Kirilov, who has always been very accommodating to me, saw that I was so stubborn. He stood up and pointed at me for a long time without thinking about what to say. Finally, he stomped heavily and left the division headquarters.
When I came to the foot of the mountain, Pugachev and a company were waiting in formation. When I saw that Pugachev had brought only such a few people, I was very angry. When I came to him, I asked discontentedly, "Comrade major, why are there only such a few people? Haven't you received the order from the chief of staff?"
Pugachev quickly nodded his head and replied, "yes, the order is clear. In addition to leaving a full company to continue to stick to the battlefield, the rest of the troops will form three companies, and you will go to the city to fight together."
"Now that you have received the order, why do you only bring so many people?" I continued to question.
After listening, Pugachev shrugged his shoulders and replied, "how do you say that, Mr. commander. The front of the second regiment's defense is too wide. It will take time to gather them all in such a short time. "
After listening to Pugachev's explanation, I knew that I was too anxious. The defense front of the second regiment was one kilometer long. It would not be enough to gather so many companies in just a few minutes. But at this time, the headquarters of the group army was in imminent danger, and I didn't have much time to stay and wait. So after a little thought, I ordered Pugachev to say, "major Pugachev, the situation is urgent. I'll take this company to the headquarters first. You stay and continue to assemble your troops. When the assembly is completed, you will immediately take your troops to the city to reinforce us. "
After telling Pugachev, I went to the front of the team and said to the soldiers, "brothers, the enemy is attacking our group army headquarters at the moment. Due to the large number of German troops, the forces defending the headquarters are a little weak. Now I will take you to reinforce them." At this point, I saw a lot of soldiers in the queue with panic expressions on their faces, and quickly added, "I also know if there were more people, but where can we find so many people? We can't stop rescuing the headquarters because of the manpower. If we don't go, they may be destroyed by the enemy. Once the headquarters of the group army is terminated by the enemy, the 62nd group army, which has lost its command system, will fall into chaos, and then the Germans may drive us all to the Volga River. "
"Comrade division," a soldier suddenly called out at the back of the line, "give an order. We must not watch the enemy destroy our headquarters." With his shouts, there was a voice echoing in the team: "yes, sir, please give us an order and take us to teach these darn Krauts a lesson!"
Seeing that the commanders and fighters were eager to fight, I quickly struck while the iron was hot, waved to the team and said loudly, "let's go!" With my command, the soldiers of the second regiment turned to the left, followed by a four-way column, marching in a neat pace, marching in the direction of the city.
Just then, major Morozov, who I had just left in Soviet street to take charge of the handover of troops, and his mortar company and the remaining dozen soldiers of the guard company returned. Seeing that I was about to leave, Morozov quickly caught up with me and asked anxiously, "Comrade teacher, where are you going?"
Anyway, it's no secret to go to the rescue headquarters in the city. Now when I hear him asking, I don't hide it from him. Instead, I tell him the truth: "the enemy is attacking the headquarters of the group army. I want to take people to them."
Morozov looked sideways at the departing troops, and then said with uneasiness: "Sir, it's too risky to reinforce the headquarters with more than 100 infantry? You know, they lack heavy weapons, even if the German army has only one tank on the road, they can't get through. I think you'd better attach my mortar. "
For his proposal, I did not object, but readily agreed: "OK, send two mortar teams to work with me."
When Morozov saw that I had agreed to his request, he agreed excitedly. Then he turned around and yelled at his subordinates, "mortar group 1 and mortar group 2, come here!"
With his shouts, six soldiers came out of the line, in groups of three, one carrying the barrel, one carrying the base, and one carrying the shell box. Seeing that there were only six soldiers on the line, Morozov blackened his face and said, "the division commander is going to take people to the city to fight with the enemy. How can two boxes of shells be enough? Four more ammunition men, one carrying a box of shells, will follow the teacher. "
Morozov had a high prestige in the artillery camp, and the soldiers immediately carried out his orders without discount. Immediately out of the four ammunition carried in the shell box, joined the two mortars just group. And ten soldiers of the guard company, without waiting for me to speak, also stood beside me.
Before leaving, I once again told Pugachev: "Comrade major, hurry up and gather the troops. With your participation, our battle in the city will be relatively easy."
When I took the guard company and the mortar team to the meeting place I had arranged with Peregrine, I saw a German tank parked by the side of the road from a distance, and several people were talking. Just when I was scared out of a cold sweat by the sudden emergence of the tank, a guard soldier next to me pointed to the front and excitedly said to me: "Sir, you see, standing next to the tank, is the tank battalion commander, major perskin." I fixed my eyes on it, but it was my tank battalion commander, peiersjian, who was standing in front of the tank, chatting with others with cigarette in his mouth.
