When I heard that some troops were surrounded by the Germans, I couldn't help but grab Vitkov's arm and nervously asked, "How many of our troops are surrounded by the enemy, and do they have any hope of getting rid of the enemy?" ”

After hearing my question, Vitkov shook his head and said regretfully: "Comrade commander, according to the telegram I received, there are only 33 people left in the broken company, including five communications soldiers with little combat effectiveness, and it is simply impossible to escape from the hands of the enemy who outnumber them several times. ”

"33 people!" After I read this number silently, I couldn't help but let out a long sigh, knowing in my heart that this little strength was not enough to stuff the teeth of the pursuers, and I only hoped that they could hold on to the position for a while longer, so as to buy a little precious time for the retreating troops. It was imperative to establish the necessary defensive positions outside Smilla to resist attacks from the east and south. Therefore, after glancing at the map, I instructed Vitkov: "Chief of staff, wait for the arrival of Gaidar's fourth regiment and the troops withdrawn from Alexandria, and let them take charge of the defense south of the city." ”

"Yes!" Vitkov said yes and turned to leave, but I stopped him.

"Wait a minute, Comrade Chief of Staff, I have something to tell you." I reorganized what I was going to say in my head, and then I continued: "Send a telegram to Major Perstian and ask his tank unit to stop advancing towards Kyiv and move on to Kanivo, to seize the city, and to capture the bridge over the river. ”

"Comrade Commander, why do you give such an order?" Hearing this order from me, Vitkov immediately reminded me: "Since the higher authorities have ordered us to attack Kyiv. If our tank forces can approach Kyiv. And occupy the point of departure for the offensive. It can greatly shorten the distance of our attack. ”

"Comrade Chief of Staff, do you think the Germans are fools and will allow us to wedge a nail in their defense zone? I can tell you responsibly that as long as the tank brigade captures any city near Kyiv, it will provoke a frantic counterattack by the German army, and with the limited strength of the tank brigade, it will not be able to hold the position at all. Seeing that he did not understand the purpose of my order, I told him my intentions: "The reason why I asked them to stop their advance." Then they turned to Kaniv, just to paralyze the German army, so that they would think that our goal was not to capture Kiev, but only to cross the river and flee for their lives. ”

"Understood, Comrade Commander." At this point, it dawned on Vitkov that "first of all, we must give the enemy the illusion that we are only trying to cross the river and flee for our lives, and not continue north." They will let their guard down and wait for our campaign to begin. The resistance will be much weaker. ”

When Vitkov urged the telegraph operator to send the telegram, Kirillov asked thoughtfully: "Lida, we have just sent a telegram to the command of the Front and Marshal Zhukov at the same time. Now that the marshal's telegram has been received, there is no news from Commander Vatutin, and I don't know what he thinks? ”

I was also very puzzled about Vatutin's delay in replying to the telegram, but as a subordinate, I could not send a telegram to urge, so I had to say helplessly: "Comrade Political Commissar, wait a little longer, I estimate that after Commander Vatutin received our telegram, he could not make the decision, so he had to ask his superiors for instructions, and it is estimated that he is also waiting for orders at the moment." ”

As we were talking, Vitkov, who was standing next to the intercom, suddenly let out a surprised "huh", and then walked over quickly, with a vaguely irrepressible excitement on his face.

Seeing the expression on his face, I asked teasingly, "Comrade Chief of Staff, seeing that you are so happy, is there any good news to tell us?" ”

Vitkov immediately said proudly: "Of course, there is good news, it is a telegram personally sent by the commander of the Front, General Vatutin. Congratulations, Comrade Commander! ”

When I listened to Vitkov's words, I couldn't help but be stunned, and then said: "What commander, comrade chief of staff, what are you kidding with us?" ”

Vitkov handed me the telegram and said, "You better read it for yourself." ”

While Vitkov and Kirillov were exchanging words on the side, I took the telegram to my eyes and looked at it, and the content of the telegram was only one point: in order to facilitate the start of the Kiev campaign, from now on, the 79th Infantry Corps and the 3rd Tank Army of the Voronezh Front will be merged to form the Dnieper Campaign Group, with Major General Oshanina as the commander of the campaign group.

