Dragonfall (Kirov Series Book 35) by John Schettler

Author:John Schettler [Schettler, John]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: The Writing Shop Press
Published: 2018-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

O’Connor’s Offensive

In the meantime, General O’Connor was massing his considerable force into one powerful sledgehammer, and slowly beating his way through the lines of the SS troops sent to contain him. A wedge of steel was driven between the 16th and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Divisions, but the sector occupied by the Hitlerjugend Division to the west was holding. O’Connor poured everything he had into that wedge, breaking through on the 25th Of October towards the communications hub of Aurillac.

To make matters worse, Mark Clark had found some fire in his own belly, and organized a supporting attack west of the German mainstay in the line, the positions of 12th SS and the Herman Goring Division. He had enough troops to mask that front, and then sent his VI Corps with 5th, 36th and 45th US Infantry Divisions, supported by 1st Armored Division. Old Ironsides was a big unit, and its armor had been fleshed out with new equipment since the days of Tunisia. All the older M5’s had been replaced by Shermans, and the division now had real striking power when it moved.

That attack would roll through the German 334th Division cutting it into two isolated parts and opening a big hole in the line. In effect, it became the left pincer of what was now looking like a double envelopment of the main German defense, the segment of the line held by Hermann Goring, 12th SS and the 16th SS Reichsführer Panzergrenadiers. The Americans were breaking through west of Figeac, while O’Connor drove on Aurillac.

Rommel had but one last division in hand that was not yet committed, the 90th Panzergrenadiers from Italy. They had come through Lyon and were at Saint Etienne, standing as the local reserve for the Rhone River Valley defense. But now that fight was being outflanked by O’Connor and Clark, and this last division had to move. They could not reach Aurillac in time if traveling by road, so Rommel had no choice but to risk moving them by rail.

The Allied air force pounced on those trains, and about half the division actually made it to the city. One regiment was stranded when the engine derailed after a fighter bomber came in low and planted a bomb right in front of it. The rest of the division, flak units, supply trains and Pioneers, would have to forsake the rails and move by a narrow mountain road, which was itself the target of interdiction attacks.

Rommel was realizing now that in spite of the superb rail system in France, and ample rolling stock, his strategic mobility was still very limited. The only solution now was to pull the bulwark of his defense back. As Patton and O’Connor pushed on either side of the front, a big cauldron was forming. The Germans struggled to contain both offensives with the few mobile divisions they had in reserve, and the fate of all the troops between those disparate combat zones was as yet undecided.

It was clear that O’Connor and Clark wanted to go around the highlands of the central Massif, which is what they were doing.

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