Excerpt from Chapter 28:
Back in Brest-Litovsk our Battery had been
equipped with new guns. The cannons were of a
newer, improved type and our commanding officer
ordered more training to get us familiar with
the new electronic sight and tracking devices.
Wilfried and I got our old positions back with
Holder's crew.
It was June and reasonably quiet. The Russian
spring offensive had come to a halt on
practically the whole of the Belorussian front.
Our guns were positioned around the perimeter of
the air force base and that gave us the
opportunity to work out on our new equipment,
using our aircraft when taking off or landing
for our tracking exercises.
One particular morning our Battery Commander
Oberleutnant Hahn visited our position and
informed us that American and British forces had
landed in the Normandy in the early hours of the
morning, 6 June 1944. He also said there were
reliable indications that Marshals Zhukov and
Rokossovky of the First and Second Belorussian
Fronts were pretty well poised to start their
imminent all-out summer offensive and warned us
to expect visits from the Russian air force and
to be ready.
A few days later I stood the morning watch from
4-5.30 and answered a call on the gun phone. It
was headquarters informing us that a sizable
formation of unidentified aircraft were heading
towards Brest-Litovsk airspace from 9 o'clock
(west) and all positions were to be on full
alert. I immediately raised the alarm and we
manned the gun but when I told Holder the
expected approach path was from the west he
thought that a bit strange or maybe I had got
the direction wrong. Why should 'Ivan' come from
the west? He got through to headquarters only to
have it confirmed. By now we could hear them and
the droning grew louder, then we saw them. They
were in tight formation and there must have been
hundreds of them. The sun was not quite up at
ground level but the early rays cast silverly
reflections from the planes' bellies in the
clear morning sky. Then we realized they weren't
Russian but American aircraft, B.17 Flying
Fortresses, four-engine heavy bombers and they
were coming directly overhead in a broad front.
They were too high for us to engage but the
frightening thought was should they open their
bomb bays we would all be wiped out in a few
minutes. I noticed Wilfried puffing furiously on
what he too thought might be his last Juno.
The formation flew over and the expected bombs
did not rain down on us, the reason being their
bays were empty. They had been carrying out a
night bombing mission over Leipzig and the coal
mining districts in Silesia and, instead of
returning to their home bases, had been ordered
to fly straight through into Russia and put
their fortresses down at Poltava, the huge air
base in the southern Ukraine and hand the planes
over to Ivan, as a present from Roosevelt to his
undaunted friend 'Uncle Joe'.
Something like 600 aircraft flew over us that
morning and the Russian air force had not
protected them with a single fighter escort so
it was no surprise that the Luftwaffe was able
to track them all the way to Poltava and when
they were neatly parked on the airfield they
sent in a 100-odd Heinkels and smashed them all
up.
On 22 June the Russian summer offensive began on
a massive scale directed against Army Group
Centre. It was Uncle Joe's revenge for the
German invasion of Russia exactly three years
previously. According to the Great Patriotic War
records engaged in the offensive were 166
infantry divisions, 10,000 men in each, 31,000
guns, 5,200 tanks, 6,000 aircraft and 25,000
two-ton lorries. Army Group Centre was already
greatly reduced in battle strength and could
muster only 28 divisions.
The First Belorussian Army was rapidly closing
in on Brest-Litovsk. Our airfield was given up,
the Heinkels were flown to a base somewhere in
Poland. Brest-Litovsk air base was completely
destroyed after quite a few heavy bombing
attacks and our battery was sent to the Zitadel
fortifications, ready for the defence of the
city and it looked like we would have to remain
there for a repetition of what we'd gone through
in Kovel.
July 6, my 22nd birthday, news reached us that
Kovel had been overrun by the assault troops of
the First Belorussia Army and on the 20th we
heard that Hitler had just escaped an
assassination attempt in his Rastenburg
headquarters Die Wolfsschanze, though we were
assured that most of the ring leaders had been
arrested and summarily executed.
Graf Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg had been
responsible for smuggling the bomb into the
conference room in his briefcase which he placed
near Hitler's feet, where it exploded five
minutes later. My brother would have had a shock
on hearing that news, which no doubt he did, if
he was still alive, as he was an old time school
mate of Claus's younger brother at the Gymnasium
in Gnzburg
and had spent weekends with him at the family
castle in Burgau. The Russians crossed the Bug
at Dorohusk and took Chelm on 18 July, entered
Lublin by the 23rd and were heading for the
Vistula river at Pulawy and Deblin, some 150 km
to the west of Brest-Litovsk. With the exception
of a few rearguard units, all German forces were
ordered to abandon the town and head west across
the Bug river and our battery pulled out at 4
a.m. in great haste on the 27th. Orders were to
take only the most essential gear and join the
Rollbahn leading to Warsaw.
