Excerpt from Chapter 18:
Our main task was patrolling the railway line
from Orsha to Gorky and Krichev and the villages
in between to prevent it from being taken over
by the partisans. Patrolling the villages was a
pretty hopeless task as they were invariably
empty by the time we got into them, except for a
few women and old people. The men would have
been warned and sneaked into the woods to watch
us from within their hideouts. They would come
out at night, silently, sabotage the lines and
quickly disappear. Sometimes whole stretches of
tracks would disappear, our outposts would be
ambushed and their crews wiped out or taken
prisoner and handed over to the Russians with
the partisan version of alleged atrocities
committed by their prisoners which would result
in them being executed by the Russians and the
bestowal of medals and hero status on the
partisans.
Our outposts were strategically placed along the
line with infantry patrolling between the
positions. The partisans were experts. They
would surround the outpost in absolute silence,
wait for the German patrol to move away then
attack the post, doing a fair bit of nicely
executed knife work. Silently, they did the job
well. A few missing penises here and there then
they disappeared back into the woods. But didn't
always work; sometimes the German patrols were
tipped off and then the partisans copped it for
a change. A patrol with a 2cm gun attached was
reasonably safe, the partisans had too much
respect of the gun's firepower.
By the end of the month the Russians took
Krichev so the line from Gorky to Krichev was
abandoned and destroyed and our battery moved
back across the Dnieper to the line running from
Orsha to Mogilev. We took up positions outside a
village, a short distance from the edge of a
forest. Late one afternoon Oberleutnant Hahn
decided to send a patrol into the village to see
what was in it. Wachtmeister Wehrt and a few
chosen by him set out but they didn't find what
he was looking for that afternoon. Halfway to
the village they came under mortar fire and it
hadn't come from the village but from out of the
woods, from a partisan hide-out. For some time
Wehrt and his men were pinned down then had to
turn back as night was closing in. But he was
determined to have a closer look at dawn the
following day when in his superior wisdom he
concluded the 'pans' (menfolk) would have
returned from their hideouts and should be
curled up with their 'madga's' (women) in their
'izbas' on the elevated sleeping spaces behind
the large fire places.
We put out double watches and settled down for
the night. Wehrt selected one man from each gun
crew, including myself, and one of the Hiwis was
to join us for easier communication. We moved
out while it was still dark and two personnel
carriers were to come along a short time later
to pick us up. We made our way around the
village hoping to keep the villagers from
sneaking back into the woods but dogs began to
bark so no doubt they saw us coming. They
wouldn't have been stupid enough not to place
warning sentries. As expected the village was
empty of all menfolk, just women and their
children, who were well trained by their mothers
to look and act scared to death. When asked by
the Hiwi where the men were they said the
partisans had taken them, which was reasonably
true since they WERE the Partisans! The truck
arrived and we searched the village and found
eight more women hiding under straw in a
dilapidated barn. Wehrt ordered all the women to
line up in the street and since I was the one
unfortunately standing closest to him entrusted
the lot to my care, while he and the rest of his
braves hopped on the trucks and took off across
the field down to the river, where he had
spotted some cattle being driven away by
villagers.
So, there I was, in charge of a dozen women with
their babies and children standing in the main
street with a rifle pointed at them. It wasn't
so silly as it looked. Those women knew exactly
where their men were hiding; they were all
partisans and probably had a few kills notched
up their sleeves themselves. I watched them
closely for any unwarranted movement. How could
I be sure that one or two didn't have a hand
grenade or pistol stuck in their bloomers under
their long skirts? A body search would have been
absolute suicide. I made sure they didn't get
too close as some looked big enough to squash me
with one blow. They made me wish I was back on
the bridge in Smolensk waiting for it to blow,
and hoping this time it would!! They were
watching me closely too and whispering among
themselves; probably discussing the most
effective way of disposing of me.
