headquarters was overrun by the Germans in North Africa and he was nearly captured at a lovely place called the Kasserine Pass. His battalion was out of touch for several days until relief columns arrived, and he sincerely believes that a lot of his men died because his regiment’s HQ was gone. He decided then and there that his HQ would always be fortified. Thus, he moves men and equipment around and sets up with each new move. Kind of like the Roman legions did. And, yes, that’s your job now.”
“Wonderful.”
“To give Stoddard his due, the man is neither a coward nor stupid, just cautious. He’s got legitimate medals from North Africa and he’s also a decent guy as long as you don’t piss him off, like screwing up the defenses around his HQ for instance. He’s also one of the handful of guys in the 74th who’s actually been in combat. Even though we’ve been in Normandy for a couple of days, there’s been no real fighting for us. Some shelling and sniping, but nothing major.”
“I’ll do my best to keep him happy. Now, you’re supposed to tell me about the regiment.”
Levin pulled a bottle of wine from his duffle bag, opened it, and poured some into their canteen cups. “Crystal would be better,” he said after taking a swallow, “it enhances the bouquet, but beggars can’t be choosers. Besides, the wine ain’t all that good. One of my men got it from some guys in the First Infantry Division who liberated a bar or something.”
Levin explained that there were three thousand men in the 74th, clustered around the seventy tanks that made up its strike force. He added that the regiment was an independent unit, currently assigned to General Leonard Gerow’s V Corps, which was part of Courtney Hodges’ First Army. “All of which belongs to Omar Bradley’s Twenty-First Army Group,” he added.
“If you’re curious, and there’s no reason you should be, there are other independent armored regiments and even a slew of independent armored battalions floating around. As to our strength, we have fifty M4 Shermans and twenty Stuarts. The Stuarts are light tanks and aren’t worth a shit. Worse, all they’ve got is a piddly 37mm gun which won’t hurt a Panzer Mark IV or a Panther. Might scrape its paint, but that’s all. They’re supposed to be phased out this winter and replaced by something called a Chaffee which also isn’t worth squat against kraut armor. The Sherman is bigger than the Stuart, but isn’t much better.”
Levin went on to explain that the Sherman had a 75mm gun and could beat the Panzer Mark III with its 37mm gun and hold its own with the Panzer Mark IV and its 75mm gun, but the introduction of the Panzer V, the Panther, and the less numerous Tiger and King Tiger varieties had disrupted all that.
“The Panzer III is still around and the Germans’ main tank is the Panzer IV, which is what the Sherman was allegedly designed to fight. The Panther has come as a terrible and unpleasant surprise that we’ve so far been able to avoid. It can’t last, however.”
Jack took another sip of the wine. “What’s the difference between a Panzer and a Panther?”
“Contrary to popular belief among the willfully ignorant, Panzer is not German for Panther. Panzer is derived from something else, maybe a French term. Technically speaking, the Panther is the Panzer V. Others, like the Tiger, which actually is the Panzer VI, the King Tiger, and the Leopard are different breeds of cat.” He chortled, “Damn, I am witty.”
“Not really,” Jack said, “but you are confusing the hell out of me. However, please continue.”
“Screw you too,” Levin said amiably, clearly pleased with his lousy joke. “Simply put, the seventy-five millimeter gun on the Sherman can’t penetrate the Panther’s front armor and the Panther’s gun goes through a Sherman’s thinner armor like a hot knife through butter. Since we haven’t seen any real combat it hasn’t happened to us yet, but I’ve been told that, statistically, one Panther can knock out as much as a dozen Shermans before ultimately taking a damaging hit and a Tiger can do even better, which I hope is an exaggeration. The only saving virtue is that the krauts don’t have all that many Panthers or Tigers.”
“How the hell did it happen that we got the crappy tanks and the Germans the good ones?” Jack asked. “We make millions of great cars, so why not tanks?”
