Chapter 143 Admiral
The Soviet Ninth Army fought all night...in fact, it cannot be called "fighting", but should be described as "chasing and killing", because the Romanian army failed to organize a decent resistance along the way.
It’s not their fault. Objectively speaking, the Romanian army is considered good among the servants. Except for Finland, it belongs to the Romanian army.
The problem is that they are poorly equipped and have no deep-rooted hatred for the Soviet army... The Finnish army is brave in combat. The Soviet Union invaded Finland not long ago. The Servant Army" can be regarded as a true ally of Germany.
As for the Romanian army, their feud is precisely their comrades in arms rather than enemies...Hungary and Bulgaria, both of which are German servants.
It is for this reason that Germany has never dared to arrange these armies on the same battlefield, let alone coordinate them.
So what more could the Romanian army be asked for?
But the battlefield is the battlefield, there is no reason to speak.
The Ninth Army's penetration of the weak position between the two lines of defense of the Romanian Army caused heavy losses to the Romanian Army... They lost almost all their artillery and supplies, and the headquarters were occupied by the Soviet Army one after another. Generals, senior generals of various ranks were captured and killed one after another.
But there is one special one.
It was just at dawn, and Shulka and others were still advancing behind the tank.
If there is any trustworthy tank in the Soviet Union at this time, it is the T26. Although it has thin armor and poor defense, the point is that the firepower is quite good and the failure rate is low, which makes infantry at least have usable tanks.
For example, on occasions like this, without the coordinated operations of T26, it would be hard for Shulka to believe that there would be such a result.
I don’t know if it was because of the excitement of victory or other reasons, the tank in front of Shulka drove for ten hours without the driver shouting that he was tired.
The sun slowly rose from the east, and the surrounding world gradually became clearer. The equipment and clothes discarded by the Romanian army were all over the ground... Bullets, guns, cars overturned on the side of the road, and several ammunition boxes fell out and shattered. Bullets and shells were scattered all over the place, and there were even clothes and underwear hanging from tree branches.
Judging by the ashes beneath the clothes, the Romanians appear to have tried to dry them.
It can also be seen from this that they panicked when they fled.
"There is a situation!" At this moment, the long-legged person walking in the front shouted: "Germans, two o'clock!"
The soldiers who were about to fall asleep immediately woke up as if being pricked by needles. The infantry raised their rifles and hid behind the tanks. The tank followers immediately passed the information to the tanks. The two tanks stopped, turned their muzzles and then Just two shells passed.
"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" Shulka heard shouts from the opposite side, speaking in unfamiliar Russian: "We surrender!"
This kind of situation has become accustomed to Shulka and others, because similar things are repeated all night.
But this time it was a little different. When Shulka led a few soldiers and leaned out with their rifles raised, they found two barrel cars parked in front of them, German-style barrel cars.
This is nothing surprising, German barrel carts can be seen everywhere on the battlefield, even if this is the battlefield of the Romanian army.
The difference is that the two colonels who got out of the car and surrendered were German colonels, and these two colonels still seemed to be followers, because the rear door of the barrel truck was opened.
German chief officers have a habit, they prefer to take the co-pilot seat, although theoretically this position is more dangerous.
But this seems to be normal, because the co-pilot has a good view and can understand the situation or danger at the first time... The chief officer hopes to know the situation as soon as possible. This can be said to be an occupational disease or subconsciousness.
These are of course not what Shulka needs to care about.
At this time, Shuerka was thinking, if the colonels are all followers, then what is the rank of the chief officer?
Major General?
Lieutenant General?
The fact is beyond everyone's surprise, there is an admiral in the barrel car.
Shulka couldn't help being surprised when he saw a German general collapsed in the co-pilot seat.
"Who is he?" Shulka asked in English.
The German colonel, who was looking nervously at Shulka and his party with his hands raised, froze for a moment, and then replied in English: "He is General Schobert, Eugen Ritter von Schobert!"
"Schobert? 11th Army Commander Schobert?" Shulka couldn't believe this answer.
"Yes!" The German colonel nodded, his voice trembling: "Our barrel truck triggered a mine, General Schobert..."
Needless to say what happened next, because Shulka saw it all.
The Soviet soldiers cheered unanimously. After all, it is not common to encounter a German general, even though the general was neither captured nor killed by them.
Shuerka's mood is a bit complicated.
This is not because he is a general. Shulka knows that the battlefield does not care about your rank. Both the general and the sergeant must bear the danger, but the danger of the general will be less.
Shuerka just felt that luck was tricking people... In history, Schobert died because the plane accidentally landed on a minefield laid by the Soviet army. I didn't expect to change the method now and still die because of the mines.
What's even more ironic is that these mines were probably planted indiscriminately by Romanian soldiers in order to resist the pursuit of the Soviet army in the rear.
If Admiral Schobert is still alive at this time, I'm afraid he will curse these stupid Romanians again.
But now he obviously can't do that.
Then Shulka thought that this might not be a good thing for the Soviet army, because it was the famous German general Manstein who succeeded Schobert as the commander of the 11th Army.
After the actors and several people carried Schobert's body out of the barrel cart and put it on the side of the road, Shulka gave the order: "Go ahead!"
The group of people followed the tank and continued to advance into the morning fog.
In this battle, the Soviet 9th Army not only successfully rescued Odessa, but also defeated the Romanian 4th Army, annihilating 81,000 Romanians, of whom more than 30,000 were captured.
In addition, there are a large number of artillery, ammunition, cars, etc., but because the equipment of the Romanian army is backward, it seems that only cars can be used for these things.
Regrettably, more than tens of thousands of people passed through the Transnistria Gulf, and most of them broke through the Soviet encirclement and fled back... The Soviet army was short of troops, and after the main force broke into the middle zone, there were not many troops to complete the encirclement.
But this is not important, because so far, the Soviet 9th Army has surrounded the German Army Group South in a general direction, that is, from Kyiv to Odessa.
(end of this chapter)