It could be said I fell down on the job when I
allowed one of those Amazons to take her little
child behind the Izba for a 'pressing' job. Of
course she never came back and it probably
wasn't her child anyhow. Seeing that this ploy
was successful, a few more mothers developed
similar 'problems' and one after another went
away, never to return so I was on my own when
Wehrt and his men returned. Wachtmeister Wehrt's
excursion had not been successful either and
they came back empty handed. Their quarry had
eluded them and Wehrt understandably was not in
his best mood and was even more furious finding
me standing there, minus my women. I thought for
a moment he was going to shoot me as he stood
there waving his pistol in all directions, with
his finger on the trigger! He ordered me to hop
on the personnel carrier saying he would deal
with me later. Then he started a heated argument
with the Hiwi for not doing his interrogation
job properly and told him he would deal with him
later too. Well, the Hiwi didn't like that
prospect so he decided to do something about it.
Having no side arms himself he grabbed the
nearest one to him which was Wehrt's bayonet and
pushed it into Wehrt's shoulder, forcing him to
his knees. Wehrt lost his pistol on the way down
and the Hiwi made good use of that moment to
jump over the side of the vehicle and quickly
disappear into the forest. It all happened so
fast it never occurred to us, or perhaps nobody
was particularly inclined, to give chase or send
a round of bullets after him. Never mind that he
was a Russian. He wore our uniform therefore he
was one of us, he was our mate.
So instead of returning with scores of partisans
from our mission, we delivered a slightly cut
and badly shaken Wachtmeister to headquarters
and had lost a Hiwi. Wehrt was somehow luckier
than he deserved. The blade went through his
coat and was deflected from his shoulder blade.
He refused to be sent to the hospital, probably
in case some awkward questions would have to be
answered and instead was made comfortable on a
camp bed at the Battery HQ. Back at our gun I
told Wilfried what had happened and all he did
was have a good laugh over our misfortunes.
Janko actually was somewhat sorry the blade
hadn't gone a bit deeper since he had never
liked Wehrt too much.
By the end of September we were moving south
again to somewhere near Slovgorod on the river
Sosh. The Russians were advancing on the whole
of the Central Front from Gomel to Mogilev and
by mid October had managed to penetrate into
Gomel, cutting off the rail link with Zhlobin,
Bobruysk and Minsk. Janko at that time had left
us for home leave and his replacement was a
Fahnen Junker (officer cadet) fresh from a
officer training school. He couldn't have been
more than twenty.
Next to our gun positions a detachment of heavy
mortars had dug themselves in during the night
and when they delivered their first salvos the
next morning our Junker flung himself flat on
his belly, not yet knowing the difference
between outgoing and incoming shells yet. Not
very encouraging for the rest of us as he was
supposed to be telling us what to do! Langhans
wouldn't have put up with him for long. Poor old
Jurgen. I often wondered what happened to him
after I left on the lazarett train in
Mineraln'yye Vody. Am sure he never surrendered;
probably blew his brains out like our pilot
friend Hans did. Janko, was no death-defying
Langhans either. Being married naturally his
thoughts were directed more to home and he often
talked about his wife and little boy. I quite
liked him and hoped he enjoyed his leave...He
was another one earmarked by the Reaper and
never saw the end of the war. The nights needed
a double watch, not so much for an Ivan attack
but foremost to keep an eye open for marauding
partisans, out to cut our throats and most
likely something else as well, suddenly and
silently. Speaking of throats I actually
developed a very sore one during the next few
days, thankfully not from a partisan's knife but
a virus and our 'intrepid' Fahnenjunker ordered
me to the nearest field hospital.
The Verbands platz (field hospital) was in a
village about 5 or 6 km to the rear but was no
place for relaxation. It was almost worse than
up the front as it fell within range of the
heavy 152 mm Russian artillery and their random
salvos, directed to 'soften up' the hinterland.
So instead of lying peacefully on a straw sack
and enjoying a couple of days' rest one had to
sweat it out and cringe every time a salvo of
heavy shells came smashing in uncomfortably
close. I only stayed three days then asked for
my discharge as I didn't see any point in
getting killed in a field hospital when I could
do the same among my mates. My throat had
improved so a motor cycle dispatch rider
returned me to our battery and with the food
carrier got back to my gun. There had been a
change in the crew whilst I was away our
Fahnenjunker had been replaced by an
Unteroffizier older and obviously more
experienced, Holder was his name. The Russian
Bryansk front under Marshal Popov was putting
tremendous pressure on the Gomel-Mogilev sector.
