Chapter 925

At the end of the call with akhromeyev, I was just about to call Bantai leiev to ask about the fighting by the river. Unexpectedly, the operator turned around and yelled at me, "Comrade commander, the commander of the group army is online. He wants to talk to you."

I scolded in my heart, put the receiver I just picked up back on the base of the phone, and walked towards the telephone. Although I am extremely dissatisfied with the fact that haridonov called at such a time and affected my command of the army, when I spoke to the transmitter, I still tried to say politely, "Hello, comrade commander, this is oshanina. What's your instruction?"

"Comrade o'shanina, what's the situation there?" Haridonov asked politely, "is there any trace of German troops near zaborosh?"

Listening to his question, I could not help but feel a thump in my heart. My heart said that we are surrounded by the German army now, and our troops are already stretched. You old man will not transfer my troops at this time, will you? In that case, it would be even worse. The battle that had a chance to win would also be completely defeated because of the transfer of living forces.

Without waiting for me to speak, he continued: "according to the report from the front, among the German troops attacking our army, the serial numbers of the 48th and 57th armored forces of the 4th armored group army were found. Judging from the direction of their attack, they are planning to join the SS armored forces wedged into our group defense area. Comrade oshanina, our current situation is very bad. Once the German troops join forces, the whole group army will be in danger of encirclement. Therefore, I want to transfer a division from zaborosh to launch an attack from the rear of the German imperial division to contain the German forces. "

When my conjecture was confirmed, my heart was half chatted. My heart said that you really dare to speak. I have only three divisions in total, and they are all fighting with the German army. Which division do you want me to send out to reinforce you? What's more, you promised me that you would send troops to take over the defense of those towns where our army had withdrawn. Now it seems that you can't count on it at all.

When I was thinking about how to reply to him, he could not wait to urge me: "Comrade oshanina, the situation is critical now. Which division are you going to send for reinforcement?"

At present, zaborosh is fighting with the German army all around, but haridonov obviously does not know this situation, otherwise he would not give such an order. At this time, the three divisions in my hand had already caught fire with the German army in several directions at the same time. It was impossible to transfer any of them. Thinking of this, I knew that rejecting haridonov's order at this time would offend him, and even risk going to the military court because of disobedience. However, I stubbornly refused him: "sorry, comrade commander of the group army, I don't think I can carry out your order!"

"What, what do you say?" Haridonov obviously didn't expect me to reply like this. He asked aloud in an unbelievable voice: "if I heard you right just now, what you said is that you can't carry out my dispatching order."

"Yes, comrade commander, I can't send troops to support you." Now that the words have been spoken, there is no room to turn back. In order to prevent haridonov from getting angry on the phone and directly dismissing my post, I said in one breath: "the German army has concentrated its superior forces and is attacking zaborosh from four directions at the same time. All my forces are contained, and there is no surplus force to transfer."

"What, the Germans are attacking zaborosh?" "Are you sure the German forces are attacking zaborosh with all their strength, rather than launching a feint to contain your forces in order not to let you support us?" he asked suspiciously

"Comrade commander," I can understand haredonov's suspicion. If any of my commanders said what I just said when I needed troops, I would doubt the truth of what he said. So when I answered haridonov's question, I was very cautious: "I just contacted the commander at the front, and basically found out the number of the German army attacking zaborosh. To the south is the German skeleton division, and to the East is part of the imperial division. And the German army, who had retreated to the other side of the Dnieper River with Manstein, was also bombarding our position by the river with artillery fire. It was estimated that their infantry would rush over the frozen river as soon as the artillery fire stopped. "

"Zaborosh is in such a bad situation?" Although I tried to report the situation here to haridonov truthfully, there was still a trace of doubt in his voice: "are you sure the German army is really attacking, not feigning to cover up their real strategic intention?"

"Report to Comrade commander." From haredonov's voice, I felt his distrust of me, but this was not the time to argue with him. I could only patiently say to him, "I can assure you that this German attack is not a feint, but a long-standing attack. The German army deliberately gave up zaborosh and gave way to our army on the road to the city. When our troops entered the city, they immediately surrounded it from all directions, trying to take advantage of the terrain here, which is easy to attack and difficult to defend, and annihilate all our troops in the city. "

After listening to what I said this time, haridonov kept silent for a long time, and finally said slowly, "Comrade oshanina, if the situation is really like what you said, then my order just now will be revoked. I order you to concentrate your forces on defense, and zaborosh must not fall into the hands of the Germans again."

"Comrade commander," I was afraid that he would be too optimistic about the current situation, so I specially gave him a preventive injection: "the German army's strength and weaponry far exceed us, and our ammunition supply is difficult. Under such circumstances, our time will be very limited."

"Comrade oshanina," haridonov said solemnly when he heard my pessimistic remarks, "although the German army seems to have the advantage in the past two days, you should not forget that in Ukraine, our troops are several times more than them. Even if we beat one out of five, we will still be rich. So you should have the consciousness of turning zaborosh into a second "Stalingrad" and go on fighting with the German army here until our main forces arrive and encircle and annihilate them all under the city. "

"I see, comrade commander." Now I am anxious to get information from bandeleev, so I have to vaguely promise haridonov and promise him: "as long as we don't receive the withdrawal order from the superior, our 79th infantry army will fight bravely to the last man in zaborosh."

