World War II: The Autobiography

by Jon E. Lewis

  5 April

  . . . All Germany hopes and believes that this spring this horrible blood-letting war will at last take a decisive turn. We pray for victory and peace.

  16 April

  The sergeant who takes me through every possible course of instruction and wants to teach me gunnery possesses more conceit than knowledge.

  22 April

  The soldiers who have been in France and in the Balkans are anxious to get home, are impatiently waiting to be relieved. But their faith in our strength and their belief in victory are unlimited. This belief has its root in the consciousness of their superiority over the Russians.

  12 May

  To-day I can honestly state that I have experienced the horrors of the front. Nepokrytoye is the last fortified point on the line of defence before Kharkov. If it falls the road to Kharkov, which leads through open spaces, will be clear. It was still night when we were informed by our outpost at V. that Russian tanks were approaching. At daybreak eight of them actually loomed in sight. By that time I and a senior sergeant were already at our post in V. From early morning our batteries kept pouring a massed shell-fire into the array of enemy tanks. Results were not wanting. One tank was soon kaput. It remained immobile at its initial position. But the Russians were not slow to act. The height where post V. was stationed soon witnessed such a downpour of shells that we did not know where to be take ourselves. Besides, Russian bombers and fighters launched an attack to add to the frightfulness of the scene, but the worst was still to come.

  The intense artillery bombardment had damaged both our lines and so we were cut off from all communications. Our actions could not be co-ordinated. The German artillery was silenced.

  Then the Russian tanks launched an attack. Our infantry retreated. We made another frantic attempt to restore communications while our infantry was already stampeding to the rear. Then our turn came. We made a rather unseemly dash for safety, taking along only our field telephones and carbines. Bullets whizzed close by our ears. Now our gunners could sight the tanks and opened fire. It took the enemy some time to ascertain where our gun emplacements were. But now that he had spotted them their heavies shelled our guns almost without a miss and the air was filled with flying fragments of deadly iron and steel . . .

  I helped to bring up ammunition, just to have something to do. After many hours of this sustained rifle and artillery effort our ammunition gave out. We had fired more than 800 rounds and were now compelled to take cover in our blockhouses. The Russians also ceased firing. Finally a truck drove up with new supplies of shells and the firing recommenced with new vigour on both sides.

  The Russian marksmanship is devilishly accurate. Our first and third guns were knocked into a heap of scrap by two direct hits. But the crews were not touched. All the commissioned and non-commissioned officers assembled around the second gun, the only one that still kept up the fight. I felt ill at ease when I saw this assemblage of people and decided to change position. It was fortunate I did so, for immediately afterwards two shells crashed in among them. Eight were killed outright while six severely wounded lay on the ploughed-up ground. We bandaged their wounds as best we could and hastened our departure. Our troops were beginning to retreat. I helped to carry the wounded and therefore had to jettison even the little I had prepared to take with me. All my belongings can now find room in the bag I used to use for biscuits and things. But I did manage to salvage my shelter tent, carbine and cartridges out of the general wreckage.

  As we left the village we were rallied and thrown into the fight as infantry. But the Russian artillery was up to our game and its shells rained thick and fast right in our midst. And this was capped by an air attack that also exacted a heavy toll.

  Time passed by; it was already 4 p.m and not a single German plane in the air and not a single German tank acting in support of our land troops! We had been compelled, with heavy heart, to abandon all our artillery. In such distressing circumstances I think we did right to retreat fighting.

  At last we have come to a hollow. It was a relief to find some shelter from the unceasing whistle of bullets. Behind a copse we have called a halt to get our breath. Thank the Lord, twilight was coming on or the Russians would have shot us like rabbits while crossing the wide plain that lies before Kharkov. There are exactly twelve men left in our battery.

  21 May

  I have been made a private first class. I can hardly believe it . . . I am exceedingly glad that I am rid now of those humdrum duties in the battery that simply stupefy your mind. I am sure that back there I would never have obtained my chevron.

  27 May

  We have again been transferred to a so-called reserve command. This command includes lads who are still quite young and require drilling. So we act as N.C.O.’s. We do nothing all day except watch our “charges” clean the horses. Naturally, such a job is not to our taste.

  5 June

  Life is not a bed of roses here. All kinds of malicious and unjust complaints are made against us. The corporals and sergeants are particularly mean. The last few days have shown that we are fully able to cope with our duties.

  17 June

  Events come one after another with incredible rapidity. At 11 p.m. while I happened to be on duty, I was called to the telephone. The conversation started with the fateful words: “Well, Knoblich, to-morrow we go to the front.” I was put down as signaller. I shall have the doubtful pleasure of laying cables. I’m called out in the middle of the night, and all because I am unfortunate enough to be a “greenhorn” and can be assigned to any nasty job. I am sick and tired of being kicked about like a stepchild. After an hour’s sleep we are to march for several miles. I must admit the start was not very auspicious. The same day we again changed position. I am fed up with this by now. On the 12th we forced the Donets.

