Upfall

"Aufmarsch!" yelled Stadler in his headset, heedless of whether the other vehicle commanders could hear him. Then realizing that they probably could not, he pulled out his signaling flags and waved them on. As his half-track lurched forward, Stadler grabbed the nearby machinegun and opened up on the foresters' settlement.

Back on the Lubin road Kumm pounded his radio in frustration. His signal officer officer apologized—there was no question that the German radios were being jammed. Kumm only had communication by phone to the artillery, or by runner anywhere else. He could hear the explosions along Stadler's line of advance but did not know his subordinate's situation. But he trusted Stadler and in the German doctrine of Auftragstaktik — to stick with the mission no matter what.

Kumm felt better as he watched the smoke barrage fall, and saw the first 81mm shells impact the enemy ridgeline ahead. His own infantry halftracks and Stug IIIs started forward. He had to hand it to Globocnik and his staff officers—they were right about things. These were no ordinary partisans he was facing. This was a straight up battle against a determined, dug in enemy, and he was attacking into the teeth of their defenses. He looked over at the police sergeant Mueller, who sat alone and unhappy several meters away. It seemed as if the police sergeant knew that things would be tough, and wanted no further part in it. Mueller disgusted Kumm — war was war — whether in Poland or Russia, whether against regulars or partisans. It was always hard.

In the woods several hundred yards from Kumm, Roskovsky watched the elaborately painted German armored vehicles advance toward his hidden EFPs on the Lubin road. He also noted German infantry creeping through the woods straight for his positions. Roskovsky turned his attention back to the mobile column, which was throwing up clouds of dust as the heavy vehicles crushed the damaged paving stones beneath their tracks. Smoke from the German barrage wafted back over his position adding to the murk. In the midst of the dust and smoke the Israeli engineer couldn't tell if his EFPs were on target or not, he just knew that he had to fire them all immediately, before he and his men were annihilated by the SS troopers coming right at them. Roskovsky crawled over to a second trio of teenaged engineers hiding by the main road and signaled them to fire their three jury-rigged charges. Again, only two detonated successfully. Roskovsky then fired his two radio controlled EFPs also nestled along the Lubin road. In the smog that had enveloped his position he could not see whether any of the EFPs were on target, he just hoped that the mass firing hit something.

Beyond the smoke and dust, out of Roskovsky's sight, three of the five EFPs tore successfully into the Germans. On the Lubin road one of Roskovsky's modern EFPs detonated as a Stug III passed. The assault gun, though well armored by the standards of 1942, was helpless against a device designed to penetrate a modern main battle tank. The copper slug passed clean through the Stug III, igniting its ready ammunition, blowing it into a hulk of shattered, twisted metal, and extinguishing its crew. On the same road a homemade charge went off close enough to one of Kumm's infantry half-tracks to damage the front cab, wounding the driver and putting the squad of panicked SS troopers riding in the back to flight. The two other charges that detonated 0n the main road missed completely. With the German infantry almost on him, Roskovsky's set off his last EF P, a radio charge that was still on the forester's road, as he heard yet another Stug III rumble forward. The powerful device just managed to knock a track off the assault gun as it roared past. The vehicle slewed to a halt, otherwise intact, its gun pointed forward toward the Jewish positions.

Roskovsky didn't know any of this. He only knew that his little band had to retreat to the fortified ridgeline or die. And he didn't figure they had much chance. The advancing SS infantry had identified the little group of engineers through the brush and opened fire. The three boys by the Lubin road fell as they tried to come to him, desperation and fear etching their young faces before they died. Roskovsky turned away, trying to keep his wits as German weapons flashed through the smoke and dust. He shouted at the three surviving engineers, and crushed the detonator for a Claymore, showering an SS squad with shrapnel. He tossed his two last hand grenades into the gloom toward the enemy gunfire flashes, and ran for it, followed by the young engineers.