Chapter 849

When I went back to my teacher and told kirilov what I had heard at the meeting, several people were stunned. After a long time, akhromeyev tentatively said: "Comrade division commander, can the friendly army's war report be correct? You know, the German army can't find a full-scale army at the present stage of fighting. Now they have only about 200 soldiers in one battalion and more than 400 soldiers in two battalions. How can they cripple three divisions and one brigade of the friendly army? "

"Yes, sir." Bantailiev unexpectedly did not contradict akhromeyev, but was in line with his saying: "our three divisions and one brigade, even if they are not full, are close to 20000 people at least. How can they be defeated by more than 400 German troops? Isn't this a rumor made by saboteurs? "

Regarding Bantai leiev's conjecture, I shook my head and said in a positive tone: "Comrade deputy division commander, this battle report has been repeatedly verified by commander trakov. At the meeting, the commander handed over to our division the task of finding out why the German army could defeat the friendly army, and asked us to give him a reply within three days. "

"Three days," kirilov asked in surprise, "but the voloshilov district where we are fighting is more than 30 kilometers, and there are so many German troops stationed in the middle. How can we get through the blockade of the enemy?"

"Political commissar, if you want to pass the blockade of the enemy, I don't think it's a big problem." Akhromeyev said thoughtfully, "don't we have a lot of defecting German officers and men in our division? It's up to them to cross the line. But I don't think it's going to make much difference if they're sent, because they can't ask the German army about it

Kirilov, listening to ahlomeyev's words, was like a drowning man seizing a life-saving straw. He immediately told him, "Comrade chief of staff, you should call captain Grimes and ask him to come to the division headquarters. Let's talk about this matter with him and listen to what he said."

After receiving a call from akhromeyev, Captain Grimes soon came to the headquarters with his newly discharged adjutant, second lieutenant gretka. After they saluted us, I explained the purpose of recruiting them. After that, I thought that gramus' Russian was not very good, so I looked at gretka and asked, "how about it, comrade Lieutenant? Can you do it?"

Second lieutenant gretka was shocked by what I said. After a few twitches in the corner of his mouth, he forced a smile and said to me, "Comrade division, I think we may not be able to complete your task?" With that, he turned to Grimes, who, after listening to him, nodded in agreement.

"Why?" When gretka finished translating for gramus, I asked solemnly, "don't you want to carry out this reconnaissance mission?"

"Sir, you have misunderstood me!" Seeing that I was angry, gramus quickly began to explain in his poor Russian: "we... We can't... Pass..." because his Russian level was so poor that he didn't express his meaning for a long time, so he had to make a gesture to gretka to show that he explained to me.

I turned to gretka and made a sign to him to tell him what was going on. Gretka turned to look at his superior, then turned to me with courage and said, "this is the situation, sir. Because the German troops are too tightly deployed in the area we are going to cross, I don't think we can pass those temporary checkpoints. "

"Comrade lieutenant, why can't you pass those checkpoints?" Gretka's words aroused kirilov's curiosity, so he asked with great interest: "in principle, all the military certificates you used are true, which should not arouse the suspicion of the German army?"

Gretka turned to kirilov and explained to him, "Comrade political commissar, you don't know. If we want to go from dzerzhinsky district to Voroshilov District, we must have a pass in addition to a military pass, otherwise we will be caught as deserters and shot on the spot."

Bantaileiev listened for a while, and then he had a new idea: "I think the German soldiers who confront us should have the passes you need. If we go to attack their positions, catch some prisoners and let you use their passes, is that ok?"

Unexpectedly, gretka immediately shook his head and rejected his proposal: "Comrade deputy division, this is impossible. In order to prevent deserters from appearing, officers and soldiers at the forefront, let alone their passes, have their military personnel passes confiscated by officers. In this way, a large number of deserters can be prevented in the event of failure. Without documents, those soldiers who leave the army will be captured by the SS soon. "

Listening to gretka's words, I understand that we all think too simply. In the past, every time we sent the subordinates of gramus out to carry out the tasks behind enemy lines, the success was due to the scattered deployment of German troops to a great extent. But now the German troops of several divisions are gathered in the factory area and voroshlov area. If we want to sneak in quietly, we can't do it at all.

