Chapter 1568 Survivor

  The formation of attack planes and bombers sent by Goryunov, as soon as they arrived at the battlefield, bombarded the German army's assembly area and the attacking troops indiscriminately. For a time, the battlefield was full of flames and smoke billowing.

Originally, the commander of the guards did not provide heavy artillery support to Managarov, so he still had some complaints, but now he saw that the attacking German army was blown up, and even the tanks and armored vehicles that terrified the soldiers were like paper. When the toy was blown to pieces, not only was there a burst of ecstasy in my heart.

He said to the chief of staff of the division: "Comrade chief of staff, immediately call the heads of the 88th and 89th regiments, and as soon as our army's bombing is over, we will immediately launch a counterattack. Retake the position."

The chief of staff of the division nodded, and then first called the head of the 88th regiment: "Comrade colonel, the division commander ordered: After the bombing of our army is over, we will immediately launch a counterattack against the enemy. We must take back the lost troops of the second battalion in the shortest possible time." position."

The Second Battalion's position was lost and all the defenders were killed. This has always been a knot in the head of the 88th regiment. At this moment, when he received a call from the division chief of staff, he immediately patted his chest and said, "Comrade chief of staff, don't worry. Wait for the bombing." As soon as it was over, I personally led the charge and recaptured the lost positions."

   Regarding the statement made by the head of the 88th Regiment, the chief of staff of the division took it for granted. After all, you lost the position. What's wrong with the head of the regiment leading people to take it back? After he finished talking with the other party, he connected to the 89th regiment and conveyed the division commander's order to the regiment.

  What actions the 28th Guards Division was about to take, Sukov didn't care about it. Although the 53rd Army is temporarily assigned to his own command, he will never skip Managarov and Derevyanko and directly command the 28th Guards Division. After all, leapfrog command is a taboo in the army.

  At this moment, the four heavy artillery regiments deployed on the left bank of the Dnieper River have already carried out fierce shelling on the positions occupied by the German army. Sokov sat at the table, staring at the map above, silently calculating the time spent by the shelling.

  After the scheduled shelling preparation time ended, before Sokov could speak, Sameko had already picked up the phone and contacted the three troops at the front one by one to find out how they were doing.

Soon, Sameko put down the phone and reported to Sokov: "Comrade Commander, the 1st Mechanized Army, the 73rd Infantry Brigade, and the 254th Infantry Division have launched an attack on the enemy's position south of the landing site. So far position, they are already close to the enemy's position, and have not been intercepted by fire for the time being."

  Sokov didn't speak, but nodded slightly. He had expected this situation a long time ago. The attention of the Germans is now concentrated on the northwest direction of Klemenchug. They even mobilized troops from the troops attacking the landing field in the south, crossed the river to the left bank, and launched an attack on the city.

  The Germans are not aware that once their troops are divided, their strength in the south of the landing field will become weak. However, the recent behavior of Sokov's troops has deeply confused them. The troops on the landing site have been defending, and there is no sign of counterattack at all.

  At the beginning, the Germans thought it was Sokov's conspiracy, and they wanted to catch them by surprise when they let down their vigilance. But after a period of observation, the Germans felt that they seemed to worry too much. Sokov, who had always made them talk about it, seemed to be a different person now. No matter how good the fighter is, it will not take the initiative to fight back. It is precisely because of this that General Johannes Blaskowitz, the commander of the German 1st Army, will safely and boldly deploy troops to cross the river to the left bank to attack the Soviet flank.

But what General Blaskowitz never dreamed of was that the reason why Sokov did not let the troops take the initiative to launch a counterattack in the defensive operation was because half of the troops were still on the way at that time, even if they captured more German troops He did not have enough troops to guard these areas, so in the face of the fierce German attack, he adopted a tactic of fighting steadily.

  At this moment, the German troops in the south of the landing field are empty, which is a great opportunity for a counterattack. If Sokov doesn't know how to seize this opportunity, then he can't be the nemesis that makes the Germans turn pale.

When Manstein learned that Blaskowitz had mobilized nearly half of his troops from the attacking landing field, and crossed the river to attack Klemenchug's flank, he vaguely felt that something was wrong, so he personally called the opponent. On the phone, he expressed his worries.

But after hearing this, General Blaskowitz said disapprovingly: "Your Excellency, Marshal, you are too worried. My troops have been attacking the Russian bridgehead for a long time, but in the face of our attack, the Russians only know how to hide." In those field fortifications that are not strong, take the method of fighting step by step to prevent the advancement of our army.

