1942 V. N. Sokolov, Soviet 13th Cavalry Corps

At the headquarters of the 13th Cavalry Corps
V. N. Sokolov
Former army clerk, Personnel Section, Headquarters - 13th Cavalry Corps

I was called up to the front as a private and fought near Novgorod until the middle of October, 1941. Many days and nights were spent in the woods. The entire detachment slept on pine boughs, with one half of a greatcoat tucked under oneself, while the other half served as a blanket. Our boots were constantly wet, as campfires were strictly forbidden. We would wash with snow and then do a trepak [a Russian folk-dance – skoblin] in order to warm up.

On 18 January 1942, I was ordered to deliver a package to the headquarters of the 13th Cavalry Corps. Prior to leaving, they issued me some winter clothing: a sheepskin coat and an old pair of felt boots instead of the tedious leg windings I had to wear.

I reached the settlement of Proletarii, where I spent the night in warmth for the first time in six months. In the morning I rode to Shevelevo in the cab of a ZIS-5 army truck, to a crossing on the Volkhov river. The German defenses on the western bank had been broken through and we crossed the frozen river without incident. Short bursts of machine gun fire were heard to our left, as well as the occasional rumble of guns.

The village of Myasniy Bor had been completely destroyed, with only the red-brick water tower and one little house left standing. Suddenly, there was the deafening sound of an artillery salvo: one of our guns had fired from a fir grove some 10 meters from the road. A soldier performing traffic control raised his flashlight and indicated which direction to take to avoid enemy detection. Soon after, the truck managed to leave the log road behind and, finding itself on asphalt, rushed off at top speed. The asphalt, however, quickly ended and we found ourselves lurching once more along logs and potholes. What we had thought was asphalt, turned out to be an ice road built by the Germans – a layer of sand covered with water.

By evening, we had reached the small little village of Malye Vyazhishchi, where General N. I. Gusev had set up his command post in a tiny cottage. I handed over the package and awaited my fate with trepidation: would they transfer me to the cavalry, despite having been on a horse only once in my life? However, after inquiring about my education, I was left in the personnel section of the corps headquarters, and on the following day I took up my duties as a clerk. To be correct, however, an old sergeant, Sorokin, dealt with the clerical duties, while I was told to apprise myself of the situation and become acquainted with the units and the personnel.

The head of the section was Technical Quartermaster 1st Rank Karabukhin – a man of hardened nerves devoid of sentimentality. My immediate superior became the clerical supervisor, Lieutenant Usol'tsev.

The corps' three cavalry divisions advanced upon towards Lyuban'. The headquarters, meanwhile, relocated to Vditsko, and then to Chashcha. On February 11th, the cavalry reached the village of Dubovik, but was unable to advance further through the deep snow and trackless landscape. There was no hay to be had for the horses, as the Germans had swept everything clean, while under the snow was nothing but swamp void of anything edible. The cavalry could not exploit the success of the rifle divisions and assumed a defensive posture on foot.

The corps headquarters re-located to Dubovik and remained there until the end of the operation. On February 25th, Voroshilov came to visit the headquarters and after his departure, seven German dive-bombers raided the village. The windows unleashed a shower of glass. I ran out onto the porch and saw two bombs falling right towards us, rapidly growing in size as they neared. Several seconds later two bomb bursts rang out. Wood, thatching and clumps of earth flew in all directions. The bombs fell one after the other and soon the village was reduced to a frightening picture of ploughed up earth, blood-stained snow, arms, legs, heads, scraps of clothing and shapeless pieces of human flesh. Even the most dreadful nightmare could not have presented such a specter. Several log huts were ensconced in flame, and the town was littered with vehicles, household belongings, and the bodies of men and horses. Men rushed in collecting the victims under the glow of burning fires. We lost over a hundred men that day.

Every evening I would head off to the storehouse to obtain provisions according to the personnel record. On March 19th, however, the Germans severed the corridor for the first time and the delivery of supplies ceased for an entire week. German fighter aircraft would hunt down every vehicle, which managed to break through to the road, every wagon, and every person making their way on foot. Provisions were dropped to us by aircraft. On one occasion, a Douglas transport, fleeing from the machine gun fire of German fighters, dropped its load near a former bath-house. Sacks filled with oats and dry biscuits plummeted into the snowdrifts. The majority of them burst, and we scooped up everything, one after the other – oats, buckwheat, tobacco. We ate mostly horse-meat, shooting down the wounded horses. The remaining horses were fed thatching from the roofs and steamed birch branches.

We became accustomed to the daily enemy air raids and wouldn't bother even leaving the hut. Karabukhin would usually announce: “Tidy up the documents, boys, while I take a nap”.

Here, in the Novgorod district, homes were built with full-height cellars. Vegetables and small livestock would be kept in them. They could be entered into from either the house or through an insulated door from the outside. We dug a trench in the snow running from this door to the bath-house in case we had to fall back. Documents were stored in metal boxes intended for German mortar shells. During each raid, we would open the trap-door to the cellar and drag the boxes down below.

