France Fights On (English Translation) - Thread II - To the continent!

[Wings]

September 9th, 1943

Operation Suvorov
Cunning Bison
Belarus - A heavy depression hits the battlefield, grounding the planes, hindering observation and shooting, and hampering the movement of troops. Constrained by the elements, the combatants are thus forced to spend the day in preparation tasks, or redeployment, contenting themselves with marginal actions on the line of fire. Obviously, this is convenient for both sides - though not for the same reasons.
.........
Western region of Vitebsk ("Suvorov-North") - In this sector, the Soviet advance continues, but with a kind of stagnation that the injunctions of Moscow do not manage to mitigate. On the northern wing of the offensive, the 20th Army takes Nikolayevka (on its left, facing Ula), and continues to advance westward, in the direction of Polotsk. However, it will have to be satisfied with the much more mediocre Goryany and Velikiy Les, about 25 kilometers from this objective. Pavel Kurushkin does not want to admit it yet, but the reality of the situation is that his formation is unable to attack, and will only be able - in the best case - to support the movement of the rest of the Front to the west.
At the same time, the 63rd Army enters Sianno, a modest town of 4,000 inhabitants deserted by the enemy - but nevertheless serving as a road junction between Lepiel (in the west) and Talatchyn (to the south). Kuznetsov is thus neatly split between his objective, 60 kilometers from his position, and the lines of his comrades, located for the nearest 30 kilometers away. In short, his formation is engaged on a front much too wide to do anything useful... And yet, it is necessary to advance, despite the rain, and without any recognition !
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Talachyn region ("Suvorov-North") - Ivan Chistiakov cannot delay any longer, despite the elements and the unfavorable circumstances. While the 3rd Guards Army begins to raise its left wing, the 1st Guards Army launches a first assault on its right, in the Meshkova sector. Its first modest objective is the village of Ploskoye, 7 kilometers behind the German front.
Obviously, by striking in this area not completely wooded and crossed, moreover, by a railroad, the Soviet general hopes to create favorable conditions for a local breakthrough allowing the injection of the 18th Armored Corps, which could (perhaps...) lead in the long run to a global withdrawal of the German line along the Drut - which would be crossed without too many losses...
However, in the face of the Communist vanguards, the 227. ID and 336. ID are quick to react, opposing to the harassed and dispersed frontovikis a fierce resistance, while knowing how to give up ground when it is necessary. Finally, Burdeyny's armored vehicles launch an assault at 14:00, as much to test the ground as to help the infantry to advance a little. This attack, without conviction, is however quickly stopped, a few kilometers north of Kalyugi, at the edge of the woods, by a joint action of the 18. PanzerGrenadier (Erdmannsdorff) and the 12. Panzer (Bodenhausen) - admittedly both weakened, but still strong enough to defeat the Reds.
The Germans are confident - faced with this opponent engaged in such bad conditions, they even try a pincer maneuver intended to encircle and then annihilate the Soviets instead of a frontal clash, certainly less risky, but also and especially less decisive. Always this Clausewitzian obsession, which finally causes much harm to the German army... but not today. Indeed, the action seems to succeed at first, putting in danger the soviet vanguards, which flee back in order not to be destroyed... then it gets bogged down, for lack of air support and to a decidedly unfavorable weather. Panzers and half-tracks skate in the mud, while the rain floods the optics or hides the T-34 from the sight of the shooters ! Finally, the engagement degenerates into a confused action that brings the Soviets to the cover of the woods, less than 5 kilometers from their starting point.
.........
Bialyničy and Balonauka ("Suvorov-Center") regions - The 2nd Belarusian Front tries for the first time to force the Drut line, taking advantage for once of the rain cover, and with varying fortunes in different sectors.
Thus, near Bialyničy, the 15th Army undertales a dangerously improvised crossing from Bor to Dubrova - an exercise it has unfortunately been used to lately. It soon comes up against the 197. ID (Boege, XX. AK). A little rested after its fights in the south of Orsha, this one faces serenely with the support of the 134. ID (Schlemmer) and some machines of the 244. StuG Abt, which offer a precious but not decisive support. Indeed, here, the terrain paradoxically favors the Russians a little, the German reinforcements arriving only with difficulty in this sector of the front, which is isolated and rather secondary.
To the point that, to counter Fedyuninsky, Eberhard von Mackensen does not even have men to send to the area - the tanks of his 9. Armee are far away and engaged in Talatchyn. He therefore has to ask his neighbor Gotthard Heinrici, of the 4. Armee, to entrust him with the 19. Panzer - but Heinrici is reluctant: the situation of the 9. Armee does not seem critical to him and his army could well need this division, he is not going to lend it like that! Once again, the pettiness of the enemy... and the mediocrity of its own gains saves the 15th Soviet Army.
However, Ivan Fedyuninsky ignores the "discord in the enemy" and for him, the problem remains: he advances through undergrowth and swamps, but with a decidedly slow pace and with very little manpower at his disposal. Of course, the 22nd Armored Corps supports him by shooting across the river - but it too must cross one day!
As for the 29th Army, the picture is (slightly) better. Attacking the only 17. ID on its front, from Karushyna to Hrudzichyna, with various means of transport, even makeshift, it takes advantage of the extreme stretching of its opponent to advance frankly and gain 8 kilometers, taking Shalayouka. However, to progress thus, Ivan Managrov is once again forced to ignore his flanks and his difficulties of supply - which, incidentally, is precisely what the Kremlin asked him to do. Once again, Fritz-Georg von Rappard retreats, once again he calls for help from the staff of his XLIII. AK, once again the 131. ID (Meyer-Bürdoff) comes to his rescue... and once again, the two divisions retreat step by step, bleeding the Russians more and more over the the 55 kilometers that lead to Babrouïsk.
.........
Gomel and Zhlobin area ("Suvorov-South") - In this sector, the 2nd Guards Army lets go - without really knowing it - of its last chance to take advantage of a weakness in the German defenses. Indeed, coming from the north in the rain, the XXV. AK (52. and 110. ID) finally arrive in Jlobin, taking over from the 31. ID and 45. ID, still as weakened but which will finally be able to reorganize around Strešyn, more to the south, next to the 34. ID. The XII. AK now weighs a little more than a standard reinforced division - it is not much, but yesterday it was much less. And it has a new leader! Edgar Röhricht, the former boss of the 95. ID in the 17. Armee, is transferred from the HeeresGruppe SudUkraine - after his excellent services rendered there (he was recently awarded the German Gold Cross), he will be more useful with other Aryans than in the Romanian sector...
The Red Army obviously observes the German positions with binoculars - and with all the commotion, it guesses that something is going on. Nevertheless, in the absence of the 3rd Shock Army (still on the side of Buda-Kashaliova), Leonid Govorov is hardly able to oppose it. All day, the artilleries are content to confront each other, firing across the Dnieper without many notable results. Impossible to attempt a crossing, with forces so dispersed and under this damn rain that hinders the artillery and reduces the smoke!
And while the 21st Armored Corps of Tanachichin finally joins the front, alongside a 7th CB which is reserved for a future urgent attempt, although still to be specified, the Russians have to agree that the sector of Jlobin looks more and more like the one of Gomel.
.........
"New day of mock-permission for our crew, the curiosity of the beginnings having now given way to a curiosity of the beginnings having now given place to a tenacious boredom. Pobieda! seems to contemplate us, to judge us even from her garage place, dripping with rain while her snowshoes are still not reinstalled - it seems that there are machines with higher priority. For my part, I have a feeling that we'll have to weld them back together ourselves!
In short, while waiting, we have to keep ourselves busy. So we find ourselves, divided into two teams, playing vint* around a can, perched on boxes of ammunition. In my team, facing me, I have our driver Fyodor. On my flanks, Alexandr and Andrei - the first one finally recovered from his injury (which relieves me), the second seems to be, to say the least, frustrated by his escapade of the day before. He often mumbles some curses to the officers, who - it seems - are monopolizing all that the Red Army has of... attractive members to hide them behind fabrics**. Faced with this tandem and frustrated with action (if I may say so), we can only win. Apparently, Fyodor already stripped a crew of gunners yesterday - beating them one after the other with schnappsen. Is he cheating? Maybe... But it suits me ! I decide nevertheless to stop before the balance is exhausted - no grudges in the crew, it's bad for the team spirit and the cohesion!
Finally, it is Alexandr who announces with a smile that he wins the bet, throwing on the pile his last card: a queen of spades. No bad feelings - I let him win.
This good guy could use a little cheering up, with everything we're going through.
Fyodor will have to console himself with his winnings from yesterday! From his smile, I don't doubt that he understands, as for Andrei, he is already looking for a bottle of tonic to celebrate his victory. He must be pleased too - but Siberians are definitely all the same: not measured at all." (Evgeny Bessonov, op. cit.)

Operation Kutousov
Occupied Ukraine (3. PanzerArmee and 6. Armee sector) - HG Nord-Ukraine completes its withdrawal. The 3. PanzerArmee and the 6. Armee are now well positioned on their new lines - or almost. For if De Angelis, in the south, can still rely on the Sluch, Walter Model, in the north, has passed the Uzh and no longer has a wet patch to stop the enemy, outside the marshy terrain that is the charm of the region. He must therefore complete as quickly as possible the destruction of the leading enemy forces, started by his rear guard before it has to withdraw. Praise the Führer, the weather is rather nice today - we will see the T-34s coming from afar! He and Manstein will show in Rastenburg that they can do at least as well as that pedantic Rommel, who is always busy preparing a supposed counter-attack...
.........
Ovroutch sector and downstream of the Uzh - The 8th Guards Army makes contact with the new German defense line installed a few kilometers after Slovechne, at the level of Syrnytsya and Kovanka. Isolated on the right flank of Kutusov, Serguei Trofimenko does not want to get lost in the woods for the futile pleasure of seizing a lost Ukrainian village. So, taking advantage of the fact that Vatutin's attention is elsewhere, he decides to wait for the arrival of his comrades on his left before moving north and (perhaps) continuing.
On its side, Kurassov's 64th Army reaches Mozyr and the new German lines, arched over the Pripyat. It will take time for this formation, scattered in the marshes of the Dnieper, could consider forcing the defenses of the II. Luftwaffen-Feld-Korps (Alfred Schlemm). In the meantime, it is therefore very quiet.
.........
Korosten sector - The great mess of the previous day seems to be finally over.
With energetic methods directly borrowed from the NKVD - which does not hesitate to lend a hand - Nikolai Vatutin succeeds in getting the 2nd Armored Guards Corps and the 4th CB of the Malin out of the ruins of the city, to assist the 20th Armored Corps and push the retreating fascist tanks.
A task that may seem easy at first sight - but this is to overlook a crucial point. Taking advantage of the fact that his infantry is already in place, and especially that his front had been shortened by a few kilometers thanks to the maneuver that he has just executed, Walter Model decides - in agreement with Manstein - to leave his tanks still a little bit in the rear-guard, to destroy as many of the enemy's vehicles as possible.
The three divisions of the III. PzK, the 9. Panzer, the 10. PzGr and the survivors of the 501. schw. Pz Abt are thus from now on deployed around Klocheve and reserve a very rough welcome to the assaults of the tanks of Pavel Rybalko and Semyon Bogdanov. The latter do the best they can, but they have no chance to triumph against the Panzerwaffe, which has for once the numerical superiority, to which is added an air cover (the JG. 51 shot down 24 aircraft for only 7 losses) and of course the advantage of the defense. Finally, after having lost 92 tanks against only 28 panzers (including 1 Tiger) and having failed to overrun by Kupyshche, the Russian tankers give up. With the arrival of the reinforcements - the 44th Army deploys in the plain while the 60th Army advances eastward and Stantsiine through Kupyshche - Model recalls his pack. The Heer does not want to waste means in a superfluous battle and the Panzermänner finally got through. A time of reckoning, Model considers that, in spite of very favorable circumstances, the loss ratio, both on the ground and in the air, is far from what it had been a year earlier? In any case, he does not know that he will never again benefit from such advantages...
On the Russian side, the maneuver attempted by Malinovsky having failed, it only remains to continue... In the evening, the two leaders of the Fronts engaged in Kutusov decide a new division of tasks between their forces - they might as well avoid stepping on each other in the future. The demarcation line is quickly found: it will be at Zubkovychi (between Olevsk and Yemiltchyne). Malinovsky has the north, so ungrateful, Vatutin has the south, more promising - he is not the favorite of Vojd for nothing!
Meanwhile, in Korosten, it is the turn of Potapov's 5th Army to extract itself from this messy crossroads.
.........
Horshchyk sector - Now that the center of gravity of the action has definitely moved north, the Red Army takes stock of the damage suffered in this so fiercely contested sector. The 50th Army of Konstantin Golubev, reduced to one third of its infantry and whose armor has suffered significant losses in Bondarivka, is no longer able to hold the line. It therefore withdrew southward, in the direction of Ushomyr, leaving however forces in Horshchyk and without crossing the Uzh river again.
The 4th Shock Army has taken over and is now advancing cautiously towards the north. Ivan Maslennikov aims at Stari Novaky, according to the instructions of his Front - Vatutin still hopes to prevent the enemy elements leaving Korosten from retreating and to drive them back to the Zherev to annihilate them. A coherent project... except that the 3rd Ukrainian Front does not have the means to do so. The 4th Shock has given a lot since the beginning of Kutousov, if only just to pass the Uzh ten days ago! That's why Golubev couldn't withdraw completely... As for the 11th BC, supposed to launch the movement, with 30 operational vehicles, it does not weigh much ! All this leads of course the leaders on the ground to slow down their advance - it is more complicated to secure a sector with one army than with two!
In summary, in the evening of September 9th, the Russian infantrymen are still wading in the woods towards Ostapy, on the tracks of elusive fascist mechanized forces that have left behind only corpses (sometimes of executed prisoners) and a lot of wrecks... As for the VVS, they do what they can, but they cannot be decisive on their own.
.........
Barashi sector - In accordance with the instructions of his army HQ, and since the panzers have broken out of the Red more to the north, the LV. ArmeeKorps moves towards Yemiltchyne and Zubkovychi, in connection with the LII. ArmeeKorps coming from Korosten. Instructed by the bloody experience of his comrade Golubev, and knowing that his army is not able to force the decision, Vasily Chuikov is careful not to make any aggressive maneuvers today... He is satisfied to walk westward to follow the Fascist and to occupy the abandoned positions. Stepanivka, Kulishi... many villages north of the road from Korosten to Novohrad-Volynskyi fall in the morning. But the frontovikis have are confronted all along the road to a very aggressive German rear-guard which borders them with precision... Be careful comrade, "Give the Devil the finger and he will want the whole hand".
.........
Novohrad-Volynskyi sector - At the cost of unspeakable suffering - and especially thanks to the fact that the Axis has no reserves in this area capable of counter-attacking or even maneuvering - the 5th Shock finally manages to pass the Smolka and to secure control of a small kilometer of riverbank, which allows it to gain a foothold in the city center. The latter now seems to be inexorably sucking in men and blood... For lack of an alternative, agreement with Lelyushenko, Ivan Chernyakovsky is reduced to engage the 5th CB of the Zhitomir in support of the infantry, even if the main forces continue to guard the left flank, from Susly (against the 36. PzG) to Ivanivka (facing a 147. ID which does not inspire any fear).

Romanian Front
Sector of HG Sud Ukraine - General Edgar Röhricht, sent to reinforce Army Group Mitte (and in particular to the 1. PanzerArmee), leaves the Romanian front and his 95. ID to lead the XII. AK, which had hardly any more troops than his previous command. He is replaced at the head of his division by Gustav Gihr, a man from Baden with a classic career path, from the First World War to the Second, passing through the Reichswehr.
After Molot, and given the state of the Romanians, Wilhelm List's Army Group can hardly send more reinforcements north. In truth, it is he who needs them! So much so that the OKH has just sent him a new unit, after the 376. ID (Fritz Becker). The latter will reinforce the reserve of the 17. Armee - which finally finds each one a strength corresponding to that of... an ArmeeKorps. Of course, the infantrymen sent to them were mobilized from the last levy Rheingold, undoubtedly still a little green for the character, let us say, specific of the Ostfront.
But on a given horse... And as the high command is in a generous mood, it joins to these young infantrymen the self-propelled vehicles of the 228. StuG Abt (Hauptmann Wilhelm von Malachowski), so that List can reconstitute an embryonic and immediately available HeeresGruppe reserve. Who said things were bad on the Romanian front?

An isolated farm in occupied Ukraine - Now a refugee in a more or less safe area - a region of Ukraine held by the Axis, claimed by the USSR, contested by its men and occupied by the Partisans - Tarass Borovets takes stock.
His case is of course not going well - the ARPU has come close to disaster. Had it not been for the arrest of Bandera by the Germans last year, and especially the succession of failures that the latter have suffered (and which significantly weaken the UNO's position), what would have happened to his army? Perhaps it would have been crushed by the Nazis and the survivors would have deserted... But thank God (he signs while thinking about it), we are not there. And the Germans never took Kiev - which will not help Andriy Melnyk to be credible in the conflict that has just begun.
However, for the next few months, Borovets is afraid that he will have to fight alone - or almost alone.
Dimitri Medvedev and his communists already know about this - they have of course come, like scavengers, to offer their fraternal services. Isn't it time to stop the bleeding, comrade, and to fight together with the real defenders of the people against the fascist traitors? Moscow and Stalin will remember this - after all, the CP has nothing dramatic to blame on the ARPU... Except, of course, the fact that it claims to be Ukrainian, but in wartime, Moscow has already proved that it knows how to make a distinction...
Nonsense. Taras Borovets knows what the Bolsheviks' promises are worth. Already, in 1942, he did not trust them and could not negotiate joint operations... This time, they simply want to enlist him and his troops to go to the slaughter in their place and unleash Nazi reprisals in their name - at the cost of his reputation. From the beginning, the communists have always been concerned only with themselves and their interests!
On this side, moreover, things are not getting any better. The Red Army is said to have taken over Korosten, and there are already whispers that terrible exactions would have been perpetrated by the NKVD and Nikolai Vatutin... Already in 1937, when the latter was deputy chief of staff in Kiev, Borovets had a bad opinion of him. One day, this butcher will have to pay for his crimes...
But for now, one thing at a time. War has been declared with the ONU, so we might as well do things by the rules - and the head of the ARPU to beat the recall of his troops while multiplying the statements against Melnyk in the crowd of underground newspapers that are published in Ukraine. Thus, in Haydamak, he specifies: "I am neither a democrat, nor a socialist, nor even a so-called "ultra-nationalist". I was even forbidden in the past to call myself Ukrainian. So I am, in fact, a 'local Pole'. I came out of the ranks of the Poles and I did not move away from them. (...) The power in Ukraine will belong to those who acquired it by themselves with a great ambition and in a state-national way.
The leader should not govern with a bayonet pointed at the body of his people, but with his soul, his spiritual strength. Power without an ideological foundation is a waste."
Everyone understands already, reading these lines, that Borovets has without any doubt ambitions much greater than those of a simple warlord... Ukraine will exist as an independent state - and for that, it needs a diplomacy, and therefore a policy. For this reason, and also in order to break forever with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists - against which the struggle should continue, although he is reluctant to feed it... - the leader of the ARPU creates, with the help of Ivan-Tadei Mitringa***, the Ukrainian People's Democratic Party - rather left-wing oriented and directed against... almost everybody, from the Reich to the UNO-M, including the United States, guilty of supporting Moscow.
In the end, only Paris and London find favor in his eyes - which is not likely to change much to the international credibility of this movement led by unknowns such as Turchmanovych, V. Ryvak and Boris Levitsky.
All this does not prevent Borovets from declaring, for the sympathizers of the UNO-M and about his ongoing conflict with Melnyk: "The misunderstanding [sic] was aggravated by the fact that you recognize the fascist principle of your party's dictatorship, while we are bound - by the blood and spiritual unity of all our people - to respect the principles of democracy, where everyone has equal rights and responsibilities. On this basis, and despite our differences, we have already found a plan of cooperation with many nationalists. We therefore affirm the diversity of worldview among the Ukrainian people and do not see the need to eliminate this diversity by an artificial unity. Therefore, we believe that the only correct concept will be the one which, instead of inciting internal struggles for power, will be able to mobilize all popular forces to fight the external enemies and to subordinate itself, not to one party or another, but to the Nation itself."
A generous principle, to say the least... but it remains to concretize it. And by claiming to rely on the Polish minority to better impose its views, isn't the ARPU taking a big risk, for itself as well as for its supposed accomplice? However, for the time being, it doesn't matter - for its part, now that it considers itself rid of its adversary, the UNO-M rallies the backbench of its sympathizers before making an appointment with the Reich to impose its views... A candor that is worth another one!

* A game related to bridge, of which skruuvi is the Finnish variant. It would be futile to try to describe its notoriously obscure betting system here.
** In the Red Army of the 1940s there was a status poetically called "field wives" for... personnel intended to make up for the estrangement of the regular wives of many officers, in defiance of official Stalinist moralism. The NKVD, forced by events, tried to turn a blind eye to these misdeeds - while taking notes to complete its files for... later. One element, rightly raised by the Pobieda! pointer, seems to have particularly annoyed the institution: the use by the generals of curtains in their vehicles to hide those that accompanied them. The phenomenon took such a magnitude that after a succession of sometimes violent incidents, Lavrenti Beria in person had to emit a circular on the subject, specifying that its agents had indeed the right to raise the curtains in question!
*** Ukrainian politician born in Petrykiv (a suburb of Ternopol, then under Polish rule), and a long-time independence nationalist linked to the UNO for a long time. Arrested by the Warsaw authorities in 1932, he worked after his release from prison in 1934 as editor-in-chief of the newspaper En finir avec le bolchevisme. Nevertheless, he eventually broke with Bandera's pro-Nazi UNO in 1942. Before that, he had already demonstrated his opposition to fascism with the slogan "With the Poles, the French and the peoples of the USSR, for a Free Europe without Hitler and Stalin."

 

[Wings]

September 9th, 1943

Italian campaign
Italian front - While the 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th US-ID continues to clear the ground between Pisa and Lucca, the 141st relieves the CCB of the 1st Armored in the latter city. The CCB can thus withdraw to join the rest of its division in the coastal plain. The 143rd IR advances in the plain beyond the village of Capannori, but cannot go further: the Fallschirmjägers are solidly entrenched on the Gothic line, where they came to reinforce the 8. LFD.
On its side, the 34th US-ID also redeploys. While its 133rd IR spends the day in security operations on the rear, the 135th reaches Pescia, north-east of Altopascio, but cannot go further: the infantrymen of the 112. ID, posted on the heights, are locking the valley in front of the Americans. The tanks of TF Bender reach Montecatini, but do not push further. To consider advancing in the mountains where the Germans have taken refuge, it is better to wait for the 168th Infantry Regiment, which is still blocked in the plain, further south, between the hills and Route 436.
If the day is relatively quiet for the Americans, it is not the same for the 47th ID Bari. Its 140th Infantry Regiment has to fight all day to seize the heights above Pieve a Nivole. With the help of the artillery of the corps, Serravalle Pistoiese is reached in the evening. The 139th Infantry Regiment isalso at work: on the heights above Lamporecchio, it has to fight against various delaying elements, which were all the more attractive as they are beginning to be cut off from their lines. The San Baronto pass is not reached until sunset.
In the Florentine plain, the 20th ID Friuli progresses a little further to the northwest. Some reconnaissance reaches Quarrata and the 88th Infantry Regiment encircles Prato from the north, while the paratroopers of the 186th Rgt of the Folgore arrive from the south.
A little further on, the 1st Alpine Rgt of the Cuneense clears the ground on the outskirts of Florence while the 2nd Rgt replaces the 83rd DIA and the 6th BMLE in the city. In Rome, the newspapers insist on the fact that it is not a race with the French, that the troops entered the city at the same time and that, in any case, the Resistance had given Florence back to the Italians even before the Allies arrived.
Glory is fleeting, says General Eugene Mordant, head of the 83rd DIA - already that the news of Operation Dragon had made it almost impossible to hear, at least for the French, the announcement of the capture of Florence... Mordant, a good sport, leaves the Italians to their triumph.
Moreover, Algiers has already authorized the 83rd DIA and the 6th BMLE Brunete to embroider "Florence" on their flags.
The French troops have already left the city to the north, leaving the thankless job of cleaning up the surroundings to the Italian Alpini. The Magnan brigade thus passes the hamlet of Pratolino and the entire 83rd DIA comes into contact with the Gothic Line. But the orders are not to tempt the devil. The Algerians and the Spaniards do not lose out, far from it!
In the air, the double of the day is signed by Oblt Reinert, of II/JG 77, who shoots down a Havoc and a Mustang, bringing his total to 107 victories. But this does not dampen the joy of the Tuscan capital...

Greek Campaign
Operation Apprentice/Presage
Over the Balkans - At the express request of General Anders, duly relayed by General Dentz, the allied air strikes are moved further back, along the arrival routes of possible reinforcements in the direction of Albania. As a result, the road junctions in Kosovo (Pristina, Pèc, Gjakovë and Prizren) and Montenegro (Berane, Shkodër and Podgorica) are again receiving their share of bombs. When asked about this unexpected choice for the beginning of an offensive, the Pole answers simply: "The Albanian road network is bad enough as it is, especially with the bombings of the last few weeks. We don't need to work hard on roads that we will have to repair!"

Operation Presage
The Polish ride
Epirus - The Polish 2nd Corps crosses the Greek-Albanian border at dawn without opposition.
Nothing seems to slow down the SAV-42, except, as Anders said, the state of the roads.
The broken forest roads are at least as much of an obstacle to the withdrawal of the remnants of the 164. ID and the remains of the 11. LFD, whose columns going through the forests are ruthlessly ambushed at the slightest clearing by marauding P-39s and Banshees. The ordeal of the soldiers of Lungerhausen and the men of Drum is not finished!
As for the population, they are jubilant, because the news of the return of the Greeks had spread like gunpowder. The joy of the Albanians is hardly tarnished by noting that the allied soldiers do not speak Greek, apart from a few words which are finally sufficient to communicate.
In the wake of the Poles, the men of the 192nd DIA (Jouffrault), of the 1st Czechoslovak ID (Alois Liška) and of the 3rd BMLE (Le Couteulx de Caumont) are gnawing at their brakes, waiting to reach other roads that will allow them to go to the front line, and then to advance towards their own objective.
.........
The infiltration of the Spahis
Konitsa sector - In the morning, walking along a small forest road known only to the natives of the region (and smugglers... if there is any difference), the 4th RST also crosses the border and seizes the village of Melissopetra. As expected, it does not encounter any opposition whatsoever. The road to Korcë is now in the hands of the Allies!
Covering the flank of Presage, the spahis will now try to move northwards.
Indeed, by seizing Korcë, the Allied soldiers would be able to turn the German positions of Vigastisko from the north, thus forcing the XVIII. Gebirgs-AK to withdraw somewhat.
On its side, the 162. ID takes position at Ersekë. Unaware of the presence of the French, the men are nevertheless in a palpable bad mood.
.........
Center and north of Albania - The 100 Jaeger, accompanied by the StuG of the 907. Abteilung, descend south to oppose the Allied advance. In the morning, the tanks arrive at Kucovë, after having driven at night to avoid the attention of the Allied air force, however without incident. In fact, the ballistic militia and other local collaborators made zeal, warned of the passage of the German troops and of the absolute necessity to let the column pass, if only for their own health. Thus, there were more than 150 deaths in Musqetë (perhaps not all of them due to the Axis men).
Further north, order reigns in Tirana. The men of the 4. SS Polizei scoured the surrounding area, supported by the StuG of the 914. Abt, to try to pacify the area between Shkoder and the capital.
The aim is to prepare the arrival of the reinforcements promised by General Rendulic.

Siege of Salonika
Thessaloniki (northern sector) - A fine rain starts to fall on the besieged city, giving the battlefield an even more gloomy aspect than usual. It does not slow down the Australians, who enjoy this welcome coolness after the heat wave of the last weeks.
The day is devoted to the cleaning of Polichni, which mobilizes up to two infantry brigades supported by two battalions of the 1st Armoured (AIF). On the orders of Müller, the Jägers hold on and fight block after block. But the Germans no longer have the support of the Stavroupoli artillery, which was definitively silenced. And the few guns firing from the city center (from the park of the Dikastirion square) are forced to content themselves with a few shells, under penalty of being annihilated like their comrades the day before.
On the contrary, ANZAC benefits from all the necessary support. The 25-pounders do not hesitate to fire (not blindly, though) and the armored tanks hit the buildings as close as possible without exposing themselves. The Australians learn to avoid the streets, moving under cover from one building to another, or even from one basement to another, by blowing up the dividing walls with dynamite. This is the famous "cellar war", already tried out by the Canadians in Italy.
It is very risky, but effective if one was methodical enough. Thus, while crossing a new wall, the men of the 16th Infantry Brigade (New South Wales) come across an advanced post of the Jägers, which they seize after a short fight, getting their hands on a map of the roads and traps in the area! The fall of Polichni is only a question of hours...
General Müller sends section after section as reinforcements in the furnace of this eminence so vital to the survival of the fortress, he really does not have the means of the Franco-Vietnamese at Dien-Bien-Phu. In the evening, he realizes that his soldiers would never be able to stop this biting enemy - worse, they are the ones who risk being outflanked and surrounded in the village! Müller finally orders his men to move towards the second line of Sykies, which is done in the night. The Jägers held a village of 2
square kilometers for two days.
This victory obviously pleases the Greek liaison officers, aware that the ANZAC could not be blamed for the extent of the destruction. But the road to the port looks rough, very hard indeed. Even more serious, the first liberated civilians (among whom there are perhaps some defectors from Logothetópoulos), do not hesitate to detail the exactions of the Kampfgruppe Müller, to the great dismay of the Allies. The good news in this is that the criminals have nowhere to go!
.........
"As night fell, my section was assigned to the traditional patrol of the ruins behind the front line, looking for stragglers, the wounded... that sort of thing. The area was quiet, the Huns were probably retreating. Hell! If they didn't leave, we were sure to slaughter them on the spot the next day ! Under the stars, somewhat veiled by the smoke of the fires, we advanced, 5 meters from each other, weapon in hand, in a somewhat unreal calm, after the fights of the last days. Aaron stayed a little behind with his Bren, ready to cover us in case of a hard blow. But nothing came.
It was the usual lot of abandoned houses, collapsed floors and other debris or wreckage. Not to mention the bodies, which unfortunately could not all be picked up as quickly as it would have been necessary by this summer temperature.
A singular discrepancy between our situation and our feelings had been established; dubious jokes and other trivialities were our armor against reality. One example among many: seeing a half-carboned Marder, Marvin said to our gunner: "This fatty is almost as big as you are!" And the interested party (a bit wrapped up indeed) replied: "Yeah, almost!" Marvin had not always been so cheerful: in Alexandria, he had a nasty run-in with a guy from the 51st, a guy named Nigel Nickinson. The exchange had started with a simple "Who are you?" to which our comrade had answered aggressively: "And who are you?" Insignificant, but they had to be separated..." (Herbert Clarence Goldsmith - The Good Soldier, John Lane, 1981)
.........
Salonika (southern sector) - The British of the 51st Infantry Division complete the cleaning of Pylaia, without any major fighting - nothing like what is happening at the same time a few kilometers to the north. With the control of this village, the Allied troops seize a hill that dominates the southern districts of Thessaloniki, and have a solid starting position to seize Agios Pavlos via Triandria. It will become complicated for the Germans to maintain themselves between the historical center and Kalamaria without risking to be surrounded: the maneuver here is superior to the shock!
.........
Salonika (center) - In the evening, General Müller takes stock and tries to find reasons to be positive. In this case, he limited the damage and still holds solidly a part of the heights. The Australians should take a few days to regroup their forces before resuming their advance. The time for him to create a real line of defense to the south, at
Triandria. In this area, the width of the front between the wooded hills and the beach is no more than 2 kilometers! So far, so good...
However, the situation could be better if the Jägers were fully assured of their backs. These stories of desertion or escape to the Allied lines are unacceptable - who knows what potential defectors might tell the Allied officers? Summoning Colonel Müller, he launches into a new litany of reproaches, which he concludes as follows: "The stakes of the fighting in Pylaia are considerable and I am wasting my time discussing with you about deserters. You are my subordinate, Colonel, my subordinate, and I order you to forbid defections and to maintain calm in our fortress. And not only to plunder the raki in the port cellars. If you make examples, they must serve to maintain discipline and not to make people want to run away even more! So, reinforce the guards, shoot whoever you want, but I don't want to have to talk about this subject again!"
Coming out of the cellar that serves as the Festung Salonik commander's headquarters, the colonel would personally execute one or two deserters, right now... Getting back into his car (he still has a little gasoline - a leader's privilege), he drives off into the night, thinking of new and terrible means of pressure, and also, a little, to his future.
From now on, every night (and until the fall of Salonika), the Kampfgruppe will establish lines of defense 250 meters behind the Jägers' positions, on the model of what the NKVD during the most critical phases of the first siege of Odessa. The sentries are ordered to shoot without warning anyone not wearing a German uniform.

