France Fights On (English Translation) - Thread II - To the continent!

[Wings]

March 2nd, 1944

Poland
Our best friend
The Whole World - Following the latest negotiations, reminders and negotiations between the Polish diplomatic services and those of the Quai de la Joliette, the liberated tricolored press launches an important communication campaign in favor of Warsaw. Several French titles, such as Le Monde, Le Matin or the brand new Libération devote a good part of their four pages to the events in Warsaw, based on the information provided by the government in exile. Curiously, the communist or sympathetic titles are a little less colrful, preferring to evoke the lightning progress of the Red Army, which, according to several authors, "will not fail to put an end as soon as possible to the suffering of the Polish people, who had already suffered so much in the past under the yoke of all kinds of oppression." One will appreciate the formula.
In any case, there are some who do not appreciate at all the French press campaign, and they are the English! This transparent attempt to force their hand seems to them prodigiously inelegant... It is even whispered that the Foreign Office would have been discreetly moved by what it considers as "a gesture of a rare impulsiveness", whereas our ally knows well the infinite difficulty of mixing politics and military operations. No doubt, in Yugoslavia (for example!), things were a little more confused - and French and British interests are not always completely convergent. But as far as Poland is concerned, it seems that for the highest authorities of Fighting France, things are perfectly perfectly clear. As Charles De Gaulle would later write in his Mémoires de Guerre: "In undertakings where everything is risked, there comes a time, when the one who is leading the game feels that destiny is set. By a strange combination, the thousand trials in which he struggles seem to suddenly blossom into a decisive episode. This was the moment that the Poles had to seize. We could not stop them, even if it meant suffering a thousand displeasures and as many pettinesses. In his justice, the God of battles was going to offer their soldiers a great battle and a great glory."
No doubt the General's pen became somewhat lyrical, perhaps under the influence of his memories of 1921. But from the point of view of London, such flights of fancy are not worth the weight of arms. And if Lord Selborne, Minister of War Economy, is still willing to congratulate General Kukiel on the brilliant results of Operation Jula - "An operation conducted with efficiency and effectiveness, which deserves all our admiration and appreciation" - everyone will have understood for a long time that Poland, as far as London was concerned, could serve no other purpose than to facilitate the defeat of the Nazi armies by the Russians. De Gaulle may well have raised the subject of the 2nd Polish Army Corps in person by telephone with Churchill*, he knew that it was hopeless and that Montgomery would never want to do without these troops.
Hence the use of devious means to force action - in a method not very far from the one that the government of Peter II tried to use at the same time. The charity events and other events where Polish military attachés or diplomats could speak are already multiplying across the Atlantic, in a great effort to move the American people so that the White House will finally decide to do something**.
And all these signals are finally converging on Moscow. Where they are not well received, it has to be said. For one does not force the hand of Stalin's USSR, especially when the Vojd feels so strong.

* Churchill will remain silent on the Warsaw episode in his Memoirs... On the other hand, he would have had at the time towards his annoying opponents: "When the eagles are silent, the parrots start to chatter". No one had reminded him that in August 1920, he had declared: "Poland has saved herself by her exertions and will I trust save Europe by her example"...
** The Polish-American bonds of friendship, maintained by a strong diaspora (like in France...) were particularly powerful. For example, in 1926, the Polish government had the idea to send to Washington for the 150th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence a "birthday card" that everyone could sign. It arrived... in 110 volumes, because more than 5 million people signed it (in a country of 30 million inhabitants!). Officially handed over by Leopold Kotnowski to the White House and interspersed with poems, photos, drawings and other dried flowers, it is still available for consultation at the Library of Congress.

 

[Wings]

March 2nd, 1944

Poland
Operation Storm - The Frenzy
Rzeszów area - While in Lublin, the NKVD completes the crushing of the Polish hopes, on the side of Rzeszów, the men of the 22nd and 24th ID of the Secret Army - and in particularly Lt-Colonel Kazimierz Putek "Gama", who tried awkwardly to conduct talks - finally lose their illusions about their so-called liberators. It is now clear that their efforts will not yield any results - especially when they discover that the first priority of the Russians is to open a prison for them in the local castle!
Obviously, the precautions taken the day before will prove useful... but not sufficient. And the officers of the Secret Army, returned to clandestinity, notice that the jails of the new oppressor are already filling up. With rage in his belly, "Gama", who feels responsible for the situation of his men, prepares to do something desperate, loyal and beautiful. Something quite in the spirit of the Armia Krajowa, therefore, in this early 1944...
.........
Radom-Kielce District - The situation in the region is rather calm. Because of the important presence and the ongoing confrontations, the forces of the Secret Army remain quiet, waiting for an opening...
.........
District of Łódź - Continued needle punctures inflicted by Col. Michał Stempkowski "Barbara," Lt. Col. Józef Rokicki "Charles" and their 10th Infantry Division Maciej Rataj. Today, ambushes are set up near Sulejów and Barkowice, causing a lot of trouble for German elements trying to move between Warsaw and Katowice. Another reason for the 213. SicherungDivision of Alex Göschen to hurry up. It should arrive in the area tomorrow at the earliest - i.e. around Piotrków Trybunalski - in order to carry out as many reprisals as necessary to restore the order of the General Government.
.........
Białystok District - Entry of the 221. SicherungDivision in the "red swamp" of Osowiec. It is quickly spotted by the scouts of the Armia Krajowa, who pas on the information to Lt. Franciszek Slęczka "Krak", the district commander. The latter quickly understands that the small 29th ID is absolutely no match for this mediocre unit. He therefore orders the evacuation of the reduction and the immediate retreat towards the lines of the Reds. In the following hours, several columns of infantry will raise camp in a hurry in the direction of Białystok, loaded with materials, but also accompanied by many women and children.
The situation is critical: in the Secret Army, everyone knows (or guesses!) what is happening in Warsaw. To let the Goths catch up with the troops is to run the risk of a massacre. It is necessary to leave something behind, for a sacrificial but essential task. After a few minutes of hesitation, Lt. Colonel Władysław Liniarski "Mścisław", who commands the 29th ID, designates the 9th Mounted Rifle Regiment of Captain Wiktor Konopka "Grom".
This one will have to distract the enemy long enough to allow the others to flee... With fatalism, Konopka (whose father died in 1920 against the Reds*, what irony!) deploys his horsemen along the canals in Grzędy to await the arriving assassins...
.........
District of Warsaw - In the martyred capital, the days follow one another - the litany of horrors continues as it has for four days now, in Ochota as well as in Wola, further south.
...
Ochota district - Things are not going well for the Axis. The SS-RONA spends again the night drinking and looting. In the morning, SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who is extremely annoyed, arrives in person at the premises of the 18. Waffen-Grenadier-Division of the SS, cluttered with booty, captives and empty bottles. He bursts into the office of Bronislav Kaminski, this subhuman who - supreme horror! - wears around his neck the Iron Crosses 1st and 2nd class 2 hung by the Reichsführer-SS himself... Without a word of politeness, the SS general closes the door behind him and knocks. Perhaps not physically (although, in such circumstances, one is not sure of anything...), but nevertheless with energy. Then he leaves and strides out. Shortly afterwards, the Belarusian orders to send the elite regiment of his "division" into battle immediately.
The regiment in question is of recent formation, since it dates from the passage of Kaminski in Silesia, where it was intended to transform the 18. Waffen-Grenadier-Division of the SS into a much more powerful unit, the nucleus of a future Russian national army. It was just after the Bagration disaster - so far away already... In short: made up of 1,700 men, all single, and equipped with prize armored vehicles (4 T-34/76, 1 SU-76 and 1 SU-122), this regiment is commanded by the Waffen-Sturmbannführer der SS Ivan Denisovich Frolov. Former major of the Red Army, commander of the 133rd Rgt of the 77th Rifle Division, Frolov was taken prisoner in spring 1942. He quickly turned around and collaborated with the new masters, even joining the Russian National Socialist Party of Konstantin Pawłowicz Woskobojnik** before being noticed by Kaminski.
The Frolov regiment is considered the best unit in the RONA. However, once again, despite all its energy, the advance is slow! Certainly, we fight on the side of the Military Geographical Institute, Aleje Jerozolimskie, and towards the Infant Jesus Hospital, Nowogrodzka avenue... but nothing happens! Perhaps because the insurgents are heated up by the exactions of the last few days. Maybe because the SS lacks ammunition for their tanks, which were supposed to reduce the enemy strong points. Perhaps also because it was better to sober up before going on the attack! As a symbol, at the end of the day, the Reduta Wawelska, a block of buildings located at the intersection of Wawelska, Puga, Mianowskiego and Uniwersytecką streets, the capture of which is essential to the continuation of the advance towards the city center, still holds!
A mixed performance, therefore, in this sector of the front, and under the very eyes of the SS-Obergruppenführer. The latter is certainly a cruel assassin, but at least he knows his job!
Few things escape his distant but sharp eye... In the evening, as he leaves, he gives the order to empty the Zieleniak camp - starting with the non-Poles. They are to be transferred to the camp in Okęcie (on the outskirts of Warsaw) for sorting and deportation.
However, before nightfall, the Belarusians make up for it a little by storming the Radium Institute (founded by Marie Curie), 15 Wawelska Street. They will demonstrate once again the extent of their know-how by looting the building, robbing those who are there, burning the library, stealing the food stock and the pharmacy, seizing the hospital equipment (for what exactly?) and deporting all the staff to Zieleniak (minus eight nurses, raped and then massacred on the spot), before setting fire to the building... with the patients inside. Sixty of them will survive by hiding in the cellar or the chimneys... But they will not be out of trouble for all that!
...
Wola district - The Sonderkommando Dirlewanger and the SS-Osttürkisher Freiwilligen Kavalerie-Brigade always hit harder - obviously, it is to them, not to the Russians, that the 15 cm self-propelled sIG 33 (Sf) Grille and the Panther tanks arrived the day before...
On their left, around the Calvinist and Evangelist cemeteries, the "Radoslaw" group sacrifices itself in a hopeless fight in order to gain time for an evacuation to the old town... or even outside Warsaw. On the other side, the SS-Gruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth does not neglect to crush this mediocre point of support - as long as "Radoslaw" is not eliminated, he represents a threat on his wing. He therefore attacks both frontally from the west (for the 608. SicherungRegiment, too bad for him), and from the south, from the avenue Wolska, for his SS police forces from the Wartheland (a little less risky). The Turks and the hunting commandos will continue alone in the direction of the heart of the city.
Faced with forces far superior in number (almost 6,000 men, while they are only about 2,000!), under the fire of several tanks and an armored train (n° 75, which fires from the nearby railway) and even attacked by several Stuka detached by the III/SG.3, the AK resistance fighters and their leader, Lt-Colonel Jan Mazurkiewicz, face up to the situation without retreat. At dawn, the barricades on Ytnia and Młynarska avenues are heavily shelled; captain Adam Borys "Plow", is killed and his unit has to withdraw. At 06:00 and again at 08:30, SS policemen and then elements of the 608. Sicherung Rgt attack the cemetery. There is a savage fight in the middle of the graves - but despite everything, the AK holds out. It was not until noon that the 608. Sicherung Rgt managed to cross the fence, only to be immediately counter-attacked by the men of the "Parasola" battalion! These take a high tribute but suffer heavy losses themselves (the commander of the 2nd Co, cadet Stanisław Jastrzębski, is killed), before finally having to fall back to organize a defense in the labyrinth of gravestones... Although increasingly isolated from their comrades, they will not be dislodged this night.
Meanwhile, on their main axis of attack, the Germans progress. The men of the Sonderkommando Dirlewanger break through and link up with the garrison, while the survivors of the AK are pushed back behind Elazna Avenue. A new reason for satisfaction for General Stahel... except that, despite the successes of the last few days, the pocket occupied by his men still lacks a secure link with the outside world. All communication routes remain under enemy fire, forming a no man's land where the Poles ambushed each other and then withdrew... To secure them, it will be necessary to reduce one by one - which will take time and cost a lot of resources.
However, all this does not prevent Dirlewanger's men from continuing their drive to the old city, attacking Bankowy and Teatralny squares and even the castle square!
This time, the uniformed assassins have overextended themselves - they are violently repulsed with heavy losses. No matter! Still carried by a festive spirit of evil orgy, the survivors go back to kill and pillage, with the blessing - even the participation - of their leader! There is already talk of 30,000 people killed and the corpses are piled up on every street corner like a plague epidemic.
Not all of these deaths were victims of the Dirlewangers' fury, of course, but even in circumstances and in such a countryside, their behavior starts to make disorderly hell. Complaints against the Sonderkommando are mounting, both from the Turks (who cares?) but also from the rear services and other units formed to support the repression, unable to make progress in this mass grave that impresses them and in the midst of these demons that terrify them! Wola begins to be the talk of the town... The Kommando seems to have succeeded in a feat of which only the Croatian Ustasha could boast until then: to shock the Wehrmacht. In fact, by gathering the worst of its men to give them the most criminal instructions, the Reich had indeed created a monster. One more, of course, but above all a particularly savage one, whose fury it directs with great difficulty and which it absolutely does not control.
Informed, the authorities of the Reich will have contrasted reactions. Von dem Bach-Zelewski, who already has the incapable of the RONA to manage, will solicit, to finish as quickly as possible, the support of the tanks of the Totenkopf, which had arrived in the region. Himmler hastily deploys additional police units to form a cordon between his spearhead and these emotional Heer men. Hitler - the affair will be traced back to him! - will judge, more... reasonably, that it is better to stop the massacre and deport the inhabitants in a more ordinary way. Some orders will be given in this sense - they will undoubtedly take some time to be applied.
Meanwhile, on the side of the insurgency, Colonel Antoni Chruściel "Monter" takes the continuous deterioration of his situation and divides the forces of his district into three autonomous groups:
- the "North" group, commanded by Colonel Karol Ziemski "Wachnowski" - about 17,000 soldiers (Old Town, Żoliborz, Kampinos Forest) ;
- the "Śródmieście" group, commanded by Colonel Stanisław Steczkowski "Zagończyk" - about 23,000 soldiers (Śródmieście Północ, Śródmieście Południe, Powiśle);
- the "South" group, commanded by Lt. Col. Stanisław Kamiński "Daniel" - about 6,000 soldiers (Mokotów, Chojnowskie Forest).
This division should save time by also dividing the enemy forces.
But this is really not a good sign - especially since it indicates that "Monter" cannot claim to communicate easily with the whole insurgency.

The sky is not empty
Panatella Air Base (Brindisi, 22:00) - Poor but acceptable weather on the heel of the boot: five Halifaxes of the 1586th (Polish) Special Duty Flight take to the skies towards Warsaw. A bit late, because of a squall. And without their colleagues of the 148th - certainly not punished for their initiative of the day before, oh no, but whose flight schedule has mysteriously filled up in recent days, with a host of urgent deliveries to the AVNOJ, and even the Italian maquis... After all, if the weather is bad, it is quite normal to work twice as hard as possible as soon as you can fly, isn't it?
This is what the Poles do - 7 hours of flight to the capital, they will be there at 05:00. After that, it's back to Brindisi by day, with a possible detour to Belgrade in case of a hard blow. The big four-engine planes take off one by one, the big four-engined planes take off with their engines rumbling, and climb up into the clouds, each one with 3 tons to deliver.
Then the roar fades away and they disappear in the distance, over the sea, in the night.