One day it happened to be overcast, and we hoped for a respite from the air raids. Suddenly, an explosion rang out: the Germans began shelling us from 105-mm guns. They would fire several shells and then cease for an hour. Before the shelling started, we would sleep on the tables, under our greatcoats. Now we had to move to the floor.

Soon after, I was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. With the promotion came new responsibilities – duty officer for the headquarters. The hut for the duty officer was made of planks, covered with pine boughs, and was located in the woods. It had a tiny stump, a telephone, an oil lamp, and a piece of board with a map for plotting the tactical situation...Besides the duty officer, there was also a telephone operator and communications officer holed up in the hut. The field telephone buzzed constantly with units reporting the movement of men and matériel, aircraft fly-overs, artillery strikes and so on. Everything had to be noted down and passed on the operations staff. Dozens of coded telegrams had to be sent and received. There was never a moment's rest.

The food situation grew steadily worse. We would receive one dry biscuit per day. The telephonist would head out early in the morning armed with an ax in search of horse-meat. We would cook it without salt. It was loathsome to eat, but we ate it all the same.

The Germans dropped propaganda leaflets. I remember one of them had a picture of Stalin's son, Yakov Dzugashvili, who had been taken prisoner. It showed him smiling, holding his hand out to a German officer.

Often there would be booby-traps hidden among the dropped leaflets: colourful little sticks with fluttering ribbons – pretty little toys intended for the curious.

With the onset of warm weather, the stench of decay became all the more palpable. Burial teams were organized. One night, returning from the 80th Cavalry Division, I stumbled upon a strange scene. On a snow-covered clearing, I saw corpses “standing” under the moonlight. The burial crews had placed the corpses erect in the snow so they could find them when they returned.

On March 26th, an opening was punched through to the army and the delivery of supplies was restored. The fighting at Myasniy Bor, however, did not subside. The corridor would narrow in places to several hundred meters, and then widen out again in others. The Germans also received reinforcements – a Bavarian corps.

In April, the 13th Cavalry Corps began withdrawing from the encirclement. Organized covering forces allowed the divisions the opportunity of departing through the kilometer-and-a-half corridor at Myasniy Bor almost without loss.
By the middle of May, almost all the corps' units were found behind the Volkhov river, while the headquarters was engaged in evacuating matériel and documents.

On May 17th, I received orders from the chief of staff to bring out the documents from the personnel, operations and coding sections. I was provided a ZIS-5 truck and two soldiers. We departed Dubovik and Nivki, and intended to reach the Volkhov river crossing by way of Finev Lug and Novaya Kerest'. We found ourselves at the tail end of 12 kilometer column of automobiles, tractors, lorries, ambulances, and other vehicles. Here, we became stuck, advancing only some two kilometers per day. We kept the classified documents and burned the rest. We loaded the cargo onto an abandoned trolley for the narrow gauge railway, which had been used by repair men for conveying their tools and headed out in search of food. Having found provisions for two days, we returned to find the trolley had been stolen in our absence.

The narrow gauge railway running from Finev Lug to Novaya Kerest' had already ceased operating. A swarm of humanity had assembled near the bridge over the Kerest'. Here they unloaded wounded men, military property and equipment. The forest was stacked full of saddles, fur coats, felt boots, horse blankets, barrels and crates. Vehicles and carts slowly crawled across the bridge, carrying the sick and wounded, accompanied by crowds of Red Army soldiers. Traffic jams would constantly occur, giving way to movement once again.

Bombers continually appeared overhead, followed by fragments of vehicles, carts, personal belongings and bodies being tossed in the air. The bridge was constantly fired upon and bursts of artillery and mortar fire were all around.

Having crossed over to the eastern bank of the Kerest', we joined the human procession, which stretched from the village of Krechno all the way to Yamno on the Volkhov river. A wooden road was laid out through the forest and was continually being repaired by road workers. It was, however, almost completely devoid of cover as the trees in the surrounding forest had been stripped bare to their trunks. A shroud of bluish-gray smoke hung over the earth. Enemy aircraft roared past in the air, dropping bombs. The entire forest was a mass of shell holes and bomb craters.

The road turned towards Myasniy Bor – the most narrow section of the corridor. Ahead us, hell unfolded: the rumble of aircraft, explosions from bombs and artillery shells, and the muffled bursts of machine-gun fire. The fear of remaining forever in some putrid hole in the ground involuntarily crept into one's soul. We chased away such thoughts, while glancing around whether everything seemed right... Already only five hundred meters remained, then three hundred...one hundred...

And then, there it was: the Volkhov. We had passed through 30 kilometers with our cargo and remained alive. It was May 25th, 1942. On June 2nd the Germans finally closed the door, and few succeeded in making their way out from the trap.