BUTTERFLY AND FALCON (Part 25)


By KATZMAREK ©


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Author's note.


This is a work of fiction based on fact. Opinions and
interpretations of events expressed are my own and as such are
entirely contestable.


This remains my property and may not be used for gain without
my express permission in writing.


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Everybody remembered where they were, what they were doing, and who was with them when the storm broke. John was visiting Jana in hospital, Chernagovka had just arrived at his office and Rhykov was dreaming of rows of stenographers.


Germany unleashed its Blitzkrieg in the early hours of June the 22nd, 1941. Despite numerous warnings to the Soviet leadership, including almost the exact day, it still came as a complete shock.


The largest military force ever assembled, some 139 German and 14 Rumanian divisions tore into the very heart of European Russian and ripped apart the Red Army. In the first days over 300,000 prisoners were taken. So many, in fact, that the Germans believed the Russians were deserting en mass.


By December, when the rains slowed the advance to a crawl, Germany and her allies were holding a line from Petsamo in the North, Lake Ladoga (held by, the now, German allies, the Finns) had Leningrad under siege, Tikhvin, Novgorod, Kalinin (to the suburbs of Moscow), Tula down to Rostov on Don. Sevastopol and the Crimea were under siege. Virtually all of the Ukraine, most of Byelorussia and the Baltic States were overun in a little over 5 months.


The Red Army had lost nearly 4 million men, of which an estimated 3 million had been taken into captivity. What had gone wrong with the Russian Armed Forces?


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Rhykov rose and listened to the news as usual. Instead of the usual bulletin it was a speech by Josef Stalin. Rhykov heard him urge the Russian people to be calm. It was all he needed. He picked up his phone and made a call to the Central Directorate of the GPU. Then he disappeared.


Rykov went off to do what Rhykov does and perhaps one other person in the World knew where he went.


Chernagovka, still clinging to the fading hope that his secret mission could be put on track, knew, when he heard the broadcast, it was buried. He, too, called his bosses. Following that, he rang the muster bell to assemble the squadrons.


John was woken by an urgent tugging of his collar. Startled, his first sight was the panic-stricken face of the Ward Sister.


"Comrade Major, Comrade Major, the Germans..." 


She couldn't continue but John knew what she was going to say. He leaned over to Jana who was still sleeping. He kissed her lightly on the lips and told his unconscious lover that duty had called. 


The fastest way to get from the Red Army's Hospital at Katchina to Novgorod was by train. John found that all trains were running normally, but the platform was thronged with reservists and regular troops hurrying to their units. In three quarters of an hour he was back at the Red Air Force Tactical Research and Weapons Institute Standing Air Regiment.


Information was confused and contradictory. The High Command reported that Riga had been surrounded but the Army was counter-attacking. Minsk had been bombed, but, the High Command reported, the bombers had been driven off with heavy losses. Such news filtered through during the whole morning and, at the end of it, no-one was any wiser.


Benin, at the University, knew exactly what she must do. She promptly enlisted in the Novgorod Defence Regiment, a local defence unit, handing Garcia to the Professor for safe keeping. He'd practically become a Grandfather to him in any case.


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The facts were, though, that Railways and communications in a 150 kilometre deep strip in front of the invaders had been paralysed by pinpoint attacks by the Luftwaffe. Some Red Army units deployed but found their flanks exposed by those that couldn't or didn't. The almost instant collapse of the infrastructure behind the Russian armies was the main tactical reason for the fiasco.


Panzers drove through the gaps in the lines and ranged deep in the rear of the Russians, siezing key towns and strong points. Incessant bombing by Stukas demoralised the troops and turned orderly retreats into routs. The Red Air Force was caught mostly on the ground, stranded without orders. Fuel depots were destroyed and the considerable numbers of Tanks the Russians had were largely abandoned. These were looked on in awe when the Germans arrived on the scene. Acres upon acres of Russian tanks and tracked vehicles parked in fields going nowhere.


