章 140: 140
May 25, 1942
German Polish Protectorate
"Hey, SS Lieutenant Wittmann."
"why?"
"Can I come and run some errands for a moment?"
Wittmann was troubled by the question of gunner SS Corporal Balthazar Ball.
This is because an order was issued from the regimental headquarters a little while ago to wait inside the tank and not to go outside unless there were special circumstances.
Infantrymen could take down their pants and do their business if they had urgent business, but tank soldiers who had to stay inside the tank could not do so.
In this case, in principle, I had to do some business with the empty cartridges and shell casings placed inside the tank, but I did not want to leave foul-smelling excrement inside the tank since I did not know how long the standby would continue.
"Go quickly and come back."
"thank you."
As he opened the hatch and went out, Ball made eye contact with munitionsman Karl Richter.
Like his cheeks, his face was stiff because he was quite nervous. Even without that, his skinny face looked even skinnier.
Maybe it looked that way because it was dark.
After going out, Ball pulled down his pants and urinated. A stream of urine fell to the ground and wet the ground.
A swarm of ants that were moving diligently in search of food fell into panic due to a sudden lightning strike.
"Did you wrap it coolly?"
"I feel like I was born again."
"Everyone, if you have anything to do, get down now and take care of it. "I can't get off later even if I want to."
Wittmann said so, but no one got off the tram. This was because everyone had emptied their stomachs before getting on the tram.
When no one got off, Wittmann nodded, seemingly satisfied.
"good. "I'm sure you are prepared."
At that moment, gunshots rang out.
The gunfire came from the east, where they were facing. Soon, yellow flames erupted from ahead.
Only after the sight of burning flames came into view did the explosion of sound reach my ears one step later.
"oh my god."
"Wow, fuck."
"W-What on earth is this…?" .."
Wittmann couldn't believe what he saw. The scenes he had seen on the battlefields of Poland, France, and Yugoslavia were unfolding on German soil.
At 1 a.m. on May 25, 1942,
The curtain has risen on the largest war in human history, the German War.
***
"Shoot!"
"Shoot!"
At 1 a.m., Soviet artillery guns opened fire.
The Red Army poured merciless artillery fire into the territory of Germany, which until a few months ago the party had touted as its eternal friend.
The artillerymen, who had been waiting with their shells loaded, opened fire on their guns as soon as the order was given.
Accompanied by gunfire, thousands of shells flew through the air towards the enemy camp.
The roar and vibration caused by the explosion of a shell on the ground was enough to shake the vast earth.
Birds, startled by the sudden explosion and vibration, flapped their wings and flew into the sky, while rabbits, deer, and squirrels escaped from their nests and ran away in the opposite direction from where the sound and vibration came from.
The Soviet army mobilized all its artillery for a single bombardment.
Everything from the Katyusha multiple rocket launcher, which would later be called 'Stalin's organ' by the German military, to the old large-diameter artillery used in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I.
Every time the 152mm ML-20 howitzer, which was as thick and massive as a giant's thigh, fired a 152mm shell, the ground shook as if an earthquake had occurred.
When the chamber ejected a copper shell, the gunner with a thick forearm like the barrel of a howitzer pushed in a new shell.
"Comrades, hurry!"
"quickly! "Can a war be fought this slowly?"
Tractors and trucks transported ammunition to and from ammunition depots and artillery positions.
The movements of the soldiers loading ammunition boxes onto trucks became as fast as the artillerymen firing shells.
But the Soviet army did not know.
The fact that there were no German soldiers in the area where the shells they fired landed.
Long before the first artillery shell fell, Manstein moved his troops to reserve positions in preparation for Soviet artillery fire.
They did not forget to leave decoy units in some positions on the front line so that the Soviet army would not notice.
The Soviet army, unaware of this fact, poured artillery fire without stopping. Imagining the German bunkers and trenches being blown away by the shells they fired.
"Hurry up, the Roske guys are coming soon!"
"9mm bullets over there! "Bring the grenades this way!"
While the Soviets were wasting artillery shells, the Germans were inspecting their weapons for the last time and deploying men and materials to their positions in preparation for the coming battle.
The tanks that entered the tank and the anti-tank gunners of the anti-tank guns covered with camouflage shields loaded armor-piercing rounds into the chambers and prepared for engagement with enemy tanks.
Each soldier who believed in God recited a prayer or kissed the cross.
Attacks were made not only on land, but also in the air and sea.
Before the artillery could fire, the Soviet Navy's submarines that had already left the port and were roaming the Baltic Sea moved toward the port where the German Navy's warships were anchored, and the Soviet Air Force's bombers that took off from the runway also began their deadly flight.
The Soviet Navy's first battle was the sinking of the German passenger ship 'Aurora', which was sailing from Memel towards Danzig.
On board the Aurora were 600 refugees who had left their homes and hometowns after receiving an evacuation order from the authorities.
The S-class submarine S-8, which discovered Aurora heading to Danzig while escorted by a Schnellboat, fired a torpedo without delay.