Bulgarian affair
Skopje - The 1. Panzer Rgt of the 1. Panzer continues to ensure the security of the Macedonian capital, at least until all Bulgarian troops in the province have been neutralized. This does not prevent it from sending some advanced elements to Veles, to the south, in order to be able to intervene against Nikolov's 1st Occupation Corps.
Observing the panzers' maneuver, Eduard Dietl cannot repress a sigh. It is true that he commands mountaineers but what would he not do with such a unit in his army corps? And what fate will be in store for him after his departure?
.........
Vardar Valley - It is two in the morning when the 19. PanzerGrenadier crosses the Bulgarian, formerly Yugoslavian and formerly Macedonian border. Indifferent to these subtleties, Irkens' tankers cross Guevgueliya in the dark without encountering any resistance - it is true that we are in annexed Macedonia, former territory of the 5th Bulgarian Army, now out of the game. Driving all day, the panzers are in Chtip in the evening. They now hold one of the main access roads to Bulgaria.
.........
Annexed Macedonia (late 5th Army) - 2. Panzer Rgt and 187. ID continue disarming Mihov's 5th Army. Between seizures of material, convoying of prisoners and various tasks of securing the future transit camps, the Germans have a lot of work to do. But the two divisions of Macedonia are well and truly annihilated, without having had a single death...

Sofia and surroundings (1st Army) - The news of the neutralization of the army of Macedonia reaches General Yanchulev, who takes note of the fact that in the very short term, the danger could come from the west. On his order, Nakoff thus redeploys one of his infantry divisions - the 1st - in direction of Pernik, stretching a little more his device. Aware of this dangerous state of affairs, the Chief of Staff askes the 4th Army to send reinforcements, and to contribute more closely to the defense of the capital.
.........
Pleven and surroundings (4th Army) - Answering Yanchulev's call, but without neglecting the fortifications and preparation works in Yablanitsa, Major-General Stefanov sends the 9th ID east of Sofia, towards Borovets. The idea is to allow the 1st Army to slide progressively to the west to turn entirely towards Macedonia.
All the same, thinks the main interested party in company of his staff, is all that serious and planned? And what are the chances of holding the capital under these conditions?
Discreetly but surely, the 4th Army prepares to leave entirely towards the south, anticipating future orders.
.........
Varna and surroundings (3rd Army) - The three divisions of the German intervention corps from Romania complete their regrouping around Varna during the night. While the Landsers enjoy a few hours of rest, Riße and Kleffel confer in the austerity of a staff tent. The commander is anxious to save his strength and wants to wait to ssee the situation in the west before attempting anything. Moreover, it does not seem possible to seize Varna without jointly attacking Burgas.
But General Riße, who had observed the 3rd Army for a long time, is convinced of the contrary. On the contrary, it is vital to neutralize without delay the two divisions of Hristov.
To delay is to take the risk that the Bulgarians choose the wrong side - that is to say, the one opposite. The majority of the forces of the region are regrouped here, on the orders of their leader, they can thus be defeated almost all at the same time. And then, the communications between the enemy armies... well, Bulgarian, are so bad... The proof, the 3rd Army does not seem to be aware of all the events in Macedonia !
Finally, the camp of the audacity prevails...
.........
Plovdiv and surroundings (2nd Army) - Major-General Stoychev is torn by his conscience, which takes here the form of the numerous messages more and more pressing sent by the 2nd Occupation Corps of Trifonov. Not to fight the Germans is one thing, but can he leave his comrades in such a bad position?
As he is about to call personally the head of the Thracian troops, the liaison officers dispatched by Irkens arrive, their chins held high and their eyes triumphant. They announce the neutralization - well, "temporary internment" - of the 5th Army and the encirclement - well the encirclement of the 3rd Army. They vigorously encourage their new friend to publicly declare himself in favor of the Axis, otherwise, to their great regret, measures willhave to be taken.
The leader of the 2nd Army is very embarrassed, but he has already come most of the way.
It is necessary to hold his hand, but he ends up sending a message to Sofia declaring his "rejection of the illegal government of Muraviev and the firm commitment of [his] troops to Prime Minister Bozhilov". The betrayal is thus complete and definitive.
As for the unfortunate Trifonov, Stoychev finally calls him to inform him of the fact and, obviously, to invite him to join him! The more traitors we are, the less we have the impression to betray...
.........
Apsalos Pass (1st Occupation Corps) - Major-General Asen Dobrev Nikolov no longer believes in his chances to cross the allied lines. He therefore orders his four divisions, which were close the grenadiers of von Hillebrandt for several days, to raise camp and to march due west, in the direction of Ardissa.
They do not go far - on the banks of the Limni Vegoritida, about fifteen kilometers away, the 1. GebirgsJäger blocks their way. Conscious of its clear inferiority, but also feeling an absence of hostility (or even hesitation) in the Bulgarian ranks, Hubert Lanz decides to go with the bluff. Announcing to the Slavic general the internment of the 5th Army and the imminent arrival of the 1. PanzerDivision, he puffs up his chest and courteously but firmly demands the surrender of the 1st Occupation Corps. Perplexed and isolated, Nikolov asks for until tomorrow to think it over. This suits the Gebirgsjägers, who invite by radio the 2. Panzer Rgt to hurry up.
.........
Lake Koronia region (annexed Thrace, 2nd Occupation Corps) - Trifonov receives Stoychev's message to follow his example, and incidentally to side with the Germans against the Sofia government. As a good military legalist, he cannot obey - even if he realizes now that his situation is even more perilous than expected.
By dint of trying, he finally succeeds in joining the 1st Army in Sofia, to finally obtain instructions. The answer arrives (not without difficulty) around 14:00: he is ordered to go up north to make up for the defection of the 2nd Army. But Trifonov fears that this movement will cause a clash with Stoychev's men; but the conscripts of the 28th ID (in which desertions are multiplying) will never accept to fight against compatriots!
As for the 16th ID, it seems each day more independent: its men will certainly not want to leave the region, fearing a disguised abandonment of "their" Thrace.
In summary, the major-general can only send the 7th ID of Nikola Ivanov Grozdanov towards Blagoevgrad. His best unit... Sighing, he finally gives the order to go and block the road to the Germans and the division leaves the front at the end of the day, leaving Trifonov alone with his conscripts (who seem to melt in the sun) and his Thracians (more and more irritated).

Sofia - Until this morning, general Yanchulev still had some illusions about the future of the future of the rebellion. But when he presents himself this evening to Regent Kyril and Prime Minister Muraviev, he looks like he's having a bad day. The news is catastrophic: the 2nd Army has officially announced its intention to join the Germans, and they have surrounded Varna! The man collapses at this news: more sagacious than General Hristov, he knows that this means the neutralization of his 3rd Army.
These announcements have the effect of a sledgehammer in the throne room. With a white voice, the regent asks Muraviev about the status of contacts with the Allied countries... and the Axis.
- No answer for the moment, as far as the former are concerned. It's too early," the Prime Minister replies, very thoughtful.
- Very well", the Prince continues. "But is it possible to agree on a peaceful arrangement with the latter?
Yanchulev answers: "There is no need to get lost in sweet dreams, Your Excellency. The Goths are coming here to kill you, to kill us.
Suddenly, he becomes animated again and raises his head with a bravado air, like a horseman of the plains: "But we will not let ourselves be outdone. The Bulgarian army, the real one - not the one of traitors and cowards - will fight. It will sacrifice lives for the honor of the Nation, and to convince the West to intervene.
Taking Muraviev and then the regent as witnesses, he exclaimed: "Isn't that what you suggested, Mr. Prime Minister? And isn't that what you exposed yourself for, Your Excellency? The refusal of servitude. Like the French, like the Belgians and many others. Bulgaria can do no less. She will hold her ground, as it did in 1912 or in 1917. Your Excellency, Mr. Prime Minister, I will find you the time you need.
No one knows today whether this tirade was spontaneous or prepared. Nevertheless, it has the effect of a real whiplash for those who have heard it and who leave not reassured, but determined. Bulgaria will resist!
.........
On the air - Faced with the extent of the day's bad news, not all of which is known to the Allies, Radio Neue Europa is content with generic and crude threats, intended to whip the Bulgarian troops into action. One idea emerges from this speech: "And if these Slavic Jews were to run away and pretend to form an army in exile, we will pursue them to eliminate them! For the Reich's vengeance knows no bounds and traitors will be hunted down to the ends of the earth!" In Pleven, an officer of the 4th Army finds this idea rather attractive...

 

[Wings]

September 9th, 1943

Südwall- After two days of uncertainty, the 2. SS Panzer Das Reich finishes crossing the Drôme and enters the Vaucluse region, where it meets the Allied air force.
Last to arrive in France for a period of rest and replenishment, two days earlier, it had only returned with 70% of its equipment - and since it has been engaged on what the German communiqués now call the Provence Front, the losses have begun to mount up again.
Further south, while the 53rd RCT of the 7th US-ID redeploys south of Arles along the Rhône, the 32nd RCT crosses the river and moves north along the D36. The progression is difficult even if the resistance is moderate, because the Germans have flooded the area wherever they could. In the same sector, the commandos of the 1st SSF, whose 3rd Regiment redeploys alongside the Rangers, reaches the Vaccarès pond. The 759. Grenadier Rgt holds the ground well and makes life difficult for the attackers, but the latter always take advantage of the mobility brought by the LVT-2 Buffalo to envelop the Landsers and force them to retreat every time they pretend to create a point of resistance.
A little further on, a technical detachment of the 363rd FG takes possession of the Istres airstrip.
This last one, with Marignane, is going to be used as an emergency runway for damaged aircraft of all types, but it has to supply the group's Airacobras with fuel and 12.7 and 37 mm ammunition. This will considerably increase the presence of the P-39s in the area (which come from Sardinia) and will relieve the Navy aircraft.
Behind the front, the 3rd Rock of the Marne ID starts to deploy on the Blue Line, along the Durance river, in order to prepare possible withdrawal positions in case the confrontations in the Vaucluse region turn out badly.
North of Avignon, the CCA of the 2nd DB-US Hell on Wheels, reinforced by the 18th RCT and supported by the divisional artillery, contains the counter-attack attempts of KG Witt and Hauck.
The latter recovered some Tigers of the 101. Schw Pz abt, repaired further north, but loses as many under the Allied bombs and shells. On the one hand, the intervention of the air force allows to nip in the bud any attempt at German movement; on the other hand, the well-camouflaged Tigers, supported by Leopards, fire at the Shermans at long range, preventing them from advancing.
A little to the east, in the sector of Pernes-les-Fontaines, the device formed by the CCB of the Hell on Wheels and the 26th RCT, comprising the 26th US-IR, the 117th Cav Rgt, the 645th TD and the 191st Tank Btn, fall under the blows of the KG Peiper, reinforced by the survivors of the 189. RD and the last Pz.V F and Pz.IV G of the army reserve units. The situation is unlocked once again only thanks to the air force and the plethora of artillery of the 6th Artillery and the timely arrival of the De Brauer Brigade, of the 1st DB, definitely tipped the balance.
KG Peiper has all the more difficulty that KG Meyer, which was to exploit its action, finds itself engaged towards Mazan, east of Carpentras, by the Malaguti Brigade and the rest of the 1st DB. These fights at the foot of Ventoux worry the boss of the 1. SS all the more that the 38. Panzergrenadier Rgt of the 14. SS is still not very experienced, whereas in front of it, the shootings of the French tanks are effective at a greater distance than the Germans were used to.

Liberation - In Marseille, while bullets are still whistling all over the city, the 14th DI is getting back on the march after having marched on the Canebière (see below). The 1st
GDC, withdrawn from the front, receives the responsibility to clean and hold the city with the 2nd RCA, while waiting for the elements of the 1st DIM which start to land on the beaches. This division will not be engaged at first, but will have to ensure the logistics, both for both the armed forces and the civilians.
In Aix, the commander of the II/932 IR finally surrenders after two days of street fighting without hope. The city is now in the hands of the 1st DP, which liberates the Tancrémont Brigade and the 7th Ardennais who reorganize towards Eguilles, together with the 1st Ardennais who has now rallied. The parachutist division has to be quickly withdrawn from the front; it will participate in the logistic effort while waiting for a new airborne operation.
In Toulon, the 10th DI also marches and is preparing to go up to the north. The parade takesplace there too in front of an audience of authorities where we see Resistance fighters in civilian clothes and tricolor armbands can be seen next to the impeccable uniform of Admiral Darlan. The latter gives a tearful speech on the return of the Navy to its home, which no one could really hear, because the Vive la France, Vive De Gaulle... drowned out the admiral's voice. For a few days, the city is controlled by the 2nd GDC and the 113th RI, which is not really their vocation!
.........
In the north, Manosque is taken by storm by the 6th RTS supported by the Rabanit Brigade of the 3rd DB. The 28th. Grenadier Rgt of the 189. RD is almost annihilated, which allows French armoured vehicles to push to Forcalquier and to arrive in sight of Château-Arnoux. The German line in this sector is broken, nothing seems to oppose the French.
Relieved on the Valensole plateau by the 15th DBLE for cleaning operations, the 4th RSM joins the French III Corps in Apt. It is closely followed by the 21st Zouaves Rgt. on the right wing of the 3rd DIM. The Zouaves liberate the villages of Reillane and Cereste, evacuated by the Germans. They are then replaced by the 21st RI of the 10th DI, which goes up to the line. Only the 3rd RTM, around Régusse, is still fighting outside the 3rd DIM's sector.
To the south of this area, the 3rd RSM and the 5th RTS make a breakthrough and isolates from its division the 281. Grenadier Rgt of the 148. ID, around Aups. As a result, the 285. Rgt of the 148. ID is now surrounded on three sides in the Draguignan sector, from which the 20th RIC and the I/8 RCA are approaching. A little to the south, the 4th BMLE, well supported by the guns of the 12th BACA and by the planes of the GAN 2, break through in the sector of Le Muy. The 286. Grenadier Rgt is forced to retreat in direction of Fréjus - the 148. ID is now cut in three !
Finally, along the coast, the 14th DBLE, which is busy cleaning up and securing the Maures massif, passes La Garde-Freinet and arrives in sight of Plan de la Tour. The riflemen of the 4th RTS, supported by the 6th RCA and by the naval artillery, fight for Sainte-Maxime against the 919. IR of the 242. ID, which only give way foot by foot.
On the beaches, the 4th DMM begins to land.

Marseille - The day after his brief but obviously very noticeable visit to the beaches of Provence, the President of the Council is finally able to see for himself the reality of the Liberation by visiting Marseille, liberated and (more or less) secured by the allied forces. The President of the Council is of course at the side of one of the leaders of the revolt that shook the city: Gaston Deferre. This one attends at the side of the General to the parade of the 14th DI on the Canebière.
After the parade, De Gaulle offers himself - to the great concern of his escort - a triumphal march from the quai des Belges to the town hall (about four hundred meters). In spite of the human losses and the destructions* occurred during the revolt of the city, a great crowd receives with unfeigned enthusiasm one of the principal artisans of its deliverance. This unexpected but long-awaited visit raised passions, to the point that most of the inhabitants, hardly informed of the arrival of the President of the Council, brave the risk (still real) of a German air attack, in order to welcome with dignity the embodiment of Fighting France. It is a striking confirmation of the popularity of the government in exile and certainly of its leader.
Arriving at the town hall at the end of the afternoon, the General pronounces from the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, in his voice, famous for its expressive power, a speech whose scope reaches far beyond Marseille.
.........
"We are all moved by being together in the first great liberated city of metropolitan France, but this is not the time to speak of emotion, no matter how strong it may be. What the country expects from you, at the back of the front, is to continue the fight to the end, this struggle which you have never given up since the beginning of this war and even in the dark hours of 1940. Our cry now, as always, is a cry of combat, because the path of combat is also the path of freedom and the path of honor.
It is the voice of the Motherland, the deafening expression of her inviolate dignity and her inflexible resolution.
Then, let no one doubt it, we will continue to wage war with all the unleashed power of our forces on land, sea and air wherever necessary, as we have already done, in Africa, in Italy, in Greece and in Indochina, on all these fronts where our soldiers have covered themselves and are still covering themselves with glory. But from now on, we will also wage war on the land of France itself, on this soil that is more than ever sacred because it has suffered so much.
In the continuous accomplishment of this vast and glorious enterprise, there is a fundamental element that must be emphasized today. It is the irreproachable behavior which the citizens of our Empire have always shown and still show. Our Empire, so loyally and so completely united around us, has provided from the first hour, and will provide as for as long as it takes, an immense contribution to the Motherland, both in the form of valiant combatants and in the form of precious material resources. This help brought to the common cause has been, let us proudly proclaim it here, as determining as indispensable. This help was also the shelter given to the noble phalanx of survivors of the disasters of the spring and summer of 1940. A warm shelter, a fraternal shelter, a saving shelter which allowed the material and moral recovery of our weapons, ensuring their modernization and their reorganization before engaging in subsequent battles under the best conditions. This support of our Empire has done much to create the conditions for our successes of the past months and years, and undoubtedly to build the final victory which is rightly promised to us.
But you who have been under the boot of the enemy know well what this war is. It is a war even harder than the others, because it is double. On the one hand, the war waged by the soldiers of our regular army, temporarily forced into exile, who have resisted since then on all fronts to the enemy, first with, so to speak, the only energy of despair, then with the effective means of victory. And on the other hand the clandestine war, the struggle without weapons, or so poorly armed, of the Resistance fighters from the inside, to whom the enemy does not recognize prisoner of war status nor does it grant them any mercy. To all these warrior heroes, to the French people and to the peoples of the Empire, I promise that we will continue the war until our sovereignty is restored to every inch of French territory, in the Metropole and elsewhere. And let it be well understood that, on the strength of our indisputable good right as much as of the legitimacy that we have earned our feats of arms, no one will prevent us from re-establishing it.
We will fight for France with passion, but also with reason.
Because we will also have to face relentlessly the enemy from within, this perfidious and servile group which has been quickly placed at the service of the invader as soon as the first setbacks encountered by our armies, thus revealing to the scandalized world and nation the ignominy of criminal ambitions until then unavowed.
The shameful clique constituting the simulacrum of government subservient to the Enemy who reign by fear on our Metropolis will not be able to drape its treason of the makeup of any legality. But if this mediocre quarteron of felons has failed in its harmful enterprise it is first of all because he was deprived of the assent of the immense French mass.
This one, indeed, in its instinctive will to survive and to triumph, had never seen in the disaster of 1940 more than a peripatetic of the world war where France served as a vanguard. If many gave in, by force, to the circumstances, the number of those who accepted them in their minds and in their hearts was literally infinitesimal. France never believed that the Enemy was not the Enemy and that salvation was elsewhere than on the side of the weapons of Liberty. As the sails were torn away, the deep feeling of the country was revealed in its reality. Wherever the baseness of the vassals of Berlin was exposed, there the scaffolding of an authority that was only fictitious and devoid of any constitutional basis.
In fact, the public powers are only valid, in fact as in law, if they are in agreement with the best interests of the country, if they are based on the trust of the citizens. In terms of institutions, to build on anything else would be to build on sand. It would be to risk to see the edifice crumble once again on the occasion of one of those crises to which, by the nature of things, our country has so often been exposed.
It is to justify the confidence of all the French that the Republic, in order to remedy the castrating weaknesses of its former structure, knew how to find in itself the energy to reform itself while continuing tirelessly the fight. And it is thus that a considerable work of restoration of the public institutions could be accomplished in the painful exile which was imposed on us for three years.
Yes, France wants to make sure that tomorrow, national sovereignty can be exercised without the distortions of intrigue and without the corrupting pressures of any coalition of particular interests. It wants the men it will entrust to govern it to have the means to do it with enough strength and continuity to impose to all inside the supreme power of the State and to pursue outside of it purposes worthy of it.
That is why it is incumbent upon us to work from now on without respite or hesitation to push our work of renovation in order to rebuild the national edifice on the unshakeable foundations which will be necessary to face the challenges of tomorrow. It is only in this way that the Nation will be able, in the future, to escape the torments of a catastrophe similar to the one which narrowly missed to make us roll in the abyss.
At the same time, we will fight again and again on the side of the Allies, with the Allies, as the faithful and unwavering Ally that we have never ceased to be. And the victory we will achieve will be the victory of Freedom, the victory of the Alliance, but also and fully the victory of France.
I am going to ask you to sing with me our national anthem, which has never been so aptly named as it is today, in the city whose children first sang it in battle: the Marseillaise."
.........
The Marseillaise continues with a torrent of cheers where, in the popular jubilation, one repeats, among others: Vive de Gaulle, Vive la France, Vive l'Empire, Vive Reynaud, Vive les Alliés, Vive la Libération, Vive la République...
In the early evening, the General is about to return to his temporary residence (very discreetly set up in the countryside by the French Army, which alone was responsible for its security). As he climbs into his jeep, he speaks one last time to the still numerous crowd that cheers him as he left the town hall, and says these few words that would intoxicate his audience: "My friends! The newfound freedom of Marseille, which was able to fight to welcome its liberators in streets already decorated with the tricolor, is a promise for all the other cities of metropolitan France. Remember this day, for you will have to bear witness to it for posterity: from now on, in heart if not in law Marseille is a warm capital of France! Long live Fighting France! Long live liberated France! Long live free Marseille!"

* In particular, the spectacular one of the transporter bridge that spans the exit of the Old Port, but of which only the north pillar is actually knocked down.

 

[Wings]

September 10th, 1943

Montagne Noire, 01:00 - In spite of the risks, the maquis decides to continue its night operations. This time, it is the Arles stream, a tributary of the Orb near Lamalou, which is chosen as the place of attack. When the lead vehicle, a light SdKfz 232, crosses the small bridge, an explosion causes it to half tip over into the stream.
When the German infantrymen deploy to clear the barrage, snipers attack from all sides and, instead of disappearing into the wilderness as on previous nights, the maquisards charge the truck that is immobilized behind the armored vehicle. At the cost of two killed and five wounded on their side, they manage to free the prisoner that the vehicle was carrying. After a few exchanges of fire in the woods, the Germans give up the pursuit. The armored vehicle, back on its six wheels, leaves a few hours later.
"We ran like crazy to a safe hiding place in the Espinouse.
Pastoureau was seriously wounded in the side, he was suffering without complaining and we had to carry him. The doctor did everything he could to save him, but the lung was affected aand he started to spit blood. I remember him saying, "See a new dawn!" and indeed, he managed to make it to sunrise.
Of course, we announced it to the clandestine press, which printed it in the following days.
I still have the issue of the Midi Libre with his name and title: "interallied inspector general".
When we made contact with the vanguard of the French army, the head of the Alsace-Lorraine Shock Group came to the place, near the bridge, and gave a magnificent funeral oration. The radio in Algiers picked it up: Pastoureau had become one of the heroes of the Liberation, the city of Montpellier gave his name to a street and there was talk of raising a statue to him.
To understand the end of this story, one must remember that it was still the time when everyone had a false name or several, there were I don't know how many secret leaders and nobody knew who was who anymore. So it came as a shock to us when, two months after the end of the war, the rumor started to spread that Pastoureau was not who he said he was. In fact, his Resistance had consisted of going from one maquis to another, presenting himself under imposing titles, and then leaving for the next maquis before they could be verified. He was not a crook or a traitor, just a "baganau", as we say in our country." (Charles Guelfi and Christiane Changelin, Les Lumières de Lamalou, Editions du Mirail, 1957).

Béziers - The movements of the German troops take place in an increasingly tense atmosphere. A German column, rear guard of the 60. Panzergrenadier Feldherrnhalle, crosses the city under booing. In the Paul-Riquet alleys, the soldiers reply by opening fire on the crowd, leaving ten dead and forty wounded.

Montpellier - The passage of the Germans is not always so tragic. In the city center, women waiting in line at a desperately empty grocery store see an elegantly dressed lady getting out of a limousine: the wife of the departmental director of economic control was on a friendly visit to the headquarters of the German command.
The imprudent woman is immediately seized, half undressed and subjected to a spanking.
The sentries of the Kommandantur have to intervene and fire in the air to disperse the crowd.
Curiously, this minor incident seems to make more of an impression on General Sodenstern than the massacre in Béziers: he ordered his troops to avoid going through the city center as much as possible. The German authorities in Montpellier and their depots are gradually moved to the suburb of Montferrier, to the north of the city.

Couiza (Aude) - During the night of the 10th to the 11th, a real pitched battle pits a handful of German reservists against nearly 700 Maquisards who had come down from the Pyrenees. The stakes are high: one of the main supply depots of the 19th Army is established in this small town south of Limoux.
Soon enough, the reservists withdraw. In a region rich in vineyards but poor in cereals and livestock, where the food shortage was severely felt, this fortunate helping hand led to a short-lived abundance. The inhabitants, for the most part unemployed since the Germans requisitioned the only local factory to set up their warehouses, were not angry about the windfall and participated in emptying the stocks.
However, in view of the foreseeable German reprisals, most of them prefer to move for a few weeks. It is a quasi deserted village that will see the arrival of Allied troops a few weeks later.

Wieblingen (southwest Germany) - What a pleasant social gathering this reception by Elisabeth von Tadden is. As a worthy representative of her renowned Prussian lineage, she is well versed in this kind of exercise. One could almost forget the ravages of the war, which has just reached the shores of Provence a few days ago... All this seems far away, when you are in good company. And there is a lot of good company in this charming property in the Grand Duchy of Baden. This is Arthur Zarden, former Secretary of State of the former Weimar Republic, the influential businessman Nikolaus von Halem, Otto Kiep, an officer in the Foreign Service of the OberKommando der Wermacht, and Father Friedrich Erxleben, professor of ancient languages at the Jesuit College in Rome and professor at the universities of Vienna and Prague. The upper crust of the bourgeoisie of Hitler's Germany, in short?
Apparently so.
Zarden, even before the Nazis came to power, was one of their scapegoats, in particular because of his Jewishness - unforgivable for the present masters of Germany.
Von Halem, following the Night of the Long Knives, tried to set up a plot to assassinate Hitler. Kiep's diplomatic career was almost destroyed in the 1930s because, as German consul in New York, he had the audacity to attend a dinner in honor of Albert Einstein! Afterwards, he openly opposed to German participation in the Spanish war, and it was almost miraculously that he had returned to the leadership of the Nazi party. Finally, the worthy Father Erxleben himself was later presented as "the driving force behind the defeatist conversations in the Solf house".
For it was the name of the Solf Circle (or house) that was used to designate the regulars of the salon of the widow Hanna Solf, who had been a member of the Solf Circle for many years, where the aforementioned personalities like to meet (another good house: the late Herr Solf had been a short-lived foreign minister in the last weeks of the Wilhelminian Reich before being appointed, between the two wars, ambassador to Japan). In the Solf Circle, people do not plot, but they do like to discuss. One of the favorite topics of conversation is Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich. The least we can say is that the positions of some and others are more than critical towards the Führer, his excessive territorial ambitions and now the war he is waging on two fronts against the West and the Bolsheviks! But we prefer to remain discreet at the Solf Circle.
The ears of the Gestapo are everywhere and a few weeks earlier, the arrest of two regulars of the Circle, von Bernstorff and Kuenzer, two former diplomats whose careers had ended when the Nazis came to power, reminded everyone to be careful. So, one weighs one's words, one is discreet...
Nevertheless, as the reception progresses, tongues are loosened when it is realized that one of the new faces present, a young Swiss doctor working at the Hôpital de la Charité, Dr. Paul Reckzeh, introduced by Elisabeth von Tadden (who plays the role of a social worker) and made comments that were very appropriate for the members of the Solf Circle.
Like them, the Swiss thinks that Hitler's Germany is on the verge of collapse. We agree. We overbid. We even complete the young doctor's remarks. They expand on them. And when the reception comes to an end and Reckzeh, very kindly, proposes to all these nice people to pass to Switzerland, on the occasion of his next trip, a few letters and messages for relatives who have taken refuge there, we gladly accept. Alas, it is not so good company thathas to go, but we will take up this conversation again at our next meeting, won't we?
The only problem is that the nice doctor, who is not Swiss, goes home and writes a report to the Gestapo to tell them in detail about the lovely reception he had just been invited to.

 

[Wings]

September 10th, 1943

Burma Campaign
Thailand - The Hin Tok station receives today the visit, as a few days before that of Rin Tin, the Mitchells of Sqn 343(B), escorted by the P-38s of the 449th FS. They leave behind them only ashes, twisted rails and broken ballast. The Japanese expose themselves less and less to meet these raids, and the Thais only react to deeper penetrations over their territory.
At nightfall, the Wellingtons of Sqn 1 (BVAS) return to visit Ban Pong, this time a little more successfully than on the 6th: many bombs hit the tracks. However, a residential area is set on fire.

Indochina Campaign
Phine (near Savannakhet, Laos) - Muong-Phine is the last village on the road to Quang Tri, west of Tchepone, still in Japanese hands. The Japanese have transformed it into an entrenched camp. Three days earlier, their reconnaissance planes had discovered a column advancing in their direction, the defenders expected an attack. But they are taken by surprise when the bunker defending the main entrance to the village is turned into a volcano by a live shell that penetrates the machine gun opening.
As the Japanese wake up hurriedly, the Vietnamese are already invading the village. Half of the Japanese fall in the streets and in the village square, massacred by snipers who are posted on the roofs. About twenty men manage to regroup in the pagoda. The Viets dislodge them with grenades and bayonets.
When the two companies of Laotian riflemen who were encircling the village enter it, the fighting is already over. The Vietminh have only two dead and a few wounded. We count forty-four Japanese corpses... There is nothing left to identify those who had occupied the bunker.

