by Colin Gee
Chekov nodded and beckoned Iska forward.
“Get the field telephone equipment out of our headquarters vehicle… all of it… turn it over to the infantry commander. He has need of it.”
Iska nodded and moved away, tapping two men on the shoulders as he went.
The three waited for the next set of landings before setting off to retrieve the equipment.
“Comrade Mayor, my men are getting you some telephones and cable… should help you control your battalion better.”
The weary man grinned, a cigarette hanging from the corner of a bloody mouth.
“Thank you, Comrade Polkovnik. We were too good at retreating and… well… we’ll get it all back shortly.”
Another runner arrived and reported to the Major, who clutched his wounded side as he rose up and followed the line down which the NCO pointed.
He slapped the man on the back in gratitude and issued him with orders before sending him back out into the man-made storm.
“Comrade Mayor Sárközi, your time has come I think!”
The Hungarian moved quickly to the infantryman’s side and followed the sweep of the man’s binoculars with his own.
Chekov joined them and they immediately understood why the infantry attack was in progress.
“Infantry’s nothing but a distraction attack,” Sárközi said to no one in particular.
“My guns’ll engage this new enemy when you do, until then we’ll keep on at the bastards on the hills across the road… make it look like we haven’t seen them.”
The two laid their plans seemingly oblivious to the presence of the more senior man.
Not that Chekov cared, for the two clearly knew their trade.
Sárközi scurried away to prepare his ambush and the infantry major, one of remnants of Makarenko’s paratrooper division long disbanded to bolster the 116th Division, sent runners out into the growing dawn.
0539 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, Route 79, five hundred metres east of Sośniczany, Poland.
The 2e/1er Genie led the way with their combination of lorries and halftracks, closely followed by the handful of tanks from the headquarters of 1er RDCA, including their dead commander’s vehicle and its grisly cargo.
Sárközi instructed his crews not to engage the softer vehicles, not that they needed such instruction, but he reasoned that such orders were better safe than sorry.
Judging that there were enough hard targets in range, he used the Hungarian’s radio system to allocate targets to each launcher.
Patiently waiting to ensure the best chances of success, he remained focussed on the moving tanks, not on the growing exchange across the river.
‘Steady… steady… now.’
“Fire!”
Eight MACE rockets were on their way in the blink of an eye and he watched in awe, still capable of being fascinated by the fiery trails that spelt doom for the enemy encased in their steel targets.
Six hit, and all but two of them were transformed into fiery wreckage in an instant.
The engineer’s anti-tank guns opened up and the Legion engineer company took some serious knocks, even though they were moving in and out of cover in their bid to escape the decreasing pocket.
Officers called in contact reports, some calm and collected, others clearly panicking, as the prospect of encirclement and annihilation reared its ugly head.
Seven more rockets were released, causing the Hungarian officer to seek out the eighth launcher and quickly finding it on its side and surrounded by inert forms.
The MACE launchers were now all mounted on GAZ jeeps for swiftness of redeployment, and his crews needed no orders to get them moving to alternate positions.
Once they were relocated, their crews swiftly reamed the launchers with more rockets, ready to take on whatever else might come down the road.
Of the RDCA’s headquarters, only two vehicles had escaped unscathed, the rest, tanks and personnel carriers, lay smashed and broken on Route 79.
Less than 30% of the Legion engineer company escaped out of gun range, and even then, Soviet mortars pursued them off the battlefield.
The rest of Uhlmann’s assault group was cornered and unable to move back.
0546 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, Szewce, Poland.
“Fire!”
The 88mm gun rocked back hard on its mount and sent a killing shot down the road, one that took the turret clean off one of the pursuing T34s.
“Good kill!”
Even though he only had half an eye on the battle, Braun was impressed with the gunner’s skill, and not for the first time this day.
The sounds of distress on the radio were growing, and he left his crew to fight the immediate battle while he consulted his map.
From garbled cries for help, calm reports, and a veteran’s intuition, Braun constructed an understanding of the situation.
‘Hurensohn!’
His mind was made up in an instant and the radio crackled as he made contact with the AT commander.
The Captain thought Braun mad but went no further, other than to agree to the plan and wish him luck.
Durand went further, and dispatched two halftracks to accompany Braun on the crazy mission.
The five Schwarzpanthers and two M5 halftracks turned off Route 79 and charged straight towards the small bridge to the southeast, catching the defenders off-guard.
Expecting the Legionnaires to simply follow Route 79, the company of 116th Guardsmen and their AT support were swiftly overrun, and Braun led his small force on the first part of the four-kilometre drive to save the trapped force at Sośniczany.
0546 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1946, Route 79, Poland.
It was a surprise to everyone, Soviet and Legionnaire alike, that the first aircraft to appear over the battlefield bore a Red Star.
A ground attack unit of the Red Air Force arrived as directed by Rybalko’s air commander, and attacked the Allied forces becoming bottled-up between Sośniczany and Szewce.
A mixture of cluster bombs and high explosive tumbled out of the sky and inflicted casualties upon the relatively helpless men below.