I walked up to him and didn't wait to speak. The other two tankers who chatted with pelsjian stood at attention and raised their hands to salute when they found me. Peiersjian, who turned his back to me, saw his subordinates' reaction. Even if he didn't look back, he knew that I was coming. He quickly threw away his cigarette end, turned to salute me, and reported: "Comrade division, major peiersjian, tank battalion commander, reports to you. I'm waiting for your next order."
"Comrade major," I looked to the left and right for a moment. I didn't find any other tanks, so I asked curiously, "why can't I see any other tanks?"
"Yes, sir." "Because of the lack of ammunition and fuel for the tanks, we only pulled out three of them," perskin explained to me very quickly. The other two followed the infantry soldiers in front of them into the city, and I stayed here specially to wait for you. "
"Time is running out, start now!"
"Yes With a promise, perskin turned around and took the lead to climb up the tank and get into the turret.
After the tank started, the soldiers and I walked on one side of the road, so as not to absorb the exhaust gas from the tank.
After entering the city, we joined forces at the entrance of the street. I called the company commander in charge, and after telling him the location of the headquarters of the group army, I gave him a direct order: "Comrade captain, take two tanks and fifty men, go around the west side of the headquarters, and hit him hard from the side of the German. Do you understand? "
"I understand!" The captain gave a loud promise, called two platoons of soldiers, followed him to the other direction at the crossroads, and one of the two tanks that followed them was driven by Peregrine.
I called the remaining two platoon leaders to the front of the company and said to them, "platoon leaders, let the tanks go ahead in a moment, and your troops follow the tanks. When the enemy's position is solved, let the tanks fire. Then you charge. You must find a way to break through the enemy's encirclement of the headquarters. "
With my command, the tanks that had not been put out on the roadside became our pioneers, and a platoon of troops followed closely at the back two or three meters. I was behind the infantry platoon with the guard company and the mortar team, and behind us was another infantry platoon.
Although the streets are full of bullet holes, fortunately, we didn't encounter the enemy's resistance, and our forward speed is not slow at all. In less than ten minutes, we were only three or four hundred meters away from the headquarters.
Seeing the familiar crossroad ahead, I immediately thought that the motorcycle that sent me to the headquarters had stopped there the last time I got there. Just go a few minutes and get to the headquarters.
Looking at the tank that opened the way for us slowly drove to the center of the intersection, I couldn't help yelling at the soldiers on the left and right: "everyone, be careful. If you don't go far ahead, you may encounter the enemy..."
"Boom!" Before I finished speaking, there was a loud noise in front of me. Then I saw a fire rising on the left side of the tank turret, and the upper part of the body was covered with smoke. The soldiers who followed the car seemed to have been hit by flying. With a groan, they fell on their backs.
"Battle alert! Lie down, all of you Walking in the front of the infantry platoon leader to see our tank shot, the soldiers were shrapnel knocked down, quickly cried out. Almost at the same time as he called, the officers and men around him fell to the ground in order. See the front of the soldiers lying down, I did not have time to respond, was on the side of the guards fell to the ground.
We lay on the ground for a minute, or more, without hearing gunshots or seeing Germans in our view. After the bodyguard got up, he helped me to stand up. The infantry platoon leader in front of me ran to report to me: "Sir, it's really strange why the enemy only fired one shot and destroyed our tanks, and then there was no movement."
I pointed forward and said, "Comrade platoon leader, you should arrange for people to go to the crossroads to scout and see what's going on? Also, the tankers are climbing out of the burning tank. Ask your men to help them
The platoon leader promised to run back to comply with my orders and start reconnaissance and rescue work at the same time. The soldier who was in charge of the reconnaissance, sticking to the wall of the roadside building, came to the corner, looked out, and immediately drew back. Unexpectedly, as soon as he drew his head back, he stretched it out again. This time, he did not draw back. Even the whole person came out of the hiding place beside the wall and went to the middle of the intersection.
Seeing this situation, the platoon leader was in a hurry and yelled at the bold Soldier: "Hey, you fool, come back, come back quickly, don't stand in the middle of the road and let the Germans hit you as a target!"
The soldier heard the cry of the platoon leader, turned around and yelled at us: "our own, our own, not German."