 

[Wings]

September 10th, 1943

Operation Suvorov
Cunning buffalo
Belarus - In the morning, everyone notices that the weather over the front is bad - at least as bad as the day before, if not worse.
as bad as the day before, if not worse. The rhythm of the operations is once again affected
once again, while the planes all remain on the ground, waiting for a break in the weather.
.........
Sianno and Polotsk regions ("Suvorov-North") - After a long journey in blood and rain, the 20th Army finally arrives in Gora and Kamysh, small towns located on the eastern outskirts of Polotsk. It thus comes into contact with the new Axis defense line, which cleverly combines the XXIII. AK (Johannes Friessner) and the 14. PanzerGrenadier (Rudolf Holste) - the LIII. AK having already descended south of the Daugava to interface with the 9. Armee at Lepiel, or even at Chachniki.
The Reich has no intention of giving up Polotsk, which is an essential crossing point on the Daugava, as well as a strategic crossroads serving Sebej (Pskov oblast, on the rear of the 2. Armee Army), Daugavpils and the lines of the Northern HG, and even Hlybokaye in the direction of Minsk. If the Red Army wants it, it will have to take it by force!
Of course, Pavel Kurushkin would like to take this city, which would be a very nice trophy, able to make people forget the butchery of Vitebsk. However, his team can't take it anymore... Exhausted, decimated, stretched on a salient of almost 50 kilometers, it aligns less than a complete division at the front! Attempts are nevertheless made, for the sake of form, in the sector of Zyuzino, without preliminary recognition of available aircraft - they are curtly repulsed by the 102. ID (Otto Hitzfeld), which does not even need to call on Holste's grenadiers for this.
From his advanced HQ beaten by the waters, Kurushkin can only tell Andrei Eremenko that his formation arrives at the extreme limit of its possibilities and is at the mercy of the least serious action on behalf of the Fascists (who have, fortunately, very few people in the region). The boss of the 1st Belorussian Front has to admit it and orders the end of all offensive actions in this sector - he already knows that Zhukov would not contradict him. Officially, this stop is only temporary, of course - the Stavka simply grants a delay to the 20th Army to recover before going back to the assault ... But in reality, its frontovikis are finally at the end of an ordeal that has been 100 kilometers long! For Kurushkin and his troop, "Suvorov" is well and truly finished - they will be used only as guard-rails for the continuation.
On their left, however, it is still not finished for the 63rd Army. At Bol'shoi Ozeretsk, it clashes with the first lines of defense of the V. AK (Richard Ruoff) - held here by the 5. Jäger-Division of Karl Allmendinger. Vasily Kuznetsov, who does not have a clear offensive axis and perhaps feels a bit lost alone in the forest, does not know what to do. To go down south to Talachyn to help the comrades engaged there - but at the risk of leaving the road to Vitebsk open? Or continue westward to Chachniki, for a movement in the middle of the woods, which is not really decisive, but which offers the obvious pleasure of confronting the 3. Panzer again? It is understandable that the choice is difficult...and in any case it is not the responsibility of an army chief. To decide, Kuznetsov calls Eremenko - who simply answers that he waits to see the evolution of the situation further south to decide.
.........
Talachyn region ("Suvorov-North") - The action started the day before by Ivan Chistiakov - admittedly unwillingly - is still escalating: the 1st Guards Army is now the target of a determined counter-attack by the Wehrmacht.
The day had started normally, at least according to custom: the 1st Guards assaulted frontally and without much maneuvering, on a limited front, with the support of Alexey Burdeyny's 18th Armored Corps - which, again, could be considered to have lost vehicles for nothing. However, after some sterile fights in the mud and under the rain, the Wehrmacht decided to take advantage of the weakness of its opponent. And while the Soviet attack seems close to dying out at the level of Murav'i, the machines of the 18. PanzerGrenadier and of the 12. Panzer come out of the drizzle to go up the railroad, sowing panic in the Russian lines!
Obviously, the HG Mitte does not have in this sector the slightest possibility (and even less the will...) to move forward towards Orsha. However, by acting thus, Erdmannsdorff and Bodenhausen are doing precisely what Rommel had intended when he programmed "Büffel": draw in the Reds, exhaust them, counterattack them and finally - in the end - annihilate them.
It is an understatement to say that this action, which goes up 6 kilometers and threatens to steamroll to Stranitsa, constitutes a bad surprise for the Russians. For lack of anything better, and despite efforts of Burdeiny - which does not finish, since Orsha, to send its machines to play firemen - Chistiakov is forced to urgently raise his left flank, while leaving to the 3rd Guards of Zakharkin the care to fill the gaps in front of Talatchyn and to reduce the pressure on him by launching diversionary attacks. The latter complies and orders a succession of assaults between Drutsk and Talatchyn - which will obviously give absolutely nothing, except more bodies in the Drut.
It is not until 17:00 that the Heer recalls its pack and the fighting subsides. The rain that never stops falling will finish by dousing the flames of what is indeed a warning without (too many) costs for the 1st Belorussian Front.
.........
Bialyničy and Balonauka regions ("Suvorov-Center") - Once again, the bad weather seems to take pleasure in preventing "Suvorov-Center" from advancing as it should. In Dubrova, the 15th Army is still not advancing, reproducing, between the villages of Zelenyy dub and Kruzhki, a kind of bridgehead of Chachersk in miniature, where a Soviet army corps supported by an armored corps confronts a reinforced German division, over a 300-meter wide swampy river... The frontovikis painfully climb the muddy mounds under machine gun fire - the modest 30-meter difference in height that separates them from the German lines is like a firing range.
There is nothing Ivan Fedyuninsky can do to break the deadlock, except to expand his positions and take his pain in patience - either he is ordered to stop the expenses, or he will open up one day in the plain...
Further south, the situation of the 29th Army has not changed much either. It is still fighting the rearguard of the XLIII. AK in wet and trapped undergrowth, where Landsers, frontovikis, paratroopers and partisans clash in a merciless melee. Ivan Managrov passes however from Shalayouka to Borki - thus widening a little his flank towards Douhaye - but he continues to push towards Kirawsk and Babrouïsk, in defiance of all prudence.
A bold move, to put it mildly, which is duly noted on the other side.
.........
Jlobin region ("Suvorov-South") - The great battle resumes despite the rain and the elements, while the 2nd Guards Army attempts a large-scale movement north of the city, near Luchin. This one, executed in a hurry directly directly caused by Stalinist orders, fails unsurprisingly in the face of the stubborn defense of the 340. ID (Josef Prinner), in charge of the sector. If this formation is weakened by the fights delivered for Tchatchersk, it can count on the support of the guns of the 20. Panzer, held in reserve on its rear but which does not hesitate to go and support the infantry when it is necessary, at the risk of bogging down its machines.
This collaboration, which has become customary since the beginning of "Suvorov", largely compensates for the support that Leonid Govorov could expect from the 7th Armored Corps, which fires from its bank towards Hodosovichi - without much effectiveness, considering the circumstances.
The boats are overturned by the impacts, the disembarked sections thrown back into the water, while, from one bank to the other, the tanks exchange shells which add to the showers the lightning of a summer storm.
It is thus another failure for Ivan Konev's 2nd Belorussian Front - at least in appearance. Because while the 2nd Guards draw German attention to the north, with great human reinforcements, Purkayev's 3rd Shock Army deploys from Kolybel'naya to Borovukha. Covered by the 21st Armored Corps, it soon sends important elements towards Strešyn and the marshes located south of the "Peninsula". Not all of them succeed in crossing, far from it - but the unfortunate XII. AK is too weakened to be everywhere.
Several detachments can thus infiltrate in a terrible terrain where the 18. Panzer - which was stationed in the vicinity - could not intervene even if, by chance, it wanted to.
Ivan Konev made his choice: since he was asked to renew Gomel, he will be forced to renew Gomel - in particular by planning two axes of offensive, intended in the long run to encircle Jlobin.
It will be long, expensive and difficult - useless, in these conditions, to wait for the 10th Armored Corps, which will have plenty of time to rally on the way.
.........
"Last day of calm before the departure for the front! Our unit is back to...let's say three quarters of its former strength, thanks to the arrival of a certain number of new machines mounted by crews that are just as new. New - but not necessarily new, at least as far as the vehicles are concerned. BT-7s, some T-50s, T-34s of series previous to that of our Pobieda!... We can feel that the struggle has left its mark.
Anyway, all this small group directly resulting from the training center of Kubinka looks at us with a mixture of curiosity and distrust. "They" think we are jaded, "we" are kept out of the limelight - but "they" still come to ask us for some advice and tips from time to time. So here we are, veterans. I won't go so far as to say that this honors us. At least, thanks to Andrei, who was willing to go and explain a few things about the art of pointing the gun, these young people will (maybe) avoid shooting at us!
Meanwhile, Fyodor, Alexandr and I take care of the snowshoes and refuel. Tomorrow we'll head west" (Evgeny Bessonov, op. cit.)

HQ of the Heeresgruppe Mitte (Minsk) - After a 34-year military career, two world wars and four years of continuous command on the front, Erwin Rommel might have thought that nothing would surprise him anymore. And yet, those damn Bolsheviks still manage to do so, by foolishly insisting on putting parts back into the machine! Obviously, the Reds have not understood anything - drunk with their alleged victories in Vitebsk, Orsha and Gomel, they probably already imagine themselves bringing back the Wehrmacht to Poland, on the dividing line defined in 1939! Except that, of course, it is impossible. The situation of the HG Mitte is - of course - much more favorable since the latter executed "Büffel". The northern branch of the attempts against the 2. and 9. Armee are obviously insignificant, and it should not even be necessary to give up ground - the afternoon's counter-offensive in Talatchyn proves it. And since Rommel does not see the Red Army break through from Sianno, let alone take Polotsk (he almost laughs at the thought), so the matter can be considered settled.
The lousy attempt north of Bialyničy, on the other hand, does not even deserve to be mentioned. But what do the Reds expect to do there? As for Chachevichy, the XIII. AK is retreating, it's true... but does his opponent intend to go to Jlobin like that? So that in this city, or in the vicinity of it, are stationed powerful armored forces that could...
Rommel now looks at the map with fresh eyes. He does not believe that a serious bridgehead had been established at Jlobin. The terrain is too bad, the defenders of the XXV. AK too fresh - and at worst, the 18. Panzer of Karl von Thüngen is still on guard in this area. But there is also - further north, towards Ostrov - the 20. Panzer of Heinrich von Lüttwitz... And 70 kilometers further, in Klitchaw, the 19. Panzer of Gustav Schmidt... In truth, the Soviet forces coming from Bialyničy are throwing themselves between two steel jaws!
Gotthard Heinrici had of course already noticed this around noon, when he asked for instructions about the engagement of the 19. Panzer - but he lacks a global vision. Much more attractive than a flanking attack, the Balkan Fox now sees before his eyes the opportunity to destroy an entire Soviet army! Enough to give Herr Berndt the opportunity to have his glory proclaimed by the whole Reich! Not to mention, of course, to convince the Führer of the rightness of his views...
Obviously, the maneuver could be considered risky - but not that risky. The 20. Panzer does not far, and Jlobin will not fall anytime soon - if it was ever threatened.
As for the 19. Panzer, it will always be more useful in this context than playing river guard in the middle of the woods. Yes, if the Reds are stupid enough to engage in open terrain, it could work. And since they are (that's obvious), the Bison should prepare now to charge.

Moscow - The voice of the USSR announces on the airwaves that "The glorious offensive that will bring the liberation of the Byelorussian SSR is going on, without the fascist forces managing to stop it. After Vitebsk, Mogilev, Orsha and Gomel, soon Polotsk, Talachyn, Berazino, Babruysk and Jlobin will also be delivered from the yoke of the Nazi beast!"
.........
Berlin - Obviously, for Radio-Berlin, this profession of faith is a ridiculous rodomontade: "In White Ruthenia, the enemy is continuing its mad offensive, without achieving any tangible results. Our forces, magnificently led by Field Marshal Rommel, repulsed all his confused attempts, bringing the Communist troops back to their starting points with very heavy losses. HG Mitte is now more than ever in control of the situation."
So much so that the situation seems to be given more importance in the news bulletins these days than the events taking place in Provence...

Operation Kutusov
Mozyr sector - The 64th Army returned to its wait-and-see attitude on the banks of the Pripyat River and in front of Mozyr, hoping that Suvorov would open the way for an unlikely breakthrough.
A few attempts towards Leltchytsy, towards the west and along the marshes, do not lead to anything interesting. As for the 8th Guards Army, it always delays, until its right flank is secured by its comrades. The situation of these two formations, isolated from the bulk of the 3rd Ukrainian Front while their colleagues are moving south - says a lot about Vatutin's interest in this sector. The 8th Guards will probably soon be relieved by one of the armies that left Korosten, to redeploy to Yemiltchyne with the rest of its Front...
As for the 64th Army, weakened and positioned in a sector of no interest, it is already certain that Vatutin will generously entrust it to Malinovsky!
.........
Korosten sector - The Luftwaffe takes advantage of this grey day to catch its breath.
In a certain tranquillity, Malinovsky and Vatutin can finally consider putting some order in the chaos of their formations...
As for the 3rd Ukrainian Front, the 2nd Guards Armored Corps (P.S. Rybalko) and the 4th GAC Malin (S.I. Bogdanov) continue westward, in order to overrun Yemiltchyne. Covered by the air force, the armored vanguards do not try to secure the road to Olevsk, which is part of the 3rd Belorussian Front. In the absence of an opponent, the T-34 cross the Kremne - a tributary of the Zherev river, which is not an obstacle in this season... In the evening, they are already in Leonivka, with on their heels the 5th Army (M.I. Potapov), which is working hard to catch up.
Meanwhile, the 44th and 60th Armies of the 3rd Belarussian Front, slower but also more confident, move up towards Olevsk via Butchmany and Stari Novaky. The men will camp there in the evening, exhausted and after having had to reduce some delaying elements.
The joys of the infantry!
.........
Horshchyk sector - In this zone which lost any strategic value with the evacuation of Korosten by the Germans, a relative calm has returned - everyone is reorganizing and the gloomy weather does not help to motivate the troops... Even the VVS, who have given up offensive operations for the time being, to be satisfied to cover the troops on the ground and to repair damaged aircraft.
For lack of an opponent - and even of available fighters, the 4th Shock Army, exhausted, dispersed and anaemic by the past efforts, advances only 10 km in the direction of Rudnya-Mykolaivka. So it takes Omelusha - but for the rest, comrades, we will have to wait a little. To ensure the link between Maslennikov's 4th Shock and Chuikov's 37th, the 11th Armored Corps advances a little further west, despite a terrain not too favorable to mechanized progression - it will be a long time before Alexeiev's formation can come back to a level compatible with offensive activity and can claim to do better.
As for the 50th Army, now that the respective responsibilities of the 3rd Belorussian Front and the 3rd Ukrainian Front have been clarified, it immediately moves northward to its assigned sector. It will find the 19th Armored Corps, which remained on the spot after the very hard exchanges on the road to Korosten, and which will have to assist it in its future effort towards Olevsk and Sarny.
.........
Barashi sector - Vasily Chuikov now plans to be the first general to reach the first line of objectives defined by the Stavka by seizing Yemiltchyne - against all odds, it must be said! However, by trumpeting its ambitions too much, the 37th Army also runs the risk of disappointing - it must therefore move forward as quickly as quickly as possible, taking advantage of the supposed rout of the opponent who evacuated Korosten and without worrying much about its flanks.
This is hoping for a little too much wait-and-see attitude from the Germans. At Horbove, as they approach the new positions of the LV. ArmeeKorps, Chuikov's men are hit by a violent hook from the XLVII. PanzerKorps, which falls back to the south in order to ensure the link - in favorable terrain - between the 3. PanzerArmee and the 6. Armee. The 37th Army is absolutely no match for this opponent - even weakened, the panzers ruthlessly clear the approaches to Yemiltchyne before heading towards Zubkovychi, following the road to Olevsk. Chuikov, his men pushed back to their starting positions, can only pick up the pieces: the breakthrough is definitely not going to happen soon.
.........
Novohrad-Volynskyi sector - Another day of carnage in the city, where the situation seems to be frozen. For lack of perspective, and in the absence of any available reinforcements on its flanks, Ivan Chernyakovsky had to crush the German defense meter by meter. Finally deployed, the Russian artillery crushes under the shells the disputed area, which is not even 8 km²!
Then, supported by some tanks provided by the 5th Armored Corps of the Guard, the infantrymen go up to the assault of the ruins, are rejected, come back... Once again, the Red Army nibbles away at the ground, forcing its opponent into a battle of attrition which costs both sides dearly. Certainly, the Soviets pay the highest price, but what does it matter: for each combatant who falls, another one takes his place...

Occupied Ukraine - Now that the Red Army has launched the offensive to liberate the whole Ukraine and the fascist enemy is multiplying efforts to prevent it - in pure loss, it is the duty of every communist to do everything possible to facilitate the attack of the frontovikis. The problem, unfortunately, is that Ukraine is not Belarus! Besides the small... residues of reactionary nationalism well known to all, the forces of Dimitri Medvedev have never reached the efficiency of those of Panteleimon Ponomarenko's - to the point that some bad tongues in Moscow are saying that the leader of the Ukrainian partisans overestimates the importance of his action in his reports...
Is it his fault, he could answer, if his sector is occupied by the largest German armies? Nevertheless, Medvedev must agree that something must be done for the honor of the Ukrainian CP. But not against the fascist lines in the north of Ukraine, which is definitely too well defended... Fortunately, there are better targets!
According to the instructions of the Stavka - which, lately, look more like orders - the detachment of Colonel Sydir Kovpak launches a series of attacks on the rear of the 2. PanzerArmee, causing chaos in its supplies, routing the Schuma auxiliaries and even assaulting the depots or prison camps held by the 7th Hungarian Army Corps. Here, the terrain is more favorable to guerrilla warfare than on the plain - and Kovpak is used to guerrilla warfare, as he had already fought the Germans in 1918, before he came up against Vasily Chapayev's Whites. The former governor of Poutvyl is resourceful, no wonder he was called back for this mission.
These actions will significantly reduce the effectiveness of the 2. PanzerArmee (von Arnim) and will enrage the German command, which will go so far as to propose to Hitler the use of combat gas to get rid of this vermin... Proposal rejected - in the meantime, it will be necessary to do with other, more classical means.

In a Soviet plane on the way to Kiev - Alone in the passenger cabin of his Lisunov Li-2, Georgy Zhukov makes an umpteenth trip to Kiev before having to return to Moscow to deal with a most unpleasant matter - although it is also related to future operations. The Marshal is worried. And when he is worried, he becomes touchy, even downright nervous - a way of hiding a surprisingly developed emotionality, which could even lead him to burst into tears if the circumstances were dramatic enough.
Fortunately, it never came to that. But while he does everything for Russia, here with Suvorov and Kutusov, his star seems to start fading. Stalin has been clear, these last days: he is not at all happy with the way things are going in Belarus or in Ukraine. Konev is blocked in Jlobin, the whole 1st Belorussian Front is stuck in Talatchyn and Vatutin and Malinovsky have both just been caught with their feet in the carpet in Korosten, like kids too eager to eat their muraveïnik!
These two will have to work twice as hard to catch up and do at least as well as in Belarus, if it is still possible...
And of all this, it is him alone, Zhukov, who is considered as the main responsible! The burden of the chief... except that it is not him who asked for the start of Suvorov and Kutousov! We already start to talk about his failure, forgetting everything that has been done since Uranus, Molot, Saturn! Not to mention all that has been done for two years, or even three years - one only has to think of the state in which he found the Red Army when he arrived. If the fascists had attacked earlier, who can say where they would be
today...
But all this does not matter. Everyone is now on the line, attracted by the smell of blood, licking their lips at the mere idea of taking his place - even if it means suppressing the Stavka envoys, whose role is so indispensable! There is Vatutin, the favorite, of course...
But also that fool Kliment Voroshilov, who is only waiting for an opportunity to come back to make a mess... Or Ivan Konev, with teeth so long that they scratch the floor - although he has at least has the good taste to obey.
In short, it is necessary to react and to do it quickly - so that Rumyantsev is a complete success and that everyone falls in line. Wait, gentlemen, the Fascists have not seen everything - and Moscow either! The twin-engine plane sinks into the clouds that cover the Ukrainian capital...

Romania-Bulgaria
Casa Sfatului, Brasov (Romania), 17:30 - General Arthur Kleffel is pleased to announce to his chief, Reinhardt, that the Bulgarian coast is under his control and defended against any risk of a Soviet landing. The latter, more than relieved, hastens to communicate the information to List, who will not fail to pass it on.
On the other hand, no one will see fit to inform the Romanians, who continue in a panic to mobilize new forces to defend the southern border of the country. Among them, the river monitors NMS Mihail Kogălniceanu, Alexandru Lahovari, Ion C. Brătianu and Lascăr Catargiu are currently deploying near the main crossing points of the Danube!

 

[Wings]

September 10th, 1943

Italian campaign
Italian Front - In the II US Corps sector, TF Bender falls back to the rear of the front; it will soon be disbanded. It is replaced at the front by the 168th Infantry Regiment of the Red Bull (34th US ID), which reaches Massa e Cozzile but does not push further.
While the 140th Infantry Regiment of the 47th Bari Division clears the hills north of Serravalle Pistoiese, the 139th Infantry Regiment reaches the plain and takes Route 9, which leads to Pistoia, without much opposition. The 20th Friuli DI also cleans its sector, west of Prato, which the Folgore completes to secure. Reconnaissance elements of the 88th RI reach Agliana.
The Cuneense moves north along Route 8 and reaches the summit of Monte Morello, which dominates Florence at more than 900 meters. The landsers of the 356. ID have entrenched themselves further north, but did not leave the mountain in question untouched by mines.
In the sector of the French IVth Corps, the 83rd DIA spends the day in cleaning activities and patrols to feel the German position. The 6th BMLE returns to reserve and reorganizes itself, while the 4th Belgian ID and the 86th DIA enjoy a well earned rest.
Despite the calming down of the ground fighting, some clashes continue in the air.
Captain Georges Blanck, of the GC II/3 who had been joined by Captain Thollon a few days earlier in the ranking of French aces on the Italian front, takes the lead by scoring a double. He scores 12 victories.

Greek campaign
Operation Apprentice/Presage
Albania and Yugoslavia - In addition to the now traditional raids on road junctions, air activity is marked by the strafing of communication routes and the bombing of railway stations. Civil engineering structures and other roads are deliberately spared - it is hoped that they will soon be used.
On the road to Tepelen, the 100. Jaeger and its armored sidekick are subjected to the relentless presence of Allied aircraft. It loses several dozen men, while three of the precious machines of the 907. StuG Abt are destroyed.

Operation Presage
The Poles' ride
Southern Albania - Maczek's SAV-42s are the first to arrive in Tepelen in the middle of the afternoon. This town, located at the confluence of two rivers winding through the valley is an obligatory crossing point to the coast. It is also an important road junction, which commands the future axis of progression of the Poles... as well as that of the Czechs, who waited a few kilometers behind.
The Germans are perfectly aware of the strategic nature of the location, but also of the fact that they do not have the means to defend it. The Allied soldiers who take the city note that the bridges serving the city have been blown up and that a block is in the process of forming on the north bank from various elements. Even if the few militiamen who are defending it scatter after a sustained exchange of fire, all this makes the Poles lose the end of the day. Durrës is still far away! And behind, the second wave of Presage is scattered as far as Lazarat, i.e. over a distance of almost 20 kilometers.
A little further north, the remains of the 164. ID and the survivors of the 11. LFD finally reach Permët. No time to breathe for these unfortunate men, who reach Kelcÿre in the night, just in time to escape again from the Poles, who are less than 10 kilometers away!
.........
The infiltration of the Spahis
Road to Korcë - Colonel Roux's Spahis come into contact with the first elements of the 162. ID, near the village of Leskovik. The Germans (and their ex-Soviet auxiliaries) are deployed on wooded heights. General Oskar von Niedermayer deployed his regiments along the road leading north, leaving the guarding of his right flank to the Osttruppen, who therefore defend a valley a little to the west, overlooked by the village of Vrepcke. This was an obvious choice, given the limited resources at their disposal - there is almost 250 meters of unevenness before arriving at this mediocre village! An easy position to hold, even for the sovieted Asians.
The French are not in a hurry: their main objective is already reached, by their mere presence, and their units are still on their way. The adversary is gauged, reconnaissance is sent... but nothing more, for the moment. However, the presence of soldiers who seem to have very little motivation does not escape the Tunisians.
.........
Tirana - During the night, Hellmuth Felmy learns of the fall of Tepelen from the breathless mouth of Carl-Hans Lungerhausen, who continues to retreat north with his men. Obviously, the south of Albania is lost: could it be otherwise? The port of Vlöre will fall into the hands of the Allies, but its small capacity and isolated location will not be of much use to Montgomery. There is no point in fighting for it.
Felmy has another plan. If these damned roads are so narrow and full of partisans that they are an obstacle for the Jägers, why do it to ourselves? Let the allied soldiers come to us. They have time to enjoy the Albanian infrastructure in the mountains, not to mention the inter-clan conflicts that should not be long in coming - it is even surprising that the that the various movements are not already killing each other.
The leader of the LXVIII. Armee-Korps therefore orders the 100 Jäger to defend the nearest road junction to its position, preferably at the end of a plain in order to prevent an encirclement. It will be Kuçovë, answers Willibald Utz. Felmy has no objection.
As soon as he hangs up the phone, he calls the 12. Armee, to know where the famous reinforcements that Löhr had to find for him are. Not being able to obtain a satisfactory answer, he simply informs his hierarchy that "without significant reinforcements, there can be no question of holding Tirana or Durrës". This, however, without perceptible annoyance: Felmy has long since mourned the loss of real support. But by doing so, he prepares his leaders for an inevitable retreat and the idea of destroying the installations coveted by the Allies. As for him, nothing would please him more than to leave this damn country.
.........
Kosovo - Anxious not to leave the spotlight on Tito's Partisans, the Balli Kombëtar launches strong attacks from their strongholds in Kosovska Mitrovica, Drenica and Tetovo. The "Republicans" (a term that does not really represent their opinions) confront the Germans...and the Serbs, who react one and the other other with brutality.
The Muslim minority of Serbia, already well discredited by the attitude of the Albanian ballists, is asked by all to keep quiet. However, this insurrection will not be forgotten by the Yugoslavs - communists or royalists.

Siege of Salonika
Salonika (northern sector) - The Australians note that the village of Polichni has been evacuated during the night by Müller's Jägers. As foreseen by the latter, and very logically, the ANZAC takes a break: the day is devoted to refueling and reorganizing the troops.
.........
Salonika (southern sector) - After Pylaia, the British resume their advance along the gulf, covered by an artillery that now has very good observers well positioned on the heights. But the latter does not see anything worthy of bombing.
Kalamaria is also evacuated during the night.
The Tommies arrive smoothly at the point of Kivernio, from where they have a magnificent view of the harbor. On the other side of the beach, they can see the silhouette of the White Tower, an ancient Byzantine fortification of the city. So far away and so close at the same time, among the seagulls that fly over the waves and enjoy the meals that the war provides for free.
.........
Thessaloniki (center) - Ludwig Müller is afraid that the Australians might attack Stravroupoli while leaving the southern front to take Agio Pavlos? Its disproportionately stretched might well be cut in two! The general takes again a logical decision: he shortens his lines and chooses to abandon the western flank of the city, where nothing much has happened for a week. Evosmos was evacuated during the night. As well as the northern part of Stravroupoli, for good measure. The Jägers are starting to run out of blood and prefer to exchange space for time.
The summer evening is disturbed by a powerful explosion: the main station of the marshalling yard has been blown up. Then the water silos are overturned and the rails are twisted and thrown into drainage ditches. The railway network of Thessaloniki is not ready to function.
But if destroying is easy, it is less convenient to create - especially food. And in this case, the German reserves are dangerously low. As a professional capable of anticipating, and perhaps anxious to prove his usefulness to his superior once again, Colonel Müller launches a new raid in the city center, a raid that would last two days. These Greek civilians are so well fed! They must be hiding something. Rather than wasting their time searching, the men of KG Müller prefer to force by all means the inhabitants to reveal to them the hiding places of their provisions. Beatings, rapes and mutilations follow one another, under the eyes of the Greek policemen who serve as translators - curiously, the Greeks of theKampfgruppe seem to be reluctant to do this job. The "peacekeepers" try to persuade the prisoners to speak quickly to shorten their ordeal, but many of them seem to disappear under their red Phoenix caps, their eyes dark and their jaws tight, waiting for their moment...

Bulgarian affair
Nis - The 93. schwere Panzerjäger abteilung arrives from Germany by train, as Alexander Löhr has promised General Fehn already more than two weeks ago. A long journey, which could have been shortened if not for the damned bombings and the damned Partisans. Finally, the unit is complete, that's something. And in the meantime, the situation has changed - the XXII. Gebirgs-AK will have to wait a little longer. On the direct order of the staff of the 12. Armee, the unit was diverted to Bulgaria, to join the 1. PanzerDivision and to contribute to the crushing of the Bulgarian revolt.
.........
Arnissa area (I Corps sector) - The 2. Panzer Rgt is moving as fast as possible to join the Gebirgsjägers of Lanz - the unit reaches Bitola. But the tanks will not be arriving before tomorrow on the banks of the lake where the Bulgarians and the German mountain men are facing each other. However, these former allies of the Reich must be able to see its power for themselves!
The leader of the 1. Gebirgs-Division thinks, stroking his impeccably shaved chin. This cannot be achieved by force, it can be achieved by cunning. What if the Bulgarians went to the panzers? After warning Oberst Gustav Feller by radio, he returns to Maj. Nikolov with a smile of goodwill on his face. He announces to him that he has received the order to accompany the Bulgarian divisions to the border, passing by the road to Bitola, obviously. The 92. Grenadier Rgt, the 2. Brandenburger Rgt and the 187. ID can well assume control of the Aspalos Pass, while waiting for the arrival of other units from distant lands.
The two generals leave together, at the head of a very stretched column. Nikolov will be able to easily admire the spectacle that the Panzerwaffe reserves to his troops. On their heels, the 2. Brandenburger Rgt will leave the camp later in the night, and especially in discretion.
.........
Occupied Macedonia - While their colleagues of the 2. Pzr Rgt are preparing to make some representation, the 1. Panzer Rgt and its retinue move up towards Kumanovo, on the border between Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Further south, the 19. PanzerGrenadier is also approaching the city. The two main armored units in the theater will soon be reunited.
.........
Varna and surroundings (3rd Army), 04:25 - The night is quiet at the entrance of the military basin, while the soldiers on guard are pacing in the coolness - or dozing at their posts. A rumbling engine suddenly attracts attention, breaking the silence. Two Sdkfz 251 motorized vehicles appear in front of the gates of the Varna harbor, pretending to maneuver... and aim their machine guns at the guards, while a column of trucks arrives at full speed and unloads infantrymen who rush forward. The Germans rush to the Admiralty and, in less than thirty minutes, seize the telephone exchange and capture Major-General Nikola Hristov in his bed.
05:15 - When the alert is finally given, the arsenal is under control and automatic weapons are in battery at all the crossroads. The two divisions, badly awakened, are caught at the throat by three units in battle order. Wisely, the Bulgarian officers prefer to negotiate their surrender. The Germans seize all the weapons and vehicles. They also seize the small Bulgarian fleet, which did not have time to set sail.
Only two of the most recent small torpedo boats, moored in the harbor, were able to escape. One is interned in Turkey. The other one manages to reach Sevastopol, where it will be received by the Soviets with great joy*.
19:30 - The situation is considered sufficiently under control for General Kleffel to send a column of the 72. ID in trucks to Burgas.
.........
Sofia and surroundings (1st Army) - After having rightly wondered about the possibility of a German intervention from Macedonia, the Bulgarian high command realizes that the threat will certainly come from the south more than from the north. The poor Trifonov seems to be unable to stop the Germans, without even mentioning the felons of the 2nd Army... The 4th Army is again called upon to fill the gaps.
........
Pleven and surroundings (4th Army) - Major-General Atanasov Stefanov would have bet: he is asked for a new division! And speaking of predictions... the omens as to the future of the rebellion seem to him less and less favorable. After a moment of silence, he says to his staff, in a strangely cheerful tone: "Come on, gentlemen, prepare the orders for the 6th ID to to move to Ihtiman! Let us be faithful to the Regent and let's have confidence in our government. And then... if ever the circumstances forced us, we would be well placed to break through with the 6th and the 9th ID towards the allied lines". The ideas transmitted by the airwaves awakened Stefanov's ambitions.
.........
Plovdiv and surroundings (2nd Army) - The German high command is positively delighted with the choice of Stoychev. And to reward him for his totally disinterested loyalty, the Chief of Staff of the 12. Armee, Hermann Foertsch, has already a mission for him: to pass in Thrace to take the place of Trifonov's 2nd Occupation Corps, which is decidedly to reason with. Once there, it will be up to him to sort out the wheat from the chaff and to disarm the rebel units.
Stammering a few excuses that German officers have become accustomed to, the major-general defers the departure until tomorrow, the time to organize his troops. The man could already see himself marching on Sofia to become Prime Minister and head of the armies, leading all Bulgaria. But the Germans do not want to start a civil war by aligning in such a delicate context loyalist Bulgarian troops against their auxiliaries - or to test the loyalty of Stoychev's divisions to their leader. Better to send the 2nd Army in Thrace, that should help to decant an elusive situation.
.........
Lake Koronia area (annexed Thrace, 2nd Occupation Corps) - Replacing the 7th ID which is now heading north, the 28th ID extends its front towards the south and detaches a regiment to Gerakarou, which the 7th ID has abandoned. Some conscripts are not very enthusiastic - even downright defeatist - and are now facing the allied lines. Not surprisingly, the desertions multiply, to the great scandal of the Thracians of the 16th ID.
In the evening, a drama occurs: sentries "of the White Sea" shoot three recruits who were perhaps trying to disappear under the cover of night. Questioned about these deaths, Colonel Velchev, of the 16th ID, violently takes his counterpart - and superior - General Stanimir Khristov Grnev, of the 28th ID, to task. Major-General Trifon Yordanov Trifonov, forced to intervene, does so awkwardly, demanding exemplary sanctions and a court-martial for the wrongdoers. Colonel Velchev salutes, then clicks his heels before disappearing towards his camp, without a word. As for Grnev, he thinks he guesses in the words of his chief of understanding, or even weakness.
A new agitated night begins for the 2nd Occupation Corps - and for its leader.

