Personal Diary of infantryman
Friedeich Schmidt
6th Army
Thursday November 19th 1942.
After a long day helping the 4th Panzer's to refuel and re-arm with 88mm shells and ammo, at around 21.15 hrs the unit settled down for the night, then at around 23:00 hrs me and Walther were awoken by the field commander, he informed us we would be going out on a recon mission at 06:30 hrs to see how far the Russians had advanced over night and there strength.
Walther Bieber had joined us just before the second battle of Kharkov in the Spring of 42, and we both came through it without a scratch, but now we were caught between the Volga and the Don river attempting to push into Stalingrad.
Friday November 20th 1942.
I woke up at 04:35 and gave Walther a shake, it had snowed over night and there was a light covering of fresh snow on the ground, we cleaned our weapons and repacked our ammo pouches, once done we set of to the command post for our orders, We were to make our way to the Volga river to see if the Russians were trying to flank us along the river, contact with Russian patrols was to be avoided at all costs, they would be trying to probe our lines to asses our strength, This would be walthers first recon mission and there would be only two of us, 06:30 hrs sharp we set of in the direction of our front lines and the Volga river, we were stopped at the front line and had to show our orders to the SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer, after a phone call we were allowed to continue on our way, the rest of the day went without a hitch, we saw tanks and columns of soldiers moving towards the volga and some heavy artillery setting up in a small village, all were marked on the map and notes made of numbers and direction of movement, by 15:45 we decided to head back to our own lines before it started to get dark, the boys in the front line tend to get trigger happy after dark.
All was going well till we bumped into a small russian patrol on there way back to there lines, we were all so surprised we just stood there looking at each other across the field for what seemed like minutes, but in reality was only seconds, one of the russians made the first move, he started screaming and charged at us with his PPS machine gun blazing away, this seemed to set the others off as they soon followed there leader, we had the advantage as we were behind a drystone wall and they were out in the open, we ducked down to avoid the hale of bullets, as the first one stopped to reload i shot up and fired a burst at him hitting him squire in the chest, he went down without a sound, walther seemed reluctant to stand up & shoot he just sat there hugging his weapon, all of a sudden he started screaming, he seemed to lose all sense off reason and jumped up and made a run for it, he made a b-line for a brake in the wall some 50 mtrs to our left he managed to dodge the hale of bullets, as the hale of bullets subsided a bit i made a dash for it in the same direction, walther vanished through the brake in the wall.
Just as i was about to climb through the crumbled down wall there was an explosion on the other side followed by a harrowing scream, straight away i new what had happened, i have heard the sound so many times before walther had stepped on a AP mine, as i went through the gape i saw walther on his back covered in blood i new it would take to long to get to him picking my way through the mine field and the Russians were getting closer spurred on by the sound of the explosion by the time i could get to him he would properly be dead anyway so i turn and head back to my own lines without looking back.
The rest of my journey went without incident, on returning to my own lines i made a full report of what happened then retired to my bunk for a much needed rest in an old barn, i look over to where walther should be knowing that in a matter of hours there would be another man in his place, i could not call walther a true friend you don't make good friends in war time there never around long enough for that, by the end of the day walthers name would be forgotten, just a number, a casualty of war all in the name of the Führer and the fatherland.
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DISCLAMER
All persons and names, events in this story are fictional and from the imagination of the writer, the photo on the German Death card was taken from the TAMIYA world figure box series No 36304 and superimposed on the card.
The 6th Army & 4th Panzer's location and dates during the battle of stalingrad
are true facts to the best of my knowage.
J.Huggins.
Well that's it from me hope you like.
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