Chapter 9: The Battle of the River Valley (Part II)

On Sunday, January 4, 1948, the battle for the Upper Rhine Valley entered its fifth day. In the past four days, Lynn's 5,000 men and horses have withstood the repeated attacks of several divisions of the Soviet army with careful arrangements and favorable terrain, and the bad weather has also helped the defenders for several days. On this day, the winds had weakened, the low clouds had thinned significantly, and from dawn onwards Soviet combat planes were pouring down on the small valley, dropping thousands of bombs on the positions controlled by the Free Corps and surrounding Austrian towns, forcing the resistance and innocent Austrian civilians to endure in a landslide-like environment. Lynn, who was in a concealed command post, watched as hell as his army had the most powerful anti-aircraft weapons in the world at the moment, but they were too limited in number to repel the large and rather stubborn Soviet aviation. In order to avoid irreparable damage to the precious ground-to-air guided rocket launchers, Lynn simply kept the special forces operating them on standby, with only a few conventional anti-aircraft guns to withstand the indiscriminate bombardment of the Soviets, which gradually lost their sound over time.

In the early afternoon, a group of black-pressed planes flew over Lake Constance, adding to the magnificent spectacle in addition to the reflection of snow-capped mountains. Seeing the large, slow-moving twin-engines in the fleet, Lynn had a very strong instinct: the real battle had finally arrived!

Sure enough, the leading Soviet attack planes carried out a very resolute assault on the fortifications and buildings, vehicles, and roads on the Austrian side of the river valley, and the rising smoke had not yet cleared, and those twin-engine planes had already approached the west side of the river valley - with a good air view, they actually invaded Swiss airspace in a grand manner, and the altitude of three or four hundred meters made the red logo on these planes clearly visible to the Swiss troops stationed in this valley and their people.

At first, Lynn was also surprised by such a scene, but judging the direction and speed of the wind, he was instantly relieved. A moment later, the black dots that left the plane and fell down bloomed white flowers in the air, and some gliders that began to fly independently above the lake quickly approached the ground like returning birds...... Lynn was unintentionally emotional, and hurriedly ordered the anti-airborne plan to be activated.

The moment she landed, the extremely nervous mood of the high-class Red Army soldier Lyudmila finally relaxed. Day after day of hard training, he and his comrades were hungry for battle, but if they were hit during the parachute, all sweat and expectations would be zero. Lyudmila quickly broke free from the shackles of the parachute harness and looked around vigilantly. The roar of machine guns and assault rifles was incessant, and judging by the loudness, they should not have been deployed in close proximity.

Standing in an unfamiliar land, Lyudmila did not dare to be distracted in the slightest, and when he saw that the soldiers who had landed first were running towards the nearest glider, he hurriedly followed with his SKS semi-automatic rifle. At this moment, the roar of vehicles was heard from the direction of Lake Constance, followed by a deafening explosion - the sound of a popping without a cannon and the stabbing of a shell, which was clearly the enemy's vehicle-mounted heavy mortar!

After the second explosion, a high-pitched voice sounded: "Comrades, pay attention to concealment and resolutely defend the airborne field!" ”

Lyudmila had just fallen down when another loud voice broke through the interference of gunfire explosions: "Ilya combat platoon is coming to me!" ”

It was his platoon commander, Ilya, the Red Army combat hero, who heard the familiar voice, and the remaining half of Lyudmila's nervousness suddenly folded in half, and he hurriedly followed the sound cat's waist, at this time the unique gunfire of MG42 was getting closer and closer, and the vehicle engine was also roaring heavily. In sight, several gray-white monstrous monsters approached through the wilderness while spitting tongues of fire. …,

A slight hissing sound jumped into his ears, and Lyudmila, who had a year and a half of front-line combat experience, was taken aback, and he hurriedly threw himself on the ground, and between the lightning and flint, a mortar shell that fell four meters away exploded, and the strong tremor from the ground made Lyudmila's organs ache faintly, and there was a buzzing sound in his ears. When the confusion in her head passed, Lyudmila hurriedly looked up for the traces of her companions, but the paratroopers and gliders were constantly landing at the airborne field, where there was no clear boundary, and enemy machine guns and mortars were desperately attacking, so that the scene was quite chaotic. The high-ranking Red Army soldier with a battle medal on his chest staggered forward for more than ten meters, and his ears finally had a faint sense of hearing.

"Ilya combat platoon, get your rifles and grenades ready!"

Lyudmila couldn't help but quicken his pace at the familiar sound, and before the flying bullets or shrapnel could damage him, he rushed into the middle of a small group of paratroopers that had just gathered, lying on his side gasping for breath.

