The first trouble actually started in a hospital, or at least by a patient there. An Obergefreiter (corporal) Hans Schmidt, a very common name, was recovering from his wounds received from the Allies in France. The Army was considerate enough, in his opinion, to send him to a hospital near his home town. A further benefit was the fact that his older brother had been an aircraft mechanic at Würzburg since the war had begun. (1)
Before he was entered into service, Hans used to sneak over to the base to see his brother. He knew of a spot in the fence where he could raise it up and sneak through. He had visited several times and was able to sneak rations back to his parents, that had been saved by his brother. His parents had moved out of the area over a year ago, but as of his last letter, his brother was still at the airfield.
Hans was well enough now to have a little freedom, mostly for exercise. He used this one night to sneak away from the hospital and go visit his brother, who didn't know he was here. He got to the fence without problem, and crawled through just like old times. He knew his brother would be working on the planes even at this hour, to have them ready for flight operations in the morning. But he didn't want a guard to catch him and possibly get his brother in trouble.
He was able to find the first group of mechanics working on a Focke-Wulf. As he neared them, hoping to hear his brother's voice, he was shocked to hear American voices! He almost ran at them, but managed to restrain himself. He crawled away and over to another plane. At least the infantry had given him some skills that were useful now! The second plane he came toward was a Junkers 88 medium bomber. He could see work going on there also. Again, he crept slowly, and again he was able to hear voices. He strained to make it out, finally realizing that this too was in English, with American accent.
He laid in the grass for a long time. What was this, he wondered. Why would mechanics speak English? A special mission? Captured workers? He decided to crawl over to the operations hut, which luckily was nearby. Once again, he got into position, and once again, he could hear voices. This time there was no doubt. Everyone was speaking English. While he was hiding there, he saw a plane land, and in the lights from a Kübelwagen, he saw the plane had British markings! (2)
Corporal Hans Schmidt crawled back through the airfield to his hole in the fence. His trip back to the hospital was full of questions and doubt. What had happened? Who were these men? How could anything like this happen so far behind the lines.
By the time he had gotten back to the hospital he had half-convinced himself that this was a master plan by the Luftwaffe. Maybe he should have introduced himself and asked for directions to his brother. But a part of him, that part that had been fighting on the front lines, told him something else was going on. He snuck back into the hospital and went in search of his lieutenant, who he knew was also recovering here.
He found his lieutenant asleep in his assigned room, as it should be, it wasn't yet 5 am. He gently woke the officer up. "Lieutenant Schmidt, (it really is a common name!) this is Corporal Hans, I need to talk to you."
"If you want to stay a corporal, you had better let me sleep," came the sleepy reply.
"Please, Lieutenant, it's very important."
"It better be."
It took the corporal the rest of the morning to explain what he had seen. It took most of the rest of the day for him to convince the lieutenant to follow him to the airbase. The lieutenant had been un-believing, "Englander's here? Impossible. You have had too much morphine, Hans." Finally, and mostly due to the time they had served together, the lieutenant agreed to sneak back to the base with the corporal.
The two Schmidt's followed the same route back into the base. The lieutenant was a veteran of several battles and was not averse to crawling through the grass if it meant he didn't get shot. He was not yet senior enough to believe that some things were beneath him.
The first plane that had people around it were going through a maintenance checklist. It was strange, because they were performing it in both English and German. It appeared as if at least some of the mechanics were using the opportunity to learn new words in German. It was obvious, because they would mispronounce something, get reprimanded, and speak it again. It was also obvious that German was not their native tongue. The two young soldiers stared at one another, and the young corporal nodded his head.
The crawled over to the flight line, where the night before the corporal had seen a British plane. Tonight, nothing was present, and the two soldiers had a moment to talk quietly.
"It cannot be! This is a Luftwaffe base; how can Englander's be here?" the Lieutenant asked. "Maybe they are prisoner's, and are being forced to work on the plane."
"I saw no guards, and how many of our esteemed pilots would let a prisoner work on their plane? We both know how many things can go wrong on simple equipment. A plane is much more delicate than my Karabiner or your Luger." (3)
"Ja, ja, but we have heard nothing. How can this be possible?"
