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Slightly O/T - Soviet Forward Recon/Deep Penetration in WW2


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A.D. Were there penal ground attack squadrons?

No. They would send offending officers to us, not necessarily pilots. They would fly 10 sorties as rear gunners.

A.D. They say that there were 7 killed gunners for each killed pilot, is that true?

No. Let me explain. We had 105 pilots and 50 gunners killed, why? Because the regiment fought from the beginning to the end of the war. The first half of the war in one-seater aircraft. And the second half -- in two-seaters. And most of the time, they died together. A ground attack aircraft pilot, according to the statistics, managed to fly 7-8 sorties and then died. Such were statistics.

http://english.iremember.ru/airmen/39-yurii-khukhrikov.html?q=%2Fairmen%2F39-yurii-khukhrikov.html&start=3

http://english.iremember.ru/airmen/39-yurii-khukhrikov.html?q=%2Fairmen%2F39-yurii-khukhrikov.html%3Fq%3D%2Fairmen%2F39-yurii-khukhrikov.html%3Fq%3D%2Fairmen%2F39-yurii-khukhrikov.html&start=1

From an interview with Il-2 pilot Yurii Khukhrikov.

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JasonC,

If you think I don't know about the GRU and its work, then you are most sorely mistaken. It was a matter of considerable professional and personal interest to me while a military analyst, and it remains so. I've read Gordievsky' s account (was head of the London Rezidentura before defecting) and practically everything Suvorov has written on his own career.

Have also read Aleksandr Orlov's writings. He became the head of the GRU at one point. Would further point out that I've spent hours on end in classified counterintelligence briefings; I've seen the aftermath of espionage that occurred at Hughes and TRW. Finally, I nearly became an intelligence professional myself. I could've wound up as an intelligence analyst for Army Intelligence on two occasions, and later, very nearly joined the CIA as a case officer trainee.

Properly speaking the Russian operatives of the GRU are officers, not agents. Agents are foreigners recruited by the GRU. They may be agents in place, support agents, sleepers, or a bunch of other things.

Defectors market three things: 1) themselves, 2) their information and 3) their insights and perspectives. While 2) is oft transitory, who the defector is, what the defector knows and can effectively convey, and what the defector can provide by way of insights, cross checks against other assumptions, startling new perspectives and more are what give a defector "legs."

Suvorov/Rezun has been on a tour which makes intelligence types drool just in the hearing of what he's done and where he's been. Tank officer cadet. Tank platoon(?) Commander. Motorized Rifle Company Commander (wound up in Czechoslovakia in 1968). Army level Intelligence Officer. Spetsnaz Training Officer. Military-Diplomatic Academy (GRU school). The Aquarium (GRU HQ). GRU field officer, first supporting the espionage of others, then conducting his own very clever operation. Somewhere in there, I believe he also went through the Frunze Academy, a top professional school for officers.

Not only does he have all that, but he is an excellent communicator, a superb bestselling writer, has a fabulous memory (greatly enhanced by merciless drills in GRU officer training to augment it) and knows how to really dig into Russian documents. What we and others study, at one or more removes, he has lived. When it comes to what's what on matters regarding Russian military and intelligence matters, I doubt we've ever had a defector with the depth and breadth of knowledge this man had and has.

He has profoundly affected our fundamental perceptions of the Russian threat and capabilities, but he has also had a mass consciousness impact by informing the world about Spetsnaz and through his little known involvement in contributing to John Hackett's THE THIRD WORLD WAR 1985: The Untold Story, which was the bestselling sequel to his earlier THIRD WORLD WAR, AUGUST 1985. In the original version of that earlier work, the West lost. It took some arm twisting of Hackett by the Queen to get him to reframe the story as a cautionary one of how the West almost lost World War III.

