Stuka Pilot

The Russian soldier is fighting back desperately, but he, too, is winded and exhausted and without this ally would be unable to stem our further advance. Even the fresh Siberian units which have been thrown into the battle are not decisive. The German armies are crippled by the cold. Trains have practically stopped running, there are no reserves and no supplies, no transportation for the wounded. Iron determination alone is not enough. We have reached the limit of our strength. The most needful things are lacking. Machinery is immobilized, transport bottle-necked; no petrol, no ammunition. Lorries have long since been off the roads. Horsedrawn sleighs are the only means of locomotion. Tragic scenes of retreat recur with ever greater frequency. We have few aircraft. In temperatures like these engines are shortlived. As previously when we had the initiative we go out in support of our ground troops, now fighting to hold the attacking Soviets.

Some time has passed since we were dislodged from the Arctic canal. We are no longer in possession of the big dam N.W. of Klin in the direction of Kalinin. The Spanish Blue Division after putting up a gallant resistance has to evacuate the town of Klin. Soon it will be our turn.

Christmas is approaching and Ivan is still pushing on towards Wolokolamsk, N.W. of us. We are billeted with the squadron staff in the local school and sleep on the floor of the big schoolroom; so every morning when I get up my nocturnal ramblings are repeated to me. One finds out that five hundred operational sorties have left their mark. Another part of our squadron is quartered in the mud huts common here. When you enter them you can imagine you have been transported to some primitive country three centuries ago. The living room has the definite advantage that you can see practically nothing for the tobacco smoke. The male members of the family smoke a weed which they call Machorka and it befogs everything. Once you have got used to it you can make out the best piece of furniture, a huge stone stove three feet high and painted a dubious white. Huddled round it three generations live, eat, laugh, cry, procreate and die together. In the houses of the rich there is also a little wooden-railed pen in front of the stove in which a piglet romps in pursuit and evasive combat with other domestic animals.

After dark the choicest and juiciest specimens of bug drop onto you from the ceiling in the night with a precision that surely makes them the Stukas of the insect world. There is a stifling frost; the Pans and Paninkas—men and women—do not seem to mind it. They know nothing different; their forebears have lived like this for centuries, they live and will go on living in the same way. Only this modem generation seems to have lost the art of telling stories and fairy tales. Perhaps they live too close to Moscow for that.

The Moskwa flows through our village on its way to the Kremlin city. We play ice hockey on it when we are grounded by the weather. In this way we keep our muscles elastic even if some of us are somewhat damaged in the process. Our adjutant, for example, gets a crooked nose with a slight list to starboard. But the game distracts our thoughts from the sad impressions over the front. After a furious match on the Moskwa I always go to the Sauna. There is one of these Finnish steam baths in the village. The place is, however, unfortunately so dark and slippery that one day I trip over the sharp edge of a spade propped against the wall and come a cropper. I escape with a nasty wound.

The Soviets have by-passed us to the North; it is therefore high time we pulled out to some airfield further to the rear. But we cannot do this; for days the clouds have hung so low above the forest towards Wiasma in the West that flying is out of the question. The snow lies deep on our airfield. Unless we are extremely lucky Ivan will arrive on our door step at the same time as Santa Claus. The Russian units which have by-passed us are certainly unaware of our presence, otherwise they would have bagged us long ago.

So we spend Christmas still in our schoolhouse at Gorstowo. When dusk falls a brooding silence descends on many of us, and we prick our ears at every clanking noise outside. But after our Christmas sing-song the gloom is soon dispelled. A couple of glasses of the copious vodka buck up even the moodiest among us.