Then the situation changed.
Chapter 29
The train pulled into the station at Chern, which was short for the more tortuous name of Chernyshkovskiy. It was a town about 20 kilometers west on the rail line that ran from Steiner’s position and Morozovsk. A man got off the forward train car and pulled up his collar against the cold October wind. Two others followed him, their tall black boots stained with the brown earth and mud.
As he stepped away from the steamy engine with his officers in tow, Hermann Balck could already hear the sound of the battle he had come to join. The low mutter of artillery fire rolled on the evening fog. Three days ago, he had received a message with orders from General Manstein. 11th Panzer was to find any rolling stock available and board trains to come to the River Chir. As he looked at the shallow, muddy flow passing through Chern, something stirred in him, as if a faint memory was trying to surface from beneath that brown water.
Just another river, he thought, shaking the feeling off. Just another battle, only this time my division will be on defense again. That is the second time in the last few months, and something tells me the situation has taken a decided turn for the worse here.
Balck had sent two Panzergrenadier Battalions of his 110th Regiment, and two companies of Panthers, on ahead to Oblivskaya. The rest of the division was still coming up on the rail from the south. They would have to pass through Morozovsk before turning east. Balck had stopped there as well to confer with Manstein before he moved his division up.
“This is more trouble than the last time,” said Manstein. “I could smell it days ago, which is why I sent you those orders. Now you are here, and we can restore the situation. I sent two Schwerepanzer Brigades east earlier, but even they won’t be enough. The rail line is already cut east of Oblivskaya, so that is as far as you can go. It may be wise to disembark at Chern instead. Things are hot further down the line, and we need this rolling stock intact.”
“Very Well. I’ll risk sending a small kampfgruppe forward to Oblivskaya, but will do as you suggest with the rest of the division. What are we up against this time?”
“Their 4th Mech Corps is flanking the town to the left, and 1st Guard Tank Corps is doing the same on the right. Eicke’s 3rd SS is heavily engaged between those two envelopments.”
“They’re trying to pocket the division?” said Balck. “That would be like taking a tiger by the tail.”
“Perhaps so, but Eicke had a lot in front of him at the moment—the whole of the 4th Siberian Shock Army. Their 3rd Shock Army is leaning on the 46th Infantry Division just east of Eicke’s position, about 20 kilometers north of Chern. It’s water building up behind a dam, so you’ll have to keep an eye over your shoulder if you move east.”
“We need more infantry,” said Balck. “If that division should fail, then we’ll have a real mess here.”
Manstein nodded. “I’ve got two divisions heading our way as we speak. The 336th should arrive in a day or so, and the 305th a couple days later. It was all I could do to get those two. Halder has all the rest, the entire 17th Army tied up supporting the Voronezh operation. So we will have to make do with what we have.”
“Anything else I can expect?”
“Not at the moment. Wietersheim’s 14th Panzer Korps is fighting with their 2nd Shock Army. He’s given some ground, and if he can adjust his lines to cover the necessary frontage, I might be able to move the 9th Panzer this way.”
“What about 23rd Panzer—the rest of my little fire brigade from the Mars offensive. We danced fairly well together. Lengsfeld is back in command now after Mack was killed in August. He’s a sturdy right hand man.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Manstein, “but I cannot promise you anything more at the moment. It will again depend on how much infantry I can get south to the Rostov area to relieve Lengsfeld’s troops.”
“I understand,” said Balck. “Well Herr General, you can at least rely on me. The Ghost Division won’t let you down. So if you’ll excuse me,” he smiled, “I’d better go rescue Steiner and the rest of the SS Panzer Korps.”
Hauptmann Beck had fallen back to Surovinko, finally giving his weary battalion a little rest. The next morning, the 18th of October, 1st Guard Tank started its enveloping breakthrough west of Surovinko, and his men were needed. He looked around, needing ammunition and any stray equipment he could get his hands on. There was a single 88 mounted on a halftrack, and he commandeered it from the Wikings, then led his battalion west. He led third company towards the sound of fighting, leaving the other two to move along the road and take up positions on his left. They would never get there. They ran straight into the 18th Heavy Tank Brigade, its big assault guns grinding up the roadbed as it moved east towards Surovinko. The flank defense was itself flanked before it could even get into position, and Beck’s armored cars were not going to make any impression on those heavy tanks.
Beck got hold of a company commander with the 501st Brigade on the radio. He had been backing up the 2nd Company of the Wiking Recon Battalion defending on this flank, and they were now being fronted by a Guards Rifle Brigade. The infantry could be held for a time, but not those heavy tanks. It would take the long barrels of those VK-88 Lions to do the job, and they immediately pulled out and shifted four kilometers south.
By the time they arrived on the scene, the entire 1st Guards tank Corps had gone around that flank and was now pushing east up the road to Surovinko, just two kilometers outside the town. Beck was in a fight for his life again, and behind him he could hear all Steiner’s artillery firing off a steady barrage to the north, where the pressure continued relentlessly. Seven Russian divisions were now in a death grip with the Wiking Division, and the 501st Schwerepanzer Brigade. The fighting was now no more than five klicks from the town where Steiner sat, and he was giving orders that any supplies and loose equipment that could be moved should be loaded onto the Korps transport pool trucks and sent east to Kalach. He wanted as much support as possible for the units that were now cut off, as he had not yet been informed of Balck’s arrival, and did not know if the Soviets could be stopped. Then he heard the train pull in.
The arrival of those two battalions of Panzergrenadiers Balck had sent forward on the trains at some risk was very timely. The engineers were just finishing offloading the last of the two tank companies, when a brigade of Soviet cavalry came charging haphazardly into the eastern edge of the town. Actually, it was fleeing more than charging. It had been trying to cross the Chir near Kovalenski, six kilometers east, and was suddenly surprised by the Lions of 1st Schwerepanzer Company of the 502nd Brigade. The cavalry scattered, machineguns rattling after them, and most fled west along the rail line and came rushing right into Balck’s forward Kampfgruppe.
The carnage that followed was gruesome. Balck’s seasoned Panzergrenadiers deployed quickly and went right into the attack. MG 32s and 42s gunned the horsemen down, their mounts rearing under fire, falling and dying. Then the tank companies came up, armored horses that the cavalry could not hope to withstand. Those that survived fled northeast towards a tributary that flowed down to the Chir through the hamlet of Kyzl-Aul. If Balck had not risked that deployment, those horsemen would have come right in the east end of town and found a major supply depot at the train station.