WesWorld

October 15, 1940, Shortly After Dawn - North of Delaram
Dara-Leifteanant Liam Feeney glanced out the port side of his canopy to eye his gauges. He didn't really like that part of the Henschel Hs-129's design, but the cockpit was too small and crowded for all of the gauges to be visible. On the other hand, forward visibility was better than almost any plane Feeney had ever flown, and that made him feel good.

Satisfied at the readings of his gauges, Feeney glanced back down at his map, and then at the river visible below his plane. Well, looks like I'm in the war zone again now. Any troops I see outside the Delaram perimeter and north of the ring road, I can shoot.

Feeney glanced towards the horizon, saw the dust, and grinned. I'm glad - I hate running ground searches.

He flew past, slightly to the south and west of the moving Afghan column, evaluating his options. The dust was particularly thick over the marching forces, but he saw a wedge of light tankettes rolling along ahead, and the undeniable dust trails of more vehicles - Feeney presumed armour - in their wake. On both sides moved mounted tribal fighters. Oddly, but entirely to his liking, Feeney didn't see any antiaircraft elements.

The German advisors who trained Feeney on the Henschel advocated taking a long, slow gliding approach, rather than multiple high-speed passes. This would give him the longest time to aim, fire cannons, or prepare for a bomb run. While it allowed the enemy more time to fire back, they thought the damage would be greater than multiple quick passes. Might as well see if their theory holds true in the field.

Feeney winged over, circled around to line up on a thickly-grouped company of cavalry, armed his loadout of SD-2 bomblets, reset the throttle to a bit above idle, and nosed down.

Time to dish out some of God's Own Fire and Brimstone.

Feeney didn't fire the forward cannon as he swept down on the Afghan cavalry, instead concentrating on his bomb run. The Afghan horsemen started to break around the edges, but they didn't do so quick enough before Feeney reached his drop point. Ninety-six two kilo bomblets tumbled away from the aircraft and fell in a swath among the horsemen.

As he pulled up at the end of the run, applying power to get back to altitude, Feeney glanced back and looked for the dust to settle. When it didn't do so immediately, Feeney shrugged to himself and winged over, looking for the armoured vehicles he'd seen earlier. Ah. There they are. Better get on 'em before they decide to leg it.

Arming guns, he went in again, raking the two lead tankettes with cannon fire until they burst into flame. I think the Jerries are right - the slow and steady approach does work best.

Four passes later, ammunition fully expended, Feeney surveyed the situation with satisfaction and turned back for the airfield and Gereshk. Another Henschel passed him on the way, heading north.



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Zaranj, 15 October 1940, dusk

Lazar Tonic had moved his headquarters into one of the less-battered buildings in what passed for the center of the town of Zaranj. The persistent Afghan rifle fire made it too dangerous to try and command from his armoured car. According to wireless reports General Pika’s attack on Chakhansun had progressed well, but it had not relieved the pressure on Zaranj; if anything, it seemed to inspire the tribal warriors outside the perimeter to redouble their efforts. The casualty figures spoke for themselves – fifteen dead, thirty-two wounded, some seriously.

He had called an orders group as the sun began to fall behind the mountains to the west. “The Afghans might try to rush our lines tonight,” he said. “Keep your men alert; the darkness will favor them.” Tonic turned his attention to Captain Josip Hocevar, who commanded the battery of 75mm divisional guns. “How are we fixed for illumination rounds?” he asked.

“Not good,” Hocevar admitted. “By my count I have six rounds for each gun, that’s all. I’ve checked with Captain Kovalev – his mortars are in not much better shape.”

Tonic shook his head. “It can’t be helped. We will have to try to gauge the strength of any enemy attack and expend them only on the strongest. If we have to we can use the spot lamps on the armoured cars, but they will draw too much fire to use indiscriminately.”

“Major”, asked Captain August Maric, who commanded the supply troops whose trucks had carried the column forward, “any word on relief?”

“No,” Tonic replied glumly. “It seems that General MacDonald’s strategy is working and Parwiz’s forces are taking a beating elsewhere, but there is no word on when we can expect a link up.”



For Bahram Aryana the day had begun badly but as night fell his confidence rose. Despite the lack of heavy weapons the tribal cavalry and militia at his command had kept the farangi troops pinned down inside Zaranj, preventing their advance to Chakhansun. He knew that battle raged in that place, as he could hear the distant thunder of cannon all day long – no doubt General Parwiz had advanced and taken the League troops in the flank and was dealing them a heavy blow. His stand against the farangi troops in Zaranj had even encouraged local tribesmen to join his force – some bearing arms and some taking up arms from the dead or wounded – swelling his numbers to nearly eight hundred he estimated.

With darkness closing on Zaranj he would be able to move his fighters even closer to the enemy’s perimeter – searching for a weak spot to overwhelm. In the open the firepower of the farangi was quite formidable, and he respected the material and psychological damage their artillery and armoured vehicles could inflict. But at night, in close quarters, he was confident that his men could snatch victory from the enemy’s grasp. Destroying this detachment of farangi would raise his stature in General Parwiz’s counsels; formal promotion meant nothing. Aryana smiled at the prospect before him.



Zaranj, 15 October 1940, night

Battalion Sergeant Major Jovo Kukavicic should have retired from the Royal Yugoslav Army years ago; at least that was the opinion of the soldiers of the 26th Supply and Transport Battalion. As a young boy of sixteen Kukavicic had lied about his age and joined the Serb army in the last of the Balkan Wars.; he had survived through all the horrors of the Great War; one would have thought that was enough. But Kukavicic liked the Army, and it was his home. Though at the moment, if someone had asked him, he might have agreed that perhaps this was one campaign too many.

The drivers, mechanics and escorts of the 26th Supply had been formed into scratch infantry squads, and distributed around the task force’s perimeter to support the dug in artillery. As such Kukavicic and six others occupied a slit trench dug as deep as possible to avoid the constant fire of the Afghans. With night drawing on what had been a constant fusillade now became desultory, and Kukavicic set his men to improving their trench.

“Battalion Sergeant Major,” one of the men asked, “how deep do we dig this trench?”

“You dig until I tell you to stop,” Kukavicic said deadpan. “A trench is no good unless you can stand up in it and still have good cover.”



Some fifteen meters beyond the trench where Kukavicic had his men digging Lieutenant Franc Tomse checked his gun positions again. The two 75mm regimental guns were secure enough behind their shields, and his men had piled up rocks and sandbags as best they could. So far he had been lucky; only one of his men had been hit by Afghan fire, and that a graze only; they hadn’t bothered to send him back to the aid station for treatment. Tomse had heard that the fighting in Chakhansun had gone in LONAFF’s favor, but such was cold comfort in Zaranj, besieged by who knows how many Afghan savages. His men were enjoying the momentary respite down their rations.

Suddenly the quiet of the night was broken by heavy firing on the eastern perimeter. The Afghans, it seemed, were making a strong effort to attack the Yugoslav positions. He could hear the cries of the Afghans as they charged, and the crash of fire from the task force’s guns in response. Instinctively he checked his front but mercifully there was nothing moving in his sector.



Fazal could see one of the farangi raise his head above the wall that marked the enemy’s firing positions; he and his companions froze and hugged the ground. They had slowly crept forward while the attention of the farangi was fixed on the diversion to their front. The figure seemed to peer in Fazal’s direction for a moment, but then dropped down behind the wall again. “God is with us,” he thought. He began to carefully crawl closer, and the fifty fighters who followed him did likewise.

When they had reached a point some twenty paces from the enemy Fazal signaled a halt. He forced his heart to stop pounding in his chest and summoned all his courage; then he jumped up, talwar in hand, and shouted “God is Great!” as he charged the farangi position, leading his men to battle.



The Afghans seemed to rise out of the ground, screaming and shouting. In the moonlight Tomse could see the flash of sword-blades and heard the crack of rifles.

He didn’t have to order his men to open fire. Those not immediately required to serve the guns grabbed their rifles and began to pour fire into the oncoming horde of Afghans; Number One gun spoke quickly – firing a canister shell that spewed forth hell fire like a giant shot gun, ripping into the Afghan ranks. But they were too close; Afghans swarmed over their defensive position, stabbing, slicing, killing…


Kukavicic heard the cry of “Allah Akbar!” as the Afghans began their charge on the gun positions. “Grab your rifles boys,” he ordered. “We’ve got company! Fix bayonets!”

The battalion sergeant major saw the Afghan charge crest the wall and sweep over the gunners’ positions. Without thinking he rose to his feet and began to move forward. Sensing hesitation on the part of his men he paused only long enough to say, “Come on you apes! You want to live forever?”



Fazal had lived long enough to mount the enemy’s position, and despite the fire of the one cannon his men now held a portion of the enemy’s perimeter. If the rest of the attack force hurried, they would be in among the farangi, where their swords and rifles were better suited than the machineguns and cannon of the infidel.

His men were battering down the last of the farangi who manned the cannon when out of the darkness swept a band of madmen, bayonets glinting on their rifles.



Kukavicic drove his bayonet deep into the first Afghan he encountered, driving the man down. The appearance of his squad had taken the attackers by surprise, and the Afghans paused, wondering what had happened. It was the only advantage his men needed. They quickly retook the gun position, shooting or bayoneting those Afghans who remained inside the wall. They found Lieutenant Tomse alive but wounded under the body of an Afghan.

The Afghan follow-on force now tried to carry the position by main force, but alert to the attack the Yugoslavs pumped round after round of canister into the oncoming horse. It was difficult to tell how many casualties they inflicted but after twenty minutes the attack appeared to subside, the only sound from outside the wall being the moans of the dying.


