SKILFUL MANOEUVRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 April 1943, Page 5

SKILFUL MANOEUVRE

GERMAN TROOPS DECEIVED. SHELLED BY OWN GUNS. A skilful manoeuvre by the Soviet Command on a sector of the central front recently inflicted a major calamity on the German troops in this area. It resulted in a large concentration of Nazi infantry being heavily shelled by their own heavy artillery and fiercely bombed by the Luftwaffe, while bloody fighting occurred between two German companies. The Nazis’ losses were considerable.

The evidence of captured German soldiers from the units involved in these occurrences gives a vivid picture of what happened. Lance-coporal Otto Becher, of a mechanised infantry regiment attached to the 19th ' German Tank Division, stated at his interrogation: —

“A surprise offensive confused our command. At the height of an engagement the lieutenant ordered our N.C.O. to run at once to the heavily artillery positions and tell them to stop firing on our own troops. The telephone wires were broken. We sustained heavy losses.”

This mechanised infantry regiment was only one of the German units which suffered under the fire of the German heavy guns. Lance-corporal Rigelbau, 446th Regiment, 13th Division, stated: —

“German artillery fired at our own troops simultaneously with the Russian guns. This lasted for twenty minutes and we suffered heavy losses. Then our artillery moved their fire forward. No sooner had we recovered than the Junkers began to bomb us.” Corporal Eugen Nesper, 20th Tank Division, stated: — “It all happened at dawn in the lines occupied by the 92nd Sappers Battalion. In view of our heavy casualties our command was throwing even the sappers into action. The 2nd Company, led astray by a manoeuvre of the Sov-

iet troops, approached a village where they came under heavy mortar and machine-gun fire. “The company commander ordered the soldiers to deploy and return the fire. Fierce fighting ensued and both sides sustained heavy losses. Later it was found that the men occupying the village were the Ist Company of the same 92nd Sappers Battalion.”