Chapter 1575

  Time went back an hour, and the German captain led his troops to the right bank of the Dnieper River Bridge.

  When the soldiers guarding the bridge saw someone approaching, they immediately raised their guns and asked vigilantly, "Stop, password!"

  The German captain hastily raised his right hand, signaling his troops to stop. Then he put down the big box in his hand, walked towards the sentinel, and said with a smile: "I said, Comrade Warrior, we belong to the 73rd Infantry Brigade, and under the order of the brigade commander, we want to send some spoils back to the city. "

  Hearing that it was the infantry brigade, the sentry put down the gun in his hand. He knew very well that the nearest unit to the right bank of the bridge was the infantry brigade. At this moment, it seems logical to send someone back to the city to deliver the spoils.

  Seeing clearly that the officer walking in front of him was a captain, the sentinel hurriedly raised his hand to salute him, and asked politely, "Comrade Captain, it's so late, and you still want to deliver spoils to the city?"

"No way." The German captain shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands, and said helplessly: "We seized a large number of important documents during the battle, and they need to be sent to the group army headquarters overnight." After finishing speaking, he raised his hand He waved to the squad that stopped not far away, signaling them all to come over.

  The sentinel saw that the soldiers who came over were carrying a big box, so they easily believed what the German captain said, thinking that the box contained important documents that had just been seized and were about to be sent to the headquarters.

  The German captain took the opportunity to observe the surrounding environment, and found that apart from the sentry in front of him, two machine gunners were sleeping with their backs against the sandbags in the two sandbag bunkers at the head of the bridge. Other than that, no one else was seen. But out of caution, he still tentatively asked the sentinel: "Comrade soldier, why are you the only one on duty?"

The sentinel didn't know that the other party was testing him, so he replied generously: "Comrade Captain, we have a deep defense here, and there will be no Germans at all, so every night when we are on duty, we arrange one on the right bank and one on the left bank." Sentinel, the rest of you are resting in your room."

  After understanding what he wanted to know, the German captain suddenly pointed to the distance with his hand, and said hastily, "Look, there seems to be someone coming over there again."

  Hearing that someone was coming, the sentinel instinctively looked in the direction pointed by the German captain. At this moment, the German captain moved. He covered the sentry's mouth with his left hand, and drew out a dagger with his right hand to wipe the sentry's neck.

  Seeing that his officer killed the sentinel, two soldiers immediately put down the big box in their hands, pulled out their daggers and rushed into the machine gun bunker, and used the daggers to kill the two sleeping machine gunners.

  Seeing that the three Soviet soldiers on the bridge had been killed, the German captain gestured to his subordinates standing in different positions, signaling them to go to the house to deal with the sleeping Soviet soldiers. After seeing his gesture, the subordinates pulled out their daggers one after another, carefully entered the room where the Soviet army was resting, and massacred the sleeping soldiers inside.

  The German soldiers were very fast, and they settled the battle quietly in less than five minutes. A second lieutenant of the German army came over and asked the captain, "Mr. Captain, what should we do next?"

  The captain looked towards the opposite bank, and could vaguely see a sentry with a rifle on his back at the bridgehead on the left bank hundreds of meters away, walking back and forth. If you bring someone into the left bank through the bridge, you will definitely be discovered by the other party. Instead of exposing your target, it is better to place the explosives near the right bank, which can also destroy the bridge.

   "Second Lieutenant, take a few people to get off the bridge from here, and place the explosives we carry in key parts to ensure that the bridge can be effectively blasted."

  The second lieutenant promised, greeted a few soldiers, climbed over the railing and turned under the bridge, and began to plant explosives, preparing to blow up the bridge over the Dnieper River.

  Placing explosives seems simple, but if you want to blow up this strong bridge, you must find the key support points of the bridge. The best blasting point must be in the middle of the bridge. But in order not to be discovered by the Soviet army on the left bank, the German army could only place the blasting point close to the right bank. With the help of the moonlight, the second lieutenant searched for more than half an hour before finding a suitable location.

   Just as the German army began to plant explosives, the soldiers on duty saw a convoy approaching from the left bank, and quickly reported to the captain: "Mr. Captain, I see a convoy approaching from the left bank."

  The captain of the German army was worried that the convoy would cross the bridge by itself, which would expose his team, so he hurried out to observe the situation. After watching for a while, he found that his whereabouts may have been discovered by the Soviet army, because the convoy stopped by the bridge, and then hundreds of Soviet soldiers came down.

