The morning's battle ended with the retreat of the German army.
Both sides suffered heavy losses in this battle. In comparison, Alexander and his militiamen really faced an unbearable crowd. After counting the troops, the reality almost crushed this veteran.
"The losses are so serious, we only have one hundred and thirty men left. Guarding this city is really stretched thin!" Sadness was written on his face, but he also saw that most of his soldiers were not
Moved by huge casualties.
"Reporting to the commander, we still have more than 20 injured, and only a hundred people can fight." A soldier corrected Alexander's soliloquy. This made the situation before him even worse.
"With just over a hundred people, this amount of troops is really insignificant in this war." Facing the soldiers gathered around him, Alexander smiled bitterly and said, "Comrades, you were still farmers or citizens before. Now we may all be
I’m going to be buried here.”
"What's the matter!? I am very much a Belarusian. I will die in Belarus with no regrets!" A soldier shouted at the top of his lungs. One stone stirred up a thousand waves, and a large number of soldiers burst into astonishing roars. They
It is telling a simple and simple long-cherished wish - there will be no truce until the blood is shed!
Alexander was inspired by the heroic spirit of the soldiers, and he stood on the heights of the ruins with tears in his eyes.
"I may die here, and this is my burial place! I have been loyal to the country!" Alexander sighed, raised his right hand, and saluted everyone.
The vast number of militiamen returned the favor, and the tragic atmosphere spread.
Then, Alexander gave an order: "Our reinforcements will arrive soon, but we may not be able to hold out until their arrival. Therefore, we must continue to fight and attract these damn Nazis to attack us. In the end, most of you may have to
A glorious sacrifice. Afterwards, the reinforcements will avenge us and kill all these Nazis!"
"Ula! Ula!"
The shouting of more than a hundred people was not loud, but it clearly explained everyone's attitude.
The surviving people immediately began to build new fortifications and ate dry food quickly to prepare for a possible enemy attack in the afternoon.
But the changes in the war situation far exceeded Alexander's expectations.
He was a person who had fought positional warfare. At that time, the troops he served in were in the west of Kiev and were ordered to block the German army. The front army he was on was commanded by Kirponos at the time. With the correct judgment of the battle situation, these Soviet troops in the west of Kiev
Each army group fought hard and tenaciously to block the German army. Yes, at the beginning of the war, the Soviet army in Ukraine that was fighting head-on did not suffer a massive defeat like the friendly forces in Belarus.
Alexander had experienced the most brutal positional battles, and he knew very well the German offensive methods. For example, before the tank troops came like a tidal wave, it was the German air force that launched the first round of attack.
At Homnage he almost thought his ears were not working properly.
"What's going on? I think my ears were damaged by the shelling just now. Why is there such a familiar rumble in the sky? Is it a bolt from the blue?" Doubts drove him to stay outdoors and listen attentively.
Finally, he was sure that there was nothing wrong with his ears. The rumbling sound became louder and louder, and he was very familiar with the sound. Alexander became frightened and stood still. "Run! Everyone... everyone, run!"
"
"Sir? What did you say?" one of the militiamen asked.
"I order you to run!" In desperation, Alexander grabbed the militiaman by the collar, "The enemy's air force is coming, and the sound comes from dive bombers! They are going to air raid this city!"
Ten Stuka dive bombers moved towards Homnage in a V-shaped formation.
The sky is now gray, with light snowflakes floating in the sky. The temperature is only minus ten degrees, which is enough for a plane to fly.
They were high in the sky, looking at the vast land. There was snow everywhere, and even the forest was piled up into white masses. But among the whites, a large black mass appeared in front of their eyes, and that was Homnitch.
.
Because the city and its surrounding land had long been blasted to pieces, and the black soil had been dug out of the surface, it suddenly appeared in the snow, and the German army immediately determined its target.
But the people in Homnage didn't know what a dive bomber was, let alone what a Junkers 87 was. Only Alexander and his veterans here knew about it, and they knew even more about their terror.
"Everyone, look for cellars and basements immediately. Ordinary bunkers are not safe at all! After that, just let nature take its course!"
How did the mere militiamen face the enemy's air raids? Alexander shook his head, his lofty ambitions were half defeated by the cruel reality. He grabbed his veterans and quickly got into the basement that served as the headquarters. He had no idea what happened next, or he could
Survive, or this basement will be his coffin!
Ten dive bombers locked onto the target, and they had begun to raise their fuselages.
