132 – Decision made elsewhereEast German forces who had seen action so far during this war when fighting under Soviet supervision had done well. The
Volksarmee hadn’t preformed the impossible nor won everywhere that they met with the enemy, but there had been no unmitigated disasters seen. These were all regulars, full-time troops moved from their garrisons at the outbreak of war and sent into the fighting across in West Germany as well as in West Berlin. The East Germans quietly began mobilising their reservists in the days leading up to the war beginning. At first it had only been officers, especially those in specialist positions, but once the shooting started, full mobilisation was made. The
Volksarmee – the army, air force and navy – would treble in size with this. The turnout when men were recalled for military service was high but not full: the missing numbered about eight per cent of those who were supposed to show up. Seeing as this was almost thirty thousand, it would be difficult for the East German regime to at once suddenly start persecuting all those who failed to do their duty but they started down that route regardless of the challenge. Many of the missing soon reported for service once it became clear what the implications really were for them yet several thousand still refused to show up. These men didn’t want to fight and would rather be jailed, even shot, than go to war. The majority of those reservists who
were successfully mobilised deployed into West Germany. They were used in all sorts of roles to support the ‘liberation’ of their fellow Germans. Direct combat was involved for a portion of them as the
Volksarmee used its reserve divisions in battle.
Three motorised infantry divisions were sent into the northern half of West Germany while the other two went south. The 20th Division arrived on the outskirts of Hamburg and saw battle with West German troops who’d been pushed back towards that city and were cut off from all outside help. Entering the city wasn’t the task for this unit and instead they were employed to push back the frontlines closer into the urban area. The 19th Division came under direct Soviet control – the Second Guards Tank Army – to replace worn-down Soviet motor rifle units fighting against the Dutch to the west of Hamburg. The task was to push the Dutch 41st Armored Brigade into the sea in the Cuxhaven area. The East German reservists managed to secure the already destroyed Nordholz Airbase but finishing off the Dutch wasn’t something that they could do themselves even with more numbers and their opponents almost out of ammunition. Tomorrow the Dutch there would surrender, but not today and only when they finally ran out of bullets. The 17th Division was sent towards Hannover. There were British and West German troops trapped in there. The use of these East German reservists here under Soviet orders broke the last resistance… it broke the 17th Division too when massive casualties were inflicted. Still, there was a ceasefire arranged and overnight those NATO troops around that city, among close to a million civilians all caught up in the fighting too, would give in. The 6th Division was dispatched to join the East German III Corps fighting in the northwestern part of Bavaria. They joined with the regular troops in the battles against the West Germans defending the Spessart and the middle of the winding Main River valley. The additional numbers here made the difference for the attack made by the
Volksarmee regulars though their opponents were in the midst of withdrawing due to events elsewhere. NATO was shortening its lines and a retreat was made so no real victory was achieved here. Finally, the 10th Division also went into Bavaria and travelled quite some distance southwards. They were sent to the Danube to engage the West Germans holding that river line and blocking access to southern Bavaria. Taking them under command, the Soviet Thirty–Eighth Army put them on the frontlines while moving out its own men ready to use them elsewhere. The 10th Division quickly discovered the realities of war and had a torrid time faced with air and artillery attacks. When hit as hard as they were, the East Germans, nor their Soviet masters, realised that this was all a cover for that massed withdrawal being made out of southern Bavaria. The distraction would work with the reservists far from home here achieving nothing but being slaughtered.
Marshal Ogarkov had issued the orders which sent these East Germans where they did: there was no involvement from the East Germans themselves about where to employ their men. He gave them these tasks expecting less than was actually achieved – Hannover hadn’t seemed ready to yet fall and the Spessart fight was a mess – so the failures met didn’t enrage him. What he wasn’t best pleased with was the rate of desertion. Reservists had turned out for the
Volksarmee but many of them soon ran. This occurred among the large combat units and also those involved in the many, scattered tasks of engineering, supply, transport & POW work. Their regular counterparts had seen some desertion occur but that was miniscule: a good few thousand reservists fled towards the enemy lines, especially when going up against their fellow Germans. It wasn’t a good thing to see. The Czechoslovaks and Poles were slowly bringing their armies into battle – all regulars – and he considered what happened with the East Germans a sign of things to come with them. However, there were more pressing matters that were demanding his time. The war’s third day was coming to a close. The fighting still went onwards though: it wasn’t going to stop for the hours of darkness. There remained a lot going on, much of it demanding his personal attention.
