Excerpt from Chapter 23:
The Heinkel bombers appeared again about
midmorning, eight or nine of them to drop the
usual supplies though this time it was
different. The Russians were expecting them and
as soon as they were over the centre of the town
their anti-aircraft batteries emplaced on the
surrounding hills opened up with every cannon
they had, joined by machine gun crews and all
available rifles and automatics from the dug in
infantry units. They spewed up tracers in an
almost perfect circle to home in on the planes
and almost immediately one was hit and burst
into flames and another trailed smoke and tried
to escape by skimming over the town at low level
but crashed into Russian held territory. How
many of them would make it back to their base in
Brest-Litovsk one could only guess.
Not all planes managed to off-load their cargoes
over the target area. Some got the goods out too
late and their chutes just drifted away to land
somewhere behind the Russian lines. That was a
great loss to the garrison as every container
was badly needed to keep our supplies from
dwindling. Our battery was already under
instruction not to get involved anymore with
overhead aircraft but to preserve the remaining
ammunition for ground attacks only.
Our driver was back with us again and before
dawn next morning we shifted our gun to the
railway goods yard at the point where the
Kashirsky line joined the main line to Brest-
Litovsk. We positioned ourselves behind one of
the buffer stops at the end of a shunting line.
Some 20 metres behind us was another gun, a 3.7
mm. cannon which was steadily firing over our
heads on to the railway line ahead of us. Four
lines across to our right were the railway
buildings and the goods yard sheds and in front
of us, some 50 odd metres, was a signal box. A
short distance behind that stood a signal post,
with its movable arm set halfway down from its
horizontal resting position.
Daylight was breaking and looking over the top
of the buffer stop we could clearly make out the
earthwork of the rampart behind which a heavy
anti-tank gun was positioned, the Ratch-Boom
that had nearly wiped us out two nights
previously down on the branch line. Today looked
like it was the other way round with our gun
emplacement slightly above theirs. We fired a
couple of rounds into their position but the
Ratch-Boom didn't reply. Perhaps some of the
3.7mm shells fired from behind us had knocked it
out of action. While watching our tracers homing
into their gun rampart I noticed the arm of the
signal post had shifted from below horizontal to
above horizontal. That could only mean the
signal box was in Russian hands and they were
trying to draw our fire on to the signal to
locate our exact position. We had stopped
shooting as did the 3.7s behind us and the
Leutnant from that gun came to us to find out
what was going on. According to his information
the signal box should now be empty. It had been
in German hands until midnight when the infantry
platoon pulled back and he wanted us to
investigate. Earlier in the morning I had been
to the end of the loading ramp on 'urgent,
pressing business' so knew how to get to the
building without being observed. I should have
kept my mouth shut. The Leutnant decided I was
just the chap for the job, and as there were no
volunteers I got it.
Holder directed Michail to go with me. Michail
was Croatian, 'Beute Deutscher' (German Booty)
as we called them, sort of a nickname with no
malice implied. He was quite a good mate though
not in the best of spirits, but then nobody was.
He was engaged, his leave was coming up and he
wanted to go home to be married, and now he was
worried that he would never see his beloved
again, or what was worse, she might marry
somebody else. Very sad indeed. We often joked
about it, which didn't do much for him.
The two of us dropped down on to the line to
crawl between the tracks to the end of the
loading ramp, still out of sight from the
Russians, or so we thought. We didn't get very
far. When about half way the first mortar shell
hit the rails some 5 metres in front, quickly
followed by another a bit closer and to the
right of us. I got the horrible feeling there
was somebody out there who could see us who was
following every movement we made and we were
trapped. To the left was the 1.5 metre high ramp
and to jump up to it would be certain death. To
our right were four lines of track. The only way
out was to crawl back.
Mortars are terrible weapons, unpredictable and,
unlike artillery shells which can be heard when
they come howling in, a mortar shell comes out
of the blue; one only hears a fraction of a
'whoosh' and then the explosion.
Whoever was watching us was not in the signal
box. To be seen from it one would need to be
close to the end of the ramp. I lay as flat as
possible in between a set of tracks and slowly
inched my way backwards without turning round. I
almost made it. Then there was that 'whoosh' and
a horrible explosion. A mortar had come in,
hitting the line immediately to my right,
ripping the track in two and bending it like it
was just a strip of wire. Lumps of stones from
the dislodged sleeper base showered over me.
