After receiving the order, Captain Andre, commander of the third battalion, personally led the Ninth Company to Kursky Street to look for the headquarters of the 13th Guards Division that had been established there. After they arrived, Andre discovered that the neighborhood
It is no longer recognizable, and the streets full of craters are filled with bricks, rubble, and broken walls. The building where the headquarters of the Rodimtsev Division is now turned into a ruins two to three meters high.
The soldiers of the Ninth Company carefully searched around the ruins and found only a dozen non-human bodies. After identification, it was confirmed that Rodimtsev’s body was not among them. Company Commander Guchakov took advantage of the soldiers to carry the corpse.
After a while, he said to Andre: "Comrade Battalion Commander, it seems that everyone inside is dead. Do we still need to continue searching?"
Andre stared at the ruins for a while, feeling that Guchakov was right. Dozens or hundreds of tons of masonry and rubble fell down, let alone human flesh and blood. Even if a tank was placed here,
It was also smashed. He quickly called the telegraph 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, please ask for our next step."
After receiving the telegram from the Third Battalion, Sidorin said to Sokov with a solemn expression: "Comrade Brigade Commander, the Ninth Company of the Third Battalion has arrived at Kursky Street and found the headquarters of the 13th Guards Division.
The buildings have been turned into ruins, and no survivors have been found.”
"No survivors found?!" Sokov quickly took the telegram and browsed it quickly. He found that the content above was exactly what Sidorin said. The building where the Guards Division's headquarters was located was razed to the ground.
After a search, no survivors were found.
Although various evidences indicate that Rodimtsev and his command have been completely destroyed by German shelling, Sokov does not believe this result because he clearly remembers that Rodimtsev was
Not long after the Battle of Stalingrad, he was appointed 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 go there himself. He put the telegram on the table and said to Sidorin and Belkin: "Chief of Staff, Political Commissar, Rodym
The life and death of General Mtsev is of great importance, and we cannot make hasty conclusions. I want to go to Kursky Street myself and find out all this."
The fighting on Mamayev Heights has been fierce recently. As the commander of the infantry brigade, Sokov could not leave his combat post easily. This time he left to investigate Rodimtsev's life and death. Therefore, Belkin and
Not only did Sidorin and the two men not dissuade them, but they also gave them their full support. Belkin also said to him: "Comrade Brigadier, we are here, so you can go with peace of mind. We will never let the Germans rush into the horse."
From Yevgan.”
In order not to attract too much attention from the German army and avoid making himself the target of enemy snipers, before departure, Sokov deliberately took off his lieutenant colonel's uniform, dressed up as an ordinary soldier, and mingled with the accompanying guard squad.
Left Mamayev Kurgan quietly.
While passing through a piece of smoky ruins, a German soldier suddenly emerged from the other side of the ruins and collided with Sokov and the others. Neither Sokov, nor the Germans expected that this would happen.
Under such circumstances, everyone could not help but be stunned when they encountered the enemy. 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.
When the Germans tried to shoot, his gun fired first.
He did not aim and shoot the German soldier in the head as the soldiers imagined, but shot directly in the abdomen. After the German soldier was shot, he immediately screamed, covered his stomach and fell to the ground. Sokov
The soldier behind him quickly stepped forward and fired two more shots, killing the opponent.
As he continued on his way, a soldier asked Sokov curiously: "Comrade Brigadier, why did you shoot the German in the stomach?" He had heard that Sokov was a sharpshooter who could shoot at such a close distance.
The gun could be aimed at the enemy's head and shot, but why it ended up hitting the abdomen was something he couldn't understand.
"Comrade soldier, didn't you see that the German soldier also had a gun in his hand?" Sokov said to the soldier with a side face: "If I aim at his head and shoot, whether I can hit or not is a problem, even if
If we hit the target, he would lean back before he died, and the bullets fired from the gun might hit one or more of us; if we hit his abdomen, not only would the target be more likely to hit the target, but he would also be hit by the bullet.
Then, he would instinctively bend down so that the bullets in the gun could only hit the ground, posing almost no threat to us."
"Comrade Brigadier," the soldier said with emotion after hearing what Sokov said, "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 surrounding him and actually felt the need to teach them some combat skills, so he raised his voice and said, "I want to tell you, when you see the enemy charging towards you,
Don't aim at the head and shoot, but hit them on the chest and abdomen. Although hitting the head can kill you with one shot, you should know very well that it is difficult to aim and the hit rate is also low. There are those who aim at the head.