When I heard the soldiers shouting like this, I couldn't help but be stunned. Since it's my own man, why should I shoot my tank? I walked towards the middle of the crossroads with half faith. When the platoon leader saw that I was going to take risks, he quickly stopped me in front of me and advised me: "Sir, the situation ahead is not clear. You can't take risks. Maybe the soldier saw a German in our uniform. "
Originally, I wanted to see what happened. After listening to what the platoon leader said, I had no idea. If it's my own people, it's OK to say that if it's really like what he said, it's the German who pretends to be our army. If I rush out rashly, won't I just become a target for the German? Just when I hesitated, I suddenly heard a familiar voice: "Hey, I said Comrade soldier, what part of you are?" The soldiers at the crossroads didn't get our permission. They didn't dare to tell strangers the number of their troops. They just stood in the middle of the road in a daze. Seeing that the soldier did not speak, the other side repeated the question again. This time, I really heard it. I really knew the owner of the voice, so I raised my hand to push aside the platoon leader in front of me, strode to the middle of the intersection, and stood side by side with the soldier. When I looked around, I saw a heavy tank of our army, seven or eight soldiers wearing our helmets, hiding behind the sandbags on both sides of the tank. I said to the front in a loud voice: "Hello, is that lieutenant commander Wei yinlubu in front? I'm the commander of the independent division, Colonel oshanina. I heard that the headquarters was besieged by the enemy, so I specially led the troops to help you out. "“ Wula A burst of cheers came from behind the sandbag: "Wula! Great, our reinforcements are coming With the shouts, lieutenant commander Wei yinlubu, who I knew, came out from behind the cheering sandbag fortification with two soldiers. When I walked past Wei yinlubu and was about ten meters away, I said in a discontented tone, "Comrade commander, we are here to rescue you. Why do we fire guns to destroy our tanks?"“ What, "weinlub said, and his steps stopped involuntarily. He pointed to the burning tank behind me and asked in an unbelievable voice," Captain oshanina, do you mean that the German tank with the white cross belongs to your independent division? " Hearing that he mentioned the cross mark on the tank, I complained endlessly in my heart. I went to lead the troops to the headquarters to get rid of the siege. I forgot that all the tanks used in the tank battalion were captured from the German army, and there was no condition to remove the German mark on the tank, so we were doomed to suffer the dumb loss that we mistakenly hit. Seeing that Wei yinlubu had come to me, I had to nod my head difficultly and said with a bitter smile, "yes, comrade commander, the tank you destroyed was captured from the German army. We have no condition to remove the * * mark on the tank body for the time being, but you destroyed it as a German tank." Speaking of this, in order to avoid the embarrassment of Wei yinlubu, I quickly changed the topic: "by the way, comrade commander, the headquarters of the group army is fine. How could it be suddenly besieged by the German army?" Wei yinlubu listened to my question, sighed, and began to tell me the reason: "Captain o'shanina, it's like this. In order to break the enemy's attempt to occupy Stalingrad, the headquarters of the group army organized troops to launch a counter attack on the enemy at 6 a.m. today. In order to cooperate with the actions of our group army, the 64th group army also turned to attack the enemy in the kuporosnoye area. To tell you the truth, we had a good record in the initial stage of counter attack, but at 8 a.m., our formation was heavily attacked by hundreds of enemy dive bombers. The anti shock unit had to lie down and hide. At 1030 hours, the enemy turned to attack. Its offensive units are the 100th division of the new light infantry, the 389th division of the supplementary infantry and the 24th division of the tank. Its target is Red October town. As your night attack disrupted the enemy's deployment, the 113th division, which was going to attack mamayev post at the same time, is still in the camp without any action. German planes bombarded my entire battle formation from the forefront to the Volga River. The support points set up by the gorishner division in the city were razed by enemy bombs and artillery fire. The command post of the general headquarters of the group army has also been under fire from enemy air forces. Some of the oil tanks nearby are burning. Enemy tanks attacking from the gorodyse area, desperate to break through the minefield. The enemy infantry wriggled forward, following the tank. Towards noon, the telephone communication between our command post and the troops became very unstable, and the radio station was also broken... The tank army and the right wing of yermorkin division, which was responsible for the main assault, suffered huge losses. An hour ago, with their remaining forces, they occupied the defensive positions at the machetka River Bridge, 2.5km west of baricard Town, southwest of baricard Town, western suburb of Red October Town, and up to the line of Banney canyon. The German army occupied the streets of shahejinski and gerjevsky. "“ It's a terrible situation, comrade commander. " Hearing that the situation was so bad, I couldn't help frowning: "why don't the commanders move? If the headquarters is destroyed by the enemy, the whole group army will be in chaos."