Just then, lights turned on. Both men thought they had been seen and ducked into the grass. Finally, the lieutenant heard an airplane approaching and ventured a peek. A large plane was just about to touch down on the far end of the runway. He ducked back down and motioned for the corporal to stay hidden. The plane landed and taxied to a stop less than one hundred meters from them. Another plane was taxiing to a position next to that one, and a third was landing. Men were coming out of buildings to the sides of the planes. Trucks were pulling up alongside. The sides of both planes had been opened up and what looked like fifty-gallon drums were being rolled out. Petrol!
In the light, the Lieutenant could make out the planes, American B-24's. They certainly had seen enough of them flying over France. It was a totally confusing scenario. American planes, German trucks – the men were in German uniforms but even from this far away, they could make out the occasional English word, usually sworn, which was something else they had learned in their time fighting the Americans.
"Come, Hans, we must be out of here before those planes taxi to this end of the runaway or a patrol comes by." The lieutenant turned and started crawling through the grass. They continued on past the maintenance area and back out through the fence. All the way back to the hospital, neither man spoke. They never walked on a road, avoiding any area they might be seen, even taking long detours to avoid well-lit areas.
Finally back in the Lieutenant's room, they both changed back into their hospital clothing. Their uniforms were wet and stained from the night's adventure. Only then was the silence broken. "Hans, you were right to come to me. But I confess I don't know what to do. How can a whole base be taken over? How is it possible to have the enemy this far behind our lines? If that has happened, what else do they control? Who would have enough force to respond and take the base back? You have not brought me an easy question, Hans!"
"And I have no idea where my brother is!"
"True, and we can't very well just walk up to the gate and ask, can we?"
"So, Lieutenant," the Corporal asked, "what do we do?"
It really came down to only three choices: (1) An army unit, but if the base was compromised, couldn't another unit be also? (2) The Gestapo, but regular army didn't trust them under the best of conditions. In fact, the two soldiers might be as likely to get shot for violating the security of the base in the first place. (3) The local Police, who, although small, would be impossible to replace because the shopkeepers knew them.
The Captain in charge of the local police laughed at them. Then he threatened them, and then finally took them seriously enough to actually investigate. He and three other men went directly to the airbase to inquire. They weren't gone very long. They were laughing when they came back.
"Lieutenant Schmidt, really you are trying to give me a bad name! Everyone there was a German, their papers were correct, uniforms correct, and no one was speaking anything other than German!"
"But we saw –" said the Lieutenant.
The police Captain interrupted, "Two patients, recovering from wounds, crawled through the fence and who knows how much grass to watch American planes off-loading supplies to a German base! No! The Airbase commander is going to have someone come get you for a talk. So, no more of this! Now, get back into the hospital before I tell the Gestapo of your activities!"
The two soldiers left confused and dejected. They knew what they had seen, and heard. Something was wrong. How could it be that they were the only ones to know it?
They were on the way back to the hospital when the Lieutenant stopped. The Corporal stopped and faced him. "What's the matter?" the Corporal asked.
"If we are right, and I am sure we are, we can't be called into the base. We will have to try something else. The Gestapo maybe."
"How about the airbase at Stuttgart? Wouldn't they know what was going on?"
"Ja, but if we go, we will be violating our orders, both to stay at the hospital and leaving the area. But if we are right, getting us inside the base will be the last thing that happens to us."
"Then we have no choice. I saw a car out front. We could leave right now."
"Then we leave, it's only going to be a matter of time for us here."
"Group Captain, we have found where the men infiltrated the base. We were able to backtrack from where they obviously laid in the grass and followed it back through the fence. They might have seen too much," said another Lieutenant, this one American.
"Any progress on getting them here?" asked the Group Captain.
"No Sir, they are not at the hospital. They have vanished. Additionally, the local police have informed us that a vehicle was stolen from in front of the hospital. They have probably left in that."
"Well then, we can probably expect more visitors soon. Increase security, increase the patrols, and I will call General Hogan."
Major Kinchloe took the call that was for the General. Unfortunately, the General was back to London for another conference. Kinch did arrange for increased security in the area around Würzburg, and started moving extra troops to that area. He also arranged for a message to get to General Hogan in London.