Akhromeyev also proposed that the scouts should dress up as ordinary citizens and pass through the German defense line. As soon as his proposal was exported, I immediately denied it: "no, this plan won't work. All the residents in the German occupied area are under their close supervision. It is impossible to accomplish such a task. On the contrary, it puts our scouts in danger. "

We discussed for a long time, but we didn't work out a reason. So I had to play fagrams and they left. Looking at the back of their departure, Bantai leiev said indignantly: "Sir, I used to think that it would be very helpful for us to keep these defecting Germans in the team, but I didn't expect that he could help us at all."

"You can't say that, old man." After listening to bantailiev's words, kirilov immediately retorted: "when Grimes and Beckman surrendered, they had 150 men under them. However, after several months of fighting, half of the officers and men died in the German bombing and shelling. At the same time, more than a dozen officers and men died in the reconnaissance mission behind the enemy. At present, the total number of German officers and men in the two companies is less than 70. "

As I have not worked out a practical way to get through the enemy occupied area, I put it aside for the time being and intend to go to the headquarters of the group army to admit my mistake to trekov as soon as the three-day deadline arrives.

In the next two days, I ordered the two artillery battalions under the division to cooperate with the 1st and 4th regiments to launch a small-scale attack on the area occupied by the German army. By the evening of the 18th, we had cleared all the German troops in the dzerzhinsky district and pushed the line of defense to the vicinity of the "Red October" factory step by step.

Seeing that our division steadily pushed the line of defense into the vicinity of its own defense area, the German army was a little flustered. Instead of being beaten passively two days ago, they launched a counterattack against us.

When I heard the reports from sjerykov and gedar on the phone, I asked bantaileiev and akhromeyev on my own initiative: "deputy division chief and chief of staff, tell me, the German army has launched a counter offensive against us in the past two days. What do they really want to do?"

Akhromeyev thought for a while and took the lead in saying his analysis: "maybe our attack in the past two days is too fierce, so the enemy has to transfer reserve teams from other areas to strengthen their defense."

"Chief of staff, I don't agree with you." Bantailiev and akhromeyev sing the opposite tone: "the German troops surrounded by us are being attacked by our troops from all sides. How can they send troops to reinforce the enemy near the" Red October "factory?"

"Comrade deputy division commander," said akhromeyev reluctantly, "according to the war reports from the front, we can see that this enemy is different from the previous ones. We are afraid of all the enemies confronting our division. In the face of our attack, they can only retreat step by step and shrink their lines of defense. However, these enemies counter attacked our army when we launched our attack. Don't you find that strange? "

"Comrade chief of staff," I saw that they were going to argue about it again. I quickly interrupted them, and then asked akhromeyev, "did you catch any prisoners in the battle?"

After taking a look at the war report on the table, akhromeyev reported to me, "the first regiment has captured 15 prisoners, and the fourth regiment has captured several."

"Let them send the prisoners to division headquarters." After hearing this, kirilov decisively gave an order to akhromeyev.

The prisoners were soon brought over by the soldiers of the first and fourth regiments. As there was not enough space in the city in the headquarters, it was impossible to bring all the German prisoners in, so I only ordered the officers to be brought in for interrogation. At the same time, I also called lieutenant gretka to be our interpreter.

When two German prisoners stood in front of us, I asked with a straight face, "officer, name, rank, position and unit you belong to." Then he motioned greteka to translate for me.

After listening to the translation, the two German officers said their names, ranks and troops without hesitation. Bantaileiev was obviously stunned when he heard the number of the army. Then he put his head together and said to me in a low voice: "Comrade division commander, according to our information, this German army should be deployed in Voroshilov district. Do you know why they are in our defense area? "

After shaking my head, I said to gretka, "Comrade lieutenant, ask them, when did the troops enter the dzerzhinsky district?"

After listening to the two German prisoners, gretka respectfully reported to me: "report to division commander, they said that because the German forces here are under too much pressure, the superior forces temporarily transferred their company from voroshlov district."

