How a Soviet reconnaissance group of 25 people defeated a 5-thousandth fascist garrison

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

This happened at the end of July 1944. Parts of the 51st Army of General Kreiser, recently regrouped from the south to the 1st Baltic Front, were attacking the territory of the Shavelsky district of the former Kovno province near the border with Kurland.

In the vanguard of the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps of Lieutenant General Obukhov, which was part of it, the 9th Guards Molodechno Mechanized Brigade of the Guard of Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Vasilyevich Stardubtsev acted.

On July 27, Lieutenant Colonel Starodubtsev sent a reconnaissance group under the command of Guards Captain Grigory Galuza to the rear of the enemy. The task of the group was to pave the way for the advance detachment of the guard of Lieutenant Colonel Sokolov. The group included twenty-five fighters on three BA-64 armored vehicles, two T-80 tanks and three German SdKfz-251 armored personnel carriers. These armored personnel carriers were driven by German drivers, with whom the cars were taken as trophies on July 5, 1944 in the Belarusian city of Molodechno, for the capture of which the 9th brigade received the honorary name Molodechno.

Once in our captivity, these Germans not only shouted "Hitler - kaputt" in unison, but also declared that they had been secret anti-fascists all their adult life. Taking this into account, our command, instead of sending the prisoners to the camps, left them at the front in their former positions of driver-mechanic Sonderkraftfartsugov.

Most of our scouts changed into German uniforms, and Balkan crossbeams were applied to the BA-64 and T-80 so that the Germans would mistake them for captured vehicles in German service.

The scouts left the location of the brigade in Meshkuchai at nightfall and at midnight moved along the Šiauliai-Riga highway in the direction of Mitava. We walked at top speeds. The scouts that got on the way rammed the enemy vehicles and threw them into a ditch.

Having passed 37 miles along the German rear, at 2 am on July 28, the reconnaissance group approached the former town of Yanishki, which received the status of a city in independent Lithuania in 1933.

In the city was the 15th SS Panzer Grenadier Brigade (3,866 people) under the command of the Standard Fuehrer von Bredov, the 62nd Infantry Battalion of the Wehrmacht, the 3rd company of the 4th Sapper Regiment, two artillery and three mortar batteries. The strength of these forces was about five thousand people. The general command of the troops assembled in the city was carried out by Police General Friedrich Eckeln.

In February-April 1943, Eckeln led the execution of the punitive anti-partisan operation "Winter Magic" in the north of Belarus. During the operation, Latvian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian collaborators shot and burned several thousand civilians, more than ten thousand were taken to work in Germany.

The Germans turned two former synagogues into tank hangars. The night guard was carried by Lithuanian policemen from the Libau police squad under the command of the Latvian captain Elš. Among these policemen was, they say, the local native Juozas Kiselyus - the future father of the famous Soviet film actor. The Germans themselves mostly slept at home, having set up only a small checkpoint at the entrance to Yanishki.

The Germans, it seemed, had nothing to fear - the front was almost 40 kilometers from Janiszki, and their units were in reserve.

On approaching the Janiski, the convoy was hailed by German sentries. When asked about the password, the German driver of the captured SdKfz-251 replied that their group had just escaped from the Russian environment and did not know any passwords. Believing this answer, the non-commissioned sergeant on duty ordered the barrier open, and our reconnaissance group entered the city without hindrance.

Silently interrupting the policemen guarding the tanks with cold weapons, the scouts brought in seven Tigers and attacked the enemy right from the city center. The surprise effect did its job: some of the German soldiers and Baltic legionnaires, including the SS Standartenführer von Bredow, retreated to Kurzeme. Most of the enemy soldiers were captured by Lieutenant Colonel Sokolov's group that arrived in time half an hour later. We also got the bridge on the Presentia River intact.

Leaving the Tigers to the main forces of the 9th Brigade that approached, the reconnaissance group and the advance detachment continued to move. At 4.30 in the morning, the reconnaissance group began to fire at a German armored train. It happened between the railway stations Dimzas and Platone. The armored personnel carrier under the command of junior lieutenant Martyanov went ahead and did not come under fire, and the armored personnel carrier in which Captain Griory Galuza was located was shot at point-blank range and fell into a deep ditch. From a direct hit killed the commander of the armored personnel carrier senior sergeant Pogodin and the German driver with the old Prussian surname Krotoff.

Sergeant Samodeev and Captain Galuza himself were seriously injured. The command of the reconnaissance group was assumed by Lieutenant Technician Ivan Pavlovich Chechulin. Under his command, the reconnaissance group, pursuing the retreating enemy, overtook a convoy of vehicles with infantry, overtaking the convoy and setting up an ambush, the reconnaissance group with machine guns and grenades destroyed 17 vehicles and up to 60 Germans and their Lithuanian and Latvian accomplices. Chechulin personally destroyed three cars with grenades. Three tractors, a cannon and five motorcycles were captured.

At half past six in the morning, the group reached the outskirts of Mitava (now - Jelgava), where, by order of the command, went on the defensive, awaiting the approach of the main forces. In total, during the raid, the reconnaissance group passed 80 kilometers along the enemy's rear. Its commanders Grigory Galuza and Ivan Chechulin received hero titles in March 1945. Chechulin did not live to receive the award - on February 2, 1945, he died in a battle near the town of Priekuli.

Galuza survived to this day and died in Balashikha near Moscow on December 8, 2006. The former commander of the garrison, General Eckeln, was captured by Soviet troops on May 2, 1945. At the trial in Riga, Ekkeln was sentenced to death by the military tribunal of the Baltic Military District for war crimes and was publicly hanged on February 3, 1946 in Riga.