Ivan had crossed the Sosh river and we were
ordered to abandon our position and pull out in
a hurry late one evening. We reached a
settlement on the railway line Gomel to Zhlobin
in the early hours of the morning where we
joined an infantry unit and hurriedly dug in
outside the railway station. Heavy shells were
already homing in on the adjoining village and
judging by their accuracy the Russian artillery
observer must have been pretty close by,
probably dug in on the crest of the hill to our
left. It looked like Ivan is not wasting his
time to get hold of this place in a hurry.
We spend all night digging and morning came and
soon the sky filled with the dreaded IL 2s -
Stormoviks - 16 to 20, they invariably come in
large numbers and always well covered by their
MiG fighter escorts. Three Messerschmitt
fighters appeared and took on the MiGs and in a
matter of minutes one of the Messersmitts was
hit and disappeared over the hill. The pilot
managed to bail out and his parachute was just
opening when another MiG took a run and blew him
to bits. His mangled body slowly drifted to the
ground. Heroic deed that was. Must have given
that Russian enormous satisfaction to see his
bullets rip his adversary to pieces like that.
The IL bombers were on their final circle and
were set to dive any moment. Wilfried had our
gun barrel following the planes' movements and I
had a full magazine inserted and watched the
formation overhead, looking out for one
particular plane with black streaks under its
wings. This was the most feared of the lot
because it carried a napalm flamethrower and
wherever it dived and delivered the spewing
flames was the end for everything living within
a wide circle. Some of our guns had already
started firing. Holder gave the order for us to
join in. Wilfried homed in on a target chosen by
our Kapo with the barrel in almost a vertical
position and his foot non-stop on the firing
pedal until the base quickly changed colour from
dark blue to deep red and then orange, which
meant having to replace it. He lowered the
barrel and at that moment I looked up and to my
horror saw a IL 2 just pulling out of an almost
perfect dive on to our position, releasing an
enormous bomb. I saw it come loose from its
underbelly and it was low enough to read the
writing on it - "Deutsche Luftwaffe" in large
letters all over it. "Bloody hell" I thought, "a
German bomb!"
It dropped down about 20 metres when it split in
half. I barely had time to throw myself to the
ground inside the rampart, still holding the
exchange barrel in my hands, while Wilfried
jumped into the splinter trench with the rest of
the crew. I'd wasted too much time reading the
damn thing so couldn't make it that far. Had it
been a conventional bomb there would have been
just one large crater where our gun was, but
this one worked differently and was designed in
such a way that once split open, scores of
smaller ones were disgorged which spread out
over a large area and exploded at random, some
immediately, some a little later, minutes or
hours, and some not for a day or so. Inside the
rampart I braced myself for an explosion but
miraculously none of the fragment bombs fell
inside but they were all around me outside and I
was terrified. Then the heavy artillery started
up again, coming from behind the hill where our
Messersmitt had crashed, concentrating their
fire on the railway yard buildings where one of
our guns was positioned. Hahn's order to
withdraw unfortunately didn't reach them in time
they were hit and suffered two deaths. Their
vehicle was still in moving order and they
managed to extricate themselves and join the
rest of our battery, bringing their dead mates
on the carrier. We withdrew across the Dnieper
and shortly after crossed the Berezina river,
stopping just long enough to leave the bodies at
a first aid hospital, then moved on towards
Mozyr where we took up new positions some 10
miles to the west of the town on the Pripyat
river. This was more swamp country and ideal for
the highly organised partisans, equipped with
the latest Russian armaments. Some of them had
German rifles and wore German uniforms, enabling
them to pose as German patrols and penetrate our
outposts, eliminate the unsuspecting crew and
disappear back into their hideouts.
