Colin Gee - Opening Moves

More Fallschirmjager arrived, released from their defence of Jungfernsteig after they and the Yeomanry had drubbed the attacking force. These set about evacuating their injured comrades and the wounded jocks, as well as setting a strong defensive position in place.

Four of the paratroopers reverently removed the insensible body of their commander, Perlmann having fallen unnoticed amongst a pile of dead, alive but bleeding from a dozen wounds.

The arrival of Russian small calibre mortar rounds ended the brief lull and Ramsey determined to reform his reserve and to find out what was going on across the front of Llewellyn Force.

In essence, Llewellyn Force was holding but only just.

The Rathaus was again more Soviet than British as extra troops pressed forward, exhorted by their officers.

The Soviet diversionary effort had run into an allied counter-attack to the south as 71st Infantry brigade sought to throw the Soviet moves off-balance. 1st Battalion, Highland Light Infantry, supported by more of the Yorkshire Yeomanry’s armour had struck back, threatening the Holzbrücke and Beloborodov had been forced to switch one of his reserve battalions to assist. This left solely the III/938th Rifles uncommitted.

II/259th Rifles had been ordered to probe the positions in front of them, not by the Army Commander but by the Regimental Commander who just couldn’t believe the British could be strong everywhere.

This was a huge mistake and his pinning force suffered huge casualties charging A Coy/RWF and the support platoon. He was only saved from the vengeance of his General by a Welsh bullet. It also meant that the dead Lieutenant Colonel would be an excellent scapegoat for what was to come.

‘A’ Company’s commander realised the tactical situation had changed in his favour and released the support platoon and one section from each of his own platoons, creating a reserve force, which he immediately sent to the aid of his Battalion Commander in the Rathaus.

‘C’ Company had held their own at great loss of life, helped by the arrival of armoured support in the shape of the rest of the Yeomanry’s headquarters troop which had forced into the Soviet flank at a crucial time. Not without loss, as was attested to by Acting Major Brown’s body half in, half out of his command tank, slowly being consumed by the lazy fire inside.

In the Rathaus there was a stalemate. Scelerov and his men had burned everything and everyone they could and had run out of usable flamethrowers. A fuming Scelerov has sent ten men back for more and contented himself with throwing phosphorous grenades as he waited to be rearmed. He was unaware that he would wait in vain, as the party had been vaporised by a 25-pdr HE shell as they were returned laden with cylinders.

The situation in the Rathaus was unclear to the Russians, and so the Commander of 1st Rifle Corps committed his final reserve where he could see there was an opportunity, and where they could be directly supported with tanks.

Banging out his orders with his fist on the map table and gesticulating wildly, the General got his officers moving.

There were only seven running tanks left in 2nd Btn after fierce exchanges with British tanks and anti-tank guns but they were ordered to go forward once more.

Ordering the 106th Pontoon Engineers to be ready, the Rifle Corps commander sent his men forward.

A number of things happened at once.

Ramsey reconstituted his reserve force at the rear of the Markt, bolstering the numbers with a stiffening of Fallschirmjager and a handful of Manchesters.

Llewellyn’s ‘A’ Company reserve force arrived at the Rathaus.

The Yeomanry’s D Sqdn lost its last tank to a mortar round which started an engine fire.

Adolphesbrucke dropped into the canal, victim of Soviet artillery fire.

Losing no time, Major Llewellyn organised a counter-attack that started to push back the Soviets on the ground floor of the Rathaus again.

Charging forward, the Welsh threw the Russians back all the way to the main lobby before they turned and held their ground.

Sub-machine guns and grenades did their deadly work and Llewellyn’s life was saved when one of his young fusiliers threw himself on a grenade that had landed at his side. The young man died, the officer lived. Llewellyn promised himself and the boy that he would record the brave act appropriately.

Another grenade landed close and was plucked up and thrown in an instant, returned from whence it had come to good effect, screams of pain marking its effectiveness.

Sensing the need to push hard again, Llewellyn shouted his troops forward and charged, dropping an enemy rifleman with a burst of Sten.

An enemy officer rose and fired his pistol, missing with his first two shots but hitting soft flesh with his third and fourth. Llewellyn, dropped to the ground by the impacts, pressed the trigger of his Sten and put a burst into the disfigured man.

Scelerov was thrown backwards by the impact of five bullets, losing his pistol as he hit the wall hard.

A group of fusiliers ran past him, intent on mischief further down the hallway.

Bleeding and in pain, Scelerov pulled himself onto his knees, extracted a fragmentation grenade and pulled the pin, intending to toss it into the middle of the fusiliers who had gone to ground fifteen yards away.

As he raised his arm a huge weight descended upon him, rugby tackling him and pinning him to the ground with the deadly charge still in his grip under his body.

In the last second of his life, Scelerov screamed not in fear but in anger, his revenge incomplete, and all those months of pain borne for nothing.

The grenade exploded eviscerating the Russian instantly.

Llewellyn received a fragment through his right wrist which damaged his tendons. The blast lifted him off the distorted body of Scelerov, throwing him to the left and stunning him as he hit his head on a lump of stone.

Carried forward by the momentum of the charge, the Welch continued to drive the Soviet engineers and riflemen before them, reclaiming most of the Rathaus.

Combined with the reclaiming of their old defensive positions by the Fallschirmjager, this created a shallow U-shaped area into which the 1st Rifle Corps was inadvertently committing its last force of note.

Without orders, the Hauptmann now commanding the Fallschirmjager secured the southernmost corner of his position and deployed two MG42’s on the right flank of the Soviet attack.

Simultaneously the Captain who found himself temporarily in charge in the Rathaus stiffened the southern wall defences and then organised a firing line in the Rathaus, looking across into the Markt. Three Vickers .303’s, two from RWF and one from the Manchesters bolstered the defence.

In the Markt itself were the Black Watch, with their own Vickers and three more from the Manchesters.

The T-34’s of 39th Guards Tank Brigade pushed forward, firing wildly as they advanced. One lucky shell reduced a Welch Vickers to scrap metal in short order.

The Russian tanks opened their formation as they moved into the southern edge of Markt and were brought under fire by C Sqdn of the Yeomanry and the last 71st 6-pdr at the end of Reesendamm.

At A – Location of hand to hand fighting by Perlmann’s Fallschirmjager and the Black Watch.

At B – Point from which the Yeomanry’s two headquarters tanks engaged the Soviet tanks and where the CS tank was destroyed.

At C – Deployment zone for T-34’s supporting the Markt attack.

At D – II/259th’s probing attack that failed.