Chapter 36: First Battle
It was still early in the morning, and the eastern horizon was still covered with a faint morning glow, but the sky of the entire Lutsk was already boiling. Even if you stood on flat ground and looked to the west, you could see the flickering flames.
In the headquarters of the 209th Battalion, Yuri sat at his simple desk, staring blankly at the old worker clock beside him - 4:05, 4:05 on June 22, 1941. 20 minutes ago, the Germans launched a full-scale attack on the border, and a war unprecedented in human history finally arrived according to its established pace.
Last night, Yuri had issued orders to the commanders of all the companies in the battalion. Except for the 1st company, which stayed at the radar station and made preparations for air defense, the remaining two companies had all entered the defensive positions in the Bredev Forest that had been dug out over several months. Now, Yuri was waiting for orders and notifications from the regiment. After all, he was just a battalion commander. Without notifications from the regiment, he would be blind and would know nothing about the combat situation ahead.
"Woo"
A shrill alarm suddenly sounded. It was the radar station that discovered the incoming German planes. Yuri sighed, picked up his military cap and put it on. He glanced at the still silent phone, then strode out of the office.
There was no light in the camp, thanks to the blackout order Yuri issued last night, but it was of no use, because from a distance, one could see that the interior of the radar base station was brightly lit, and the flashing red light on the towering radar pole was dazzling.
There was no way. Yuri was only the battalion commander of an infantry battalion and he had no authority to give any orders to the radar station.
The light in the camp was very dim. Things in the distance were hard to see and everything was hazy. Because it was too close to the swamp, the morning mist had not even dissipated yet.
Although he really wanted to go to the radar station in person, Yuri could not leave the battalion headquarters at this time. He had to stay here and wait for orders from the regiment headquarters. Otherwise, he would be considered dereliction of duty and would be executed.
"Go inform Comrade Lieutenant Antip Borisovich," Yuri ordered, asking the orderly Arkady to find the battalion's communicator, "and have him tell Lieutenant Nikita that the radar station must immediately go into blackout mode, otherwise any light could become a target for enemy air strikes."
"Yes, Comrade Captain," the communicator received the order, turned around and ran.
The reason why Yuri issued this order was simply because he hoped that his 1st Company would suffer less losses. He knew very well that once the war broke out, the radar station would inevitably become one of the Germans' primary targets of destruction, and he would definitely not be able to protect it with his own capabilities.
The order had just been delivered, and the messenger's figure had not even disappeared from sight, when Arkady pointed to the western sky and shouted, "Comrade Captain, look!"
Yuri turned his sight and looked in the direction Arkady pointed. In the gray sky, he saw a fighter plane with thick smoke coming out of the jungle, staggering eastward. Behind it, two fighter planes were chasing closely. The tracers of bullets fired by machine guns were unusually clear in the dim sky.
"It's our plane!" Arkady shouted in surprise, obviously recognizing the appearance of the previous plane.
As if in response to his shout, four or five tracers suddenly rose up not far from the camp. After a while, the sound of "bang bang bang" was heard. It was the anti-aircraft guns operated by the 1st Company firing at the German planes.
The two German fighter planes were caught off guard. Fortunately, the anti-aircraft fire lacked accuracy and did not cause them any damage. Moreover, the two German pilots were obviously of high quality. They probably realized that flying at low altitude was not conducive to avoiding anti-aircraft fire, so they decisively gave up pursuing the target, used a sudden climb to shake off the fire chasing them, circled over the radar station, and turned back.
Watching the damaged fighter disappear over the woods in the east, Yuri let out a breath, turned back to the office, walked directly to the phone and shook the handle.
“Beep, beep, beep…”
There was no operator's voice in the microphone, only a busy tone. I didn't know whether the phone line was disconnected or the operator was simply too busy.
“Buzz…”
Before Yuri put down the receiver in his hand, he heard a faint buzzing sound coming from outside. The sound seemed not loud, but the whole room seemed to be shaking. The documents, cups, clocks, telephones and other items on the table were all vibrating at an extremely high frequency as if they had epilepsy.
Without even having time to think, Yuri hung up the phone and rushed out the door.
At this moment, the whole sky outside seemed to be boiling, and in the western horizon, a dense mass of bright spots were swarming in this direction. Yes, it was bright spots, because the plane was very high in the sky and was illuminated by the sunlight that had not yet risen above the horizon.
