Red Moscow

  Chapter 431 Rescue (2)

   After receiving the order, Captain Andre, the commander of the third battalion, personally led the ninth company to Kursky Street, looking for the headquarters of the 13th Guards Division that had been established there. When they arrived at the place, Andrea found that the neighborhood was no longer recognizable. On the streets full of bomb craters, there were bricks, stones, rubble, and ruined walls everywhere. The building where the headquarters of the Rodimtsev Division is located has now become a ruin of two or three meters high.

  The soldiers of the Ninth Company searched carefully around the ruins, and found only a dozen inhuman corpses. After identification, it was confirmed that Rodimtsev's body was not among them. Taking advantage of the time when the soldiers were carrying the corpse, the company commander Guchakov said to Andrey: "Comrade battalion commander, it seems that everyone inside is dead. Do we need to continue searching?"

Andre stared at the ruins for a while, thinking that what Guchakov said made sense. Dozens of tons of bricks and rubble fell down, let alone human flesh and blood, even if a tank was placed here, It was also smashed flat. He hurriedly called the radio operator and told the other party: "Send a telegram to the brigade headquarters immediately and report the situation here to them. At the same time, ask for our next move."

After receiving the telegram from the 3rd Battalion, Sidolin said to Sokov with a solemn expression: "Comrade Brigadier, the 9th Company of the 3rd Battalion has arrived at Kursky Avenue and found the headquarters of the 13th Guards Division. The building has been turned into ruins, and no survivors have been found."

"No survivors found?!" Sokov quickly took the telegram, quickly browsed it, and found that the content on it was exactly as Sidolin said. The building where the headquarters of the Guards Division was located was razed to the ground. After a search, no survivors were found.

Although all kinds of evidence show that Rodimtsev and his headquarters have been wiped out by the German bombardment, Sokov does not believe this result, because he clearly remembers that Rodimtsev was in the Not long after the Battle of Stalingrad, he was appointed as the commander of the 23rd Guards Army, and was promoted to the rank of general in the 1960s. How could he die so easily?

   In order to find out whether Rodimtsev was dead or alive, Sokov decided to take a trip himself. He put the telegram on the table and said to Sidolin and Belkin: "Chief of Staff, Political Commissar, General Rodimtsev's life and death are of great importance. We cannot draw conclusions hastily. I will personally go to Kurs Go down Key Street and find out."

Recently, the fighting on Mamayev Gang was fierce. As the brigade commander of the infantry brigade, Sokov could not easily leave his combat post. This time he left to investigate Rodimtsev's life and death. Therefore, Berkin and Not only did Sidolin and the two not dissuade them, but they also tried their best to support them. Belkin also said to him: "Comrade Brigadier, we are here, so you can go with confidence, we will never let the Germans rush to Mamayev Post."

In order not to attract too much attention from the German army and avoid making himself a target of enemy snipers, before setting off, Sokov deliberately took off the lieutenant colonel's military uniform, dressed himself as an ordinary soldier, and mixed himself with the accompanying guard squad. He left Mamayev Gang in a low-key manner.

  While passing through a piece of smoky ruins, a German soldier suddenly appeared from the other side of the ruins and collided with Sokov and the others. Neither Sokov nor the Germans expected to encounter the enemy under such circumstances, and everyone couldn't help being stunned. Seeing the German soldiers subconsciously touching the trigger of the gun, Sokov, who had been marching in a fighting state, kept his finger on the trigger of the assault rifle. Seeing the Germans wanting to shoot, his gun fired first.

  He did not shoot at the head of the German soldier as the soldiers imagined, but shot directly at the abdomen. After the German soldier was shot, he immediately screamed, clutched his stomach and fell to the ground. The soldiers behind Sokov rushed forward to make two shots, which ended in the opponent's life.

As he continued on his way, a soldier asked Sokov curiously: "Comrade Brigadier, why did you shoot the Germans in the stomach?" The gun can aim at the enemy's head and shoot, but why he hits the abdomen in the end is a bit incomprehensible to him.

"Comrade soldier, don't you see that the German soldier also has a gun in his hand?" Sokov said to the soldier with a sideways face, "If I aim at his head and shoot, whether or not I can hit him is a problem. If he hits the target, he leans back before he dies, and the bullets fired from the gun may hit one or several of us; and hitting him in the abdomen, not only the target is easy to hit the target, but he is also shot. Afterwards, they will instinctively bend down so that the bullets in the gun can only hit the ground, which hardly poses a threat to us."

   "Comrade Brigadier," the soldier said with emotion after listening to Sokov, "You know so much. When I encounter the enemy again in the future, I will aim at the enemy's abdomen and shoot."

