The Invasion of 1950

Chapter Eleven

Felixstowe, England

Captain Harry Jackson was asleep when the alert started, but the noise of explosions and gunfire brought him out of his bunk faster than a cat chasing a mouse, one hand grasping the pistol he kept by his bed and the other snatching up his torch. The clamour grew louder and somehow more disturbing. It took him a moment to realise that he was hearing German weapons, not British.

Invasion, he thought, snapping awake. It couldn’t have been a drill, not under such circumstances; he yanked on his jacket — he’d slept in his uniform, a habit he’d picked up from the regular army — and ran down the stairs into the barracks, where the Sergeants were working to restore some order. He barked a quick order at Sergeant Wilt as he passed and ran outside, onto the small parade ground, to peer in the direction of the harbour. There were flames rising up from the Royal Navy base and the chatter of gunfire was getting louder.

He spun around and ran back inside the building. “Have weapons and ammunition issued at once,” he barked to the Sergeants. “Send the staff officers down to the town to round up the others, now!”

“Yes, sir,” Wilt said, passing him a rifle and a set of ammunition.

Jackson took it and walked quickly into his own office. The din of fighting was becoming louder. He was required to carry out his duty step by step and that meant informing higher authority of the attack. He dialled the first number, a direct link to the local GHQ, and cursed as the line failed moments later. He went through the second number, then the third, and there was still no reply. The War Office was silent — or, he dared to allow himself to hope, the lines had been cut somewhere by German spies. He dialled a local number and sighed in relief when it was answered.

“Father, I need you to sound the church bells at once,” he said, when the sleepy priest answered the telephone. He’d met the man before, when he’d taken up the command; he had seemed surprised at even the vaguest possibility of German invasion. The churches represented a vital part of the warning network. Once the church bells started to chime at night, the men on leave would know that they needed to report to the barracks. “Don’t argue; just do it!”

He heard the aircraft overhead and was on the floor under the table before his mind quite caught up with his body. The aircraft had come in from the east, which made them German aircraft, and they might intend to bomb the barracks. The panic alone would kill hundreds; it had been seven years since British cities had been bombed from the air.

The sound of aircraft faded slightly, to be replaced by the sound of explosions in the west. He abandoned the phone and ran down the stairs, back out onto the parade grounds. There were fires in the west now, spreading out, at a guess, near the railway lines. The Germans were aware that the British would use them to move their forces. They would have targeted them deliberately and that suggested to Jackson that the invasion force at the docks was the main invasion force, one that intended to hold the docks long enough for reinforcements to arrive. It was obvious how the trick had been done. The Germans had done the same when they’d invaded Norway.

The scene was chaotic but showed signs of order as the Home Guardsmen attempted to line up, receive ammunition, and get into something reassembling order. Jackson felt a moment of despair, which he squashed ruthlessly under his duty and caught on to Sergeant Wilt as the sergeant worked to assemble the armoured cars. Other guardsmen were running in as they were awakened by the explosions and the church bells. It wouldn’t be long before civilians caught on and realised that they were at the heart of a war zone.

“Get the first platoons out there and seal off the port,” he ordered. The port was isolated from Felixstowe itself by the fence, but he doubted that it would take the Germans more than a moment to break it down and attack the town itself. He would have preferred to dig into the town and hold it for as long as possible, but that would give the Germans a chance to reinforce and then expand out and surround the town. He raised his voice for a moment. “I want motorcycle riders, now!”

Three of them, all younger soldiers, stepped forward. They looked achingly young to Jackson’s eyes. They had joined the Home Guard in lieu of being conscripted into the regular army, or had some problems that had prevented them from serving in the army. He saw fear in their eyes, but also a kind of grim determination; they wouldn’t break and run from the struggle. It was almost a shame that he needed them for something other than fighting.

“I need the three of you to take your bikes and get to GHQ,” he said, thinking as fast as he could. “Inform the General that we have a German invasion on our hands and I intend to attack them as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” the senior soldier said. “Are there any other messages?”

Jackson glanced over towards the glow surrounding the port. “Inform him that we need reinforcements as quickly as possible,” he said. “Take different routes, just in case of trouble; once you have delivered the message, attach yourself to his command and wait for orders. Dismissed!”

