Hammer of God (Kirov Series Book 14) (10 page)

“Then what do I take Leningrad
with?” Halder allowed just a touch of anger into his own voice now.

“Do not concern yourself with
that. All our goals for Barbarossa will be met, and that operation will not be
delayed. The operation I am planning is just a preliminary to secure and
support our southern right flank, but it will also open a few other doors you
may not have considered.”

Another ‘But my Führer’ soon
followed, and Keitel pointed out that this was precisely the purpose of the
planned operation against Crete. “Once that is taken, the last British outpost
of any consequence on that flank will be eliminated.”

“Oh?” Hitler wagged a finger at
him now. “I have intelligence that the British have designs on Iraq and Syria.
Yes! It seems this thought has never even entered your minds. Well, they must
not be permitted to waltz in and take these countries for a song and dance. If
we allow this, we would be fools. So we must make arrangements to stop them,
and we cannot do so from Crete. It is a thousand kilometers from the airfields
of Crete to Syria—as far away as Rommel is from Suez. By the time our JU-52
transports got there they would be falling into the sea off the coast! So we
will move these troops to Rhodes instead—a strong knight in the center of the
board. From there, they can leap in any direction, but what does Crete give
me?”

“A strong base to attack North
Africa and support Rommel,” said Keitel.

“Perhaps, but Rommel is not yet
ready for an offensive, so an attack there is a move in the wrong direction. At
the moment, Crete simply leads us to a dead end.”

There was a moment of silence
before Keitel offered one last argument. “The British will then simply continue
to build up at their bases on Crete,” he said. “It is from there that they will
be able to bomb the oil fields at Ploesti.”

“Let them try. Once we link up
with Orenburg we will have all the oil we need.” Hitler looked to Keitel, then
Halder and each other officer in turn, as if daring any one of them to say
another word. Then he folded his arms, his voice hard and stern.

 “
Unternehmen Merkur
is
officially canceled as of this minute. At the very least it will be postponed
and re-evaluated pending the outcome of this new operation—
Unternehmen
Anvil.
We are heading east soon, Drang Nach Osten! I have a hammer in my
hand now, gentlemen, and I intend to put it to good use before we move on to
Barbarossa—and there is the anvil.

He was pointing at Cyprus.

Part IV

Scimitar

“
Those who play with the devil's toys will be
brought by degrees to wield his sword.”

-- Buckminster Fuller

Chapter 10

March 12, 1941

The
Australians of the 7th
Division had done their best to conceal their presence near the Lebanese
border. Vehicles had been hidden beneath the cool shade of olive groves, their
tracks rubbed out in the loamy reddish soil. The infantry went without their
slouch hats, or bent them into odd shapes, but the locals were not fooled. To
them they were “Ostralees” from top to bottom, the big men from a far away land
who called them the “Wogs” like the British did, though they were an amiable
sort. It was a term of deprecation reserved for those not privileged to be
among the landed gentry and citizens of the British Empire—white citizens—but
such prejudices had not been burned away in the crucible of time yet. There was
Jerry out there for the Germans, the Macaronis in Italy, Ivan in Russia, the
Japs out east. And the enemy these brawny young men would now face were the
“Frogs.” They thought they would just simply walk in, wave their hats at the
French, and walk on to occupy the territory, but they were wrong.

Zero hour was to be 01:00, under
a nearly full moon, and some hours before this, the engineers of 2/6th Field
Company slipped across the border led by local guides. One man there was a
member of the Jewish underground militias, Moshe Dayan, who would later become
famous in Israel’s many wars. It was in this campaign, while peering through
field glasses that were struck by a bullet from a French sniper, that Dayan
injured his eye, forcing him to wear the signature eye patch for the rest of
his life.

The engineers mission at the
outset was to find and cut the telephone lines from the outpost at Ras en
Naqoura to a second post further up the coast where the French had a demolition
team ready to interdict the narrow coastal road. There the terrain rose steeply
to a 385 meter hill called Chamaa, and one good landslide there could close the
road to vehicles for hours.

The engineers, under Captain
Gowling, were led by Jewish and Arab guides, making their way over the hushed
stony ground, through thickets of thorn bush. They pushed on over the hills to
the coastal road, finding and cutting the wires before circling back inland to
try and get to a point north of Iakandaroun, where the demolition charges were
believed to be. Posting three man teams on the road to stop any vehicles from
heading south, other teams scouted through culverts and low bridges to look for
the mines, but none were found.

“It has to be further south,”
said Lieutenant Allen. “There, where the road hugs the side of that hill.
That’s where I’d place my charges.” So they moved south until they came within
sight of a block house, and at that point a single shot broke the quiet of the
night, the first shot fired in this private little war to be fought between the
British Empire and the Vichy French and their allies.

