The 900 Days

by Harrison Salisbury

  The backbone of the defense was provided by the guns of the cruiser Kirov, the destroyer leaders Leningrad and Minsk, and the nine destroyers and three gunboats which stayed in the roadstead. The final defense force comprised about 20,000 men, including nearly 14,000 sailors and 1,000 or more police. They had 13 T-26 tanks.

  As rapidly as possible Tributs had sought to evacuate from Tallinn the wounded and those not needed for the city’s defense. The turboelectric ship, the BT-509, now called the Baltika, got away with 3,500 wounded in earlier fighting. It was hit by a mine but managed to transfer its passengers safely and arrived at Kronstadt in tow August 13. The Siberia, which brought Tributs and his staff to Tallinn in July, 1940, was lost in a bombing attack. It carried 3,000 wounded, but many were saved.

  The final German attack on Tallinn opened about midevening August 19 at a moment when Admiral Tributs and Admiral Panteleyev were taking a stroll in the empty lanes of Kadriorg Park. They knew from captured Nazi soldiers that the German command had been ordered to take Tallinn by August 24.

  That day Orest Tsekhnovitser wrote another letter to his family:

  Very worried not to get any news. I must know:

  How is your health?

  Did you get the money voucher, Zhenia?

  Where are you living?

  What are you thinking about?

  Have you gotten my letters?

  I am healthy. Life is very, very tense. We are doing something very important. More than that I can’t write about myself. I haven’t heard from Grandma for two weeks. Very worried about you. My best to those who know me and love me a little.

  I embrace you and kiss you

  OREST

  Yuka [his son]: Oh! If I live (as Leo Tolstoy used to say), what talks we will have when the Fascists are licked! The enemy is so strong that we have to work fiercely to beat him. And we will. But we have to keep up the fight.

  It was the last word the family had from him.

  August 23 was a sunny day. The weather throughout August had been exceptionally good. It reminded Vsevolod Vishnevsky, the playwright and senior correspondent with the Baltic Fleet, of Spain. Vishnevsky went to staff headquarters that morning and got a briefing from Major General Zashikhin. The Germans were attacking in strength. A Soviet mixed regiment had been forced back, but General Zashikhin thought the lines would hold.

  At about 4 P.M. it began to rain. Vishnevsky was pleased to learn that telegraph connections with Moscow had been restored. He went to the offices of the newspaper, Soviet Estonia, and found a good deal of nervousness there. This bothered him. He was a big, bold, self-confident man. Even in the worst moments he insisted that all would be well. He had spent part of the morning reading over the front communiqués of the first two months of the war. This put him in an optimistic mood—God knows why.

  Nikolai Chukovsky, then a young correspondent attachéd to the 10th Bomber Group of the Baltic Fleet air arm, recalled meeting Vishnevsky about this time. He saw Vishnevsky standing on the boulevard in front of staff headquarters, talking with a well-known writer who was in naval uniform.

  Vishnevsky glared at the writer, his round puffy face white with anger. Chukovsky decided it was no moment to intervene and tried to go past without speaking, but Vishnevsky grasped him by the arm and detained him.

  “You also want to get out!” Vishnevsky accused Chukovsky in fierce tones. “But we will hold out! We will stop them!”

  It was with difficulty that Chukovsky convinced Vishnevsky that unlike the writer in naval uniform he had no intention of quitting Tallinn.

  Now, amid obvious signs that the Germans were closing in for their final attack, Vishnevsky busied himself with his notes, jotting down every impression. He went to the Political Administration of the Baltic Fleet and sat there at a window in late afternoon, looking out to sea, filling notebook after notebook with nervous, almost cryptic comments.

  Suddenly the alarm rang: General Quarters. “Be ready to board the Virona. Leave no papers behind.”

  He gathered his possessions, swept them into a haversack, and was ready to go. He jotted down one more note: “Evidently the situation is getting worse. The marines have suffered losses. The German fire is very heavy. The commissar is wounded. . . .”

