Still a private first class in the 13th Company’s communications platoon, I was craving a more challenging responsibility than my existing routine of establishing communication links and occasionally acting as a runner delivering messages. As always, I wanted to be in the middle of the action, even if this placed my life at greater risk.
When the company commander offered me the opportunity to serve up front directing the company’s heavy guns following the promotion of the previous forward observer, or F.O. (Vorgeschobener Beobachter or V.B.), I enthusiastically seized the chance. In our company, forward observation was more of a task conducted on an ad hoc basis rather than an officially designated position, but the need for someone to fulfill this role was so constant that the distinction was almost meaningless. My initial assignment in this capacity was on a temporary basis, but gradually become permanent over the next half-year as I proved myself.
In my role as F.O., I would act as the eyes for our company’s howitzers located about half a mile to a mile behind the front. The 13th Company’s 75-millimeter howitzers had a maximum range of 5, 630 yards (3.2 miles), while our 150-millimeter howitzers possessed a maximum range of 5, 140 yards (2.9 miles). This meant that we could begin to bring targets under fire once they were about two and a half miles in front of us.
These howitzers were organized into four batteries with each battery operating two howitzers manned by a five-member gun crew and supported by numerous additional personnel. Three of the batteries deployed the six short-barreled 75-millimeter howitzers, and one battery deployed the two short-barreled 150-millimeter howitzers. If the forward observer called for all heavy guns in the company to deliver a barrage simultaneously, their firepower was roughly equivalent to an artillery company.
During boot camp, our instructors had familiarized us with the basic targeting procedures for the heavy guns, but since that time I had acquired invaluable additional knowledge by regularly watching and working with the previous F.O. Still, only firsthand experience working as the F.O. would allow me to gain a real feel for the position. Before long, the determination of the appropriate firing solution for a target as well as the numbers and types of rounds to employ would become second nature to me.
Nominally still a member of the communications platoon and subordinate to Staff Sergeant Ehlert, I would now usually receive my assignments directly from the company commander. As my role in the company changed, I gradually grew somewhat isolated from the other troops physically and psychologically.
My initial responsibility as forward observer was to direct our heavy guns in support of our offensive operations, eliminating enemy strong points and reducing their ability and will to resist. During intermittent fighting, the gun battery’s duty officer or top sergeant would have to authorize the F.O.’s request for fire missions in support of the regiment’s infantry. When combat was continuous, however, the F.O. could request fire support missions without such approval.
Once it became clear that the enemy was retreating from a position, our guns would advance as the infantry went forward. Especially during periods where there were rapid advances or retreats, enemy forces would sometimes become intermingled with our frontline. In such moments, it was not possible to distinguish between the enemy and my comrades. Though never feeling like I was really in danger of capture, I had to remain constantly vigilant and keep my newly issued MP-40 submachine gun nearby.
Combat might be described as controlled chaos, but you have to maintain a sense of calm so you can focus on your mission. The forward observer position was well-suited to my character since I found I had a knack for staying calm under enemy attack as well as an insatiable curiosity to know what was happening at the front. This is not to suggest, however, that I did not have moments of anxiety and sheer terror, especially under enemy bombardment.
If there was one thing that I learned fast, it was that you could not avoid becoming scared for the first five or ten minutes of combat. It is an instinctual animal reflex to danger. Even as an old veteran late in the war, an initial rush of fear would still run through me during the first two or three minutes under fire. Yet, after the preliminary anxiety had passed, my composure would return as my mind and training took over. From that time, I controlled my actions, not the enemy. There was a job for me to do and I was going to do it.
Following a two-week pause to regroup, on August 8 the German offensive was resumed. In an effort to reach Narva and shut the corridor to the Baltic region, our 154th Regiment had pushed about ten miles north of Niso to the junction of the Plyussa and Pyata Rivers. At this point, roughly four miles south of the Estonian capital, a destroyed bridge across the Plyussa on the main road to Narva halted our advance.
Our new assault commenced early on the hot, sunny morning of August 14 with German artillery pounding the Soviet positions across the river. With enemy resistance reduced, infantry from our regiment began crossing the river on rubber rafts about 50 yards to the right of the ruined bridge.