 “Spread out,” said Lieutenant
Allen, “and get down through that culvert. We’ll provide cover fire, and Kyffin
can have a go at them from the left.”

And so it began. The Australians
rushed the strong point and took it by storm and fire, the sound of that little
fight echoing from the high hills and setting off the chatter of a machine gun
in a nearby orchard. This was attacked and silenced by a grenade from the hand
of Private Henderson, who captured the Hotchkiss gun and a mortar in that
position. But others had heard the commotion, and reinforcements were drawn to
the scene in small groups. When a French column was seen coming from the north,
Lieutenant Kyffin and his men mounted the captured Hotchkiss and mortar on the blockhouse
and now it was Australian troops firing from the position at an enemy from the
north.

They came in small groups, a few
mounted tirailleurs, then two armored cars, which were stopped by a well aimed
round from the captured French mortar. Twelve more horsemen were scene and
fired upon with the Hotchkiss, and sent galloping away into the hills seeking
cover. It was soon found that there were more French in the nearby orchard than
first thought, and Lieutenant Allen was sent with his men to root them out.
While this action was fought, Captain Gowling heard a loud explosion behind
them. His eye caught that of Lieutenant Kyffin with the obvious look of frustration.

“The charges were further south,”
he said grimly. The demolition they had been sent to prevent had been carried
out by the French somewhere on the road behind them, and now the small team of
engineers was cut off until their comrades could clear and break through along
that road. They held out, until they had collected some 30 prisoners and an
armored car from forces wandering in to the scene unaware of the action
underway.

Further south, 2/27th Battalion
was leading the attack across the border. When the demolition went off,
Lieutenant Rudd was sent with six light MG Mark VI tankettes and a pair of 2-pounder
AT guns with more engineers. He pushed his small column up through Naqoura
without incident, encountering a small group of French infantry blocking the
road beyond the town, which forced him to stop and deploy his 2-pounders. The
tankettes engaged point blank with their machineguns, while infantry flanked
the position from the hillside above. It was soon discovered that the
demolition had produced a large crater in the road, and a small landslide. The
roadblock would have to be flanked.

The job went to the men of the
2/16th Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel MacDonald. He pushed two companies of
infantry across the border to converge on the village of Bent Jbail, where they
drove out a detachment of French Spahis cavalry. The pioneers cleared a track
to the road leading north, and the carriers of Lieutenant Mills, 6th Australian
Cavalry, pushed on, intending to move along the winding mountain road to Tyre,
which was well north of the blocked coastal road. They reached the old Turkish
castle at Tebnine, clearing it if enemy troops that had gathered there from
posts further south.

It was then that the Arab mayor
of the town approached the British waving a white headdress, which he had
removed. He was taken to Mills, where he welcomed the “Ostralees” as liberators
and said he had friends in Tyre ahead that he could call to check on the enemy
defenses. To the surprise of the Australians, he was soon informed that Tyre
was not yet held by the enemy in any strength, and that they would be welcomed
there.

“Then let’s get on with it,” said
Mills enthusiastically. This was more of what they had expected of this
offensive, a quick advance with little opposition and welcoming locals. The
column set off, through the furrowed hills until they reached a point where
they finally overlooked the ancient crusader town of Tyre. There they saw
British naval units off the coast, but they were under attack by French planes,
and the sharp pock of the anti-aircraft batteries punctuated the stillness. It
was Force A, with the destroyer
Kimberly
close inshore, looking to shell
French positions. When the infantry pushed in through the bleached white stucco
buildings, they were soon greeted by a throng of locals, and an Arab ovation,
the trilling tongues of the women accenting the cheers.

Lieutenant Colonel MacDonald
decided to send a troop of Rolls Royce armored cars from the Royals north from
Tyre, heading up the coastal road towards the vital bridge over the Litani
River. By this time, the long night had passed, and the sun was up as the
column approached the bridge, where they saw the French had set up a roadblock
south of the river. A few men dismounted to clear the obstacle, and the “Battle
of the Litani” started when French troops near the bridge opened fire with both
field guns and 47mm AT guns. Well registered mortar fire came in as well,
forcing the armored cars to make a hasty withdrawal. They had to abandon two
cars that had been hit by enemy fire, and the shelter of a nearby wadi provided
little cover to Lieutenant Dent’s troop of infantry in universal carriers.
Dent’s own carrier broke down, and the situation looked difficult.

“Better get word back to Mac,” he
said to his driver, Trooper Judd. “We’re in for a fight here.” It was clear
that the main enemy line of resistance was now the Litani. The crater on the
coast road was found to be thirty feet deep, and it was late afternoon before
engineers could get it filled to permit the passage of vehicles and finally
link up with the men hold in the block house further north. By day’s end, the
21st Brigade had taken all the ground south of the Litani, but it was clear
that the real battle was now about to begin.

