Stormtide Rising

Chapter 10

Operation Phoenix was proceeding exactly according to plan. As German intelligence had estimated, the British did not have sufficient reserves in that theater to prevent the more than significant incursion made by Guderian’s fast moving troops. The Brandenburg Division, strengthened to five fast motorized infantry regiments, was simply outstanding in its performance. They would have made Rommel himself proud, for in four days they had moved all the way across Syria to the Iraqi border, a distance of some 300 miles, taking Aleppo, Ar Raqqah and Dier-ez-Zour in the process.

To put that into perspective, it was equivalent to Rommel’s breathtaking opening advance in Operation Sonnenblume when he moved from the vicinity of Mersa Brega across the whole of Cyrenaica to Tobruk, also 300 miles. Yet the distance achieved by Operation Sturmflut over the same time period, though it involved much more combat, was only a penetration of the Allied lines no deeper than 50 miles.

Now all five regiments of the division were east of the Euphrates and piling into the hastily assembled defensive front composed of 10th and 5th Indian Infantry Divisions. This was the most substantial resistance the division had encountered to date. They easily chased the Free French Division from Ar Raqqah, though to the credit of those troops, they fought a hold and run delaying action for nearly 200 miles as they retreated south. Now that division was finished as a cohesive fighting unit, and the Germans were simply bypassing the shattered remnants of the force, sweeping forward to get at the more organized British Indian front.

5th Indian Division under Briggs had come down from Northern Iraq on the road from Mosul and just crossed over into Syria, about 20 kilometers north of Ar Ramadi on the Euphrates. General Blaxland’s 10th Indian Division was astride the river itself, with 25th Indian Brigade on the western bank blocking the main road south, and 21st Brigade on the east bank, where it had crossed near Al Ashara to try and shore up the flagging Free French Division. Between there and the lines of 5th Indian, there was only the scattered remnant of the French Division, and the desert. The rest of that division had been sent west to try and protect the T2 Pumping station, well facility and airfield.

The Germans move with speed and precision, rolling up to a position in their trucks, sending in fast moving teams on motorcycles to probe the strength of the defense, and only deploying if necessary. When they did deploy for combat, it was a thing of beauty. The hardened veterans leapt from the trucks in their new desert camo uniforms. Within minutes the infantry were getting observers and MG teams forward, establishing their mortar positions, and putting down harassing fire on the enemy. They moved fast, hit hard, and the infantry were relentless as they advanced on any semblance of an enemy defensive front. They would select one spot, saturate it with fire, and the ground teams made fast rushes. The MG 42s were pouring out suppressive fire, and it seemed that within minutes, these dangerously skilled men had closed to firefight range with their enemy.

They had never been stopped.

Now Beckermann had aligned all five regiments abreast, and he was going to throw the full weight of his division on the enemy line. Three battalions of Brigadier Langran’s 9th Indian Brigade, 5th Division, were shattered that hour. Beckerman could only do this because Hitler had taken yet another crack unit, the 22nd Luftland Division, and sent it into Norther Syria to Ar Raqqah. From there it had moved overland to Dier-es-Zour to relieve the Brandenburgers and put pressure on the main road south.

Meanwhile, further west, the 5th British Infantry Division under General Miles had been pushed right out of Palmyra by 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions, and the 4th moved on east towards the T2 Pump Station. Guderian had 3rd Panzer right behind it, and now he was slowly extricating his 10th Motorized Division from its defensive duties, and rolling it east. He could do this as OKW fed one light Mountain Division after another down through Aleppo to Homs by rail.

Soon Kruger’s Corps swelled to include 78th Sturm Division on the coast near Tartus, 6th Mountain from the fortress of Masyaf to Homs, a newly arrived 104th Jaeger Division near Homs itself, the Prinz Eugen SS Mountain Division east of that city, and finally Kübler’s old 1st Mountain right astride the pipeline to T4, moved there to relieve 10th Motorized.

It was in that sector that the Indian 31st Armored and the newly arrived 46th British Infantry under General Freeman, had finally stabilized Wavell’s line—but it was Alexander’s line now. The weary old Wavell was already on a plane to Baghdad to make a brief meeting with Auchinlek on the defense of Iraq, and then he would fly down to the Persian Gulf enroute to his new posting as the Viceroy of India. The Middle East was Alexander’s problem now, and it was getting more and more serious with each passing day.

Churchill himself, fresh from the Casablanca conference, hung on at Alexandria fretting over the situation and sticking his thumb in everyone’s pie. Yet his presence there would also get deep end reserves moving out of the UK and heading for Cape Town, intending to try and reach the key British oil facilities near Basra before the Germans did. As was the case on every front where his armies were now engaged, Churchill knew he needed to send enough to not only stop his enemy, but to then muster the strength to throw him back.

But Heinz Guderian had no intention of stopping until he had achieved what he was sent here to do. He had seen his dismissal from the eastern front as an insult to his career, and now he applied his considerable ability to the task at hand. Here it was no longer the endless white frozen steppes of Russia, but instead the sun dappled desert, terrain that was absolutely ideal for the kind of fast moving battle he was now fighting. His only concern was the ever lengthening supply line behind him, and the inevitable need to cover the front as he extended east.

