Inferno - Max Hastings [247]
Russian soldiers advanced to the defence of Kursk through lands laid waste by their enemies. Eighteen-year-old Yuri Ishpaikin wrote to his parents: “So many families have lost their fathers, brothers, the very roofs over their heads. I have only been here a few days, but we have marched far through a devastated country. Everywhere lie unploughed and unsown fields. Only chimneys and stone ruins survive in villages. We saw not a single man or beast. These villages are real deserts now. At night the whole western side of the sky is lit up, copper-red. It makes the soul rejoice to pass an undamaged village. Most houses are empty, but chimney smoke curls from a few, and a woman or boy comes out onto the porch to watch the Red Army pass.” Ishpaikin, like many others, would never leave the Kursk battlefield.
“It grew hot as early as 0800 and clouds of dust billowed up,” wrote Pavel Rotmistrov, commanding a guards tank army as its long columns moved into the salient. “By midday the dust rose in thick clouds, settling in a solid layer on roadside bushes, grainfields, tanks and trucks. The dark red disc of the sun was hardly visible through the grey shroud of dust. Tanks, self-propelled guns and tractors, armoured personnel carriers and trucks were advancing in an unending glow … Soldiers were tortured by thirst and their shirts, wet with sweat, stuck to their bodies. Drivers found the going particularly hard.” Those who could write penned last letters, while illiterate men dictated to comrades. Twenty-year-old Ivan Panikhidin had survived a serious wound in the 1942 fighting. Now, approaching the front again, he professed pride about taking part in a struggle vital to his country: “In a few hours we shall join the fighting,” he told his father. “The concert has already begun, we just need to keep the music going: I write to the accompaniment of the German barrage. Soon we shall attack. The battle is raging in the air and on the ground … Soviet warriors stand firm in their positions.” Panikhidin was killed a few hours later.
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The Luftwaffe battered the Russian lines for days before the assault, achieving a direct hit on the billet of Rokossovsky, who was fortunately absent. German artillery fire was met by a Russian counterbarrage, blasting the ground where formations were massing to advance. On 5 July Model’s forces lunged forward from the north, while in the south the Fourth Panzer Army struck. From the outset, each side recognised Kursk as a titanic clash of forces and wills. Stuka dive-bombers and SS Tiger tanks inflicted heavy losses on Russian T-34s. Many of the new German Panthers were halted by breakdowns, but others forged on, crushing Soviet antitank guns in their path, while panzergrenadiers grappled with Zhukov’s infantry, using flamethrowers against trenches and bunkers. Both sides’ artillery fired almost without interruption.
After three days, the northern German armies had advanced eighteen miles, and seemed close to a breakthrough. Rokossovsky’s army withstood savage assaults, but some of its units broke. A SMERSH (morale) report denounced officers whom it deemed blameworthy: “The 676th Rifle Regiment showed little appetite for combat—its second battalion commanded by Rakitsky left its positions without orders; other battalions also succumbed to panic. The 47th Rifle Regiment’s Lt. Col. Kartashev and the 321st’s Lt. Col. Vokoshenko panicked, lost control, and failed to take necessary steps to restore order. Some senior officers