His protest was strangled at birth and he could only start obeying his commander’s instructions.
Knocke noticed Hässelbach and Lutz stood in the doorway, each carrying sufficient hardware and ammunition to conquer a small country.
Quite clearly, they were a self-appointed bodyguard and Knocke was secretly pleased to see them so well prepared.
He pored further over the map to see if there was more that he could do and decided on one last radio message.
Durand signed off and returned the handset to his radio operator.
The remaining leadership of the Uhlmann group had gathered in woods just south of Cegielnia, and the strain was writ large on their faces.
They had heard Knocke’s final instructions to them and understood that if Sulisɫawice fell then they would not escape their present predicament… unless they moved fast now and to hell with all caution.
Knocke had not given them false hope, and had admitted that the likelihood of a successful defence of Sulisɫawice was not high, but that it would be held for as long as humanly possible.
He had not ordered them to do anything as such, but had given them alternatives, depending on their tactical situation.
Above all, they were to save as much of the group as possible, and work with Haefali to extricate the Camerone from its disastrous predicament.
He had quickly set out the options as he saw them and placed the decision in their hands.
The call had ended in a rushed fashion as some threat caused Knocke to cut short his messages.
Durand looked at the map, gripping the small table in his vice-like grip, an outward display of his anger and concern.
“Ideas, mes amis?”
Jung, somehow separated from his unit in Haefali’s group, spoke nervously, unused to such invitations.
“The shortest route seems to be back to Alma but…”
“…but if Łoniów has fallen, we’ll have the lot opposite up our arses in an instant.”
Braun had a way with words.
Durand laughed.
“All our options will end up in a fight, but I agree with Major Braun.”
He used the French rank, even though it sometimes brought confusion.
“We could cut due east and use the river as a secure flank… a longer journey and still fraught with danger, although we can find refuge with the bulk of Alma.”
No one fancied that option.
“Join up with Haefali, leapfrog back across country rather than the roads, and smash our way through Łoniów?”
“There’s another way… another option… one I think we have to take.”
Artillery started dropping to their rear, almost as if to affect their thinking.
“Well, Uncle Joe’s boys are trying to reduce our options.”
Durand’s comment had the desired effect and the group laughed lightly.
“What’s your other way?”
Durand accepted a cigarette from Braun and listened as the senior NCO spoke.
“The one route we’ve rejected. The Oberführer told us there was no chance of escaping to the west as he’s about to be overrun, only south or southeast. But there’s the issue. The Russians also know that, so west… that’s where we can go and achieve some surprise surely?”
Durand married the words to the map.
“But here’s a Soviet infantry regiment by all repor…”
They ducked low as a shell whipped in close by and dropped earth and stones amongst them.
“A full regiment with tank support and all the rest of it.”
“So we go above them, Commandant.”
“The Floriańska?”
“Yes, Sir…why not? They won’t be expecting it… it allows us to move tight with Haefali. Yes, we’ll have exposed flanks but we’ll have exposed flanks whichever way we go, and this way we serve a higher purpose… Sulisɫawice… we’ll save Sulisɫawice!”
The men stiffened, for they knew what Braun meant to say, but held back from voicing.
‘Knocke… we’ll save Knocke!’
Durand clapped his hands to break the moment.
“Let me speak to Colonel Haefali… but I like it.”
Aircraft of the DRL flew away from the target area, satisfied that they had put their ordnance bang on target.
In that they were wholly correct.
The furthest advance of Rybalko’s northern force had been stopped dead in its tracks, in some cases quite literally, as the panzers of Kampfgruppe Schemmerring, derived mainly from the 116th Panzer Division, smashed the lead elements in and around the village of Ujazd.
From there, they and the Grossdeutschland group had rolled much of the enemy back, leaving a few pockets of resistance to be mopped up later.
At Kamieniec and the river line of the Koprzywianka River that ran through it, elements of the 167th Guards Rifle Regiment and its tank support from 7th Special Guards Tank Brigade stood and stopped the German advance.
Neither mortars nor artillery could shift the defenders and the urgency of the situation with the Legion Corps meant that there was no time for finesse.
As he was about to send his men forward, Schemmerring received welcome news and delayed his attack.
DRL aircraft from two units swept over the battlefield, followed by a squadron from the USAAF.
The lead unit was the 11th Schlachtstaffel, the last unit in the DRL to operate the Hs-129-B3 ground attack aircraft that had graced the Luftwaffe in WW2.
The new leadership of the Luftwaffe had decided that such a powerful weapon could not be allowed to fade away, so production of a version with new power plants, an improved recoil mount, and a more streamlined gun pod had been authorised and commenced, despite the fact that testing of the prototype had only just got underway
Their powerful 75mm Bordkanone ripped the T-54s apart like tin cans, and the first pass the DRL flyers left eight in various stages of disrepair.
Each Hs-129 was equipped with a magazine-fed main weapon that could fire twelve rounds simply by a press of a firing button.
The payoff was an aircraft that was slow and cumbersome to fly, which was why the Hs-129s never went anywhere without friends.
The Red Air Force tried to interfere, but the DRL had FW-190s and Spitfires flying overhead, and no interceptors ever looked like getting through.
The Henschels made further passes, losing one of their number to ground machine-gun fire, but exacting a huge price on the tanks and vehicles of the defenders.
After them came Thunderbolts, who firing their rocket ordnance in the village, deliberately avoiding the two bridges that spanned the river.
They then turned and bore in again, and each aircraft in turn dropped two M29 cluster bombs, which held ninety 4lbs fragmentation charges each.
Finally came the USAAF, a full squadron of the improved Skyraiders laden with everything in the inventory.
5” FFAR rockets streaked down and smashed the infantry positions on the riverbanks.
By now the Soviet soldiers understood the pattern of attack and Guards’ soldiers who had stood the rigours of the Eastern Front started to flee from their positions, knowing what was to come.
Running down the river line, the squadron of USAAF attack aircraft laid napalm along the defensive lines, taking the lives of those who had broken ranks as well as those who had stoically remained.
Men ran like burning torches, screaming, squealing, adding to the horrific scene that greeted Schemmerring as he observed the strikes.
The situation was now changed and he ordered a modest part of his force to attack the defences at Kamieniec, sensing that the enemy was spent and needed only the smallest of pushes to run from the field, preferring to concentrate most of his force for the push to break through to the surviving legionnaires of Emmercy’s group, surrounded at Pokrzywianka and a couple of other places further east.