But the first "troops" to arrive were on a German transport plane, with the executive officer from the Stuttgart airfield, a Major Keitel. Upon the plane stopping, he and his aide headed for the command headquarters. The British Group Captain in command of Würzburg was named Williams. They had a good backstory for the personnel transfers, and every one in view spoke very good German. As Major Keitel toured the base, they thought they had him and his aide fooled, until the aide stopped and stared at a group of mechanics servicing a Focke-Wulfe. He tugged on the sleeve of the Major, and noted that they had to be leaving. It was obviously a pre-arranged signal between the two. But what could they have possibly seen?
All of a sudden, the air exec for Group Captain Williams looked back at the mechanics and noticed something off. The men, although appropriately dressed in the proper uniforms, were wearing American boots. Just because they were more comfortable. He stared in disbelief – so much work, all wasted for a pair of proper fitting size nine boots. The exec raised his whistle and blew his own prearranged signal. Security poured out to the plane, and more men took the Major and his aide into custody. He quickly explained to the Group Captain what he believed the Germans had seen. Their secret was soon no longer going to be a secret.
The Oberst of Stuttgart had been expecting a radio communication by a specific time, informing him that they were returning. He had been in almost constant contact with Würzburg via phone and radio. He could not determine any duplicity over the phone, which is why he sent his executive officer. His superiors were not enthused with his suspicions of troops in the rear area, and ordered him to pay more attention to the front.
When the transport was late returning from Würzburg, he ordered sent three reconnaissance aircraft to follow up. When that failed to provide him answers, he ordered a company of troops to occupy the base until he could sort out the problems. The troops took just over six hours to travel to Würzburg from Stuttgart. They were met five kilometers from the airfield by a mechanized force and three times as many troops as they had brought. Reconnaissance works both ways and the troops had been under surveillance since they had left the Stuttgart area. The Germans were still in their trucks, expecting to get much closer to the base before dis-embarking. They were faced with tanks on the road and machine guns to both sides of their vehicles. The Major in charge of the German troops quickly saw the force disadvantage and surrendered his men.
When the Oberst reported to his superiors that contact with the company had been lost, he was relieved of command for violating orders. It didn't matter that the superiors had not believed him, more to the point was that he had the audacity to have been right. A General Stettin was flown down to relieve him, this time with orders to find out what was happening at Würzburg. He was given the command of all the troops south of Stuttgart to use.
He spent the first day finding out what he still commanded. His reconnaissance planes were being attacked. General Stettin was having a waking nightmare as he went through all the available units and discovered how many were not answering his commands. Only twelve of eighteen commanders responded to his orders to rendezvous in Stuttgart to plan an attack. This gave him his first idea of the area of interest.
It also gave General Stettin an idea of what the enemy might have for equipment, because this must be a resistance, or commando led subversion. There had been no reports of troops breaking through their lines in any force large enough to control this much territory.
Forty-eight hours after taking command, General Stettin had forces equivalent to three light divisions moving toward Würzburg. It wasn't enough.
Hogan had arrived well before the first troops had neared Würzburg. He had surveyed the plans drawn up by Kinch and Group Captain Williams and heartily endorsed them. After the surrender of the German company, without a single casualty on either side, Hogan laid out his plans to go forward.
That night, American P-51's began arriving on the base. The American fighter had the range to deploy to Würzburg, and were now in large enough numbers to be available. With the capture and use of airfields in France, the battle in the air had turned decidedly in the Allied favor. Also arriving were very fast P-38's, which the Germans called the "fork tailed devil". This gave Hogan some additional reconnaissance aircraft.
The fighters were followed by an endless stream of transports as the American 101st airborne division began arriving. The 101st was available because it was being held as a reserve unit, able to plug into any hole necessary. The information Hogan had provided to London had allowed the defeat of the planned winter German counter-attack through the Ardennes. That attack had been blunted and stopped and the defense of Bastogne was never needed.
Because of the disadvantage of lacking additional armor, Hogan had planned instead on lighter artillery, especially mortars, and several contingents of troops deployed from other units began flying in. Daybreak saw the end of the transfer, as the transports were not safe to fly over German held territory yet. But Hogan had plans to use the fighters to gain air-superiority over Southern Germany. Many of the fighters were dispersed to other airfields. German and newer Allied radars were being utilized to observe the skies.
