Burning Moscow

Chapter 1696 Eliminate the remnant enemy (part 2)

By the end of the first day, the troops searching in the forest should have captured nearly four thousand enemies and their side weapons. Submachine guns, rifles, machine guns, ammunition boxes, and steel helmets piled up like mountains on the edge of the forest.

The order of the German prisoners was better than we thought. I thought that to **** a hundred prisoners, at least 20 soldiers would be needed. As a result, what the two teachers and I saw outside the forest surprised us. The prisoners were in groups of one hundred or two hundred, and the soldiers who escorted them had only one incomplete squad.

Seeing this situation, Kurakin couldn’t help but mutter to himself: “Our soldiers are not so much escorting the captives, but rather as a guide for them, lest they get lost in the forest.”

Kurakin’s words immediately caused a roar of laughter from the surrounding officers and soldiers, and the long team of prisoners passing by us, after hearing our laughter, just gave us a confused look and continued to move forward. Up.

After smiling, Marchenko obviously saw his familiar subordinates, so he walked out from among us and called his subordinates, and talked in a low voice, perhaps to understand the specific situation in the forest.

When he came back, Kurakin asked loudly, “Comrade Colonel, what did your subordinates tell you?”

“The soldier just now was a veteran. He has been in the army since the outbreak of the war.” Marchenko introduced to us: “He said that the Germans had completely lost their will to fight. He saw the appearance of our soldiers. Without making any resistance at all, he lay down his weapons and surrendered to our army. Even if the Germans were surrounded and besieged by our army, they would shout slogans like “Long live Hitler”. Now they surrendered to our army. What was nagging was “Hitler is going to die.” In today’s search operation, he captured more than forty prisoners alone. The battalion commander wanted to lead the troops to continue searching deep in the forest, so he asked him to take a few of them. Soldiers, sent out the German soldiers they captured.”

“The battalion commander did the right thing,” Kurakin agreed with the decision made by the search battalion commander: “The front of this forest is too big. It will take at least a week to complete the search task.”

But I was thinking about another thing, so I asked Marchenko: “Comrade Colonel, what is the rank of the soldier just now?”

“The rank of sergeant, comrade deputy commander!” Marchenko replied: “When the war broke out, he was the rank of corporal.”

After listening, I shook my head and said to Marchenko, “Comrade Colonel, for a veteran who has been in the army for three years and has participated in countless battles, this rank is really too low. He deserves a higher rank. Military rank.”

For my proposal, Kurakin immediately agreed. He said to Marchenko: “Comrade Colonel, you are so stingy. Such veterans are at least lieutenant in my army, but in your division, they are just ordinary officers. Shi, not even an officer.”

When Marchenko heard what the two of us said, he smiled bitterly and replied: “In fact, he had served as a company commander several times, but he was repeatedly dismissed because of a misbehavior of a good wine and a cup. Last month, the division was originally going to be promoted. He was the commander of the battalion, who knew he was drunk in the battle and let the enemy break through his defensive zone. For this, he was lowered from the captain to the sergeant. He has established a lot of merits on the battlefield, There are just as many mistakes, which is really a headache.”

After listening to Marchenko’s introduction to the sergeant, I gave up my promotion proposal. A person who is drinking and greedy, if he is only a soldier or a low-level commander, is not very harmful on the battlefield. But if he is allowed to occupy an important position, then it will inevitably bring catastrophic consequences to the troops. Therefore, let him continue to be his sergeant, maybe this is the best arrangement for him.

After the three of us returned to the tent, I asked the two division commanders with concern: “It seems that our troops are going to spend the night in the forest. Have enough tents been prepared for them?”

“Don’t worry, Comrade Deputy Commander.” Kurakin assured me: “We have already sent logistics troops to the search forces to send the tents, and we also drove all the cooking wagons into the forest, which can be solved on the spot. Their food and accommodation problems.”

