Struggle in Soviet Russia

In the makeshift shelter, Victor, who was dozing off on a simple wooden table, was awakened by a sudden gunshot. He straightened up abruptly. Before he woke up, he subconsciously reached for his hat, but he caught him. One empty.

The rapid gunfire intensified, and there was still a faint gunfire in it, and immediately, the sound of Xixi Suosuo's footsteps sounded.

Reaching out and wiping his face, Victor got up from the chair, found his military cap, and put it on his head indiscriminately. When he turned around, he happened to see Nino rushing in from the bunker.

The woman looked very excited. When she saw Victor standing up, she rushed towards him and shouted loudly: "Our people are here, our people are here, we are saved, we are saved! "

Shouting from her mouth, she had rushed to Victor's side, clutching him tightly regardless of her care, two chapped lips came up, and she kissed Victor's cheek indiscriminately, as if she was crazy.

Victor's mind was blank, and he didn't react for a long time. Commanding an outright lone army, holding on at this **** Hermosti River Ferry, five days, no, to be precise, five and a half days, the remaining team with less than a thousand people and exhausted ammunition, has been right. There is no hope for survival, and Victor has even begun to pray that after this death, he can return to the world he is familiar with.

But at this moment, Nino actually told him that the reinforcements had arrived, and they hoped to be able to get out of trouble. How could such good news that is enough to make people go from **** to heaven be accepted for a while?

It took about half a minute for Victor to recover. He pushed Nino away from his arms and stumbled out of the bunker.

In the trenches outside the bunker, the surviving soldiers were already boiling. They hugged each other and jumped and screamed inexplicably, like a group of lunatics.

Victor ignored these guys. He found an ammunition box and stepped directly on it, lying half-legged on the mound of the trench, looking through the binoculars in the direction from the gunshots to the west.

Almost at the same time he looked over, there was a series of loud bangs at the steel bridge in the telescope's field of view. Then, the entire bridge collapsed in a creaking squeak, and countless steel bars and concrete fell into it. In the river, huge waves splashed.

In the past five days of fighting, neither Victor nor the Germans tried to blow up the bridge. Victor wanted to keep the bridge so that the troops who retreated from Smolensk could pass through, while the Germans did. It is hoped that through this bridge, continue to attack the Soviet army.

But now, the Germans took the initiative to blow up the bridge. What does this mean? Undoubtedly, it can only explain one thing, that is, the main Soviet forces who have retreated from Smolensk have arrived at Sakon. They are attacking the German line of defense, and the German forces on the west side of the river bank are no longer able to defend. Now, they hope to delay the actions of the main Soviet forces by blowing up this bridge.

Although the Soviet offensive came from the west, even if he joined them, he was still in the encirclement of the German army, but in Victor’s view, he was able to join the main force of the Soviet army in Smolensk. It can also become much safer. The key is that the soldiers under their command do not need to be hungry, and they can also get supplementary weapons and ammunition. In other words, the most dangerous time has passed, and the battle situation has turned for the better.

On the embankment on the opposite bank of the big river, the German army was shifting machine gun positions. A dozen officers gathered on the river beach and pointed here, not knowing what they were talking about.

Victor knew that because the troops under his command were stuck on the line of the Hermosti River, the German defenses on the line from Smolensk to the Hermosti and from Milleyevo to the Hermosti could not be integrated. One piece, the defensive depth is too narrow, so it cannot effectively resist Soviet attacks on both sides. If the Smolensk main force of the Soviet army can concentrate on launching a breakthrough to the front line of the Hermosti River, the probability of its success is still very high.

In fact, what Victor didn’t know was that the Western Front Army Headquarters had already formulated a corresponding plan. Originally, in accordance with Timoshenko’s order, the Front Army’s aviation should pass some basic information to him by airdrop, but unfortunately, it was responsible for the implementation. The fighter for this mission was destroyed by the German army, which made him completely ignorant of everything.

The battle on the east bank of the river lasted all morning. After experiencing the initial excitement, the soldiers in the trenches calmed down and anxiously waited for the main force to appear across the river.

The waiting time is undoubtedly the most difficult for anyone. Victor would look across the river with a telescope almost every ten minutes.

Towards noon, there was also a faint explosion in the direction of Mileyevo on the west side. Although it was far away, it could still be faintly heard.

Perhaps it was because of an attack from another direction. During the whole day, the Germans did not attack the positions controlled by Victor, and the battlefield on the west bank of the Hermosti River fell into anxious calm.