With enough time, I can aim at the chest and abdomen and shoot several times."
The combat experience described by Sokov made the soldiers around him deeply 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
If you aim at the chest and abdomen and shoot within the time required, the hit rate will be high, then in the future you will specifically aim at the two parts and shoot.
On the way, they encountered two more small groups of Germans. The soldiers used the tactics taught by Sokov and achieved good results, killing more than a dozen German soldiers, but they also paid the price of one death and three injuries.
.
Arriving at Kursky Street, Andrei immediately came up to him after receiving the news, and asked with a surprised look on his face: "Comrade Brigadier, why are you here? It's too dangerous here, so you'd better go back as soon as possible."
Sokov did not answer the question, but stared at the mountains of rubble in front of him and asked: "Although the building was collapsed by enemy artillery fire, the basement should still be intact. Have you found the entrance?"
"No." Andre shook his head and replied simply, "Comrade Brigadier, even if the people we are looking for are in the basement, we can't rescue them."
"Why?" Sokov asked curtly.
"There are dozens or hundreds of tons of masonry and rubble here," Andrei quickly glanced behind Sokov and then said: "The Ninth Company I brought only has more than seventy people, and you brought
There are only about 20 people in the security team. It is simply a fantasy to ask these more than 100 people to clean up this ruins."
Sokov agreed very much with Andre's statement. Such a large ruin could not be cleaned in a day or two even if a crane was used, not to mention that there was only one he could use now.
It is simply unrealistic for more than a hundred soldiers who do not have the tools to move away these masonry and rubble. But if they do not clean up these masonry and rubble on the ground, how can they enter the basement?
Seeing Sokov's silence, Andrei struck again while the iron was hot and said: "There are Germans hiding in a building at the end of the street, and there may be their artillery observers among them. If they see us firing wildly here,
If we break ground, we will definitely call for artillery to cover our area with firepower."
"Comrade Captain," Sokov waited for Andre to finish, 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 people to eliminate them?
?”
"But, Comrade Brigadier." Andre explained with a red face: "The order you gave us is to find the division headquarters of the 13th Guards Division..."
"What, does the task of finding the division headquarters conflict with the elimination of the enemies hiding near us?" Sokov felt speechless for Lao Maozi's one-sided style of doing things, so he decisively ordered Andre:
"Comrade Captain, immediately send a platoon of troops into that building to eliminate the enemies hiding inside."
After Lieutenant Guchakov took more than 20 soldiers to the building where the enemy might be hidden, Sokov circled the ruins. He thought that since he could not enter the basement from directly above, could he enter from the side?
Find a place to dig a passage in.
After walking around, he found that there seemed to be a window under half of the prefabricated panel on the side facing the street. He quickly called a few soldiers to move the prefabricated panel. As soon as the prefabricated panel was removed, he immediately
I saw a ventilation window one foot high and one meter long, with more than a dozen iron bars on it.
Seeing that there was a breathable window parallel to the ground, Sokov quickly squatted down and focused his eyes to look inside, trying to see if there was anyone inside. Andre came over and introduced to Sokov: "
Comrade Brigadier, there are many buildings in the city that have semi-basements like this, with breathable windows parallel to the ground..."
Sokov looked inside for a while and shouted a few more times, but did not hear any response. He stood up and said to Andrei who was explaining to him: "Let the soldiers prepare a few cluster grenades immediately.
"
Sokov's words startled Andrei: "Comrade Brigadier, what are you doing with cluster grenades?"
"What else can be done?" Sokov pointed toward the ventilation window parallel to the ground and said, "I want to blow this place up."
"What, you want to blow up the ventilation window?" Andre said nervously: "If there are people in the basement, the explosion of the cluster grenade will kill them alive."
"I have looked carefully. There is no one in this basement. The survivors of the Guards Division Headquarters should be in other rooms." Seeing Andrei standing there without moving, Sokov urged:
"Comrade Captain, why are you dawdling? Hurry and prepare grenades. We will blow up a gap here and send people to search for General Rodimtsev's whereabouts."
Captain Andre agreed quickly, and then ordered the soldiers standing nearby: "What are you still waiting for? Quickly gather all the grenades on your body and make a cluster grenade to blow open this ventilation window."