When the first glimmer of sun came over the
horizon the Rollbahn was already choked to
overflowing with retreating troops, all
disorganized. It looked like the whole of Army
Group Centre was in reverse. About midday we
reached Biala Podlaska, about 50 km west of
Brest feeling lucky to get that far without
incident. Had the Russian air force shown up
they would have had a field day as, once locked
in in that never-ending stream of vehicles there
was no way of stopping or getting off the
Rollbahn. Stalled motors were just pushed into
the ditch and abandoned with the occupants
hitching a ride with others, or simply walking.
From Biala-Podlaska we were heading to Siedlce
when the column ground to a halt. Military
police and elements from the 'Wiking' 5th Panzer
division and units from the SS division
Totenkopf had put up a road block with tanks and
assault guns in a desperate attempt to halt and
reorganize the retreating troop formations and
to stem the massive onslaught of Marshals Zhukov
and Rokossovskys' enormous advancing armies
who'd already advanced far into our rear. They
had crossed the Vistula at several points well
ahead of us, forming a huge bridgehead at
Sandomierz, one at Pulawy and another at
Magnuszew on the approaches to Warsaw, thus
cutting off huge sections of Armee Gruppe Nord
Ukraine and Armee Gruppe Mitte to which we
belonged.
To make matters worse, the Second Belorussia
Front under the command of General Zakharov had
crossed the Bug river north of Siedlce and
established a number of bridgeheads there, thus
threatening to cut the highway in front of us
and prevent us from reaching Warsaw. Our guns
were singled out by the military police to
proceed along the railway line leading north
from Siedlce to Sokolow and take up defence
positions there and make a stand against the
advancing Russian infantry and tank formations
coming from those bridgeheads. The highway
leading to Sokolow from the Bug river was not
far in front of us. In a field between the road
and two of our guns were three heavy German
assault guns belonging to a Waffen SS unit and
we made sure we kept in close proximity to them.
It was good to know we were not alone,
especially as we had lost all contact with our
own battery.
A few miles ahead Russian tanks had crossed the
road and were heading for the railway line and
at that very moment a massacre was going on. By
the river infantry units from the Waffen SS were
engaged in a counter-attack and were locked in a
fierce hand-to-hand battle trying to dislodge
the Russian infantry on the south-western bank
bridgeheads. The Russian air force was on again
in full strength with MiG fighters and Il 2
Sturmoviks hammering the road with everything
they had, while some of their tanks which had
succeeded in crossing to the western bank joined
in.
The three assault guns fired constantly in the
direction of the river. Then two fighter planes
came from the north-west in a long, low circle -
MiGs - and we saw the red stars on their wings
as they closed in to take on the guns. But they
were unaware of our two flak cannons positioned
next to them and we were ready as they flew head
on into our shells. I saw our tracers vanish
into the fuselage of the plane Wilfried had
locked on to, and bits of metal tumble from its
wings. We must have scored some vital hits as
they didn't change direction but flew straight
on and disappeared behind the river where they
hit the ground and disintegrated into two almost
synchronized oily black mushrooms.
Between the road and the railway two Russian
tanks had been hit by the big guns and were
burning fiercely. We expected them to explode as
soon as the fire reached the stored grenades and
when that occurred those steel boxes on chains
would be ripped apart as if they were tins of
sardines. We figured they must have carried a
fair number of infantry with them as machine
gunfire was coming from behind the burning
vehicles.
Our second gun which was closer to them put a
round of tracers in their direction at the very
moment one ripped itself to pieces with an
almighty bang and after the explosion all that
was left were just the a few odd wheels and the
chains; the whole of the upper structure had
disappeared. The machine guns remained silent
and whether they were knocked out by our 2 cm
gun or by the exploding tank, we never found
out. The other tank seemed to hold together
though was still smoking. They'd probably spent
all their ammunition so there was nothing left
inside to do any further damage.
It was rather a hopeless position we found
ourselves in. The road was cut at numerous
places by Russian tanks and artillery, their air
force dominated the sky and their infantry
seemed to have established a good foothold our
side of the river and were doing their hardest
to consolidate and wipe us out. Worst of all
communications were absolutely chaotic and we'd
lost all contact with our battery.
