He slept for 30 minutes. Then he woke up, at 1240. He would be back in the field at 1330. After the unit had had its ranger-style lunch the drill would continue, headed by the two Officer Cadets. So Arno still had time to kill and he picked up the book that lay beside his office bed. It was Det röda massanfallet (= The Red Mass-Attack) by Gösta Borg. Borg was a Swede who had been a volunteer in the Waffen-SS. His book had come out in 1951 and was widely and openly read in Swedish Army circles at the time. Borg, with the Eastern Front as an example, wanted to reform the Swedish combat training and the Swedish Army in terms of mindset. He wanted to get away from the concept of deploying in lines, wanted to abandon routine in favour of a more active behavior on the enemy’s flanks, made possible by the forested and hilly terrain of Sweden. Over time, this attitude indeed became part of the official army doctrine.
The, shall we say, triangulation of Borg’s thought was this: a study of the World War II tactics of both Germans and Soviets, noting both their strengths and weaknesses, and applying this to Swedish circumstances, to the 1950’s reality of facing a Soviet invasion. Into this mix the weaknesses and strengths of the Swedish Army, the terrain features of the Swedish territory and the mindset of the Swedish soldier, were all added as a matter of course.
Arno had read Borg’s book before, but felt it worth re-reading. He was captured primarily by the scenes from the Eastern Front, elements based on Borg’s own memories. Arno nodded approvingly at lines like these, how it was in Poland in the summer of 1944 when the Russians pressed on but they themselves, the Germans, despite everything, stood their ground:
“In all this, still the whole mechanism of battle is working; there is the young NCO quietly waiting in his tank, his hand playing with the directional knobs of the piece, eyes searching the smoke for the familiar silhouette of a T-34 (…) There is the orderly officer driving his staff car up to the main command post, never minding the hostile pressure. – Battle Group Commander is a 30-year Major; even before the shrapnel has landed he’ll be in a focal point. He knows how to point a finger at a guy and to make a counterstrike with all his resources, quenching Panzer threats and putting out brush fires.”
Arno also liked how Borg described leadership issues. How should a combat zone leader be? Arno felt that the Swedish Army needed to hear these Borg words:
“The chief should be brave – but not foolhardy! There were commanders who always were ‘an der Spitze’: a leader must be at a focal point – but he must also lead his unit; it’s up to him to know, to feel, where the focal point lies. A senior manager leading a group of ‘old cronies’ is more useful as a patrol or shock troop leader. A commander should have all of his men as his confidantes.”
Finally, Arno liked this characteristic of armour. To fight against tanks was something very special. “Armour panic” was a fact, a lingering and threatening phenomenon, even for a scarred Panzer Grenadier; this Arno could warrant. Borg:
“The mass-armour attack often awakens a wild, primeval fear in humans, the brown-yellow juggernauts coming alive as wild animals, shredding and tearing apart everything in their way, invulnerably rushing toward and over each individual. (…) The fire storm and the heavy vehicles exert their presence already at 1,000 meters’ distance, making it difficult for you to remain in the foxhole; the running and shooting vehicles, the rumble and roar having its effects on the nerves of the defenders, but if you rush up out of your pit there’s a 95% certainty you’re lost.”
Arno closed the book and put it down. Looking up into the white-plastered ceiling he thought: Gösta Borg is certainly a wise man. It’s important to take advantage of the experience of the Eastern Front in order for the Swedish Army to survive in the reality of the Cold War. We train for war and our training must be realistic.
Arno got up from the bed, put on boots, gaiters, the tunic, a leather hood with goggles and, finally, pigskin gloves. Then he went out on the parade ground. It was sunny and mild, awakening a desire to live. He approached his grey-green, 500 cc service bike, kick-started it and went away over the regimental streets to the low-speed pounding of the machine. It was a Swedish model from the war days, the frame made by Monarch and the engine manufactured by a boat company, Albin. In the army inventory it was listed as “Swedish Army Motorcycle M/42” but the soldiers just called it Albin.
Arno left the base through the southern gate and drove southwards on Highway 90. After about a kilometre he turned off and continued along a forest road. The platoon in question was staying at a legendary spot called – Pommac.
Pommac was a crossroads in the forest, somewhere in the never-neverland of the I 21 training grounds. It had an advertising billboard for the soft drink Pommac mounted high on two trees at a corner of the flat which characterised the crossroads. The sign was a triangular, enameled metal plate, 2 meters by 1.5. As such, it was quite common in Sweden at the time, but how it ended up in the middle of the forest, nailed onto two trees, nobody knew. But it was rumoured that Lidendal was the culprit: that the legend of I 21 had ventured out one dark autumn night, gathering two C3 conscripts to help him, then going off in a jeep, stealing the sign from its posting on a barn wall at the highway, smuggling it here and with the help of a ladder mounting it high up on the trees in question.
The question of “why” surely arises. Why put up a commercial sign in the middle of nowhere? But there was method in the madness. Naming a nondescript crossroads after a soft drink sign elevated it into the realm of myth, the sign itself explaining the naming.
Arno drove through the dense coniferous forest in the sunny autumn day. It was a fine day as such even if he was a tad bored by life in the peacetime army. Yes, there were things to do as a Sergeant Major, like planning exercises, having refresher courses in his war position as Company Quartermaster in the Ådal Brigade, and skiing over the exercise field during wintry combat shootings – but in essence, this meant nothing to him. Fighting the Titans on the Eastern Front, advancing with an Armoured Battle Group with smoke in the air, fires on the horizon and with support from Stukas available; in comparison to this, being a trainer of peacetime units is not much to write home about.
Arno wanted to like his current life. He put his willpower to it, he thought in terms of “there is only here and now,” saying to himself that the combat life sure was something else but now you’re a peacetime soldier, get used to it – but it didn’t work. He had to change it, change his life, but he didn’t exactly know how.
Arno eventually reached Pommac, this imperceptible but legendary place in the middle of nowhere: an intersection in a pine forest, an open space 100 metres across. He drove his MC onto a path, entered the forest proper, stopped the machine, pulled it up on the support stand and took off his gloves, leather hood and goggles. Putting on his side-cap he went away to the current bivouac, the tent camp in question. The platoon consisted of 25 men. It had two tents, erected some 30 metres apart and camouflaged by nets supported by lines. Sprigs and branches were stuck through the netting, effectively breaking up the silhouette of the tents. These in themselves were large pieces of dark sail cloth, circular structures with chimneys sticking up from their roofs. Arno had encountered them for the first time during his War Preparedness Duty 1940 in Norrbotten.