Adam Chaimowitz, the guard who’d stopped the sayeret outside Biali had been put in charge of the bunkers on the reverse slope of the hill, and chafed as he and his men stood idle through the attack on the front slope. When he heard the nearby cries and yells of the attacking SS he could wait no more. Taking a Bren gun from his bunker he led a group of eight men to the top of the hill. There he watched as Vogel’s group charged the hill, nearly reaching a bunker at the center of the position. Recognizing the crisis, and realizing that if the bunker line fell then all was finished, Chaimowitz charged down the hillock onto the advancing Germans, firing the Bren gun from his hip. His dumbfounded men followed. At the same time Bolander charged in alone from the right, German mortar barrage eased thanks to Podolsky’s counter-battery fire.
Vogel was on the cusp of success when he was hit by a wild burst of fire from Chaimowitz’s Bren. He fell just inches from the bunker entrance, close enough for Norit to smell his blood. Bolander watched the German officer fall, and though exposed on the forward slope, fired bursts from his Tavor at a pair of SS troopers following in Vogel’s wake. The SS men toppled over and rolled back down the hill under the impact of the rounds. Bolander was about to shoot at another squad when Chaimowitz and his men leapt into his line of fire. The Jewish soldiers ran on, shooting wildly in front of them, and tossing grenades as they tumbled down the slope. Bolander knelt and adjusted his aim to support the madly disorganized charge, which resembled a wild grade school game, rather than a death struggle. But the feral attack confused and rattled the already exhausted and traumatized SS men, who leaderless, turned and fled back toward the base of the hill.
Kumm had spent the morning shuttling down the Lubin road, venturing within a kilometer the enemy positions, then returning to his regimental headquarters every few minutes to check for messages. Next to him in the half-track, Lieutenant Braun, Kumm’s signal officer, worked feverishly through the morning to reestablish wireless communication with Captain Stadler. He worked helmetless, his earphones pressed down on his garrison cap, happy that the enemy seemed to lack artillery. Finally, after being out of communication for an hour, Braun managed to work around the jamming and found the battalion commander. Braun waived to Kumm who pushed his way through the cramped halftrack to the radio. The signal was weak but Kumm managed to exchange a few sentences with his subordinate.
The news from Stadler was mixed. Another Stug destroyed, and another half-track damaged. How the partisans were managing this wasn’t clear—they possessed some kind of anti-tank grenades of unusual power and accuracy. The Stadler had only two operational half-tracks, including his own command vehicle. The central ridge remained firmly in enemy hands, but that was okay, it wasn’t the objective. The flank was the objective, and there Stadler had committed the battalion’s last intact company. They had attacked into the forester’s settlement and were moving up a small ridge to the east, referenced on the map as Hoehe 18. Losses were heavy but… And the signal went out.
Kumm stepped out of the halftrack and found Captain Holzer, the operations officer, who sat hunched over a telephone switchboard at the regimental command post.
“Where is Vogel’s company?” demanded Kumm.
“Not clear” stammered Holzer. “I have a report that Vogel is dead.”
“Can you confirm it?”
Holzer paused and spoke into the handset. “Not yet. The report is from his communications sergeant at the base of Hoehe 28. Vogel led a direct assault on the hill and was hit.”
At that moment a mortar shell landed with a crash meters behind Kumm’s track. Kumm had faced plenty of artillery in Russia and didn’t flinch but rather looked at the smoking impact site curiously.
“So they have some artillery after all.” said Kumm as a second shell struck a little further away, very near the second 81mm mortar battery.
Holzer stood up to watch. “They already attacked Battery 1 several minutes ago—I tried to reach you. I ordered them to move.”
Kumm nodded, but said nothing “Should we displace Battery 2 as well—or the headquarters?” Holzer asked nervously.
“No” said Kumm, seemingly undisturbed by the prospect of his headquarters being hit by a few 81mm bombs. “I am going forward to see the situation at Hoehe 28. If Vogel is dead, you may have to take command of that company” he told Holzer. Kumm ran back to his command track and kicked the driver The halftrack lurched forward, toward the hillock.
In his half-track, near the forester’s village, Stadler cursed when he lost communication with Kumm before completing his report. Worse, the regimental commander had said next to nothing, leaving Stadler in the dark as to what was happening elsewhere on the battlefield With no guidance Stadler had no choice but to continue his own attack on the enemy’s right flank. His 1st Company, 120 men strong, was the only intact unit left in the battalion and now he threw it at the partisan’s line. One platoon continued their attack into the blasted forester’s settlement while the rest of the company, with nearly ninety men, assaulted a low ridgeline, Hoehe 19 on the map, which ran perpendicular to the main enemy position. If Stadler’s men could get over that ridge they would fall on the enemy rear and the battle would be over. Stadler had a difficult time believing a battle against Jewish partisans could be so hard, but he’d been surprised by the tenacity of the Russians too. 1st Company would succeed or die trying.
It took Yatom several seconds to realize that beyond the ceaseless hammering of small arms, and the plop of his own mortar, the main ridgeline position had gone rather quiet—at least the German artillery had stopped blasting it. Yatom was crouched outside the mortar pits while Poldolsky and his crews continued to work the American-made weapons. He looked at them and smiled. “Seems you must have hit something!” cried Yatom with rare enthusiasm. “The German mortars have stopped.” Poldolsky wiped the sweat from his brow and told one of his men to fetch another crate of mortar bombs. In the distance, it appeared the bombardment of the hillock was also over. Ten minutes earlier Ilan had described a desperate situation on the hill. But he sent a signal that the hillock remained in Jewish hands—although Feldhandler had been injured, and Bolander nearly got himself killed.
Roi’s position on the ridge was secure, although the machinegunner had also been lightly injured, and only a couple other bunkers remained in action on the forward slope. But the Germans didn’t seem interested in launching a direct assault on the main ridge. Rather, Yatom knew, they were moving to envelope his position from the north, around the forester’s settlement and the low ridge that ran at a right angle behind it. Fliegel’s men were moving onto that ridge now, but Yatom worried that it they wouldn’t be enough. Yatom radioed Jezek in Biali, telling him to strip the town’s last defenses and drive every available fighter to the front. Jezek remained resignedly calm, and told Yatom he’d put Biali’s last forty men on two trucks send them on, along with Perchansky and Sobel. Yatom hoped he wouldn’t need the extra men, but if his position fell, they would do no good in Biali.