Chapter 1700

I thought Kuznetsov would not be able to take over Simoniac's post as commander of the third shock group army if the attack on Berlin started two months ahead of schedule. But what happened in front of me made me stand in the same place and smile bitterly. I felt that the correction ability of this history is really powerful.

After dismissing the former commander of the third group army, Zhukov told malining: "chief of staff, call Kuznetsov immediately and ask him to come here immediately to accept the new appointment."

When malining got back from the phone call, Zhukov called us to the map, pointed to the location of the landing site on the left bank and said to us, "here, there is a small island formed by the alluvial deposits of the Oder River, the Valta River and its tributaries. A strong German fortress is built here. At present, trakov is trying to cut off the connection between the fortress and the highlands of zelauf, you have to understand, If we don't capture this fortress, we can't connect the landing site created by trakov and berzalin. So in the next few days, we will try our best to seize this fortress. "

With these words, trikov focused his eyes on me and said, "Rita, I'm going to send you to trikov's troops to supervise him to seize this fortress. Is there a problem?"

"No problem," I didn't expect that Zhukov would send me there soon after I came back from trakov's army. However, since he has given orders, I can only obey them, so I simply replied, "marshal, I will obey your orders."

In this way, I came back to trekov's headquarters. Seeing my appearance, trekov's face showed a surprised expression: "Rita, why are you here again?"

"General trakov, I'm here today to give you Marshal Zhukov's orders." As I said this, I took out the battle order signed by Zhukov from my briefcase and handed it to him. At the same time, I said, "he ordered you to seize the German fortress on the island in the middle of the river in the shortest time."

After quickly browsing through Zhukov's orders, trakov nodded to me and said, "Rita, you're here by a coincidence. We're discussing how to take this fortress." With that, he introduced to me the division leaders who attended the meeting, "I intend to let the troops of the 35th and 82nd divisions of the guards take part in the battle of conquering the fortress."

After I sat down, trakov continued: "at present, the gap between the two landfills on the left bank of the Oder River is about three kilometers. Through this corridor, the enemy maintained contact with koschin core fort on the island in the main riverbed of the Oder River. The core Fort itself is the foundation of a wedge that divides my landfills. Our current task is to cut this wedge at a weak point west of koschin, and then to bring the wings of the two groups together. In this way, the enemy's garrison in the fortress will be isolated. "

Although my rank and position are higher than that of trakov, after the combat deployment of the 8th group army, I consciously acted as an audience, so as not to interfere with the command of trakov.

Although trakov is assigning tasks to his subordinates, his eyes are always on me, as if he has been worried that I will interfere with his operational deployment: "we will carry out a surprise attack on the enemy's defense from the south, and will go out to the Kitts duckling railway. General berzalin's forces will attack with us from the north at the same time, in order to join us in the area of golicov railway station. "

I waited patiently for him to explain the task to his subordinates, and finally asked, "general trakov, I don't know when you plan to attack the fortress?"

"At least two days later," trekov explained to me, seeing my blank face, "we need the air force to bomb German fortresses in a planned way, day and night, destroy their defense system and command system, and clear the way for our upcoming attack."

As for trekov's proposal, I support it: "OK, general trekov. Anyway, the task given to you by the headquarters of the front army is to seize the fortress on the island in the near future. I will help you contact the air force and bomb the fortress day and night. "

After Zhukov learned about trakov's attack plan, he immediately gave the order to the air force commander to attack, so the overwhelming number of planes appeared over the German fortress, dropping tons of bombs on the fortress and the passageway leading to the zerlof heights.

Two days later, the 8th group of guards attacked from the south, while the 5th assault group of berzalin attacked from the north. After more than half a day's fierce fighting, the two army groups successfully joined forces and defeated the enemy in the corridor between the fortress and the highlands of zelauf. Except those who were killed or captured, the rest of the defeated soldiers retreated to the fortress on the island.

Now that the two armies have joined forces, when discussing the next action plan, I also called general berzalin to the headquarters of trakov to discuss how to seize the fort.

"The core Fort itself is located on an island formed by the alluvial deposits of the Oder River, the Valta River and their tributaries. The approach to the island has been inundated by the spring flood. Only dikes and embankments connect the fortress with the land. The dikes and embankments are fan-shaped and point in different directions - Berlin, Frankfurt, Poznan and szeching. There is no doubt that the enemy will do its best to close these roads, and build dikes and embankments full of field fortifications, bunkers, civil firing points, bomb shelters, bunkers, barbed wire and landmine barriers. However, we can't deploy large forces here, because the German only needs to put a tank to completely block the road of the dam. "

Seeing that everyone was in a state of melancholy, trakov continued: "how do we attack? I think artillery should play a major and decisive role. As Comrade Stalin said, artillery is the God of war. It should destroy the bunkers, shelters and civil firing points built on the embankment roads. At this time, our air force is out to destroy the core fort and the remaining fortifications around it. "

After listening to trakov's words, berzalin put forward his own question: "general trakov, if we want to destroy German bomb shelters and civil fire points, we can only use heavy artillery and large caliber mortars, but we can't bombard German fortresses in the usual way, because our offensive troops are too close to the enemy."

"General berzalin, you have a point." Trikov agreed with berzalin's words, "in order to choose the right artillery position, I plan to personally go to the field with the artillery commander General pozharski and two division commanders of the 35th and 82nd divisions of the guards to carry out a detailed survey, so as to find out a more reliable and safe method."