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October 15, 1940, Morning - Chakhansun
[SIZE=1]Excerpt from International Soldiers; The League of Nations at War, 1935-1940[/SIZE]

As morning wore on, the dismounted cavalry and riflemen of Battlegroup Pika moved slowly through the city of Chakhansun. Fighting was ferocious, and the Czechs took heavy casualties as they breached the walls of the city. Inside the old walls, the city was composed of closely-built houses with adjoining walls, which formed neighborhood-sized strongholds. However, the troops quickly found their stride and established a strategy. Lt-35 tanks would advance, buttoned down, into the streets and lay down covering fire, while the infantry used antitank guns or satchel charges to break through the walls of a block of houses. Once a breach was gained, the infantry would cross the street under cover from the tanks, and enter the row of houses. The infantry then used grenades to blow holes through the walls of the houses, and the defenders of the next room would be driven back or killed. In other cases, the Czech tanks literally rammed through rows of lighter-built houses, with infantry advancing through the rubble to clear out resistance. By noontime, much of the city of Chakhansun lay in ruins. The Afghan troops only rarely surrendered, and the Czech battle history paid them tribute: "Only in death did they cease to resist."

The hardest fighting occurred in the Chakhansun market, where the Afghans had been heavily-reinforced by Persian Nationalist troops. The Persians brought with them a number of antitank guns and rifles, as well as gas bombs, which resulted in the loss of several tanks and serious damage to a number of others entering the market. The first armoured attack was blunted by this surprise defense, and two of the main entry points to the marketplace were blocked by damaged tanks. Pika, alarmed at the heavy tank casualties incurred in the initial attack, ordered an end to further attacks on the market and the city center until the rest of the city was secured.

As the Czechs slowly broke down resistance on the ground level, a different sort of battle took place on the rooftops between the snipers of both sides. The Czechs quickly assumed superiority, as their shooters were equipped with scoped Vz.24 Mausers and binoculars, while the Afghan snipers, though skilled, were usually using blackpowder rifles, and every shot gave away their position. The Czech snipers, moving from rooftop to rooftop, infiltrated as far as the city center, and at noon, a sniper team composed of Sergeant Miklos Aichel and Corporal Jakob Reynek obtained a commanding position overlooking the market - from the roof of Haji Munadi's own headquarters. Aichel and Reynek spent two hours merely watching the marketplace and evaluating the troop concentrations there, pinpointing the location of the Persian anti-armour teams and watching the movements of the Persian and Afghan officers, which they reported quietly by radio.



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October 15, 1940, Morning; Chakhansur Province, East of Lake Puzak
[SIZE=1]Excerpt from the Journal of Khosro Parwiz[/SIZE]

Allah has blessed me today with the weather. The wind from the west has brought a dust storm into the area, and visibility has fallen substantially. The aircraft which have dogged my movements are no longer overhead, and with the low visibility, I am confident that I can bring my numbers to bear on the enemy. However, my lead scouts have reported armoured cars withdrawing in front of them. I find that odd - the League troops should be well south trying to break through into Zabol. Perhaps they have sent a 'forlorn hope' detachment north to slow me down... But no matter. So long as this weather holds, and so long as Haji Munadi holds, then the League troops will wither on the vine.

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October 15, 1940, Afternoon - Chakhansun
"Here we go, Jakob. I hear the tanks now."

Corporal Jakob Reynek propped himself up on his elbows to peer through the hole he'd made in the roof of the building. Sergeant Miklos Aichel, his friend and sniper team leader, did the same. They'd spent three hours watching the Afghans and their Persian allies at work in the courtyard below, watching soldiers moving around, trying, by whatever means possible to shore up their defenses. Aichel and Reynek had stayed quiet as mice in their rooftop hide, whispering the layout of the defenses into their radio. If the tanks are moving in, then they must have decided it's time to take this place, Reynek thought to himself.

The Chakhansun market was vaguely T-shaped, and from their position, Aichel and Reynek commanded most of it. The Persian and Afghan officers had their headquarters two floors down, but Reynek knew the lead Persian officer was standing near his AT guns, preparing to defend against the coming assault. The Afghan sheik Haji Munadi, or some stand-in of his, was rallying his troops in the defensive line- where he was plainly visible.

"Shall we start, sergeant?" Reynek asked.

"Yes. You take the Afghan and the AT gun at the far end."

Reynek nodded and raised his scoped Vz.24. It was two hundred meters to the Afghan sheik, who stood next to a machine gun and shouted exhortations to his men; or at least it appeared he was, as Reynek couldn't hear at such a range. Two hundred meters with a moderate wind; Reynek gauged the drift and drop, and placed the crosshairs between the sheik's shoulders. The match rifle was rated for two centimeters of accuracy at a hundred meters, and Reynek, through long hours of practice, did not shame his rifle.

Breathe.

Squeeze.

In mid-gesture, the Afghan sheik suddenly jerked and then flopped head over heels into the trench full of his men.

Reynek vaguely heard Sergeant Aichel's Mauser bark beside him, but he worked the bolt of his own and chambered another round. It was even farther - three hundred meters - to the AT gun at the far side of the marketplace. The AT gun crew were close to their piece, waiting for the first Czech tank to break into the square. They'd already done deadly work on two Lt.35s, which burned near the entrance; Reynek did not intend to let them have another comrade.

Breathe. Squeeze.

The AT gun commander fell over his artillery piece, thrashing; Reynek worked the bolt again and brought the scope back to his eye; one of the AT gunners was reaching for his fallen commander. Too fast a setup for a shot, but I must suppress those gunners!

Breathe, squeeze.

The man fell across his commander; the rest of the AT gun crew dove into their foxholes.

At that moment, the mortar rounds started falling. They were precise, the work of the Dragoons' heavy mortar crews, who dropped two dozen rounds neat as anything into the defensive works in the center of the square. Several battalion mortars laid rounds down on the AT gun position Reynek had just cleared; another few rounds landed near one of the pits prepared for the AT riflemen. They're using our spotting work to do that, Reynek thought with detached pride.

Their detail work done - Afghans and Persians alike had dove for their trenches and foxholes - the mortars shifted to a more general rolling bombardment. Heavy artillery screeched through the air and fell only a hundred yards away, shaking the building with the blasts. Reynek did not want to be that close - it was the sort of distance he'd have called 'final suppressing fire' on most occasions.

As the lightning artillery barrages rumbled, the first Lt.35s clanked methodically into the marketplace. A few of the Afghans - Reynek thought them madmen at first - climbed out of their trench and ran straight for the tanks; and only when it was too late did Reynek realize they carried gas bombs. The first threw his bottle to shatter against the lead tank.

Reynek sniped the second man just as he prepared to throw; the bottle dropped and exploded in the midst of the suicide squad. Two of the remainder pressed forward and threw their bombs, but the tankers cut them down with machine-gun fire as they did. The lead tank, burning forward where the gas ran off the front, continued clattering into the marketplace, gun tracking for enemies.



Second Lieutenant Vaclav Mírohorský was glad his tank had been buttoned up, or he'd have gotten a face full of burning gasoline. He didn't think the gas bomb had got into the engine compartment - he hoped it hadn't - and for the moment he and his crew were safe inside the tank.

For the moment.

Mírohorský had difficulty seeing out of his small viewport, as the heat from the fire made the air dance in front of him. Small arms fire rattled against the armour, but it was too weak to penetrate or even threaten the tank. Ah - AT gun, just like the briefing said!

"One o'clock, AT gun, range one hundred!" Mírohorský called. "Slew right, load!"

"Loaded!"

"Halt!"

WHAM! Something hit the tank hard, enough to daze and disorient Mírohorský for a moment. The gunner slapped his shoulder, and through the ringing in Mírohorský's ears he made out "On target!"

"Fire!"

The gun roared and recoiled.

"ADVANCE!" Mírohorský shouted.



Reynek finished reloading his rifle and brought it back up to peer through the hole in the roof. The first squad of tanks finished coming into the marketplace, dismounted cavalry moving behind them in a low crouch, following the tanks for protection. Reynek saw movement in the corner of his eye and looked; another squad of infantry-supported amour was moving into the marketplace by a different entry point.

As the snipers continued to suppress the antitank gunners and riflemen they'd picked out over the last few hours, the fighting in the marketplace rose to its climax as the two tank pincers broke through the defenders. The first tank into the marketplace, still ablaze forward with the results of the gas bomb, climbed over the rough ground in front of the last redoubt and then crossed the trenches, infantry with submachine guns dashing into the trenches.

Though their last defensive line was broken, the defenders did not surrender. Where ever the madness of battle inspired them, they rose up out of their trenches and threw themselves towards the dismounted cavalry with fanatical, suicidal heroism, falling to bullets and bayonet. Others charged the tanks, and while one or two managed to gain a foothold on the vehicles, far more fell beneath the tracks, where Reynek shivered at their last screams.

The Czech troops, most of two battalions, stormed into the marketplace like the sea pouring through a breached dike; they moved behind the tanks, using them for cover. The Persian and Afghan resistance drowned beneath the weight of the attack, and though they never surrendered, they died and the fighting ended.



"Sir." The messenger saluted. "Colonel Kotik wishes me to inform you, sir, that we have seized control of the marketplace, sir. The enemy forces there have been wiped out."

General Pika breathed in deeply. "Thank you, corporal. What are Colonel Kotik's losses?"

"I do not know, sir," the messenger said.

"Please give Kotik my best wishes," Pika said, "And ask him to report his casualties to me as soon as possible."

"Yes sir."

Pika turned and addressed his radioman. "Prepare to send a message to FIONN."



"General, message from General Pika just came in."

The communications man handed MacDonald the folded sheet of paper and the general unfolded it, his stomach flip-flopping. The last message sounded a bit grim - please tell me it's good news... "GRIP to FIONN," he read. "Have secured Objective BOXTY effective 1652 Hours [Stop]. Further information will follow [Stop]."



