Red Moscow

A regiment of the 384th Division came to support the 188th Division. They used the bazookas they equipped to attack the German tanks from a long distance, causing huge casualties to the Germans and driving them away from the first line of defense.

Seeing that the enemy was repulsed, Koyda rushed to the position in person and met with the regiment commander who came to reinforce him. He held the opponent's hand and said excitedly: "Comrade Colonel, fortunately you arrived in time, otherwise our position will definitely be broken through by the enemy."

The head of the colonel smiled and replied: "Colonel Koyda, you are very polite. We are all friendly troops. It is dangerous to see you, so there is no reason for us to stand by and do nothing."

"By the way, where is your division commander, Major General Gritsenko?"

"The division commander took the other two infantry regiments and artillery regiments and deployed them two kilometers away from here." The colonel replied: "Once he finds that the situation on the position is critical, he will rush over with his troops to support in time." .”

Seeing Keida's puzzled look, the colonel head added: "The division commander said that the area here is too narrow. If you put too many troops, once they are bombarded by the enemy, they will inevitably suffer huge casualties." .”

After the colonel's explanation, Keida immediately understood Major General Gritsenko's intentions. He nodded and continued to ask, "Where is your division headquarters? Can you take me there?"

"Yes." The colonel replied readily, "I will arrange a staff officer to guide you. But..."

"But what?"

"Colonel Koyda." The colonel leader said in embarrassment: "You have also seen that my regiment has only seven or eight hundred people left. If we want to hold on to such a position, the strength is slightly insufficient. I wonder if you can stay Your troops, how about assisting our regiment in defense?"

To the colonel's request, Koyda readily agreed: "No problem, I can leave troops to assist you in defense, but all the wounded must be evacuated. You won't object to that, right?"

"I have no objection." Not only did the colonel not object to Koida's proposal, but he also took the initiative to say: "During the just-concluded battle, our regiment also suffered a lot of wounded, I hope you can withdraw them together. "

Koyda ordered someone to call Lieutenant Colonel Majewo, the head of the 562nd regiment, and said to him: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, from now on, all troops on the position will be led by this colonel, that is, the commander of the 384th Division. The commander is in charge. All of you must follow his orders, understand?"

"Understood!" Majwo replied loudly.

After explaining his work and seeing that the wounded had been evacuated in an orderly manner, Koida had nothing to worry about. He called the guide of the friendly army and led two guards towards Major General Gritsenko. The location where the headquarters is located.

Koyda came to Gritsenko's headquarters, and just said a few words, he heard the sound of rumbling artillery from the direction of the position, and he couldn't help frowning: "It's strange, how did the Germans attack so quickly? Attacked?"

"Yes, it's quite strange." Major General Gritsenko also felt the same way. After previous German attacks were repelled, it would take at least two or three hours before launching a new attack. But this time, less than an hour later, a new attack was launched again. "How did the enemy's new round of attack start so quickly?"

Just when Gritsenko and Koida found a spacious place and raised their binoculars to look towards the position under shelling, a communications staff officer trotted over and reported to Gritsenko: "Comrade Commander, Telegram from Army Group Headquarters."

Gritsenko took the telegram from the staff officer, quickly browsed through the content, and then murmured: "So that's the case. No wonder the Germans launched a new offensive in such a short period of time."

"Comrade General!" Keida asked curiously, "What did Comrade Commander say in his telegram?"

"Comrade Commander informed us that the Sixth Guards Army and the First Tank Army in the direction of Oboyan have launched a counterattack against the enemy. In order to avoid the fate of being encircled, the enemy will definitely try their best to break through to the south. Let us fight well. Prepare for a fierce battle."

After listening to Gritsenko's narration, Koyda frowned and asked: "Comrade General, since the commander knows that we are about to face the most difficult situation, why doesn't he send us reinforcements?"

"Isn't our division just your reinforcements?"

"To deal with such a powerful German army, our two divisions alone are far from enough." Koida expressed his doubts: "Don't look at the enemy's attack, there are artillery intercepting the enemy .But I can analyze from the density of artillery fire that there is at most one artillery division, and the rest of the artillery did not participate in the battle at all.”