  He quickly turned his head and ordered: "Put those two machine guns here, and shoot immediately if you find something is wrong. Before we blow up the bridge, the Russians must not be allowed to approach."

  Just as the two turntable machine guns were in place, there were dozens of Soviet soldiers on the left bank, scattered in formation, and came along the bridge towards the right bank. Seeing that the Soviet soldiers passed the center of the bridge and were getting closer and closer to him, the captain waved his hand violently and shouted loudly: "Fire!"

  The machine guns firing wildly knocked down seven or eight soldiers who were caught off guard, and the rest either lay down on the spot or hid behind the steel beams of the bridge to avoid the dense bullets fired by the German army. The German captain was lying on the side of the bridge, pointed his head under the bridge and asked loudly: "Second lieutenant, how long do you have to complete the blasting preparations?"

The second lieutenant, who was laying explosives under the bridge, heard the captain's shout, and quickly raised his head and replied, "Mr. Captain, the explosives cannot be directly fixed on the blasting point. We are trying to tie it up, and it may take more than ten minutes." time."

   "Hurry up." Although the German captain was anxious, he was helpless when he heard the second lieutenant say this. He could only say to the other party: "The Russians have rushed up. I don't think they will be able to stop them for a long time."

   "I will as soon as possible, Mr. Captain."

  When the special company launched an attack from the left bank to the enemy-occupied right bank bridge, several companies of the infantry brigade had already arrived near the bridge and were ready for battle.

  In fact, Mikhaiev had already arrived here half an hour ago. He observed the movements on the bridge deck through the binoculars, and saw two sentries on the bridge walking back and forth, and machine gunners in the two machine gun bunkers piled up with sandbags looked around vigilantly.

   Seeing this scene, Mikhaiev had doubts in his heart: Could it be that his judgment has gone wrong, and the enemy's goal is not to blow up the bridge at all? In order to find out what was going on, he ordered the troops to stop approaching the bridge, so as not to have a misunderstanding with the soldiers guarding the bridge.

   After the troops quietly left the vicinity of the bridge, Mikhaiev ordered everyone to search the river, trying to figure out where the suddenly missing enemy went.

   Mikhaiev was in the process of commanding the troops to conduct a search. After receiving a call from Askel, he immediately realized that there was a problem with his judgment. The Germans did not disappear out of thin air, but seized the bridgehead position on the right bank, and continued to perform duties at the bridgehead disguised as Soviet soldiers, making themselves mistakenly think that the Germans did not approach the bridge at all.

   At this time, there were intensive gunshots from the bridgehead, occasionally mixed with the sound of grenade explosions. Mikhaiev hastily issued an order to the three company commanders, telling them to rush to the bridge immediately to destroy the German squad entrenched there.

Narva and Mikhaiev once went to observe the movement on the bridge, and when they heard Mikhaiev's order, they asked tentatively: "Comrade battalion commander, I see that the sentry on the bridge is wearing our army's uniform. How will we distinguish between ourselves and the enemy when we start fighting?"

Narva’s words stopped Mikhaiev. That’s right, the Germans were also wearing Soviet uniforms, and it was night and the visibility was low. If the Germans saw that the situation was not going well, they fell to the ground and pretended to be dead. When the troops merge with the friendly troops, and then mix into the team, it will be impossible to identify them.

   "Comrade Captain," Mikhaiev felt that since he couldn't identify the enemy, Narva might have some good ideas, so he asked, "Do you have any good ideas?"

Narva thought for a while and replied: "Comrade battalion commander, judging from the current situation, the enemy has already occupied the bridgehead on the right bank, while the friendly forces are attacking from the left bank. When we reach the bridge, we only need to eliminate the bridgehead on the right bank." Everyone should be able to annihilate all enemies."

   But Mikhaiev said with great concern: "What if there are still soldiers from our army at the bridgehead on the right bank? If we kill them all indiscriminately, won't we accidentally injure our own people?"

"No, Comrade Battalion Commander." Narva has fought with Sokov for so long, and Mikhaiev's perspective on the problem is naturally different. He explained to the other party: "The purpose of the Germans is to bomb the In order to prevent their whereabouts from being exposed, no one who came into contact with them will be left alive. I can boldly conclude that all our soldiers at the bridgehead on the right bank have unfortunately been killed."

   Mikhaiev, who was a bit wary at first, felt much more at ease after hearing Narva's explanation. He quickly issued a new order: "Okay, then cooperate with the friendly forces from the left bank and destroy all the enemies at the bridgehead on the right bank."