After a day's on-the-spot investigation, trakov proposed to me that the task of seizing the fortress on the island could be completed by his troops independently. When I saw that he was so confident, I said hello to berzalin and told him that he only needed to be responsible for monitoring the enemy in zelauf heights, and that the task of solving the island would be handed over to the 8th group army of guards.

Two days before the attack, trakov called all the commanders above regiment level of the 35th and 82nd divisions of the guards to the headquarters for combat deployment. After a few simple greetings, he handed over the task to the chief of staff, Vladimirov.

Vladimirov went to the map, picked up an explanation stick, pointed to the map and said to everyone: "tomorrow morning, our army will send out attack and bombing air forces to target and bomb island fortresses and other permanent fortifications. The air force forced the enemy to withdraw from these fortifications to the field fortifications through its assault. On this day, except for the artillery company designated to fire directly at the wall of the fort, other artillery did not fire.

In the early morning of the day after tomorrow, our air force will attack the same target again, so that the enemy's garrison troops will not be able to return to the core fort, but will have to stay in the field fortifications. But when they did so, they just fell into our trap. As soon as the bombing stopped, our artillery, which had long been ready to go, would fire at the field fortifications together. The duration of the rapid attack was 30 minutes. After the artillery attack, the landing infantry crossed the river by boat and landed on the island. After the assembly, they began the general attack.

From the right bank of the Oder River, the 82nd division of the close guard infantry was responsible for the task of attacking the fortress; The task of attacking the fort from the left bank is performed by the 35th division of the guards. One regiment of the 35th division is going to land on the island from the south. "

I couldn't help nodding my head and saying I was surprised by this plan. First, by bombing, I forced the German army to escape from the fortress and the permanent fortification, so that they could escape into the field fortification calmly. The next day, they attacked the fortress and the permanent fortifications again. When the German army entered the field fortifications again, they ordered the artillery to open fire suddenly and caught them by surprise.

When Vladimirov finished speaking, he looked at the commander sitting below and asked, "does anyone have any questions? You can ask me now. "

As soon as his voice fell, a colonel stood up. Through his name, I know that he is the head of the 102nd regiment of the guards. He looked at Vladimirov and asked, "Comrade chief of staff, in the first day of bombing, you mentioned the artillery companies that directly aimed at the fortress wall. I want to know what happened to these artillery companies?"

Vladimirov did not immediately answer his question. Instead, he turned to look at trakov, who was sitting beside him, as if asking for his advice. Trikov nodded, then stood up, put his hands on the edge of the table, leaned forward slightly, and said to the commanders sitting below, "comrades commanders, let me explain to you what happened to these artillery companies. In order to effectively destroy the German firepower, I specially deployed three heavy artillery companies equipped with 203 mm caliber artillery.

An artillery company concealed itself in a dike on the left bank of the Oder River near Kitts, a suburb, and fired at a civil firing point on the right bank.

Hide the Second Artillery Company in the dam on the right bank of the Oder River, 400 meters south of the island, and let it aim at the civil firing point and dam on the left bank. This configuration can ensure the cross fire to the visible close range target. In order to avoid injuring one's own people by mistake, obvious signs have been set up in the front of our army on the dykes on both sides of the river.

A third artillery company was deployed on a dam near zabuqin station. From this area, our artillery can clearly see the wall of the core fort and fire directly at it. "

After the first day of bombing, in order to observe the heavy artillery directly hit the fortress wall, trekov and I drove to a water tower northwest of zabuqin station. We stand in front of a huge filter, which looks like a water tower with chlorine, caustic soda and water glass. Trakov's adjutant and a guard platoon leader stood side by side in front of the masonry wall of the filter.

While we were observing the damage of the fortress, there was a sharp whistling in the air. A shell exploded on the right side, and a moment later on the left side. It wasn't long before we heard explosions all around us.

"No, we were discovered by the Germans." Trekov yelled and pushed me behind the brick wall. The Germans bombarded us with mortar shells, and from the point of impact, they had targeted us. In this situation, no matter where we run, it is very dangerous. Because once we enter the area where we can hide, the flying shrapnel will be enough to claim our name. We can only hide behind the wall and stick our bodies tightly to the wall. At this moment, I suddenly think of chernyahovsky, the commander of the Belarusian third front army, who died in the battle when he was shelled by the German army. If he had not sacrificed, the Soviet Union would have another wartime marshal before the end of the war. I didn't expect that I was shelled by the German army today. I don't know if my final fate will be the same as chernyahovsky, who almost became the Soviet marshal. At this time, there was a violent explosion beside us. The air wave threw us to the ground and piled us together. After the explosion, when I woke up, I felt like I was under pressure. Trekov was on top of him, and trekov was on top of his adjutant and guard platoon leader. They blocked me and trekov's officers with their bodies, and now they were lying there in blood, motionless. Trakov held his adjutant in his arms and cried desperately, "fiordo, wake up, wake up, wake up!" I struggled to sit up, shook my dizzy head, reached for the motionless guard platoon leader's back neck, and found that he had no heartbeat. I was startled, a little flustered to say: "he's dead!" Trikov turned his head, looked at me blankly and said, "Rita, he's dead. My fiordo and the platoon leader are dead."