Chapter 1676

That evening, I received a call from Zhukov from the headquarters of the front army. He said to me in a relaxed tone: "Rita, the four armies of the central assault group of our front army are developing smoothly. They have successfully arrived at the main road between Warsaw and Berlin, and have not met the tenacious resistance of the German army along the way.

According to the information we have, the enemy's troops in this area have been smashed by us. They have no ability to launch a counterattack against us until they get a new reserve. In addition to the left and right wing forces, the progress is very smooth, so you can rest assured and boldly move forward, cut off the railway from Warsaw to chinsitohova in a short time, and send advance forces to capture gluvno and brzezine. "

After Zhukov finished, I asked him curiously about the situation of the two wings: "Comrade marshal, I don't know what kind of results the troops on the left and right wings of our front army have achieved?"

"Before dark yesterday, the left wing marshal konev's forces successively captured the three cities of ladomsco, chincitohova and zavilche, and circuited the Silesian industrial zone from the north." Zhukov briefly introduced to me the results of the other two marshals: "marshal rokosovsky's forces on the right have captured such cities as pushsnich, mwava, plotsk and modlin, and are developing attacks on torun, danze and other cities along the river bank of wiswa, preparing to cut off the contact between the German army group in East Prussia and the outside world."

After the call with Zhukov, I discussed with trakov, katukov and general Bogdanov, commander of the 2nd group army of the close guard tank, the attack plan for tomorrow.

"We should make full use of the day time to allow the troops to move forward along the main line of the new miyasto Rava mazowitzka brzezine highway," said trakov, who spoke first. At the same time, in order not to disperse the forces of our group army and form a powerful fist to attack the enemy, I request that the Fourth Army of the close guard infantry be transferred to the second echelon and deployed on the left wing of the group army. "

"I agree." After agreeing with trakov's request, I turned to the other two tank commanders: "do you two have anything to say?"

Katukov and Bogdanov looked at each other, then said with a smile: "now that we don't have to worry about the German attack on both wings, we can continue to carry out the rapid attack, and our troops will go out to the main motorway leading to Berlin tomorrow."

Before dawn the next day, the 8th group army and the 5th group army attacked the German army from their respective defensive areas. And katukov and Bogdanov's close guard tanks, the 1st and 2nd army units, followed closely behind the two army groups, advancing towards the depth of the enemy.

As the order was given, our officers and men immediately attacked the German position opposite. The German officers and men who stuck in the fortifications were not interested in fighting. They fought for a while and then fled. We easily captured the positions abandoned by the German army.

High morale of the officers and men do not care to rest, they chase the fleeing enemy to defense in depth. By 1:00 noon, the main forces of the 28th and 29th guards had arrived at the Warsaw piwatlekov railway, while the reconnaissance troops had arrived in the areas of demosin, brzezine and galkov.

We had just set up a temporary headquarters in a wooden house beside the railway when we received a phone call from general semenkov, commander of the 29th army of the guards. He said to trikov in a hurry, "report to commander, there is an outline of a city in front of us. It looks like a big city!"

"What, found a big city?" While answering the phone, trakov motioned the staff to get a map. After a brief search, he pointed on the map with his hand and said to the microphone, "what you see should be Lodz, which is the second largest city in Poland and an important industrial city in Poland."

"Comrade commander, what shall we do next?" Shemenkov asked on the phone.

"If we let the troops continue to advance to the areas of demosin, brzezine and galkuv, we can eliminate the enemies we encounter along the way, but we must not attack the city." "We'll wait until we finish the siege of Roz," trikov told his opponent

When trakov finished assigning tasks to his subordinates, I first called katukov, and then learned that his troops had detoured back to the rear of Rhodes from the south, cutting off the German retreat. Then I called general berzalin, commander of the 5th group army, to understand their progress. When I learned that berzalin's headquarters had successfully occupied the city of wovich, northeast of Rhodes, I decided to concentrate my forces to solve Rhodes first.

"Rita," trikov said to me, "we can't get in touch with the front command for the time being, so what's the next step? Do you want to move on and leave the city with a large number of German troops behind our army, or do you want to stay outside the city and wait for orders from the higher authorities? "

"General trakov, I'm not going to take either option." I said with a straight face, "I've decided to launch an attack on the city. Later, I'll call several other commanders to discuss and work out the siege plan."

Two hours later, katukov, Bogdanov and berzalin came to the temporary headquarters one after another to participate in the military conference that I temporarily presided over. Seeing all the people coming, I slowly stood up and said to the group army commander here, "comrades, our next task is to seize Rhodes as soon as possible. The siege mission will be completed by general trakov's guards Group 8, while general katukov's guards group 1 will be responsible for cutting off the retreat in the west of the city to prevent the enemy from escaping in this direction. General Bogdanov and general berzalin, your troops will continue to stay in the north of Rhodes. One is to prevent the German army from breaking through from your direction. At the same time, you should be careful of the German reserves from other directions. "

After giving an account of the general operational deployment, I let trakov go on with his idea: "I intend to let the troops stay in demosin, brzezine and galkuv areas for a while and let them have a good rest. The 28th and 29th guards, who are responsible for the offensive task, will occupy the offensive starting positions before dawn. As soon as the time arrives, they will start to attack from the East and northeast at the same time, and carry out the offensive from the west through zjesh to Konstantinov. Among them, the 88th division of the close guard infantry attacked on the broad front and went forward to the regions of pionne, Czechoslovakia and ozolkov.