On balance, I'd be slow to jump on somebody who's forgotten more about the Russian system and how it works than even most of the "experts" will ever know. Studying something from without is useful, to be sure, but knowing it from within, then studying it is far more likely to produce genuine understanding--if one can get past cultural biases. That said, Western analysts and scholars have their own personal, institutional and academic biases, too.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Want to let those interested know that I finally got my hands on Suvorov's ICEBREAKER. I'm barely into Chapter 2, and already he's mounted a formidable case in favor of his argument, in effect, killing the Communists with their own words, which go clear back to the Bolsheviks. Moreover, he shows how Lenin engineered the conditions through which revolution was to be engineered in Germany, work which Stalin avidly pursued, to a shocking extent I never knew of before.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Want to let those interested know that I finally got my hands on Suvorov's ICEBREAKER. I'm barely into Chapter 2, and already he's mounted a formidable case in favor of his argument, in effect, killing the Communists with their own words, which go clear back to the Bolsheviks. Moreover, he shows how Lenin engineered the conditions through which revolution was to be engineered in Germany, work which Stalin avidly pursued, to a shocking extent I never knew of before.

Regards,

John Kettler

I can't discuss it in detail due to the language barrier, but I can say that Rizoon's books were discussed in Russian internet and proffesional historians criticized them a lot. There is a book "Anti-suvorov" where Isaev refutes Rizoon's suggestions.

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No, no, the ritual Invocation must begin with you asserting some Fact lifted from the Bargain Books section of B&N that *seems* plausible on its face. Bonus points for citing known Nazi apologists.

To which, Ozymamdias-like, JC will then boom using the time-honoured Response: "Hopelessly wrong on all counts." And then proceed to Educate you. :P

(Don't get me wrong, I just sit slack-jawed like the rest of us)

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If we must dispose of the Suvarov allegation, we need to look not at internal Soviet records but at German ones.

Lord Acton, the great liberal history famous for the adage "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" - which was about the distortion of history by flattery of the policy of tyrants by later historians, by the way, not about what power did to the tyrants themselves - had a sound principle in these matters. "Let a man incriminate himself. Few public characters have survived the test of the publication of private correspondance".

Here are the explanations Hitler gave of the war on Russia, to different parties and at different times. Guess which one matches the Suvarov story? Guess which one was a transparent self-excusing lie?

Hitler to the German public the day after the invasion -

"The German people have never had hostile feelings toward the peoples of Russia. During the last two decades, however, the Jewish-Bolshevist rulers in Moscow have attempted to set not only Germany, but all of Europe, aflame. Germany has never attempted to spread its National Socialist worldview to Russia. Rather, the Jewish-Bolshevist rulers in Moscow have constantly attempted to subject us and the other European peoples to their rule. They have attempted this not only intellectually, but above all through military means...

"It was, therefore, difficult for me in August 1939 to send my minister to Moscow to attempt to work against Britain's plans to encircle Germany. I did it only because of my sense of responsibility to the German people, above all in the hope of reaching a lasting understanding and perhaps avoiding the sacrifice that would otherwise be demanded of us.,,

"The victory on Poland, gained exclusively by German troops, gave me the occasion to extend a new offer of peace to the Western powers. It was rejected by the international and Jewish warmongers. The reason was that England still hoped to mobilize a European coalition against Germany that would include the Balkans and Soviet Russia...

"Consistent with the so-called friendship treaty, Germany removed its troops far from its eastern border in spring 1940. (Um, to attack France, right?) Russian forces were already moving in, and in numbers that could only be seen as a clear threat to Germany...

"As our soldiers attacked French-British forces in the west, the extent of the Russian advance on our eastern front grew ever more threatening. In August 1940, I concluded that, given the increasing number of powerful Bolshevist divisions, it was no longer in the interests of the Reich to leave the eastern provinces, so often devastated by war, unprotected. (See later remarks in the same speech about the supposedly unprotected border).

"This, however, is exactly what the British and Soviets had hoped. The fact that so much of the German forces, in particular the air force, was tied down in the east made it impossible for the German leadership to bring a radical end to the war in the West. This was the goal of both British and Soviet Russian policy. Both England and Soviet Russia wanted to prolong this war as long as possible in order to weaken all of Europe and plunge it into ever greater impotence...

