Upfall

Yatom ordered Shapira to take his team, catch up to Fliegel and support him, but not to lead the attack. Yatom decided to stay near the trucks with Nir, Rafi and Feldhandler, while Ido continued to work on Chaim. Slowly, the shooting died down. Neither side had good targets, and the Germans, Yatom reckoned, hoped that their attackers had fled. Certainly the Germans had been hurt by the sayeret's fire, even if they men had not yet broken. The Israelis sniped at the Germans but otherwise held their fire as the Bears crept forward, using a bit of defilade Yatom had noticed and ordered Fliegel to use.

Half an hour later the situation had little changed. Yatom feared that the Bears had bolted and that his own men would have to take the position. Then he caught sight of Fliegel waving a chemlite through the gloom, very near to the German held cottage. Shapira called in a moment later, telling Yatom that all the teams were ready and in position.

"Is Fliegel up to pulling this off?" asked Yatom.

"His men are in position" said Shapira, not offering his commander an evaluation he could not possibly make.

"Beseder. Pick your targets and open fire—send Fliegel forward."

The battlefield erupted again as tracers and grenades arched into the German position. The Israeli advance had put the enemy roadblock in a crossfire, but the Germans had not been idle during the lull either. German machine guns opened up from new positions and a small group of German soldiers suddenly left their trenches and charged at Fliegel's men, tossing grenades as they came on. The Bears started to bolt, when Shapira, Bolander and Roi fired into the German attackers from hidden positions behind to the Jewish partisans, wiping out the German team. Using Chaim's Tavor Shapira launched his last two phosphorus grenandes at the German roadblock and ran forward, ordering Fliegel to take his men in.

Hesitatingly, Fliegel led his men forward. One of them had the sense to toss a grenade back at the Germans, and he was imitated by a two others. Supported by fire from Shapira's team, the Bears reached the entrenchments around the cottage. The Germans manning the position, seeing that they were outflanked, coolly withdrew. A German soldier tossed another grenade, knocking down two of Fliegel‘s men.

The Bears went in the building. From there they could shoot into the surviving German soldiers in the entrenchments. Shapira moved up with team Gimmel and urged Fliegel on. Fliegel charged the entrenchments with the rest of his men. Two more Bears were hit by the stubborn Germans. Fliegel and his men dove into the trenches, where they landed atop the bodies of several dead German defenders.

Mofaz and his men lying in cover on the other side of the road identified the attacking Jews through their NVGs, and the Germans still firing at them. Team Bet now carefully picked out German targets amid the wreckage of the position. But the Germans had cleverly moved one machinegun out of the entrenchments and down the road into a new ambush position. This gun now sliced into Mofaz's group, driving the Major and his men to ground, banging a round offof Itzak's Kevlar helmet—his second near miss in as many days, and temporarily knocking him out. By the cottage, Roi spotted the German fire, put his infrared laser on the German gun and blasted it out of existence with his Negev.

Shapira and Bolander reached Fliegel, still under cover in the German trench. Realizing that Fliegel and his shocked men were spent, the two commandos, supported by Roi, took the rest of the German position using grenades and Tavors.

The Israelis found fourteen dead Germans in shot-up cottage and the surrounding entrenchments. By their equipment and uniforms it was clear that these men were first-line German infantrymen, a far cry from the camp guards and Ordnungs Polizei that the Israelis had faced thus far. In overcoming the roadblock the sayeret had burned though much of its ammunition, and suffered its first serious casualty. The Bears had suffered two dead and three wounded.

The Israeli commandos collected the German arms and equipment in a state of somber exhaustion while Fliegel's men sat by in stunned silence. Yatom ordered his men to check the German dead for papers and maps as well. Nir found an officer's sachel gave it to Yatom. Yatom took the satchel but was too tired to examine it closely, and just slung it onto his shoulder.

Ido reported that Chaim's wound was, in IDF parlance, moderate, and treatable, but his arm would have to remain in a sling for the time being. Yatom told Fliegel that they would leave the two dead Jewish fighters behind. The surviving Bears loaded their three wounded onto the truck with Ido, Perchansky and Norit. Itzak, his head aching, but intact, joined them. With Chaim resting, and Itzak treatable with aspirin and rest, Ido set to work on the wounded Jewish fighters.