Operation Comet - Shooting stars
Tatoi Airport (Athens) - Departure at dusk for Major W. Ploszewski's 2nd Battalion - along with several elements of the staff and support formations. These men are only a few hours away from returning to their country after such a long exile. Several LeO-458Ts and Short Stirlings are waiting on the runway - only about 15.
So few, and yet it is already a lot. It's 17:00, it's drizzling slightly, but the real rain won't be here for another hour or two... The night will fall around 18:00, while they will already be in the air for a trip without return.
No sentimentality or wet eyes for the soldiers of the Sosabowski Brigade - they do not return to their country as victors, confident of their strength, like others. The hour is too serious, the dead too numerous to let themselves go to so many useless effusions.
At the helm, but a little on the sidelines, Stary nevertheless gives in to a discreet satisfaction. At last! After so much effort, maneuvering and behind-the-scenes dealings, his unit is going to do what it was designed to do! Thanks to the French for the helping hand. Thank you to the British for helping, even in spite of themselves. And thanks to these patriots for their service, in anticipation. Even if, in the end, Sosabowski will not be fully reassured until the planes in the air and out of sight. The disappointments of the past have been so great, so numerous...
Besides, not everything is settled - far from it. He He has in his pocket a cable from General Kukiel, received this morning, in which enthusiasm visibly competes with concern, even resignation. "I have done my best, you will hear about it in due course, to ensure that at least part of the efforts of our Allies will be devoted to helping Warsaw. In the meantime, it is your brigade to be employed where your hearts and dreams have guided you all these years.
The opposition proved to be very strong, at least it could not overcome our wills!
From now on, it is up to you to lead the way. Take the blows, take them to the enemy and above all continue on our straight and sincere path. Whatever happens, keep an enthusiastic spirit and show the world the Polish military sense that defies fate and overturns all obstacles. Crush the Germans and fight well, so you will help Warsaw, even indirectly. On our part, we will not relax our efforts to organize the support of your unit and our homeland with weapons and ammunition."
One could almost believe that this was an apology in anticipation... And yet, the Polish Airborne Brigade did not wait for the enemy fire to lose men. In the confusion of a transfer to Greece, in not always optimal weather conditions, two C-47s collided over the Peloponnese this morning. There were no survivors... So 36 dead, who literally fell on the doorstep of their Nation. At least they did not die in vain! Contrary, moreover, to what the English claim, who jumped on the occasion to take the opportunity to try to delay - if not cancel! - Comet. For them, it is obvious that this whole affair is nothing but a prodigious waste of men, training and material. How many times have they mocked "those crazy Poles" with laughs and shrugging their shoulders!
But fortunately it is too late for that. The hour passes, the planes line up.
Disciplined, the heavily harnessed parachutists line up to climb. Stanisław Sosabowski is not to be found among them - and yet, it is not for lack of desire! In fact, the major-general is more useful in Athens to organize the continuation of the operations, and especially to make sure that these operations continue until the end. But that does not mean that one day... A shout goes up at the head of one of the columns: "Naprzód psiekrwie, świat patrzy!" - Forward, damn it!, the world is watching!*** - half an hour later, it is not the World, but a good part of the Poles who had remained on the base who are observing the skies, looking for small dots that have already disappeared several minutes ago. History is on the march.
.........
In a forest north of Niekłań Wielki (near Radom), 23:30 - The night is cold and heavy clouds of moisture cross the skies. Colonel Gwido Kawiński's men and three Cichociemni are there, waiting. Despite all their professionalism, a dull anxiety in their stomachs. What if the planes had to turn back? What if they had encountered German fighters on the prowl? Or even Soviets - with the Reds, everything is possible!
A heavy buzzing sound resounds above the forest and seems to linger. In reality, however, the allied aircraft have simply taken a little delay over Yugoslavia, before accelerating as soon as they passed the Danube. A squall is coming soon. "Rozpalić ogień!"
A few skillfully arranged barrels and wood fires appear at strategic points of the valley, to form a figure impossible to miss, seen from the sky! Hoping of course that a Nazi (or communist...) cloud doesn't spoil everything. The buzzing passes again, more sonorous, some metallic forms are cut out for a moment in front of the first quarter of the moon. Then the silence returns. Worried about a bad encounter so far away in enemy territory, the Allied planes are already heading south to return to Athens. In case of trouble, a detour to Niš is possible, of course, but you never know, with the Serbs...
However, silence does not mean emptiness. Several corollas appear already, very low, well below the clouds, in the rising wind. Unfavorable conditions - that does not prevent 300 men from touching down tonight. The parachutists land with both legs straight, like in the exercise, before bending their knees to roll to the ground.
Immediately, the Secret Army men come to them to help them unload their equipment - an objectively unnecessary precaution, but time is of the essence. The fires are already extinguished, with a little luck, possible observers will believe in a simple campfire... But no need to tempt the devil for all that. One of the soldiers fallen from the sky rolls on the ground and remains a short moment lying down, seeming to be shaken by great strange gestures.
Did he hit a branch, did he break something? Lt. Col. Stanisław Dmowski "Podlasiak" has his eye on it - he slips to Kawiński: "He's being an angel..."
Finally, this first parachute drop takes place without any major incident, except for a few slight sprains and two soldiers scratched by tree branches at the edge of the DZ. For history, Major Ploszewski was the first officer of the brigade to present himself to the Resistance fighters - his comrades, his brothers in arms, his compatriots. Then, after the agreed statements and the usual greetings (although very sincere), everyone starts to march towards the heart of the forest. The AK is already trying to leave no trace. Before leaving, Ploszewski says to the two officers who welcomed him: "You know, dear friends, what those Nazi dogs called their great cleansing in 1934?"
Colonel Gwido Kawiński, who already understood, replies with an eloquent smile, "The Night of the Long Knives?"****
- That's right. The Night of the Long Knives. That's perfect." Ploszewski smiles back.
So is everyone around him.
.........
"When the free brigade arrived,
A cry for help in time of bleed, and a relief is what they need,
Ten days of siege, outnumbered and weak,
Sent a message to the sky, wounded children left to die,
Will they hold the line or will the city fall?
Dedication,
Dedication,
They're outnumbered ten to one,
And the battle's begun,
...
Then the free brigade arrived,
Falling down from the sky,
Then the free brigade arrived,
Coming down they earned their title!
...
As the days are passing by and as the dead are piling high,
No escape and no salvation,
Murderers to kill them all are right here within the walls,
Burn the churches and watch the city fear,
Desperation,
Desperation,
It's a desperate race against the viles,
And a race against time,
...
Then the free brigade arrived,
Falling down from the sky,
Then the free brigade arrived,
Coming down they earned their title!
...
Cannon and bullets are coming down from the sky,
Mercenaries, are you ready to die?
We will seek our vengeance eye for an eye,
You'll be stopped upon the steps of our gate,
On this field you're only facing our hate,
But back home they will be sealing your fate,
We remember,
In this winter,
That's the night the end was so near,
We made the enemy bleed!
...
Then the free brigade arrived,
(Storm clouds, fire and steel,
Death from above make their enemy kneel),
Falling down from the sky,
(Facing armor with their shear will,
Death from above, it’s an army of kings!)
Then the free brigade arrived,
(Storm clouds, fire and steel,
Death from above make their enemy kneel),
Coming down they earned their title!
(Facing armor with their shear will,
Death from above, it’s an army of kings!)
...
[Bis]
...
We remember,
In this winter,
When the free brigade arrived! »
.........
Song by the band Sabaton, from the album The Last Stand (2016), each track of which claimed to pay homage to a significant chapter in military history. Although musically coherent (for those who like Metal !), it made some historians react, worried about a too great heroic simplification of the episode. One of them even qualified the text of the piece "completely fanciful". Perhaps... But in any case, the gesture of the Sosabowski brigade had well and truly entered into history.

Night and fog
Acceleration
Wewelsburg Castle - The discovery and revelation to the world of the Lublin camp has unexpected and cruel consequences for the Reich. Indeed, from his lair, but with the agreement of the highest Nazi authorities, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler decides to accelerate the killing of Jews and other undesirables before they risk being liberated by the Bolsheviks.
The subject is not very complicated: at the beginning of March 1944, the Third Reich has only two real death factories left: Chelmo and Auschwitz - both located in Poland, less than 150 kilometers from the Führer's stop line. It is understandable that the Black Order wishes to avoid repeating certain unpleasant experiences.
So be it... In Chelmo, the men of Hauptsturmführer-SS Hans Bothmann have to get rid of the 70,000 prisoners in their charge - mostly Jews from the Łódź ghetto, whose slaves are still contributing to the German war effort. Then the Sonderkommando 1005 will pass and everything will disappear. The case of Auschwitz is more difficult. With its many camps and subcamps spread out over several dozen kilometers, and linked to arms factories, it had become a major element of the Reich's industrial policy. There are tens of thousands of prisoners at any given time - and yet life expectancy did not exceed three months! It is impossible to get rid of this strategic complex with a wave of the hand. Too bad - with a bit of luck, the next Friedericus II offensive will eliminate the Bolshevik threat. And then, if we take - no when we will take Lublin, there will always be time to blame it all on the Reds, by organizing investigations and other commissions of inquiry at the sound of a trumpet.

* This entitled him to a free scholarship for a military education in the Rawicz Cadet Corps.
** Awarded for the "successes" (?) achieved by his unit during the anti-terrorist operations Frühlingsfest and Kormoran - but that was another time...
*** Soviet anti-communist engineer, veteran of the White Army and then of the Saratov peasant uprising. Close to Bronislav Kaminski, he actively collaborated with the Germans in the creation of a so-called Autonomous Republic of Łokock, on the borders of Ukraine... which the Germans never reached.
**** Legend attributes to Baron Jan Leon Kozietulski a similar cry just before the Somosierra charge on November 30th, 1808: "Naprzód psiekrwie, Cesarz patrzy! - Forward, damn it, the Emperor is watching you". At that time, the Emperor was worth the world.
***** Although never formally used by the Nazi Party, this expression was indeed used by Hitler in a speech in the Reichstag on July 13th, 1934 - it has now become part of everyday language.

 

[Wings]

March 2nd, 1944

Burma and Malaya Campaign
Operation Black Prince
Southeastern Province of Burma - The Africans of the 81st Division ensure the cleaning of hills 570 and 600 while the 17th Indian Brigade and armor of the 251st Brigade push forward to Lawthaing.
A few miles to the west, advancing south, the 50th Indian Armored Brigade and the 6th West African Brigade break through and pass Kibun.
The withdrawal of the 71st Japanese Division accelerates. It allows the 7th and 8th Indian Divisions to flank Hill 540, in front of which the 1st Burmese Division is advancing slowly, as it is encountering very solid support points linked together by a real labyrinth of galleries.
Along the coast, the 19th Indian Division and the 9th Armored Brigade begin to pivot eastward. If the villages of Mayan and Meinamdaung are overrun during the day, the crossing of fords and the restoration of a bridge by the engineers, it is not the same west of Natkyizin, where the 3rd Hussars find themselves blocked. It is necessary to wait until the next morning to find a practicable ford and above all for the engineers to begin the installation of a bridge.
But the major event of the day, for the English planners, is that Longsword had joined Dagger. This is the condition for launching the second phase of Black Prince, which begins with sub-operation Chainmail.
The C-47s of Sqn 31 (RAF) and 44 (SAAF) and their American brothers of the 1st and 2nd TCS and the 319th TCS of the Air Commando take off from Rangoon, while, further north, Halifax and Wellington take off from Mandalay. The Wellingtons are to bomb the Tavoy airfield to give the impression that they are doing so, but all the other aircraft are loaded with elements of the 50th Parachute Gurkha Brigade (Halifax and C-47s were able to make two rotations in the night and the 60 C-47s can each pull two Waco gliders during the first one). The Gurkhas will be thrown into the Eindayaza-Kanbauk-Kaleinaung triangle into the Japanese rear, to prevent reinforcements from moving up the line and, above all, to take the Kaleinaung bridge: if this last one was regularly attacked during air missions, the RAF always conscientiously missed it. The 1st Air Commando, until then remained in a relative reserve, will devote itself only to the support of the paratroopers until their relief.

Indochina Campaign
Tet offensive
Second Battle of Saigon - A Piper L-4 Grasshopper of 3C Squadron circles over northern Saigon. The Japanese flak doesn't have anything bigger than 25 mm, but nevertheless, the L4 dodges the shots and, very quickly, 75 mm shells from the regimental artillery of the 10 RIC fall on the troublemakers.
After about twenty minutes of this maneuver, the L-4 withdraws to make way for B-25 Gs and H (with 75mm T13E1 gun), escorted by Warhawks from II/40. The Japanese anti-air defense, a little calmed by the French artillery, succeeds however in damaging a B-25 G, which goes to land at Chepone with a wing riddled with shrapnel and an engine in agony.
Faced with the absence of the Japanese Wild Eagles, definitively driven out of Cochinchina, the P-40s join the attack on the ground positions, spitting their six Browning machine guns above the enemy trenches. However, Ismaïl Messah teases them a little too closely and his plane is hit by heavy machine gun fire. Wounded, his engine spitting a thick black smoke, he lands on his stomach in a rice field and comes to rest against a dyke.
The other Warhawks begin to circle over the aircraft.
On the ground, the Japanese are the first to react and rush towards the plane. But knowing the brutal methods of the Tenno soldiers, the P-40s dive on the infantrymen, pinning them to the ground. Fortunately, the Nipponese are not the only ones to see the plane land - some tu-vê come out of the cover. Supported by a few mortar shells and grenade launchers, they charge. Half of them have only bamboo spears and grenades, the others have old guns, but they do not hesitate and run towards the plane while singing patriotic verses! Despite the Japanese fire, the Vietminh reach the wreckage of the plane, pull out the unconscious pilot and bring him back into their lines.
All day long, bombing raids carried out by the air force and artillery follow one another...

Sino-Japanese war
Operation Bailu
Pearl River Valley - Arriving at the end of the Bang River Valley, the 96th Division is in sight of Qingyuan. Li Zongren orders Yu Shao to wait to give the assault until the bulk of the Chinese forces are in position. At nightfall, the rest of the 5th Army and the 1st and 52nd Armies have completed the crossing of the Dalou Mountains and deploy upstream from Qingyuan.

 

[Wings]

March 2nd, 1944

Operation Volodino
Facing the Ostwall
HG Nord (East Prussia) - Under the rain and in the wet snow, Georg Lindemann's 18. Armee finally gains its new positions. Coming from Treuburg, the 254. ID of Alfred Thielmann enters Lyck at about noon. Fifty kilometers of line, almost sixty, for a single exhausted division! However, in his new HQ of the Königsberger Schloss, Georg von Küchler is not more worried than that. If the Red Army wanted to attack his Army Group, they would have hurried... and they wouldn't go that way anyway! The gaps favorable to a mechanized exploitation are in the north, in Gumbinnen, or further west, towards Ortelsburg. Of course, the Bolsheviks can always try to break through this wooded barrier that is being fortified... but such an attempt could only be long, costly - and therefore visible. And with all that is already happening in Poland, the HG Nord has definitely time to see it coming...
It is fortunate! Because for the 16. Armee, the road is still long. Thomas-Emil von Wickede's X. AK just passed through Treuburg and advanced to Arys and Johannisburg - his points of departure. Behind it, the XXVIII. ArmeeKorps (Herbert Loch) continue westward to cross East Prussia to Ortelsburg. It is only at Angerburg, so it still has still 90 kilometers to go... passing by the Wolfsschanze, a real symbol!
As for the II. AK, it's a little better: finally out of Suwałki and now in the shelter of the Ostwall, Paul Laux continues towards Friedrichshof via (also) Treuburg. He is no longer really afraid of the Red Army. In fact, the Soviets fell back with difficulty towards Prussia and enter Suwałki, Ivan Kirichenko's 14th Armored Corps in the lead, followed closely by Vladimir Smiridov's 55th Army. Sudauen (the German name of the city) falls without a fight, butthe city still mourns many deaths: 7,000 Jews from the ghetto (liquidated long ago) and 15,000 Poles (victims of the Intelligenzaktion intended to annihilate their ethnic group in the whole of enlarged Prussia), while the prisoners of war taken in 1942 were scattered to the four winds. This victory by abandonment is therefore almost as bitter for the victors as for the vanquished. And even more so for the few Armia Krajowa fighters hiding in the region, now completely out of the picture.
.........
Suwałki and Augustów region (Poland), sector of the 2. Armee - The 63rd Army of Vasily Kuznetzov, for its part, chooses to bypass Suwałki from the east, to avoid the loss of time due to traffic difficulties. The Soviet has no more opponent: the XXIII. ArmeeKorps (Hans von Funck) has already passed through the lines of the 4. PanzerArmee and is moving away, towards Ciechanów via Grajewo. This formation is no longer in danger - it will redeploy in the next few days without further adventures. So Kuznetzov could advance without any difficulties towards the south... a priori!
Because in reality, the terrain east of Suwałki is anything but favorable for the offensive. Here, marshes and lakes (notably the one of Wigry) strongly hinder the progression. In the evening, we are still wading in the wet woods, in the rain, around Czerwony Krzyż. The enemy is far away - so much the better, otherwise he might perhaps smile.
In his misfortune, Kuznetzov nevertheless joins, on his left, the 20th Army of Vladimir Kurassov and Alexei Popov's 10th Armored Corps, both of which are approaching Augustów.
In front of them, the 12. Panzer (Erpo von Bodenhausen) calmly waits for their leading elements and then escorts them back to the main force. Popov's T-34s are few in number
Kurassov's artillery still scattered... On such a terrain, the outcome is inevitable. In fact, only the Oslikovsky Group and the 3rd Tank Army could have forced the decision by flanking Augustów. But at this hour, they were barely approaching through Suwałki - in urban terrain then, and once again behind the infantry...
Finally! Faced with von der Chevallerie's 4 PanzerArmee, the right wing of the 1st Belarussian Front gradually regains its coherence. That's something... Even if, during this time, it lets go of the last elements of Carl Hilpert's 2. Armee, which cross the lines of the XLVI. AK (Franz Westhoven) in Augustów - they are already at the level of Rajgród, so they are also on the road to Grajewo.

