; A brief history that took place during the winter of 1942/43..................The Tyroller Combat Group.
The flying field (Flugplatz Kantemirovka-Süd), located in a narrow sector of the Don front, was a mile by a mile and a quarter in size. It was encircled by a Soviet breakthrough of the German defense line. Five weeks later the name of this flying field and that of its German commandant had become famous on the Don front.
Forty- six-year-old Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) Tyroller, who on 24 December 1942 received the Knight's Cross and was in command of a light antiaircraft battalion (le.Flak-Abteilung 84), assumed command as senior officer at the moment of the encirclement. Out of his nearly 2000 men he built up a combat group whose nucleus consisted of the light antiaircraft batteries of his battalion.
To the Tyroller combat group belonged men who wore yellow, brown, and black collar tabs, i.e., aviators, ground personnel, railroad troops, construction troops, members of alarm companies, and trains and columns of all sorts. This formation was made up of sixty-five different units of the German Armed Forces. There was, in addition, an Italian antiaircraft artillery unit and a few faithful native volunteer helpers. All these men made up the Tyroller combat group which day after day withstood the vicious attacks of the enemy.
At first the Soviets were uncertain of the strength of the forces occupying the defense positions. Two of their regiments attacked on the day before Christmas. For two days and a night the small group fought against the attackers. For two days and a night Soviet guns and heavy mortars poured their fire on the flying field and new waves of Bolsheviks kept springing out of the dark ravines in the forefield to attack the German positions.
Companies and battalions charged ten-man groups of the defenders. Companies and battalions went down under the defense fire of the combat group whose few heavy weapons were flown to it by transport planes. After a heavy attack, ominous quiet would settle down over the front for a short time. The Soviets suspected that the Germans had set a trap for them here.
They would send scouting detachments forward in order to learn the strength of the defenders. But the men of the combat group were determined to hold the field as long as the higher command required it. They kept firing , changing their positions day after day, and sending out scouting detachments until their ammunition began to run low.
Then transport planes came roaring through the air. The aviators were helping the aviators. They brought in cartridges, shells , hand-grenades, rifles, bread, canned food, and cigarettes. They came roaring up, flying at a very low altitude, slipping down into the valleys and springing over the groups of hills. They remained on the field but a short time after landing-unloading their cargo and picking up the
wounded.
Neither did the combat fliers forget their comrades down below, defending the old flying field as infantrymen. Day after day they circled in the lonely sky seeking the enemy positions and dropping their bombs. But time and again the Soviets charged ferociously from four sides at once. Their dead in the forefield were counted by thousands. On one single day, light antiaircraft artillery belonging to the group knocked out eleven of the enemy's tanks, firing from open
positions.
Then came the bitter news : the strategic situation on the central Don made the relief of the flying field impossible. It had to be abandoned. What was to become of the 2000 men who had defended it so bravely for a period of four weeks? For three nights the transport planes of the group under Captain G. (Hauptmann Geisler - Lufttransportgruppe Don) flew continuously. For four weeks they had supplied the combat group with ammunition, weapons, and food. Now they were removing from the abandoned field the men who were still alive. In the space of three nights, the second of which was foggy, they succeeded in removing the men.
Heavy infantry and mortar fire from the Bolsheviks pressed the porcupine [ hedge-hog type] formations together more and more and interfered with each of their landings and take-offs. When the next to the last Ju 52 plane landed, the porcupine formation of the Tyroller combat group was only about 100 meters in average diameter. The pressure of the Bolsheviks was becoming heavier and heavier. It would be impossible for the last plane, which was to take away the last load, to make a landing. Then a young lieutenant of a newly organized air force field division asked to be given the command over the last thirty men, giving as a reason that he was single while the older officer intended for the task was married. His request was granted.
The last transport, which a quarter of an hour later circled alone above the field, saw nothing more of the thirty men. Nineteen hundred and fifty-seven men had left the field; thirty remained with their lieutenant.
Sources: Military Review. August 1943.
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/398 ... -Georg.htm
Cheers. Raúl M
.Feliz Navidad - Feliz Natal - Frohe Weihnachten - Joyeux Noël - Merry Christmas - Wesołych Świąt!.