Throughout the day, Victor did not return to the bunker. The remaining staff officers were arranged by him to cheer for the soldiers in the defensive trenches. Now victory is in sight. As long as you persevere, the hope belongs to everyone here.

In the afternoon, Victor himself turned around in a circle. He talked to every commander above the sergeant, chatted and laughed among the soldiers, and tried to infect everyone with confidence-at the last moment of dawn, People are often the most paralyzed. He needs everyone to be vigilant and not fall short at the last minute.

In fact, by this time, the Germans would no longer attack Victor's position. After all, when the Soviets launched assaults in two directions, it would no longer make sense to try to seize this position.

When dusk finally came, a brown-green T34 tank slowly appeared at the top of the embankment on the west bank of the Hermosti River. Then, two dusty Soviet soldiers appeared, and they went straight from the steep river bank. Sliding down, plunged into the quietly flowing Hermosti River. Immediately afterwards, from the direction of the ferry, the tide of soldiers rushed up the embankment and rushed into the river. The scene was shocking and trembling.

With Nino’s support, Victor struggled to crawl out of the trenches and walked far toward the river bank. Beside him, the soldiers who had escaped from the dead cheered and passed him, rushing to the location of the river, even those affected by it. The lightly wounded who had been injured also swarmed along.

The soldiers who fought fiercely on the Hermosti River for five days, like the friendly army on the opposite side, swarmed down the embankment and rushed into the clear water. Some even dropped their rifles and swam straight to the other side of the river. In the past, some people knelt down by the river and hid their faces and wept.

I don’t know who started the head. The deafening "Ula" sound began to sound on both sides of the river. The broken red flag was swaying on the embankment. Everyone was venting the pleasure of escaping from the dead. Since they were able to survive, Then it doesn’t seem to be too much to celebrate in any way.

Facing the Soviet forces from the east and the west, the Germans outflanked the direction of Milleyevo. They chose to retreat wisely at night. At 8:17 in the evening, the first part of the 17th Tank Division under the 5th Mechanized Army took the lead in advancing. After arriving along the Hermosti River, they began to launch an assault in the direction of Yaltsovo, trying to tear the gap in the German defense line in the direction of Milleyevo as far as possible to ensure the safe retreat of the main Soviet troops in Smolensk.

However, it was not until early morning that the pontoon bridge units directly under the front army arrived in a hurry. Instead of trying to repair the bridge over the river, they urgently built four pontoon bridges in the direction of the ferry to assist the Soviet troops on the opposite bank to withdraw eastward.

In the next few days, the Soviet troops withdrew from the east, withstood the indiscriminate bombing of the Luftwaffe, crossed the Hermosti River and evacuated towards Yelnya, which is less than five kilometers wide from the Milejevo area. At the gap of the Soviet Army, the 19th Army, the 20th Army and the 16th Army, a total of more than 50,000 soldiers escaped the encirclement of the Germans. With these troops, there were 114 tanks and more than 300 doors. Artillery and a large number of military supplies.

In the defensive battle that lasted more than five days, the unit that Victor integrated, together with the unit united by Captain Belinsky, suffered heavy losses. The number of soldiers killed was more than two thousand. More people were injured, and more than half of the combat losses were lost. The saddest thing is that Captain Belinsky was hit in the head by a stray bullet during the defensive battle at the ferry, and died on the fourth day after the battle began. Since the connection between Victor's Department and Belinsky's Department had been severed by the Germans, Victor didn't know about this until the end of the battle.

The defense of the Hemosti River was of great significance. It not only saved the main force of the Soviet Smolensk cluster, but also contained the German offensive in the direction of Yelnya, making the Soviet army on the front line of Yelnya, There was more time to consolidate the line of defense, and most importantly, it added a touch of color to the Soviet defeat in Smolensk.

On July 22, the "Red Star" reported on the front page of the defense operations on the Hermosti River. Victor’s photos were published in the newspapers, and the unit he commanded had no serial number. Called the "heroic Hermosti River Defence Division", the entire unit was awarded the collective Lenin Medal, and fourteen members of the division, including Viktor and Belinsky, were awarded the "Heroes of the Soviet Union." Title-This is also the first Gold Star Medal awarded by Victor since his rebirth.

In addition, for Victor personally, this battle won him a certain degree of recognition within the Western Front Army system. At least as a security major of the NKVD, he will no longer be rejected by many commanders.