  That night he slept aboard the Virona. Cabins No. 111 and 112 were assigned to correspondents. He lay on the bed without undressing. It was cold. It was cold when he awoke the next morning to hear the cruiser Kirov lobbing shells over the city. A tug, the C-w^, kept swinging the Kirov around so the Germans could not get the range. Gray clouds obscured the sun. It was getting colder. Vishnevsky spent the day on the Virona, writing a leaflet to be distributed to the Baltic Fleet. He saw fires burning in the city and watched two heavy German shells explode in Kadriorg Park. The fighting grew more intense in the city outskirts. The weather changed again and again. Two rainbows appeared over the harbor.

  All day on the twenty-fourth Vishnevsky made hurried jottings in his notebook:

  Black smoke . . . Two fighters overhead . . . the Tsiklon [Cyclone, a Soviet gunboat] moves away from the wall. . . . The fire on the point has gone out. . . . 10:12 A.M. Two trawlers . . . Sunny . . . Tugboats . . . Two torpedo boats come into the harbor. . . . Comrade Karyakin says the sailors are holding up the Germans on the Narva highway . . . sailors from the Kirov and a mine layer—off to the front, singing . . . The Virona prepares to depart. . . . Many fires . . .

  The Nazis missed their date, although in the confusion of August 24 they almost wiped out the Tallinn field command. General Nikolayev, his Military Council Member and General Moskalenko had decided to visit the command post of Colonel T. M. Parafilo. They did not know the Germans had overrun the position until they came under mortar fire. They had a close call. By nightfall the Nazis pushed into the lovely beach community of Pirita, and along the walls of the Minna Harbor the last reserves of the command had been assembled—the cadets of the Frunze Naval Academy.

  In the gloom of the gray evening Admiral Panteleyev’s eyes were caught by the glitter of the gold emblems and blue collars of the cadets. They were tall, staunch lads, well uniformed.

  Panteleyev looked at the fresh, red-cheeked, blond young men, and his heart turned over. They represented the future of the fleet. And they were being sent into action from which few would emerge.

  Admiral Tributs stepped before them and made a speech. They could hardly distinguish his words in the roar of cannonading. Then they marched through the gates of the harborage with a quick close step. That night the Germans overran the thin line of sailors defending Paldiski. Almost all perished in the hand-to-hand battle. Admiral Tributs ordered fleet personnel to board their ships, leaving only guards on shore.

  “It was a tense alarming night,” Panteleyev recalled. “The Germans were within six miles of Tallinn. Everyone was at the front, even the policemen. The city was empty. It held out only because of the naval guns and shore batteries. Once the Kirov stopped firing and General Nikolayev telephoned: ‘What’s the matter? Why are the ships silent? The Fascists are mounting an attack. Give us support immediately!’ “3

  On the twenty-fifth smoke screens were laid down over the harbor to protect the warships from Nazi air attack. One bit of good news brightened the day. Another convoy of nine transports with wounded made it back to Kronstadt. The transport Daugava was sunk, but all hands were saved. That day Admiral Tributs gave orders for a massive mine-sweeping operation to clear the path for the expected evacuation. But hardly had the orders been issued to Vice Admiral Rail than the wind began to rise from the northeast to gale force. The trawlers could do nothing in the high seas.

  The night of the 2 5th-26th was even more alarming than the previous one. General Nikolayev called from his command post. He asked that the Military Council come to him. Tributs and the divisional commissar left and returned almost immediately, ordering all commanders to be summoned. The worst had happened. The Nazis had broken through both from the east and from the south. The warship
s were ordered to double their rate of fire.

  All night the firing went on. At dawn Panteleyev noted in his operational journal:

  26 August 6 A.M. During the night beat off strong attack on city. Enemy changed tactics, infiltrating small groups into the objectives. . . . All airfields captured by enemy. Our planes flew off to east. Fleet and city under bombing and shelling. Beautiful Pirita is burning. . . . Other suburbs also burning. Big fires in the city. Barricades and obstacles being built at approaches to harbor. Smoke everywhere . .. Fire of ships and shore batteries has not slackened. Our command post on Minna Harbor constantly under fire.

  It was the last notation Panteleyev was to make in Tallinn.

  Early in the day the Stavka in Moscow ordered Tallinn evacuated.

  Vishnevsky went ashore that morning. He found barricades in all the principal streets. Smoke billowed over the city and a battle was in progress around the airport. Strong machine-gun fire echoed around the Rusalka monument. Ambulances clanged through the streets with the wounded. The Russians were slowly falling back toward the harbor. Shrapnel burst over Kadriorg Park.

