The Red Line

Captain Wehner was far too busy to take the time to say good-bye. As the vehicles pulled away, a quick glance out a dingy window was all the doctor could afford.

Two hundred ambulances, a handful of trucks filled with medical supplies, and two dozen Humvees headed down the hospital’s icy cobblestone driveway. The endlessly stretching convoy eased its way onto the narrow street that would lead it to the nearest autobahn.

The relative safety of the sprawling Army hospital complex at Landstuhl waited 135 miles away.

Fear-tinged chaos instantly engulfed the convoy on the teeming streets of the panicked German city of over one hundred thousand. The Americans were quickly swallowed up by the limitless masses of German refugees intent on escaping the marauding Russians.

This wasn’t going to be an easy task.

The convoy ran into problem after problem as it pressed its way through the terrified sea of humanity. With skilled MPs at its head, the medical formation fought forward through the jammed roadways. The entrance to the autobahn was only a mile from the hospital. But the Americans would consume ten precious minutes covering this first difficult distance.

The Russians were drawing ever nearer to the city.

The scene that greeted them at the westerly-reaching autobahn was no better than what they’d experienced on the city’s ancient pavement. For as far as the eye could see, cars stretched to the horizon. On both sides of the divided highway, refugees crammed every inch of its eight lanes. All were headed west. The tidal wave of German civilians was desperately attempting to cover the sixty miles of asphalt that would take them to the outskirts of Frankfurt.

The American convoy wasn’t going to be traveling nearly so far on this roadway. They only needed to cover the first ten miles to reach their initial objective, a second wide autobahn running southwest to Heidelberg.

After a seventy-mile run to Heidelberg, the convoy would cross a section of the Rhine River being held by the 82nd Airborne. They’d head for Kaiserslautern, fifty miles farther west. Passing Ramstein on the way, a handful of miles beyond Kaiserslautern, they’d finally reach their destination.

But they had to complete this ten-mile stretch of torturous highway first. All roads west, big and small, were filled far beyond capacity, with millions of frantic civilians running for safety in front of the unstoppable Russian juggernaut. Countless numbers of haphazardly abandoned vehicles further hampered their desperate efforts. Scores of wrecks blocked the way to freedom. Frightened, desperate people were absolutely everywhere. The Los Angeles freeway system at its worst had nothing on the gridlock the Americans found.

The journey was being further hindered by the night’s oppressive darkness. In the first hour, the medical convoy covered less than ten miles. Even that wouldn’t have been possible if the MPs hadn’t been so forceful in their actions to clear a path for their wounded countrymen.

After fighting forward for an hour, the leading edge of the American column reached the western end of Wurzburg. A half mile away was the turnoff for Heidelberg. In five minutes, the widely dispersed American ambulances would turn southwest. The traffic on the Heidelberg autobahn was extremely heavy. Yet it was nothing compared to what they’d so far endured. It wouldn’t be long before their pace would dramatically increase. The Russians were closing fast. Still, it appeared the medical convoy was going to escape.

The inviting road to Heidelberg was just ahead.

It was at this point in their perilous journey, with the promise of the less crowded roadway to the southwest right in front of them, that disaster struck.

• • •

From the black eastern horizon, the specter of twenty-five Havoc Attack Helicopters appeared. The Havocs, the most advanced helicopters in the Russian arsenal, rushed forward with their stubby wingtips nearly touching.

The threat to the American convoy was immediate and unmistakable.

“Emergency! Emergency!” the MP lieutenant in charge of the convoy yelled into his radio handset. “This is the Wurzburg medical convoy. We’re trapped on the Frankfurt autobahn approximately one-half mile east of the Heidelberg cutoff. A large number of Russian helicopters are approaching. If you can hear my voice, we need help. Say again. A half mile east of the Heidelberg cutoff. The Wurzburg medical convoy needs help from any source.”

The lieutenant waited for a response. His pleas were met with nothing but static on the radio.

