Excerpt from Chapter 13:

The German push south was slowed down considerably by inaccessible mountain regions but mainly lack of fuel supply though Prokhladnyy was taken end of August and the bridgehead on the Terek river was enlarged. Novorysysk on the Black Sea shores was taken by General Ruoff's 17th Army and Kleist's Panzers were pushing towards Groznyy in a desperate attempt to secure the huge oilfields. As time went on Russian resistance increased considerably with the Trans-Caucasian Army from the Kasbek area and the Mongolian Cossack Cavalry units from the Kalmuk Steppe. Enormous supplies were brought up by the Russians to the front line from the Caspian Sea by means of crudely laid railway lines - sleepers and tracks laid on the almost spirit-level even steppe ground, with no foundations. If one line was damaged they just laid another next to it and none of those huge stretches of railway lines were ever marked on maps.

Ruoff's assault on Tuapse from Novorossiysk on the Black Sea also came to a halt as did the push to Ordzhonikidze and Grozny, and the fighting strength of our Caucasus Army was considerably reduced by diverting a large part of the Panzer units, almost all of the air force and most of the heavy flak batteries north in support of the battle for Stalingrad.

October came and we had our first frosty nights. Our FWs increased their missions, which was a heavy strain on machines and crews. One day Feldwebel M�ller, one of the pilots returned from his third flight with one fuselage missing and half the glass cabin gone, his observer and rear gunner killed. He landed the plane on one fuselage, with one motor and on one wheel, then collapsed with nerves, shouting and screaming he would never ever fly again. Poor chap was bundled into the ambulance and taken to Georgieyevsk field hospital.

Every time a damaged plane was patched up and repaired it had to be taken up for a test flight before going on another mission. However, no plane could take off without a rear gunner and when the regular gunners were either on flights or resting they looked to the flak crews as stand-ins, the reason being flak crews were trained in aircraft recognition and as such should be best qualified to spot a Russian plane on approach. It really didn't take much brainwork to do that as apart from the FWs the only other planes were Russian anyhow. One day it came my turn, for which I had to thank Jakob. He had been flying rear gunner the previous day and had put my name down for the next flight. I was given flying boots and jacket, not exactly the size, and strapped into the seat and shown the workings of the machine gun. The pilot then taxied for take-off, just the two of us, and I listened to the take-off procedures over the headphone and off we went.

Such an eerie sensation, sitting in a glass bubble and seeing the ground disappear. The space under my seat was enclosed but in front of me - actually the rear of the plane - was all glass, also all of the pilot's area behind me and on gaining height I had the awful sensation of standing in space and falling with nothing to hold on to. Perhaps I was subconsciously thinking of yoghurt because I became violently sick and vomited all over the glass panel, and it looked almost like the wobbly disgusting stuff as it slowly trickled down over the machine gun. Any Russian MiG or Yak or even a slow Rata would have had no trouble in shooting us down as I certainly wouldn't have been any great help behind the gun when I couldn't see out through the dribbling goo. In fact I would have been glad to be shot down I felt so wretched. Noticing my plight the pilot cut short his test flight and after a few standard manoeuvres got us back to the field safely, and had I not been so sick, it would have given me great pleasure to nominate Jakob again for the next flight, just for the fun of it. Verdammtes Arschloch...

The air attacks became more frequent, and so were the visits from the 'night witches'and some pretty solid night bombing by four-engine Maxim Gorki 'Koblentrimmers' (coal stokers) as we called them - Pe-8 heavy bombers with a crew of eleven. They had the reputation of having no bomb-bay and the belly was stacked with bombs practically to the roof, to be thrown out through fuselage openings, hence the 'coal stoker' tag. Of course that was only a rumour, they did have bomb bays; they just carried more bombs than others .

By mid October the temperature had dropped severely, with cold nights and very frosty mornings and with winter fast approaching it became necessary to look for more substantial living quarters, below ground. Langhans decided some of us would have to go looking for suitable material and chose Ferdl and I for the task. Me because of my carpentry background, to find the most suitable material and Ferdl was most 'qualified' to handle horses and cart with his rustic upbringing. I agreed with Ferdl's mutterings that 'qualifications' in the army didn't do much for one. Anyhow, off we went to the nearby village to see the headman to try and negotiate some transport with a suitable propulsion system (horses). It wasn't cheap: we paid 6 shaving sticks, 6 toothpastes and 2 packets of razor blades for two horses and a sturdy 4-wheeled farm cart, on loan for the next day.