After reading this telegram, I couldn't help but wonder why this promotion order was sent to me by Vatutin and not by Zhukov. What's more, Vatutin is the commander of the Southwestern Front, and he has no right to transfer the troops of the Voronezh Front at all?

Seeing my sullen appearance, Kirillov also walked over and asked with concern: "Lida, why are you still so unhappy when your superiors let you be the commander of the cluster?" ”

I handed the telegram in my hand to Kirillov and replied with a bitter face: "Comrade commissar, look at it, this telegram from General Vatutin to me says that our army and the 3rd Tank Army of the Voronezh Front will be merged to form the Dnieper Battle Cluster. ”

"Is there something wrong?" Kirillov took the telegram in my hand and asked curiously: "It is clearly written in the telegram that you will be appointed commander of the campaign cluster, so that you will not have to worry about the question of command." ”

"That's not the case, Comrade Commissar." I saw that Kirillov misunderstood what I meant, and quickly explained: "General Vatutin is now the commander of the Southwestern Front, and the 3rd Tank Army is the Voronezh Front, which is subordinate to the command of General Golikov. If this telegram is based on this order alone, I think I am afraid that I will not be able to command this tank army. ”

Hearing me say this, Kirillov also frowned. He thought for a moment and suggested to me: "Look, how about we send a telegram to Marshal Zhukov to implement this matter to him?" ”

"Well," said Kirillov, as soon as he finished speaking, I replied, "just send a telegram to Marshal Zhukov and report the appointment to him as well." ”

Before we could send the message, Razumeyeva rushed to me with a telegram. Excitedly said: "Comrade commander. This is a call from Marshal Zhukov. ”

I took a look. The above begins with my appointment, the official appointment of me as the commander of the newly formed Dnieper Campaign Group. Then the unit numbers to which the campaign cluster belonged were listed: 79th Infantry Army; the 12th Tank Army of the 15th and 3rd Tank Armies; Major General Glebov's 27th Guards Infantry Division; Major General Vachuk's 79th Guards Division; Commander of the 321st Infantry Division of Major General Makarenko.

Finally, the telegram also wrote: The 12th Tank Army and the 321st Infantry Division will attack Priluki in the early morning of March 2; The 15th Tank Army and the 27th and 79th Guards Infantry Divisions will also attack Priti at the same time. Once the two forces have been successfully captured, the two forces will join forces and continue their assault on Bruvaria. and the 79th Infantry Corps, which arrived south of Kiev, formed a two-sided flanking attack.

I finished reading Zhukov's telegram. handed it to Vitkov, and continued: "In the evening, no matter how the fighting is going everywhere, it is necessary to gather all the division commanders for a meeting to study how this Kiev should fight?" ”

Vitkov read the telegram at a glance and said with some concern: "Comrade commander, although the superiors have equipped us with so many teams at once, they are too far away from us, and they can reach this distance of hundreds of kilometers in two days?" ”

"yes. This is a problem. "I thought about this question when I read the telegram. But not until Vitkov asked this question. I hadn't thought of a countermeasure, so I could only vaguely say, "We'll look into this matter slowly when we have a meeting in the evening." ”

Before dark, our military headquarters moved to a church in the city that had not yet been blown up, and at the same time, information from all sides was coming back one after another. The 171st and 308th Divisions had firmly held the Cherkasy and had built the necessary fortifications at the river crossings; And the main forces withdrawn from Alexandria and Gaidar's four regiments were at the moment building fortifications in the city; Major Godunov, having completed the task of blocking, led the remaining troops to move towards Smilla.