Levin shrugged and added some more wine. “Ask the politicians and the manufacturers who convinced the army that the Germans wouldn’t be leap-frogging ahead of us with their designs. I’ve also heard that the Pentagon wanted the Sherman kept small so more of them could be shipped overseas without taking up precious space in ships. Oh yeah, it’s got too high a silhouette so the krauts can see us long before we see them. There was also the idea that tanks wouldn’t be fighting other tanks. Instead, tank destroyers would kill the German tanks while Shermans aided the infantry. That hasn’t worked out that way either. Another perfectly good plan shot to hell.”
Levin took a swallow and grimaced. The wine truly was pretty bad, but it was alcohol and they were beginning to feel comfortable. Levin continued, “And along with the tanks, there are a number of semi-armored half-tracks and a dozen M10 tank destroyers, which are also under-gunned against the Germans and don’t have any tops on them in order to save weight, which is supposed to increase speed. Dumb.
“We have our own artillery, consisting of a number of 105mm howitzers on open tank chassis. We also have a large number of trucks, gas tanker trucks, and Jeeps, but it’s common knowledge that we don’t have enough of them.”
Jack added more wine to his cup. “What a fuckup.”
Levin laughed. “Yeah, and we’re supposed to be winning this war.”
Colonel Ernst Varner was well on his way home when the sirens began to wail. He felt his stomach churn as he moved quickly to the nearest bomb shelter in the basement of an office building. It was the middle of the day and that meant it was the Americans who were going to rain destruction down on Berlin. Again, just as they did almost every day. The British bombed at night.
Varner was as brave as the next man, but he felt helpless as he cowered in the shelter. He could only wonder as he did each time-what the devil had happened to Germany’s air defenses? Where were the fighters? Why weren’t German bombers hitting enemy airfields? When the war started, Hermann Goering had boasted that if an Allied bomb fell on Berlin he would change his name to Meyer, a Jewish name. Well, the bombs fell constantly now on a relatively helpless Berlin and the disgraced Goering rarely made an appearance. To the people of Berlin he was a buffoon. Varner agreed, although only to himself.
The crump-crump of the bombs could be heard. Some nearby area was getting pasted. Varner could only hope and pray the bombs weren’t falling anywhere near the apartment building where Magda and Margarete awaited his return.
The bombs were falling closer. The shelter began to vibrate and dust filtered down onto the scores of people who huddled in terror. People were moaning and a woman screamed. Children cried. Varner fought the urge to piss. A direct hit on the building above could bury them alive. No matter how many times he’d been in combat, there was always that feeling of unreasonable fear when the firing began. Show me someone without fear, he’d always thought, and I’ll show you either a fool or a lunatic.
Like a thunderstorm in the summer, the bombs reached a violent and ear-shattering crescendo. The walls of the shelter shook with their violence, and still more dust fell from the ceiling, covering everyone jammed inside. Varner smelled smoke and prayed that the exit wasn’t blocked by flames or falling debris. He’d seen instances where that had happened and the people inside were fried to a crisp, their bodies stacked by a blocked exit.
The woman screamed again, yelling for the bombing to stop and then cursing Hitler and Goering for letting it happen. Someone stifled her and prevented her from crying out again. Varner could understand her fear and frustration, but not her outburst. While the Gestapo might not be everywhere, the Gestapo’s informants were, and such hysterical comments could be construed as treasonous.
As the dust settled, he saw the woman, now standing alone. Nobody wanted to be associated with her. She was wide-eyed and terrified, but now from a new sense of panic.
The sounds of bombing faded. But were the Americans through or was this just the first of many waves of attackers? The Yanks seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of planes. Berlin wasn’t totally helpless as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of antiaircraft guns fired at the distant bombers. They would hit some of them, but nowhere near enough to change matters. The British would come tonight and the Americans again tomorrow during the day. And so it would go on.
The all clear sounded and Varner led the group out of the shelter into a changed world. Walls were down
