Stuka Pilot

The weather is bad, cloud level only about 1800 feet. This is very low for a target with extremely strong defense. Should the weather deteriorate sufficiently to endanger our return flight we have been ordered to make a landing on the airfield near the town of Kalinin. We have a long wait for our fighter escort at our rendezvous. They fail to show up; presumably the weather is too bad for them. By waiting about in the air we have wasted a lot of petrol. We circuit round Torshok at a moderate altitude trying to discover the most weakly defended spot. At first it seems that the defense is pretty uniformly heavy, and then having found a more favorable spot we attack the railway station. I am glad when all our aircraft are in formation again behind me. The weather goes from bad to worse, plus a heavy fall of snow. Perhaps we have just enough petrol left to reach Staritza provided we are not forced to make too wide a detour because of the weather. I quickly decide and set course for the nearer Kalinin; besides, the sky looks brighter in the East. We land at Kalinin. Everybody is running round in circles in steel helmets. Aircraft from another fighter-bomber wing are here already. Just as I am switching on my ignition I hear and see tank shells fall on the airfield. Some of the aircraft are already riddled with holes. I hurry away in search of the operations room of the formation which has moved in here to obtain a more accurate picture of the situation. From what I learn we shall have no time to waste in overhauling our aircraft. The Soviets are attacking the airfield with tanks and infantry, and are less than a mile away. A thin screen of our own infantry protects our perimeter; the steel monsters may be upon us at any moment. We Stukas are a godsend to the ground troops defending the position. Together with the Henschel 123s of the fighter-bomber wing we keep up a steady attack on the tanks until late in the evening. We land again a few minutes after taking off. The ground personnel are able to follow every phase of the battle. We are well on the mark, for everybody realizes that unless the tanks are put out of action we have had it. We spend the night in a barracks on the Southern outskirts of the town.

^{Henschel 123}

We are startled out of sleep by a grinding noise. Is it one of our flak tractors changing position or is it Ivan with his tanks? Anything can happen here in Kalinin. Our infantry comrades tell us that yesterday some tanks drove into the market square, firing at everything that showed itself. They had broken through our outposts and it took a long time to deal with them in the town. Here there is an incessant thunder of gunfire; our artillery is in our rear shelling Ivan above our heads.

The nights are pitch dark with a low blanket of cloud. There is no air fighting except close to the ground. As once again the supply road has been cut the battle-weary ground troops are faced with many shortages. Yet they never falter in their superhuman task. A sudden cold snap of over forty degrees freezes the normal lubricating oil. Every machine gun jams. They say the cold makes no difference to the Russians, that they have special animal fats and preparations. We are short of equipment of every kind, the lack of which seriously impairs our effective strength in this excessive cold. A very slow trickle of supplies is coming through.

The natives cannot remember such bitter weather in the last twenty or thirty years The battle with the cold is tougher than the battle with the enemy. The Soviets could have a more valuable ally. Our tank troops complain that their turrets refuse to swivel, that everything is frozen stiff. We remain at Kalinin for some days and are in the air incessantly. We soon get to know every ditch. The front line has been pushed forward again a few miles to the East of our airfield, and we return to our base at Staritza where we have long been expected back. From here we continue operations, also in the direction of Ostaschkow, and then we are ordered to move to Gorstowo near Rusa, about fifty miles from Moscow.

Our divisions which have been thrown in here are pushing forward along the motor road through Moshaisk towards Moscow. A narrow spearhead of our tanks advancing through Swenigorod—Istra is within six miles of the Russian capital. Another group has also thrust even further Eastwards and has established two bridgeheads to the North of the city on the East bank of the Moscow—Arctic canal; one of them at Dimitrov.

It is now December and the thermometer registers 40-50 degrees below zero (centigrade). Huge snowdrifts, cloud cover generally low, flak intense. Pit./Off. Klaus, an exceptionally fine airman and one of the few left of our old companions, is killed, probably a chance hit from a Russian tank. Here, as at Kalinin, the weather is our chief enemy and the savior of Moscow.