Blitzkrieg Unleashed by Richard Hargreaves

Author:Richard Hargreaves [Hargreaves, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781598382
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-04-17T16:00:00+00:00

General Edmund Knoll-Kownacki, commanding an ad hoc group of troops, issued an equally rousing order of the day. ‘We are attacking a weaker enemy,’ he assured his men. It would be a disgrace if they could not break such a foe. ‘Once again I stress with the greatest emphasis that our attack must have a “desperado” character.’27 The Poles would strike towards their capital on the sixteenth. Their attack would come too late.

On the south bank of the Bzura half a dozen miles west of Lowicz, Leutnant Arnold Schöneboom crept forward with his platoon. It was still long before dawn on the sixteenth. The only light came from a farmhouse in the distance which continued to burn despite the steady rain. The men of 16th Infantry Regiment had spent most of the campaign kicking their heels, held in reserve in Silesia. But on the twelfth they had been ordered to board Junkers 52 transport aircraft, flown to Lodz and ordered into the front line on the Bzura. For a week Eighth Army had been the anvil battered by the Polish hammer. It was time to reverse the roles. At first light the German Army would begin the destruction of Polish forces west of Warsaw.

The first rays of light gave form to the strange shapes on the far bank of the river. Polish soldiers moved about, unaware they were being observed by Schöneboom and his men, who were impatient, itching to strike across the Bzura. For forty-five minutes, Schöneboom held his men back. The hands on his watch turned to 4.45am. The last act of the battle on the Bzura began. As German rifles and machine-guns opened fire, Polish artillery responded by pummelling the right bank of the river. Great fountains of earth were tossed up as 15cm shells began landing around Schöneboom’s platoon. First one hundred yards away, then seventy. A messenger was knocked to the ground as a shell splinter struck him. Medics raced out amid the inferno to haul him back to safety. To the Leutnant’s rear there was a loud rumble, then hissing and howling, as German shells hurtled on their way towards the Polish positions. ‘There’s a feeling of relief among us,’ wrote Schöneboom. ‘There’s a wall of earth and huge cloud of soil on the opposite bank.’ The village of Urzecze, about 300 yards away, went up in flames. It was the signal for the pioneers to strike out across the Bzura in their rubber boats. By 5.30am, 16th Infantry Regiment was on the left bank and rushing through the streets of Urzecze. The village was still aflame, so much so that weapons and ammunition cases warmed as the Landsers swept past the fires. The attack stopped briefly on the village’s edge when shooting came from a birch wood. A Feldwebel grabbed a machine-gun and began spraying bursts of fire into the tree tops. The Poles responded with anti-tank and field guns at the German infantry. The impetus lay with the Germans. The advance continued

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.