Traffic jams
Augustów and Grodno area (1st Belorussian Front) - On its left, the 4. PanzerArmee has the situation under control. Hardly threatened by the stacking of the 2nd Baltic Front and the right wing of the 1st Belorussian Front, Westhoven's armored divisions have no trouble pushing back the weak Russian vanguards. And, well informed of the progress of the retreat of the 2. Armee behind him, Kurt von der Chevallerie prepares to withdraw tonight, to support his right wing.
Because in the vicinity of Grodno, the left of the 1st Belorussian Front - perfectly reconcentrated and aligned, Sokolovski has seen to that! - push ever harder along the Katra. The 1st Guards Army (Ivan Chistiakov) hits the 290. ID (Gerhard Henke) at Bondari. The 3rd Guards Army slams the 371. ID (Hermann Niehoff) at Kotra. And in the small peninsula between Niemen and Katra, in front of Koptsy, it is the 2nd Shock Army (Kuzma Galitsky) who hammers the 304. ID (Ernst Sieler). A very weakened corps against three armies combined, the struggle is unequal to say the least...
Ernst Dehner does not try to hold on to the ground for nothing: he undertakes to quickly withdraw his LXIII. ArmeeKorps towards Grodno.
In the evening, under the rain, his exhausted infantry takes refuge behind the entrenchments on the outskirts of the city, passing through the Marders of the 226. StuG Abt (Major Herbert Keysler), who come to support the weak LXXII. AK. The weather limits the VVS strikes - the retreat does not become a rout. But tomorrow it will be the Kamaraden's turn to have fun!

Tankist (Evgeny Bessonov)
Tango
Poland - "Walk in the woods, walk in the rain, walk into danger. At the bend in the road of an insignificant village - it would be called Przewięź - several shooting starts ahead of us. They don't hit the bull's-eye - that's normal, considering the distance. On the other hand, all of them seem unpleasantly accurate, and above all, all seem to be aimed specifically at our craft. As usual and as for everyone...
Nikolai's platoon, on our right front, accelerates to seek the protection of some huts perched at the edge of a lake. Natural, obvious... predictable, therefore illusory. A well camouflaged anti-tank gun makes explode in one shot on the side of the n° 126, which continues on fire until it smashes into the front of the house. No infantry on board... no crew coming out. We deploy to the right with Mikhail to show our faceplate to the opponent. Firing of smoke, landing of the infantry as close as possible to the buildings still standing. I already feel that our stay here will be difficult."

Vistula-Warsaw Offensive
The Valkyrie
Białystok region (2nd Belorussian Front) - Still poor weather for Konstantin Rokossovsky - victory, within his reach thanks to the total collapse of the 1. PanzerArmee, seems to slip from his hands in the rain. It is there - it is obvious. And yet, the Polish-Soviet forces still cannot really grasp it.
Nevertheless, for the Heer, it makes rather little difference. In Białystok, the situation of the LXII. AK becomes frankly bad, under the coordinated assaults of two armies and an armored corps, despite the support, on its northern flank, of the 20. Panzer of Mortimer von Kessel, reinforced by the Hetzer of the 236. StuG Abt (Major Rolf Brede). Indeed, the panzers prove to be unable to repel the attacks of the 3rd Shock Army of Mikhail Purkayev.
The latter has not had an opponent of his size for quite some time now, and can therefore spend a lot of men and ammunition to subdue the Fascist. In order not to lose too many men and grenadiers, the Prussian has to abandon Fasty and Osowicze to the enemy. The Supraśl is red... Bad news. Especially since at the same time it is the 92. ID - brand new and yet already so tried and tested - that has to drop Skorupy and Wygoda in front of the 15th Army. Georgiy Zakharov hits hard, to erase the shame left by Marshal Kulik, which everyone is already trying to forget. It is that the other formation of LXII. AK - the 367. ID (Adolf Fischer) - has to move south to face the 7th Armored Corps...
In the evening, in agreement with von Kessel, Carl Rodenburg reports to his commander that his situation is "dangerously critical". To persist would mean risking the encirclement and destruction of both divisions. Josef Harpe agrees to a withdrawal to Łomża. The Landsers thus evacuate their positions during the night.
A little further south, the rest of the 1. PanzerArmee also continues to retreat - without even pretending to defend yet. The LXXVIII. PanzerKorps of Martin Unrein retreats towards Boćki and Kleszczele, unable to resist the pressure of the 1st Tank Army, finally reconcentrated in a plain favorable to maneuver where Mikhail Katukov can give all his science... and all his tanks. On its rear right, the XXXIX. PanzerKorps of Otto Schünemann has to hurry up. Crossing the region of Vysokaje, it crosses in its turn
the old demarcation line, abandoning the road to Brest to the enemy. The 4th Guards Army (Ivan Muzychenko) and the 29th Army (Alexander Gorbatov) surge towards Chernavchitsy and Jabinka...
.........
Brest area (Belarus) - That is to say towards Brest, where the 3. PanzerArmee has - unfortunately for it - taken the place of Maximilian De Angelis' 6. Armee, now at the level of Biała Podlaska and on its way to Międzyrzec Podlaski. Werner Kempf didn't ask for much.
For now, it is true, his opponents are relatively modest: the 64th Army (Mikhail Sharokin) and the Pliev Group, which both strike along fairly obvious axes towards Iamna, Cherni and Bratylovo, with means in addition tired and dispersed. The XXIV. PanzerKorps of Martin Wandel - still him! - holds its ground. The XXIV. PzK is not equipped with panzer, but it is assisted by tanks of the 5. Panzer (Karl Decker): some Leopards and some Panthers, received at the beginning of the year - by the force of selection, these now form a large part of the still available equipment of this very weakened division.
Thanks to their action, the Heer finally only surrendered a few suburbs, to entrench itself in the city center.
This is good, at least for the time being. But the VVS strike at the slightest light and the bulk of the wave is to come! Between the 2nd Belarusian Front coming from the north and the 3rd Belarusian Front coming up from Ukraine, who will save the 80,000 men of the 3. PanzerArmee?
.........
Warsaw region - In any case, not the reinforcements coming from Germany. With the fall of Deblin and Lublin, the Ostheer no longer has any rail links with the front as long as Warsaw remains... let's say, contested by the Armia Krajowa, except for passing through the overloaded East Prussian railways. An additional annoyance for Berlin. And one more reason to crush those damn Poles.
.........
Krakow area - At the same time, the 11. Panzer [2 Abt Panzer IV/Leopard] (Wend von Wietersheim) lands in Bochnia. It is to join the reserve of the Army Group North Ukraine, for the benefit of the 8. Armee, which now defends the approaches to the capital of the General Government.
.........
Lublin Region (3rd Belarussian Front) - Lightning in the sky, lightning in the minds!
After a long and hard ride - and after having taken advantage of a short but well-deserved break on the Vistula river - the 3rd Belorussian Front could go back to the attack (more or less) fresh and ready. But especially westward, in the direction of Łódź...
Indeed, due to a lack of coordination with the 2nd Belarusian Front, the right flank of Rodion Malinovsky does not really force. Ivan Maslennikov's 4th Shock Army certainly seizes Łuków - regardless of the poor reception it received in what was once one of the major operational centers of the AK. But then, it only undertakes to shift to the left, towards Garwolin, in order to cover the Vistula - no more can be done for the time being, as long as the 2nd Belorussian Front is advancing so "slowly"! On the side of the 37th Army, the disappointment is the same. Vasily Chuikov observes from his positions in Łomazy and Tuczna the 6. Armee retreating in front of him... but he has absolutely no means to defeat alone such a mass, even ragged! The Soviet must therefore content himself to signal the enemy movements to the air force and to give his artillery while waiting to gather some tanks. Obviously, it is infuriating!
Especially that along the Vistula, things are not really going as planned. From Puławy to Annopol, to Jaroszyn, Chotcza Dolna, Solec nad Wisłą and Solec nad Wisłą, all Soviet assaults - admittedly launched on highly predictable axes - are repulsed with more or less losses and fracas. The 4th Tank Army and the 5th Armored Corps do not pass anywhere! However, the reconnaissance groups still reported numerous weaknesses due to the German dispersion...
In fact, Dietrich, his I. SS-PzK and the Hermann-Göring division had retreated to a distance from the shore. They counterattack every attempt to cross the river with KampfGruppen!
This tactic apparently pays off. However, this meritorious effort of the SS and the "FallschirmPanzer" is not accomplished without losses, due to the artillery or aviation of the 8th Air Force (T.F. Kutsevalov). If the exercise were to be repeated, it could be costly in the long run.
Meanwhile, Vassily Grossman continues to travel to the rear and investigate the Nazi crimes. Before returning tomorrow to the front, he writes to Ilya Ehrenburg to communicate to him the numerous texts resulting from his observations. He does not know that his friend is already planning to leave the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, having understood that the Kremlin would soon censor their work. Regrettable... But if he had known this, it would no doubt have changed nothing in his projects!
.........
Rzeszów region (3rd Belarusian Front) - On the left wing of the 3rd Belarusian Front, things are also improving logistically - too late, unfortunately, to hope to catch up with the 8. Armee, which blows up the bridges over the Dunajec river and is now trying to entrench itself around Tarnów.
One difficulty at a time! The 11th Mechanized Corps accelerates and captures Dębica before attempt to cross the Wisłoka - a river from which all the bridges have obviously disappeared.
No need to rely on the Poles to point out fords... Viktor Obukhov was on his own, while behind him, the 50th Army (Konstantin Golubev) and the 8th Guards Army (Serguei Trofimenko) take over towards Rzeszów until they reach Sędziszów Małopolski. As for Mikhail Potapov's 5th Army, finally reaching its destination and in an unexpected position on the fascist flank, it prepares a first assault towards Sandomierz by taking advantage of the fact that the despised SS cannot be everywhere.
On the far left, nothing to report. The 60th Army and the 2nd Cavalry Corps slow down their advance, not to save supplies, but to take into account their waiting for the arrival of Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front. They are content to push a few detachments to Domaradz - undefended.

Acceleration
Baranavitchy (Byelorussian SSR) - Meanwhile, on the territory of the Workers' Fatherland, it is time for General Sygmund Berling to take stock. Between sincere rallies, conversions of prisoners and other more or less forced conscriptions of Resistance fighters, his forces now number about 30,000 men. Among them, 16,000 form the 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division, the only unit with a real operational existence. It consists of three infantry regiments and one light artillery regiment...plus the 1st Independent Women's Battalion Emilii Plater as well as an AT company and an armored regiment, in formation.
A hardly brilliant result, therefore, at least in appearance - especially since, due to a real shortage of cadres, Soviet officers occupy no less than 60% of its staff! However, despite the setbacks suffered, despite the humiliations and spitting in the face inflicted by his own compatriots, Berling has every reason to be satisfied. First of all, his troops have increased almost tenfold in the last two months - even though we have barely entered Poland!
Then, the Red Army has finally agreed to change its army to the format... "corps, two infantry divisions, two support brigades (artillery and armor), two regiments (air and reserves), four independent battalions, plus the security and service sub-units." All this for a projected strength of 75,000 men, under his command and that of his deputies Włodzimierz Sokorski and Karol Świerczewski. Enough to see it coming - enough also to be able to leave his mark on the new Poland when the time came, alongside the Soviets. Besides, with the events underway in Warsaw, Berling has no doubt that he will soon be called upon to enter the capital... well, into the ruins of the capital... in order to extend his charitable hand to his lost compatriots. Soon, his 1st Division will be in line!

Proletarians aviators of all countries, unite!
"It is a heavy day. The sky is low, full of big black clouds. The thaw has begun. The earth, frozen a few days ago, will turn into mud. Everything has become swampy, muddy, potholes. The Russian soil has begun its prodigious annual metamorphosis. It is now a prodigious sponge that struggles to absorb two or three times its volume of water, that is making colossal efforts to dry up the gigantic swamp that is now Russia. Mute with astonishment, the French assist to this moult which looks like a fight. At first, the water seems to be there forever. And yet, in two or three weeks, the snow will have disappeared, the mud will have dried, the grass will appear, the trees will take on color and buds will come out, the birches will shake off their long torpor. And the Russian spring, the most extraordinary in the world, will be here, both tender and exuberant.
The rest is prolonged in Moshchena. For us, it is very much appreciated. To sleep, to sleep all one's on a wooden bed is an unsuspected pleasure. "No mission today" could be the key to happiness. We get up late. We stroll through the village. We question the few civilians who were able to escape the Germans - they usually took the able-bodied population with them after having exterminated those who were not.
We talk about the Partisans who, in the area, gave the Wehrmacht a hard time. The famous Soviet Partisans, a real army, always in contact with Moscow. Some real pitched battles took place*. More often, coming out of the immense forests where the Germans dared not venture into, fearing ambushes, the Russian maquisards fell on the sentries, shot them and burst into the isbas where the German officers were staying, and executed them like dogs. Once their terrorist actions were over, they disappeared again under the cover of the woods. Some towns were taken and recaptured several times by them, following orders from the Moscow high command with whom they were in constant contact.
However, not everyone has time for sightseeing - as soon as their aircraft are ready, the youngest pilots take off. For them, not a minute should be lost for training, it will be a question of survival in the weeks to come. In any case, on the ground, they don't have much to do. But not all newcomers are beginners, far from it. Thus, among the latest arrivals, one seems particularly skilled: Jean Accart, a former sailor and Armee de l'Air veteran who has already won 28 victories, including 15 on H-75 during the first French Campaign. Seriously wounded**, he managed to leave the training center where he had been relegated to fight again in Italy and then in France. Finally, "threatened" in January with a transfer to the EMGAA, he escaped by asking to be sent to the USSR!
Not really familiar with Soviet machines - he had only flown North-American aircraft for the last two years - his necessary refresher course does not present any particular difficulty. This does not prevent him from applying himself! It is true that the entire regiment must be ready for March 9th, the day when the cameras of all of liberated France - and even the world - will be focused on us."
(Captain François de Geoffre, Escadron Franche-Comté/Vistule, Charles Corlet ed. 1952, reprinted in 1996)

* The author will be forgiven for not being aware of the Polish-Soviet tensions - in fact, in this area, it was the Secret Army that was operating! This may also explain the difficulty of exchanging with civilians...
** On June 1st, 1940, Captain Accart was shot between the eyes by the gunner of a Heinkel 111, which miraculously stopped a few millimeters from his brain! Having managed to evacuate despite his wound, he crashed into the tailplane and barely opened his parachute before fainting.
Picked up in the woods of Frasne in a pitiful state (in addition to his bullet in the skull, an open fracture of the left leg, a deep wound in the left arm, several broken teeth, various contusions...), he fled from the hospital in Nice on July 16th and, recovered... or almost, jumps on a boat with his family! Afterwards, Accart was afraid of losing his sight and the bullet was never extracted from his frontal bone...

 

[Wings]

March 2nd, 1944

The flower in the gun
Athens - The clouds are low and the rain is light. But that does not prevent a detachment of the 1st Greek AC of general Giorgios Kosmas to parade in front of the royal palace and up to Syntagma square, under the cheers of a dense crowd. The Hellenic soldiers leave their garrisons for the region of Kraljevo, where they will take over from the men of ANZAC. A long and painful movement, especially when the Skopje-Nis road is still not repaired... At least, the men will have dry feet until Macedonia.
To encourage the veterans, already victorious for having liberated the national territory, the royal government did its best: crowd bath, speech of the regent Paul praising "the infinite bravery and the fierce resistance of the Greek soldier", presentation of decorations by general Liosis... until the Damaskinòs of Athens (always general delegate to the National Concord) who blesses the troops from the balcony of the palace! What does not miss salt when one knows that there is a certain number of former Communist Resistants among the recruits integrated this winter...
It is now obvious that the royal government intends to capitalize on Greek patriotism in the coming battles, as in the Enosis planned for Cyprus, in order to extinguish forever the ashes of the civil war - and incidentally to perpetuate its existence. No wonder, therefore, that he has recourse to such a staging.
From the window of Montgomery's office, General Bethouart watches the parade with an amused eye.
Montgomery did not deign to get up from his seat and his deputy commented on the spectacle for him: "At least they are not dragging their feet! And since "Veritable" will only be a diversion, we can hope that our Greek comrades will not suffer too much in the future."
Without looking up, Monty retorts, "We shall see, my friend. We shall see." The two men would never admit it, of course - there's an air of 1914 in the Greek capital today, an atmosphere of fresh and joyful war. But as the column heads north, it will surely be heading for the dark clouds that are rumbling on the horizon.