To this end, and just ten days into his operation, Guderian reported that all initial objectives were in hand on the 18th of January, and requested the release of his designated theater reserve, the 12th Infantry Korps under General Walther Gräßner. Consisting of three divisions, (31st, 34th and 45 Infantry), it would provide him all the forces necessary to hold the ground he had already seized, allowing Hube to continue to push his Panzer Korps into Iraq. Yet it would be a long time before he saw any of those troops, and then only a third of what he hoped to receive. The 31st and 34th Divisions would instead be sent to Syria to defend against an increasing British buildup there, and he would only receive the 45th.

It was Wavell’s plan, but now it was Alexander’s battle to fight. He was no stranger to war, starting with a platoon in the Irish Guards during the Great war, and working his way up to Company command just in time for the lovely meeting that came to be known as the Battle of the Somme. He later fought at 3rd Ypres and Cambrai, and in this war he was on the last British Destroyer to leave at Dunkirk. Between the wars he studied at the Imperial Defense College, where both Montgomery and Alan Brooke were his instructors, both unimpressed by the man. Yet Alexander would find ways of impressing them in time, and this was his first good chance in this war.

Wavell had arranged to bring the 46th Infantry up on the rail line from Damascus. One line ran up the long central valley though the big aerodrome at Rayak to Homs, but he was using the secondary line that ran northeast of the city, and almost directly towards the T4 Pumping Station. That spur also served the mines near Jebel Lebtar, and was eventually intended to link up at Palmyra as well as T4.

The 46th was a “Mixed” division, with two infantry brigades, the 138th under Brigadier Harding, and the 139th under Brigadier Vickers. It also had the 137th Armored Brigade under Brigadier Peto, with about 160 tanks, mostly American Shermans. Now the wild card that Wavell was so gratified to find in his hand was finally coming up, the unexpected 25th Armored Brigade under Brigadier Maxwell, this unit with mostly Churchills. Those two brigades, along with what was left in the 31st Indian Armored, were going to give Alexander nearly 400 tanks to launch his counteroffensive, a surprise the Germans certainly did not expect.

For sheer numbers, it was an armored force almost twice that of the two Panzer Divisions committed to this theater. All these units had been meant for O’Connor’s 8th Army, which was now going without a lot of tank replacements as it pushed for Mareth, but it was taking time to assemble this force and get things “teed up.”

Monty would have seen that situation as perfectly satisfactory. He never moved on offensive until he was good and ready, a most deliberate and methodical man. The change of command also imposed some confusion, but Alexander was quick to gather the reins in hand and settled in well.

Surveying the field, he was now content that there was no direct threat to central and southern Syria, particularly Damascus, and all of Palestine remained secure. “Jerry doesn’t seem interested in Suez any longer,” he said at his first staff meeting. “He’s run off through Palmyra toward the Euphrates. That won’t do well for the pipeline to Tripoli, and now our forces there must do everything possible to save the Haifa line. Any reports?” He looked at Brigadier Kingstone, who had flown in for the meeting to brief the new commander.

“At the moment, sir, the action seems to be focused around T2, mid-way between Palmyra and the river. But it’s only another 40 klicks to T1, and that is just 18 klicks due north of the H1 station.”

“What about the Indian Divisions?”

“Blaxland has moved his HQ for 10th Indian to Abu Kamal on the river. He’s posted a Brigade at T2, and then my people are covering this flank along the wadi here.” Kingstone traced the position on the map with his weathered brown finger.

“Prospects?”

“Well sir, we’ve no tanks, and only a few AEC-III’s left in the entire force. Jerry is hitting us with a Panzer Division now, and the Brandenburgers move like lightning. We can’t hold where we are. In fact, we’ll be lucky to cover the H1 station and get back to Hadithah.”

“And east of the Euphrates?”

“General Briggs with 5th Indian tried to push across the border and link up with us, but that Brandenburg Division has been too much for them. Jerry’s got between Briggs and Blaxland now, and he’s pushing the last of the French troops south along the river. We’ve had to blow the bridge at Ar Ramadi. It doesn’t look good, sir, and they haven’t even brought up their whole Panzer force from Palmyra yet.”

“I shall make it my business to see that they don’t soon enough, “ said Alexander. “I’m teeing off a big push to take back T4 and Palmyra—Operation Buckthorne. That should do the trick.” He showed Kingstone the forces he was now assembling, and asked him to return and put as much fire into the defense on the Euphrates as he could.

His plan was to re-commit 31st Armored Brigade, posted on the road between T4 and Homs, with orders to strike directly for the Pumping Station. 46th Infantry, assembled around Wadi Ramdah to the southeast, would drive up the secondary road to T4, and the 25th Armored Brigade would attempt to envelop that position on the right. Oddly enough, it would aim for a town called Ain el Beida, the same name given to von Arnim’s opening objective for Operation Sturmflut near the Tunisian/Algerian border. At the same time, he wanted General Miles and his 56thLondon Infantry Division to move north towards Palmyra again, forcing the Germans to defend that front.

25th Armored was taking some time to get in position, and only two of its three battalions had arrived by the 20th of January, yet Alexander was keen to get started. He ordered the attack to begin that day, hoping to compel the Germans to turn and fight a hard battle with him on this flank, and therefore ease the pressure in the Euphrates sector.