Though lacking specific orders in my still sporadic role as F.O., I decided to tag along with a group of infantry troops heading up to the Plyussa River in order to get into the action. Just as we reached the river about nine o’clock that morning, the air around us suddenly filled with the shriek of incoming artillery fire. Reacting instantly, I darted to the left of the blown bridge, seeking cover in one of the many foxholes dug into the riverbank.
The entire area was soon inundated with a storm of shells. With some landing as close as a few feet away from my position, it was impossible even to stick my head above ground. There was nothing to do but to press myself into the bottom of the foxhole. When shelling is that heavy and that close, you simply hope the enemy gunners do not manage to land a direct hit that will turn your refuge into a grave.
A couple of hours into the barrage, a brief pause in the whistle of incoming shells allowed me to poke my head up to see how the dozen or so men around me had fared. In the foxhole just a couple of feet to the left of me, I witnessed a bizarre sight. Second Lt. Münstermann, the commander of one of our company’s platoons, sat reading a book as if he were on a park bench, completely oblivious to the shelling.
It was apparent to me that he was suffering the effects of shell shock brought on by the intense barrage, but there was nothing I could do for him. To my knowledge, the German Army did not even recognize such trauma as a legitimate medical condition that would justify a soldier’s removal from combat. My scrutiny of Münstermann lasted only seconds before more artillery rounds came screaming into our area, forcing me to retreat back down into my hole.
When the shelling finally slowed about five hours after it had started, Münstermann had disappeared. I decided to cross the Plyussa River in order to seek out my company and obtain new orders. Climbing out of my foxhole, I joined other soldiers who were making a crouched dash to the position about 50 yards to the right of the bridge where our troops had resumed crossing. Squeezing onto an infantry squad’s raft, I headed for the opposite shore perhaps 30 yards away.
There was shooting all around us as we gained the far side. Leaving the infantry, I cautiously crept back along the riverbank toward the wrecked bridge and crossed the dirt road to the lefthand side, keeping my new MP-40 submachine gun constantly at the ready. Inaccurate beyond any distance greater than about 50 feet, the fire of the MP-40 resembled that of a shotgun more than a rifle. Though it was the standard weapon for a forward observer, I would have preferred to retain my Mauser.
Moving forward from the riverbank, I kept to the brush and trees parallel to the road on my right. Perhaps 150 yards from the river, an enemy bunker built of wooden logs appeared just ahead of me on the edge of the road. The Soviet troops inside were blazing away in the direction of German troops to my rear.
While lacking any means to communicate with our company’s heavy guns, it was clear to me that our advance would be slowed until the bunker was eliminated. With the attention of the Russians focused on the road, there was a chance for me to destroy the fortification on my own, if I could get close enough to use one of the three or four grenades that I carried.
Moving out 20 yards from the road into the brush, I began working my way around to the side of the bunker. Just as I reached a position at a right angle to the structure and started crawling toward it on my belly, the gunner inside must have spied the swaying of the grass to his right.
As he swung his weapon in my direction, I flattened my body into the ground. At the same instant, the machine gun began spraying a fire that passed only a little above my head and back. Even with my body pressed against the earth, I felt one of the bullets literally rip the fabric of my uniform. Expecting to be killed any second, a wave of terror ran through me.
All of a sudden, the gunner shifted his weapon back to the road, perhaps believing me already dead. A minute passed with no further fire in my direction. Still lying on the ground, I lifted my head up. The bunker’s gun portal was only 10 or 15 yards away. A quick sprint might just give me time to reach a secure location at the side of the fortification, allowing me to toss a hand grenade through the gun portal.
Yet even with my adrenalin pumping, my brain told me that I would be cut down before I could obtain a position safely out of the line of fire. Lacking any other options, I began to slide slowly back-ward, hoping my movement would not draw any further attention from the gunner inside.
My stealthy retreat had carried me only a short distance from the bunker when two deafening back-to-back booms resounded. Looking up, I watched with amazement as the bunker’s logs rose briefly into the air before crashing back to earth in a pile of debris. It seemed almost miraculous. The mysterious source of my salvation was revealed when I saw one of our 75-millimeter howitzers deployed in the middle of the road back near the river.