Forced migration
Occupied Yugoslavia - It is still raining on the Balkans. The Heer continues its ascent towards the north, sheltered as it is from the allied strikes by the clouds. The German soldier hurries up - he has to take advantage of this unexpected respite to get into position. The columns cross the ravaged villages in a heavy atmosphere under the worried eyes (that's new!) of the rare inhabitants who dared to put their nose outside.
The Germans will not be regretted, far from it - but everyone knows that by leaving, they leave the country to even worse than them.
These feelings obviously do not affect General Karl von Le Suire, who has a bad memory of "Schneesturm", the last operation in which his 117. Jaeger was engaged. He has since taken his revenge - notably by taking "the most severe retaliatory measures" in the area of his defeat*. Nevertheless, he is delighted to finally leave these valleys. This cursed country swallows men even faster than Baal swallows the sons of Carthage!
He can't wait to get back to normal warfare, facing real adversaries. And here is another patrol is reported to have disappeared last night, as if swallowed by the forest... Desertion, ambush, accident - a bit of all three perhaps? Impossible to say - but everyone knows that these men will probably never be seen again.

Begging
Kaposvár (Hungary) - Operation Buche has finally started. The Heer withdraws from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro. This maneuver accomplished, the German forces will have gained almost 250 kilometers of front line - a very welcome saving!
"Buche" is therefore undeniably good news for Heeresgruppe E. However, against all odds, its leader General von Weichs is not satisfied. And for good reason: in "Buche" (birch) will be replaced by "Birke" (beech), the transfer of the 12. Armee to Vojvodina, intended both to defend the road to Budapest and to ensure that, if necessary, the 2nd Hungarian Army of Guztáv Vitéz Jány would not be tempted to betray...
An unpleasant task - the HG E starts to get tired of the successive betrayals of its allies. Unpleasant and perhaps even difficult, because the Magyar formation is anything but negligible: two army corps with three infantry divisions each, reinforced by an armored division! It is thus the 12. Armee which will eventually have to ensure the disarmament of these large units, while at the same time facing a probable allied offensive.
However, this army does not even have eight divisions!
Let's face it, considers the general, adjusting his glasses. The Hungarians are unreliable and almost as numerous as Löhr's forces. In case of a prepared and massive reversal, they will have no other possibility than to retreat in catastrophe towards the north and the Szeged - Baja axis (at best...), any other action risking to cut Heeresgruppe E in two. In other words, the Allies will have the door wide open to flood towards Debrecen, on the rear of the Ostfront!
Von Weichs is somewhat tired of constantly begging for much needed reinforcements since the beginning of the year. But he does not want to risk being the only one to take the blame for such a disaster, should it occur. And since apparently Hungary is in the thoughts of the Führer, he picks up his phone to contact the OKW. A long and acrimonious conversation with Oberst von Freyend later, the German high command decides to transfer of the 214. ID (Harry von Kirchbach) from Norway to the Balkan front. The time for the project to be submitted to Hitler and for the Führer to approve it (not without a frown), it would take about eight days before the 214. ID leaves Norway.

Obscure maneuvers
Croatian Government Palace (Zagreb) - While the Lorković - Vokić conspiracy continues to hatch somewhat audacious plans involving both the Croatian National Guard, communist partisans and royalist fighters (!), Poglavnik Pavelic receives in his office Brigadier-General Kvintiljan Tartalja, head of the gendarmerie of the Independent State of Croatia. This force is in charge - to say the least - of maintaining order on the territory of the NDH, an occupation shared by many other Croatian organizations. But the services of Tartalja also include another branch, more discreet if not completely confidential: the regime's secret police, which must obviously know everything about everyone, and at all times, moreover.
Now, this police force is sending up alarming reports about the existence of a defeatist tendency - even downright seditious - in the Ustasha armed forces, and in the national guard in particular. It would be a question of negotiating the survival of Croatia with the Westerners, against the communists and by sacrificing the Ustasha regime! Obviously, Kvintiljan Tartalja, scandalized, makes promises to unmask the traitors for little that one gives him the power! The Croatian government, and first of all its leader, will know how to make the sword of justice fall on their necks...
However, this speech does not seem to be of interest to Ante Pavelic. The latter does not believe in such a fable - it is obviously preposterous. Who could even conceive that brave Ustasha, Croatian patriots, could try to sell the independence of their state and the life of their leader for theoretical assurances from those Serbian scum?
- No, really, these reports are far too alarmist to be credible," concludes the Poglavnik. The agents of the secret police will have abused the rakija, that's all. Let them continue to investigate, quietly and above all discreetly... but nothing more. And while Pavelic gets up to accompany his anxious subordinate towards the door, he reassures him: "Don't worry, dear general. I have the situation under control."

* This infamous war crime committed on the road to Foča followed the failure of "Schneesturm" and the discovery of the bodies of 78 German soldiers taken prisoner and executed by the Partisans - another war crime. In retaliation, the Jägers rounded up all the women and children from the neighboring villages and set the building on fire. In the meantime the men were led into a field and executed with machine guns. Among them, there were more than 375 dead and only 7 survivors - forgotten because they were buried under the bodies of their neighbors. Then, the Germans had left the place in a hurry, allowing the people trapped in the burning school to escape and miraculously survive. As a result of these events, the villages of Mazoče and Čelikovo Polje had completely disappeared, as well as all the places of worship in the vicinity...

 

[Wings]

February 2nd, 1944

Commonwealth
Air Warfare - Sqn 434 RCAF, flying on Lancaster, starts today to move to bases in southern Italy. This is a move by the Canadian government, as the heavy bombers operating from Italy are supposed to be from the Commonwealth. Despite all efforts, Sqn 462 RAAF still has a purely RAF ground crew. The Australian crews of this group will be progressively replaced by RAF personnel (and the squadron renumbered Sqn 614); they will be reassigned to one of the squadrons that are about to leave for the future Malaysian front (operation Dracula).

 

[Wings]

March 2nd, 1944

Operation Charleroi
Ardèche - The 19th DI joins the 165. ID on a line going from the south of Luc to the hamlet of Cubières. Opposite, the 205. Grenadier Rgt and the StuG Abt 394, in the east, lock the upper valley of the Ardèche between Barnas and Saint-Pierre de Colombier.

Operation Waffle
Causse - The situation calms down for both sides east of Millau. The 266. ID stops its attack, as the holes it is trying to exploit are being closed.
In defense, the 355. ID completes its deployment on the other side of the Tarn gorges - the 867. GR even succeeds in disengaging to reposition itself 20 km further west, despite the omnipresent Allied air force. The 334. ID, on its side, repositions itself south and east of Mende, without losing contact with its neighbor, the 165. ID.
The Americans, following these movements, carry out a cautious pursuit. The sequence ambush, request for artillery or air support, then a new progression, is repeated many times.

 

[Wings]

March 3rd, 1944

Crossbow
Pas-de-Calais, Belgium - Big outing of the 12th AF, to train the new crews and squadrons. No less than 364 Marauders and Havocs leave the British airfields to go and hammer the V1 sites under construction a bit more. In Cambridge and London, it is now known that the Germans are preparing lighter structures, but it is difficult to detect them, even with indications from the French Resistance. So, for the time being, we continue to attack the concrete ones, with the famous ski sheds.
The flak batteries are also the object of particular attention: their number and their activity cost too much in lives and material. A good half of the P-47 and P-38 bring bombs or rockets in order to silence the most efficient German guns: the more a sector is designated as deadly, the more it will be targeted. The idea is to demoralize the servants, but is it really efficient ?

 

[Wings]

March 3rd, 1944

Poland
Our best friend
USA-USSR - While Bernard Montgomery has just provided the War Office with a very dry note to settle once and for all (according to him) the question of a possible withdrawal of the Anders Army Corps, the Soviet Union is officially informed today by the United States of the operations in progress to assist Warsaw... including the sending of the Polish parachute brigade! This crucial fact was dropped early this morning by Ambassador William A. Harriman to Minister Molotov himself, in a move of staggering candor on the part of the diplomat, who has come to request permission for the Allies to use Soviet bases to supply the Poles!
This mistake could of course only have the most serious consequences in the following days, and the European Allies did not fail to raise the subject at length with the State Department, whose professionalism was probably not as great as London or Marseille could have hoped. However... in doing so, were the Americans really naive?
Or did they simply knowingly provoke a crisis that would allow them to shirk any responsibility by blaming the cruelty of the Bear? Even today, the question is still not clear...
In short: for the bases, obviously it is no - even if, in diplomatic language, Molotov promises that "the question will be studied". Then, the Soviet Union considers the deployment of this brigade as an aggression, of which it had not even been informed - what ingratitude, when it puts its entire army at the service of the liberation of Poland!
The relations between the Polish government in exile and the USSR are therefore suspended until further notice. Moreover, in the following days, the whole Soviet press will spread articles about the "the irresponsible and criminal attitude of the London group (sic!) whose partisans persist, by their forced opportunism and their obtuse nationalism, to deny the fraternal contribution of the USSR, to hinder by their disordered actions the efforts of the Red Army". Stalin will go further, both in the outrageousness and cynicism: in one of his speeches on the radio, he will refer to the Secret Army as "a band of bandits without principles". The mass is said, the world will have to make do with it. There is no longer any question to hope for anything in Poland without the USSR.

Soviet precautions
Suwałki (Poland liberated... from the Germans) - In fact, the bravado of the government in exile does not only involve insults in the USSR - one can also detect in Moscow a deafening that the American blunder only made worse. To remedy this, the Polish Committee of National Liberation (the so-called Lublin Committee) is officially established today as the legal authority of the "liberated" province of Suwałki. A move that may have been a little hasty and precipitated and that we did not dare, for the time being, to inflict on... Lublin (precisely), in view of the events that have just taken place there and the tensions that persist there. However, the province of Suwałki could not be quieter - we might as well take advantage of it!
Thus, on March 3rd at 15:00, Stanisław Łapot - a survivor of the late Polish CP and one of the organizers of the Polish Workers' Party in Bialystok - arrives at Mickiewicz Square with several officials (Edmund Przybylski and Tadeusz Sobolewski) to speak under the red flag and in front of a "spontaneously" gathered crowd. He proclaims the decline of the old institutions. Tadeusz Sobolewski is appointed mayor of the city - in addition to his many other functions*. A new city council is established - it will sit from this evening**. The police force is immediately dissolved and then reformed according to the Bulgarian model. The cadres are already ready.
The event will be followed by a meeting in the Rusałka cinema, attended by various representatives of the local population, cordially invited for the occasion not to give their opinion. We explain, we denounce, we demonstrate... we will have the opportunity to do it again: the following days, multiple press conferences will be held, always with the kind participation of the NKVD, which will not hesitate to provide the list of the guests and to ensure their transportation.
In doing so, the Soviet Union obviously violates almost all the treaties concluded with Poland and the other major Allies with a lot of solemn oaths. In fact, it puts under its aegis but without any right, a de facto authority having no other value than that of its weapons. A policy not far removed from that of the Reich in France four years ago. But it doesn't matter: Poland is far from France!

Difficult reconciliation of points of view
Athens - Envigorated by the gestures of good will granted by Belgrade and leaning on the presents of Marseille, the French ambassador Roger Maugras returns to the charge with his Serbian interlocutor, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Milan Grol. While expressing, in the name of the French Republic, "the strong wish that the coming campaign will lead to a liberation of the entire kingdom of Yugoslavia," notably "with the help of the material fraternally provided by France," His Excellency speaks at length of his "hope to the return of the plenipotentiary services to Belgrade, a return that will obviously be a sign of the re-establishment of the normal and peaceful functioning of the institutions of the country."
Maugras takes the trouble to press the term "appeased" - everyone will have understood that it is not a question here of saving steps and phone calls to the embassy's chargés d'affaires.
Grol can only agree. Obviously, things are going to go back to normal, obviously the Kingdom does not forget the unwavering support that France has given it, which is its friend since 1914 and even before... Of course, His Majesty is determined to put an end to troubles that shake the country, as soon as possible and respecting the interests of all.
One could not say it better. Maugras concludes with a smile: "I am delighted, just like Mr. Minister Léon Blum and the President of the Council will also be pleased, I am sure. You know - I have already told you - the friendly interest they have in your Nation. We are therefore eagerly awaiting the counterproposals that your Government will make to Mr. Šubašić's overtures. We have no doubt that they will finally dispel the unfortunate misunderstanding that separates you. Please be assured Minister, of our support in your negotiations with the Foreign Office, whose direct and somewhat intrusive approach to the subject we do not necessarily share."
The message is clear: be reasonable, or London may show its fangs on our behalf. The traditional tactic of the good and bad policeman in short... Milan Grol understood this - and as he escorts His Excellency to the door, he is about to alert the King's cabinet.

* The person concerned was already previously mayor of Sejny... a mere village.
** Due to the destruction in the city, the town hall will be a building located at 62/64 Kościuszki Street, having served as an administrative center of the Germans, who had confiscated it from the Jews who had been deported... But meetings were rare and Tadeusz Sobolewski personally took most of the decisions.

 

[Wings]

