The landing site of wazinki palace as we call it should be the Royal bathing beach of Poland. It used to be the summer palace of the king of Poland. To the northeast of wazinki palace, there is an arc-shaped two-story White Palace, which is the famous mesilevicky palace. Perhaps Galitsky was worried that once troops were stationed here, the beautiful palace would be destroyed by war, so he only built a simple fortification in the West and north of the palace.
Seeing that the Polish Army's defense was so lax here, the German army immediately assembled a battalion of troops and launched a fierce attack on the mechelevicky palace under the cover of more than a dozen tanks.
The eighth regiment of major khubar held fast in this area. After several days of fighting, in the face of the German attack, the soldiers had shown great composure. They did not open fire randomly every few hundred meters. Instead, they waited for the German tanks and infantry to enter the range before they opened fire with light and heavy weapons to eliminate the infantry following the tanks.
Two German tanks rushed through the first trench of the Polish army alone. When they were attacking the second line of defense, they were destroyed by the soldiers hiding in the trench with cluster grenades and anti tank grenades. The rest of them turned around and fled back.
As soon as the German troops returned to their starting positions, they immediately bombarded the Polish positions with intensive artillery fire. Although it was a hasty defensive position, but fortunately Galitsky obeyed my orders and built a large number of gun holes in the position. At the beginning of the enemy's shelling, except for two or three soldiers who stayed to watch the enemy, the rest hid in the gun holes.
After more than half an hour's bombardment, the enemy again launched a new charge against the position of the eighth regiment. But in the end, he did not wait to break through the regiment's position. After dropping several burning tanks and hundreds of corpses, he withdrew to his starting position.
The defensive battle in the direction of wajinji palace was very hard, but the situation here where Madame Curie lived was very favorable to our army. Taking advantage of the high buildings around, askarepov arranged a combat team composed of anti tank men, snipers and Gunners in each building according to my instructions. When the enemy appears in the field of vision, the machine gunners will take the lead to open fire, finish a shuttle, no matter what kind of results they get, they will decisively move to other places; The anti tank hand, when the German tanks arrived at the bottom of his building, stood aloof and attacked the top of his weak armor with bazookas or anti tank guns; Snipers are officers, plane shooters or other dangerous people who are dedicated to destroying the enemy.
As a result, in the face of repeated German attacks, the landing field occupied by askarepov was not compressed, but also expanded a lot, causing huge casualties to the German army.
After learning about the different performances of the two armies on the West Bank, rokosovsky specially called me to the headquarters and asked me, "Rita, major general askarepov's troops are doing well in the old city of Warsaw on the West Bank of the visva river. But I have a question. Why didn't you ask the Polish army to do the same? "
As for rokosovsky's question, I replied with a bitter smile: "marshal, it's not that I don't want to promote this kind of street fighting tactics in the Polish army, but because they are located in a place where there are no dense buildings around. Even if I want to promote this kind of tactics to them, there are no necessary preconditions."
"So," said rokosovsky, who was also a wise man. After listening to my explanation, he immediately understood and said, "the Polish army, who occupied the wazinki palace, could only take cruel positional warfare in the face of the German attack. I say that, right? "
"Yes, because the Polish army did not act decisively enough after crossing the river, they did not occupy the favorable terrain in time for defense." "How long they can hold out at the landing site of wajinji palace now depends entirely on their will to fight," I said with a grudge
"As far as I know, the Polish army has suffered heavy casualties in these days of fighting." "If they don't get any more support, I'm afraid they'll either be wiped out by the Germans, or they'll be driven into the visva River," marinin interjected
"But the river crossing equipment we urgently need has not been delivered yet." I said helplessly: "I have called the logistics department several times, but they have no transportation capacity to transport these equipment at present."
"Since our troops on the east coast can't get by, we can consider allowing general askarepov's troops to support the Polish army," malining suggested to me. "Even if only one battalion is sent, it can strengthen the defense force in the direction of wazinki palace."
"No, it can't be." Without hesitation, I denied malining's proposal and made clear my attitude: "not to mention that division commander askarepov's military strength is limited and he can't be reinforced. Even if reinforcements can be provided, a battalion can break through several German defense lines and walk seven or eight kilometers to reach wazinki palace. It is unknown how many people will be left at that time. "
Malining was silent when he heard me say this, while rokosovsky frowned after thinking for a moment and asked me, "Rita, are you really going to watch Galitsky's army fall?"
"I don't know when we will be able to provide assistance to the troops on the other side again." I waited for rokosovsky to finish, and said carefully: "if we have to choose one of the two bad results, we should choose the one with less harm. Instead of letting the two troops on the other side be destroyed, we should choose to let general askarepov's troops survive, so that when we launch another attack on the West Bank, we can at least have a usable landing site. "
"Maybe you're right, Rita." After a long silence, rokosovsky finally agreed with me. He then said, "I'll call general belinger, commander of the first Polish army group, to inform him of the specific situation in the West Bank later."
At this time, I suddenly thought of a thing, quickly put forward to rokosovsky: "by the way, comrade marshal, there is another thing. As far as I know, in the old city of Warsaw, there are crisscross underpasses. The rebels with poor equipment and combat effectiveness use this underpass to attack the Germans everywhere. If a few comrades who are familiar with the underground passage in Warsaw can serve as guides for general askarepov's troops, I believe they will certainly achieve greater success. "
"General belinger, they may still be in contact with the rebels in the city, and I'm sure he will agree to send guides to the troops in askarepov." After rokosovsky finished, he directed at the communication director on one side and said, "get me through to the headquarters of the first Polish Army immediately."
