There were four boats awaiting them, two others were gone, sunk at their moorings by the shellfire, so they left one boat for anyone who managed to dig themselves out. The soviet artillery began dropping HE on the ‘island’ once more, turning their attentions away from the ground beyond the canal for a while.
Royal Artillery Phoenix drones were keeping tabs on the approaching amphibious Hungarian AFVs, and switched half of their tubes from counter battery missions, to hammer the oncoming armour.
Venables Challengers and Chieftains were moving into their forward fighting positions as the radio operators and snipers were slipping into their new positions, back in the relative safety of the battalion lines.
Big Stef paused at the entrance to their new hide, and looked around at the evidence of shelling. Bill trudged up and stopped, glancing about trying to see what had caught the other man’s attention.
“Bad, but not as bad as the last time.” Bill heard the words and shivered, the artillery had been the scariest thing that had ever happened to him.
Across the river, Colonel Leo Lužar listened with satisfaction on his command net as the OPs on the riverbank reported little movement on the island between the Elbe and the Mitterland Kanal. His orders were to secure both banks with his amphibious force in order that the engineers first put ribbon bridges across to carry heavier armour, and then place bridging sections between the autobahn bridge uprights, that were still standing. The lack of substantial air support was troubling him, as was the withdrawal of artillery and the Russian Division from the available follow-on forces. It stood to reason that the autobahn was a vital route to the English Channel, so why wasn’t this effort getting all available resources?
His biggest fear was the NATO multi launch rocket system, but he had been assured that what air assets they had were across the river hunting artillery and the deadly MLRS launchers.
He had two battalions of PT-76 tanks and BTR-80 APCs in company ranks, one either side of the bridge, four waves to first take the ground between the river and the canal. The next phase was in the hands of the gunners in the rear; the concrete sides of the canal were an effective barrier against vehicles getting into and out of the water. Engineers would use demolition charges to complete the creation of ramps down into the canal, working under the cover of his armour and infantry.
His tank was being rocked by near misses from the enemy artillery, and steel splinters scarred its sides as he looked through the side and rear viewing blocks to see how his force was faring. Here and there he could see black oily smoke and flames from knocked out vehicles, whilst other vehicles were stopped having had tracks knocked off. There was something else that struck him though, the lack of smoke covering them from more accurate artillery spotting. The wind had shifted and the smoke rounds were discharging their cover uselessly, the artillery spotters had not adjusted fire to compensate and he barked some harsh words into the radio on the support net.
One of his lead companies commanders called up that they had reached the riverbank and Lužar ordered the artillery to commence pounding the canals sides with the heavy artillery.
Back in the NATO lines, the NCOs from the 82nd and Guards were getting their blokes sorted out, adjusting arcs of fire to compensate for trenches that had been obliterated by the artillery. Casualty reports went from sections to platoon, to company and then to the battalion CP. Over in the platoon that had been infiltrated, two foxholes failed to respond satisfactorily to hails and were grenaded, and then stormed. The battalion lines were again secure, areas of responsibility and personnel were moved around to plug or cover the gaps.
Pat Reed was so far pleased, that in pulling back off the ‘island’ he had been proved correct and saved his unit from destruction, an added bonus was that the enemy had wasted the bulk of its artillery missions on empty real estate. His insistence, along with other commanders, that counter battery fire be employed from the very first had also paid off.
The preliminaries were over, they were about to come to grips with the enemy and the battalion was in good shape this time to stand its ground. He had just finished talking to the company; squadron and battery Commanders on field phone conference call when a sheet of message pad was put in front of him. When at full NBC state, everyone looks the same apart from being tall, short, big or slim. Yellow crayon on strips of tape on the chest and the front of the Noddy suit hood identified the individual in the CP, though less garish colours were used up top. The FAC, forward air controller, brought the news that their air support, including helicopters, had been removed due to enemy airborne drops to the north and south.
A telephone call at four forty in the morning had started Janet Probert from her sleep. She had not been instantly alert, no one who has been so rudely awoken ever is. It had taken several moments for understanding to take hold and once it had she’d hesitated, frozen by fear having looked first to the clock. People do not send good tidings at such an hour.
Having steeled herself for the worst she had snatched the receiver from its cradle and found the caller was Annabelle Reed, the COs wife. Annabelle had set up a group to take care of welfare issues amongst the battalions dependants soon after Lt Col Reed’s assuming command. Driving down from their home in the Yorkshire Dales to do the rounds of the married pads with June Stone, the battalion RSMs wife, and call a meeting of the wives.
An elderly, former RSM with 2CG, Captain Deacon, was the married families officer and it fell to him and whichever padre that London District sent over, to break the news.
Mrs Reed had set up a system whereby the wives committee would have someone present too.
The regiment’s losses in the opening battle on the heights above the Wesernitz had staggered the tight knit battalion ‘family’. The previous Commanding Officers wife, Genevieve Hupperd-Lowe, was a gentle and rather frail lady by nature and her husband’s death in the fighting had completely devastated her. June Stone had stepped in to organise the support for the families of the wounded, missing and those confirmed as killed in action. There was a disproportionately high number of MIA from that first battle and some of the crueller tabloids had picked up on the figures, hinting at a panicked rout. The papers had been just as insinuating after the second battle, at Leipzig airport, with regard to the low number of prisoners taken by the battalion as it, along with the rest of 3 (UK) Mechanised Brigade, had hammered through the soviet airborne lines to the objective. It had all added to the distress of the families.
Janet and Sarah Osgood had been at the inaugural meeting and had volunteered for the on-call rota, visiting nearby families and those in married quarters whose husbands had just become casualties. The call that morning had been to warn Janet that the battalion was in action once more and as such she, June and Sarah could be called upon later when casualty notifications began to come through from Germany. Being ‘called on’ really meant comforting some distraught wife who had just been informed she was widowed, or that their husband was wounded. She did not know how Annabelle had come by the information, it was hardly public domain; probably through a friend of Pat’s at the MOD.