by Gee, Colin
The Mosquito flipped into a shallow dive and eight rockets sped away, smoky trails indicating the likely landing point.
Panfilova and Yarit tried to run but explosive force moves quicker than a human can react.
The first rocket entered the rear compartment of the SU, instantly sending it in all directions as nothing more than scrap metal, its crew evaporated.
The seventh rocket to land dropped at the rear of the ruined truck in which the two snipers were hiding.
After the battle was over, and Tostedt was in Soviet hands, comrades searched long and hard for the pair. Of Yarit, there was simply no trace. The sniper unit’s senior Non-com was finally persuaded to climb a tree and knock down an indescribable something that was hanging in its branches. Lacking head, arms and legs, the destroyed body was beyond identification, save for the obvious shapely right breast.
The only female missing was Lena Panfilova, so her grieving comrades swiftly buried the corpse, on the assumption that it was their prettiest and youngest killer.
1925 hrs 13th August 1945, Tostedt Land, Germany.
Allied forces – Carleton & York Regiment, 4th Platoon, Saskatoon Light Infantry [MG] all of 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade, 3rd Field Regiment RCHA, 2nd Platoon, 4th Canadian Field Company RCE, B Battery, 1st Anti-Tank Regiment RCHA, all of 1st Canadian Infantry Division, Canadian I Corps, Canadian First Army, British 21st Army Group. Kommando Tostedt, Kommando Bucholz.
Soviet Forces – 4th Guards Tank Brigade, 1st Company, 79th Motorcycle Battalion, 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 1695th AA Regiment, all of 2nd Guards Tank Corps, 1195th Rifle Regiment, 1197th Rifle Regiment, 920th Artillery Regiment all of 360th Rifle Division, Army sniper section, 1st Battalion, 2nd Guards Assault Engineer Sapper Brigade, all of 11th Guards Army, 1st Baltic Front.
Fig #35 - Tostedt Land
Colonel Yarishlov was extremely satisfied. The lead formations had initially walked through the enemy front line, so effective had been the artillery strike. In fact, the main issue slowing the initial advance had been the destruction to roads and tracks ravaged by shells from Soviet artillery pieces.
2nd Guards Tank Corps was one of a number of fresh units temporarily assigned to the 11th Guards Army, to bolster the attacking force in its drive south-west towards Bremen.
The infantry of 360th Rifle Division had leap-frogged his armour, and their attacks had eventually cleared out the town ahead, at the cost of decimating the 1193rd Rifle Regiment, only for the Division to grind to a halt when the Germans and Canadian forces stopped the assault just short of the bridges over the Oste and Wümme. They then counter-attacked and drove the survivors back through Rotenburg and Wistedt all the way into Tostedt. 1193rd with the assistance of relatively fresh 1197th tried at once to renew the advance, but heavy casualties took their toll, and they were unable to progress alone. Yarishlov’s 4th Guards Tank Brigade was ordered to support a second attempt to dislodge the enemy, and to open the route to Stemmen, Lauenbruck and Scheeβel for the rest of the Corps.
Already the timetable was falling well behind, and so there was no time for the niceties of complex planning, even though his men were more understanding and proficient than most. But neither did that mean that the tank Colonel was going to just hammer in, regardless of casualties.
A cursory look at the map was sufficient for Yarishlov to appreciate the risks of his attack, and to plan accordingly.
Fig #36 - Tostedt Land dispositions
According to reports from the competent commander of the 360th, the only bridge intact on his right flank seemed to be that just east of Everstorfermoor, the defenders having brought down all but one of the bridges west and south-west of Rotenburg. The man believed that the water barrier was easily enough forded by infantry in places, but had not tested the possibility as yet. He was now on his way to the rear, his war cut short by a simple stumble that left the man with a painfully dislocated right knee. Yarishlov assumed command of all forces in the area and assembled his officers for a swift and simple briefing.
