OCTOBER 19, 1942 – 1:00 A.M
It has been raining for a long time—for about two weeks now—but, today, I have seen the first signs of the winter snow. We were forced to displace from the roof as it started to collapse from the weight of the white powder, setting up a series of foxholes around the road. I think this is a foolish move, as we are now vulnerable to the freezing cold temperatures and to any air attack from the fascists.
I believe the snow shall be the end of us; it shall slow us down, make it harder for us to move our limited artillery, supplies, and guns. It will make it harder to communicate with one another, as the snow will weigh down on our radio lines and freeze up the wires. Soon, when we try and make contact with other forces, all we will hear in response is static. It's a strange, irritating sound, like someone was crumbling up a roll of tin.
I've been fighting in this war since the very beginning, all the way from the action in Moscow to the counter-offensive in Kharkov, and I have yet to see a fight that has proved too much for my sanity.
With luck, this one won't either. But its chances have become very slim.
Today is Sunday, the usual day of rest in my household, but a day of work for Stalin's finest. The XO of the main army contacted us today, informing us that we are to embark at once for the lines. This was, of course, not received with cheerful reception. But, despite this, we all got our kits ready and formed up into a loose column formation.
We started marching at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and, at about three, an order was passed down for my company to deploy to the right of the main lines and dig in on the south bank of a railroad cutting. We deployed and started to dig in, but as the soil around the cut was more like chalk, we only managed to make only two dozen shallow holes.
While we were digging, the Germans opened fire with their artillery. The range was perfect, and about twelve shells at a time began bursting in line directly over our vulnerable heads. All of us, except for Nevski, fell flat on our faces, frightened and surprised; but after a while we stood up and looked over the rough bulwark we had set up. We could see nothing, but soon turned our attention to the two that had been wounded and the five that had been killed.
We could see a lot of movement coming from the buildings ahead, as well as the thunderous booms sprouting from both rifles and machine guns. I know the fascists are planning something, I just don't know what.
The Germans attacked in great masses on our left flank, but were beaten back by another company. A platoon of German troopers crossed our front about 800 yards to the right, and we opened fire on them. We hit a few, but the fact that we were doing something definite improved our moral immensely, and took away a lot of our anxiety.
The artillery fire from the Germans remained very heavy, but was dropping behind us on a friendly battery. Captain Nevski, who had stayed in the open all the time, had taken a couple of men to help get the wounded away from the battery behind us. He returned about 6:30 p.m., when the firing had died down a bit, and told us the battery had been blown to bits.
I was then sent with my squad to an outpost to man a signal box at a level crossing, and found it was being used as a clearing station for wounded.
One man was in a very bad way, and kept shrieking out for somebody to bring a razor and cut his throat, and two others died almost immediately. I was going to move a bundle of hay when someone called out, "Look out, comrade. There's a severed hora in there." I saw a leg completely severed from its body, and suddenly felt very sick and tired.
The German rifle fire started again and an artillery-man to whom I was talking was shot dead. I was sick then. Nothing much happened during the night, except that one man spent the time kissing a string of rosary beads, and another swore practically the whole night.
OCTOBER 20, 1942 – 5:34 P.M
It has been a cold, wet day today, and due to the unstable soil, we were forced to move out from the railroad cut. Nevski told us to rest in an abandoned school in northern Stalingrad while he and 4th squad went out to find targets for our mortar teams.
After testing our telephone lines and receiving the "OK" from the stations in communication with us, we began to settle down and await the arrival of Captain Nevski and his men.
We had been given several food and drinking rations, but most of them were to be given to the wounded, so the majority of us went on with empty stomachs. I turned on the radio as to calm the men's nerves with lively tunes—and it worked, as the men began to sing along and tap to the rhythm. Over the course of a month and a half, my company has lost the majority of its troops, and many more now lay dying on the floor of a bombed school. I wanted them to at least be happy before they passed on. No man has gone without a scar and the wounded and dying could easily blend in amongst the crowd. I stood from my seat, drawing out the two packs of cigarettes I kept in my breast and hip pockets. I then proceeded to pass the cigarettes around, making sure that every man wounded or not, got one.
The Germans have begun to ease their way through the city, leaving a tight grip on every street they take. Death and destruction has become the fascists' odor, their treads leaving trails of terror and misery amongst both the people of Stalingrad and the men of the Red Army. Though the enemy moves at the pace of malaises, it has become harder to keep them at bay. Their morale ascends up and into the heavens while ours holds it breath and plunges down into the water.
