“Good enough,” said Anderson. “I’ll get the lads moving at once.”
“And we’ll want to notify Brigadier Kingstone directly. He’s got the 10th Indian back of him, yes?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well we’ll be asking a good deal of them, a good deal indeed.”
Glubb Pasha got hit hard that morning, and whether or not he held good ground, Duren’s 3rd Brandenburg Regiment sent him and his Arab Legion packing. He pulled into Dier-ez Zour, disheartened, and with a truck full of wounded men from his light companies. He had served to merely delay the enemy by stealing the morning from them, but knew he could not hold.
“We’ve stuck our head in it here,” he said to Brigadier Kingstone. “My scouts tell me that Jerry is coming at us from three sides now. The French couldn’t stop them on the east bank either.”
“And they’ve bloody well come up from the west as well,” said Kingstone. “I sent two battalions and a company of armored cars out to see about it.
“Have they taken Palmyra?”
“Not yet, but that’s what they’re after. I just got off the radio with General Anderson. We should expect bad company soon if the 56th can’t hold on to Palmyra, and the whole line of the Tripoli pipeline has gone to hell. Now we’ve just got the Haifa line, and its carrying all the oil O’Connor needs for 8th Army, and then some.”
“Well they ran right past the French and are probably half way to As Suwar by now.” Glubb folded his arms, quite unhappy.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“General, I’ve a little bird that flits about. Haven’t I told you about it? But seriously, I was just up that river valley before I was recalled here, and I took the liberty of leaving a radio with the locals. You’d better have RAF take a better look.”
Glubb was correct. The Lehr Regiment had motored on past the French, followed closely by Langen’s 4th Regiment. Then a man rushed in with more bad news, only serving to sour Kingstone’s already acerbic mood. The Germans had taken the airfield at Jubaylah, and now they were driving hard for the secondary field at Ayyash, That was just ten kilometers up the road from Dier-ez Zour.” Kingstone’s 4th Cav had dug in astride the road, but it was being hit with armored vehicles, the Panzerjager Battalion had twelve Panthers, six Marder IIIs, three Nashorn 88s, and three more mounted on halftracks. That was going to be more than the lightly armed cavalry could handle.
“My God,” said Kingstone. “We thought those paratroopers of theirs were tough the first time around, but this motorized unit is a real nightmare.”
“Brandenburg Division,” said Glubb.
“I thought they were just small commando units?”
“They have those too, but this is a full division—tough as nails. They were the shock troops that the Germans threw at Volgograd. This is some of the best infantry they have.”
“Well, the question now is whether or not we can hold this place. If they’ve already pushed as far east as Suwar on the Kahbur River, then what’s to stop them from swinging right down to Hadithah? If they take that, then they’ve effectively cut both pipelines.”
“Another runner came rushing in. “Sir! Jerry’s got the bridge at Al Busayrah! Armored cars and motorized infantry.”
“What?” Kingstone had a blank expression on his face. “That’s damn well 25 kilometers behind us! Where’s Blaxland and his bloody Indian Division?”
It was on that road, and heading for that very town and bridge over the Euphrates, at least a brigade was coming. The others were still strung out on the long road south, and one brigade had veered off and motored over to the T2 Pumping Station well west of the river. For all intents and purposes, King Force was virtually surrounded.
“They’ve thrown a bag over us. Glubb, can your people slow them down a bit? I think I’ll have to take King Force south and retake that bridge. We should meet 10th Indian down there, and then perhaps we can make a stand. If we stay here, we’ll be cut off and wanting ammo sooner than we think.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” said Glubb, casting a wan glance at that truck. “In the meantime, I’ve a good many wounded out there. Can you look after them?”
He saluted, and was heading for the door, blowing out into the rising desert wind.
The T4 Station at Tiyas fell that afternoon, and the casualties were very heavy on the British side. Brigadier Lyne’s 169th Brigade lost two of its three infantry battalions, the rest of the brigade scattered south in a retreat that took it as far as Ain el Bards in the Jebel country. As Wavell had ordered, the 31st Indian Armored consolidated to begin its attack east along the pipeline, and this did force Guderian to halt 10th Motorized to stop them. While that was going on, the two panzer divisions pushed quickly onto Palmyra.
In modern times it came to be known as “The Bride of the Desert.” The old Roman ruins still remain, like the elegant Corinthian style colonnaded portico at the temple of Ba’al, dedicated to the storm god who might bring much needed rain to the parched desert around the settlement. A prominent trading site, the armies of the Romans, Sassanids, Muslims, Mamlukes, and eventually the Mongols all swept over the place as the centuries passed, each leaving some remains in the ruins that survived there.
In the early 21st Century, it was in the news yet again as the black flagged desert warriors of ISIS overran the place, with wanton brutality as they defaced more of the ancient artwork, especially the temple sites. The famous Temple of Ba’al would survive WWII, but not the ravages of ISIS in 2016. They would flatten all but one grand arch over the main entrance, destroying priceless ruins that had stood for centuries.
By the 1940s, the desire for exotic goods from the east had been distilled down to one primary thing—oil. The city sat right astride the long underground pipelines that carried the oil from Kirkuk, through Homs, to Tripoli and Banias on the Mediterranean coast. Fedorov and Troyak had once swept in on their helicopters to land upon the atop the high volcanic cone just west of the town, crowned by the old stone fortress of Fakhr-al-Din. Now it was manned by the 2nd London Irish. 10th Royal Berkshire Battalion held the old Roman tombs, and the 56th Royal engineers deployed just south of the Temple of Ba’al. They would not occupy it for fear that it might see the Germans resort to heavy weapons it.
The place was a small settlement, graced by shady groves of palm trees scattered amid the bleached skeletal bones of old fallen empires. Now the British Empire would strive with Huns of another sort, this time mounted in cold steel metal vehicles and tanks, their dark feldgrau uniforms blending into the evening shadows as they formed up west of the town. The history here was written in the sandstone, layered deep, and carved into the land over long millennia. Now another chapter would be written, the Second Battle of Palmyra.
4th South African Air Force Fighter Squadron had been operating there, but as the Germans approached, the pilots had leapt to their Kittyhawks and taken off. They howled overhead for a time, making a few strafing runs on the enemy columns and dueling with the German flak guns. Then they flew off east to the small landing strip at T2. Seeing the Brandenburgers disappear to the east, Brigadier Birch sent the bulk of his brigade west to reinforce the defense of Palmyra. It was there that General Miles and his 56th London Infantry Division would make their gallant stand.