Chapter 1658

Early the next morning, jellekin and I flew back to Lublin.

As soon as I got back to the headquarters, I saw malining sitting at a table with a thick stack of materials in front of him. I thought it was another battle report, so I quickly walked over to him and asked, "Comrade chief of staff, is it another battle report from the front line?"

I thought marinin would answer me, saying that it was the battle report from the landing sites of magnushev and puwai, or the latest situation of the landing site of selotsk. Unexpectedly, he stood up and came to me. After shaking hands with me and jerekin, he said, "it's not the war report, but the climate data of Warsaw in recent years."

When I heard that it was climate data, I immediately guessed that it must have something to do with the next river crossing operation. I quickly went to the table and asked, "chief of staff, have you found the information we need?"

"Yes, Rita, I found it." "According to the records, the visva river will not be completely frozen until the middle of December, but the thickness of the ice is generally only five to eight centimeters," marinin said with a somewhat dejected look

When I heard the data, I couldn't help clapping. After a moment of silence, I murmured, "that is to say, even if the visva River freezes, we can only let the infantry cross the river?"

"Well," malining said solemnly, "even if the infantry are only allowed to walk on the ice, they should not carry too many things, otherwise the ice will break."

"Before the river completely freezes," military commissar jerekin said at the moment, "there will be a lot of ice floes on the river, which will make it impossible for us to continue to use ships on the visva river."

"Comrades of the military commissar are right." as soon as jerekin finished his words, malining expressed his support in time: "as long as there is ice floes on the river, we can only rely on the two floating bridges to transport the landing site on the West Bank."

When malining mentioned the pontoon, I immediately asked with concern, "what's the situation of the pontoon? Can our transport team pass smoothly?"

"Yes, although the German army often sent out planes to bomb our pontoon, but with the efforts of our air force and ground air defense forces, the pontoon is still intact so far." After introducing the situation, malining began to complain to me: "however, the transport capacity of the pontoon is limited. I sent the Minister of logistics to the riverside to learn that some of the transport teams lining up to cross the river on the east bank even waited here the night before yesterday, and they have not been able to cross the river today; However, the convoy carrying the wounded on the West Bank was unable to cross the river. As a result, some of the wounded did not die on the battlefield, but died in pain while waiting to cross the river. "

Malining's words remind me of the most difficult time of the battle of Stalingrad. Because the German army bombed the ships running on the Volga River, the soldiers and materials behind them could not be transported, and the wounded in the city could not be transported. The health workers could only throw hundreds of the wounded by the river and let them live and die on their own.

Think of that sad scene, my nose can not help but burst of acid. Thinking of this, I pinched my nose and then asked marinin, "chief of staff, are we still capable of building a new pontoon?"

Regarding my question, malining hesitated and said: "it is basically impossible to build a pontoon bridge for tanks, artillery and trucks because there are not enough bridge equipment."

As soon as his voice fell, I asked in a hurry, "what about the bridge that allows infantry to pass?"

"It's a bridge for infantry, no problem." Malining asked with some doubts: "Rita, if our technical equipment can't cross the river, even if we transfer more infantry to cross the river, the role will be limited."

"Fierce fighting is going on every day at the magnushev landing site defended by the eighth group army of the guards. There must be a lot of wounded officers and soldiers. We should try our best to get the wounded down as soon as possible so that they can recover and return to the battlefield as soon as possible." I explained to malining, "the reason I'm going to build another pontoon is to bring the wounded back from the other side more quickly."

"But if the new pontoon can't pass vehicles, how can we get the wounded here?" Jerekin asked, puzzled.

"It's very simple. Bring the wounded over." Pointing to the map, I said to malining and jerekin, "the wounded on the West Bank are sent to the river visva by ambulance, and the stretchers waiting here carry the wounded from the pontoon to the ambulance on the east bank. Do you think that's all right? "

After listening to me, malining and jerekin summed up, then nodded at the same time and said, "this is a good way. As long as the ambulance does not cross the bridge, the transportation pressure of the floating bridge will be greatly reduced, so that we can transport more materials."

I checked it in my heart and felt that even if I did this, I still could not solve the problem of limited capacity of the floating bridge. Because it is not only necessary to transport materials from the east bank to the West Bank, but also those trucks that have finished unloading should drive back from Hexi. In this way, the number of tanks and artillery that can travel from the east bank to the west bank every day will be very limited. If we want to speed up the West Bank's material hoarding and gather more technical equipment, we need to find another way.

I sat at the table, staring at the map for a long time, and felt that it was impossible to build another pontoon for tanks and vehicles. At present, we are seriously short of bridge building equipment. Moreover, even if we get on the pontoon, it will fly out in an instant under the heavy bombardment of German aircraft.

Malining saw me staring at the map in a daze, then carefully asked: "Rita, do you think of any good way?"

I shook my head slightly to show that I had not come up with a good idea.

At this moment, suddenly, he heard jerekin sigh softly and said to himself, "I've thought of all the ways I can think of, but the effect seems not obvious, unless we let our truck fly by with wings, so that we can guarantee the materials needed by the other side."

The speaker didn't mean to listen, and the listener meant to. The words of gilekin immediately opened up a new idea for me: Yes, since the land route is impassable, we can consider the way of air transportation. Thinking of this, I quickly grabbed the phone on my desk and dialed the air force headquarters. After hearing boleynin's voice, I immediately asked, "Comrade General, how many transport planes are there in your army?"

"There are 20 US assisted C46 transport aircraft." After he said this, he asked curiously, "Comrade deputy commander, do you intend to parachute behind the enemy?"