The Indian Armored Division had only 38 American Shermans left, and another 24 M3 light tanks, the Honeys, as the British called them. They ran right into the 7th SS PzJag Battalion, which had 12 Pz IIIJ’s, six Pz-IVE infantry support tanks and six Marder II’s. Kübler also had his PzJag battalion there with two dozen Marders and four 88s. That made for a very difficult attack for the Indian Armored, though the 46th was making a little better progress on their right. The Germans held their ground, seeing the high silhouette of the bulky Shermans as easy targets, and they found their Panzers could deal with them easily enough. Firing back, the enemy was getting a few of their lighter skinned Marders, but it was coming down to a question of which side was better skilled in this sort of armored duel, and the Germans had far more experience and training.

Beyond that, some heavy mortars and a Nebelwerfer Battalion had been sent over by the 78th Sturm Division, and added to the artillery from Prinz Eugen and the Korps group, the Indian troops soon found their lines saturated with heavy defensive fire. The dry earth heaved up with the impact of the rounds, and the Shermans trundled through the dust, into the craters. And up the other side to present a nice fat target for those 88s.

31st Indian Armored Division had really only attacked in brigade strength, and it wasn’t going anywhere—but neither was 10th Motorized. Guderian was at Palmyra, taking a brief moment to view the old Roman ruins and temples. He had heard the opening of Alexander’s offensive as a dull roar in the air that morning, but had no reports other than that from the engagement with the Indian Division. Then General Kübler himself came in, the leathery warrior who had fought so much of the war against the British, his men veterans of the first Action in Syria, the fighting in Libya, Canary Islands, Morocco, and Algeria.

“Syria again,” he said, meeting Heinz Guderian for the first time. “Well, I’m sorry to say they have brought up a good deal of armor. That’s a mixed British Infantry Division down there, with a full armored brigade attached, at least 150 panzers. They hit us hard, but the men are holding. We faced much the same in Libya under Rommel, but these are American tanks.”

“What do you think of them?” asked Guderian.

“Not much. They’re big, and with a decent 75mm gun, but they light up easily when hit, and are prone to fires. More bark than bite, that one, but we have only Marders, with little armor on them, so I suppose it’s a fair fight.” Kübler smiled, listening to the closer report of MG fire and small mortars.

“That’s that British Division Hube kicked out of this place a few days ago,” said Guderian. “They seem to want it back, so it looks like I’ll have to hold Schmidt’s Motorized Division here. I’ll send you his recon battalion for a local reserve. Let me finish up here and then we’ll see what your situation needs tomorrow.”

That afternoon, Schmidt deployed his entire division again, the men leaving their trucks on the road through Palmyra. Veterans all, they pushed south aggressively, and Miles found his push to retake Palmyra nothing more than a spoiling operation in short order. Yet that was exactly what Alexander wanted from him, and there was now one less German Division heading east towards the Euphrates.

Chapter 11

On the morning of the 21st, 1 Kommando, Brandenburg Special Forces, were the first German unit to reach the Iraqi border, about 10 kilometers due east of Ar Ramadi, at a small village north of Abu Kamal. There wasn’t much to be seen, not even a wire fence of any kind. The wind blew listlessly through the sandy scrubland, and the scouting unit reported the area completely clear of the enemy.

The Germans were flanking Blaxland’s 10th Indian HQ at Abu Kamal, the position Kingstone had traced with his finger for Alexander. But they were all north and east of the river, and there were no bridges for another 40 kilometers east at Rawah. The two Indian Divisions had been isolated from one another, and neither one was sitting on firm defensive positions.

By the time Kingstone returned, flying in to the airfield at T1, he could see that the situation was ‘far from satisfactory.’ He stormed into Blaxland’s HQ at Abu Kamal and laid into him.

“They’ve gotten round your right east of the Euphrates! The French are finished. Now there’s no way you’ll hold onto to T2 as it stands, not with a single brigade there against the bloody 3rd Panzer Division. We simply can’t sit here any longer. This is a fast moving battle of maneuver, and you’ve got to keep in step. Jerry’s is through the front door, across the living room and he’s already getting at the jewelry in the bedroom dresser!”

“But we’ll lose T1 next if I move now,” Blaxland complained.

“We don’t need T1. The German army is already strung out the whole length of that bloody pipeline. It’s useless! H1 is another matter. That’s where we need to be, and with some semblance of concentration. You can’t throw things off willy-nilly in penny packet fashion. You need to pull your division together and move to cover H1. And you need to do that now, sir.”

It wasn’t exactly proper for a Brigadier to dress down the commander of a full division like that. In truth, Kingstone had real seniority over Blaxland, and the latter was really just a Colonel posted as ‘General Officer Commanding’ the 10th Indian Division. Being a blunt and very direct man, Kingstone had made his point the only way he could.

With that, the battle for the upper Euphrates was over. The river would now bend due east towards Iraq, and the vital pipeline junction near Hadithah. That was where the Brandenburgers were going, and that was where the British Indian defenders would have to be soon if they were to have any chance of stopping them.

Briggs and his 5th Indian Division withdrew at noon, heading for Rawah, the last bridge on the Euphrates before it flowed into a wide area of marshland that was completely impassible north of Hadithah. Blaxland destroyed the small wooden bridge at Abu Kamal that morning and pulled out, leaving a few AA guns to cover the wreckage. He resolved to move his HQ to the T1 Station, but an hour after he got there, he looked out to see a column of trucks approaching the airfield, wondering who it was.

He was settling in to brew a ‘cuppa,’ when an adjutant came running in from one of that staff trucks, eyes wide.

“Sir! It’s the Germans! The Brandenburg Division!”