Unable to take a chance that the Oste River might be fordable and not having the time to do proper reconnaissance, Yarishlov looked to a more southerly approach for his main drive, hooking around through the hamlets of Riepshof and Tiefenbruch and following the rail line through Dreihausen, crossing over the Wümme River by the rail bridge that was apparently still standing.
He described the line of march with his hands, examining each officer's reaction as he looked for a sign of weakness or doubt. None was forthcoming, and the tank Colonel was encouraged as good questions were asked, confirming that the men of his command understood their business.
The area between the rivers, centred on Tostedt Land, was of great interest to him and he drew his men in closer to the map, outlining a possible change of plan, should circumstances proved favourable.
The young Major now commanding the roughly-handled 1197th Regiment moved closer and examined the map, suggesting a small modification to Yarishlov’s move westwards through Tostedt Land, leaving a smear of blood on the Wümme river line between Wümme and Dreihausen. The modification was a good one, and the artillery commander confirmed the change was an improvement. Devoid of ego, Yarishlov always encouraged and welcomed the input of his officers, and he openly commended the man, which went a long way to overcoming the pain of the Major’s wound.
When he had finished his briefing, watches were synchronised, and then the officers were dismissed to their commands, but not before he ordered the wounded Major to get some attention to his damaged forearm.
Suddenly finding himself alone in the school room that presently served as his headquarters, Yarishlov stretched and lazily searched his pockets for a cigarette.
A knock on the door startled the Colonel out of his daydream, the more so as the knocker didn’t wait for permission to enter and just kicked the door open.
Starshina Stefan Yurievich Kriks almost ran through the doorway, his hands full of huge enamel mugs brimming with obviously scalding hot liquid, his cries of distress growing in volume with every step.
“Ay-yay-yay-yay-yay!”
The mugs hit the table, each spilling a quantity of the dark brown liquid. The NCO was more interested in his hands, licking each in turn, feeling the heat on his tongue.
Colonel Yarishlov drew himself up to his full height and adopted a formal voice.
“Starshina Kriks. Look at my door, you thug! What have you got to say for yourself?”
Kriks noted the displaced hinge and cocked an eyebrow. Maybe he had kicked it a bit hard after all.
“Comrade Colonel, I was bringing you tea and I could not delay. Had I waited for you to answer the door, then I would now be on the way to hospital with burned fingers, and I would be risking a charge of self-inflicted injury from our revolutionary brothers in the NKVD.”
Yarishlov sniggered.
“Good answer, Starshina, good answer.”
The two men shared a grin, the sort that men who have endured hell together exchange; one that requires no words.
Kriks popped out some English Players cigarettes and the two relaxed in each other’s company, away from the rigours of military formality.
Smoking and sipping alternately, there was no need for words until an ambulance passing by the window ground its gears noisily, breaking the reverie, and making both look up, its woeful cargo immediately apparent.
Kriks pointed his mug at the vehicle.
“The 360th boys did their best today, Comrade. They took a beating, but they are still up for a fight. I’ve seen nothing but an excellent spirit from them. I’m surprised they aren’t Guards yet.”
Yarishlov nodded in acknowledgement, both of the wounded men and of his NCO’s words, and raised the drink to his lips again. Kriks, the man with the asbestos throat, finished his, exposing the maple leaf on the bottom of his mug.
“Capitalist cigarettes, capitalist tea, capitalist mugs. What are you doing to me, Stefan?”
Kriks turned his mug
over. On the underside was the outline of a maple leaf, the British War department stamp and, in pencil, the name ‘Wainwright’.
The Starshina shrugged.
“Comrade Colonel, it was Canadian tea or nothing. This is the fault of my tank commander.”
The twinkle in Kriks’ eyes was very evident.
Replying as evenly as he could, Yarishlov kept a straight face.
“I am your tank commander, Comrade Starshina.”
Feigning surprise, Kriks proceeded.