Instead of answering his question immediately, I said, "Comrade General, give me the parameters of this kind of aircraft."

"This is an all metal twin engine, single wing military transport aircraft manufactured by Curtis company of the United States." After hearing my instructions, boleynin immediately reported to me the various parameters of the aircraft: "C46 transport aircraft has a wingspan of 32.92 meters and a fuselage length of 23.27 meters; The maximum take-off weight is 25.4 tons, the load is 3.64 tons, the cruise speed is 301 kmh, the range is 1883 km, and it can ride 40 fully armed soldiers; Equipped with Pratt Whitney r-2800-51, double row cylinder, star type air-cooled piston engine two, each power of 2000 horsepower

After boleynin reported the parameters of the plane, I said, "Comrade General, I have no idea of parachuting behind enemy lines. The reason why I want to know the performance of this kind of plane is to open up a transport line on both sides of the visva river."

"Transport lines on both sides of the visva river?" After hearing this, bolenin could not help but ask mistily, "Comrade deputy commander, I don't understand what you mean."

"Well, comrade air force commander." Since I knew that the air force had 20 C46 transport planes provided by the Americans, I had a lot of peace in my heart, so I confidently and boldly told paulenin about my plan: "I plan to let the convoy of transport materials unload the materials at the airport, and then use the transport planes to continuously transport these materials to the two landing sites of magnushev and puwai on the West Bank of the visva river. What's the matter? Is there any difficulty? "

"Comrade deputy commander, your plan is theoretically feasible." "As long as the landing site on the other side has a runway of 500 meters, our plane can land safely there," paulenin said carefully on the phone

"Great, that's great." After receiving Pauline's confirmation, I became happy. I said to the microphone, "I'll get in touch with general trakov and general kolpakchi, and I'll call you when they give me a definite answer."

When I put down the phone, I was a little embarrassed to see malining and jerekin looking at me with incredible eyes. I looked at them and asked, "can you tell me about my plan?"

"I think it's a good plan." "It's worth a try," marinin said, staring at me after glancing at the nearby jerekin

Seeing that malining agreed with me, I immediately called trekov. He asked frankly, "Comrade General, what's the situation there?"

"It's not good, Rita." Trakov complained to me: "the enemy attacks our landing site every day. Due to the lack of sufficient technical equipment, although we beat back the enemy's attacks, the casualties of the troops are very large."

"Comrade General, I understand your situation. However, due to our limited transport capacity, it is estimated that it will be difficult to change the current situation in a short period of time. "

"Yes, at present, the daily supplies and ammunition transported from the east coast are barely enough." "The more troops we have in the West Bank, the easier it will be to run out of ammunition and food if the pontoon is broken by enemy planes," he said with a little worry

"General trakov, I've come up with a way to maximize the supply of supplies and ammunition to you." As I had never been to the magnushev landing site and didn't know the terrain there, I said with insufficient confidence, "but I need your full cooperation."

"Comrade deputy commander, if you have any orders, just say it," trekov said respectfully to me. "As long as it is within my ability, I will try my best to complete it."

"Well, general trakov. I'm going to send Air Force transport planes to deliver materials for you, but I don't know if you can build a runway at least 500 meters long for transport planes in a safe area? "

As soon as I finished, there was no sound in the receiver. In my experience, it must be that trakov has covered the microphone and is discussing the matter with his staff. Sure enough, after a while, his voice came out of the receiver again. He said excitedly: "Comrade deputy commander, I have just asked my chief of staff and chief of engineer, they said that such a runway could be built overnight. As for how to guide the aircraft to land, we also have a plan. No matter day or night, we will light bonfires on both sides of the runway to guide our air force comrades. "

After the implementation of trikov's work, I called kolpakchi again and told him about opening up shipping routes at his landing site, which made him very happy. He patted his chest and assured me that the 500 meter runway would be repaired overnight so that the transport plane could land smoothly after dawn. After contacting trakov and kolpakchi, I quickly called paulenin and said to him, "Comrade General, I have made an agreement with the two commanders on the West Bank of the visva river that they will rush to repair the runway for transport planes to land overnight. They will light bonfires on both sides of the runway to guide the transport plane to land smoothly. "“ Great, comrade deputy commander. " Paulenin said to me, "please immediately order the transport team to transport all the materials to the airport outside Lublin. At dawn, I will send two planes full of materials to magnushev and puwai respectively to establish a new transport route." When I was about to put down the phone, I suddenly thought of an important thing and told Pauline: "by the way, comrade general, please remind your pilots not to take the battlefield full of gunpowder as the landing point, so as not to cause unnecessary losses. Do you understand? "“ Comrade deputy commander, you can rest assured. " "I'm sending experienced pilots who will never make such a low-level mistake," he assured me confidently I have arranged the starting point and terminal point of the route. Next, it's time to arrange the materials. I said to malinin, "chief of staff, call the Minister of logistics immediately and inform him that all the convoys coming towards the visva River, except the convoys stopping by the visva River, are transferring the materials to the airport outside Lublin." Regarding my order, malining hesitated and said, "Rita, to be on the safe side, I think we'd better wait until the air force's trial flight is successful, and then we'll transfer all the materials to the airport. Now we can only send one or two small convoys."“ No, chief of staff, No I decisively denied malining's proposal: "there are too many transport convoys staying by the river visva now. Instead of letting everyone stop by the river and waste their time, it's better to put all their eggs in one basket and let the Air Force transport planes transport materials to the other side of the river."