So many tanks were left behind by the Russians that the German Generals assumed the Red Armoured Brigades must have been permanently crippled; but for one thing, German intelligence had been faulty.


The German Intelligence bureau, the Abwehr, had told German High Command, OKW, that the Russians possessed 5000 tanks all up. In fact, the figure was over 21,000 in June 1941, and included 1000 of the best tanks produced by the allies to see general service in the war, the T34.


But there were other reasons for the collapse, maybe just as important. One was exactly the same catelogue of failures that plagued Timoshenko's assault on Finland. The Red Army soldier was exposed as undertrained and underequipped. The Ivan was trained to be strictly obedient to orders; so much, in fact, that he was discouraged from using his initiative. When orders weren't forthcoming he tended to sit and wait to be told what to do. This fault went up through Division level and was systemic.


That failure was possibly a byproduct of the recent purges. Senior Officers weren't going to stick their necks out.


Another problem was the system of Political Officers that Trotsky instituted way back in the Red Army's foundation. These Officers were answerable only to the Communist Party and sometimes their interference in Military decisions was disasterous. In some cases, Political Officers coerced Officers into ordering Infantry into battle against armour in foolhardy mass charges. The boundary of responsibility between the political and military officers was vague.


Another factor definitely present, although its significance has probably been exaggerrated by the West, was the unhappiness with the Soviet system and leadership. Many agricultural workers, particularly Byelorussians and Ukrainians had been unhappy with forced collectivisation and the intrusion of the Government in their lives. Some units had a willingness to desert. Some even saw the Wehrmacht as liberators. If so they were quickly disillusioned.


For the Nazis came, not so much to destroy 'Bolshevism,' but for land and slaves. The Nazi Party's cock-eyed Social-Darwinistic, Eugenics-inspired Racial theory of master race classified the Slav as 'sub-human,' fit only to be worked to death as a 'human mule.' The Nazis came, not as liberators but as slavers and exploiters. When Russian men began to be rounded up to be sent to Germany as 'guest workers' any goodwill they may have had disappeared. The Nazis were not interested in winning 'hearts and minds.' If they had, things may have gone differently.


But the bare facts remain, the Red Army's 'orderly retreat' strategy foundered before the Blitzkrieg. But the Soviet Union had an army to follow, and another to follow that.


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It had been three weeks since Jana had been retrieved from the forest. A lucky hit from anti-aircraft fire had severed an oil line in the engine and it gradually ran dry and siezed. Powerless, she glided over the border looking for a place to put down. She headed for a clearing but the aircraft had lost too much height. Clipping the tops of the trees, the MiG had hit hard throwing Jana free.


The impact had broken several ribs and her pelvis. She lay for three days, crawling for water from a nearby stream. When the foresters found her she was near death. Grave doubts had been expressed that she would ever fly again.


She was taken to the Military Hospital at Katchina, regarded as the best in all of Russia. John was given leave to visit here there. He stayed in the hospital for practically the whole time. Chernagovka had also visited her there, and Rhykov, but only for a few minutes. There was talk of a medal, perhaps even the Order of Lenin, to go with her Order of the Red Star from her days as a stunt pilot.


But, in view of recent events, there may be even greater acts of courage to reward soon.


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Rhykov had much to think about as he flew down to Byelorussia. His team of specialists all sat silently, introspectively; perhaps thinking about the mission, family, whatever. They'd checked the equipment a dozen times, including their brand new PPSh machine guns. They all looked like villains, Rhykov thought, rather than an elite 'forward reconnaissance group.'


'Such a deceptive name,' he thought, 'sounding like a group tasked with counting German vehicles from some hill near the front line.' But Blitzkrieg meant that the front line was confused, with German Forces far to the rear of some Russian units. It reminded him of the surf on a rocky beach. The sea flowed around the rocks leaving them isolated, alone.


Everyone in this experienced team dressed as they saw fit. Some had a kind of a uniform, but most dressed as foresters; albeit foresters draped in military equipment.


