I noticed very few men among the refugees, nearly all of whom were women and children. Any of their men-folk who were still able-bodied, despite their age, would have been kept back on the orders of a Gauleiter for trench-digging or other futile tasks in the defence of the Fatherland. The condition of many of the refugees’ horse-drawn carts and their wagonettes, loaded high with people and possessions, was very poor. Shot at by strafing Russian planes and with make-shift repairs, or just plainly overloaded, their prospects of reaching safety were extremely bleak.
Our action over the first two days north of the river Memel was very successful and we brought the Russian advance to a halt. Then, in the night of 18/19 October, we unexpectedly received orders to pull out of the area and move to a new, and far greater, trouble spot.
By attacking the German 4th Army from the east on 16 October, three Russian armies had managed to break through the hopelessly outnumbered German forces. Within three days the Russian troops bypassed the town of Gumbinnen, about sixty miles south-east of my division. Their spearheads reached the river Angerapp near the town of Nemmersdorf by 21 October. As a desperate measure the Göring Divisions 1 and 2 and another panzer division were dispatched to the troubled area to hurl themselves against the Russian units storming westwards.
After only two days in the Russ-Kuckernese area we were now being withdrawn, leaving behind a front weakened even further. I felt as if I had betrayed the pathetic columns of struggling refugees by deserting them, but only a much greater crisis could have warranted removing us at that stage.
It was shortly after darkness on the night of 18/19 October when we began our journey south-eastwards. It was a long drive by road, but we managed to complete it well under cover of darkness. The ride was physically very uncomfortable because the self-propelled gun carriers were virtually unsprung and, sitting on steel plating in a cramped area around the gun, left little room for moving about.
When we arrived at Gumbinnen, the situation there was catastrophic and the Russian attack had now become three-pronged. The main thrust was still westwards, but attacks were simultaneously being launched to the north against Gumbinnen and to the south-west. The two-fold task of our divisions was to stop the Russians taking Gumbinnen and to cut off their main thrust to the west while also blocking their retreat. This was achieved after three days of heavy fighting.
During these days my battery had to provide our fast-operating grenadier and tank units with continuous protection against air attacks. There was no question of digging-in since we were continually on the move as if trying to confuse the Russians about the details of our deployment. During the first two days we steadily gained ground in a southerly direction and there was a lot of short-range action since we were penetrating an area already taken by the Russians, but we did not become involved in any of the ground fighting. Without suffering casualties we were able to put a number of Russian aircraft out of action.
In the afternoon of the third day we suffered our first setback. All through the morning, especially after early ground fog had lifted, there had been increased action around us with our Panther tanks taking a heavy toll of Russian T-34 tanks. Russian planes had also stepped up their sorties and I was glad that it was a cool autumn day since I hardly got a break in the warm job of re-loading the shell-magazines of my gun.
It was at about two o’clock in the afternoon when we took up our position close to a bridge over a large river in order to guard it and the approach roads. We had no problem keeping Russian planes at bay while German tanks and troops crossed over the bridge. Half an hour later we again moved further south. Suddenly we were put under fire by a group of Russian tanks well concealed in a nearby wood. My self-propelled gun was hit by a shell low down at the forward end, causing it to rear up from the explosion and then to keel forward with shattered axle and steering gear.
The sudden stop caused us all to be flung forward but, since I had been kneeling down beside my shell magazines, I was fairly well protected and only suffered a bruised shoulder. We all escaped without anything worse than a few bruises, but our co-driver suffered a gash on his forehead when his head struck the frame of the windscreen. Although more shells had been discharged at us, the other three self-propelled guns had luckily escaped being hit. Exposed as we were to further heavy fire, there was nothing we could do, but immediately abandon our crippled gun. We all jumped up on the surviving gun-carriers which quickly reached cover where we were safe from further Russian fire.
Everything had happened in a flash and we were lucky not to have lost more of our guns. As it was, a heavy explosion and a plume of smoke soon told us that the Russian tanks had continued firing at our crippled gun and caused the fuel tank to explode and set the vehicle ablaze.
It was at this stage that I finally lost my Wodehouse after I had managed to hold on to it for so long. I cannot clearly remember how I came to still have it with me after all the scrapes I had been in. I suppose it must have been in a pocket of my jacket whenever I lost the rest of my kit. On this occasion it obviously was not there and my only priority at that moment was to jump onto one of the gun-carriers already picking up speed and to get away out of danger. Our guns would, of course, have been no match for the well concealed heavy Russian tanks.
My battery was now short one gun but, as the other gun-crews had suffered no casualties, there was no reason to distribute any of the surplus crew among them. My “unemployed” mates and I were now sent to an assembly area nearby to wait for developments, but we did not have to wait long. That same evening we received replacements from our well organised supplies-unit, for the personal equipment we had lost, and on the following morning we were sent to join a new gun group. I could not believe my luck! I was now parting company from Lt Trapp only twelve days after returning from the suicide-squad.
The new gun group also consisted of self-propelled guns, but these were of 37-millimetre calibre and had twin barrels placed one above the other. Compared with the 20-millimetre guns they could fire much higher, while the horizontal range was four miles. The firing rate per barrel was lower, 150 rounds per minute, but the shells were much heavier and therefore of greatly increased effectiveness. We could either use the barrels singly, or both together if we wanted to double the firing rate.
My new Commander, Lt Grossenheim, a man about 24 or 25 years of age, seemed to be a very straightforward sort of a person. Maybe I could now settle down to a more natural relationship with my superior officer.
Since my job, once again, was filling magazines with new shells, I needed no instruction, but the work was a lot tougher than it had been previously. The heavier weight of the 37-millimetre shells was no problem, but the magazine springs past which the shells had to be pushed were much stiffer. This made the job a lot more tiring and my right hand became quite sore until the skin had toughened up.
There were many grim reminders of the presence of Russian troops in the wrecks of refugee carts littering the sides of the roads. The area south of Gumbinnen was particularly hard hit by the lightning advance of Russian armoured units who had simply shot up refugee columns, or driven over them with their tanks if they got in their way on the clogged roads. It is estimated that 1,000 refugees had been killed there during the Russian progress. The tragedy of the refugees was a new element in the suffering of the German civilian population which was already being subjected to terrible ordeals in air-raids on cities.
I was now nearing completion of three months’ service on the Russian Front. How was I generally adjusting to that way of life? First of all, I did not spend any time thinking about my situation, but instead, took every day, every hour and every minute just as they came along. My mind concentrated on each job in hand as if it were all a routine day’s work.