1138 Becha Park

A King Tiger tank is slowly moving forward in the dense forest, its wide tracks rolled forward under the rolling of the wheels, crushing the green grass, scraping off the twigs and young leaves in the bushes . [Full text reading] Another King Tiger tank not far behind it was also moving forward at a slow speed, smashing a small tree and making a cracking sound.

The battle for Moscow has been going on for a month. Apart from the heroic tenacity of the Soviet defenders, this result is more due to the repair and waiting of the German army. Everyone was waiting for the moment when the encirclement was completed, and this moment finally arrived yesterday, June 30th.

So when the time just entered July, several German armies that surrounded Moscow launched a large-scale offensive against Moscow. The smoke on the battlefield lasted from the morning sun to the afternoon. Shells whizzed over the roof, the sound of the explosion shook the shattered glass of the building, there were intensive gunshots everywhere, and the air defense siren never stopped after it sounded.

Klug's Army Group F continued its offensive southwest of the city of Moscow, and his 5th SS Panzer Division engaged in a fierce battle for Picassa Park with a regiment of Soviet armored units. In this rare field terrain belonging to the Moscow city, both sides invested as much of their armor as possible, so this not so huge area became a famous chariot cemetery.

7 King Tiger tanks, 14 Tiger tanks and 30 Panther tanks and assault guns were destroyed in this huge park, while the Soviet side dropped a full 90 armored vehicles of various types and 2000 Multiple soldiers. The high ground in a park was full of destroyed armored vehicles from both sides, which eventually caused more tanks to be unable to find a way to continue their attack, and were forced to use infantry to fight.

The soldiers leaned on the wreckage of the armored vehicles that had burned and exploded and then cooled down and fired at each other, and then piled up the corpses of the fallen soldiers next to the corpses of these steel monsters. Vatutin personally ordered that not an inch of land in this park should be given up, so when the German army finally climbed to the high ground and thought it had occupied the park, the Soviets threw an entire armored regiment into a crazy counterattack.

30 Stuka 2 bombers from the group army dropped all the bombs they carried on the streets around Bicha Park to prevent Soviet soldiers from reinforcing the park, but in the end more than 1,000 Soviet troops rushed in Into the park, making the battle more bloody and crazier.

The battle unfolded in the woods, and soldiers on both sides even engaged in bayonet hand-to-hand combat in some places. One infantry regiment of the German army was eventually withdrawn due to too many losses, and then another infantry regiment was pushed up. When it was 1 o'clock in the afternoon, the second regiment couldn't hold on anymore, and the third regiment had to go up to continue fighting.

General Karikov of the 82nd Army even had to personally move his headquarters forward to Union Street, in the form of supervising the battle to encourage his soldiers to continue fighting in such a "slap-sized" place.

Within a few hours, the German army killed more than 800 people, while the Soviet army counted the follow-up reinforcements, and more than 2,900 people were killed here.

This park seems to be devouring the lives of soldiers on both sides like a bloody mouth, and it is still devouring it until this moment-two King Tiger tanks drove into the defensive zone of the Soviet army from the side. The defender's machine gun suddenly rang out, and the bullets hit the armor of the two King Tiger tanks, making a sound like fried beans.

The German infantry behind the two tanks fell down all of a sudden. In a panic, the Germans set up their machine gun positions and began to sweep against the dense woods. A German soldier, holding his rifle, bent over behind a long bench and ran through the bushes, behind him was a leaf and twigs that were splashed by bullets.

"Company commander! The radio said that there will be a cover bombardment here in 3 minutes! The coordinates have been handed in!" He ran while supporting his helmet, and finally jumped into a big hole formed by the shells. The action brought up a cloud of dust. When their infantry company was just replenished, there were 111 people, but now there are only less than 80 left.

"Cease fire! Stop firing!" The company commander yelled loudly at the infantry platoon that was firing on the other side of the crater where he was. Soon the German army stopped attacking, and the Soviet Union obviously realized that bad things were coming, so they also stopped attacking.