As the aircraft droned on, Rhykov smiled as he thought of the stenographer. 'She did like it rough,' he thought, 'perhaps he'd now ruined her for her husband?'


She'd taken little persuasion. Perhaps she'd already knew when she went to his office at two that afternoon? He'd asked her to sit next to him for some bullshit reason, he couldn't remember now. She'd barely batted an eyelid when he'd taken her hand and placed it on his bulge. Her hand had moved, then, unbidden, she'd known what he was after.


'She sure had a fine pair of pair of tits,' he thought, 'unstrapped, they'd tumbled out.'


He'd placed her between his legs, kneeling on the floor. She'd had the same blank expression she wore at the meeting. She'd sucked his cock efficiently, well-practiced.


She had to be in her forties if she was a day, Rhykov thought, and she was large, well-padded.


"Five minutes boys!" 


Rhykov snapped to and checked his parachute again. The others were doing the same, trying to mask their fear in well-practiced routine. A crewman slid the door back and the night air screamed past. The crewman leaned out briefly then pulled his head inside quickly.


"There's the signal," the pilot announced. He reminded Rhykov of a magician pulling a rabbit out of the hat. Maybe it's relief, he thought, that his navigation was spot on?


All five stood in a line and clipped their static lines to the bar by the door. The crewman shouted, 'go,' and, one by one, they all plunged out into the night.


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The squadron had no success so far. They'd been scrambled 5 or 6 time but had failed to intercept anything. They relied, for the most part, on observers on the ground and some of the reports were vague or inaccurate.


The Germans were divided into 3 army groups plus the Finns. The Northern group was tasked with the capture of Leningrad. Army Group Centre advanced towards Smolensk and Moscow and the Southern Group stormed into the Ukraine. As part of the plan to cut off Leningrad from the rest of Russia, the Northern Group was supposed to swing in a wide arc around Lake Ladoga and link up with the Finns to the East of it. Novgorod was right in the way.


Air raids began three weeks following the invasion. About 50 bombers raided the railway yards and the industrial area. All the squadrons were scrambled but were vectored to the wrong place. By the time John's squadron had located them they were on the way home. Nevertheless a Junkers Ju 88 was shot down, the first victory to the Novgorod Air Regiments.


Lacking Radar the interception of bombing raids left a lot to chance. Lieutenant Chernagovka, Major John Greenhaugh and other senior officers of the Regiments called an urgent meeting with the army to work on the problem.


Meanwhile, Benin had talked her way into the fortress artillery. Some Oblukhov 210mm Naval guns had been mounted along the Volkhov in concrete reinforced bunkers before the war. These were half-sunken into the ground and the guns could be completely sealed behind massive steel doors. Two of these guns could be electrically fired from a control bunker located almost a kilometre away. The guns themselves had to be loaded by teams of sweating men, the heavy shells pushed along underground passages on railway trucks.


Benin was one of the small team of Range Takers, calculating trajectories and bearings with the use of tables and a pencil. She then had to telephone the guns and order adjustments, etc, to the crews. She was given the temporary rank of Sergeant. 


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Marshal Zhukov had been charged with the defence of the Northern sector and of Leningrad in particular. He was a hard man, but shrewd. When three of his fellow Marshals were ensnared by the GPU during the purges, he dodged the bullet, no-one knew how.


Zhukov proved to be the single biggest asset in the Soviet arsenal. The men loved him, trusted him and, in return, he fought for their interests against some of the more bizarre ideas of the High Command. 


When, again, deprived of adequate armour for an operation, he said, "my men will fight with their bare hands if necessary. They will charge the Fascist tanks with spears and be merged with the soil of Russia. They will do this because I ask them to do it. And it is fitting that I personally lead them to destruction." He received his tanks.


It was Marshal Zhukov who, in 1945, had to endure the drunken, racist ramblings of the American General Patton at their meeting to celebrate the linking up of the Soviet and Allied forces. A bitter anti-Russian, Patton had called Marshal Zhukov a 'Russian son of a bitch.' 