At the rear of the column, the Stinger teams sprang into action. Four shoulder-mounted gunners leaped from their vehicles. Each began targeting the enemy. In their Humvees, the two Avenger teams swung around to face the onrushing threat. For the moment, the Stinger teams at the front of the sprawling formation were too far away to be of any help.

The Americans held their fire and prayed. They waited to see if the Russians would respect the red crosses of the medical convoy.

In the early-morning darkness, the helicopter pilots spotted a stretching military column in the crush of German automobiles on the roadway ahead. Without hesitation, the Russians dove toward the wide highway.

From the twenty-five attackers, a massive assault of rockets and missiles rained down upon the frozen autobahn. The night sky shimmered and flashed as death streaked toward the icebound pavement. Near the rear of the convoy, a quarter-mile stretch of roadway suddenly erupted beneath the frightful power of the immense barrage. Lethal pieces of flaming metal and huge chunks of rock-hard asphalt leaped high into the air. Within the attack corridor, the horror that befell the crammed throngs was unspeakable. The death toll instantly reached into the thousands.

Eight ambulances burst into flames. In each, nine American lives were lost without anyone within them ever realizing what had occurred.

An Avenger succumbed to the powerful Russian assault. Behind the air defenders, two MP Humvees also were gone.

At the same instant, 450 German cars exploded. Their gas tanks were eager receptacles for the explosive charges pouring down upon them. Hades itself couldn’t have provided a more terrifying scene. A raging inferno three hundred feet high enveloped the quarter-mile stretch of highway. The lucky ones died instantly. The unfortunate souls who somehow survived the death swirling all around them found themselves trapped in the searing fires. Flaming figures, their clothing and flesh burning, raced from the conflagration.

The Americans answered back. Five Stingers leaped into the air. The little missiles raced toward the attackers. At the close range of the swarming helicopters, the missiles found their targets in seconds. Silhouetted in the darkness, five exploding Havocs fell from the black heavens.

Three dropped harmlessly into the open fields on the southern side of the autobahn. Two of the burning helicopters fell upon the jumble of cars below. A mile behind the convoy, a smaller inferno erupted beneath the pair of exploding Havocs.

The shoulder-mounted Stinger gunners rushed to remove the grip stocks and handles from their expended missile tubes. They started furiously preparing a replacement Stinger. With seven missiles waiting in his pods, the Avenger gunner targeted another of the enemy.

The surviving Havocs swooped in. They fired a second tremendous volley of rockets and missiles. Two miles ahead of the original attack, another gruesome portion of the autobahn fell beneath the sword. A dozen ambulances and hundreds of cars were engulfed by the firestorm that leaped from the unmerciful skies. A thousand more souls were added to the rolls by the night-shattering assault.

Thunderous explosions rocked the column. A few hundred yards in front of the location of the second attack, Robert Jensen could feel the hellish flames of the fearsome barrage.

The Avenger fired once more. A helicopter went down. The gunner quickly targeted a third soaring Havoc and released another missile. A heat-seeking Stinger leaped from the Avenger’s left pod. It reached out at supersonic speed to seize its quarry. Scattered pieces of the defeated Russian flamed to earth.

Two Stinger gunners were ready to fire again. Standing side by side, each waited for the tone to sound. The sweet tones went off. Death reached into the starlit skies to snatch a pair of Havocs. Another pair of attackers tumbled from the heavens.

The Avenger had another helicopter in its sights. The final pair of Stinger gunners rose to their feet.

The Russians fled into the eastern sky. Three Stingers leaped high to give chase. The heartless little killers would catch their prey just prior to reaching each small missile’s five-mile limit. A trio of retreating Havocs exploded. The thirteen survivors disappeared into the black night.

With the immediate threat gone, the stunned Americans attempted to regroup.

There was nothing anyone could do for those caught beneath the Russian assault. Two long stretches of white-hot, flaming pavement were a horrifying no-man’s-land. Those trapped within couldn’t be saved.

Many would undertake their somber journey across the river Styx on this sordid morning.