Chapter 62 Who is fighting?
The counterattack launched by the 34th Brigade was officially declared a failure at 9 o'clock that night. In order to maintain the urban positions north of the Desna River, Yuri had to withdraw the troops that had previously broken into the German defense line to consolidate the defense line before the German army launched a larger-scale attack.
Although it was a failed attack, in Yuri's opinion, the battle still had some value. In fact, if it were not for the lack of reserve troops, the tactical concept he originally formulated would still have a great chance of being realized.
In addition, after this counterattack, it can be judged that the German defense in the area north of Berezna is not very strong. A part of the Soviet army attacking from the west has been advancing to the northwest suburbs of Shetanoyev Town within nearly three hours after the battle started, and then encountered strong resistance from the German army. This means that it takes nearly three hours for the German army to mobilize support forces from the nearest area and then rush to the suburbs of Berezna. According to Yuri's guess, this part of the German support should have come from the direction of Chernigov.
In addition, according to the report of Captain Gorsky, who commanded the Soviet army in the west, his troops did not find any German armored forces in the town of Shetanoyev, and although the German resistance was very tenacious, their artillery fire was not very fierce, so the Soviet casualties were not large. All these combined are enough to show that the German troops in the front area north of Berezna are definitely not sufficient. Yuri even believes that if the front can mobilize a part of the reserve forces and use Berezna as a breakthrough point to fight a counterattack, then the situation is likely to change.
By the time the assault troops withdrew and re-stabilized the front line of defense in the city, it was already 3 o'clock in the morning. After experiencing this failure, Yuri felt exhausted. At present, the losses of various troops have not been reported, but it is foreseeable that the accurate casualty figures will definitely not make people feel happy. The most important thing is that the brigade's major staff officer Anatoly Andreevich Mironov was killed. This unlucky guy was killed on the spot by a German artillery shell while peeing by the river.
Inside the city, the German artillery fire had not ceased, and fierce gunfire was still echoing in the night sky of the entire city. Yuri couldn't sleep at this time. He had to hurry to write a report and report to the front command on tonight's battle situation.
It was a headache. The troops suffered heavy losses but did not achieve any results. What was even more tragic was that Yuri initiated this battle on his own initiative without the approval of the front headquarters. In other words, he had to bear full responsibility for the defeat. It was estimated that the front headquarters had already known about this, after all, many staff officers in the brigade were not on the same page with him.
Yuri was not wrong in his guess. The front command had indeed learned about the unfavorable situation of the 34th Brigade early in the morning. Someone had reported the news to Tupikov, the chief of staff, early on. Tupikov had no obligation to conceal the situation for Yuri, so he reported it directly to Kirponos and notified several key staff members of the front staff.
This matter is very serious. The failure of the 34th Brigade is likely to affect the entire northern defense line. Once the 34th Brigade loses the Berezno line of defense due to heavy losses, the German 51st Army will be able to break through the Desna River defense line, thus posing a direct threat to the flanks and rear of the 40th Army stationed in the Sosnitsa area and the 21st Army stationed in Chernigov.
Perhaps considering the seriousness of the matter, or perhaps for some other reason, Tupikov made a special call to Khrushchev who was in Brovary and told him to rush to the front headquarters as soon as possible, because the headquarters would definitely hold a meeting on the matter to discuss countermeasures.
Khrushchev was awakened from his sleep by his secretary and answered Tupikov's call. He fell asleep immediately. He didn't care about anything else. The first thing he did was to deal with the battle plan that Yuri had given him, and then he hurried to Kiev by car.
To be honest, Khrushchev, who didn't know much about military affairs, had considered that Yuri's counterattack would fail, but he didn't know that the situation would be as serious as Tupikov said. The entire northern defense line might collapse because of this? Just thinking about that result, Khrushchev couldn't help but feel his heart beating faster.
During the more than half an hour on the way from Brovary to the front headquarters in Kiev, Khrushchev was thinking about how to get himself out of this defeat, preferably without having anything to do with it.
With a nervous heart, Khrushchev rushed to the front headquarters. However, to his surprise, when he walked into the front headquarters, there was no one in the huge conference room.
The chairs beside the long table in the conference room were placed in a messy manner, and there were some documents, guns and even a few commanders' hats left on the table. In addition, the pungent smell of tobacco filled the entire room, all of which proved that there were many people staying here not long ago.