  I mobilized troops to cross the river and attack Klemenchug's flank in order to attract the attention of the Russian generals and let them understand that if they do not mobilize troops to reinforce as soon as possible, I am afraid that their retreat will be cut off. Blaskowitz said optimistically on the phone: "Your Excellency Marshal, according to my analysis, at no later than tomorrow noon, the Russians will have to draw strength from their bridgehead to strengthen their rear defenses, so as not to be attacked by us." The army cut off the retreat. "

Faced with Blaskowitz's blind optimism, Manstein reminded him: "General Blaskowitz, if you are facing an ordinary Russian general, then your statement is undoubtedly correct. Yes. But now your opponent is Sokov, who is a headache for all our commanders on the Eastern Front, and I am worried that you may suffer a big loss."

"Don't worry, Your Excellency Marshal." Blaskowitz has always been worried about Manstein becoming a marshal before him. Now that Manstein's troops are being beaten back by the Soviet army, if his own If the army can win, it may make the head of state happy, and he may also have the opportunity to become a marshal. It is precisely because of such careful thinking that he did not take Manstein's reminder to heart at all: "We will never let the Russian conspiracy succeed."

But less than half an hour after the end of the call, when Blaskowitz's German troops crossed the river northwest of Klemenchug, they were bombed by Russian planes; the troops attacking the Russian bridgehead were also hit by intensive artillery fire. When he was hit, he couldn't help being a little dazed. Why did things develop differently from what he imagined?

But he was still lucky, and only said to the chief of staff who had reported the situation: "The Russians are shelling my troops attacking the bridgehead at this moment, probably because there is something wrong with their defense line northwest of Klemenchug. They are trying to divert our attention by shelling, but they must not be fooled."

After hearing Blaskowitz's words, the chief of staff nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Excellency is right, the Russians standing on the bridgehead, facing the attack of our army, can only rely on their positions to defend tenaciously, and dare not attack at all. It is easy to launch a counterattack. At this moment, the sudden violent shelling of our army's position may be really worried that their flanks will be in danger, so we have to use this method to divert our attention."

   It was precisely because Blaskowitz made a wrong judgment that his chief of staff did not give any new orders to the troops that were being bombarded. In his thinking, the Russians can shell if they want to. Anyway, no matter how many shells they fire, it is absolutely impossible for the troops who cross the river to enter the northwest direction of Klemenchug to withdraw.

  The heavy artillery regiment deployed on the left bank was still bombarding the German positions non-stop, but the bombing in the northwest direction had ended, and the Soviet fighter planes withdrew from the battlefield one by one and returned to the airport from which they started.

  As soon as the air raids were over, the 88th and 89th Regiments of the Guards Division launched a local counterattack in an attempt to destroy those surviving enemies and retake the positions occupied by the Germans.

There are more than 800 meters between the second-line position and the first-line position. On this land full of bomb craters, there are many surviving German officers and soldiers, hiding behind the bomb craters or destroyed tanks, staring vigilantly at the approaching The Soviet troops in the center are preparing for the final resistance.

  When the Soviet counterattack force was more than 200 meters away from the first-line position, the German officers and soldiers hiding in the crater opened fire first. The sudden burst of fire caused some charging soldiers to fall to the ground. The rest of the soldiers either fell down on the spot, or jumped into a nearby crater, and started shooting at the enemy.

After a few brave soldiers fired at the enemy for a while, they threw grenades in the direction of the bullets. With the help of the smoke from the explosion, they blocked the enemy's sight, jumped up from their hiding places, and quickly rushed into the front. The bomb craters in the distance continue to shoot at the enemy.

  But the Germans were also well-trained, and they were not affected by the smoke blocking their vision at all, and continued to shoot at their pre-locked position. The enemy's style of play poses a great threat to the commanders and fighters who use the smoke as a cover and continue to move forward. Many fighters were knocked down by oncoming bullets as soon as they jumped out of their hiding places, and fell headlong into the crater. The number of soldiers who can really successfully leap forward is very limited, and even if they jump into a new crater, the intensive firepower of the German army will make them unable to raise their heads.

  The head of the 88th regiment saw this and quickly ordered the mortar company to fire, using artillery fire to destroy those threatening firepower points.