“Quite so, Comrade Polkovnik. So, I regret to say, it is your fault alone. Had you not directed your brand new command tank through the treacherous Germanski undergrowth, without need I might add, then you would still have good Soviet tea. Whereas that tea, my smoked sausages, and certain other items of high value, are now hanging on some damn bush somewhere, to be found by some undeserving rear-echelon beauty whom, I might add, I desperately hope chokes on the fucking sausage!”
As time was short, Yarishlov could only call a halt to the NCO’s diatribe by raising a hand.
“And speaking of my new command tank, has Lunin sorted the problem yet?”
“Indeed he has, Comrade Polkovnik, and you will be surprised to learn that it was not a transmission fault, just a gear linkage problem, so our beast is up and running again.”
The Colonel finished the last of his tea and thumped the mug on the table.
“Well, we have it so that I can write a report on its combat usage, so let us go and see how it fights, shall we?”
Slapping his senior NCO on the shoulder, he picked up the map and walked out into the evening sunshine, casting a professional and appreciative eye over the T-44/100 the Corps Commander had presented to him over a month ago.
The men of Kommando Tostedt were tired. Having fought alongside the Canadians in the defence of their home town, they had reluctantly fallen back, only to turn on their pursuers and deal them a heavy blow, combining with their new allies to drive the Russian infantry back through Rotenburg and Wistedt, where they now waited for the inevitable next assault.
The Canadian Company Commander had tried to persuade them to fall back to the river line but they refused, offering to cover the withdrawal for as long as they could.
Now they were all alone, sticking out like a sore thumb, the Canadians having pulled back to more defensible ground.
Numbering less than one hundred and eighty capable men, the Kommando sat astride the four roads that ran south-west from Rotenburg and Wistedt. Whilst they could not bring themselves to quit their homes quite yet, their pragmatic leader ensured that he could withdraw his unit over the Everstorfermoor Bridge at any time.
Alfred Dœring-Beck was a veteran of both world wars. The elderly silver-haired Colonel of Infanterie affected a monocle, a clue to the fact that he had learned his soldiering in a different age, when cutting-edge tactics dictated lines of infantry sweeping down on defensive positions strewn with barbed wire and covered by machine-guns and artillery. Such ways were of little use in 1939, and he was forcibly and very publically retired by the then Divisional Commander of the 24th Infanterie Division, Generalleutnant Friedrich Olbricht. During the invasion of Poland, Beck’s 32nd Grenadiere Regiment took unusually high casualties during the Polish counter-attack around Bzura in mid-September 1939, something which his inconsolable second in command reported instantly and directly to Olbricht.
Beck, embittered by his public humiliation, crowed long and hard when Olbricht was executed by firing squad, payback for his part in the failed assassination attempt of 20th July 1944.
Commanding his unit in defence of the town had not been particularly challenging, more a question of standing fast as the Russian wave broke over him. Relic of a bygone age he may have been, but he was a man of great courage, a fact attested to by several Great War decorations.
As the Russian barrage grew in intensity, he moved forward and observed Soviet infantrymen and armour massing on the outskirts of Tostedt. He recognised the danger immediately.
‘If the Canadians are not in position now, then God help them’, he mused.
Calling his second in command to him, Beck told the man that there was no point now in remaining in situ and instructed the former Luftwaffe Artillerie Captain to evacuate all but the first section immediately, the first section being formed of the older men who had served their rifle time in Flanders fields.
They would buy as much time as possible for the unit to withdraw.
The man saluted and scurried away.
A shell landed nearby and the screams of the dying immediately filled the air. An elderly medic rushed over to do what he could. Normally the local doctor, the medic had once been a Major in Füsilier-Regiment 80 ‘Von Gersdorff’, and had served at Verdun, the Somme and the Aisne. His intimate knowledge of shrapnel wounds, combined with his medical experience, enabled him to understand that all five men were beyond help. Easing the pain of the two men remaining semi-conscious, he moved on to where the Soviet artillery was providing him with more work.
Moving further forward, Beck entered a large house on the edge of Wistedt, once the home of the local apothecary.
He settled in alongside the man with the binoculars, waiting until the NCO finished scanning the enemy positions.