  Again and again we had to flop down in the muck. The trench mortar and artillery fire was so intense that it gave one the creeps. In the evening we returned to the battery. At dawn we advanced eastwards. The fierce trench mortaring was too much for our infantry. It was compelled to retreat to the height where our post was located. Now Russian tanks appeared on the battle scene. We abandoned our apparatus and hopped it. We could not get away too soon or too fast from those iron-clad monsters.

  . . . Here I am sitting in a filthy hole, all tired and broken up. I have no change of socks, nor soap and towel for a wash. Only the howling of mortars – that is now our constant companion. What a dog’s life we lead!

  20 June

  Very eventful days have come and gone. Life here hangs by a thread. The war may be terrible and we may be cursing it, but it has its good side, too. It constantly enriches the experience of each one of us. We get new impressions of life and see its seamy side, but much that is of value and will never be repeated would be lost to us if we did not have to re-live it day after day.

  21 June

  I dig too much into my soul and in general do much too much thinking. I often catch myself trying to apprehend things that are not subject to reason. Rationalist! Perhaps it is Russia that weighs so heavily on my soul. I crave mental pabulum like a starving dog a bone. How I long to engage in some scientific work! All I have at hand to tide me over such moods is some Münchener Lesebogen, my constant silent companions. They exhilarate and comfort me. In their pages I discover myself and at times find answers to my abstruse questions. They are my true friends day in day out, especially in hours of solitary introspection.

  Both men and officers are in a sullen mood. They all feel disconsolate and genuine enthusiasm is actually non-existent. They are all consumed with one ardent desire: to get out of this holocaust, to be relieved, to go home, at least on furlough. The offensive spirit has long since gone from our ranks.

  24 June

  A night of horrors! The last few hours that we had to spend in this shabby little village unexpectedly proved frightful in the extreme. At 1 a.m. we were awakened by explosions of unusual violence. We jumped out of our beds and st
retched out on the floor. This was the first news we had that Stalin’s heavy guns had arrived here. In an instant we were out of the house and sheltered, after a fashion, in the nearest basement. It was raining hard. The muddy puddles made it difficult to pass. The village was soon on fire. Sinister flames lit up the houses, streets and soldiers.

  6 July

  Last week brought no good news. Our present mode of existence does not meet with my approval. We are back once more to barrack life. We had hardly returned from the front when they started to drill us again. That’s the Prussian system for you!

  9 July

  To-day was enough to drive you crazy. They goose-stepped us worse than rookies in an absolutely unbearable heat. But influential circles maintain that in this merciless drill lies the secret of our victories.

  . . . Perhaps I shall be promoted this time. I’ve earned it long ago. Although I frequently know more than any of those N.C.O.’s, they trust me, a private first class with a substantial and comprehensive education, less than they do them. Such are the difficulties that have to be overcome.

  19 July

  Our immediate superiors embitter our lives with their petty tyranny in the exercise of their self-imposed authority. For instance, we are forbidden to unbutton our collars on the march. What martinets they are! They always overshoot the mark. There is no end to the reviews we have to pass and the duties we are assigned. The old Prussian drill sergeant regime in its pristine purity! And here it is even more strenuous than in the barracks.

  25 July

  I have cognized this whole mechanism and come to hate it. If I could only manage to escape from these dullards!

  30 July

  Sometimes I yield altogether to despair. For there is not a single person here to whom I can unbosom myself or who would really understand me. The people with whom I come in contact here are all so empty-headed, superficial and dull-witted. I have no choice but must needs remain alone with my thoughts. This is very difficult but I have become accustomed to it and shall get along somehow. I try to gain spiritual strength and comfort by solitary prayer. . . . I often picture to myself my return home. Great God, if that dream should ever come true! When that day arrives we shall return entirely different people, with entirely different conceptions of life, with a new appreciation of its blessings.

  It sometimes seems to me that in many respects I am becoming a materialist. How often I catch myself engrossed in thought, not about philosophy, but some dainty morsel and other creature comforts. That of course does not mean that I am no longer the idealist I used to be. True, on witnessing some unjust, arbitrary act, I am often ready to fling my ideals to the winds, but then I would lose my sole support in the quiet hours of my solitude. It is in ideals alone that I found that perfection of which there is such dearth in a world full of envy and strife, injustice and tyranny, the innocent victims of which we so often are.

  6 August

  The Russians are attacking furiously. We return their fire measure for measure, not ceasing day or night. During short intervals we dig in. I am weary unto death. If this torture would only end soon.

  12 August

  My strength has been overtaxed and it literally takes my last ounce of energy to grind out these few lines. This terrible war cannot end too soon for me. I am nauseated with it all and wish I could get clear of the whole outfit, including those nice boys a bit higher up, those ordinary sergeants and sergeant-majors who do their utmost to make life sweeter for us. They fairly weigh us down with special jobs (foraging and the like) that really are a nuisance. They are enough to drive one to despair. I suffer acutely from all this. The life we are compelled to lead is without a ray of sunshine.

  We are within a few miles of the Don and are told that we shall winter here.

  31 August

  . . . All our talk concerns two subjects: leave and women, yes women, even here in Russia. You often hear such talk from comrades as: “I consider myself married only in Germany . . .” One can readily imagine how these fellows spend their leisure time.

