“Bazookas, forward! Stop the fucker before the hut!”
A small platelayer’s hut marked the point where the Second Battalion’s line crossed the rail line near a small T-junction in the dirt track that led to Jagienki.
Sat back from the front, the AT squad had not received any incoming fire, concealed, as they were, adjacent to the rail line that Soviet artillery and mortar fire was studiously avoiding.
However, the area was being heavily swept by large calibre bullets from covering 12.7mm weapons, and the leading flat car contained a quad Maxim that added to the lethal storm.
The leading bazooka man fell the second he rose, himself and his metal tube holed and out of action, the loader dropping to the ground before he shared the same fate. The second team decided to move their position and crawled across the earth, up to the cess adjacent to the single track.
Their movement was spotted by one of the men manning the quad maxim on the flatbed, and the weapon was redirected effectively.
Both teams were out of action and the slow-moving train was now less than two hundred yards from the hut.
Captain Pollo, his charges set mainly around the road junction, looked on helplessly, his own bazooka team elsewhere on the battlefield.
Montgomery Hawkes, from his own position, determined to grab the serviceable bazooka, and prepped the men around him.
He pushed upwards and out of the small crater and was immediately spun round as two heavy calibre rounds struck him.
The NCO fell on top of the two men following him, the three inextricably entwined rolled to the bottom of the hole, cursing and shouting.
Hawkes steeled himself, expecting death, before realising that, apart from something digging into his thigh, he felt intact.
He laughed, knowing he had been lucky beyond words.
His Thompson was shattered, a round having struck it in the cocking chamber and expending itself without finding his flesh. He cut his finger on the sharp metal as he examined the terminal damage to his pride and joy.
The other strike had hit his left heel and ripped off the entire sole of his jump boot, revealing evidence of a distinctly non-regulation sock.
The ‘something’ digging in his thigh squealed in protest at the weight of the NCO pushing his face into the soil. Hawkes’ pain was caused by the back edge of the trooper’s helmet.
The three sorted themselves out, the two giving their NCO looks containing equal amounts of annoyance and incredulity.
“Thanks for the soft landing, guys.”
Incredulity moved over to allow a little more room for annoyance.
Hawkes shrugged.
“Sorry… right, let’s do it.”
He stuck his head over the edge of the crater and saw the train almost on top of his position.
“Shit! No time. Forget it. Grenades out, boys… get ’em in the front cart or we’re fucked!”
The three paratroopers primed and took a swift look at their target, immediately launching their deadly charges.
Two missed, one landed dead on target.
In the wagon, the AA gun’s NCO commander sacrificed his life by falling on the grenade.
One of the troopers with Hawkes risked a look before the First Sergeant could pull him down.
Bullets emerged from the semi-darkness and removed the top of the man’s head, completely and messily, splattering blood and brain matter over the two others.
Hawkes swapped his wrecked Thompson for an M-1 carbine, suppressing his disgust at having to go into battle with the underpowered weapon.
The train was level now, and the AA crew, having seen where the grenades came from, returned the favour, dropping two into the shell hole and on top of the pair of Americans.
“OUT!”
Hawkes, battle-hardened, and with the reactions of a viper, was up and out before the first fuse did its job.
The second trooper, a recent replacement, was caught in the blast and thrown out of the hole.
Stunned, but somehow unwounded, he rose groggily to his knees. A sub-machine gun spat bullets from a shuttered window on the third coach, throwing the now-dead trooper to the ground. He rolled back into the shell hole with all the grace of a rag doll.
Hawkes suddenly found himself exposed and threw himself back into the shell hole on top of the two lifeless bodies.
A sharp crack marked the commitment of Master Sergeant Baldwin and his special AT squad, a heavy PTRD bullet slamming into one of the carriages.
More AT bullets struck, as the rest of the ad hoc unit opened up.
It was difficult to miss the armoured train, and most bullets seemed to penetrate, although none seemed to have any effect.
That was not a view held by those on the receiving end. Inside the different armoured carriages, the heavy bullets did horrible work amongst gun crews and assault personnel, but ‘Alexsandr Shelepin’ kept coming, and, as the train moved forward, more and more of her weapons were unmasked, bringing greater firepower to bear on either side.
The second armoured carriage mounted an old 76.2mm L/11 T-34 turret, a weapon long replaced in the production halls, but one still good enough to out deal death and destruction in a battle with lightly armed paratroopers.
Baldwin, squinting through the returned darkness, suddenly had his world illuminated, as the T-34 turret sent an HE shell in his direction.
Whilst it missed, it increased the urgency amongst his small command, as earth and stones fell upon them like rain.
Baldwin urgently redirected his gunners.
“Nail that goddamned tank wagon! Hit the wagon, not the turret!”
The six AT rifles were all brought to bear on the wagon and the heavy bullets bit home, converting the insides into a charnel house.
However, the 76.2mm gun refused to stay silent, and coughed another deadly shell in their direction, blotting out two rifles and killing four men in the blink of an eye.
“URRAH!”
“URRAH!”
As planned, once the front line positions were under flanking fire, the 32nd NKVD Regiment launched a frontal assault, supported by a dozen tanks from the 185th Tank Regiment, T-34m43s, sporting the F/34 version of the 76.2mm gun.
In battle, it is often the case that many things happen all at once, and a decisive moment comes and goes without the knowledge of the participants.
Outside Wollin, 2111 hrs on 26th March 1946 was such a moment.
Crisp arrived with his handful of men from Third Battalion, having intuitively understood that everything else was a diversion, and that the attack on Second Battalion was the real deal.
He had also ordered most of Third Battalion to move forwards and form another line, should Second fail to hold.
Desandé had ordered his men to hold the line, whilst he led a small group to try and wreck the tracks ahead of the armoured train.
Hawkes decided to stay put, and policed up a dead man’s Garand.
Field committed two of his RCL jeeps to stop the train.
But perhaps the most spectacular event was orchestrated by Bathwick.
By the time that he had established contact with HMS Nelson and her cohorts, the armoured train was too close.
Now, another target presented itself, and he made the necessary adjustments.
Whilst he had given the order prior to 2109, the effect of his instructions was delayed until, across the battlefield, second hands swept past 2110…
…by which time, Master Sergeant Baldwin was dead, blown apart by a 76.2mm shell…
…and Captain Desandé was rolling in the dirt, his insides spilling out around him, his stomach riven by a burst of MG fire…
…and Colonel Crisp was clearing the blood from his eyes, the deep wound under his eyebrow caused by a piece of bone from one of the troopers near him. The unfortunate 3rd Battalion man had been hit multiple times, causing his left arm to disintegrate, deluging his companions with fleshy, boney, bloody detritus…