Afterward, one of the gun crew explained that soldiers from my company had managed to bring the gun over the river and haul it up the road by hand immediately after the Soviet barrage had ended. Spotting the enemy bunker, the gun crew packed extra explosive charges inside the shell casings to increase the velocity of the rounds. At a range of less than 200 yards, the shots simply annihilated the target—and may have saved my life.
Later that day, I linked up with the rest of my company. With no clear frontline, it was very difficult for our heavy weapons company to provide effective support to the infantry. The Russians attempted to counterattack our bridgehead on the north bank of the Plyussa for three days before pulling back eastward toward Leningrad.
Casualties had been high for both sides. Despite the losses, however, we remained optimistic. None of us had expected that the days of easy advances would last. Now, we steeled ourselves for more bloody fighting.
The Plyussa River crossing opened the way to Narva. By the time the 58th Division reached the city on August 18 the fighting had largely ended, enabling us to move eastward down the main highway toward Kingisepp the next day. Another month of often vicious combat with the Red Army lay ahead of us before our campaign would reach its goal.
The capture of the area around Narva largely sealed the main corridor through which Red Army forces had been retreating from the Baltic states, and secured the German rear for a renewed offensive to the east. Moving close to the Baltic Sea coast, our division and the 1st Division would continue to serve as the left flank of Army Group North. Our ultimate objective was the seizure of the metropolis of Leningrad, the former Russian capital which was second only to Moscow in strategic importance.
Despite the threats to our flanks along the highway between Narva and Kingisepp, our regiment made rapid progress and soon came to a fortified line of bunkers and minefields along what had been the Soviet-Estonian border before the previous summer. With our company providing fire support, the regimental infantry quickly smashed through the barrier in a series of sharp, intense engagements.
Behind this defensive barrier lay the town of Kingisepp, located about a dozen miles due east of Narva. While the 154th Regiment approached it on the main highway from the west, other elements of the 58th Division and the 1st Division had advanced from the south and were already engaged in combat in the town. When our regiment arrived we briefly experienced our first street fighting with Red Army units, though it took place among widely spread houses rather than inside a built-up area.
Because our regimental infantry needed direct fire support in its urban combat operations, our company brought its 75-millimeter howitzers to within a few hundred yards of the front, much closer than their normal position at least half a mile in the rear. Unlike the much heavier 150-millimeter gun, the 75-millimeter howitzer could be maneuvered a short distance by its five-man gun crew, making it practical for use in urban combat conditions. Yet, even these smaller guns were relatively cumbersome and could not move nearly as swiftly as the infantry. While troops could quickly retreat or jump into a fox-hole, our guns were very vulnerable out in the open.
When the gun crews could directly sight their targets, there was little or no role for either a forward observer or our communications support. Despite lacking a clear assignment, I headed up to the frontline on my own initiative. As was often the case in the middle of a battle, I was not sure where the other members of the communications platoon were. It was simply my nature to find out what was happening on the frontlines and seek to play some active part in the fight. Reaching our gun crew on the outskirts of Kingisepp, I watched as they systematically destroyed enemy strong points ahead of us.
Even with the risks to our guns in such circumstances, it was the infantry companies that always suffered the worst of the fighting, especially in house-to-house combat. With relatively limited opportunities for support from our heavy guns, they advanced through a chaos of numerous large and small engagements in which enemy attacks might come from any direction. By the time we finished eliminating the last pockets of Russian resistance on August 20, we had claimed a town in which many homes were only flattened rubble.
Following three days of desperate Soviet counterattacks at Kingisepp, our division set out on the final leg of our advance on August 23. On reaching the town of Alekseevka about six miles east of Kingisepp, we encountered more determined enemy resistance. The heavy fighting continued over the following days as the Red Army bitterly contested every mile of our push northward. By August 29, we had finally reached Kotly, roughly eight miles north of Alekseevka, while other elements of the division held Vel’kota, four miles further east.