"...there was a new increase in Russian troops along the German eastern border. Increasing numbers of tank and parachute divisions threatened the German border. The German army, and the German homeland, know that until a few weeks ago, there was not a single German tank or motorized division on our eastern border. (In fact, the decision to attack was made over the winter of 1940-41 and delayed by the Balkans campaign).

"If anyone needed final proof of the carefully hidden coalition between England and Soviet Russia, the conflict in Yugoslavia provided it...

"Today, about 160 Russian divisions stand at our border. There have been steady border violations for weeks, and not only on our border, but in the far north, and also in Rumania. Russian pilots make a habit of ignoring the border, perhaps to show us that they already feel as if they are in control. During the night of 17-18 June, Russian patrols again crossed the German border and could only be repelled after a long battle. (This is utter nonsense. The Russians were still shipping grain and other supplies to Germany up to hours before the attack).

"Now the hour has come when it is necessary to respond to his plot by Jewish-Anglo-Saxon warmongers and the Jewish rulers of Moscow's Bolshevist headquarters."

(In the close, the ideological roots will out).

Hitler in private letter to Mussolini, informing him of the invasion about to take place -

"The situation in England itself is bad; the provision of food and raw materials is growing steadily more difficult. The martial spirit to make war, after all, lives only on hopes. These hopes are based solely on two assumptions: Russia and America. We have no chance of eliminating America. *But it does lie in our power to exclude Russia*. The elimination of Russia means, at the same time a tremendous relief for Japan in East Asia, and thereby the possibility of a much stronger threat to American activities through Japanese intervention... (Clearer reasons could not be imagined).

As far as the war in the East is concerned, Duce, it will surely be difficult, but I do not entertain a second's doubt as to its great success. I hope, above all, that it will then be possible for us to secure a common food-supply base in the Ukraine for some time to come, which will furnish us such additional supplies as we may need in the future...(A long standing war aim of German continental imperialism, back to WWI and before).

"Should England nevertheless not draw any conclusions from the hard facts that present themselves, then we can, with our rear secured, apply ourselves with increased strength to the dispatching of our opponent...

"The partnership with the Soviet Union, in spite of the complete sincerity of the efforts to bring about a final conciliation, was nevertheless often very irksome to me, for in some way or other it seemed to me to be a break with my whole origin, my concepts, and my former obligations. I am happy now to be relieved of these mental agonies."

(Same point about ideological roots).

Hitler to League of Nations negotiator over Danzig in August 1939, before the attack on Poland and the start of the war -

"Everything I undertake is directed against Russia. If the West is too stupid and too blind to comprehend this, I will be forced to reach an understanding with the Russians, turn and strike the West, and then after their defeat turn back against the Soviet Union with my collected strength. I need the Ukraine and with that no one can starve us out as they did in the last war."

(Before he even attacked Poland, Hitler intended to attack Russia.)

Facts, stubborn things, all that...

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JasonC,

Most impressive, but Hitler got into the attack Russia game much later than Lenin and Stalin got into the attack Germany mode. Suvorov, in ICEBERG, presents damning evidence the Soviets were moving against Germany as early as 1927, which was when plans to foment a revolution there commenced. He quotes Lenin and others directly on this issue, citing his sources directly when so doing.

Regards,

John Kettler

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I have no doubt that Comintern during the 1920s did their best to destabilize the German government and institute a communist one, but in the end their efforts came to nothing and when the Nazis took over they eliminated that possibility once and for all.

The idea that Stalin had in firm motion in 1941 a plan for military conquest is simply poppycock. He was in fact at some pains to rein in his generals who were advocating such a move. He knew that the time was not ripe for going to war and he was doing all he could to make nice with Hitler. A year or two down the road, when the reorganization and re-equipment of the Red Army was complete...well, maybe.

Michael

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LukeFF,

That's pretty funny! I'm perfectly capable of continuing the debate, and, with the facts on my side, I fear it not at all. I do think, though, this really deserves its own thread. For that reason and that reason alone, I shall not continue this debate here.

