3. Mai 1943
Recently the Russian is shooting at the roofs of the houses with single rifle shots.[1] He uses tracer ammunition with which he tries to set fire to the thatched roofs. At first he was targeting an artillery observation post he had spotted under a roof. But now he is shooting at other houses as well. The day before yesterday, one of these phosphorus shells hissed into the dry bundles of brushwood piled up against the wall of a farmhouse. They caught fire immediately, but the farmer was able to extinguish the leaking flames before they could do any damage.
Today a non-commissioned officer from my platoon comes running to report that his accommodation is on fire. When I arrive, the roof is on fire. Damn, the ammunition! Normally, the mortar shells are stored in an earth bunker. But I see that the men are dragging the grenades out of the house. Yesterday, fresh ammunition had arrived, and they had put it in boxes in the house. When they explode, they tear the whole house apart. Now the men are hauling like madmen. The Ivan sees this back and forth, of course, and shoots in between. A young soldier is hit. Bullet stuck under the armpit. But he continues to carry his crates until I send him to the doctor.
Again, a house is on fire, the neighbouring house of the mortar crew. The thatched roof has already burnt off and the flames have eaten into the wooden beams between the mud walls. The Landser pour water on the beams. But it continues to glow and smoulder under the mud walls. The men tear open a piece of the mud wall to reach the glowing beams. Again and again they pour water on it, but the smouldering fires keep eating away. There are already several spots. We tear down another piece of wall to get to the smouldering beams. But the smouldering embers eat through the woodwork faster than we can extinguish them. As it smoulders inside the mud walls, we can neither follow the fire closely nor fight it effectively. We have to demolish one piece of wall after the other until almost the entire wall has been taken down. And when evening came, the house had died and burned down. The story is also sad because it happened just while the housewife was away. She had gone to visit a friend in Petrovskaya that day and, before leaving, had asked the non-commissioned officer to take good care of the house. Whom might she blame now?
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- ↑ Until 03.05.1943 the daily reports only mentioned artillery, mortar or generally harrassing fire or simply fire; from 3 May rifle or infantry fire is explicitly reported every day (KTB 1.PzA, NARA T-313 Roll 48 Frame 72937 and before and after).