When I heard that they repeatedly mentioned voroshlov District, I suddenly had a flash in my mind. Since they came from voroshlov District, which we wanted to reconnoitre but could not go to, maybe they were frustrated in their attack on our army the day before yesterday and could know something about it. Thinking of this, I couldn't think of any interrogation skills. I couldn't wait to ask, "Sir, since you are all from Voroshilov District, I have something to ask you."

"Go ahead, general!" After listening to gretka's translation, the German officer bowed slightly forward and asked respectfully, "as long as I know, I will report to you honestly."

Seeing that the German officers agreed so readily, I asked them straightforwardly, "the day before yesterday, in Voroshilov District, our troops once launched an attack there, and the battle lasted a whole day. But unfortunately, after paying huge casualties, our attack failed. I want to ask, "do you know what's going on?"

After listening to my question, the two officers looked at each other, and then the officer on the right asked, "Madam general, if we tell the truth, can you promise not to shoot us?" When I heard the German officers reply like this, I was very happy. I knew that I might know the cause and effect of the whole battle from their mouth. So I pretended to think about it for a while, and then pretended to be embarrassed and said to me, "two officers, if you can tell me the truth, I can promise you that I will not shoot you; But if you don't tell the truth, I can't guarantee your lives. " Under my coaxing and fright, the two officers soon explained what they knew. It turned out that on the morning of the 16th, the artillery of the 57th and 64th group armies carried out heavy shelling on the German occupied Voroshilov district. The dense barrage seemed to destroy all the lives in the encirclement. The whole voloshlov district was shaking like an earthquake. All the German troops got into bunkers or basements and curled up to avoid the disaster. They knew in their hearts that when our artillery fire was ready, there would be tanks and infantry coming in like a tide. After the shelling, the surviving German soldiers who crawled out of the bunker found a 37mm anti tank gun which they didn't know was left behind. Its performance was good, but the sight had been damaged. It might have been left to be repaired by the friendly troops stationed here before, but they were left here because of the hasty retreat, which made them feel more lucky, Yes, they also found several boxes of shells. Facing the coordinated attack of our army, the German army immediately pushed the 37mm anti tank gun into the position to hide, and the muzzle was aimed at the direction of the enemy's attack. First, a column of T-34 tanks entered the range, but the German Gunners did not open fire easily. Instead, they patiently waited until the enemy tanks reached a distance of 40 meters before firing four rounds in succession. The first shell destroyed the pilot tank, the second one paralyzed the middle one, but the other two failed to do any damage to the third one. However, it was obviously deterred by the precise firing of the German gunners, and quickly turned around and fled without firing a shot. The German army knew our attack tactics very well, and knew that our attack followed strict schedule and principle, that is, in a few hours after an attack was frustrated, they would never launch a second attack at the same place. As a result, these German artillery were able to move the only anti tank gun from the place where they had already fought to the area where they expected our army to attack. Towards noon, the German troops were supplemented with an anti tank gun, so that they did not have to move the only anti tank gun around. At 1 p.m., our infantry in tawny uniforms appeared again in the German observation post's telescope, and they were like ants from a distance, closing closer and closer to the German position. Due to the limited German ammunition, all officers and soldiers were ordered to wait for the enemy to enter the range of all weapons before firing. When the infantry were only more than 100 meters away from the German position, the line gave way to both sides, allowing a tank unit to pass through the channel, turning into a horizontal formation in front of the infantry, and forced to the German position with the cooperation of infantry and tank. The German snipers who took the lead in firing, they kept hunting our commanders in the line. Seeing the commanders around him fall one by one, the line of infantry charging began to shake. Seeing the chaos in our line-up, the German machine guns fired decisively. Facing the intensive German firepower, our infantry immediately stopped attacking and turned around and ran backward. At the beginning, it was a retreat, and then it became a rout. The German anti tank guns seized the opportunity to "roll call" the tanks without infantry cover one by one. The anti tank team also bravely rushed up and blasted with explosives, killing at least two-thirds of our tanks.