Taking advantage of the communication director's efforts to connect the line, rokosowski said to me in a low voice: "some western media have published some reports that are unfriendly to our country, saying that our army has reached the East Bank of the visva River as early as July 29, but they have not provided any help to the rebel army in Warsaw city."
To tell you the truth, in later generations, I also think that the Soviet Union did something wrong with the Warsaw Uprising. It not only stayed by the river visva and refused to help, but also refused to provide the allies with airdrop airports, so that the Polish people could resist the uprising of the Communist aggressors and were defeated in isolation. But now, as a participant in historical events, my view has changed 180 degrees. Although the Warsaw Uprising was organized by the pro Western Polish government in exile, the Soviet army still provided all the help it could provide, not only sending troops across the river to support, but also risking being shot down by German air defense artillery, the Soviet air force airdropped materials again and again for the uprising troops and residents who had fought bloody battles in the city, Because of the estrangement of the cold war, they were deliberately concealed by western countries.
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On the 23rd, in the face of the increasingly fierce German attack, the Polish army at wazinki palace could not support it. When Galitsky reported to me that there were less than a thousand men left in the division, I immediately ordered him without thinking: "Comrade Colonel, I ordered you to give up your present position immediately and withdraw to the East Bank of the visva river."
After hearing my order, Galitsky hesitated and said, "but Comrade deputy commander, we have sacrificed so many commanders and fighters. If we retreat at such a time, I am afraid that the thinking of the soldiers will not turn this corner."
"It's you who can't change your mind." After penetrating Galitsky's careful thinking, I slowed down and said, "Comrade Colonel, if you had not been betrayed by the krayov army, you might have joined the rebel army fighting in the old city. You have completed your mission. Now take the team down and rest. When the time is right, you can settle the accounts with the Germans. "
The river crossing equipment transported from the rear finally reached the visva River, but now it can only be used to make the Polish army retreat. In order to make the main force of the division safely withdraw to Hedong, major hubar, who was seriously injured, left behind with more than 100 wounded people to take up the cover task.
Just as the main force of Galitsky's division got on the boats berthed by the river and sailed to the east bank, the German army sent out a battalion again. Under the cover of more than a dozen tanks, they stormed towards the landing site of wazinki palace.
Facing the coming German troops, major hubar fought with the wounded tenaciously, leaving dozens of dead bodies and a burning tank in front of the German position. However, due to the outnumbered, the German infantry soon flooded into the trench and started a hand-to-hand battle with the wounded.
Although hubar and the wounded with their own sacrifice, only for the division's main force to win ten minutes of time. But it was this precious ten minutes that allowed Galitsky's troops enough time to reach the east coast and join the troops stationed here.
After occupying the wazinki palace, the German army turned around to deal with askarepov, who held fast to Madame Curie's former residence. In the battle a few days ago, the Germans were beaten to ashes by the mysterious fighting group. This time, they finally learned to be smart. They used stupid looking but very effective tactics to deal with the fighting group that made them headache.
They specially deployed heavy artillery and flamethrowers. As soon as they found that there was a combat team of our army in the building, they immediately collapsed the building with heavy artillery, and then sent the flamethrowers to destroy or drive away the survivors in the ruins with flamethrowers. In the face of such vicious tactics of the German army, our combat team could only retreat to the main position of the landing site step by step.
When I learned the bad news at the headquarters of Gusev, I said to Gusev, "Comrade General, immediately inform askarebov to give up the landing site and withdraw the troops to the east coast."
After several days of fighting, Gusev deeply understood that without the support of the Warsaw Uprising army, our troops on the west bank would only be an isolated army and could not achieve any ideal results at all. Therefore, he did not put forward any counter opinions to my order to withdraw the troops, but only said anxiously: "Comrade deputy commander, it's broad daylight, If we let the troops retreat, will they be hit by long-range German artillery fire? "
"Don't worry," I said confidently, hearing his worry. "The Germans sent troops to attack the landing site by mistake, so they have stopped shelling the visva river. When Colonel galicky led his troops across the river, they were not bombarded by the enemy? I believe the situation will be similar when askarepov leads the Ministry to withdraw. "“ All right, comrade deputy commander. " Hearing what I said, Gusev nodded, "since you say so, I'll contact division commander askarepov immediately and ask him to lead the troops back to the east coast as soon as possible." After hearing the dialogue between Gusev and me, the chief of staff of the group army said reluctantly, "Comrade deputy commander, are we giving up our position on the West Bank like this? You know, we have thousands of officers and men who have died on this land. "“ All right, chief of staff. " Without waiting for him to finish, I interrupted his words: "this is not the time for sentimentality. If we do not withdraw our troops to the east coast as soon as possible, they will be in danger of being destroyed by the German army." As soon as I finished, rokosovsky's phone call came: "Rita, I just heard that Colonel Galitsky had led his troops back to the east coast, and the landing site of wazinki palace was occupied by the Germans?"“ Yes, comrade marshal. " I answered truthfully, "with the support of the Warsaw Uprising and the people, our troops will not be able to achieve anything if they stick to the West Bank. In order to avoid unnecessary sacrifice, I ordered them to give up their existing positions and withdraw to the east bank for rest. " I thought rokosovsky would criticize me for my good ideas, but he said lightly, "I know. When both units are safely back on the east coast, you will immediately arrive at the headquarters of the front army. "