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October 15, 1940, Delaram
[SIZE=1]Excerpt from The League of Nations Sourcebook, Volume Four (1940-1950)[/SIZE]

Parwiz's Eastern Force, under the command of Khaled Hashem Maqsoodi and his Persian second-in-command, Colonel Forouhar, managed to reach Delaram on the afternoon of October 15th. Though Maqsoodi's men, spearheaded by the Persian tankettes and picked assault teams, had smashed and routed the 4th Afghan Infantry Division the previous day with very few casualties, the morning of the 15th had brought reckoning: regular attacks by the Irish Hawker Hurribombers and Henschel Hs-129s had caused heavy casualties. The Afghans subjected to this treatment were enraged, and as they reached the perimeter of the Delaram airfield, they began piecemeal human-wave attacks on the northern side of the airfield. They met withering fire from the Yugoslavian airfield defense troops stationed there, but the Afghan attacks, carried out with no regard for casualties, nearly succeeded in breaking into the perimeter by sheer force of numbers. The rapid reaction of a camel-mounted company of the Irish 5th Battalion, drawn up as the floating reserve, came just in time to prevent the first defensive line from being overwhelmed.

With the Afghan tribal fighters stymied on the north, the Colonel Forouhar led six of his TKS tankettes to attack the Afghan National Army troops of Major Miraki's command, established on the southern side of the airfield. The Afghans, steadied by Miraki's calm leadership, waited in their trenches until the tankettes had passed by, and then climbed out of their foxholes and opened up on the supporting infantry with devastating rifle fire. Picked teams of Afghan troops ran after the tankettes and climbed up the still-moving vehicles, pulling the crewmen out of the open roof hatches and killing them with bayonets and swords. Colonel Forouhar, observing the attack from his command vehicle, attempted to lead a rescue party, but the second attack dissolved when Forouhar was seriously wounded.

Maqsoodi, arriving late on the battlefield after a harrowing escape from a Hurribomber attack, fought to regain control of his troops. Despite the smashing victory of the previous day, the heavy casualties from air attacks and the strength of the defenders convinced Maqsoodi to exercise more caution, and he established a state of siege around the Delaram airfield. Despite his casualties, Maqsoodi retained nearly eight thousand troops, outnumbering the defending Irish, Afghan, and Yugoslav troops by a margin of four to one. Maqsoodi calmly set to work establishing his own positions around the airfield, methodically encircling the defenders.



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Zaranj, 16 October 1940, dawn

Morning in Zaranj dawned cold, the rising sun bringing little relief. It revealed dozens of bloating Afghan bodies littering the ground before the Yugoslav positions, cut down by rifle, machinegun and canister fire in the nighttime attacks mounted by the enemy. Battle Group Tonic still held its position. At the morning orders group Lazar Tonic reviewed the situation with his officers.

“Casualties?” he asked the medical officer.

“Eighteen dead and thirty-one wounded, many seriously, in last night’s fighting. We’ve now lost thirty-three dead and fifty three wounded in total,” the doctor replied. “We may loose some of the wounded,” he added glumly.

“They’re still out there,” reported Kovalev of the 33rd Infantry. “I sent a patrol out this morning and they were driven back by a large party of Afghans. Fortunately they didn’t take casualties.”

Tonic had heard the brief firefight. “That’s something to the good; more to the good is the news from Chakhansun; Battle Group Pika has taken the town following heavy resistance.” That news seemed to lighten the spirits of those gathered. “When they’ll move forward I don’t know; reports are that the Afghans are still advancing from the northwest.”

“So we’re staying put?” asked Captain August Maric.

“Those are our orders – and that’s what we’ll do. Any questions?”

There were none, and the officers dispersed to their positions.



In the lee of a rock Bahram Aryana also took stock of the situation he faced. The infidel farangi still held the town of Zaranj – his nighttime attacks had come so close but had been beaten off by the enemy. “Canister rounds,” he thought. “How ancient, but how deadly. I had not thought that the farangi would employ them.

The Yugoslav artillery firing canister at point-blank range had proved deadly indeed. Aryana estimated that he had lost some two hundred fighters in the night – most dead in front of the Yugoslav perimeter, but some simply disappearing in the night. Those, he thought, were the volunteers that had joined him yesterday when victory seemed in their grasp. Still he had a considerable force to hold the League soldiers under siege. His men were still following their orders to snipe at anything that moved inside Zaranj.

The distant thunder of the fighting at Chakhansun had died away; no doubt the farangi, their supply lines cut by the forces of General Parwiz and Haji Munadi, were fighting for their lives. Aryana was puzzled that no reply had come from Chakhansun for he had sent no less than three couriers there to warn Haji Munadi of the presence of the farangi in Zaranj. It made little difference – once General Parwiz had defeated the League troops on the Plain of the Dead dealing with the small force in Zaranj would be a simple matter.


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October 15, 1940, Chakhansur Province, East of Lake Puzak
"It's the Irish, General."

"Show me," Parwiz ordered. His aide-de-camp spread the map out on the bonnet of Parwiz's command car, and the commander of his scouting company leaned in to trace a dirty finger across the paper.

"Here, along this ridge. It's not steep or high, but the ground in front of it is clear for nearly a kilometer. They're already digging in, both along the backside of the crest and on the front, sinking in machine gun pits. We got too close before we saw them, sir - they hit us with mortars. They've already dialed in."

"How many men?" Parwiz demanded.

"A considerable force. They've fortified enough frontage for two to three battalions. That's the best I can tell you, sir."

"Anti-tank defenses?"

"Probably some Boys rifles and British 2-pounder guns. If the Irish have them, they're camouflaged and didn't open fire on us."

What about the flanks? Can I outflank them?"

"Not easily, sir. Lake Puzak's to their west. It's shallow but we'll not get vehicles across. To the east, there's a pretty commanding hill. I didn't see any defenders on it, but if they intend to defend that ridge, then they need to garrison the hill. We'd need to divert six miles to the east of the road to outflank them."

Parwiz asked a few more questions, then dismissed the captain and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. They moved up faster and in greater strength than I expected. Two? Three battalions? Most of a regiment. If they've got enough antitank guns, and they're in a good position... damn! Allah confound you, Irishman, I don't want to fight you here.

He sighed and breathed deeply. All right, then, Khosro, focus on the task at hand. What is this General MacDonald doing? If he knows to meet me here, then he may know what forces I have, and he'll need all his strength to beat my knockout fist... if only Haji Munadi holds, and if Maqsoodi continues to beat the puppet Afghans in Delaram... Think, Khosro. Oh, I see now. You infidel dog, I've underestimated you - you're not afraid to fight even as disadvantaged as you are. What is it - confidence, or overconfidence? European skill, or European arrogance? You must have divided your army - one group to fight me, one to attack Chakhansun, rather than trying to barrel through to safety. You can't be immune to the panic, MacDonald - and even if you are, your men are not. I came south to bleed you, and though you've chosen the battlefield, my mission is unchanged. I. Will. Bleed. You.

Parwiz straightened up. "Lieutenant Ghazvini! I want my regiment and brigade commanders gathered immediately. Please also politely invite Ismatula Zadran to join us at his earliest convenience."



General MacDonald raised his field glasses and watched through the dust as the Persian scouts withdrew. They'd come forward a second time, now, tempting the Irish riflemen to fire a few rounds downrange to give them company. The Persians and their scout cars didn't seem interested in pressing the issue further, and withdrew, apparently satisfied that they'd again made contact with the Irish line.

"Come on, Persian," MacDonald muttered. "Don't be a skiver. I'm right here - fight me!" He turned and looked at the infantrymen in the trenches around him. They didn't look scared, but they didn't have the confidence he wanted to see.

"Listen up, boys!" MacDonald shouted. Heads turned towards him with attentive faces. "That dumb idiot down there has all the advantages he thinks he needs. He's got a numeric advantage. He's got the weather, keeping out planes from giving us support. He's got as many tanks as we do, and his troops are all veterans. He thinks he's shocked us, shaken our courage. Well, maybe some of that's correct, boys. But he doesn't have what it takes to beat us. No, boys - that general thinks he's got everything he needs to whip us, but he's wrong. He doesn't have everything he needs to win. Boys, he's not got enough Irishmen!"



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October 15, 1940, Chakhansur Province, East of Lake Puzak
[SIZE=1]Excerpt from History of the Irish Army[/SIZE]

Parwiz's first attack began shortly before dusk, with the dismounted Persian cavalry of Colonel Khaled Tarzi's regiment surging forward to attack Outlook Hill, a sandy hill which anchored the east end of the Irish line. Though this hill was an important feature which dominated the area, MacDonald had intentionally placed only light elements of the 1st Irish Battalion in defense in the intent of provoking the Persians to attack it.

Colonel Tarzi's men pressed forward in a vigorous attack, but as they reached the hill fell afoul of antipersonnel mines that the Irish engineers had placed earlier in the morning. These mines, provided by the British and French armies, caused startling casualties amongst the Afghan ranks, and the attack faltered at the base of Outlook Hill. Colonel Tarzi rushed forward to rally his men, leading them forward up the hill, whereupon the Irish defenders promptly withdrew. The Persian cavalry launched an immediate pursuit down the other side of the hill. However, in their hasty assault, they did not note that the Irish had withdrawn through several gaps marked by stakes, and their leading ranks promptly stumbled into a second row of antipersonnel mines and prepared machine gun positions. The Irish mortars then brought Outlook Hill under a heavy fire, supported several minutes later by the field howitzers. Tarzi's men took stiff casualties while inflicting relatively few on the retreating 1st Battalion

As the attack on the hill faltered, Parwiz committed his own sparse artillery to the fight, as well as part of his reserve infantry, composed of Afghan recruits under Persian officers and NCOs. This force successfully occupied Outlook Hill and began digging in, turning the flank of the defenders along Ridge One. Although MacDonald had intended to drive the defenders back off the hill, he quickly realized that a nighttime fight and the fresh Persian reserves would result in little more than heavy casualties. Parwiz quickly moved to capitalize on his success, throwing forward his main infantry force at Ridge One, only to find it nearly deserted: MacDonald had withdrawn to Ridge Two in the growing dusk.

