The German army entering the No. 4 factory were officers and soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the 578th Regiment. The regiment was ordered by Steinmetz to enter the right wing of the 577th Regiment and occupy the No. 4 factory and surrounding defensive positions.
Captain Rettenmaier sat in the front armored vehicle. As soon as he entered the factory, he asked loudly at the soldiers in the ruins not far away: "Soldiers, where are your commanders?"
The German army stationed in the factory was part of the 100 Hunter Division. They had just repelled the sneak attack from the second company of the shrinking regiment and were in a state of high nervousness. Suddenly, they saw an army entering the factory. Although the other party was wearing the same uniform as themselves and holding the same weapon, they still occupied a favorable defensive position and pointed the muzzle at the convoy who had just arrived, and were about to shoot immediately when they found something was wrong.
After Rattenmaier shouted, he saw that the other party did not agree, so he jumped out of the armored vehicle compartment and prepared to take a few more steps forward to see if he could find the commander of a friendly army. Unexpectedly, as soon as he left the armored vehicle, a German sergeant jumped out of the ruins next to him. He was not affected by Rattenmaier's rank being higher than himself, but pointed the gun at the other party and shouted sternly: "Captain, stop! Which part of you are?"
Facing the gun pointing at him, Retemier stopped and replied loudly: "I am Retemier, the second battalion commander of the 578th Regiment of the 305th Infantry Division, and I am ordered to take over your defense. Where is your commander? Let him come out and hand over the defense with me."
"Sorry, Captain!" Although Rettenmayer had already shown his identity, he pointed his gun at his sergeant and did not lower his gun. Instead, he shouted to the side: "Private Jersey, go and invite Mr. Lieutenant over, and say that there are people from the 305th Infantry Division to take over our defense." The soldier who was called by the sergeant agreed and ran away quickly.
Looking at the soldier's back as he left, Letenmeier deliberately asked the Sergeant to ease the atmosphere, "Sergeant, how long have you been here?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Captain." The sergeant replied coldly, "I will tell you nothing until my commander confirms your identity."
Fortunately, the wait was not long. After only two or three minutes, a stern voice came from not far away: "Sergeant, what happened here? Also, where did this hell convoy come from?"
Leitenmaier looked in the direction where the sound came, and saw five or six figures walking towards his position. He guessed that the garrison commander in the factory might be coming, so he walked a few steps forward at the sergeant's gun, and said loudly: "I am Captain Leitenmaier, the commander of the Second Battalion of the 578th Regiment. Are you the supreme commander here?"
When the visitor heard Leitenmeier's identity report, he quickly trotted over and reported to him: "Hello, Mr. Captain. I am Lieutenant Herod, the company commander of the 100th Hunter Division, and the supreme commander here."
"Lt. Herod," said Rettenmayer, looking at the other party, "Our battalion is ordered to take over the defense of your company. Please hand over the defense to me now."
"Sorry, Mr. Captain." Hearing Rettenmaier asks him to hand over his defense to him, Herod said in an official voice: "Do you have an order to take over the defense? If not, please forgive me. I cannot hand over the defense here to you."
"I'm ready to take over the order to defend the defense." Rettenmeier took out a well-deserved order from his pocket and handed it to Herod, and said, "Please check it out, Lieutenant Herod."
Herod took the order from Rettenmair. As soon as he unfolded, his subordinates immediately illuminated him with a flashlight so that he could see clearly what was in the order.
"Have you finished reading it, Lieutenant Herod?" Seeing Herod carefully browsing the orders, Rettenmair asked, "Now, can you hand over the defense to us?"
"Yes, Mr. Captain, we can hand over defense to you now." After Herod said, he tilted his head and whispered a few instructions to a lieutenant beside him, then looked at Rettenmaire and said, "This is my deputy company commander, and he will hand over defense to your subordinates."
