Chapter 741

"Nonsense, no matter how powerful the enemy is, no matter how many casualties we pay. We have to fight this battle. Otherwise, the central part of the city and the factory area that our group army is holding fast to will be occupied by the Germans. " Without waiting for me to speak, trikov impatiently interrupted me. After picking up the telescope on the table, he waved his head at me and said in an imperative tone, "don't talk nonsense. Come with me and go outside to see how the enemy attacks our defense."

I didn't dare to say more. With an embarrassed smile on my face, I walked out of the headquarters behind trekov, followed the traffic ditch outside and came to the street. We walked into a half collapsed building by the side of the road, up the stairs to the second floor, and into a room full of broken bricks and burnt black furniture.

This is obviously an observation post in trakov's room. There are four people in the room, two squatting in front of the window, using the artillery observation mirror set up there to observe the situation outside. A person like a telegraph operator is sitting in a corner of the room with a telephone in front of him. There is also a soldier with a submachine gun standing by the side of the operator with his back against the wall, who seems to be defending the safety of the operator.

Seeing us enter the door, the soldier leaning against the wall suddenly called out: "stand at attention!" When the rest of the soldiers turned or stood up and looked at trikov, he strode up to us and reported according to the regulations: "Comrade commander, observation post No. 11 is on duty, please give us instructions!"

"Please go on!" After that, he went to the window and asked one of the soldiers, "what's the situation outside?"

"Report to Commander!" Because of the explosion from time to time outside, the soldiers had to raise their voice again and again to report to trikov: "the enemy is bombing and shelling the factory area. In particular, the tractor factory defense line, the enemy's dive bombers lined up, constantly dive bombing and strafing our army

When I heard that the situation was so serious, I couldn't help walking to a gap near the window and raising my telescope to look into the distance. In the distance, on the outside side of the tractor factory, you can hardly see a complete building. Those buildings have become piles of bricks and stones. The bombs dropped by the enemy's dive bombers and the shells fired by the enemy's cannons fell on our crude positions and exploded, making a huge noise. The whole defense area was filled with smoke.

In the middle of the tractor factory defense area, there is a river which is not very wide. The bridge on the river has been destroyed by the enemy's artillery or bombing. Not far from the broken bridge, a floating bridge across the river was built with discarded oil barrels. It was through this floating bridge that the 37th division of Jinwei sent the troops behind to the front. In the distance, the factory area of the tractor factory is full of debris, and tall and solid factories are burning.

Obviously, the enemy also found the pontoon, which is very important to our army. Several planes dived and dropped bombs in turn, trying to destroy the pontoon. Although the first bombs were thrown off the right side of the bridge and exploded one after another, a shell soon landed on the bridge and broke the pontoon. Walking on the bridge, the officers and soldiers fell into the water. Although I saw a lot of people struggling to swim to both sides of the river after falling into the water, more people did not hear from them and were washed downstream by those empty oil barrels.

Seeing this situation, the soldier next to trikov exclaimed: "hell, the enemy blew up the floating bridge across the nieri River, and the contact between our troops in front of us and the main force was interrupted."

Trakov didn't speak, just glanced at the soldier, picked up the telescope and continued to observe.

Half an hour later, the enemy's shelling and bombing stopped. I could clearly see the dust on the northwest horizon, followed by a dense black spot. As the black spot gets closer and closer, I can clearly see that groups of tanks are driving ahead, armored personnel carriers full of soldiers are following, and a lot of tricycles are rapidly advancing towards our army's position during the period of being mixed up.

Seeing the strength of the German army, I put down my telescope and looked nervously at trakov to see what his reaction was. If it was under my command, I would call artillery commander hogarsky at this moment and order the artillery to fire and intercept the advancing German armored forces with artillery fire. I didn't expect that trekov didn't seem to see these, still standing there with his telescope.

The smoke that filled our position quickly dispersed under the cold wind. However, when the enemy's tanks were only seven or eight hundred meters away from the front line, the artillery concealed by the guard division opened fire. The white smoke rising from the debris from time to time surprised me to find that our army had deployed no less than 20 anti tank guns in the front.