"Comrade Colonel, don't worry too much." Gritsenko comforted Koida and said: "I think the reason why the commander didn't use the rest of the artillery must be his consideration. Think about it, if the battle starts, we will If all the strength is exposed, then the enemy will have to formulate corresponding countermeasures. But if we only use our troops in stages, the enemy will not be able to figure out the details of our army."

"Comrade General, what you said seems to make sense." Koyda said thoughtfully: "During the last round of the enemy's attack, the enemy was intercepted by our artillery fire, but as the enemy's planes threw During the battle, our artillery soon lost fire, and we don’t know whether it was shifted or destroyed by the enemy. If all the artillery fired at the same time, they would definitely not escape the fate of being bombed.”

This round of shelling by the German army was very short and ended in less than ten minutes. Before the smoke cleared, German tanks and infantry charged again at the Soviet blocking position. The Soviet artillery, which had re-established its position, intercepted the attacking German troops with artillery fire.

But the attacking German army behaved differently from the past. They braved the artillery fire of the Soviet army, rushed forward desperately, and quickly rushed to the blocking position. Some tanks ran over the trenches of the Soviet army. Taking advantage of the time when the Soviet soldiers leaned out to blow up the tanks and had no time to shoot, the enemy's infantry also jumped into the position and started close combat and hand-to-hand combat with the commanders and fighters.

Gritsenko did not expect that in such a short period of time, the enemy would rush into the blocking position and get entangled with his own troops. He raised his head and wiped the sweat from his forehead, and ordered his chief of staff: "Chief of staff, the enemy's offensive is too fierce, and I'm worried that the troops in the position will not be able to hold it. You immediately send another regiment and rush over to reinforce it. Be sure to smash it." enemy attack."

New troops were sent in, and they took all the remaining bazookas of the 384th Division, ready to kill the enemy tanks first, and then destroy the infantry who broke into the position.

The German tanks, which were firing towards the blocking position, did not expect so much anti-tank firepower to emerge from their flanks. In less than five minutes, seven or eight tanks were hit by rockets and stopped burning on the battlefield.

The tank soldiers escaped from the burning tank, and maybe found a safe place, but they were shot and killed around the tank by the infantry covering the anti-tank fighters.

As the tanks were destroyed one by one by the Soviet anti-tank fighters, the remaining tanks were terrified. They were worried that if this continued, they would be slowly wiped out by the Soviet anti-tank fighters, so they quickly switched to reverse gear. step back.

Seeing that the tanks had withdrawn, the German infantry who rushed into the position suddenly became less confident. Without the cover of tanks, they would soon be wiped out by the Soviet troops who had just rushed over, so the commander could only issue an order to retreat.

Seeing the retreat of the German army, the Soviet commanders and fighters did not pursue, but immediately returned to the blocking position, began to repair the fortifications, rescue the wounded, and prepare for a new round of enemy attacks.

Unexpectedly, before the health workers had time to bandage the wounded, there was the whistling sound of shells in the air, and a new round of German shelling began again.

"Damn it!" Through the binoculars, Gritsenko found that the repelled tanks and infantry hadn't completely retreated to the starting position, and the enemy started shelling. He frowned and said, "The Germans are crazy. Without withdrawing, they started a new round of shelling, what are they trying to do?"

At this moment, Koida had not left yet. Seeing this situation, he immediately realized that the German army had changed tactics, and quickly suggested to Gritsenko: "Comrade General, I think we should immediately report the situation here to Comrade Commander." , maybe he can understand what the Germans are doing."

"The telegram is too slow." Gritsenko shook his head and said, "And it may not be able to explain the situation on the battlefield clearly. I want to talk directly to the commander."

The two returned to the temporary headquarters, and Gritsenko asked the operator to contact the army headquarters,

Soon, the radio operator took off his earphones and said to Gritsenko: "Comrade Commander, General Sameko, Chief of Staff of the Army Group, wants to speak to you!"

