1944 (Kirov Series Book 36) by John Schettler

Author:John Schettler [Schettler, John]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: The Writing Shop Press
Published: 2018-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

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On the 1st of March, 1944, Montgomery, O’Connor and Patton all threw punches, while Clark rested his 5th Army after seeing it defanged of most of its armor. He was not resentful, and actually preferred the role assigned to him now, which was to maintain a strong presence on the line south of Limoges, and hold the enemy there in place. Patton delivered on his promise almost immediately. He quickly brought up 6th Armored division by rail, and had it in combat within 24 hours. As for 1st Armored, Old Ironsides was on the road to Portiers, leading the charge. He would soon support that advance with 2nd Armored, and both 1st and 2nd infantry, his old “One-Two punch,” as he called it.

6th Armored pushed past light resistance and surged into the road and rail hub city of Niort. This effectively flanked Rochefort, prompting the Germans to abandon their position there, and anchor their line further north at La Rochelle, so Patton had made his first down and he was looking for more yardage.

The Germans would react by immediately sending the troops that had been pulled from Manstein’s Southern Front, flowing them through Berlin, and then on to Paris. The troops were goggle eyed at the windows of the trains when they passed through the City of Light, some seeing it for the first time, wreathed in shadows early on March 2nd. Their strategy was to relieve the battered armor, rotating in fresh infantry, and to assist, the 16th SS Reichsführer Division disembarked at Portiers and moved down the road to challenge Patton’s bold advance. It would run into a storm of steel.

Patton had been pulling his armor off the line as well, and he now had 2nd Armored abreast of Old Ironsides, hitching those two strong horses to his chariot. Behind them, both 3rd and 4th Armored were reorganizing to become the exploitation force should a breakout result. As tough as it was, the Reichsführer Division had not seen so many tanks arrayed against them since the height of the fighting near Kharkov the previous year. It was soon apparent that they could not hold back the Americans for long, but at that breaking point, up came the first of the new divisions from the Ostfront, the 111th and 132nd Infantry Divisions. One of them was carrying a dark seed into the verdant soil of France, a man named Fritz Lindemann, who would soon latch on to the secret anti-Hitler resistance movement that was growing in the turf of Southern France.

Kluge’s visit to Rommel had been, in part, to sound the Field Marshall out, and assess his attitude toward Hitler. He knew Rommel had always been a favorite of the Führer, and wanted to know if that bond would keep Rommel firmly in line, or whether he was flexible, malleable, usable for the plot that was slowly developing.

An artilleryman at his roots, Lindemann moved from command of the 132nd Infantry to Chief of Staff of the Artillery.

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