Michael Emrys,

I started this exercise simply to see what evidence Suvorov could present to support his admittedly controversial argument. What I found is that there is a tremendous amount of credible evidence to support his thesis. Either that, or you have to argue that both Lenin and Stalin exhibited ongoing national suicide ideation, of the most extreme sort, starting in the late 1920s. I say again, read ICEBERG.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Recon isn't just for breakthrough sectors. Each of the different types of recon I mentioned set up its own competition with the enemy, naturally, but they were not easy to counter.

Take the infantry recon. Front lines units put out an outpost line, thinly manned, with listening posts at night etc. But German defenses were typically strongpoint based, with the gaps between strongpoints meant to be covered by fire, both infantry heavy weapons (MGs and 81mm mortars) and called divisional artillery fires. If it is daytime or there is a whole regiment moving through a gap and shooting at everything, that works. If it is 2 in the morning and a dozen veterans carefully and quietly pick their way through no man's land by previously scouted routes, not so much.

The Russians quite often managed to infiltrate entire battalions inside a German defense scheme between dusk and dawn, in the second half of the war - getting a squad or a platoon through here or there was a routine accomplishment. The fact that they were not looking to fight helped. They were willing to lay low for an entire day to get to the next spot of covered route - 4 guys under a muddy tarp near the bottom of a shellhole, stock still for hours on end - who is going to know they are there? Then when it gets dark they make another move.

Routine security practices have to kick in after that - watches and sentries and patroling etc. But the recon knows those drills, exploits them to catch isolated prisoners. Sure they will sometimes get discovered and a firefight will ensue, then they will "D" quickly - maybe they make it, maybe they don't. Either way, more where they came from, the next night and two kilometers down the line.

As for the mech's recon, is was motorcycles with light armor down every road, and you could check that with manned roadblocks, blocking positions on the important routes. The Russians weren't heavily armed, and they try going around those. They were willing to dismount and swing around them off road in short hooks, and if they cut one off that way, they could take it readily enough (armored cars or light tanks come down the road frontally, infantry has already reached the position's rear, etc). Anything really strong will just defeat those attempts - but that's sort of the idea, to find where there is anything really strong. The defender can't be really strong on every route, and the motorcycle guys radio or send dispatch riders to the tanks, and tell them which roads are not strongly held.

Normally what the defender has in those cases is rear guards of retreating infantry formations and alarm units. Not full strength panzer divisions with all the trimmings. Because that's why and where the Russian mech is advancing, and has recon out in front of it. So the roadblocks are shoestring affairs, most of them at least. The defenders will try to hold the routes that shelter their own line of retreat, to keep the Russian main body from getting ahead of them along it and cutting that line. The defenders are more trying to get away than to stop all the recon activities. Their units include horse drawn artillery and supplies, rear area services, all the refugee debris of retreat. The maneuver formations have to shelter that stuff and get it back to some more solid position, more solid in supporting friendlies and in defensible terrain, etc.

That is the situation in which having a dedicate force of fast, readily subdividing scouts pays off for the pursuer. If they meet solid positions they just pull up opposite, keep it under observation, report and wait for the higher ups to decide what to do about it, with stuff heavier than said recon.

As for the cavalry raid version, the Germans tried to hold the settlements and patrol the roads between them, while posting guards at every important rear area installation or bit of infrastructure. The normal job of their security divisions was guarding stuff in that fashion. They had to deal with partisans with the same forecs, and ad hoc supplements - Hiwi units, Axis minor allies, militarized police, etc. Against local partisans that sufficed, but against an entire Russian cavalry corps it was outmatched.

Understand, the Germans typically ceded deep woods interiors in all this, sending only fire missions and the occasional small strafing attack to such areas. They'd try to create cordons around known incursions, from security forces, alarm units pressed together from local whatever (Luftwaffe flak, rear area service personnel, replacement battalions, pioneers, whatever) and sometimes full infantry divisions pulled from the line or from reserves. Occasionally they'd counterattack with a mobile division.

Operating in what was effectively deep wilderness put its own strain on the cavalry. (In the winter, ski formations did the same thing in the northern half of the front, BTW). There isn't a lot of support out there, food, forage for the horses, ammo isn't growing on the trees. There was a logistical limit to the staying power of a raid, and eventually it would have to drift back to its own lines. The longer it stayed, the fewer of the men would make it back in one piece.

