While grenadiers of the 6th Panzer Division probed for a weak spot in the Russian defense, they heard and saw the Junker and Heinkel transports streaming through the sky toward Pitomnik Airfield as the Luftwaffe tried to sustain life in the
The fault could not be charged solely to the German pilots, whose varied problems defied solution. Russian fighters and antiaircraft were taking an ever greater toll of transports. But the most exasperating worry was the weather of southern Russia. A fulcrum for colliding maritime and continental fronts, it frustrated countless forecasts. Aircraft expecting good weather at Pitomnik frequently encountered low clouds, fog, or even blizzards that forced detours to bases hundreds of miles away. When that happened, both the cargos and planes were lost to the Stalingrad shuttle for several days at a time.
To counteract such failures, meteorologists tried to rely on eyewitness reports from observers inside the
A more deadly foe was ice. It tore up engines and immobilized planes for weeks, forcing mechanics to cannibalize parts from wrecks to repair damaged motors. And the mechanics themselves had to overcome unexpected hazards. When they removed their gloves to make delicate adjustments on equipment, their fingers froze to the metal. Maintenance that should have been accomplished was left undone, with catastrophic results.
Human error led to another series of mishaps. Since the Luftwaffe refused to allow army quartermasters to supervise the loading of the transports going to Stalingrad, famished soldiers at Pitomnik frequently opened crates of utterly worthless goods. One day it was thousands of protective cellophane covers for hand grenades—but no hand grenades. Another time, it was four tons of marjoram and pepper—at a time when troops were killing mice and eating them. Again, several thousand right shoes. Most ironic of all was a shipment of millions of neatly packaged contraceptives.
While airmen braved death to carry such unusual supplies to the
Thirty-one-year-old Cpl. Heinz Neist met an officer, Lieutenant Till, who smiled mischievously and asked: “Want something to eat?”
Neist gratefully accepted the offer and sat down before
Neist could not have cared less. His stomach was full for the first time in weeks.
In his snowhole at the edge of no-man’s-land, Pvt. Ekkehart Brunnert could not imagine such a meal. His clothes had frozen to his body, but his worst complaint was about his stomach. It doubled him over with knifelike pains.
His main meal each day was a watery soup. More was out of the question, because whenever he held out his mess tin, his name was recorded to prevent him from getting a second helping. What really made him furious was the sight of sergeants eating from plates heaped with solid food. Afraid to speak out about the privileges of rank, the private began to wonder whether everyone in the pocket really depended on each other for survival.
Like thousands of others, he foraged for extra food where he could. Once, the head of a frozen horse provided brains for a delicious meal. Another time, a roll of medicine tablets helped assuage his hunger.
Given a break from front-line duty, he went to the rear to seek warmth and rest. Within hours, however, he faced an arms inspection. Never having been issued proper lubricants, Brunnert frantically scratched and rubbed his weapon with scissors, stones, even his fingernails, until most of the rust disappeared. But the senior corporal who inspected Brunnert’s platoon used a carefully sharpened match to pry into each rifle. Disgusted with the results, he promptly placed Brunnert and the others on extra guard duty. Walking his post that night, Brunnert had barely enough strength to stand. His legs felt like rubber, and he feared the extra workload would finish him.
Forty-five miles south of the
It was like a gun duel on the ocean, but here the snowfields assumed a crazy pattern of tank treads and long black streaks left by exploding shells. In the inevitable confusion of vehicles firing and then moving quickly to new positions, Germans shot at Germans, Russians at Russians.
When T-34s entered the village, a frantic German officer radioed: “Request permission to abandon the village….” It was not granted. Another formation of panzers invaded the town from the west; by noon, almost all its ammunition was spent.
Colonel Hunersdorff appeared in the midst of his weary troops. Leaning out of his tank, he screamed: “You want to be my regiment? Is this what you call attack? I am ashamed of this day!”
He kept it up, hurling invective on all sides and his soldiers reacted with cold rage. Some openly questioned his right to tell them how to fight. But Hunersdorff’s motive was simply to galvanize his tankers. This he did. His tirade was followed almost immediately by another desperate call for help from the Germans inside Verkhne- Kumski. Hunersdorff gave the order to burst into the village “at maximum speed whatever the losses,” and five companies formed a column with the few tanks carrying armor-piercing shells leading the way.
Still furious at Hunersdorff, the panzer crews roared ahead spraying the fields on both sides with indiscriminate machine-gun fire. The unorthodox approach terrified the Russians, who jumped up and ran wildly across the plains. Inside their Mark IVs, the Germans assumed that the Russians thought they were insane.
Verkhne-Kumski fell easily this time, but within hours an “inexhaustible supply” of Russians counterattacked and Combat Group Hunersdorff had to retreat to the west. Out of ammunition, almost out of fuel,
It was also a day of heavy losses for the Russian 87th Guards Division. Jammed into a blocking position south of the Mishkova River as the result of Marshal Vasilevsky’s appeal to Stalin, the Guards had marched for a day and a half without pause from the Beketovka area, just below Stalingrad.
In the vanguard of the division was Sgt. Alexei Petrov, who had just trained a new gun crew for the offensive, and he urged his men to a faster pace. Snow obscured his vision and exhaustion became the main enemy, but he allowed no one to rest. Petrov himself held on to the barrel of the gun and slept while walking. Finally they arrived at the Mishkova River—and immediate combat with the 6th Panzer Division around Verkhne-Kumski.
Petrov had never seen nor heard such heavy shelling. Hour after hour, explosions blew the ground into pillars of frozen dirt and snow, and the horizons blossomed with endless flame. To Petrov, it was worse than in Stalingrad.
On the flat plain were thousands of bodies, tossed like broken dolls onto the ground. Most were Russians, victims of German artillery and Stukas. At the height of the bombardment, Petrov saw a tiny figure, no more than three feet high, waving his arms wildly. Amazed, Petrov looked more closely and saw that it was the upper body of a Russian soldier. Beside it on the ground lay a pair of legs and hips, neatly severed by a shellburst.
The man was looking at Petrov and his mouth opened and closed, sucking air, trying to communicate one last time. Petrov gaped at the apparition until the arms stopped flailing, the mouth slackened and the eyes glazed. Somehow the soldier’s torso remained upright and forlorn beside the rest of the body.
Still unsure of the relief force’s location, Paulus prepared for the crucial decision of how to link up with
