Chapter 211 |
< World War II - River of Fire and Blood (7) >
September 18, 1941
Dnieper Riverbank, Site of the Fierce Battle between Allied and Soviet Forces
Along the vast, long Dnieper River, which stretched from the Black Sea to Smolensk, millions of Soviet soldiers were simultaneously preparing for a river crossing.
A disharmonious duet echoed across the tension-filled battlefield.
“The fate of the Motherland rests on this one battle! Proud Red Army, fight for the Union of People!”
[Gentlemen of the Red Army, the weapons in your rough hands,]
“Soviet Ura, Ura!”
[Has the war started by the Fatherland defeated the enemies?]
“Move faster, faster!”
[All of us who have made countless sacrifices,]
“Comrades, prepare to attack! Prepare to attack!”
[Have been dragged to the battlefield again, told it's the Fatherland's decisive battle.
]
“Aren’t they going to blow up that damn loudspeaker?”
“Artillery is prioritizing counter-battery fire!”
“Damn reactionaries!”
In the busy Soviet positions, where soldiers were hectically preparing for the river crossing, the men being half-forced onto the boats looked no different from cattle being led to a slaughterhouse.
There was no uniformity to the boats the Soviet Army was using to cross.
A standard transport ship was a lucky draw, but such fortunate cases were extremely rare. A significant number had to entrust themselves to requisitioned civilian ships or, even worse, flimsy rubber boats.
The Soviet soldiers watched with fearful eyes as a machine gun was set up on the riverbank.
Machine gun bullets couldn't reach the other side of the river.
That machine gun was aimed at the backs of its allies.
[The Red Army, advance, advance!]
“There is no retreat for the great Red Army!”
[The People's Commissariat of Defense leads us to a worthless battlefield.
]
“The heroic great feats of our comrades will be remembered forever in the Union!”
The political officers urged them on to a great war, while the military song told them that war was worthless, holding them back.
[The comrade says he knows the Red Army is the strongest army, from the Taiga to the British seas.
]
As the Soviet soldiers who had boarded the boats for the crossing swallowed dryly, the regimental commander raised his Tokarev Pistol to the sky.
Soon, a gunshot rang out.
“Cross the river!”
“Attack, attack!”
“For the Motherland! Ura!”
The Soviet troops remaining on the riverbank vigorously waved red flags, claiming to be boosting the morale of the great Soviet heroes, while the officers and political officers aboard each boat shouted valiantly.
The boats began to cross the river all at once.
[The Communist Party and Stalin, they have placed us under oppression again.]
After sending off so many lives in such flimsy boats, the regimental commander who remained behind stared blankly at the Tokarev Pistol in his hand and muttered very quietly.
“Fuck, this is an unbearable job.”
-
As the river crossing began and the boats moved in unison, artillery fire soon erupted from the Allied positions.
“O-Oh God, please protect me…”
“Comrade, what is this reactionary—”
The political officer’s statement was cut short as a shell landed right next to a nearby boat, and the shockwave capsized it.
“H-Help me!”
“Gurgle, gurgle! Help!”
There was no spare capacity to pull dozens of men from the water onto the already-full boats.
“…Ignore them and advance! Advance! Advance!”
Turning a blind eye to their floundering comrades, some swallowed dryly, some prayed for God’s mercy, and some burned with the will to fight for the Union.
Countless boats covered the river, heading for the other side like moths drawn to a flame.
The enemy’s continuous artillery fire, which had been blowing up boats along with the soldiers they carried, ceased as the roar of artillery also erupted from the Soviet positions.
The loudspeakers that had been constantly grating on the Soviet nerves were also shattered by the shelling.
“Please, please…”
Contrary to the hopes of the soldiers on the boats, the other side of the river drew closer at a rapid pace.
“Prepare for landing!”
“Comrades, quick—”
The junior political officer, who had been shouting at the forefront to encourage the soldiers, was the first to be struck by a bullet and plunged into the water.
A hail of gunfire rained down, striking the boats of every shape and material that the Soviets had hastily conscripted, civilian or otherwise.
“Gack…”
“Aaargh!”
The machine gun that had earned the infamous name “Hitler’s Buzzsaw” in the original history, now designated the MG41, had just been deployed and was pouring down a rain of bullets.
Soldiers who had managed to cross the river on boats collapsed in rows, turned into chunks of meat before they could even let out a proper death cry, with the shore just in sight.
“Abandon the boats!”
