Tigers East

Chapter 19

The fighting in North Africa was beginning to heat up. In the west, the British had begun to move more naval forces through the Straits of Gibraltar to cover the port of Oran. The 43rd Wessex Division would move there, and move by road to support the American attack on Algiers. Patton had no intention of making a direct attack on the city. His part was to cover the approaches from the west, which he did with the 34th Division. They had tried to take the town and airfield of Blida from the Germans, but 327th Infantry would not budge, and 34th division commander General Ryder suspended his attack to wait for the British.

When they arrived, General Thomas looked the situation over and then quickly sent in his 5th Duke of Cornwall Battalion supported by the 43rd Royal Armored Cars and a battalion of tanks, Wilson’s 153rd RAC from the 34th Armored Brigade. This was enough to push the Germans out of the coastal town of Fouka, and that was what prompted them to abandon their positions at Blida, for fear of being cut off. The inexperienced US 34th were only too happy to finally enter that town, but they had not really earned the privilege, and it was dawning on them that the enemy they were facing was tougher than they realized.

Further south, Patton sent the 3rd Infantry Division, and one RCT from the 9th into the mountain country to cover that long flank as he sent the remainder of his forces east towards M’sila. They were to probe for an access route to the coast, but found every pass and road through the mountains blocked and manned by German Falschirmjaegers and Kubler’s Mountain troops.

Meanwhile, the battle for M’sila became a see-saw affair. Blade Force and 1st Armored tried a wide envelopment, but the arrival of 10th Panzer Division stopped them cold. The more experienced German tankers were pushing back the US forces, which were struggling to understand just how to really fight as a combined arms unit. The arrival of 2nd Armored changed the situation dramatically, and Patton now had sheer mass to throw at the Germans. He began to rage about the battlefield, directing artillery fires, staring down Lieutenants and getting them moving where he wanted. One RCT from 3rd Infantry Division supported the advance of the US armor, and the combined weight of two reinforced divisions was enough to convince Fischer that his attack could not proceed.

At one point, II Battalion of the 69th Panzergrenadier Regiment was hit by 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 30th RCT, supported by 3/67th Armored Battalion of the 2nd Armored Division. The US also had tank destroyers and a fist full of scout tanks in that attack, and the Germans were running low on ammunition. The Panzergrenadiers bravely held their ground, their MG teams chopping out suppressive fire supported by three mobile flak guns, but when they finally stopped that attack there were only seven of eighteen squads left in the battalion. The Recce sections had died to a man. Late in the day, two motorcycle squads from division reserve arrived to offer support, and brought good news. They were to be relieved by I Battalion, 104th Regiment, and to their right, where the Americans had been attempting to climb the hill country to get behind them, the Luftland 47th Regiment was coming up from the rail line further north.

Fischer’s problem was that his division had been low on equipment and supplies before it was even detached. It had been the strongest of Rommel’s three Panzer Divisions, with three battalions of tanks, but when he learned it was going west, he cherry picked some flak guns, and even a few tanks to strengthen his remaining two Panzer Divisions. So 10th Panzer was operating at about 60% of its normal strength, but it still had nearly 100 tanks left and had been able to stop and hold the reinforced 1st US Armored Division. Now, however, the combined weight of Patton’s growing force at M’sila was becoming too much. Fischer got on the radio to von Arnim, advising him of the situation.

“I have the tanks, but not the fuel and ammunition,” he said. “And I’m up against two Armored Divisions supported by a lot of infantry. I’ve pulled in the 47th Luftland Regiment from its position on the rail line at Ain Defra, but I can’t counterattack to seal off this flank under these circumstances. If they get through to Barika, they will have your whole position at Algiers well flanked.”

“Look over your shoulder,” said von Arnim. “KG Hauer and Huder’s tanks from the 190th just arrived at Barika rail head. You can use them to plug that flank. In the meantime, I’ll see what Conrath can do. His division is down on the coast near Algiers, but he is fully supplied.”

“Send him out here and we can counterattack,” said Fischer, and that was what von Arnim would do. Yet this was the mobile reserve for the fight at Algiers itself, so he decided to send only the 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment, supported by II Battalion from his Panzer Regiment, and the Führer Flak Battalion, which was heavy on 88s. The US 9th Infantry Division had been flanking M’sila on the left in the foothills of the high country, and they were about to get some most unwelcome guests when Conrath arrived.

At the town itself, 1/6th Armored Infantry had pushed into M’sila, with 13 M3 Lee tanks and a single Sherman SPG. Strengthened by these arriving reinforcements, Fischer sent in II Battalion of 104th Panzergrenadier Regiment to retake the town. With Conrath and the 22nd Luftland Regiment relieving his units on the right, he was able to shift considerable force south to this engagement, including the Pioneer Battalion and I Battalion of 7th Panzer Regiment. The ensuing fight was sharp, cruel and decisive, with the German grenadiers storming the American positions, sending shattered squads of US infantry retreating south.