In addition, under the command of general weinroub, the tank group composed of the 11th tank brigade and three independent tank regiments moved rapidly to the southern suburbs of the city to stop the enemy who tried to escape in this direction. "

Two hours before the attack, trakov moved his headquarters to the town of bieriqi, not far from the main force. Today is a sunny day with a clear sky. Trekov and several staff officers stood outside the headquarters, looking for a relatively high earth slope and looking out at the city in the distance.

In addition to the faint sound of gunfire from the north, the East where we were was was quiet. In those continuous fortifications, it seemed that there was no German soldier. Artillery commander pozharski asked trikov, "Comrade commander, all the artillery are in place, ready to provide artillery support for the attacking forces."

"Wait a minute, Comrade General." Trekov waved to his artillery commander and said, "judging from the sound of the gun, the Germans don't seem to stick to this city. Therefore, if we can not fire, we should not fire for the time being. Once such an industrial city is damaged, it will be a troublesome thing to rebuild it. "

When pozharsky heard what trakov said, he looked disappointed, but he nodded his head and said, "I understand, comrade commander. I will keep the artillery in a state of preparation. As long as you give us a command, we can launch a heavy artillery attack on the enemy's defensive zone immediately."

As we were talking, the roar of the plane's engine came into the air. Hearing this, our first reaction was: is it the German plane coming?

When he heard that the sound was coming from behind us, there was a relaxed expression on his face. He turned and raised his telescope to look into the air. Then he said with some pride, "Rita, it's our plane. There are at least more than 100 of them. There are dozens of escort fighters, as well as a certain number of IL-2 attack aircraft. "

Seeing so many of my own planes in the air, I should be happy, but I don't know why, my heart beat faster, even a little out of breath. I looked around, trying to find something that upset me, but I found nothing.

At this time, I heard a staff officer saying to his colleagues, "the air force has deployed at least 120 planes. This time, the Germans will suffer."

When I heard the staff officer talking about airplanes, I couldn't help looking up at the group of airplanes flying in the distance. They used to be small black spots, but now I can see the outline clearly without a telescope. When I saw the approaching fleet, I suddenly had a flash of inspiration in my mind. When I remembered that I had been accidentally bombed by my own air force during the Stalingrad defense war, I yelled "no good" and then ran to the headquarters.

Trikov didn't know what happened, so he caught up with him and asked nervously, "Rita, what's the matter?"

"General trakov, do you remember that our troops were mistakenly bombed by our own air force as soon as they got off the train at the meeting?" I spoke very quickly and said, "we haven't had time to report the operational plan of attacking Rhodes to the headquarters of the front army. How can the air force come to support us? I'm afraid they'll think of our army as German. "

"No way," said trakov, looking up at the clear sky and doubtfully, "our air force won't mistake us for Germans because of the fine weather and high visibility?"

"If you're not afraid of ten thousand, you'd better be cautious." At this moment, I have come to the operator's side, and stopped talking with trakov. Instead, I told the operator: "send a power to the air force headquarters, saying that the troops of the 8th group army of our close guard are besieging Rhodes, and asking their air force not to blow up our troops outside the city by mistake."

After listening to my dictation, the operator didn't immediately send a telegram, but turned his eyes to trekov for help. Trikov frowned and said impatiently, "didn't you hear the order from the deputy commander of the front army? Send a message to the air force immediately, and ask them to distinguish the ground targets, so as to avoid the time of accidental bombing. "

While the operator was sending out the message, trakov said to me in a low voice, "Rita, do you really think those air forces are going to be bad for us?"

"I have a bad intuition," I said to trikov with a wry smile. "Our air force will definitely regard our ground troops as Germans and blow them up indiscriminately. That's why I have to send a message to the air force command to avoid similar vicious incidents. "

A few minutes later, just as we were standing by the telephone and waiting for a call back, Pronin suddenly ran in from the outside and said to trakov and me with a puzzled face: "it's really strange that our fleet didn't fly this way any more, but hovered over the area where the second echelon was gathering, and we didn't know what they were going to do."

"Hell, it's a living hell." Trikov turned to look at me and spat out a sentence from his teeth: "Rita, it seems that you are right. Our air force regards my troops as German." I asked the operator anxiously, "hasn't the air force called back yet?" The operator didn't finish, but shook his head bitterly“ No, I think it's too late when the air force headquarters calls back. We have to find a way to help ourselves. " After he finished, trikov said to Pronin: "Comrade military commissar, you come with me. We must find a way to stop this accidental bombing." Thinking that there was no direct radio connection between us and the air force pilots, I immediately told them, "two generals, why don't we let our soldiers spread the red flag on the ground and spell out" CCCP "so that the pilots can see that we are our own people. What do you think of this plan? "“ That's not enough. We have to do something else. " Trikov called one of the staff officers and said in a loud voice, "prepare signal guns immediately, fire green signal bombs into the air, tell them that the troops on the ground are their own, go and do not drop bombs or strafe at the troops on the ground." The way we came up with was soon carried out to the letter by the soldiers. Seeing the red flag paved on the ground, the green signal bombs constantly rising, the fighters hovering in the air and the IL-2 finally confirmed that the ground was our army, they turned around and flew eastward in neat formation.