The Vilnius Pocket - A Vignette

The Vilnius Pocket, as it had become know, was fighting a losing battle. 7,000 NATO troops were encircled inside the Estonian capital, having withdrawn there on the second day of hostilities. The Lithuanian capital, city, home to some 700,000 people, was under siege from all sides, with much of the remainder of the country already having been occupied. Russian forces were pushing north in Poland and although NATO was giving them a bloody nose there, the situation in Vilnius was becoming ever more hopeless. The commander of the pocket was Brigadier-General Brian Holland of the US 101st Air Assault Division. His 2nd Brigade Combat Team had deployed to Lithuania as part of the belated NATO effort to deter Russian aggression, an act which had ultimately brought terror into the hearts of the Old Men in the Kremlin and sparked the Third World War…Not that the geopolitics meant very much to Holland, who was now facing an impossible situation.

Defending the city were a mishmash of troops; Lithuanian infantry from the Iron Wolf Mechanised Brigade, having seen the destruction of most of their vehicles, were fighting on foot in the rubble to the south of Vilnius, holding off repeated Russian probing attacks. To the east, the American contingent, beaten-up by two days of fighting before they had fallen back here, was fighting with equal tenacity and courage. A German-led armoured battlegroup, based on the 212th Panzer Battalion, 21st Panzer Brigade, was providing almost all of the pocket’s heavy armour. The German colonel in command of the battalion was reporting to Holland that forty percent of his tanks were destroyed or inoperable, and the remaining units were almost totally out of fuel and ammunition.

Holland had moved his headquarters to a school in the centre of the city. The facility was, of course, abandoned by its students and staff. Previously, he commanded the battle from the airport to the south of the city. Vilnius International Airport had been Holland’s major supply hub, through which fuel, ammunition and food would be distributed to his forces. However, yesterday, it had been shelled by Russian artillery and then overwhelmed as his infantrymen withdrew. The loss of the airport meant that no further supplies were coming through. The only way to get them in was by airdrop, and the crates which were parachuted in often landed astray of their drop-zones. Furthermore, his direct superior at SHAPE, General Norris, had told Holland in their last communication – his words scrambled and his voice crackling due to Russian electronic warfare efforts – that no further resupply efforts would be mounted. The Chinooks and Black Hawks of the 101st’s Aviation Brigade made a herculean effort to evacuate wounded personnel, but few of them made it past the air defences of Russian forces fighting on the Polish side of the Suwalki Gap. Ground forces had attempted to break free of the death-trap that was Vilnius. The German battlegroup, spearheaded by its Leopard-2s, made a valiant though ultimately doomed effort to fight its way out of the city, only to be repulsed after a series of vicious air attacks by Su-25s and helicopter gunships.

It was the right decision to make in his situation. With the German breakout effort having failed miserably and his troops cut off from supplies, any further resistance would be utterly futile. Too many soldiers had died to defend Vilnius already, and the city’s civilian population was suffering just as badly. There were no firefighters or police left to check the blazes or the looting. Enemy artillery, fired seemingly at random, was levelling whole city blocks. Hospitals were overflowing with wounded and the two shopping malls in the northern district of Vilnius had been converted into makeshift field hospitals. The medical staff – both military and civilian – were working so tirelessly that several of them had simply passed out mid-treatment. Medical supplies were also running low; the lack of painkillers meant that the injured suffered in agony, with the only solace for many being the reassuring words of a nurse or civilian volunteer. Several medical units had resorted to looting shops for strong alcohol to use not only as a painkiller but also as a disinfectant. Holland had visited one hospital earlier, spending almost an hour patrolling between the beds, talking to doctors and nurses, trying to think of a solution. He found none.