Yes, there were no bridges over the Euphrates east of Abu Kamal, but Bekermann’s Brandenburg Division had brought both rafts and bridging equipment…. Speed, concentration on objective, shock. The lessons of war for Lieutenant General Blaxland did not have to taught to him by Brigadier Kingstone that day. He learned now in the best way possible, by experience.

The teacup jittering in his hand, he bucked up when two companies of AA units came in from the west. “Gentlemen,” he said. “Fire at those chaps out there on the airfield. See if you can drive them off.”

30th Light AA had six 20mm Polstern AA guns in tow, and they set them up near the pump station house, soon firing streaks of tracer rounds at the distant enemy on the field. Further west, it looked like a big dust storm was starting to blow in—it was—Brigadier Kingstone was arriving with Kingforce and everything left of the 10th Indian Division that would move. That, more than the AA fire, had discouraged 12th Battalion, IV Brandenburgers, from storming into that pump house and slapping the teacup from Blaxland’s hand. As it was, the Colonel sat himself down, watching his six flak guns firing and as he slowly sipped his tea.

The Germans showed no further interest in the airfield or the pumping station, withdrawing east, and Blaxland passed a moment of satisfaction thinking his Johnny on the Spot orders had saved the day. But an hour later, when the adjutant reported that armored cars from Brigadier Kingstone had radioed to say they were approaching, Blaxland practically choked on his tea. He was up, out the door and headed for a truck, ordering the remnants of his division to H1 immediately.

The burly, red-faced Brigadier Kingstone was a foe he had no intention of facing again. He would cover H1, but it would soon not matter. The Germans were now only 8 kilometers from cutting that pipeline to Haifa, thereby completely stopping the flow of oil in the steel veins beneath those restless sands. Any oil that came to the Middle East now, would have to come by sea.

As for the 5th Indian, when its scouts finally reached the Bridge at Rawah, they found it held against them by German troops. The swift moving Brandenburgers had won the race, and they already had a full regiment over the river there and heading on to Hadithah. With his division scattered all over the desert of Al Jazirah, General Briggs radioed to say he would have to find another road and could not reach Hadithah any time soon. Instead, he moved due east, intending to at least place his division astride the road from the river at Haditha to Kirkuk… and Baba Gurgur.

Word was sent on ahead to the Ban Dahir and Al Asad airfields with the warning that there were now no friendly forces between them and the advancing Germans. Five squadrons would have to abandon the fields, flying west into Iraq. The battle for Eastern Syria had been lost. The Germans had already crossed the Euphrates in two places, building up strength and sending battalion columns flying east along the main road, just south of the river. Soon word was sent to General Sir Mosley Mayne in Baghdad that he had better soon look to the defense of that city.

Guderian reacted coolly to the news of the British attack towards T4. Needing most of 10th Motorized to stop the 56th London’s attack towards Palmyra, he put together a Kampfgruppe composed of the division recon battalion, the pioneers, and a battery of four 88’s with some mobile 20mm flak guns. Then he asked General Westhoven of 3rd Panzer to send two of his Panzer Battalions back from T3. It seemed the armor would not be needed where he was going.

The first went south to challenge the 25th Armored Brigade: 14 VH-55 Lions with the 75mm main gun, 16 PzKfw IVF1’s and another 16 Leopard recon tanks. The came up on the North Irish Horse and attacked immediately, supported by infantry from both the 10th Motorized and II Battalion, 99th Gibergs. The crack of the guns was hot on both sides, but the Churchills proved to be tougher than the American Shermans. Five were knocked out in the duel, but the British unit maintained good cohesion, and it was soon to be supported by waves of additional tanks from the 51st and 142nd RTRs.

The second battalion went directly to T4, where the persistent pressure of the 46th Division had slowly forced back the more lightly armed mountain troops. That battle would rage in and around the valuable pumping station all afternoon, with Guderian feeding in additional reserves he had held back from 3rd Panzer. He looked at his watch, shaking his head.

“In another two hours they will realize this is useless. Beckerman has Hadithah!”

In spite of its short term tactical success, Alexander was much disheartened when he got the latest report from Kingstone. T1 had been held, along with H1, but the German could not be prevented from bypassing both pump stations and simply cutting the line at Hadithah.

“Well gentlemen,” he said. “ The blood is no longer flowing in those steel veins out there. It now matters very little whether we take back the T4 station, or even Palmyra. Jerry will be re-routing his lines of communication along the Euphrates now, and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it. Now the real show will be in Iraq. It’s up to the Auck now, and Mosley Mayne. Yet we must still do all in our power here to keep the pressure on, and force the enemy to heavily garrison his lines in this sector. I can tell you all one thing. He’s not going to Damascus, and certainly not on down to Suez—not on my watch.”

The question now was what to do about Iraq? It was presently defended by only two backwaters divisions, General Mayne’s 21st Indian Corps, which in this history was composed of the 6th and 8th Indian Infantry Divisions. The former was at Baghdad, the latter in the south near Abadan and Bashah. Forewarned of the disaster on the Euphrates, General Mayne was now rushing 8th Infantry north to Baghdad by rail, while the remnants of both 5th and 10th Indian Divisions, so soundly beaten by the Brandenburgers, found ways to retreat back into Iraq.

10th Indian had to fall back to the south, through the open desert to try and reach Karbala and Hillah, where they would finally arrive on January 24th, tired, bedraggled, and out of fuel. In this move, Glubb Pasha and his Arab Legion was instrumental in pathfinding the best ground for the vehicles, and a chastened and simmering Brigadier Kingstone also took what was left of his detachment along with Blaxland’s division.