I hope that fills out the picture somewhat...

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LongLeftFlank,

In digging for something else, I came across an interview with a German officer who was debriefed by us after the war. He served as DIVARTY commander on the Eastern Front and thoroughly details the recon workup that was done before any counterbattery and anti HQ fires were conducted. So thorough was the recon that he even knew which house his opposite number occupied. When the time came, and all the supporting higher level weapons were in place, a fire strike was delivered on the Russians, destroying numerous positions and so crippling the Russians that the sector was quiet for weeks. Part of his information came from ground recon troops, so this gives some idea of what the Germans could do. Still hunting for the blasted site!

Regards,

John Kettler

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LongLeftFlank,

In digging for something else, I came across an interview with a German officer who was debriefed by us after the war. He served as DIVARTY commander on the Eastern Front and thoroughly details the recon workup that was done before any counterbattery and anti HQ fires were conducted. So thorough was the recon that he even knew which house his opposite number occupied! When the time came, and all the supporting higher level weapons were in place, a fire strike was delivered on the Russians, destroying numerous positions and so crippling the Russians that the sector was quiet for weeks. Part of his information came from ground recon troops, so this gives some idea of what the Germans could do. Also discussed are what the Russian scouts were able to do in his thinly held sector, to include slipping FOs behind German lines and conducting superbly aimed observed fire shoots. Action takes place in May and June of 1942 in the area of Bryansk and Orel.

http://www.allworldwars.com/Tactics-and-Fire-Control-of-Russian-Artillery-in-1941-44-by-Richert.html (Fair Use)

"Occasionally the Russians added artillery fire to the fire of their mortars when shelling combat installations on the German main line of resistance and the German battle positions. The results of this double fire steadily became more and more effective. In the Petukhovka sector and at Vesniny, the German artillery observers one day noticed the fire coordination with respect to timing and areas of the fire of Russian 80-mm and 120-nm mortars and Russian artillery, particularly in the preparation of Russian advances. This coordinated fire apparently was designed to facilitate the capture of German prisoners for the Russian intelligence service, especially since the enemy had been notably stepping up his reconnaissance activity in the air and on the ground since the end of June. German soldiers were being kidnapped in great numbers.

Notice in the above the specific Russian use of mortars and artillery to do something we don't normally think of using support fires to do: disrupt defense integrity so badly that scout teams can kidnap German personnel, in large numbers, with relative ease.

The quantities of ammunition at the disposal of the Russian artillery varied greatly. The 80-mm mortars had virtually inexhaustible ammunition stocks, while the flow of 120-mm mortar ammunition seemed to stop occasionally. The supply of 75-mm and 122-mm artillery ammunition was certainly subject to very great fluctuations; at that time it clearly indicated the points of main effort of Russian combat activity. In view of the conditions prevailing at that time, the Russian artillery was greatly benefited by being provided with a good map on a scale of 1 : 50,000, which had been kept secret up to the beginning of the war. This map made it possible for the Russians to harass the Germans with all types of accurate fire, since by studying the map they were able to guess at the location of a great many targets. Their progressively improving knowledge of German habits aided them in this. All that was needed then was to check their guesses by any one means of reconnaissance, such as scouting agents sent across the lines, in order to be able to take the target under accurate fire.

Owing to the great width of the sectors — the sector of a German company was two to two and a half kilometers wide, with the combat strength of the company ranging between forty and sixty men — it was impossible to prevent Russian scouting agents from crossing the lines, especially in terrain covered with dense vegetation, In two known instances the Russians again used artillery observer? who were located behind the German battle position and had radio communications. The Russian artillery directed excellently adjusted fire at all targets which the observers were able to see, and this lasted until the observers were tracked down and killed.

It was impossible to get the better of these Russian artillery tactics by any one measure. Only well-devised and radical large-scale measures could bring about the urgently needed change.