At 1800 hours, with the winter light fading rapidly [1], Parwiz pushed a small group of tanks and armoured cars into an attack on Ridge Two, supported by his coup de main force of almost three thousand veteran Persian Nationalist infantrymen. The weight and skill of this assault, focused almost entirely upon Major John Mooney's 4th Infantry Battalion, proved to be too much to withstand, with the 4th being divided. The 2nd Battalion, on the far left of Ridge Two, was in danger of being surrounded, together with remnants of the 4th which had broken on their flank.

MacDonald swiftly reacted to plug the gap, sending Captain Leith's tank company, supported by the 3rd Battalion (Motorised) under Major Duggan, to make a local counterattack. Leith's eighteen Crusader tanks crashed into the Persian advance in the darkness, and after a fight lasting less than five minutes, withdrew, leaving two burning Verdejas and two armoured cars to illuminate the battlefield. This swift counterattack disrupted the Persian attackers and disorganized their formation, and by the time they had reformed, MacDonald had successfully withdrawn the endangered 2nd Battalion without casualties, falling back on Ridge Three.

Ridge Three, the lowest of the five ridges, was also the least defensible, and by 0300 hours on the morning of the 16th, MacDonald ordered his men to withdraw to Ridge Four. The shattered 4th Battalion spent much of the night reforming in the rear, but at dawn was once again pulled together.

At dawn, in order to unbalance Parwiz's force, MacDonald instructed the Armoured Car Company under Captain O'Reilly and troops of the 1st Battalion to launch a feint on Outlook Hill. Although O'Reilly lost one of his armoured cars to an anti-tank team, the disrupting attack distracted Parwiz from his intended dawn attack on Ridge Four, and he shifted several battalions, including his tank reserve, to the left flank in order to hold Outlook Hill. Although the Irish withdrew in good order from Outlook Hill, Parwiz's troops declined to pursue them, fearing more minefields; Parwiz himself believed that the attack was intended as a scouting movement for a larger attack, and waited most of the morning in the expectation of meeting it. As a result, he did not return his attention to Ridge Four until 1140 hours.

Although the Persians had successfully dislodged the Irish from Outlook Hill as well as their first three defensive ridges, the attacks had proven quite costly to the attackers, with the Persians suffering nearly five hundred dead and nearly seven hundred wounded. The antipersonnel mines, particularly the French-supplied "Jumping Jacques" mines [2], had a particularly demoralizing impact on the Afghan recruits, who had never encountered such weapons and no clear idea how to respond to them. The Irish, by contrast, had generally withdrawn in good order, leaving very little equipment behind, and suffered disproportionately low casualties, with only thirty killed in action and eighty-one wounded. The disparity in dead and wounded was largely due to the rapid and occasionally overwhelming fire of the Irish company mortar teams and the Irish artillery battalion, which fired almost without opposition and bombarded troop concentrations and breakthrough points. The much higher quantity of automatic weapons amongst the Irish troops, particularly on the defensive, also had a pronounced effect, as most Irish squads had one Breire Gun [3] for every squad, while the Afghans had around one or two machine guns per company.



Notes:
- Note [1]: Sundown occurs at 1752 Hours
- Note [2]: A number of French Mle1939 bounding mines were supplied to the LONAFF.
- Note [3]: The historical Bren Gun.



Please make your out-of-character comments here regarding the story.

October 16, 1940, Gereshk
General Keramuddin Sherzai paused to regard the column of his marching men as they strode out of Gereshk. It was not, sadly, his full 2nd Infantry Division - he had at most two regiments worth of the garrison troops he'd managed to gather, with some infantry and cavalry support - but it would have to do, and Sherzai knew these men. He'd trained them with the expectation of someday fighting off a Persian, Indian, or Chinese invasion, and he knew their mettle. More importantly, they knew it, and they knew his. More than I can say for some of our alleged 'generals', Sherzai thought to himself.

"Thinking of," he muttered, seeing the dusty cloud of a lone vehicle coming down the road. He turned to his staff. "It seems General Abubakir has arrived. Let's go meet him."

It was a short ride to the road, and their horses were not yet winded by the time they had arrived. The staff-car, an old British-built vehicle that had seen its better days, braked to a halt and General Mohammed Ashraf Abubakir, commander of the Afghan National Army, stood up in the back seat. "General Sherzai! What are you doing? Where are these men going?"

Sherzai reined in his horse and feigned a puzzled look. "Why, I'm marching to relieve Delaram, General."

"There are hundreds of Persian tanks in Delaram by now!" Abubakir replied, probably sounding more shrill than he'd intended. "The farangi armies are cut off!"

"The farangi armies are fighting, General," Sherzai said pacifically. "And they won't be easily beaten, I think, not even by the Persian invaders. I'll advance to Delaram and relieve-"

Abubakir shook his head. "No, General, I forbid it! Countermand your order. I will not lose more troops to the Persians. Countermand your marching orders and withdraw back to defend Kandahar."

"Kandahar!" despite himself, Sherzai gaped at the order. Kandahar! You want me to withdraw to Kandahar? In the name of Allah, sir, I shall not. The farangi fight to our northwest and the results waver in the balance. I will advance to relieve them in Delaram."

"You are defying my order, General Sherzai? I told you to retreat!"

Sherzai shook his head. "General Abubakir, you did not order me to retreat: you ordered me to join in your panicked flight to the rear and leave our farangi allies dangling on a line at Delaram. That is the order which I defy."

"You are insubordinate!" Abubakir shouted, waving his hand.

"And you are a coward."

Abubakir turned to his aide-de-camp. "Major, arrest General Sherzai for disobeying orders."

The major glanced once at General Abubakir, then got out of the staff car, walked around the back, and saluted Sherzai. "Your orders, General Sherzai?" he asked formally.

Sherzai smiled. "Major Nazari, would you join my staff?"

"With pleasure, sir."

"Good." Sherzai gave the purple-faced Abubakir a scornful glance. "We're advancing to battle. We can use all the brave men we can get."



Please make your out-of-character comments here regarding the story.

Zabol, October 16, 1940, dawn

Major General Stefanovic cursed himself again. In his overconfidence he had sent off most of his mobile troops to Zaranj, expecting them to stampede the Afghans out of the town; and he had expected General Pika’s battle group to bowl through Chakhansun and effect a quick link up. Neither had happened. Whoever commanded the Afghans outside Zaranj had been quick enough to rally his forces and deploy them in a manner that check-mated the superior firepower and mobility of the Yugoslav troops; while Pika’s forces had finally overwhelmed the Afghans in Chakhansun, the tribal fighters had fought to the last man and held up the Czechs an entire day.

It was a mistake he would not make again. He had taken an entire day to prepare a follow-on force – the remainder of the 33rd Infantry Battalion – which would secure the entire road from Zabol to Zaranj. If Pika had the strength to move west from Chakhansun they would re-open the LONAFF supply line and relieve many of the concerns expressed by General MacDonald. Reports from his sector suggested that he was handling the Persians well enough, but eliminating threats to his rear would make his job easier.

Lieutenant-Colonel Dusan Bozic, commander of the 33rd Infantry Battalion, checked the vehicles in his column again before they began their march. One of his companies was hanging on in Zaranj, but he felt confident enough that with careful preparation he would be able to relieve Task Force Tonic. He still had two rifle companies and his weapons company at his disposal, and like his commander, Bozic was not going to underestimate the Afghans this time. All the previous day the boffins in the workshops had worked on modifying a half-dozen supply trucks with improvised armor and pintle mounts for machineguns – turning them into gun-trucks, two of which would spearhead each company’s column.

Having checked the vehicles one last time Bozic reported to General Stefanovic’s headquarters.

“Sir,” he announced, “the column is ready to depart.”

“Very good Bozic,” the general said cautiously. “Major Tonic encountered very little Afghan opposition on his way to Zaranj; I would not expect that situation to prevail. They had no idea he was coming – the Afghans are likely to expect a relief column now. I suspect you will find the road obstructed, perhaps even mined.”

“Yes sir. The sapper squads have been briefed on that possibility.” Bozic was quite aware that he could be rolling into a trap.

“While I doubt that you will encounter anything between here and the border,” Stefanovic continued, “once on the other side there are no limits on what might happen. Our guns from here can cover you part of the way – and I will advise Tonic that a relief force is on the way as well – once you get within artillery range of Zaranj you should be able to call on them for fire support. But there is a gap – here” the general indicated, pointing to a map, “where you will be on you own.”

Bozic nodded. In other circumstances he might have expected to call on air support, but the situations in Delaram and around Lake Puzak were of much higher priority.

“We will get though sir,” Bozic affirmed.



Zaranj, 16 October 1940, morning

Lazar Tonic read the message flimsy and smiled. “A relief column. If they don’t run into an ambush, they should be here by late afternoon,” he thought. Grabbing his helmet he carefully exited his headquarters, and began to check his forward positions, sharing with his officers the good news.

The Afghans were keeping up their desultory fire, only rarely hitting a Yugoslav who unwisely exposed himself. The defenders of Zaranj had dug deep into the sandy soil, and were quick to take advantage of any carelessness on the part of the Afghans; occasionally the regimental artillery guns would drop a couple of rounds on a suspected Afghan position – and as often as not would be rewarded.

Tonic was happy to find his men in good fighting spirit, despite being besieged for nearly a day now. The news of the anticipated relief column heartened them.



