The transport continued to try for the safety of the clouds, as did the rest of the formation when German Tornados and Alfa jets jumped it. The Tornados mixed it with the transports escorts and the Alfas hunted the escorts charges. The Alfas were ground attack aircraft, their hard-points bare of ordnance having dropped it on targets over the Elbe they had only cannon with which to engage the big four engine transports.
Men screamed as eventually the rounds pierced the airframe, 27mm cannon shells entered through the thin aluminium, tore through men and equipment before passing out the other side. Stinging, acrid fumes from an electrical fire began to fill the hold and the red light came on as the aircraft’s nose dropped well below the horizontal, lifted momentarily and then dropped once more, but at a gentler angle. The dispatchers hauled open the side doors, screaming and gesturing at the men to get out. A flickering orange light illuminated the interior of the hold through the starboard ports, flames from the right inner engine streamed out into the aeroplane’s wake.
Nikoli’s left hand supported his equipment bag, which rested on his left foot and he heaved it forwards with each step, coughing and choking with the smoke, that was now diluted by the gale coming through the open jump doors, but still smarted.
Despite the roar of the air he heard the rapid drumming sound of cannon shells striking the aeroplane once more, flinching as something passed by his head and he was blinded by warm blood, jetting into his face from the man in front. Someone behind was pushing at him frantically, but Nikoli could see nothing until he’d released his grip on the bag to wipe his eyes with his sleeve. There had been three men in front of him, now there were just a torn body parts.
The port side dispatcher came toward him, a knife in his hand as he cut through the dead men’s static lines, without his doing that then none of the heavily burdened paratroopers could have hoped to get past. Nikoli nearly fell, slipping in blood and entrails as he reached the door, the dive had steepened so he deliberately looked up as he stepped through the door, if they were only 50 feet up, he’d prefer not knowing.
The slipstream spun him about but he concentrated on counting,
“One thousand, two thousand, three thousand… ” he was hauled roughly into the upright. “… check canopy!” Looking up he could see a nice round shape of canopy, but his lines were wrapped around themselves so he began kicking and twisting until they unravelled. A body fell past him, he caught a glimpse of a horrified face, its mouth open wide in a scream but no sound coming forth, its owner reaching out towards him as he fell past, as if Nikoli could extend his arms the twenty feet that separated them and save him. A moment later the doomed paratroopers canopy fell past, the roar of flames from the burning fabric filled the air momentarily as it trailed behind like a beacon as its owner fell to earth.
All those who made it out of the stricken transports starboard door met similar fates, the static line pulling their parachute canopies out and into the flames from the burning engine.
Nikoli watched the Il-76 hit the ground and explode, the last half dozen paratroopers out of the doors ploughed into the ground before their canopies had deployed, and a line of small fires leading off along the way they had come marked were those who had come out of the starboard jump door had landed.
Unclipping his equipment bag, he let it fall, to be arrested by the webbing strap attached to his harness, to land with it still clipped to him would have meant leg and possibly spinal fractures.
Pulling down on his right riser he spilled some air from the left of the canopy, turning into wind so the breeze was on the right front of his face. There was a mild 10 knot wind blowing so as he drifted backwards he set for his landing, feet together and angled to the left, knees together and bent slightly, head tucked in with his forearms and elbows protecting his head and face.
In the darkness there was no ground-rush, the seemingly rapid acceleration towards terra-firma, Nikoli heard his equipment bag strike the ground and the pressure on his harness lessened, then his feet struck and he rolled, first hips and shoulders, and then his feet came over the top and he was still. Without getting to his feet he immediately struggled from the harness that was dragged away for a short distance by the still partly inflated canopy. No rounds were in-coming, but he was in a field over two hundred yards from cover and he wasn’t inclined to give some farmer with a shotgun a target of opportunity. The snow was settling, snow in April? the world truly had gone crazy, but he crawled over and collected his equipment bag, dragging it with him to cover in a thicket.
Aside from being behind the lines, he had no real idea as to where he was exactly until he took out his GPS and maps. Wuitterlingen, a small hamlet, was to the west of him, so he was nearly seven miles from the planned drop zone. He carried a radio beacon in his bag for the troops to rally on, which he took out and checked before setting it aside. Each trooper could home in on his own platoons beacon, or if there were no signal coming from that they could change the settings and rally on the nearest one. The company commander carried another beacon, but he had been on the starboard side of the aircraft.
Nikoli supposed that it now meant he was the company commander, but as he reckoned that no more than about twenty men had got out through the portside jump door, and all the heavy weapon section had been at the back, he had less than a platoon of riflemen.
Once he had pulled on his pack and radio, Nikoli set the timer on the rally beacon and moved off a hundred metres to a position that gave more than mere cover from view. Should NATO detect the radio beacons emissions, then they would employ anything from a patrol to an airstrike to eliminate it, so he got out his entrenching tool and began deepening a depression he found.
Over the past hour the BTR-80s and TP-76 tanks of the 2nd, 18th, 43rd MRRs and 4th Tank Regiment which formed the Hungarian Rzeszów Motor Rifle Division, had moved up to the edge of the dead ground a little over half a mile from the river. Behind these units the combat engineering and bridging units positioned themselves, unaware that they and two other divisions were merely tying up NATOs best units, the battle tested ones. They were expected to press home their attack but not expected to succeed, in fact artillery and air assets were already being diverted to assist at the two real efforts.
Once all the units were in place, artillery began dropping smoke, the signal for the tanks and APCs to begin rolling forward, it was also the signal for those left on the ‘island’ to bug-out. Bill wasn’t going to waste time finding out if any of the telephone landlines were still intact, he sent a code word on the radio and then switched it off.
Stef had shut down the NIAD and packed it away once its squawking had been proven to be genuine, the sensitive piece of equipment was prone to false alarms. Both soldiers carried ‘Arctic Whites’ in their Bergen’s, a thin over-jacket and trousers made of white parachute material, though neither man expected to be wearing the items quite so soon in the year. These were donned over their ‘Noddy suits’ now, and spare white cotton ‘inner gloves’, a size too large for normal use were pulled over the black rubber Noddy suits outer pair. The bulky ghillie suits had been removed and placed in heavy duty bin bags, along with a couple of pounds of fullers earth to absorb any chemical agents that may have adhered. They were now inside sandbags, strapped to the tops of the Bergens.
Visibility had been degraded by the snowstorm to the point that only the snipers thermal sight was of any use, and this had its protective lens caps placed on as they moved out. No rockets or shells had landed on the ‘island’ for over an hour, and the snow had settled on the churned earth and shell craters. Had they not been wearing their protective clothing they would have heard the snow crunching crisply underfoot, as they made their way towards the canal. Other figures appeared from shelter bays and hides, one pair of snipers was missing, as were four of the radio operators, the absent men were either sealed in by near misses or dead from direct hits. They didn’t have the time to discover which was which, and pressed on towards the Mitterland Kanal.