Our trip through the countryside allowed us to unwind after the preceding hectic days. The area we passed through was fairly flat and interrupted only by short ranges of low hills, but it was nicely-wooded. At that time of the year, wild flowers were no longer in bloom, but field grasses and low bushes abounding on the railway embankment looked attractive in the bright sunshine.
Half an hour passed and I decided to lay out my groundsheet in anticipation of later enjoying the luxury of a midday nap. A golden opportunity like this was unlikely to arise again and I remembered the tension of the past days and weeks when I could never be sure what the next hour would bring. Having got my bed in apple-pie order, I rejoined my mates for some more relaxed conversation.
The train progressed steadily and the gradually increasing warmth of the sun made me feel drowsy. This was a good time to enjoy the nap I had been looking forward to, but, as I moved into the interior of the wagon, I was in for an unpleasant surprise. Stretched out on what had formerly been my tidy “bed” was Otto Schmidt. He was fast asleep and my bed was in complete disarray. Schmidt was lazy by nature, but this was too much and my first impulse was to land a well-placed kick in his midriff with a few appropriate suggestions as to what he should do next. Then I decided that I would not let him spoil my day. I had now been put off my nap anyway, so I decided to ignore the incident for the moment and go back to my other mates.
A further twenty minutes went by and then the train came to a stop on an embankment. This was a great chance to stretch our legs and some of my mates immediately jumped off the train. I had been waiting for just such an opportunity and I quickly joined the others. By walking alongside the train in the direction of the locomotive, we could guard against being left behind if the train suddenly began to move off again. Jumping back onto it would be no problem for us.
A few minutes later I suddenly began to feel uneasy, but, looking around, I could see no reason for this. Everything was peaceful, the only sound to be heard was the contented wheezing of our locomotive. Looking up, I first saw nothing, but then there was a sudden glint in the sky beyond the end of the train. A split second later a sound could be heard and two shapes became visible. There was no mistake, Russian aircraft were attacking our train with the sun behind them and, from their outline and their method, they were obviously IL-2 fighter-bombers. By a stroke of good fortune there was an underpass below the railway line quite close to us and it was just a matter of seconds before the soldiers and I had dived down the embankment and reached what was an almost perfect air-raid shelter. Within moments the train was struck.
There was no question of getting back on board. The train was a sitting target in open country and, with all the ammunition on board, constituted a bomb ready to explode at any moment. All we could do was to stay alive and then try to salvage whatever was left of the train after the attack. By strafing the train with bombs, cannons and machine-guns, the Il-2s set fire to some of the wagons containing shells and other ammunition. A chain-reaction then set in with ammunition exploding in an almost unbroken sequence.
As the fire spread along the train, explosions reverberated again and again. It was as if I was hearing a giant display of fireworks and the air became filled with flying lead and shrapnel. Several times we ventured forth from the safety of our shelter in the hope that we could separate parts of the train and so stop the fire from spreading to the end of it. However, each time we suffered casualties or were driven back by the shrapnel buzzing past our ears like a swarm of angry hornets. The prospect of achieving anything practical was non-existent and we were compelled to give up the heroics and wait until there was an easing off.
I think we were all fairly frightened on that occasion – I certainly was. Although I was perfectly safe in the underpass I felt a great compulsion that it was my duty to get to the wagons even though further attempts would be suicidal. Common sense told me that I should stay where I was, but the fact that I had no control over an incalculable danger made me afraid.
When we finally emerged about an hour after the attack started, I saw a scene of utter devastation. The train had been reduced to a smouldering wreck and all ammunition wagons had been destroyed. When we approached the train, we were relieved to see Lt Trapp already there with three of our mates, while another group was making its way towards us from further down the line. On first inspection, three of our guns seemed to have survived the attack, apart from suffering some surface damage. The fourth gun, which was nearest to the ammunition wagons, and had acted as a shield for the other guns, had taken the brunt of the explosions, but looked repairable.
On the positive side, we were extremely lucky not to have been caught by the Il-2 planes while the train was travelling at speed, otherwise personnel losses could have been very heavy. As it was, a number of soldiers had minor injuries caused by small shrapnel fragments. Some of the wounds did not look too bad, but metal fragments could still be lodged quite deep in the fleshy parts of the men’s bodies and be difficult to remove. Although shrapnel wounds can be horrific, in this case the fragments had just raised uneven lumps on the surface of arms and legs below which they were lodged. Some wounds bled a lot, others hardly at all with marks only barely visible where the metal had sliced into the flesh.
Only one man on the whole train had been killed. He had the bad luck to be right in the line of machine-gun fire, just where he lay sleeping peacefully on my groundsheet! It seemed, as I learned later, that the men who had stayed back in my wagon were caught by surprise by the suddenness of the attack. They had jumped off the train at the last moment and were very lucky not to have been hit during the strafing before they were able to reach a safe spot. It was only poor Schmidt whose luck had run out.
Strangely enough, few events on the Russian Front affected me as much as Schmidt’s death, even though I had never liked the man and also could not hold myself responsible for his death. The most likely explanation may have been the memory that my ill-will possibly constituted the last thoughts anybody had about him before he was killed; it was as if he had died while being cursed by my lips. Thinking about this episode in later years, I was intrigued by the quirk of fate that had caused Schmidt to stop the bullets that were meant for me and resulted in my life being spared yet again. How lucky I was to have resisted the natural impulse to boot him off my tarpaulin and to lie down in his place.
When the damage to our equipment had been assessed, Lt Trapp called us together to give us our orders. A sergeant, together with our drivers and co-drivers were to stay with the guns while the rest of us marched off to a town about ten miles to the south. When we arrived there we heard that arrangements had been made to clear the railway line and to bring all surviving rolling stock after us. It was now early afternoon and events were beginning to move smartly. Our injured had their wounds dressed. Fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt and all our mates were able to rejoin us that same afternoon. It was also lucky that no major damage had been done to the railway line. After the debris had been cleared away, the train got moving and soon our guns and the body of Schmidt arrived at a nearby station.
Since we had lost most of our personal belongings when the wagons carrying the ammunition went on fire, we were refitted and also given fresh food rations. That night we had a roof over our heads, but we expected to stay only until sometime on the following day when our self-propelled guns would have been inspected and repaired in an army workshop.
Lying in bed that night in an army camp, I thought of my close shave; not so much with a sense of horror, but rather with a wry detachment. The thought struck me that fate was playing little games with me, but, in the end, was allowing my run of good luck continue.