Patton was at Bir el Caid, some 60 Kilometers west of M’sila where he was consulting with Generals Harmon and Truscott. When he got the news he exploded with anger.

“Goddammit! Where the hell is Terry Allen and the 1st Infantry Division? You don’t send an armored division into battle like that without adequate infantry support.”

“Sir, said Truscott. “The last I heard his 18th RCT had just pulled in to Bel Aroug. They’re still 90 Kilometers west of M’sila. The rest of the division is de-training at the railheads, Hassi Bahbah and Ain Ossera.”

“Well they better damn well pull into M’sila, and fast! Get someone on the radio and tell the colonel in charge that I will personally see his ass kicked if he doesn’t get his outfit up to the front, and I mean now! As for you, we need to get up there and pull 2nd Armored together again. I won’t have it said that the American Army came off second best against the Germans the first time we went nose to nose with their panzers. We need to start breathing some fire!”

“Well the good news,” said Harmon, “is that the British 43rd came up and opened that coast road at Fouka. They’re just 15 kilometers from Algiers.”

“The British? I’m not going to let them steal the headlines here. I want to punch through these Heinies, cut that goddamned rail line at Ain Defra, and then push all the way to the coast. We’ll bag the whole lot of them if we do that.”

Truscott gave Harmon a look, but said nothing. What Patton wanted, Patton would get, and after telling his armored warriors what he wanted, he was off in a jeep to look for Terry Allen. When he found him, he gave the man an earful.

Allen was a respected general who had the 90th Regiment in the First War. He had always spoken with a stutter before that. Then the Germans put a bullet through his jaw and when it finally healed, his speech had healed with it.

“Hell General,” he said. “You don’t have to rattle my cage. Just open the door and give me my orders. My boys will tear those lousy Germans to pieces.”

“That’s what I want to hear, but the Germans are 90 kilometers east of here.” Patton pointed with his riding crop. He didn’t have to say another word. Allen was a roughhewn fighter, tough on his men, but not one to parade about with the niceties of formal command. He slept on the bare ground, was often unshaven, never wore a tie if he could avoid it, yet he demanded his men toe the line when it came to uniform regulations, and more importantly, training and fitness for battle. He was no slacker, had a warrior’s soul, and it was no surprise that he wound up at the top of the best infantry division in the Army at that time, the Big Red 1. He had heard all he needed from Patton, and now he was out to get his men fired up for battle.

His division was now badly needed. With the equivalent of a fresh strong brigade arriving from Conrath, Fischer attacked. He had taken M’sila back, repulsed an American counterattack, and then went right back on the offensive, sending KG Huder and the tanks of the 190th Panzer against the ad hoc scout group dubbed Blade Force. That blade was about to be severely dented, and now it was the Germans who were turning the flank, attacking just north of an impassible terrain labeled Chott el Hodna on the maps. It was covering their left as they came on, scattering Blade Force as it drove through the dry desert landscape.

The retreat was finally halted when Blade Force was backstopped by CCB of the 1st Armored Division. And now the largest tank battle of the engagement ensued, with two battalions of the 10th Panzer Division, augmented by the 190th Panzer Battalion plowing into CCB and the remnants of Blade Force.

There were about 30 tanks and mobile AT guns in each battalion, some the new Marder III and even three of the 88mm Nashorns. The Americans had over 100 M5 Stuarts, a pair of Shermans, and 33 M3 Lees, but what they lacked in armored hitting power with all those light tanks, they made up in Armored infantry. That and the timely arrival of Terry Allan with the 26th RCT was enough to stop the German attack.

Allen massed both his 16th and 18th RCTs for another try at taking M’sila back from the Germans. He was determined to show Patton what his men could do, and the division did not disappoint. They were aided by heavy artillery fires, two battalions from 3rd Infantry, and the Armored infantry of CCA, 1st Armored. That force was enough to eject II Battalion of the 104th Panzergrenadier Regiment, which also had support from the division pioneers.

The pattern here was finally reaching a decision point. The Germans, with more experienced troops, better tanks and AT weapons, were punching hard, driving the Americans back, and holding the line. They were more agile, with a sharp jab and good right hand when they counterattacked. But Patton just kept leaning in and body punching with everything he had. It was the weight of four US divisions against 10th Panzer and two supporting brigade sized kampfgruppes, and that would eventually retake M’sila for the Americans. They took back the town with hard fighting, and flanked it to the north.

Fischer got on the radio to Von Arnim, advising him of the situation. “The pressure is too great here at M’sila. I’m still holding, but I’m not sure how much longer that would be wise. What’s happening at Algiers?”

“The British are pushing very hard. Conrath stopped them, but I’m afraid it’s the same situation for him. You have half his troops where you stand now.”

“Yes, and our line is strung out all along the mountains from M’sila to Algiers. Beyond that, we have the equivalent of another full division just posted to positions on the coast between Algiers and Bougie. If we moved to a line south of that latter port, we could put everything on one good front.”