Ankara/London - Foreign Minister Bagrianov has provided the British a maximum of information on the situation in his country. Or at least, that which his colleague, War Minister Zlatev, was willing to pass on to him. Entrusted to the good care of Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, who for once did not keep them in his office, they arrive at the Foreign Office at 19:00 by encrypted cable. The time to decode them, it is 23:00 and they are already obsolete. A detail, when one observes the overwhelmed air of Anthony Eden at the reading of his documents.
Holding out the typed sheets with a courteous but disillusioned gesture to his chief of staff, he comments soberly: "The Prime Minister will want us to help them by sending a few RAF squadrons. Yet sending planes to Bulgaria today would be even worse than sending them to France in July 1940!" His collaborator can only agree with him. Moreover, he knows that Eden does not appreciate the Bulgarians since they refused to send "their" Jews to Palestine, as had been proposed to them. It is therefore, once again, a very pessimistic report that is transmitted to the French, American and Soviet governments (even though the latter was already very much aware...).
.........
On the airwaves - The situation is bad enough that, this evening, Radio Neue Europa does not mention the situation in Bulgaria. It prefers to describe in great detail the defensive prodigies of the Südwall, whose defenders are going to throw the African and American invaders into the sea from one minute to the next.

Mediterranean Theater
Alexandria Naval Base - After saluting the honor guard presenting arms on the quay and wishing his successor, General Henry Maitland Wilson, good luck, General Sir Claude Auchinleck (CB GCIE CSI DSO OBE), former commander-in-chief of Middle East Command, boards the destroyer that is to take him back to England.
It is with a sense of accomplishment, after more than two years at his post, that Auchinleck has just handed over to Wilson. He has just been recalled to England where, according to Alan Brooke's cryptic telegram, "new responsibilities" await him, in "future operations".

* In 1945, Stalin returned it with great pomp to the Democratic Republic of Bulgaria. This ship, of Dutch origin, will have traveled a lot but fought very little.

 

[Wings]

September 10th, 1943

At sea - After the S-boot attacks of the previous night, the ships of the screen are on their guard. There are still a few minutes before sunrise when a hydrophone operator picks up the sound of propellers. Immediately, a pack of destroyers converged on the suspect zone, soon supported by Swordfish which have taken off at dawn. The intruder is quickly spotted by sonar and the depth charging begins. Surrounded, the U-223 has no chance.
Severely damaged, it is forced to surface; about fifteen men of its crew can evacuate it before it sinks by the stern.

Liberation - In the Rhone delta, with the help of naval artillery and their Buffalos, the 3rd Rangers and the commandos of the 1st SSF overtake the pond of Beauduc. The pond of Galabert is now bordered on three sides by the commandos and the 1st and 3rd Rangers Btn. The 4th Rangers and the rest of the 1st SSF had now reached the banks of the Vaccarès pond, but progress was difficult in the face of the grenadiers of the 759. Rgt, who were clinging to the banks of the numerous small bodies of water that the locals call "baisses", where dense vegetation favors the defenders. But it is in the sector of the 7th IDU that the progression is the clearest the 32nd RCT seizes the crossroads of the D37 and D36, while the 53rd RCT finishes crossing the Rhône.

Südwall - Entering the Vaucluse, the 2. SS Panzer splits into two Kampfgruppes, KG Tychsen and KG Lammerding: it has only arrived from the Eastern Front two weeks earlier and its small size does not allow it to do more. The new heavy tank battalion is not even fully manned, while the Flak Artillery abt and the Aufklärung abt still only have the strength and equipment of one company each and must remain attached to the general staff. In addition, the officers lacked experience due to a delicate reorganization after Zitadelle, some battalion commanders were transferred to the I. SS Panzerkorps and their successors had only commanded companies a few weeks earlier.
It took the division one day (or rather one night) to cross the Vaucluse. All along the way, it is bombed by the Allied air force and ambushed by the Resistance.
It retaliates against... civilians, leaving behind a trail of blood: Mornas, 11 civilians executed in retaliation for an ambush, Piolenc, an old man shot, Orange, 32 maquisards (or supposed to be) executed in a barn, Courthézon, 9 civilians massacred, Jonquières, 10 killed, Bédarrides, 14 dead, Sarrians, 12 civilians shot, including the mayor and the priest... The list goes on and on through many localities, not to mention the isolated farms wiped out by the barbarians in black uniform. Obergruppenführer Krüger gave strict orders to "secure the rear", he will have to answer for it later.
The 2. SS Panzer must now show what it can do against armed opponents.
In view of the losses on the Eastern Front, which have not yet been made good, the breakthrough effort will rest on the Panzergrenadiers. Supported by Sturmgeschutz, they will have to support the Panzers, who would take advantage of the flat terrain, fields and vineyards, to attack the enemy's rear and destroy the artillery and supply lines. A vigorous attack of the rest of the SS Panzerkorps could then push the Allies back to the sea without too much trouble.
KG Tychsen goes into action as soon as it arrives east of Avignon. Taking advantage of the fact that KG Hauck, of the 1. SS Panzer, fixes the CCA of the 2nd US-AD, he attacks in the sector of Saint-Saturnin-lès-Avignon, at the junction between the 18th RCT of the 1st US-ID and the 2nd US-AD, and he succeeds in breaking through. At the end of the morning, the hole is made : there was nothing left to oppose the resumption of the passage over the Durance river at Châteaurenard, through which the majority of the supplies to the first American lines pass.
Nothing? This is not correct - the situation is not the same as in May 1940... Lacking elements and reconnaissance aircraft, the Germans did not see the Tancrémont armoured Brigade and the 1st and 7th Ardennes Rgt, sent to plug the hole to answer the Americans' calls for help. With their help, the Rock of the Marne division holds the passage of the Durance while in the north, the Big Red One recovers and holds on to the edge of the German breakthrough, preventing the grenadiers from widening the passage.
In the afternoon, the situation is reversed and the position of KG Tychsen becomes critical, especially since the 2nd US-AD and the 6th Artillery Group redeploy part of their armor and tubes, transforming the breakthrough towards Châteaurenard into a death trap. It is necessary to give up: the Panzergrenadiers are blocked and many tanks of the Panzer Rgt are destroyed. The allied Jabos have a field day in the absence of any serious opposition from the Luftwaffe and even the Flak. Art. abt. Standartenführer Tychsen himself is killed in his command car - depending on the source, by an American P-47, by a French Mustang IC or a Belgian armored vehicle on reconnaissance. The survivors of his Kampfgruppe owe their salvation only to a single road kept open by three Tiger of the 101. SS Schw Pz abt which hold in respect the tanks of the 2nd US-AD.
In the rest of the sector, the situation does not evolve. The combination of aviation and artillery prevents the whole I. SS Panzerkorps to progress: in spite of the blows of the KG Peiper, the CCB of the 2nd US-AD, supported by the paratroopers of the 507th PIR and by the Brauer Brigade of the 1st DB, bends but does not break. On the other hand, KG Meyer stops the offensive of the Malaguti Brigade thanks to the timely arrival of KG Lammerding.

Liberation - While the 14th Infantry Division is leaving Marseille and regrouping in the Apt sector, the 4th RSM reaches Simiane-la-Rotonde, at the foot of the Albion plateau, and the 21st Zouaves, after overcoming fairly weak opposition, liberates Banon. The Touzier du Vigier Brigade, of the 3rd DB, is able to break through to Revest du Bion, in the center of the plateau.
In the same way, in the valley of the Durance, the 6th RTS reaches Sisteron, allowing the Rabanit Brigade to enter the Méouge gorges. In this sector, the Germans, due to a lack of troops, simply block the road at several points, but the Resistance is clear: the gorges and its outlets in the Drôme Provençale are completely undefended. Not far away, while the Senegalese riflemen are still fighting around Sisteron against a weak German resistance, the 3rd RTM, liberates by the arrival of the 10th DI coming from Toulon, joins its division south of Château-Arnoux and moves towards Digne.
In the Var, the rise in line of the 10th DI puts pressure on the 148. ID, which is now facing two French divisions and their support. In the north of the device, the 15th DBLE seizes Moustiers Sainte-Marie, east of the Valensole plateau, while a little to the south, the situation becomes untenable for the 281. Gr Rgt, which retreat from Aups. The fighting rages all day in Draguignan and there it is the 285. Gr Rgt which is forced to retreat. Only the 286. Gr Rgt, which holds the 4th BMLE in check at the lock of Roquebrune sur Argens, closer to the coast.
On its side, the 919. IR of the 242. ID does what it can in Sainte-Maxime against the skirmishers of the 4th RTS.
In the Maures massif, the 14th DBLE continues its advance between ambushes and mined areas. It has now passed the Plan de la Tour and the D25, which leads to Draguignan.
Finally, on the beaches of Hyères, the 4th DMM finishes landing. It has to move as quickly as possible towards the Basses Alpes.

On the field
Provence - Quiet night, except for a concert of barking which made us fear the return of the Germans. It was just a jerk who was rudely awakened by a sergeant and two guys on night patrol. No need to make such a fuss! Fortunately, it was only around midnight, that left time to fall asleep again. Apart from the dog episode, Martinez did not notice anything worthwhile: perhaps, towards the east, a brief glow that could be attributed to a distant storm as to a more military cause, but just as distant.
In the morning, finally something new! Change of direction, heading north! Pass the Asse, go up towards Château-Arnoux, that the buddies have just crossed, to join the armoured tanks that we would find towards Sisteron, and then, rush towards the next prefecture: Gap!
On the way, we come across one or more abandoned German vehicles. Here, civilians framed by two gendarmes in their forties are busy giving a burial to the occupants of a burnt-out car on the side of the road. In this case, it was obvious that the Armee de l'Air had had its say. There, a vehicle is at a standstill, doors open, empty and clean. Not a window broken, or even cracked. Dry tank, no doubt. We take various odds and ends, but the harvest was meager. More annoyingly, we were about to experience the same problems as them. Jeeps, scout-cars, half-tracks and trucks were thirsty, and their supply did not follow at best. It's because there was a lot of rolling stock was circulating quite a bit! We were even forced to stop to let another unit pass! We had to face the fact that we would not be able to ride any longer.
.........
Sisteron - The town is paving the way to forget recent unfortunate incidents, but the company settles a little further north. The captain blows the whistle and goes to the news. The radio has its fumes. Trying to escape the varying degrees of traffic congestion, the couriers are lost in search of their addressees, spread out between the Verdon and the Durance. It is through one of these messengers that the captain learned of the death of his classard.
It was terrible news, which he could hardly believe. Of course, there were already losses. It was inevitable! But Laville! That joker! That evening, he resolved to write to his parents in Oran. But the words did not come, and other things were taking up his mind.
By scraping the bottom of the tank, a small group of fifteen machines could still make about twenty or thirty kilometers further. It is going out of the maps, and out of the department. That isn't the most problematic. De Fresnay questioned his sergeants, failing to consult with his peers or confer with the commander.
.........
- Here you are! Santini! How about that! It's good to see that the Krauts missed you!
- Well shit ! Marchevent! What are you doing here? I thought you were... well... elsewhere?
- What do you think? That the radio, it happens like that? (He snapped his fingers.) It's because we can't keep in touch as we should. It's because we need time! So, you see, we're installing a telephone exchange. It's not much of a change from what I was doing before. If you're patient, you'll soon be able to talk to your shepherdess.
- Well, that...
- If she works in a Staff, or in Health, eh. For the Corsica in PCV, you'll have to have to wait. Try the carrier pigeons.
- Also... Tell me, are you going to have five minutes?
- I can't even get two of my own. Did you put something together again?
- No, I was just having a quiet smoke.
- Oh! Santini! Corporal!
- Damn it! You'll see they put me on guard duty!... Look... If it happens... Just in case, you can find me over there, you know? Behind the tanks, there. I'm coming, sergeant! There's no fire! See you later!
- That's it! I'll try! But I promise nothing!
.........
- Sergeant?
- Hey, do you have flat feet? Well... Jacob and I have a mission of trust. But we need need two or three resourceful guys ...They're starting to move.
- We go on patrol? Reconnaissance?
- Don't worry about it. No. We were thinking, you know, we might be a couple of cans short of gasoline... The captain is going around in circles, especially since he learned that one of his buddies got an earful two or three days ago, and this story of gasoline works on him...
- One of his buddies ? Which one? The brother of his girlfriend ? The handsome guy ?
- Don't worry about it. Do you understand what we want ?
- To get fuel? Hmm... No need to be fifty! If it's you and Jacob... the Chakir, and that should be enough. But how do you see it?
- Come on, let's go find Jeremy. If you could talk to the walls and know everyone, you wouldn't know any of the I/7 hunters?
- It would be a real blessing if he were here!
- You understand, we need someone to go scouting. That's why we thought of you...
- Nice of you to send me to the rescue! What's in it for me?
- My recognition...
- You can sit on it!
Jacob is there, waiting for them at the foot of one of the trucks.
- Shouldn't you have been more tangible?
- You want us to... forget about you?
- No...
- You want money?
- To do what? We're in the middle of a hick town, there's not a bar open a hundred leagues, and don't talk to me about a slap! No, I want... memories.
- Some...?
- You got it, sergeant. Here, the belt that you "found" the other day...
- Ha! (Mouth, sideways glance at Jacob.) Well... Okay. It costs nothing... We'll close our eyes. Okay, Jeremy?
- It's fine with me.
- Well, let's say I'm on a mission. Give me an hour...
- An hour? They're right there!
- Hey, ho! Are you going or am I? But I just thought of something...
- Something?
- You'll see... Hunters, it's going to be hard... But... You're giving me a free time?
- What do you think?
- I have an idea, here... But the less you know, eh? I'll be back soon... Do you have the cans?
- Are you kidding us?
Santini was not absent for an hour, only for half an hour, a variable period of time depending on whether one is acting or waiting. Not that our two sergeants had the opportunity to muse. The corporal found them both busy explaining to a delighted El Mardi the arcana of automobile driving. The theoretical course was suspended again.
- What do you think?
- Well... I need money...
- Money? And your pay?
- That's the thing... I'd like to share the risk, you know .... If you give me a little something each, it might help my finances. Besides, it's your idea, right? And I'm the one who's going to the dogs, aren't I?
- Stop it, you'll make us cry. Come here, I'll see what we can do. And you're going to tell us a little more, that would be nice...
.........
- I'll add that...
- Listen, Santini... If we get caught...
- Stop it! There must be fifty guys on guard here! Do you know where Fritz is? At least forty kilometers from here! Are you afraid that your trucks will evaporate? You see guys coming to chase your wires? Or your phones? Who? The local yokels? To bigophone the cattle? Say rather that you don't have a penny to follow ! We play however only a cent a point!
- That's right, corporal! The corporal is right! And then, technically, we're on duty, aren't we? It's not like we're in a barracks, is it?
- There, Pacelli understood! We're already bored...
- You bet that one Corsican will contradict another! I wonder if you're not in cahoots!
- Be careful what you say, Marchevent! I didn't think you were like that!
- It's that he couldn't find his wife, that's why... It itches, and it goes to his head!
- It's true that he's full of it! I am... Eh? Didn't you hear a noise?
- Hey, Courdeau, if you start too...
- I swear... I heard something... As if someone was knocking...
- You have voices! You have to be treated! It's a beast! There are lots of bugs here at night! Or you heard a metal sheet slamming. It happens... If it's a soldier, he won't ring the bell before showing up! And the soldiers, we know where they are!
- I think that what they heard was the sound of their money in our pockets! Here, look at this one, it's good!
- Damn! You've got to be kidding me! How do you do it? It's not possible to have luck like that!
- Well, at least, console yourself! You won't be able to say that you have the luck of a cuckold!
During this time, Jacob swore in a low voice. Bloody bogus! But nothing happened on the side of the tent, except for the occasional burst of voices. He passes the hose to his neighbor. Everyone has his turn to eat gasoline! A sound of footsteps startles him, but it is only El Mardi who is coming back, with a single empty container. The harvest would be meager, but it would still be taken! Also, if the tanks had been parked in the corner! There was room, wasn't there? Instead of going to put them near the station! That's an idea! Well, in the meantime... The car, the last truck... What if Santini won ? Hum... there was a chance, knowing the guy. You'd have to remind him that we also shared the winnings !

Südwall - In Orange, at nightfall, it's time for recriminations. Furious, Obergruppenführer Krüger reproaches his Luftwaffe liaison officer and the Geschwaderkommodore of the JG2, Oberst Walter Œsau, the total absence of air cover over the front. In his eyes, the Richthofen is responsible for the failure of the counter-attack of the I. SS PzK; the protests of the airmen invoking the lack of consultation with the Heer and above all the Allied air superiority do not help, especially when the SS had seen their undefeated Tiger so proud on the Russian front being hunted like pheasants by the Allied planes...and tanks.

Toulon Arsenal - After a quick tour of the arsenal on the evening of the 6th, lieutenant Lemaire, escorted by some marines, undertakes a more complete inspection the next morning. His observations are recorded in the report he sent that day to the EMG.
"At the Milhaud wharves, the burned wrecks of the cargo ships Aveyron (wharf 6 East) and Lézardrieux (AD 205, pier 1 West), victims of the Luftwaffe during the Grand Demenagement, were not refloated by the occupying forces. On the other hand, the Germans have cleared the scrap metal from the swing bridge that obstructed the Missiessy channel in order to gain access to the three basins that end the Missiessy dock to the north. These three basins* are cluttered with blocks of masonry and especially with the wrecks of three U-boots that were victims of the Aéronavale last July 14th**. The three gateboats seem to be seriously damaged and the pumping installations will have to be redone. The condition of the gateboats and the pumping installations is the same in the other docks of the port.
The Canal des Subsistances, which connects the Missiessy dock to the Vauban dock, is still impassable, blocked by the hulls of the submarine Nymphe and the barge Endurante, which had been scuttled and not raised by the Germans. In the Vauban basin, the three small floating docks are still sunk in their pre-war mooring places. The hull of the cruiser Thionville still bars the Petite Passe, and the tripod of the dreadnought Océan (ex Jean-Bart) is still visible in the Grande Passe, the Germans having simply refloated the hulls of the old transport Rhin and the destroyer Enseigne Gabolde to clear the southern part of the channel.
During the bombardment of the Mourillon arsenal, our air force destroyed the U-830 on its hold, but five other ships of the same type (IIE)*** had escaped. Nevertheless, the completion of these U-boots could not continue because the bombs had destroyed several stores and workshops and all that they contained: engines, weapons, batteries, periscopes and especially test and calibration equipment. These submarines do not seem recoverable because, in addition to the destruction of the above-mentioned materials, the Germans blew up demolition charges (probably depth charges of 35 kg) which have seriously damaged the hulls and the interior installations already mounted.
On the other side of the harbor, one can see the wrecks (partly dismantled by German and especially Italian scrap merchants) of the Rhin, the Enseigne Gabolde, the submarine lifting dock, the destroyer L'Aventurier, the avisos Béthune, Nancy, Ducouédic and Gracieuse. They were abandoned there after having been refloated to free the various passes and to clear the access to the dry docks****.
The various workshops of the arsenal were more than 80% destroyed by the bombing of the Luftwaffe in July 1940 and ours during the preparation of the D-Day landings. The few machine tools that the enemy had repaired or brought from Germany seemed unusable.
The facings of the various docks are, in a very high proportion, intact, because the enemy did not have time to prepare their destruction by means of mine furnaces. Only 25 % of them were damaged by the bombing. Nevertheless, only a meticulous inspection of the various docks by divers will be able to determine which docks are immediately usable by showing the absence of wrecks of small units or unexploded bombs.
This inspection will also make it possible to identify the wrecks of tugs, tanks, various barges and crane pontoons sunk during the Grand Demenagement or afterwards as well as MFP, R-boats and other enemy craft lost during the Allied bombing raids in order to allow them to be refloated in order to have new berths. If the docking of our units and troop transports will not offer any difficulty, it will not be the same for the unloading of the equipment, which will have to be carried out only with the help of the cargo ships' own means, because all the cranes, on land or floating, are destroyed."

Operation Dragon gains on September 10th, 1943

* At the time of the Grand Demenagement, the French sappers and sailors had dynamited the door boats of the basins and the pumps that allowed them to be drained or put into water. The Kriegsmarine had built in Germany some door-boats and new pumps to allow the reactivation of the Missiessy, Castigneau and the small Vauban basins. Not having any large units to refit in the Mediterranean, it had postponed sine die the refurbishment of the Grands Bassins Vauban.
** One Type-VIIC, U-410 (basin n° 2) and two Type-IIE, U-839 (basin n° 1) and U-811 (basin no. 3).
*** U-697, U-699, U-814, U-818, and U-838.
**** Not having been able to recover the equipment necessary to refloat these ships, which were carefully scuttled by the French in July 1940, the Germans had asked the Italians to send specialists and their equipment to proceed with the partial cleaning of the port. The floating cranes used for this work allowed the launching of new door-ships for the dry docks.

 

[demolitiondan]

Two things :
- Cunning buffalo is a play of word for "Bison fûté" which is ... a french well-know traffic-forecast institution !
- Fall of Varna is heavily inspired by the assault of the French Toulon Arsenal, in 1942 during Attila,

 

[Wings]

September 11th, 1943

Forest of Châtillon-sur-Seine (Côte-d'Or) - Units of the 165. Reserve-Division, on their way towards the Rhone valley, receive the order to "clean up" a maquis in formation. The instructions of dispersion given by Algiers allow to limit the damage, but 22 maquisards, who had stayed behind with trucks to try to evacuate an important arms depot, are captured. Their corpses are found in a quarry, mutilated and with their faces crushed by rifle butts.

Paris - The death of Simon Sabiani being confirmed, Jacques Doriot decides to appoint the current Minister of Agriculture, Mourer, as his successor in the Supply Department. The latter will be able to combine the two posts and develop his very pro-German personal policy. He still dreams of the establishment of a German peace in Europe, which would allow his Nazi masters to offer him the position they had promised him so much: Gauleiter of his native Alsace, attached for good to the Reich...
Moreover, the authorities of the NEF no longer have any doubts (wrongly so!) about the fate of Philippe Henriot. He is replaced at the Secretary of State for Propaganda by Jean Luchaire, the current Minister of Information, who will also be in charge. Information is not Propaganda, some would say, but Doriot does not care. It must be said that in these times, the number of pretenders to functions within his government has been reduced to a trickle, while at the time of his accession to power, at the beginning of the summer, it was overflowing.

All over occupied France - In the early morning, a veritable swarm of planes representing pre-war French aviation take off: Wibault 72, Mureaux 115, MB.200, D.500, MS.230 or Potez 540... In all, nearly a hundred aircraft that (rightly or wrongly so) had been the pride of the French Air Force in the 1930s, are leaving for Germany! Everything that has not been scrapped or requisitioned by the Luftwaffe since the beginning of the Occupation and which, still being able to fly, had been generously left available to the NEF government.
This exodus is the accomplishment of a project that had been underway for several weeks, under the aegis of General Sperrle and General von Stülpnagel, by Colonel de Vaugelas, commander of the Defense Air Force of the NEF. In the event of a landing in France by Anglo-American forces "and their auxiliaries", all the NEF's aircraft were to be transferred to Germany if the invasion could not be quickly repelled. The idea was to avoid any possibility of a thunderous defection such as had occurred at the time of the previous New Year's parade. The recovered planes, duly paid to the NEF... with the money paid by the latter as war reparations demanded by the Reich, will be used to satisfy the ancillary needs of a Luftwaffe always in search of means, material or human (in fact, it is planned to redistribute them generously to the Slovaks or Bulgarians, or even Mussolini's Italians).
Vaugelas was made to believe that if he accomplished this task correctly, he could become the French equivalent of an Ivan Mrak (leader of the Croatian Air Legion, a unit of volunteer aviators fighting with the Luftwaffe). Commanding a French Air Legion within the Luftwaffe! Excited by this prospect, the one who, a year earlier was still piloting a B-25 of the French Air Force, personally takes the controls of a Potez 540 to fly it to Germany.
But within the FAD, not everyone shows the same enthusiasm. For many, joining the FAD (which everyone knew would not participate in the fighting) was a way of subsisting while waiting for the war to end peacefully, and it was always less dangerous than trying to get through the Pyrenees. By managing to drop some useful information about the Luftwaffe's movements into the right ears, one could ensure one's back if ever the wind changed... The wind has changed and the war is passing through the Metropolis. A choice has to be made. And the disastrous policy of the NEF, humiliating itself before Germany, repressing a large part of its population and impoverishing all the rest, is really not attractive...
The problem is that there is a Feldgendarme in every plane that takes off, who is in charge of shooting the pilot if he has the idea to land on the allied side of the front line, or to cross the English Channel. This is why only 18 planes out of a hundred manage to escape the "STO of the planes" by landing in Switzerland. Indeed, once on Swiss territory, shooting the pilot would be murder... whereas it would be a normal act of war on the territory of an enemy of the Reich. As for the pilots who will have landed with discipline their plane in Germany, they will be generously sent back to the NEF by train, to do whatever they want with them.
Colonel de Vaugelas will not be the tricolor Mrak. After several weeks of reflection, he was finally given a reconnaissance plane attached to the Charlemagne Division...

Turin - The news of the capture of Florence, following the landing in Provence, provokes spontaneous demonstrations in all of Northern Italy (such movements had already taken place on several occasions since the Bloody Christmas). In Turin, before the end of the day, these demonstrations turn to the open rebellion, whereas this revolt has no hope of success. Among the rebels, former trade unionists and former communists, but also members of the Christian Democrat opposition, who swore on the Holy Shroud (kept in the cathedral) to fight until the liberation of Italy.
Elements of the fascist Monterosa division, who are transiting in the area, immediately move towards the city center to quell the riots. The Germans, for whom it was out of the question to let such events happen in their backyard and who had little confidence in their allies of the RSI, entrust the repression to the Obersturmbannführer Walter Rauff and his SS Polizei Rgt 12, which is to be reinforced by a Kampfgruppe of the Hermann-Göring. SS reinforcements are also on their way, under the command of the notorious Sturmbannführer Herbert Kappler, who decides to travel in person.

 

[Wings]

September 11th, 1943

Burma Campaign
Occupied Burma and Thailand - According to the scenario established on September 6th, the Beaumonts of Sqn 45 and 84, escorted by Spitfires from Sqn 17 and 67, enter Thailand to attack the Nikki bridge. But today, the Japanese and Thai fighters are very well placed to intercept this raid with four Japanese Ki-44 and four Ki-43, and three Ki-43 and six Ki-27 Thai fighters. Two Beaumonts and two Spitfires are shot down against two Oscars and two Nates.
South of Ye, the Belgians of Sqn 342 (B) also encounter some people - three Ki-43 and three Ki-27. However, experience speaks for itself and the Hurricanes do well, shooting down a Ki-43 and a Ki-27 against a single aircraft that was badly damaged and destroyed on landing.
Finally, along the coast, towards Tavoy, the P-38's make their mark. They too are intercepted by half a dozen fighters, which they escape thanks to their speed, before returning to the attack, allowing Lt Lee O. Greg's sixth victory.
The Japanese and Thais make great efforts to counter these raids with limited resources. But after a day like this, and with other fronts, it would take several days for all their aircraft to be available again.

Thai-style blitz
Bangkok, 10:00 - The capital is once again the target of an allied formation - twelve Liberators and eight Mustangs, from China, attack Don Muang airfield. Nine Ki-43s, alerted by lookouts who spotted the attackers near Ayuthia, attempt to intercept them. But clouds make the task difficult for both sides, the Franco-Americans struggling, on their side, to spot their target.
Finally, the bombs cause casualties and damagd a runway, but the planes are spared, because they were dispersed or sheltered. Only a Fairchild 24 liaison plane, under repair, is destroyed in its hangar. The flak manages to damage two B-24s in spite of the cloudy sky.
Suddenly, the Thai fighters' radio echoes with the shouts and bursts of a battle. On the way back, the allied planes encounter six Ki-27s in training flight, which literally fall on them at the corner of a cloud bank! In spite of the disproportionality of the forces, the little "Ota" fly in without hesitation. A B-24 is damaged and another of the behemoths is rammed by a fighter; a fireball engulfs both planes (no parachutes). But the torrent of .50 rounds spit out by the bombers' Browning shreds one of the small fighters, while another is shot down by a Mustang.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Ki-43s try to intervene, but are immediately caught by the escort. The Thais lose three of their own before breaking off, after having succeeded in shooting down one of the crippled Liberators and one of the Mustangs.
The press and the radio emphasizes the courage of the pilots (the censor announced that three fighters had been shot down in exchange for... twelve bombers destroyed). The pilot who hit a B-24 is even decorated and promoted posthumously for his spirit of sacrifice. Nevertheless, the airmen (allied as well as Thai) who witnessed the collision believe that in reality, he could not move out in time...

