Russia at war 1941-1945

Although the famous TASS communiqué of June 14 dismissed the rumours of Germany's

aggressive intentions as "completely groundless", Fedyuninsky reiterates that "it was completely contrary to what we were able to observe in the frontier areas", and he tells the story of how, on June 18, a German deserter came over to the Russians. While drunk, he had hit an officer, and was afraid of being court-martialled and shot; he also claimed that his father was a communist. This German soldier declared that the German Army

was going to invade Russia at 4 a.m. on June 22.

Fedyuninsky promptly 'phoned the local army commander, Tank General Potapov, but

was told that the whole thing must be "a provocation", and that "it was no use getting into a panic about such nonsense". Two days later Fedyuninsky was visited by General Rokossovsky, who did not share Potapov's complacency, and seemed extremely agitated.

In the early hours of June 22, Fedyuninsky was called over the telephone by Potapov, who ordered that the troops be ready for any emergency, but added that ammunition had not yet been distributed.

I had the impression that at Army Headquarters, they were still not quite sure that the Nazis had started a war.

The 15th Infantry Corps was expected to hold a line about sixty miles wide.

We had to deploy our forces and occupy our defensive positions under constant

shelling and air bombing. Communications were often broken and combat orders

often reached the units with great delay... Nevertheless, our officers did not lose control, and we reached the defensive positions where the frontier guards had

already, for several hours, been waging an unequal struggle. Even the wives of the frontier guards were in the firing line, carrying water and ammunition, and taking care of the wounded. Some of the women were firing at the advancing Nazis... But

the ranks of the frontier guards were melting away. Everywhere barracks and

houses, set on fire by enemy shells, were blazing. The frontier guards were fighting to the last man; they knew that, in that misty dawn of June 22, troops were speeding to their rescue.

Throughout that first day, Fedyuninsky's troops withstood the German onslaught, but the Germans threw in more and more new forces, and towards the evening, the Russians,

having suffered very heavy losses, began to withdraw. The situation was further

complicated by German paratroop landings in the Russian rear, as well as by numerous false reports of other paratroop landings spread by "enemy agents". In Kovel the Bandera gangs, acting as a German fifth column, were causing havoc—attacking Russian army

cars, blowing up bridges, and spreading these false reports. As large German armoured forces were approaching Kovel from the northwest, along the Brest-Kovel road, it was decided to evacuate Kovel. Parts of the 15th Infantry Corps continued to fight, while already encircled by the Germans. Even so, in three days' fighting, the main forces of the Corps had been pushed back only some twelve to twenty miles from the frontier.

Nevertheless, Kovel had to be abandoned, and new defensive positions to be taken up

further east. But before evacuating Kovel, the wounded and the families of army officers had to be evacuated.

Most officers' wives, used to frequent journeys, took only the bare essentials with them. But some lost their heads, and would take to the railway station things like prams, mirrors and even flower-pots... Those in charge of the evacuation had quite a job to bring these people to their senses...

The retreat was typical of so many similar retreats in June 1941. The Germans had

complete control of the air, and losses from strafing were heavy; moreover saboteurs did their best to harass the Russian retreat by blowing up bridges.