"Comrade o'shanina, your attitude is right." On hearing my statement, haridonov's tone was much more relaxed. He added, "don't worry, three days at most. Our southwest front and Voronezh front forces will be able to reach the periphery of zaborosh and surround the German forces besieging the city. I'm waiting for the news of your victory. Finally, I'll say to you: good luck

I put down my earphone and transmitter, turned my head and asked wittkov, who was standing at the desk, "chief of staff, have you contacted leiev?" Just now, when I was talking with haridonov, I heard that Vitkov seemed to be on the phone. That's why I asked.

"Yes, comrade commander." When witkov heard my question, he immediately replied, "the German artillery bombardment of the riverside position has ended. At present, their infantry, under the cover of mortars and machine guns, are rushing towards the city from the ice, and the commanders and fighters of the first and fourth regiments are fighting tenaciously."

"How are the buildings in the city damaged?" I thought that if the German army rushed into the city, it would be time to fight in the street, so the next thing I want to know is the damage of the buildings in the city.

After listening to my question, wittkov shook his head and replied, "report to the commander, the German artillery only destroyed some buildings along the river, and the buildings in the city were not damaged." Seeing my puzzled face, he analyzed it for me and said, "I think Manstein probably also wants to take this city as the location of his headquarters, so he ordered the artillery not to bombard the city, so as not to beat the city too badly."

"Is that possible, comrade chief of staff?" After listening to wittkov's explanation, kirilov asked with doubts: "if the Germans don't bombard the city, aren't they afraid that we will use buildings to turn it into an impregnable fortress?"

"Comrade political commissar," at this moment, I thought clearly about Manstein's intention. After all, this is no better than Stalingrad. No matter how tenacious our troops are, they will soon run out of ammunition and food. He didn't destroy the city. Maybe he wanted to wait for the pontoon to be repaired, so that the tanks that rushed into the city would not be affected by the bricks and stones everywhere. So I explained my guess to kirilov: "if we don't destroy the city, no matter which direction their tanks rush into the city, their mobility will not be affected by the debris everywhere, which will bring greater threat to our army."

At noon, several German attacks across the Dnieper were repulsed by our officers and men guarding the river. After receiving the report from Bantai leiev, I picked up my assault rifle and put it on my shoulder. Then I said to kirilov and Vitkov, "political commissar, chief of staff, I'll go to the river and have a look. I'll give it to you here."

When kirilov heard that I was going to risk again, he quickly stood up from his seat and stopped me: "Comrade o'shanina, don't forget that you are the top commander of our army. How can you go to the dangerous front?"

It's not a whim that I want to take a look at the frontier. In addition to understanding the real situation of the front line, I also hope that when I appear on the front line, I can boost my morale. Therefore, as for kirilov's dissuasion, I just shook my head and then said firmly, "Comrade political commissar, thank you for your kindness. It is at such a dangerous time that I should go to the front and talk with the commanders and fighters who take part in the battle to boost their morale. "

Kirilov knew my character very well. He knew that once I decided something, no matter what he said, I would not change my mind. So he nodded and said helplessly, "well, comrade oshanina, since you have decided to go to the front, I will not stop you." At this point, he raised his hand to stop wittkov who wanted to speak, and waved to Yushchenko who was standing at the door. When he came to him, he specially told him, "Comrade captain, it's up to you to take people to protect the commander's safety. You must promise me that even if you all die, you must ensure the safety of the commander. Can you do it? "

"Please rest assured!" Yushchenko took a look at me, straightened his back and replied loudly, "as long as we have one person left, we will never let the commander hurt a hair." More than half an hour later, our party came to the front position of a regiment by the river. There were more than a dozen trenches far away from the river. They were riddled by German shells and were full of craters. A lot of craters are empty soil. If you step on them, they will sink down immediately. If Yushchenko didn't pull me in time, I don't know how many times I fell. Walking along the dilapidated trench for a while, several soldiers sitting in front of us smoking in the trench found us and immediately stood up from the ground and stood upright in the trench. As soon as I went there, I heard a familiar voice: "Hello, comrade commander, welcome to our inspection." I looked in the direction of the voice and saw sergeant adir, who I knew well, standing in the middle of several soldiers. He quickly stepped forward two steps, walked up to him and offered his hand. When I shook hands, I asked curiously, "sergeant adir, I remember you were a scout. How did you come to the trench to be an infantry?"“ Well, comrade commander. " Adir respectfully reported to me: "the commander said that our current task is to carry out defense, so there is no reconnaissance task for the time being, so I signed up for the front position to take part in the battle." I looked at the veteran soldier in front of me and asked curiously, "is he the monitor?"“ Yes, comrade commander. When I first came here, I was the monitor. The order from the higher authorities is very simple, that is, no matter how much we pay, we must stick to our position and never let the German invaders cross the river. " With that, he pointed to the frozen river and continued: "the German troops came rushing in groups from the ice. When they approached our position, we opened fire with all our firepower and knocked the Germans down in pieces on the ice. Comrade commander, you see, the Germans have dropped at least 200 bodies in front of our positions. " There were German bodies all over the ice, and the closer they were to the trench, the more they were. I can believe how Hardy adir were in their fight against the coming enemy. I nodded with satisfaction, then patted Adil on the shoulder and promised him, "Comrade sergeant, as soon as this battle is over, you will be promoted to platoon leader, and I will take care of it myself." Sergeant Adil would immediately thank me for what I said. I didn't expect that after listening, he was silent for a moment, and then he said to me: "Comrade commander, I am now... Now... Already... Already a platoon leader!"