“What now Asbach? Go home?”
“I think not. We have another chance. That air strike hurt us badly. We’re down to the equivalent of an infantry company in half tracks, we’ve got three out of five Pumas left and two out of five tank-hunter-armored cars. Plus two flak guns and four of your self-propelled 150s. We’ve still got a force, Lang; still got a chance. Look, the railway line goes around here, more or less following the curves of the ridge. But if we cut across the neck of the curve, we can come out here, in front of them. This time, no nonsense about capturing the guns. We’ll tear up three hundred meters of the track, more if they give us time, that way they’ll have to stop. Then we kill them all. If the guns are still intact when we’ve finished, fine. But if not, well, fortunes of war.”
Lang nodded and tapped the map. “We can set up here, behind this ridge. They’ll come around here, straight into us. We can have them under fire before they are aware we are there.”
Asbach sighed quietly. Lang was coming along but he still had a lot to learn. “Lang, the Amis and the Ivans can read maps just as well as we can. They’ll work this out too. Not sure what they’ll do about it but they’ll see just what you have seen and think the same things. So don’t expect miracles about surprising them. Just stopping them will be entirely good enough.”
Lang nodded, absorbing the lesson. Back at staff, it was a running joke that the Ivans were idiots who only stayed in the war because of the way they threw away human lives and the Amis would be lost without their massive piles of equipment. Out here, he was learning differently. Out here they were all Winter Warriors and what one could see, another could also.
His reverie was interrupted by a blast. It was distant, but still loud enough to be startling and to shake the earth under his feet. On the horizon, he could see the bright ball of a great blast rolling skywards. For some reason the sight filled him with nameless dread. Asbach was already looking at his map. “15 kilometers away at least; probably nearer twenty. And that puts it on the railway line. I’d say the Amis have just lost another one of their trains.”
“How are you doing with my division, John?” General George Rodgers was wrapped in bandages to the point where he would have done honor to a Hollywood horror film. The blast of grenade fragments that had brought him down had left him covered with wounds, none of which were mortal. Why that was, nobody would quite explain.
General John M Rockingham had the combat reports of the 3rd Infantry under his arm. His first problem was to break the news to his old friend. “The Third’s mine now, George. You’re being evacuated out, to Murmansk, I’m keeping Third; you’ll get Sixth when it’s ashore and formed up. I guess your first job will be to send the Huns tumbling back to their start line.
Rodgers nodded sadly. He doubted he would be getting Sixth, not after the way Third had been cut up. “The Huns have lost then?
“They made about thirty to forty five miles but we stopped them. The jaws of the encirclement never closed, so we’re fine. We held the Finns almost on their start line. Oh they split the division up into hedgehogs and surrounded us but that was it. The hedgehogs held, all of them, until relief forces shot their way through. Now, with the supplies the convoy brought, we can roll the Huns out of here.
“John, how did the Finns do it? How did they get through the lines to cut us up like that?”
“The lakes, George. The ones we used to shorten our lines and conserve forces? In the storm, they froze and the driving snow stopped us seeing them use them. I guess they had this plan for months, waiting for the right conditions. We never saw it, but it doesn’t matter. The division’s linked up again now and we’re starting to drive forward. We’ve got new orders as well. Push into Finland proper. No more of this phony war on the frontier. The Finns want a real war, they’re going to get it.” Rockingham dropped his voice “I’ve even heard the B-29s may hit Helsinki. That’s really hush-hush. Anyway George, you’ll be getting a better briefing than this later. Until then, wrap yourself around this.”
Rockingham produced a bottle of Canadian Club whisky. Rodgers looked at it with delight. “John, how did you get that?”
“Oh, a tank officer smuggled it over in his tank. Hid it in the barrel, I guess. That’s where they usually hide them. Anyway, he gave it to the officer commanding a hedgehog he relieved and Colonel Haversham sent it up to you with his best wishes. A great sacrifice on his part I’d say, George.”
“Aye, that it is. John, be a good fellow. Help me drink it before the nurses confiscate it.”
Dusk was falling and the B-29s would soon be on their way. The 127 B-29s of the 5th, 9th and the 11th Bombardment groups had arrived, flying a roundabout route over the Arctic to get from their bases behind the Volga. Nobody was under any illusions about the Germans not being aware of their arrival, but it was still worth going through the motions. It was an odd reversal of normal thought processes; try and evade detection even though it was pointless because the attempt was normal. Acknowledge that it was pointless and that made the flight abnormal and worth noticing.
The whole mission would have been impossible a few days earlier. Then, aviation fuel on the Kola Peninsula had been in short supply and was reserved for the fighters and tactical support aircraft. Even the medium bombers had been on short rations and their use restricted. Feeding the fuel-hungry B-29s was entirely impossible. Now, things were different. PQ-17 had arrived safely and it contained a disproportionate number of tankers. That fuel was being pumped ashore and it made the operation of heavy bombers from Murmansk possible. A timely thing because this raid was a very important one. Briefly at least, it was a one-off. A demonstration and a punishment for the Finnish decision to break the unofficial ceasefire along their border and go on the offensive. The bombing tonight would drive home the stupidity of that decision. Germany’s cities might be out of reach but Finland’s weren’t. It had other purposes as well, but Colonel Thomas Power wasn’t aware of those.
“Four are down Sir. We can go with 123 aircraft.” The sergeant spoke apologetically and apprehensively. Power was known for a ferocious temper and strict ideas on discipline. It was whispered that the two going together was not a good thing. Faults tended to be unreported rather than risk his wrath.
“Four down? Why?”
“Engines, sir. The 3350s again. They’re just not as reliable as the Wasp Majors.”
Power shook his head. For some reason, the R-3350 had remained under-developed while most effort had been placed on the R-4360. That showed in the reliability ratings. Once notorious for catching fire in mid-air, the R-4360 was maturing into a fine engine. The problem was limited production. All the R-4360s were needed for F2Gs and F-72s so the fighters could take on the German jets. That left the B-29 with the R-3350. An engine that ate cylinders with dismal enthusiasm. “Very good, Sergeant.”
The mission had called for 120 aircraft. Technically, the two bombardment groups totaled 225 aircraft, but they were all under-strength from losses and had managed to make only 135 aircraft ready. Eight had aborted and turned back for base. Now four more had gone from the strike mission. Only three more to lose before the mission would be under-strength. Still, the last hurdle had been crossed. The bombers were loaded with their incendiaries and explosive bombs; they were ready to go. On a nearby field, a group of F-65 night fighters were already warming up, ready to escort the stream of heavies. A group of F-61 s would be strafing the flak batteries defending the target. The mission plan was simple. Fly due south, all the way inside Russian-held territory and under heavy escort. The Germans would assume this B-29 strike was aimed at their rear areas, depots, defense areas and so on. But, at the appropriate time, the bombers would swing west, cross the Finnish border and head for Helsinki.