The Hamburg and Cuxhaven pockets weren’t the only areas of West Germany where resistance was still being met near to the North Sea coastline. The entry of the 5th Guards Army Corps into the north of the Netherlands meant that there was a larger pocket formed between Bremen and the Ems River. There were West Germans with their 32nd Panzergrenadier Brigade fighting near Bremen and along the Weser while the Dutch 4th Infantry Division was at Rheine. These NATO units were now isolated. Behind them was a large portion of territory which Ogarkov wanted to take not for just its worth as occupied ground but because it was full of military facilities. There were airbases, naval installations and weapons storages sites throughout. The
VDV &
DShV units in Bremen as well as the several worn-down but still combat-capable motor rifle units from the Second Guards Tank Army made a night attack. The gap between the Dutch and the West Germans was wide and held only but scattered reservists of no real value: the motor rifle units went up through there while those at Bremen made a frontal attack to keep NATO busy. Incoming air attacks were made yet these weren’t much: what was going on elsewhere held enemy attention. By midnight, the Küsten Canal was reached. It was a hundred meters wide and quite a defensive position if NATO had the troops to hold it. There were none though. It was crossed over and the advance continued onwards into the early hours of Wednesday towards East Frisia. Several airbases from which NATO jets had departed ahead of the attack were taken unopposed though at Wilhelmshaven there was a major fight. West German warships were long gone. Many security troops in
Bundesmarine service, reservists especially, were still present. They fought. Port facilities had already been destroyed either in organised demolitions of Soviet missile attacks yet still the defenders fought on. They did so until they ran out of ammunition in the spite of the hopelessness of the situation. Ogarkov couldn’t understand the futility of such a fight. It took many Soviet lives too: soldiers he wanted to soon employ elsewhere.
Far away from the frontlines, there was the passage being made through Poland of the Eleventh Guards and Twenty–Eighth Armies. Polish national mobilisation was being done in a manner to not impede their progress. Though he didn’t know it, Ogarkov’s reinforcements for the fighting in Western Europe were misidentified by NATO intelligence when satellites spotted the movement. The West thought that they were Poles, not Soviet second-line troops. These two field armies consisted of those Category B units from the Soviet Army’s strength in the western USSR. Moving by rail, they were flowing across Poland inbound for East Germany. They’d come off their trains as far forward as possible though not inside West Germany as hoped. There had been much rail infrastructure captured intact early on in the war which connected the peacetime civilian links between the divided Germanies that had been made use of before. NATO had bombed much of it. Wolfsburg was a prime example of what could be done with targeted air power, so too Berba down in Hessen. The facilities at each had been hit again and again by low-flying F-111s & Tornados in the face of Soviet fighters and SAMs doing all they could to stop that. There were other railyards where the unloading of those two armies was going to take place back in East Germany but time would have been saved by making use of those west of the Inner-German Border. Ogarkov was aiming to start using the two armies in battle come late Thursday: the current frontlines were far from where they would come off those trains. Both would see action along the Rhine. NATO had yet to be beaten here but with the entry of those fresh troops, Ogarkov believed that he could crack the opposition that had only just stopped his forward troops by using his reinforcements. Four tank divisions, four motor rifle divisions and two artillery divisions were sure to do that. The war would move to Belgium afterwards… then the English Channel next.
Earlier in the day, just as ‘the slingshot’ was unleashed where the Third Shock Army had thundered into the Netherlands, Ogarkov had been informed that Operation
Krasny Orel was to take place starting in the early hours of the war’s fourth day. Red Eagle was the airborne raid upon the British mainland.