For Bahram Aryana the day’s news was not so hopeful. In mid-morning a scout returned with news that Chakhansun had fallen to the hated farangi. It was rumored that Haji Munadi had died defending the final strongpoint; news which at once inspired some of Aryana’s Afghan fighters to fight all the harder to revenge their loss, while some, less committed to the cause, seemed to hold back. Some of Aryana’s few surviving Persian officers and NCOs reported that some of the fighters in their commands were drifting away, while they were hard pressed from keeping others from charging the farangi positions in broad daylight – inviting death at the hands of the farangi machineguns.

“If the farangi have taken Chakhansun,” he thought, “our mission here becomes all the more important.” He hoped that Haji Munadi had bled the farangi sufficiently that the surviving League troops in Chakhansun would be content to remain there.

Aryana then began his own rounds, encouraging his men to fight all the more fiercely. He did not lie and claim that Haji Munadi was alive; but he calmly explained that it was mere rumor that he had died – and if he had entered Paradise he had sent many faragi to their death before him. All the more reason those who loved the Haji should fight on. His words encouraged many, but Aryana also saw empty fighting positions…



Chakhansun, 16 October 1940, morning

Lieutenant General Helidor Pika did not intend to give the Afghans a rest after taking Chakhansun, but the tactical situation and his own losses restricted his options. General MacDonald was still engaging Parwiz’s main force to the northwest, and the outcome was very much in doubt. His own troops had fought a tougher engagement than he expected, and needed time to rest and regroup. The Yugoslav general, Stefanovic, had pushed a force as far as Zaranj, half-way to Chakhansun, where they had met stiff Afghan resistance, but the situation did not seem that critical.

Nevertheless, he was not going to cede the initiative to Parwiz’s forces. He ordered two squadrons of Czech dragoons to scout the highway west from Chakhansun towards Zaranj and report the strength of any Afghan forces encountered. He limited their advance to no more than ten kilometers, and not engage any significant force - but to fall back. There were still too many eggs being juggled, and he could not afford to underestimate his enemy’s ability to react.






Please make your out-of-character comments here regarding the story.

October 16, 1940, Chakhansur Province, East of Lake Puzak
General MacDonald lowered his binoculars. "We're going to abandon this position before nightfall," he said philosophically.

His aide-de-camp looked at him with alarm. "Sir?"

"Oh, it's nothing to be ashamed of, Wilkinson," MacDonald said. "In fact, I've rather been expecting it since yesterday afternoon. Parwiz just has too many troops here - he'll be moving to the east to outflank this position, and the defensive ridges here won't save us from that. Frankly, if he wanted to be wasteful of his men, I don't think we could stop a frontal assault."

Major Wilkinson said nothing but shifted uneasily on his feet. MacDonald stepped back down into his command vehicle and began reviewing maps. A radioman held up his handset. "Major McAuley for you, sir."

MacDonald took the handset. "FIONN here."

"ROTARY to FIONN. I've got a major enemy attack forming up to my center. Estimate two thousand infantry and several tanks."

"Understood, ROTARY." MacDonald paused, making his decisions. "I'll commit more artillery to keep them down, but I plan to withdraw the entire line within the hour. Have your boys ready to move. Anything else?"

"No sir. ROTARY out."

"FIONN out."

MacDonald looked towards one of his runners. "Message for Lieutenant Colonel Williams. He's to lay down a defensive barrage for the 6th Battalion, but I want him to maintain his reserve." He paused. "Wilkinson, I want you to pull 1st Battalion out of the line and make them our reserve. I'm going to commit the 3rd to our right flank with Leith in support. Please raise Major Duggan on the set; I've a mission for him."



Parwiz glassed the Irish lines, ignoring the occasional artillery shells that fell just short of his position. He was well back from any danger, though his aides still didn't like the idea at all.

I'm forcing him back, Parwiz thought to himself. When he gave me the Hill to the east he let me take the position I wished, and now I'm outflanking him. Either he withdraws, or I'll envelop him...

"Orders to Colonel Rasoul. His attack on the enemy line is canceled; he's to remain where he is until the shelling stops. The Irish can't have all that many artillery shells left; let them pound the sand while he stays in cover. Anything further from Colonel Nodooshan?"

"At last report, he's advancing without opposition, sir."

"Good. This Irishman has caused us enough trouble already. I want him out of my way."



Please make your out-of-character comments here regarding the story.

The Persian Frontier, 16 October 1940, mid-morning

Dusan Bozic was in the fourth vehicle in the column that had begun it’s march in the early morning hours to relieve Task Force Tonic. Two gun trucks of Number 2 Company, 33rd Infantry, were ahead of him and a Zastava scout car in the lead. The entire column was moving carefully, all eyes watchful for ambush or obstructions.

As the road neared the official frontier Bozic could see the remains of the position held by Task Force Tonic as it too had stopped there on its advance on Zaranj. “We should have moved forward in force,” thought Bozic, “or not moved.” At that moment the wireless set beside him crackled and the lead vehicle reported in.

“Alpha One to Alpha Six. A broken culvert ahead.”

“Alpha Six to Alpha One – acknowledge,” Bozic replied. He signaled the column to halt while the sappers went forward to make quick repairs on the road. The heavily-armed gun trucks moved out on either side of the column where their machineguns could respond to any attack, while the infantry dismounted and took up a defensive stance, just in case.

Bozic stood and scanned the horizon. All he could see was dust being kicked up by what looked like several horses galloping in the direction of Zaranj. “Afghan scouts, no doubt” he said aloud. “They’ll know we are coming…”





West of Chakhansun, 16 October 1940, mid-morning

Major Jan Blahoslav’s dragoons had left Chakhansun to reconnoiter the highway towards the Persian frontier. General Pika had made it plain that their job was to reconnoiter, not get into a major firefight. Taking Chakhansun the day previously had cost the Czech force many casualties – and while they destroyed their Afghan opponents to a man the experience had wiped away any thoughts that their enemy would automatically flee at the approach of European troops.

The bark of several rifles ahead announced that his scouts had run into something. He signaled his column to hold its position as he carefully rode forward to find out what had happened. He found Lieutenant Petr Kostka stopped on a slight rise with several troopers – and on the far side of the hillock two dead Afghans and their tethered ponies.

“Sir,” said Lieutenant Kostka, “we encountered a small Afghan patrol. These two stayed behind to give us a fight but one got away in that direction” he continued, motioning with his arm.

“Well, that’s torn it,” cursed Blahoslav. “We could have a couple thousand angry Afghans on our backs in an hour or two.”

He checked his position on his map and realized that he had reached the limits of the leash General Pika had placed on him. It was time to contact headquarters and advise them of what little they had found and ask for further orders.




Outside Zaranj, 16 October 1940, late morning

Bahram Aryana took the news brought by his scouts unhappily. He had expected that the farangi would advance from Zabol to relieve their compatriots in Zaranj – but the reports his scouts brought were disturbing – massive armoured vehicles leading the column – trucks by the dozen – and even if the reports were exaggerated the relief column was a strong one. Complicating the situation was the report of farangi movement out of Chakhansun. If the farangi were strong enough to continue their advance after the blood-letting of taking the town, their strength must be greater than General Parwiz anticipated.

“Curse the farangi,” he thought. “They can communicate with each other easily by wireless; my one precious set was destroyed in Zaranj, and couriers are too slow and vulnerable.” Aryana faced the possibility of being caught in pincers from the east and from the west, and his force chewed to pieces by the superior firepower of the League troops. And the lack of word from General Parwiz’s headquarters did not make his choice easier – had victory been won there was no question that word would have come from the General; the lack of word, and the continuing farangi advance, suggested that the farangi had managed to elude Parwiz.

Despite his best efforts to conceal the news, leaders of the tribal contingents began to make their way to his headquarters – a shallow behind the hillocks. They were pressing him for news of what had happened at Chakhansun, about the forces advancing to crush them; some argued for flight, others to fight to the death.




Zaranj, 16 October 1940, late morning

Lieutenant Milan Zelenika scanned the horizon beyond the perimeter for movement among the besieging Afghans. Every once and a while one would show himself while rushing from dead ground to dead ground. At that moment he caught sight of another Afghan running from behind one hillock to another, one that he had seen several other Afghans run to. He thought it sufficiently noteworthy to call his commander.

Captain Kovalev arrived a few moments later and Zelenika carefully pointed out to him the hillock that seemed to be attracting a lot of Afghans. As they watched another figure raised his head above a dune, headed toward the hillock.

“Something’s up,” Kovalev concluded, and picked up the field telephone to contact his mortar positions. He read off a grid square and concluded. “Three rounds each.”

To the rear crews quickly pulled charges on mortar rounds and adjusted the tubes to the proper azimuth and elevation.

“Hang!” cried one of the mortarmen. “Fire!”

The soft plop of the 60mm rounds sliding down the tubes was followed by a much louder “Thwump!” as the shells exited the tubes and began to arch toward their target.




Aryana barely heard the string of small explosions from inside Zaranj over the cacophony of the Afghans, but he had no difficulty recognizing the sound of incoming mortar rounds. “Curse these squabbling children!” he thought as he instinctively threw himself to the ground just before the first mortar round struck not ten meters away, showering them all with fragments. Aryana hugged the ground as hot metal sliced into those still standing, cutting off shrieks in mid cry.



Kovalev smiled. “That will keep them on their toes. I wonder what they all were up to?”







Please make your out-of-character comments here regarding the story.

Outside Zaranj, 16 October 1940 – sometime after noon

Aryana gave thanks to God that he had reacted quick enough to avoid the worst of the mortar fragments that had showered the grouping of Afghan commanders. As it was hot shrapnel had cut deeply into his right leg, and only a combination of a field dressing and a tourniquet postponed his bleeding to death. For too many of the others their baraka – luck – had run out, they lay dead or dying, their wounds beyond the capacity of the primitive medical care available.