The first air raid was of sixty Heinkel bombers with only eight fighters to protect them. They were met with forty-eight American P-51's. None of the German bombers came within fifteen kilometers of the Würzburg airfield. Only twenty-two bombers and one fighter returned to Stuttgart. The first major air battle was won by the Heroes.
The P-38's identified three columns moving toward Würzburg. Advance teams were sent out to be in blocking positions. Hogan's team had the advantage of good intelligence. They had known of the area's combatants, locations, and strength. It was not difficult to determine what course the different units would use.
Hogan had returned from London with two things, a promise of additional support based on his previous success, and promotion to Area Commander, which brought with it the rank of Lieutenant General, or Three-Star General. This was also necessary since the current commander of the 101st was a Two-Star, or specifically, Major General William C. Lee. (4) He was a tough, no nonsense commander. He was intrigued by the reputation Hogan had. To have operated behind enemy lines so long, and been so successful was amazing. Hogan's successes had been many times over the wildest dreams of the general staff. He had taken over more territory in a shorter period of time than any of the Allied armies.
In short order the two men had divided up responsibilities, with General Lee in charge of the ground operations to defend the Würzburg area. Within hours he had several locations fortified with a layered defense set up. Infantry backed up with mortar teams to stop the armored advance. All three columns were noted to have a small scout party followed by tanks. More tanks than Hogan's forces had. In order to stop the advance, Hogan had to stop the tanks.
In reality, a tank has three weaknesses: the treads, which can be repaired, the engine, which is hard to hit from the front, assuming the Germans are advancing, and the top, where the armor is thinnest. This is the reason for the mortar teams, to be able to rain down armor piercing shells on the roofs of the only vehicles the Heroes can't match.
Each of the columns was traveling through hilly countryside, which made for perfect cover for the defense. The German reconnaissance was poor because of the P-51's control of the air. Every kilometer of advance was met with an overwhelming mortar barrage and allied withdrawal before the Germans could fully engage. A dozen mortar teams based in Jeeps, would fire several mortars as quick as possible and load back up in the Jeep. They would be moving within two minutes of the first shell hitting the German column. The Germans would be firing back at empty ground.
Within hours, the advance was chewing up the German men and material. German air strikes were useless against small teams of mortar men, hidden in a jeep on the side of a hill, all the while being harassed by enemy fighters. The cost was frightful in planes as they were swatted down by the P-51's.
The men of the 101st were experts in all kinds of terrain, and were scouting new positions constantly. Two new positions were already scouted for each time they stopped. Each column was met with defiant resistance. There was little actual contact between the two forces. mortar shells would rain down, airplanes would strafe the column and the allied forces would retreat. They would set up even before the Germans could reorganize and be ready to attack again.
Medium bombers had arrived and had been added to the mix. B-25 Mitchell bombers were ideal for the hit and run tactics. Using German ordinance made it impossible to drop from altitude, since Allied bombsights weren't calibrated with the different weight and drag coefficients of German bombs. The B-25's were able to drop close and from lower altitudes. A column travels without dedicated anti-aircraft, and the results showed.
The lack of German air-superiority was a death knell on all the German fronts, the latest being in Southern Germany. The results showed it. The German advance was halted halfway to Würzburg. The columns began retreating back the way they came, all the while under Allied harassment. Only a small portion of the initial forces returned to Stuttgart. For retreating in combat, General Stettin was arrested by the Gestapo. Orders were issued to attack at all costs, but the troops never left the security of Stuttgart again.
Hogan and his Heroes had fought and won the first major battle for Southern Germany.
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Notes:
Obergefreiter was comparable to a Lance Corporal.
Kübelwagen was the German equivalent of the Jeep.
The Karabiner 98 was the primary weapon of the infantry, but used by every branch of service. The Luger was the main sidearm, or what the officer might carry. (Actually, trivia about the TV show had some of the guards were carrying American Krag's, a rifle from the Spanish-American war.)
General Lee was the commander of the 101st from August 42 until March of 44.
P-38's were shorter in range than P-51's, but they were Very fast. They were more widely used in the Pacific Theater, but were used in almost every role throughout the war. This included interceptor, bombing, photo recon, night fighter, and pathfinder. A dive speed for a P-38J was almost 600 mph.