For three days the 1st Guards Mechanised Corps had been bottling up the Panzer element of SS Wiking in the village of Irdista. The parent Division itself along with its remaining elements were encircled about 40 km further east. The Irdista pocket was just an example of the overall strategic position of AGN.
Copies of the above map had been drooped into the pocket but the only answer the SS men had given was a salvo from their self propelled artillery. The orders had come down to eradicated the pocket and push westwards in order to make relief of the larger pocket untenable. STAVKA had authorised the full employment of the three mechanised brigades that made up the Corps and had allocated armoured and artillery Army units to support the Guard units. It was the pinnacle of ideological warfare, the perfect Aryan soldier against the cream of the Red Army, the standard bearers of the workers revolution against the champions of Fascism.
The assault went in during the last hours of darkness. A swift advance to ovwerwhelm the defences had met stiff anti-tank fire. The army brigades began to turn back but through them advanced the columns of Vatutin's Guards. In their foxholes and in their bolted down tanks, the camo-frocked SS troopers awaited the clash of arms.
Guardsman Pruskov was in the van of the advance and soon was seeking cover from MG 42 fire that was expertly directed. Small arms fire mixed in with the thud of mortars and the high piched retort of 88's. The battle raged but sheer weight of numbers began to tell and the SS were pushed back. Pruskov was tired, so tired but these danish and swedsh and german soldiers would not give. Despite the blood, the gore and hatred he felt for his foe there was also a grudging respect for an enemy that chose to stand by his guns rather than flee.
By mid-afternoon the fighting had settled around the centre of the village where Pruskov could see the SS officers, in full view, direct their soldiers with cool and expert dedication. He saw three of them, a mortar team, being mowed down. He saw an SS medic plunge his combat knife into a russian soldier that was about to bayonet a downed Kamerad. From his vantage point he saw a lone, battered PzIV disable 4 Soviet tanks of the army's 148th Brigade, before it was blown apart by 5 others that had cropped up from around a bend. He saw the ferocious hand to hand fighting as animal instinct took over. Knives, entrenching tools, helmets, fists and teeth. The fight was climaxing into an orgy of violence, tears ran down his face. Tears of terror, exhaustion but also tears for the Fallen. Gradually another sound could be heard over the battlefield.
A lull just before dusk had allowed the frenzy to settle. Lines had been formed but from the SS lines singing could be heard. A martial song and those voices singing it were not broken. The battlefield quietend, the singing got louder and it climaxed in an almighty chorus and shout. These men were not beaten, they would be dead in 5 minutes but not beaten.
As the singing finished and drifted away on the night air, one lone defiant voice shouted, "come on you Russian bastards, come and get it!!"
That seemed to serve as the catalyst. Katyusha rocket launchers let loose, their shrieks filling the air. Tank tracks rattled, guns boomed, machine guns barked. Pruskov couldnt remember much of the final fight, what he did know was that the emerged from a hut carrying the Regiments banner. The SS had fallen to a man, well except for 3 prisoners who had ambled back from some scouting mission as the burial parties were clearing up the field after the fight.
Proskuv's mind returned to the present. The heroism of the foe and the bravery of his fallen comrades made tears fill his eyes. Yet in his heart he knew that when the history of the war had been written this action would be forgotten among the more grandeur actions of the war. But he would pay silent tribute to the bravery of all at Irditsa whatever uniform they wore.