We noticed the assault guns had stopped firing
and were getting ready to move out and concluded
they'd received orders via their command post.
Holder, who was watching, decided we should join
them, wherever they were going since it was no
use trying to move off on our own and our other
gun did likewise. We headed towards Praga, some
60-odd km to the west, fearing the chances of
making it were slim.
As expected we didn't get very far that evening.
The Russian forces had overtaken whatever was
left of the German Army between Brest-Litovsk
and Warsaw and was already crossing the Vistula
at the approaches to that city. The Rollbahn was
cut at three places from Siedlce to Praga by the
forces coming up from their bridgehead at
Magnuszew. We were well and truly trapped again
with heavy Russians forces at our rear, in front
of us and on either side. A messenger from the
assault guns came along to tell us to stay where
we were and keep the Rollbahn covered in case of
an attack. That was a bit of a surprise as we
assumed the main road to be still in German
hands. We stayed close to the big guns for the
night.
The messenger proved to be right. On the road to
Warsaw tanks were rolling westwards, T 34s and
American supplied M 4 Shermans. Our large guns
whacked a few shells into them and a couple were
ripped to pieces. We also delivered a few rounds
of tracers up to the road in supports but the
Russian columns kept rolling. Apart from
strafing the field with machine gun bursts from
their moving vehicles, they couldn't be bothered
with us for the time being. Their objective was
to reach Warsaw before we did. It seemed the
entire remnants of the German Army Group Centre
would be theirs for the picking anyhow.
To our right at the Bug river the Russians had
crossed at several more points and established
more bridgeheads. There wasn't much opposition
and they had the might of Rokossovsky's enormous
armour behind them. They were heading straight
for Minsk-Mazowieki and Wolomin. Minsk was on
the same railway line we were holding at that
moment, about 20 km outside Warsaw. Wolomin was
on the north-eastern track from Bialystock and
10 km to the city of Warsaw.
Somewhere in front of us a German machine gun
company were battling. They were hard pressed
but seemed to be holding their own against
Russian units who had dug themselves in on the
western bank of the Bug during the night. A
Leutnant from the machine gun company came
alongside our guns seeking assistance and after
a short briefing with the two kapos ordered us
to drive our vehicles up a small hill from where
he could see the top of the river bank and
direct our fire to where he knew it would be
most effective to support his outnumbered
infantry.
We commenced firing, strafing all along the
river's edge with phosphor tracers which must
have taken the enemy by surprise and our machine
gun company opened up enabling our infantry to
rush their positions. The Ivans were chased back
across the river, though losses must have been
heavy. We could notch up a victory which saved
the day, or night as it was, but they would be
back tomorrow for sure and then they would
finish us off as we would be sitting ducks for
their air force.
To the south-west, which must have been
Magnuszew or Pulawy, a heavy battle raged and
the night sky was lit up from almost continuous
flashes of artillery guns and shell explosions.
The night air carries the rumble of battle a
long distance from the place of origin. On the
Rollbahn the noise of rolling armour subsided as
the night dragged on and by dawn the highway was
again free from Russian troops though the battle
noise towards Magnuszew had increased. We
remained where we were until about mid morning
when a message reached our large guns to proceed
towards the Rollbahn and try to reach Warsaw and
by keeping in close formation we reached Praga
by night fall.
Brest-Litovsk was captured by the Russians on
the 28 July and they were now standing outside
Warsaw. In a few days they had advanced some 120
miles, absolutely decimating the German Army
Group North Ukraine and a large part of our Army
Group Centre. From the beginning of the summer
offensive on June 22, losses for the two German
Army Groups amounted to the destruction of about
60 divisions, 380,000 men killed and 150,000
taken prisoners. (According to the 'Great
Patriotic War')
To be taken prisoner in Russia was a fate to be
feared. Later statistics showed that of the
three million German prisoners in Russian hands
at the end of the war but only 837,828 were
repatriated by 1947, and then only after they
were of no more use to anybody, mostly living
wrecks. It is hard to say who were luckier, the
returned wrecks or their mates who perished in
the Siberian slave camps. That goes without a
footnote..