  The typesetters at the fleet newspaper were ordered to dig trenches in the park, and Editor Tarasenkov stationed himself near the Rusalka monument to halt the fleeing soldiers and sailors and try to form a new defense line. He saw Vishnevsky, gloomy, his glasses pushed down on his nose, going back toward the port. Until nightfall Tarasenkov held his post. At one moment a wild-eyed sailor rushed at him, automatic in hand, shouting, “Halt!” Tarasenkov, mustering all his will power, ordered the sailor to join the defense lines. The sailor hesitated, then hurled his weapon away and threw himself, writhing, to the ground.

  By this time Paldiski had been cut off from Tallinn. The staff of the newspaper Soviet Estonia was taken aboard an icebreaker. Vishnevsky went back aboard the Virona at 6 P.M. Two planes were attacking the Kirov, and the harbor was quickly enveloped in smoke from the smoke ships. He watched two fires rise up over the city, dense clouds of pitch-black smoke high in the sky, as the sun set. He guessed that the oil tanks were burning. The first evacuation convoy, he heard, was to leave that night. He had a copy of Tarle’s Napoleon, He opened it and began to read.

  The next morning the city was still holding out, but the Germans had set up automatic weapons in Kadriorg Park. The Germans showered leaflets over the city: “The great Baltic Fleet is encircled.”

  Waves of smoke rose higher and higher. The sound of explosions was continuous. The Russians were setting fire to supply and ammunition dumps as they moved back to the harbor. By 12:15 P.M. the power station, the grain elevators and the arsenal were in flames. Sailors with gasoline cans were toughing off warehouses. The smoke was so thick Vishnevsky had difficulty breathing. The NKVD units and the prosecutor’s staff left their stations and hurried to the evacuation ships.

  Mikhailovsky was still ashore. As he came toward the harbor, he passed a grassy patch right at the edge of the sea and saw a small group of Red Army men. Before them was a newly dug grave, red earth heaped up beside it. Lying on a stretcher beside the grave was a young girl in uniform, her face white as marble, her lips still smiling, her fair hair tossed back. A soldier was speaking:

  “We say farewell to Zina, our good friend. She was as young as us. She saved our lives and she herself wanted to live. And now she is gone and we must leave her here in the raw earth. . . .”

  Mikhailovsky went on. On Narva Street wounded were being carried out of a school and placed in ambulances. Soldiers trailed down the street, some carrying two or three rifles, their own and those of wounded or fallen comrades. The air was filled with the smell of fire and explosives. The barricades left narrow passages at one side through which the last retreating men could pass.

  These were the men who would hold the lines while the ships loaded and got away from the Minna and the freight harbors. Overhead roared salvo after salvo of shells from the Kirov. Close to the piers from which Soviet troops were boarding transports, stores of ammunition burned, rattling and crackling like the battlefield itself.

  A crane operator cursed as he loaded huge crates onto one of the ships: “What the hell is the point of loading these boxes? There isn’t enough room for people and we are overloading the boats with crates.”

  “It’s munitions, stupid,” a soldier replied.

  “Munitions, munitions,” the operator snapped. “Who needs them at sea?”

  The packet Pikker, which had been the command point for the Military Council, now stood empty. Only the cook, wearing his white cap, sat on the deck, watching the scene with curiosity.

  An infantry captain arrived at the pier, worn and bedraggled. He approached a vice admiral. “Can I bring my men aboard?” he asked. “Pve no equipment left. I destroyed my last cannon.”

  “I can’t do it,” the admiral said sharply. “The transport is overloaded. You’ll have to get on the tanker.”

  Mikhailovsky watched a small gray car come up to the pier. Out of it stepped Vishnevsky, who motioned to the chauffeur. “You can destroy the car here.”

  The chauffeur was hesitant. “Maybe I can just remove the carburetor.”

  “You heard the order,” Vishnevsky said sternly. “Nothing is to be left for the enemy. Carry out the order.”

  The chauffeur finally moved the car into a narrow driveway, took out a grenade, threw it in and flung himself to the ground. The machine blew up with a bang.

