As the sun climbed higher, the scene unfolding before Walter's eyes grew increasingly macabre.
The Soviet presence was so vast that this was clearly only the vanguard.
Within the cold blue spectrum of the Eye of Death, Walter realized that the dozens of men he, Simo, and their nearby comrades had just cut down represented nothing more than a negligible sliver of the lead force. Farther out, the entire Vyborg Bay looked as though a colossal brown carpet were being slowly unrolled toward the Finnish coastline.
Vasily Popov, commander of the Soviet 28th Rifle Corps, had adopted a formation of almost pathological precision.
To counter the constant threat of the ice collapsing, the Soviet infantry had dispersed entirely into regimental-sized units. Tens of thousands of soldiers were spread out like pieces on a chessboard, maintaining a strict distance of five to ten meters between every man. This extreme dispersion rendered the Finnish field artillery's conventional barrages nearly pointless. A 105mm shell would slam down, often claiming only two or three unlucky souls. The remaining Soviet troops would simply continue their mechanical crawl forward as if nothing had happened.
"Look over there! What the hell are those things?"
A soldier cried out, pointing toward the flanks of the ice.
Between the gaps in the tank columns, a piercing roar tore through the sea breeze. Several bizarre mechanical contraptions appeared on the ice, mounted on massive wooden skis with aviation engine propellers spinning wildly at the rear.
These were aerosleds.
Driven by propellers, these sleds were in their element on the flat ice, reaching staggering speeds of sixty kilometers per hour. Carrying scouts and light machine guns, they glided across the surface like a pack of sharks, streaks of speed overtaking the slow-moving infantry columns as they sought a breach in the beachhead from the flanks.
Within the main columns, the Soviets demonstrated thorough preparation. To compensate for the lack of traction on the ice, every T-26 and BA-10 armored car had jagged steel grousers welded onto their tracks and tires. Soldiers hauled massive wooden sleds laden with heavy machine guns and mortars. There were even warhorses, their breath coming in constant white puffs against the freezing air, struggling across the ice as they pulled supply crates.
"All units! Angle thirty! One thousand five hundred meters! Fire!"
In the distance, the giant battery on Koivisto Island finally unleashed its true fury. The 254mm and 305mm coastal guns stopped targeting the tanks and heavy weaponry; their target was the ice itself.
BOOM—!!!
A massive twelve-inch shell trailed a thunderous roar as it plummeted vertically into the path of the Soviet 173rd Rifle Division's marching column. In that instant, Walter felt the entire ridge beneath his feet shudder.
The ice did not produce waves of earth like land would; instead, it erupted into a devastating tsunami of shattered shards. Hundreds of tons of seawater were instantly thrust skyward by the high pressure of the explosion, falling back down as a torrential, freezing rain.
When the smoke cleared, a pitch-black hole thirty meters in diameter appeared on the stark white plains of ice. The dark opening looked bottomless, like the eye of some great beast suddenly snapping open.
Because the ice was too slick, the Soviets couldn't stop. With the low-friction ice beneath them, the Soviet columns, weighed down by heavy greatcoats and hauling massive sleds, were unable to halt their momentum as they would on land. Those in the rear pushed those in the front; those in the front dragged their panicked horses with them.
Accompanied by the ear-grating screech of fracturing ice, dozens of Soviet infantrymen slid into the zero-degree black water like stones into a freezing abyss.
"Help! Help me!"
The screams were instantly swallowed by the sea gale. Greatcoats soaked with seawater immediately weighed dozens of kilograms, turning into heavy cement bags that ruthlessly dragged the struggling soldiers into the abyss. A Soviet lieutenant tried to grab the edge of the hole, but his wet wool gloves froze instantly to the ice; as the ice shook from the vibrations of passing tanks, the entire floe collapsed, burying him completely.
Yet, the dark red tide did not halt for its drowning comrades.
"They're insane..." a Finnish soldier murmured.
Soviet tank crews displayed a near-callous decisiveness. The lead tanks swerved around the hole, and the following units bypassed the bubbling black waters immediately. Soviet soldiers began laying down wooden planks and stretchers over the newly formed thin ice, attempting to forcibly stitch the sea back together with wood and flesh.
Suddenly, a rhythmic thrumming from the sky drowned out the thunder of cracking ice.
Walter snapped his head up. The cold blue of his vision was disrupted by a swarm of black dots. It was a massive fleet of hundreds of I-16 "Ishak" fighters and SB-2 medium bombers. Such a vast formation cast sprawling, moving shadows under the dim winter sun.
"Cover! Air raid!"
Colonel Martola's roar was lost in the deafening shriek of engines.
The Soviet Air Force demonstrated a despair-inducing dominance. Pilots dived so low they practically brushed the treetops of the coast. The machine guns beneath the wings of the I-16s spat long tongues of fire; spent casings rained down like a storm onto the ice, kicking up sprays of crystalline shards.
CRUNCH! BOOM! BOOM!
Rows of SB-2 bombers swept over Koivisto Island. The massive coastal gun batteries that had terrified the Soviets were instantly enveloped in flames and thick smoke. This low-altitude precision strike was lethal; several 305mm giants were overturned by near-direct hits while their turrets were still traversing. The Finnish gunners around the emplacements didn't even have time to scream before they vanished into pillars of fire.
As the coastal artillery fire slackened, the Soviets on the ice seemed to receive a signal. Their stiff movements instantly became feverish.
"The cannons are silent! They're coming up!"
Walter huddled behind a rock, pressing his body as low as possible. An aerial machine-gun round struck the reef in front of him, sending sparks flying.
The Soviet 28th Rifle Corps didn't all funnel toward the western beachhead. Popov displayed an excellent command instinct; he directed several infantry regiments on the flanks to use the mobility of the ice to begin storming key islands within Vyborg Bay—Ravansaari and Uuras.
"Over there! They've landed!" Simo pointed to the front right.
On a small rocky islet a few hundred meters away, the first wave of Soviet aerosleds had already reached the shallows. The rear propellers kicked up clouds of snow as Soviet soldiers, Mosin-Nagants tipped with bayonets in hand, charged toward the Finnish defenders with a feral roar.
Those defenders were the local Civic Guard.
Walter could clearly see the teenage recruits trembling under the air raid. As the Soviets stormed the rocks, a Finnish recruit panicked while cycling his bolt, his frozen fingers causing the round to jam. In the next second, three gleaming Soviet bayonets pierced his chest simultaneously.
"Don't look over there! Hold our own position!" Colonel Martola barked.
But Walter knew, once those islands fell, the Soviets would use them as a springboard to launch a devastating pincer attack against the western defensive line.
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