The first and second torpedoes missed by a narrow margin, but the third torpedo hit Aurora.
Aurora, hit by a torpedo, slowly tilted to the left. Baltic water poured into her ship through a hole created by the explosion of her torpedo.
The fate of the S-8 that hit Aurora was not so good. Before S-8 fired its last torpedo at Aurora, Schnellboat also spotted S-8 and fired a torpedo.
Immediately after a huge water column rose from Aurora, the Gisela torpedo launched by Schnellboat also hit the S-8.
Before Aurora could completely sink, the S-8 sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Pieces of metal and oil that were once the body of the S-8 floated to the surface.
Schnellboat, which sank the enemy ship, returned to Aurora and rescued the survivors.
This was almost the only victory achieved by the Soviet Navy on the first day of the German-Soviet War.
The Soviet submarines that went into action failed to fulfill their assigned mission.
A significant number of submarines came into contact with mines laid by the German Navy, or were sunk or rendered unseaworthy by attack by destroyers, U-boats, and the Naval Air Force's Ar196.
Even the torpedoes that were fired were useless because they were caught in the anti-torpedo nets that had been installed in advance.
Submarines that failed in their attacks attempted to escape and became sacrifices to the destroyers that were pursuing them.
The Soviet Navy, which was already inferior to the German Navy in both quality and quantity, could not even take advantage of the surprise attack.
It was not just the Soviet Navy that showed disgrace. A thunderbolt of fire fell on the heads of Soviet artillerymen who were firing devastating artillery fire toward German territory.
The Soviet artillerymen, who had been silently loading shells and pulling the lanyard, were swallowed up by the flames and died en masse without even knowing what was going on.
"Kyaaaaa!"
Even the artillerymen who narrowly escaped death were covered in sparks and fragments and let out painful screams.
The drivers who were stepping on the accelerator to deliver the shells froze in shock when they saw the shells falling on the camp.
It was German artillery that presented them with disaster. The German artillery, which had been able to avoid crisis by moving to a rear position in advance, prepared a counterattack as soon as the Soviet artillery began.
The German army's main howitzer, the 15cm sFH 18, has a range of 13km. The improved 15cm sFH 18M has a range of 15km, and in order to deal with the 152mm ML-20 howitzer, which has a range of over 17km, there was the inconvenience of having to use rocket-propelled shells with a range of up to 18.2km.
Accordingly, Hitler attempted to counter Soviet artillery by developing and deploying a 15cm plain fire gun with a longer range than the existing 15cm howitzer.
The 15cm plain fire gun, which boasts a range of up to 20.3km, could send shells up to 24km when using rocket-propelled shells.
The German artillerymen, who had succeeded in determining the approximate location of the enemy artillery, immediately loaded their shells.
"launch!"
As soon as the artillery commander gave the order, 15cm plain fire guns emitted flashes of light from their muzzles.
The 15cm shell flew in a parabola and fell on the heads of the Soviet artillerymen, giving them eternal rest.
"Back up, back up!"
The sergeant, who witnessed the sight of our battery being engulfed in a white flash of light by enemy artillery fire, urged the driver to put the truck in reverse. However, German artillery shells soon flew towards them as well.
When one shell hit a truck full of 152mm ammunition, a white ball appeared.
A huge crater formed where the flash disappeared. The crater was filled with shattered truck parts and human bodies.
***
-Battle begins!
-Don't miss a single one! Shoot them all down!
-If we don't stop them, the city where my family lives will become a sea of fire!
Soviet Air Force bombers that entered German airspace received a warm welcome from German Air Force fighter planes waiting for them.
The German pilots, who had experienced tens to hundreds of battles from Spain to Yugoslavia and were in a position to surpass both their skills and experience, were no match for the Soviet pilots.
To make matters worse, the German Air Force was vastly superior to the Soviet Air Force in terms of aircraft performance.
Escort planes were sent out to block German fighter planes approaching the bombers. The escort aircraft model is Yak-7. Although it was the most recent fighter aircraft operated by the Soviet Air Force and was evaluated as having excellent performance, the enemies that the Yak-7 had to deal with were the Me262 Schwalbe and Bf109G.
Both models are evaluated to be several levels higher than the Yak-7 in terms of performance.
Even the pilots who flew the fighter jets were veterans who had become one with the aircraft through dozens of combat and training experiences.
The air fight quickly became a general massacre. When the German planes spewed fire, the Yak planes plummeted to the ground, emitting smoke without fail.
-Chu, it's falling!
- Ivan, back! behind! Ahhh!
-Someone help me!
The Soviet military's radio network was soon filled with the pilots' screams of despair.
Before they knew it, Soviet pilots were desperately fighting for their own lives rather than escorting the bombers.
However, resisting the pursuit of German pilots who were united in their determination to protect their homeland was more difficult than picking a star from the sky.
German pilots' eyes never lost sight of their prey.
'Fuck, fuck, fuck!'
Major Gennady Yegonovsky tightened his grip on the control stick.
Not even five minutes had passed since the battle began, and in that short period of time he had already almost died six times.
