So we spend Christmas still in our schoolhouse at Gorstowo. When dusk falls a brooding silence descends on many of us, and we prick our ears at every clanking noise outside. But after our Christmas sing-song the gloom is soon dispelled. A couple of glasses of the copious vodka buck up even the moodiest among us.
In the afternoon the Wing Commander pays us a short visit to distribute decorations. In our squadron I am first to receive the German Golden Cross. On the first Christmas holiday we vainly issue an invitation to our sporting colleagues in Moscow to come over for a Christmas match. So we have our own game of ice hockey on the Moskwa by ourselves. The bad weather continues for days. As soon as it improves we start to pull out, flying back above the vast forests and along the motor road in the direction of Wiasma. No sooner are we airborne than the weather deteriorates, we fly in close formation skimming the tree tops. Even so it is difficult not to lose sight of one another. Everything is one grey blur, a swirling blend of fog and snow. Each aircraft is dependent on the skill of the flight leader. This kind of flying is more strenuous than the hottest sortie. It is a black day for us; we lose several crews in the squadron who are not equal to the task. Over Wiasma we turn off N. to starboard and fly in the direction Sytchewka—Rhew. We land in deep snow at Dugino, about twelve miles South of Sytchewka, and billet ourselves on a Kolkhoz. The merciless cold continues and now at last suitable equipment and clothing arrive by air. Transport aircraft land daily on our airfield bringing fur clothing, skis, sledges and other things. But it is too late to capture Moscow, too late to bring back our side the comrades who have been killed by the frost; too late to save the tens of thousands who have had to be sent back from the offensive with frozen toes and fingers; too late to give new impetus to the irresistibly advancing army which has been forced into dug-outs and trenches by the pitiless fist of an inconceivably hard winter.
We are now flying in areas with which we are familiar from last summer: in the region of the source of the Volga W. of Rhew, near Rhew itself, and along the railway line near Olinin and to the South. The deep snow sets our troops a colossal task, but the Soviets are quite in their element. The cleverest technician now is the one who uses the most primitive methods of work and locomotion. Engines no longer start, everything is frozen stiff, no hydraulic apparatus functions, to rely on any technical instrument is suicide. There is no starting our engines in the early mornings at these temperatures although we keep them covered up with straw mats and blankets. The mechanics are often out in the open all night long, warming up the engines at intervals of half an hour in order to make sure of their starting when we take off. Many cases of frostbite are due to spending these bitterly cold nights looking after the engines. As engineer officer I am always out and about between sorties so as not to lose any chance of getting one extra aircraft serviceable. We are seldom frozen in the air. We have to fly low in bad weather and the defense is heavy so that one is too keyed up to notice the cold. That does not of course exclude the chance of discovering symptoms of frostbite on our return to the warmth of our billets.
At the beginning of January General von Richthofen lands on our airfield in a Fieseler Storch and in the name of the Führer invests me with the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. The citation specially mentions my successful ship and bridge destructions last year.
An even more intense cold increases the difficulty of keeping aircraft serviceable for the next day’s operations. I have seen desperate mechanics try to warm up their engines with a naked flame in the hope of inducing them to start. One of them said to me: “They’ll either start now or be burnt to a cinder. If they won’t they’re no use to us anyway.” All the same this strikes me as a rather drastic method of solving our problem and I hit upon another. A petrol can makes a tin oven. A sort of chimney protrudes from the top with a perforated cowl to stop the sparks from flying. We place this whole contraption underneath the engine and light a fire in it, pointing the stove-pipe towards the priming pump round which the heat now radiates. We maintain the heat until we get a result. It is primitive, but just the thing for the Russian winter. We receive deliveries of complicated, so-called heat carriers and technical gadgets. They are beautifully constructed, but unfortunately they themselves rely on the working of subtle machinery in the form of tiny motors or complex devices. These must first be induced to start and that is exactly what they will not do because of the cold. Our squadron strength in serviceable aircraft is therefore small throughout the winter. These few are mostly flown by old, experienced crews so that the disadvantage in quantity is to some extent compensated by quality.
We have been out for some days over the Sytschewka—Rshew railway where the Russians are trying to effect a breakthrough. Our airfield is placed in a very similar situation to that a few weeks ago when we were at Kalinin. This time there are no battle-worthy ground forces screening our front, and one night Ivan, advancing from Sytschewka is suddenly on the outskirts of Dugino. FIg./Off. Kresken, our staff company commander, gets together a fighting party drawn from our ground personnel and those of the nearest units, and holds the airfield. Our gallant mechanics spend their nights, turn and turn about, manning trenches with rifles and hand grenades in their hands, and during the day return to their maintenance duties. Nothing can happen in daylight, for we still have a store of petrol and bombs on our airfield. For two successive days it is attacked by cavalry units and ski battalions. Then the situation becomes critical and we drop our bombs close to the perimeter of our airfield. The Soviet losses are heavy. Then Kresken, one time athlete, assumes the offensive with his combat group. We hover above him with our aircraft, shooting and bombing down all opposition to his counter-attack. So the whole fore-field of our station is cleared of the enemy again. Our Luftwaffe soldiers at the beginning of the war certainly never saw themselves being used in this way. An armored unit of the army now expands our gains, recaptures Sytschewka and establishes its H.Q. there. So the situation is more or less stabilized again and a new front built up on the line Gschatsk—Rhew covering our sector. The days of monotonous retreat are over.
The foxes stand the cold better than we do. Every time we fly back from Rhew at low level above the snow-covered plains we can see them crawling through the snow. If we whizz over them at six or ten feet they duck and blink timidly up at us. Jackel has still a few rounds left in his M.G. and takes a pot shot at one. He hits him too. Then Jackel flies back to the spot in a Storch with skis. Master Reynard’s pelt is however completely riddled with holes.
I am disagreeably surprised by the news that in view of my high total of operational nights I am to be sent home immediately. My instructions are to proceed to Graz in Steiermark at the end of a period of leave where I am to take over command of a Reserve Flight and give new crews the benefit of my most recent experiences. Repeated asseverations that I do not need a rest, that I do not want to leave the Stukas, even pulling strings, avail me nothing. My orders are final. It is hard to say goodbye to the comrades with whom chance has thrown me together. Flt./Lt. Pressler is going to ask for me back the moment I am in my new job and a little grass has grown over the incident. I clutch at every straw.
One morning I am on my way West; in a transport aircraft over Witebsk—Minsk—Warsaw to Germany. I spend my leave skiing in the Riesengebirge and in the Tyrol and try to assuage my fury by exercise and sunshine.
Gradually the peace of this mountain world which is my home and the beauty of the snow-capped peaks relaxes the tension of day-in day-out operational flying.