Lyne’s Provisional Brigade put up a good fight from their prepared positions, until 4th Royal Sussex Battalion broke and retreated back to his HQ post. Red faced and shouting, he rallied the men and reformed the companies. Then he saw what had driven them back. 1st Battalion of the Wiking Panzer Regiment had 16 Lions with the 75mm main gun, 17 more Pz IV-F1’s, and 18 lighter Leopards with 50mm guns.
Soon both Dobie and Fitch were engaged to the right of Frost’s position, though no attack had been put in on the 44th Recon Battalion of the Provisional Brigade. The Germans were picking their targets, massing both tanks and highly skilled supporting infantry at selected spots in the line. Frost was just unlucky enough to have been “selected.” That handful of 6 Pounders had never made it up to his front. They were still back near the rail line waiting for trucks, but there were a few Deacon 6-pounders mounted on truck beds with that Achilles battalion, and they rolled his way to give him some much needed AT gun support.
Unfortunately, the German tanks fired back and made short work of them. Of the dozen that came up, only five were left in twenty minutes’ time.
Alexander had finally realized that this was Rommel he was up against, and the man would seldom come at you where you expected him. The wily German General had been completely undeterred by operation Gladiator, and he had raced south towards Damascus behind the long mountain ridge, cutting his rail line back to the city. Cut or not, he could still use it to get troops south, and he had ordered Keller’s 1st Armored Brigade and the 150th Infantry Brigade of the Northumbrian Division to move as quickly as possible by rail.
They were arriving on the morning of the 29th, as Combe’s 2nd Armored Brigade was in the thick of a big fight with 2nd Panzer Division. Rommel had ordered those troops to attack northwest into the valley to try and cut the main roads south and isolate Damascus.
Everything was cascading south and east to Ad Dumayr, where Lyne’s Provisional Brigade and Frost had held out a full day in their blocking positions. But slowly, the great weight of the Wiking Division was building up behind that dyke, and organizing for an attack the following morning. Behind them, the first regiment of the 2nd Panzer Division was arriving, having been relieved of its position defending Mihassah Gap on the ridge line.
The German attack pushed Dobie’s 1st Battalion off the flank of 44th Recon, and it was soon clear that the Germans had seen this sector as ripe for envelopment. Fitch, with 3rd Battalion, was driven into Frost’s lines, and had only five squads left. While Lyne was fighting to hold his position, he could see that the Paras were simply too lightly armed to hold his flank. His situation was further complicated when he learned that the Germans had pushed northwest to Al Qutayfah, cutting the road to Damascus from the north. Now any help coming down by road or rail would have to get through the 16th Panzer Division, and he was alone to face the wrath of the Wikings.
He would have to fall back, realizing the Free French were still behind him, and that might be enough if he got his troops back to their lines. That night he would fall back 15 kilometers down the road to Adhra, which was still 20 kilometers from Damascus. The rail line diverged south away from Ad Dumayr, eventually swinging south of Damascus. So he got his Provisional Brigade set up between Adhra and those cold steel rails, with the Paras now out of the lava beds and into a dry lakebed. Behind them there was more cultivated ground, with many small farms fanning out from Damascus.
That night Rommel pushed a supply column down the road to Ad Dumayr, making that road and rail junction his new forward depot. The ground rumbled with the arrival of the three Schwere companies attached to the 101st Panzer Brigade. There were 34 of the VK-75 Lions, and 15 of the rare new prototype model, the VK-90 with the new experimental 90mm main gun.
Once it had been the British to stun and awe their adversary with tanks so advanced they could not be stopped. That season was ended, and as a consequence, Germany had put tremendous effort into its Armor development programs. All these new tanks were the result.
Behind those tanks came the rest of 16th Panzer Division. Rommel was going to now use 16th Panzer to hold off all of Alexander’s reinforcements, and then double down on his main drive for Damascus by throwing on 2nd Panzer.
Alexander was also rushing anything he could find to Damascus by road, rail and airlift. That amounted to the 2nd Brigade of 1st Para Division under Brigadier Downs, and Number 2 and 4 Commandos also came in by rail from Heifah.
The battle for the city had begun.
Part VI
Foolish Fire
Map
Chapter 16
The night of March 30th Rommel ordered Lübbe of 2nd Panzer to build a Kampfgruppe and send it on a wide envelopment of Damascus. They would make their way through the dry lakebed, battling the soft ground and the darkness, but for Rommel, this was par for the course. He had made these night maneuvers over the shifting sands of Libya for the last two years, and he knew how to read the ground, and direct his columns along the best routes.
Air reconnaissance showed that the free French Division had been deployed just east of the city in a defensive arc, but appeared to be pulling back, even as the Provisional Brigade and British Paras fell back on the city. So Rommel was intent on getting south and then west to enfilade their lines.
General Lübbe assembled a Kampfgruppe consisting of the 304th Panzergrenadier Regiment, one battalion of his Panzers and supporting elements from the Recon Battalion and pioneers. The rest of his division would have to remain engaged against the growing British pressure on the long line of communications back to Palmyra. 1st Battalion of 304th Panzergrenadiers were the first to approach the city, catching British airborne troops fresh off the trains from Haifa at the main railway.
The British were shocked to find German troops this far behind the main front, but Brigadier Down of the 2nd Para Brigade was quick to react. The rail depot, and the main airport behind it, were both vitally important to the defense of the city, and so he committed his entire brigade to drive the Germans back. It would mean his troops would not be able to immediately reinforce the city, where the Wiking SS Panzer Division was forming up to launch Rommel’s main attack.
The Germans were approaching the workshops and locomotive hangars on the eastern fringe of the rail yard when they began to receive fire. A Piat popped off and struck one of the leading halftracks, the round landing just short as it exploded in the dry earth. Then the Paras began firing their 3 inch mortars.
Brigadier Downs set up his HQ post at the Police post adjacent to the oiling station for the trains. There were a lot of valuable facilities to protect, a military barracks where he posted his company of Royal Engineers, an armaments shop, and an important flour mill. 6th Para Battalion held the rail station workshops, with 4th and 5th Battalions deploying to the north to screen the rail yard and occupy the Al Aswad district, the southernmost tail of the city as it reached down to the rail yards. His brigade was fairly well concentrated, on a front of 1500 meters, so that single German battalion was not going to push through on his watch.