Relatively, as one of the Ilyushins was chopped from the sky by a Legion M-17 quad AA mount.
Returning for a second run, the ground attack aircraft exacted revenge for their lost comrades by destroying the surviving AA weapon before quitting the field as USAAF F-82 twin Mustangs hunted them down.
The long-range interceptors were not best suited for low-level operations, but still put three of the Soviet aircraft into the ground and chased the remaining Ilyushins away.
Elsewhere, men of Deniken’s 169th Guards Rifle Regiment were visited by Skyraiders who brought their normal recipe of death to the battlefield: rockets, bullets, and napalm.
Further north, above the German battlefield, Soviet Yak-15 turbojets clashed with DRL Me-262s at higher altitude as, underneath them, the ground attack aircraft fought yet more desperate battles between themselves, and with the enemy AA defences.
Durand was bringing up the rear of the assault force, performing a brilliant fighting withdrawal, but finding his units becoming concentrated and vulnerable.
Once the aircraft had plied their trade, Soviet artillery again took up the baton, and casualties mounted once more.
Alma could not yet mount any relief back up Route 79, as enemy flame throwing tanks and infantry were penetrating their lines and causing considerable problems, but two battalions and tank support were being prepared for an attempt in the near future.
Efforts to push to the northwest had failed, so everything depended on the Alma relief attempt or on Braun and his hare-brained scheme.
Braun, knowing the time was vital, did not stop to immolate a Soviet supply column he found at Skotniki; he simply drove straight over the top of as much as he could, squashing carts, men, and horses, and firing as he went.
His luck held as he also crashed through a few small engineer-infantry units without loss.
‘Wir kommen, Ka
meraden, Wir kommen!’
Even as Braun’s as hoc group smashed into another reserve engineer platoon sat waiting to be called forward, Alma’s under pressure front cracked, and St.Clair could only divert his relief force to try and patch up the hole, leaving the trapped assault force on their own again.
The lead elements of the Legion Corps D’Assaut reserve had arrived and were already shaking out into position with the 4e RACE, the X7 anti-tank rocket troops, moved straight into the front defensive line, whilst the hotch-potch of heavy tanks belonging to the 1er BCL and two companies of the 7e RTA occupied areas to the north of the position, the former within sight of the divisional command position.
Inside it, the reports were flowing thick and fast and one in particular caused great consternation, although Knocke received the news with stoicism, at least outwardly.
On the Russian Front particularly, he had been in some tight spots, but this was rapidly becoming the worst he had ever encountered, and it still had the capacity to get a lot worse.
The full failure of Grossdeutschland had become apparent when Emmercy’s force came under heavy attack from the north and northeast, assaulted by a superior-sized enemy group of the latest T-54 tanks and motorised infantry.
Only a fanatical and costly stand by two companies, one of the AT battalion and one of the engineer, had stopped the Soviets from splitting Emmercy in half and leaving the road to the south open.
The Grossdeutschland Kampfgruppe had also done its part by driving into the enemy’s right flank, calling away some assets to deal with the danger just in the nick of time.
Replete with markings, both current and historical, the situation map reflected the chaos of the battlefield, and needed close inspection to fully understand.
By the latest reports, the breach in Haefali’s line was being closed just as Knocke examined the possibilities of the incursion, noting with no surprise that the thrusts through Haefali and Emmercy both potentially would have arrived at the ground upon which he was standing, something he had instinctively understood, and the reason why he had placed all that he possessed at Sulisɫawice.
The latest reports were wrong and the situation was more critical than Knocke could have imagined.
The absence of communication from the recon elements of the 7e RTA was worrying, and no amount of effort by the signallers could raise anyone from the unit. The air support commander urgently requested a recon flight to cover the area, but the air space over the battlefield was incredibly hostile and any photo mission would need escorts, escorts that were presently tasked elsewhere.
Emmercy’s group was already split in two and the Frenchman was presently lying unconscious in his battle headquarters surrounded by men with hands on heads, waiting to know their fate at the hands of their captors.
Haefali’s attempt to close the gap had failed, but an air attack by, of all things, French-manned Thunderbolts, had struck the Legion lines instead of its intended target, ensuring that the force intent on restoring the line suffered casualties and disruption before it moved, and allowing the enemy to move through relatively unhindered.
On Route 9, T-54s and APCs of the 1st GMRD gathered themselves and drove towards their primary objective.
The breakthrough at Beszyce was complete and elements of the 171st Guards Rifle Regiment and the 6th GIBTR were moving forward unchallenged towards their new objective.
Knocke’s imagined convergence would be a reality in the shortest of times, not that he yet knew it.
Sulisɫawice.
0600 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, the Soviet positions on the Koprzywianka River near Route 79, Poland.
“The SS bastards’re up to no fucking good, Comrade Colonel”
Chekov was inclined to agree but was too busy to do anything but grunt at the infantryman’s comment.
“Can’t see a damn thing except the guns on the heights there.”
