Read Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 Online
Authors: Paul Carell
The Finns had advised the Germans badly. Then" view had been based on their own military capabilities and their own equipment. But it is clear in retrospect that it would have been eminently possible to mount an operation with a pronounced and clear main effort either towards Murmansk itself or, better still, from Salla towards Kandalaksha, in which case the railway from Rovaniemi to the front would have been available. Admittedly, such an offensive in the strength of four to six divisions would have required revolutionary methods of supply, possibly supply by air during the attack, as well as the large-scale employment of road-building labour equipped with machinery.
But the German High Command was unwilling or unable to make an effort on such a scale. The importance of the objective was dimly realized, but the operations planned for its capture were nevertheless regarded as being in a secondary theatre of war. As for those "ridiculous 60 miles," the heroism of a crack force and the proved skill of an outstanding general were thought sufficient to cope with them.
The High Command would not admit that operations in the Arctic tundra were not possible in the way planned. Orders therefore came for another attempt to be made. On 8th September, the day when General Hoepner's Panzer Divisions mounted their attack against Leningrad and when Guderian's divisions moved off to reduce the Kiev pocket, Dietl's Mountain Jägers once more grabbed the reins of their mules, picked up their ammunition-boxes, and put their shoulders to their mountain guns in another attempt to defeat the tundra and the Soviets and to capture Murmansk.
It had become clear in the meantime that in addition to their 14th and 52nd Rifle Divisions the Russians had moved further crack units into their defensive front. Nevertheless all the reinforcements the Mountain Corps received were two regiments—the 9th SS "Death's Head" Infantry Regiment and 388th Infantry Regiment. Neither had any experience of mountain warfare.
Things happened as they were bound to happen. The cleverly conceived flanking attack, after a promising beginning, ground to a halt against the last Soviet defences among the maze of lakes and patches of swamp outside Murmansk.
Unceasingly the Stukas whined overhead, bombing the Russian positions. Units of 3rd Mountain Division got as far as the new road to Murmansk. On the left wing regiments of 2nd Mountain Division dislodged the Soviet 58th Rifle Regiment from the high ground along the "Long Lake." Presently, however, came the Soviet counter-attacks, nourished time and again from their near-by supply bases. The Siberians attacked again and again. They were lurking behind boulders, leaping up out of caves in rocks and dips in the ground. They 'would collapse in the German fire, but more would come. Every step, every yard, of the advance took hours and demanded a high toll in dead and wounded.
On 19th September Dietl's regiments were compelled to withdraw behind the Litsa, that fateful river of the Arctic tundra. The third attempt to get across had failed. That accursed river had already cost the Germans 2211 dead, 7854 wounded, and 425 missing.
While the scorching sun was beating down in the Kiev pocket upon unending columns of 665,000 Soviet prisoners the first snow fell at Murmansk on 23rd September. The Arctic winter with permanent night and ice was beginning. It was a mere 30 miles to Murmansk—but in the Arctic winter night this was an infinite distance. Yet must not the attempt be made again—in spite of everything?
Day after day Murmansk was increasingly revealing its true significance. The cranes were busy on the piers. In all corners of the fjords lay ships with British and American names. The great stream of Western aid had begun to flow. And since Archangel was frozen up from November onward, supplies for the desperately fighting forces outside Moscow and Leningrad had to come via Murmansk. It was an endless stream, a stream which was not to cease again, but to grow in volume, a stream which ultimately decided the German-Russian war.
Here are a few figures to prove the point. During the first year of the Soviet aid programme the following supplies were delivered along the northern sea route alone—
i.e.,
through Murmansk and Archangel—in nineteen convoys:
3052 aircraft: Germany entered the war in the East with 1830 aircraft.
4048 tanks: the German forces on 22nd June 1941 had 3580 armoured fighting vehicles.
520,000 motor vehicles of all types: Germany had entered the war with altogether 600,000 vehicles. That door on the Arctic Ocean was getting more and more dangerous every day. Must it not be closed?
From Athens to Lapland-1400 horses must die—The Petsamo-joki river—Supply crisis-Nightmare trek along the
Arctic Ocean road—The Soviet 10th Rifle Division celebrates the October Revolution—An anniversary attack— Fighting at Hand-grenade Rock—Convoy PQ 17—The Soviet 155th Rifle Division freezes to death—The front in the Far North becomes icebound.
"DAMN this snow! Damn this whole country!"
The howling gale drowned the men's curses and carried them away into nothingness. Visibility was barely ten paces. For the past twenty-four hours an Arctic blizzard had been sweeping over the tundra, whipping fine powdered snow through the air and turning the half-light of the Arctic winter day into an icy inferno. They could feel the gale on their skins. They could feel it stinging their eyes like needles. It felt as if it was going right into their brains,
Hans Riederer stumbled. His rucksack rode up to the back of his neck. Was the gale mocking him?
In long single file they were trudging through the powdered snow, which did not get compressed under their boots, but slipped away like flour, offering no footholds. Suddenly, like a ghost, a heavily swathed sentry appeared in front of the marching column. He directed the company over to the right, down a small track branching off the Arctic Ocean road.
First Lieutenant Eichhorn was now able to make out the outlines of the bridge over the Petsamojoki, the bridge leading to the fighting-line, into the tundra, to the sector they were taking over. "Half right!" the lieutenant shouted behind him. The Jägers passed it on. The long file swung over to the right, to the edge of the road by the ramp of the bridge.