The fact that Yegonovsky was still alive after facing death six times was proof that Yegonovsky's skills were not average, but at the same time, the fact that even he almost died meant that the situation was that desperate.
Yegonowski had heard that the Polish, French, and British air forces had been manipulated by German pilots, and had guessed that the German pilots' skills were unusual. But I never thought the gap would be this big.
Of course, this may have been due to the performance of the aircraft, but judging calmly, the German pilots were incomparably more skilled than the Soviet pilots.
That was a fact that no one could deny.
"Holy shit!"
Yegonovsky hurriedly pulled the control stick upward and raised the aircraft. Although several of his bullets hit the canopy, Yegonovsky was able to escape unharmed.
"Andrey, there's a catch behind you!"
Yegonovsky, who narrowly escaped death, discovered a Bf109 attached to the back of his colleague Andrei's aircraft.
Andrei, who heard his radio, attempted a dive to separate the enemy plane.
-shit! This bastard, don't fall!
Although Andrei had as good piloting skills as Yegonovsky, the German pilot latched onto the back of Andrei's aircraft like a leech and pursued him closely.
Yegonovsky tried to fire at the enemy plane to save his comrade who was in danger.
However, before he could fire the 20mm cannon, a Bf109 rushed in and interrupted his aim.
Meanwhile, Andrei's aircraft came under heavy fire from enemy planes.
"Andrey! no!"
Andrei's Yak-7, which was hit by an MG151, turned into a ball of fire and crashed smoothly.
The Yak-7 is a fighter aircraft that is more advanced than the Yak-1 in many ways, but it is not without its drawbacks.
Because the rear seat was removed and a fuel tank was installed in its place, and the capacity of the wing fuel tank was increased, the protection was lower than that of the Yak-1.
When the Minengeschoß, a high-explosive bomb for autocannons developed by German engineers for the Luftwaffe, was used, it led to a spectacular fireworks display.
Yegonovsky didn't even have time to feel sad. All of his fellow planes had already been shot down, and the enemies were hunting the bombers like a pod of killer whales biting a baleen whale.
TB-3, which received machine gun fire from Me262 and Bf109, broke away from the formation and fell toward the ground, vomiting gray smoke.
The mission to safely escort the bombers to their destination had already failed. Yegonovsky thought about turning his nose and running away now.
It was impossible to protect the bombers from so many enemy planes since he was the only one among the many escort planes that survived.
If he escapes now, at least he might survive.
But Yegonovsky did not run away. He intended to do his duty for the sake of his subordinates and colleagues who left before him.
I wanted to fight proudly and meet a violent end rather than run away and desperately save my life.
Yegonovsky recalled what his father had told him when he was young.
As a man, there are times when you have to fight even if you know you will lose.
Now was the time.
"Yaaaaah!!!"
Yegonovsky rushed at the Bf109, which was simultaneously firing cannons and machine guns at TB-3. The guy was so preoccupied with the huge prey in front of him that he was neglecting his surroundings.
I felt like I could catch him if I attacked now.
When a 20mm cannon shell spewed out from the Yak-7's pivot line, the Bf109 pilot was startled and forced the aircraft to climb rapidly.
However, one cannonball hit the tail wing and created a hole.
Although a hole in the tail rotor could not cause much damage to the enemy's flight, Yegonovsky succeeded in confusing the enemy pilot.
He was so embarrassed that he just ran away in a straight line.
If you fire the autocannon like this, he-
"Whoa!?"
Yegonovsky felt a sharp pain in his body. He even thought he heard the canopy breaking. As he lowered his head, he could see his military uniform stained with red blood.
Even in his fading consciousness, Yegonovsky pulled the control stick upward to raise the aircraft.
But there was no strength in my hands. My eyelids suddenly became heavy as well. I could feel my heart, which had been beating so fast just moments before, slowly slowing down.
As soon as Yegonovsky's yoke touched the rough surface of the earth, bright yellow flames covered his entire body.
***
-Hey, Hartmann. Are you alive?
"Thank you for saving me, flight leader!"
Erich Hartmann, a young 20-year-old second lieutenant, sighed in shock.
It was a shame because the flight commander helped him, but Hartmann almost went to the goal like the crew of the Soviet bomber he shot down.
-Didn't I always say that? Always be aware of your surroundings. Because you never know when or from what direction the enemy will attack.
"sorry!"
-You just need to know. For now, focus on shooting down the rebels. Be careful not to get hit by the machine gun.
"Yes, I understand!"
As soon as the flight commander finished giving advice, he rushed at TB-3 and struck the cannon.
Gray smoke billowed out from holes in the elongated fuselage, which was made of wave-patterned duralumin skin.
Under heavy attack from the squadron leader's Bf109, TB-3 was engulfed in flames and died. Hartmann also joined the bomber hunt along with his squadron leader and colleagues.
Until the day the war ends, Hartmann will be deployed in countless battles.
If you want to survive until the end and return to your hometown, you must never forget the memories of today.
The war had only just begun.
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