Seeing that Kuragin and the others had considered all the issues that should be considered, I was relieved, and then picked up the phone and called Cui Kefu to tell him what happened here. After hearing this, Cui Kefu said anxiously: “Lida, if there are so many prisoners of war, it will be a trouble for us. If there are only a few thousand prisoners, the camp can barely accept them, but if there are There are tens of thousands of people, it might even be a problem to eat.”

While I was thinking about how to solve this problem, I only heard Cui Kefu continue to say: “Lida, although the problem of prisoners of war is a headache for me, it is nothing to you. After all, you are the deputy commander of the front army. Some things are easier to handle as long as you show up.”

Cui Kefu’s words awakened me. After finishing the call with him, I quickly dialed the front army headquarters. As Zhukov was busy, I found Chief of Staff Ma Linin and told him about the possibility of capturing tens of thousands of Germans in the near future. Then I asked him for help and said: “Chief of Staff, you have to help me figure out a solution. Tens of thousands. German prisoners, if they were kept in an open-air prisoner of war camp, they would probably freeze to death on a cold night.

Malinen was silent for a long time, and then said to me: “Lida, there is a Nazi prisoner of war camp near the city. It used to be about our army, Anglo-American and French prisoners of war, and Italian prisoners of war. We liberated there not long ago. If you can If tens of thousands of prisoners of war are captured, they can all be detained there, under the supervision of our soldiers and the newly rescued Allied prisoners of war.”

After I said Ma Lining’s words to the two commanders, the two of them also seemed very happy. Therefore, no matter how many prisoners of war were captured, there was no need to worry about a place to be detained. Marchenko even took the initiative to say to me: “Comrade Deputy Commander, without further ado, I will rush to the prisoner-of-war camp and establish contact with the commander who is taking care of it, and then detain the prisoner-of-war captured today.”

The trivial matter of contacting the head of the prisoner-of-war camp didn’t require me to go. Just when I was still considering who should be sent to perform such an important communication task, Marchenko volunteered. So I nodded and said, “Well, comrade colonel, since you are willing to take on this important job, then you should rush to the prisoner-of-war camp as soon as possible and establish contact with the person in charge there to see how I can be detained. German prisoners of war captured by the army.”

Not long after Marchenko left, Zhukov called me in person. He said on the phone: “Lida, I heard Malinen say that you are worried about not having a place to detain prisoners of war?”

“Yes, Comrade Marshal.” Hearing Zhukov’s voice, I hurriedly said respectfully: “Today’s search forces of the two divisions captured nearly four thousand prisoners in the forest. According to the prisoners’ confession, they were in the depths of the forest. , There are more stragglers, so our search operation in the forest may continue for a few days, and there may be tens of thousands of prisoners of war at that time, so I will find the chief of staff to contact the location of the prisoners.”

“Four thousand prisoners?” Zhukov repeated the number, and asked with some puzzlement: “Could it be possible that so many enemies, without firing a single shot, dropped their weapons and surrendered to our army?”

“Yes, Comrade Marshal, this is the case.” If I said that I had seen thousands of prisoners of war and had been taken out of the forest by a very small number of our soldiers, I would not believe it. I guess it will be. Thinking that what he encountered was a fake German, a force swept across Europe, how could it be possible to surrender without firing a shot when facing the enemy? But facts speak louder than words. Seeing those prisoners who are honest like sheep, I think they did not resist and it is perfectly feasible. Therefore, I argued to Zhukov: “German prisoners of war are organized into a team of one or two hundred people, and there are four. Five fighters were escorted out of the forest. If they had fought stubbornly, our commanders would never dare to be so confident with them.”

“Well, I know.” After listening to my report, Zhukov added specifically: “Although the current search work has achieved great results, you must not take it lightly. Rabbits will bite when they are anxious. Yes, besides, it is still the most cunning animal.”

“Please rest assured, Comrade Marshal, we are always on a high level of vigilance.” I assured Zhukov: “No matter how many prisoners we capture, we will never relax our vigilance.”