At the end of the first round of firing, several German tanks were stopped in the same place because they were hit by bullets and caught fire. However, most of the tanks were still advancing rapidly and stopped suddenly from time to time. They fired two shots at our position.

"Operator!" Trekov, who had been silent, suddenly put down his telescope and gave an order to the radio operator who was sitting in the corner: "get in touch with artillery commander hogarsky immediately."

The operator agreed and started yelling at the transmitter. After a while, he stood up and reported to trakov, "Comrade commander, I have got in touch with general hogarsky."

Trekov put his telescope on the windowsill, walked quickly to the phone, grabbed the earphone, stuck it to his ear, and yelled at the transmitter, "Hello, is that hogarsky? The enemy's shelling and bombing have stopped, and now their mechanized troops are attacking the tractor factory. I order you to let the howitzer battalion fire immediately and stop fire. " The artillery should have been ready to fire, waiting for the order of trikov to fire. So he gave the order, just went back to the window and raised his telescope, the artillery barrage followed. Shells exploded in the enemy's armored line, and from time to time tanks or armored vehicles were hit by shells. I saw German soldiers in several armored vehicles after they started to fire. They all got out of the smoke filled vehicles and ran to the rear with dancing hands and feet. But in the end, only a few people, the absolute majority, were hit by shrapnel flying around and fell to the ground one after another. In the face of our intensive artillery interception, the German armored forces had to stop attacking and turn around in the original place in an attempt to return to the starting position. But under the attack of our artillery, the enemy's retreat was inevitably affected, and the whole battle formation was in a mess. Seeing the enemy's confusion and retreat, trakov's face showed a smile. He put down his telescope again and told the telegraph operator, "get me general hogarsky again." After this call, trakov said with a smile, "good call, Comrade General. The enemy's armored forces have fallen into chaos under your heavy artillery fire. They are now trying to get out of our artillery range and return to their starting position. What? What are you talking about? It's not enough. It's not enough. I now order you to immediately organize two Katyusha rocket barracks to launch a salvo fire: one to the silicon products factory; Another shot at the open space in front of the stadium. I have found a lot of enemies gathering in this area Just a few minutes later, there was a series of whistling outside. I looked up at the rocket shells with long tail, which cut through the sky and gradually disappeared in the two directions that trakov had just pointed out. Then there was a terrible roar. The dust from the ceiling was almost all over the people. As he dusted his shoulders, trakov said with a smile, "I didn't expect that the two rocket barracks could fire together, which was enough for the Germans." Then he went to the operator's side. Seeing his action, I couldn't help wondering that he had given orders to hogarsky twice. If he gave orders again, what position would he prepare to bombard the German army. I didn't expect that after hearing what he told the operator, I knew that my judgment had deviated. He said to the radio operator, "get me general heliujin, commander of the 8th Army of the air force." Only then did I understand that he was not satisfied with the artillery's attack on the enemy. He wanted to use our air force to teach the enemy a lesson. When he got through to kheliukin, trakov said with a smile, "Hello, is that general kheliukin? I'm trekov. The Germans have concentrated their superior forces and are attacking the factory area defended by our group army. Just now our artillery has taught their ground troops a lesson. Now I ask you to send some fighters to patrol over the city and drive those pesky bandits away from our position. " I don't know what kheliukin said. Trikov's smile froze on his face. After a long silence, he said in a low voice, "I see, general kheliukin. Good luck When he put down his earphone and transmitter, I quickly walked over and asked with concern, "Comrade commander, what's the matter? What did general kheliukin say to make you so unhappy Trekov looked at me with a bitter smile and said, "I wanted general kheliukin to send some fighters over the city and try to make the German planes safe. I didn't expect that general heliukin told me bluntly that because the enemy's air force tightly blocked the airports of the air force group army, our air force could not take off to carry out the mission over Stalingrad, so he couldn't help my request. "