I followed the lieutenant outside, and I had not gone far when I was confronted by a tall, emaciated officer, who was a colonel from his open collar.

The lieutenant stopped and stood in place to salute the tall colonel. I also stopped to follow the example of a lieutenant and saluted Colonel Lu. After saluting, I raised my leg and tried to continue walking, but was stopped by the lieutenant.

"Comrade Major," the lieutenant said, pointing to the colonel standing in front of us, "I will introduce you to your new superior, this is the chief of the operations department, Colonel Lavrov, to whom you can report." ”

I had no choice but to salute Colonel Lu again and report my name and rank.

"It turns out that you are Major Oshanina, who has just been transferred to work in the group army, welcome!" He looked me up and down, then held out his hand to me. While shaking hands vigorously with me, he said, "When the Operations Department was formed, I once asked the commander that there was a lack of experienced staff officers, and it would be great that you could come and work in the Operations Department. ”

The lieutenant, seeing that Colonel Lavrov and I already knew each other, saluted us both and turned away.

Lavrov let go of my hand, shook his head and said: "Comrade Major, come with me!" Then he turned around and went out and led the way for me in front.

As I approached the exit, I saw two stairs on the right side of the corridor, and the stairs up to Xiang Lu had been blocked by the collapsed masonry, and Lavrov walked straight into the stairs under Xiang Lu without stopping. It turns out that the combat department is located underground, I thought so, and walked down after him.

The basement floor is similar to the upstairs, with rooms on both sides of the long hallway, and because the doors are closed and there are no signs on them, I can't tell where the function is.

In a large room on the right side of the corridor, there were seven or eight staff officers busy, judging by their ranks, either captains or lieutenants, not a single officer. Seeing that there was no one with a higher rank than me, I was secretly relieved that it seemed that Colonel Lavrov was the only one who could manage me.

The staff officers were busy with their own work, some were answering the phone, listening to the phone and recording something in their notebook with a pen; Some of them work on the map, and according to the information provided by other staff officers, they constantly mark the situation of the enemy and us on the map. Perhaps so busy that Colonel Lavrov and I went into the house for half a day without even a single person to greet us.

Lavrov looked at his watch, then raised his voice and said: "Comrades staff, let's stop what we are doing for a while. I have something to announce to you. ”

Only then did the staff officers realize that there were two more people in the room, and they stopped what they were doing and stood up straight to look at Lavrov. Seeing this scene, I thought to myself that the vigilance of these staff officers was too poor, and if it was not me and Colonel Lavrov, but the German assault detachment, they would have been wiped out.

Lavrov pointed to me and introduced to everyone: "This is Major Oshanina, who has just joined our army group, and from today she will be working in our operations department, and I hope you will support her work." ”

I straightened up and saluted the staff officers in the room, and said, "Hello, comrades! I'm Major Oshanina, so please help me in the future. ”

"Hello, Comrade Major!" Several staff officers saluted me back.

"Okay, everyone knows each other, let's get back to work." Lavrov gave the order, and the staff officers went back to their work. The colonel walked up to me and said, "At the end of the corridor is the dormitory, and the beds on the left side of the door belong to the female communications soldiers, who often stay up all night and rarely go back to rest. ”

Lavrov took me to a corner of the room, pointed to an empty table and said, "You will work here in the future." Then he took a bunch of folders from the side, piled them in front of me, and said, "These are all battle reports, you should familiarize yourself with them first." ”

I couldn't help but feel a little dizzy when I saw the mountains of folders in front of me. I know my own affairs best, and I am not the one who is a staff officer at all and gives advice to my superiors. I don't have to stay in the agency for a few days, and I'm going to have to show my stuff. So all along, I tried to avoid becoming a staff officer in the headquarters, but I didn't expect that by mistake, I still became a staff officer in the operations department.

Seeing that everyone was busy, I couldn't just stay around and do nothing, so I could only open the top folder and look through the contents.

In the combat department, except for Colonel Lavrov, I was the highest-ranking officer, and the rest of the staff officers could not control me, so everyone automatically ignored me. Every day, they were still busy answering the phone or doing homework on the map, or sorting out the latest battle reports they received and sending them to Fedyuninsky. And I have nothing to do, just look at the mountains of documents.

Through these documents, I got a general idea of the current combat progress of the Volkhov Front.

As we all know, the formation of the Volkhov Front was to cooperate with the breakthrough operation of the Leningrad Front, in order to achieve the purpose of the campaign to crush the German Army Group North and free Leningrad from the siege.