Early in the morning it was cold and overcast when we set out to see what we could find, anything that could be salvaged from destroyed buildings. We went in an easterly direction heading for the Steppe, passing many fields of sunflowers. We found a few dilapidated farm buildings but they had already been stripped of anything useful so we kept going and about midday we reached a farm building, deserted and half broken down but with plenty of timber. There was enough to fill our cart so we started stripping and worked very hard and by mid-afternoon the cart was loaded high and we were ready to head for 'home' feeling very pleased with our efforts. The clouds hadn't lifted all day and it was rapidly getting cold.

Then we struck trouble. We tried to get the horses to move but they refused despite all manner of coaxing. Maybe we had overloaded a bit, so we removed some of the heavy stuff but it made no difference, they just refused to budge. They'd probably been instructed not to pull anything heavier than an empty cart. Since we had a couple of hour's travel ahead and didn't want to be overtaken by darkness we had no choice but to hurriedly unload more but it made no difference. We began to worry and tried with half the load but still to no avail. Only after we'd thrown off the last piece of timber did those rotten horses move, when we hopped on the cart feeling defeated and pretty disgruntled over our wasted efforts. We urged the horses into a good steady trot and travelled along looking into the sunflower faces with their over-ripe seeds and by this time the daylight was fading rapidly .

After jogging along for a while it dawned on us that we were going in the wrong direction. We were driving towards the sunflower faces and hadn't figured out that the blooms had turned 180 degrees during the day and that we were still going east instead of west! We were approaching a hamlet so decided to call on the village's waterhole to give the horses a drink before darkness set in. The village, if one could call it that, looked deserted. The first izba (peasant's cottage) we came to was prety well dilapidated with fences collapsed and gate missing but as we came closer we were met by a pack of white, bear-sized, dogs. They came charging out from behind the izba, barking and snarling and frightened hell out of the horses who bolted in sheer panic.

We hung on to the cart for dear life praying not to be thrown off as the dogs came racing alongside, menacing the horses and trying to jump on to the cart. Ferdle managed to shoot at two of them while I desperately tried to get control over the horses and as I looked down on the shaft where the horses' harness was attached to the pivoting crossbar I saw to my horror that the holding clip had come loose and the crossbar was about to slide up the pin and detach the horses from the cart. Letting go of the reins I jumped on to the bar to prevent it coming off, at the same time grabbing the front rail of the cart with both hands to stop from falling under the wheels as we were going at top speed across an uneven field. Ferdle managed to shoot two more of the savage beasts before the rest gave up.

No doubt there had been people in the izba who had sent the dogs after us. It took a while before the horses slowed down and by the time we had calmed them and repaired the pulling tackle we realised we were completely lost and in the dark too. In a way the darkness was our salvation as the distant flashes of artillery showed us vaguely where the front line was, though where our airfield was we hadn't the slightest idea. Ferdle, with his farming background came up with some good logical thinking when he said that, depending how good the horses' sense of direction was and how far we were from their stable, they usually found their way home if left to their own four feet. So that's what we decided and to our amazement, not to mention luck, they did find our way home!

It was very late in the evening and Langhans had been worried since we hadn't turned up when we were supposed to, so was visibly relieved to see us safely back. He'd actually had some food put aside for us but when he discovered there was nothing on the cart, he called us what he usually did on occasions like that - dammed stupid arseholes.

Despite that setback, we eventually managed to get ourselves dug in for the winter, using anything we could find. An aircraft wing from a wrecked Il 2, topped up with soil, made an excellent ceiling - not exactly luxury but it kept the cold out though unfortunately the mice and rats in. They came in in droves from the fields seeking warmth and food, hundreds of them, and they ate anything within reach,including us. It was not unusual to wake up and find a rat just crawling across the face trying to nibble a bit of your ear or the tip of your nose. We tried every thing to to get rid of them, bayonetting them and spearing them to the dirt wall. One almost appreciated when it was time to put on the long overcoat and felt boots to go up top and take over the watch, only to find the coat pockets and linings bulging with mice and rats. Overcoats were favoured by the vermin as the pockets were usually filled with sunflower seeds and cold boiled potatoes for nibbling while standing on watch. The most effective traps were jerry cans containing sunflower seeds dug into the ground. The opening was big enough for them to enter but they couldn't get out and in a very little time the can was full .