Initially, all the reconnaissance results obtained through artillery observers, the observers of the heavy infantry weapons, by means of sound-ranging, flash-ranging, aerial observers, aerial photographs, infantry patrols, and also that obtained in interrogations of prisoners and deserters was gathered and evaluated first in each sector, and than in a central agency. If necessary, information was exchanged by the sectors. In other words, the data was first compiled at battalion headquarters, then at the headquarters of infantry regiments and of the artillery battalions organic to them, then at the headquarters of the artillery regiment, in a carefully organized artillery intelligence section, and finally at the intelligence section of the division.

The results of the reconnaissance were not translated into action immediately, but as each individual situation required, by simultaneous and sudden concentrations of the fire of three batteries against different targets. The infantry gun companies and the heavy weapons companies of the infantry battalions, too, were occasionally employed for such sudden concentrations, in which case they were required to coordinate their action with the commanders of the organic artillery battalions or were even attached to the latter. In the face of these sudden German concentrations, which were executed by a constantly increasing number of weapons to the extent that thr ranges of the various weapons allowed, the above-described combat, Method of tho Russian artillery and the Russian mortars failed, especially as a large variety of weapons and mixed types of ammunition were used, including the application of smoke screens in front of suspected Russian observation posts. The decisive factor in this was probably the destruction of Russian telephone communications. To what extent this factor will continue to be important in view of the equipment with radiotelephones, which is undoubtedly also progressing in the Russian Army, cannot be estimated.

How a sudden concentration, placed not only on artillery targets but on targets of various kinds, is prepared and executed in a static situation, what results it may have and what damage it may do even to the enemy's command apparatus is explained by the following extract from my recollections which I wrote in the years from 1946 to 1948:

"Whereas it had previously been the practice, whenever enemy targets had been identified either to shell them immediately or as part of the daily fire missions or service practice of all weapons, the division now gave orders not to fire at targets which did not disturb German measures and work projects, unless permission to do so had been obtained from the divisional operations officer, but rather to keep them under continuous observation and enter them into a special target card file. After a few days, all sectors, the divisional intelligence section, and the artillery intelligence section of the artillery regiment had a varied collection of all kinds of targets, such as combat positions, command posts (the locations of which were soon confirmed again and again by deserters), Hold kitchens, transloading points for ammunition and rations, telephone centrals, the quarters of small sector reserves, and so on. Even the billet of my "colleague on the other side" appeared in the data, although unfortunately only once. The data also included a few firing positions of heavy infantry weapons and of batteries.

"Now the commanders of, I believe, the 13th Company of each infantry regiment were called and each of them was handed the appropriate part of the target file maintained at the divisional intelligence section and at the headquarters of the artillery regiment. At the same time, the commanders were warned that any discussion of the subject over the telephone was prohibited. Then they received orders to work out a plan for harassing fire in each sector and maintain it up to date. This harassing fire was to be started only upon receipt of a special code word from the division. As a matter of principle, one high-angle weapon and one heavy machine gun were to be directed at every target within the range of the machine guns, and the employment of all other weapons, such as antitank guns, 32-mm rocket projectors, heavy infantry guns, heavy mortars, and also that of sharpshooters, rifle grenadiers, and so on, was permitted with the understanding that every possibility of integration was to be exploited.

"The artillery received similar orders to integrate the various gun types and calibers. On the rides which I undertook on horseback every second or third day to various battalion and company command posts and on my subsequent visits to the main line of resistance, in which I found relief and relaxation from petty 'red-tape warfare,' I checked on these operations, My highly esteemed division commander in those days, whose opinions always coincided with mine, a thing which was not always to the best of all interests, did the same on his daily visits to the front. There were many men who were increasingly puzzled, wondering what all this meant. The artillery, under the command of a popular and very competent Austrian Colonel, as usual accomplished its share of the mission with great energy.

"The 'front,' however, seemed about to go into hibernation. Rarely was a shot fired, and if there was, it was usually fired by the brave, indefatigable German sharpshooters, who were always free to fire at any target within their sectors. But everywhere men were sketching and calculating!

"In early October a warning was received that action by the Russians might be expected on 'Red Army Day,' which, I believe, was either 5 or 7 October, At that, the divisional commander and I simultaneously sang out the joke in vogue at the time; 'Adelheid, it's time to fight.' We decided then and there to commemorate Red Army Day in our own way.

