Chapter 43 Difficulty
"…We have been fighting in the Bredev Narrows for nearly five days, repelling 24 German attacks and destroying 26 German tanks. However, the German offensive is still intensifying and our losses are very heavy."
"After nearly five days of fighting, the entire battalion suffered losses of more than 80%, and only one commander above the platoon level survived. We are short of ammunition, food, and medicine. In order to preserve our manpower and avoid unnecessary casualties, we request the military district command to approve our unit's breakout. The commander of the 209th Battalion is Major Yuri Arkhipovich Kulyokov."
In the Southwestern Front Command, in the newly activated underground hidden command post, seven or eight of the front's top commanders, including Zhukov, all had solemn expressions on their faces. On the command desk in front of them, the communication records copied from the Communications Battalion were placed there, containing the report from the 209th Battalion requesting a breakout.
On the battle situation map below the report, the entire Lutsk region, from Rozhsky in the north to Brod in the south and then to Rovno in the east, with a radius of nearly 200 kilometers, has become a real German-occupied area. The German Ninth Army firmly controls this vast area and repels the Soviet attack from both the north and the south.
But in the core area of this area, there was a Soviet infantry battalion still fighting, and they had held their positions for nearly five days.
Recalling the plan Khrushchev mentioned the day before yesterday, who would have thought that this small infantry battalion would still be holding on to the Bredev Pass until now. Although Zhukov and everyone present knew very well that if the 9th Mechanized Army was really ordered to launch an offensive towards the Pass, the 209th Battalion would probably not be able to stop the Germans' concentrated attack, but no one could deny that the 209th Battalion, which had only asked for permission to break out, was definitely a brave unit. Their battle was one of the few bright spots on the Soviet side in the entire border operations over the past few days.
Zhukov and his men did not know that Yuri's 209th Battalion had reorganized a large number of deserters. Therefore, in their minds, the 209th Battalion was just a battalion with only a few hundred people. An 80% reduction in personnel meant that there were only a few dozen people left in the battalion, including the wounded.
After several days of brutal fighting, dozens of people who had run out of ammunition and food sent a request to the front headquarters not to retreat, but to "break out." That's right, break out, break out under the heavy siege of millions of German troops.
Even though they were veterans of battle and had hearts as hard as steel, the generals in the headquarters couldn't help but look gloomy when they saw the last sentence in the copy message.
Zhukov took the copied message and was silent for a long time. He picked up the pen and wrote at the end: "Permission to break out, and I wish you good luck."
After writing this line of reply, Zhukov handed the message to Kirponos sitting opposite him. Kirponos read it, nodded, and handed it to Khrushchev next to him.
After Khrushchev took the message, he took out a pen from his jacket pocket and added something at the bottom: "Nikita? Sergeyevich ? Khrushchev."
That's right, he signed his name. As the military commissar of the front, he was prepared to make a big fuss about this matter.
Since the outbreak of the war, the entire border campaign and all aspects of the battlefield have brought back bad news. The heroic and tenacious Red Army during the civil war seemed to have disappeared overnight. Everywhere there were news of defeat, escape, rout, and surrender. The morale of the troops was low, the people were in a state of panic, and most importantly, Comrade Stalin was very angry. As Comrade Stalin's most steadfast and closest assistant, Khrushchev believed that he had a responsibility to do something to boost the morale of the troops, give the people some hope, and most importantly, make Comrade Stalin happy.
Very good, the 209th Battalion fought very well in the Bredev Narrows area. Regardless of whether it had any substantial significance for the entire campaign, at least this spirit is worthy of praise, worthy of being spread, and worthy of learning by every Red Army soldier.
As the commander of the 209th Battalion, Yuri Arkhipovich? Khrushchev did not know much about Kulyokov because he had only met him once, but it didn't matter. He had already thought of a complete propaganda plan. No matter what kind of person he was in the past, with this combat experience, he would become a hero. The Military Commission needed to investigate his past experiences, find out his former comrades, friends, even relatives, neighbors, etc., and through their "descriptions", shape him into a brave, firm, and indomitable Soviet revolutionary fighter. Of course, this combat experience and the request for a breakout he sent at the end must also be widely publicized. Whether it is Pravda or Red Star, columns need to be published, and radio propaganda also needs to be used. In short, there must not be any blind spots in the propaganda, and 180 million Soviet people must know about this.
Yuri, who was in the Bredev Forest, had no idea that he was about to become a hero in the eyes of the Soviet people. He only knew that he could finally retreat and finally leave this damn jungle.