The attacks on our field became more frequent and heavier as the advance of Kleist's First Panzers came to a standstill due to supply difficulties but mainly to the mounting pressure of the 9th and 37th Russian Trans-Caucasian Armies from the Ordyonikidze sector and the Mongolian Cossacks from the Kalmuk area. A particularly heavy attack came one afternoon towards the end of November from some 15 or 16 Il 2s flanked by a formidable squadron of MiGs and Yaks, all deadly fighting machines. Their intention was clear, to wipe out Kleist's 'eye in the sky' for good. When the alarm came we manned the guns knowing what little chance we had to take on those fortresses in the air. The fighters dived and commenceding their low- level strafing runs over the field while the ILs circled overhead, ready to dive on anything they thought worthwhile.

I had a full magazine rammed into the loading block, Jakob had his feet on the firing pedals and the barrel aimed at a fighter who was just levelling out from his attack but it was hopeless. He was too fast at that low level for Jakob to keep the barrel homed in on him. Then a MiG zoomed in from our left but again, too quick for Jakob to aim. The pilot got in first and yellow darts spat from the fighter's wings, the exploding bullets hitting our gun steel like the sharp end of a jack hammer. I ended up flat on my back at the bottom of the splinter trench, with another body falling on top of me, both of us choking and coughing from inhaled cordite. The body was Kapo Langhans. He shook me and yelled to see if I was all right and I said I was. I hoped so, anyway, but knew we had been hit badly and our gun was silent.

The gun was wrecked and Jakob had had no chance to get out of his seat and was dead, and there was no point in getting out of the trench. The ILs were in the middle of their screaming dives, releasing their rockets on the down leg and their bombs as they pulled out. Those bombs were designed to bounce up again after hitting the ground and explode in the air showering everywhere with high velocity shrapnel creating terrible destruction and devastation. One MiG came out of a half-turn for another strafing run, spitting yellow darts from his wings while our second gun continued shooting with it's phosphor tracers disappearing into the fighter's belly but it was all too fast to see whether he was damaged. A shrapnel of a well-aimed rocket from an Il silenced that gun as well.

Our gun was a write-off. Jakob was in his seat, slumped over the controls. He had been hit by an explosive bullet under his helmet and half his head was blown away. We got him out of the seat and laid him on the ground, awaiting the stretcher bearers. The bombers had pulled out of their last turn and were on their way back to the Terek river. They had accomplished what they came for. The field was in ruins, with the bulk of our aircraft destroyed on the ground. The fuel storage was destroyed and burning fiercely and the gun emplacements on the eastern side had also suffered casualties, with one fellow seriously wounded with shrapnel lodged in his lungs. Certainly a 'field day' for the stretcher bearers.

Our reconnaissance squadron was now out of action. What was left of it was shortly after pulled out and deployed somewhere around Mineral'nyye Vody. Hans and I was detailed to No. 3 gun more or less as spare wheels. and Langhans and Fritz took up temporary duty on Oberleutnant Belling's staff. The Kapo of No. 2 gun with the rest of our group were put on salvage duty. With Jakob gone, Hans and I were the only two left of the original crew and it didn't make us feel too good, with the frightening realisation that sooner or later one of us might be next. Rumours went around that our unit was being pulled out and redeployed elsewhere, awaiting spare parts for our damaged guns. Wishful thinking I suppose. Or perhaps we would be sent to Stalingrad, where most of the other flak units went.

Pulled out we were, but not to the north. We were taken on by a flak battery operating with an infantry battalion around Malgobek-Nalchik who needed every replacement they could get as they were under heavy pressure from the 37th Trans-Caucasian Army, mostly Mongolian Cossack cavalry units. We moved into a hamlet somewhere between Nalchik and Prokhladnyy under cover of darkness to join a machine gun company dug in around the village. Directed to a destroyed farm building on the western approach to the hamlet we were instructed by the company commander, a Oberleutnant, to get busy digging in and be out of sight before daybreak, before Ivan's heavy 15.2s come howling in. We were told to forget about shooting at aircraft, and just concentrate on what was in front of us.

There was already a communication trench dug to the main defence line and this was being used by the machine gun crew for a dugout. We got busy digging in as silently as possible, as the slightest noise at night is carried a long distance and could have terrible consequences. Every now and then flares went up, bathing everything in phosphorous brightness, freezing every movement so as not to give away our presence to the enemy. We asked the infantry fellows sharing the trench with us how far away the Ivans were and they simply said "over there," pointing their thumbs over the edge of the trench. They said they had held the village now for over two weeks while Ivan was reinforcing his positions day by day but he would attack when it suited him. They said dusk was the favourite time for the Russians to come out of their trenches as they were then well soaked with vodka and samachonka (a dark blue potent brew made from wheat and carbide). A small tumbler of that stuff made you go wild with the urge to kill everything in sight and those Russians opposite us were well conditioned to it. When they came out of their trenches after a liberal dose of that poison, with their long, square sectioned bayonets fixed to their rifles and yelling "Ooorah Ooorah" they were all prepared to happily die for their Commissar, Mother Russia and Generalissimo Stalin if they could remember him in their 'ecstasy'.

