by Colin Gee
Stelmakh switched his focus to his gunner.
“Are you on that target, Oleg?”
“Yes, Comrade Mayor.”
“Fire!”
“Firing!”
The 122mm breech leapt back as the massive gun sent a solid shot down range, aimed at the square hedge behind which the loader had claimed to see an enemy Panther tank.
0340 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, Route 79, three kilometres northeast of Koprzywnica, Poland.
Serzhant Oleg Ferensky was a superb gunner, with years of experience.
His aim was perfect but still flawed, as he did not know that the Panther was sat lower because of the scrape in the ground in which it had descended.
As a result, the heavy shell missed the tank and screamed over the top of the turret.
None the less, it did good work.
The 1er RCDA was decapitated…
… as was Rolf Uhlmann.
“Berta, Berta, this is Anton, come in, over.”
For the eighth time, the radio waves remained silent.
Knocke held himself in check, willing the commander of his tank regiment to come back online, but sensing that another comrade had been lost to the dogs of war.
“Enough. Try the second in command again.”
“Berta-two, Berta-two, Anton, over.”
The silence held unmistakable portents of doom.
Knocke looked at the situation map and calmly thought through the whole action, taking in each change
He looked back to the signallers as the radio continued to crackle with reports of heavy fighting.
The action all focussed upon the area in which Uhlmann’s assault force was engaged, and in the Alma zone, where units of the other division should have been providing a link between Camerone and the Vistula.
Knocke ordered Haefali’s force to Koprzywnica but no further, something that drew D’Estlain back to the table once he had passed the order.
“Why no further, mon Général? Surely Haefali’s presence would help stiffen Uhlmann’s force?”
“I think we’ve moved well beyond that point now, Alphonse. This isn’t an accident… we’ve walked into a strong enemy force here… they’ve concealed themselves… everything makes me think this is a trap and I’m going to get us out of this before we think about how to go forward again.”
The radio brought forward more urgent voices, and both senior men stopped their discussion to listen in.
“Merde!”
D’Estlain moved towards the radio group to make certain he was hearing what he thought he was hearing, whilst Knocke took advantage of the moment to pour a glass of water.
Being away from the radios meant he heard more in some strange way, as his CoS was focussed on reports from Haefali.
Knocke’s attention was on a report from their running mate in the DRH, the Grossdeutschland Division.
He sprang across the room and put his hand on the radio operator’s shoulder.
“Confirm that report immediately.”
The report was repeated and Knocke saw the death of his division laid bare in the words.
He was back at the map in the blink of an eye, accompanied by D’Estlain.
“Alphonse, we have a problem… a big problem. Grossdeutschland have reported a strong enemy thrust battered to a halt roughly half a kilometre from Włostów… here!”
“Mon Dieu!”
The point of the enemy advance was well beyond the key junction at Lipnik.
“No time to lose. Urgently request Leroy-Bessette to send his 1er Brigade to the area here… I want them to link with Grossdeutschland here and with Emmercy here. I’ll sort that out with General Lavalle but make sure Leroy-Bessette gets his men moving quickly. Emmercy’s units to hold in place, and orient for defence to the north, northeast, and east. Haefali is to orient…”
“Sir, Haefali’s report had him under artillery fire with an enemy force approaching from the north and northwest.”
“What?”
“He’s here… at Koprzywnica… I believe he’s got enemy moving down Route 758… here… and the north… this way.”
“Verdammt normal! The bastards have flanked us already!”
Knocke’s loud expression of emotion was enough to guarantee that anyone who hadn’t grasped the seriousness of the situation was now fully aware.
“Right… I’ll ask General Lavalle to deploy the rest of Alma along the line at ŁONIÓW… we’ll use Route 9 as our backstop line. Meanwhile, get Uhlmann’s force back to Haefali and defend Koprzywnica until otherwise ordered. I need more information from there and I need it now.”
There was an obvious problem that hadn’t yet been addressed.
“I want the recon force in 7e RTA to check out the area here,” he pointed to a circle that included Postronna and Zbigniewice.
“I want to know if there’s anything of substance sat in there.”
D’Estlain finished his notes.
“Shall we prepare to move back, mon Général?”
Knocke shook his head.
“No. I need to be close to this and, as things stand… and for all I know… enemy forces could be on their way here right now… and if so we’re all the division has between it and destruction. We’ll stay here, Alphonse.”
A signal NCO interrupted their discussion.
“Sorry, mon Général, but Général Lavalle’s on the telephone and insists on speaking to you immediately.”
Knocke accepted the interruption with a nod.
“Alphonse, get our men moving quickly now.”
“Oui, mon Général.”
“Knocke.”
He listened intently as Lavalle apprised him of the problems with Grossdeutschland’s failure to push forward, and then requested the release of the 1er Division’s infantry to protect the gap between the DRH division and Emmercy’s group.
He was more than surprised when it was not given to him, as Leroy-Bessette’s men had other fish to fry and Lavalle had an alternative organised already.
‘Iwaniska?’