On September 1, we captured Koporye, located about nine miles east-northeast of Vel’kota. From here it was possible to see the waters of the Gulf of Finland in the distance. Three days later we arrived at Nikol’skoye, another 12 miles further east. Another several days of severe clashes followed as we passed through a wooded region. Exiting the forest on September 6, we reached Djatlicy, located another dozen miles east of Nikol’skoye.
Though this brought us back onto a main highway, intense Soviet resistance limited our progress to about 3 miles a day over the next week. Each of the three regiments of the 58th Infantry Division were assigned different objectives. While the 220th Regiment would move directly down the main highway toward Krasnoye Selo, the 209th Regiment would capture Dudergof a couple of miles to the south, and our regiment would seize Finskoye Koyrovo and Kamen, located three or four miles to the northeast. Gaining control of this region by September 14, our division was now positioned to push into Leningrad, the center of which lay about a dozen miles north.
As we advanced in mild fall weather, the Red Army opposition ahead of us appeared to diminish, though enemy shelling continued. On one day, projectiles the size of a small car were visible overhead as they raced through the sky toward our rear with a loud “whoosh.” A thunderous boom behind us would immediately be followed by the quaking of the earth under our feet, despite a distance of several miles between our location and the point of impact. A little later we learned that these massive rounds were fired from the battleship Red October anchored out in the Gulf of Finland.
Late in the afternoon of September 15 our company passed through Uritsk, which appeared to be just another typical Russian village of small wooden cottages. Only when we reached the shore of the Gulf of Finland did I realize our location. Just seven or eight miles away, central Leningrad’s high-rises and tall smokestacks stood silhouetted against the horizon. While feeling no sense of euphoria in the midst of combat, we had every expectation that the capture of the city and victory over Russia were within reach.
As we moved up the street that ran along the Gulf, Soviet ships were still passing in and out of the harbor on the horizon, apparently oblivious to our presence. Even more oddly, an empty trolley from Leningrad passed down the street headed in the opposite direction. Later, we heard that the lead elements of our division had actually encountered the streetcar as it carried a group of Russian passengers unaware of the German arrival. Climbing aboard, the troops politely requested the civilians to exit the vehicle for their own safety as they secured the area.
During a temporary halt the following day, a group of us examined a number of abandoned Russian artillery pieces which had been positioned on high ground overlooking the Gulf. With Soviet ships continuing to cruise through the waters a couple of miles away, we decided to try our luck firing a long-barreled gun with about a 4-inch diameter muzzle that appeared to have the necessary range.
Aligning the barrel by sight in the approximate direction of our selected target, we stuck a round into the chamber and carefully yanked its lanyard. Out in the Gulf, water splashed up in the air beside a freighter without causing any damage. We never succeeded in hitting anything with the half dozen or so shells we fired, but the experience provided my one chance to claim participation in a naval battle.
Resuming the advance soon afterward, we fought our way forward into the streets of Leningrad’s suburbs, past blocks of two- or three-story wooden buildings, meeting only intermittently stiff resistance from the Red Army.
After advancing a mile or two further through the streets, we received orders to halt and pull back from the city into a more defensible position back at Uritsk. Because of our trust in our high command, we believed that they must have had a good tactical reason for such a decision. Many of us expected that this halt was a temporary measure to allow us to regroup before the resumption of our offensive with a coordinated attack. There was no indication that our effort to capture Leningrad by direct assault was at an end.
A few days later, we learned with some frustration that Hitler had ordered a siege of the city rather than an attempt to take it by storm. By this time, the Wehrmacht had completely isolated Leningrad from the remainder of the Soviet Union, except for a water route across Lake Ladoga, so it appeared that its surrender would nonetheless only be a matter of time.
While our heavy weapons company of about 300 personnel had lost perhaps 10 to 15 men over the proceeding three months, the toll of almost daily combat had been far more costly for most of our regular infantry companies. From their initial strength of about 180 troops they had typically been reduced to a force of between 50 to 75 men.
In spite of the tremendous casualties, our high morale and the much worse state of the Red Army at this time left no question in our minds that if given the chance we could have reached the center of Leningrad within days. In retrospect, it is uncertain whether we possessed adequate strength to capture the city with the available forces, but the failure to even attempt a direct assault would prove to be one of Hitler’s greatest mistakes.