Dawn, on the other hand, was an ideal time to attack since the 'call girls' on their night runs had made sure they kept the German lines awake with their random bombing. Bombs that exploded on impact, bombs with delayed fuses from minutes to hours, or just pieces of rail tracks thrown down. We heard the impact and waited the rest of the night for the explosion which didn't come, and just when you dozed off someone would dig his boot into you and tell you with great pleasure that it was your turn to relieve the watch on the trip wire post. You then spent the next hour and a half fighting the cold and a desperate urge to fall asleep again. The nights at the bottom end of the Caucasus are extremely dark, even on a starlit night and the icy wind from the Caspian Sea, across the Kalmuk Steppe penetrates the greatcoat and chills to the bone. Lice were particularly active at night, crawling everywhere and making you scratch all the time.

A week went by, and apart from spasmodic machine gun fire exchange, the expected attack still hadn't come. We improved our emplacement, deepened the trench, played cards and nervously braced ourselves every time a stray 15.2 came too close for comfort. You can judge by the howl how close it will come: the higher and shorter the pitch, the closer it is and the shell that hits you, you will never hear.

The night witches busied themselves throwing down leaflets urging us to surrender. 'The Russian steam roller is on its way', it said, 'squashing the whole of General Kleist's Caucasian Army into a pulp. Every izba, every hamlet, every mountain pass in Georgia and Azerbaijan will be a death trap for the German troops. Give yourself up to the victoriously advancing Red Army. Bring your canteen and we will feed you plenty and we will also provide you with women!' How very thoughtful. Probably the mortar crews and rifle women from up the hills, with perhaps a few off duty witches... The mere thought of them and we gave up all ideas of surrender.

Our position was at the extreme end of the village, with empty fields on the right and one night I had the midnight to 1.30 watch. I stood for about half an hour, battling the mice and lice and desire to go to sleep, when a figure loomed up from around the zig-zag bend in the trench. It was the commander doing his last rounds before turning in and he told me to be extra alert as he expected the Ivans to attack in the early hours of the morning. I checked on our gun, put a spare magazine nearby and made sure my rifle was ready for use, which I placed in the Vee cut in the trench step-up and also checked on the flare pistol in the trench face recess then resumed my watch.

Some twenty metres along to my left was another machine gun position but I wasn't sure if it was manned. I thanked my lucky star I'd been awake when the commander visited, but with the bitter cold and being on my own with nobody to talk to I must have dozed off briefly though woke up when something brushed past my head. Wide awake I reached for the flare gun, only the shelf wasn't there any more and I realised then that in my sleep I must have slowly moved round the corner of the zig-zag, so after a quick groping and reorientation I got back to the step-up and looked over the top of the trench and missed a few heartbeats at what I saw - dark shadows slowly crawling towards me and more creeping in the background. They must have got past the trip wire without touching it, or in my short sleep I was not aware of it. I grabbed my rifle and put bullet after bullet into the crawlers.

The machine gun on my left started up, quickly answered by a Russian Maxim. Rifle shots crackled like fireworks, flares went up on both sides, and our crew came out from the dugout to man the gun. Up on the hills one could see the flashes of Russian mortars and heavy guns discharging their shells which seconds later came howling in, exploding and spewing earth and shrapnel in all directions, making one cringe like a trapped rabbit and the field in front of us was lit up by slowly descending phosphor flares swinging on tiny parachutes.

And then I saw it again! The moving shadows I had been shooting at were nothing more than steppe grass seeds in fairly large balls propelled across the fields by the breeze which, nevertheless, could easily have been mistaken in midnight darkness for crawling enemy soldiers. The commander came along wanting to know what stupid arsehole had started all the shit. "Movement in the trip wire, Herr Oberleutnant" I said. It didn't sound too convincing but then I couldn't tell him I had been asleep, not while he was waving his pistol under my nose, and telling him that I'd merely taken some pot shots at moving grass balls would have made it even worse. In fact I never told anybody about that episode, I just kept it to myself.

 

 

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