March 3rd, 1944

Poland
Operation Tempest - Austerity
Radom-Kielce District - The Armia Krajowa formations, now reinforced by the first elements of the Polish Airborne Brigade, consolidate their positions. The weakness of their means - in the face of the passage of large armored formations in the sector - does not allow them to do more for the time being.
.........
District of Łódź - The 213. SicherungDivision arrives in Piotrków Trybunalski. Confronted with terrorists who have - as usual - cowardly fled, Alex Göschen does not really know where to start in order to flush out the beast. The old general (he served in the Prussian army from... 1904!) is not too familiar with this exercise in this region, officially assuming command of his formation only for about six months, after a transition period as an interim in Belarus! As a reserve officer, he prefers the administration of military regions, he was previously the head of a Korück... but he ended up being appointed, for lack of anything better, to the command of the garrison troops responsible for clearing the rear of the HG Mitte. The fact that he was recalled from the Führer-Reserve to carry out dirty work (rear districts, anti-terrorism) says a lot about the esteem in which he is held in high places...
Perplexed by the agitation of the last few days, Göschen decides to cast a wide net! The 213. SD thus forms independent columns, which sweep the area in search of the enemy. This is the only real advantage it has against the 10th Infantry Division: certainly not the competence, nor the armament (like many other SicherungDivisionen, the 213. SD is mainly equipped with weapons of capture: French, Italian, Soviet...). No, its only advantage is numbers. While, on the other hand, "Barbara" - who feels a bad wind coming - withdraws his 5 000 men and concentrates them in the forests of Przysucha, in order to be able to support the reinforcements coming from Greece...
.........
Białystok District - Unfortunately, in the vicinity of the Red Marsh, not everyone has the luxury to maneuver so skillfully. And in Grzędy, in the middle of the wet woods and stagnant waters, the 9th Mounted Rifle Regiment of Captain Wiktor Konopka "Grom" comes up against the 221. SicherungDivision (Johann Pflugbeil), whose columns are concentrating towards their objective. However, it is necessary to protect the services of the escaped Armia Krajowa. All day long, the cavalrymen cling to the ground with a momentum and vigor worthy of their reputation, adjusting each shot of their weapons - ammunition is too scarce to waste a single bullet - before getting back in the saddle and repositioning themselves further away.
The tactic works - but it is also extraordinarily costly: every move attracts intense fire from the Landsers' automatic weapons and mortars. It is true that these are decommissioned, even captured pieces (the mortars, for example, are Belgian Stokes of 81 mm!). But, downgraded or not, they are no less superior to anything that the Poles could put up against them.
The rain limits the bleeding a little... Until finally, victim of a lucky shot, Captain Konopka falls from his saddle into the mud, killed on the spot. His unit survived him for only a few hours before falling apart. The 9th Rgt lived. But its sacrifice was not in vain: in the night, the 5,000 fighters of Lt-Colonel Franciszek Slęczka "Krak" - and their families! - make contact with the 3rd Shock Army. As a token of friendship, Slęczka offers the 150 Soviet prisoners (lost partisans, escaped Hiwis, genuine escapees...) and 2,500 head of cattle confiscated from the occupier!
Obviously, for him and his entire district, the storm is over. In a few days, the 29th ID will be dissolved*, and the combatants who could not flee before will be sent to a labor camp or incorporated, more or less voluntarily, in the Berling army.
.........
Krakow District - After the false start at the end of February, the forces of the Armia Krajowa in the Gobelin district begin a phase of reorganization, aimed at supplying their 10,000 men and redeploying them for new projects. The latter will undoubtedly involve Warsaw - it is inevitable - and perhaps those parachutists who would have arrived in Poland a short time ago.
At least, that is what Lieutenant Colonel Edward Józef Godlewski "Garda" thinks. He has officially taken the place of his commander Filipowicz, who was too ill to continue to command. But the exercise will be long and complex - especially with the Germans on his back. So it is not expected to yield results for several days.
.........
Polesie District - Colonel Henryk Krajewski's 30th ID "Leśny" goes down south as the Red Army had invited it to do - not too cordially. It arrives north of Biała Podlaska, close to the road that at least two German armies had taken to reach the Vistula.
The Vistula is also Warsaw. A thought that is increasingly running through the minds of many fighters. Finally, a cry goes up in the ranks: "Do Warszawy! Do Warszawy!"
"Leśny" knows well that there is no point in trying to hold his men back - besides, deep down, he understands and even shares their wish. So he gives each soldier in his tiny 30th ID time to make a decision.
.........
District of Warsaw, Ochota district - In the sector of the SS-RONA - and the 608. Sicherung Rgt, which feels like it is doing all the work - the situation calms down a bit. The mercenaries of Bronislav Kaminski, duly chaperoned, corrected (or even executed) by their officers, have left the bottle behind to take to the battlefield.
Unfortunately for them - if one could feel compassion for them - their reflexes are still impaired. In fact, the 18. Waffen-Grenadier-Division of the SS is not making much progress today.
The lack of energy of its fighters was matched only by their incompetence.
However, they succeed in unblocking, without securing it, the access to the Poniatowski bridge (finally - it was one of their initial objectives!) by going up the aleje Jerozolimskie behind human shields... On the other hand, they still don't manage to seize the postal station - so not the Central Station either, which remains contested because it is still under fire from the Poles! On the other hand, the National Museum is finally occupied. To avenge their new setbacks, the SS soon cram into the basement of the noble institution nearly 400 civilians rounded up at random, without food or water. What for? Frolov plans to throw them tomorrow on the enemy barricades in front of his tanks...
Further on, in a house on the Avenue of May 3rd, 1791 (thus not far from the Vistula), a platoon of forty Resistance fighters, cornered, is forced to surrender. This immediately poses a problem, because the AK soldiers are mixed with dozens of civilians trapped there with them! Threatening the crowd with a general massacre, the SS then force the Poles to denounce the fighters. Designated by young compatriots in tears, 19 Resistance fighters are shot on the spot - another, the young Zbysław Przepiórka "Zbyszko", owes his life only to the generosity of a man who managed to bribe two guards... The last twenty are finally locked up in the turret of the Poniatowski bridge**.
A few streets to the east, at 11/13 Langiewicza Street, the SS seize a hospital of the Resistance. They immediately massacred all the wounded with grenades.
The Reduta Wawelska remained, still standing in the heart of the enemy advance, with 600 inhabitants and 150 fighters. The block is solid, with thick ring walls. Two whole companies attack it all day long with artillery fire, before charging behind a T-34... which is immediately set on fire with homemade explosives. Reduta has been resisting for four days already. And its defenders begin to tire a little, in spite of a good water supply (it is rare!) resulting from a well dug in the interior courtyard. It is obvious, the whole district of Ochota will fall. It is thus decided to evacuate. All night long, the Poles dig a tunnel to the city's sewers.
During this time, on the German rear, the sweep continues. A first batch of evacuated from the Zieleniak camp is transported to the transit camp in Pruszków. They are usually replaced immediately by other unfortunate people from the conquered areas.
.........
Warsaw District, Wola and Old Town - On the side of the Dirlewangers and other Osttürkisher, the fight continues at the entrance of the Old Town. This one is finally reached, but in the heart of the city, the Germans still have to reduce the defenders of the Calvinist cemetery, who are still clinging to their flank...
This is done in the afternoon, when the last combatants finally succumb, facing the Sipo of the Wartheland. After the one of the Evangelist cemetery, this fall completes the destruction of the defensive line of the insurrection, which must now retreat towards the Okopowa and Młynarska avenues, forcing "Monter" to plan to move his HQ again.
Exhausted by this action, which he did not imagine to be so costly, the enemy does not continue... It is a mistake: on his side, Lt-Colonel Jan Mazurkiewicz "Radoslaw" decides to take advantage of the confusion to gather his men and... counter-attack from the Jewish cemetery!
Mobilizing his Igor and Czata battalions - held in reserve because practically unarmed... - and also resorting to "unconventional" war tricks***, he relaunches the assault and the two places of eternal rest already devastated by the fights, putting the enemy in rout and seizing several heavy weapons, including an MG42! After such an unexpected success, the Pole could be satisfied... however, this is not the case: the progression of the fighter commandos the day before made his efforts for the defense of Warsaw futile. The cemeteries are of little use, except to cover an exit door to the Kampinos forest... And while his men were holding the dearly recaptured positions or assisting other units, Mazurkiewicz notes with despair that the relations with his comrades, his command and outside Warsaw are becoming more difficult by the hour. In fact, his main partner is now the unit of Major "Sosna", which holds the courthouse in Leszno, the Ghetto ruins and Stawki - alongside the defenders of the Old City.
There, precisely, on the main axis of massacre, the fight is always more savage - one would not have thought it possible! The targets of the Axis are the Old City itself and especially the Kierbedź bridge, the fall of which would finally allow a permanent connection with the right bank of the river. In this appalling chaos, the worst of the Reich faced the fiercest of defenses. The "North" group of Colonel Karol Ziemski "Wachnowski" cannot or will not retreat. The German progression is then desperately slow, and thanks only to the artillery, flamethrowers or the fire of a few Panthers that the requested divisions only reluctantly delegate.
Behind, in the ruins of Wola where 40,000 dead are now piled up, it is also time for cleaning up. Between two showers, a Verbrennungskommando composed of about one hundred Poles chosen from among the civilians and commanded by SS-Hauptsturmführer Alfred Spilker (a subordinate of Reinefarth), is sent to collect the bodies of the victims and burn them in several pyres.
The members of this Kommando are themselves later executed.
The Dirlewangers do not kill any more - at least not as much as before. But, in view of the appalling loss rates (more than 100% for some companies!), they invent new games - for example the bayonet game. It is a question of seizing a child of 5 years or less (more, it would be too heavy...) to throw it in the air on a group which waits, knife or bayonet in hand. The one who skewers the terrified kid in the air scores a point... All this without Oskar Dirlewanger - himself busy satisfying his own vilest predatory instincts - having anything to say about it.

The sky is (almost) not empty
Panatella Air Base - New trip for the men of the 1586th (Polish) Special Duty Flight, reinforced by... no one. Once again, only six Halifaxes leave for Warsaw to try to put out the fire. All of them came back to the base - their crews with their heads full of terrifying images of unquenchable fires and, above all, a feeling of helplessness.

Operation Comet - Shooting stars
Tatoi Airport (Athens) - Clear night and few clouds tonight - the rest of the 2nd Battalion (Major W. Ploszewski) and part of the 3rd Battalion (Captain W. Sobocinski) can finally leave for the land of their ancestors. Tomorrow, God willing, there will be nearly 600 of them in the Forest north of Niekłań Wielki! Enough to start considering some actions...
While the Germans are still not informed of their presence.
.........
An airfield southwest of Niš (liberated Yugoslavia) - However, keeping a unit such as the Sosabowski Brigade in fighting condition cannot be improvised. Even if the Poles will obviously have no qualms about living on the country - their country! - it is necessary all the same to provide for a regular supply of weapons and ammunition.
This is the role of the advanced terrain of Bojnik: a former auxiliary base of the FARY, abandoned and which - because of its proximity to Leskovac - reminds a lot of people of bad memories. A bit far from the main allied communication routes - but nevertheless close enough to allow easy supply - it is the ideal place to plan transport rotations in addition to the drops already planned. Thanks to the mediation - once again! - of the French, who stationed there a small ten LeO-458Ts, the Poles are already able to accumulate several tons of supplies.
Nothing luxurious - even less superfluous. But enough to see them through. The take-offs should begin within the next two days to provide the brigade with enough supplies to continue fighting.

* Władysław Liniarski, who commanded the 29th ID, will find refuge from March 5th in the forest with some men. He feared - not without reason - that his vigorous anti-communist actions in 1943 (he had ordered the liquidation of the "communist gangs") would be detrimental to him... Arrested in 1945, detained for many years, seriously ill but nevertheless forced to testify against his comrades on a stretcher (!), he was finally released for health reasons in 1953. He will not be worried anymore and will end his days living on his invalid and veteran's pension. As for the head of the district, Lt-Colonel Franciszek Slęczka "Krak", was to disappear in the jails of the NKVD without a trace...
** They will be forgotten there for two weeks, but fed by the inhabitants of the district. Finally recovered by the retreating Occupiers, the prisoners were mobilized to load wagons and then deported to the Stuffhof camp, not far from Danzig.
*** For example, he had German signal flares fired over the Evangelist cemetery with a captured gun, unleashing the Stuka on the enemy positions!

 

[Wings]

March 3rd, 1944

Burma and Malaya Campaign
Operation Black Prince
Southeast Province of Burma - The day sees no significant developments on the front. Indeed, the Allies need to reorganize and get rid of the harassing elements that the Japanese had left behind. Their opponents take advantage of this to move towards the defensive compartment prepared north of Tavoy.
However, the Japanese did not anticipate the arrival of an entire parachute brigade in the middle of their axis of withdrawal! The day is therefore spent in ambushes and assaults by the Nepalese paratroopers, who destroy many vehicles and cause further losses to the 12th and 71st Japanese Divisions. They hit hard, supported by an omnipresent air force. This air support comes from Mustang I and B-25 of the 1st Air Commando, in constant liaison with the paratroopers who indicated their objectives, even if they did not always carry out visible action on the ground. For the Japanese command, the situation is all the more chaotic as, in addition to the news about the airborne operation, disturbing (even if it turned out to be false): the breakthrough of a British division, an uprising of civilians...
In the allied camp, the 8th Indian Division passes entirely into the plain in front of the 81st West African Division, accompanied by the 251st Indian Armored Brigade. During this time, the Africans regroup their two brigades and continue their elaborate clearing of Japanese positions.
For three days, the Africans have been clearing dozens of kilometers of trenches, tunnels and fortifications in all directions to complete the cleaning.
Immediately to the north of this front, the 7th Indian Division and the 1st Burmese Division attack and overrun Hill 540, but the Japanese hold on tight. It takes all day to reduce their resistance, and only because the defenders were often caught off guard and drowned under a rain of bombs and shells (the artillery of the 8th Indian and 81st West African were also used).
Further south, the 19th Indian Division begins to regroup around Natkyizin, preceded by the 9th Armored Brigade and flanked by the 50th Indian Brigade, which had caught up with it. At the end of the day, the Calcutta Light Horse is again in contact with elements of the 8th Indian Division, restoring the continuity of the front. But above all, Chainmail's paratroopers are only 40 km away.

Indochina Campaign
Tet Offensive
Second Battle of Saigon - Once again, the dawn sees the appearance of Allied aircraft over the battlefield. B-25s and Warhawks bomb and strafe the main Japanese positions around Da Kao, northwest of Saigon. This is a weak point in the Japanese defenses, the only place where no river provides an easy line to defend. To the north, the Nipponese are entrenched on the Avalanche arroyo and to the east, they are covered by the Saigon River (impassable without a boat). To the south, the Chinese arroyo separates Saigon proper from Cholon and to the southwest, a tributary of this same arroyo forms a convenient loop at the edge of the city.
The racecourse, which seems to be firmly held by the Japanese, is then subjected to an intense artillery preparation, at least by the standards of this theater of operations. Before the infantry sets off, the last shots fall shorter: they are smoke shells intended to cover the attack. However, the furious confrontation expected by the veterans of the 10th RIC does not take place. Indeed, the Japanese took advantage of the smoke screen to withdraw to a second line. The high walls and the inner courtyards of the Chinese-style houses along Rue du Général Lize are much more suitable for defense than the racecourse.
Only a small group of volunteers occupying a tree trunk bunker is left behind. These men are charged with holding off the Colonialists as long as possible.
.........
"The "Monkey" was a nineteen-year-old Laotian soldier whose French nickname was only the translation of his name, Bak Ling. His mother had given him this name to prevent evil spirits from attacking him. And he was lucky: one of his regimental comrades was called Bak Mèn, which means "who smells bad".
Bak Ling hoped that he had not endured this horrible name for nothing and that the evil spirits would guide the Japanese bullets to those who had been given pretentious names like Sathou (Prince, Noble). Normally, he would have prayed to Buddha to forgive such thoughts, but here... In the middle of the racetrack, in the swirls of smoke and in the middle of a gunfight, fear took away all his shame.
A bullet whistled, fired at whom? It passed to his left. Bak Ling dropped on one knee with his gun pointed. His eyes tried to pierce the fumes created by the white phosphorus. The shrill sound of a mortar shell preceded an explosion on the front. He got up, scolded by a French officer, while several of his comrades passed him. He reached a sandbag entrenchment. There was fighting on the other side.
Dozens of soldiers were fighting with bayonets! By chance, the Japanese had their backs to him. He shouldered his gun - the bullet hit one of the enemies in the back. Not very glorious, but it was one less enemy and anyway, those bastards never surrendered.
The Monkey ran, catching up with his comrades. Over there, across the street, they were firing from windows and invisible mortars thundered against the men of the 10th RIC. In response, the French heavy weapons hit the roofs, raining down tiles, while the FMs spat at the openings.
But the colonials, advancing in the open, paid a high price for their advance. One soldier advancing to the left of Bak Ling seemed to hit an obstacle; he dropped his weapon, raised his hands to his chest, and collapsed. A moment later, two other men were shot in the chest with FM before they died.
Bak Ling threw himself behind a low wall of sandbags, amidst the mingled corpses of Laotians and Japanese. He pulled his head in as a mortar shell whistled over his head to raise a sheaf of earth behind him.
He shouldered his rifle and aimed at a Nippon firing from a window. The recoil of his weapon shook his shoulder badly. The Japanese did not return. Killed? Wounded? Or simply made more careful? As a small group of soldiers had risen to attack the building, he followed.
The Laotians were clashing with the defenders at the entrance. A bloodied Japanese threw himself on Bak Ling with a bayonet in his hand. The "Monkey" used the bayonet on his Berthier rifle to receive him. His bayonet went straight into the Japanese's stomach. A horrible sensation! The "Monkey" withdrew his weapon and struck a second time, aiming at his enemy's throat, more to silence his screams than to kill him...
The Japanese finished, the young man, with his heart beating twice, tried to breathe more calmly.
A bullet hit the lintel of the door, then others. The friend next to him was hit.
As if in slow motion, Bak Ling saw the blood spurt from his chest. He turned around, his finger on the trigger. Three Japanese men, one of them an officer, with swords drawn. He fired without aiming and threw himself on the other side of the wall. The other Laotians joined him. One of them pulled out a grenade and threw it into the entrance.
The explosion shook the house. Bak Ling looked inside... shredded corpses and something stirring and moaning. A soldier raised his rifle. After the shot, silence finally returns. The men entered the house.
In one of the rooms, a Japanese man standing behind a piece of furniture stood up and shouted at "Monkey" but Bak Ling was quicker - he fired by reflex and luckily his bullet hit the enemy in the chest.
His luck deserted him in the next room. Three Japanese. A bullet hit him in the chest, near the right shoulder, his gun fell, he staggered back and pulled the pin of a grenade with his left hand. Already an enemy was throwing himself at him. His vision turned scarlet and blurred as his life left him. The grenade flew out of his fingers and exploded, mowing down the man who had just finished him off."
.........
Further east, the Belgian-Congolese of the Force Publique seize the suburb of Thi N'ghe, north of the Avalanche arroyo. The bridge west of the botanical garden was not blown up, as the Japanese lack explosives - it is captured thanks to the intervention of the CAFP, who machine-gun the defenders at close range, but lose a P-39.
Here too, the first line of defence is broken through without too much difficulty. The Belgians seize the museum and the Ecole Normale. They then progress along the Norodom Avenue, the Japanese hold on to the barracks of the colonial troops and, on the other side of the avenue, the Vietnamese militiamen are entrenched in the T.S.F. building.
In front of the arsenal, the Public Force is stopped by Japanese naval troops. However, the Belgians succeed in isolating this sector by seizing several blocks of houses in the rue d'Espagne and in the rue Laguardière, freeing the Grall hospital.
In the evening, the shooting calms down. The situation is blocked on the whole front; the French and Belgians do not advance any further.

