Moscow's Defences Broke Hitler's Heart

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 134, 9 June 1942, Page 4

Moscow's Defences Broke Hitler's Heart

At the heart of a hurricane metero-$ logists say there is calm. Moscow is like that. There are few signs of war; people go about their business oblivious of the fact that there are Germans a few hours' car ride away. In many ways Moscow reminds me of London before the blitz. In a week's walking about the city I have seen just four examples of bomb damage. The people still criss-cross their windows with tape, wrote the Daily Express war correspondent at the end of March. The first night I arrived there was an air raid. Not a big one, but the sky where the raiders approached was lit by an angry, moving rash of anti-aircraft fire. The Russians do not use searchlights, but their guns light the sky. They put up flaming onions and tracer shells and seem to use guns of all calibres, from the heaviest to ■ machine-guns. The result is a i Brock's Benefit. • j Black-out is complete. There is no i street lighting whatsoever. Moscow has had her lights on for exactly two hours since the nvar began. One day the newspapers announced that lights would be kept on until the alert. That night there was a raid: the lights went off and have stayed off ever since. Defence lane The morning after the raid, I drove out of Moscow along the road to the front, to visit the prize antiaircraft battery of the city. The battery is the secondary ring of defence, and I travelled about 20 miles, which may give you some idea of the depth of the A.A. ring around Moscow. As soon as we left the city boundaries the signs of war began. A squadron of cavalrv on the road They're Cossacks—flat, black fur cap with scarlet crowns, rifles slung diagonally across their hacks, swords with big curved brass hilts at their sides. They ride tough, spare little chestnuts and bays, no higher than 14 hands. And enveloping man and horse the magnificent black winter cavalry cloak—the burka. This is of rough stilff felt, so stiff it stands out and up from the shoulders at a sharp angle, and makes a small man look like a sinister giant. The cloak covers horse from withers to crupper. Every few hundred yards there are barricades of heavy logs, .six feet thick, with dugouts, fire apertures, and a protecting lip against gunning from the air. Beyond each such strong point at least a hundred yards of criss-crossed tank obstacles that looked like rusted railway lines. The Russians do not appear to use wire to any extent in this type of defence system. Suddenly, for no plain reason the car turned off the road and ran up a hill towards a deep snow-drift and stopped. In a slit trench there stood a man. He looked like a Bedouin; he was sheathed from head to foot in a white sheet. Above his head—the only sifjn that this was not a peaceful hillockhung a bell, the size of a village church bell. It clanged furiously. Fifteen Hundred Huns Fat, grey-quilted figures scuttled out of holes in the ground and across the snow, and out of the blinding whiteness there rose three trumpet snouts of the Bofors type A.A. guns. Down in the dugouts it was like Snow White's house. Soldiers stood at stiff attention beside their neat

white truckle beds. Everything was small and precise and comfortable. There were four little portable gramophones, a tiny pin table, and a six-foot billiards table. The commander of the battery, Chief-Lieutenant A. P. Boyarinoff, is young (33), crisp and precise, too. With his shaven head he looks like a handsome young Erich von Stroheim. He answers all questions in a parade-ground voice. The Huns are using mostly Junkers 88's. They fly at between 15,000 ft and 24,000 ft. His guns can put up a barrage at the rate of 400 shells an hour. He reckons he has had 1500 Huns in his one small sector. His job is to make them drop their bombs on him. The Bomber Victors His battery has a score of four down and four possibles, for which they hold the gunmetal statuette the commander proudly shows. i™?. e !'u Ck P ns that Moscow has beaten the bombers with these three weapons in this-order:—(l) Density of A.A. fire: (2) fighter interception; (•J) co-operation between the two. He savs the Russians are using radiolocation. After the interview there is a party Vodka with an aniseed flavour, httle fishes, rich ham, black bread. The Russians have an excellent habit. They drink to their toasts, they don't talk about them. The battery commander and one oi his young lieutenants drove back to the city with us that night and went to a dance. At curfew time we said "Ital do svedania." which means Here s to the next time," with warmth and affection. The curfew, like the blackout, is absolute and complete at midnight. But by day this is a busy city. Snowfalls disappear instantly. ■ If*®* girls and old men appear with wooden shovels and sharpened crowbars and they don't lean on their tools. For this labour they get a worker's ration card, which gives them a fuller diet. There are queues for the papers Pravda, Izvestia and Red Star at noon. Even Nurses Carry Guns It is hard to see now any signs that this has been, through the bitter winter, a city under virtual siege, yet the hardships of the uncomplaining citizens must have been severe. The Russians have a sure sense of the dramatic. All Red Army officers carry revolvers; even Red Armv nurses, with their hair waved and their lips tinted, carry holsters on the hip. Long black cars roar along the streets, and the drivers drive on the horn. The police carry rifles, revolvers and truncheons striped like Belisha beacons. The city that broke Hitler's heart is a most efficient place to live in. RECEIVED IN ENGLAND RED CROSS CONSIGNMENTS Acknowledgment of the receipt of two consignments of clothing by the British Red Cross has been received by the Auckland Centre of the New Zealand Red Cross Society. Gratitude for the gifts is expressed in the letters, which state that the gifts are most welcome. "Everything sent is of excellent quality and perfectly suited for the purpose (Civilian Relief Clothing), and all the articles will be put to the best possible use," states the British Red Cross.