King Column approached along a road scouted by Glubb Pasha’s men, arriving at the outskirts of Palmyra from the southeast, with the Arab Legion screening their left flank. There was a dry, desiccated basin south of the town, but very sandy in places, and it was deemed unsuitable for the heavier British trucks. The lighter Fords used by Glubb Pasha’s men could get through, and the Bedu scouts had a keen sense of the ground. They found the way through, tangled briefly with the Germans, and then withdrew to a position just south of the sprawling Palm groves.
King Column came up, with the three squadrons of the Composite Cavalry Regiment leading the way in their swift lorries. They still retained their old names, the Royals, Lifeguards, Blues, and Grays, the latter being with Colonel J.S. Nichols and the main column, still designated ‘Habforce.’ Behind the cavalry, the full Essex Battalion was deploying from their lorries, taking up positions in the farm country and lighter groves to the southeast of the town, four companies in all.
They would soon be joined by Habforce, with two full battalions of motorized infantry, the Wiltshires and Warwick. It also had another two batteries of 25-pounders, an AT troop, and the Number 2 RAF Armored Car Company from the airfield garrison. The battalion of the King’s Own Rifles was still gathering necessary transport and awaiting elements of the 21st Indian Brigade to relieve them at the airfield, but they had received Somerset’s urgent message asking for additional support, and they were getting ready to move.
Habforce had been angling down on another road from the northeast that passed through a lonesome village named Arak. A telephone line connected this hamlet to the T3 facility, and Brigadier Joe Kingstone was pleased to hear Nichols on the phone with news that the lead elements of his column were in Arak. But both men were still none too happy to hear about the sudden appearance of German troops at Palmyra.
“Looks like we’ll have a fight on our hands,” said Kingstone. “We aren’t sure just what we’re looking at, but the Russians there seem to think Jerry has a full regiment.”
“The Russians?” came Nichol’s voice. “What in blazes would they know about it?”
“It’s a long story,” Kingstone explained, “and not one for the telly. We have an advanced force there now holed up in the fortress overlooking the town.”
“A good position. They can clue us in on Jerry’s movements and deployments, but I expect they’ll need our help soon.”
“That they will. Glubb Pasha is somewhere south of the town, but I don’t think his force is any match for the Germans.” Kingstone didn’t say what he was really thinking, that his own force might be no match for the Germans either, even with all of Habforce thrown in.
“Better if we all get sorted out and go in together,” said Nichols.
“That’s my thinking,” Kingstone agreed. “We’ll meet soon.”
Nichols pushed his men hard, and Habforce came rumbling up the long road to the T3 pump station on the 20th of March. The Number 2 Armored Car Company led the way, followed closely by the Warwick Battalion. By mid day they had passed an undefended blockhouse outside a fringe of the town, and deployed to attack. The riflemen hunched low as they worked their way across some cultivated land just outside the town. Then the BAR fire from the French Foreign Legion began, and the fighting was on.
The British went to ground, immediately answering with their Bren guns, and brisk rifle fire. The French had the advantage of better positions in the town, with stone and mud walls, but the British had greater numbers. The typical British Infantry battalion had four companies instead of only three, and soon they were deploying their heavier Vickers MGs to put down good suppressive fire while the infantry made a steady advance into the town. It was house to house fighting, but weight of numbers eventually forced the Legionnaires back, particularly after the Wiltshire Battalion came up and also deployed to attack this sector.
While this was going on King Column had pushed the Essex Battalion up a road skirting the east edge of the palm groves, to a position between the groves and the town. It led directly to the ruins of the Temple of Bel near Wolff’s headquarters in the Amphitheatre, and here the fighting was give and take. The four companies of the Essex Battalion pressed forward against Wolff’s III Battalion, only to be counterattacked by the German reserve Schwere Company.
The Household Cavalry, three Squadrons in all, came up on the left and got embroiled in a bitter fight, again finding the Germans made sharp, local counterattacks backed by the reserve Schwere or Heavy company that had been detached from the 1st Battalion watching the airfield. At one point the Royals came under heavy fire from the MG-34s and fell back, but many men retreated the wrong direction into the thick palm groves, and soon found themselves cut off behind German lines.
“It’s those damn heavy weapons teams,” said a Sergeant. “We’ve nothing to match them, and not nearly enough artillery with us to settle the matter.”