“Jump into the water, quickly!”
As those on the boats began to be turned into pulp in an instant, many Soviet soldiers began to jump from their boats without a second thought.
“H-Help me, Comrade! I can’t swim—Gack!”
“Let go, gack!”
But the storm of bullets showed no mercy to the Soviet soldiers flailing in the river either.
Even the lucky Soviet soldiers who made it to shore unscathed had to charge a trench line across the Ukrainian plains, where there was no cover whatsoever.
But they couldn't afford to stop in the face of such hopelessness.
“Aaaaargh!”
An unlucky Soviet soldier hit by a mortar dies, dazedly watching his own body get blown to pieces with a deafening roar.
Far away in the sky, the scene of Allied military aircraft swarming like bees was also visible.
“Charge! Charge! Soviet Ura!”
Yet even in this chaos, the surviving political officers urged them to attack, pointing their pistols.
Behind them was a river they could never swim across. Even if they tried to return by boat, they would be met by a machine gun position aimed at its own allies.
“U… Ura!”
If they stayed put, they would surely be killed by the political officers, so the Soviet soldiers had no choice but to charge blindly forward.
Across the entire Dnieper River theater, the Soviet Army suffered well over a hundred thousand losses just from crossing the river.
But the battle had only just begun.
-
September 20, 1941
Western Soviet Union, Vitebsk – Soviet Western Front Forces Headquarters
Ivan Konev watched with a satisfied smile as the military force of Voroshilov and Budyonny, which had departed from Smolensk, arrived one after another.
He had also received reports that as the echelon offensive began across the entire front and the defense lines on the riverbank started to be breached by millions of attackers, the enemy’s armored units had been committed.
At a point where retreating across the river was nearly impossible, the enemy couldn’t possibly conceive that such an offensive was a smokescreen.
While he couldn’t guarantee that the enemy was completely mistaken about the main thrust, at the very least, their forces were now certainly dispersed.
This was an opportunity.
-In this operation, Marshal Voroshilov’s and Marshal Budyonny’s units will be placed entirely under the command of you, Comrade Lieutenant General Konev, not Comrade General Zhukov.
Ivan Konev was filled with exhilaration as he recalled the words of NKVD head Andropov.
During the Battle of Warsaw, Ivan Konev had been tied down by Kluge’s Army Group North, unable to move while the other fronts collapsed.
Zhukov had argued to the General Secretary that if Konev had provided support in time, the defeat wouldn’t have been so devastating.
Many general officers disliked him for having transferred to the military from being a political officer.
He was lucky it all ended with Marshal Kulik’s responsibility being so obvious that he was executed; otherwise, Konev might have become a scapegoat in the blame game.
-Both Marshal Voroshilov and Marshal Budyonny, and of course, Comrade General Secretary, know that Comrade Konev is the only one loyal and competent enough to be entrusted with the Party’s most loyal army.
But look, no matter what anyone said, the Party recognized his loyalty.
Hadn’t it entrusted this greatest opportunity entirely into his hands?
His own unit, badly depleted at the front, numbered a mere 1.5 million, but he had 2 million fresh troops handed over from Marshal Voroshilov and Marshal Budyonny.
On top of that, the armored units from Kursk would be arriving soon.
The battlefield was Belarus.
The place where Günther von Kluge’s Army Group North and the tattered Polish Army were stationed.
“This should be ripe enough.
All units, commence the advance! We'll strike where they least expect it!”
Burning with the ambition to avenge his last battle and surpass Zhukov to become the greatest general in the Soviet Union, Konev ordered the offensive.
-
September 23, 1941
Central Ukraine, Kiev – Allied Eastern Front Forces Headquarters
“Aah, tell the men to unpack and get some shut-eye.
Ahh, this is fucking tough!”
“Understood, Battalion Commander.”
At the words of Clemens Fleck, who was slated for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, his adjutant Vinrich Behr replied with a weary face.
The Mobile Army Group, serving as both reserves and a fire brigade, had been moving nonstop since the offensive began.
The Soviet echelon offensive was unfolding across the entire front, and among those sectors were places where the establishment of a defense line along the riverbank had not been properly completed.
Every time one of those sectors was breached, the Mobile Army Group had to set out to put out the fire, and naturally, they were being thoroughly used to plug holes in the front without any proper rest.
“Damn Soviets, and that damn son of a bitch Manstein…”
The Soviets, who continued their offensive while staining the Dnieper River red with blood, their casualties already numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and Manstein, who treated soldiers like chess pieces, were all the same.
