I was sitting on a riverbank contemplating the silence of the wilderness, watching the Bug River flowing by.
Right in that place, almost on the Polish - Belarusian border, the bend in the river bulges southwards and Bug is surprisingly narrow there. I though of all that small one-man pontoons we had back in my army days. We never used them. But then I thought I could get my platoon across the river in no time in that place. That would be fairly easy, maybe even without pontoons... But what then?
Behind me was an almost impenetrable thicket and it'd take us ages to plough our way through it, before we could reach any half-decent road. What if we get our whole batallion across? Then it'd take us forever and a day to march through the forest.
That is why the Germans never tried crossing the river there in June 1941 and the Soviets never bothered to build any real defences in the bend of the river. That is, except for just several dugouts serving rather as observation posts that anything more serious.
Some 19 miles to the west the river is much wider, and except for some clusters of trees nothing obstructs the view from the north-eastern shore, where once the Soviets waited. Wide, grassy meadows, occasionally turning into marshlands stretch on both sides of Bug and the place is a defender's dream, with high slopes giving perfect vantage points and creating natural terraces. Dozens of pillboxes are dotting the landscape there and their firing azimuths are fashioned into elaborate killing grounds. There are no dead zones there.
And this is exactly where the Germans chose to cross the river on the early morning of June 22nd 1941.
There was something which attracted them all like a magnet. That thing was a road and wars are all about roads.
Small pillbox pictured on the photo was placed relatively far from the riverbank and its task was to protect other bunkers which were built closer to the river. Still, its defenders could easily sweep the river with their heavy machine gun equipped with a high quality scope. That is, if there were any defenders to do it.
The road is visible as a narrow strip just behind the structure and today, as it was 75 years ago, is the only decent road running along west-east axis into the former Soviet Union.
In the opening hours of the German-Soviet war the surprise factor worked miracles for the attackers. Many of the pillboxes were not manned at all, some were quickly abandoned - their crews silently disintegrating into the woods - but still there were places where clusters of bunkers kept firing long after the frontline had moved far to the east. Their crews fought with suicidal courage and stubbornness, hoping to hold long enough to see the relief force coming. It never came, and their pillboxes, some blown almost into oblivion, are today a silent testimony to the horrors of war, all hidden in the forests stretching along the Bug River.
This photo is
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