The Germans Schwere Company fielded the heavier 81cm mortars, many more machineguns, and 7.5cm recoilless rifles that were proving very effective on both attack and defense. The British would press doggedly forward with their rifle teams as the Vickers MGs put in supporting fire, then they would be hit by four or five well directed MG-34s, and well aimed fire from those recoilless rifles. The Germans had only two batteries of artillery, pooling all the guns that had survived the KA-40 attack the previous night, but they still had plenty of mortars. With numbers equal on this front, it was the greater firepower inherent in the German TO amp;E per company that was making the difference.
By dusk, after a hard day of fighting, King Column had made little headway, and they had also lost contact with a company of the Cavalry Regiment, the Royals.
Near dusk on the 22nd of March Troyak called for Fedorov, leading them up to the south tower for a look at the road to the west. “Look there,” he pointed. “That looks like a motorized column, and a big one.” It was.
They were seeing the last elements of the 22nd Luftland Division, the troops of the 16th Regiment that had been held in reserve at Homs. The attack made by Kazan on the rail station at Istanbul had gone off without a hitch, but it had come too late to stop the rapid deployment of German troops into Turkey. The 9th Panzer Division had arrived at Rayak, along with other Korps level units, and von Wietersheim decided to send a reinforcement to Palmyra at Wolff’s request. If the British thought they were having trouble with just one regiment of German troops there, this new development would make it all but impossible for Brigadier Kingstone and Habforce to take the place as planned.
“Life is what happens to you after you make your plans,” said Fedorov in a low voice. His mission had sounded exciting in the beginning, just a little Spec Ops icing on the cake he thought the British already had in the oven. Now he realized his foreknowledge of the history had led him to be overconfident. Yes, Kingstone’s force should have been more than enough to take Palmyra against the single weak battalion of the French Foreign Legion. Yet even against that small force, it took them twelve days. He should have realized that victory here would come at a much greater price, or be beyond their grasp the instant he saw those German troops appear.
“This changes everything,” he said darkly. “I don’t think the British can win this now, and it may even come down to a question of whether or not they could hold off a German counterattack. We had better get word to Kinlan at once, but I don’t think we can discuss things on the radio.”
“We still have the KA-40 standing by in those hills,” said Troyak. “They’ve enough ammo on the minigun to cover an extraction and get you safely aboard, sir.”
“Not just me, Sergeant. I think we had better get the entire team out of here. Our ammunition is already running low, and I don’t think we can hold on here much longer. They have numbers to take this place by storm if they press the issue. Our firepower is the only thing that has held them at bay-that and the appearance of the British to the east.”
“What about the X-3s?”
“They’re coming, but there was a delay pulling the Argonauts out of the line back west. Things have been hot on that flank, and they were waiting for British reserves to come up. Let’s at least warn Kingstone by radio. Then I’ll arrange a meeting, but we’d best plan for an extraction operation tonight.
The news was not well received.
“This is a damn sight more than we bargained for,” said Kingstone on the radio, angry with the day’s developments, and over the losses they had sustained. Habforce had made some progress, forcing the French back into the main town, but the battle was far from decided. The only good news that night was word that an additional battalion, The Kings Own Rifles, had left Habbaniyah that afternoon and might arrive the following day.
“But one more battalion on our side won’t match another regiment, if that’s what they have on the road out west. I agree. We’ll have to conference and decide what to do.”
Popski got on the radio and urged Kingstone to make one more try before the enemy reinforcements arrived. He asked if Nichols column might jog to his right and try to swing down on the airfield from the north.
“Look here,” he said. “We’ve been watching Jerry for days now, and he’s shifted most of his strength south against your column. There’s no more than a company or two holding the field and points west. Don’t beat your head against the Legionnaires in the town when you can swing right around them. There’s nothing on that northern flank but the Desert Camel Company.”
It was good advice, and could only be given because Fedorov’s move to occupy that high fortress put them in an ideal position to monitor the German troop movements. So now, with the imminent arrival of the Kings Own Rifle Battalion under Colonel Roberts, the British might have enough strength building up northeast of the town to take that advice, and Nichols agreed. The lead was handed off to the eight Fordson Armored Cars of No. 2 Company, RAF. They swung north of the hospital, between the Desert Camel Company that was mostly positioned along a narrow wadi as a flank guard. Yet the news of the strange sounds in the sky had unnerved these men, and they were less than diligent.
The armored cars reported they had made it around the northern edge of the town, and the signal was given to send in the Warwick Battalion, which found only a single German platoon defending that segment of the line. Yet the tough men of the 22nd Luftland were in a well fortified old school house, and they fought tenaciously, forcing the British to send the support company around the position to reinforce the advance on the airfield by the armored cars. The Germans were also reacting with mortar fire, and a wild scene ensued when a line of eight armored cars dashed forward through the fire, their machine guns rattling away as the Bren carriers of the support company followed.