  13 September

  At last I can record the glad tidings that I was transferred back from my signaller’s job in the trenches to my regular service at post V. Light of heart, I left on the tenth to enjoy this change from night to day. Shade and silence – what a treat!

  26 September

  We have again been relieved by Italians. Those wonderful, dream-like days at Post V. are a thing of the past. The order to prepare for immediate departure came to us like a bolt out of the blue . . .

  To-day we are stationed at a small town about 10 miles from Kaprin and about the same distance from Rossosh. No one knows what is to become of us, and we least of all. We can give free rein to our fancy.

  I’m afraid we may be disillusioned in our new assignment! Everybody says that winter will find us fighting, though nobody is sure of it. On the other hand, everyone in the innermost recesses of his heart cherishes the dream of returning to Germany or at least to the occupied regions. Anywhere to get away from Russia.

  MR CHURCHILL GOES TO MOSCOW, 12 AUGUST 1942

  Henry C. Cassidy, journalist

  The British prime minister went to Moscow to inform Marshal Stalin that there would be no “Second Front” – that is, an attack from the west – on the Nazi empire in 1942 or 1943.

  I was sitting in my living room at 4:30 P.M., August 12, talking with Robert Magidoff, when a roar penetrated the thin roof. We looked into the pale blue sky, where a light breeze was chasing white clouds illuminated by a bright sun, and saw three great, four-motored, fan-tailed American B-24 bombers pass overhead and coast to a landing at the central airport. Above them, so high they could hardly be seen, dipped an escort of Soviet fighters. It was Churchill, arriving with his party.

  His coming had been kept generally secret. The correspondents, however, had known of it for days. Clark Kerr had locked himself in his embassy, declining to see anyone. Travelers from Teheran reported hectic preparations among the British there for an important reception. Others said a Soviet guard of honor had been sent out to the Kuibyshev airport, only to be told to return another day. In Moscow, special guards were detailed to the airport. The National Hotel was roped off and the sidewalk in front of it carpeted. The wall of the foreign office guest-house was given a fresh coat of black paint and supplies were carried into its yard. All that, for us, added up to a visit by Churchill.

  Some of the correspondents saw the Prime Minister riding away from the airport. Even if they had not recognized him, his cigar, a rarity in Moscow, was enough to identify him. Others telephoned the British embassy and asked whether they could see Churchill’s secretary. A slow-witted clerk said, “Just a moment, please, I’ll ask him,” and then returned, chastened, to say, “I don’t know anything about him.” We handed telegrams in to the press department, saying Churchill had arrived, and received the same answer: “Nothing is known about it.” So the battle was on, and we could not describe it. Churchill, officially, was not in Moscow.

  At the airport the visitors were met by a delegation of Soviet officials, with Molotov at their head. The flags of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States snapped from the flagpoles. A military band played the three national anthems. A guard of honor, composed of men chosen specially for their height, not to be outdone by the Buckingham Palace guards, stood at attention.

  Churchill inspected the guard, and then spoke into a microphone for the newsreels. “We are determined that we will continue hand in hand, whatever our suffering, whatever our toils,” he said. “We will continue hand in hand, like comrades and brothers, until every vestige of the Nazi regime has been beaten into the ground, until the memory only of it remains as an example and a warning for future times.”

  Averell Harriman, who came with Churchill as President Roosevelt’s personal representative, also spoke briefly: “The President of the United States charged me to accompany the British Prime Minister on his eventful journey to Moscow at this crucial m
oment of the war. The President of the United States stands back of everything that Mr. Churchill has come to do here, and America will be fighting with the Russians hand in hand at the front.”

  Churchill gave his famous “V” for victory sign and turned away to his automobile. Behind him there was excited speculation over two subjects. One was Harriman’s reference to America fighting with the Russians at the front. The other was Churchill’s V sign. Most Russians who saw it thought the two fingers meant there would be two fronts. The word for victory, in Russian, is pobeda. He should have given the P sign in Moscow.

  Churchill talked with Stalin for three hours and forty minutes at the Kremlin the evening of August 12. He conferred with Molotov the next afternoon and again with Stalin the next evening. What was said behind the closed doors, those on the inside would not say, those on the outside could not pretend to know.

  It was natural to assume, however, that the principal subjects were those the whole world was then discussing: the German surge across the Don, east toward Stalingrad, south toward the Caucasus; and Russian anxiety over the second front. It was easy, also, to see the way the talks were going, from such indications as a conversation between two Englishmen which took place in my presence. “It’s really too bad they brought the old gentleman out here,” said one who was no youth himself. “It’s not going so well, is it?” said the other. “The old boy’s in a foul temper.”

  On the third evening, there was a Kremlin dinner, the most animated ever held in this series of traditional endings to official visits. Nearly one hundred guests, members of the British and United States missions in Moscow and highest Soviet leaders, trooped into the Catherine Hall of the Great Palace at 9 P.M. for the spectacle.

  Stalin sat in the center of the long main table with Churchill on his right and Harriman on his left. Beside each of the guests of honor sat an interterpreter. Across the table was Molotov, with Clark Kerr on his right and Admiral Standley on his left.