* * *

Further
inland, the
Australian 25th Brigade was to advance from the roads flanking the high cliffs
above the Jordan, take the town of Merdjayoun, and push on through the
highlands beyond and into the valley to take the vital French airfield at
Rayak. The first major obstacle they encountered was an old stone fort beyond a
bridge, over a swift mountain stream just south of Khaim. “Fort Khaim,” as it
was called, was manned by about 100 French infantry, and protected by 75mm
field guns, mortars, machinegun posts and wire. The job of taking it was handed
to Captain Cotton’s company, and he sent Lieutenant Connor’s platoon to take
the bridge and then push on to survey the fort.

“We’ll have to come at it on a
wide front,” Connor whispered to his men. “Get the lads well dispersed, and
when we move, make it quick. The sooner we cut through that wire the better.”

It was approaching noon on that
first day when the Aussies rushed forward, their advance soon being opposed by
heavy fire. The dispersal of the troops allowed them to push on until they
reached the wire, some 50 yards from the squarish fort. There they fired
everything they had to silence the two machine guns that were raking the wire
area, and Lieutenant Connor rushed forward with five other men and wire cutters.
This small squad was able to get through and work their way to the base of the
fort, where another machinegun on an opposite corner took them under fire.

Amazingly, there was an unguarded
door there, and Conner shouldered his way in, hefting his sub-machinegun as he
did so. A Sergeant and two Corporals followed him as they climbed another wall
that led to a long barracks. Connor ran the length of the room, which opened on
the inside of the fort, firing his sub-machinegun the whole way until he and
his men reached a bastion at the other end. There they took refuge, finding a
French officer, who quickly raised his hands and wisely told them in English he
now wished to join the Free French forces of de Gaulle!

“This one has a head on his
shoulders,” said Connor. “Alright mate, you can throw in with us if you mean
to. But one false move and I’ll have Sergeant Sweetapple there throttle you.
Understand?”

Sweetapple wasn’t a very
intimidating name, but the man who had it looked more than capable of carrying
out that threat. Connor found a rifle slit in the wall of his little toe hold
on the fort, and called out to Captain Cotton, who sent men forward to try and
cut a hole in the dry sandstone wall at the base of the bastion. Little by
little, they opened a breach, put men through to reinforce Connor, until a full
platoon had occupied the barracks and began pouring a withering fire at the
remaining French positions on the interior of the fort.

By nightfall, Fort Khaim had been
taken, and the little action there presaged the events that now lay ahead. Just
up the road from Khaim was the main enemy position on the upper Litani. It
stretched from the town of Merdjayoun in the northeast, where there was yet
another fort, then southwest to the Litani itself where the famous imposing
walls of the old Crusader castle, Chateau Beaufort, overlooked the main road.
The approaching slopes to these redoubts were bare and open, offering little
cover. Pill boxes and mortar pits connected the two forts anchoring the line,
which was strongly held by men of the French Algerian Rifle Regiment.

A Free French liaison officer was
sent forward under a flag of truce to try and talk their way through the
obstacle, but the request to join the Aussies was denied, and he got a bullet
in his shoulder on the return journey for good measure. Machine guns and
mortars opened up, and within minutes the three companies of Australian troops
under Captains Byrne, Brown, and Houston were pinned down, and Brown himself
was wounded.

“This is no good,” said Byrne. “They
held fire until we were right in front of them on this exposed ground. Send
back that we need bloody artillery support!” The runner was off, a stream of
enemy MG fire in his wake that almost cut him down, but he made it back. Soon
the 25-pounders of 2/6th Field Regiment responded, laying down a well sited
barrage of covering fire to allow 2/31st Battalion to fall back.

It was some time withdrawing, and
at one point three Mark VI tankettes were brought up to provide more covering
fire. The two lead tanks were hit by hot enemy fire, the third tank under
Sergeant Groves bravely charging to their side to rescue the surviving crewmen.
But the incident was enough to allow Captain Byrne to get his company back
another 400 yards, harried by enemy mortar fire the whole way. Houston’s last
company had to cling to its position until dusk, under fire the whole time,
with casualties mounting.

“So much for waving our hats at
these fellows!” said Byrne when he reported to the battalion commander. The Vichy
French were going to fight, and Brigade commander Cox knew he would now have to
make a deliberate attack, well supported by artillery fire. After watching this
preparation some time, the artillery commander made a suggestion that an
armored troop of the cavalry be sent up to the village of Khirbe to draw enemy
fire so he could better target his guns. It was to be a reconnaissance that
they would come to regret.