“Agreed,” said Von Arnim. “But I don’t think I can get permission from OKW for a withdrawal. Not while the Corporal is in charge there.”

“Well, you will have to decide. I’m still covering the southern rail line east, but if they get through, then you will only have the line through Ben Mansour to Bougie if you have to move later. If you want to move. This is the time to do it, while we are still fairly strong and able to conduct a good fighting withdrawal.”

“Make that the order,” said von Arnim. We’ll give ground stubbornly, so Hitler can see we are still fighting. But I’m going to start pulling men back from those mountain passes and getting them to the rail lines. As for Algiers, we’ll hold it as long as possible with the 327th Infantry, and then wreck the place before we hand it to the British. I’m pulling Conrath’s troops out tonight. I need you to cover that flank for another day or two.”

“Good enough,” said Fischer. “We’ll hold.”

It was a wise decision, made by men who both knew what they were doing on the battlefield. At the moment, their forces were deployed in a large oval, with the west end being Algiers, and the right end M’sila. The north edge was the coast, the south the Atlas mountain passes where the 22nd Luftland and Kubler’s 98th Regiment were holding two other American infantry divisions at bay. The front line opposite the Americans stretched over 110 kilometers. If they pulled back to a front covering Constantine, they could cut that in half, putting many more troops on the line per kilometer, and having the rail line behind them.

So it wasn’t a battle of dash and maneuver that would give Patton his victory here, but one of sheer attrition, where he had been able to lean on his opponent and take him into the later rounds where he hoped to win on points. There were no knockdowns. The scorecards were very close, and most judges would see the fight as a draw. But when the final bell would sound, Patton would have the ground, his divisions battered and bruised, but still on their feet in the center of the ring. He could crow that he had beaten 10th Panzer, but Fischer, Conrath, Student and Kubler would all lead their forces east in good order.

“How about that,” said Patton when he made his report to Eisenhower. “We stopped 10th Panzer at M’sila! That was one of Rommel’s old divisions. Now, what I want to do next is get to that railhead at Batna, move east to Tebessa and take the whole Army into Tunisia from there. By God, Ike, I can cut right through to the coast and kick Rommel right in the ass!”

“Hold on, Georgie,” said Eisenhower. “We don’t even have Algiers yet, and it will be weeks before we can clear the ground from there to Batna. You did right by us at M’sila, but now I want you to regroup and bring up supplies before you go gallivanting off to Batna and Tebessa. The British have another division at sea from Spain, and Montgomery is transferring his headquarters to Algiers the moment we have the place.”

“Montgomery? Why he’ll take a month at Algiers before he decides to move east. Hell, I’m half way to Tunisia where I stand.”

“That may be so, but unless you want to walk there, with all your men, hold up until we can get fuel, supplies, and replacement tanks out there for you. What’s the score on that tank fight you had south of M’sila?”

“Our boys fought hard, but they were out gunned. The German tanks make ours look like toys. There aren’t many, but what they have outweighs our armor pound for pound in every way.”

“There’s another reason to hold your horses,” said Eisenhower. “I’ve got a big new shipment of the new M1A Shermans, enough to refit your armored divisions so you can put some teeth in them before you really have to push east again.”

“Good enough, Ike. I’ll reconnoiter to see what the Huns are up to out there, but you get me those tanks and I’ll go all the way to the coast, just like I said.”

Chapter 20

O’Connor’s 8th Army was not the force that Montgomery had commanded after his victory at El Alamein in the old history. Monty had seven infantry and three armored divisions at his disposal, but O’Connor would take only four infantry and two armored divisions into Tripolitania. He maintained the 1st South African in reserve at Benghazi.

Yet Montgomery’s advance had never been conducted with the whole mass of his substantial army. More often than not, he was operating with two to four divisions, and then rotating in fresh units to relieve forces used after a successful operation. And Monty’s advance was methodically planned. He would never move unless he had a precise amount of supply to support operations in his forward depots. Often, he would pause to reorganize and supply units, and to permit the necessary “dumping” as he called it.

The battle O’Connor had just fought to push Rommel out of his positions at Agheila and Mersa Brega was also an action Montgomery conducted, launched on December 11th in the old history. Then, Rommel had been extremely low on supply, his tanks thinned out to fewer than 100 operational vehicles, his own morale at an all-time low, to the point where he despaired and advised Hitler that North Africa could not be held. He had chafed against the Italians trying to keep him fighting in Tripolitania, and continually argued for withdrawals, first to the line at Buerat, then to the Tarhouna-Homs line, and finally to Mareth.

Monty had pursued him at his leisure, “dumping” supplies at a convenient site about half way between El Agheila and Sirte, dubbed Nofilia by the British, and An Nafaliyah to the locals. After Rommel retreated on December 13th, Monty waited just over one month, until January 15th, before testing Rommel’s defense at Buerat. In all that time, he was seizing forward airfields for the RAF, seeing to the expansion of port handling facilities at Benghazi, dumping supplies and fuel for a presumed ten-day advance to Tripoli, and cleaning up the mess at El Agheila by removing mines and wire, and improving the roads. He dedicated an entire infantry division to this task alone. It was this meticulous attention to logistics that was the hallmark of his command style.

