Chapter 1223

After waiting for a while, Zhukov's voice came out of the receiver. He seemed to be in a good mood, and his tone was full of relaxed and comfortable: "Hello, Rita! Judging from today's war report, you have played quite well. If there is no accident, you should arrive at the bottom of Kharkov tomorrow. "

"Yes, comrade marshal." Although Zhukov and I are very familiar with each other, due to our different identities, every time I speak to him, I seem to be a little restrained: "our 299th division occupied a wooden bridge on the UD River and built a bridgehead on the south bank."

I thought Zhukov would praise me for saying this. Who knows, however, he asked in a loud voice, "why don't you go through this bridge of occupation and put more troops on the south bank?" There was a trace of reproach in the tone.

"The wooden bridge was too narrow to pass heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery. After crossing the bridge, the infantry was blocked by intensive German fire and could not move forward at all." In order to give him a more detailed understanding of the situation on the front line, I added: "in order to prevent the German army from destroying the bridge, I have ordered general sivakov, who is commanding at the front line, to send the 84th division to strengthen the 299th division, and at the same time, I have given them the order to guard the bridge at all costs."

"I command you, Rita, to attack the south bank immediately, quickly, and tear a few holes in their line of defense before the enemy is ready." Zhukov told me on the phone: "as long as you have a firm foothold in the depth of your defense, the tanks can quickly eat the German troops in the west of Kharkov as soon as they cross the river tomorrow, so that you can take the initiative in the battlefield."

"I see, comrade marshal." I heard the implication of Zhukov's words. He hoped that we would take advantage of the victory and quickly wipe out the peripheral German troops to the west of Kharkov. He quickly replied, "I will immediately deploy troops to attack the enemy's defense line."

"Well, act now." After Zhukov finished his sentence, he did not hang up immediately. Instead, he added: "the large cluster of high-density and uninterrupted bombing you proposed has achieved good results today, but the air force has limited ammunition. This tactic can only be used once or twice, and we can't afford to use it often."

At the end of the call with Zhukov, I immediately said to chisgakov and managarov who were sitting next to me, "two comrades, Marshal Zhukov ordered us to immediately attack the enemy positions on the south bank."

"Which division are you going to use?" After hearing this, chisgakov frowned and asked, "at present, only the 51st, 52nd and 375TH infantry divisions of the guards can fight."

I glanced at managarov and thought if only he had offered me another division. Seeing that he didn't respond at all, he knew that he was taking it for granted. After all, he had already sent out four divisions on his own initiative. Before the arrival of the 48th infantry army, he would not give me the rest of his troops.

I thought about it, and then said to chisgakov, "this battle may not end before dark. Take the 52nd division of general Nekrasov's close guard. They are good at fighting at night, and let them play their best."

After the assignment, I rushed to the front headquarters of sivakov with several security guards, where I was ready to direct the offensive personally.

When I arrived at sivakov's command post on the hillside, a look of surprise appeared on his face: "Comrade commander, how did you come here?"

Why do you say that every time you see me? Can't you change something new. I murmured to myself twice, coughed softly, and then said to sivakov, "Comrade commander, I have just received an order from my superior that we should attack the enemy on the south bank immediately."

My words surprised him again. He asked in surprise, "if we attack the south bank, will we not clean up the remaining strongholds on the north bank?"

"The German stronghold on the north bank should be completed by the 90th and 116th infantry divisions of the guards, while the task of seizing the position on the south bank should be completed by the 299th and 84th divisions." Seeing sivakov's displeasure on his face, I added: "in addition, I have also brought general Nekrasov's 52nd guard division to fight the German army at night."

I didn't expect that after hearing this, his face not only didn't have the slightest joy, but also frowned. To his response, I asked, "Comrade commander, what are you doing with your frown? Do you think I have too few troops?"

"You are mistaken, comrade commander. I don't think that there are too few troops. On the contrary, there are too many troops. " Sivakov explained to me: "at present, we have only one battalion of the 299th division in the south bank bridgehead. When the German army saw that we had only so many troops, they would have a kind of illusion that as long as they came to charge twice, they would drive our troops out. So far, they have not used artillery to destroy the bridge. If they find out that we have assembled three divisions on the North Bank of the river and are ready to attack them, they may directly destroy the wooden bridge with artillery fire, making it impossible for us to cross the river. "

What sivakov said is beyond my expectation. I then asked, "where is your observation? Can you see the wooden bridge?"

"You can see it." Sivakov replied positively.

"Take me to the observation post immediately." In order to find out the distribution of the enemy and ourselves, after giving him an order, I turned and walked towards the door.

Sivakov took me to the observation center at the top of the mountain, pointed to the river in the distance and said to me, "Comrade commander, there it is. You can clearly see the distribution of our positions with a telescope

I raised my telescope and looked in the direction of his fingers. On the river in the distance, there was a wooden bridge that could only be passed by two people side by side. In both sections of the bridge, there are our defensive positions. Because the main force of our army is on the North Bank of the Wude River, I focus on the south bank.

At the southern end of the wooden bridge, there is a 200 meter long circular trench, in which our commanders and fighters hide. When the camera is pushed southward for another seven or eight hundred meters, it is the German position. In addition to several trenches connected by traffic trenches, there are also many civil fire points, as well as temporary sandbag fortifications. The windows of several buildings behind are also filled with sandbags. Obviously, this is also the German fire point.

I stayed in the open area between the two armies and found a lot of corpses lying here, both German and our own. I don't have to ask at all. I can guess that these bodies were left when the two sides attacked each other.

