Chapter 343
2nd May 1943
No one in the Allied camp ever called it the May Offensive, the West knows the attack as the Bessarabia Offensive.
To the Soviet Bessarabia Front it was one. The 1st Canadian Army and the 2nd (ANZAC) Army would fall back before this terrible onslaught, the Romanian Imperialist Traitors would flee like the rabid dogs they were.
It did not happen like this.
The Soviets had indeed achieved tactical but not strategic surprise. The Romanian General Staff had long expected a general Soviet Offensive aimed at crushing Romania and while they had subordinated themselves and their Forces under Allied Command “for the duration” but localized command was for the moment in their hands as the Allied Armies were employed in the defence of their country.
Soviet Forces poured across the Put River on 30th April and did indeed force the Allied Forces to withdraw. Not all units had been surprised though and fanatic pockets of resistance held or slowed down the Soviets considerably.
In Iasi the 11th Romanian Infantry Division, elements of the 4th Canadian Armoured and the 3rd Canadian Infantry Divisions were cut off after being chased out of Bessarabia but managed to hold a perimeter around the town and the valuable supply stashes there. With both Armies being supplied from there ammunition was the one thing they were not lacking.
But they were little more than a breakwater and the Red Tide flooded around them. The 1st Canadian Army was falling back towards central Romania in good order though short three Regiments. The Candian Grenadier Guards, the Royal Winnipeg Rifles and and the Regina Rifle Regiment would be sorely missed, especially by 7th Brigade that had lost two thirds of it's strength and would spend the coming weeks guarding the supply lines.
Luckily the Regiments had been formed into Battlegroups and were in themselves intact and also supported by highly motivated Romanian Infantry that was one of the best-equipped Divisions in that Army.
In return the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division borrowed a motorized Infantry Brigade, the 11th, from the Romanians.
However that would take place later as for the moment the two Allied and two Romanian Armies struggled to hold the central and southern Sectors of the Romanian Front against a Soviet Force that while not as well equipped was more than twice as large.
By the 3rd the Soviets had managed to push the Allies back almost fifty miles and were bound to push on further.
During the night leading to the 4th May 1943 the 48th Highlanders of Canada and the rest of the 1st Canadian Division were encamped along the railway line outside Pascani.
Warrant Officer Griffin, as the most senior NCO in his unit also Company Sergeant Major had taken up the duty of drawing up the watch roster when the Company CP had somehow gotten lost in the retreat and was now touring the forward line on his own, not because he had to but because he wanted to. Something in his instincts had told him that he was of better use there as long as the Captain was meeting with the Colonel.
“Sergeant, there's something out there.” one of the guards whispered.
“Then tell me what it is, O'Connor.”
“Dunno, Sergeant. I can hear...something....”
Instead of answering he picked up the field telephone.
“Echo Able Actual, this is Able Red Six, request flares five-zero yards in front of my position, over.”
“Roger that, Able Red Six.”
Half a mile back two mortars belched out flare projectiles and when they lit up the night Griffin took one look at the Soviet soldiers slowly coming closers before he just yelled: “OPEN FIRE!” at the soldiers and “Rapid fire, high explosive, same co-ordinates!” into the phone.
He slammed the phone down, grabbed his Sten and blindly fired into the now onrushing mass of Red Army even as right next to him a Bren began to eat the first belt of ammunition of a long night. Griffin could not see much of what was going on around him and by the sound of things the Soviets were attacking the entire line of not only the Regiment but the entire Brigade. (In fact it was a general attack aimed at dislodging the 1 Canadian Division from the advantageous defensive position that blocked the roadway deeper into Romania.
The same trench earlier in the day. Note the 'surplus' old-style Bren Gun.
But Griffin's Sten jammed. Instead of clearing it he dropped it to the ground and picked up a rifle from the next man who would never need it again. He raised it and fired it as quickly as the action would go. It was strange but even as he slammed in new clips from the dead man's pouch he decided that one day he would raise money for a memorial to James Paris Lee.
The Soviets kept coming on and on and on and Griffin knew that in seconds he would be overwhelmed, but then he heard the most glorious sound of all.