Despite Rokossovsky's enormous victory, the
Russian advance then inexplicably came to an
abrupt halt. Maybe their losses were equally
great, or perhaps Stalin was working hand in
hand with Roosevelt in letting the Poles get
mauled first, as both of them liked the Poles
less than they liked the Germans. As Roosevelt
said "the friendship of Stalin is worth more
than some 10,000 Poles" after refusing a plea by
the Poles in Warsaw to drop supplies---- at the
request of Uncle Joe."In the Eyes of the
Kremlin, the Polish Home Army was merely a tool
of the-reactionary Polish clique'- in London
whose leaders, in addition to their 'enslavement
to capitalism' and their 'bourgeois chauvinism'
had had the effrontery to state that the Katyn
massacres were the work of the N.K.V.D.
really...
Stalin called the Polish Home Army "a handful of
criminals who, in order to seize power, have
unleashed the Warsaw venture" He stubbornly
refused to allow Allied aircraft to land on
Soviet territory to refuel. What Uncle Joe
wanted, Uncle Joe always got. James V.
Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy noted in his
diary on September 2,:
"I find that whenever any American suggests that
we act in accordance with the need of our own
security he is apt to be called a god- damned
fascist or imperialist, while if Uncle Joe
suggests that he needs the Baltic Provinces,
half Poland, all Bessarabia and access to the
Mediterranean, all hand agree that he is a fine
frank, candid and generally delightful fellow
who is very easy to deal with because he is so
explicit in what he wants."
On the approaches to Praga there were a few more
roadblocks manned by military police and SS
units SD (SS Security Service) who directed us
to a barracks complex and ordered us to report
to the Commander of the garrison. We didn't know
it then but later discovered to our dismay that
we had just been incorporated into a unit of the
SS Division 'Totenkopf'. In fact we had been
operating with them for the previous couple of
days, ever since we were taken off the Rollbahn
at Siedlce. Those three assault guns we'd been
ordered to attach ourselves to were part of that
Division.
The place was crowded when we arrived. It wasn't
a proper barracks building but might have been a
school. We parked our vehicles inside the gate
which was heavily barricaded and guarded and our
two Kapos instructed us to stay with the guns
while they went off in search of the Commander's
office and also to find the location of our
battery. They returned shortly not having found
either though had discovered where we could get
something to eat and we were starving. As
expected, it was the usual loaf of commiss, a
few chunks of salami and a can of black coffee.
Russian artillery was slowly probing the
outlying district of Praga from the north-east.
They would be elements of Rokossovsky's 2nd
Belorussian Front coming from their Bug
bridgeheads. Their heavy shells were creeping up
and a fierce battle was raging on the approaches
to Praga between Soviet tanks and Panzers from
the SS Totenkopf Division in the Minsk-Maz and
Wolomin areas.
It took a long time for our minders to show up
again, but their search mission was not in vain.
They learnt that the main body of our battery
had moved through Warsaw during the day and
taken up positions in Modlin, a fortress about
20 km to the north-west of the city. Holder
instructed us to get ready and move the vehicles
quietly through the gates. Once outside, he
figured, it wouldn't be too hard to slip through
Warsaw and proceed to the fortress and
eventually join up with our unit.
We waited another hour before making our move
and had no trouble getting through the gates.
The sentry didn't give a damn where we were
going but outside in the street, leading to the
Vistula, our driver brought the vehicle to a
sudden stop when the muzzle of a `chain dog's
Schmeisser pistol came pretty close to his head.
It was a military police patrol. Holder tried to
explain to them that we were on our way to our
battery in Modlin. "Marschbefehl, bitte!"
(marching orders, please). Well, Holder couldn't
produce the necessary papers and the `chain
dog's' automatic muzzle was still firmly pointed
at its target, so we found ourselves back behind
the gates again. Unteroffizier Holder and his
mate again went in search of the relevant
documents while the rest of us settled down for
a nap.
Towards dawn our two braves woke us, having
managed to secure the required papers but there
was another problem: we couldn't get through the
gate. We were told we would have to wait for an
escort because it was impossible to get through
the city without it. A vehicle on its own would
never make it through Praga not to mention the
streets of Warsaw itself. According to
intelligence information the Polish Underground
Movement was set to rise any moment.
Our escorts were two Tiger Panzers on an escort
run to the Bielany air force base plus three
armoured personnel vehicles from the SS units in
the barracks who would make up the convoy. We
were instructed to keep in the wake of the
armour and keep the rear covered with our guns.
That was probably the reason Holder got our exit
papers as with them they had just that much
extra fire power for protection. The armoured
carriers each had a machine gun on board too.
