Breakout, p.1
Breakout, page 1
Breakout
By Todd McLeod & Eric Meyer
BOOK 3 of the Heroes of the 82nd Airborne series
Short Fiction
Copyright 2020 by Todd McLeod & Eric Meyer
Published by Swordworks Books
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Chapter One
Sergeant Scott Cornwell, young for an NCO in charge of an armored vehicle, flinched as a shell burst overhead, scattering hot metal fragments around the cramped compartment of the M10 tank destroyer. Cornwell was a big man, heavily muscled, a longshoreman before they drafted him into an armored division. With hands like spades, his career on the docks built him a tough physique, and the quiet confidence of a man who is seldom intimidated by other men. Especially Germans. The war was a rude interruption to his life and dragged him away from his wife and two boys back home. He wanted to get back to them as quickly as possible. That meant killing Germans, lots of Germans.
He wasn’t too sure about the M10 tank destroyer. Built on the chassis of the Sherman M4 medium tank, the M10 suffered from a serious disadvantage. The three-inch gun was up against the newer German tanks, like the Panthers and the Tigers, and their shells frequently bounced off the heavy armor. As if that wasn’t enough, the geniuses in Washington had specified a fully rotating turret, a novel feature in a tank destroyer, but left it open. It meant the crew had superior all-round vision, but they were prey to snipers and grenade attacks. Already his company had lost five vehicles to enemy attacks, and crews of the surviving tanks took more casualties than was healthy.
Three weeks after the D-Day landings, 2nd Armored Division was driving through the night, heading toward Coutances. Headquarters had warned them to keep their eyes skinned for enemy armor, especially the M10s, who they expected to take care of the panzers, and if the three-inch guns weren’t up to it, too bad. They’d have to get closer and fire more shells.
Great. As if we don’t have enough problems, they want us to go head-to-head with the Panthers and the Tigers.
The radio crackled into life, and the commander of C Company came through loud and clear.
“We’re stopping here for a rest and give the engines a chance to cool down. Close up, and post one man from each vehicle for sentry duty. We don’t know the area, and they’re sending out a reconnaissance party to see what’s in front of us.”
The gunner standing next to him, Manuel Morales grimaced. “You know what that means, Sarge.”
He nodded. “We’re lost.”
They reached a field at the side of a sparse forest of growing pine trees and drove inside, out of sight from enemy aircraft and armor, and switched off. Other vehicles arrived and clustered around them, and as the engines died, the silence was strange after so many hours rumbling along in the noisiest vehicle known to man, tracks clanking, the General Motors twin diesel engine roaring loud enough to wake the dead. He dropped down from the turret and strolled around, breathing in the fresh, clean air, and enjoying the silence.
“Sergeant Cornwell, any problems?”
He glanced around and he was looking at Captain Simon Feldman, the Company Commander. A New Yorker, and in a previous life a realtor selling upmarket Manhattan townhouses and apartments. Lean and erect, he was sincere about everything he did. Whether it was a client in Manhattan or an enlisted man in his unit.
“Not so far, Sir. Where are we?”
The slight hesitation confirmed their estimate. They were lost. Feldman cleared his throat. “We’re, uh, checking it out. Somewhere north of Coutances, I believe. As soon as we pinpoint our exact position, we’re heading into the city along with the rest of 2nd Armored Division. It’s a vital objective, Sergeant. We need to breakout from Normandy and Brittany to start the drive on Paris.”
“Uh, huh. We…” He paused and held up a hand for quiet, “Sir, I hear engines. Tank engines.”
Feldman didn’t react. “The entire 2nd Division is advancing on Coutances, so it’s no surprise we hear engines. I’d be surprised if we didn’t hear engines, and worried. It would mean we were on our own.”
“Sir, they don’t sound like ours.”
The Captain frowned. “How can you tell?”
Try riding in an M10 for a few hours, you’ll get to know the difference.
“They just sound familiar, Sir. Like… German heavy tanks.”
He sighed. “Okay, I doubt the enemy has armor in this area, but I’ll check it out.”
He strolled back to his command vehicle, a Sherman M4, to use the radio to call Division. He talked for several minutes, and when he finished he looked worried.
“We have intelligence from England. They’ve intercepted radio communications from a German armored regiment, and they believe they’re in this area.” He called for Cornwell. “Sergeant, take your tank five miles to the west, and report back what you find.”
“The west? How can enemy tanks have made it to the west? The last we heard 1st Infantry and 4th Armored had already taken that territory.”
“Just do it. I want you back here inside of one hour. We may have a problem.”
He raced back to his M10, vaulted onto the hull, and climbed inside the turret. The crew was on the ground, heating up water for coffee, and he shouted at them to leave it.
“We’re pulling out, right now. Driver, get the tracks moving and head west!”