Indochina Campaign
Southern Laos, on the Saigon-Vientiane road, in the early morning - The convoy advancing in the light of dawn is composed of a command car equipped with a machine gun and followed by six trucks filled with infantrymen. A Type 93 armored car leads the way, a hundred meters ahead.
The Nipponese rode at night to avoid ambushes. Few men actually slept despite the officers' feigned assurance that if the rebels attacked the camps at night they could not at the same time lay ambushes on the roads. In any case, whether their leaders were right or the kami were smiling at their children, there was no notable incident.
The sun's rays, still tinged with scarlet, spreading over the foliage, awaken the jungle. Cutting on the intense green of the foliages, the trunks of the trees are revealed, covered by yellow and red flowers. Panicked by the passage of the noisy vehicles, black gibbons start to shout and jump from tree to tree.
It takes another five hours of driving to reach the intersection of the Saigon-Vientiane road and the Savannakhet-Dong Ha road (north of Hue). 35 km from Savannakhet, an unnamed indigenous village has been transformed into a powerful stronghold, surrounded by palisades defended by watchtowers. Despite the expansion of the camp, bulldozers are at work, clearing the jungle to further expand the fortress. Near the entrance stand two type 95 Ha-Go tanks. Impressed, the soldiers have fallen silent.
The trucks now drive along the parking lot, where more than a hundred vehicles are lined up. Six Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa aircraft are parked on a small airfield. Suddenly, the soldiers have become much more confident. The counter-attack is being prepared and the rebels will quickly feel a great nostalgia for their retreats in the mountains.
No doubt inspired by the planes based there, the garrison commander names the fortress Hayabusa - it seems he did not know that this name (Falcon) strangely echoed that of the Epervier base installed at Dien-Bien-Phu...

Pacific Campaign
Operation Crocodile
Truk Lagoon, Carolines - At the end of the day, the MV Krait approaches the Chuuk (Truk) lagoon from the northwest, after a smooth journey. A message received the day before confirms both the objective of the mission (three battleships and two aircraft carriers confirmed at anchor between the Moen and Dublon Islands) and the route to be taken: the planned pass does not appear to be guarded. Operation Crocodile is now entering its final phase, the one that includes the most unknown and danger.
19:05 - The pass was easy to spot, in a fold to the east of the coral reef. While the sun has already set, the MV Krait enters at low speed, under a welcome monsoon rain. The whole crew is at the battle stations: in case of bad encounter, no subterfuge will be of any use anymore...
19:15 - The MV Krait is engaged in the pass. Fortunately, the information was correctand this part of the reef does not have any defensive constructions (cannons or machine gun nests under blockhouses, as seems to be the case for other passes) nor a garrison. Indeed, even at low speed, the machines of the old fishing boat are noisy and the commandos of Special Unit Z are certain that this infernal noise which fills the night betrays them for many miles around despite the rain... The fishing boat moves forward in slow motion and blindly: it is now pitch black (the moon and stars being masked by clouds), impossible to use projectors for the imperatives of discretion, it is the eyes of the lookouts placed at the front that must pierce the darkness and the curtains of water falling from the sky to guide the ship. Without a map and unable to use probes to avoid the risk of triggering underwater mines, the crew of the Krait can only rely on luck and the shallow draft of their ship to avoid both the grounding and the probable obstructions or mines that protect the pass. One moment, the boat is close to disaster - the hull scrapes lightly on a coral reef, the Krait barely shudders, but a sinister noise strikes the whole team with terror. With a thousand precautions, Ivan Lyon changes course slightly and the noise stops...
A slightly bigger boat would have run aground for sure - the Japanese must have thought that these reefs protected them from any incursion, not imagining that such a small boat would try to penetrate their lair.
19:35 - The MV Krait leaves the pass without further trouble and finally enters the inner waters of Truk Lagoon! Captain Lyon steers east-southeast at slow speed.
23:50 - The Krait stops its engines; it is now at anchor in a sheltered cove, on the north coast of Falo Island, less than 8 nautical miles from its targets. The Australians hurry to camouflage the ship before daybreak.

The Sino-Japanese war (and its aftermath)
Chongqing - Shui Shifang's father having given his consent to his daughter's plan to marry Dutch diplomat Robert Van Gulik, the future spouses are holding an engagement ceremony today. The other two founding members of the OB-1 Club, Paul Linebarger and Arnold Spielberg, are among the guests.

 

[Wings]

September 11th, 1943

Operation Suvorov
Stubborn Bison
Belarus - From bad, the weather over the battlefield becomes simply mediocre and uncertain. It is still better than nothing. And both the VVS and the Luftwaffe - which both used the break of the last few days to rest their forces, return above the strong points of the front - namely Jlobin and Talatchyn, the rest being still considered secondary.
.........
Sianno region ("Suvorov-North") - The rout of the 1st Guards, the day before, north of Talatchyn, has at least the merit to clarify things for Kuznetsov's 63rd Army: it must now advance due east, in the direction of Chachniki, or even Lepiel, in order to put pressure on the German forces in the sector and to discourage any transfer of troops to the south. A thankless and heavy task at the same time, especially for a formation tested by 22 days of continuous fighting and which must moreover ensure the guarding of 45 kilometers of front from Beshenkovichi to Kasieničy! The Soviet soldiers attack along the road leading to Chachniki, forming a gap in the middle of the woods. The Russian axis of progression is already strongly constrained by the presence of at least three important lakes in this area (Yamnoye, Zherinskoye, Sterzhen' ).
Vasily Kuznetsov did not participate in the winter war against the Finns - on the other hand, he heard a lot about it (in small groups...). He already knows that the action he orders to his group is very similar to the January 1940 assault on the Karelian peninsula - this is the only difference between the cold and the fortifications, fortunately. Nevertheless, the 5. Jäger-Division has no difficulty in resisting the communist assault around Bol'shie Trukhanovichi, with all the more ease that it now benefits from the support of the LIII. AK, which can hold the front on its left without too much trouble.
In the absence of a breakthrough - which he senses anyway - Kuznetsov sends a division towards Zamočichi at the end of the morning, Kuznetsov sends a division to Zamočjek, in the south, to force the road Niarejša-Zakuryć (parallel to his initial axis of progression). He hopes to threaten the German flank with an overrun and force his opponent to withdraw. The maneuver is judicious - it triggers the intervention of the 3. Panzer at Mialieškavičy. The tanks push back the attempt without too much trouble the attempt towards its starting line... before moving northwards around the Yamnoye lake to threaten the Soviet rear.
The 63rd Army is thus forced to withdraw in a hurry, losing all its gains since the day before and leaving the equivalent of a regiment (mostly from the 203rd Rifle Division) encircled in the woods toward Puśko, between lakes and railroads. Few men will manage to escape capture... In the evening, from his headquarters in Sianno, Vasily Kuznetsov can only say that his attempt has failed and that his formation is now completely disorganized, because it is composed of dispersed units and in doubt - it will be necessary to rally them before any new assault. Eremenko agrees with difficulty - but he does not have much choice, as his forces are now clearly at the end of their potential. It is thus a warning for the 1st Belarussian Front - the last one before execution.
.........
Talachyn region ("Suvorov-North") - Refusing to take into account the slap that had been dealt to them, the Soviet forces attack again to break the Talachyn lock, almost in the same conditions as the day before - but this time with the support of the Il-2 of the 2nd Air Army of General Naumenko. The latter does what he can, with his goal to saturate the defenses of the LuftFlotte 2. The IV/JG 5 shoots down 17 planes for only 5 losses, and only one pilot killed.
Nevertheless, despite all the courage of the communists on the battlefield, the line on the Drut does not move. Except in the extreme north where, in relative coordination with the 63rd Army, the right wing of the 1st Guards seizes Bobryk, a few kilometers behind Kasieničy.
This could be the beginning of a breakthrough... if troops are able to enlarge the salient and if the terrain allows it: behind Bobryk there are vast impassable swamps around lake Selyava! This is probably why the Germans do not stick to this sector: they are much more interested in the defense of the Orsha - Baryssaw road...
In summary, this limited action does not worry the HG Mitte - that the Soviets advance 7 kilometers if they wish, it will be enough to rely on these lands, unsuitable for maneuver. Everywhere else, the red wave crashes cleanly into the 9. Armee and the 1. PanzerArmee. The infantrymen of the 1st Guards suffer, those of the 3rd Guards fall en masse into the Drut and the 18th Armored Corps loses more and more machines in support of these anecdotal actions. To the point that it will soon have to be withdrawn from the front, to the great despair of General Burdeyny.
.........
Bialyničy and Balonauka regions ("Suvorov-Center") - Perhaps offended by being treated as a negligible quantity by its opponents - or rather taking advantage of its numerical superiority, both in fire and in men - the 15th Army finally pushes back the 197. ID beyond the banks of the Drut river, and once again reaches a plateau of agricultural land.
It seizes the village of Kostyukovichi, before the defense stiffens again and blocks its movements.
This outcome was probably inevitable, as Boege's Landsers are not supported as much as they should have been by the rest of their corps. Indeed, the latter have to stretch northward to take over from the VI. AK (9. Armee) and the 337. ID (1. PzA), increasingly sucked by the fighting of Talatchyn - which have at least this interest. As for the neighboring 4. Armee which could undoubtedly intervene, it persists in defending above all the roads of Berazino and Babrouïsk, Gotthard Heinrici considering that he does not have to fight for a little piece of quagmire that not even the Slavs can cross...
And speaking of Babruysk - the 29th Army pushes further and deeper the XLIII. AK, now visibly marching on Kirawsk. Managrov's formation, stretched from Dushanbei to Czarabamir, holds a salient of 15 by 30 kilometers alone.
This is a lot - especially since, during this time, the 19. Panzer has raised the camp and approaches Zapollie, in the south, in coordination with the 20. Panzer, which is moving up from Jlobin.
.........
Jlobin area ("Suvorov-South") - Now supported by the aircraft of the 15th Air Army, the 2nd Guards Army attack the positions of the 340. ID again, in slightly better conditions than the day before - but that does not change the result. The enemy is less numerous, but still entrenched on the riverbanks, from where they machine-gun the boats. The artillery deployed by the XIII. AK is not short of ammunition and the Stukas and Bf 110 of the VIII. FliegerKorps are always as precise, well covered by their escort. The II/JG 5 claims 24 victims (including two for Oberleutnant Theodor Weissenberger, who reaches 90 victories) against only 3 lost fighters - and 7 bombers, all the same, which gives 24 to 10.
However, the assault makes some brief and insignificant progress. For a while it even seems to clear a strip of land in the ruins of Luchine - but at sunset, a determined counter-attack of the Landsers reduces to nothing this meritorious, although futile effort.
Leonid Govorov - and of course his leader, Ivan Konev - are very disappointed. The 49th Division and the 387th Rifle Division have already lost more than a third of their strength, already reduced by Chachersk. They can't renew their attempt every day! And yet, there are hardly any other crossing points in the sector... Finally, in the evening, upon learning of the elimination of the embryonic bridgehead in Luchin, the head of the 2nd Belorussian Front takes note of the impossibility of a direct approach north of Jlobin. He therefore orders the 2nd Guards - still reinforced by the 7th Armored Corps - to redeploy to the north, to cross the Dnieper towards Rahatchow... then the Drut towards Sveykov, before breaking through towards Gusarovka. As much to say that it does not arrive!
Meanwhile, Purkayev's 3rd Shock Army continues to move isolated elements south of Strešyn, in spite of German artillery fire - the 18. Panzer still reluctant to engage in such a bad terrain. Besides, to do what exactly? To be lined up on the other side by the tubes of the 21st Corps? Let the Russians send men to rot in the swamp if they want - they will never get out.
As for the 10th Armored Corps, now reduced in size and partly equipped with outdated equipment, it has nevertheless left for Jlobin - they will find some use for it there!
.........
"We leave Gomel without regret - I have lived too much fear and death in these ruins to want to return one day, if this city is ever rebuilt. We are now advancing in columns, towards the northwest and the front - I have no doubt that it will soon be to the sound of cannon. Apparently, things are going well over there, according to our hierarchy, which probably means that they are not going as planned.
Our Pobieda! is in second place, behind the battalion commander's tank - who wanted to pass gloriously in the lead, like (it is said) the generals of the Prussian army of old.
This is both stupid and dangerous! Stupid, because in this position, he could not see his unit and therefore hardly leads it. And dangerous because he is at the mercy of the first ambush gun, or even just a mine that the fellow sappers had forgotten on the road. But I was obviously not asked my opinion.
We will not go through Rogi again - our unit is heading directly north, Uza, Buda Kachaliova and finally Kolybel'naya, our destination. And during the journey, we have plenty of time to admire the devastation that the fascist enemy left behind: wrecks of all kinds (and too often colored with a red star), roads smashed by the impacts, numerous bodies that the services of the rear gathered with difficulty to throw them in big pits dug in a hurry. Behind us, it is the T-34 of Sasha, a young enlisted man from Gorky who arrived a short time ago. Perched on his turret, I see him change color as the landscape passes by, before finally returning to his machine. On the radio, Boris (an old one like me), can't resist a remark: "He might see worse, though!" He is right, of course." (Evgeny Bessonov, op. cit.)

Talachyn and Rahatchow regions (Belarus) - In the German rear, the activities of Einsatzgruppe B are in full swing - they kill en masse, sometimes at the sound of cannon with all the more eagerness as the front line seems to be getting closer. The murderers of Horst Böhme must hurry, they still have so much to do! And yet... the ghettos of Talatchyn, Chachniki and Rahatchow are already cleaned up. Only Ushachy and Shchedrin, as well as some minor settlements are left. After that, the killers will hurry back to Minsk to work in a more... organized way, one could say...

Operation Kutousov
Mozyr sector - Quiet situation in this area. The Soviet armies seem to be stuck under the rain and at the edge of the marshes an opportunity from which one does not see too much from what it could emerge. The German front is therefore considered safe.
.........
Olevsk sector - The 20th Armored Corps, diminished but still fighting, advances unopposed along the road to Olevsk - at least until Radovel', where the Soviet forces soon come into contact with the new German line. This line is held by the LII. AK (von Scheele), reinforced by the III. PzK (Kempf), and which does not fear to be overrun... For lack of an infantry remaining at least ten kilometers back, Pavel Poluboiarov does not insist for the moment. He has no chance to outmaneuver the Fascists - it seems useless to him to kill his men for nothing!
Moreover, as if to prove him right, the 3rd Air Army (Krasovsky) confronts the JG. 52 (IV. FliegerKorps) between the clouds, losing 32 aircraft for only 11 victories.
Decidedly, here too, it is urgent to wait !
.........
Yemiltchyne sector - The Soviet redeployment in this area continues, without any other opposition than the rain and the terrain. To the west, the 4th Shock Army (Maslennikov) continues to advance towards Pidluby. It seizes Rudnya-Mykolaivka then Osivka, in its momentum - if it can be called so. The 11th Armored Corps (Alexeiev) always covers its left flank. On its right flank, a little ahead, the 2nd GAC (Rybalko) and the 4th GAC Malin (Bogdanov), now approach Zhubrovychi, hoping to take advantage of the gap through the woods that leads from this town to its almost homonymous Zubkovychi, about twenty kilometers north of Yemiltchyne. On their heels, exhausted and wounded, the 5th Army camps in the evening at Boutchmany, waiting impatiently to throw itself on the fascist lines.
Finally, the 50th Army (Golubev) and the 19th CB (Vasilev) are still moving heavily towards the north. These formations are approaching Novi Bilokorovytchi, in the wake of the 3rd Belarusian Front.
.........
Barashi sector - Still under the effect of the warning with costs that was imposed the day before, the 37th Army spends the day rallying and reorganizing, while in front of it, the 6. Armee is now firmly entrenched in its new positions. Faced with the formidable threat of the XLVII. PzK, which prowls like a predator in the region, Vasily Chuikov chooses cautiously not to insist and is thus satisfied to occupy some modest positions in the west of of Kam'yanohirka - thus limiting his formation to an insignificant role, at least for the moment.
.........
Novohrad-Volynskyi sector - In the rainy ruins of the city, the days follow each other and are definitely similar... The 5th Shock Army continues to erode the perimeter of the 62. ID (von Hülsen), which is thus forced to rely more and more on the remains of the 168. ID (Schmidt-Hammer) - which is not part of the XXIX. AK, but of the LV. AK and yet already gives the hand with great difficulty to the 294. ID, further north, towards Yemiltchyne. All in all, Erich Brandenberger was perhaps presumptuous - but like many others before him... His opponents have bitten him and, like a moray eel, will refuse to loosen their jaws even if he cuts their heads off! It will be necessary to react...
In the vicinity of Yarun', immediately southwest of Novohrad-Volynskyi, the 36. PzG and the 249. StuG Abt begin to concentrate, for what is visibly announced as an envelopment maneuver. Too visibly: the Soviets have anticipated well, especially since they have the support of the 8th Air Force (Kutsevalov), and therefore the eyes of its airmen... Chernyakovsky puts his left flank in defense, in coordination with Dimitri Lelyushenko, whose 5th GAC Zhitomir could very quickly prove to be very useful. As for the VVS, they have nothing better to do at the moment than to support the extreme left of Kutusov - as luck would have it!

HQ of the Wehrmachtsbefehlshaber Ukraine (Rovne) - Among the many unpleasant and urgent files that he has to deal with, General der Flieger Karl Kitzinger, commander of the occupation forces in Ukraine, is surprised to receive a request for an audience from what he perceives to be a bunch of enjuvenated Ukrainians of little military value. Having no time for such childishness - was it not the Schutzstaffel of Pütz and (especially) Prützmann to deal with this? - he ruthlessly refers the applicants to the HSSPF Russland-Süd of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, which will decide on its own what to do with this proposal. Probably not much... The Heer does not plan or even plans to deal with Slavs on an equal footing - this is not Yugoslavia!
Andriy Melnyk is therefore chased out of the only office where he could have (vaguely) interested someone, to be directed towards even less friendly interlocutors...

HQ of the Red Army in Ukraine (barracks of the 5th infantry school, Kiev), 23:30 - Marshal Georgy Zhukov hammers one last time his demands - while passing his bad mood - on Konstantin Rokossovsky (leader of the 1st Ukrainian Front) and on Ivan Bagramyan (leader of the 2nd Ukrainian Front), responsible for operation Rumyantsev and whom he had gathered here before he himself has to go back to Moscow to plead his own case.
For three hours now, we have been going over plans, axes of progress and procedures. The Marshal is decidedly ruthless - even more so than usual. For if his tour of the Ukraine has convinced him of one thing, it is the fact that Rumyantsev must absolutely be a success! Indeed, if Suvorov seems already in bad shape between Talachyn and Jlobin, Kutusov seems to him - after reading the last reports and after discussion with Vatutin and Malinovsky - even worse. Between the exhaustion of the troops, a poor terrain and new German lines that have already cut down his forces, the liberation of the northern Ukraine seems to be close to suffocating... just as Zhukov is trying to suffocate the operations in Belarus for some time now!
Today even more than yesterday, the Marshal feels himself in the hot seat, forced to assume decisions that are not his own. And yet he is going to have to go back to the Vojd - no doubt to get a slap on the wrist! - when he would much rather have stayed here and supervise the operations personally. Zhukov will therefore consult, delegate, direct from afar... so many things he hates and which do not prevent him from going for a long time to see the lines of the 1st Ukrainian Front, flying from support point to support point in a Po-2 open to the four winds to come to the most advanced HQs, flanked by two huge Siberian bodyguards with closed faces and the PPSh always ready.
For Rumyantsev, the Marshal wants to put all the chances on his side. But in the end, everything might depend on one man: general Rokossovsky. Indeed, the chief of the Stavka does not count on Bagramyan - not that the man is clumsy, but neither his troops, nor his sector can be decisive. And on top of that, there is still in the 10th Army that idiot Golikov, whom he did not manage to dismiss... Konstantin Rokossovsky, then - a capable general, who was even quite good during the defense against the fascist offensive on Kiev. But he, who has known him since 1930*, also knows how nervous he can be, even timid, in unfavorable circumstances. Will he be as comfortable on the offensive, and able to assume, alone or almost, such enormous strategic or personal stakes, and moreover with tired troops?
Impossible to say at this time, of course. Finally, a little before midnight, and almost for lack of better, Zhukov finally releases his two generals, who will go back to their lines and can hope to sleep at least two hours before the attack. This one will start tomorrow, anyway.
As for him, he immediately flies back to Moscow, exhausted, a bit feverish and with a dull anxiety in the pit of his stomach. It is well hidden - obviously - but it nevertheless gnaws at him...

* Rokossovky commanded the 7th Cavalry Division in Samara and had Zhukov under his command!

 

[Wings]

September 11th, 1943

Italian Campaign
Italian Front - The fighting gradually dies out on the entire front. The only notable event is the capture of Pistoia by the 47th ID Bari. The fighting - not very intense - will last until the next day. The Bari in turn makes contact with the Gothic line to the north of the city.
The 20th DI Friuli redeploys. The 88th Infantry Regiment reaches Montale while the 87th probes the German north of Prato, relaying in this sector the Folgore, which goes back to reserve.
Unfortunately, the most important events in Italy, on that day and for the following days, take place far from the front, with the revolt in Turin and its bloody repression (see the occupied countries section).

Greek campaign
Operation Apprentice
Albania and Macedonia - After nearly a month of continuous activity, operation "Apprentice" (Apprenti) stops, to allow the rest of the crews and the maintenance of the equipment. In the following days, the aircraft of the Allied air forces of the Eastern Mediterranean will go back to the attack, but in support of the operation Presage (or for other missions).
Indeed, it seems obvious to the Germans that an amphibious landing in Albania or Montenegro was not on the agenda. Operation Walrus alone would maintain the uncertainty in the Adriatic. The Apprentice-Macon-Walrus combination served Tower well by dispersing Axis troops, although this was not its initial goal. But it also deprived Australians and British from increased air support. A very small sacrifice considering the events in Provence...

Operation Presage
The Polish ride
Southern Albania - On the heels of Lungerhausen's men, the Polish armoured vehicles dash eastward and arrive shortly after noon at Këlcÿre, a small town on the road to their objective. The town is modest, but more important than the villages they have - and would have - to pass through on the way to their destination.
As soon as they arrive, the allied soldiers face an unexpected difficulty. In this case, various movements, little known to the liberators, who shoot at the militias presumed to be collaborators... and especially the relatives of their members. Houses are burned down, families thrown out into the street. The quick intervention of the Poles of the 3rd ID limits the damage and opens the way to the SAV-42. But while the tanks cross the town in a tense atmosphere that the men of Bohusk-Szusko did not anticipate, new violent incidents break out between "Legaliteli" and collectivists, who accuse each other of delivering the country again to the foreigners and/or of collaboration with the Occupiers. The squads sent to separate the adversaries are themselves taken to task verbally, without however that one comes to arms - the presence of the tanks is a useful calming effect. Order is finally restored at around 17:00, but with the help of the forces of the National Liberation Movement, i.e. the communists! This is not to the liking of the Poles...
In his provisional headquarters, General Maczek frowns. These incomprehensible squabbles have made his forces lose almost three hours. Not to mention the battalion that will certainly have to be left behind to secure the lines of communication - the last straw in a country that is supposed to be liberated! Such incidents should not be repeated too often, or that these excited people become hostile. Because the Poles do not care about the distinctions between Ballists, Communists and Legaliteli. They have a mission: to take Tirana and Durrës, which they see as stages on the road to Warsaw... If anyone were to block their way again, whether collectivists or collaborators with exotic labels, they will know how to deal with them. There is no question of wasting any more time in this country "with roads so narrow that a monkey with two grenades could stop an army!" as Maczek's aide-de-camp put it. And there is no question of reliving the charge of Amphilochia.
Behind the Poles, still unaware of the difficulties specific to the country, other soldiers of the "French" 2nd Army arrive in Tepelen and head west towards the Adriatic coast. The Czechoslovakians of the 1st ID (General Alois Liška) take the lead with enthusiasm.

Village of Leskovik - It is about 01:00 when an advanced patrol reports the arrival of a dozen deserters from the village of Vrepcke. They are yellow-skinned men, who did not hesitate to demonstrate to the spahis both their lack of hostility and their Muslim religion. It is however difficult to go much further, taking into account the language barrier: the Tatar language has little to do with the Tunisian one... However, the people concerned seem to want to speak!
Fortunately, the intertwining of history proves to be favorable. We discover in the 4th Spahis that 1st class Chelebidjikhan, is able to communicate with the Tatars in one of the languages of the Caucasus! He is in fact the son of one of the Cossacks who landed in Bizerte after the evacuation of Crimea led by General Wrangel in November 1920. The discussion resumes in the night.
The group is led by a corporal named Ismaïl Gasprinko. This one has effectively decided to desert and tries to convince the Allies to spare his comrades who remained behind, who are not very eager to die for the Reich. In reality, as the corporal points out only the fear of being handed over to the Reds (he means the Russians), or even to the Albanians, takes the place of loyalty to their unit. Obviously, these last weeks, there have been some regrettable episodes in the vicinity... but it is the war, the Tatars are far from home, could we pass the sponge?
After agreement of the colonel Roux, who cares little about the opinion of the Albanians and feels the situation could be beneficial, the discussion evolves towards a form of negotiation. The son of the Cossack does not deprive himself of describing in great detail the kind policy of the French Republic towards the refugees who come to ask for asylum (and, incidentally, give him a hand against his enemies).
Called in to give a religious opinion on the matter, the chaplain of the battalion finds in his memory some lines from the Most Holy Text (Surah number 9 "of Repentance") which states: "If one of the idolaters seeks refuge with you, grant him asylum that he may hear the word of Allah. Then bring him to the place of safety that is his. This is what you must do, because they are people who do not know." If the Prophet allows helping a pagan in need, how could it be otherwise for the sons of Islam? The comrades of the corporal can come to us without fear, concludes the imam, they will be well received and certainly not delivered to the Red miscreants! Finally, Ismaïl Gasprinko leaves in the night to preach the good word to his comrades and co-religionists.
At sunrise, the 155 mm of the 107th RALCA set off an artillery barrage, which does not last very long due to a lack of ammunition - which is difficult to bring to this lost place. However, the explosions are impressive enough to force the Aryans to lower their heads... and to help the ex-Soviets to make their choice. The assault follows in quick succession, as the wooded cover proves to be a dangerous trap for the Landsers: they are disconcerted by the infiltration of the Tunisians, who are extremely lively and skilled in hand-to-hand combat.
General von Niedermayer remains relatively calm despite everything. With three regiments against one regiment, even if supported by armor and artillery, he should be able to hold on. He orders the former Soviet regiment to send a battalion to reinforce its right flank. But the unit in question does not respond and the dispatches sent to see what is going on report that they had been shot at! Could the French have broken through its perimeter from the west? The general could not risk encirclement and orders a retreat, even though his position was bruised still far from giving way. He will never know it, but the German officers of the Tatar regiment were bound hand and foot in a cellar in the village of Vrëpckë - and they got off easy: the recalcitrants have had their throats slit.
While the Aryans of the 162. ID are retreating towards Ersekë, pursued by the Spahis, corporal Gasprinko is very happy to find his new friends. Most of the Tatars will leave for a work camp in Algeria, even if some will simply change their uniforms to join the engineering elements in charge of the improvement of the roads.
A thankless task, but still less risky than the previous one, and for which they will certainly have more zeal to work. As Manstein will write in his Memoirs (and about another front): "The use of prisoners of war in "Osttruppen" units was an absurdity. It was doubtful that one would be able to convince Soviets to fight in France, for Germany and against Americans." We could not have said it better...

Tirana - General Felmy may have ordered Willibald Utz to fortify Kuçovë, but it is obvious that the latter will only be able to form - in the best of cases - a plug intended to hold the time that the remainder of its LXVIII. AK can withdraw. And since there is little concern in Zagreb of the coordination between the bodies, Felmy decides to inform Dietl directly of the events in progress, thus of its incapacity to guarantee its right flank. There is no doubt that the interested party will draw the consequences of it and will modulate its device consequently, making the holding of Albania even more useless! Outside, the SS of Walther Schimana, sometimes supported by the machines of the 914. StugAbt, continue to hold the Albanian capital without being reluctant to resort to violence, in the most total indifference of their superiors.
.........
Vlöre - The region is not as well "held" as the capital. The news of the arrival of the Allied troops triggers a real exodus of the local collaborators. The latter, accompanied by a part of the ballista militias, flee towards the north with their families. But the roads are not safe, and the partisans are unleashed. Very few will manage to join their Germanic masters.

Siege of Salonika
Salonika (northern sector) - Given the difficulties of supply and the state of fatigue of the troops, the ANZAC once again devote most of the day to bring reinforcements and supplies to Polichni. However, some advanced elements try a probe in the evening, in the direction of Sykies. They come back doubtful: a valley of 40 meters deep separates their positions from those of the Jägers, all under the gaze of the Thessaloniki Castle, whose silhouette is clearly visible in the distance. An artillery support will be necessary if we do not want this area to become a new "killing ground" like during the attack of the 8th. These reconnaissances do not take place without losses...
"Last night, it was our turn to go towards the Boche lines, to try to locate their positions and possible paths of progression that were not too exposed. An oppressive presence weighed on our shoulders: it was really a dirty war where we were running after an invisible enemy, who was only waiting for an opportunity to shoot you and run away. Frustration at not being able to shoot back in the dark, rage at seeing your comrades fall.
There was no shortage of that that night. As we slipped into no-man's-land, our platoon came across a squad of Krauts, who seemed to be looking for food in the abandoned houses. They scattered under our bullets, Marvin's Bren was very effective! I don't know if it caused any casualties this time.
But, just when we thought it was all over, poor Carmine had the bad idea to leave his cover and run towards us, exclaiming "Sarge, it's getting quiet, could you see my Sten? This gun is jamming!" Before we had time to shut him up, a kraut rifle did it. We didn't find the shooter, of course." (H.C. Goldsmith - op. cit.)
.........
Salonika (southern sector) - The XIII Corps does not remain idle either, waiting for the trucks from the Supply Corps. The 51st Infantry Division also sends elements on reconnaissance towards Triandria. They come back convinced of the weakness of the enemy, and of the possibility to break through the position towards Agios Pavlos, and probably even towards the beach or the White Tower.
"Maybe, but we'll have to be careful," says Brian Horrocks, who has just received a memo from Athens. This note actually arrives from Turkey, via 10 Downing Street, which is obviously a strong recommendation from the Prime Minister.
Indeed, it seems that the famous Mustafa Kemal, "Father of the Turks", was born in Salonika, in the time of the Ottoman Empire. And it is his birthplace that currently houses the Turkish consulate in this city. The staff was obviously evacuated before the siege, but there is concern in Ankara about the building's fate during the fighting! The Turkish government "would greatly appreciate it if the bombing would spare this house, property of the Turkish government and a memorial to the history of our country". And Churchill supports this request! If even the Turks are at it, Horrocks sighs, as he passes on to General Wimberley...
.........
Salonika (center) - For General Müller, the summer calm of these last days looks a lot like the calm before the storm. Suspecting well that the heights of Agios Pavlos will not be able to hold indefinitely, he begins to envisage a fortified reduction centered on the three most populated districts. From east to west: the historical center, Neapoli and Ampelokipoi. There, he can continue to hinder the Allies and delay the inevitable.
For its part, KampfGruppe Müller continues its raids with ever greater violence, in a Salonika that looks more and more like a prison. Driven by despair, a crowd of about 250 people tries to cross the German lines to the north to join those of the ANZAC. They are stopped by the men of Colonel Müller, who donot hesitate to use machine guns.
This dramatic event does not go unnoticed by the Australians, who are in a good position to observe it from the heights of Polichni. Informed, the Greek general staff vehemently invites its allies to hurry up... only to be opposed by its own requests for precautions. The civilians of Thessaloniki are well stuck on a battlefield.

