It was an awful night, bringing rain, thunder, and lightning in equal measure, for which the Soviet Commanding officer was extremely grateful.
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.
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.
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.
In their own rubber boats, or those taken from the rest of the battalion, with small craft ‘liberated’ from along the river, plus anything that could be sat on that floated or, in some cases, hanging onto the sides of one of the above, the reinforced company of sappers rode the steady current towards their objective.
Trendelburg had one solid bridge standing and they were to take and hold it, preventing its destruction at all costs.
Chekov checked his watch and silently signalled around him for some extra pace in their advance, paddles and rifle butts digging into the water, adding more energy to the boats northward advance.
Unseen shapes moved in the darkness all over the area that night, in many cases bringing silent death with them before moving on to new victims. A young American sentry taking shelter under his cape, hiding from the fury of the downpour, had his life taken by a soaked apparition. He went without a chance to scream or even recognise that he was dying on a wicked blade.
Blade and man moved inexorably on into the night seeking further victims.
The advance group of the 1st Rifle Battalion was tasked to steal quietly into Stammer, 3rd Rifle Battalion was given Exen. On the other side of the Diemel River, 1st Company, 12th Guards Motorcycle Regiment, without their bikes, bore silently down upon Seilerfeld with murderous intent, accompanied by the assault platoon of Zin’s penal Company on their right.
All did bloody work in the driving rain, but none more than 1st Battalion, who butchered the entire 3rd Battery of 453rd AAA Battalion as they slept, moving on to do exactly the same to the headquarters group of A Company, 330th Infantry Regiment.
Two shots split the night, fired by the Headquarters Warrant Officer as he walked in on the deadly business and was spitted on a long bayonet. However, it seemed that the sound of the Colt was lost in the ferocity of the thunderstorm and their deadly work continued.
1st Battalion’s Siberians had killed sixty-four men in silence.
Mortar Platoon, A Company 330th Infantry had long since acquired a reputation for their ability to scrounge anything anywhere, and to cope with the extremes that life, nature and the war could throw at them.
That was why Major Buck G. Brennan Jr had chosen to venture out into the night, rather than stay in his own miserable, partially dry headquarters.
Accompanied by 1st Lieutenant H.H.Brown and Warrant Officer Frazzoli, he had arrived at the mortar platoons position and experienced a moment of disbelief, followed by wonder, substituted by suspicion, replaced by panic, and finally coming to rest in admiration.