They scrambled inside the hull, and Morales joined him in the turret. “What gives, Sarge?”
“If our intelligence is correct, an SS Panzer unit has broken through our lines during the night. You know what that means?”
“We’re screwed?”
“That, too. If it’s true, we’re cut off.”
Morales muttered a string of curses in Spanish, a language perfect for cursing. It wasn’t even necessary to understand the words. The meaning was clear.
* * *
Waffen SS Obersturmführer Hans Reitz swiveled his gaze from side to side as they stormed through the Normandy countryside. He was riding in the turret of a new Panther, so the odor of the paintwork was still strong. The Panther was designed to be powerful enough to destroy any Allied tanks they encountered on the battlefield, and originally intended to deal with the threat of the lethal Russian T34s. Fast and powerful, and mounting a high velocity 76mm gun, he had little doubt in his ability to defeat Allied armor whenever he came across it.
He was an embittered man after his father died following a street fight in Berlin with Communist agitators. He joined the Nazis when Hitler promised everything from world domination to butter on the table. A lean, hard athlete, his dueling scar was testament to his place at Heidelberg, the elite German university, and achieving command of a Panther was the pinnacle of his ambition. The Allies, Russians, British, and Americans were at the root of his country’s problems, and he was determined to kill them wherever he found them. Especially after his wife of less than a year died in a Berlin daylight bombing raid, for which he heaped more blame on the accursed Americans.
He reached for the microphone. “Driver, increase speed to maximum. Gunner, standby, we expect to encounter enemy armor at any moment. Radio operator, put through a call to headquarters. Tell them we have cut through the American lines, and we have them cut off.”
A chorus of acknowledgements came back through his headset, and he smiled as his vehicle sped across the fields. The Americans and the British had nothing to compare with this tank, and now they were in behind them, they were in position to wipe them out. He regretted his company was so depleted, after enemy aircraft had destroyed half their vehicles, and mechanical failures had caused two more Panthers to fall back. But still, with seven tanks and a regiment of Panzer Grenadiers riding in half-tracks, they had speed, mobility, and firepower to smash through anything they came across.
He snatched up the microphone again. “Driver, halt. All vehicles stop here. Switch off, and listen for enemy armor.”
The heavy tanks halted on the road, the engines switched off, and the only sound was the ticking of hot metal as it cooled. He listened, knowing they were all listening, and soon he heard it. The noise of an American tank, twin-diesel engine, which meant a Sherman, but only one, and that was strange. He’d received reports of the American 2nd Armored Division in the area, not a single tank. The noise was getting louder, which me
“We will destroy this tank, and I have no doubt there will be plenty more. Today will be yet another victory for our glorious Führer. We will smash the enemy, and we may even receive a message of congratulations from the Führer. Radio operator, send a message to headquarters. Tell them we have located a single enemy, and after we’ve destroyed it, we will search for the others. Men, this will be a great victory, one we can…”
“Herr Obersturmführer, there’s a message coming in. I think you should listen to it. It’s important.”
“I have more to say to the men. Wait until I’m finished.”
“But, Sir, you have to hear this.”
He sighed with impatience. “What is it, have the British surrendered?”
“Nossir.”
“Has anyone surrendered?”
“Perhaps us, Herr Obersturmführer.”
“What? Give me the message.”
He listened with growing incredulity. The Führer, the leader of the Third Reich, was feared dead, an assassination attempt at his headquarters in Rastenburg in East Prussia.
It can’t be true. The man I swore loyalty to can’t be dead.
“It’s a ruse, an American plot to scare us into running away.”
“What if it is true, Sir? What should we do?”
He answered the frightened radio operator. “We will fight harder and thrust this lie down the throats of the Americans. First we will locate this 2nd Armored Division. Then we will destroy it.”
* * *
They’d driven three miles cross-country, and Cornwell checked his map. The main highway leading to Coutances lay one mile ahead of them, and when they reached it that would be enough. If they hadn’t found the enemy armor, he’d head back and report no contact. He could swear he’d heard German heavy tanks, but in the darkness, and the early hours of the morning when men are tired from riding in the open turret of the M10, the noise and vibrations sucking the energy from every fiber of his body, he accepted he could be wrong. There was still nothing, and the road lay one mile in front of them.
The driver steered through a farmyard, abandoned since the German occupation had caused the farmer and his family to flee. In the darkness he missed seeing the large, open-sided barn, and he drove in beneath the rusting sheets of the steel roof. He was about to drive out the other side, after the left track plowed over and flattened what remained of an ancient Fordson tractor. Except the remains of the tractor had entangled themselves with the track, and Cornwell radioed him to stop.