Bulgarian affair
Macedonia and Bulgarian border - Whipped by the more and more insistent demands of the OKW, the 2. Panzer Rgt of Oberst Baron von Holtey crosses the Bulgarian border of 1939 at nightfall, that is to say five days after Muraviev's declaration of neutrality. This unit is powerful, but it only has the Schützen-Brigade 1 with it. It will need the Luftwaffe to give it a hand - and only FliegerFührer Schwarzes Meer has the means to do so. Besides, Bulgaria is part of his territory.
Walter Kruger is not surprised when he receives the request: he suspected that it would be difficult for the 1. Panzer Rgt to join its counterpart quickly. Moreover, it seems that the Luftwaffe has already planned something for these traitors of Bulgarians. The Führer does not forgive those who resist him. The general therefore transmits with the certainty of being heard.
A few dozen kilometers behind the 2. Panzer Rgt, the 19. PanzerGrenadierDivision is in Kumanovo, where the Hornisse of the 93. Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung join it. The only thing missing from the division is the 2. Brandenburger Rgt, still in Macedonia.

Black Sea coast (sector of the late 3rd Army) - The 72. ID takes control of Burgas in the morning, without significant incident. General Kleffel's corps now controls the eastern flank of Bulgaria, cutting off any possibility of communication by sea with Turkey or Russia. It is difficult for him to do more - Sofia is very far away. The German divisions are content to secure the access road to Romania, sending elements in the following days to Choumen, Roussé and Stara Zagora, just to extend a smiling hand to the Bulgarian 2nd Army.
.........
Sofia and surroundings (1st Army) - The arrival of the 6th ID completely liberates the eastern flank of Sofia. Major-General Nikola Kochev Nakoff's army is now fully deployed between Konska and Studena, its position centered on the city of Pernik. Braced on the foothills of the mountains, the 1st and 11th IDs prepare themselves to receive the German surge.
.........
Pleven and surroundings (4th Army) - In order to better control its units, which are from now on south of Sofia, Major-General Atanasov Stefanov transfers his HQ to the vicinity of Vakarel: close enough to his divisions to direct them, far enough from the capital to effectively defend the road to Thrace. The 5th ID (colonel Hristofor Stoyanof Serafimov) remains in garrison in Botevgrad, alone facing Romania.
.........
Approaches to Arnissa (1st Occupation Corps) - The columns of the four divisions of General Nikolov move under the hot sun of Macedonia, in the agricultural plains north of Arnissa along Lake Limni Vegoritida, which lay on their left less than a kilometer to their left. The units are not at their best, it must be said - they have "lost" almost a quarter of their strength during the journey to Macedonia, and then during the fighting at the Apsalos Pass.
In order to avoid further losses, Major-General Asen Drobev Nikolov has the reserves of the 24th and 25th ID by the 22nd ID in front and the 27th ID behind - the men of Major-General Hristo Lazarov Kozarov close the march. The Gebirgsjägers of the 1. Gebirgs-Division are watching the flank opposite the lake in a cordial atmosphere, Hubert Lanz even offered to share his car with the Bulgarian general.
The latter is not stupid, however, and fears a bad turn by the Germans. But with what means? And for what purpose? It is not with a division, certainly of quality, that he could stop four infantry divisions, even weakened. And above all, why go to all that trouble, when the Axis is already in great difficulty in Europe and surely does not need additional enemies? No, no, he and his men will be back home within three days and we'll leave it at that. But the major-general doesn't understand that the "Germans" don't think like him at all.
Around noon, when the thirst and the heat are at their peak, a dust cloud appears in the distance, without triggering anything but curiosity. The Slav asks Lanz if he knows what it is about. Well, probably a supply convoy. In reality, it is of course the 1. Panzer Rgt of Oberst Feller, whose 96 vehicles were moving along at a distance of about 15 meters - supposedly in case of an air raid.
On the small road, the soldiers are forced to pass on the side of the road to cross the Panzer IV and Leopard tanks. Many of them take advantage of the moment to take a break in the rare bushes of the area, or even to have lunch on the run. Then, as the column is almost aligned with the 22nd ID, an order is heard on the radios of the tanks, which stop and move south, facing the Slavs, while the men of the 1. Gebirgs group themselves between the machines, ostensibly putting their weapons in their hands. A silence heavy with threats settles on the plain.
In his car, Major-General Nikolov frowns and turns to Hubert Lanz, who has chosen to remain smiling and peaceful.
- What does this mean, General?" Nikolov says in a tense voice.
The German has had a long time to prepare his answer, and he wants it to be as friendly as possible.
"It means, Herr Nikolov, that you will have to wait a little while before returning to your country, that's all.
In anger, the Bulgarian starts to growl: "A betrayal? But what's the point? And then, we are much more numerous than you. And don't think that taking me as a hostage will change anything!
- Come on, come on! How you go!
General Lanz takes out a cigarette and lights it without taking his eyes off his counterpart. "You are not being taken hostage.
He takes a puff and adds: "The rest is up to you.
- Meaning?
- It's very simple. You can accept that we disarm you and that your troops to join those of your colleague Major-General Nikola Mihailov Mihov, who are being well treated, I assure you. In this case, no one will die and you will certainly see Bulgaria again and you will certainly return to Bulgaria after our governments have reached an agreement.
- And if not?
- If not, my men and those of Oberst Gustav Feller, who commands this Panzer Regiment, will have to do it the hard way. You will certainly resist, with bravery and professionalism, at least your 22nd and 27th Divisions. And you will inflict losses on us.
After a brief silence, Lanz resumes: "But for you, it will be a massacre. Remember from your classes at the War College. Don't you think that this sector resembles the battlefield of Lake Trasimeno*?
Lanz sweeps the landscape with a broad sweep of his hand: "Your soldiers are caught in unprepared and unsupported positions, with their backs to the lake. They would be swept from the plain by our panzers without being able to do anything and would be pushed into the lake to be drowned. It is not your unfortunate conscripts who could help them. I told you: a massacre. And what's the use?"
The Bulgarian conscripts had already been convinced by the show of force of the Panzerwaffe. Between loyalty and German steel, they chose and the guns fall without difficulty. Some will try to escape (or rather to desert) - they will be quickly caught or will come back of their own accord.
For the 22nd ID, which maintains discipline, the decision of Nikolov comes, inevitable and reasonable. What is the point of dying here, indeed?
Major-general Hristo Lazarov Kozarov will try to make his 27th ID turn back to join (maybe) the allied lines. But it will be only to fall on a barrage established by the 2. Brandenburger Rgt, whose men are waiting for the escapees with a sorry smile, while the panzers come to press them from behind.
The three German units will spend the day disarming Nikolov's men, calmly. The 1. Panzer Rgt will break camp late at night, followed in the early morning by the Brandenburgers. The 1. Gebirgs will remain alone to guard a large camp of prisoners between Arnissa and Lake Limni Vegoritida. It is foreseen that it will be relieved the following days by the 187. ID, which arrives at the same time in Skopje.
The operation of internment of the four divisions thus takes place without bloodshed, which the Germans will take into account, as it is true that Nikolov's corps has caused cold sweats to the staff of Alexander Löhr. Warned by his government, he could have acted much more quickly, to rally Bulgaria without opposition and to cause serious difficulties to the operation of... putting the country back on line. This was not the case, but it would be too easy, today, to throw the stone to general Nikolov.
.........
Lake Koronia area (annexed Thrace, 2nd Occupation Corps) - The morning dawns on the news of the takeover of Burgas and of the defection of the 2nd Army has spread in the 28th ID, already disorganized by massive desertions and cases of mutiny, obviously aggravated by the incident of the day before. As for the men of the 16th ID, they superbly ignore their comrades: their unit behaves like an independent formation.
Conferring one last time under the tent with his supposed subordinates, Major-General Trifon Yordanov Trifonov can only notice that the positions of Strashimir Velchev (16th ID) and Stanimir Khristov Grnev (28th ID) are irreconcilable - one wants to stay and the other leave. As far as he is concerned, his attempt to arbitrate shows that he no longer has authority over his two subordinates. Taking note of this sad state of affairs, he invites the two men to act according to their conscience, which they do without delay.
The 28th ID splits into two groups, the largest of which, led by Grnev, undertakes to move to Bulgaria (pre-war Bulgaria). The second group, with the white flag at the head, moves towards the allied lines, closely followed by Trifonov, who constitutes himself prisoner with his staff. The interested party suspects that he will not be forgiven for having refused to follow Stoychev in his treason... On Velchev's order, the men of the 16th Division occupy the abandoned positions as best they can, treating their ex-comrades with contempt.


Plovdiv and surroundings (2nd Army) - Major-General Stoychev feels a twinge of regret at his present situation: forced to obey the Germans, perhaps against Bulgarians. His units (2nd, 8th and 10th ID) start to move the camp, leaving only few elements of cover towards Plovdiv. His German "guests" assured him that "the misunderstandings in Bulgaria [were] not a problem and [would] be resolved shortly". So there is no need to worry and leave people behind. The German High Command placing great hopes in him, it is up to him to demonstrate as soon as possible his value, by the energetic action of his troops, obviously reliable and devoted. The German liaison officers do not hesitate to remind him of this at the slightest objection or the slightest delay.

Sofia - Since the loss of Burgas, the communications with the Allies are carried out only by radio, with great difficulties. At the embassy of the USSR, one affirms (without laughing) that they do not have the necessary means. In spite of all these setbacks and disappointments, the Regent and his government remain hopeful: do they have another possibility?
Muraviev continues to believe in a Western intervention as soon as the fighting starts, or that it would be possible to peacefully preserve a "redoubt" consisting of the capital and a few towns. After all, only the Black Sea coast is occupied, the Germans have perhaps too much to do elsewhere to attack Sofia? Ignoring the imminent arrival of the 1. PanzerDivision, he takes the world as witness in a speech widely broadcast on the radio, in which he calls on the Bulgarian people to "resist the Germanic aggression, which cannot be allowed to go unpunished while the forces of the United Nations defend Freedom all over the world".
Informed by Anthony Eden, Churchill pushes the 18th Allied Army Group to get in touch with the insurgents, to provide them with air support. General Montgomery obeys reluctantly, believing that this would divert an inappropriate number of aircraft from areas where they would be much more useful.
.........
On the airwaves - Radio Neue Europa continues to launch long and hateful outpourings against the Bulgarian government, in which they talk about the upcoming defeat of the Bolsheviks who are pushed back on the banks of the Danube, the madness of the Africans and Anglo-Saxons doomed to annihilation by the corruption of their blood... and the imminent arrival of units from Macedonia, because "the real Bulgarians have chosen not to oppose the Thousand Year Reich. Only fools would face the Germanic steel of our tanks without having formidable fortresses and entrenchments - which did not save the French from exile!"

 

[Wings]

September 11th, 1943

Provence
Liberation - In the Camargue, along the coast, thanks to naval and air support (from the 363rd FG in particular) and thanks to their amphibious vehicles, the 1st, 3rd and 4th Rangers Btn advance beyond the Galabert and Fournelet ponds. Faced with the ambush warfare imposed by the grenadiers of the 338. ID, relying on the particular topography of the area, the Rangers have developed a systematic response: they ask for fire support each time they encounter the enemy, then a maneuver through the ponds on the amphibious vehicles to cut off their opponents' retreat. The Rangers now have the situation well in hand, which gradually allows the 1st SSF to move into reserve.
North of the Vaccarès pond, the 53rd RCT comes into play and advances on the D37 to the crossing of the Mas d'Agon road, while the 32nd takes advantage of some of the support of the 17th, which was standing guard at Arles, to reach the D570. The offensive towards the Petit Rhône continues but in this sector, the 334. ID finishes taking position along the river.
In the Vaucluse, along the front line, after the emotions of the previous day, the system is reinforced. The 18th RCT is reinforced by the 645th TD Btn and the 191st Tank Btn, while in the rear, the 117th Cavalry Rgt stands guard with the 6th Artillery Group, which has repositioned some of its pieces. The 2nd US-AD also tightens its position around
Saint-Saturnin-lès-Avignon, along the D6, which allows the Belgian corps, composed of the Brigade Tancrémont and two regiments of Chasseurs Ardennais, to insert itself on the left of the 1st French DB. In this sector, the 507th PIR sees with relief the 52nd RI of the 14th French ID, accompanied by the II/5 RCA, take over north of Isle sur Sorgue. Thus, in this area, the 26th US-IR of the Big Red One is the last American infantry regiment to hold the front, together with the 1st DB. During this time, the rest of the 14th ID goes on line in turn.
.........
Südwall - At the headquarters of the I. SS Panzerkorps, in spite of the losses, it is planned to try again to pierce because it is thought to feel a weakness of the allied device. The interpretation of the French movements, and in particular of the ascent of an armored division through the Durance valley, is that the enemy is going to try to break through the Vercors plateau to get behind the German front south of Lyon. However, there is confidence in the rapid deployment of the 157. Gebirgs-Division from Grenoble and the units of the LI. GK, coming from the Italian front: the 188. Gebirgs-Division and the 2a Alpini Monterosa. These three divisions soon lock all the accesses and passes, turning the enemy's chosen route of overrun into a dead end.
But now reports indicate that French troops are coming down from the Albion plateau on the flanks of the KG Meyer and Lammerding! More seriously, reconnaissance reports seem to indicate that the armored division (of which there had been no news for more than 24 hours) is actually about to break through east of Vaison la Romaine in the north of the Vaucluse, threatening to cut the I. SS PzK from its rear.
The new attack is therefore cancelled and orders are given to "realign the front" - in other words, to retreat a little and in good order in order to block the French movements and to block the Montélimar Gap.

Alps and French Riviera
Liberation - In the Durance valley, the pivot of the 3rd DB leaves a gap which forces the 3rd DIM to reorganize. It has to eliminate the last elements of the 189. RD in the sector of Sisteron, while the 21st Zouaves is detached on the Albion plateau and the 6th RTS has to be recovered, which leaves its place on the road to Digne to the 15th DBLE.
In this sector, the French position becomes more and more stretched while waiting for the arrival of the mountain divisions to anticipate the deployment of German reinforcements. Skirmishers from the 3rd RTM, accompanied by elements of the divisional engineers and armoured vehicles of the I/7 RCA, manage to secure the village of Serres and reach La Saulce, in spite of the German resistance which seems to be getting harder. Gap is less than thirty kilometers away.
Further south, part of the 10th DI takes over from the legionnaires. The 50th Infantry Regiment moves northwards in support of the Legion, along the valley of the Asse leading to Digne, while the 5th Infantry Regiment deploys around Moustiers Sainte-Marie. Meanwhile, the 21st Infantry Regiment, supported by divisional artillery, puts pressure on the 281. Grenadier Rgt of the 148. ID, in retreat in the sector of Canjuers.
While the fighting ends in Draguignan, the 4th BMLE fails again to break through in the direction of Fréjus in front of the 286. Grenadier Rgt. But the latter is in a more and more difficult situation, due to the pressure of the cavalrymen, supported by the GAN 2, the pressure of the 20th RIC, which is attacking the first foothills of the Esterel, to the north of the position, and that of the legionnaires of the 14th DBLE, who emerge from the Maures massif, above the Argyle valley. All in all, this sector only holds out because further south, along the coast, the 919. IR of the former 242. ID holds out on the hills in front of Saint-Aygulf facing the 4th RTS.
.........
In the air, Ensign Bédart, of the 4F, wins an unusual victory. In cover of an SBD-5 Cormoran attack in the Fréjus sector, he shoots down what he thinks is a Messerschmitt 109, although the camouflage, in green and sandy tones, is unusual. The confirmation of his victory, the fourth, will arrive a few days later, but to his great surprise, his 109 would be recognized as a Macchi 202 sporting the Balkenkreuz. On the body of the pilot, one will find documents in German, but which do not specify its identity.

 

[Wings]

September 12th, 1943

Truyère Valley (Aveyron) - Colonel Charles Mondange, commander of this sector on the border of the Cantal, also takes stock of his resources. The last parachuting of the Chénier terrain was successful and the containers should arrive soon. A new drop zone has been in operation for several nights at Mons de Roffiac, near Saint-Flour: it allows to supply the Truyère and especially Mont Mouchet, the main gathering point for the volunteers.
Mondange, a career soldier, sometimes had trouble instilling discipline in these enthusiastic young men. The other night, one of them tried to check that his pistol was unloaded: the bullet went through the colonel's beret - not on his head, fortunately, but on the coat rack. The ensuing shouting was memorable and we hope that the lesson will reach the head. In the last group he visited, the men's nom de guerre are Banania, Negus, La Flicaille, Brutus, Charlemagne, Colt, Paris-Soir, Mimile, Charly, Jacques, La Crevette and Mickey. Better not to imagine the effect on the press release! The colonel is almost more comfortable with the names of the two Bosnians, Luftija Dizdarevic and Djemaludin Krupalija, who are simply called Boss and Jim. They already have a basic military training, even if it was acquired in the enemy forces...
The Revenge group, as it is called, must prepare to hold the area around the Rock of the Hanged to prevent the Aurillac garrison from lending a hand to that of Saint-Flour.

Picaussel (Aude) - The Germans, enraged by the removal of the Couiza depot, undertake to surround one of the maquis groups suspected, not without reason, to have taken part in it. But the corps franc de la Montagne Noire, still well connected to Algiers (in fact to Ajaccio) by radio link, had received the day before a parachute drop by 5 Halifaxes: the troops who attack in the evening are warmly welcomed with machine-gun and mortar fire.

Turin - The rebellion develops, but also the repression. The Italians of the Monterosa guide and support the SS against the partisans without hesitation.
During the day, the Kampfgruppe of the Hermann-Göring arrives in the city. Several times the Germans do not make the detail and summarily shoot all the inhabitants of the buildings from which shots were fired - or seemed to be fired from. These war crimes will be paid for...one day.

 

[Wings]

September 12th, 1943

Burma Campaign
Occupied Burma - On this almost sunny day, which hints at the end of the monsoon season, the Americans are back in the Hellfire Pass sector, in groups of four aircraft. The P-38s do not spot any locomotives, but one of the formations spots a transport aircraft escorted by four Ki-44s and four Ki-43s. The Lightnings attack in a dive and, in the rush, shoot down the transport despite the intervening escort. A P-38 and a Ki-43 are shot down, another P-38 crashes on landing, but most importantly we will find in the wreckage the body of General Takuma Shimoyama, head of the 3rd Air Division, whose disappearance is to cause a lasting disturbance to the activities of the Japanese General Staff.

Indochina Campaign
Counter-guerrilla warfare in Southern Laos
In the jungle 60 km north-east of Savannakhet, around midnight - The landscape darkened by the night is sticky with humidity. Confused noises are heard, then silhouettes appear in single file. They are Laotian riflemen, Hmong of the regular French colonial army - about a hundred men. They are wearing trellis jackets made of canvas and an Australian bush hat and are mainly armed with Berthier muskets, rechambered for the 7.5 x 54 mm Mas 36 ammunition. Three or four,the best shooters, have Berthier rifles with scopes, a dozen carry "Thompson" machine pistols (in fact, copies made in China). The collective weapons are limited to a few FM 24/29s.
The unit follows the steep slope of an arroyo from which rises a smell of decomposition that takes hold of the throat. The difficult terrain forces the riflemen to walk in single file. Many swear in low voices while giving themselves slaps to drive away the mosquitoes which swirl around them.
The men are cautious but not particularly worried. For nearly a month, they have been ambushing and attacking Japanese camps. These predators will participate in the assault on Savannakhet which had been in preparation for several days. Pressed for time, certain of not risking anything, their leader neglected to flank his column with patrols, notably on the ridge which dominates the track on the right. This mistake is to cost him dearly, because on this ridge, about fifty Japanese have set up an ambush. Divided into small groups a few dozen meters apart, they carefully arranged their automatic weapons, FMs (Nambu Taisho 11) and some heavy machine guns (Taisho 3).
An order in Japanese sets off hell. The quiet of the night is torn apart by the flashes of the muzzle of the weapons. Grenades explode in violent flames in the middle of the Laotian column. Screams of pain and anger, rales of agony. It is not a confrontation. The Laotians turn around, stunned by surprise and panic. Only a few men fight back at random. Without hesitation or pity, the Japanese empty one magazine after another and throw their grenades without interruption.
Then the initial shock dissipates. The surviving officers give orders and the skirmishers charge the Japanese positions revealed by the fire. But in the darkness cut by the strobe flashes of the weapons, the rush dwindles in a spray of bullets and blood. If a few solitary men, bayonet in the gun, reach the lines defended by the Nipponese, it is only to be shot at point blank range.
The Hmong's desperate assault suddenly stopped, as if a switch had been flipped.
The Japanese gradually stop firing. In the night air, the silence seems total after the outburst of violence that lasted an eternity of a quarter of an hour. Little by little, the Tenno soldiers begin to hear moans and groans.
A hoarse order revives the action. Wary, a score of men go down towards the arroyo, always covered by automatic weapons. Turning over one body after the other, the Japanese kill those who are still moving. A corpse suddenly gets up to run away, but more than ten rifles slam into him. The man rolls down the slope and ends up in the mud of the brook.
A dozen Hmong are able to reach the nearest French camp. The Japanese have only one light wounded.

Battle of Savannakhet
Savannakhet (South Laos), at dawn - The attack of the city does not surprise the Thai garrison. The recent movements of the Franco-Laotians were easy to spot and their
their objective - to cut Laos in two - was obvious. The enemy must therefore absolutely take the city if they are to pursue this strategy. This is why reinforcements have been brought in for several days by the Mekong River to reinforce the garrison. This one dug trenches, built bunkers out of tree trunks and transformed several houses on the outskirts of the city into forts.
06:00 - When the first allied planes appear (eight Mitchells and four P-40s), they are only opposed by a few improvised flak guns - obsolete 2-pdr, dismantled from the Thai Army's Vickers AA SPGs and replaced by Japanese equipment. But a lucky shot makes a bomber explode, riddling its neighbor with shrapnel, whose crew has to parachute out once they are over a safe area.
As the Allied planes move away, they are attacked by three Ki-27s and three Ki-43s, the former targeting the B-25s while the latter try to keep the P-40s away. The Thai aircraft planes are maneuverable enough to avoid American fire, but not powerful enough to do more than damage their opponents, who fly away to the north.
Shortly thereafter, the ground assault begins with a fairly modest artillery bombardment, as the Franco-Indochinese have only a few 75s, which only scratch the defenses.
An infantry attack, carried out without much enthusiasm, is met with a counterattack by the Thai.
07:30 - The Royal Thai Air Force intervenes in turn offensively! Seven Ki-30 (Ann) covered by three Ki-43 (Oscar) try to muzzle the enemy artillery, without any other efficiency than to support the morale of the defenders (which was the goal).
08:45 - Five Ki-30s and three Ki-43s attack the Franco-Vietnamese positions located at the edge of the jungle, without any apparent result. They are followed by four Ki-27 Ota (Nate) loaded with light bombs - one of them falls, victim of the heavy machine guns of the allied flak.
09:30 - A group of six Mitchells and eight Warhawks appear, this time at altitude.
They are attacked by a dozen Thai fighters, Ki-27s and Ki-43s, but two Ki-27s and one Ki-43 were shot down in exchange for a P-40 that crashes in the jungle. The Mitchells bomb from quite high and in a slight dive, then withdraw at full throttle towards DBP. The bombs hit the outskirts of the city, without harming the defenders.
10:30 - On the ground, no serious attack is launched and the confrontation is limited to intermittent exchanges of long-range fire. At this point, warned that a column of Japanese reinforcements are arriving from the base set up at the intersection of the Dong Ha road and the Saigon-Vientiane road, the attackers hurriedly pack up.
The attackers lost two hundred men (dead and wounded) in the confrontation, which the Thai propaganda will transform into a titanic battle and a heroic defensive victory. However, the city is still under siege. Thai intelligence estimates that a little more than a thousand men of the regular troops and an unknown number of irregulars remained behind to harass the garrison.

Pacific Campaign
Operation Crocodile
Truk Lagoon, Carolines - The day has dawned on Falo Island, but the sky remains cloudy and rainy, spreading a protective blanket over the MV Krait. The four Italian combat swimmers meticulously prepare their mission: complete and intensive revision of the equipment, umpteenth check of rare and inaccurate maps as well as the silhouettes of the target ships, and above all, food and rest. The men of Special Unit Z stand guard around the ship.
11:15 - Seaman Jones stands guard on a small rise less than 50 meters from the Krait, perfectly invisible in the vegetation. His watch began more than three hours ago and he has gradually become accustomed to the sounds of the jungle. His attention is alerted by an unusual sound, the cracking of a branch under a step - man or animal?
11:20 - Jones, on the lookout, has spotted a figure moving slowly along what looks like an unkempt coastal path overgrown with lush vegetation. It is a Japanese soldier who advances with difficulty and without particular discretion among the trees, plants and lianas which obstruct his way.
11:25 - Jones has now spotted three soldiers coming in his direction. Not knowing if other Japanese are around, Jones is reluctant to use his MP to shoot the three troublemakers and they are too grouped together to hope to eliminate them one by one with a knife.
He therefore contents himself with keeping an eye on them, counting on the density of the vegetation and the camouflage of their ship so that the Japanese patrol would pass without spotting the Krait and its occupants.
11:30 - Jones quietly retreats and alerts his colleagues: the entire team is camouflaged, silent, weapons in hand, ready to attack the enemy patrol at the slightest sign.
11:55 - The Japanese patrol passes within 20 meters of the Krait, but sees neither the ship nor its occupants. The tension subsides a little when the enemy soldiers move away, but the Italian-Australian commando is worried that the island of Falo, which the maps mark as uninhabited, is in fact at least patrolled by the enemy. The guards are reinforced and preparations were are in order to be able to launch the Italian mission in case of a Japanese attack.
17:00 - The two SLCs are launched and undergo final checks. The four Italian swimmers start to put on their equipment, which is too heavy for their liking in the muggy heat of the end of the day.
18:00 - The sun has just slipped below the horizon, and the two maiali are moving away from the Krait. Luigi Durand de la Penne and Emilio Bianchi are determined to repeat their feat in Alexandria - a way for the Italians to equalize the score between Axis and Allies... However, they know that this time they cannot afford to be taken prisoner. Just behind them, on the second SLC, Nicola Conte and Evelino Marcolini are focused, determined to live up to the trust and honor Ginocchio has placed in them by choosing them for this mission. The two piloted torpedoes move away at a slow speed (2 knots) southeast, towards the eastern tip of Moen Island, in a semi-dive (only the swimmers' heads are out of the water). For the Australians of Special Unit Z, a long wait begins...
19:05 - The two maiali, still grouped together, pass the eastern tip of Moen and make a short stop to check their new route. The navigation is easy, no current is perceptible and no Japanese ship or plane has been spotted. But things are getting complicated: the night has completely fallen, the rain redoubles, the shadows of the different islands are impossible to distinguish, visibility is almost zero... The Japanese fleet at anchor should be there, in front of them, less than 5 nautical miles away, but they see nothing! By mutual agreement, they decide to continue their route by navigating with instruments, heading southwest.
19:20 - New stop of the two maiali. The weather has now turned into a storm... which the Italians are happy about! Indeed, thanks to a flash of lightning, Bianchi spots many silhouettes of ships ahead of them, a few nautical miles away. The two SLCs continue on their way in this direction, to identify and attack the best targets.
20:15 - After a last common meeting, Durand de la Penne and Conte separate. They are now in the middle of the enemy fleet's anchorage, and the risk of being spotted at any moment and the limited autonomy of their SLCs force them to attack the closest ships rather than continue southwards in search of the most tempting targets, the aircraft carriers. So much the worse: each of them has spotted a battleship and is now heading to their target.
21:00 - Durand de la Penne and Bianchi's Maiale advances very carefully at 3 meters deep, as they estimate that they are now less than 100 meters from their target.
Then they are blocked by a metallic net: this is a good sign (it is an anti-torpedo net, so they are close to a large vessel), but it is also a big obstacle.
The two swimmers maneuver their torpedo and dive in hopes of getting under the net.
After descending to a depth of nearly 15 meters, they manage to get around the obstacle.
21:25 - The two Italian swimmers reach the hull of their target. At its size, no doubt: it is a battleship. They place themselves in the middle of the ship, slightly aft.
The most delicate phase of the mission begins: without losing control of the SLC, to unhook the explosive head and attach it to the hull of the giant.
21:45 - After long efforts, finally satisfied with the result but exhausted, De la Penne and Bianchi set the timer for an explosion at 05:00. Then they set off again with their "decapitated" torpedo and set off again. They have to dive to 15 meters to pass under the net then, still diving, they set a course to the north-east.
22:40 - At the controls of his maiale, Durand de la Penne doubles the point of Moen Island in a semi-dive. Chilled by the long hours in the water, the two divers are anxious to finish.
23:55 - Durand de la Penne and Bianchi join the MV Krait, where they are warmly welcomed by their Australian comrades, who warm them up and give them food and drink, while pressing them with questions on the progress of their mission. Then the SLC is reembarked and we begin preparations for the departure of the Krait, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the second crew.

The Sino-Japanese War
Aerial preparations
Hubei - Huangshi, logistic node of the middle Yangtze, downstream from Wuhan, is attacked by 23 American Liberators escorted by 11 Mustangs. Twelve Hayabusa and four Hiei interpose themselves; two B-24s and a P-51 are shot down for four Ki-43s. On the ground, the marshalling yard is hit hard, paralyzing rail traffic to Wuhan for several days.