Sino-Japanese war
Operation Bailu
Pearl River Valley - The second Japanese line of defense does not benefit from a terrain as favorable as the first, in the Dalou Mountains, but it nevertheless makes the most of the local topography, relying on a line of small lakes in the west, the North River in the center, and on the foothills of the Wangzi Mountains in the east. Its main strength is the city of Qingyuan.
The Chinese attack, preceded by an artillery preparation, is spread out over two points, downstream (96th Division) and upstream of Qingyuan (1st, 22nd and 38th Divisions). It is prepared by a raid by 28 B-25s and 9 P-38s of the ROCAF, escorted by 26 P-40s. The eight Ki-43s in charge of the defense of the city are quickly overwhelmed and three are shot down (including one by Leng Peishu, Zang Xilan's wingman, recording the first of many victories). One Mitchell, two Lightnings and two Warhawks are shot down by fighters or flak.
On the ground, losses are high on both sides but, despite their numerical superiority, the Chinese are unable to break through and have to withdraw to their starting positions at nightfall in anticipation of the inevitable Japanese counter-attack. Against all odds, the Japanese counter-attack does not take place: Lieutenant-General Shinpachi Kondo was ordered to (temporarily) save his men.

 

[demolitiondan]

May I share my extreme happiness when I wrote 'That" famous night of Comet ? If you listen carefully to Sabaton, this is a close one. A "Would have happen".

 

[Wings]

March 3rd, 1944

Operation Volodino
Facing the Ostwall
HG North (East Prussia) - This time, the raspoutitsa is there. It rains heavily on the whole Baltic. The snowdrifts and the layers of snow which were frozen before, turn into torrents, which flood the roads with mud. Unfortunately for it, the 16. Armee of Christian Hansen is still not in place, unlike the 18. Armee, further north. So we will have to make do...
With his X. AK, Thomas-Emil von Wickede continues through the woods, bypassing Lyck from the north to finally approach Arys. Tomorrow he will finally be on his feet... This is not the case of the XXVIII. ArmeeKorps of Herbert Loch, which passed not far from the Wolf's Lair through Lötzen and up to Rhein, under a still pouring rain. Between the two, Paul Laux's II. AK makes its way to Arys via side roads, losing time... but no men, that's something.
And these difficulties are not greater than those of Eremenko! Always stuck behind a traffic jam of units that must be cleared at every moment, the Soviet passes Suwałki and nevertheless advances to Raczki, with Ivan Kirichenko's 14th Armored Corps still leading the way. Behind, in order to cover the right flank, the 39th Army of Andrei Zigin and the 10th Mechanized Corps (Nikolai Vedeneyev) deploy at Filipów and Stańczyki. Facing the Ostwall, so...
.........
Sector of the 2. Armee (Suwałki and Augustów area, Poland) - Further southeast, the 1st Belorussian Front continues its raging and disorderly efforts to try to catch up and hit - even a little - the retreating German forces. In spite of all the orders of its staff, he does not succeed. And it is perhaps so much the better for him, because from now on, it is no longer the poor 2. Armee of Carl Hilpert who is facing him, but the powerful 4. PanzerArmee, always able to return the blows against too presumptuous opponents.
Kurt von der Chevallerie's army no longer has to worry about covering Hilpert's forces. The XXIII. ArmeeKorps is already far away, while the VIII. ArmeeKorps (Gustav Höhne), the LIII. ArmeeKorps (Friedrich Gollwitzer) and the LXI. AK (Ferdinand Neuling) are now 30 or 40 kilometers back, towards Grajewo. The 4. PzA can therefore withdraw in stages - leaving before dawn, it withdraws southward in a controlled but rapid manner, abandoningAugustów to the enemy. Von der Chevallerie urgently sends his XLVI. PanzerKorps (Franz Westhoven) to Białystok, whose defenders would, it seems, need a hand. The 10. Panzergrenadier (August Schmidt) will be enough to cover the road to Grajewo, with the reinforcement of some Tiger of the 501. sPA. As for the 22. Panzer, it finally returns to its XL. PzK, near Grodno, where things still seem more or less under control.
And it is thus without any opposition (except for a few latecomers, sacrifices or other ambushes) the 63rd Army of Vasily Kutzenov enters Augustów* at nightfall.
It is quickly joined by the 20th Army and the 10th Armored Corps - which had spent the day clearing the road to Alytus. On their side, the Oslikovsky Group and the 3rd Tank Army still despair of overtaking the 2nd Baltic Front: they are only at the height of Rackzi, they had to bypass Suwałki at the cost of the worst difficulties!

Tankist (Evgeny Bessonov)
Deserted streets
Poland - "The entry into Augustów, although glorious (after all, the enemy was fleeing in front of us!), was especially painful. Our unit had fallen to about a third of its theoretical strength of tanks, both because of the fighting and because of mechanical breakdowns, and even - for some drivers - of the lack of fuel. The rain is cold, the mud omnipresent...and the city seems abandoned. In front of us, on the right and on the left, the infantry progresses in the darkness, knee-deep in mud, to inspect house by house. We quickly gave up, given the absence of Fascists and the extent of the task.
To advance blindly in an urban environment! Never very reassuring... Nevertheless, we manage without difficulty, following the banks until a canal** where we see arriving from the west several trucks carrying the red flag. The 63rd Army, we were told later. The city had already been taken, at least for the most part. All we had to do was to continue."

Traffic jams
Grodno area (1st Byelorussian Front) - On the right wing of the 4. PanzerArmee, things are not getting much better for the Heer - although they are not getting much worse deteriorate either.
The 1st Belorussian Front has crossed the Katra and its three armies are now advancing in line on a Vertelishki-Batorówka axis, in pursuit of LXIII. ArmeeKorps of Ernst Dehner, which hit the road to Grdono. He thus runs up against the entrenchments of the LXXII. ArmeeKorps of Anton Grasser, reinforced by two infantry divisions of the XL. PanzerKorps.
Grodno is a bad memory for the Red Army. In 1939, even though it was hitting an opponent already in agony, a simple defense group of the Polish army, grouped around a single cavalry brigade*** (!), had held in check three Soviet army corps (including the 15th Armored Corps!) commanded by Ivan Boldin for three days. Confronted with extraordinarily aggressive defenders and not hesitating to take advantage of the inexperience and hesitations of the BT-5 crews, Alexei Kurkin finally had to order the men of his 2nd Brigade to use human shields to advance towards the city center already ravaged by artillery...
Times have changed since then. Kurkin is now at the head of the 1st Army, near the Baltic. As for his methods, if by any chance Zakharkin or Chistiakov wished to renewthe experience, it is not certain that the presence of a few Poles in front of their T-34 would prevent the Germans from shooting. It is therefore better to stick to the new procedures - they, at least, have proven themselves. Thus, the Red Army bombs Grdono copiously before launching the assault of its 1st and 3rd Guards Armies, which logically enough take the first lines of the 357. and 359. ID. In the evening, we fight all along the Białystok-Vilnius railroad line - which roughly marks the eastern limit of the city - and the station is the object of the fiercest fighting. On the right, Ivan Chistiakov is already threatening the defenders of envelopment from the north. And on the left, along the Niemen, towards Zhilichi, the 2nd Shock Army (Kuzma Galitsky) is preparing to cross. It is doubtful that the divisions guarding this sector - the 123. ID (Louis Tronnier) and the 253. ID (Hans Junck) - can pretend to resist him for a long time...
In summary, here as in Białystok, the Red Army maneuvers, strikes and stuns, overflows and encircle - before finally forcing the stopper to jump... or to be annihilated!

Vistula-Warsaw Offensive
The Valkyrie
Białystok region (1st Belorussian Front) - In Białystok, the situation unravels precisely on comparable terms - that is to say, obviously unfavorable to the Heer, but not as much as its adversary would have liked. Assaulted from all sides by an opponent who is superior in number as in firepower, the LXII. AK of Carl Rodenburg, covered by the 20. Panzer, begins to evacuate during the night, taking advantage of the weather.
At dawn - earlier than expected, because the enemy agitation did not escape his scouts! - when the Red Army relaunches its assaults, these fall into the void. The enemy has evaporated and crossed the city center to get to the train station and the road to Zambrów before it was too late. The lack of reconnaissance and air support before noon - and even then the air force stops its activities before17:00, because of the return of the rain - the Red Army does not manage to exploit this situation properly and has to rely on its artillery to inflict losses.
While the 15th Army of Georgiy Zakharov seizes the city and tried to pursue, the 3rd Shock Army of Mikhail Purkayev is hastily shifting to Złotoria. It could undoubtedly probably cut off the road of the retreating Fascists... only, for this, it is necessary to cross the Narew.
An obstacle not really more formidable than the little Supraśl the day before, it is true, but nevertheless a very useful support point for the 20. Panzer, which will be able to gain there the time necessary for Rodenburg to stall. Decidedly, the crossing of the day before was useless...
At least, it would have been useless without Alexei Panfilov's 7th Armored Corps. Hardly hindered, in the south, by the tiny Horodnianka, the latter takes advantage of the confusion generated by Purkayev to catch up with the columns of LXII. AK before the Narew at Choroszcz and to crush the 367. ID (Adolf Fischer). The intervention of the 236. StuG hastily recalled limits a little the disaster. And in the evening, everyone withdraws towards Jezewo, pursued by a few tens of T-34...
Further south, on the other hand, for the rest of Josef Harpe's 1. PzA, things are much better: his forces continue to fall back towards the west.
The LXXVIII. PanzerKorps of Martin Unrein retreats with control and measure to Dziadkowice - taking advantage of the many lagoons in the area - and Żerczyce - where it joins the infantry. Facing him, Mikhail Katukov's 1st Tank Army - massive, skillful but also a bit scattered and above all (finally) showing some signs of fatigue after 200 kilometers covered in 14 days of combat! - advances, strikes... but does not break through.
Finally, the XXXIX. PanzerKorps of Otto Schünemann takes advantage of a new wet and wooded barrier to disappear along small paths to Grabarka and Żerczyce, its intermediate on the road to the west. However, they will not be reached by evening, despite the efforts made. Nevertheless, this was a limited annoyance. In fact, behind Schünemann, only the 4th Guards Army (Ivan Muzychenko) continues to Vysokaje while the 29th Army (Alexander Gorbatov) is going to help its comrades for the capture of Brest.
.........
Brest region (2nd Byelorussian Front) - In every story, there must be a lampoonist. This lampist, today, is Werner Kempf and his 3. PanzerArmee. After having covered the rescue of the 6. Panzer Army (which is entering Międzyrzec Podlaski today and will probably be out of reach of the enemy tomorrow), the 3. PzA finds itself assaulted from the flank, on its way to salvation, by two armies and a mixed Soviet group.
Facing the 64th Army (Mikhail Sharokin) and the Pliev Group, reinforced later - but reinforced by the 29th Army (Alexander Gorbatov), the XXIV. PanzerKorps of Martin Wandel obviously suffered losses, despite the rain and the tanks of the 5. Panzer (it is true that there are not many left...). This time, there is no way to get rid of them. In the south, the 267. ID (Otto Drescher), defending the Iamna district, melts under enemy fire - however, it has to stand its ground, even if it has to be incinerated, to cover the passage of the last stragglers. And if, in the center, everything goes well for the 208. ID, in the north, the arrival of Gorbatov's troops between Byardychy and Cherni forces the 167. ID (Hans Hüttner) to shift urgently to defend in less good conditions than expected.
Before 14:00, the three units of the XXIV. PzK had to withdraw towards the heart of the city. The continuation, which will last until late in the night, becomes sadly usual on this front: delaying fights, destruction of support points by artillery, assault, melee, race to the Bug... and crossing it under the rain and the shells, before the bridges blow. Among a thousand other triumphs, Konstantin Rokossovsky can announce this evening that the red flag is flying again on the fortress of Brest ! If this one held 15 days facing the Teutonic invaders, the Army of Workers and Peasants took it back in less than 48 hours.
On the west bank, at the height of Kobylany, Werner Kempf hurried to rally his army, which had been cut down of a good part of his combat capabilities to continue towards Biała Podlaska, in De Angelis' footsteps. The unfortunate Kempf has definitely experienced many failures since Kovel, even though his discipline and his respect for orders did not always seem to be exemplary. Still a Nazi to the core, Ferdinand Schröner takes note of this inevitable setback without a word.
.........
Lublin Region (3rd Belarusian Front) - After the clearing of the previous day, the return of bad weather is not good for Rodion Malinovsky, to say the least!
In the north, his 3rd Belarussian Front has probably reached the extreme limit of its advance - at least as long as the 2nd Belarusian Front has not rallied. From Łuków, the 4th Shock Army of Ivan Maslennikov - ever more dispersed, it now has 80 kilometers of front to hold - seizes Żelechów and thus approaches the Vistula... and also Warsaw, which is now only about 70 kilometers from the first Soviet elements. Nevertheless, for the time being, no one considers it worthwhile to go there.
On Maslennikov's right, the 37th Army meets in the area of Biała Podlaska De Angelis' 6. Armee - which, despite its obvious weakness, is still a little too strong an opponent for him... Chuikov's army is scattered and cannot claim to weigh. For lack of anything better, Vasily Chuikov plays the Cossack. What obviously succeeds to him, even if slaughtering stragglers is not the most glorious of activities! As for closing the road from Tuczna to Brest, it is too late: the 3. PzA - and in particular Dietrich von Saucken's 4. Panzer - now holds this retreat route more or less open, despite the losses suffered.
On the Vistula front too, it is a disappointment. Relaunching their assaults of the previous day with the same means - thus the same relative deficiency in infantry, the Red Army once again does not take any solid position on the west bank. It must be satisfied with a modest bridgehead at Zawichost, where the 5th GAC (V.I. Zhdanov) takes advantage of the fact that the LAH SS was also called upon in the south.
For Malinovsky, this is obviously a setback - but one that is bound to be temporary: each assault takes its toll on the enemy, even in the absence of significant air support. All day, the Soviets fire the 203 mm howitzer at the fascist positions and assembly points - after all, this machine has the sweet nickname of "Stalin's hammer", so it is logical that it is used to smash the heads of the SS!
In fact, the Heer could probably continue to push the Reds back along the Vistula for quite some time. But that would require to solicit beyond the reasonable the units in place, and, above all, to engage the reinforcements being deployed as they came along. This, while in Berlin, is concerned about the losses already suffered by the SS corps, losses that could degrade their potential even before operation Fredericus II. Orders are quickly given not to hold on to the ground more than necessary... After all, let the Reds throw themselves into the lion's den, if they so desire!
However, the defensive successes of the Black Order will not fail to be the talk of Nazi propaganda, including, of course, the SS's internal magazine, Das Schwarze Korps.
Which, by a very strange turn of history, is precisely fed here by... a Frenchman of Jewish origin (!), SS-Frw. Kriegsberichter René Hanin! The latter is an intellectual, former supporter of the Action Française, who last fall wanted to join the new Charlemagne. Noted for his paid lectures**** to his fellow volunteers, he was probably judged too smart (or not sporty enough) for the front. On the advice of some comrades, he was sent instead to the school for SS war correspondent school in Berlin-Orianenburg. After graduation, he is assigned to the SS-Infanterie Rgt (mot) Langemarck (largely composed of foreigners, as is logical) and his glowing reports regularly made the front pages of major collaborating French newspapers such as Excelsior or Le Matin*****.
On the other side of the front line, Vassily Grossman continues to beat the countryside, in search of a place that is rumored to be as terrible as it is close: Treblinka...
.........
Rzeszów region (3rd Belorussian Front) - The southern wing of the 3rd Belorussian Front - which is just restarting after the resolution of its supply difficulties - also suffered from the raspoutitsa, obviously. This does not prevent it, however, to continue the offensive!
Thus, on the right flank, the 5th Army launches its first probes towards Sandomierz, aiming targeting Kamień Łukawski and Zawierzbie in particular. Throughout the day, groups of infantry infiltrated on the western bank. Some of them are flushed out and sometimes repulsed, but by nightfall, not all of them had been pushed back to the east bank, far from it. These embryos of a bridgehead could not lead to much, but for Mikhail Potapov, this is just the beginning. Indeed, he hopes to take advantage of the extreme stretching of the enemy's device to infiltrate and overrun. The 1. SS-Panzer-Division Leibstandarte Adolf-Hitler has to cover 50 kilometers of riverbanks!
In the center, facing the 8. Armee finally arrives at its destination, Viktor Obukhov's 11th Mechanized Corps rushes in spite of the weather to finally enter Tarnów, abandoned by the Germans... but not by everyone, because the "pearl of the Polish Renaissance" is also an important base of the AK, a bastion of the Nationalist Resistance. Its population will therefore demonstrate its desire not to collaborate with the new occupier any more than with the previous one. No matter! Obukhov quickly moves into position along the Dunajec River, while behind him, the 50th Army (Konstantin Golubev) and the 8th Guards Army (Serguei Trofimenko) arrive to lead the continuation of the operations, without being able, however, to refocus as much as it should be. Meanwhile, in the foothills of the Carpathians, the 2nd Cavalry Corps did not push further than Domaradz, which it had taken the day before.