After the gunfire from both sides stopped, only ten seconds later, the first shell landed on the park near Balaclava Street. The mud and grass were blown up by the huge air waves, bringing Flying into the sky with all kinds of sundries, and then falling with the sound of other shell explosions.

As a regiment-level support artillery, the 75mm infantry artillery demonstrated its value in a battle of this scale. The falling shells accurately blasted a Soviet heavy machine gun bunker that was still firing just now into the sky. The Soviet soldiers who had nowhere to hide were also hit by the incoming artillery fire, and fell to the ground crying for their father and mother, letting their own blood flow unstoppably.

As the German army continued to advance, a river blocked their way of attack, the bridge had been blown up by the Soviets, and the German tanks had to make a detour to both ends of the river. Soldiers on both sides across the river kept firing at each other, and the bullets flew across the river to the opponent's position, taking away the life of the enemy or leaving a hole in the bunker.

The turning point of the whole scramble occurred on the battlefield outside the park. Another German army attacked northward along Union Street, and they finally pushed their forward position to the intersection of Union Street and Obruchev Street. There they confronted Soviet troops across the street.

Two streets away, in Bica Park, the threatened Red Army units on their flanks finally gave up under German fire a defensive position they had held all day. They cried bitterly and left the places they defended, leaving these places to the two German King Tiger tanks that protected the infantry slowly advancing.

"Yes! Our troops have already deployed a new line of defense in Bicha Park and Balaklava Street, and the Soviets have not counterattacked! If you wish, Your Excellency, you can bring the 150mm howitzers directly under the General Headquarters to us. , bombarded the Kremlin more accurately." A German division commander established his temporary headquarters near the highlands he had just captured and reported the latest battle results to General Karikov. An infantry division, now they are the closest unit to the Kremlin, but there are countless Soviet defenders between him and the Kremlin.

However, Karikov did not stop his attack. At this time, his other two infantry divisions were crossing the Vostriakovo Cemetery and attacking north along Vernadsky Avenue. They fought desperately with the Soviet army in a concert hall, and then a temporary assault team rushed into the concert hall, annihilating the Soviet army inside and the 32 band members who resisted with the Soviet army.

At around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the German army achieved gratifying results on both Vernadsky Avenue and Trade Union Avenue. The famous Lenin Avenue is sandwiched between these two streets. The Soviet defenders here were finally forced to abandon their own Defensive positions retreated to Vorontsov Park and new defensive positions were set up.

This day was not a good day for the Soviet troops guarding Moscow. After they lost the important defensive position on the periphery, the "ring road defense line", they also lost the more important Obruchev Street-Balaklava Street defense line to the German army.

Of course, what Vatutin needs to deal with is not only the German F Group Army. In the back area of ​​Moscow, the infantry of the A Group Army crossed the Moscow Canal. After a whole day of fighting, they captured the northernmost "Sunday Cultural Park" in Moscow. The front of a Tiger King tank at the forefront of the 13th SS Armored Division under Marshal Rundstedt is only 700 meters away from Levobereg Railway Station.

"Now I finally understand the difficulties faced by General Rokossovsky...The combat quality shown by these German troops in street combat is not much worse than that in field combat. It is not that they are not good at street combat, but that they are fighting in the field It's all better." After reading the report on the changes in the battlefield situation within a few hours in his hand, Vatutin put down the heavy stack of papers a little depressed.

He lost more positions on this day than he lost in the past ten days. Only now did he understand that the seemingly fierce German attacks were actually just warm-up exercises, and when the storm came, he couldn't even withstand a thunderous blow from the German army. He originally hoped to keep these carefully arranged defensive positions until August, but on the first day of July, he lost these defensive points to the German army on the opposite side.

"Comrade Stalin called to ask about the situation on the front line... He asked if the Bicha Park was held, and when the German attack would stop." Vatutin's chief of staff put his hands behind his back, his face pale as if he had died Mother is average. The questioning in this telegram made him feel that he was simply a sinner in this country, and he should immediately pull out a pistol and smash his head.