For Holland, all hope was lost. He called his staff together, along with personnel from the German and Lithuanian contingents, and discussed his next steps. The senior figures of the Lithuanian government, along with most of the country’s military high command, had fled Vilnius by car on the war’s first day, and since then all contact with them had been lost. What choice did Holland have but to exert his authority to end the senseless violence? With his forces encircled deep behind enemy lines, Holland chose to surrender. A final radio message was sent to SHAPE. It read;

“Ammunition low. Casualties heavy. Am destroying radio equipment & fuel stocks now. Will surrender shortly. Please pray for us.”

The radio broadcast failed to reach Gen. Norris due to the increasing effectiveness of Russian jamming efforts.

His next act was to form a makeshift white flag. He travelled out of the city in a HMMVW, under the protection of his flag. Holland, with only his driver and operations officer accompanying him, walked cautiously across the battlefield to Russian lines, where they asked to speak with the commander of the enemy forces. Holland’s request was granted, and he was put in contact with his opposite number at the forward headquarters of the Russian motorised rifle division which surrounded Vilnius. Informing the Russian officer of his intent to surrender, Holland was granted his request for a ceasefire to go into place before a formal surrender at midnight. Upon returning to the school, he ordered his staff to send a radio message to units holding the city. Subordinate formations were ordered to point the turrets of the few armoured vehicles that were left backwards, away from the enemy. Troops were then instructed to destroy the interior of their vehicles by whatever means available. This included hand grenades and explosives, but also crowbars, hammers, and brute force. Personal weapons were then destroyed. Back Holland then told his staff to destroy all radios and communications equipment, burn classified documents, destroy what little fuel and ammunition remained, and burn the brigade’s colours.

There could be no turning back. He had already agreed to a surrender and continuing resistance would not only be futile but also wholly illegal. Only a small contingent of military police was allowed to retain their firearms to maintain order amongst the surrendering combat units. There were American soldiers amongst these personnel, as well as a platoon of Czech MPs who were under the command of the 212th Panzer Battalion.

The soldiers met their fate with a mixture of fear and relief. The fighting was over, for them, but what lay ahead? They were no longer in control of their own lives. Even before they were in enemy hands, the shock of capture set in for many. Using runners to send his messages now, Brig.-General Holland ordered that his troops stick to the US Military’s Code of Conduct after they were in enemy custody. This meant that no information was to be revealed to the enemy beyond the obligatory ‘name, rank, and number,’ of each individual soldier, and that troops were to refuse to participate in enemy propaganda efforts to the utmost possible extent. Of course, Holland and his troops knew that once in enemy custody, they could only resist for so long. Fears of rape and torture, both physical and psychological, were prevalent in the minds of many, but junior officers and NCOs did their best to keep their troop’s spirits up. Once in captivity, soldiers had an obligation if not to attempt to escape themselves then to support the efforts of others to escape from captivity as long as doing so was not suicidaly dangerous.

Russian armoured vehicles and soldiers emerged from the smoke at midnight precisely. They moved with caution but not aggression. Troops on the frontlines, except for the military police, had already disassembled their personal firearms and damaged their vehicles and radio equipment to the best of their abilities. There was fury at this from Russian intelligence officers, but reprisals against the PoWs were few and far between, for now. The Russian troops made their way through the city, rounding up company and battalion-sized units of NATO personnel. When they reached Holland’s ad hoc headquarters, the American officer and his staff – mostly American, but some Lithuanian, German, Czech, Norwegian, and Slovak as well – had their sidearms confiscated and the US Army and Czech MPs were finally made to turn over their weapons.

A battalion of Russian infantry, along with men from the Provost’s Service and the GRU, was left behind at Vilnius to secure and transport the PoWs, while most of the division was sent westwards to again join the fray. The soldiers were force-marched in huge columns to fields outside of Vilnius, where they were separated between officers and other ranks. At Holland’s headquarters, GRU personnel set about identifying valuable personnel; intelligence and signals personnel where amongst the most highly sought-after, with those men and women being separated from the rest of the PoWs despite the protests of their comrades.

The next day, an effort was initiated to march the 7,000 prisoners eastwards, deep into the heart of Russia.