Where are the people? Where have they gone? Could it be that the northern defense line collapsed so quickly? This shouldn't be possible!
Sitting in the empty conference room, Khrushchev's heart suddenly hung in his throat.
"Report!"
Just when Khrushchev's mind was full of wild thoughts, someone outside the door spoke loudly.
Khrushchev turned his head woodenly and looked towards the door.
"Comrade Political Commissar," a signalman standing at the door said loudly when he saw Khrushchev turned around, "the commander asked me to ask you to go to the communication room immediately."
"Oh, the communications room? Who's there?" Khrushchev's scalp tingled, and he insisted, "Do you know what happened? Is there any problem with the northern defense line?"
"Report to the political commissar," the signalman replied loudly, "many leading comrades are there. As for what happened..."
The signalman hesitated for a moment, but finally answered: "I don't know either, but in the past ten minutes, the 40th Army and the Bryansk Front Command have called to ask which unit is fighting the Germans in the Shaws direction."
"Shoals?" Khrushchev was a little confused. Wasn't that in the German-occupied area?
"Yes, it is in the direction of Shaws, Comrade Political Commissar," the signalman answered truthfully, "According to several army groups, the fighting in the direction of Shaws is very fierce and has lasted for nearly two hours. The flames of the fighting can be seen clearly in both the Sosnitsa and Semyonovka directions."
Khrushchev was stunned. Fires could be seen in both places? How big a battle would that be? Semyonovka was relatively better, as it was nearly 37 kilometers away from Shaws, while Sosnitsa was nearly 50 kilometers away from Shaws.
Knowing that the signalman couldn't possibly know much, Khrushchev stopped asking questions, quickly left the meeting room and headed towards the communications room.
Just as the signalman said, the communication room was now full of people, including Kirponos. All the people from the front command had arrived, and Khrushchev was the last one to arrive.
When Khrushchev walked into the communications room, Kirponos was in contact with the Southwestern Theater Command. The person he was talking to was Marshal Timoshenko. It was obvious that they had also received the news and took it very seriously, so much so that even Timoshenko was called up.
Khrushchev arrived a little late. Kirponos' call was already at the end. He put down the phone and said with a puzzled look on his face, "The theater has no relevant combat plan. Colonel Bonintav has already been contacted. The guerrillas will not take any action tonight. However, they have sent out scouts, but no accurate information has been transmitted back so far."
"What exactly happened?" Khrushchev couldn't help but step forward and ask.
"There was a large-scale fierce battle in the Shaws direction," Tupikov turned around and nodded at him before answering, "The 40th Army called first. They thought there was an action in Bryansk, and it was so large that the German troops attacking Sosnitsa were forced to withdraw from the battle. They also asked if they could launch a counterattack to cooperate with the offensive in the Bryansk direction."
"However, the Bryansk Front Command also called to inquire about this matter. They thought we were launching the offensive and asked if we needed any cooperation," Tupikov said in a slow tone.
"This is simply impossible," said Baghramyan, a combat staff officer who was well aware of the front's combat deployment. "We don't have such a large-scale force in the Shaols direction, nor do we have the ability to launch a large-scale offensive."
Bagramyan was right. Judging from the degree of illumination of the fire in the Shaws area, this was definitely not a small-scale battle, but an effect that could only be produced by large-scale concentrated artillery bombardment. And in a place like Shaws, how could a large-scale artillery unit of the Soviet Army appear?
"Is there an internal conflict among the Germans?" someone whispered.
However, no one paid attention to this argument because it was not possible at all.
"Could there be a problem with the German army's fuel depot?" Someone made another guess, but this guess was quite plausible and made many people's eyes light up.
But Baghramyan quickly said: "According to the intelligence we have, the German army's main oil depot is located in Mozyr, and Shaws does not have such a large oil reserve."
"Could it be that the German army has a large-scale offensive plan recently, so in order to support this offensive plan, they transferred enough fuel to the direction of Shors?" Khrushchev's voice trembled, and he said with shining eyes, "As far as I know, the 34th Brigade's combat plan includes a plan to raid the Shors Lyubitenoye Railway Station."
The communications room suddenly became quiet, and more than a dozen pairs of eyes turned and converged on Khrushchev.
