Upfall

Men and women rushed back to their positions, covering over the bunkers with dirt and brush and breaking out extra machinegun bullets and grenades. In Biali the reserve companies gathered their weapons and started marching westward. At the radio rig, Zim and Hannah, assisted by Perchansky, searched the ether for German transmissions. Feldhandler, Norit, and De Young climbed into a staff car and headed for the southern hill position, the Dutchman driving, with the professor cradling his MG 42 and Norit, who was to be his second on the team, the extra ammunition. Feldhandler hoped that they would not be too late.

Kumm stopped the Waffen SS column near the two approach roads identified by Lieutenant Kaiser. Satisfied that he was in the right place, Kumm directed Kaiser to lead one armored column down the Lubin road, where he'd been ambushed before, accompanied by two half-tracks full of combat engineers to deal with the mines. On the other road, which appeared to be an old forester's path, a pair of engineer halftracks led a second column. Infantry dismounted from their trucks along the high road and marched into the woods that lined all the roadways. One company flanked the mobile column on the Lubin road to the south, while a second covered the woods to the north of the forester's path. Two more platoons tromped the forest between the two approach roads, headed right for where Roskovsky and his men had deployed. Kumm sent the mortar batteries into the woods to the north and south of the Lubin road with orders to find clearings from which to fire. He set up his own mobile headquarters off in a small field several hundred meters east of the north—south high road. Stadler, in his own half-track, led a mounted armored infantry platoon and two Stug III assault guns down the forester's road in the wake of two engineer vehicles. Two more Stug III's followed the Kaiser's force on the Lubin road.

The twin German columns advanced slowly to allow the engineers to do their job. Teams of engineers walked ahead of the half-tracks on both roads, stopping now and then to probe and dig up the mines of Sobibor, and disarm booby—traps. As they approached the eastern ridgelines where Kaiser had been ambushed two days before, the first shooting rattled the late morning air, as engineers came under long ranged machinegun and rifle fire from hidden Jewish bunkers. Several engineers on each road fell, but the Germans ignored the casualties and kept coming. A mine exploded beneath one of the engineer half— tracks on the forester's path, knocking off a track and stranding the vehicle but otherwise doing no harm. The engineer company commander, who had seen much denser minefields in Russia, reported that the mines were not sown thickly, and that the armored columns could chance an all out advance. To Kumm, who had also faced much worse on the Russian steppes, the engineer's clearance was like a spur in his flank. Kumm got on the radio and ordered a general advance. The German halftracks and assault guns churned forward.

The Yatom's defenses were ready, but just barely. His people were in place but psychologically, the inexperienced men and women in the bunkers had expected a break, not to be thrust suddenly into a life or death struggle. Worse, the Germans now come on remarkably fast.

The sudden aggression of the SS impressed Yatom. They'd clearly realized that the landmines posed little threat and the enemy now erupted down the two access roads with armored half-track vehicles in the lead.

A small halftrack followed by a pair of Kubelwagens emerged from the wooded area entered the open valley that lay before the two fortified hills. The little force then veered off the Lubin road and headed cross-country towards the smaller hill to the south. The platoon moved so fast that it went by a pair of Roskovsky's EFPs before he could set them off. The German recon platoon was headed straight for Feldhandler, Norit's and De Jong assigned bunker, and the sniper nest supposed to be manned Ilan and Bolander. Neither group was yet in position as the German recon vehicles closed. Several bunkers other bunkers 0n the little hill opened up on the German platoon, and the machinegun in the halftrack spat back at them. Yatom ran over to Rafi who crouched in a shallow trench near the road on the main ridge. B-300 ready as well as the Galil—a large rocket grenade protruding from the barrel.

"Rafi, can you hit that halftrack with the rifle grenade—I don't want to waste a 300 round on it" Yatom asked anxiously, pointing at Kaiser's elaborately camouflaged vehicle. Rafi watched as the small half-track raced for the saddle between the two Jewish held hills. He estimated the range at 150 meters but closing, as the halftrack ground forward. It was a long shot for the rifle grenade.

"I'll need to get closer" said the grenadier calmly.

"Do it—be careful."