Gritsenko took the headset and put it on his head, and said into the microphone: "Hello, Comrade Chief of Staff, I am Major General Gritsenko."

"Comrade General, don't say polite words." Sameko said rudely when he saw it: "Immediately report your information to me. We have lost contact with the 188th Division. Comrade Commander is getting angry. "

Gritsenko glanced at Kuida standing beside him, twitched the corner of his mouth, and then said: "Comrade Chief of Staff, Colonel Kuida, commander of the 188th Division, is by my side right now, you need to talk to him ?"

"Talk to him later." Sameko said anxiously, "Hurry up and report the situation there. How many troops have you sent to reinforce the 188th Division?"

"Two regiments, Comrade Chief of Staff."

"Huh?! You put in two regiments?" Sameko said with some displeasure: "Why did you put two regiments into battle so quickly?"

"The situation on the battlefield is very critical. If I don't put the troops into battle in time, the blocking position may be lost."

"Understood." Before Gritsenko could finish speaking, Sameko interrupted his following words: "Comrade General, I now formally inform you: once the position is about to be lost, you immediately order the troops holding the position Retreat to the wings in an orderly manner, without sending troops to close the gaps torn by the enemy. Understand?"

"I don't understand!" Gritsenko felt inexplicable about the order issued by Sameko, and he said dissatisfiedly: "Comrade Chief of Staff, if you follow your order, the German army may break through our defense line soon... "

"Breakthrough is breakthrough!" Sameko said disapprovingly: "Maybe after they break through our position, the next battle will be easier to fight."

He didn't continue to talk nonsense with Sameko, but said in a strong tone: "If you have any comments, you can bring them up after the battle is over. Let me remind you one last time, before you get the order from the Army Command, you must not send the last regiment into battle. Carry out orders, Comrade General!"

Just when Gritsenko was about to take off the headset, he heard Sameko say another sentence: "Let Colonel Koida answer the phone, Comrade Commander has something to say to him."

As soon as Koyda put on the headset, he heard Sokov's voice coming from inside: "Colonel Koyda, I'm glad to hear your voice again. How many people are left in your unit?"

"Not many, Comrade Commander." Hearing Sokov's question, Koyda replied bitterly, "It is estimated that there are several hundred people left in the division."

"The remaining commanders and fighters are the backbone of your division's battle, and they cannot be sacrificed in vain in this kind of exhausting positional warfare." Sokov ordered on the other end of the phone: "Remove them immediately and transfer them to the A safe place. Wait for your superiors to replenish you with new troops."

"Comrade Commander, it may be very difficult to withdraw the troops."

"Why?"

Koyda hastily told Sokov that the enemy started a new round of shelling when the troops had just repelled the enemy's attack and were repairing the fortifications and rescuing the wounded. He finally said: "Comrade Commander, The enemy suddenly changed their offensive tactics, I think there must be some conspiracy. You can be more careful about them, so as not to suffer a big loss."

"Don't worry, Colonel Koida." Sokov comforted Koida and said: "The reason why the enemy's offensive has become so intensive is probably because our friendly forces launched a counterattack in the direction of Oboyan. The fate of the encirclement, they can only break through to the south. Only when they break through our army's blocking position, will they have a chance to return to Belgorod smoothly."

Seeing that Sokov knew the enemy's intentions very well, Koyda was worried that he would not know the strange order Sameko had just given Gritsenko, so he said cautiously: "Comrade Commander, just now the chief of staff gave Gritsenko Major General Ke issued an order that when the enemy breaks through the defense line, instead of sending troops to block the breach, they must make way for the enemy. I would like to ask, do you know this order?"

"I know, of course I know." Sokov replied readily, "Only if the enemy breaks through our defense line, the next battle will be much easier."

"Comrade Commander, I don't understand."

Regarding Koyda's question, Sokov did not give him an answer immediately, but said with a smile: "Colonel Koyda, don't worry, wait patiently, and you will understand my order in two hours at most. The purpose of the order."