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.
The SS gunned down the three boys just as they broke from the tree line into the open. Roskovsky, running ahead of them, reached a cloud of drifting smoke from the mortar barrage. The top of the ridge, and relative safety, was still 200 meters away. The smoke threw off the aim of the SS troopers shooting at Roskovsky. He got a good fifty meters onto the lower part of the ridge before he was hit. The first bullet struck a ceramic plate in Roskovsky’s vest, knocking him down, but not hurting him critically. The big engineer shook off the blow, and set off again, bounding another twenty meters before an MG 42 round hit him in the back of the leg. He fell again, unable to rise, but continued to crawl forward. Roskovsky knew he had little hope of survival, but he wanted to get as far from the Germans as possible before he died, so that they could not retrieve his body or equipment.
The smoke began to to clear and Roskovsky heard armored vehicles advancing on the roads to his right and left. Behind him the SS troopers continued to shoot toward the ridge, but they could not advance beyond the woodline, as fire from Jewish bunkers targeted them through the thinning smoke. Roskovsky heard the distinctive popping of Roi’s Negev, as 5.56mm rounds snapped over his head. Ahead, Roskovsky heard Yatom’s voice through the din, telling him to keep moving. Roskovsky looked for the bunker through the thinning smoke and struggled forward several more meters, pulling on grass, weeds and saplings to drag his useless leg along. He caught sight of Yatom’s bunker off to his left, and looked toward it hopefully, when when a long burst of fire from an MG 42 hit him several more times, hammering his body into the blood soaked ground. Roskovsky lifted his head one last time, fifty meters from the first of the Jewish bunkers, before another burst of fire penetrated his helmet and drove him into the sodden earth—dead now, but out of the Germans’s reach.
From the top of the ridge Yatom had watched Roskovsky’s struggle as a ghostly image in his thermal binoculars. The German smoke barrage had temporarily blinded the Jewish positions, but the thermal scope easily cut through the gray-white clouds. Yatom directed Roi’s Negev at the SS who were tracking Roskovsky through the murk. Many Germans, not realizing that the smoke offered them no cover from the deadly machinegun, were killed as they attempted to follow the Israeli engineer up the hill. Yatom could do nothing more as watched Roskovsky struggle amidst the drifting smoke, only fifty meters away. Roi, seeing the same thing, dropped his Negev and started crawl from the bunker in order to drag the engineer back, Yatom restrained him.
“It’s our duty!” shouted the young sergeant as Yatom gripped Roi’s webbing.
“No” said Yatom simply. The Israeli ethos of always going after the dead and wounded had cost the lives of too many men. Yatom believed it had become something of a fetish. He wasn’t going to lose Roi to a hopeless act of valor that would not improve their tactical situation in the slightest.
“Pick up your weapon” ordered Yatom. Roi shrank back and retrieved his Negev, then poured the rest of the belt toward the advancing Germans, knocking two more men down and driving the rest back.
Evaluating his situation from the command bunker next to the emotional Roi, Yatom realized that his tactical situation had deteriorated. Yatom’s intelligence was bad. He did not know how many armored vehicles his men faced, or how many Roskovsky had managed to damage or destroy. Yatom reckoned that Roskovsky had expended all his EFPs before he’d died, but Yatom could only guess the damage inflicted on the enemy. He’d seen a secondary explosion on the Lubin road, and smoke from a burning vehicle on the forester’s track. However encouraging the smoke and explosions were, the reality emerging from the enemy held woods promised disaster. On Yatom’s left a turretless assault gun and two half-tracks loaded with German infantry and engineers debouched from the Lubin road, emerging from the smoke screen and heading toward the main ridge. He recognized the Stug III assault gun from old World War II films, but was uncertain of its capabilities and weaknesses. On his right another assault gun and three half-tracks rolled down the forester’s track aiming for Mofaz’s position. All the while, the Germans continued to pound the ridgeline with mortars, joined by direct fire from the Stug IIIs. Behind the barrage, German infantry were emerged from the woods far flanks, obviously intent on fully enveloping the Jewish position.
Yatom’s combat experience was extensive, but had mostly consisted of well—prepared raids and assaults. He had never fought a defensive battle before, much less one with amateur soldiers on strange terrain. There was little to do but hang on. He radioed Mofaz and Han on his right and left flanks, and ordered them hold fast. Yatom then went down the ridge, dodging German shells, until he found his own mortar crew, and his only reserve formation—a company of about 100 men under the command of Fliegel, waiting in the safety of the reverse slope. Nearby was a makeshift aid station where Ido worked with a half dozen doctors and nurses on several men already wounded by the German artillery. Yatom grabbed Ido and told him to put his medical duties on hold—he needed the medic to assist Rafi in dealing with the German armor. Yatom then walked over to Fliegel, trying to appear as confident as possible, despite the falling mortar bombs. He took the Silesian fighter aside, hopeful that Fliegel had not lost his nerve. Yatom described the grim situation.
“The Germans are likely to break through somewhere” explained Yatom. “When they do, you and your men are going to have to stop them, or we’ll be finished.”
Chapter 39
The telephone rang in Kumm’s command halftrack. Since the enemy had jammed his radio he’d had his signals section run telephone wire to the front lines. It was more cumbersome than radio, and it meant that he could not talk directly to Stadler in his mobile halftrack, but it worked after a fashion. Lieutenant Vogel, commander of infantry Company 2 on the right flank was calling to report that his men had moved into position in the treeline opposite the smaller hill, Hoehe 28. The SS platoons from Company 3, operating between the roads, had routed the enemy engineer detachment in the woods to his left, and were in place opposite the larger ridge, Hoehe 31. That left Stadler, who was still out of communication but presumably moving forward with Company 1, sweeping the far left flank.
The attack had got off to a rough start. Columns of smoke from his stricken armor still smudged the skyline, but Kumm believed that things were looking up. Not only was the infantry advancing, but ahead of him one of the surviving assault guns was pushing to the central ridge, every few seconds pausing to fire a shell into a partisan bunker. Two half-tracks loaded with infantry followed the Stug III, their machineguns blazing. One mortar battery still pounded the big ridge, Hoehe 31, while the second had opened up on Hoehe 28 to the right, softening it up for Vogel’s men.