   There are only 20 German troops occupying the bridgehead on the right bank, six of them have planted explosives, and eight are blocking the Soviet army from the left bank. At this moment, including the German captain, there are only six people left. Don't see their uniform submachine guns, but it is not an easy task to block the infantry brigade commanders and fighters coming from different directions.

   Less than five minutes into the battle, Narva's 1st Company and Yegor's 2nd Company rushed onto the bridge one after another, and shot and killed those Germans who were stubbornly resisting. Then, they rushed behind the German soldiers who were shooting wildly towards the left bank, and fired at their backs. After a burst of intensive gunfire, the German soldiers who were shooting wildly were all smashed into a sieve.

   After the gunfire on the bridge stopped, Mikhaiev came to the bridge. He found that the friendly troops coming from the left bank had stopped attacking, probably observing the situation here. He called a soldier and told him: "Comrade soldier, you contacted our friendly troops in the past and said that we are from the 73rd Infantry Brigade, and we came to support them under the order of the brigade commander, Major Guchakov. "

   When the soldiers went out to contact the friendly forces, Narva walked up to Mikhaiev and said to him, "Comrade Battalion Commander, I think we should search carefully to see if there are any enemies that have slipped through the net."

   Mikhaiev nodded. Before he could speak, he saw Yegor coming out of the next room, and asked him, "Captain Yegor, how is the situation in the room?"

   "Dead, all dead." Yegor gritted his teeth and said: "Our soldiers were all asleep, and their throats were cut by the enemy with daggers and sacrificed."

"These damned Germans." Although Mikhaiev didn't know the exact number of guards at the bridgehead, from the scale of the fortifications, he guessed that there might be dozens of them, and now they all died at the hands of the Germans. Too much hatred: "Sooner or later we will let them repay this blood debt."

   "Comrade Company Commander," a soldier found the rope hanging on the bridge railing, and guessed that someone must be under the bridge, so he called Narva loudly: "Look here is the rope, there may be enemies under the bridge."

  As soon as they heard that there might be enemies under the bridge, the soldiers around rushed to the rope, trying to see if there were enemies hidden under the bridge. Unexpectedly, as soon as a soldier probed down, he heard a few gunshots, and a few bullets flew past his ears, scaring him into a cold sweat, and hurriedly retracted his body.

Samoilov, who was commanding the battle on the left bank, saw the soldiers sent by Mikhaiev to contact him, and learned that the comrades of the infantry brigade had wiped out the enemy on the opposite side, so he took Serelkov and Sapochuk away. over here.

After coming over, he learned that there were still enemies hiding under the bridge, and immediately realized that these enemies were all going down to plant explosives. If they were not dealt with as soon as possible, giving them time to place the bombs in place and detonate them, not only would the bridge be blown up, but the bridge would also be destroyed. Causing huge casualties to his subordinates.

  Thinking of this, he quickly said to Mikhaiev: "Comrade Captain, in order to prevent the Germans from jumping over the wall and blowing up the bridge, we must immediately evacuate the soldiers on the bridge, leaving only a few people to deal with the enemy."

For the Soviet commanders and fighters who were banned by order, it took less than a minute. Of the three or four hundred people who were crowded together, there were only less than thirty people left, and the rest retreated to a hundred meters away. In this way, even if the Germans jump over the wall in a hurry, the damage they can cause is limited.

The soldiers had retreated to a safe area, but Samoilov, Mikhaiev and others remained on the bridge, discussing how to deal with the Germans at the bottom of the bridge: "Comrade Captain, what can you do to deal with the Germans hiding on the bridge?" The enemy below?"

"It's not easy, Comrade Lieutenant." Although Mikhaiev's military rank is higher than that of Samoilov, he knows that the other party is the popular man in front of Sokov, so he speaks very politely: "The enemy is hiding under the bridge. As long as the soldiers look up, they will shoot. It’s a pity that there is a river below, and even if we throw grenades down, it will not pose any threat to the enemy.”

   "Lieutenant Serelkov," Samoilov turned his head and asked Serelkov, "Do you have any good ideas?"

   "We can use the rope to help the grenade go down, and use the fragments of the explosion to destroy the enemies hiding at the bottom of the bridge."

   "Is there an unknown amount of explosives under the bridge?" Mikhaiev said worriedly after hearing this, "Will the explosives be detonated if the grenade is dropped on the enemy?"

   "As long as you are careful, it shouldn't happen." Serelkov volunteered: "Comrade Captain, if you are worried, I am willing to bring someone to complete this task myself."

  (end of this chapter)