I'd had enough. Not waiting for the next missile
I jumped up and dashed the last few metres to
the point where the ramp sloped down to rail
level. Rifle shots zinged past me and exploded
on the stone wall of the ramp as I hurled myself
over with one last huge effort and just made it.
Luckily Michail managed it too. The rifle shots
had come from across the railway line and must
have been from one of the goods yard buildings.
So Ivan was established there as well.
It was late in the afternoon. The 3.7s had
withdrawn to the railway line crossing the road
leading to the bridge over the river. We were
also on the point of pulling out but Holder
decided to stay put until darkness comes to
provide us with some protection for a safe
withdrawal. Holder shouldn't have waited that
long. A figure loomed up briefly in the twilight
on top of the buffer ramp. It was a Russian,
just about to throw a hand grenade down on us.
Holder got him first with a quick, well-aimed
pistol shot and as he jack-knifed forward the
grenade slipped from his grip and exploded on
top of the ramp.
The driver needed no instructions from our kapo;
his motor was already running and he got the
vehicle out just in time. I had a magazine in
the block and Wilfried put his foot on the pedal
pronto as the Russians on top of the ramp made a
hasty retreat. They must have slowly crept up
during the afternoon, just waiting for the light
to fade to jump on us and we'd been completely
unaware of their presence. We made it back to
the crossing, a bit shaken but without
casualties.
By now on the other side of the railway line,
half the goods yard had been taken over by the
Ivans. Our infantry went in again, trying to
dislodge them and our gun was ordered to support
them. The objectives were the goods yard sheds
and a few magazines of incendiary shells,
carefully aimed into the roof line was all that
was needed to set the wooden buildings on fire.
Our infantry's counter attack seemed to have
been successful and we advanced slowly. The
Russians were pulling back, leaving most of
their losses behind. We got to a point roughly
opposite our previous buffer position and I
could see where the mortars had hit the track
and the ramp wall, all now in Russian hands as
far as we could make out. We passed the dead
crew of a Maxim machine gun, half the cartridge
belt still in the loading chamber. Down by the
rail embankment, were the bodies of a Russian
officer and someone who was probably his radio
assistant, a woman. She lay on her back a short
distance down the slope, the field telephone
still clasped in her hands and her skirt slid up
revealing the army issued red bloomers. It must
have been those two who'd been responsible for
the rough treatment Michail and I got there.
From their vantage point they were able to
observe every movement and she would have been
the one who passed on the messages to the mortar
crew...'Verdammtes Flintenweib'!
Darkness came and our gun was called back to the
crossing and ordered to place ourselves on the
left side of the road facing it. The bridge, a
wooden structure with cantilevered sidewalks on
either side, was some two hundred metres behind
us. The whole of the goods yard area was a
burning inferno and the drifting smoke made it
difficult to breathe. In front of us, just
across the railway, was a forked road, one
leading to Ratno, the other, slightly curving
away to the right, to Kamen-Kashirskiy. We
received a message that a column of armoured
vehicles was approaching along the Kamen road,
believed to be German Panzers. I wondered
whether they might be the unit from
Kamen-Kashirsky where I'd nearly got my brains
blown out by one of their patrols and was
thinking how nice it would be to see them again,
only this time I would be on the other end of
the barrel!
I was squatting close to the barrel, Wilfried in
his seat with both hands on the controls, feet
on pedals, and I had a full magazine of armour
piercing and incendiary grenades in the block.
The drifting smoke made it difficult to see what
was over the crossing and the flickering flames
created weird, grotesque shadows. Then, out of
the flaming haze two vehicles emerged and
rumbled across the rail crossing, the first one
stopping directly in front of our carrier. They
were tanks, all right. Monsters! They didn't
look like ours and all of a sudden I steeled
myself to overcome my gripping fear. The tank
was almost touching our mudguard and only needed
to sweep his huge barrel sideways and our gun,
Wilfried and all of us would be knocked clean
over and into the ditch. The tank driver must
have been momentarily blinded as he drove out
from the blazing inferno into the dark again and
came to rest in front of our vehicle. Instantly
Wilfried put his foot on the firing pedal.
The impact flashes from our exploding shells on
his turret revealed the massive shape of a
Russian T 34 tank! I can't remember how, but I
am sure it was head first as I jumped over the
side. Not very heroic, but in such moments it's
self preservation and as the saying goes:
He who gets in battle slain, will never live to
fight again; He who fights and runs away, will
live to fight another day.
