longer I remained in my exposed position. Yet, climbing down the tree in the daylight would greatly increase the risk of attracting the attention of a Russian sniper or machine-gun crew. In this dilemma, my only choice was to wait for the cover of darkness.
When dusk finally fell about an hour later, I made a rapid slide down the trunk and headed for safety in the rear. Reaching the gun crew, I passed along news of our small triumph. In a war filled with many combat engagements, hitting a moving target with indirect fire from guns in the rear was a rare and memorable accomplishment.
Over the course of the war, most of the casualties in our regiment resulted from Russian artillery and mortars, to a lesser extent from small-arms fire. About this time, however, we also began to endure our first bombing and strafing raids by Soviet aircraft.
During the daytime, we occasionally faced a threat from Soviet ground-attack planes like the Illyushin-2 Sturmovik. At night, we confronted the menace of the Polyarkov-2, nicknamed the Nahmaschine (Sewing Machine) for the loud rhythmic clattering of its engine.
The noisy approach of the Nahmaschine was audible at a great distance, but it was virtually impossible to target them in the darkness.
Flying a couple of hundred feet overhead, the pilot and copilot would search for any flicker of light that would reveal the location of our lines or rear camps.
Despite efforts to black-out everything on the ground, there was bound to be someone who would light a cigarette or use a flashlight that the enemy could spot. Once locating a potential target, the Soviet pilots often cut their engines in order to glide silently over the spot before dropping their bombs on the unsuspecting targets below.
The day after one of these nocturnal raids by a Nahmaschine, not long after the tank battle, I was again up front operating as forward observer. Immediately after directing one of our 150-millimeter howitzers to fire a round against an enemy target, I instead heard an enormous boom from the direction of our heavy guns in the rear.
The mystery was soon revealed. A misfiring shell inside the barrel of the howitzer had caused an explosion that detonated the shells stacked next to it, killing the five-man gun crew and obliterating everything in the vicinity. Though unable to get back and observe the scene myself, I was told that only a large crater remained.
This malfunction could have resulted from faulty workmanship or sabotage in the manufacture of the shell, but I was convinced it resulted from the phosphorous dropped on our position during the previous night’s air raid. A corrosive particle of the phosphorous could have burned a small hole in a shell that went undetected during its loading. Unfortunately, a sudden change in the battlefield situation within hours of this accident forced my company to pull back from the position without conducting an adequate investigation.
Earlier combat in the area of the Leningrad siege had primarily involved stationary trench warfare similar to that experienced on the Western Front in the First World War. In contrast, the combat near the Neva was more fluid and more bloody. Frequently, there were sudden shifts in the frontlines as both sides in turn retreated and counter-attacked.
As always, the 13th Company experienced a much lower casualty rate than the 154th Regiment’s regular infantry companies, since the majority of our personnel served in the rear handling our heavy weapons. Even though my assignment as forward observer placed me on the frontline, my freedom to avoid or pull out of more hazardous areas gave me a significant advantage over the regular infantry, as the earlier incident with the sniper at Volkhov demonstrated.
Back in Germany, where Anneliese was completing her nursing training, she and other civilians had begun to experience firsthand the horror of war. Frequent Allied air raids by large bomber formations now often forced her and the other members of her household to take refuge in the basement of her father’s home in Hamburg.
At the end of July 1943, I heard on the radio that the Allies were repeatedly targeting Hamburg with powerful air strikes. Employing hundreds of planes in the first of a series of massive area bombings of German cities, the enemy dropped large numbers of incendiary bombs that ignited multiple blazes. Heat and strong winds soon whipped these into a firestorm of unprecedented scale that killed about 40,000 people and devastated much of the central part of city.
In the aftermath of the attack, all mail to Hamburg stopped for a couple of weeks, leaving me deeply concerned. A long three weeks later, I received word that Anneliese and her family had survived. By the time her letter reached me, Anneliese had meanwhile completed her basic nursing training and been transferred up to a hospital at St. Peter-Ording on the North Sea coast, a location where she would be much safer.
Composing a letter to Anneliese, I conveyed both our difficult conditions at the front as well as my concerns for her. “We are in the most northern part of the Eastern Front on a large river [the Neva]. We are in foxholes [and] life is really miserable. We don’t get any sleep. I await a letter from you concerning the bombing of Hamburg on 25th and 26th of July, 1943.” It would be months later before I learned what she had personally experienced.
Despite the hardships in Russia, I still expressed an abiding optimism about the outcome of the conflict. “We don’t have very much of our younger years [left to us], but this will change when the war is finished. We here on the front are very positive that we will win the war.”
My words also sought to reassure her by painting a brighter future for us after the fighting had ended. “All that we are going through now will be compensated by our mutual love. After our victory, we will make up for all these missing moments and hours.”
Chapter 12
OFFICER CANDIDATE
ORANIENBAUM TO NEVEL
Early September–October 31, 1943
At the beginning of September, the 58th Division received orders to prepare to transfer 40 miles westward from the fiercely contested Ladoga area to the relative calm of the Oranienbaum pocket, roughly two years after our previous posting there.
Before making the shift to a new position, a Vorkommando would be sent ahead to determine the placement of the guns and other equipment. As a recently promoted sergeant, I was assigned to head the team by our company commander, Second Lt. Reichardt. On September 8, the day before the remainder of the division arrived, I wrote a letter to Anneliese describing the view from our new location near the coast: “I can see the Baltic Sea, the towers of Leningrad, and the hills of Finland.”
In the midst of a conversation with Reichardt the day after my letter, he abruptly asked, “Do you want to be an officer?” Though it had been apparent that he had been grooming me for greater responsibility, the sudden question still caught me off guard. Despite my surprise, I responded instantly with an enthusiastic, “Jawohl, Herr Leutnant!” With my acceptance, I became an officer candidate, finally earning the chance to pursue a leadership role to which I had long aspired.
Two days later, on September 11, Col. Behrend, our regimental commander, decorated me with the Iron Cross First Class for bravery in recognition of my role in halting the tank attack near the Neva River as well as a number of other combat actions. In our company, the Iron Cross First Class was awarded to only a few soldiers so it was a distinct honor that I felt privileged to wear.
Excited to share my news, I decided to try to give Anneliese a phone call from my frontline bunker at Oranienbaum. Since the communications network was restricted to military needs, I was aware that my effort might be blocked, but figured it was worth a try. Using our field telephone, I reached the regimental switchboard and was patched through to the division. The divisional operator, in turn, placed a call to the hospital in St. Peter- Ording where Anneliese was working. Much to my disappointment, I learned that she was already off duty that day. I tried to phone her again, but never reached her. My failure to speak to her left me even more anxious to see her