Consulting the map, he found the small village and measured the distance to the position he wanted the covering force to be, judging that it would be there quicker than the French infantry, although in smaller numbers.
The DRH’s 101 Korps’ commander, the parent unit for the Grossdeutschland Division, had allocated a powerful mobile force to plug the potential gap, mainly out of contrition for his premier unit’s failure.
An all-arms Kampfgruppe was already en route from Iwaniska, which addressed part of Knocke’s problems.
He felt his orders would address most of the other issues, but above all, Camerone was exposed and short of information on enemy deployments and numbers.
The DRH paratroopers had, quite rightly, been called back, as their operation would have simply resulted in their total destruction.
0457 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, five hundred metres south of Wólka Gieraszowska, Poland.
Uhlmann’s death had been confirmed.
A matter of fact message had arrived stating that the commander of the 1er RCDA had fallen, sent by its highest remaining rank and, by default, commander of the regiment.
The man was an ex-Hauptsturmführer from Hohenstaufen and a steady, if unspectacular commander.
It was not until after the battle that Knocke found out how Uhlmann had lost his last battle, and how the old soldier’s headless body had been brought back in a badly damaged Panther with only two living crewmembers.
The loss of experienced longstanding comrades like Uhlmann was keenly felt, not the least by Braun, who understood the silent radio for what it was, and who cried inside and out as he slugged it out with his tank on the banks of the Koprzywianka.
His tears were as silent as his rage, but he fought his tank like a demon and nothing with a Red Star on could live within range of his guns.
For now, the right flank of the assault group was secure.
Not that it mattered any more.
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br /> Knocke had already decided that Uhlmann’s group, he couldn’t think of it in other terms yet, would have to be pulled all the way back, given the increasing pressure upon Haefali’s lines to the north and northwest, and the inroads being made into the main positions on Route 79.
No matter what he had tried, Camerone was being pushed back and better he pull back in an organised fashion than be beaten back in chaos.
The order went out to perform a fighting withdrawal all the way to Route 9, down the main routes leading to safety and the hastily prepared defensive line.
Haefali assumed command of the two combined forces and started one of the most difficult of military operations; a fighting withdrawal under pressure from a superior enemy whilst maintaining a constant and impenetrable defensive line.
For the most part the action was brilliantly conducted, except at Beszyce, where superior Soviet firepower blasted a way through the legionnaires and opened the way to the junction of Floriańska and Route 9…. at Sulisɫawice.
0458 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, Koprzywnica, Poland.
“Speed it up, Comrades. We must get back in the fight. Come on! Come on!”
Grabbing the offered propellant charge, Stelmakh hefted it and raised it up to the waiting hands of his gunner, Ferensky.
The IS-III had exhausted its supply of shells and managed to rendezvous with the supply train in the recently occupied Polish town.
“Dawai! Dawai!”
Unlike many officers, certainly regimental commanders, Stelmakh was sweating and grunting with his men, undertaking the heavy task of replenishing the tank’s twenty-eight heavy shells and grabbing as much machine-gun ammunition as possible.
Stelmakh himself had expended every 12.7mm bullet from his roof-mounted weapon, and the tank had pulled into the replenishment point with one 122mm HE shell and seventeen 7.62mm to her name.
Over as quickly as it had begun, the tank was rearmed, and Stepanov moved her to the bowsers to top off the greedy tanks with as much fuel as he could cram aboard.
All told, the 6th Guards had come off extremely lightly so far, especially given the high-tempo of the fighting so far.
Two of the IS-IVs and one IS-VII had been lost, the latter to an enemy artillery shell that caused the heavy tank to come apart in spectacular fashion.
Even adding in the loss of the other IS-III and another IS-IV to mechanical failure, Stelmakh was still in command of a powerful mixed force of thirteen heavy tanks and an SMG company.
Following a change of orders, the 6th moved off down the Floriańska towards the breach in the Legion line.
0520 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, west of Kamieniec. Poland.
Chekov was inspired by the news that his 2nd Battalion had opened up a portion of the enemy’s line, permitting the uncommitted units of 91st Tank Battalion to flood through and into the disorganised legion interior.
On his right flank, the 116th Guards Division’s 359th Guards Rifle Regiment, temporarily under his direct command following its organised retreat, held firm against efforts from two directions, where they held a small bridge over the Koprzywnica just under three hundred metres away from the main escape route of the furthest advanced enemy group.
He had ordered forward the rest of his brigade’s anti-tank weapons, as well as the Hungarian Mace group, intent on making the road a killing zone.
To his front, his men were now moving through the area hammered by the Katyusha of 272nd Guards Mortar regiment and, according to reports, the enemy soldiers had been slaughtered in their droves as they tried to withdraw.
Indeed, St.Clair’s 3e RdM had suffered nearly 30% casualties since it started its advance and was short of everything a soldier needs in battle… save courage.
His joy turned to anger as new reports from the advance spoke of burning T34s and a fanatical resistance that started to eat up his two lead battalions; the 2nd and 3rd.
Chekov ordered his old but effective OT-34s to relocate and mentally dared the enemy soldiers to stand before their awful weapons.
