"What's going on?" Batov raised his voice and asked the staff in a loud voice, "how can our troops fall into the siege of the Germans?"
The staff officer replied bitterly: "the troops of the 11th group army pursued the German army and advanced nearly 20 kilometers in an hour. When passing through a forest area, they are suddenly ambushed near the German army in the area. At present, they are engaged in fierce fighting with the German army. "
After listening to the staff's introduction, Batov did not care to discuss with me, so he directly told the staff: "this matter is of great importance, and it needs to be reported to the headquarters of the front army immediately." With that, he picked up the phone on the desk and was ready to call rokosovsky.
I was shocked when I heard that two divisions of the 11th army were ambushed by the German army. Originally, our troops were chasing the fleeing German army, but in a flash, the roles of both sides changed. The hunter who chased the prey fell into the trap built by the prey. It was a naked face.
While Batov was talking to rokosovsky, I called bezikov to him and asked him in a low voice, "chief of staff, how long will it take for our troops to get there?"
"The troops of the 11th group army are isolated and deep-seated. There are no our troops in their vicinity." Bezikov said cautiously: "the nearest one to them now is the 51st division of the guards of Colonel shejerikov, but even if the road is not blocked by the German army, it will take at least an hour or so to arrive. I'm afraid the two divisions won't last that long under the German siege. "
I know that bezikov is not alarmist. When the two divisions are chasing the German army, they may never dream that they will be ambushed, so their march must be very long. In the case of a sudden attack by the German army, it is estimated that it is difficult to organize decent resistance.
I was hesitating whether I should risk sending out the 51st division of the guards when Batov suddenly called me, "Comrade oshanina, comrade commander, I want to talk to you."
After receiving the phone call from Batov, I said respectfully to the microphone, "Hello, commander of the front army, what instructions do you have?"
Hearing my voice, rokosovsky didn't say a word, but said, "Rita, now you have two divisions surrounded by the German army. Do you have any good way to rescue them?"
"I'm going to send a division to rescue them." After I said this, I felt that if I rashly sent an infantry division to reinforce, if I met the German army with technical equipment such as tanks, then I would send this unit to give head to the German army. I quickly added, "I will send self-propelled artillery regiment and tank battalion to work with them."
"I heard that the two divisions were isolated and there were no troops of our army near them." Rokosovsky said anxiously: "if you want to send people to rescue, you need to act immediately, otherwise they may be eaten by the German army. Do you understand? "
"I see, comrade commander. I will try to rescue the troops of these two divisions from the German encirclement. " After I finished my statement to rokosovsky, it suddenly occurred to me that the ground forces were slow. It would take at least an hour for them to come into contact with Germany. The only way to prevent the two divisions from being completely annihilated in the shortest time was to ask rokosovsky to send out the air force. Thinking of this, I said to rokosovsky: "Comrade commander of the front army, I have a suggestion. Can we send air force to air raid the German ground forces, so as to reduce the pressure on our besieged forces and buy time for our rescue forces?"
For my proposal, rokosovsky was silent for a moment, then readily agreed: "well, Rita, I'll send the air force to bomb our enemies nearby. At the same time, you should send two divisions to reinforce them. I would like to remind you that the deployment of troops should not affect the defensive forces in the west of the city. Because if the German forces in the city find out that we have the situation of troop mobilization, they may concentrate their strength again and launch a counterattack against the defenders in the west of the city. "
"I understand." At present, the most urgent task is to rescue the trapped troops from the encirclement of the German army. Since rokosovsky ordered to send two divisions, I have to send out both the 51st division and the 8th 9th division of the guards. The defense in the west of the city can only be temporarily transferred to the 90th Division of the guards.
At the end of the call with rokosovsky, I immediately told bzikov: "chief of staff, record the order. The 8th.9th and 51st divisions of sherekin's guards will immediately hand over the existing defensive positions to the 90th division of sherekov's guards, and then take all available means of transportation to move westward as fast as possible to rescue the besieged troops. In addition, the tank battalion of captain shamrih and the self-propelled artillery regiment of major shuklin are also involved in the fighting. "
I couldn't help but smile bitterly as bezikov walked quickly to the operator beside the wall and urged him to send a message. Then I said to Batov and chisgakov, "I hope these two divisions of the 11th army can support our Reinforcements under the siege of the German army."
After staring at the map for a while, chisgakov looked up at me and asked, "why do the Germans ambush in the forest? Is it true that all their commanders are clever and know that our troops will surely follow us in pursuit, so they use ambush to fight a war of annihilation? "
"It's not what you think, general chisgakov." Batov raised his right hand, scratched the back of his head and analyzed to us: "I don't think the enemy who broke through last night chose to break through westward because he couldn't hold on to the city. There is a huge conspiracy, they say
"Conspiracy, what conspiracy?" Asked chisgakov curiously.
"According to my judgment, when we attacked the frustrated enemy of zhylobin, we found that we had a new force pressing against them from several directions. We knew that if we met each other hard, we would not be able to get along with each other, so we set up a trap." Batov is really a very capable commander. After a little thought, he guessed the intention of the German commander, so he pointed out on the map with his hand and said to us, "the German commander is very clear that if their troops give up the city and retreat to the west, then we can follow them."
