Rhinelander (Kirov Series Book 40) by Schettler John

Author:Schettler, John [Schettler, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: The Writing Shop Press
Published: 2018-11-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

O’Connor’s XXX Corps under General Horrocks had not participated in the defense against the German Rhinelander offensive, so the British remained flush with supplies and ready to operate. Eisenhower approved the transfers O’Connor wanted to make, and told him he could launch his attack when he was ready. That happened on the 25th of September.

The operation would begin in the south, where 43rd Wessex Division had mustered near Renkum, about 14 kilometers west of Arnhem on the Nieder Rhien. Their mission was to punch through to Oosterbeek, and push into Arnhem, so the history had conspired to make those quiet fields and woodlands a battlefield yet again. Assisting this attack from the north, 32nd Guards Brigade of Adair’s division was on the road from Arnhem to Ede.

The attack would fall on the rag-tag assortment of odd battalions that had been collected under the headquarters of General von Tettau—SS training battalions, security personnel, convalescent troops. The Germans were enduring a wet night under moderate rain, when the British guns cracked the morning open an hour before dawn. The barrage walked across the fields into the woodland, snapping trees, starting fires, and killing anyone caught in the open. It was a short, but intense bombardment, finishing with smoke, as the thick armed men of the Wessex Division started forward.

On the road to Oosterbeek, they were quickly followed by the division recon battalion, with Humbers and AEC-III armored cars. So the lesson was a hard one that morning for the SS Training School recruits. The British broke through the thin German lines, and the armored cars pushed boldly up the road, right into Oosterbeek. Once there, they began to shoot the place up like a troop of desperados that had ridden into an old western town, pistols blazing.

The Hamshire and Dorsetshire battalions of 130 Brigade had opened the way, and to their north, 4th Wiltshire Battalion was storming through the small settlement of Wolfheze. It would lay in ruins within the hour, the burning houses filling the air with the smell of wood smoke. KG Spindler was smashed, and when it was found that field wire had been shredded by the British artillery, runners were hastening through the woods and rain to the east, bearing news of the attack that was already quite apparent to all the citizens and troops at Arnhem. Looking out of their windows towards the darkness to the west, it seemed that the sun was rising in the wrong place that morning, for the horizon was lit up with the glow of that artillery fire.

Oberleutnant Kuhne’s battalion was next in harm’s way, stationed on the far west end of Arnhem. Companies of the Mattusch SS Battalion were coming north towards Oosterbeek from their positions on the river, but Kuhne was the reserve for that entire regiment, and he had nine Sturm III’s to help stiffen the morale of his troops. KG Allworden was in the city itself, von Tettau’s ace in the hole. They were the best of

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