  As the order was issued, the 12 mortars of the mortar company opened fire one by one, and the shells flew towards the position of the German firepower point. Although most of the shells missed and exploded near the firepower point, they only sprinkled a layer of soil on the German machine gunner who was shooting. But still one shell fell into the crater without deviation, and the air blast pulled the machine gunner and his machine gun out of the hole and threw them high into the air.

  The Soviets had mortars, and so did the Germans. Although their 50mm mortars had a range of only 500 meters, seeing the threat posed by the Soviet mortars to the firepower point, they fired smoke bombs in the direction of the Soviet positions. For a while, a cloud of smoke rose between the positions of the Soviet Union and Germany.

  As the smoke rose, the artillerymen of the Soviet army could no longer see the movement of the German army clearly. In order to prevent accidental injury to their own people, they had to stop the shelling.

  The Soviet commanders and fighters who were suppressed by the German firepower could not help but rejoice when they saw the enemy's firepower points being destroyed by their own artillery fire. They were planning to wait until the German firepower became sparse before launching a charge. But I didn't expect the Germans to be so cunning that they fired a large number of smoke bombs, blocking the sight of their own artillery.

  When the counterattacking Soviet commanders and fighters were suppressed again, gunshots and explosions suddenly came from the German positions ahead. The commanders and fighters who were closer to the position could hear the shooting sound of the Bobosha submachine gun and the Mosin Nagant rifle among the gunfire.

Just when everyone was wondering why the Bobosa submachine guns and Mosin Nagant rifles were firing from the German positions, they saw many soil-covered commanders emerging from the trenches, fighting fiercely with the enemies on the positions .

  When the firepower on the position was weak, the German troops distributed in the craters in front of the position seemed a little weak and unable to suppress the attacking Soviet army with firepower.

  A battalion commander saw this and knew that it was a good opportunity to attack. He jumped out of the crater where he was hiding, waved his pistol and shouted loudly: "Comrades, rush with me!"

  The commanders and fighters who were suppressed by the firepower of the German army were suffocating in their hearts. Seeing that the enemy's firepower had weakened, they felt that the opportunity for revenge had come, so under the leadership of the commander, they charged with weapons.

  The German army standing firm in the bomb crater was soon overwhelmed by the tide of Soviet commanders and fighters. Some soldiers ran out of bullets in their guns and were stabbed to death with bayonets by the rushing Soviet soldiers when they were changing the magazines.

   After destroying the German army hiding in the bomb crater, the commanders rushed into the fortification quickly, fought side by side with the suddenly appearing friendly forces, and wiped out the enemies who were still resisting in the trenches.

  The German army, which was attacked from inside and outside, could not hold back. In less than ten minutes, except for twenty or thirty long-legged German soldiers who escaped, the rest were either killed or captured by the Soviet army.

   While cleaning the battlefield, the commander of the first battalion was pleasantly surprised to find that the friendly army who had just suddenly appeared in the enemy's position was actually a commander of the second battalion. He found the fifth company commander who was directing the soldiers to treat the wounded, and asked in surprise: "Fifth company commander, what's going on? Isn't your entire army wiped out? Where did this come from?"

"Report to Comrade Major." Hearing the questioning of the first battalion commander, the fifth company commander quickly replied: "When our company was bombarded by the Germans, the exit of the air-raid shelter was blown up and we were all buried inside. I organized manpower to dig I planned to dig out the exit in the shortest possible time. Unexpectedly, when I was about to dig through, I suddenly heard someone talking outside. I listened carefully and found that I couldn’t understand it at all, so I realized that the position had been occupied by the Germans. People occupy it, if you go out at this moment, it is tantamount to death, so I ordered the soldiers to stop digging."

   "And then?" The battalion commander continued to ask.

"I thought I couldn't get out here, so I decided to change the place." The fifth company commander went on to say, "So he ordered people to dig into the air-raid shelter next to it, and it didn't take long to dig through the next door. Seeing the surviving soldiers inside, I felt that You can continue to dig, maybe you can find more fighters.

   Just like that, we dug through seven or eight air-raid shelters in a row and gathered nearly a hundred soldiers. Originally, I planned to sneak out after dark, wipe out the enemy in the trench, and take the position back from the enemy.

   But not long ago, I felt the ground shaking, and guessed that the position might have been bombed or shelled. Under such circumstances, I felt it necessary to support the attacking force and regain the lost position. "

The first battalion commander, who had figured out the ins and outs, raised his hand and patted the shoulder of the fifth company commander twice, and said approvingly: "Good job, comrade captain, I will report your matter to the superior so that you can get your own honor."

  (end of this chapter)