O’Connor’ situation was now quite different. To begin with, the Afrika Korps he was facing here was much better supplied. Rommel had been sitting at Mersa Brega for months, while the 8th Army took Benghazi, occupied Cyrenaica, received new divisions and tanks, and moved supplies up from Tobruk. He was well prepared when he launched his attack, but so was Rommel, and the mental condition of his opponent was also much stronger.

Rommel seemed to exhibit the mood swings of a manic depressive. He would be in the depths of despair, complaining about the Italians, the lack of tanks and fuel, the slow dismemberment of his once powerful force as units were sent west into Tunisia and Algeria. Then, when he learned he was to be given back his old 7th Panzer Division, his mood suddenly elevated into the “old Rommel,” as Kesselring put it. This was the Rommel that had first arrived at El Agheila over a year earlier, and the Rommel that had chased O’Connor all the way back to Tobruk, then drove him relentlessly towards Mersa Matruh—until Kinlan appeared on the scene like King Arthur’s lost knights returning in Britain’s hour of gravest need.

The British stopped Rommel at Tobruk, just barely, then launched Operation Crusader to push him back to Gazala. It was their final offensive, the Supercharge operation led by Kinlan’s Heavy Brigade, that had finally unhinged Rommel’s Gazala line and sent him back to where he had started. Now O’Connor believed his operation to take that bottleneck at Mersa Brega and El Agheila had been a great success, but he was wrong.

He wasn’t facing a defeated and demoralized Rommel, and a badly depleted Afrika Korps this time. After losing 10th Panzer and Goring’s troops, it was much weaker than it was at Gazala, but it had more than adequate supply when it pulled back at Rommel’s order, and more than adequate fuel to get it to the Buerat line. Rommel wasn’t pushed out of the bottleneck as O’Connor believed, he yielded the position deliberately to go seek better ground of his own choosing for a mobile battle. O’Connor was not facing an adversary that was beaten and demoralized as had Monty. He was now facing the Desert Fox, and was unaware of the peril that might lie ahead.

With the mentality of a hard driving cavalry officer, O’Connor came charging through the bottleneck into Tripolitania, thinking to harry and pursue his enemy as Rommel withdrew. Yet the Germans moved with speed and deliberation, a well-coordinated withdrawal. The two Italian Armored divisions had paid the price for that. Ariete and Littorio were both largely destroyed at El Agheila, with only scattered remnants being extricated to fall back on Sirte. Yet they covered the retreat long enough for Rommel to pull out all his good German divisions, and the “bad going” in the terrain to the south also slowed O’Connor’s enveloping move considerably. By the time the British pushed through, Rommel and his Afrika Korps were gone.

Major Popski was with a detachment of the LRDG, well out in front to look for the Germans. The tracks of their withdrawal were easy to follow but the enemy was never found. Their dust had long settled as they passed northwest, and Popski could feel trouble in his bones now. He had scouted up to Wadi Rakhiriyah, a perfect defensive site where he thought the Germans might have posted a delaying force. The low ground in the wadi was backed by higher stony hills to the west, perfect for defense.

“Well that’s a situation,” he said aloud to a Lt. Colonel John Richards. “This doesn’t sit well with me. They should be sitting on that position, but there’s not a whisper, not a man or a single rifle.”

“Rommel’s been beaten harder than we thought,” said Richards, but Popski shook his head.

“Not the way I see it. You don’t give up a position like this—unless you don’t need it. You see? These tracks lead northwest, and Jerry is well gone by now. He isn’t limping off to lick his wounds. This was a well-planned move, and they had the fuel to motor out of here with no trouble at all. I’ve a bad feeling about this. My guess is that we won’t find a German for another fifty kilometers. He’s headed for Buerat.”

“All the better,” said Richards. “Then we won’t have to fight our way up to Sirte. The ground is empty for the taking.”

“Right,” said Popski. “It’s as if Rommel has tied it off with a bow and gifted us with the whole lot. Welcome to Tripolitania. Well, we’d better be careful.”

“Yet the road is open,” said Roberts. “Surely we can tell Harding to bring up the 7th.”

“I suppose so,” said Popski. “But we better check it for mines first. If it’s really clear, they can swing up to Nofilia this way, only I think we’d better have a look farther north and west. Something smells fishy here. I’ll get on the radio to Reeves.”

That was the one bone Kinlan had left on the table when he took the Heavy Brigade to replenish at Tobruk. Reeves had already topped off, and he had asked the Brigadier if he might hang on with O’Connor and help scout the way around Marada for the planned envelopment of El Agheila.

“I’ll just take a single squadron,” he said. “That was all we had fuel for, and there’s no point burning it all up by driving back to Tobruk. Why not let me move forward with O’Connor?”