5th Indian had been unable to reach Hadithah from the north when the Germans took the bridge at Rawa, so they followed a thin track that took them above the massive marshland lake of Tharthar, eventually reaching Tikrit north of Baghdad, in a position to block any immediate German advance on Kirkuk. It was then that the British learned that Northern Iraq was far from secure as well.

“Ivan Volkov,” said Alexander as he continued his meeting with Generals Wilson and Quinan. “As you know, he controls this whole area around Baku, the province of Azerbaijan. Hitler has a big push on in the Kuban trying to clear out the last Soviet resistance there. Our agents in place in Northern Iran have been trying to scout into Armenia and Georgia to see what’s up, but they’ve uncovered what looks to be a buildup of some concern. Now Bletchley Park confirms it with signals intercepts. Orenburg is assembling their 2nd Turkomen Army under a General Buzul, and it has already moved into Northern Iran from Baku.”

“Turkomen Army?” said General Maitland Wilson, known as “Jumbo.” A veteran of the Boer War and Passchendaele in the First War, he had commanded forces in Egypt under Wavell for a time, helped organize and direct Operation Scimitar and was now Deputy Commander, Middle East, under Alexander.

“Here’s the list,” said Alexander, reading from his notes. “It looks to be no more than a small Corps, just two divisions. The first we’re calling the K Division, 1st Turkomen, composed of three Brigades, the Karakum Guards, Khiva and Kranitau Rifles. 2nd Turkomen Division has three more brigades, the Tulu Rifles, Shakaman Horse, and Belek Rifles. There’s a Dervish Cavalry Brigade serving as division troops.”

“Armor?”

“None to speak of. These are light horse and mountain troops for the most part, but they will pose a direct threat to Kirkuk and Baba Gurgur, and very soon. We shall have to send 5th Indian back there at once.”

“They’re worn out,” said General Quinan, British 10th Army Commander in Palestine and Syria.

“Well, they’ll have to be fleshed out with recruits from Kurdish levees. It’s all we can do for the moment. Yet if we do move them to Kirkuk, I should think one of Sir Mosley’s divisions will have to move north to Tikrit as a blocking force. The Germans are worn out too, gentlemen. They’ve run about 300 miles in three weeks, and they now seem to be pausing at Haditha to collect themselves and bring up fuel. That gives us a window of time to get our own house in order, and we’d better be quick about it. Now…. I’ve spoken with Auchinlek, and we’re both in agreement that General Mayne’s troops, even with the 5th and 10th Indian Divisions back, are simply not adequate. First off, he has no armor to speak of, and we know that at least one full panzer division has already reached the T1 Pump Station behind the Brandenburgers.”

“Isn’t 7th Armored Brigade due in at Alexandria from Benghazi?” Jumbo Wilson was shuffling through some reports on his clipboard.

“True enough,” said Alexander. “I was thinking to bring it up here and join the fight, but under the circumstances, we’re a long way from either Kirkuk or Basra. So 7th Armored will stay right on the boats, transit the Suez, and continue on through the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and into the Persian Gulf. It will join 9 Armored Brigade down near Basra, where it’s been posted to watch over the oil facilities.”

“Will there be any difficulties getting troops and equipment into the Gulf?” Wilson was looking to their lines of communications.

“Somerville says he can sortie with his carrier force from Madagascar to cover things, as he has been for convoys these last months. Old Ark Royal is on the watch there now. Tovey says it’s the best damn aircraft carrier, pound for pound, in the whole world, and the Japanese have made no move to challenge him since they took Ceylon.

“Good,” said Wilson. “That will give us something to start with in Iraq. But it may take a little more. The Germans already have three divisions on the central Euphrates bend, 3rd Panzer, their 22nd Luftland, and the Brandenburg Division. The latter certainly made short work of the Indian divisions.”

“We might do better with the Indian Infantry if we fight for Baghdad. Do you think Jerry wants it?” asked Quinan.

“I don’t see how he can contemplate a move either north or south without first controlling Baghdad,” said Alexander. “It sits right astride his lines of communication in either event. Yes, he’ll have to take it.”

“Then we fight for the city, where the infantry might better acquit itself.” Quinan folded his arms, as if settling on that premise as a given.

“At present,” said Alexander, “Jerry is regrouping at Hadithah, about 120 miles from Baghdad. If he goes south for Basra from Baghdad, he’s looking at another 300 mile jaunt. It would be half that distance up to Kirkuk.”

“Basra may be a far reach for them,” said Wilson, “and I don’t think they can do both at the same time. Surely they can’t think those Turkomen divisions will do the job for them, not against British Indian troops.”

“Agreed,” said Alexander. “Yet that may be their plan. Remember, this 22nd Luftland Division of theirs is air mobile. We’ve had air superiority thus far, but things are… scattered since the setback on the Euphrates. The squadrons had had to fly off to airfields in Iraq on short notice, and a lot of service crews and supply troops got left in their dust. Some of the planes hopped to Habbaniyah, but we won’t have that for very much longer. As to Northern Iraq, there’s always the added possibility that the Germans could bring in more troops through Turkey. Be aware that the rail line runs all the way through Mosul to Baghdad, so we can’t leave any stone unturned.”

