Towards the end of November the division’s Panzergrenadiers observed Alsatian dogs loping toward their armoured half-tracks with strange packages attached to their flanks and back, secured by wide leather girths. They opened fire immediately. Each dog appeared to trail a wire like an extended leash. These lines ran to Russian foxholes. The animals were trained to duck under vehicles or jump inside the fighting compartments. Red Army soldiers looking on would yank the line to arm the detonator mechanically which would then explode on contact with a surface. The German regimental commander had briefed his men to be wary of such tactics but in reality had already dismissed the bizarre warning as ‘the usual latrine rumours’. He commented, ‘One could never know or indeed imagine what new bestial methods the Russians would dream up next.’ A virtual ‘hare-shoot’ followed, reported another witness, ‘there were no checks on opening fire and a great many dogs were shot’. When the advance continued, the regimental commander’s radio operator counted 42 ‘mine dogs’ pathetically scattered about in the snow. ‘I did not hear of a single case in our attack area when this Red Army trick worked,’ added the regimental commander.
Three days after this incident the Panzergrenadier regiment had reached the Kalinin–Klin–Moscow road with the ‘Von Rothenberg’ Panzer regiment in support. That afternoon, they were attacked by Russian cavalry, an epic scene from a bygone age. Oberstleutnant von der Leye, the officer in charge, was a keen rider and wistfully regarded the oncoming riders with some regret. He was the third commander appointed since the beginning of the campaign and had no intention of taking any chances. ‘Must we shoot at them?’ asked a machine gunner alongside. He nodded in the affirmative. A storm of fire descended on the charging cavalry, cut to pieces in the co-ordinated fire of their modern Panzer counterparts. The advance continued on and it soon became apparent that the enemy for once was retreating steadily, not even torching the villages they vacated.(11)
At dusk on 27 November, Kampfgruppe ‘Von Manteuffel’ reached the Astrezowo–Jakowlewo area, 4km north-west of a bridge spanning the Moscow–Volga canal. A raid was ordered to capture it intact. The canal was the last defence obstacle before the city itself. Roads marked on maps would not be used, to avoid the likelihood of bumping into Russian resupply convoys. Von Manteuffel approached the bridge, detouring through surrounding woodland and bypassing villages en route. Engineer troops equipped with motorised saws were at the head of the column to cut pathways through the trees sufficiently wide for Panzers, half-tracks and heavy weapons to transit. Dismounted infantrymen moved either side of the column for security as it snaked its way through forest areas. Once clear, they accelerated along icy paths and across snow-covered fields toward the south-east. Shortly before darkness, the head of the column penetrated thick woods and came out in the village of Astrezowo.
No German troops were allowed to approach the wooded outlets on the Yakhroma town side for fear of compromising the raid. The battle group commander moved forward to the heights above the town where he was able to discern the iron girder bridge, the objective, silhouetted north of the town in the gathering winter dusk. Many of his officers and men, acutely aware of the vital significance of this bridge for any future advance, urged its immediate capture by coup de main, while it was still intact. Von Manteuffel refused to be drawn piecemeal. Equipment and additional units were still arriving and the Panzers would require more fuel if they were to be able to range around the sizeable bridgehead needed on the other bank. Orders were given for a dawn attack. They were meticulously briefed because few men had actually seen the objective. As one soldier remarked, ‘we had not been able to see the approach terrain to the bridge so the commander painted a precise picture of the ground and axis of advance’. This was so accurate that ‘despite pitch darkness not one foot was out of place during the pre-planned move to the bridge’. Villagers in Astrezowo were rounded up and locked away in a few houses as a security measure. Fires were strictly monitored as also orders for opening fire in the event of an unexpected enemy appearance. They were now set to go.
At 02.00 hours on 28 November a selected company of volunteers under Oberleutnant Reineck stealthily overpowered the guards on the bridge, and crossed without a shot being fired. The Moscow–Volga Canal was a deep stonework construction with steep sides which cut through the wintry landscape like a vivid scar. There was a road along both sides and a railway line on the eastern edge. Breathless German infantrymen were soon scaling the steep slopes of the high ground on the east bank, carrying or towing heavy weapons and ammunition. Enemy foxholes on the far side were reached and penetrated. As the first Russians came forward with their hands raised to surrender, they were shot down by their own men behind.
A Panzer group under Hauptmann Schroeder clattered across to the other side and the bridgehead swiftly began to take shape. Pandemonium resulted when a Russian armoured train appeared on the railway line and a group of several Russian T-34s began to attack German infantry digging in on the east side. A German Panzer company shot the armoured train into a flaming wreck. Smoke poured into the sky now growing lighter with the dawn and swirled about at ground level, smudging the snow. Very quickly three T-34s were hit, motionless and burning. At this moment a taxi cab drove incongruously onto the bridge and its surprised occupants were taken prisoner by the headquarters staff of Regiment 6. Inside was a Soviet officer with written orders and maps for the defence of the canal. Von Manteuffel remarked, ‘He was amazed to be told to get out because he had no idea we had already broken through the canal defensive positions and that the bridge was in our hands.’
Complete surprise had been achieved. Nobody in the town of Yakhroma realised anything was wrong. At about 07.00 hours, workers poured into the factories and even at 08.00 the huge bread factory was at work. When it became lighter, realisation dawned what was going on and the town’s noisy bustle resumed as the factories closed. Yakhroma’s citizens – such as 19-year-old Valentina Igorowna Belikowa – had previously ‘dug tank ditches so that the Panzers would not get through’. It was already too late. She said:
‘We suddenly heard engine noises during the night of 27/28 November 1941, but they were from a direction we would have never thought possible. They came with motorcycles and started searching immediately for partisans all over the town.’