* This city already has bad memories of the Reds... In May 1942, shortly before the arrival of the Wehrmacht, the NKVD eliminated several dozen Polish prisoners in their cells. With the deportations and forced labor that followed, plus the liquidation of the ghetto and the forced labor that would follow, the city was to lose the majority of its inhabitants.
** Probably the Kanał Augustowski, between Biebrza and Czarna Hancza - thus between the Vistula and Niemen - built by the Polish kingdom between 1823 and 1839. Before the war, it was mostly used for pleasure.
*** Commanded by Edmund Heldut-Tarnasiewicz - in March 1944, he was in England, within the armoured formations of the 1st Polish Corps.
**** René Hanin will indicate on many occasions that his emoluments were systematically paid to the German Red Cross. Just as he will affirm that his commitment was mainly a response to the wish to avoid the STO or an arrest... or even the desire to spy for the Allies. He will narrowly escape the guillotine, but neither national indignity nor forced labor.
***** Sent to the Western Front in June, he had to desert near Brussels a few weeks before the armistice to surrender to the Belgian troops. Condemned to ten years of hard labor by a court before which he had appeared in uniform (!), he was to join the Foreign Legion after serving his sentence.
The Schutzstaffel led to everything... He left his Carnets de route d'un correspondant de guerre aux Waffen-SS, which can be consulted at the National Archives.

 

[Wings]

March 3rd, 1944

Return from vacation
Tirana - Sylvestre Audet has left the relative mildness of Provence to return to his command in Albania. His mood is thus in unison with the weather: dark and resigned.
However, the French general is optimistic, buoyed up by the joyful atmosphere that reigns on the liberated French land. With a little luck, this year of war will be the last one and the Isarien will finally be able to return to his native province to enjoy a happy retirement... No reason to be depressed - "Veritable" must be a success, and on its success will depend the future advance of the allied armies towards Vienna. In any case, the sooner the 18th AAG is out of the Balkans, the better!

New mounts
Tatoi Airport - The Royal Greek Government continues to prepare its forces for confrontation. Today, it is the turn of the air force to be honored, and for Squadrons 335 and 336 have just completed their transformation on "Bucephalus" (Tornado). The heavy British single-engine aircraft, although second hand, is a more than welcome reinforcement for the Greek pilots, who had previously to be satisfied with P-40Ns which had served well. No doubt they will appreciate the punch of its four 20 mm guns (perfect for ground attack missions in the narrow valleys of Yugoslavia), the power and, now, the reliability of its engine (the R-R Vulture, 1,760 hp) and the strength of its duralumin fuselage reinforced with armour plates.
It is also a visible and strong symbol of the renewal of the Kingdom's forces for propaganda purposes: the big fighter-bomber with white and blue cockades impresses the crowds, who see in it the proof of the consideration that the great Allies dedicate to the valiant Greece. This justifies, of course, the continuation of the struggle by a ruined country on the ungrateful lands of Yugoslavia... So many elements that Prime Minister Papandreou and regent Paul will not fail to mention in their speeches - held under a shed, because it is still raining hard today. The sovereign finally concludes: "Gentlemen, while you were defeated the enemy on our lands, you were already the heralds of our nation to our allies. Tomorrow you will be, I am sure, along with many others, the saviors of an entire people."
After the declarations, comes the moment of the rewards. In front of the cameras, Paul gives the Croix de Guerre to the units as a whole, for services rendered, and then the Croix de Valeur in Gold to the chief of Sqn 335, the commander Marinos Mitralexis. The latter, used to decorations and honors, is a celebrity in the Greek Air Force - indeed, he is one of their two living aces, with 7 victories, ahead of Lieutenant Panagiotis Argyropoulos, of Sqn 336 (H) (5 victories). He still shot down at the controls of his PZL-24, in the darkest days of 1941, two Cant Z 1007 in a single flight, the second of which was by ramming, before making a forced landing near the three-engine plane to capture its crew with his pistol!
Argyropoulos will not fail to return, at the time of his very brief speech, a homage to his former boss of the 22nd Fighter Wing, the commander Andreas Antoniou, himself a talented pilot, who unfortunately died over the Mediterranean last year. And each one of them evoked the other heroes of the Greek wings, coming from the diaspora and who are now serving, unfortunately, in the USAAF or RAF*...
But there is no time for bitterness: the men of the two new squadrons, the 337 (also on Bucephalus) and the 15 (bombing unit, on the Boston III) were given insignia and banners, always under the watchful eye of the cameras. But a surprise awaits the latter: little Constantine II of Greece, barely three years old, who comes to attend the scene "in the name of royalty", in the arms of his nurse. As usual, the queen dowager was considered undesirable. But this spectacle, however insignificant or even pathetic it may seem at first sight, does not testify less of the strong wish of the regent to associate his son to the Victory... and thus to prepare his succession in the most natural way. Prime Minister Papandreou, a little further down the rostrum, understands this - but he will not say anything. After all, it is for the good cause - that of national unity, of course. And then, the mere fact that the royal house is reduced to such maneuvers proves that the days of dictatorship are well past...
As soon as the weapons are taken, the Greek squadrons will go up towards the North and the provisional grounds installed around Ambracia, from where they will be able to support with effectiveness "Veritable". The preparation of this operation advances with great steps.

For the form
Verona - At the express request of his German patron, who was no longer in the mood to feed egos, the RSI of Benito Mussolini officially authorizes the NDH of Ante Pavelic to "assume, at least until the end of the current conflict, the responsibilities of the Social Republic in the province of Montenegro." These responsibilities, as well as Italy's hold on Podgorica, were already more than theoretical, despite the loyalty of some zealous officials, or perhaps simply worried about their future - but this is of course irrelevant. In reality, everyone has long since forgotten the Italian governorship of Montenegro, as well as the fact that Croatia is still officially a possession of the House of Savoy! A house of which most of the members - starting with the king of Italy - betrayed the fascist cause.
Knowing this, the Croats had not waited for the authorization of Verona to put Montenegro into a corner... But the official missive signed by the Duce will at least have made Zagreb smile. Yes, things have definitely changed since 1941!

Precautions
Szeged - With feigned indifference, the training center of the Panzerwaffe leaves its HQ to move to the Linz region. Of course, this maneuver has nothing to do with the recent tensions between the Reich and Hungary - the installation of the PanzerAkademie in Szeged itself followed the evacuation of Nis, so it could only be temporary.
All the same... Everyone in Budapest will find that the vagaries of the calendar are sometimes quite curious.

Royal Hellenic Air Force Hawker "Bucephalus" Tornado, Balkan Campaign, March 1944

* Let us quote Spiros Nickolas Pisanos (9 victories), who preferred to remain at the 4th FG to fight over France (and who is currently in hiding near Paris following a bad encounter in the air), as well as Ioannis Agorastos Plagis, from Sqn 249 (13 victories) and Michael Vassilios Vassiliades, a Cypriot (6 victories).

 

[Wings]

March 3rd, 1944

Operation Magnifico
Italian front - The Italian divisions are about a third smaller than the US units, and their US-origin weapons are generally second-hand. Moreover, the Italian corps are mainly administrative cadres and their divisions are, in theory, simply reinforcements for the American corps. The fact remains that this political point of view often has to give way to realism: within the Vth US Army, there are eight Italian divisions and only three American divisions (plus one Brazilian and, for some time to come, one French). These eight divisions constitute what are, for the Italian generals, two real army corps (one infantry, one mountain corps) and, for the Americans, a "pool" of units that is very convenient for holding the front line or for carrying out relatively secondary operations.
This is how Operation Magnifico, decided in mid-February and aimed at reducing the salient hill 1030, north of Pistoia, an advanced position of the Gothic Lineis was entrusted essentially to the co-belligerent troops, under the orders of the US general staff. The first phase of the operation is carried out by the 18th and 317th Regiments of the 33rd Mountain ID Acqui . They attack in a pincer movement, after a night approach to Baggio.
In the sector immediately to the east, it is the 53rd Montagna ID Arezzo that goes up to the assault in the hills on parallel axes. At the end of the day, after a promising start, the Arezzo seems to be stalling on relatively steep slopes - some of these "hills" reach 800 to 1,000 meters.
The 869. and 870. Infantry Rgt of the 356. ID are thus engaged by two Italian mountain divisions. To complete the picture, the staff of the German division, in Borgo San Lorenzo, hears the news according to which the 4th DI Alpine Cuneense is also attempting an overrun in the hills to the south, while on the left wing, a new Italian unit (the 47th ID Bari, not yet listed by the SR of the Wehrmacht) puts pressure on the 871. IR in the direction of Dicomano.
The German reaction is not long in coming: the divisional artillery is fully engaged in support, while the 29. Panzergrenadier sent its 71. Rgt to the west and a Kampfgruppe led by Oberst Moll, including the 129. Pz Abt, the Panzerjägers and the lighting squadron, is sent to the Borgo San Lorenzo basin to counterattack.

Massilia of my fury...
Solenzara - At last, good weather over Corsica and the Ligurian coast, with a sky of 6/10ths of cumulus. Postponed several times because of difficult weather conditions on one of the Corsica-Rome-Liguria triangle, the mission starts. On one side, the "Liberator" of the 60th EB(L) and the means of the 23rd EB are going to attack the big V2 and storage sites and between Ventimiglia/Bevera and Imperia, on the other hand, the B-17 and B-24 of the 15th AF which will treat those located between Ceparana (La Spezia) and Savona. In all, 58 four-engine and 36 twin-engines on the French side, assisted of course by the entire 3rd EC, plus 111 B-17 of the 5th Bomber Wing and 124 Liberators of the 47th Bomber Wing, escorted by three Fighter Wings on the side.
This is enough to make the German fighter and Kontrolle officials sweat, the latter seeing a multitude of echoes arriving simultaneously on their radar screens. Not enough to deal with so many adversaries over such a large distance, Bf 109 and Fw 190 are guided by the fighter command towards the most numerous group, in this case the B-24 of the 47th BW, which will suffer the most, with their escort. This does not mean, however, that there will be no losses elsewhere, because of the omnipresent Flak, and even rare fighters of the RSI.
Targets are heavily sprayed. The damage - on the targets and around... - are more or less important. On the ground, we know that it will happen again...

 

[Wings]

March 3rd, 1944

Operations Charleroi and Waffle
Massif Central - For the Allies, now that the fighting is gradually ceasing on the whole front line and the various units are settling into their new positions, it is time to take stock. The double operation Charleroi/Waffle is seen as an undeniable success. It allowed to progress and to shorten the line, but especially to free units. Thus, in the river guard function, the ground gained along the banks of the Rhône enabled the 10th and 15th DBLE to relieve the 1st DP, which had been stationed in this sector since Nordwind in December. The French staff is very satisfied with the behavior of the 19th DI. The two regiments of Chasseurs Ardennais, which had been involved in all the operations since the landing, can be put in corps reserve.

 

[Wings]

March 4th, 1944

King's Eggs
Amiens
Somme - The Amiens-Longueau marshalling yard is on the RAF's agenda for the night.
122 Halifaxes of the 4th Group assemble east of Portsmouth at dusk and head for Le Touquet, after the Lincolns of Sqn 209 had left for Le Mans as a diversion. The conditions are good, with a 5/10ths cloudy sky after the passage of a warm front coming from the south-west, and a waxing moon. Only one attack wave, but eight Mosquitos will carry out the marking, in order not to repeat the mistakes of the attack in Le Mans.
The clear sky is also an ideal weather for the night birds of I/NJG 4, which exchange their hunting area with their colleagues of II/NJG 4. Ludwig Meister is again lucky, as his Luk-marked Bf 110 is awarded an extra bar. A victory among the six losses suffered by the RAF that night, only one of which was suffered by the Flak: the Halifax LL229 of Sqn 78 crashed at Mézerolles near Doullens after only one man, Sgt McAllister, having been able to evacuate the burning aircraft.
"At about 8:50 p.m. on the road to Amiens, we were hit by the flak, which was firing 88 mm, after we were caught in several searchlight beams. A direct hit in the right wing took out an engine and set us on fire. Our pilot, F/Lt Ronald Spicer, immediately turned and ordered to drop the bombs, while I tried to activate the fire extinguishers on that side, but without success. Ronald then gave the order to evacuate and I did so immediately before the right wing broke off, the plane going into a spin without the others having been able to jump. My parachute opens, but I practically descend on the crash site, where the Germans are arriving and take me prisoner". Sergeant H.M. McAllister, mechanic.
The accuracy of the bombing is good this time, and the Spitfire photo-reco bring back some good pictures the next morning. The Bomber Command had planned a second operation for the following night only in case of bad weather conditions the first night, but the following night promising to be as clear, the decision is taken to pass a second layer on the target, where repairs are certainly underway.

Crossbow
Sottevast - Return of the 9th AF's heavies over the Cotentin, but only 14 B-17s manage to spot their target drowned by clouds and drop their cargo. This is enough to delay the work on the Normandy V2 launch site.
.........
Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Somme - Some four hundred B-17s and B-24s attack missile sites. Only four aircraft are lost, and the rain of bombs begins to seriously affect the morale of the German soldiers on guard, who wonder why they risk their lives every day for empty concrete structures...

Industrial problem
German Reich - The production of Fi 103 is still very low, despite the contribution of the Volkswagen factories. The Flakregiment 155 (W), now stationed in Zempin, south of Peenemünde, received for its training only very few flying bombs, and only since mid-February! Also Ferdinand Porsche, director of VW and put on the hot seat as such, demands manpower from the SS Gruppenfürher Pohl, given the hold taken by Himmler and the SS over the manufacturing process. For a small subsidiary, Minette AG, he is assigned...deported to work in the mines of Thil-Villerupt, near Longwy.

Royal Air Force Halifax Mk III, Operation King's Eggs, March 1944

 

[Wings]

March 4th, 1944

Poland
Our best friend
Between allies... - After the revelations of the day before and the media agitation that shook the world, the Soviet Union does what it knows best: it closes itself in silence, rigorously impervious to all solicitations and requests for interviews. The attachés are unavailable, the consular services unreachable and all the ambassadors present in the Western capitals mysteriously "await instructions".
Clearly, Russian policy towards the Warsaw uprising is now perfectly clear: while the Red Army continues to carry out operations at its own pace, the Kremlin is playing for time with a perfectly appalling cynicism.
In London, Sir Anthony is not surprised - it was even expected.
In Washington, Cordell Hull and his State Department are watching the drama from a distance. They know that, as in the case of the Baltic States or Romania, it is in any case both too late and irrelevant to worry about Poland.
Finally, in Marseille, it is noted with dismay that the dialogue of the deaf had given way to the cessation of relations between Moscow and the Polish government in exile. Which, in diplomatic language, is not far from being a declaration of war. "It is necessary to re-establish as soon as possible the conditions for loyal collaboration between the Soviets and Poles, because it is the only solution to give the insurrection a chance of survival!" says Léon Blum during an interview with the General. "Which is, in fact, asking our friends to lower the flag!" retorts De Gaulle, gloomily. "Indeed," sighs the minister darkly, like the General, he understands well where all this is leading.
A very sad situation for the Republic - while it was just returning to its soil, still deprived of most of its influence, it is forced to encourage an ally it can no longer help to negotiate its submission to what remains one of its long-standing enemies... Obviously, the official approach to the Russians could only comefrom the Poles - but in the meantime, it costs nothing to sound out. In the evening, Léon Blum thus asks ambassador Alexander Bogomolov to come to meet him, for a meeting all the more difficult because, in essence, it was not approved by any of the parties involved.