"We are both sons of bitches," replied the Marshal, without batting an eyelid.


But Zhukov, in the Summer/Autumn of 1941, was a nervous man who'd enormous organisational problems to overcome before the Red Army could go on the offensive.


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John heard that Katchina was going to be evacuated. Lying not far to the South of Leningrad it was right in the path of the advancing German army.  Novgorod, too, was emptying, beginning with the very old, the young and the infirm. He knew, too, that Benin was manning the defences and it worried him.


The squadrons had switched to the offensive, going seeking the enemy instead of trying to intercept their bombers. At the end of July the Luftwaffe had moved fighters close enough to escort the raids. The Yak's indifferent performance above 7000 metres then became obvious.


The Messerschmitts they encountered were the new 'F' model, faster with improved fuel injection. This made the Yak easy prey, as John's squadron found to its cost. 


It had been a clear day, visibility was excellent. John's squadron, now designated the 44th Interceptor Squadron, 355th Guards Air Regiment 'Novgorod,' were in the air for a 'search and destroy' mission. By chance they spotted a mixed group of Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 'Jagdbombers' (Fighter-Bombers) evidently attacking along the railway. John recognised some of the Messerscmitts as coming from JG 52 'Grunherz,' the Green Hearts.


The 109s could both out-turn, out-climb and out-dive the Yaks at altitude, so their only advantage was in drawing the Messerschmitts lower. Even carrying a bomb under the fusilage, the Focke-Wulfs still were tough customers.


John circled around as a dogfight began to develop. He called in other squadrons and within 5 minutes, the 45th and the 47th waded in. There were now nearly 40 Russian fighters, Yaks and MiGs, against a similar number of Germans.


John dived down on a pair of Focke-Wulfs skimming low over the trees. He should have been in the best position, pinning the Germans between himself and the ground. But the 190s banked sharply as he opened fire and he missed.


Then two 109s were on his tail and he was fighting for his life. At least at this altitude the M105 engine was the equal of the Daimler-Benz so John stayed low, testing the German's mettle in a stern chase just metres above the tops of the trees.


But these guys weren't about to give up. John heard the thud of rounds hitting his fusilage. Surely soon they must hit something vital and he'd slam into the forest. In desperation he fired all his guns, something he'd heard another pilot boast of. The smoke from the guns drifted back at the German fighters. Instantly they turned off, momentarily unsure where the fire was coming from. Fighter pilots are trained to have quick reactions and, supposing someone was behind them, they took instant evasive action.


Back at the base they found three of their number had been shot down. In all, 12 Russian Fighters had been lost, an unacceptably high ratio. The Germans had not reached their objective and at least 5 of their aircraft were claimed by the forest. Still, the Russian losses couldn't continue at that rate.


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In late August the panzers arrived before Novgorod and were stopped in their tracks by Russian artillery. The fighter squadrons were drawn back to dispersal fields and were joined by other air regiments. Reinforcements arrived from the East in a steady stream. The Russians were going to hold Novgorod at all costs.


But the German's main prize was Leningrad. To the North they gained the Volkhov and soon captured Tikhvin cutting all but one of the rail links to and from Leningrad.


The Germans had entered the Western suburbs of Novgorod but remained on the other side of the river. There, they dug in awaiting the issue to be decided in the North.


But over the next three years, the ornate and beautiful medieval city of Novgorod was destroyed.


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Rhykov looked at the glow in the distance with satisfaction. The forest was still but for the faint roaring of the fires. He watched the gleam reflected in the eyes of the others. It made them looked possessed.


They needed to keep moving, now, before the Germans came looking for them. He was thinking of an ambush somewhere because, in this forest, the Germans could only pursue them on foot or horseback. The night, the trees was the great leveller. Here, the technological advantage of the Germans was negated by the country.


With a tip of the head, Rhykov ordered the men back to the horses waiting patiently nearby. They mounted silently, the metal of the horse's bridles had been bound with leather to quieten them. They gathered the pack horses and headed away from their night's work.


