Chapter 55: Fierce Battle
At 10 a.m. on September 8, thick dark clouds covered the entire Berezna... Oh, those were not dark clouds, but thick black smoke that filled the sky over the entire city.
The thick smoke rose from the sky above the buildings, like thick black pillars, reaching high into the sky.
Last night, the 34th Brigade Command received a notice from the Front Command that the German 51st Infantry Army had captured Liubechi, 40 kilometers northwest of Chernigov yesterday afternoon, and at 7 pm, it joined up with Guderian's armored group heading south. By 11 pm, the German vanguard advanced to the suburbs of Chernigov and launched an exploratory attack on the 21st Army front defending there.
After receiving this notice, Yuri issued combat orders to all units of the brigade, requiring all commanders of the brigade to be fully alert and defend against the attack that the German army might launch at any time. Because according to Yuri's prediction, the German army's initial main attack direction would definitely be Berezna, not Chernigov, which was heavily defended by the 21st Army.
Sure enough, at 4 a.m., the German vanguard appeared in the suburbs of Berezna, and they launched an offensive from the village of Luchev to the northern part of the city. From 4 a.m. to 5 a.m., the German artillery launched an hour-long bombardment of the city of Berezna, destroying a large number of urban buildings and severely damaging more than a dozen buildings where defense teams were stationed. However, the Soviet casualties were not very large.
At five in the morning, as the dawn just began, the Germans launched their offensive. A tank with infantry support entered the city from Victory Street. According to the division made by Yuri, the artillery quickly took action. The accurate strikes of large-caliber heavy artillery destroyed the German offensive in a few minutes. According to the feedback from the observation post in front, a total of 7 tanks were destroyed in this wave of attacks. Another tank was trapped in the ruins of a collapsed building and could not move.
At 5:20, Soviet soldiers hiding in the surrounding buildings launched a counterattack. The two sides fought fiercely in the narrow area between Victory Street and Kopchensky Alley. Because the two sides were too close, the fierce battle turned into hand-to-hand combat. Here, the engineer shovels that Yuri specifically requested to be equipped to the front-line officers and soldiers played a miraculous role, and the German army was finally forced to retreat.
Yuri learned the engineering shovel from the Battle of Stalingrad in his previous life. He used it as a weapon for hand-to-hand combat and distributed it to the front-line soldiers under the 34th Brigade. Facts have proved that this reference is very effective. In the following days of fighting, Soviet soldiers gave this thing a resounding nickname "Crazy Ivan armed to the teeth", while German soldiers called it "Stalin's bottle opener" - Soviet and German soldiers like to give nicknames to weapons and equipment or strongholds, such as calling the 203mm heavy artillery "Stalin's Hammer" and the m-30 rocket launcher "Ivan the Heavy Punch" and so on.
After this initial test, the German offensive was temporarily suspended until 7 a.m., when the second wave of offensive was officially launched. However, unlike the first time, this time the German army dispatched a large number of aircraft to launch a large-scale bombing of the entire Berezna city. In response, Yuri ordered the soldiers stationed in various buildings in the city to burn the tires, clothing, rubber products and other things they had collected before. In the next two hours, thick smoke filled the sky over the entire city.
This thick smoke has little effect on dive bombers, but it is very effective against high-altitude bombers. It can block the enemy bombers' line of sight and make it impossible for them to accurately grasp the bombing target. The 34th Brigade is only equipped with a small number of small-caliber anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns, and is helpless against high-altitude bombers. This method can effectively make up for the 34th Brigade's shortcomings in this regard.
The situation after the battle broke out undoubtedly proved that Yuri was correct in his defensive operations. In this regard, the political commissar and the staff of the 34th Brigade had nothing to say. However, the battle has just started , and no one can predict what the final result will be.
In the teaching building of Likhovka Middle School in the city, Yuri hid in a messy classroom, looking at the block due north through a telescope from a shattered window on the north side.
The shrill sound of air raid sirens, mixed with the deafening roar of gunfire and the sound of swooping and circling planes, circled back and forth over the entire city, passed into the classroom, and then passed through the walls to trap the noise, making it even more shrill.
The street where the fierce fighting was taking place was still the middle section of Victory Street. The straight-line distance from Yuri to there was less than one kilometer, and the German artillery fire could easily reach here. Ten minutes ago, it was in this classroom that a German artillery shell hit the side of the classroom window, and the flying glass fragments turned a Soviet soldier who was defending here into a bloody man. Therefore, Arseni, as a guard, had urged Yuri to move several times.
