Opening Moves

He now sat in that scout car, radio handset in one hand, binoculars in the other, watching and waiting, counting the yards as the Soviet infantry moved closer.

Judging the moment to perfection, he gave the order and the killing commenced.

Using only the German and British units at the bridges, he kept the other units silent for now, believing quite rightly that the Russians would be stopped with just those he alerted.

The combination of Bren guns and Vickers heavy machine guns did deadly work, with Lee-Enfield’s and Kar98k’s adding their barks to the noisy chaos that descended upon the lead Russian units.

The Malkendorf unit had found an MG42 from somewhere but were obviously conserving the small amount of ammunition that came with it.

Leaving many dead on the field, the two lead Soviet companies withdrew to await the next attempt.

Colonel Leonid Shvpaghin was incandescent with rage.

His two precious T-60 reconnaissance tanks had already covered the same ground now littered with his dead men, reporting nothing and then had withdrawn to refuel.

Seeking permission from the army commander to move around the river at its source some 4 miles west near Dakendorf, he anticipated the expected refusal and developed his plans for attack.

Ordering the artillery officer to lay smoke when the time came, he radioed an order to the Major commanding the 1013th to prepare a frontal assault, but also to send one company to probe westwards towards Curau just in case.

The commanding Leytenant from the recon troop was demoted to private on the spot and replaced by his Starshina, who was ordered to support the 1013th’s attack as closely as possible with the machine guns of his tanks.

During combat in Lubeck, Shvapagin’s men had liberated a British Cromwell and he sent this forward to provide heavier support for his troops.

1015th would let their brothers close and take advantage of the moving artillery to storm forward in the centre, sweeping the way clear for the heavy tanks to cross the river.

^{Fig#14 – Malkendorf Second Assault.}

The Colonel brought his heavy tanks nearer the front line, ready to cope with any surprises and to develop the attack once 1015th had captured their objective.

Mounting the two battalions of 1017th in their trucks, he prepared to use them either as reinforcements should they be needed or close support infantry for the 27th‘s Tanks once they got to Malkendorf itself

He would have liked more artillery but his artillery regiment had suffered one of the few successful allied air strikes the previous evening and valuable guns had been lost.

Finally, he deployed his mortars in the thin strip of dense woods west of Horsdorferfelde.

He knew his army commander well and Major-General Gusev’s reply was as expected. On receipt of both the refusal of the move to the west and the usual exhortations regarding the price of failure, he ordered the attack to commence at 1215 hrs. At the allotted time, 1013th’s soldiers charged forward, unable to see their objective for smoke, which had been dropping since 1210 hrs. Whilst 1013th’s attack was closing, the artillery switched, the first smoke shells burst off target, needing correction, before the infantry and tanks started forward.

The defenders of the Malkendorf Bridge started to engage, dropping the advancing Russians to the ground as they desperately sought cover, some never to rise again. An additional heavy machine gun, then another, cut into their right flank from across the river, herding the desperate soldiers closer together around the road and to its western edges.

Shvpaghin screamed at his battalions, urging them not to bunch up, his mortars to hit the machine gun positions, Soviet communications officers desperately punched his orders out into the radio waves. The Colonel let out a low moan as the unmistakable whine of incoming artillery upstaged the noise of the infantry battle and he winced as accurate fragmentation shells from the 25-pounders of the H.A.C. ripped whole platoons to shreds. The 25-pdr, in expert hands, was a very capable artillery piece as he was now learning, witnessing his lead battalion gutted in front of his eyes, casualties made worse by bunching together, herded as they were by the machine gun fire.

As Shvpaghin watched his own mortars ineffectively seeking out the heavy machine guns, he saw his left-flank attack go to ground, totally out of steam.

He ordered the three tanks supporting to press forward.

The Cromwell tank slewed off the road, track broken by erratic driving, crew abandoning with gusto.

The two T-70’s moved forward, inevitably crushing the dead and the living alike as they jinked to avoid anti-tank weapons.

The 25-pdr’s fell silent and, encouraged by the absence of shrapnel and the valour of their tank crews, the 1013th’s soldiers rose up again.