It wasn’t to be an operation that Ogarkov’s headquarters would control. Western-TVD would remain focused on the fighting in Western Europe while Red Eagle would be commanded direct by
Stavka. It was the brain-trust back in Moscow – ambitious young officers reporting to Defence Minister Marshal Sokolov – who had dreamt it up earlier in the year. It was a contingency operation, one to only be put in effect should American-led Western aggression force the Soviet Union to war. Ogarkov had been shown the final plans and asked his opinion. It wasn’t as if he was in a position to give an honest answer to say every rifleman who went would eventually be lost. He did as they wanted and approved the concept though did warn than it was still a big risk in strategic terms despite the operational value with regards to assisting Plan Zhukov / Operation Elbe. They heard only the first part back in Moscow. The exact timing had never been a given as to when Red Eagle was to be launched. There had been no set date for it with regards as to how many days into the war it would take place. Ogarkov had assumed that it would be a week after the first crossings were made of the Inner-German Border. He was now shown to be incorrect in that. Because it was outside of his jurisdiction – above his pay grade it could be said –, Ogarkov had no input into the decision to launch it tomorrow. The decision was made elsewhere and he just had to go along with what his superiours wanted. Ogarkov was aware that they believed that the war was almost won and that Sokolov, Ligachev & the others were content with how things had gone so far, at least here in Western Europe anyway. They did have access to more information than him too. There could be a better judgement made by
Stavka of the overall strategic situation than he could give. It was just how things were. Ogarkov did as told and assigned forces and assets to assist in the readiness for Red Eagle to go ahead.
This preparation made included making sure that Leeuwarden Airbase in the north of the Netherlands fell and then also seeing that his tanks got to the airfield at De Kooy near to Den Helder naval base. They would be of immense importance in assisting the upcoming operations across in Britain. He also had to reassign his last remaining unused
DShV airmobile brigade (the 38th Guards Landing–assault) to support Red Eagle: Ogarkov had wanted to use it in the Netherlands along the Maas river where the 47th Guards Tank Division ended up failing to get across without them. A whole brigade of
Spetsnaz men, the 4th Brigade (a unit not under his command) needed to be transported forward through West Germany. This wasn’t a taxing task as that brigade contained less than a thousand men overall but it meant moving assets around. Certain airbases on each side of the Inner-German Border needed extra SAM protection too. This was to ensure that there was the ability to move those
VDV men who would be going into Britain. Both the 76th Guards Airborne Division and the 345th Guards Airborne Regiment had Red Eagle tasks as those airmobile and special forces brigades did. Airlift for them was already assigned and kept out of the war just like the fighting men. When undertaking Operation Elbe, there had been very few major drops of paratroopers nor airlifts of men within West Germany. He’d sent
VDV paratroopers in via road and his
DShV troops had gone into the fight in multiple helicopter flights rather than all at once. The Soviet Air Force had kept back the majority of its big transports and few of the large helicopters of the Soviet Army had yet to see battle. In addition, civilian air transport from airlines such as
Aeroflot but also
Interflug, the Polish
LOT and
CSA from Czechoslovakia had all been marshalled as well.
Through the Tuesday, as much of the Netherlands was overrun, there was fighting in the Rhineland & the advances were made in Baden–Wurttemberg, what was being called the 15th Guards Airborne Corps (an old command, re-established for Red Eagle) got itself ready. Information reached Ogarkov that a British Army brigade meant to be landing at Zeebrugge was still in Britain. He’d planned to throw dozens of aircraft on attack missions against that Belgian port to hit the British as they started arriving. They hadn’t left yet. He knew that the planners of Red Eagle drew up their mission with the belief that Britain would be near empty of regular troops by the time the paratroopers started landing. That information was passed on along with the verification to
Stavka. They acknowledged it, just they’d acknowledged beforehand the intelligence he passed on about how the missile attacks on the UK were keeping the majority of the Territorial Army units stuck at home too. Red Eagle was going ahead regardless though despite what Ogarkov passed on. Sokolov and his lackeys knew better…
In the early hours of the Wednesday August 26th,
Krasny Orel began. Britain was being invaded. Ogarkov had no role in that and he could only wish it success. Whether it worked, or it didn’t, it could only help the ongoing war in Western Europe that he considered was soon to be won here by massed tanks, not paratroopers jumping into a hornet’s nest.
End of Part Three 