He watched as they ran towards their bikes, recovering them and saluting before they roared off into the distance. Jackson hoped that one of them, at least, would reach the General; without regular army support, the Home Guard might be badly out-gunned He took a final look into the west, seeing the fires still burning, and walked quickly over to the gathered collection of soldiers. He knew most of them personally, others didn’t come from his Company; there was no sign of the Colonel.

“I am assuming command as the Colonel hasn’t come to the barracks,” he said, remembering that his commanding officer had been intending to inspect the docks. He might be dead already. “Our task is to recover the port before the enemy can ship in reinforcements.”

The soldiers spread out as they advanced towards the docks, the armoured cars taking point and heading towards the main gate, which were burning. There were no signs of enemy soldiers, but Jackson was sure that that would change quickly; if the Germans behaved as he had been briefed, they would have dug in and prepared to halt any counter-attack. Tanks were of limited use against such a dug-in position, but he would have sold his soul to get a few, and some heavier guns as well. The follow-up units would be bringing their heavy weapons, but he wanted some heavy artillery, maybe even air support.

The first shots caught him by surprise and he fell to the ground quickly, hoping to avoid being shot as German fire crackled through the night. They were firing single shots, he realised, and they were being depressingly accurate; even in the semi-darkness, they’d hit several of his men. He’d heard of night-vision equipment, but the Germans seemed to have eyes like cats. Was their kit much better than the equipment that the Home Guard had been issued? The Guardsmen returned fire; after a moment, the armoured cars fired as well, hosing down the remains of the gates with machine gun fire.

The infantry followed, using the armoured cars to shield themselves from enemy fire as the armoured cars ground up to the gates… and then the lead car exploded. Jackson saw men falling backwards under enemy fire as a second mine detonated, and then a third… and then a streak of light destroyed a fourth armoured car. The Germans had antitank rockets, he realised grimly, as his men scattered, aiming frantically at the location of the enemy holding the rocket-launcher. Sparks in the distance and a shout in German, barely audible under the noise of the firing, suggested that someone had killed the German soldier, but there would be hundreds more. How many could the Germans fit into one freighter?

“Call up the heavy guns,” he ordered, as the first mortar round arced over the gates and fell down near his men, luckily missing them all. The Germans didn’t seem to notice. Their mortar teams kept firing the little shells over the gates, even as his own men threw grenades back into the German positions. Sergeant Wilt mounted a grenade on the end of his rifle and fired it over the gates, hitting something that exploded with disproportionate violence… and then the first German armoured car made its appearance.

“Shit,” Jackson muttered, as it appeared through the smoke and darkness, launching a flare into the night. For a long moment, everyone was blinking tears out of their eyes and the firing paused before it resumed, stronger than ever. The Germans charged forwards under the cover of the armoured car, crashing into his men and struggling with them for the position as the fighting got really out of control. It was becoming a melee and he knew just how dangerous those could be; Wilt hit the armoured car with a grenade and disabled it, but the Germans didn’t seem to be losing their enthusiasm for the fight.

“Coming, sir,” Sergeant Boothroyd called, as the roar of a bulldozer appeared and the massive machine pushed into the rubble. Jackson smiled as the sergeant gunned the engine and started to push through the wreckage, before a German soldier came forward and attempted to throw a grenade right into the cab. He was gunned down before he could swing and the grenade exploded moments later, blowing whatever remained of his body to bloody ruin. A second later, a German antitank rocket, designed to burn through armour, struck the bulldozer and sent it up in flames, trapping the sergeant and killing him before he could escape.

Jackson heard the noise of heavy guns behind him as the follow-up units established their positions and began firing into the docks, but they were effectively firing blind. They’d hit something, but what? The Germans didn’t seem to be alarmed at first, and then they changed their minds… and launched a sweeping counter-attack of their own against the guns. The Home Guard knew about the German proficiency at mounting such attacks on the spur of the moment, but how could they handle it in the semi-darkness? One of the gun crewmen fell and died as a sniper put a bullet through his chest; a second was hit moments after he fired a final shell on his own into the docks. The Germans were still coming towards them…

“Sir, we have to fall back,” Sergeant Wilt barked, firing towards the Germans with his own rifle. The counter-attack was falling to pieces right in front of Jackson; without tanks and armoured support, taking the docks back was going to be impossible. “We have to fall back and establish a defence line in the town itself or further back!”

“If we don’t hold them here, we won’t be able to hold them later,” Jackson shouted back, just before the sergeant tackled him and a burst of German machine gun fire shot through where his head had been a second before. “We can’t retreat!”

