Chapter 162: Polish Campaign (25)

Under the German air-ground integrated offensive, the Polish front collapsed completely. Coupled with the surrender of the entire army of Serchiak and the fall of the bridge over the Brachy River, the German army advanced straight ahead with unstoppable force.

Although the news of Britain and France declaring war on Germany was received, Marshal Smygwi had to issue an order for a general retreat on the front line.

According to the order, the Modlin Army Group and the reinforced Narew Group (3rd Army Division) should retreat to the Vistula River and Narew River north and northeast of Warsaw to cover the right wing of the corps retreating from the west to the Vistula River and the San River.

The task of the Lodz and Prussian Army Groups was to retreat to the Vistula River south of Warsaw, and the task of the Krakow and Carpathian Army Groups was to retreat to the San River.

Poland's Poznan Army Group (4 divisions, two cavalry brigades, commander is General Kutsheba), located between the Pomeranian Army Group in the north and the Lodz Army Group in the south (commander is Lieutenant General Julius Rommel). Their original mission was to defend the German army in the direction of Frankfurt and Poznan, and to threaten the flanks of the German Army Group North and Army Group South. If possible, they could also launch an assault on the German army in front.

Compared with the state of other Polish troops suffering losses, the Lodz Army Group and the Poznan Army Group, which were deliberately bypassed by the German Army Group North and South, were still intact at this time, but the commanders of the two armies were not fools. They had already seen the German army's intention to bypass them.

The German troops advanced in depth, obviously trying to join forces with the German army (the Fourth Army) that attacked Poland from the Pomeranian direction, so that the Lodz Army Group and the Poznan Group on the left would fall into a huge encirclement.

The two army commanders successively sent a request to Marshal Smigwi to take the initiative to attack the German flank, but this request was rejected by Marshal Smigwi. The marshal was only thinking about how to gather as many troops as possible behind the Vistula River in the shortest time.

"Hurry up, we have to get to Warsaw as soon as possible!" Kutsheba of the Poznan Group shouted loudly in his headquarters. Although he felt sorry for losing such a good fighter plane in vain, he did not have the courage to "not obey the orders of the generals in the field", so he could only obey the marshal's orders obediently. "We have to reach Kutno first, where we will meet with the remnants of the Pomorie Group. Fortunately, we did not find the enemy's regular army on the opposite side, otherwise we might really be trapped here."

Under Kutsheba's urging, the staff officers accelerated their work, piles of documents were burned to ashes, and batches of communication equipment were disassembled and loaded onto the car.

In the history of the original time and space, it was this Poznan Army Group that retreated to Kutno (a transportation hub west of Warsaw) and joined the remnants of the Pomeranian Army Group. Together with some reserve troops mobilized during the war, they gathered a strong force of 10 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry brigades and launched a fierce attack on the left wing of the German Eighth Army. The 30th Infantry Division responsible for covering the left wing of the Eighth Army was severely damaged, and 1,500 German soldiers were captured.

Of course, Yannick would not let this fish that slipped through the net go. As early as when the White Plan was formulated, the Poznan Army Group and the Lodz Army Group were unfortunately remembered. A cluster had already been secretly deployed here, and the commander was Erwin Rommel.

"The Poles have finally begun to retreat, report to the Supreme Command immediately!" Rommel excitedly ordered opposite the "empty" Poznan Army Group.

Interestingly, there were three people with the surname Rommel in both camps at the same time. Moreover, one of them was German, and two were Polish. All three of them held high positions in their respective camps.

Needless to say, the name of Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox" in the German army. The two Rommels in the Polish army that are less well-known are Julius Rommel and Carol Rommel. These three people not only have the same surname, but if you really want to trace their bloodline, the German Rommel and the two Polish Rommels are distant relatives.

In the subsequent battles, Julius Rommel and Carol Rommel were successively defeated and captured and imprisoned in the Central Camp. However, the two Polish Rommels were very lucky and survived in the concentration camp and were later rescued by the Allies. Some people also speculated that the reason why the two Polish Rommels did not die in the concentration camp might be because of the secret care of the German Rommel. Of course, this speculation is only "God knows".

Although Rommel of Germany, who was later promoted to Field Marshal, was famous on the battlefield, he was implicated in the assassination of the mustache in 1944 and was sentenced to death at the age of 52. As for his two Polish cousins, they both died in 1967, Juliusz at the age of 79 and Carol at the age of 72, which was undoubtedly more fortunate in comparison.

Soon, the command issued an order to attack. "Okay, attack on all fronts!"

The first to suffer was naturally the slow-moving infantry division responsible for the rear guard. When they retreated less than five kilometers away, a terrifying scream suddenly came from the sky. The sound was heartbreaking, as if it was a howl from hell, shaking people's eardrums and shocking people's hearts.

The Polish soldiers stopped at the same time and looked in horror in the direction where the sound came from, but saw a series of strange-shaped planes swooping down from the clouds like eagles.

"Enemy planes!" Many people screamed in their hearts and instinctively wanted to escape, but the increasingly sharp screams seemed to grab their souls, and they were fixed in place and could not move. They could only watch the planes dive until they were five or six hundred meters above the ground before they pulled up rapidly. At the same time, several bombs on the racks fell off and hit the densest crowd.

The shells of these bombs cracked one after another, and countless black balls fell down. The shells of the balls were divided into two petals, which looked like an oversized butterfly from a distance.

"..." The Polish soldiers on the ground stared blankly at this large butterfly that they had never seen before, spinning and floating down in the air. When it fell more than ten meters above their heads, these large butterflies suddenly exploded. The scattered shrapnel swept through the Polish soldiers who were frightened by the "whistle of hell" of the Stuka like a storm.

The official code name of this large butterfly is SD2. It is a cluster bomb used by the German Air Force to counter personnel during World War II, weighing about 2 kilograms. This type of bomb is not used alone, but is placed in a container for spreading. Usually, there are 6 to 108 submunitions in a container. A Stuka can drop at least 700 to 800 small bombs. If these small bombs can be evenly distributed, the killing area will definitely be considerable. A Stuka can severely damage the infantry division below.

This is just an ideal state, and there can't be only one Stuka. As soon as the first Stuka was pulled up, the second and third Stukas swooped down one after another, dropping thousands of small bombs and slaughtering the entire infantry division.