‘It was absolutely pointless. The [Russian] wounded lay left and right of the Rollbahn. The third attack had crumpled in our fire and the severely injured were howling so dreadfully it made my blood run cold!’
After treating their own wounded, Goralla was ordered forward with two grenadier medics to deal with the Russian casualties ‘lying as thick as herring in a box’ in a hollow off the road. The medics, who were wearing Red Cross armbands, approached to within 20m of the hollow when the Russian wounded began to shoot at them. Two medics collapsed and Gefreiter Goralla waved those following behind to crawl back. As he did so:
‘I saw the Russians coming out of the hollow, crawling and hobbling towards us. They began to throw hand-grenades in our direction. We held them off with pistols we had drawn from our holsters and fought our way back to the road.’
Later that day the same wounded were still persistently firing at the road. A staff captain threatened them back with a pistol and stick. They took no notice. ‘Ten minutes later,’ said Goralla, ‘it was settled.’ A Panzergrenadier platoon went into the attack and cleared the area around the road.
‘Every single wounded man had to be fought to a standstill. One Soviet sergeant, unarmed and with a severely injured shoulder, struck out with a trench spade until he was shot. It was madness, total madness. They fought like wild animals – and died as such.’(5)
Containing the Smolensk pocket, in the face of such pressure, became an obsession for von Bock. ‘At the moment,’ he wrote on 20 July, ‘there is only one pocket on the Army Group’s front! And it has a hole!’(6) The Panzer ring holding it, lacking strong infantry support, was extremely porous. Without the attached Luftwaffe anti-aircraft batteries, originally configured to protect the Panzers against air attack, the defence situation would have been even more alarming. High-velocity 88mm Flak guns were switched from air defence to the ground role. An example of their effectiveness is revealed by 7th Panzer Division’s defensive battle tally against 60–80 attacking Russian tanks on 7 July. Just under half – 27 of 59 enemy tanks – were knocked out by Flak Abteilung 84. Of the remaining 29 kills, 14 were knocked out by five other infantry units and 15 by the division’s Panzerjäger Abteilung (also equipped with Flak guns).(7)
On 21 July von Bock grudgingly acknowledged the pressure the enemy was applying to his closing ring, ‘a quite remarkable success for such a badly battered opponent!’ he admitted. The encirclement was not quite absolute. Two days later Bock complained, ‘we have still not succeeded in closing the hole at the east end of the Smolensk pocket.’(8) Five Soviet divisions made good their escape that night, through the lightly defended Dnieper valley. Another three divisions broke out the following day. Unteroffizier Eduard Kister, a Panzergrenadier section commander, fought with the 17th Panzer Division near Senno and Tolodschino against break-out attempts mounted by the Sixteenth Soviet Army.
‘They came in thick crowds, without fire support and with officers in front. They bellowed from high-pitched throats and the ground reverberated with the sound of their running boots. We let them get to within 50m and then started firing. They collapsed in rows and covered the ground with mounds of bodies. They fell in groups, despite the fact the ground being undulating offered good protection from fire, but they did not take cover. The wounded cried out in the hollows, but still continued to shoot from them. Fresh attack waves stormed forward behind the dead and pressed up against the wall of bodies.’
Schütze Menk, serving in a 20mm Flak company with the ‘Grossdeutschland’ Regiment, described the desperate need to keep all weapons firing in the face of such suicidal mass assaults.
‘Our cannon had to be fed continually; flying hands refilled empty ammunition clips. A barrel change, a job that had to be done outside the protection of the armour plate, was carried out in no time. The hot cannon barrel raised blisters on the hands of those involved. Hands were in motion here and there, calls for full clips of ammunition, half deaf from the ceaseless pounding of the gun… there was no time to feed hidden fears by looking beyond one’s task, the Russians were unmistakably gaining ground.’(9)
Kister maintained it was a totally unnerving experience. ‘It was as if they wanted to use up our ammunition holdings with their lives alone.’ His sector was attacked 17 times in one day.
‘Even during the night they attempted to work their way up to our position utilising mounds of dead in order to get close. The air stank dreadfully of putrefaction because the dead start to decompose quickly in the heat. The screams and whimpering of the wounded in addition grated on our nerves.’
Kister’s unit repelled another two attacks in the morning. ‘Then we received the order to move back to prepared positions in the rear.’(10)
Pockets were not only porous, they moved. As Red Army units continually sought to escape, German Panzers had frequently to adjust positions to maintain concentric pressure or bend as they soaked up attacks. ‘Wandering pockets’ complicated the co-ordination of hasty defence and especially the reception of march-weary reinforcing infantry units moving up to form the inner ring. Infantry divisions moving behind Panzergruppen fared particularly badly. They were often obliged to change direction at little notice onto secondary routes to avoid Panzer countermeasures rapidly manoeuvring along the primary or supply arteries. Movement in such fluid situations was perilous, as described by Feldwebel Mirsewa travelling with one 18th Panzer Division convoy:
‘Suddenly they were there. Even as we heard the engine noises it was already too late. Soviet T-26 and T-34 tanks rolled, firing uninterruptedly, parallel to our supply convoy. Within seconds all hell had broken loose. Three lorries loaded with ammunition driving in the middle of the column blew up into the air with a tremendous din. Pieces of vehicle sped over us, propelled on their way by the force of the explosions.’
Men cried out and horses stampeded in all directions, running down anything that stood in their way. Suddenly the Russian tanks changed direction and swept through the column, firing as they went.
‘I will never forget the dreadful screams of the horses that went under the tracks of the tanks. A tanker lorry completely full with tank fuel burst apart into orange-red flames. One of the manoeuvring T-26 tanks came too close and disappeared into the blaze and was glowing incandescently within minutes. It was total chaos.’
A 50mm PAK was rolled up from the rear and quickly immobilised two of the heavier T-34 tanks, hitting their tracks. Both began to revolve wildly, completely out of control in the surreal battle now developing. Meanwhile, the lighter and faster T-26 types had shot every vehicle in the column into flames. Bodies of men who had attempted to flee their vehicles were strewn across the road. ‘I heard the wounded cry out,’ recalled Mirsewa, ‘but not for long, as the Russian tank clattered up and down over the dead and injured.’ A platoon of Panzergrenadiers with additional anti-tank guns drove up and swiftly set to work. At first the unmanoeuvrable T-34s were despatched. The scene began to resemble Dante’s ‘Inferno’ as the T-26s still engaging the burning vehicles were attacked.