Opening Moves

Pounding rain and thunder masked the sounds of his armoured vehicles as they moved forward behind the screen of skirmishing Siberian infantry, advancing closer to their objective.

Colonel Fedor Iosifovich Serov stood on the flank of a two hundred metre hill from where he could overlook his forces in Stammen and those of the enemy in Trendelburg to the north. His binoculars could see no sign of either, but he knew both were there.

Units of the 1st Guards Tank Army had been advancing in relative silence since 2230hrs the previous evening, leaving their positions west of Hannoversch-Münden. Stealthily leading the way were the men of the nondescript 415th Rifle Division, temporarily attached to 1st Guards for their expertise, a deadly expertise learned from birth in the harshest of environments and finely honed since the Division was sent to the Front from its home base in Vladivostok, Siberia.

Normally more at home in winter, their ability to move swiftly and silently was equally comfortable in the dark of night, and on the roads north to Hofgeismar and Reinhardshagen lay the many bodies of those who were their unwitting victims.

Following hard on the heels of the men of the 1323rd Regiment’s 2nd Battalion came a company of valuable bridging engineers, tasked with a record time repair of a downed bridge over the River Diemel just south of Sielen, itself four kilometres south-west of the assault’s objective, Trendelburg.

Units of 3rd Army were performing a similar thrust, aimed at driving south and occupying Helmarshausen and Wülmersen.

A simple look at a map would reveal the consequences of Soviet success. One possibility trapped all American forces from the Gottingen area east of the Weser, in which case they would be easily mopped up. The other confined them to an area west of the Weser but bottled up by the Diemel River, meaning the sole focal point for their escape would be the bridge at Deisel.

This was chosen because the river funnelled the approach into a sock roughly two hundred metres wide, a sock into which desperate enemy forces would flood to reach the safety of the west bank, and into which the artillery of two Soviet armies would pour death and destruction on a huge scale.

Into this sock would come the tankers of the 8th US Armored Division, infantry from 83rd US Infantry Division and a swarm of specialists from numerous other units of engineers, artillery et al, trapped east of the Diemel.

Serov and his special detachment of units from 1st Guards Tank Army were to close the bottom route by occupying Trendelburg and preventing its use. His army commander openly stated the STAVKA order regarding blowing bridges, for the benefit of any NKVD informers on the staff.

As he saw Serov off, he made it absolutely clear that the bridge could go if it was a choice between it and the Americans escaping. None the less, the Colonel understood that the longevity of the bridge and his neck were intimately related.

Knowing the engineers of the 6th Brigade had done a superb job in record time, he had ordered the planned assault for 0400, safe in the knowledge that he was already both sides of the river.

0351 hrs 11th August 1945, Soviet attack, Stammen & Friedrichsfeld-Sud, south of Trendelburg, Germany.

Soviet Forces – 11th Guards [Independent] Heavy Tank Regiment and 14th Guards [Independent] Engineer Sapper Battalion and II/2nd Btn, 7th Pontoon-Engineer Brigade and 12th Guards Motorcycle Battalion and 399th Guards Self-Propelled Gun Regiment and 22nd Penal Company, all of 1st Guards Tank Army, and 1323rd Rifle Regiment of 415th Rifle Division of 89th Rifle Corps [temp attached], and Penal Company Zin, of 61st Army, all of 1st Red Banner Central European Front.

Allied Forces – A & C Coys, 1st Btn 330th US Infantry Regiment, C Battery, 453rd AAA Battalion, C Coy, 308th Engineer Battalion all of 83rd US Infantry Division, A & B Troops, 125th Cavalry Squadron, 113th Cavalry Group, 2nd Platoon, A Battery, 226th Searchlight Battalion, C Battery, 554th AAA Battalion, 2nd Platoon, B Company, 247th Engineer Combat Battalion, C Company, 736th Tank Battalion, all of US XIX Corps, US Ninth Army, US 12th Army Group.

The thunder and lightning were building in intensity, adding to the pre-attack nerves of the Russians moving around south of Trendelburg.

^{Fig#22 – Trendelburg – Stealthy Attack}

Normally, a Battalion Commander should not be at the front of his troops but this was not normal; far from it.

1st Company, 14th Guards Engineer-Sapper was going in harm’s way and Chekov fully intended to be with his men when the difficult business of the day started in earnest.

The former engineer battalion commander had died two days previously, probably of untreated appendicitis and its attendant complications, leaving the popular young Lieutenant Colonel Chekov in command.