Reeves, and most of the other men in the Brigade, had finally settled into their role here, accepting the impossible fate that had befallen them. He was a soldier, and what better place to ply his craft, and live his soldier’s life, than right here, in the middle of the greatest war ever fought on earth. So gone was the shock and disbelief of those early weeks. Now he was all business.

For the most part, Popski’s unit was among the few British regulars of this era to operate directly with Kinlan’s men. The rest of the Brigade always operated as an independent unit, always in the deep southern wing of the Army, where Rommel would feel their shadow on his right shoulder every time he contemplated a move. In fact, few men had ever seen the interior of any of Kinlan’s vehicles, on Churchill’s specific order after he had glimpsed the digital wonders there in Siwa.

Permission was granted, and so Reeves took a small detachment from his 12th Royal Lancers, nine Scimitars, three Warrior AFVs with an assault squad in each. A pair of FVS 81mm Self-Propelled Mortars, and the icing on the cake was his wrangling away three of the five Challenger IIs that were assigned to his Lancers. “We’ll just make off with them,” he said. There wasn’t fuel enough for the other two, and they were scheduled for a maintenance check. Two of the Brigades few tank moving trucks were going to haul them back to Tobruk. So Reeves, with 1/12th Royal Lancers, was just two kilometers behind Popski, waiting for him to give the word to move his column up.

That was all that there would be of Kinlan’s shadow in this engagement. The rest of the Brigade was far away, and headed for a rendezvous south of Tobruk. If things went bad for O’Connor, they were over 500 kilometers away, and for the first time in many months, Rommel finally had a fair fight in front of him—a chance to make good on his promise to Hitler that he could beat the British 8th Army.

O’Connor was moving into Tripolitania, and feeling the same wind at his back that he had after soundly thrashing the Italians in 1940 and then racing all the way across Cyrenaica to Beda Fomm. This combination of circumstances, a strengthened Afrika Korps, a weakened 8th Army, a beaten German General looking to redeem himself, a victorious British General giving his horses the reins—it was all going to add up to the danger Popski could sense all around him now. The Major’s eyes were hard on the desert as he scanned the terrain ahead with his field glasses. This was too easy.

44th Home Counties Division was in the lead, having passed through both 50th Northumbrian and the 4th Indian Division after the successful breakthrough along the coast. By mid-day on the 3rd of October it moved through the coastal town of Bin Jawad, and was approaching the wadi that ran through Nofilia, some 8 miles inland, winding and twisting its way to the coast.

The division was a patchwork force, as its 131 Brigade had been detached to 7th Armored, and its 133 Brigade had gone to Spain with the 10th Armored. This left only Whistler’s 132 Brigade, and to beef up the division, O’Connor had attached the two Free French Brigades in theater, and then added the independent 1st Tank Brigade. Their mission was to get to Nofilia and prepare the area to receive supplies for his new forward depot. The area was perfect for a support site, protected by a wadi to the west, well-watered, and with a small airstrip.

The division was advancing up the one main road that governed all movement in North Africa, the coastal Via Balbia. Montgomery once remarked that fighting and supplying the troops in North Africa was like advancing from London to Moscow on a single road. That was the same distance by land between Tunis and Alexandria, and the Via Balbia was the only good road. The inland roads were nothing more than well-worn tracks where vehicles had pushed their way through the imposing terrain, the paths of least resistance.

4th Indian was next in line on the Via Balbia, followed by the two divisions that had broken the Italian resistance along the coast, the 51st Highlanders and 50th Northumbrian. Both would need a little rest before moving up through the Marble Arch and making their entry on the new chess board that was now being set. As for the armored Divisions, O’Connor had his lighter 7th Armored on the leftmost inland flank. And the 1st Tank Division between their position and the Via Balbia, about 12 kilometers inland. 23rd Tank Brigade was in reserve following O’Connor’s headquarters.

For his part, Rommel had completed his final briefing the previous day. “Wadi Hiran,” he said, running his finger along the map. “It runs almost perpendicular to the coast, about 30 kilometers east of Sirte. That’s where we’ll stop their advance. General Lungerhausen, I’ll want you on the coast with your 160th Division, right astride the Via Balbia. General Marcks, your 90th Light will be inland at his shoulder, with your right flank a few kilometers beyond this feature, Bir Khalfiyah. The wadi meets another there, and covers your right. This road just beyond that point runs east to west, as you can see. That is where I will place General Bismarck with the 21st Panzer Division. That road is ideal. It allows Bismarck to keep his division in march column, but at the same time, that column covers the infantry defensive front perfectly.”

“And where do you want my fighting 15th,” said General Randow, another new stand-in after Crüwell left the scene.

“Hold on this road south of Bismarck’s position. Wait for Funck to bring up 7th Panzer. That will give us a situation much like our defense at Gazala. I will have all three Panzer Divisions in hand on a tight leash until I deem it time to begin the counterattack. Before that happens, I will want the British testing our blocking position on the coast. It will hold, they will reinforce, and at that point, this O’Connor will look to take his armor in a typical flanking movement.”