"Attention, the enemy is coming, fire! Fire! ”

Lyudmila struggled to raise his head, and when his eyes were higher than his companion's lying body, he saw that an armored combat vehicle without a turret had entered within a hundred meters, surrounded by large white ears that were swaying along the steel helmet.

"Grenades!"

The platoon commander Ilya roared angrily, and he threw the egg-shaped grenade issued by the paratroopers forward.

In order to resist the enemy's counterattack, the Soviet soldiers threw out grenades one after another, and in the blink of an eye, violent explosions came from the front, they were like invisible hammers hitting the ground, making people's hearts tremble together, and the blood in their veins unconsciously boiled.

The sound of explosions was accompanied by screams, and the enemy's counterattack was temporarily contained, but the roar of the machine guns became more frantic than ever, and the bullets swept across the hard ground and soft bodies with a completely different fluttering sound.

"Calm down, comrades, calm down, here is our position, hold it is victory, with our weapons, with our blood......"

The platoon commander's shouting was interrupted by the rough gunfire, and Lyudmila's eyes widened at the bleak sight of death.

Suddenly, the non-commissioned officer who automatically took over the command shouted: "Comrades, we must avenge the platoon commander!" ”

Driven by anger, the Soviet paratroopers gathered here fired with their submachine guns and assault rifles, and the gunfire on their side overwhelmed each other for a while, but the heavy mortars on the enemy's combat vehicles fired at each other, and the roar of the MG-42 regained the advantage.

"Bazooka is coming!"

Someone shouted, and the Soviet paratroopers in despair suddenly saw the light. This bulky and sensitive weapon was difficult to parachute with paratroopers, but was hoisted in specially made containers, as evidenced by the thousands of Allied tanks and armored vehicles destroyed on the battlefields of Eastern Europe.

In the eager eyes of everyone, the companion holding the RPG-3 has a glorious image like a savior. This super-caliber rocket launcher is powerful, but the effective range is far less than that of the Allied "Bazooka", and the Soviet paratrooper moved forward more than ten meters alone. During this time, the paratroopers around him tried to provide cover with bullets and grenades, and this rather rapid fire did have a suppressive effect. Immediately afterward, anti-tank rockets rushed out with clear tail smoke, and there was a faint panicked shouting on the opposite side, followed by a bang.

Seeing that the enemy's tank had been destroyed by rockets, the commander of a group of paratroopers next to him shouted: "For the Motherland, for victory, attack!" ”

The horn of counterattack had sounded, and the paratroopers on Lyudmila's side were not to be outdone, and when they heard the order to attack from the acting platoon commander, everyone rushed forward like tigers. …,

"Quick, brave warriors, we must reach the village before the enemy does, grit our teeth and advance!"

In the snow with sparse vegetation, officers wearing cold combat helmets are encouraging their soldiers to march quickly in relative concealment. Due to the limited number of troops, the defensive forces were basically deployed in the depth of the first line, and there were only a small number of alert troops in the large rear far from the lakeside, and the command team, which had already led them to a series of victories, was prepared for the possible airborne operations of the Soviet army, and the soldiers used for maneuvering could reach the fortified villages and stored combat ammunition in a maximum of forty minutes from the tactical fulcrum. It was envisaged that fifty soldiers arriving in the village lightly should arrive at the enemy's four-hundred-man paratroopers for two hours, buying precious time for the reaction of the large force.

From time to time, the enemy planes hovering over the valley let out a dive whimper, which made people listen to a palpitation, and Yarman ran with his head bowed and bent over, and ran lifelessly after his companions in front. He was a machine gunner, and fortunately, in this race against time, he didn't have to carry an 11-kilogram MG42 with an empty weight, and his deputy didn't need to run with a heavy ammunition box, and they and the soldiers of the mortar battle group were basically empty-handed, sandwiched between a group of riflemen, and no one dared to slow down a little unless a Soviet fighter plane rushed down to drop bombs or strafe with machine guns.

White helmets, white cloaks, and good snow attire allowed the group of almost "naked" freedom fighters to reach the village safely in broad daylight through the lack of effective shelter in the snow, which was usually guarded by only one squad of soldiers, and if a large group of Soviet paratroopers happened to be blown here by the wind, they would easily destroy the defenders and seize the weapons and ammunition here. Thankfully, the Soviet commander "wisely" chose an open area near the river as an airborne landing site, from which it was not only necessary to cross a distance of more than two kilometers, but also to deal with combat patrols with armored vehicles and break through the completely disproportionate machine-gun and light mortar fire of the village defenders. Of course, if they can overcome all odds to capture these villages first, they will see the beautiful goddess of victory beckoning to them, and the Freedom Corps, which is caught between two sides, will find themselves in a predicament like never before.

!d@T——

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