In order to achieve this objective of the campaign, according to the operational intention of the Supreme Command, the Volkhov Front, with its forces in the center of the front, would break through the German defenses on the west bank of the Volkhov River, annihilate the enemy on the west bank, and then develop an offensive along the Chudovo-Lyuban direction with the main force. Then a further assault to the northwest, in conjunction with the 54th Army of the Leningrad Front, which was attacking from east to west, to isolate and destroy the German Army Group advancing to Lake Ladoga. At the same time, the left flank of the Volkhov Front, in conjunction with the 11th Army of the North-Western Front, struck in the direction of Staraya Rusa, Deno, Solzer, and then cut off the enemy's retreat from the Novgorod and Luga directions. Once the above objectives were achieved, it would be possible to crush the German Army Group North besieging Leningrad.

Although I can read the map at the moment, it is still very difficult to find the names of the places mentioned in the bulletin. Fortunately, with the help of an enthusiastic captain and staff officer, I was able to figure out the operational intentions of the headquarters based on the map.

It's easy to envision, but it's not so easy to implement. Because in the area of attack, the Germans deployed more than a dozen divisions belonging to the 18th Army of General Lindemann. In the face of such a hard bone, what the Soviet army lacked was a good pair of teeth. From December 17, 1941, the 4th and 52nd armies of the Volkhov Front switched to the offensive, but due to insufficient forces and the lack of proper rest of the troops, the offensive had little effect. After making significant sacrifices, only three modest landing sites were captured on the west bank of the Volkhov River. Due to the indiscriminate bombardment of German aircraft and the powerful artillery fire, the two Soviet armies failed in their attempts to further expand the landing grounds.

Seeing that the Soviet offensive was not making good progress at the beginning, the commander of the Front, General Sumeletskov, wanted to halt the offensive and accumulate strength in order to make a decisive surprise attack after the arrival of the new army group, but the Supreme Command, which was anxious to relieve the siege of Leningrad, repeatedly ordered Meretskov to launch an offensive without stopping, urging him to start the campaign to break through the Volkhov River with all his forces as soon as possible. However, until the end of December, the 26th and 59th armies, which had been assigned to the Volkhov Front, were not yet deployed.

By January 7, 1942, the day when the Supreme High Command was scheduled to begin the offensive, the Volkhov Front was still not ready. The 59th Army, one of the new forces, had only five under-staffed divisions in place and deployed, and three newly formed divisions were on their way. At this time, the 26th Army had been reorganized into an assault 2nd Army specializing in breaking through the enemy's defenses, and only half of the troops entered the starting position of the attack. In addition, due to the unfavorable organization of logistics, the lack of vehicles, and the long distances, the speed of transporting and transporting ammunition, material, technical equipment, and grain and straw to the troops was very slow. Although the preparations before the campaign is launched, the start time of the campaign issued by the base camp cannot be changed. As a result, Meretskov was forced to order part of the forces of the Volkhov Front to go on the offensive.

An unprepared assault was certainly difficult to succeed, and in three days of fighting, although the fighters of the Front showed exceptional bravery and tenacity, the attacking troops were repeatedly pressed back to their starting positions in the face of heavy German fire.

According to intelligence, prior to this, due to the continuous offensive of the troops of the 4th and 52nd armies, the headquarters of the German Army Group North and the command of the German 18th Army defending here had already paid more attention and vigilance to the assembly and movement of Soviet troops on the east bank of the Volkhov River, transferred new troops in this direction and strengthened the defense, so the German resistance was prepared and strengthened day by day. In response to this situation, the Military Council of the Volkhov Front considered it necessary to suspend the offensive and regroup its forces. Fortunately, the Moscow base camp also saw this, so when Meretskov reported directly to Stalin, Stalin allowed to postpone the attack for another three days, that is, on January 13.

On January 13, after a short period of artillery preparation, all the 1st echelons of the 4 armies of the Volkhov Front switched to the offensive. The first three days were spent in repeated storms on the first defensive strip of the German army. With the exception of the forced crossing of the Volkhov River in some sections and the seizure of several settlements on the bank, the attacking forces did not advance in depth. From the 15th, the assault on the 2nd Army, the 52nd Army threw the 2nd echelon into battle, this time the offensive of the Volkhov Front finally improved, the first defensive zone of the German army was broken through, and the troops advanced by 5-10 km. But the further forward they advanced, the fiercer the German resistance became, and the greater the Soviet losses, with almost every kilometer advanced, a regimental unit was crippled or disappeared from the formation.

In Spasskayapolist, Myasnoypol, the assault 2nd Army finally broke through the enemy's defenses after several assaults. Seizing this advantageous opportunity, General Meretskov decided to transfer the entire strength of the Front to the above-mentioned areas and, from there, to develop an offensive in the direction of Lyuban.

The command of the Volkhov Front redeployed the units of the 52nd, 59th and assault 2nd armies, concentrated in the Aspaskayapolisti and Myasnoypol directions. The assault 2nd Army was in the center, carrying out the assault on a frontage 15 km wide. To its right was the 59th Army, which formed another assault group with its left flank to assist in assaulting the 2nd Army operations. The 52nd Army was on the left, and its task was to develop this breakthrough after the breakthrough of the two armies mentioned above.

