turned and looked over the Markt, sensing rather than seeing the heaps of enemy dead, knowing that they had suffered more losses than he had, but finding no consolation in the thought.

Ramsey wept, silently and stiffly, as only a man battling with his inner self can do.

For the Russians, the reaper’s bill was higher than could ever have been expected and without success to sweeten the bitterness of so many deaths.

179th Rifle Division was combat ineffective now. None of the five battalions committed had their commander, four being dead and one missing vital parts of his body, removed by grenades as he led his men forward at the Exchange. The five battalions consisting of one thousand seven hundred men just a few hours ago now mustered less than six hundred and many of those were unfit but refused to go to the aid stations.

The three battalions of 938th Rifle Regiment had done no better. I Btn had been hammered in their advance up Ballindamm, II Btn savaged as they went to the support of the under-pressure diversionary attack force, III/992nd Rifle Regt. III/938th had been the main force that blundered into the Markt, complete with companies from the 215th Rifles and the sappers of the 28th.