I wasn't thinking along those heroic lines as I
plummeted down the embankment and ended up on a
rusty heap of tangled barbed wire, but Wilfried
never made it out of his seat. In his haste to
follow, his overalls got caught on the seat's
lifting handle and he ended up lying flat on the
carrier with one leg hanging over the seat
desperately trying to keep out of reach of the
short bursts from the tank's forward machine
gun.
Luckily our well placed round of shells which
had exploded on the turret had probably blinded
the crew who were unaware where the firing came
from. The driver revved his motor and the
vehicle lurched forward, scraping the side of
our carrier and nearly toppling it off the road.
He was closely followed by the second T34, both
heading for the bridge. There was a third but it
never made it past the crossing when a
well-placed Panzerfaust (hollow charge) from the
infantry across the road stopped him in his
track and left him burning.
Disentangling myself from the barbed wire, I
made my way up to the road and found the driver
and two more of the crew. They hadn't fallen as
far as I had, but then they didn't have to jump
from the top of the carrier. Our valiant Kapo
Holder was there. Either he didn't jump or he
was quicker in crawling back. We didn't dare to
ask. The medic from the infantry platoon dashed
over the road to see whether we were all right.
Actually I wasn't too comfortable as I'd
suffered quite a few scratches from the rusty
barbed wire and thought maybe a dash of iodine
would assist. A futile request: there wasn't a
drop in the whole town the medic said.
The two T34s never made it across the bridge
either. The German unit guarding it had
barricaded it in the centre with two heavy farm
carts filled with stones and rubble. Not really
an obstacle for a heavy tank on a solid concrete
bridge, but this bridge was not made of
concrete, it was a rickety wooden structure.
When they got on to the bridge the leading tank
tried to push the obstacles out of its way and
this proved too much for the cantilevered
sidewalk. The additional weight caused it to
collapse, toppling both tanks into the icy
stream some ten meters below.
We abandoned the rail crossing early in the
morning and retreated across the bridge, or what
was left of it. The two tanks could still be
seen with their bellies up in the water, their
dead crew presumably still inside their 45 ton
steel boxes. We headed for the western suburbs
to where the railway line from Chelm came into
Kovel. The Panzerzug patrolling the line from
Chelm had been blown off the rails during the
night in its desperate attempt to reach the
outer defence lines. Disabled, but still holding
out against the surrounding Russians, its
Commander had called for ground support to
enable his crew to withdraw into the Kovel
garrison. Russian artillery fire coming from the
western hills increased in intensity. Our driver
cautiously inched us along with the retreating
traffic, we were keeping a good lookout for
Russian fighter bombers. The sky was full of
them lately. They had the monopoly over Kovel
airspace and dived on anything that moved.
Two MiGs zoomed in at low level from the east.
We spotted them in time and all jumped off the
carrier and into the trench dug along the side
of the road as part of the inner defence system
stretching all over Kovel. In the trench was an
infantry platoon and their commanding officer, a
Leutnant, took a dim view of us abandoning our
weapon and maintained it was our duty to take on
the attacking planes. It was only after Holder
explained that it was pointless to stay with the
gun since in order to preserve ammunition we
weren't allowed to shoot at air targets anymore
did the good Leutnant lower his menacing pistol.
The planes dived and strafed the length of the
road, somehow missing our vehicle. We cleared
out the moment they disappeared and cautiously
drove down the road. Russian artillery was
homing in on the main railway station in the
side street on our right and they hit something
big. A half circle resembling a rainbow with all
the appropriate colours rose into the sky and
there was a huge explosion. A fraction of a
second later a tremendous shock- wave hit us
making us cringe and gasp for breath. The
ammunition depot in the goods yard had been hit
and the whole thing blew, including the station.
There wouldn't be many survivors from there. Our
instructions were to link up with Wachtmeister
Wehrt's other two guns who had positioned
themselves in the old barracks complex on the
western outskirts. Our infantry had already gone
in, counter-attacking in support of the armoured
train but they didn't get very far. The Russians
got into the barracks first and there was heavy
fighting going on for possession of each
building. We reached an outbuilding close to the
main block where there was an SS platoon from a
rider squadron trying to dislodge the occupying
Russians. Wehrt's two guns were firing steadily
from the other side of the barracks. The
Russians had established themselves firmly in
the west wing and the east wing was in German
hands and they were battling it out, room by
room.
