Tales of the eastern front.
I've got a book with around 22 tales from 2 soldiers on the eastern front. Masur Abdulin was a volunteer of the soviets, and Henry Metelmann was a tank commander.
Though some are a bit long so I wont be posting them all, but might post 1 or 2 a week on this thread to not overflow it.
Comments
To start of with its a tale from the Soviets called ''Dogs with explosives attacks the germans''
It was at the Donfront in november 1942, that I for the first time heard about anti-tank dogs. I love dogs, and was disgusted about their faith that waited them. A dog is the mans best friend. But we send them to die under a tank anyways.
The dogs had all kinds of shapes and sizes. A wonderful mix between colours and races.
In the meantime a dog with one ear hanging and the other pointed in the air had spotted me. It came over, looked at me and started sniffing in hope of finding some food. Nearby there was 8 kilos of explovies, and I saw an antenna wired to a detonator. One of the dog trainers told me that they have been training the dogs for 3 months to find food under a driving tank. Later I spotted a black dog that ran in the direction of enemy tanks. A moment after the dog got accompanied with 2 other dogs. The first dog blew up the first tank with a massive explosion. Short after 2 more explosions could be heard.
The german tanks quickly turned around and fled.
The anti-tank dog tactic wasn't that effective because the dogs would get scared easily. However, it was Soviet Russia, who gave a damn about the dog, right? So Stavka would not stop the program because, honestly speaking, tanks >>>> dogs
Despite orders from the High Command, this tactic would nevertheless be stopped not soon after. Why? The dog handlers wouldn't let their friends go to die a horrible death.
Moral of the story, sometimes it only takes a lowly soldier to make all the changes necessary
A tale from the german side ''The Sergeant forbided us to bury the dead with clothes''
We had pulled Egon in over a week. A wounded comrade. We pulled him in a flat surfaced boat that we used as a sled.
But suddenly he died, and we had to dig a grave for him. Even though we knew it was against the rules, we packed him in a tarp and covered him with frozen dirt and snow. When we looked at our finished job, we wondered if there would come a hungry animal and try to dig him up.
But a officious sergeant had noticed that a tarp was missing. And now we were in trouble. First we tried to take the blame as a group, but then the one who actually had packed him in forced to go forward. He got yelled at infront of the group and punished with extra shifts. Our officer gave us orders to return the tarp. We had no other choice than to dig up the grave and un pack Egon from the tarp. We were all angry and an insult towards Egon. We thought of our possible faith - to end up getting our boots and uniform stolen was one thing. But to get burried without as little as a blanket.
Did the fatherland really not value us more?
@PFC Thomas
Exactly, the dogs were sometimes going for their own tanks since they didn't know better, they were just hungry.
Sure it might have taken a few enemy tanks out. But not that many to praise the idea of anti-tank dogs.