Taking advantage of the time when the two sides handed over defense, Rettenmaier asked Herod curiously: "Lieutenant, on the way we came, we heard gunfire and explosions coming from your direction. What's going on?"
"What else can I do?" Herod said with a wry smile: "It was the Russians who took advantage of the night to attack us, but we discovered and repelled. I guess they will not attack tonight after they suffered a loss."
"Lt. Herod, I want to ask you a question." Rettenmeier thought of a task assigned to him by the regiment commander Colonel Ventzel before he came, which was to find out the number of the Russian troops in the daytime reinforcement barricade factory as soon as possible. Herod's troops have been stationed here for quite a while. I'm afraid he knows something, so he humbly asked: "Do you know the number of the Russian troops in the daytime reinforcement factory? If you know, please tell me the truth."
When he asked this question, he had no hope. As soon as he asked, he saw Herod on the opposite side shook his head and replied, "Sir, to be honest, I also saw this reinforced Russian troops during the day, but I don't know what their number is."
Seeing that there was no useful information from Herod, Rettenmeier was somewhat disappointed. He thought to himself that in order to figure out the number of the Russian troops, he had to send someone to reconnaissance himself.
Herod saw Rettenmayer's thoughts and reminded him: "Sir Captain, if you want to send someone to reconnaissance, I advise you to give up this idea as soon as possible."
"Why?" Rattenmayer asked curiously.
"We just repelled the Russians' sneak attacks. In my experience, they will definitely strengthen their defense." Herod explained to Rettenmair: "Sending scouts at such times will not be able to penetrate the Russians' defense zones at all, and there is no way to detect useful intelligence."
Herod's words made Rettenmeier feel a little disappointed. He smiled bitterly and said, "Lieutenant Herod, if I don't send anyone to reconnaissance, how can I know which unit the Russians who are about to fight us?"
"Mr. Captain, it is not difficult to figure out the other party's number." When Herod said this, he saw a puzzled expression on Rettenmeier's face and explained to him: "In the battle explained not long ago, we killed several Russians who attacked him. Just send someone to search for their bodies, and we can find out which unit they belong to based on the documents they carried with us."
Rettenmeier felt that what Herod said was a good idea, so he quickly called an officer and told him: "Lieutenant Brock, take two smart soldiers outside the factory to search for the Russians' bodies to see if they have any documents."
After receiving the order, Brock asked Herod about the location of the body, and took two soldiers out of the factory and searched for the bodies of the dead Soviet soldiers to see if he could find documents that could prove the other party's identity.
Although the body was twenty or thirty meters away from the factory and the entire area was under the control of friendly forces, for the sake of safety, as soon as Lieutenant Brock left the factory, he immediately lay down, ran towards the location of the body with his hands and feet.
Brock quickly climbed to a corpse. He was a medium-sized soldier. He was killed by a machine gun when he stood up and charged towards the factory. His chest was beaten to pieces. His uniform and flesh were mixed together. Even if he had any documents, it was rotten. Brock stuck one hand with the remaining blood, but found nothing. He decisively gave up and searched for another target.
Lying beside him was the body of a thin soldier. He was killed after being shot in the head and abdomen. From him, Bullock touched a document. He opened it and looked at it. Although he couldn't understand the content on it, he could confirm that it was a military certificate. He quickly got the treasure and stuffed it into his shirt pocket.
The two German soldiers who came out with Brock were not idle either. They carefully searched for the bodies of the sacrificed soldiers and took out military certificates, cigarettes and some bread slices from their pockets. The two Germans did not give up these things at all, and stuffed them all into their pockets. After all, there is a problem with the supply supply now, and it is not harmful to bring more food on them.
After the three of them climbed into the factory again, Brock collected several military certificates and handed them over to Retengmeier. Retengmeier did not know anything Russian. He quickly handed over the military certificate to the Russian translator in the camp and said, "Hurry up and see, which part of them are from?"