A platoon of Germans came upon our position today, a pair of tanks rolling in behind them. Both rifles and explosive shells slammed into us, inevitably blowing away chunks of brick, stone, and flesh. I ordered my squad to man their machine guns and open fire on the infantry, leaving the tanks for the men with the rocket launchers. Durasov and Belinski manned one of our two machine guns, while Sokolov and Nikita manned the other. I ordered "open fire!" and they unleashed hell upon the vulnerable Germans, eliminating the majority. The surviving seemed to catch wind of this sudden turning point and turned back behind the tanks, which were still firing down upon us, and crawling up onto their backs. I, meanwhile, took my rifle and raced up onto the roof with a group of men from the other squads that were the least wounded.
The Mosin-Nagant with a telescopic sight was a very accurate weapon…it was able to range up to 800 plus yards. In the hands of an experienced rifleman, it had the capability of being lethal. I find respectable; easily obtainable and accurate, as well as being very rugged and reliable. It was unlike most rifles before it, better than the American Springfield or the British Lee Enfield.
I ordered the men to take aim and wait for my say-so to fire. I also brought up the men with the rocket launchers and ordered them to open fire on the tanks, which were slowly trudging on up to our positions. But, as soon as they roamed into our line of sight, the men opened up with the launchers, destroying one tank while maiming the other. The Germans on the first tank were all killed, blown to hell in a matter of seconds. The men who had hopped onto the second tank, mean-while, leapt up from their seats and down onto the damp ground.
"Keep firing!" I order. The random calls of, "Fascists in the open!" or "Die, Fritz! We'll thaw you out in the spring!" or "You fascist bastards came all this way just to die!" could easily be heard amongst the rapturous gunfire and explosions. I, spotting a promising opportunity, lobed a grenade at the feet of a German, who grabbed it and tossed it back at me. He didn't aim it well, however, and it bounced off the side of the wall in front of me and landed behind a squad of Germans advancing on the school.
BOOM!
Flesh, limbs, blood, and intestines were torn apart as the grenade exploded at the Germans' feet. Their carcasses fell down together in a disorderly heap, blood pouring out and around them. I hastily look away, aiming down the sight towards a lone trooper taking cover behind a piece of debris from the destroyed tank.
The second tank raised its barrel up to our position and fired with both its main cannon and the two on its side firing explosive shells.
BOOM!
Boom, boom!
Dirt, snow, and smoke flew up into the air, followed soon by blood and bones. Three of the men collapse as the shells impact, chunks of their bodies completely gone. Their eyes were open but the life was gone.
The tank reloaded and fired again.
BOOM!
Boom, boom!
Boom, boom!
The shells from the side guns slammed into the side of the wall, two entering through a window and exploding inside while the other two soared up over our heads. The shell from the main cannon, meanwhile, slammed into the wall, inches away from us. One of the men fell backward in pain, a sharp piece of brick shoved into his chest. Another man, seeing his fallen comrade, ran up to him and crouched down beside him, but was then shot in the temple and died instantly.
"Fire the rockets again!" I called out to the man with the bazooka. "Aim for the belly of that metal beast."
He nods and aims his launcher, firing as soon as he aligns the tank with the thin black line of his sight. As he squeezes the trigger, there is a loud cracking sound and the rocket is expelled from the barrel, slamming into the tank's chest. It blows to bits upon impact, but not all the Germans inside are killed.
Five men jump out, covered in flames. I order the men to shoot them, to put the pigs out of their misery.
I call out, "Nikita! Belinski! Check for survivors!"
With no response, I watch as Nikita runs out into the carnage, every now and again stopping at a body and kicking its flank. If it twitched, he would shoot it in the head. Then he jumped on top one of the tanks and fired a few shots inside before going in himself.
We all wait one moment.
He reappears and starts waving his arms in the air as a signal to inform us that the area was clear.
Belinski then came out and started kicking the snow over the flames of the burning tanks and dead German troops so that it didn't spread towards the school. With this done, I order the remaining men on the roof to bring the dead and wounded down onto the bottom floor while I went to check where the tank shell had impacted.
Racing down the steps, I found that the shell had exploded on the ceiling, but the debris had come crashing down on top of some unfortunate men who had been wounded the night before during a German raid.
As Nevski wasn't here, I was forced to write the report on the events of today. I discovered that Durasov and Sokalov's machine gun had been destroyed by one of the blasts and that Belinski's finger had been severed. We had a total of thirteen dead, twenty-one wounded or wounded again, and one incapacitated.