Of course Yuri was unwilling to stay in such a dangerous place, but he could not retreat because he had given the order himself and all commanders must go to the front line in person. Only in this way could the new recruits in the army maintain high morale and not be defeated by the German offensive.
The commander went to the front line in person, and this proposal did not meet with any opposition among the commanders of the 34th Brigade. To be honest, no matter what the military qualities of the commanders at this time were, at least in spirit, they were positive and bravery was the main theme in the army.
As the highest commander of the 34th Brigade, Yuri set his headquarters within a kilometer of the front line. Although this was risky , it had a huge effect on the morale of the soldiers. The battle had broken out for several hours, and so far, the troops at the forefront had not shown any signs of collapse. No one had fled, and no one was cowardly and afraid of fighting. Everyone was fighting desperately. Judging from the morale alone, the performance of these recruits was already very good. Yuri had reason to believe that as long as they could hold out in the battle all day today, these recruits fighting on the front line would be qualified to be called veterans.
The German army's attack in the direction of Victory Street obviously changed its method. Their tanks no longer advanced into the streets, but retreated to the rear to provide artillery support for the advancing infantry. The infantry's offensive no longer focused on advancing the front line, but began to clear buildings one by one.
From where Yuri was, he could see small groups of German infantry advancing along both sides of the street. From time to time, someone was hit by a bullet fired from a building window and fell to the ground in the shadows on the side of the road. From time to time, a Soviet soldier would fall from a high building and hit the road hard. The flames of flamethrowers and the white light of grenade explosions flashed frequently, and the battle was extremely fierce.
"boom!"
A shell flew from nowhere and hit the side wall of a three-story building across the street. With a loud bang, half of the side wall of the building collapsed, and an unlucky Soviet soldier fell downstairs with the collapsed bricks and rubble.
Yuri frowned. He noticed a common problem among the new recruits. That was that these guys did not understand the principle of changing position after each shot. They were always reluctant to fight and always stayed in one shooting position for too long, which would often be discovered by the German army and lead to intensive counterattacks.
Keep this in mind. It will be necessary to inform the front-line squads later to let them pay more attention to this issue. In addition, the soldiers must be reminded of a smoking discipline: the same match must never be used to light cigarettes for more than two people, especially at night. Because the first time an open flame appears, it will attract the attention of the enemy. The second time it appears, it will be locked by the enemy's sniper or artillery calibration. The third time will be bad luck. Such common sense things are known by veterans with rich combat experience, but new recruits need to pay a bloody price to learn this knowledge.
"Comrade Major," just as Yuri was thinking about this, someone shouted from behind, "Comrade Political Commissar, please go back to the headquarters."
Yuri turned his head and glanced at the person who came. It was Olga's brother Vasily. Just as he had promised Olga before, Yuri transferred him to the headquarters to serve as a liaison soldier. Such a position did not require him to fight on the front line and was relatively safer.
However, this young man obviously did not use his brain very much and had very little social experience. In addition, he had just joined the army, so he knew nothing about military discipline and various precautions.
"When you report to your superior commander in the future, remember to report first," Yuri said, looking at Vasily with a serious expression.
This is not because he has many problems, is picky, or acts like a superior, but for Vasily's own good. There is no article in the Red Army's military law that requires soldiers to use the word "report" when reporting to their superiors, but the problem is that this is a customary form of respect for superiors. Some officers don't care about this, while some officers pay a lot of attention to it. Generally, those who pay attention to this person are often narrow-minded. Soldiers like Vasily, if they don't pay attention to such details, may unknowingly offend someone who is completely superior to them. Hindering promotion and advancement are still trivial matters. This is wartime. If a soldier is remembered by an officer, the consequences are often very serious.
After giving Vasily a mild reprimand, Yuri walked out of the classroom and headed straight for the command center located in the school's air-raid shelter.
When Yuri arrived at the headquarters, all the officers above the colonel level were there, and everyone had a serious expression on their faces. No, to be precise, it was very ugly. Demel had received a call from the front headquarters ten minutes ago, and got very bad news from it: at 6 a.m., the front position of the 21st Army in Chernigov was captured by the German army, and the 21st Army was forced to retreat to the south bank of the Desna River. In other words, the 34th Brigade held the Berezna area, which became the only position left by the Soviet army on the north bank of the Desna River. In military terms, the position of the 34th Army became the so-called "salient" of the Soviet army embedded in the German-controlled area.
