Damascus was not the wide concentric sprawl of a city in 1943 that it is today. The main city was still concentrated around old Damascus, which was bisected by the Barada River Canal. It was here that most of the major facilities lay, Parliament, Public Works and government buildings. Just outside the city on its western edge, and hugging the Barada Canal, was the University, Public Gardens and Presidential Compound very near the grounds that would become the first International Expo pavilions in 1954. That area, behind the university, was now the grounds of a military encampment, with the principle ammo dumps and supply stores for the region, garrisoned by three French Marche Battalions.
From the Barada Canal, the city then reached northwest towards the high mountainous terrain of Jebel Qasioun, and washed against its stony flanks, running northeast in a series of settlements that slowly thinned and diminished. Then another segment of the city descended roughly due south from the main city, reaching to Brigadier Downs position at the Rail Yards.
Brigadier Lathbury’s 1st Para was in the sprawling fields and orchards just east of that long tail—date farms, almond orchards and olive groves. There was a gap of about a kilometer between his brigade and that of Downs, but Number 2 Commando had just landed at the main airfield, and its five companies were already marching to fill that hole. They were led by a most colorful figure, one Lieutenant Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming "Jack" Churchill.
No direct relation to the Prime Minister, “Fighting Jack Churchill” as he was called was nonetheless out to make himself worthy of the name. He was a gritty, hard-nosed brawler, given to going into battle with a longbow and a Scottish Highlander’s Cleybeg, which was a basket hilted broadsword, always at his side. It was proper dress code for any officer, he would exclaim, and to complete the picture, he owned and often used a good set of Scottish Bagpipes.
He was playing them that morning, a scurl to wake the dead and announce the coming of “Mad Jack” and his minions of doom. Where stealth was often stock in trade for the Commandos, Mad Jack forsook it that day. He wanted the Germans to hear him coming, and think twice about their designs on this city. It would not be taken, he boldly pronounced. “Not while I can wield my Cleybeg with a good right hand.”
This was the British defense in the south, largely screening and holding the long “Cat’s Tail” as the soldiers came to call that segment of the city. The cat itself, “Old Damascus,” was soon to be confronting a rather dangerous wolf. Brigadier Downs would be faced with two more battalions from KG Krefeld of the 2nd Panzer to even the odds, and they were coming with tanks. On their right, following the road that led towards Old Damascus, was the Nordland Regiment of the Wiking Division. Gille had arrayed all three regiments abreast, Nordland in the south, Germania in the center, and Westland in the north.
The four battalions of Brigadier Lyne’s Provisional Brigade were covering most of the main city, deployed along its eastern edge. He and his men had finally redeemed themselves by putting up a very stalwart defense earlier at Ad Dumayr. Behind them was the Free French Division, mostly around the city center and Presidential Compound. They had not yet been built up to a real fighting division, being mostly garrison troops formed into “battalions” that might have the fighting power of a British company at that time.
The best of them was the French Foreign Legion, about 18 squads occupying the stout buildings of the prison, right in the heart of the city. They found the accommodation much to their liking, for many had been recruited from wards and jails all over Europe and the Middle East.
Down’s mortar fire convinced that lead battalion of KG Krefeld to fall back and wait for the rest of its regiment. The real battle would start farther north as the Germania Regiment sought to clear and occupy the outlying settlement of Al Jobar. According to Gille’s map, the Russian embassy was just behind that settlement, right on the road, and he could imagine the mad dash being made there as he sent his men in, the Russians scrambling to burn anything of potential value to their enemy and flee to the city proper.
Just north of the Barada River as it flowed in a tangled web of small tributaries east of Damascus, the town of Al Jobar was being held by 2nd Highland Light of Lyne’s Provisional Brigade. SS Obersturmführer Manfred Schönfelder was leading in the Germania Regiment, and he hit the town with a single battalion, supported by a company of the Sturmgeschutz Battalion. He was aiming right for that Russian Embassy.
B Company of the Highlanders could not hold, falling back under cover fire to the embassy, where they saw the last of the staff there speeding away west into the city. The position at Al Jobar had only been meant as a tripwire defense. The Highlanders preferred to hold at the edge of the city proper, where the Barada River would screen their right flank. 44th Recon was on their left, and they also fell back to the edge of the main city, as the overture of this battle began to play. A few rounds of French 105’s greeted the Germans as they pushed into Al Jobar, arcing over the heads of the British lines and bucking up their morale when they saw them fall among the Germans.
That was one thing Lyne sorely needed—artillery. His provisional Brigade had not brought any of its heavy weapons when it abandoned Crete. As such, he was a “Light Brigade” in every sense of the word, with nothing more formidable than a 3-inch mortar to throw at the Germans. The French had twelve 105’s, and the two Para Brigades had only had brought eight 25 pounders, which was not much for indirect fire support.
The German attack geared up in the morning on the main road to Old Damascus. They took the Russian Embassy, and Germania Regiment wanted to drive right up that main, also fanning out to the north to flank that district. At the same time, Westland put in a hard concentrated attack in the north near the rugged mountains, coming up on the road that would later be called Highway M5 to Homs. That was defended by 4th Royal Sussex Battalion, a segment of the town called El Charkasia. They gave a little ground, displacing several city blocks, but reformed their line, determined to hold.
Most of the weight of the attack was with Germania, where Gille had also concentrated the bulk of all his division assets. He put in the Sturm Battalion, three Companies, and that was augmented by the single company of Panzers he had forward, 12 roaring Lions, with the 88mm gun. Schönfelder had cleared Al Jobar, and was continuing to push on the outskirts of Old Damascus. He was testing the line everywhere, but found a fairly solid front, with a few French units filling in the holes in Lyne’s line. So he opted for attrition, massing all his armored vehicles on the road from Ad Dumayr, and sending them in to support the Panzergrenadiers. Gille radioed to tell Schönfelder he could have the full weight of the Division Artillery.
“I want to make a quick thrust into the city center, so push hard. I’m putting all the artillery at your beck and call. Use it.”
Schönfelder would be happy to oblige. That afternoon he threw his regiment at the line again, and the thunder of those guns punctuated his attack. Lyne’s center was getting hammered, and it was all falling on the Highland Light.
South of Gille’s main attack, below the rump of the main city, Colonel John Frost sat with a bemused look on his face, chewing on a piece of straw he had pulled out of a convenient bail set out for farm animals. Lathbury had posted him to the Date Farm east of the Cat Tail, but he had to give that up and move back to the Almond Orchard when KG Krefeld moved past his flank to the south enroute to the rail yards. His position had been probed early that morning by a battalion from the Nordland Regiment, but no real attack developed.