Patroulis took his hands and feet off the controls. “Pilot to Bombardier, confirm, you have the aircraft.”
Andrassis started to make his fine adjustments as he saw the magnified picture of the railway junction approaching. A slight touch on the controls, and the picture shifted slightly. The buildings passed underneath and he started counting to himself. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi and go. He pressed the release. Eighteen 250 pound bombs dropped free from the belly. Behind him, the other 27 aircraft in the formation saw the release and dropped their own loads. “That’s it boys; we’re done. Bombardier to pilot, you have the aircraft. Now let’s go home.”
It wasn’t like the night attack. That blast that had come from the darkness without warning. This time, the air raid sirens sounded well in advance and given plenty of warning. The troops had dispersed into their foxholes. The flak guns had been prepared to open fire although the alert had said medium bombers and those would drop from far above the range of the 20mm and 37mm guns equipping the column. Some units had the new 55mm gun, but not this one. The Heer came a long way behind the SS when it came to the new equipment.
“There they are.” Asbach pointed out the flashes in the sky as the sun reflected off the silver bombers. Typical of the Amis. They never bothered to camouflage their aircraft. The he frowned. “That’s odd, they’re much higher up than usual.”
Beside him, Lang raised an eyebrow. Asbach grinned in reply. “The Amis tried bombing from high altitude. They couldn’t hit anything. Nobody can from up there. So they gave up and came back down to below 5,000 meters like everybody else. I was expecting a strike after that Night Witch hit us, but this is odd.”
“Perhaps it is a new group, just arrived? And like all newbies, they think they know it all.” Lang had an innocent expression on his face. Asbach saw it and smacked the officer on the back.
“Indeed so. Terrible people, newbies.” And you’ve come a long way my friend. Old Lenin was right, there is a soldier inside you trying to get out. We just had to give it the chance. “Look out! Here they come….”
The first set of explosions shook the ground. A rain of earth and mud descended on the troops around the junction. The bombs were way over, so far beyond the buildings that their fury was wasted on trees and snow. Asbach knew that wouldn’t last. The bombs would walk back over his command and devastate it. Or perhaps not. He risked a peep over the edge of the foxhole. The bombs were scattered all over the place, a loose pattern, not the tight group that the American mediums normally produced. That was the altitude of course, nobody could hit a target from 9,000 meters, but something was nagging him. This was wrong, the Amis didn’t fight like this. They were unimaginative, repetitive, they found something that worked and stuck with it.
“Sir, air raid warning.”
“I would never have guessed.” Asbach fixed a mock-serious glare on the radioman who had risked his life running through the bombs to carry the message.
“Sir, not this. Jabos coming in right behind. Single- and twin-motors.”
Damn. Grizzlies and Thunderstorms. That is all I need. The sense that something was wrong got worse, with the Amis it was either mediums or jabos, not both. It was almost as if…. Then the penny dropped and Asbach risked another quick look over the rim of his foxhole. What he saw threw him back to 1941 and the horrors of the retreat from Moscow that first winter of the war. White-clad Siberian ski-troops skimming through the snow, slashing at the Germans freezing in their first taste of a Russian winter. They were here again. They had broken out of the tree line even as the bombs had fallen and were racing across the snow towards the small cluster of buildings around the set of points that were the whole reason for this little way-station existing. This bombing raid wasn’t aimed at destroying the junction. It was a covering barrage for the attack by the ski-troops. It was aimed at seizing the controls that operated the junction itself. An attack that was already well on the way to succeeding.
“Out! Ski Troops! Siberians!” Asbach yelled the warning but it was lost in the last roar of bombs. He was not the only one who had seen the attack though. Others had done also. Already a defense was being mounted. An MG-45 put out one of its vicious bursts that bowled over at least three of the skiers. For a moment Asbach had thought they had more, but some of those who went down opened fire on the German positions in return. Either wounded or just covering the attack, Asbach didn’t know which. The rest of the Siberians made it to the huts around the junction itself and Asbach guessed what would be happening. They would be resetting the points so that the gun train would head north, back to the allied lines. Still, to do that, they would have to capture this junction first and a single ski-platoon wasn’t going to manage that, even if they did have the Ami Jabos in support.
“Damn. We made it!” Marosy looked in amazement at the group of shabby little huts that surrounded them. Old, weathered and half-rotten wood, they offered but little cover. Most of that little was of the morale variety. Over on his right, three of the strongest Russians were already wrestling with the level that manually changed the points over. As they had guessed, the points had already been set to send the gun trains south again. Now the challenge was to make the frozen lever move far enough to send the trains along the north bound line. They had to do it; they had to do it fast and they had to do it under fire.
There was a crackle of fire mounting from the main cluster of buildings used by the Germans. The shock of the medium bomber attack had allowed the ski troops to get across the open ground towards the railway lines but now the Germans were grimly determined they shouldn’t stay there. The problem was, the Siberians had to. They had to hold the lines until the trains had got through. What happened after that didn’t matter. Amidst the sound of the rifles and machine guns, Marosy heard the roar of engines starting. The Germans were getting their armor ready. They didn’t have heavy armor here but even their half tracks and armored cars were deadly enough against unsupported infantry. It was Marosy’s job to change the unsupported bit. The Russians were betting their lives on him being able to do it.
“Eagles this is Ground Crown. Do you read me?”
“Ground Crown, this is Little Eagle Leader. Keep your heads down. We’re coming in with rockets and .50 caliber. And be advised, the Big Snakes are on the move.”
“The mediums are making their run now, Sir.” Perdue had already seen the formation of B-27s high up in the morning sky. Everything was timed to run off the first sighting of the mediums. If they screwed up, the whole plan would fall apart. It wasn’t a good way to run things but it was the only way that stood a chance of working. The rain of bombs from the B-27s was the signal flare that started the race. For the two remaining guns of the 5th Artillery, it was exactly that. A race.