The area of dense forests between the rivers Neman and the Pripyat were their hunting grounds. The Byelorussian foresters had already formed guerilla groups using caches of weapons that had been organised before the war. Rhykov's men had brought more supplies and much-needed organisation to the scattered groups.


The whole objective was delay, now. The Germans had to be prevented from reaching their targets before the autumn rains brought progress to a halt. If the main road from Bialystok in Poland through the forests could be made impassible then it would cost the Germans an extra few days to route supplies by alternative routes.


Troops would need to be drawn from the front to protect supply lines. Every soldier chasing partisans through the forests and steppes was one not rolling towards Moscow.


Three years later the number of partisans in the German occupied part of Russia would swell to upwards of 600,000, nearly the equivalent of two Soviet armies.


No doubt the repressive measures meted out, particularly in Byelorussia, by the German Feldpolizei, SS, SD and other paramilitaries on the population was a great boost to recruitment. Nearly 200 'Lidice' style exterminations of villages were perpetrated by the SS in reprisals for partisan raids. All the men were shot, the women considered too old to slave for the Nazis were killed, orphan children were either sent off to camps or slaughtered along with their parents. The villages were then set on fire and left to burn to the ground.


In the worse days of forced collectivisation, disasterous agricultural experiments that resulted in widespread famines, and Stalin's wholesale transfers of populations to dillute ethnic unrest; nothing had matched the depths of barbarity Nazi thugs visited on the Byelorussians.


From a population that might've been expected to have treated the invaders with, at least, indifference and, at best, as liberators, by 1944 Byelorussians were universally hostile to the Germans and became some of Stalin's most loyal and patriotic subjects.


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Benin sat outside in the sun near the control bunker. It was stifling inside and when they could they'd have a break. She accepted a cigarette from the Captain. His name was Pavel and he'd been a lecturer in music at the university.


The air snapped and an aircraft thundered overhead at treetop height. It was a Yak 9 with the Guards badge painted on the nose. Several more aircraft roared over, including Il 2s from a sturmavik regiment.


"Going hunting!" Pavel commented above the noise. Benin managed a weak smile.


John had visited her two days before when he was off duty. They'd taken a long walk together and he'd told her about the boys from the squadron who'd not made it back. Benin thought he'd looked drawn and fatigued. He was a Major, now, and an air ace. He wore the ribbon of the Order of the Red Star and a Meritorious Conduct Medal. 


He spoke Russian as fluently as herself. She thought it must be pure osmosis as she doubted he'd ever studied the language. What three years had achieved, she reflected, when the pair of them in their military uniforms had become almost indistinguishable in thought and deed from ordinary Russians.


"How is Jana?" she'd asked him.


"Evacuated to Kazan, I think," he'd told her, "I received a letter from her the other day. She's starting to walk again."


"That's good."


"She hopes to fly again soon. They're forming squadrons all the time... aircraft coming off assembly lines in the Urals by the thousands. It won't be long before we'll outnumber the fascists. Your Professor? Garcia?"


"He's not 'mine,'" she'd explained, "he's like an uncle. He's taken Garcia to Gorky where he has relatives. Garcia will be safe there."


"And you?"


"I want them to pay for what they've done to my beautiful city. They've ruined it, John, chased away the people and smashed those old buildings to pieces. These Nazis have no respect for history or culture except their own." John nodded. "They want a wasteland, and empty country so they can bring in their settlers."


"We're the equal of them in the air," John said. "We're intercepting more and more of the bombers. They are sending in fighter-bombers more, we've fought off their stukas. They don't dare send in anything unescorted."


"Your 'dung hunters'?" she smiled.


"The Il 2s are making quite a reputation for themselves. The Germans are not safe in the open anymore."


"Good. We'll drive them out of their bunkers with shells and you shoot them up in the fields, yes? We're a good team!"


"Yes," John smiled back, "we've always been a good team!"


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KATZMAREK ©