“Curse the farangi and their weapons,” Aryana thought. “And curse these old women who think themselves commanders, running to gossip at the latest rumor!” He was certain that the farangi had seen the Afghans converging on the spot where his headquarters had been and shelled it in consequence.

With the loss of many of their immediate commanders his hold over the Afghan tribal warriors was wavering. The few Persians he could spare for leadership roles reported that too many of the fighters were slipping away. Rumors of farangi tanks churning Afghan bodies beneath their tracks inspired some to greater desire for revenge, but most seemed unwilling to stand and fight when the option of retreat lay open. Aryana had nothing to counteract the reports of Haji Munadi’s death, and the primary loyalty of the Afghans here were to the dead warlord.

“To stay here will gain martyrdom with no advantage,” he said aloud to no one in particular.

He carefully sent runners to the portions of his command that were responsive, ordering a withdrawal to the northwest. Perhaps beyond Lake Puzak they might make contact with General Parwiz’s forces.

Half an hour later, having been helped to mount an Afghan pony, Bahram Aryana led what was left of his command away from the town of Zaranj. He had perhaps a hundred rifles at his back – far too few to face the guns and armoured vehicles of the farangi in the open. “Perhaps,” he consoled himself, “the time we bought will suffice for General Parwiz to gain victory.” Somehow though he found that cold comfort.



Zaranj, 16 October 1940 – early afternoon

Lazar Tonic noticed that the rifle fire that had kept his men pinned down had died away. He carefully made his way to the forward positions of the 33rd Infantry to consult with Captain Kovalev.

“I think they’ve gone,” Kovalev said. “I haven’t heard a shot for twenty minutes”.

“Send out a fighting patrol to scout the immediate area,” Tonic replied. “I’ll ready a troop to check the road toward Zabol.”

Kovalev didn’t hesitate to send a patrol out. Two squads of Yugoslav infantry went over their entrenchments are picked their way outward, while their comrades stayed alert to lay down supporting fire if required. But no Afghan snipers remained; merely the dead or dying.

Tonic sent a small force of armoured cars westward towards the anticipated relief column, and readied the rest of his squadron for further operations.



The Zabol-Zaranj Road, 16 October 1940 – early afternoon

Dusan Bozic was thankful that the worst opposition that his men had to face was the need to stop and repair broken culverts – a delay but one at small cost in sweat, not blood. Progress towards Zaranj had been steady and Bozic was confident that he would reach the town by night fall.

“Sir,” his wireless operator shouted. “Message from Major Tonic in Zaranj. Apparently the Afghans have pulled back and he is sending out a patrol in our direction.”

“Excellent,” Bozic replied over the sound of the engine. “Give them our current location.”

He moved up the column past the gun trucks covering the sappers at work. “How much longer?” he asked the sergeant in charge.

“Fifteen minutes or so sir,” he replied. “The fascines are in place and we only need to recover the road bed.”



Zabol, 16 October 1940 – late afternoon

Colonel Sokol handed Stefanovic a message flimsy with a smile. “They’ve relieved Zaranj sir!”

“GIN TO MARKO – Link up with JADAR effected [STOP]. Enemy blocking force has withdrawn [STOP]. Awaiting orders [STOP].

Stefanovic nodded. “Notify Generals MacDonald and Pika that the road from Zaranj to Chakhansun now appears open. Inquire whether the brigade should move forward in strength at this time. Order Major Tonic to advance and link up with the Czechs in Chakhansun tomorrow, and so notify General Pika.




Please make your out-of-character comments here regarding the story.

October 16, 1940, Chakhansur Province, East of Lake Puzak
[SIZE=1]Excerpt from History of the Irish Army[/SIZE]

As General MacDonald slowly withdrew the I Brigade from their defensive positions on the ridges, a sharp fight took place on the eastern flank of the battle. Colonel Jalil Nodooshan's mounted infantry regiment, a composite unit of Persian regulars reinforced heavily by tribal Afghan fighters and rebel Afghan Army troops, had earlier been dispatched by Parwiz to outflank and encircle the Irish troops. Anticipating just this sort of move, MacDonald dispatched a chathghrúpa commanded by Major Duggan, which included Captain Leith and his tank company, as well as the motorized 2nd Infantry Battalion. At 1420 hours, Leith encountered the marching elements of Nodooshan's mounted infantry and launched an immediate attack. Leith's Crusaders scattered and badly disorganized Nodooshan's force. Nodooshan moved forward with his few AT elements, personally engaged a Crusader tank and destroyed one of its tracks, and briefly rallied his troops; but his luck didn't last. At 1540 hours, the Irish troops captured Nodooshan and his headquarters staff, including Nodooshan's battlefield radio and all the transmission codes.

By 1600 hours, Nodooshan's flanking force was in disarray, and Major Duggan reported the capture of several hundred Persian and rebel Afghan soldiers, which he sent to the rear with only a single platoon of troops and a Universal Carrier. While disarming the prisoners, the Irish guards became distracted by the approach of a small body of mounted Afghan scouts, and a number of the prisoners spontaneously rushed their guards with hidden weapons, trying to overwhelm them and escape. Two of the outnumbered Irish troops were killed by the prisoners, and the guards manning the Universal Carrier, fearing they were about to be overwhelmed, opened fire on the densely-packed prisoners with a machine gun. Reinforcement troops arrived from Duggan's headquarters company, but did not realize their fellows were attempting to deal with a prisoner rebellion. By the time the shooting ended, forty prisoners were dead and another forty-four injured, and three Irish soldiers were dead and nineteen injured. The incident, often referred to as a 'mass execution' or a 'massacre', resulted in a major independent investigation which eventually cleared the involved soldiers of wrongdoing.

Although MacDonald considered trying to swing the entire brigade eastward to attempt to decisively destroy Nodooshan's disorganized force, this provided impossible as Parwiz's main body pushed forward, placing further pressure on the front line. MacDonald continued a slow retreat, falling back on the fifth and final of the defensive ridges in the midafternoon, and then abandoned that position three hours later. The slow and deliberate Irish withdrawals were covered closely by mortars and artillery, and the Persians grew particularly frustrated at their inability to exploit the retreats, even on a local scale. In many cases the Irish troops withdrew from their positions only a few minutes before the Persians opened fire on them with their limited artillery and mortars.

The afternoon was broken by the stirrings of air power, when a pair of Irish Lysanders braved the blowing dust to arrive overhead. The Lysanders dropped a number of small bombs on the Persians, though they caused little damage. More tangible was their work spotting artillery fall and warning MacDonald of Persian troop buildups. One of the Lysanders eventually took ground fire and limped home, but the second remained overhead until the arrival of two Persian Nationalist Macchi MC.200s. The Macchis, led by Captain Reza Yezdanian, machine-gunned the Lysander, but the pilot crash-landed behind Irish lines. Irish AA gunners damaged Yezdanian's Macchi, forcing him to limp back towards Farah with his wingman in tow.

As Parwiz's advance slowly ground forward, the Persian general became more frustrated by the Irish defensive plans, realizing that they were costing him significantly in both time and casualties. By afternoon on the sixteenth, the Irish had lost two tanks, one armoured car, and fifty men killed in action and another hundred wounded, while Parwiz estimated he had lost over a thousand men killed or seriously wounded. Nearly a fifth of this number were Parwiz's irreplaceable Nationalist regulars. Many of the worst injuries were caused by antipersonnel mines, which the Irish combat engineers were hurriedly burying in the sand as they retreated. The Irish marked all of their minefields with wooden stakes to prevent accidents as they retreated; but when the Persian troops learned to avoid the marked areas, the Irish simply countered by arranging the stakes in the middle of the desert, not laying any mines at all, and setting the openings to be covered by a mortar or a heavy machine gun crew. The Persians and the Afghan tribesmen avoided the non-existent minefields only to walk into a prepared killing zone. The antipersonnel mines badly demoralized even the most battle-hardened Persian infantrymen, who realized they could be killed just as easily as the untrained Afghan troops. Just before nightfall on the sixteen, Parwiz attempted to take advantage of a hastily-retreating Irish infantry unit, but the Persian regulars balked and refused to advance.

More serious and insidious than the casualties, however, the protracted fighting drained Parwiz's limited supplies of fuel, ammunition, food, and water. While MacDonald's brigade suffered their own shortages, they fell back closer to their limited stockpiles rather than advancing away. The news also quickly passed around the Irish ranks that the road to Zabol was clear, and supplies would be forthcoming.

By dusk on the 16th, the troops of each side began to feel a shift in the balance of the fighting. The Irish troops, though tired by two days of fighting, realized they were holding back the cream of the Persian Nationalist army, and though they had retreated nearly five miles, felt a new confidence in themselves. By contrast, as Parwiz personally moved through the front ranks, he sensed a growing gloom and exhaustion even among his most elite troops, and he elected to let them pass the night without ordering any further attacks. He also realized that his various units, spreading out to attempt to enflank the Irish line and escape artillery bombardment, had become too widely spaced for mutual support.

However, the generalissimo did not get the opportunity to act upon his discoveries. As he made his way back to his headquarters, his command car driver became disoriented and drove into one of the uncleared minefields, detonating a mine and rolling the vehicle. Parwiz was knocked unconscious, and though he quickly woke, he was badly shaken. Although his doctor insisted on treating him for a concussion, Parwiz refused. At 0300 hours on the seventeenth, Parwiz ordered his troops to fall back and take up defensive positions further to the north. This undid his earlier plans, as the resting Persian infantry were roused early and moved back in the darkness. In the attempt to thread through the suspected minefields, the troops became even more disorganized.