Last chance
Wolfsschanze (Rastenburg) - The Wolf's Lair is once again receiving guests from Hungary: the OKH "invited" the Royal Hungarian Army to present the state of its forces and the possibilities of industrial mobilization of the country for the spring of 1944. This time, regent Horthy does not come - much to the relief of his government, which was very concerned that he would run into Hitler again. Indeed, from their first meeting, in Berchtesgaden*, the two leaders did not show much affinity - their last meeting is only the final proof of a total opposition of their world views. The Prime Minister is not present either - although his mediation skills would have been useful, this is not his field. And Kállay feels that he would not be welcome - the Germans want his head.
It is therefore General Lakatos, the Regent's confidant and commander of the 8th Corps, who is to carry out the task alone.
He has to meet with Generaloberst Kurt Zeitzler, whom the Hungarians considered to be both fat and incompetent. The Magyar thought he could manipulate him. Alas, once introduced in the office, he has to realize that he has in front of him Adolf Hitler in person!
The Führer is no more satisfied with his Hungarian allies than he had been a month ago - he had just received a personal letter from Horthy proposing that the Honvéd "assume entirely the burden of the defense of Hungary's southern border, whether in Bosnia, Vojvodina or even in Subcarpathian Ruthenia." The Regent therefore suggested deploying the Royal Hungarian Army alone in front of the Western armies, in an approach not so far from that of the Bulgarian Kyril of Preslav the previous fall. And even if Horthy ignored this similarity, it is an understatement to say that his initiative was badly received.
The Hungarian general, standing as if on the deck of a ship in the middle of a storm, took a verbal beating as his regent rarely had to know some. After a sometimes disjointed speech, mixing insults, threats and dissertations on the inferiority of the Slavic race, the Supreme Guide finally concludes: "That is why the entire Hungarian army must go to the Russian front! To the last man!"
Lakatos does not react. The storm passes and he simply replies: "I take note of your observations, Chancellor, and I will of course pass them on to my Chief of Staff, who is the only one authorized to make decisions regarding the deployment of our forces."
The soldier salutes, leaves and goes in search of Zeitzler, pondering the opinion that Horthy once expressed about the Germans**.
.........
Adolf Hitler is left alone. A door creaks open, a thin, balding figure strides in - it's Herr Doktor Goebbels.
- My Führer, I dare not ask you how your meeting went.
- Badly, Goebbels. You were right, of course, about this Magyar race!
- I said so already in 1936***. You can't trust the Hungarians.
- That's true, and I was wrong to try to accommodate them at all costs. To think that this old man dared to insult me when I invited him to Kiel! He and his horrible matron who constantly mumbled "Prinz Eugen" under his old hat! The devil take the Hungarians, I don't know how Göring managed to get along with them!
- Jewishness permeates Hungary, my Führer, that explains its neutrality and then its reluctant commitment. Horthy and his family are strongly enjuivated. And he obviously does everything he can to avoid solving the problem.
- We will do something about it - like everything else, really.
Horthy, Kállay and Lakatos are obviously unaware of this. But their delaying tactics have worked for the last time.

* On August 22nd, 1936, Hitler, meeting Horthy for the first time at his Eagle's Nest, had immediately proposed an offensive alliance against Czechoslovakia against the promise to offer him Slovakia once Czechoslovakia was destroyed. The refusal of the Regent irritated the Führer vigorously, who always refused to go to Budapest himself.
** "They are a valiant people whom I admire, but the German is always unbearable, tactless and mean."
*** He had even written this in his diary.

 

[Wings]

March 4th, 1944

The end of the milk cows
Kriegsmarine Headquarters, Berlin - Realizing the great vulnerability of the Type-XIV supply submarines (Milchkuh, milk cow) given the turn taken by the Battle of the Atlantic, Admiral Dönitz orders the suspension of work on the 14 units under construction (U-491 to U-500, as well as U-2201 to U-2204), of which the first three are three quarters completed. The hulls will be scrapped out a few months later.
As early as April 1942, the British secret services had in their hands an aerial photograph showing a submarine of exceptional size leaving the port of Kiel, but it was thought that it was a new type of mine-sweeper submarine. Despite suspicions, it was not until the summer of 1942 that the true nature of the Type-XIV was known, once the crew of U-464 had been captured after scuttling their ship.
Tracking down the Milchkuh became a priority mission for Allied aircraft and ships, because the elimination of one of them forced several other submarines to return to France or Norway to refuel. The weak point of these submarines was the use of high frequency radio communications, necessary to agree on a rendezvous with the units that had to be resupplied. Thanks to Ultra, to the improvement of the radars and coverage of the North Atlantic, the Allies eliminated most of them in 1943.
At the beginning of this year, only U-490 was still in service. It was to test an experimental submerged refuelling system.
Less than three months after being launched, the order for thirty Type-XX transport submarines has also been suspended. Indeed, the evolution of the strategic situation does not allow exchanges with Japan to continue. Only the U-1701 to U-1703 will be continued; they will be in charge of transporting Perydol (or hydrogen peroxide), fuel for Walter type submarines.

 

[Wings]

March 4th, 1944

Poland
Operation Storm - Austerity
Radom-Kielce District - New arrival of paratroopers of the Sosabowski Brigade - which completes securing the AK positions in this area, and allows Colonel Stanisław Dworzak "Daniel" to finally launch several actions. In fact, in less than three days, his forces have gained almost 8% manpower! And above all, these are highly trained, highly motivated and strongly armed men (on his scale), which allows him to consider some projects...
However, due to the massive presence of enemy armor in the area, and in agreement with Ploszewski and Sobocinski, who fell from the sky, "Daniel" chooses to remain prudent. Despite the tragic circumstances of the moment and the nausea that seizes everyone with news from the capital, to rush under the Nazi tracks and foolishly squander to the four winds the lives of compatriots just returned from exile would not help Poland, let alone Warsaw.
It is therefore decided to start by sending the Brigade's autonomous combat groups into the countryside reinforced by a few carefully chosen AK volunteers (they had to keep up!) to do intelligence work and then possibly sabotage. Not glorious... but it will always occupy men that Dworzak "Daniel" fears, otherwise, of not being able to hold on for very long. Even if, in fact, it is mostly a matter of waiting for the Red Army, to assist its progression when the time comes...
.........
District of Łódź - Contact between the forces of the Secret Army and the 213. SicherungDivision of Alex Göschen, whose foolishly scattered columns in search of the enemy fall at the turn of a wooded (mostly forest) area on the men of the 10th Infantry Division Maciej Rataj (Lt.Col. Józef Rokicki "Charles"), heated up by the ongoing massacres in Warsaw as well as by the arrival of reinforcements from the army in exile.
The German formation, poorly armed, poorly commanded and outnumbered locally, suffers greatly. Thus, a battalion on a combing operation - which quickly became a "punitive" expedition, one does not remake oneself... - is cut to pieces in the vicinity of Sulborowice; the survivors had to withdraw in haste to the nearest town, leaving the dead and wounded...sorry, just the dead... A real humiliation for the Heer security forces, which Walter Model will not fail, of course, to have them properly reprimanded when they come to ask for reinforcements... But it was too late to correct the situation - time for Göschen to rally other troops for the assault, the enemy has obviously flown away.
.........
Białystok district - Calm situation in this sector - both because of the Soviet advance and the rallying of the forces of Slęczka "Krak" to the Red Army. Here, Storm is over. With only 6,000 men and very few resources, it is now clear that the Armia Krajowa never had a serious chance to restore the authority of the Republic here. From now on, the law that applies will be that of Moscow.
However, Wiktor Konopka "Grom" and his men did not die in vain. There were very few losses in the Polish ranks. This is not necessarily the case in the whole country these days.
.........
Polesie district - The night did not calm down the men of the 30th ID, of which a handful decided to go to Warsaw to do something useful: confront the Nazi killers. Henryk Krajewski "Leśny" does not try to do anything special to greet each other, shake hands, and then almost all the fighters set off for the west and to the Vistula River. Very few of them managed to do so, between shootings with the Germans, bad encounters with the Soviets, machine-gunning by planes from all sides, hunger, thirst, mines... discouragement too, because there are 230 kilometers to the capital. Henryk Krajewski will not be part of the trip: faithful to the initial orders of the Armia Krajowa, he will continue to Białystok with his handful of followers to be interned there*.
.........
Warsaw District (Ochota district) - It has already been almost a week since the 18. Waffen-Grenadier-Division of the SS RONA has been wading through the Ochota district, despite having a superiority in numbers, armor and firepower. A downright miserable performance... But everything has an end: today, under the shells and machine-gun fire, the last redoubts of the Armia Krajowa fall one after the other into the hands of the SS, who advance behind human shields. The Infant Jesus Hospital (Nowogrodzka Avenue), the Military Geographical Institute, the post office, the Kaliska reduta (at the corner of Kaliska and Grójecka streets)... Everywhere, the white and red banner is replaced by the black swastika flag, hoisted on the positions of the defenders who fought to the limit of their strength and only retreated for lack of ammunition, over the bodies of their comrades**.
In the Wawelska reduta, too, it is time to evacuate. Eighty-three people - not one more - slip into a narrow passageway that smells of fear, sweat and dampness and that took two days to dig out. Walking through a stinking cesspool with water up to their belts, totally unaware of the path to follow, the insurgents split into three groups. Some of them go up to the ulica Prokuratorska, where they reach the open air through a manhole. Others get lost in the darkness and return to the redoubt, for lack of an alternative. But the most numerous succeed, against all odds, in reaching the Vistula and then set off along the river towards Śródmieście, upstream. A difficult and terribly trying exercise, especially in the icy waters of March and under fire from several German snipers, fortunately stationed quite far away... Finally, about fifty men join the Śródmieście group of Colonel Stanisław Steczkowski "Zagończyk" - but not the commander of the redoubt, Captain Władyslaw Sieroszewski "Sabała".
Hit by a bullet in the shoulder during his crossing, although he had already been wounded during the fighting, he drowned... To think that he had been there by chance when the fighting started!
But as he disappears into the waters, "Sabała" perhaps suspects that those he left behind did not have not much more luck.
In fact, when they finally entered the redoubt, at the end of the afternoon, the Belorussians massacre with rifles and bayonets all the combatants who fall into their hands, including the wounded - as usual doomed to burn in the fire of their first aid post, located in the basement. Just another day in Warsaw... Among the victims was Professor Jan Salamucha, who had refused to evacuate, joking that he was "too big to go through the sewers". Both a chaplain and a doctor, he was massacred with a knife while protecting with his body a wounded man he was trying to spare... As for the civilians, once they had been properly brutalized, they will be sent to Zieleniak for sorting and transfer.
But, however satisfying it is, the capture of the Wawelska reduta is still insufficient for the Nazi command. Thus, despite the efforts made over several days, the access to the Poniatowski bridge by the Jerozolimskie aleje is still not secured! The RONA is still unable to meet the objectives that were assigned to it! This poses serious problems for the Ostheer: indeed, contrary to what would have happened if the insurrection had the insurrection been further away from the front line, the obstinate defense of the capital by the Secret Army considerably hinders its communications, delaying the maneuvers in progress. And since, in Rastenburg (quite far from the events...), one does not understand that it is possible for German forces to skate in front of mediocre terrorists, an inspection mission is hurriedly sent to Warsaw.
While waiting for these visitors, in "pacified" Ochota, the housework continues in the same way as in Wola. It is estimated today that in seven days of slaughter, 10,000 people died in this district alone. Less than in Wola, it is true... but enough to make history. Because despite everything, there are still survivors who tell the story - for example, the patients of the Radium Institute, still trapped in their cellars and chimneys!
.........
Warsaw District (Wola and Old Town) - After the violent counter-attack suffered the day before in the Jewish cemetery, the Axis attacks again. The forces of the Secret Army are entrenched among the graves, but the SS police forces of the Wartheland take advantage of the fact that they are now assured of their flanks by the "definitive securing" of Wolska Avenue, until then defended by the group of Major "Sosna". The latter is pushed back towards Muranów, Lt-Colonel Jan Mazurkiewicz "Radoslaw" is subjected to a new and strong German attack.
The air force and artillery give from the first hours of the morning, then comes the infantry, advancing from the south behind a handful of armored vehicles delegated by the Totenkopf...
Once again, the Poles have to let go under a deluge of fire. They withdraw towards the intersection of Żytnia and Młynarska streets, and then toward the Calvinist cemetery. New feat: by dint of grenades, incendiary cocktails and other improvised explosive devices dropped under their tracks, a Panther is damaged and a half-track destroyed! Meager consolation... At 11:00, twenty Heinkel 111s hit the cemetery, the last of the Armia Krajowa in the district. The Poles withdraw... At least until the end of the afternoon, when the company of the second lieutenant "Jeremi" comes to reoccupy it...to immediately collide with the enemy elements that had come to seize it! New melee in the middle of the graves, between the crosses broken by the shots, the tracks and the explosions, where the dead seem to come to meet the living. Finally, at night, refusing to abandon their comrades, the rest of the men of the Parasola Battalion charge, literally climbing into the German machines to take control of them. A Panther is destroyed, with a grenade thrown into the turret! This time, it is too much for the SS, who once again give up control of this ravaged land to these "crazy terrorists" whom they had learned to fear, if not respect.
One more victory for the AK... But this one, bled white and always more threatened here with encirclement, can only begin to withdraw. It is true that lieutenant-colonel "Radosław" has lost almost half of his troops in three days! For lack of being able to evacuate to the nearby forest of Kampinos (where his Szare Szeregi scouts could have hidden), the latter begins to withdraw the bulk of his troop to the Żytnia. Instead of the saving cover of the woods, it is towards the ruins of the ghetto and the warehouses of Stawki that the men of "Radosław" head, exhausted by so many lost victories.
Meanwhile, on the side of the Dirlewanger and Osttürkisher, the situation is a bit more settled, at least for today. Starting from Wola, which has been reduced to ashes, the fighter commandos have to reduce one by one the Polish positions in the Old Town, by all means.
Supplies are scarce and support is precious. The rain floods the streets full of corpses, invaded by a pestilential smell, in an air full of flies. The water is dangerous to drink: cholera threatens. It is in this atmosphere of end of the world that, despite everything, the ruins of the royal castle*** are fiercely contested.
Further south, in the still relatively unscathed Śródmieście district, the men of Colonel Stanisław Steczkowski "Zagończyk" prepare to sell their skin dearly, while Colonel Antoni Chruściel "Monter" is once again considering moving his headquarters.
Sad and symbolic consequence of these defeats: the captured Hetzer "Chwat", which the Poles had been struggling for days to repair in the courtyard of the central post office, is finally buried under the rubble. Like most of the hopes of the city****...

The sky is (almost) not empty
Panatella Air Base - For the 1586th (Polish) Special Duty Flight too, it is disillusionment because of the weather. Only three resupply missions could be carried out, a drop in a sea of flames! And even if the pilots are now considering to fly in all weathers, they refrain from it for the time being: not because the Soviets would not appreciate it (they do not care!) but mainly because they fear that a too visible danger of their aircraft is considered as an insubordination likely to lead to an arrest.

Operation Comet - Shooting stars
Tatoi Airport (Athens) - Tonight, bad weather from Attica to the Carpathians! The men of the Sosabowski Brigade remain on the ground - and with them, the last elements of 3rd Battalion and the 1st Battalion (Major M. Tonn). Major General Sosabowski notes with displeasure that, for the moment, Comet has only allowed the transport of 600 of the 1,718 men in his brigade. This is not much (especially since he still fears that everything will stop tomorrow!) and yet it is already a lot: the three days of supplies provisioned by the soldiers already on the spot will be consumed tomorrow!
Let's hope that the planes in Serbia will be able to take off...
.........
An airfield southwest of Niš (liberated Yugoslavia) - For the LeO-458T, however, it will not be for tonight. The aircraft do not take off for Poland - neither do their comrades from all other bases. And in their flanks, however, supplies are waiting!

* Released at the end of 1944 by the NKVD, which obviously did not consider him dangerous, he settled in Wrocław as the director of an energy company, before dying in his bed without any further ado - except for his tenacious relations with underground nationalist circles. He is today buried in the Powązki military cemetery in Warsaw, having left a memoir that has yet to be published...
** The defenders of the Kaliska reduta would even manage to reach the forests of Chojnowskie, i.e. the outskirts of Warsaw, just behind the German lines.
*** These ruins are not the result of the fighting, but rather of the demolition work previously undertaken by the Germans, which weakened the building, notably by leaving it without a roof. Let us recall that in 1940, the Reich plans to completely raze Warsaw and build a gigantic Volkshalle Germania on the site of the former residence of the Mazovian princes, and later of the President of the Republic. In fact, if the whole structure had not already been dynamited, it was, it seems, for fear of damaging the surrounding quays! The castle will be rebuilt identically after the war, thanks to the plans of the time.
**** The Hetzer was found in 1949 during excavation work and will be exhibited for a short time in the Warsaw Liberation Museum... before being scrapped by direct order of the communist government.