After a quick look at several military certificates, the Russian translator raised his head and said to Rettenmeier: "Sir Captain, judging from the military certificate, none of these Russians are from the same unit."
"This is normal." Herod couldn't help but interrupt and said, "The Russians arranged four divisions in the factory. After a long battle, except for the 138th Division, the rest of the divisions were crippled by us. It is entirely possible that they would merge the remaining soldiers into the still-integrated troops."
Although Rettenmeier felt that Herod’s words were reasonable, he did not agree with the other party’s opinions. Instead, he looked at the Russian translator and asked, “Which troops do they all come from?”
The Russian translator looked down at the captured military certificate and said casually: "What are the Istria Company, the 73rd Infantry Brigade, the 41st Guard Division, etc."
The Russian translator may not know the numbers of these troops, but before Letenmeier came to the Barrier Factory, the regiment commander Colonel Wentzel had specially summoned him to the command center and arranged for him to figure out the number of troops in reinforcement barrier factory. He also specifically told him to confirm whether the troops coming to reinforce were from Mamayevgang. In addition, he also told Letenmeier about the numbers of troops commanded by Sokov.
All the numbers mentioned in the Russian translation now are the troops commanded by Sokov. The military certificates found on more than a dozen bodies prove that these people are Sokov's subordinates. In this way, who is here to reinforce the barricade factory, the answer is about to come out.
After confirming that the troops to reinforce the barricade factory were Sokov's troops, he couldn't help but breathe. After taking a few deep breaths, he called the communications soldier sitting on the armored vehicle and told him: "Immediately send a telegram to the regiment headquarters, saying that based on the seized military certificate, we can confirm that the troops to reinforce the barricade factory during the day were from Mamayevgang."
After receiving the telegram from Rettenmeer, Wentzel did not dare to neglect it and quickly reported to Steinmetz on the phone. When Steinmetz learned that the troops to reinforce the barricade factory were indeed Sokov's troops, he smiled bitterly and said to his chief of staff: "Chief of staff, the moment the 577th Regiment was driven out of the factory by the Russians with artillery fire, I should know that the troops to reinforce the barricade factory were Sokov's troops."
"What should we do now?" When the Chief of Staff learned that the troops to reinforce the barricade factory were indeed Sokov's troops, he couldn't help but feel panic. He quickly asked Steinmetz: "Do you want the troops to withdraw from the barricade factory first?"
"No," Steinmetz shook his head and replied: "As long as the original plan, let the 576th and 578th Regiments enter the barricade factory overnight to protect the left and right wings of the 577th Regiment."
Lieutenant Herod, who was staying in Factory No. 4, planned to gather the troops and transfer after completing the defense transfer, but was stopped by Rettenmeier: "Lieutenant Herod, wait a moment, you can't leave now."
Lieutenant Herod thought that after the handover of defense was completed, he could leave naturally, but at this moment, he heard Rettenmaire preventing him from leaving, and asked dissatisfiedly: "Sir Captain, we have handed over the defense to you, why can't we leave?"
"Lt. Herod, you misunderstood. It's not that I deliberately prevented you from leaving, but because you can't leave now." Seeing Herod misunderstood, Rettenmair quickly explained to him: "According to the orders of the division headquarters, the two regiments of our division will enter the left and right wings of the 577th Regiment tonight. If you retreat rashly and happen to meet the troops entering the factory, a misunderstanding may occur. I think you'd better wait until dawn tomorrow and leave the factory again."
After listening to Rettenmaier's explanation, Herod knew that he had misunderstood the other party. He grinned and said embarrassedly: "Sir Captain, so that's the case. I understand. I will let the soldiers stay in the factory and leave after dawn, so as not to have misunderstandings with their own people during the transfer and have unnecessary conflicts."
Seeing Herod agree to stay, Rettenmeier felt much more at ease. He smiled and asked Herod: "Lieutenant Herod, you have been stationed in the factory for a long time. Can you tell me the situation here?"
Chapter completed!