The Forest is Waiting

(Source)

Jan Kołodziej was still mourning the death of his friend, Kazimir Dutka, a fellow Pole who had also been conscripted into the German Army after Poland had been overrun. While the official communiques still announced far-sweeping advances into Russia by German armor, the reality was that the hard marching infantry had to actually clear the areas bypassed by the Panzers. Which sometimes involved encounters with Soviet troops who had no intention of surrendering.

"Why won't these shit heads quit?" Schütze Theobald Werner shook his head as he cleaned his rifle.

Though Kołodziej knew the question was rhetorical, Ernst Paulus, the gunner on his machine gun team, did not.

"Look Werner, you're new to the Army, while it's true that the Frenchies quit at the drop of the hat, it hasn't always been what you call 'easy' fighting this war. The Poles, no offense Jan, were too thick headed to surrender, they'd keep fighting until overrun, then they'd still fight. The Norgies were the same. Okay, some of these so-called Russians don't want to die for Stalin, but those are troops from the Soviet Far East and the southern republics. The guys we're facing, most of 'em are actual Russians, they're fighting for their homeland. They'll fight hard." For Paulus it was a fairly long speech.

Kołodziej knew his history, he had taken some history courses at university before the war, but he kept quiet. One thing he'd learned is that the Germans didn't like educated Poles. If he had mentioned anything about attending Jagiellonian University in Kraków before the war, it would make the Germans wonder about his "Hey, I'm a Silesian, which was once German, then Polish, now German again, so I guess I'm German" story. Simple Silesian peasants didn't go to university, especially a Polish university.

As the men finished cleaning their gear, their squad leader, Unteroffizier Julius Wagenknecht joined them. "The Leutnant says we're up before the sun tomorrow. We're supposed to clear a forest which is supposedly infested with Ivans. So get some sleep, now."

Efréĭtor Ustin Rodionovich Kazankov was now a squad leader in charge of six other men. Three of them - Bezrodny, Beriya, and Berezhnoy- had all been with him in Finland, back when they were all private soldiers. The three new guys he knew very little about, though they were all from Majór Telitsyn's battalion, they were from other companies, not Kazankov's. Two were Ukrainians, the third was Byelorussian.

For now Kazankov's and two other squads, consisting of 15 men, were being held in reserve, the Major had smaller parties near points where the Germans were active, ready to report a German advance at a moment's notice. For now the Germans seemed content to let the Soviet soldiers alone, but Kazankov knew that eventually the Germans would have to clean out this pocket.

Leutnant Hermann Wunsche was checking the men about to head into the woods, none of them looked very thrilled at the prospect. After all, this was the same forest where a Russian ambush had cost them casualties two days before. While the Panzers announced their continuing successes, it was the infantry who had to clean up what the armor had bypassed.

A Fieseler Storch had overflown the forest late yesterday, it was hoped that the long shadows cast by the setting sun might reveal whether or not the Soviets had any heavy weapons, like tanks or artillery, there in the forest. But the search aircraft reported seeing nothing, not even smoke from campfires.

Wunsche was young, he had been assigned to this platoon barely a month before the invasion. His men were a mixed bag of conscripts, many of whom were "new" Germans. Men who may, or may not, have German ancestry but who lived in areas recently reincorporated into the Reich. Mostly Silesians, some had actually served in the Polish Army in September of '39!

Wunsche put away the letter he was writing as his platoon sergeant,¹ Feldwebel Herbert Neumann, came up to him. Looking up with an arched eyebrow, he waited for the man to speak.

"Everything is ready, Herr Leutnant. Our mortarmen are going to drop some high explosive along the edge of the forest where we will enter. Then they'll drop smoke on the same area."

"Whose idea was the smoke?" Wunsche asked, something about that bothered him but he couldn't put a finger on it.

"The Kompanichef² wants it, he says the initial barrage will make them put their heads down and the smoke will blind them when we're moving up."

"Won't it blind us as well? Wouldn't it be better to drop H.E. on them until we're almost in contact?" Wunsche couldn't bear the thought of advancing through a smoke screen into ..., well into what? That was the question which bothered him.

"I've told the squad leaders to have their M.G. teams lay down fire on the smoke, should keep any inquisitive Russians from poking their heads up."

"I still don't like it, Herbert."

"We don't have to like our orders Herr Leutnant, just execute them. Hauptmann Bergdorf is an old hand, this is not his first time in combat. Not his first dance as the Americans might say."

Wunsche wouldn't admit to Neumann that he didn't know what a dance was (though the German word was similar), but he knew Neumann had traveled in America before the war, so he guessed that whatever it meant was accurate. Truth be told, Hauptmann Bergdorf did have the Iron Cross 2nd and 1st Class, the former from Poland, the latter from France. So Wunsche had to hope that his company commander knew what he was doing.

Word filtered back to the men in reserve, it looked like the Germans were beginning to make their move on the forest. A scout had reported mortar teams setting up across from the ruins of the small village at the edge of the woods.

"No doubt they'll bombard us first, then come in behind machine gun fire, maybe smoke as well." Majór Telitsyn turned to his messengers. "Have the teams pull back to the second line, we'' let the Germans shell where we were, not where we are. Vasily Robertovich, I want you and your rifle off to the right flank, where the forest almost makes it to the road. Kill their leaders."

Vasily Robertovich Kirilenko, the sniper, nodded, then slipped into the shadows. The man from beyond the Urals, as the other men called him, knew his business. He had been a hunter since he was a small boy. It was hunt or starve where he was from, Kirilenko didn't like to starve.

Telitsyn turned to the two senior sergeants and the two lieutenants he had, the only men in leadership positions, other than himself, who had managed to escape the German onslaught. "Keep your men well in hand, kill Germans then move deeper into the forest. I don't intend to hold any positions, just kill Germans. We will be moving further west if we can."

"West. Comrade Major?" Serzhánt Pyotr Artemovich Travnikov asked, incredulously. "Don't you mean east?"

"No Petya, that's what the Fascists will expect. I intend to move west, slip behind them at Orepichi," as he explained this he pointed to his map, "then and only then will we move east and try and link up with our forces."

Little did Telitsyn know, he and his battered battalion were already over a hundred and fifty kilometers behind the front line.

Kołodziej heard the pop of the flare gun, he watched it arch into the sky and burst. Paulus looked at him and said, "That's our cue, Jan. Here we go."

The company's 5 cm mortar teams were laying down high explosive on the edge of the forest. Though the little mortar bombs didn't look that deadly, you didn't want to be near one when they went off. Kołodziej could see that many of the shells were detonating in the tree tops, anyone underneath would have to worry about wood splinters as well as steel fragments raining down on them.

There was a slight pause, then a smoke round popped, when that happened, Paulus began firing the gun. Kołodziej was glad he was not in there with the Russians.

¹ In German: "Führer des Zugtrupps," platoon leader.

² Company commander, literally the "company chief."