Dawn on October 17th brought clear skies and the Irish Air Corps.



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October 17, 1940, Delaram
[SIZE=1]Transcript of Interview by An Cosantóir at the Óglaigh Náisiúnta Na hÉireann (ONET - Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen) reunion at Cathal Brugha Barracks, 1964[/SIZE]

Interviewer's Note: Leifteanant-Choirnéal (Lt. Col.) Brian Flannery enlisted in the Irish Army Corps in 1936 and was offered promotion to officer in 1938. He served as a leifteanant (lieutenant) in the 5th Infantry Battalion from 1940 to 1941, and was selected as one of the first officers of the Irish Ranger Wing. He retired from active duty in 1959 due to health issues. He is a member of ONET and organizes the reunions for both the Irish Rangers and the 5th Infantry Battalion.



AC (An Cosantóir): Thank you for meeting with me today, Colonel; I'm very pleased to meet you.

BF (Brian Flannery): I'm glad we were able to make the time.

AC: While I'd like to eventually ask about your service with the Rangers, I'd like to start by asking about the Siege of Delaram. You were decorated for heroism there, I believe, and wounded.

BF: Well, if you can call that getting wounded. I had worse scrapes trying to maintain my car. Though perhaps that speaks to my mechanic skills. *Chuckle.* But yes, I was at Delaram, commanding the first platoon of B Company, 5th Battalion.

AC: What can you tell us about it?

BF: Oh, probably not much more than anyone else who was there. We were under siege for... I guess it was four days, by a force of around eight thousand. Most of them were tribal fighters from the Farah region, under Sheik Maqsoodi. We had a bit over a third as many men - the Irish 5th Battalion, the Yugoslavian airfield security troops, and Miraki's Afghans. Plus a number of supply troops, the aircraft mechanics, and the Hurribomber pilots, but they tried to stay out of the fighting until it got so desperate on the third day.

AC: October 17th, I believe.

BF: I don't recall the date, so I'll take your word for it. For most of the previous two days, the rest of the brigade down south was fighting in a sand-storm, and so we got the undivided help of all the GOFABs and Hurribombers. We had three or four overhead all day, and they just stomped on the Afghans every time they moved. That was just a life saver; any time we saw tribesmen massing in the open, the Hurries were on them inside two or three minutes.

After they used up all their ammo, they'd come back down, land under rifle fire, and re-arm. While their mechanics were filling up the guns, the pilots would usually sneak out to the front lines where we'd show them what we were dealing with. I remember one of the pilots I was talking to was peeking up through a slit trench when we got some fire from an Afghan sniper. I think he missed the pilot by a few centimeters at most. That pilot was so mad he could have spit fire. He said to me "Wait here, I'll get that little so-and-so!" He returned ten minutes latter in his Hurribomber and strafed the spot we thought the sniper was hiding. Half an hour later that pilot came back out and asked us if he'd got the sniper, and if we had any more he could shoot up for us.

AC: You mentioned the fighting on the third day?

BF: Oh, right. Sheik Maqsoodi was a wily old goat and didn't want to ram his men into our machine guns. The Yugoslavians had quite a lot of them, too, even more than we did. So he wanted to conduct a siege. But we were sitting on one of the three biggest supply dumps in the Dustbin, and General Sherzai's ANA infantry were marching to relieve us. Before dawn on the 17th, his tribesmen tried to infiltrate the lines during the darkness. A lot of them got in with all the confusion of the attacks, and maybe a dozen tribesmen got inside the embankments where we kept the aircraft. The aircraft mechanics and the pilots ended up killing a lot of them, but they still burned one of the Hurries and killed a half-dozen mechanics. Worse, they kept sneaking into the rearming area and disrupted the work of the mechanics.

My platoon was one of the reserve units at the time, and we were sent to go help them. I remember we found two Afghans hiding in the latrines with knives.

I heard a story - I don't know if it's true or not - about how some of the Afghans snuck through later in the day as some Hurries were taking off; one of them climbed up on a Hurribomber to kill the pilot, but the pilot slammed his canopy closed on the guy's hand, then took off with a tribesman hanging half out of his cockpit. Then when he got airborne, he rolled his plane, opened his canopy, and dropped the tribesman smack dab in the center of the sheik's CP. I don't know if that story was just made up by one of the fighter pilots, since I've never met anyone who says they saw it.

A couple tribesmen snuck through the lines wearing uniforms they'd stripped off dead Afghan National Army troops they'd killed a few days before. That was the worst, because sometimes thought they were part of Miraki's troops until they started shooting at us. We always called Miraki's troops "Our Afghans", while the tribesmen were always "Their Afghans" - and it got pretty confusing for awhile. Our Afghans, though, were pretty harsh when they caught infiltrators wearing ANA uniforms - they marched them out into the open and shot them. Can't say I blamed them.



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October 17, 1940, Chakhansur Province, East of Lake Puzak
Major Wilkenson sat back in his camp chair and tried not to doze. It was nearly dawn, and his general (Wilkenson was a proprietary sort of aide) had retired for sleep. Unlike many generals Wilkenson knew and had worked for, MacDonald could take advice from a mere major so long as it was good, and when MacDonald's edge and awareness started slipping, Major Wilkenson had advised that his general rest. MacDonald had given his customary frown and head-jerk nod before handing command over to Colonel Desmond Whelahan with a mumbled "Wake me if anything interesting happens."

Wilkenson wondered if the inactivity of the enemy counted as "interesting".

A handful of volunteers had slipped out of the Irish lines overnight and crept forward into the Persian lines. There'd been a few shots exchanged, but all of the Irish soldiers returned unharmed, dragging with them a few prisoners. While the Persian Nationalist prisoners proved sullen and unresponsive - the Irish troops were reluctant to go much farther than mild percussive interrogations, not really enough to phase the hardened Persians - but the captured Afghans in the enemy ranks... Ah, now they were just burbling with information...

Casualties and despair. Wilkenson listened in on several of the more productive prisoners, and the same things kept coming up. The composite force of Persians and Afghan tribesmen were taking unfair casualties to secure their advance, and they knew it - and their morale was cracking. Some of the Afghan recruits refused to advance; some of them had been shot by their Persian Nationalist officers for desertion. Even the Persians were tired and shaken.

One of the precious few Persian prisoners who'd decided to talk drove it all home. He'd been rescued from between the League and Persian lines. He'd been a sniper, ordered forward to find a good spot; he'd instead found a minefield. Two of the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, hearing his screams, crossed into the minefield, clamped a tourniquet on his shattered leg, and carried him back to their own field hospital. He'd probably lose the leg below the knee, but he survived and proved talkative. He'd been with Parwiz's army since the start of the war, and Wilkenson had just listened as he recounted the last few days. He just wanted an end to the fighting - he was Tired.

I hope the rest of your Persian friends feel the same way, Wilkenson mused to himself. He paused, hearing motions from inside General MacDonald's tent. Ah, General. You really should have slept more than that, sir; that was only four hours sleep, and I'll have to make sure you get another few hours today, or you'll drive yourself through till morning and collapse. Wilkenson swung the can of coffee he'd prepared over the fire. MacDonald always spent a few minutes at the start of his day in mental preparation and meditation, and that would be just long enough for the coffee to be hot.

MacDonald emerged ten minutes later and accepted his coffee from Wilkenson. "God bless you, Major; I need that this morning."

"I expect so, sir."

"What's the word? I don't hear any firing at the moment."

Wilkenson breathed deeply and began. "They've not done anything since before you went to sleep, sir. A few of the boys crossed the lines last night and brought back some prisoners. Colonel Bryan will be finishing up the last of the interrogations soon, but from what I overheard, their morale begins to slip. It's our mines that they fear most, sir."

"We don't have any more mines," MacDonald said.

"No sir, supply column's all out." Wilkenson agreed. "However, while we're out of mines, the Czechs shifted us a few truck loads of mortar shells for our eighty-ones, and Lieutenant Colonel Fletcher radioed that our first convoy through from Zabol should arrive later this morning, at 0900 hours or so. When it gets here, we should have enough twenty-five pounder shells for the afternoon, even if the fighting picks up again. We've still got enough rifle ammunition, food, and water to last us the rest of today as well. Fuel as well."

"Air cover?"

"We're still weak on that, sir, but it seems Lieutenant Colonel Carrollton is going to bring the GOFABs across to Zabol to fly with the Focke-Wulfs, though it may be afternoon before we see them here. On the other hand, I heard one of the Lysanders a half-hour or so ago."

"Did we get any further report from General Pika on his engagements?"

Wilkenson nearly sighed. "Yes sir. I skimmed it when the courier brought it; there's a copy in your folder. He's suffered higher casualties than we have; three hundred KIA and a lot more wounded. They've eight hundred enemy prisoners, and, as of their last count... twenty eight hundred enemy dead."

MacDonald did not need to feign shock. "That's... considerable."

"They were not beaten men," Wilkenson said.

MacDonald sipped his coffee and stayed silent for a few moments. "All right, then, Major; it's time to get this day started and remind our Persian friends that they are beaten men."



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October 17, 1940, Chakhansur Province, East of Lake Puzak
[SIZE=1]Excerpt from Completed All Objectives: the League Field Force in Afghanistan, 1940-41[/SIZE]

The first aircraft to arrive overhead on the morning of October 17th were the Irish Lysanders, which provided the Irish artillerists with their best long-range spotting assets. Having one of their number damaged the previous day due to ground fire, the Lysander pilots kept at somewhat higher altitude, operating out of the easy reach of the few short-ranged Persian anti-aircraft batteries available. For most of the day, the Lysanders flew circuits over the battlefield, radioing their spotting reports to the ground to be forwarded on to the Irish artillery.