“Well, Hüth? Are the Garde-Füsiliers ready for the enemy?”
The former Hauptfeldwebel of the 3rd Garde-Infanterie Division was used to the baiting, as he and his three comrades had endured it most evenings in the bierkeller, when war stories and tall tales flowed as freely as the chilled Beck’s.
“We will hold until we are relieved of course, Herr Oberst.”
The man relaxed the binoculars and looked at the Kommandofuhrer, the resignation on his face at odds with the weak attempt at humour.
“Mind you, Herr Beck, I rather suspect our communist enemy has a different end in mind for us.”
He coughed violently and spat a gobbet of bloody phlegm against the wall, wheezing as he often did when the lasting effects of his exposure to French gas made themselves known
“I have ordered everyone back, except first section.”
Hüth turned to look at Beck and nodded gently. Neither he nor his fellow ex-Garde needed further explanation.
Turning back to the window, he spoke rapidly, pausing only to duck involuntarily when a shell landed particularly close.
“We have tanks and infantry on either flank, and they don’t seem positioned to attack us at the moment.”
“Yes. I saw them from back there a few minutes ago.”
“Still building up, as I see it. Here.”
Hüth handed the binoculars over, indicating where Beck should look.
Tanks and infantry were gathering on both flanks of Tostedt, seemingly oriented to by-pass their position. Beck calmly noted that there were many more than he first thought.
“Well, we can’t do anything about them, Hüth. However,” sweeping along the landscape he stopped and focussed on the area directly opposite, “I do believe that they are not intending to leave us alone after all.”
His eye had caught movement, and he passed the binoculars back.
“At the railway track there.”
Hüth’s eyes were still keen and he swept the line of the railway that prescribed the edge of the town. He could see numerous helmets and other signs betraying the presence of Russian infantry forming behind the slight rise of the tracks.
Soviet mortar rounds started to drop around the Apothecary’s house, and the occasional lump of metal pinged off the brickwork or embedded itself in something softer. Adler, the oldest of the Garde, received three small pieces as he went to grab more stick grenades. Bleeding profusely from his buttocks, he was tended to by one of his comrades, but wasn’t spared from the man’s heavy-handed humour.
Such wounds attracted such humour.
A mortar shell struck an old Citroen lying wrecked in front of their position, causing it to burst into flames
Hüth carefully r
aised himself up and nestled the binoculars back in position to check the enemy.
At the very bottom of his vision, from a position halfway between Tostedt and Wistedt, the old NCO saw a flash next to Bremer Straβe and knew what it was immediately.
It was a sniper firing.
Beck was behind and to the right and the reflection of the fire on his monocle was all the sniper had needed for an instinctive shot.
It was a few moments before Beck realised that he had been lucky. The bullet had passed down the right side of his face, clipping a perfect U section out of his ear, before destroying an extremely large and valuable piece of Meissen porcelain on the dresser behind. Everyone in the room jumped when the vase disintegrated, not realising the reason for its destruction.
Dœring-Beck looked back to the front and felt the pain in his ear. He slapped his hand to the wound as the blood started to flow.
The second bullet caught him in the side of the jaw, removing half his face from chin to eye socket.
The elderly man dropped to the ground, temporarily paralysed by the pain and shock, bleeding his life out.
Adler, bandaged and angry with pain, rolled across the floor and tried to reassemble the awful wound so he could bandage it.
The screaming started, the awful high-pitched squeals of a man in the extremis of suffering.
Beck had broken his left arm as he fell and his right scrabbled for his weapon, seeking the butt of his MP40 sub-machine gun.
Hüth understood immediately, and ordered Adler to move back.
What the sniper had started, he finished with one shot from his Kar98k, putting a merciful end to old Beck’s torment.
A shout from one of the others prevented him from pondering his horror at the necessary deed.
The Russians were moving up on both flanks. Mortars were now dropping smoke in front of Wistedt, so it was most likely that infantry were already closing in upon them. The bonus of it was that the sniper’s line of sight was now masked.