He switched off the engine, and they climbed out to start work on removing the wreckage so they could continue. Manuel was kicking at the broken metal, issuing another stream of Spanish curses. The other three crewmen had brought out pry bars and a sledgehammer to start working on removing the remains of the tractor. Morales snatched up the sledgehammer and began pounding at the broken metal, the noise ringing out through the night. Progress was slow, although he managed to partially free the metal, and they went to work with the pry bars. The last of the wreckage stubbornly refused to part company with the track, and Manuel went to work with the sledgehammer again. Pounding at the metal, and bit-by-bit it gave way.
“I’m nearly there,” he snarled, spitting out more curses, “Another dozen blows should clear it.”
“Stop!” They jerked their heads around at Cornwell’s word of command, “I hear something. Engines.”
They froze, and he told them to stay in position and keep quiet while he checked it out. He ran to the edge of the barn and looked across the field to the highway. Seven dark shapes lay in front of him, and he didn’t need a recognition chart to know what he was looking at. As he watched, they started to move, and he raced back to the M10.
“Panthers! Heading this way. We have to get out of here.”
“What about the track?”
He stared at the remains of the twisted metal still jammed on the left track. Which meant they couldn’t move. The rumble of engines and the clatter of tracks were getting closer, and he didn’t need to look, he knew. They all knew. “The Panthers. They’re coming. We’re too late.”
What saved them was noise of the oncoming tanks, and he shouted at Morales to finish the job. They flew at the twisted metal, and in seconds they’d cleared the track, the engine started, and the M10 was driving out the barn, racing east to rejoin the company. They made it back, and somehow they’d lost the Panthers. That was the good news. The bad news was they were trapped behind German lines, with an unknown number of heavy tanks and the inevitable Panzergrenadier unit in support.
Captain Feldman didn’t look relaxed, not anymore. Cornwell finished his report with a question. “What’re we going to do, Sir?”
He shook his head. “Sergeant, somehow we have to break through the German lines, but until we can find a way out of this, we’re screwed.”
Chapter Two
First Platoon, B Company, 82nd Airborne, were licking their wounds after the last engagement. A brush with Tigers, and every man had the same idea. He’d be more than happy if he never saw a German heavy tank for the rest of his life. They were eating breakfast, MREs, and a man would have to look hard to find something less appetizing. This was France, and they’d expected to enjoy tasting the food, and with any luck some of the famous female company as well. Instead, Private Ray Cassidy was attempting to digest what tasted like damp cardboard, and wishing he’d indulged in his favorite pursuit and gone hunting for fresh game. Hunting was his passion. Short and wiry, like most outdoorsmen his skin was tanned and leathery in spite of his young age. His twentieth birthday was in three months. He spent most every spare moment in the outdoors hunting, frequently tracking an animal for hours before he lined up the perfect shot.
He glanced at his best buddy, Harry Byrd, who was as different from him as night from day. Pale and inclined to a degree of flab, unusual for an Airborne trooper. Yet underneath the flab lay solid muscle. At nearly six feet, he was tall, with blonde hair, a throwback to his Scandinavian ancestors with piercing blue eyes. Harry was the kind of guy who considered any place outside of a city was best avoided. “I’m thinking how long before we reach Paris.”
“Paris? Why Paris?”
“Why? Good food, good wine, and women to die for.”
He grimaced. “Before we reach Paris there’re plenty of Germans, and they’re just as determined for us to die.”
“We’ll make it, I know it. Think of it, Harry, they’ll give us a couple of weeks R&R, and we’ll be strolling along the Champs-Elysées, a girl on each arm, heading for the best restaurant in town.”
He chuckled. “You’re dreaming. We’ll be camped out in a muddy field in the rain. The only female company will be cattle grazing in the fields, and we’ll have the Germans camped out in the next field, taking pot shots at us.”
“Nah, it’s not going to happen. Good food, good wine, good women. This is France, Harry.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Attention! On your feet, men!”
They weren’t sorry to put down the remains of their meal. Colonel Henry Gates had arrived, with their platoon commander Lieutenant Frank Bond, who had recently returned after being wounded. He was short and slight, more like a successful long distance runner. Pale-skinned, his dark, sharp eyes were constantly looking everywhere, as if to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He took pride in taking care of his unit. Sometimes he even succeeded.
“Men, we’re moving out in five. Grab your gear, we have an important mission that could decide the fate of an entire Armored division.”
They assembled, and the Colonel stood in front of them, hands on hips. “Somehow, German tanks managed to pierce our lines during the night, and they cut off a chunk of our 2nd Armor. They’re trapped, and it’s up to us to find a way through. They’re hiding in a wood outside of Coutances and hoping the enemy doesn’t find them before we can get them out. That’s your job. Find a clear path through the German lines so they can escape the trap. Any questions? Make it quick. We don’t have much time.”
