All Alone: A Lithuanian AAR

We May Never Return Home. November - December, 1943

Bulgaria was in turmoil. Axis troops, stranded and cut off from their supply lines were trying to get through liberated lands to the safety by any way possible - scattered, by night, like Hungarians further east, or attacking in force, like two German divisions, stuck south of Stanke Dimitrov, with a third - motorized one - trying to keep the path to Yugoslavian mountains open.


The confusion was not restricted to the Axis command, however. As the events were unfolding at a lightning speed, Allied commanders seemed to be at a loss on what should our next actions be. As I recall, our unit would receive at least 3 different and contradicting orders some days, ranging from digging in around Sofia, supporting marines in the west or marching south, to clear the remaining German resistance.

Apparently, there were some serious disputes between Bulgarian leaders and allies commanders, mainly on who should have the supreme command in Bulgarian territory, and the strategy, suited best in those circumstances.

Bulgarian forces, now having incorporated some of the guerrilla units, were feeling confident enough to consider Allies being able to defend the borders of Bulgaria.

General Hastings, who flew to Sofia in mid November, insisted that the numbers of Allied numbers are vastly insufficient - not with huge battles undergoing further west, on the Greek-Yugoslavian border, and defensive measures must be taken to entrench in the mountains around Sofia and weather the storm, which was definitely coming.

The Greeks had their own mind on this as well, taking account their recent relationships with the Bulgarians, thus, our own command was caught in the middle, and forces torn apart to fill-in the holes in the front line as needed.


Further west, on Adriatic coast, our volunteer corps was struggling with keeping the front line intact from incoming Axis reinforcements, headed for Tirana, while our division was chasing the disheartened Germans in the south.


The storm WAS coming, and it did not let us wait for long. Even though we heard Soviet assurances over radio to liberate Romania within the next week - at least seven weeks in a row at that time, their troops were apparently still struggling to cross Dniester in force. Then, the reports started coming in from the 20th of November of large Axis formations, including armour, crossing Danube and marching south entirely unopposed - there were no troops whatsoever left between them and us.


First blow fell on our 2nd Division, stationed in Berkovica - 3 German divisions attacked from multiple directions, and even the counter attacks and British bombers were not sufficient to break this onslaught.


Our own division was rushed into Sofia and reached the battle on December 1, but it was all too late - our 3rd Infantry was scattered a day later and retreated from Berkovica with a loss of nearly 1600 men, while another German division occupied hills to the east of Sofia.

The battle for Vratsa raged for another 5 days, almost 27000 of our men against at least 6000 Germans. We won in the end, with casualties on both sides reaching over 1000.
Those days were both sobering and tragic - nearly three thousand Lithuanians, Greeks and Bulgarians were lost in a single week. Several German armour divisions were roaming in the east, the mountains all around were crawling with Axis troops. What were we to do now?


There was no easy answer, and we had to learn to live one day at a time. We fought Germans off as good as we could, we were chasing them, digging in, withdrawing, and then attacking again, day after day, keeping ourselves and those next to us alive. We could not surrender, not now.