Upfall

Roskovsky and his men were well in front of Yatom's position, quite near the Germans who were advancing through the patch of forest between the two roadways. Half company of German infantry was heading right for him, but his men were still well hidden and not yet under fire. Though he‘d missed the small half-track that had sped by a few minutes earlier, he saw other half-tracks deploying off the road on either side of his men. The closest vehicles were on the forester's road to his right—the vehicle's Mofaz wanted knocked out.

Roskovsky crawled to a trio of teens he had deployed there, who lay hidden in the brush. From their position, detonation cords snaked out to three homemade EFPs concealed amid tall weeds and bushes just forty meters away. As the first half-track passed an EFP, Roskovsky tapped one of the boys on the head and signaled him to shoot.

The boy pressed the detonator as the track rumbled by. Nothing happened. He looked at Roskovsky, panic on his face as the big armored vehicle continued to advance. Roskovsky tapped the next boy and made a motion for the boy to hit it. This one worked, but halftrack had almost passed when the second EFP detonated. It blew a hole through the back of the vehicle but didn't destroy it. Still, the blast killed a few of the SS engineers in the back and wounded several dismounted men nearby—a man in flames leapt from the vehicle. The halftrack's driver steered the vehicle off the road in his own panic, then regained the path and drove it straight ahead toward the Jewish positions.

Roskovsky ignored the damaged halftrack as it drove away. He moved to the third boy who was targeting the following halftrack with the third homemade unit. As the track moved past the hidden device the boy set it off. This EF P struck dead on—a molten bolt of dense copper shot straight into the vehicle cabin, killing the crew instantly and setting the vehicle A few engineers managed to flee the stricken vehicle, leaving their comrades to roast inside.

Their bombs expended, Roskovsky motioned teens to come with him, before the Germans spotted and killed them. The little band crawled across the wood were the second team lay beside the Lubin road. Roskovsky was preparing to attack the German armor on that road when he heard artillery falling behind him and the shouting of German infantry coming at them through the woods.

On the ridgeline Yatom saw Roskovsky's EFPs destroy one halftrack and damage another. The damaged vehicle sped madly towards his positions. Two or three machineguns peppered the halftrack as it crashed its way forward, its rear compartment aflame. From the fortified forester's buildings on Yatom's right Mofaz fired a 40mm grenade. The projectile arched through the sky and struck the burning halftrack, exploding against its front armor. The stricken halftrack ground to a halt forty meters from the nearest Jewish bunker. The machinegun team in the bunker gunned down the surviving Germans as they attempted to escape the burning armored truck. So far, so good, thought Yatom. Then the artillery started.

Stadler had been happy with his column's progress when he saw the two engineer halftracks suddenly get hit by some kind of huge roadside mines. One half-track blew up and the second sped off toward the enemy, though on fire. Stadler's command track was next in column, followed by two more half-tracks loaded with infantry. He immediately ordered his driver to halt.

The German battalion commander raised his binoculars and followed the progress of the damaged engineer halftrack as it continued to advance toward a small settlement, despite the fact that it was still burning. It almost reached the suspected enemy position when it was hit by a grenade that seemed to come out of nowhere. The front of the vehicle exploded, and the wrecked machine came to a halt between the settlement and the enemy held ridgeline.

Stadler, quite unexpectedly, now faced a crisis. His engineer platoon was mostly destroyed, he was out of communication with Kumm—the radioman improbably claimed that their communications were being jammed—and his dismounted infantrymen were not yet up. So Stadler did what he had been trained to do—he attacked. He ordered the two armored infantry squads in the half-tracks behind him to go forward. Behind the halftracks were two Stug III assault guns. Stadler ordered them forward too. With his radio out he dispatched runners to find the infantry companies on his left and right and have them charge ahead. Then he kicked his driver and sent his halftrack out of the woods and into the narrow valley that led to a clutch of old buildings that was the forester's settlement.

Action sometimes brings its own reward and so it was for Captain Stadler. Just as his track breached the woodline a smoke barrage fell in front of him, blinding his enemies, and mortar bombs started hitting the ridgeline. He loved Colonel Kumm!