After receiving the reply from the military district that they could break out, he immediately issued an order to retreat to the swamp. The remaining soldiers blew up the only remaining 85mm anti-aircraft gun, took the wounded who were unable to move, and retreated into the vast Bredev Forest. After walking nearly two kilometers to the north, they turned into the swamp area and retreated to the northeast along the road they had explored before.
Yuri was injured in the left shoulder besides his ear. A palm-sized bomb fragment hit his shoulder blade and broke it. Due to limited conditions, simple bandages could not help him recover from his injuries. In addition, the weather was hot, and the wound became infected and festered on the first day after entering the swamp.
The rapid deterioration of his injuries caused Yuri to develop a high fever, and he was sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious.
The swamp area, which was originally desolate and deserted, has now lost its tranquility. On the first day of entering the swamp area, the retreating 209th Battalion encountered a group of Soviet soldiers who also fled into the swamp area and lost their way. Lieutenant Antip, who was in charge of commanding the 209th Battalion, incorporated these more than 60 people into the 209th Battalion and learned from them some battle situations in the Lutsk direction.
These people were from the 135th Motorized Regiment of the 16th Motorized Division under the 19th Mechanized Army. They fought a fierce battle with the German 29th Army in the Krivan area east of Lutsk. The battle lasted for a day and a night. In the end, the so-called 16th Motorized Division, which did not even have a tank, was defeated by the German army. The German army entered Krivan the day before yesterday afternoon.
The swamp is full of dangers at night. Of course, the danger does not only come from the bottomless quagmire, but also from the poisonous snakes lurking in the waist-high weeds and the bloodthirsty swamp mosquitoes.
It is certain that if this vast swamp had not been explored in advance and a relatively safe passage had not been found, the remnants of the 209th Battalion would not have been able to reach the small piece of woodland where they were camping, and would have paid a heavy price.
The temperature in the swamp drops quickly at night. Even though it is early summer, it still feels a bit cold living in this swamp.
Yuri woke up at night and had just drunk a bowl of cabbage soup. He seemed to be in much better spirits. At this moment, he was supported by Nikita, sitting by a campfire, talking to Lieutenant Antip, who had a worried look on his face.
The flickering light of the campfire shone on Yuri's haggard face. His sickly yellow color, pale and cracked lips, and eyes that were so swollen that he could hardly open them all showed how bad his physical condition was at the moment.
"Since Krivan has fallen into the hands of the Germans, I'm afraid that Kostopol, Berezno, and even Stepan will not be able to be defended," Yuri, wrapped in a blanket, was still shivering from the cold. He trembled his lips and said in a hoarse voice, "So, we can't go to Stepan anymore. We can only find a way to bypass it and sneak across the Gorun River from Kupnica to Sarne. "
Lieutenant Antip looked at the map on the ground in silence. He knew that Yuri's guess was likely to be true, because the road from Krivan to Stepan was in very good condition, with both railways and asphalt roads, which was very conducive to the German mechanized corps' operations.
"If we go to Sarnay, we have to walk nearly 40 kilometers more," Nikita, who was supporting Yuri, couldn't help but interrupt, "but your injuries are too serious. You need surgery urgently, and we don't even have basic medicines."
"Now, Comrade Lieutenant Antip, what you need to do is to inspire the fighting spirit of the soldiers as much as possible and do everything you can to lead them out of this swamp and move them to a safe place." Yuri ignored Nikita's suggestion and continued, "If I can't hold on any longer, you will be the commander of the 209th Battalion and this unit will be under your command. You can select some outstanding soldiers from among those who have outstanding performances and promote them to squad leaders and platoon leaders, so as to maintain the cohesion and combat effectiveness of the troops as much as possible. This is also an essential quality for a commander."
Lieutenant Antip nodded, then said with a gloomy expression: "Yes, I understand, Comrade Yuri Arkhipovich Kulyokov."
As the actual commander of the remaining troops of the 209th Battalion, Lieutenant Antip was naturally able to learn about Yuri's condition from the medical soldiers: the shrapnel in his shoulder could not be removed, the wound was severely festering and infected, and because of the hot weather, maggots were growing in the bad flesh at the wound, and the high fever caused by the infection continued to persist. It was such a vicious cycle. It was estimated that the commander of the 209th Battalion, who had preferred to disobey the orders of the investigation team to protect his subordinates, could not hold on for much longer.
