Stalingrad

of the outnumbered Soviet troops was so desperate that a corporal from the 389th wrote home: ‘You can’t imagine how they’re defending Stalingrad – like dogs.’
    The Soviet armies to the north again attacked XIV PanzerCorps on 30 September. The 60th Motorized Infantry Division and the 16th Panzer Division between them claimed to have destroyed seventy-two tanks, in a ‘major defensive success’ against at least two Soviet rifle divisions and three tank brigades. The Don Front’s costly attack did not deflect much pressure away from Orlovka or the industrial plants, but it helped slow the elimination of the Orlovka salient, a process which in the end took the Germans nearly ten days.
    The 24th Panzer Division, most of the 389th Infantry Division and the 100th Jager Division advanced towards the Red October metalworks and the Barrikady gun factory – ‘the confusing tangle of a completely destroyed factory area’, as one Jäger described the huge complex, in which almost every window and roof had been smashed by bombing, with rusted machinery twisted out of recognition. ‘Already the first comrades were falling. The cries for medical orderlies increased. The fire intensified, but not just from in front, it was also now coming from both sides.’ Russian artillery shells and mortar-bomb explosions also caused heavy casualties with stone fragments from the rubble as well as shrapnel.
    Next day, to speed the attack on the Red October complex, Paulus ordered the 94th Infantry Division and 14th Panzer Division up from the southern sector of the city. On the Russian side, the hard-pressed 62nd Army also received some badly needed reinforcements when General Stepan Guriev’s 39th Guards Rifle Division crossed the Volga. It was sent straight in to bolster the line on the right of the Red October works. Another fresh division, Colonel Gurtiev’s 308th Rifle Division, a second formation made up mainly of Siberians, also started to cross the Volga, but these additions barely made up the losses already suffered.
    Chuikov soon faced an unexpected danger. On 1 October, the 295th Infantry Division infiltrated down gullies on Rodimtsev’s right flank. His guardsmen countered savagely, ambushing them at close quarters, with sub-machine-guns and grenades. But during the night, a large group of German infantry clambered through the main drain running down the Krutoy gully, and reached the Volga bank. They turned south and attacked the rear of Rodimtsev’s division. This raidcoincided with another breakthrough on the right. Rodimtsev reacted quickly, ordering every company he could spare into impromptu counter-attacks, and the situation was saved.
    On 2 October, the Germans attacked the oil-storage tanks on the river bank just above Chuikov’s headquarters. The tanks were not empty after all. Direct hits from German bombs or shells set them on fire. Burning oil poured down the hill, all around the headquarters and out into the river. Only the radio transmitter worked. ‘Where are you?’ Stalingrad Front headquarters signalled repeatedly. The reply eventually came back: ‘We’re where the most smoke and flames are.’
    During the first week of October, Chuikov clearly had started to wonder whether they would be able to hold the rapidly narrowing strip of river bank. Everything depended on the Volga crossing. He knew that his badly mauled regiments had inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans, but the outcome of the battle depended on nerve as much as resources. They had no alternative but to stick with the 62nd Army’s slogan: ‘For the defenders of Stalingrad there is no ground on the other side of the Volga.’ This really had become a sacred oath for many soldiers. One of the most famous acts of courage occurred at this time on the southern part of the factory district, when German tanks advanced on a position held in the ruins of a school by a detachment of marine infantry attached to 193rd Rifle Division. They had run out of anti-tank grenades, so Marine Mikhail Panikako seized two petrol bombs. As he was poised to throw the first one, a lucky German bullet shattered it in his hand, covering him in flames. He hurled himself forward over the last few yards, and flung himself against the side of the tank, smashing the other one in a ball of fire on the engine decks behind the turret.
    German commanders were also alarmed. Their men were exhausted, and morale had suffered. Soldiers in the 389th Infantry