On the Internet in many places you can find just such a similar story, about the feat of the famous reconnaissance group of 25 fighters. Among the group were German defectors who hated Hitler. I would like to know your opinion on this information, maybe someone knows more. And it is quite strange why there is no Soviet or Russian cinema about this case. Or is there, but I don't know?
It 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 forefront of the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps of Lieutenant General Obukhov, the 9th Guards Molodechno Mechanized Brigade of the Guard of Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Vasilyevich Stardubtsev acted in the forefront.
On July 27, Lieutenant Colonel Starodubtsev sent a reconnaissance group under the command of the guard 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, together 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.
T-80 - Soviet light tank of the Second World War. Developed in the summer and autumn of 1942 at the tank design bureau of the Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ) under the leadership of Nikolai Alexandrovich Astrov, the leading developer of the entire domestic line of light tanks of that period. In December 1942, the T-80 was adopted by the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army and was mass-produced at the Mytishchi plant number 40. Production of the T-80 continued until September 1943, when it was replaced on the assembly lines of the plant number 40 by the self-propelled artillery unit SU -76M. A total of 79 pieces were produced. (two of them are prototypes) of these tanks, which took part in the battles of the Great Patriotic War in 1943. Due to the unreliable operation of the propulsion system,weak armament for 1943 and the great need of the Red Army in self-propelled guns SU-76M T-80 was discontinued.
Once in our captivity, these Germans not only shouted "Guitrer - kaputt" together, 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 crosses were applied to the BA-64 and T-80, so that the Germans would mistake them for captured vehicles in German service.
Promotional video:
The scouts left the position of the brigade in Meshkuchai at nightfall and at midnight set off 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 Standarten 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 gathered 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, setting 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, German sentries called out to the column. When asked about the password, the German driver of the trophy Sdkfz-250 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 freely entered the city.
Silently interrupting the policemen guarding the tanks with cold weapons, the scouts brought in seven Tigers and attacked the enemy directly 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 the group of Lieutenant Colonel Sokolov 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 Dimzas and Platone railway stations. The armored personnel carrier under the command of junior lieutenant Martyanov went forward and did not come under fire, and the armored personnel carrier, in which Captain Griory Galuza was, 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 wounded. 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 column of vehicles with infantry, overtaking the column and setting up an ambush, the reconnaissance group with machine guns and grenades destroyed 17 cars 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 seized.
At half past six in the morning, it reached the outskirts of Mitava (now - Jelgava), where, by order of the command, it 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 heroic 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 lived 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.
And if I tell you that there were whole raid corps? They went to the rear and went further. Sometimes then they joined the partisans, and when they fought back they made their way back. There were cases that they took the city deep in the rear and waited for the main forces to approach there - they waited for several weeks.
By the way, General Dovator with a cavalry division carried out a raid on the rear of the enemy at the beginning of the war. The Germans were shocked and wrote that a group of 100,000 sabers had broken through. Dovator brought the division back, with heavy fighting, but withdrew.
Notice the curiosities of history: Soviet General Kreiser versus German General Bredov. Or not funny? Jacob Kreiser. Originally Yankel Kreiser. Normal Jewish surname. And the name is normal.
The curiosity is not only that.
1) Bredov is not quite similar to a German surname.
2) Do you know how Crazy is translated from English?