I can remember clearly the day I arrived at the front line. It was the 16th of January. We were ordered to overrun Pitomnik airfield the only airfield that had any night landing capabilities and which was essential to us if we were to have any chance of supplying our pockets of soldiers scattered through out the war torn city. I can remember the blast of sounds and smells that hit as soon as I scrambled off the truck. The smell of rotting bodies, the screaming of men who had just been gunned down or had been hit by an exploding pieces of shrapnel, the blood flowing from them was as black as night. Pandemonium is the only word that can be used to describe the battle. Officers screaming out orders and many of the men either unable to hear their cries and also many of whom would not obey I was one of the latter.
A day later after we had captured Pitomnik airfield. Now Gumrak was the only airfield still in German hands. On the night of 29th-30th January Field Marshal Erhard Milch who had been given the order by Hitler to take over resupllying the diminishing numbers of soldiers still clinging on to their posts in the streets of Stalingrad. Milch Succeeded in flying-in 124 aircraft drop supplies into the pockets. This night constituted the highest number of drops flown in some time, but even this final gasp was too late to affect the inevitable course of events.
On the 31st January Paulus surrendered at 19:45. Vassili Chuikov’s Sixty-Second Army, my unit, had surrounded the crumbling Univermag building and we had the honour of accepting his surrender. Even with this surrender the battered and exhausted northern pocket continued to fight on but on 2nd of February this pocket was reduced to the tractor works, which was subjected to a final massive bombardment with a density of guns no less than 300 per km. That final bloody bombardment indicated that the battle for Stalingrad was now over and the next day Hitler announced the fall of Stalingrad to the German people and declared 4 days of mourning in which places of entertainment were to be closed.
The Germans lost 110,000 during the battle and a further 91,000 were made prisoner. Of the Germans captured at Stalingrad, some were put to work rebuilding the smashed city, while others marched east and ended up in camps from the Artic circle down to the borders of Afghanistan. Although many died due to lack of food and the typhus epidemic in the spring of 1943 only 5,000 troops made it back to Germany long after the war was over. And now as I sit here I remember many of my fellow comrades, who fell during the battle. I remember their final gasps…perhaps I could have done something…. But I was much too scared to react, men falling around me, their blood changing the colour of the brickwork streets from a dreary grey to a hellish red. I sat holding my rifle, in a trance, everything was just a blur, the sounds mumbled, no wonder I was court-martialled my actions during the battle. I was more of a burden to my commanding officers than a help. I did not obey their commands because I knew that of 1000 men who charge upon German posts only 10 may survive some of whom who would have been seriously injured. I now know that war is just sheer hell and something that I can ensure I will not be part of again.