“You intend to meet him with all three Panzer Divisions?”

“That would be a good attack, but an even better one would be to swing well outside his own envelopment, then come north and take him in the flank. So I may use 21st Panzer as the shield, and the remaining two divisions as my sword. Hauptmann László Almásy is already well to the south scouting out the ground. This terrain here labeled Abu As Shawk is open and flat, with good traction. The same for Alam Qarinah here, further east. But the objective of our envelopment will be these crossroads—Alam Hunjah. Look how all these tracks run parallel to the east and northeast, and note this difficult ground on the right. That protects your flank as you make your turning maneuver. See this hill? It was scouted yesterday, and gives a perfect view of all surrounding ground. We make this maneuver at night, and I want to be standing on that hill by noon the next day.”

“And the Italians?

“What of them? I have sent them to the Buerat line to prepare those defenses. If anything goes amiss, then our two infantry divisions fall back through Sirte to that position. Ah… Herr Ramcke. I forgot your brigade. I will want your men here, right along this wadi screening the location of the Korps Headquarters at Gasr bu Hadi, about ten kilometers due south of Sirte. Any more questions?”

“Suppose they don’t attack us,” said Bismarck. “It’s over 100 kilometers from El Agheila to this wadi where we make our stand. What if they dally about?”

“I am planning a ruse. I have sent a signal saying that fuel stocks are running dry, and we must wait for deliveries. We have long suspected that the British are reading our signals traffic—decoding it at will. I want this O’Connor to think he has me at a disadvantage, that we are desperate to retreat. I have even planned a little theater of a more personal nature. You know I am in the habit of corresponding with my wife back home. Well, I have prepared a phony letter, and I intend to see that it gets found by the British. O’Connor must believe we are a wounded animal, limping off to seek shelter. If I know this man, he will attack, and with the envelopment maneuver I expect.”

Von Thoma had been listening to all of this, and now he spoke up, remembering Rommel’s admonition to him upon his arrival. “And these heavy British tanks you spoke of earlier,” he said. “What if they appear in the midst of all of this?”

“The Luftwaffe has spotted them far to the east. It seems the British already believe we are beaten here. Now gentlemen, it’s time we showed them how very wrong they are.”

Chapter 21

A whisker over 370 miles due south of Tobruk, the wreckage of an American B-24D Liberator bomber still rests in its dusty grave, like a forsaken shipwreck on the seabed of an ocean that had dried up and vanished long ago. The nose and cockpit, and much of the fuselage still remain intact—even the window glass remained sound for the most part. A machinegun juts from a circular aperture just above the plane number 64, which vanished into the sand at the base of the crumpled fuselage. The broken tail was bent forward towards the nose, jutting into the stark sky above, and twisted propellers still hung from the remnants of the wrecked engines.

Her name was Lady Be Good, serial number 41-24301, out on April 4, 1943 for its maiden flight with the 376th Bombardment Group from Soluch field north of Benghazi, and with a fresh new crew. They were going to bomb Naples that day, but on the return leg, the plane’s direction finder failed, and it overflew the base and continued on, south into the endless wasteland called the Calanshio Sand Sea. None of the nine men aboard were ever seen alive again, though evidence of their plight and struggle for survival would be found in the desert decades later.

It was a bombing raid that had not yet been launched in the history writing itself anew in that desert. Whether it ever would be launched remained uncertain, one of those many unwoven strands of fate in the tapestry of Time. All around that wreckage, the sun beat down on leagues of high sand dunes rising like great waves in a tempestuous sea, some well over 100 feet high. Yet hidden beneath all that sand, beneath the bones of lost soldiers, animals, and the wreckage of a war that once was, new life was found at the edge of that sea in the year 1961.

A man named Nelson Bunker Hunt, an eccentric billionaire and oil man from Texas, had a nose for shady deals in the silver markets, fast horses, and light sweet crude. He had learned he might find oil in Libya, and picked up a concession plot designated C-65 in 1957 to do some survey work and exploratory drilling. Prospects did not immediately pan out, but four years later, high gas readings were detected, and additional work discovered oil stained sand in the samples extracted from the site. Five wells were soon drilled, about 150 miles south of the bottleneck O’Connor’s troops had just pushed through, and in time it was discovered that old Bunker Hunt had found what would end up being the Sarir Oil Field, the largest in all of Libya, with reserves estimated at around 12 gigabarrels. A 34-inch pipeline was constructed to move the oil to Tobruk, where a large terminal exists today, on the southern rim of the bay that forms the harbor.

Up to 4 million barrels of crude could be stored there, where the bones of soldiers from so many armies lay buried in the sand. Tankers called from all over the world, hauling the valuable crude of China, Europe and the United States. That was what put Tobruk on the map in 2021, not the history of a war fought 80 years past. Yet all that oil would drag the storied port into the next war, painting a nice fat target on the dry desert sand around Tobruk. In the year 2021, a missile would be launched to strike that target, and blight the land with its terrible power.