The tanks rolled off, our gun followed, the
three other vehicles close behind us and our
second gun brought up the rear. I had a magazine
of explosives in the block, and Wilfried was
ready with his foot on the pedal. It was early
in the morning when we crossed the Kierbedz
bridge over the Vistula, passed the Royal Palace
and into the Old Town district and on to Stawki.
The Danzig Railway Station was on our left, the
Vistula river and the Citadel bridge to the
right of us as we headed north towards Zoliborz
and into the huge Inwalidow square. Considering
the early hour of the morning, the place was
packed with masses of people. Intelligence had
been right, the Polish Home Army was gathering
and it was very apparent that without the tank
escort our two guns would never have made it on
our own.
Perhaps the reason we weren't attacked was
because the Citadel was heavily fortified and
garrisoned by German troops and there were also
two German armoured trains down in the Danzig
railway station. Warsaw must have had a very
good city rail system as railway tracks were
everywhere. Driving across the square we noticed
German tanks were also positioned on all exit
roads. Making our way through the Zoliborz
district the going was slow. The suburb was
already heavily infiltrated by the Polish
Underground Movement and a few days later there
was heavy street fighting.
We crossed another fairly large open square -
(It could have meant Wilson Square or something
like that- I don't remember; Polish writing is
almost as hard to read as Russian) - and our
tanks entered an exit street where an abandoned
street car blocked the road but our leading
Tiger easily shoved it aside and we proceeded
towards Marymont where we parted company with
the rest of the convoy who were going to Okecie
and Bielany, Warsaw's airport and the German air
force base.
The road we were now on was the main road to
Modlin and on the way out of Marymont we were
again stopped by military police. This time from
the elite SS division 'Hermann G(tm)ring'
wanting to know where we were heading. Just as
well we had the proper papers or we could have
ended back in the centre of Warsaw or in Praga
as fire support for any unit needing some. Or
with a bit of luck we might have been
incorporated into the Hermann G(tm)ring
Regiment. We could hear the battle noise coming
from Wolomin, some ten miles across the Vistula
where some of their armour was engaged in a tank
battle and could have been sent to join them.
Actually it was as well that we were stopped as
one of the `chain dogs', knew the whereabouts of
our battery and was able to give us proper
directions and just before reaching Modlin we
caught up with them, on the left bank of the
Vistula beside a huge steel bridge. It still
took us some time to locate the Command Post
who'd only arrived the previous night and were
not yet organized. Oberleutnant Hahn was glad to
see us again as we were the only two guns
missing from his outfit. He had been aware of
our movements and deployments and had been
informed by the Totenkopf barracks that we were
on our way to join him in Modlin. There was
still some efficiency in the German Army even in
the face of disaster.
Hahn told us to remain with the Command Post for
the night and he would get us into defence
positions in the morning, meanwhile we looked
around for something to eat. Unteroffizier
Holder asked for an ammunition count and to my
amazement I found we'd only half a box left from
the six we had when we left Brest-Litovsk. We
settled down for the night, organized our
watches and tried to catch up on sleep. To the
south-east at Wolomin came the continuous
artillery flashes and rolling thunder from the
raging battle and we felt mighty glad to be
where we were and not in it. We'd had an
eventful couple of days since leaving Brest
Litovsk in a hurry and pondered on what the next
day might bring.
At daylight we replenished our ammunition and
petrol supply while Kapo Holder and his mate
discussed with Hahn where our guns could be dug
in most effectively to defend the bridge against
air attack and the advancing ground forces from
Wolomin in the south-east and Pultusk from the
Bug river bridgehead to the north-east. The rest
of us got busy cleaning the guns ready for
action again.
Holder decided we should move towards the bridge
and dig in on a spot some 100 metres to the left
of the approaches. The only favorable thing was
this time we were on the western side of the
river, with Modlin and the fortress some
distance away on the other side. All afternoon
while we were digging we saw the smoke hung over
the city and heard explosions which we judged to
be Russian artillery from Wolomin, now close
enough to shell the west bank of the Vistula and
the city centre.
It looked like we'd had a very lucky escape
getting out of Warsaw when we did. But then what
did it matter? The Russians would take the city
tomorrow, anyhow, since they already possessed
the back-door. Their air force would arrive at
dawn and blast the bridge in front of us out of
the river. We watched our engineers making it
easy for them as they placed explosive charges -
heavy Stuka bombs - all along its length. The
smoke over Warsaw had grown thicker and the
sound of the explosions were more frequent, but
it wasn't the Russian artillery bombardment, as
we were assuming.