  An idea suddenly came to Vishnevsky. The papers! No one had brought the last edition of the Soviet Estonia from the print shop. Together with Mikhailovsky, Anatoly Tarasenkov of Komsomolskay a Pravda and Yuri Inge, a poet, they went back into town, past the barricades, past the burning buildings to the gray structure that housed the newspaper. A four-story building was afire across the street.

  They tramped into the newspaper office. It was gloomy and still. A stack of fresh newspapers lay at the mail window. The Estonian printers were still there. They looked at the four Russians with surprise. Each grabbed a bundle of papers and walked out. A woman with a blue kerchief on her head cried. They made their way back to the Minna Harbor through streets in which firing echoed again and again.

  At 2:40 P.M. Vishnevsky boarded a cutter with Commissar Karyakin and went to the destroyer leader, Leningrad, command ship of the evacuation squadron. The noise of explosions in the city and bombs dropping in the harbor was deafening.

  Tarasenkov, Mikhailovsky and most of the other journalists went aboard the Virona. So did Tsekhnovitser, the professor, a rucksack on his back. His face was thin, covered with several days’ beard, his uniform torn and his boots muddy. But he was as brisk and bright as ever.

  “Well,” he said gaily, “we fell into the devil’s meat grinder! What kind of miracle got us out I just don’t know. We had been fighting for three days, and I thought the only way we’d get out would be in a coffin with a band playing. Suddenly, we got orders to get out and come to the harbor.”

  “You were born under a lucky star,” someone said.

  “Exactly,” said Tsekhnovitser.

  Johannes Lauristin, the chairman of Soviet Estonia, appeared. He was looking for the icebreaker Surtyl, on which he was supposed to be evacuated. It had already left, most of its passengers members of the fleet theatrical troupe.

  “Never mind,” he shouted, “I’ll go on the mine layer Volodarsky. I’ll see you in Leningrad.”

  Night fell. From the ships in the harbor could be seen ancient Vyshgorod, its balustrades outlined against the rosy sky. The great tower of Long Herman loomed over the scene, and on its heights waved a red flag. From the city came the rumble of explosions. The last guard still held its lines.

  The loading of the transports began at 4 P.M., August 27. An evacuation plan had been prepared in twenty-four hours for upwards of 190 ships to be moved out of Tallinn Harbor, including 70 transports of more than 6,000 tons each. For safe passage through the narrow mine-filled waters (one witness compared the waters to “soup with dumplings,’-
so filled were they with mines) a minimum of 100 mine sweepers was needed. There were available 10 fleet mine sweepers and 17 light trawlers. The best guess at the number of German mines in the waters through which the convoys would pass was 3,000 to 4,000.4 Admiral Tributs asked for the emergency loan of 16 light cutters to protect his convoys and for a pre-emptive air strike against German coastal air bases to reduce the dangers to his convoy. Orders for these precautions came through from Leningrad, but only after the fleet had left Tallinn.

  As evening drew on, the fleet guns redoubled their fire to cover the loading of the transports. The commercial wharfs fell under German fire, and ships had to be shifted to the Bekerovsky port. At 9 P.M. the rear guard fell back to their last positions. The destruction of the last stores began.

  Admiral Panteleyev watched for a while from the bridge of the Virona. He saw the destroyer leader Minsk break off fire and turn sharply. The mine layer Skory did the same. They were dodging bombs. At midnight the Virona moved off to take its place in the convoy, between the islands of Naissaar and Aegna. The weather had not improved.

  A gale rocked the ships from stem to stern. The big transports strained at the lines of the tugs. Rain swept the harbor in sharp gusts. At the entrance to the channel stood the old mine layer Amur. It was destined to be sunk to block access by the Germans. Now the harbor was dark. The piers were empty. There remained only two cutters and the last ship, the Pikker, to bring the Military Council of the fleet to the cruiser Kirov.

  Aboard the Virona there was lively talk. Most of the journalists were on this ship. So was a nurse named Budalova who had been in Spain with the Russian group during the Civil War. All night long they talked with her about the war, about art, about artists, about Ilya Ehrenburg, who had been in Spain and whom they all knew. Tarasenkov thought the girl was a lot like Vera Milman, Ehrenburg’s secretary—well educated, with good taste, cynical, a keen observer and sharp-witted. The night wore on, and aboard the Virona the war seemed as distant as the rose-velvet horizon where Tallinn lay burning.