The battlements and bunkers where the Rats of Tobruk once fought and fell, where Rommel’s troops huddled outside the wire, straining to push through, where artillery and machine gun fire once rattled and shook the dark desert night, would now be completely devastated. In 2021, all it would take is a single missile, but the blow struck that day was so powerful that it would have dramatic effects that no one ever anticipated. The Russian 15A18 Missile, dubbed the SS-18 “Satan” by the west, had a very heavy throw weight. It could lift and deploy up to ten 500 kiloton warheads, and one would target a place in the sky above that harbor, where a ship lay berthed that carried a most unusual gift.

The USS Destroyer Knight had been slated to support the Torch landings, but in this history it was put on convoy duty and sent round the cape to Alexandria to help keep an eye on all the tanks bound to fill O’Connor’s ranks. Its commander, Lieutenant Commander Levin, had been eager to see the famous port, and even more pleased when he learned that he was to be sent out to Tobruk on a milk run to deliver mail and other effects.

So it was, by chance or design, that the Knight was in port that day, while nearly 80 years on, Satan came calling in the skies above. The little gift that had been delivered to the ship by the daughter of the Admiral it was named for, had sat in a box on the Commander’s wardroom shelf, a useless bit of trivia, forgotten, unnoticed, overlooked—until that day. No one aboard saw it begin to glimmer and glow, the sheen of phosphorescent green surrounding it, the temperature rising as the light burned hotter. Then the skies above Tobruk opened with raging fire of another kind, for the hand of Satan had reached all the way back to that embattled year, guided there by that strange talisman, and perhaps the vengeful, jealous and hungry arm of Time itself.

It wasn’t reaching for the ship, which had every good reason for being exactly where it was that day. But there were things in the desert close by, men and machines, with no license to move on those sands. They were intruders, trespassers, an aberration in the careful scheme Time sought to play out, and now they would pay the price.

Reeves’ Squadron was the first to approach Nofilia as his unit probed north. He came in from the south, Scimitars leading, and Sergeant Williams had the lead section up front, his eyes scanning the infrared detection screens to look for residual heat of other vehicles. He had just reported what he thought was a small contact, three vehicles ahead on a low hill overlooking the wadi. Reese was in the Squadron command vehicle, a Dragon AFV with special communications and data-link equipment.

“Looks like a couple of light flak guns to my eye,” came the voice of Sergeant Williams. “I could pop them from here with the APSE rounds.”

“Save your breath,” said Reeves back again. “That British division up front is right there on the coast. They’ll have troops up to sweep that area soon enough. If they move, let me know, but otherwise just lay low and save the ammunition.”

At that moment there came a brief flutter in the electronics, and the engine stopped. Reeves saw his screens wink off, the vehicle’s internal emergency lighting kicking in from the battery. He looked over at Cobb, his driver, his eyes scanning his panel. Those screens were dark as well.

“What’s up, Cobber? I thought you said you went over the vehicle from top to bottom.”

“I did sir, didn’t find anything to fuss about.”

“You topped us off with the fuel?”

“Full tank. Checked it a moment ago sir. We’ve got plenty of range.”

“Well then, turn the engine over again, and it bloody well better start.”

Cobb hit the ignition, and got the reassuring sound of the engine restarting. He was all business now, his eyes playing over the readings on his panels. “Hello…?” He leaned in, and tapped one screen. “Here’s a wild one,” he said over his shoulder. “Got a reading on the NBC module. It says we just had a mild EMP pulse.”

“What? EMP? Not bloody likely. Nobody throws around the Hammer of God out here, except the Russians on that bloody ship, and it’s in the Pacific.”

“Just reading the screen sir. Says right here that—”

“Well enough,” Reeves cut him off. “Let me check the main data link to Brigade.”

Every unit was normally wirelessly linked into the FVS command vehicles in Kinlan’s Brigade HQ troop. When they had GPS, they could use that network to see the real-time position of each vehicle and tank on a digital map. Now, with GPS long gone, they had rigged the system out to home off the direction and range of a radio signal, almost like the Huff Duff receivers that would triangulate. Every vehicle had a broadcast code, and when it was picked up, multiple vehicles in the receiving unit would be able to triangulate and determine its approximate position. At the very least, Kinlan would be able to know that Reeves and his Squadron were X miles away on a given heading, and then that position could be represented on a digital map display. It wasn’t as accurate as the GPS finding, but it was still an order of magnitude better than the paper maps and reckoning that the locals worked with.

Reeves checked his link when their systems rebooted with the engine start, but he got a “NO SIGNAL” error message. He tapped the diagnostic button, watching his screen roll through some test displays until it finished with the reassuring message “PASS: NO FAULT DETECTED.”

“That’s odd,” he said. “No link into Brigade. Hey Gunny,” he called up to Corporal Holmes, who manned the 90mm main gun in the turret. “Everything squared away up there?”

