Screaming Eagles

Chapter 4 - Opening engagements

The wounded man actually owed his life to the journal he carried with him in his jacket pocket. It was that thick book that slowed the bullet down just enough to make the bullet lose the majority of its kinetic energy.

The pained, ragged breathing from the wounded man had turned into laughter, with half of it tears of relief and the other half was the fact that he almost died.

"I nearly died!" He cried out, even though the action is hurting his upper body severely.

"Hey take it easy there Mac, calm down and take some deep breaths for me, we'll get you patched up and squared away to get that bullet out of ya," Eddie said before he got to work with treating the wound.

An emergency meet up with the squad leaders and Jack was quickly called up to form up a plan to neutralize that second sniper.

They've already lost one of the Squad sergeants, the platoon Sharpshooter, and a few others which are wounded. There's the critically wounded man that's already being treated as well.

Jack had laid his map out with the area of  where the suspected sharpshooter is most likely to be, and it was circled with an "X" in the middle of it. That was labeled as 'Contact sniper'.

Jack was about to ask someone to contact Sergeant Henderson's squad before he was cut off by distant, large-scale artillery.

Quickly, everyone in the room checked their wrist watches and they all looked up towards Jack, waiting to be told what to do.

The Normandy beach assaults have begun, and the Big Red One will be starting their landings on the beaches at once.

"Alrighty then fellas, listen up! The beach assault is commencing and we still haven't fully secured this here bridge, so we're going to flank that Kraut in order to flush him out." Jack said as he and the others began to form up a plan.

The emergency meeting lasted about five minutes before everyone started walking to the entrance of the barn. But a loud, incoming screech became more noticeable as it got closer and closer.

"Incoming!"

The earth shook with force from the shockwave of the explosion as more Kraut mortar rounds began to descend down on the platoons positions.

"Enemy half tracks spotted down the road, mechanized infantry incoming!" Someone had shouted just before the bridge was thrown into chaos.

The eight heavy mounted MG42's on the approaching half tracks opened up, sending a blanket of fire across the bridge, and into the American positions.

The back doors on the vehicles swung open once the half tracks stopped and the assault squads that were being transported into the battle dismounted.

"Keep their heads down as the infantry moves up, show no mercy!" The Oberleutnant yelled as he too dismounted and joined the men on the ground to push for the bridge.

*

German FOB

"Herr, our mechanized Companies have started their attacks to retake the bridges as ordered, there's also word of hostile landing craft approaching the beaches." A Funker said, reporting to Karl once the radio waves became swamped with radio traffic.

"Excellent, it's of the utmost importance that those bridges are retaken before we loose any more ground to the enemy. We must take those bridges back and secure those routes back to the beaches." Karl said once his attention was drawn to the map from what the Funker had  reported.

On the enormous map of Normandy, Karl has a double solid line of combined infantry companies and a single tank battalion that formed up his brigade. The Brigade sized force consists of 35,000 total men that he's responsible for. Which is the surrounding sector behind the beaches with plenty of reserves to call upon from the second line if needed.