The thick smoke lingered between his lips and teeth. Commander Cherchenkov, who gently shook the ashes from the cigarette in his hand, continued.
"We initially expected that the Germans would go crazy and fight us to the death, but when the battle started, we were surprised to find that this was not the case!"
"It cannot be said that the German airport garrison has no fighting spirit, but at least compared to the situation we encountered at the train station, it is really far different! The weapons and equipment invested are not at the same level at all.
"
"A few anti-tank guns fired at our T34. The shells bounced off the armor and crashed into the snowdrifts. The German machine guns fired intermittently, and they kept coughing like an asthma patient, but
And there is no coherence of the machine gun at all. There is a big problem in this and it is very abnormal!"
"Our tanks easily knocked out the machine gun fire points, and the self-propelled artillery quickly counterattacked and knocked out the German anti-tank guns. The T34s directly crushed the enemy's defense line in one go, and completed the first trial attack with just one trial attack.
A mission goal, we found it unbelievable at the time! The chief of staff, political commissar and I were all stunned, this is incredible!"
Commander Cherchenkov did not exaggerate or brag about the battle situation. Malashenko could tell just from Commander Cherchenkov's expression.
After flicking the cigarette ashes in his hand again, Commander Cherchenkov continued to speak with Malashenko listening attentively.
"When our tanks rushed into the airport, the German defenses completely collapsed."
"Groups after groups of German soldiers ran away and fell to the ground amidst the fire of the soldiers' submachine guns and the roar of the tanks. Some German soldiers were smarter and simply threw away their weapons and knelt down on the ground with their hands raised. It turned out that
surrender."
"Can you believe it? Malashenko, the battle was in progress at that time! I was thinking about what happened that could break the will of these Germans to this extent. You must know that they were originally a group of Germans.
A powerful army that can make us all feel troublesome."
"Several planes tried to scramble to escape, and what happened next was a very unbelievable scene."
"The wounded German soldiers were chasing the plane on crutches, trying desperately to catch the last plane to leave. Those German soldiers who were only slightly injured were bandaged and ran ahead. Some of them saw that they could not catch up with the plane, and even directly
Jump forward and hold on to the tail of the plane without letting go. What are they thinking in their heads?"
"The door of the plane was open. Maybe it was too rushed to take off and I didn't have time to close it. Of course, these are what the tank crews at the front later described in their reports. I have not seen the real scene."
"The German officer standing next to the cabin door initially pulled up the people who were approaching. But as the plane became faster and faster, no one was there to pull up the people who were approaching because they might get hurt.
Drag yourself down."
"Of course we couldn't just let the German planes escape, so the tanks at the front stopped immediately and used their main guns and machine guns to fire at the German planes whose tires had not yet lifted off the ground. Most of the planes
They were all destroyed by us on the runway, and some exploded immediately and burst into flames, but not all of them were like this."
"There is a German plane...um...what's its name? Well, Heinkel 111? It should be this model."
"Our soldiers were surprised to find that this German plane actually used the belly bomb bay to load people! This was originally a bomber! I don't know if the bomb bay itself was broken or if it was done deliberately. In short, the hatch was not
It was not closed, and several German guys who were clinging to the inner wall of the bomb cabin were blown down by the airflow not long after takeoff, and fell hundreds of meters to their death on the ground!"
"It sounds like telling a story, right? I would think so if I were you, but unfortunately not."
"But even the only bomber didn't fly very far. The starting position behind was the anti-aircraft artillery position we used to intercept the German transport aircraft. The German bomber was shot down before it could fly very high.
, it fell down with black smoke and broke into pieces. I heard that the smell of barbecue oil is much stronger than that of an ordinary plane crash, and I don’t know how many fleeing Germans were stuffed in this plane."
Commander Cherchenkov restored everything to life. Malashenko was a little surprised and could basically make up the scene at that time, and the questions that followed immediately blurted out.
"Why did this happen? Did you interrogate the prisoners afterwards and investigate?"
Commander Cherchenkov stubbed out the cigarette butt in his hand, then refilled himself with another one. He did not continue to reply until the first puff of smoke came out.
"Of course, we asked the German prisoners the same question as you."
"The prisoners told us that they were all wounded soldiers who were transported to the airport to wait for the plane to take them away. There were both minor and serious injuries."
"As long as you have a good relationship with the military doctor and you can get him to issue a certificate for you, you can even pick it off the corpse, steal it while the seriously injured are sleeping, and then use the bloody bandage from the garbage dump.
By wrapping yourself up and pretending to be a pitiful person who was shot several times and saved your life, you can get this pass to go home and get on the plane. Many prisoners said that this situation is too common!"
"But the real situation is that there are too many real and fake wounded waiting to go home! There are very few planes that can fly over and land!"
"There are no planes specifically here to pick up the wounded. They are all used to transport supplies to the Sixth Army. When they come, they are full of hope to continue fighting, and when they leave, they pick up a group of people who want to go home. The basic situation is like this
.”
"There were more and more people waiting for the flight in the airport hospital. In the end, there was no place to lie down. We had to open a small tent outside to put people who were sent from behind."
"At night, the temperature will drop by more than ten degrees or even more than 20 degrees. Many of the seriously injured Germans were able to eat their own dinner bite by bite the day before, but were frozen in the tent outside the next morning.
They have become hard popsicles! No one knows how they died, and they don’t even have anyone to confide their last words to.”
"In other words, these pitiful little tents that freeze people to death have to be given over to the wounded who are constantly being sent in from behind. The corpses are piled up in a hill like shell casings fired by artillery. No one is going to bury them at all. These Germans
We should be grateful to our motherland that the winter is cold enough."
"When you came into the airport just now, you should have been able to see the corpses and plane wreckage that we had cleaned up near the airport entrance. That is the best evidence for what I said. The Germans couldn't even finish processing the corpses of their own comrades, leaving them with
They killed us, a bunch of pathetic, hateful bastards."
When Commander Cherchenkov said this, Malashenko suddenly recalled the questions he had just harbored and the scene he had witnessed with his own eyes, and the questioning words immediately blurted out.
"But the corpses are piled up in a hill. Is it okay to just leave them like that? I mean, will it breed a plague? When I came here just now, I saw hundreds of corpses. I don't know if your division has any others.
This is not the only place to deal with it.”
Once again, he stubbed out the cigarette butts in his hand in the ashtray made of shell shells and responded to Malashenko with a look of helplessness on his face.
"It's too cold, Comrade Malashenko."
"The ground is now frozen harder than iron plates. If you dig down three meters, the soil is still hard! You are in command of the tank. You should know better than me that tanks are better on off-road roads in winter than in summer and autumn.
After driving more than twice as long, even the hardened roads in the city are not as strong as the frozen soil in the suburbs."
"The amount of work to bury those corpses was too great! We tried to dig a hole, but we couldn't dig it at all! The soldiers dug with the German prisoners for a long time, and dug out a small hole that could only hold dozens of corpses.
, Comrade Chief of Staff made statistics and found that more than one-fifth of the total number of diggers have not even been mobilized."
"Fortunately, the weather is very cold now. The corpses of those Germans have turned into frozen meat. There are no mosquitoes or rats running around in such a cold day."
"This is all we can do now. We have been busy these days leveling the airport, filling craters, repairing and expanding the runway. This is the top priority given to us by our superiors. When these tasks are completed and manpower is freed up, I will send people to rush
The pit was dug before the weather got warmer, and leaving those corpses piled up in a hill is indeed a big hidden danger."