Two SS men lay on their backs in the snow near
the corner of the building in front of us, each
with a neat hole between their eyes. Sniper
bullets: one flash and oblivion. A peaceful way
of making an exit without feeling a thing. The
bullets must have come from the west wing of the
barracks and another SS man pointed out a window
saying that was where he'd seen the flashes come
from that took his two mates. Holder told our
driver to back up to the corner, just far enough
for our barrel to clear it. With a full magazine
in the block Wilfried fixed the window in his
sight and fired. We managed to get half a round
of explosives into the opening then the driver
hastily pulled us forward to the safety of the
wall - and a timely move that was as at that
very moment a Russian machine gun commenced
firing from somewhere in front of us, it's
bullets hitting the brick wall just around the
corner and exploding on impact. Terrible
explosive bullets that rip one to pieces if they
hit.
Our infantry were still holding out in the main
building but by now it seemed most of the
complex was in Russian possession. Two Germans
came through the hole which had once been the
front entrance and tried to dash across to our
building. Although the distance was short, they
stood little chance. They were only a few steps
out when the first man's arms shot up, throwing
his rifle into the air and, making a quarter
turn, fell flat on his back and his mate behind
stretched out his hands and fell on top of him.
Their lives had been snuffed out by a dozen or
so explosive bullets, probably from the same
machine gun that had fired on us. The cavalry
unit occupying the building the side of us
pulled out and after putting another round of
shells into the row of windows of the main
building we retreated too.
In trying to link up with Wachtmeister Wehrt we
moved back slowly to the shelter of the building
behind us. There was confusion all around and it
was virtually impossible to tell which buildings
were in Russian hands and Holder crept from
corner to corner with pistol drawn. The building
we finally reached was held by a group who
appeared to be pioneers. Whoever they were, it
was a case for us of getting there at the wrong
moment. Von der Dachrinne in die Traufe, as the
saying goes, or as the English would say 'from
the frying pan into the fire'. The Leutnant in
charge took immediate possession of our vehicle.
He needed all the fire support he could get, he
explained to our Kapo, saying he was about to go
back into the main building to blow it up.
Jesus, what a nerve with all the Russians in
there!?-- They turned out to be one of the
special units called 'Sonder Abteilung'. 'Himmelfahrts
commando' would be a better description - a
privileged group with a one-way ticket to heaven
- and looking at their weaponry we realized why.
We could see two 'Goliaths' tucked away near the
corner of the building, fused and ready to do
the job. The main entrance of the barracks was
some fifty odd metres away from that corner.
Goliaths were remote controlled demolition
devices on chain tracks, the shape of a small
tank, about 1.50 m long, .75 m wide and about
the same in height, with enough TNT packed
inside to blow a T-34 tank into fragments.
However they had a problem: the control was not
remote but was connected to the operator's
controls by a reel of wire and he had to
practically crawl to wherever he wanted to
position it. All it needed was a well-aimed
grenade and he was in heaven.
The motors of the mobile bombs were already
idling and the Leutnant said he wanted us to
concentrate our fire on the front windows to
keep those inside pinned down so they didn't see
what he was doing, enabling him and his crew to
get as close to the main entrance as possible.
All surrounding German positions had been
informed of his intention, according to the
brave Leutnant. How he would manage to do that
Holder wasn't game to ask. He told us he would
send up two flares, the first one was for us to
commence firing, and the second to take cover.
We commenced firing the moment the first flare
left his pistol and were joined by Wehrt's other
guns from somewhere the other side of the
building. The Leutnant and his men crawled out,
guiding their little 'tanks' towards the front
of the barracks. I was too busy feeding the
barrel to watch them but hoped they would make
it. I'd just loaded the third magazine when the
second flare went up and we stopped shooting and
prepared for cover. They must have succeeded in
guiding the Goliaths almost the whole length
inside the corridor before they blew. The
explosion was tremendous and flames and debris
spewed out of the windows and the whole
structure caved. Russian losses must have been
horrific. We didn't hang round to find out what
happened to the Leutnant and his commando, we
pulled out, again trying to link up with
Wachtmeister Wehrt's other guns before making
our way back to the Command post but couldn't do
so without being seen so headed back to
Headquarters to wait for them there and to
replenish our dwindling ammunition. While the
battle was on in the barracks complex, the crew
of the armoured train was able to destroy it and
withdraw behind the defence perimeter where they
joined up with a Pioneer Company in the vicinity
of the railway where the track from Chelm ended.
A fierce battle was going on but they stood
their ground even though they were heavily
outnumbered by Russian infantry.