On Monday, 16 April, we were awakened at 0400 hours by the Russian bombardment. Every time we tried to get out and run to the armoured personnel carrier (APC), flashes of lightning illuminated the darkness and dirt and shrapnel whistled around our ears. An enemy battery had taken our command post as its aiming mark. Luckily, it moved its fire back some 70 metres across the fields. This inferno continued until 0600 hours and then the aircraft appeared. A squadron of twin-engined bombers dropped a carpet of bombs over a wood behind us in which there were all sorts of artillery. However, our batteries fired only very seldom. The nakedly exposed Heights and roads were meanwhile being controlled from the air, our own air effort being exceptionally weak.
By midday, from the sounds of battle and rumours, the enemy were already past us on the left and right. The remains of the detachments deployed in front of us were caught in our positions. Our troops were running from their trenches towards us as the Russian infantry appeared and, before we knew it, the Ivans were already on our Heights. With hastily assembled forces they were driven back halfway down again and our new positions held for the night. Air activity and continual mortaring robbed us of any sleep that night and caused some deaths in the supply column.
At 0400 hours on 17 April our command post was moved back more centrally in our sector to Gusow railway station. We had hardly camouflaged the vehicle and moved into the cellar of the station when a tank alert was given. The tanks had come up the road without firing. At the same time the bomber squadron reappeared and started bombing a little to our rear. To add to our misfortunes, alarming reports were radioed from the battalions. The enemy was in the rear of the 1st and 2nd Battalions with tanks and infantry, and the 3rd Battalion was falling back. At 0900 hours there was another bombardment on our forward positions, knocking out the radio APC of the 1st Battalion, and the crew of the 3rd Battalion’s radio APC were injured by wood splinters. The section leader, although the most seriously wounded, nevertheless drove the vehicle back to the supply column himself.
The regiment was now in such disorder, with no communications or physical contact, for instance, that we had to withdraw under cover of some self-propelled guns (SPGs) and tanks[32] to the next line of defence, the ‘Stein-Stellung’ near Görlsdorf. It was none too soon, for we were already being fired at from the flank and we were showered with wood splinters in the copse where we stopped to assemble. When we arrived at midday with the remainder of the regiment at the ‘Stein-Stellung’ it was already under shellfire and the Russians were assembling tanks and infantry opposite. Of our 1st and 2nd Battalions only a few scattered groups had come back, and these were now re-organised into a weak battalion. The command post was set up on the reverse slopes of the defence position.
While the commanders were setting the sector boundaries, the enemy artillery and mortar fire steadily increased. Mortar bombs and salvoes of rockets crashed down around us and it was getting more and more uncomfortable. Helmut Melzer was killed by this fire as he tried to get through the woods on a bicycle to the supply lines to get a new radio.
Suddenly there was another alarm. Somehow the Russians had got through our lines and were behind us. There was a mad rush by the staff to get some soldiers together and recover our positions with a counterattack. Soon machine gun and tank fire was coming from every direction. At dusk we went into the attack with the support of some 20mm anti-aircraft guns and tanks, although these heavy vehicles could not manoeuvre much in the woods. We formed a blocking position on the corner of a wood with our APC. The fighting went on into the night but the old positions were not recovered.
As tanks drove into our flank from the left on the morning of 18 April, our APC and the remaining vehicles were sent back a kilometre to Worin. The small, deserted village looked so peaceful, but hardly had we set ourselves up in a house than a cannonade of tank fire broke out in our corner. As we were at a crossroads, we came under fire from heavy weapons and artillery fire, in which several soldiers sheltering in a barn several meters behind our APC were wounded. In those two days our signals platoon suffered 17 casualties. During the morning the companies withdrew to Worin and the command post found itself in the front line, the regimental commander himself becoming a casualty. The divisional headquarters were only a few hundred meters away in the same village. To add to our misfortunes we had a mixture of petrol and diesel oil in our fuel tank so that the APC would only move very slowly and the engine had to be kept turning over. Our young second lieutenant, who had only been with the regiment a few days, had a daring plan to drive the APC over open country to the command post, for as the route was downhill, should we fall into a hole we would quickly come out again! As we started off, we came under a real mortar barrage. The vehicle speeded up, backfiring several times, and we were expecting it to give up the ghost. After minutes that seemed to last for hours, we reached the cover of a sunken lane and followed it to behind a barn, where all kinds of vehicles had assembled, oddly enough failing to attract the attention of enemy aircraft.
The Russians were bombarding the supply routes that we would have to withdraw over later. As their tanks penetrated Worin I decided to leave the place with my lame APC and with luck creep over the hill to the edge of the woods to await further events. Splintering trees forced us to move back further into the wood. There was some heavy anti-aircraft artillery hidden in a commanding position on the edge of the woods. Everyone was to withdraw to positions in front of Müncheberg during the afternoon, but our division was to take up the rearguard once more. Convoys of vehicles rolled through the woods to Jahnsfelde to join the main road back to Müncheberg. However, a short while later the last convoy returned with the news that we were cut off. There were only about two kilometres of woodland track to the positions and tanks in our rear – Jahnsfelde was already occupied by the enemy – and we could hear machine gun fire from that direction. We knew that there had been fighting on either side of us for some time, and now there was no way out. As it emerged from the woods, the divisional radio vehicle, which had tried to make a breakout on its own, fell into Russian hands, along with three of its five-man crew. With our APC almost lame from its fuel problem, the situation was particularly uncomfortable, especially as there were none of our own positions behind us. We prepared for action and aimed our machine-gun in the direction from which we expected danger, at the same time preparing the vehicle for demolition.
Towards evening our companies withdrew from Worin to redeploy to Müncheberg. Everyone assembled in the woods, infantry, armour and vehicles. The only possibility was to break through to our lines along a route unknown to the enemy. Our Regimental Commander, a lieutenant, organised those on foot, and our APC was put on tow by a Tiger. At dusk we took up positions along the edge of the woods. Firing behind us indicated that Ivan had followed us into the woods from Worin. As soon as it was dark enough, we broke out of the woods and encountered no resistance. We passed through the burning village of Jahnsfelde without incident and reached the main road to Müncheberg and then, a little later, our own lines, which we occupied immediately. Our APC was towed on into the town, where the fuel tank was emptied and refilled by our supply column.
19 April had hardly begun when I was woken from a few hours of death-like sleep by the headquarters staff with orders to prepare for an immediate move. As a result of enemy tanks breaking through our lines, we would have to pull back yet again. As there was enough fuel, the little APC whose crew had been wounded by wood splinters was re-manned and sent on in advance. We reached the new supply column location in a pine forest at noon and prepared our vehicle for action once more. We were in touch with the little APC, which reported being unable to get through to the regimental command post and that the situation was completely confused. Then I failed to get any further response to my transmissions. Later the crew returned on foot, their APC having suddenly been attacked by a T-34, which chased them and shot them up. Then we had to drive on straight away, having received urgent orders to move, as enemy armoured spearheads were only a kilometre from our position. Apparently the Russians were no longer meeting any resistance, our enormous supply columns being in full flight without any thought of putting up any resistance. The journey to Rüdersdorf in the Berlin-Erkner area lasted until 0300 hours. Close by was a horde of refugees that had been forced to leave their homes in the middle of the night with their pushcarts.
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2 The 245th SPG Brigade and some tanks of the 8th Panzer Battalion were operating in this area.