The freight-train like sound of outgoing heavy shells gave them hope and soon the big guns of the 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery began to cut great swathes out of the advancing enemy soldiers. Of this Griffin could only see the flashes of the exploding shell and together with the gunfire this turned the whole scene into a nightmarish outtake from hell itself.
When he suddenly noticed that the gunfire had slackened and it then disappeared completely he looked out over the open field where the killed Soviet soldiers lay in their dozens in the flickering light of what seemed to be a hundred small fires. Elswhere fighting was still going on but the 1st Division had handily repulsed this attack. However no one with any experience was fooled into thinking that this was it. The Soviets weren't known for conservation tactics and they still had immense reserves in theatre.
Still, it was time to get the men fed and a cup of Coffee.
He had barely taken a sip and cleared the jam in his Sten when he heard something that even the best Infantry in the world would have trouble dealing with, diesel engines and the clanking of tracks. He knew that this had to be audible to the entire regiment but he still called it in anyway. When they appeared and had made it half-way across the field in the flickering lights of the fires the great guns opened up again, this time immediately going to fire for effect. The gunners fed their guns as fast as they would go and the infantry supporting the tanks was massacred but the T-34s were still coming on. Oh, there were several that threw tracks and other assorted small damages but the attack itself was unimpaired. As Canada's primary field formation the 1st Canadian Army had been issued the newer, bigger PIATs but there were still too few to go around.
Griffin looked around and he still seemed to be in command of this section of the front so he merely had his men stand ready to withdraw to the next line. Were it daylight the crabs would be coming in about now but at night that wasn't possible.
“DISPLACE!” he yelled to be heard over the gunfire and artillery and slowly the Canadian soldiers made a fighting withdrawal to the next line. Of the fifteen men in Griffin's trench only seven remained alive and with any ability to fight.
But when they reached the next line he could see the lovely lines of a 17pounder Anti-Tank gun, camouflaged under a haystack and ready to show the Soviets Canada's displeasure with their recent actions.
The men settled into the trench and even as they did so the gun fired. Griffin looked down to where the Soviets were passing the old line and now there was a burning T-34. Several more guns joined and soon the Soviet attack crumbled between Artillery and Anti-tank fire.
~**---**~
The battle that night wasn't the high-water mark of the Soviet offensive. However now that the Allies were closer to their own supply bases and with the main route still blocked by the Iasi pocket the forward Divisions of the Bessarabia Front were beginning to feel the pinch. Over the course of the next three days they slammed their heads against the Allied lines several more times but the Canadians, ANZACs and the Romanians fought hard and managed to hold. The commander of the 3rd Shock Army, a unit that would later become a great nuisance for the British war effort asked for and received permission to take his motorized and Armoured formations (two armoured, three motorized at this stage of the war) out of theatre reserve and move forward to reinforce the Bessarabia Front.
For the three days it would take to move even only the actual combat formations into position the Bessarabia Front itself attacked again to decided matters before the 'help' ordered to the scene by STAVKA arrived, but with even less of a result. Deciding this were the Romanian 1st Armoured and 22nd Motorized Divisions. The situation was deemed bad enough to necessitate releasing the country's two best fully motorized Divisions that also had the most modern equipment.
Even with British-cast-off Cromwells they were a force to be reckoned with as all those Cromwells were 17-pounder armed.
Romanian Cromwells before the battle
They provided critical reinforcements to the 5th Canadian Armoured and 1st Australian Armoured Divisions that formed the outer edges of their respective Armies. This was also where the Soviets aimed their main thrust on the 3rd.
What developed was a major tank battle that raged for most of the day and in the end the three Allied Divisions had suffered considerable losses but were still more than 80% combat effective but the three Soviet Armoured Divisions had been shattered between air attacks in spite of the airbattle overhead and superior Allied tank doctrine.
It was then that the first phase of the offensive ended but no one on either side was fooled into believing that it was all. The Allies had picked up intelligence that indicated that the 3rd Shock Army was on the move and the Soviets knew that the Romanians were bringing up more forces. It would be a massive battle and the outcome would decide who held the initiative in this area for the rest of the year.
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