The airfield itself was held by the remainder of the same company, and a second company was further west with platoons investing the fortress. Chastened by their ill fated attempt to assault the place, the Germans had pulled back their pioneers and supporting forces behind Hadrian’s wall, and into positions in the Roman Ruins. Wolff was alerted to the sudden danger to his north, and he immediately sent word to move that second company back to establish a perimeter defense around the field. At the same time he gave orders that the two Heavy Companies that had put so much hurt on King Column the previous day, should be recalled to the north and stand as a ready reserve for the defense of the airfield. The Germans had a tightly concentrated force, and the advantage of interior lines where they could easily shift troops from one threatened place to another, and Wolff was reacting with cool efficiency under fire. He soon redirected his mortar teams to the north, and a battle for the airfield was raging.
The German heavy companies were engaged at the northern perimeter of the airfield, having made a successful counterattack that drove back the rifle squads of the Warwick Battalion and the armored cars. As the sun rose on the 21st, it was clear that the attempt to take the airfield by storm had failed. The British had fallen back to the segments of the town north of the airfield, and they had also cleared the fortified barracks east of the town, but the Legionnaires of Colonel Barre were still in the heart of the city, holding their posts in a tenacious defense. To the south, it was also clear that King Column was not going to be able to push on up the road to the Temple of Bel and Amphitheater, where Wolff was directing the defense.
Kingstone met with Nichols in a captured blockhouse near the main road on the northeast quadrant of the town. There the two men discussed the situation.
“It seems we’ve bitten off more here than we can chew,” said Nichols, and it was a fitting metaphor. The British battalions were stretched in a wide arc all about Palmyra, from Glubb Pasha’s Arab Legion in the south near the palm groves, and up around the town to the north where the troops of the Warwick Battalion and the armored cars were licking their wounds after their failed attack on the airfield. They had taken a good bite out of the apple, controlling most of the northeast quadrant of the town now, but it was clear the hard core of the German defense here would not be easily overcome.
“It’s no good pressing the matter for that airfield,” said Nichols. “The Germans can’t use it-in fact it’s been under fire for two days, and the landing strip is badly cratered, and of no advantage to them.”
“Yes, but what can we do here now? Fight it out, with another bloody regiment of German troops arriving tomorrow?”
“We can try to slug it out here,” said Nichols, “but what have we got, five battalions in all, and the enemy has at least four now, perhaps three more tomorrow, and with the advantage of good prepared positions on defense. It’s been bloody house to house in that town so far, and we’ve paid dearly for every position we’ve taken.”
“This fight is looking like one fine stalemate,” said Kingstone.
“We could pull out while we can,” Nichols suggested. “It’s clear we can’t push on to Homs.”
“Yes, any further move east is impossible now, not with a force this size here. We’d have no way to get supplies through.
“Can we get more air support?” asked Nichols. “What in blazes has been flying about up there? What are they firing? Looked like rockets to me.” Neither he nor Kingstone were in the know as to the nature of the weaponry deployed on the helicopters, and neither man had even set eyes on the aircraft that had been tormenting the German heavy weapons positions.
“God only knows,” said Kingstone, “but we should be thankful for it. As it stands I don’t think a squadron of Wellingtons would even do us much good here. The enemy is simply dug in too well. We’d have to destroy the place to force them out, and see all those lovely Roman ruins out there pounded to dust.”
Nichols nodded grimly. “We’ll need a lot more reinforcements here to have any chance to take this place. I can ask my men to have another go, but it was a long slog here through that desert, and hard fighting ever since we got here. If you want my mind on it, we’ll need another full brigade-possibly two.”
“That would be nice,” said Kingstone, “if Wavell was a magician and could pull something out of his hat. The 20th Brigade of the 10th Indian Division is running up the Euphrates, and they’ve run into trouble as well. The Germans are at Dier-ez-Zour-another full regiment, just like this lot here. Word is they flew in to the airfield there, so this whole envelopment operation has ground to a halt. We took a good swing at them, but the pick axe has hit hard stone now, and we’ll have to re-think things. I’m requesting a conference with General Clark at T3. That Russian Captain can meet us there. This little war out here was going along swimmingly, but with the Germans in the thick of things now, it’s a whole new game. All I can see to do here now is to get the lads into a good position to pull out.”