 

[Wings]

September 12th, 1943

Operation Suvorov
Stubborn buffalo
Belarus - The sky is becoming generally clear again over the troops engaged in "Suvorov". Of course, the operations have never been suspended, but they can finally resume a normal rhythm, although taking into account, all the same, the mud, the fatigue... and the losses. In addition, the Soviets can no longer expect as much supply than before: indeed, in the south of Ukraine, operation Rumyantsev has just started the last stage of a three-phase plan that aims to liberate almost the entire USSR before the end of the year. The Stavka was probably a little too ambitious...
.........
Sianno region ("Suvorov-North") - After the new correction in the forests west of Sianno, it is the turn of the 63rd Army to throw in the towel, facing a terrible terrain and an enemy that is, if not too numerous, at least perfectly at ease in defence and benefiting from support of the 3. Panzer. Vasily Kuznetsov and his men did their best - but they are all simply at the end of forces, dispersed and in great danger of being themselves rudely jostled or even defeated at the first serious alert.
The road to Lepiel remains closed for the time being to the frontovikis - the day is therefore spent on repairs, evacuation of the wounded, consolidation of positions or attempts to rescue the isolated elements left behind the day before and encircled. These last ones are quite successful, given the thinness of the German lines.
The northernmost branch of Suvorov is now at a standstill. And this, without General Andrei Eremenko wishing to oppose it: his mind is made up and, besides, he has other worries further south.
.........
Talachyn region ("Suvorov-North") - Indeed, unfortunately for them, the forces on the Baryssaw road do not have the excuse of dispersion or terrain to mark the step and what should happen happens.
The 3rd Guards Army (Zakharkin) has now surrendered almost all of its lines south of Razdolnaya to its neighboring 1st Guards (Chistiakov). For its part, it continues to go north in the hope of overrunning the Germans. In doing so, its forces are stretched to the point of neglecting the center of the Soviet system - the Baryssaw-Orsha road - which ensures the junction between the two armies and yet constitutes the most favorable terrain for an action.
Annoyed by the Soviet attempts in the north as well as by the insect bites of the 15th Army south, Eberhard von Mackensen decides to strike a blow: he wants to slam the door on the Soviets once and for all - and if possible break it - so that his reserves could finally go and do something else.
Consequently, around 10:00, while the frontovikis are facing the 227. ID and the VI. AK to the north and south of the Baryssaw-Orsha road, the 12. Panzer (von Bodenhausen) and the 18. PanzerGrenadier (von Erdmannsdorff), supported by the 336. ID (Lucht) strike along this road, at the level of Slobodka. Both mechanized formations have suffered in recent weeks, it is true - but they are still superior to anything that the Soviets can oppose in the sector, especially after a stubborn offensive that has cost far too much. The left flank of the 3rd Guards is breached at 12:00, while the right wing of the 1st Guards loses the link with the north - trapped between the Drut and the German lines, it cannot come to the aid of its neighbor without abandoning its positions and risk a second flanking attack. It is fortunate that the 2nd Air Force is present en masse above the front line today - it directs the troops, slows down the enemy and enlightens the officers on the ground!
However, despite its undeniable efforts - which cost it 27 aircraft between flak and intervention of the IV/JG 5 (which lost 4 planes) - the panzers advance... At 14:00, they are near Porech'ye, 8 kilometers behind the front!
Faced with this disaster, and while the panic begins to take hold of his troops, Zakharkin can only order in urgency a jump back of 10 kilometers to re-establish the connection with the 1st Guard and avoid a possible encirclement - he ignores of course that the Germans do not have the means to do so. Forced to do so, Eremenko agrees, while ordering Chistiakov to clear his positions to press the southern flank of the Fascist salient as best he could. Meanwhile, the 18th Armored Corps bravely sends its remaining 50 tanks to the slaughter - in the evening, between the Stukas assaults (which leave 5 aircraft) and panzer fire, Burdeyny's formation no longer exists as a fighting entity.
However, the Fascists finally stop - their vanguards are in Drozdovo and Skavyshki when they prepare to turn back, little by little and under the cover of night, not forgetting to destroy the abandoned materials that they cannot carry away. "Twelve kilometers in one day! Give me a new armored corps and we take back Orsha!" von Mackensen rants - but no such formation is available, from the Baltic to the Black Sea and from the Balkans to Provence. He who already saw himself encircling the Reds and annihilating them, must therefore return to his simple role of river guard. A vigilant and aggressive guard however - the Russians realized it.
.........
Bialyničy and Balonauka regions ("Suvorov-Center") - After its discreet achievement of the previous day, and while everyone's attention remains focused on Talatchyn and Jlobin, the 15th Army continues its difficult advance in the middle of the Belarusian plain and widens a little its salient by seizing Hlybokaye (in the north) and Kononovichi (in the south).
Ivan Fediyuninsky is however perplexed - he has just received an order to cancel the crossing of the 22nd Armored Corps, so that the latter can eventually move north... and he is not sure what objective he should aim at, while the Fascists have obviously launched a counter-offensive on his right! For lack of anything better, and while waiting for further instructions, he now envisages simply forming a bridgehead on the Drut - impregnable thanks to the terrain and ideally relying on the marshes located 10 to 15 kilometers away. His formation could become a thorn in the enemy's side - not much more, however, given its current state.
The 15th Army continues to move forward, making small leaps and bounds and making mediocre advances. It would have to reorganize itself before any further major assault.
As for the 29th Army, it continues to advance towards the south-west, despite the concerns of General Managrov - all of which are brushed aside by all his hierarchy (which nourishes other concerns ... or hopes on this subject ...).
In any case, this unit is now halfway to Klitchaw and especially to Kirawsk, in a daring move that did not escape the Germans at all. Indeed, the XLIII. AK continues to oppose the Soviet assaults from far and wide and informs the Germans of the 19. and 20. Panzer on the enemy positions. Both units should be in place around Kirawsk tomorrow - they could even be supported by an infantry division taken from the defenses of Jlobin, as the calm seems to have returned there.
.........
Zhlobin region ("Suvorov-South") - Indeed, after the bloodbath of the last two days, the 2nd Guards Army gives up trying to cross the Dnieper again and is now redeploying southwest of Sbory, to prepare for the crossing of the Dnieper to Rahachow. This operation is carried out once again under the cover of the 7th Armored Corps, whose general Alexey Rodin had the tubes fired over the water to create a diversion. Nevertheless, in spite of all his efforts, the formation of Leonid Govorov risks not being able to attack immediately: of the three corps that compose it (1st and 13th Guards Rifle Corps, 4th Cavalry Corps), only the first one is at more than 70% of its normal strength! The others are all at less than half of their organization charts - the efficiency of the whole will not fail to be affected and it is to be hoped that Rahatchow will not be too well defended when we get there...
Meanwhile, in front of Strešyn, the transfers of the 3rd Shock Army continue, in the relative indifference of the Wehrmacht, which - for lack of more resources - from time to time cannons the enemy positions and sends the II. FliegerKorps to bomb their positions (8 aircraft lost, including 3 fighters of the II/JG 51, against 19 Falcons of Stalin). The 3rd Shock holds its position on the west bank and it is already good! Despite the reluctance of General Tanachichin, the 21st Armored Corps even starts to use its lightest machines at night, for fire support missions. Unfortunately, the amphibious tanks used on the Danube are not available... but anyway, the 2nd Belorussian Front is a handful of tanks off! In the evening, Maksim Purkayev succeeds in passing the equivalent of a reinforced division on the western side.
As for the 10th Armored Corps, it reacheds its destination in front of Zhlobin...
.........
"Arrival in the middle of the afternoon at the front. I have the impression of reliving a memory - only worse. The Dnieper is carrying more debris and bodies than ever, due to the rain of the last few days, in addition to the fighting that - it is whispered - has not stopped. We will not know more... But obviously, if these fights had been victorious, we would already be crossing!
The atmosphere is gloomy within the crew: we escaped by miracle from death in Gomel - in front of this panzer, thanks to our sniper comrade and probably also countless other times, without us even realizing it. Sometimes feel like I'm playing Russian roulette - no doubt there's only one bullet in the barrel of the gun, but if we keep doing it over and over again...we will lose!
Obviously, all this does not affect the young people too much, who do not understand our blasé look in front of the bloody waves. The sun sets, cutting the silhouette of our machines while leaving the fascist positions in the shade..." (Evgeny Bessonov, op. cit.)

Kremlin - "Such failures are unacceptable, Comrade General! Unbelievable, even!" With the contrite face of one who knows well that he was right too soon, Marshal Zhukov personally presented to Stalin the latest results of the engagement of the 1st Belorussian Front: north of Talachyn - disastrous results, of course. Seen from Moscow, Eremenko's Front seems to be on the verge of collapsing under a fascist counter-offensive, endangering the whole of liberated Belarus up to Smolensk. And yet, it is Stalin who thunders thus, in front of his staff, while Aleksandr Mikhailovich Vassilevsky tries with difficulty to divert the attention of the Little Father of the Peoples on other more promising subjects.
For the two... military marshals, the diagnosis is clear - in fact, it is the same as the one they had made only four days earlier. The 1st Belorussian Front is out of the race, and must urgently stop any offensive action to hope to keep its hard-won gains. Does Stalin realize this? Probably - but besides having to manage what is announced as a new political annoyance, he does not resist to a new opportunity to affirm with the most complete bad faith his infallibility, which obviously contrasts with the multiple errors of the military hierarchy. From all times, Stalin has always been obsessed by the risk of bonapartism in the Red Army - and given the major importance that this one took in the State on the occasion of the conflict, he is constantly pitting everyone against each other, the NKVD against the Smersh, Konev against Eremenko... his protégés against Zhukov, too. Obviously, the latter, although he is probably not in danger for the moment - although with Stalin, you never know! - has to make amends and bow his head, if only to protect the men and the goals that are most important to him.
It is true that the credibility of the Stavka is not at its best since "Zitadelle"! "Suvorov" is an expensive... expensive success, "Kutuzov" does not look much more successful and the start of "Rumyantsev" does not dazzle anyone yet. Zhukov however hopes that this last operation will allow to erase the tenacious impression of mess which dominates the operations of the Red Army at the end of the summer.
Nevertheless: beyond these paranoid maneuvers and other considerations so Soviet, a decision has to be made. If only to allow other operations to follow their course without fearing a fascist breakthrough that would ruin their efforts. Finally, after a long moment of theatrical reflection, Stalin announces: "Very well, comrades. Let the 1st Belarusian Front stop its attacks and dig in for the time being. This is only the second time that we stall like this, since the offensive on Riga! I hope however that this economy of means will allow the 2nd Front to encircle and take Jlobin, as we had planned. This liberation is imperative for the operations in Ukraine, is that understood?"
Obviously, it is very clear. And for the soldiers of the 2nd Guards and 3rd Shock who will have to continue to try to cross the Dnieper in a hurry, and for General Managrov, whose 29th Army is not allowed to stop its march to Kirawsk. Thus, in order to save what remains of the 1st Belarussian Front from the demands of the Vojd, it is the turn of the 2nd Front to sacrifice itself... in full communist solidarity, of course.

Moscow - With a little more emphasis and a little less triumphalism than before, Radio-Moscow announces "the complete failure of a fascist counter-attack in front of Talachyn, and the continued advance of our forces towards Babruysk and Jlobin. The liberation of these cities seems imminent - and with it the collapse of the right flank of the forces occupying Belarus."
.........
Berlin - Meanwhile, the Reich comments: "The forces of HG Mitte operating in the Polotsk, Lepiel and Talatchyn regions have once again pushed the enemy beyond their starting lines with a determined and victorious counter-offensive, which proves once again the indisputable superiority of the German soldier. Elsewhere on the front of White Ruthenia, the situation hardly changes - except in favor of our weapons."
Is this rodomontade meant to be prophetic? It is true that Herr Alfred-Ingerman Berndt has his entries in the Ministry of Propaganda!

Operation Kutousov
Cicatrisation ?
Ovroutch to Mozyr sectors - The Soviet forces continue to move up the line and prepare for an unlikely return to the north, Pripyet and its marshes.
For the time being, for lack of perspective as well as of will, the situation remains frozen.
.........
Olevsk sector - Even though the responsibilities between the 3rd Belarusian Front and the 3rd Ukrainian Front are still not clearly defined, the situation remains unchanged - despite the definition of sectors of operations, lines and units remain intertwined! - the disordered efforts of the Red Army are smashed against the new German lines, between Radovel' and Derzhanivka. The LII. ArmeeKorps (Hans-Karl von Scheele) holds on, like before Korosten, with the support of the III. PanzerKorps (Werner Kempf) and the 246. ID (Maximilian Siry), while keeping in reserve the 10. PzGr (August Schmidt), the 9. Panzer (Walter Scheller) and the 501. schw. Pz Abt "with the panther". The latter has a new leader, Major Erich Löwe, who replaces Seidensticker, who everyone doubts will ever return to the front...
On the other side, the two Soviet fronts are fighting their own war... South of the road, Nikolai Vatutin sends the 2nd and 4th Guards Armored Corps in the direction of Zhubrovychi, with the 5th Army in their rear, which has not yet finished deploying on the front.
In order not to remain on the sidelines, and despite the warnings of Pavel Poluboiarov, Rodion Malinovsky launches the 44th and 60th Armies, a little late. These are poorly supported by a breathless 20th CB, which has to attack without waiting for the reinforcement formations (50th Army, 19th CB), still in transit.
On a front of only 25 kilometers, the Wehrmacht can quietly maneuver its tanks, fire its tubes, while the Stukas "guns" of II/SchG. 1 and the Bf 110 of III/ZG. 1 ravage the lines of the attackers... At the cost, however, of 17 aircraft (including 4 fighters of III/JG. 51 in cover) against 32 "Falcons of Stalin". Nevertheless, the result is there: barely launched, the attack sinks in the confusion. The breakthrough is not for now!
.........
Yemiltchyne sector - A quiet day for Vasily Chuikov's 37th Army, today even more than yesterday - does not have the opportunity to influence events. Still in the vicinity of Khutir-Moklyaky, the formation waits for the next events and the arrival of the reinforcements necessary for any hope of a breakthrough towards the west.
Just north, the 4th Shock Army (Maslennikov) and the 11th Armored Corps (Alexeiev) have completed their transhumance through the forests, from which they finally emerge in the direction of Pidluby - facing the XLIV. ArmeeKorps (Friedrich Köchling). This one is very weakened and did not really recover from its fights along the Uzh, towards Horshchyk. For the moment, the red pressure is not very strong... but Friedrich Köchling does not call for help, once again. As a result, the XLVII. PanzerKorps (Heinrich Eberbach) could not redeploy to the north as planned, and cannot free the III. PanzerKorps (Werner Kempf), which the 8. Armee will however need...
.........
Novohrad-Volynskyi sector - The counter-attack decided by Erich Brandenberger to cut the 5th Shock Army from its bases starts with great ambitions but few fanfares. However, with what the HG Mitte accomplishes at the same time in Belarus, the HG Nordukraine cannot do less than execute an adversary who seems to be so willing to gift the back of the neck.
But only appears. Because Ivan Chernyakovsky seizes the opportunity that fate had given him: temporarily abandoning the ravaged center of Novohrad-Volynskyi, he redeploys the majority of his resources against the Germans. The fascist attempt will have at least allowed the frontovikis who have been fighting for four days in the middle of the ruins of the city to breathe a bit.
From Yarun', the 36. PzGr (Hans Gollnick) and the 249. StuG Abt thus try to force the red flank towards Orepy and Kyyanka, hoping to reach then the enemy boat bridges. But the 5th GAC Zhitomir is waiting for them - and for once, it is properly supported by the air force! It is true that business is quiet, further north... Dimitri Lelyushenko can calmly bleed his opponent: certainly, his forces are sparse, but they are only facing modest Panzer IIIs and StuGs - which, in attack and under a red sky, are not at the party ... The assault fails rather pitifully in the vicinity of Kyyanka. Here, decidedly, the situation resembles more and more like a stalemate.

Operation Rumyantsev
Relaunch
South of Ukraine - The dawn rises under a very clear sky - the summer stretches but refuses to end. And less than a month after the end of Zitadelle, all the tubes of the 1st Ukrainian Front open fire! From Zhitomir to Khmilnyk, the men of General Konstantin Rokossovsky attack the positions of the 8. Armee on three main axes, with the support of the 2nd Ukrainian Front of Ivan Bagramyan, positioned a little further south. On the other side, the Germans receive the shock with a mixture of surprise and weariness. Operation Rumyantsev is launched, as Zhukov had energetically ordered the day before.
Nevertheless, the Marshal goes back to Moscow to settle - in spite of a tenacious fever - a painful and political matter. In the absence of the chief (who doesn't seem to be in good shape these days...) and sometimes in spite of him, the attacks obtain various results.
.........
Zhitomir sector - Still exhausted from the battles fought to take the ruins of what was once the main city of the ruins of what was once the main city of the Kiev voivodship, the 1st Shock Army (A.A. Vlassov) still leaves the wood it has painfully (and only partially) torn from the Axis to push southwest towards Rudnya-Poshta. The capture of this crossing point located at the confluence of the Sheika and the Teteriv would allow it to cut straight to Baranivka, or even Myropil and Polonne, and thus to break through to the rear of the right flank of the 6th Army.
Problem: in addition to the very real fatigue of the frontovikis, the Soviet plan is obvious for the Germans! And although the sector is only defended by the 223. ID (Christian Usinger) and 304. ID (Ernst Sieler), these are perfectly able to parry the enemy's vanguards, to repel all the infiltrations of the 1st Cavalry Corps (L.M. Dovator) and to exchange a few kilometers of pine forests for blood. In the evening, the Russians have barely reached Katerynivka, facing the Victory Road. Due to the lack of open ground, the VVS can hardly do much, and Kurt von der Chevallerie can announce to Walter Weiß (8. Armee) that his LIX. ArmeeKorps is in no danger at all.
.........
Berdichev sector - In the great plain of Ukraine - infinitely more favorable to the offensive than the northern woods - things are going a bit differently... and not necessarily better for the Red Army.
On the road to Chudniv, the 4th Guards Army (I.N. Muzychenko) and the 1st Armored Corps (P.G. Chanchibadze) clash with the XXVII. ArmeeKorps (Karl Burdach). This one can rely on marshes to the north and woods to the south, but the attackers progresses 5 to 7 kilometers, seizing in particular the villages of P'yatka and Rachky (along the railway line to Polonne).
On the other hand, in the south, the 5th Guards Army (F.N. Remezov) breaks its teeth on the II. SS-PanzerKorps (P. Hausser). Two of its three divisions (Totenkopf and Hohenstaufen) fiercely defend the road to Staryi Lyubar under a solid cover provided by the JG 52, which shoots down 31 aircraft for only 7 losses! The SS want to make up for the failure of their last month's ride... and for Walter Weiß as well as for Paul Hausser, this obvious axis of attack is logically the best defended. Not at all in danger, Hausser calmly manages the situation, engaging his panzers one after the other, without fearing for his rear, where the PzrGr Grossdeutschland is stationed... In front of him, Fyodor Remezov - a general of average competence at best - can hardly find a solution: the infantrymen of the 26th Army (L.S. Skvirsky), however supposed to support him, have still not recovered from the terrible battles of Zitadelle, and the tanks of the 1st Guards Armored Corps (M.E. Katukov), engaged on his side, are brutally stopped by the Leopards and the Panzer IV, and even by the Stuka ! The assault is therefore very quickly stopped.
A handful of kilometers to the south, the situation is however a little more delicate for the SS. At the height of Ulaniv, along a Snyvoda parallel to the axis of the communist attack (and which could not be used by the defenders), the 10. SS-Panzergrenadier Frundsberg (Lothar Debes) faces the 9th Guards Army (N.P. Pukhov - former 13th Army) alone. If the collective promotion of the communist troops has obviously not solved at once its problems of manpower, fatigue and supplies, it remains a vigorous opponent for a single division. General Pukhov, well acquainted with the use of tanks (he was in charge from March 1938 to April 1939 the school of the armored weapon Joseph Stalin, in Kharkov) can thus clear, towards Lyp'yatyn, a mouse hole where he undertakes to slide the 4th Armored Corps (A.G. Kravchenko). However, this movement does not go unnoticed in the evening,
Paul Hausser asks Walter Weiß, in his headquarters in Staryi Lyubar, for permission to engage the Grossdeutschland to blind this (small) beginning of the waterway. Authorization obviously granted.
.........
Khmilnyk sector - In this sector that neither of the two belligerents consider of strategic importance, the 3rd Army (M.S. Shumilov) and the 5th Armored Corps (S.M. Krivoshein) attack the IX. ArmeeKorps of Heinrich Clößner alone- which is very isolated and still in a bad shape after its near rout of the previous month. Of course, the Soviets are not in great shape but nevertheless, they are in better shape than their opponents, whom they begin to push back towards the north-west from Jdanivka to Sulkivka, despite the intervention of the few Luftwaffe aircraft that are not mobilized further north.
Five kilometers is not a rout, and there is still some distance before Staryi Lyubar - but the situation should not get too bad! The 504. s.Pz Abt, on Tiger and Panzer IV (Hauptmann Kühn) is therefore mobilized to solve the problem. If necessary, the 8. Armee will send more important reinforcements! But not before, for lack of luxury...
.........
2nd Ukrainian Front sector - Between Vinnistsa and Mohyliv-Podilskyï, the terrain, made of wood and valleys streaked with rivers - is not so favorable to the offensive. This is why the OKH entrusts the defense of this salient overlooking occupied Moldavia to the sole 2. PanzerArmee (Hans-Jürgen von Arnim). The 2. PzA has four army corps (including two Hungarian ones). Although it is armored, it had only one PanzerDivision: the 23. Panzer (Nikolaus von Vormann), on Panzer III (!), reinforced it is true of the 2nd Hungarian AD (major-general Ferenc Bisza), very damaged but still valiant. It is not enough to face a determined Soviet offensive, but it is largely sufficient to hold a position that some people in Rastenburg discreetly consider superfluous. In fact, it is not necessary to engage these two units.
In fact, the 2nd Ukrainian Front is not more of a priority than its opponent in terms of human or material reinforcements. In spite of Ivan Bagramyan's efforts to coordinate the assaults in the direction of Bar of the 2nd Shock (K.N. Galitsky), the 59th Army (I.T. Korovnikov) and the 10th Army (F.I. Golikov - absent and summoned to Moscow!), the attack fails in front of the IV. ArmeeKorps (Erwin Jaenecke), well covered on its flanks by the 4th Hungarian AC (major-general József Heszlényi) and the XLIX. ArmeeKorps (Rudolf Konrad). Zhmerinka is thus held without difficulty. The 16th Armored Corps (A.I. Getman), kept in reserve, does not have the opportunity to be engaged. Further south, the 16th Army (M.F. Lukin) does little better against the Hungarian 7th AC (István Kiss), which withdraws three kilometers northward on the road to Mourovani Kourylivtsi.
In short, the 2nd Ukrainian Front faces the 2. PanzerArmee like two bums fighting for a corner of the street: with more ambitions than real ambitions... Except of course for the poor souls who will be victims of this day.

HQ of the HG North-Ukraine (Kovel), 19:30 - While the fever of the fights fades away, Erich von Manstein takes stock with a mixture of fatalism and serenity. From where he is, it seems obvious that this new action in the south is only the umpteenth desperate avatar of the succession of failures that the Slavs undergo... at least in the sectors defended by the Wehrmacht! The Reds attack - and like in the north, they do not break through but accumulate terrible losses for insignificant gains. After all, thinks the general with satisfaction, if these sub-humans want to make us gain time by throwing themselves under our MG-42, they are free to do so! Even less than at Korosten, Manstein does not see where the Russians want to come from, nor what they hope for exactly. What plan, what project behind all that behind all this? Undoubtedly none...
The only (small) source of concern: the situation around Khmilnyk. Obviously, the IX. AK will not hold alone. It will thus be necessary - if that is confirmed - to send him some reinforcements taken from further north, for example Waffen-SS...

Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Rovne) - As he likes to remind us, of his entire career as a soldier (because he considers himself one), Hans-Adolf Prützmann has never doubted much.
He never doubted his future or that of the German Empire when he was studying agriculture in Göttingen. He never doubted that he was in the right when he faced the Poles (or more exactly when he had decided to confront them) within the Freikorps of his native East Prussia, during the fighting in Upper Silesia. In 1929, in the SA, he had no doubt that the assault sections would be able to defend his province against the vile Polish Jews.
Then, the SA being decidedly too little concerned by his cause, he had passed without hesitation to the SS in 1930... And there, as if to prove him right, his career as a fanatical soldier had skyrocketed! Member of the Reichstag, SS-GruppenFührer then OberGruppenFührer, head of the SS divisions "South-West" and then "North-East", and recently responsible for the extermination of the Jews in the Baltic States as Höherer S.S. und Polizeiführer Nord-Russia! He did not doubt, at that time the rightness of his actions and the support of the Latvians, before he went to manage the forced laborers busy building roads on the backs of the Front*.
Now in charge in Ukraine since October, Prützmann still has no doubt (of course!) of the Reich's victory.
of course!) of the Reich's victory. On the other hand, he openly doubted the capacity of the Heer to hold the front, even with the SS at his side. It was therefore necessary to move quickly, as quickly as in Belarus.
It is true that most of the ghettos in the Ukraine have already been liquidated, thanks in particular to the energetic and benevolent collaboration of the locals. On the other hand, there are still many sub-humans elsewhere: in Poland, Romania, Hungary even, one day... Not to mention the swarming mass of terrorists, gypsies and other depraved homosexuals. All must disappear, the Reichsführer-SS himself ordered it!
In short, the Schutzstaffel still has a lot of work to do, and so little time and means! Also, Prützmann is ready to welcome with interest those Slavs who are less stupid than the others and who want to work for the Reich - even if it was the Heer who sent them to him with annoyance.
In particular, the SS-OberGruppenFührer has no doubt that this...Melnyk (is that his name?) will stay in his place and obey as he should.

* Indeed, Prützmann - perhaps in favor of the "Rosenberg solution", i.e. the confinement of the Jews in ghettos - had not satisfied Himmler as an exterminator. In this role, he was replaced in November 1942 by Friedrich Jeckeln, a very experienced Einsatzgruppenführer, capable of executing ten thousand people in one day...

 

[Wings]

September 12th, 1943

Italian campaign
Italian front - Calmness reigns in the front line... On the other hand, the allied staffs are in turmoil!
.........
Perugia - The Piazza IV Novembre is crowded with allied light vehicles of various types, but most of them displaying a few stars. In the Palazzo dei Priori, a staff meeting is held at the echelon of the Italian front, intended to learn the lessons of Buffalo. The situation is reversed compared to the previous meeting: the British are the ones who looked gloomy while their cousins on the other side of the Atlantic were smiling with satisfaction.
Clark (Italian front), Devers (5th US Army), Woodruff (II US Corps) and the other Americans are indeed delighted: despite the mediocrity of the standard M4's armament, finally recognized, the operation allowed them to erase the setbacks of Diadem, with an advance of almost a hundred kilometers. They regretted the forthcoming departure of the 1st Armored of Harmon for France, but they are comforted by the fact that the Italian terrain is definitely not suitable for the engagement of large armored units and it seems much better to use task forces combining various types of armor and mechanized infantry to support the infantry divisions. General Clark intends to put pressure on Washington to obtain, in the long term, in the absence of an unlikely armoured division, a maximum of independent armoured battalions so that each of his infantry divisions would have its own mechanized task force - and why shouldn't the corps have such a unit as well?
The conquest of Pisa is the icing on the cake: the Americans are delighted with the speed of the reaction, which prevented the Krauts from recovering their forward line, the Lydia Line, and allowed the II US Corps to reach the foot of the hills north of the city. This corps now borders the Gothic Line. Finally, the halt in operations required by Dragon is not negative - it is still too early to expect to go further.
The only shadow in this picture is the appearance on the Italian front of new heavy German tanks on the Italian front, already reported by the Soviets and also encountered in France. These panzers have been reported east of the front*. It is obvious that the 75 mm short is insufficient against such machines, but most of the tanks arriving from the United States are now better armed.
The Italians are also pleased with their progress. They thank the Allies, and in particular the French and Belgians, for their support during the counter-attack which flanked the Friuli, and especially for their help in the liberation of the capital of Tuscany. They emphasize that the speed of the French who flew to the aid of the city in the middle of the insurrection has undoubtedly allowed to avoid heavy losses in the civilian population, grazie, grazie molto! The French grumble vaguely that they have only done their duty... How, in front of such a sincere emotion, can one still be angry at the Italians for the famous stab in the back!
The 20th DI Friuli, very tested, will soon leave the front to be replaced by a mountain division. Before the winter, the infantry corps will be transformed into a mountain corps, which is a good thing, considering the type of terrain that awaits the allied troops - but also cobelligerent troops - and the difficulties to come.
For the future, the Italians are hoping for the arrival of new ground and air units, equipped in the American style, in order to continue the fight. The current small divisions, with weapons that are still partly outdated, are finding it increasingly difficult to compare with their Allied - and especially German - counterparts.
The French are modestly triumphant. Although the transalpine newspapers have downplayed the French participation in the capture of Florence, everyone around the table knows that it was the 83rd DIA and the legionnaires who forced the lock and liberated the city. Kœltz preferred to emphasize the excellent behavior of Bastin's Belgians, who were able to hold and reel in a large portion of the front in the center. A good sport, he deigns to acknowledge the performance of the Italians. After the exploits of the 44th ID Cremona in July, the Cuneense alpines have shown great qualities. However, he does not fail to point out (on behalf of, he specifies, Frère) that the French means now going in priority to the French front, that the Italians should take as large a part as possible in the liberation of their own territory as soon as possible.
Kœltz also declares, with the approval of everyone, that the overall impression for the past three months has been that the enemy was trading space for time and that his retreat was generally very well controlled. The Germans have had time to build this fortified line that their propaganda makes much of and on which they intend to rely to spend the winter peacefully. It will probably not be easy to cross.
It is the turn of General Alexander and his subordinates to speak. They must acknowledge the failure of their attempt to break through. Two army corps were beaten for an advance of barely fifteen miles. They may have lacked a real armored division - but the density and the power of the German anti-tank means are simply formidable. With a sigh, the British general finally declares that the objective hoped for in February - to reach beyond Bologna in the autumn - is unattainable... at least with the means and supplies that had to be made do with. It will be necessary to wait for the spring to hope to reach the north of the Boot.
One last participant speaks. It is General Lee, the great boss of the allied quartermaster on this front. Without going back over Alexander's regrets, he gives an update on stocks, which have fallen back to the "alarming" level of March. To replenish them, given the absolute priority guaranteed to Dragon, which absorbs two-thirds of the resources, it will take at least ten weeks to replenish them. Even then - at the beginning of December - there will be no question of launching a general offensive as we have seen in the last three months. He concedes that these, launched in spite of his warnings, gave results: Perugia, Siena, Florence, Pisa; but the next cavalcades will have to be done at the level of the army corps, and one corps at a time, because the available means will not allow anything more. He adds that he is happy that he caught attention of the Germans (and their means, no doubt, to them too) is fixed on the south of France - as it is, the reserves would not allow to face a counter-offensive as violent as the one in January!
Clark says nothing. He knows that the stocks are indeed empty (just a little less empty than Lee claims) and the recent political turmoil has made him too hot to show any disagreement. Devers says nothing, and the Italians agree to everything, as long as the re-equipment of their army progresses. The French take note, but their minds are obviously elsewhere. Kœltz knows that, for Algiers, the Italian front had always been secondary - his IV AC is only composed of Algerian mountain men and Spanish tankers (the Belgians are soon to leave the peninsula); he has, above all, a political role today.
As for Alexander, he knows that, given his current situation and while there is talk of to name his great rival, Montgomery, viscount of Attica, it is likely to be difficult for him to participate in the great adventure that is taking shape on the shores of the English Channel. In the end, given the obsession of Churchill, eager to cut the grass under the feet of the Russians in Central Europe, he risks losing part of his resources to the benefit of the VIIIth Army and the Balkans, even if Monty was appointed in England! It will thus be necessary at all costs that the next offensive be carried out in the British sector - which will not be too difficult to obtain - and that it takes place before the end of the year - which will be more difficult to accept! Oh, it will also have to be victorious...
.........
In the air - While the 2nd EC of the French Air Force carries out its first missions in support of Dragon, air activity is low on the Italian front.
The SAAF takes the opportunity to re-equip its Sqn 4 and 5 with Spitfire Mk Vs in place of their aging P-40s..

Greek Campaign
Operation Presage
The ride of the Poles... and the Czechs
Southern Albania - A fine rain begins to fall across the wooded mountains, making it even more difficult for Anders' men to make their way through the decidedly dreadful roads. These roads are fortunately deserted by the Germans as well as by their auxiliaries. For the most part from Kosovo, they prefer to stay on the spot and return to their initial allegiance. They are content to observe from the top of their hills the Polish tanks which pass. Nevertheless, to Maczek's great annoyance, some of them go so far as to ask the Poles to take their side! After all, between anti-communists, can't we understand each other? The Poles, scandalized, answer that they are certainly not like the Italians... or the Germans. They would be even more outraged if they knew about the exactions of Xhem Hasa's men against the Serbs.
In spite of these ethnic complications, the SAV-42 liberates Ballaban and arrives in Tërpan in the evening. The Polish officers are anxious to get out of the damn mountains, but the town that commands the exit is Kuçovë. Precisely the choice of the 100. Jäger to establish its stopper.
On its side, free of any opposition or undesirable event, the force led by the Czechs runs due east and reaches Qesarat, then Krahes.

The ascent of the spahis
Ersekë road - The 4th Spahis pursues on its mechanical horses the 162. ID without giving it time to breathe or to recover. In the evening, the town of Ersekë is crossed by the Africans, whose presence at the borders of the Balkans evokes to some the time of the Ottomans... Only the numerous curves and a roadway which hardly supports the weight of the machines delays somewhat the spahis.
General von Niedermayer is well aware that he is being pursued with a sword in his back and asks his chief for authorization to withdraw towards Korçë without stopping. Felmy agrees, of course. Why waste men defending a road that leads to the mountains, especially outside his sector? From Korçë, the 162. ID can take the road to Pogradec and join the north of Albania.
With this withdrawal, the north of Epirus is definitively free of any enemy presence : the "principality of Pindus" wanted by the few Romanians of Alcibiades Diamandi will thus never have the occasion to exist.