The three division commanders I had gathered arrived at the corps headquarters one after another, and were about to start the meeting, Major Pugachev suddenly rushed in from the outside with a telegram in his hand, and at the same time shouted loudly: "Comrade commander, good news, good news. ”

Seeing the joy on his face, I knew that what he had brought must be a lot of good news, so I smiled and asked, "Major, what is the good news?" Just while the three division commanders were there, they said it to make everyone happy. ”

"That's right, Comrade Commander," Pugachev, although standing straight, still had a smile on his face: "Didn't the troops withdrawn from Alexandria in the morning be pursued by the Germans?" Seeing that I nodded, he continued, "The telegram is from the broken little army. ”

"Oh, a telegram from a small troop?" Hearing Pugachev say this, I couldn't help but get excited, and hurriedly asked: "How's the situation, Comrade Major?" How many fighters did they still survive? ”

When Pugachev heard me say this, he was stunned for a moment, then shook his head and said: "Comrade commander, they all came back safely, and not a single sacrifice was made. ”

"What? Not a single one sacrificed? "When I heard Pugachev say that, my first reaction was that he must have been mistaken. The Germans were several times larger than the defenders, and at the same time armed with tank artillery. In order to block such an enemy attack, even if the broken troops are not completely annihilated, at least they will suffer heavy casualties, and there may not even be a single sacrifice.

In addition to me, the commanders who attended the meeting at the military headquarters also had unbelievable expressions on their faces, as if they had heard a fantasy. Seeing that everyone did not believe it, Pugachev hurriedly raised the telegram in his hand and said to us: "Comrade commanders, when I first received this telegram, I also thought that I had made a mistake, and I was going to send a telegram back to verify it, and only after confirming that it was correct, I came to report it to you." ”

"Comrade Major, don't be in a hurry." When Kirillov saw Pugachev's gaffe, he hurriedly comforted him and said: "Read the contents of the telegram to everyone, so that we can also understand what is going on." ”

Pugachev nodded, unfolded the telegram in his hand, and read it to us: "...... We occupied a small unnamed plateau on the side of the road, where we stubbornly resisted the German attack.

The Germans sent 30 tanks and a battalion of infantry to surround our highland regiments. In the face of the superior enemy, the company commander, Captain Ji Mofu, was not afraid of danger, and he summoned all the people together to cheer everyone up: 'Calm down, let go and fight.' ’

The Germans were getting closer and closer to our positions, and at the command of the company commander, the fighters with anti-tank grenades in their hands rushed out and blew up several tanks in front of them in one fell swoop. Although the Germans lost tanks at the beginning, the remaining tanks still rushed forward regardless of the situation.

The tanks quickly rushed to the front of the position, and our warriors rushed out of cover again, chose an angle and threw a Molotov cocktail over, and then rolled into the bunker.

One of the German tanks was hit, drove for a while in smoke and did not move. The fighter then used the same method to destroy two more tanks.

Seeing that the German tanks were destroyed one after another, the commanders and fighters of our army who were holding the position suddenly increased their confidence, and they picked up Molotov cocktails one after another and smashed them at the enemy's tanks. Even the five communications corpsmen, who had the worst combat effectiveness, picked up Molotov cocktails and threw them at the enemy tanks.

In the whole day, we killed 150 fascist invaders and destroyed 27 tanks. And only one of our fighters was slightly wounded......"

When Pugachev finished reading the telegram, Kirillov nodded his head again and again, and said to me: "Lida, this is a great victory, and we must give credit to these warriors." ”

I immediately expressed my support for Kirillov's proposal: "Yes, not only to take credit, but also to advance." Then I turned around and instructed Pugachev: "Comrade Major, you should immediately go back and find out the names of these commanders and fighters, and we will award medals to every commander and fighter who participated in the battle, and we will also promote them to the rank of those who have performed particularly well." Go ahead. ”

"Yes!" Pugachev, who received the order, agreed, turned around and ran out of the command in joy.

As soon as Pugachev left, I turned to look at Romanov and Andreushchenko, and said to them with a smile: "Comrade two division commanders, it won't be long before we know which of your subordinates this heroic unit belongs to." (To be continued......)