“Can we get anything more from India?” asked Wilson

“I’ve put that very question to Wavell. He’s settling in over there as Viceroy, and General Slim says the Japanese have not been aggressive of late. He willing to send over the heart of his command, British 2nd Infantry Division.”

“Here, here,” said Wilson, slapping the table. “Top notch.” He had commanded that very division in 1940.

“Gentlemen,” said Alexander. “If we can pair the 2nd Infantry up with 7th and 9th Armored Brigades, by God, I think we’ve got a hammer for Iraq. To top it off, Wavell says he thinks he can get us the 7th Indian Division as well.” He smiled. “We’ll have a decent army to fight with over there in short order, but I don’t think Sir Mosley can manage it all. I need a good man, and as General Quinan here has a firm grip on 10th Army, General Wilson, it’s all yours. You are now the official commander of Paliforce. The Auk will handle administrative matters, but you’re our man in the field.”

That was a most wise decision, for while Quinan was a stickler for detail, methodical, and almost laborious in the planning he would make for each and every unit under his command, that style would be ill suited for the battle that was soon to be fought in Iraq, one of maneuver, bold thrusts, and imaginative calculated risks. Guderian was already a master of this craft. The question now was whether Jumbo Wilson could measure that man, and bring him to heel.

As Wilson nodded in acceptance of his new command, he knew he had no intention of fighting such a battle against Guderian, unless he was given no other choice. As if reading his mind, Alexander asked him how he planned to operate.

“Well now,” said Wilson. “I’m going to get everything I can to Baghdad and fight them tooth and nail for that city. I’m going to make them pay for every house and street—a nice little battle of attrition, I should think.”

Alexander smiled.

Chapter 12

Some say it was a proverbial ‘accident waiting to happen,’ and no matter how the cards of fate are shuffled, some things were meant to be. That was to be the case in this history, only the event that some would later call the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ would instead take place a month early, on the night of February 3rd. As it was in the real history, the tragedy was masked in secrecy, hidden from the public for many years after, and subject to cover stories and accounts that varied dramatically from one another.

The East End of London had been hit particularly hard over the years by German bombers. Some families still scratching out a living there could honestly say they had been bombed out of their homes at least three times. During the Blitz, millions of young children were evacuated to safer climes in the country, but many families hung on in London, picking their way through the rubble each day, and ‘tidying up’ as best they could.

The bombing had not been anywhere near as bad in 1943, as the German Luftwaffe was simply too busy elsewhere. But at times, particularly in reprisal for RAF raids on a big German city, Hitler would order a stronger raid into London. The trigger for the event this time was an RAF raid on Berlin to kick off the month of February. In reprisal, the German bombers came for London two days later, and the wail of the air raid sirens droned over the city.

Out in Victoria Park, a quiet little secret was setting up for a test against the very action that was expected that day. It was called a “Z-Battery,” which was a rack of up to 36 new 76mm anti-aircraft rockets. They weren’t very accurate, which was why they were fired as a barrage to have a better chance of hitting something. That day, the drone of enemy bombers was going to send then growling into the grey London sky, with an effect that few ever anticipated.

Peter Waller knew something was up when the radio went quiet, a sure sign of trouble whenever it happened. His job was to get over to the family “Bundle Shop,” which was the nearest little storage place that had been set aside for families to stow away their bundles of bedding. He would fetch the bundle for Liz and the girls, and then get over to the nearest Tube Station to stake out a good spot on the platform below. The others would find him there, and the family could camp out in complete safety. The Tubes had evolved to mini-underground cities in places. Some had little kitchens, hospitals, sanitary facilities, even a library for folks to find something to take their minds off the rumble of the bombs falling over head.

These underground warrens were so safe, that something of inestimable value had been crated away in one for a time, the Elgin Marbles, including the Selene Horse, which hid a secret so dark that no one then alive could hope to comprehend it. By this time, those precious artifacts had all been moved to an even safer place, or so it was believed. They had been secreted away in the guts of the battleship Rodney, for shipment to New York, but the warship never got there….

The sirens wailed, stores, restaurants and pubs began to empty, and soon streams of people were heading for the Tube. It was a common drill, and in spite of the danger, the crowds were very civil, quite orderly, and queued up to use the stairway down into the dark safe underworld beneath the city. Women and children would always get priority, for men were still gentlemen in those days, no matter what their station in life. The Tube close by Victoria Park could hold up to 5000 souls, most everyone living close enough to be using it for shelter that day.

Then it happened. Well down the stairway, an elderly lady had hold of her granddaughter’s hand, and the little girl stumbled on the stairway, not half a flight from the bottom. The grandmother stooped to her rescue, and then she fell, sending two other women into the people ahead, who also fell. A knot formed in the middle of the stairwell, and then the first sound of the bombs falling could be heard above.

There came the sound of a hissing roar, so loud that it reverberated down the long stairwell and echoed in the hollow chambers of the Tube. It was a sound that no was accustomed to ever hearing, and so it caused a noticeable push of anxiety—not a panic, but just enough of a jostling push to put unwanted pressure on that knot at the bottom of the stairs. Then, in a matter of seconds, the stairway to heaven became the stairway to hell. The push sent people down, rippling all along the stairway, and the bodies were soon piled one on top of another, with people screaming, being crushed on the stairs, unable to breathe. Some curled into fetal balls and held on, others were pressed against the walls.