The greatest air efforts of the day, however, occurred not over the battlefield itself but out of sight to the north. In order to supply Parwiz's forces, the land had been stripped of every motor transport and as many draft animals as the rebels could lay their hands on. The Afghan-Persian supply columns toiled across the open country, carrying the supplies Parwiz needed to sustain his deployment. It was against this nearly-unprotected Achilles heel that the Irish fliers focused their attention. Captain Flood's Fw190s and, later in the afternoon, the Henschel ground-attack aircraft sent down from Delaram, strafed the supply columns mercilessly. Although Yezdanian's Persian Macchis appeared briefly over the road in the early morning, they failed to prevent the Irish Fw190s from destroying fifteen precious trucks at 1130 hours. The Henschels, carrying a load of nearly a hundred small bomblets, proved even more devastating, as proved when two aircraft spent nearly an hour working over a long supply column, virtually interdicting all rear-area movement behind the main Persian Nationalist force.

On the ground, General MacDonald carefully began to lay the groundwork for the rest of the battle, launching small-scale skirmishing actions against weak points in the enemy lines. Parwiz quickly tired of the pinprick raids and, wherever and whenever he felt the Irish were preparing for an attack, launched his own raids as "spoiler" assaults. This suited MacDonald's tastes well, as his smaller and more mobile force could quickly concentrate to defeat Parwiz's spoiler assaults.

The British-trained artillerists offered some of the most valuable service, as always, particularly once their ammunition stocks were replenished by noontime. Within three to four minutes of receiving a request for fire support, the artillerists could align their guns and lay down a brutal suppressing barrage using their twenty-five pounder guns. Their accomplishments were marred only by an incident where an observer called down fire on a very close target, and the barrage fell a hundred yards short, landing in friendly lines and killing three men.

By early afternoon, Parwiz knew his time in the field was almost up. Although he didn't learn the full extent of the casualties to his supply columns, his on-hand supplies of ammunition, food, and water were fading; and his medical supplies were already long gone. He had lost almost fifteen hundred men killed in action, inflicting less than a hundred killed on the lone Irish brigade opposing him. The longer he stayed in the field, the more time the Irish fliers had to slit the throat of his army by destroying the irreplaceable supply columns. In his journal, Parwiz summed up his situation: "Unable to advance without losses, unable to remain static without starving, unable to retreat without victory." With no better options, Parwiz determined to withdraw the main body of his troops behind the cover of an attack by the troops of the Afghan 3rd Cavalry Brigade, a rebel unit of the Afghan National Army which had been stationed at Farah. Parwiz had used the troops as his strategic reserve. At 1320 hours, the Afghan cavalry went forward to the attack as the Persian Nationalist troops and the supporting tribal fighters began marching back to Farah.

It was paradoxically in this eleventh hour that Parwiz won his most substantial gains of the battle. The Afghan cavalry swept into the I Brigade, heedless of their casualties, and swept through them to dismount behind the Irish lines. The Irish were briefly panicked by the sudden blow, but individual units rallied into the all-around defenses already prepared, and continued to fight on, like pike or infantry squares of previous centuries. The Afghan cavalry penetrated nearly as far back as the Irish field headquarters and the artillery positions, which were forced to conduct direct-fire missions to pin down the onrushing Afghan horsemen. For a few long minutes, it seemed like the Afghans had managed to duplicate the success of the Battle of Beersheba. When Parwiz received word of the stunning Afghan advance, he scented blood, and turned his retreating army around to launch what he thought was to be the "knockout blow".

It was already too late. Though the Afghan cavalry had indeed swept deep into the Irish positions and isolated several of the front-line units, they had taken terrible casualties, and the Irish reserves, composed of the motorized infantry, tanks, and armoured cars, were swiftly mopping up the survivors, reforging the broken defensive chain. Parwiz's follow-on attack struck in incoherent waves which stalled or fell apart under twenty-five pounder artillery fire. As the Irish brigade reformed under fire, they fell back in the same careful retreats they had practiced so often over the preceding few days, and over the next hour, fell back nearly halfway to Chakhansur, where the Czechs were dug in waiting in anticipation of attack. The Persian and Afghan troops quickly determined that, regardless of the rumours of the Irish being overrun, their enemies seemed as implacable and as unconquerable as ever.

By 1830, when a weeping Parwiz finally recognized the inevitable and ordered a retreat, nearly three thousand men of his thirteen-thousand man army lay dead. The Irish I Brigade, by contrast, had lost only two hundred fifteen men killed and five hundred wounded out of the five thousand men engaged. Unlike Parwiz, MacDonald had managed at last to begin moving regular supplies, with only minor hindrance from small scattered bands of Afghan tribal fighters.

Although his forces were not poised for pursuit, this was the only goal in General MacDonald's mind. It was this moment that MacDonald had waited, allowing Parwiz to smash his army to ruin. The Persian and Afghan troops were exhausted, thirsty, underfed and had barely enough ammunition to last them much longer in battle; the Irish pushed forward.



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October 18, 1940, Chakhansur Province, East of Lake Puzak
[SIZE=1]Excerpt from the correspondence of Commandant Jean de Laclos, French military observer with the LONAFF, to Commandant Phillipe Leclerc[/SIZE]

I know you will doubtlessly see it all in the papers and the military journals over the next year, but I must tell you of the past few days myself. General MacDonald's handling of the Battle of Lake Puzak was masterful in every way - a perfect synthesis of defense and attack, perfectly in tune with the men under his command. No doubt you will hear the press speak badly of General Parwiz as well, but here in the Irish Brigade's headquarters there is nothing but respect for what we recognize to be a very capable, and very dangerous, enemy. The Persian veterans struck very hard blows, and their Afghan allies, within the limits of their abilities, fought splendidly as well.

But what good does a hard blow do when it flails helplessly into thin air? All too often this is what the Irish tempted the Persians to waste their strength doing. When the Persians formed for attack, the Irish quickly called down defensive artillery fire on the massing foe. If the Persians went forward, then the Irish quickly retreated - no, don't squint scornfully at that, Phillipe! - and let the Persian blow fall hard on an empty line. As the Persians tried to consolidate their gains, then the Irish would subject them to more artillery, or send forward a few armoured cars or tanks to drive the enemy out, or cut them up when they were weakest. They always had another defensive line prepared to fall back on - heaven knows how hard their engineers have worked to give them that. With every minor Persian success, the Irish merely fell back on their next defensive line and presented a new, unbroken front.

It was not all defensive mastery, though. The Irish tanks or armoured cars would, on occasion, appear unannounced on the enemy's flank or front-line and pounce, causing havoc and chaos in the Persian ranks. It is like a champion kickboxer working over a solid but slow opponent: the sledgehammer blows are ducked or dodged, and then a swift-as-lightning strike slips through the enemy's guard to land a blow. No blow is crucial, but the Persians couldn't swat them away. Only the last attack came anywhere close to success, penetrating through the Irish defense-in-depth and encircling a few units forward. The tanks and mounted infantry at once counterattacked, stabilizing the line in the crucial moment.

And now, with the enemy broken, we have all swung into the chase. There is now doubt that the Irishmen are tired, but they know they are victors now. We pass groups of prisoners on the side of the road - dejected men, with dead and downcast eyes, who were once the scourge of Persia - and as they pass, the tired Irish infantryman glances them over and raises his head; there is a bit more energy to his step, and they go forward again to the fight. Who knows how long our supplies for pursuit will last, but for now northward we go.



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October 18, 1940

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Farrell,
I deeply regret to inform you that your son, Private 3 Star Michael Farrell, was killed in action on October 17th...

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Nolan,
My name is Michael Cronin, and your son Liam was in the same section as I was. I don't have all the words to tell you what a good man and a good friend he was, but I wouldn't be here today without him, nor would a lot of other guys. When the Persians attacked our line, Liam threw himself on a grenade which landed in our trench; and I know that if it hadn't been for that, then I would not have survived...

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Teige,
It is my sad duty to report that your son, Corporal Jozef Teige, was killed during the storming of the city of Chakhansun...

Dear Mrs. Walsh,
I deeply regret to inform you that your fiance, Private Three Star William Walsh, was reported missing in action on October 16th...

Dear Mrs. Dempsey,
I regret to inform you that your husband, Corporal Frank Dempsey, was wounded in action on October 17th while performing a reconnaissance on an enemy position...

Dear Mrs. Flanaghan,
I deeply regret to inform you that your husband, Sáirsint (Sergeant) Patrick Flanaghan, was killed in action on October 17th, while carrying a wounded comrade to safety...

Dear Mrs. Kapralova,
Your husband, Lieutenant Frantisek Kapralov, was seriously wounded during the storming of the city of Chakhansun...

My dearest Sarah,
If you should receive this letter then it is most likely I am dead. If this is so, then always remember that I love you and the boys...

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Simmons,
I deeply regret to inform you that your son, Lieutenant Geoffry Simmons, was killed in action on October 16th while...

Dear Ma and Pa,
My friend Sean is writing this letter for me. Don't be too alarmed, the wound isn't all that serious, but it's done a number on my writing arm. The doctor says they might need to have it off before the end of the day, but I just wanted you to know that I'm okay and I'll be coming home sooner than I'd expected...

Dear Mrs. Doherty,
I regret to inform you that your son, Sergeant James Doherty, was wounded in action on October 18th while...

Dear Mr. Palinicek,
It is my sad duty to report that your brother, Lieutenant First Class Otokar Palinicek, was killed during the storming of the city of Chakhansun. As his only surviving kin...

Dear Mrs. Kapralova,
It is my sad duty to report that your husband, Lieutenant Frantisek Kapralov, died of wounds he received three days ago during the storming of Chakhansun...

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Phelan,
I deeply regret to inform you that your son, Private Three Star Stephan Phelan, was reported missing in action on October 16th...



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