"General Batov, the Germans should understand very well that as soon as they retreat, our troops can pursue them." Some unconvinced, chisgakov said: "don't the German commanders understand that they will be more easily eaten by our army if they give up the cities with solid fortifications and flee to the open wasteland?"
"Comrade deputy commander, don't talk." I want to hear if Batov's analysis coincides with what I think. I quickly stopped chisjakov and said, "let's continue to listen to general Batov's analysis."
Batov nodded gratefully at me, and then said, "the German commander is a smart man. He knows that if we let all the troops retreat now, they will be in danger of being destroyed once our whole army comes down. Therefore, he ordered the troops of the two divisions to fight a defensive war with us outside the city, while the German troops who stayed in the city chose to break through. In this case, our main force will be contained here, and we can't spare too many troops to pursue the defeated enemy. "
"The enemy is not defeated." Hearing this, chisgakov whispered, "they are pretending to retreat, but they are actually leading our troops into a trap."
"Yes, general chisgakov, you have done a lot of analysis." Batov agreed with this statement of chisgakov, "the Germans know that they can't help us with their existing strength, so they can only try to eat part of our troops to weaken our strength."
"I don't know if these two divisions can support our reinforcements." I saw that Batov's analysis was similar to his own idea. I asked with some worry: "if they were wiped out by the German army before the guard division arrived, then the Germans could turn around and attack our guard division."
"If that happens, it's a problem." Batov obviously had a similar experience. He frowned and said, "the enemy is waiting for work, so we can eat our reinforcements a little bit."
Bezikov went back to us and reported, "I have received two telegrams from the division commander of the close guard division. They said that they would set out in half an hour to rescue the trapped troops."
"Chief of staff, remember to remind them that the Germans are cunning rabbits. It takes a lot of heart to deal with them." I am deeply afraid that they will make the same mistake again. I specially asked bezikov to send a telegram to remind them: "on the march of the troops, we should send more scouts to find out the enemy's movements, so as to avoid falling into a new ambush circle."
Seeing that I was so serious, Batov comforted me unexpectedly and said, "don't worry. No matter how cunning the rabbit is, it's just a grass eating animal. The hunter can easily deal with him."
The troops of sheiliujin and sheijerikov soon drove along the road towards the area where the friendly troops were ambushed. In order to let us know the situation of the front line in time, they sent me a telegram every ten minutes to report the movement of the troops in detail.
"The sound of guns in front of us can be heard clearly. It should be the friendly forces fighting!"
"The vanguard regiment of the 51st division of Jinwei has exchanged fire with the German army. The enemy has built simple Fortifications on our way forward, and we are assembling our troops to launch an attack! "
"The first battalion of the vanguard regiment has lost its attack. The second battalion and the Third Battalion are gathering in the forest north of the road, ready to launch another attack on the enemy's defensive positions."
…………
All the telegrams sent back from the front line are directly in my hands. After reading the telegram, I put it on the table at any time, while Batov and chisjakov picked up the telegram and checked the advancing speed of our army with reference to the map.
After watching for a while, Batov said to me, "Comrade oshanina, judging from the current situation, the two divisions of the 11th group army are still fighting. As long as you urge the commanders and fighters of the close guard division to speed up the attack, I believe our troops will join forces in a short time."
"No, I can't drink hot soup in a hurry." I poured cold water on the optimistic Batov, and then said, "our contact with the besieged troops has been interrupted for a long time, so that we still don't know what kind of German troops are besieging them, how many troops they have, and what technical equipment they have. These questions are completely unknown to us. Therefore, no one can tell what kind of danger our reinforcements will encounter in the next battle. "
Batov listened to me, nodded silently, and then said with a little regret, "it's a pity that almost all my troops have been scattered. Otherwise, at this time, they can be used." Just as we were worried about the encircled troops, the German army surrounded by us unexpectedly launched a breakthrough operation. They seemed to notice that our troops were weak in the west, so they concentrated their superior forces and launched a ferocious attack on the defensive area of the 90th division. When the news reached the headquarters, bzikov asked me in a flurried way, "Comrade commander, the German offensive is very fierce. It seems that they are bound to win the defensive positions of our army. What should we do?"“ Chief of staff, what shall we do? " I took a look at bzikov, and then told him, "since the German army has launched an attack in the west of the city, we will also attack."“ Are we going to attack? " On hearing my command, bzikov could not help but widened his eyes and asked in disbelief, "the German offensive is very fierce. If we attack them, the casualties of the troops will be absolutely no small."“ Chief of staff, when did I say I was fighting the German army? " Seeing that bezikov had misinterpreted what I meant, I had to explain to him: "when I said attack, I meant the three directions of North, East and south. The peripheral positions of these places all fell into our hands. Since the enemy was going to attack the west of the city, you should inform the 90th division of the guards to hold their positions and resolutely block the enemy's breakthrough. In the other directions, they turned to all-round attack, so that the Germans could not spare themselves, so that they could not spare any more troops to take part in the breakout battle in the west of the city. "“ I see, "said bzikov, immediately after listening to me," I see it all, comrade commander. Let's take a drastic tactic to make the German army in the city run to the end, so that they can only defend passively and can't spare more troops to break through. " I nodded to bzikov, indicating that his analysis was correct. Then I turned my attention to akhromeyev, who was standing by the telephone, and asked aloud, "major, what's the situation with the guards division? Have they contacted the besieged troops?"