Flamethrowers had the capacity to deprive even the bravest of souls of any will to fight.
The leadership of his Third Battalion had already changed twice during the battle, and the latest report placed the unit in the hands of the one-eyed woman; namely Viktoriya Vladimira Fedorensky-Batavska.
She had once been a staff officer within the Main Administration for Military Engineers, and served with great distinction during the battles in and around Stalingrad, firstly on the cutters and launches that plied their desperate trade back and forth across the icy water, and subsequently as a frontline soldier alongside Rotmistrov’s guardsmen on the Mamayev Kurgan and in the rubble of the Red October factory, in which place she left behind her right eye, two fingers from her left hand, and a considerable portion of her left buttock.
Behind her back she was known as ‘Pirat’; to her face she was simply Captain Batavska, and she was greatly feared.
Not the least of which reasons was because she was wholly mad.
None the less, Chekov ordered her to continue to push forward, promising reinforcements to maintain her advance towards her first objective; cutting Route 758 northwest of Tarnobrzeg.
He was confident she would do it, and returned his attention to the anti-tank gun position that was increasingly becoming a hornet’s nest.
“Lev!”
His second in command was quickly by his side.
“I’m going forward to assess the river bridge defence. I’ll take a platoon of the SMG company with me for security. Keep pressing forward here and here. Comrade General Rybalko’ll be placing more troops under our command shortly. Use them as you see fit, but keep the rest of our headquarters units, and the reserve company of the 91st Tanks uncommitted, just in case I need them at the bridge.”
Lev Kharsen nodded his understanding and made a quick assessment.
“I see no problems except here,” he pointed to the stiffening resistance that had already cost the 91st Tanks a number of vehicles.
“Yes… I’ve sent the heavy flamethrowers forward now that they’ve topped up. That should fuck the bastards right off.”
“That ought to do it, Comrade Polkovnik, although they’ll be vulnerable if the 91st aren’t up to the mark.”
“Understood.”
It was a small problem, in that they had been given no opportunity to understand their new running mates, and vice versa, but thus far the tankers seemed to be doing their job.
“Keep the boys at it, Lev. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve made my assessment.”
He slapped his man on the shoulder and moved away, nodding to the waiting Iska who had assembled the necessary men as soon as he heard his commander’s words.
Four vehicles stood waiting, two each of captured US halftracks and BTR-152s, and the group raced away towards the increasing sounds of fighting on the Koprzywnica, some two kilometres away.
As the machines bumped down the scarcely identifiable track, Chekov accepted a cigarette from his senior NCO.
“So, that’s a platoon is it?”
“You know me, Comrade Polkovnik… never been able to count.”
“Only bottles and cigarettes anyway.”
“No problems on that score, Comrade Polkovnik. Anyway, there’s safety in numbers and we can’t have you getting your uniform dirty, now can we?”
“Cheeky bastard NCOs can be reassigned, Comrade Praporschik!”
They shared a laugh, and left some things unsaid, as the rain stopped and the first strands of dawn declared themselves in the lightening sky.
0530 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, the Koprzywianka Bridge, four hundred metres southeast of Sośniczany, Poland.
Wary of attracting unnecessary attention, Chekov and his men dismounted at a road junction and jogged the rest of the way forward, where they found Sárközi putting the final touches to his unit’s deployment.
He and the 359th Guards’ battalion commander quickly filled the Colonel i
n on deployments and Chekov was very soon satisfied that the men knew their trade.
Across a front of roughly eight hundred metres, the position bristled with anti-tank guns and dug-in infantry, with the MACE launchers more concentrated around the bridge, in case the enemy developed any more ideas of crossing the watercourse.
As Chekov scanned the positions through his binoculars, he was the first to sense a movement in the receding shadows, his suspicions quickly confirmed by observers in the forward infantry positions.
Veteran instincts took over and men threw themselves into cover just as a rapid mortar strike washed over the part of the defensive area directly opposite the Legion infantry attack.
The strained silence of waiting was punctuated by mortar shells bursting and the screams of wounded men, and then destroyed totally as the defensive line erupted with machine-gun and rifle fire.
On the heights on the other side of Route 79, which ran between the two positions, larger weapons started bringing the Soviet force under fire, attracting a reply from some of the anti-tank guns.
The battle started to escalate as both sides added artillery to the inventory, and within minutes the whole area was bathed in explosions, smoke, and high-speed metal.
Just off to one side from Chekov’s position, an 85mm D-44 anti-tank gun added parts of itself to the storm of steel as a Legion artillery shell struck home.
Chekov gripped his binoculars tightly as he watched brave men rush forward to pull some wounded men clear of the position and into relative safety.
Some were cut down by mortar shrapnel, but the three wounded men were dragged into the trenches in record time.
Runners arrived from all parts of the infantry battalion’s front, the absence of proper communications equipment a surprise to Chekov.
He ducked down below the sandbags.
“Where’s your communications, Comrade Mayor?”
“We have one radio only, Comrade Polkovnik. We had to leave much of it behind and our signals vehicle was destroyed by enemy artillery.”