This was one of our biggest body count in our company so far, and I suspect that there will be more events like this one. Tonight, I have taken it upon myself to write the letters home to their families and collected their identification tags. When Nevski came back around 4 o'clock, I informed him about what had just happened, and he told me that he had "located the fuckers" and that "our artillery will break their will."
OCTOBER 29, 1942 – 1:34 P.M
Things have been pretty quiet over the past week.
My company has become busy on jobs revolving around burying the dead and quickly-planned assaults into fascist-held territory to flush out any remnants of the Fuhrer's assault forces. I have noticed that most of the dead enemy bodies were more commonly Italian or Croatian than German. I only saw a handful of actual German regular army men. I thought that was strange because most of the attacks we have been dealing with were usually spearheaded by the Third Reich.
Though the Reich's pure, aggressive strength is probably their finest weapon; their cowardice also seemed to help them profusely. They hid thinned themselves out amongst lines of Italians, Croatians, Romanians, Spanish, and Hungarians. This helped them take fewer casualties, but it also helped the morale of our own men. Knowing that the Germans were afraid to fight made the battles go along all the easier.
Early one morning, Nevski called me to the roof of the school. Once I arrived, he handed me a pair of binoculars and told me, "Come see this, Andrei, tell me if you think this is strange."
In a land of chaos, it was hard to define "strange."
I lifted the binoculars to my eyes and followed the finger Nevski was pointing. I spotted a flag dropped down over a window on the top floor of a building, draped over like a curtain. The swastika was adorned with pride on a red field and tears had been made on the bottom of the flag to make it look a little bit more graceful than war-damaged.
I looked at Nevski. "So what, the fascists are expressing their patriotism."
He swallowed. "That's the building we had targeted for our mortars a week ago, and now that they realize we are targeting their position, they choose to put up a flag for their Fuhrer? No, this is strange. I am going to contact Voronin and see what he thinks, but I see this as a symbol of defiance—it cannot go unpunished, so get your men ready."
OCTOBER 30, 1942 – 11:59 A.M
Nevski is planning an attack on the building with the flag.
I've begun to have a back problem. I saw a medic about it, but he just explained that I just needed to try lying down more. To tell you the truth, I don't see that happening any time soon.
The Captain has ordered that all ammo and provisions be salvaged, and that all explosives be brought to him immediately. He has had children and women scout out the area around the building to see if there was a weak point in their defenses, as well as to count how many guns and troops they had stationed there. Despite this, I don't believe Nevski has been given permission for this raid, as Voronin has yet to call or write us of any news. Nevski has become more impatient every day—he becomes angry over the littlest things and is more physical than most men in the company.
OCTOBER 30, 1942 – 7:15 P.M
I've never truly met anyone quite like Captain Elias Nevski.
He is not what you would say "old". Then again, he is not a young man. He is extremely tall. I think it is his sense of height that impresses me the most. The troops and the locals must be overwhelmed with his very size. Next thing that was most noticeable about him was the guns. He wore two TT-30's sitting high under his armpits in custom-made holsters, not the usual holsters they issue in a standard armory. He also carried a machete hidden within the lapels of his winter coat, one which he had used on several occasions during combat.
I have known Elias for years; he was my squad sergeant during my first year of service and became my friend upon his promotion to Lieutenant after the Second Kharkov. Despite this, he has taken a liking to calling me by my last name, Toufexis, instead of my first—Andrei. But he does treat me better than he would the other non-commissioned officers, in spite of me being a lowly Junior Sergeant squad leader.
He respects me and I respect him.
However, over the past couple of weeks, I have begun to worry about him—he fights with the goal of fulfilling his thirst for blood rather than for a Soviet victory in Stalingrad. One cannot look into the man's eyes, for you will see the soul of a man burning with a hatred for all things German.
I consider this man one of my best friends, but yet I know only little about him and he never wishes to share anything. But we talk and confess to one another, sharing a bond in which only brothers ever have. Recently, the men in our platoon have started a type of "guessing game" to figure out his past. The object of the game is to get a conversation going in which we bring up the subject of things such as "what did you do for a living?" or "how old were you when you volunteered, comrade?" and then would persist until we got an answer. So far, every time someone tries to do this, we are always shot down and threatened. This has led us to start gambling. Personally, I find it more entertaining than cards, but this is most likely due to me winning the most money.