The alarm came at 0520 hours.
mere 300. And they were being charged by three Soviet divisions. The
first assault was made by the Russian 343rd Rifle Division. For a
moment the Germans were paralysed with shock: their arms linked,
singing, and cheered on with shouts of "Urra," the Soviet battalions
came marching up towards them on a broad front, out of the icy dawn.
Their mounted bayonets were like lances projecting from a living wall.
That wall now moved on to the ice of the Don. At a word of command the
Russians broke into a run. Arms still linked, they came pounding over
the ice.
line, with the heavy machine-gun of No. 3 section. "Wait for it," he
said.
On the ice the first mines planted by German sappers in the snow were
now exploding, tearing gaps in the charging ranks.
But the great mass of them continued to advance.
"Fire!" Olboeter commanded. The machine-gun started stuttering. A
fraction of a moment later other guns joined in the
infernal concert.
Like a gigantic invisible scythe the first burst swept along the
foremost wave of the charging Soviets, cutting them down on
to the ice. The second wave was likewise mown down.
To realize how Soviet infantry can charge and die one must have
been on the bank of the Don river at Rostov that morning.
Over their dead and wounded the next waves charged forward. And each
one got a little nearer than the last before it was mown down.
With trembling fingers Horst Schrader, the nineteen-year-old No. 2 of
the machine-gun, guided the new belt into the lock.
His eyes were wide-with terror. The gun's barrel was steaming. As from
a great distance he heard his gun commander's shout, "Change barrel!
Change barrel!"
In the sector of 2nd Company the Soviet 1151st Rifle Regiment attacked
with two battalions. Three waves had collapsed on the ice. The last
one now, in battalion strength, was on top of the defenders.
The Russians broke into the positions and went for the machine-gun
crews. They killed the grenadiers in their foxholes.
Then they rallied. Unless they were thrown back by an immediate
counter-attack things would be very ugly for the motorcyclists
of the reconnaissance detachment "Leibstandarte." The southern
approaches to Rostov were in danger.
Things were also getting sticky in the 1st Company sector. Here two
Soviet rifle regiments, the 177th and the 248th, were
attacking. Their foremost wave was barely 20 yards in front of the
German lines. Just then three German self-propelled
guns, with grenadiers riding on top of them, arrived in the sector of
2nd Company for an immediate counter-attack and sealed off the
Russians who had broken in. Six officers and 390 other ranks
surrendered. Most of them were wounded.
More than 300 Soviet killed were lying in front of the German lines.
Fierce fighting continued throughout the day. The following day the
Russians came again. And the day after that.
.......Hitler Moves East by Paul Carell
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