Yuri felt his scalp tingling. There was such a large group of aircraft, at least hundreds of them, and they flew here unhindered. That meant that the Soviet air force in the border area no longer had the ability, or it was too late, to counterattack.
The fleet of planes seemed to be coming slowly, but in fact they were extremely fast. In just a few minutes, a low-flying formation had passed over the jungle and flew directly to the radar station.
A ground-to-air battle soon broke out, and the sky above the entire camp was filled with the unique "bang bang" sound of anti-aircraft guns. Of course, there were more sounds of explosions and the roar of fighter planes' engines.
The camp was very close to the radar station and was naturally affected by the war. Fortunately, Yuri had ordered the soldiers to dig air-raid shelters before. The few remaining soldiers in the camp had already fled into the air-raid shelters when the air raid alarm sounded. At this time, the 209th Battalion was just an empty camp.
The wooden barracks were reduced to burning ruins in the bombing, and the radar station's only six anti-aircraft guns could not even last 20 minutes under the ravages of more than a dozen German fighter planes, and soon fell silent. The towering radar station was first tilted by the bomb, and finally collapsed directly, turning into a pile of scrap metal.
At 4:37, the German planes that attacked the camp climbed high into the sky and headed west, leaving behind only ruins and raging flames and billowing smoke.
Most unfortunately, Yuri's barracks office was also hit by a bomb, and the entire ceiling was blown off. The ensuing fire burned the entire barracks to the ground, and the only telephone that could be used for communication was also destroyed in the fire - the 209th Battalion completely .
The anti-aircraft battle that broke out at the radar station did not cause much damage to the 1st Company. Only 16 people were killed in the air raid that lasted less than 20 minutes, and there were 9 wounded left. Among them, only 1 was seriously injured. He had lost most of his right leg due to a shrapnel shot out.
The communication company of the entire radar station was completely scrapped. The airstrike not only destroyed the radar, but also destroyed all their communication equipment. Without the communication equipment, the communication company became a waste. Among the 41 people who survived the company, except for Lieutenant Nikita, the company commander, who had a pistol, among the remaining 40 people, only 15 male soldiers in two maintenance squads were equipped with a rifle each.
According to Yuri, the plan was to transfer these people to Levotski in the rear, where the headquarters of the 47th Regiment was located and there was a convenient railway line. These people would be much safer there.
But Lieutenant Nikita was very stubborn. She believed that her troops did not belong to the 47th Regiment. Therefore, she insisted on leading her 40 people to Chervono because her superior unit was there.
Chervono is located southwest of Lutsk, more than 50 kilometers away. Most importantly, Chervono is close to Chervonograd, a very important railway , and only 40 kilometers away from the border. Yuri believed that after the Germans started the war, the Chernovo region would inevitably be attacked in the first phase, and Nikita's people going there would be no different from sending sheep into the tiger's mouth.
However, the communications company was not under his command after all, and at present, this company was just a real burden. Nikita insisted on leaving, and Yuri was more than happy to accept it. So, when the last shadow of the night retreated, Lieutenant Nikita led her company out of the Lutsk radar station and headed southwest.
The radar station was destroyed, and the last factor that restrained Yuri was eliminated. He immediately ordered the 1st Company to dismantle the last usable anti-aircraft gun of the radar station and transfer the entire company to the defensive positions outside the Bredev Forest, where he planned to block the sudden attack by the German army.
Western Ukraine has entered early summer in mid-to-late June. The sun rises earlier and the temperature is higher. In addition, there has been no rain in recent times, and the dust on the dirt roads is very thick. The slightest disturbance will raise a blanket of dust.
As the sky brightened, the sky around Lutsk became the world of the German Air Force. But from time to time, Soviet fighter planes would fly over , but they were very small in scale, and sometimes there was even just a single plane, which made people feel very pitiful.
It was only a half-hour forced march from the camp to the narrow strip of land outside the Bredev Forest. During this half-hour, at least six batches of German planes passed by, and they ignored the Soviet troops of a hundred or so men on the ground - small groups like these would naturally be dealt with by the German ground forces.
In this way, Yuri and his company, without any obstacles, successfully entered the trench position in the Bredev Forest at 5:10 in the morning. Almost at the same time as they entered the position, the signalman of the 2nd Company brought a message that a large number of deserters were swarming in the direction of the 209th Battalion's position.