After seeing the situation of the battlefield clearly, I gave an order to sivakov: "Comrade commander, let the troops break up into parts, take the platoon as a unit, go through the wooden bridge and enter the defense fortifications of the other side. In addition, let general bielei send two tanks to stop by the river and suppress the fire to the opposite position to cover the infantry charge. "

Ten minutes later, there were only two tanks sent by berey. I looked at the two tanks listening by the river, but I couldn't breathe. I told you to send two tanks, but I didn't expect that you only sent two tanks, none of them more. Although they were all new tanks, they were too few to overpower the German troops in firepower.

The Germans soon noticed what we were doing and immediately concentrated a few tanks to fire in the direction of the wooden bridge. The shells fell into the river and exploded, stirring up water column after column. The falling water drenched the soldiers on the bridge.

"Comrade commander, almost a regiment has been assembled across the river. Is it ready to attack?" Sivakov was deeply afraid that I would not realize the seriousness of the problem. He specially stressed that "if the German army smashes artillery fire on our position, such a dense formation, and a shell falls down, it can cause dozens of casualties."

Seeing that they were ready, I simply ordered, "attack! Remember, we must fight harder and try to tear a few holes in the German defence. "

With the order, the tanks stopped by the river fired at the opposite German position. The sound of guns was an order, but after the first round of firing of our tanks, thousands of soldiers gathered at the bridgehead positions yelled and rushed out from the hidden place.

In the face of our charge, there was a moment of silence on the German position, but when our officers and men entered the 200 meter range, they finally opened fire. Mortars began to bombard, and dozens of machine guns in the trenches began to fire wildly. In front of our commanders and fighters, the splashed shrapnel and the burst shrapnel interweave into a dense fire net.

For most experienced commanders and fighters, such intensity of firepower has not been paid attention to. They went on under the heavy artillery fire and the rain of bullets. They used everything they could make use of, including craters and dead bodies, as a cover. In the continuous explosion, they quickly distinguished the sound of the shells passing by, judged the distance of the explosion point, looked at the gap after the shells exploded, quickly fired, or climbed from one crater to another.

In the constant whistling of the commander, the soldiers were rolling forward in the rain of bullets. In the dense rain of bullets, from time to time in the charge of the line burst out all over the sky of blood fog. The whizzing bullets and flying shrapnel pierce their bodies, tear their flesh and blood, and make their flesh and blood shake in the rain of bullets. Then the corpse is like a broken pocket thrown out, which is overturned under the impact of bullets.

Although people fell every minute, the living soldiers still charged forward with slogans. They pushed forward with corpses on the road of attack. Grenades from both sides of attack and defense rained down and threw up smoke walls. The fragments were interwoven to kill the soldiers on both sides. Brave soldiers shining bayonets, staring at the bloodshot eyes, "Ao Ao Ao" to call forward to rush up.

The German soldiers, who had been demoralized because of successive failures, now saw that the soldiers screamed and killed like evil spirits. They were frightened and timid. Many soldiers threw their guns and fled back in disorder. The soldiers ran after them and stabbed them down with bloody bayonets, leaving no survivors.

Seeing that the German forward positions were continuously broken through by our army, the opening became larger and larger, and more and more soldiers poured in, I was relieved. Then I told sivakov: "Comrade commander, call berey and bovsky, and ask them to transfer more tanks and artillery. Today we are going to strike while the iron is hot and beat the German defense in this position to pieces. "

But before berey's tanks and bofsky's cannons arrived, the situation on the battlefield changed unexpectedly. In order to prevent our army from breaking through their positions, the German army concentrated their artillery fire and fired indiscriminately at the breach we had just made. In just a few minutes, the breakthrough is like an erupting crater, wrapped tightly by the rising black smoke. The black smoke explodes one after another, one after another. There are explosions everywhere and flames everywhere. The whole land was ploughed and plowed, and the craters where the artillery fire passed were all over the place. The two armies, which were still fighting madly, disappeared in an instant. At the end of the bombardment, dozens of people came out of the positions where the smoke of gunpowder had not yet dissipated. Although they were ragged, they could see that they were all our commanders and fighters. Most of them had no weapons in their hands and were still wounded. They helped each other and walked towards the bridgehead. When I saw that there was still about a company in the trench, I grabbed sivakov by the shoulder, pulled him to the lookout, pointed to the soldiers who were still in the position, and gave him orders in a loud voice: "Comrade commander, call the commander of the 299th division immediately, and ask him to send out all the soldiers in the trench and pick up all the wounded."“ Cavalry Suddenly a staff officer next to us shrieked“ Cavalry, what kind of cavalry In my impression, I have only seen Soviet cavalry on the Soviet German battlefield. I heard about German cavalry for the first time two days ago, but I have never seen them. Hearing the cry of the staff officer, I quickly raised my telescope again and looked at the battlefield which was still smoking. I saw more than 100 cavalry in a neat formation, raised the saber high above their heads, pointed forward, and rushed to the wounded who were running hard. When the wounded saw the cavalry rushing up behind them, they immediately panicked and wanted to shoot and intercept. There was no available weapon in their hands; Run, man's two legs are better than horse's four legs. At the moment of their hesitation, the enemy's cavalry had directly bumped into their line. The cavalry lying on the horse's back, the downward flat saber flashing cold light, the blade of the sabre instantly passed the soldiers' chest and head, and half of their bodies fell to the ground. Even if the quick reaction of the rifle to resist, but in this high-speed impact, it was even split into two sections with a gun. In an instant, dozens of soldiers who escaped from the intensive German artillery fell to the ground.