"Comrades," Sokov saw several soldiers around him, and it was necessary to teach them some combat skills, so he raised his voice and said, "I want to tell everyone that when you see the enemy rushing towards you, Don't aim at his head and shoot them, but hit their chest and abdomen. Although a shot to the head can kill you with one shot, you should be very clear, not to mention that it is difficult to aim, and the hit rate is also low. After a while, you can aim at the chest and abdomen and shoot a few times."

  The combat experience told by Sokov made the soldiers around him agree. Everyone has been on the battlefield, and they all know that if you want to survive, you must shoot faster than the enemy. Since the time required to aim at the chest and abdomen is high, and the hit rate is high, then we will aim at two parts and shoot in the future.

On the way, I encountered a small group of Germans twice. The soldiers used the tactics taught by Sokov and achieved good results. They killed more than a dozen German soldiers, but they also paid the price of one death and three injuries. .

   Arriving at Kursky Avenue, Andrei, who got the news, immediately greeted him, and asked with a look of surprise: "Comrade Brigadier, why are you here? It's too dangerous here, let's go back as soon as possible."

  Sokov didn't answer this question, but stared at the mountain of rubble in front of him, and asked: "Although the building was destroyed by enemy artillery fire, the basement should still be intact. Have you found the entrance?"

   "No." Andre shook his head, and replied very simply, "Comrade Brigadier, even if the people we are looking for are in the basement, we cannot rescue them."

   "Why?" Sokov asked briefly.

"There are tens of hundreds of tons of bricks and rubble here," Andrei said after quickly scanning Sukov's back, "The Ninth Company I brought only had more than seventy people, and you brought There are only about 20 people in the security squad. It is just a dream to let these more than 100 people clean up the ruins."

For Andrei's statement, Sokov agrees very much in his heart. Even if he uses lifting machinery, it will not be able to clean up such a large piece of ruins. What's more, what he can use now is only one day. It is simply unrealistic for more than a hundred soldiers without handy tools to ask them to remove these bricks and rubble. But how do you get into the basement without clearing all this brick and stone debris from the ground?

Seeing Sokov's silence, Andrei said while the iron was still hot: "In a building at the end of the street, there are Germans hiding, perhaps among them are their artillery observers. If we see that we are here wantonly Breaking ground will definitely call for artillery to cover our place with fire."

"Comrade Captain," Sokov waited for Andrei to finish speaking, and immediately said with a serious expression: "Since you know that there are Germans hiding in the building at the end of the street, why are you still standing here and not sending someone to destroy them?" ?”

   "But, Comrade Brigadier." Andrei blushed and explained: "The order you gave us is to find the division headquarters of the 13th Guards Division..."

"Why, does the task of finding the division headquarters conflict with eliminating the enemies hiding near us?" Sokov felt speechless for the old Maozi's single-minded style of doing things, so he decisively ordered Andre: "Comrade Captain, immediately send a platoon of troops to enter that building and destroy the enemies hidden inside."

After Lieutenant Guchakov led some 20 soldiers to a building where the enemy might be hidden, Sokov circled around the ruins. Find a place to dig a tunnel in.

  After turning around, he found that on the side facing the street, there seemed to be a window under half of the prefabricated slab. He quickly called several soldiers to move the prefabricated slab away. As soon as the prefabricated panels were removed, he immediately saw a ventilation window one foot high and one meter long, with more than a dozen iron bars on it.

   Seeing that there was actually a ventilation window parallel to the ground, Sokov quickly squatted down and looked inside, trying to see if there was anyone inside. Andrei came over and introduced to Sokov: "Comrade Brigadier, many buildings in the city have such semi-basements, and the ventilation windows are parallel to the ground..."

Sokov looked inside for a while, and shouted a few more times, but did not hear any response, so he stood up and said to Andre who was explaining to himself: "Let the soldiers prepare a few cluster grenades immediately. "

  Sokov's words startled Andrey: "Comrade Brigadier, what do you want cluster grenades for?"

   "What else can I do?" Sokov pointed to the ventilation window parallel to the ground and said, "I'm going to blow this place up."

   "What, you want to blow up the air vent?" Andre said nervously, "If there are people in the basement, the explosion of the cluster grenade will kill them alive."

"I've checked carefully. There is no one in this basement. The survivors of the Guards Division Command should be in another room." Seeing that Andrei was standing still, Sokov urged: "Comrade Captain, why are you dawdling? Hurry up and prepare the grenade, we will blow up a gap here, and then we can send people to search for General Rodimtsev's whereabouts."

  Lieutenant Andre quickly agreed, and then ordered the soldiers standing nearby: "What are you waiting for, quickly gather all the grenades on your body, and make cluster grenades to blow up this ventilation window."

  (end of this chapter)