Tirana - Hellmuth Felmy asks Alexander Löhr again about the promised reinforcements, in a telephone conversation that clearly lacks frankness. In a friendly voice that poorly hides the irony of his words, the leader of the LXVIII. Armee-Korps finally suggests: "I doubt, Herr General, I doubt that the reinforcements from Rendulic can reach me in time. What would you say to ask the OKW for permission to withdraw, after destroying the installations at Durrës and Tirana, of course! Otherwise, we would risk being stuck here like poor Müller in Salonika, that would be a lot, wouldn't it?
At the other end of the line, the interested party weighs for a moment the relative weights of the loss of Durres and Tirana and of the destruction of a complete (even weak) army corps. He promises to talk about it very quickly to the OKW, for a return tomorrow. In the meantime, the 100. Jäger must hold.
.........
Kuçovë - General Willibald Utz, of the unit in question, does not plan to die for the Reich in this miserable agricultural town lost between two valleys. He knows, from the report of poor Carl-Hans Lungerhausen, the firepower available to the Allies. The terrain has no value here, and the outcome of the battle is certain. In order not to be crushed like the defunct 11. Luftwaffen-Feld-Division, he organizes his position in depth, spread over 6 kilometers between Kuçovë itself, the castle of Berat and the road junction of Ura Vajgurore.
His forces will be dispersed, it is true. But they will also be able to maneuver and conduct an ambush war that could last a day or two.
For the rest, Utz has already planned everything. Under the guise of humanitarian concern and solidarity between Axis fighters, he opened wide the doors of the arsenals of the gendarmerie and other militias. This decommissioned equipment, useless to the Landsers, will surely find a new use in this country of savages: the natives will use it to kill each other when the Allies pass through, undoubtedly hindering them.

Skopje - Eduard Dietl has before his eyes the cordial message of his neighbor in LXVIII. AK.
After the withdrawal of Fehn's forces in Thrace, the leader of the XVIII. Gebirgs-Armee-Korps has the unpleasant impression that "his" Macedonia becomes an enormous salient easy to encircle.
At the end of the afternoon, he estimates that the joke has lasted long enough. On his right, the situation of Felmy's Corps is "complicated" (not to say "desperate"), while on his left, the evolution of Bulgaria seems uncertain, to say the least. And he has only two divisions in line to hold all of Macedonia.
Obviously, like everyone else, he asked for reinforcements from Zagreb, whether they came from Serbia, Croatia or Hell! He needs people! But nothing to do: the few units available are already promised to defend northern Albania, and the Ustasha and Milan Nedić's militias are being asked to come on line. It is whispered that the occupation policy of the Reich would have awakened age-old hatreds...
In view of the way things were going in Albania, Dietl finds it impossible to maintain his current position. He therefore drew up a new line of defense relying in particular on the lakes of Ohrid and Prespa. And he ordered the 1. Gebirgs-Division to leave the camp tomorrow, to go back in line. The 187. ID and the 92. Grenadier Rgt will take care of the Bulgarians alone while holding the Apsalos Pass - it will be abandoned a little later. What a pity that the 2. Brandenburger Rgt is going north! he sighed. The withdrawal will start tonight.
As a matter of course, Dietl will inform the commander of the 12. Armee. Löhr would not begrudge him to give up a few acres of mountains... But Dietl really does not want to relive his 1940 misadventure in Norway, because this time, no Sweden would save him from capture.

Siege of Salonika
Clouds of rain are added to the smoke of the fires to envelop the martyred city in a gloomy veil that forbade any mission of a gloomy veil that forbids any air mission, support or reconnaissance. The operations are obviously affected, leading the ANZAC and XIIIth Corps officers to adapt their tactics.
.........
Salonika (northern sector) - Considering that the rain prevents artillery observation and would bring down to the ground any smoke, General Stevens postpones his attack planned for the day. Nevertheless, on the suggestion of Lavarack - who is in constant contact with Brian Horrocks - it is agreed to attempt a sudden but coordinated night assault. This will certainly surprise the Jägers who are used to a certain routine of allied movements. In order to maximize the shock effect, the Navy monitors, including the Erebus, will be put to use for a flanking fire, in addition to the divisional artillery.
After the shock of yesterday's massacre, the Greeks could not resist.
At 21:50, the first elements take up position at the edge of the roads identified the day before.
Section after section, the "Aussies" set up in the shadows. Some movements are spotted by the German sentries, but they do not understand what is coming.
On the hill of Efkarpia, the Australian general nervously looks at his pocket watch.
Stevens insisted on attending the attack in person. At T minus 5 minutes, the plain lights up of numerous shots. Offshore, in the bay, thunderous rumblings are heard. The Jägers are aware of this noise, and the most lively ones try to flee from the fire that comes from the sky. Most of them do not succeed. Entire positions are destroyed under houses collapsing.
"Of course, we all had an old uncle who was a pain in the ass to tell us about the Somme or Flanders. But no memory or speech could have prepared us for this spectacle that stunned us for a moment. Not as hard as the Huns, but still!
The hill in front of us, the one on which Carmine had died, was on fire. I didn't see how any living thing could have survived such a treatment. Obviously and unfortunately, I was wrong, as my uncle could have told me." (H.C. Goldsmith, op. cit.)
Still in his forward position, Stevens barely moves. At T minus 30 seconds, the tubes fall silent one after the other, even if a nearby 25-Pounder, a little too enthusiastic, fires a last blow, triggering a light frown of the general. The room leader can only raise his right hand in a contrite manner. Stevens murmurs then, more commentator than actor of the play which is played: "T! Let's go, boys!" It is 10 p.m. sharp, and a clamor is rising from the Australian lines.
"When our guns had just stopped firing, I heard the lieutenant "GO GO GO! And before I really knew what was happening, I was running among so many others, leaning forward, trying to cover the, what, 200 yards of open space between us and the first houses. I made it without flinching but I could see three of my comrades falling like horses stumbling over a racetrack hedge. First roadblock, sandbags.
I jumped over them, my Lee-Enfield in hand, and fell on a Kraut who shook his head, on all fours on the ground. Without hesitation, I kicked him hard, turning him on his back and thrust my bayonet into his chest. No time to breathe, a noise of a circular saw makes me throw myself on the ground on the still warm body of my opponent: an MG 42. The servant seems to be panicked, and shoots in all directions. Marvin attention with Stanley and his Bren. Enough time for me to get close to him at a good distance and then throw a grenade that lands right under the machine gun tripod. Boom! The man seems to split into several pieces that go in different directions. In the distance on my left, a flamethrower - which I presume to be friendly - sprays the rubble, like a cellar being pulverized to get the vermin out. But I won't realize all this horror only much later. In this wild melee, two things mattered: moving forward and surviving." (H.C. Goldsmith, op. cit.)
The ANZAC attack is a clear success. The 17th Brigade (Victoria Province) push the Germans to Odisseos kai Apostolou Street, 200 meters from the castle. The fighting ceases only late at night. But the "killing ground" is well crossed and the first Cromwells enter Sykies, progressing not without difficulty in the middle of the rubble, under the cheers of the few Australians who are still vigorous. At dawn on the 13th, they could support the infantry as close as possible.
.........
Salonika (southern sector) - A play similar to the one staged by the ANZAC takes place at the same time in the village of Triandra, where the "Tommies" progress with the sound and reassuring support of the three IFSS-G monitors, which have little to put under their tooth. Indeed, the engineers prefer to decamp at the first shots and it is with much less opposition that the 51st Infantry Division takes the eminence with much less opposition than in the north.
Wimberley and his soldiers observe the wooded hills of Agios Pavlos: they are not very far away. And it will be the last step before the link with the Australians.
.........
Salonika (center) - Around midnight, General Müller understands that his situation on the heights is even more precarious than he thought. It is clear that the eminences east of the city could fall any day now. Cursed English and their tactics proven by the Other War! His idea of a redoubt may come in handy sooner than expected.
As usual, the commander of the Festung Salonik orders the evacuation of all equipment (including the surviving Marders) with the non-essential troops to the historical center or to Neapoli. Only a few sections will go to reinforce the positions south of Agios Pavlos. In the north, the castle should be strong enough to hold for a while: the Australians will be cautious with such a structure. During their next assault, Müller will give what remains of his artillery - anyway it will soon be useless in view of the shrinking of his perimeter. To gain one night, maybe two, that's his goal. Enough to hide and entrench himself in the heart of the city.
Like his superior, Colonel Müller makes decisions and he does it according to his tradition, with brutality. In this case, three Greek policemen guilty of "complicity with looters" (i.e. with inhabitants trying to save some food) are beaten by his men in front of their colleagues, according to the Prussian tradition.
Ordinarily, the colonel would have turned a blind eye to such petty theft. But the remarks that he has been subjected to in the last few days lead him to be even more severe than usual.
The contrite Hellenes observe the punishment and when one of the victims does not get up, some Όχι! (No!) circulate in the ranks. They do not escape the sagacious Müller, who has plenty of time to learn a little Greek. His position is also becoming delicate, he thinks. It is time to look for a way out... And what if it came from the Greeks? Because he doesn't consider himself stuck with these poor rags of the Hellenic State. They are the ones who are locked here with him! And he intends to use them to the maximum of their weak potential... An evil smile lights up his face - one more.

Bulgarian affair
Sofia - In the morning, a sound that the inhabitants had hoped not to hear any more since Bulgaria had declared its desire to leave the conflict resounds: warning sirens. The capital's Freya radar (generously donated by Germany at another time) has detected a large formation coming from Romania.
It is the Junkers 88 of KG.77, sent by FliegerFührer Schwarzes Meer, who, as promised (and even if it is for a short time), take part in the operations intended to bring Bulgaria
Bulgaria into line. The planes with the rooster insignia fly over Sofia for a demonstration of force which is not without reminding the raid of Amsterdam in May 1940. They are obviously much less numerous than their elders, but water has flowed under the bridge in the last three years, and Bulgaria is not Holland.
Warned a little late, a dozen Bf 109G2 of the 622nd Yato (6th Istrebitelen Orlyak, based at Bozhurishte) nevertheless attempt an interception. They are followed by four venerable Avia B-534, fragile sparrows in a sky haunted by predators.
The unfortunate Bf 109s are topped by other Bf 109s, G6s, sent by the 1/JG4. The "Ritters" of the Hauptmann Franz Hahn, twice more numerous, disperse without problems their Bulgarian cousins, shooting down three of them without loss. During this time, the biplanes push the temerity to lead a frontal pass on these bombers (without doing any damage) with their four 7,7 mm, before disappearing at ground level. The Germans do not pursue them. Back to his base, one of the brave pilots will have these words for his Czechoslovakian mount: "It may not be the fastest, but it is still the most elegant."
On the ground, the show looks depressing - except of course for Adolf Beckerle, who roars of pleasure from his window at the demise of his hosts' planes. Meanwhile, lined up as if for an air show, the Ju 88s bomb the buildings of the National Assembly (Narodno Săbranie) and the Regent's Palace. A clearly political raid, then. Nevertheless, the Germans make little effort to be precise and the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is grazed by a projectile, which fortunately does not damage its superimposed domes.
While the assailants leave, pursued by some clouds of DCA, the Sofiotes are dubious. They, already circumspect towards the step of their government, are now wondering aloud: is this the peace promised by the Regent and his Prime Minister? Casualties and destruction? The official toll is 17 dead and 43 injured. Black smoke rises into the sky, a dark omen. Prince Kyril of Preslav can only observe this calamity from his balcony...
Nevertheless, and even if the population is unaware of it, the game is not over. Four Bf 109-G2 of the 682nd Yato (6th Istrebitelen Orlyak) take off from Vrazhdebna. Led by Captain Stoyan Iliev Stoyanov, they catch up with the attackers between the towns of Vratza and Ferdinand (today Montana), at an altitude of 3,000 meters. The four fighters charge through the formation, surprising the 1/JG4, which was not expecting visitors. A Junkers 88 is shot down, another one has to make a forced landing in Romania. The Bulgarians do not force their luckand escape by following the valleys.
It is the 13th victory of Captain Stoyanov - the others were obtained against B-24s during interceptions of the bombers attacking the Romanian oil fields. For these actions, he had receives the "Commander's Medal for bravery"... and the Iron Cross 2nd class from the hands of Beckerle himself! The news will be widely spread in the ranks of the 1st and 4th Armies, it is necessary to galvanize the infantrymen**.

West of Bulgaria - The 2. Rgt of the 1. PanzerDivision continues its relentless march, but more cautiously than before, as it is now in presumed hostile territory.
Passing unopposed through the town of Kyoustendil, it obliquely turns northward to Pernik, approaching the line held by the 1st Army of Nakoff. The tanks are now only 80km from Sofia. And the 19. PzG is not far behind - it crosses the border at 2 a.m.
.........
Eastern Bulgaria - Motorized elements of the 225. ID of Generalleutnant Walther Riße arrive at Stara Zagora, where they come into contact with the covering forces left by Stoychev's 2nd Army. The area is thus well under control - and so is the Bulgarian.

Lake Apsalos area (sector of the late 2nd Occupation Corps) - Major General Trifon Yordanov Trifonov is obviously subjected to a close interrogation by the Allied intelligence services - who are far from finished with him. For their guest is talkative, and does not hesitate to give many details and information on the positions of his former units, trying to convince his interlocutors that it is possible to seize without fighting the majority of the Bulgarian Thrace, well, let us say all of Thrace for short, thus sparing its inhabitants a very painful German occupation.
Always polite, the British do not answer him that, as far as they are concerned, the occupation of the region began in 1941 and should end soon. And even if they have only one division left, Brian Horrocks does not see the point of going to lose people in the eastern valleys. Elements of the 32nd Army Tank Brigade will advance a little the following days: here to take an eminence, there to control a crossroads, without the men of the 16th ID really trying to oppose them. But the Allies do not plan to seize the rest of Thrace for a long time.

Sofia region - The units of the 1st and 4th Army are now installed in the best way on the rocky barrier south of Sofia. The infantry units have sufficient but obsolete artillery, generous manpower but few automatic weapons.
They obviously lack air support, and did not have a single modern armored vehicle. Their fixed entrenchments will have to face the war of movement led by the German combined arms - which is reminiscent of other battles fought in the past under other skies. But for the time being, all is quiet on what must be called the front.
.........
Serres - General Nikola Ivanov Grozdanov, of the 7th ID, learns about the decomposition of his Corps, as well as the defection of his hierarchy, through the good offices of colonel Strashimir Velchev. Considering that his mission has become pointless, he moved to Serres waiting for the arrival of the Germans... or the Bulgarians of the 2nd Army.

Plovdiv and surroundings (2nd Army) - General Stoychev delayed the departure as much as he could but now the 8th ID of colonel Asen Nikolov Sirakov is going down the valley towards Thrace in direction of Bansko, avoiding largely the area of Sofia. It is followed by the 2nd ID (major-general Kiril Nikolov Popbozhilov) and by the 10th ID (colonel Nicho Georgiev Georgiev), which closes the march. The bad mood of the soldiers - and officers - is palpable, and seems to be reinforced by the smiles of the Germans who serve as their chaperones.
But if the infantrymen show obviously a very moderate ardor, Stoychev is now intractable with the slackers and other stragglers. He understands well that his future and even his head depends on the behavior of his units. In short, it is really no time to turn back. It is therefore a relatively efficient army that will reinforce the 16th Infantry Division, the only one holding the Thracian front.

On the airwaves - "Der Chef" of Neue Europa announces the raid on Sofia - and takes the opportunity to report the fate of "the heroic Ju 88" shot down by Stoyan Stoyanov. Devoting the interested party to the outrage, he promises hell in the sky for "all the winged imbeciles who would have the audacity to attack the glorious soldiers of the Reich". It is to underline that, if the Bulgarians have no ground support aircraft (and hardly any bombers, except 11 Dornier Do 17 M/P which will do better to remain on the ground), the Allies, them, have some! They are well within range of Sofia and able to intervene in the battle - at least as long as there is a radio in Sofia able to inform them!

* The Allies, at this point, do not know the difference between the Tiger and the Hornisse.
** Stoyan Stoyanov will survive the conflict, ending the war with 15 victories - which makes him the ace of the aces of the Bulgarian aviation. He will finish his career on a Yak-9M fighter supplied by the USSR, before becoming... a guide at the monastery of Rila. Elevated to the rank of honorary general at the fall of communism, he died on March 13th, 1997, honored by his peers.

 

[Wings]

September 12th, 1943

Provence
Liberation - In the Rhone delta, the situation is changing. Along the coast, the Rangers are fighting in the swamps against the 759. Grenadier. In spite of the allied naval artillery and the air support provided by the 363. FG, this regiment of the 338. ID is able to resist by relying on the ground, with the help of fire from the 3rd Battalion of its divisional artillery, despite the gradual arrival of the first elements of the 7th US-ID. In doing so, it allows the first elements of the 334. and then the 355. ID to settle on the Petit Rhône, solidly reinforced by Panzergrenadiers of the 60. PzGr to the north. But the moment to withdraw is about to arrive, because in the north, the 53rd RCT of the 7th ID arrives in sight of the second branch of the river, while the 32nd RCT is only two kilometers away.
In the Vaucluse, the SS begin a retreat (called, of course, consolidation of the front). The 1. SS Panzer and the 14. SS PzGr defend a line south of Orange against the 2nd US-AD Hell on Wheels and now to the 3rd US-ID which relays the Big Red One. The 2. SS Pz Das Reich, whose manpower melted like snow in the sun during its failure two days earlier, withdraws to position itself in front of the enclave of Valréas and the roads coming from Vaison la Romaine. It has in front of it the 3rd DB accompanied by the 4th RSM and, a little to the south, still on a clean-up operation around Malaucène, the 21st Rgt of Zouaves, detached there by the 3rd DIM.
.........
Südwall - The reproaches made to him a few days earlier had stung Oberst Œsau, who mounts a major operation to try to regain air superiority over the Vaucluse. All the available aircraft of JG 2 go out during the day to cover the retreat of the panzers and reach their objective. The balance sheet for the day is 30 allied aircraft shot down against 10 lost in JG 2.
As a result, the Kommodore is congratulated by his hierarchy, but he has no illusions: first of all, he knowsthat the claims of his pilots were probably excessive (in fact, the Allies had only lost 15 aircraft); secondly, the 10 German fighters that were shot down are another blow to his group, which is finding it increasingly difficult to bear. The American industry, which was supposed to be able to produce only refrigerators, is now putting in the hands of the Allied pilots a plethora of equipment, of as good quality as the German one (or even better!), and the level of the Yankee aviators never stops improving - the Luftwaffe has never doubted that of the French.

Alps and French Riviera
Liberation - In the Hautes-Alpes, the 6th RTS stops its progression at Serres to cover the flank of its division. A few kilometers away, in the neighboring valley, the skirmishers of the 3rd RTM, accompanied by the I/7 RCA, arrive less than 10 km from Gap. A last effort was to be made in this direction, but the 3rd DIM is too stretched to do more. The arrival of the Alpins who are landing on the beaches is eagerly awaited.
.........
War fishing
Valley of the Durance - Part of the 3rd RTM (3rd DIM) establishes itself on the outskirts of the small village of La Saulce. A welcome break for the vehicles as well as for the men.
Both men and vehicles needed to take a breather, and the supply lines are stretched out.
Right bank. Ballet of the dragonflies, squeak of the cicadas. Tactical recognition of horseflies.
The pebbles reflect the heat back to the faces of the men busy at the water's edge.
- What are you two doing here?
The two men are startled and hastily straighten up.
- Uh, m'n adjudant...
- And what is this shit? Oh no! It's not going to happen like that! Follow me to the captain.
Captain de Fresnay is staying in the village square. In order not to disturb his guests too much, he has set up a bistro table in front of the house. A jeep is parked against the wall of the church. Sitting on a straw chair, he looks up when the trio arrives at him.
Damn paperwork!
The three men salute. A questioning glance from the officer with features drawn by fatigue.
- Captain, I found the soldiers Abisbor and El Mardi in possession of... this.
And he shows off his trophies.
- Ah. Yes, indeed. I see. Care to explain, troopers? You know how the colonel feels about "souvenirs" taken from the enemy, right?
- Captain... It's not what you think...
- For the moment, I believe what I see!
- But it's potato masher that we confiscated from the civilians the other day, sir! We wanted to take advantage of the fact that we stopped here to destroy them, sir...
- Destroy them, soldier? How about that!
The captain smiles a little: "That would explain the pebble attached to this one, wouldn't it?
... Hmm... Well, I don't have all that to worry about. Adjutant!"
- Captain?
- Soldiers Abisbor and El Mardi were ordered to destroy ammunition taken from the enemy. They are responsible for the consequences of this act. See that this order is carried out. Dismissed!
Six heels make an almost legal U-turn.
- Adjutant?
The trio stops as one man. The defendant turns around.
- Find yourself a bucket. Or two.
- Captain...
And here comes another trio in front of the bistro. It seems that the captain's paperwork will have to wait, he doesn't know if he should be happy about it or not. The paperwork! And then, also that damn letter...
- Corporal?
- My respects, sir. The sergeant sent me to accompany these two civilians who wanted to meet you.
- Hey, Corporal, I'm a gendarme! Gendarme Meyere! Gendarmerie de Tallard! At your orders, captain!
The man salutes.
- Well, Gendarme Meyere, what about your uniform?
The man blushes.
- Captain, it's just that... to get around... here... and right now... And besides, I'm not on duty...
The second civilian, forehead high, hair pulled back, salutes in turn.
- Commander Dumont!
- Commander?
- Reserve sergeant in the 4th Engineer Regiment, Grenoble. I missed the train to follow you on the other side, my captain. Last year, "Pascal" put me in charge of the creation and coordination of the Frankish groups of Provence. Here are some papers...
He produces various sheets that the captain browses distractedly.
- If ever our "friends" in verdigris catch you with this...
- I know. They've been trying to pin me down for a while. My military booklet is... safe.
- And what can I do for you, Sergeant... Commander?
- I'm the one who can do something for you, Captain. I have here the organizational chart of the forces in and around Gap.
He produced a second bundle of sheets of various sizes and continued: "And a map of the town with the location of the Kraut concentrations. This is the Dominique Villars school. Do you know the city?
- No. But it almost...
- When do you think you will liberate us?
- When I'm ordered to. Soon, I suppose. Are you coming back to your unit?
- As soon as I can. Right now, I have to get back.
- Commander... Um... How many men do you have?
- Depends on what you mean by that. Motivated ones, available very quickly... Let's say, about twenty or so. But we lack weapons. The airdrops...
- Yes, yes, not enough airdrops... That's all you hear in every village. Listen, Major Dumont, I thank you for this information. I will pass it on to the person to whom it may concern. But I will give you a personal opinion. Please, hold your men. The motivated, and especially the others. A little patience. This is not the time to do anything stupid. The Fridolins are very nervous.
- With the Italians at the beginning, things were going pretty well. But since they changed and the Vert-de-Gris arrived... With you around, some people just dream of liberating the city on their own.
- That's just it. Try to keep your hotheads in line. No more hand-holding. If they want to fight, let them join us. We are not coming to liberate Gap, we are coming to liberate France. And this liberation will be done under the flag! And in uniform! We have room for them. Unfortunately. Sorry to be so blunt...
- That's what I've been telling them ever since we heard you were coming back. Which brings me to one last point. I've been told that Durocher, the prefect, is on our side, but not many of us know about this. The Prefecture will have to be one of your priority targets...
- ... If it happens without too much damage...
Dumont grimaces.
- Do you think they'll hang on?
- You know better than I do! Listen, it's not up to me anymore. I'll have you taken to the colonel.
- Um... No. I have to go back. Otherwise...
- Okay, fine. It's up to you.
- Captain...
He's holding out his hand. The officer takes it.
- I'll see you in the Gap. Or before.
- Before? I hope not!
With his visitors gone and the corporal as his guide, De Fresnay returns to the tasks from which he has been distracted. When he is interrupted again, the shadow has lengthened. The swallows are shuttling from the bell tower to the house's spire.
The adjutant puts down on the ground a tin bucket that has been used a lot, then salutes.
- For you and your landlords, Captain. With respect, captain...
The officer bends over the bucket.
- What the hell! Are Laurel and Hardy trying to bribe me, sergeant?
- Laurel and Hardy, sir?
- The soldiers Abisbor and El Mardi. That's the nickname Sergeant Martinez gave them. I see that the... ...German explosive ordinance was properly disposed of. Nice trout! This one must be a kilo, right? Do you like fish, Dochar?
- Yes, sir. That's a change from monkey!
- Enough for company?
Dochar is pouting.
- Just about, sir. Trout, eels and barbel. We left the rest of the whites to the kids. They were delighted.
- They were? Yes, they were. Thank you, sergeant. And here, send Martinez to me. Right away, if possible.
- Captain...
.........
More in the south, whereas the 50th RI of the 10th DI beat the legionnaires of the 15th DBLE by a few minutes for the liberation of Digne, the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division begins to be set up. The bulk of the division is still in the Durance valley, but the De la Baume Brigade is about to join the 5th RI between Moustiers and Castellane. The 21st Rgt of the 10th DI, accompanied by the I/5RCA, is following the 281. Grenadier Rgt of the 148. ID, which has to do a lot to avoid being overrun and to get back in contact with its division. Beyond Draguignan, the situation of the 285. Gr Rgt is the same, but facing the 5th RTS and the I/8 RCA.
Finally, along the coast, the junction of the legionnaires of the 14th DBLE and 4th BMLE allows to open the door to Fréjus. The 919. IR, all that remains of the 242. ID, is now encircled in the town by the 20th RIC, which had made a turning movement through the foothills of the Estérel. After a last stand, the survivors escape at nightfall by the coastal road to help the 286. Gr Rgt to hold the Esterel.

In the air - If you need honey to attract flies, you only need to shout at the radio to attract fighter planes! All the devices in a group are tuned to the same frequency, the one of the sector of attack, but the leaders of the device have a second station connected on the general frequency of the day, just in case. A very busy frequency usually means aerial combat, especially synonymous with air battles, especially for the Americans, who are not very receptive to radio calm! So when, in his brand new NA-102 Mustang, commander Hugo (call sign: Victor), from the GC II/7, hears the hubbub in the distance, he asks what is going on - and especially where!
The answer being that the Germans have engaged the Americans on Orange, Hugo hurriedly ordered his teammates to get rid of their bombs as soon as possible on appropriate targets in the Apt area, which they cover with ground support, in order to go and see what is happening to the northwest. The team members do not hesitate, even if some of them still keep their projectiles - we'll find something to use them on the way. The others climb with all the power of the Packard V-1650-3s, positioning themselves well at altitude remains the basic rule of the hunt. Low clouds over the Rhone valley, we will have to be careful with the altimeter during the dives because piercing the layer is not necessarily a good idea.
Listening to the radio and knowing that the fight has already been going on for some time, Hugo makes the formation go towards Avignon, to the west, to cut the road to the Germans on the way back or to intercept possible reinforcements. The flair of "Victor" is not denied, there is a fight at all levels above the city of the Popes!
A group of Focke-Wulf 190 in tight formation, thus freshly arrived on the scene, splits in two when they see the French: one part faces them while the other goes to clear colleagues in difficulty. Without bombers to protect or destroy (there should have been some at the beginning, but they left!), the battle turns quickly into a juxtaposition of individual fights, the wingmen of both sides doing what they can to follow their patrol leaders. Letting go is almost synonymous with death...
Not having yet engaged in a rotating combat with Fw 190s since their re-equipment with NA-102, the French pilots are satisfied to see that their new mounts are superior to their opponents, both in turns and in climbing. Naturally, it's still hot when meeting an Expert, but this is always true, whatever the edge, and since 1915 ! Still, the presence of the roundels make the German unit leaders think, who gradually break off the fight, firstly because of a lack of ammunition - some of them had given their all against the Amis - then because they knew that the damned Französen are applying group tactics, in addition to their individual virtuosity.
Gauthier and Panhard, followed by their respective wingers, demonstrate this by engaging in a maneuver on a schwarm of Focke-Wulf who try to escape. They force them to leave in candle, the unhappy Fw 190 not being able to escape in a dive without being caught up! If the patrol leaders manage to escape, the two wingmen with black crosses fall under the bullets of 12.7 of the Ancients.
Soon, all the Germans are gone, the Americans thank the Frenchies by radio for their timely intervention and everyone returns to their bases.

 

[Wings]

September 13th, 1943

German Embassy in Paris, 09:30 - Otto Abetz summons De Brinon, Minister of Justice and President of the Central Committee of the LVF*, Marion, Secretary of State for Information and of the Committee of Friends of the Waffen SS (sic!), Barthélemy, Minister of the Interior and one of the main leaders of the PPF, Déat, Minister of Labor and leader of the RNP, as well as Bucard, Minister of Veterans' Affairs and a Francist leader. Abetz's guests unanimously express their desire to fight "the Anglo-Americans and their African auxiliaries".
As soon as he came to power, Doriot had asked Himmler to authorize the creation of an armed force of the NEF, of which the Légion Tricolore was the draft and which was to bring together all the "good french" under arms and obeying his orders, to oppose the "lackeys of the Anglo-Americans" during their landing. This beautiful project remained a dead letter: the English, the Americans and their "lackeys" were far away and Himmler had preferred to calm the ardor of his great friend. It was better to wait for the Charlemagne to be set up, to go up to the line and to make people forget the disastrous engagement of the LVF in the spring!
The LVF has just been remobilized for the "essential tasks" of anti-partisan struggle. Himmler has no doubt that the Charlemagne and the LVF would be able to show the value of real French soldiers; one could then talk again about the constitution of an Army of the NEF.
But the landing in Provence changed things a little. Abetz promises this time, from Himmler "and the Führer himself" that the LVF would be repatriated "as soon as its mission on the Eastern Front is completed". Until then, the OKW will inform the government of the NEF what missions could be entrusted to the FST and especially to the Guard, which Doriot willingly imagines throwing the "Africans" back into the sea on his own.
In the meantime, he harasses the German headquarters so that his troops could participate in the cleaning up the Massif Central. But the Wehrmacht turns a deaf ear. However, General Ottenbacher, who witnesses the very critical situation of the 19th Army in Languedoc, obtains Oberg to authorize two gatherings of the Tricolor Legion in Montargis (Loiret) and Saint-Gilles (Gard): it is up to Doriot's men to find the means to get there.

Picaussel (Aude) - During the night, the men of the Corps Franc (Free Corps) withdraw through the forests of Coume Frède and Bélesta. The well-prepared retreat completely escapes the attention of the Germans: the following morning, they have to be content with setting fire to a few empty huts.
.........
Caves of Tassanel (Aude) - In the evening, the Germans attack a group of maquisards sheltered in the underground. The alert is given too late: they are surrounded and chased to the bottom of the galleries, where they are killed with grenades and bayonets.
Thirty of them try to surrender: 26 are shot on the spot and 4 escaped by taking advantage of the darkness and confusion.

Turin - The SS gradually overcome the insurrection. At the end of the day, only a few enclaves remain, where the guerrillas of the 4th Garibaldi Division and the Matteoti Brigade resist as best they can. The same morning the men of the Raggruppamento Borghese of the Decima Mas arrive in the city in the morning and join the slaughter, thus sullying their honor as soldiers, the main reason for joining the RSI. After the war, it is especially for this episode that the "Red Count" will have to answer for before the Justice.

* He replaces in this post Deloncle, assassinated in the spring by the Doriotists as a token of goodwill to the Occupier.