“Locked and loaded, sir,” said Holmes. No problems here.”

Reeves normally took out one of the standard Dragon 300s with the Bushmaster 25mm gun, but this one was the up-gunned 90mm variant, and he decided to make it his ACV for this mission. The Corporal had aspiration of making Gunnery Sergeant when they shipped over, and so after a few months in the saddle here, Reeves waved his right hand in the sign of the cross over the man and pronounced him the new Gunnery Sergeant, saying no one would care a lick about his unsanctioned field promotion.

“Put the main turret on strike mode,” he said.

That would send a signal pulse back to Brigade indicating that his vehicle was armed and ready to fire. They would receive back one of three lights: green to authorize the action with a weapons free signal, yellow to hold fire and stand by, red for weapons tight. Reeves wanted to see if that signal link was operating.

“What’s the verdict?” he asked.

“The jury is still out, sir. I get no signal return, not even an indication the message was received.”

Reeves didn’t like that. What was going on with Brigade? His next option would be to break radio silence and send a direct call back to the HQ troop on the HF system. It would annoy one of the Colonels, but it was all encrypted and secure nonetheless. He reached for his communications handset, adjusting the fit of his earphones.

“1/12 Lancer to Brigade HQ. Lieutenant Reeves here. Please respond, over.”

There was no answer back, and after repeating his hail three times he began to get a bad feeling about the situation. What was going on here? Could there have been an incident he was not aware of, involving special weapons? Was Cobb right with that reading off the NBC module advising on the threat of EMP? Electromagnetic pulse was always a danger in the modern day warfighting environment. Their vehicles were hardened, but that was not entirely foolproof. He had seen his own vehicle flutter and die. Maybe they had the same trouble and were booting everything back up again. The weather wasn’t a factor, even though Tobruk was 375 miles east. Might they have a sand storm or some other complication affecting reception?

Reeves could think of no other reason why they should fail to get through, and the real reason was far from his awareness or comprehension—the presence of the USS Knight in Tobruk Bay.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Time was balancing her books. It was not able to simply pull the collective mass of Kinlan’s Brigade forward and put it back where it belonged. That was beyond her means. Things often fell backwards in time when a hole opened, almost as if a strange kind of Time Gravity was pulling at them—but they did not move forward easily in the same manner.

What Mother Time could do, however, was push open the door between the time of that detonation in 2021, and the place where that strange teardrop object sat shuddering and glowing in the wardroom of the USS Knight. Time could not pull Kinlan and his machines out, but it could let Satan through the hole that opened, made bigger and more yawning by the awesome explosive power of that 500 kiloton warhead.

If Reeves had been looking out the hatch and over his shoulder, he might have seen that strange flash on the horizon, almost too far off to be noticed. But there at Tobruk the effects were more than noticed—they were catastrophic. A warhead that size was 25 times bigger than Little Boy and Fat Man, the weapons that had flattened Hiroshima and leveled Nagasaki. It was the size of the US Ivy King bomb test, which was the most powerful pure fission bomb ever detonated, though even that was dwarfed by the Russian Tsar Bomba detonation, a different kind of bomb that was a hundred times more powerful.

The entire force of Satan’s wrath did not come through that gaping hole in time, but the penetration was enough to wreak havoc. Tobruk, as it was known to all those who had fought and passed through that port town, no longer existed. Kinlan’s Brigade, all cuddled up to the southern shore of Tobruk Bay to receive the fuel O’Connor had promised, no longer existed either. The lower jaw of the harbor was broken, smashed, and a massive crater formed from the very low altitude detonation. A sea of earth and sand was first blown in all directions, then the raging cascading waters of the sea swept into the crater, and beyond into the desert. When those waters receded, they clawed back thousands of tons of sand, shattered earth and debris, eventually covering all that remained.

The Brigade was now scattered about the floor of that undersea crater, the heavy armor of those blasted Challenger IIs buried under tons of collapsing earth, silt, and soot. In places, the twisted barrel of an artillery piece jutted through the debris deep beneath the sea, its broken remains a testament to the folly of those who think to wield power. It was as if a star had fallen here, and no man survived its searing wrath.

Lieutenant Reeves would never again make contact with the HQ Troop. His single Dragon 300-L90 was now the sole remaining nerve center of the mighty 7th. It was ironic that the Brigade had made its storied entry into this war at the edge of the Sultan Apache oil production center in the deep desert to the south, and now it would make its unhappy departure because it was waiting right at the location of the main oil terminal at Tobruk in 2021.

They were all gone, the Mercians, the Highlanders, the Scots Dragoons. Reeves did not know it then, but he and his men were now the last of the Mohicans, he and the single battalion of Gurkhas that had shipped out to the Pacific long ago. He had that Dragon 300-L90, nine more Scimitars, three Warriors, a pair of FVS Tracked mortar carriers, three Challenger IIs, two fuel trucks, and one ammo truck.

Churchill’s magic wand was suddenly gone.