A column was coming over from the far side. Men heavily wrapped up. Most of them had beards. They were leaning over forward as they marched, weighed down by their heavy burdens,
"Who are you?" they called out over the storm.
"6th Mountain Division—come to relieve you," Eichhorn's men replied. The men on the bridge gave a tired wave. "Haven't you come from Greece?"
"Yes."
"God, what a swap for you!" And on they moved. The fragments of a few curses were drowned by the blizzard. Like ghosts the men moved past Eichhorn's company. Then came four walking casualties, the dressings on their faces heavily encrusted, their hands in thick bandages. Immediately behind them six men were hauling an akja, a reindeer sledge. On it was a long bundle tied up in tarpaulin.
They stopped, beating their arms round their bodies. "Do you belong to the 6th?" "Yes. And you?"
"138th Jäger Regiment." That meant they were part of 3rd Mountain Division.
The lance-corporal in front of the sledge noticed the officer's epaulettes on Eichhorn's greatcoat. He brought his hand to his cap and ordered his men: "Carry on!"
They moved on. On the sledge, trussed up in the sheet of tarpaulin, was their lieutenant. He had been killed five days before.
"He must have a proper grave," the lance-corporal had said. "We can't leave him here in this damned wilderness." So they had carried him down from the hill where they had been entrenched—down granite-strewn slopes, then through moss and past the five stunted birches to the first fir-tree. That was where their akja stood. They had now been hauling him for four hours. They had another two hours to go before they reached Parkkina with its military cemetery.
The date was 9th October. The day before they had finished their "Prince Eugene" bridge over the Petsamojoki. They had barely driven in the last nail before the Arctic blizzard began. It marked the beginning of the Arctic winter. Fifty
hours later all transport to the front came to a standstill. The Arctic Ocean road was blocked by snowdrifts, and the newly built tracks in the forward area had vanished under deep snow.
In the forward lines the battalions of 2nd and 3rd Mountain Divisions had been waiting for the past ten days for their relief, for supplies, for ammunition and mail—also for a little tobacco and perhaps even a flask of brandy,
But ever since 28th September supplies had been getting through only in small driblets. This was due to a strange mishap which, in the afternoon of 28th September, completely destroyed the 100-yard-long wooden bridge over the Petsamojoki at Parkkina.
A few Soviet bombs had dropped on the river-bank just below the bridge. A few minutes later, as if pushed by some invisible giant hand, the whole bank had begun to move. About 4,000,000 cubic yards of soil started slipping. The 500-yard-wide shelf between river and Arctic Ocean road fell into the river-valley over a length of some 800 yards.
Entire patches of birch-woods were pushed into the riverbed. The waters of the Petsamojoki, a fair-sized river, piled up, overspilt their bank, and flooded the Arctic Ocean road.
The bridge at Parkkina was crushed by the masses of earth as if it were built of matchsticks. Telephone-poles along the road were snapped and, together with the wires, disappeared in the landslide. Abruptly the entire landscape was changed.
Worst of all, connection with the front across the river was severed. Urgent messages were sent to headquarters. There the officers gazed anxiously at the Arctic Ocean road, the lifeline of the front. Was it really cut?
What had happened? Had the Russians been up to some gigantic devilry? Nothing of the sort : the Soviets had just been very lucky. The landslide by the Petsamojoki was due to a curious geological phenomenon.
The river had carved its 25- to 30-feet-deep bed into a soft layer of clay which at one time had been sea-floor and therefore consisted of marine sediment. Following the raising of this layer through geological forces, these deposits hung along both sides of the river as a 500-yard-wide shelf of clay between the masses of granite,
When the half-dozen 500-lb. bombs—aimed at the bridge— hit the bank, one next to the other, the soft ground lost its adhesion and developed a huge crack almost 1000 yards long. The adjacent strata pressed on it, and like a gigantic bulldozer pushed the mass of earth into the river-valley, which was about 25 feet deep and 160 yards wide.
There is no other recorded case in military history of supplies for an entire front of two divisions being interrupted in so curious and dramatic a fashion. Suddenly 10,000 to 15,000 men, as well as 7000 horses and mules, were cut off from all rearward communications.
Major-General Schörner immediately made all units and headquarters staff of his 6th Mountain Division already in the area available for coping with this natural disaster. Sappers dug wide channels through the masses of earth which had slipped into the river-bed to allow the blocked water to flow away. In twelve hours of ceaseless night work, jointly with the headquarters personnel, supply drivers, and emergency units, they built a double foot-bridge from both banks. Columns of porters were organized; parties of a hundred men at a time, relieved every two hours, carried foodstuffs, fodder, ammunition, fuel, building materials, and charcoal from hurriedly organized stores on the western bank across to the eastern bank. They shifted 150 tons a day.
Simultaneously, the sappers of 6th Mountain Division started building a new bridge. Up there, on the edge of the world, even the construction of a bridge was an undertaking of almost unimaginable difficulty and hazard.
For that new bridge at Parkkina the men of Mountain Engineers Battalion 91 had to get their heavy beams from a newly set-up sawmill 125 miles away. The lighter planks were brought by ship from Kirkenes to Petsamo. Some 25,000 lengths of round timber were picked up by the sappers from the timber store of the nickel-mines.