IN EARLY DECEMBER 1941, the Red Army staged a large-scale counteroffensive that pushed back the German forces of Army Group Center attempting to capture Moscow. The Russians followed up this counterattack with a number of other operations along the entire front.
On January 13, 1942, the Soviets began a major assault on German positions at the Volkhov River south of Leningrad. Their ambitious objective was to swing behind our forces farther north and break the siege of Leningrad. Within a few days, the attack covered half the distance to Leningrad, but Army Group North overcame the crisis and soon stabilized its front. The German high command then ordered the 58th Infantry Division and other units to the Volkhov front in order to cut off the enemy’s offensive spearhead from its rear.
Pulled out of Uritsk in early March, our division’s infantry immediately journeyed directly south on trucks. Meanwhile, our company and other heavily equipped units traveled south by train on a circuitous, roughly 200-mile route. Neither group knew that its destination was the Volkhov River; we only knew that we had to halt a Russian breakthrough. Arriving at a rail station south of the fighting, our heavy company reached the battlefield about a week after the infantry.
The German counterattack started on March 15. With temperatures still far below zero Fahrenheit, our infantry and other German forces advanced northward along the western side of the wide Volkhov River. Simultaneously, other German units were moving southward to link up with us and isolate the Soviet spearhead from its main lines to the east. By the time our two pincers met on March 19, we had trapped almost 180,000 Red Army troops in a Kessel (pocket).
While the battle raged about a mile distant, our heavy gun company and artillery units trudged through waist-high snow and dense forest to reach the gun position selected by the regiment’s Vorkommando (advance team). Located on ground that was slightly elevated above the surrounding flat terrain, the wisdom of their choice would become apparent when spring weather arrived and low-lying areas reverted to swamp. As our forward observer, I took up my station beside the infantry on the nearby frontline, operating behind the log fortifications that formed the perimeter around the Kessel.
As soon as our howitzers fired the first ranging shot, it was apparent that the many tall trees in this virgin forest would pose problems beyond just obscuring my observation of enemy movement. If one of our shells prematurely collided with a tree on its ascent, its impact would cause the tree to fall or shower splinters that might injure or kill any friendly troops around it. On its descent, meanwhile, a round had to be on a steep enough trajectory to drop unobstructed onto an enemy target moving through the dense woods in the area. To overcome these obstacles, the barrels of the guns were raised to their maximum elevation of about 45 degrees and essentially employed as mortars, which proved modestly effective.
Following their encirclement, the Russian forces reacted rapidly. Even with the Red Army’s numerical superiority in troops and tanks, they had to struggle fiercely to break out of the Kessel. The main axis of their counterattack breached our lines about half a mile north of my location at the end of another week of intense combat, reestablishing a link to their forces on the eastern side of the Volkhov through a roughly mile-wide corridor.
Using the old logging paths that formed a grid pattern inside this Schlauch (land bridge), the still largely isolated Red Army troops could now potentially receive a constant flow of reinforcements and supplies. From top to bottom, the passage contained three main Schneisen (logging roads) running east to west that we referred to respectively as Friedrich Schneise, Erika Schneise, and Dora Schneise.These were intersected at right angles by West Schneise, Mittel Schneise, Kreipe Schneise, and Sud Schneise.
Once the new lines stabilized, I was about a half mile south of the Dora Schneise. The primary mission of our heavy weapons company was to support our infantry in a defensive capacity. As a secondary task, we also sought to harass the Red Army forces passing through the corridor as well as prevent them from widening the breach. Meanwhile, the combined fire of approximately 120 105-millimeter artillery pieces located on both sides of the corridor plus air strikes by Stuka dive-bombers relentlessly hammered the grid of Schneisen that ran through the gap.
Unlike the long lulls in the fighting at Uritsk, the air at the Volkhov was filled day and night with the incessant roar of artillery and the clatter of machine-gun fire.
BATTLING IN A SWAMP: April–June 1942
When the spring thaw arrived in early April, it swiftly turned the whole Volkhov battlefield into a muddy bog. The warmer weather was initially welcomed, but we would soon discover that conducting combat operations in the steamy heat of a swamp was even worse.
Though under constant bombardment from us, the Soviets somehow succeeded in constructing a narrow- gauge railroad track right through the middle of their Schlauch within a month’s time. Upon its completion, this railroad became our principal target, but the storm of German shells and bombs could only hamper rather than halt movement through it. However, this disruption to the flow of traffic limited the corridor’s value to the Russians, especially once the tree cover was obliterated.
During the course of a typical day, my work as F.O. ranged across some 50 yards of the frontline. Occasionally, I directed the fire of our guns on targets moving along the Dora Schneise, but it was very difficult to employ our firepower effectively because of the trees that shielded the enemy’s movement. Most of the time our howitzers were focused on the area to our immediate front, leaving the Schlauch up to the divisional artillery.
At least once a day, there would be some type of suspicious movement in the brush along the enemy frontline, which in places was only 50 yards across from us. Whenever this occurred, I would urgently request a half dozen to a dozen rounds from our 75-millimeter howitzers. My objective was to prevent a concentration of large numbers of Soviet forces in order to preempt an attack before it began. The infantry around me would then sweep the location with machine-gun fire to eliminate any survivors.
Such massing of Red Army troops occurred relatively infrequently, but we faced a daily threat of infiltration. Scanning the tall grass and brush behind me, I was constantly on guard for enemy troops who might have penetrated our lines singly or in small groups. The persistent danger of an attack from any direction left us on edge and prone to fire at shadows.
In the swampy terrain, it was difficult for us to protect ourselves from enemy fire because we lacked our normal system of trenches and underground bunkers and instead had to operate behind the five-foothigh walls of thickly piled logs that ran along the entire perimeter. Deliveries of food and ammunition from the Tross up to the gun positions behind me were made under the cover of darkness to evade Russian observation and fire.
To avoid becoming bogged down in mud, all movement through the area, including foot traffic, relied on a network of “corduroy” roads and walkways, a term referring to their construction from fallen trees laid side-by-side. A narrow corduroy walkway linked the frontline perimeter to the gun positions about a half-mile back to the rear where our company slept and ate. Stepping off a walkway, you immediately sank into mud a foot deep.
When traveling these corduroy paths, I always clutched my submachine gun at the ready in case I encountered Russian infiltrators. For an enemy hidden in the grass, I would have been an easy target. This psychological strain generated by constant danger of attack from any direction at the Volkhov was even worse than that created by the threat of snipers at Uritsk.
In the rear, I would occasionally see Schutte or Sauke, but opportunities to enjoy a game of Skat or a smoke with comrades were almost nonexistent due to the amount of time I spent forward at the perimeter. Because of the regular need for my presence at the frontline, I usually slept there as well. In both locations, we bunked in waterproof tents set up on a log foundation in order to keep us above the mud, though it was nearly impossible to remain clean or dry in such conditions.
The standing water around us generated swarms of mosquitoes from which there was no escape. Even with netting around our tents, they still ceaselessly hounded us. This compounded the persistent irritation from the lice on our bodies, making restful sleep almost impossible. With hot soup a rare luxury, our rations consisted of mostly crackers and canned tuna and sausage. Though our morale remained high, inadequate sleep, a poor diet, and the stress of combat left us physically weakened and mentally exhausted.
By the middle of May, the Red Army had decided to abandon its attempt to regain the offensive initiative at