For the next three days, there were thousands of prisoners of war every day. Under the leadership of our soldiers, they walked out of the forest, piled their weapons on the edge of the forest, and walked to a prisoner of war camp near the city.

Seeing such a gratifying result, Kurakin smiled and said to me: “Comrade Deputy Commander, we have captured nearly 15,000 German soldiers in four days. With so many troops, as long as they carry out even weak Resistance will inevitably cause some casualties to our army, but they surrendered their weapons to our army without firing a shot. It seems that Germany is exhausted and Hitler is not far from the end.”

Seeing these German troops walking out of the forest in an orderly manner, I suddenly thought of the Soviet commanders who were captured in the early days of the war. When they were found out of the forest by the Germans, were they also like the Germans without any decent resistance , He obediently put down his weapon and walked out of his hiding place?

I shook my head vigorously and drove this untimely thought out of my mind. Then I looked at Kurakin and asked, “General Kurakin, how long will it take for our troops to search the entire forest? ”

“It is estimated that it will take one day at the earliest.” Kurakin said excitedly: “With the efforts of our commanders, we have completed the search for three-quarters of the area.”

Just as we all relaxed our vigilance, suddenly a soldier standing next to him shouted: “Look, there is black smoke in the forest!”

The shouts of the soldiers immediately attracted everyone’s attention. I looked in the direction of the warrior’s fingers, and I saw a faint black smoke rising from the middle of the forest in the distance. Seeing this, I immediately realized that something might be wrong, and quickly asked Kulakin: “General Kulakin, which unit is the smoking area?”

“I need to check this.” Kurakin replied to me in a flustered manner: “It is possible to figure out which unit is responsible for the area, and there is a problem.”

We went back to the command center, and Kuragin asked the communicator to call the troops in the forest, and at the same time, he and Marchenko found out which unit was responsible for the smoking area.

It may be because the trees are dense and the units far away in the forest can’t be contacted, or Kulajin and the others have found out which unit is the problem through the map. Kurakin looked at me and said, “Comrade Deputy Commander, I have found out that it is the area where the second battalion of the 101st Guards Regiment is located. I think they may have exchanged fire with the Germans.”

Regarding his analysis, I nodded in agreement. Although we did not hear the gunfire or explosion, the black smoke that appeared was obviously the gunpowder smoke produced by the fighting. I quickly told him: “General Kulagin, report to the commander of the 101st Guards Regiment and ask him to immediately command the two battalions on the left and right to bypass the two wings and surround this stubborn enemy.”

After another half an hour, we finally got in touch with the 101st Guards Regiment. The regimental commander reported in the telegram that the troops encountered a small group of enemies during the search. Since the search operations in the past few days have been very smooth, the soldiers of the battalion were a little lighthearted, thinking that the enemy would also surrender their weapons after seeing them, so they swaggered forward to accept the surrender. As a result, as soon as they walked over, they were shot by German machine guns. The five or six soldiers who walked in front were all knocked down The squad leader who led the team was injured in the leg and hid behind a big tree. At the location of the enemy’s machine gun, several grenades were thrown in succession. The gunpowder smoke produced by the explosion is the black smoke we have seen.

After the German army exchanged fire with us, they tried to break through from the front, but they were stubbornly blocked by our army. Then the two battalions of the 101st Guards rounded up from behind, cutting off their retreat. The desperate enemy, seeing that it didn’t make any sense to resist, he obediently put down his weapons and surrendered to us.

Seeing the report of the head of the guards, I said to the two commanders with a serious expression: “Comrades, although our work has been going smoothly these days, I thought that the enemy had completely lost combat effectiveness and became paralyzed by underestimating the enemy. Thought. Fortunately, what we encountered today was only a small German army, and the casualties we paid were not large. If we encounter the same number of enemies, maybe this battalion is in danger of annihilation.”

“We remembered.” The two teachers nodded and said: “We will never make similar mistakes again in the future.” For mobile phone users, please browse and read for a better reading experience.

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