300 would suffer serious injury, and of those, 173 would die, with 60 of them being the smallest and most fragile of the lot—the children. The ‘Disaster at Bethnal Green Tube Station’ had again become the single greatest wartime civilian loss of the war in the UK, eclipsing the death of 107 people when the Germans hit the Wilkinson’s Lemonade Factory in North Shields during a raid in 1941. It was the first, and lesser, of two tragedies that would befall that sector of the city that week, merely a harbinger of what was to come. When it was over, the men, tears streaking their faces, would spend half the morning carrying up the bodies and loading them on to lorries. They never forgot the ghastly purple faces of the dead, smothered and starved of air by the crush before they died.

That night, crews came and washed everything down to cleanse the place of any evidence of the disaster. The papers were forbidden to run the story for two days, and when they finally did print, the name of the station itself, and any mention of the strange sounds of the rockets firing, were ruthlessly censored. The word ‘panic’ was stricken from any accounting of the incident.

Thankfully, Peter Waller would find his family safe in the cellar of a nearby café, where they had fled when the hiss and roar of those rockets caused the palpable stir on those stairs. In her wisdom, Liz had pulled the children to safety there rather than trying the crush on the stairs to the Tube. He wandered up Old Ford Road that night, close by Victoria Park to have a smoke. It was late, and very dark and foggy, and he must have slipped right through a security line, for he suddenly heard voices.

“That was nuthin’ this morning,” came the voice of a man. “That was just a recon of sorts. We’d best be ready when those big fat Zeppelins come calling. Some even say tonight’s the night, so get them rockets sorted out and reloaded.”

“But Sergeant,” came another voice. “Them Zeppelins fly way too high for this lot to get up after them. It’s work for the big Ack, Ack guns, isn’t it?”

“Well you bloody well don’t think they’ll just float over a few bloody Zeppelins, do ya Cobber? They’ll be bombers too, just like this morning, so step lively when you hear the sirens. No more muckin’ about!”

Realizing he had most likely wandered into a secure area, Peter Waller put out his cigarette, crushing it under foot, and then made a hasty retreat. Something is up after all, he thought. Something’s got the Ack, Ack boys all rattled tonight. He would soon learn what it was. The sirens were winding up yet again.

Hitler had hoped that the attack could be made on February 1st, and that had been pre-empted by the unexpected bombing of Berlin. Enraged, he ordered an immediate reprisal, but the Luftwaffe urged him to allow time to make a preliminary run over the target area, and test enemy defenses.

“We must determine the depth and strength of their anti-aircraft defenses, and also determine their response time by fighters.”

“You told me our Zeppelins can fly higher than their planes. What is the bother?”

“True, my Führer, but if we wish to deliver our ordnance on target as planned, we must fly lower. Besides, London is under heavy cloud cover and fog tonight.”

“All the better. That will serve to mask the approach of our Zeppelins. We will have the element of surprise, which you propose we throw to the wind so you can test the enemy’s defenses. No! The attack will be made tonight. Fafnir will be the sole ship assigned, and the other bombers will make diversionary strikes as we have planned.”

Hitler, as always, would have his way.

The great silver mass of Fafnir was up high that night; so high that no observer on the ground could have ever hope to see the airship, or hear the drone of its powerful engines. It had flown to Bremerhaven the previous day, under a signals deception cover story that high altitude reconnaissance would be conducted over the North Sea the following day. Bletchley Park picked it up and passed the intelligence along to both the RAF and Admiralty Commands.

Encouraged by his dramatic glide bomb raid on the Russian fleet the previous month, Hitler had summoned his great sky dragon home for an important mission. He had something, to deliver that day, a very special attack. He would set Fafnir loose upon his enemies, and show them that no Spitfire could ever again protect the British capital from certain destruction. Fafnir would strike a single blow, and it would send chills right on through the mandarins of Whitehall for ever after.

To further deceive the enemy, three groups of medium bombers would take off from bases in France, hopefully to give the British Radar operators something to chew on. They would vector on targets well south of the Thames, while Fafnir would make its way to the heart of the city, hopefully unseen, and undetected, from the northeast. Even if it was seen, the British Vickers Model 1931 gun only had an effective firing range of 5,000 meters. The QF 3-inch gun would max out at 7,200 meters, and the QF 3.7 had a ceiling of 9,000 meters. Fafnir would be up at 15,000 meters, and not even a QF 5.25 could touch it there.

The Germans were deploying a few old tricks, and one new one that day. Fafnir would let loose a raft of 1000 kg parachute Mines, the Luftmine B. Released at high altitude, they would free fall until the desired altitude for detonation was reached, when they would deploy a parachute, slowing the descent to about 40 miles per hour. Inside, a clock would tick off the seconds, calculating the altitude and detonating the mine half a minute later. The air burst was much more destructive than a ground bomb, and could take out an entire street on detonation, with a shock wave that could extend a full mile in radius.

Yet they were just cover for the real attack that night. Fafnir was carrying something else, a jealously guarded secret, the Gift of the Magi. It had been found by Kapitan Heinrich aboard the Kaiser Wilhelm in the deep south Atlantic, almost a year to the day earlier, in February of 1942. It had come home safely to Toulon, moved by rail to Germany, and was soon being studied by the very best minds in Germany.

It was not long before they realized what they had. The two long needle-nosed rockets delivered by Kapitan Heinrich had been analyzed and studied ever since. Their design would do much to influence and advance German rocketry, thought to be well behind the skills of the Allies. Naval rockets had been Admiral Raeder’s bane for years….