Because of this terror our passwords had to be
changed more frequently. These were relayed over
the gun telephones and to baffle anyone
listening in had to be disguised very carefully.
For example: 'Six Junkers will pass overhead to
Mozyr at 2400 hrs' meant the challenge word was
'Junkers' and the reply was 'Mozyr', which words
would be effective from six in the evening until
midnight. This, and the continuous changes in
identification signals for overflying aircraft
and also in the night fighters' grid movements
was enough to stop one from falling asleep while
on night watch.
The Nacht Hexen (women pilots on night bombing
runs) were again very active in the area and
seemed to know the German positions pretty well,
probably gleaned from partisans' information.
There wasn't much we could do about them as
their appearance usually coincided with our
night fighters' grid so the 'witches' considered
themselves fairly safe as long as they stayed
well below the fighters' operational altitude.
They knew we couldn't open fire on them without
endangering our own planes above them.
Wilfried and I got on very well and whenever
possible we stood watch together. One night we
spotted the tell-tale exhaust lights of one of
those 'sewing machines' circling above us and
well within our range and decided to pump half a
magazine into her. She must have noticed our
muzzle flashes and switched off the engine and
banked away suddenly and we didn't get the
beauty queen. But we had scored a hit -
unfortunately on our own night fighter who
happened to be exactly in the path of our
grenades!. He wasn't too happy about that and
dropped a red star and five whites from his
belly, the ID signal for that particular hour.
When those stars appeared twice in succession,
we knew we had hit him.
Our Kapo, who with the rest of the crew, were
rudely awakened by the shooting, wasted no time
in phoning Oberleutnant Hahn to report the
incident. Just as well he did as early next
morning we got a visit from a Luftwaffen Major
with Oberleutnant Hahn in tow, wanting to have a
good look at the stupid idiots who had damaged
the wing of his Junkers 88 in such an
irresponsible manner. We explained that all we
had wanted to do was give the ballerinas below
him a bit of a fright but he ignored our
well-meaning explanation and demanded from our
Oberleutnant appropriate disciplinary action.
However, Oberleutnant must have had some second
thoughts because we never heard any more about
it. Later we heard that the good old Major was
the CO of that night fighter squadron and he was
furious that had happened to him on the very
night he decided to take one of his planes up
himself.
Confrontation with the partisans had turned into
all-out war. One hardly ever saw them but they
were there. They ambushed with lightning speed
and disappeared as quickly into the woods and
swamps and it became disastrous for any German
unit who thought of going after them. Occupying
the villages had little effect as their warning
system was very efficient. By the time a village
was about to be occupied they would all have
gone into hiding, ready to return the moment our
troops left. They did their job well and managed
to tie down whole divisions of the German army.
Retaliatory actions for slain outposts and blown
up trains were pretty well ineffective.
We left the Mozyr area and moved slowly back to
Sarny, on the railway line from Kovel to
Korosten and eventually were withdrawn into
Kovel itself. Kovel was an important rail centre
linking Lublin with Korosten from west to east,
Brest Litovsk in the north, with Lemberg in the
south, Lutsk, Rovno, Berdichev, to the south
east and Baranovichi and Minsk to the north
east. All villages in between were partisan
strongholds. November (43) came and the prospect
of another winter loomed. We got very busy
constructing permanent underground shelters and
gun emplacements as it looked like we would be
'wintering' in Kovel. Fortunately we didn't need
to go searching the villages for building
materials as a unit of the OT (Organization Todt)
had moved into town. The OT was a semi-military
organization specializing in constructing
defence installations. Oberleutnant Hahn became
friendly with their leaders, consequently we had
plenty of material.
Transport and labor was no problem either since
on our way from Sarny we had collected a motley
lot of farm carts and their drivers. Partisans
really, who hadn't made it to their hideouts in
time. They worked for us during the day and were
locked up during the night. They were no trouble
as long as they got their daily rations and the
assurance that they could stay with us and not
be abandoned to the advancing Russians at some
later stage. They knew damn well that the
Russians would have no hesitation but shoot them
for allowing themselves to be captured by the
Germans.