"On the afternoon of the day preceding the Red Army Day I issued the following order: 'Conference call: Connect all lines down to company level! Fire control officers to the phone!' When everyone was on the phone five minutes later I sensed the men's high tension by their voices. Then I ordered: 'Attention! Attention! Fire control! Code word»...! Report when ready for action! Leading Battery: Friedrich (the center heavy field-howitzer battery)! Synchronization of watches! I shall be back on the line in forty-five minutes. Code name.'

"As I was told later, everyone went to work with great gusto, some of the men even with 'savage yells of glee' (was it the influence of the nearby jungle?). Within fifteen minutes all sectors, all heavy weapons, and all batteries had reported that they were ready for action. This was an excellent achievement on the part of the troops and the signal personnel, especially since for some of the heavy infantry weapons a change of position was involved and the light machine guns which were employed were of a type that required the use of range poles for the adjustment of their aim. One mortar battery and one 150-mm cannon battery of GHQ artillery also participated. Unfortunately the corps had provided these batteries with only two units of fire* for this action.

[* - Prescribed number of rounds permitted.]

"At sunset, after she stipulated forty-five minutes had passed, another conference call was sent out, this time the 100-watt fire control transmitter of the artillery regiment, which was controlled by the divisional signal battalion, and was coordinated with it. After the roll of all units had been called, the great moment came: 'Attention, Attention! Surprise fire! Code word...! Six units of fire for each gun! Whole Battery! Salvo: Battery - fire!'

"Over a front of more than forty kilometers — the artillery on the flanks of the two adjacent divisions participated voluntarily to conceal the divisional boundaries — hell broke loose! From the sharpshooter's rifle to the projectile of the 320-mm rocket projector everything was there, the whole gamut of the division's weapons playing their frightful tune, which yet has a beautiful and sublime sound in the ears of a soldier. After six minutes this fire ceased abruptly and dead silence prevailed. Now the reports of the results of the fire came over the telephone circuit, which was still linked up. Then the artillery began a steady fire for effect against the identified artillery targets to the extent that definite fire data were available.

"About fifteen minutes later, a few Russian ground attack aircraft and 'Rata' aircraft appeared in the twilight like frightened huns and dropped bombs at random, particularly on those villages which the division had almost entirely evacuated, and also fired their weapons, with equally little success. This was the first sign that the blow had hit home.

"Now, however, everyone was watching intently for the result of the fire. The observers at the combat outposts and those located on the main line of resistance soon unanimously reported that, as far as they were able to see, the fire had been accurate and had set off several explosions and fires. But what about the targets beyond the range of visibility? What was the accurate result?

Even within the first twenty-four hours, a number of shaken and wildly babbling deserters arrived. In eight days we had with certainty established the following picture on the basis of the results obtained from our intercept reconnaissance and from aerial photographs taken by the Army reconnaissance plane squadron of the corps, and from interrogation of prisoners of war, who were captured in a number of raids undertaken all along the divisional front almost without losses, upon orders from the divisional operations officer:

"All telephone lines up to the Russian division had been disrupted, some of them will be out of order for several days.

"Three regimental command posts, seven battalion command posts, and several company command posts had suffered a number of direct hits and had been partially destroyed.

"Large numbers of observation posts and firing positions of heavy infantry weapons had been hit and partially destroyed, several ammunition dumps and transloading points had been demolished (these were the blazes and explosions which had bean observed immediately after the barrage), several field kitchens and ration distributing points had been destroyed (a particularly serious thing in Russia).

A large number of sentries on the main line of resistance had been killed or severely injured, extensive losses had been inflicted on the troops at almost all points on which fire had been directed.

"All these results certainly repaid the effort.

(Author is no longer able today to list in detail the results of the bombardment of the enemy artillery.)

"There is only one thing I have unfortunately never been able to find out and that is whether any of the shells from the 150-mm cannon, which were intended for 'my colleague on the other side,' reached its target.

"After this, quiet prevailed in our area for a long time...,"

Regards,

John Kettler

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