Yet these rockets, though they were found aboard a derelict ship, were not thought to be the same class weapon that had been used with such terrible effect against the German surface navy. They were, in fact, a kind of long range ballistic missile, and with a most unusual warhead. The German scientists studied it extensively, determining what it was, but could never be certain of what it might do without actually detonating the weapon. Yet they were unwilling to expend one of the missiles to do so, not really understanding yet how to properly aim it and ensure it would strike its intended target. So instead, they kept the rocket safe and sound for further study, and a planned single flight test over the Baltic—but they removed the warhead.

It was now aboard Fafnir the Great, about to write a new and terrible line into this history as it soon followed those parachute mines down through the grey mist, aiming right for the heart of London. St Paul’s Cathedral had been the aiming point, and a trial flight the previous day during the air raid that caused that crush in the Tube had told the Germans precisely when to turn, what heading to set on approach. So they knew when to release, calculating the glide fall as closely as possible, but even so, the overcast sky made this attack a haphazard affair.

Yet Hitler had ordered it, and that night, Fafnir would deliver the bomb. It would careen down, on an approach angle of about 45 degrees. The release point was well above Chelmsford, and the bomb would glide some 30 miles to the intended target from that location, passing over Landbourne End, Newbury Park and Stratford. Yet it would fall short of the city center by some 2.5 miles, which was very fortunate. The Museum of London, the Tower, London Bridge, National Theater, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Opera House, Somerset House, Big Ben, and the Palace at Westminster would all be spared.

Victoria Park and its strange collection of Z-Batteries would not be spared. Those rockets were again whooshing into the sky, in a fruitless search for this single bomb after being stirred to arms by the fall of those parachute mines. One hit the rail line near Old Bethnal Green Road; another fell on Weaver’s Fields. A third fell on Queen Mary’s University, rattling the iconic clock tower there.

And then the bomb delivered by Fafnir fell, right over Victoria Park where Peter Waller had just stomped out that cigarette and was making his way home.

He would never get there.

It was a tiny warhead by design, the American W25, which had originally been developed by the Los Alamos Scientific laboratory as an air defense weapon to be used against squadrons of enemy bombers. It was so small and light, just 210 pounds, that it was designed to be mounted on an air launched missile carried by a fighter. That made it an idea candidate for the little experiment that was to be conducted in the South Atlantic by the Norton Sound, testing the effects of a high altitude nuclear detonation. It was just large enough to produce data, but not big enough to produce widespread undesirable effects.

It was only a tenth the size of the bomb the Americans would deliver to Hiroshima in one history, which was 15 kilotons. The bomb Fafnir delivered was only 1.7 kilotons, but it was enough to test the weapon and determine its effects. The radius of the fireball when it ignited was just 250 feet, detonating a little over 300 feet from the ground. At that altitude, it delivered an air blast of 20psi to a diameter of about 1,100 feet. Had it struck in a built up area, it would have been enough to severely damage even strong concrete buildings, but in this case, it served to merely flatten and completely destroy those Z-batteries that had been firing so fitfully.

The thermal radiation extended out 2,500 feet, spanning the whole length and width of Victoria Park, burning every tree, and delivering third degree burns to anyone exposed. Beyond that, the air blast was still as strong as 5psi, three quarters of a mile from the center, which was enough to devastate most residential dwellings. The destruction extended as far as Cassland and Wick Roads to the north of the park, and everything between Old Ford Road and the rail lines near Malmesbury road to the south. Through that entire zone, anyone who survived the blast would receive 500 rems of radiation, with a fatality rate between 50% and 90%.

That night, anyone who took the chance again when the sirens first sounded, and made it into the Tube at Bethnal Green, was alive and safe. Because of the disaster earlier, many tried to look for other shelter, and remained in the blast zone. So it was that the errant stumble of a little girl on the steps would lead to the death of so many more, who otherwise might have been safely tucked away in the underground Tube that night.

In modern days, as many as 23,000 might have been killed by that blast, and another 81,500 injured, but London was not so heavily populated in 1943, and the years of bombing had seen many move out of the city. As it was, another 1,217 would die that night, with over 2000 more injured.

The disaster at Bethnal Green quickly gave up its dark laurels as the single worst loss of civilian life in the UK during the war. In one fell stroke, Fafnir had trumped all other attacks, and then some. The bomb worked! The world it fell into would now never be the same, and fear would stalk the land in every quarter.

In spite of every effort to hide the effects of the attack from the general public, and the world, information would leak out as to what had happened. Thousands had seen the fireball ignite, all over London, a small second sunrise. Their murmured, fearful whispers spoke of a terrible new German bomb that could come completely unseen in the night, and consume entire neighborhoods. It was but a shadow of what this weapon would eventually grow to be, where the US and Russia would compete with one another to test larger and larger weapons yields, hammering at the increasingly fragile meridians of time.

While not so great in actual raw damage, the attack drained the blood from faces all throughout Whitehall, the Admiralty, and every nerve and command center of the British government. What had fallen on them? How was it delivered? How many such weapons did the enemy have? When would the next bomb fall? London was never the same after Fafnir’s visit, and hearing the news of the attack in far off North Africa, Churchill made a grim and hasty flight over the Dark Continent, hopping from one small British held airfield to the next until he again reached Gibraltar. From there he flew on to Lisbon before boarding a bomber for the final leg home, his thoughts beset with a legion of angry demons.