As Clemens headed toward his barracks, stretching his stiff neck with a crack, his adjutant, Behr, ran up and called out to him.
“Battalion Commander?”
“Aah, can’t hear you.
I didn’t hear a thing. I never received the order.
I’m going to rest, I’m telling you, I’m resting!”
To deploy for a fierce battle, return to Kiev, and then be scrambled by urgent news again before getting any real rest.
At this all-too-familiar development, Clemens shuddered and looked ready to flee, but Behr cautiously opened his mouth.
“Battalion Commander. They say it’s an all-out offensive in Belarus.”
“What?”
Clemens, who had been meekly resisting, longing for sabotage, snapped to his senses at those words.
If it’s Belarus, Karina is there—
“Over four million Soviet troops have started an all-out offensive! The front has already collapsed, and they’re pouring into occupied territory.
General Hube’s orders are to prepare to set out immediately—”
“Get the entire unit ready to move! Right now!”
Clemens started running, shouting before Behr could even finish his sentence.
‘Please, please just be alive.
’
“I’m coming to see you now!”
-
September 25, 1941
Belarus, near Minsk, Barysaw – The Front
The gunfire was incessant. Only curses, shouts, and screams filled the battlefield.
“Уpа!! Уpа!!!!”
No matter how many Soviet soldiers they killed, they just kept shouting “Ura!” and flooding in endlessly.
“These madmen, there’s no end to them!”
“When are reinforcements coming!”
Army Group North, both German Army and Polish Army alike, had already been thoroughly shattered and pushed back to Barysaw, just a stone's throw from Minsk.
The Dnieper defense line, already narrow in this upstream section, was instantly broken through when a T-34 armored unit suddenly appeared from the direction of Vitebsk.
Sergeant Karina Juhlińska, concealed inside a building, held her breath as she looked through her scope at an enemy, then immediately pulled the trigger.
With a familiar recoil, the enemy fell screaming, and she mechanically worked the bolt to eject the spent casing.
At the same time, she saw an enemy soldier aiming a flamethrower in her direction.
She aimed almost instantly and pulled the trigger, and the enemy soldier fell.
But from the opposite side, she vividly saw her comrades defending the building get hit by another flamethrower, falling in terrible, burning screams.
At that moment, Karina ducked on pure instinct, and a bullet slammed into the spot where she had just been.
A cold sweat ran down Karina’s spine.
“Damn it all, I’m really going to die like this!”
Gunfire was already erupting from below her building, and Soviet soldiers were pouring into every entrance of the urban area.
“Sergeant! We can’t hold on any longer! The order is to abandon the urban area and retreat!”
“Got it!”
Karina pulled out a grenade, pulled the pin, threw it out the window, and started running.
In a moment, something that sounded like a Russian curse, along with an explosion, erupted from outside, and the building shook.
“Retreat, retreat!”
“This is crazy, this is insane! Damn Soviet—Huk!”
The Allied forces, who had been holding on with sheer grit, began to exit the urban area as soon as the retreat order was given, but even that was not easy thanks to the Soviet troops who had already penetrated deep into the city.
“Aaaah, aaaaaargh!”
The Soviet Army did not hesitate to use flamethrowers for their mop-up operation, and countless Polish and German soldiers were burned to death in a fiery hell before they could even get out of the buildings.
Karina’s spine chilled at the thought that if she had been just a little bit later, or if she had failed that last shot, she would have ended up like that.
Half of it was trusting in cover and her own fast legs on a battlefield raining bullets.
The other half was the grace of God, making the bullets miss.
Karina ran hard, hoping for good luck, when she spotted a familiar back of the head with a bandage wrapped around the leg.
“What, you were still here?”
“Gasp, gasp, Sergeant!”
The first private who had been whining about his leg at the start of the battle was running with a limp.
Karina briefly debated whether to just pass him or help, but she clicked her tongue and started to support him as she ran.
“T-Thank you!”
“If I die because of you, I’ll curse you forever.
Run faster!”
As they ran with all their might, she heard the familiar sound of an engine and rolling tracks.
Karina felt goosebumps and looked back, where she could see the sight of a T-34 tank unit charging toward them—a sight she had seen so many times now it would even appear in her dreams.
“Damn it all.”
What are our armored units doing?
In this moment, she desperately wanted to see Clemens Fleck.