Following a talk with the brigade commander, I decided to drive to the bridgehead. We got through to a small village on the east bank of the Oder. My driver, Volodia Koslov, found it easily. Suddenly several shells exploded quite close. We stopped next to a traffic controller.
‘Where is that coming from?’ asked Koslov.
‘From Küstrin,’ answered the girl. The enemy controlled a bridgehead on the east bank of the Oder with the town of Küstrin and its fortress. Several attempts to remove it had failed so far.
It was not quite so simple to get to our bridgehead. At the beginning of February we had thrown several pontoon and shallow bridges of various carrying capacities over the Oder but, as a result of the artificially speeded up thawing of the ice and encroaching spring flooding, they had been swept away despite all the sappers’ efforts. There was nothing for us to do except bring all loads across to the other bank by boats and ferries. Long queues formed at the crossing points. Finally, after a long wait and a short but heated dispute with the commander of the crossing point, we obtained a place on the ferry.
The river at this point was about 300 metres wide. Ice floes floated in the blue-grey water. With them in the flow on the river floated stakes with torn barbed wire and dead bodies. Silently we removed our headwear.
The staff of the 7th Battalion had set themselves up in the cellar of a half-destroyed building in Kienitz. In the vaulted room, lit only by a flickering light coming from a makeshift funnel made out of shell cases, I was received by Major Ogurzov, the deputy battalion commander. He had joined the army immediately after graduating at the Leningrad Water Transport School of Engineering in December 1940. The war had caught him by surprise on the western border. He had fought his way out with our troops to Kiev and further back to the Don and Volga. Ogurzov had belonged to the brigade since it had been formed. The major was an experienced, strong-willed man.
‘You are surely frozen through, Comrade Colonel. Do you want to warm yourself up a bit?’ asked Ogurzov, and held out the field flask. ‘I know how difficult the way is.’
‘Thank you, later. Where is Issaiev?’
‘He is sleeping nearby. Issaiev was up the whole night in the front line controlling the survey of the newly laid mines. Finally we will have to clear them again one day. Shall I wake him?’
‘Let him sleep. Tell me how things are with you.’
‘Who’s there?’ sounded a strong bass voice from behind the rain curtain covering the entrance. Issaiev had woken up. A moment later he came in adjusting the collar of his shirt as he did so. We saluted each other.
‘You want to know what we are doing? We are laying mines in front of the position.’ The battalion commander spoke in short, clipped sentences. ‘Then we beat back all attacks. If we only had more mines. All in all we still have 200 in stock.’
I also visited Folov’s 1st Battalion, where everything was also taking its normal course, but 200 to 300 mines were requested.
On the bridgehead I met the commander of the operational group, Lieutenant-Colonel Golub. He had considerable concerns. ‘General Fursa has ordered mines to be laid in the river to protect the crossing points. However, we only have the SRM type – they react to the pressure of the stream and cause the mine to detonate.’
A difficult situation. The enemy was trying to destroy our crossing point by all means available. This had failed by air as our fighters and anti-aircraft guns had beaten back all attacks. Now the enemy was using floating mines and sundry assault groups.
Under these conditions the demand of the 5th Shock Army’s chief engineer, General Fursa, was completely understandable but technically impossible. I had to go and discuss the situation with him. As always we were quickly unanimous and decided to protect the crossing points with several steel cables stretched across the river upstream to catch the floating mines or cause them to explode. Special teams were to repair torn cables and prevent frogmen breaking through to the crossing points. But the Fascists gave us no peace. One day I was offered an unusual spectacle. A Heinkel 111 dived out of the clouds and aimed for a pontoon bridge over which a stream of soldiers was crossing. After a short delay the 37mm anti-aircraft guns opened fire. Suddenly the bomber went into a dive and bored into the collapsed soft bank 800 metres from the crossing point. A mighty column of fire rose into the sky. Several seconds later the hot blast of the explosion hit us and swept several men off the bridge, but the traffic continued.
Later we discovered that the enemy had tried to use flying bombs (Mistels) against our crossing points. A crewless He 111 was suspended under a Focke-Wolfe 190 and stuffed full of explosives. Shortly before reaching the target, the fighter released the bomber, which was radio-controlled and flew independently to its target. Theoretically this system worked faultlessly, but in practice no hits were made on our bridges. Apparently the ‘helmsman’ lost his nerve in the face of our anti-aircraft gunfire and the expected attack by fighters. The enemy tried once more near Küstrin, but also without success.
From the bridgehead I was able to return to the brigade headquarters without any big adventures. Even the two Focke-Wulf 190s that dived down on our ferry could not change anything. Their bombs exploded well away from us and we were merely splashed by a few drops of water.
While our sapper battalions were blocking the way for German tanks with their mines, and those near Stargard and on the Oder conducted counterattacks, the 8th Guards Special Mine Laying Battalion had been carrying out tasks of a special kind. Ships and boats of the Dnepr Red Banner Flotilla had to be moved from the Vistula to the Oder, going from Bydgoszcz by canal to the Varta and on to the Oder. Our guardsmen had to clear the canal route for the flotilla to get through. The deputy commander of the 8th Battalion, Major Boltov, was entrusted with this task, with his deputy, Captain Melamed. Attached to them were Captain Budko’s 2nd Company and a naval diving team from the Fleet.
The clearing of the route began in Bydgoszcz. The canal’s lock gates were still in order, the enemy apparently no longer bothering to destroy them in his retreat, but several bridges had been blown in the town itself. In order to impede the restoration work, the enemy had driven vehicles, locomotives and wagons onto the bridges before blowing them. The rubble now lay at the bottom of the canal that our sappers had to make navigable again.
The schedule timing was difficult, which is why General Joffe in his orders had told them not to spare the explosives. Naturally it would have been easiest to clear the canal with heavy explosives. We had captured enough Trotyl, but we could only use it at some distance from the built-up areas as the shock waves would have caused too much damage. The work in Bydgoszcz took several days to achieve, the destroyed bridges having to be blown with appropriately small charges. The rubble was then secured to long cables and hauled off the bottom of the canal by winches and tractors.
Once the route had been cleared, our sappers returned to the Varta. Near Deutsche Krone they discovered a T-34 at the bottom of a lock. Local people said that its crew had tried to cross the canal over the footbridge, but the bridge was unaccustomed to such a weight and collapsed under the tank. How could we get past the T-34? We lacked the means of lifting it, and using explosives might damage the locks. Fortunately there was a tank repair workshop battalion nearby that collected and repaired damaged equipment. Boltov began his talk with the commander of this battalion by going straight to the point. ‘We have a fully intact T-34 for you.’