Dive bombing was the pursuit of the most accurate bombing under the technological conditions of the time. There were no laser-guided bombs in this era, and bombers still adopted primitive methods. However, due to the equipment of bombsights, high-altitude bombing became much more accurate.
However, Germany pursued higher efficiency and the dive bomber was born. After that, the concept of this type of aircraft led to the invention of ground attack aircraft.
The ten pilots suddenly pulled back the control stick and the nose of the aircraft was pulled up. This was in preparation for dive bombing. Its action was like diving. When the aircraft almost reached the aircraft, the pilot pushed the control stick fiercely. Its onboard angle meter
, the pointer immediately changed until the angle became 90 degrees, and the fighter jet had fallen completely vertically in free fall. Directly below the pilot was the city of Homnich.
The pilots were simply performing their missions. The city was already in ruins, and were there still enemies? They had no doubts and dropped all the bombs decisively.
Twenty 300-kilogram aerial bombs fell from the sky at once!
At the tail of these bombs, fan-shaped timers are spinning crazily. These are bombs specially designed to bomb cities. They will use their inertia to smash into buildings. After the timer expires, they will cause violent explosions.
Such an explosion was tragic. A large number of bombs really smashed into the ruins, and the violent explosion exploded quickly.
The entire Homnich is like an erupting volcano, with huge amounts of smoke and dust rising into the sky, and violent shock waves can be seen in the sky.
The hot wind swept across the city, and the last buildings were turned into debris in the sky under the strong pressure and violent shock wave. Under the shroud of smoke, Homnich seemed to be completely lifeless, and all the buildings on the surface collapsed.
Almost exhausted.
Each aerial bomb blasted a crater as deep as six meters (thanks to the freezing of the ground, the crater could have been as deep as ten meters). Many militiamen who were hiding were unlucky, or it was meaningless to avoid them.
—They and a large amount of soil and bricks were blown away and fell into countless fragments.
Seeing such a scene, Holstaufen and his soldiers all walked out of the battalion commander and stared at the thrilling scene in the distance.
"This is so violent. Fortunately, we drew a huge SS on the snow, so they didn't accidentally hurt us!" A soldier muttered next to the battalion commander.
"Yes, this violent weapon belongs to us. Thank God, we were not accidentally injured!"
Holstaufen immediately ordered all the soldiers to assemble immediately. The soldiers saw the smoke and black dust rising in the distance. They covered the sky and the sun, just like a volcanic explosion, and the dull explosions also echoed in the sky.
The enemy must have been killed!
"Now, this damn city has been bombed to the ground by our air force. The enemy has been completely wiped out. We start preparations now and start taking action in half an hour! Occupy Homnich!"
The German soldiers swept away the mood of defeat they had felt a few hours ago. They immediately checked their equipment, fixed bayonets on their rifles, pressed bullets into the magazines, and the entire army prepared for an assault.
So, were Alexander and his militiamen really killed by this wave of air raids?
Yes, most of the militia soldiers and some others were trapped under the rubble. Because of this series of explosions, it was like a magnitude 7 earthquake. Most of the people were blown away along with a huge amount of earth and stone. Those who survived were really lucky.
.Of course, the survivors basically enter a coma.
Alexander was such a lucky person. He and a dozen people hid in the basement of the "Command Headquarters". However, the building collapsed and the exit was actually covered with bricks and stones. There were only a lot of small gaps that allowed the outside air to come in.
But the continuous explosions had knocked out the people inside, and after a few hours, everyone woke up one after another.
"It's so dark! Does anyone have a flashlight? Is everyone still alive?" Alexander asked tiredly.
"I...I'm still alive! Thank God, I don't seem to be injured!" said a soldier.
Fortunately, someone's flashlight did still work, and there was a faint light flashing inside the ruins.
Now everyone can clearly see their respective clues. The current situation is extremely bad, as if this place has really become a prison, and all the "prisoners" are in a mess.
"It seems the air raid is over, we are trapped!" a soldier said regretfully.
"Unfortunately, we still have a lot of supplies here, including food and drinking water. We won't starve to death from thirst or freeze to death soon," another soldier said.
Alexander's head was injured and he bled some. After understanding the situation, he immediately started to dig into the ruins with both hands, eager to escape from this "grave".
"Now we have even lost the radio. Maybe we are the last survivors. This damn air raid has defeated us. Now we must escape." Alexander began to dig with his dusty hands. Seeing that the commander was still not desperate,