Legion artillery had put down a smoke screen at one stage, seemingly to mask a surge down Route 79, but it had come to naught, a sharp downpour making a nonsense of the artillerymen’s efforts.
Across the way, the enemy guns still sent shells across the divide, but it was almost like both sides were holding their collective breath for what came next.
The trouble was that Chekov had no idea what was next, and he didn’t like it one little bit.
He had no capacity to advance, at least not at this point, although to the south, his forces were progressing remarkably well against the enemy’s efforts. The air force report of a mixed force heading at full tilt towards his penetration point was unwelcome, if not a surprise.
‘Chinese whispers’ had denied him knowledge of the situation in and around Skotniki, where his understanding of the casualties caused by enemy fire suggested enemy artillery, not the presence of enemy tanks in his rear, as the reporters had tried to convey before their lives were extinguished.
The enemy artillery and mortars ceased as if by magic, leaving the battlefield suddenly silent, except for a strange whining sound to his back.
The first Chekov knew of Braun’s arrival in his rear was the explosion of one of his vehicle back at the road junction, followed by the briefest of exchanges of fire as the men he had left there were overcome by something… a something that caused a sensation of fear to turn his stomach to water.
Tank engines, the source of the whining that had first distracted him, grew in volume and a number of enemy armoured vehicles burst into view.
Braun had caught his enemy napping and he was determined to punish them.
Fig # 242 - Braun’s manoeuvre, the Koprzywianka River, Poland.
“Dora-one-one, all Dora, pop red smoke now, repeat… pop red smoke now and spread out… line abreast… kill everything but keep moving… we’ll swing back if necessary. Out.”
The Schwarzpanthers, surrounded by a haze of red, poured 88mm fire into anything they could see, and machine-guns added to the killing frenzy.
Across the river, the trapped forces of Uhlmann’s ill-fated assault force started to travel south, conscious that their period of freedom of movement was probably limited.
Back in the Camerone headquarters, a modest izba on the southeastern outskirts of Sulisɫawice, Knocke received Durand’s radio message, reporting news of the ongoing attempt to relive the assault group, with visible relief.
Some engineer ATGs engaged the moving mass successfully, but brought retribution upon themselves as Braun’s attack meant the Legion gunners on the heights could operate more freely and concentrate their fire, carefully avoiding the red smoke and anything immersed in it.
“Driver, alarm! Right quarter turn!”
The reactions of the tank driver saved their lives as the MACE clipped the nearside edge of the front glacis and bounced away, exploding above an engineer squad’s trench and destroying the four men within.
“Gunner, gun, target to front, one hundred metres, low, straight ahead!”
The bow gunner pulled his trigger and sent a stream of bullets into whatever it was.
Men fell away from it and then disappeared as an 88mm shell easily smashed the GAZ and launcher.
The tank next to Braun’s blossomed into an orange and red plume as one of the Hungarian gunners evened the score.
“Scheisse! Driver, keep manoeuvring, gunners engage on sight.”
He propelled himself up through the cupola and found his eyes reacting to the growing light and increasing amount of acrid smoke.
Grabbing the MG-34 mount, he scanned the area and immediately found a target.
Cocking the weapon, he raked a group of soldiers who seemed to have ideas involving anti-tank grenades, ideas they lost interest in quickly, preferring self-preservation.
A bullet pinged off the side of the cupola and clipped his right elbow, bringing a squeal of pain.
Traversing the weapon, he put a burst into the sandbagged area from where the shots had come and was rewarded with a red mist.
He chose another target as o
ne of the support halftracks dropped into the position, disgorging men in search of prey.
Chekov pulled himself out from underneath the dying Sárközi, the man’s blood filling his eyes, nostrils, and mouth.
Braun’s burst had destroyed the Hungarian’s physical features and opened his chest, from which the last vestiges of his life’s blood was pouring.
Aware of the sound of an approaching engine, he wiped his eyes and grabbed for the SKS rifle, at the same time throwing himself to one side as a heavy vehicle dropped down into the position and smashed through a number of his soldiers.
The first legionnaire who dropped off the side got two shots and went down screaming.
The next got similar.
Iska rose groggily to his feet, having been side swiped by the fender of the halftrack, holding his shattered ribs as best he could with a broken wrist.
“Untermensch!”
A German legionnaire rammed the butt of his ST45 into Iska’s jaw and drove the bone backwards.
Iska died instantly, his neck broken and his brain penetrated by shattered bone.
Chekov screamed in anger and pulled the trigger, completely missing the killer and doing no more than attracting his attention.
Perhaps it was the uniform of a senior officer that made the difference, but the legionnaire did not shoot Chekov down.
Instead he rushed forward and cannoned into the engineer colonel, smashing him to the floor by body weight alone.
Winded and disoriented, Chekov was manhandled and found himself in the back of the halftrack with the two legion soldiers he had shot, before someone thought it wiser to knock him out.
The halftrack reversed back out of the hole and moved across the area in search of further threats.
The bulk of the assault force had moved past the choke point, but still Durand hesitated to send the green star flares of success into the sky.