“Sir, we don’t have a choice,” Wilt said. Jackson could hear the bitterness in his tone at the thought of retreat, but there was no other choice and then an aircraft swooped overhead, dumping an entire series of flaming bombs on the Home Guard position. Panic started to settle in onto the soldiers; some fled at once, others slipped back while still firing. “Sir…”

Jackson blew a whistle and watched as his men fell back, those who had held the line. In front of them, German infantrymen and a handful of other armoured cars were slowly pushing forward, while mortar fire poured down on the retreating British. The hastily organised counter-attack had failed completely.

Thank God for that, Oberst Frank-Michael Baeck thought, as the rate of British fire slacked and began to fade. The British didn’t know– couldn’t know– but they’d come very close to hitting the Hans Bader itself and taking out the remaining supplies on the ship. They’d almost punched through the defence line as well; even now, there were still bursts of firing as individual British soldiers or platoons launched attacks against the fence, testing the defences. They’d have to expand now, just to keep the British on the run, but they didn’t have the manpower, not yet.

He looked into the gloom and smiled as a massive dark freighter came in to dock. They’d had words with the prisoners, those who worked on the docks, and convinced them to help the unloading effort, or else they would simply be sent back to slavery in Europe. They would have to be watched carefully, just in case one of them had decided to try to sabotage the unloading process, but it wouldn’t be easy to do that in any meaningful way. The handful of remaining prisoners had been bound and put out of the way on the Hans Bader; for them, at least, the war was over.

“I have the first strike reports from the parachutists,” the communications officer said. He’d been trying desperately to make some overall sense out of the confused fighting and the babbling on the radio that characterised the first moments of any invasion. Baeck looked over at him and checked his watch; it had been just over an hour since the fighting had begun, but it wasn’t until now that he felt even part-way secure from attack. “They’re claiming to have overrun their main targets and have secured their positions for observation purposes.”

“Good,” Baeck said, although it wasn’t really his concern. His job now was to complete the unloading of the freighters, unload the main convoy when it arrived, and secure as much control over the local area as possible. “Have the armoured cars and their supporting units move to controlling positions around the civilian populations and have all of the soldiers warned to make sure that any civilians they encounter are warned to remain home and stay off the streets.”

“Yes, sir,” the officer said. Baeck glanced down at the chart he’d been updating; resistance in most places had been light, disorganised, although one parachute unit that had been intended to land on an army base hadn’t reported back. That suggested that they’d been wiped out or captured by angry British soldiers; the odds were that they’d been killed. “Field Marshal Rommel is asking for an update; his unit should be unloading within the next two hours.”

Baeck stepped back as the first unit of Panzers were driven out of the new freighter and down to the gates, their commanders shouting orders at each other as they prepared to expand the area of German control. The plan called for over ten divisions to be supplied in the end, but that would take weeks; they couldn’t afford to waste too much of their fire-power in the early days of the invasion. The British would organise an armoured counter-attack of their own very soon.

“Inform the Field Marshal that we have secured the first objectives, beaten off a counter attack, and are currently preparing to seize the second set of objectives,” Baeck said shortly. The noise of firing burst up again in the distance, and then faded as one of the Home Guard units was defeated. How long would it be before the British mounted a second counter-attack?

“Jawohl, Herr Oberst,” the officer said. Baeck nodded and headed out to inspect the unloading operations, watching as a line of field guns was unloaded and rapidly moved towards their position in the defence line; they’d be needed if the British brought up some of their heavy tanks. The Panzerfausts might not be effective against the latest tanks in the British arsenal.

Another group of tanks was carefully moved out as supervising crewmen barked orders, watching as the press-ganged British workers assisted them to unload. They looked shocked and terrified, a look that Baeck remembered from his service in the remains of Russia; they had never really expected it to happen to them. They didn’t know it, but they were luckier than the Russians; they weren’t going to be handed over to Goring’s men to serve as slave labourers or sent to one of the concentration camps for being the wrong religion.

Baeck checked the remaining defence posts quickly and then watched as German forces began flowing down into the city itself, taking as much territory as possible before the British could counter-attack The Home Guard had either retreated from the city or some of its members had tried to blend in with the civilian population; they would have to be found quickly before they could organise trouble. It wouldn’t matter, in the long run, but in the short run it could prove disastrous.

One misstep now and the entire invasion plan might fall apart.