The breakthrough that began on the Volkhov Front went relatively smoothly. After the breakthrough of Myasnoypol, the command of the Front threw the newly formed 13th Cavalry Army into the breach, and at the same time ordered the assault 2nd Army to follow the cavalry corps into the breach; The 59th and 52nd armies were also ordered to expand the breach on both sides with one part each. The cavalry corps and the troops of the assault 2nd Army, which entered the breakthrough, penetrated 40 kilometers in 5 days, cutting off the railway from Leningrad to Novgorod.

However, when the Soviet army turned to Lyuban in the northeast, it encountered fierce resistance from the German army, which not only consumed a large number of troops, technical equipment and ammunition of the Soviet breakthrough force, but also forced the Soviet army to choose the path of moving back from the west. Under the climatic conditions of the time, the implementation of a wide range of detours in snow-covered wastelands and wooded swampy areas not only exhausted the troops, but also lengthened the transportation lines for the supply of troops, and often interrupted the supply of ammunition and food. What's more, the Germans on both sides of the breakthrough are desperately trying to re-seal it and cut off the transport lines on which the Soviet troops rely for survival and fighting deep into the enemy-occupied zone. Therefore, whether or not the battle of Lyuban can be successful depends to a large extent on whether or not the breakthrough can be maintained, and whether or not the breakthrough can be used to provide all kinds of material support to the forward troops in a timely manner.

By the beginning of March, the assault 2nd Army and other units had penetrated 70~75 kilometers deep into the enemy-occupied area alone, and advanced to the Honggorka area, 15 kilometers west of Lyuban. At this time, the 54th Army of the Leningrad Front, under the command of General Fedyuninsky, the 310th Division of Major General Zamirovsky and the Marine Brigade of the Baltic Fleet, attacked Lyuban from the north of Kirib and advanced to only 30 kilometers from the assault 2nd Army, where it was stopped by the strong fortifications and strong forces of the German army.

Seeing that the German army in the Lyuban area was facing a great threat of being encircled and annihilated, Quchler, who had succeeded as commander of Army Group North, hurriedly transferred three infantry divisions from the direction of Leningrad and Kirich to attack Red Gorka from the east and west directions, and encircled the Soviet troops that had broken through to Lyuban in the Red Gorka area. Under these conditions, the troops of the Volkhov Front could no longer move forward, so they had to turn around and break through, and after several days of hard fighting, they broke through the encirclement, and the task of capturing Lyuban was clearly not complete. At about the same time, the 54th Army's attack on Lyuban was also stopped by the Germans and forced to go on the defensive.

After withdrawing from Red Gorka, the troops of the assault 2nd Army were no longer able to attack Lyuban and had to hold on to a large forested swamp between the Chudovo-Novgorod and Leningrad-Novgorod railways. What is the next move of the assault 2nd Army? At that time, the Military Council of the Front Army put forward three proposals for the base camp to decide. First, ask the base camp to strengthen the front army, even if it is only for one army group, so that while the spring muddy season has not yet begun, it can take advantage of the breakthrough of the territory occupied by the 2nd Army to attack Liuban again; secondly, to withdraw the assault 2nd Army south of the Chudovo-Novgorod railway, to ensure the safety of the army, and at the same time to preserve the landing ground on the west bank of the Volkhov River; The last option was for the group army to hold on to the occupied areas and then accumulate strength to resume the offensive after the muddy season had passed.

After much discussion, the Supreme High Command chose the first option, because Stalin believed that the merit of this option was that it would have a direct effect on improving the situation of Leninlole and, if the new shock would succeed, lift the blockade of Leningrad.

Stalin ordered the command of the Volkhov Front to create an assault group consisting of 5 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry division and 4 infantry brigades, reinforced with tanks, artillery and air force, to carry out another assault in the direction of Lyuban. At the same time, the 59th Army, which was guarding the right flank of the breakthrough between Spasskayapolisti and Myasnoypol, was ordered to attack Chudovo in the northwest.

In order to strengthen the command of the Volkhov Front, Stalin sent his trusted victorious general, Lieutenant General Vlasov, to Volkhov as deputy commander of the Front and commander of the 2nd Shock Army, hoping that Vlasov would command the troops to inflict heavy losses on the German army in the Lyuban area, so as to achieve the goal of relieving the siege of Leningrad.

After reading this thick information, I have a better understanding of the current situation of friend and foe. However, the more I learned, the more unsteady I became, although in the Leningrad region, there were two fronts of the Soviet army at the same time, but according to the analysis of data from all sides, it was an inaccomplishable task to break through the encirclement of the German army in a short period of time.