Военная история / Campaign In Russia: The Waffen SS on the Eastern Front

Название: Campaign In Russia: The Waffen SS on the Eastern Front
Автор: Leon Degrelle
Издательство: Institute for Historical Review
Год: 1985
Страниц: 377
Формат: pdf
Размер: 10.53 MB
Язык: английский

The Russians came at dawn, the better part of two regiments, men and tanks silhouetted against the blood-red sun as they moved forward across the steppe. Huddled among the peasants' huts of Gromovaya-Balka, the men of the Wallonian Legion awaited them, silently cursing the frozen earth, which had offered implacable resistance to their entrenching tools.
Against the oncoming Soviet troops—4,000 of them—and the 14 tanks which accompanied them, the 500 Belgian volunteers who held the village disposed of no weapons heavier than machine guns. Their only hope was to hold on until the German command, hard pressed all along the Samara front, could rush them reinforcements badly needed in other sectors.
Corporal Leon Degrelle crouched behind the frozen carcass of a horse, sighting down the barrel of his MG34. He gave no heed to the bitter cold or to his injured foot, painfully broken two weeks before.
The Russian artillery shells were already landing in the village, inflicting terrible casualties when they were on target. Now the Soviet infantry broke into a run, their blood-curdling battle cry, "Ourrah pobieda!," "Hurrah for victory!," ringing in the ears of the French-speaking Walloons, drowning out the cries of the wounded and dying. Degrelle and his comrades began to fire, tearing big gaps in the ranks of the advancing Russians...