RUSSIAN WAR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 24032, 1 August 1941, Page 9

RUSSIAN WAR

BITTER FIGHTING A FOUR DAY BATTLE v PEASANTS GUARD NAZI PLANED LONDON, July 19 An eye-witness account of two weeks i warfare on the Russo-German front wa (given me to-day by Paul Xilin, .'l2-year | old novelist who was recently given i Stalin award of 100,000 roubles for th scenario of the Soviet-made film "Tin Great Life," cables Frskine Caldwell special correspondent of the Daily Ex press, from .Moscow. Xilin went to the front as a writer , ! observer on the day after war began, j ''One of the biggest engagements ] [ saw lasted continuously for thro< J nights and four days," he said. "Tin j Germans sent a large force across * j river. They were met by a smaller j force of the Red Army and the batth I ranged over an area of about twe j square miles. "Our soldiers fought all this tiim I without food supplies, and J presume J the Germans did the same. At the cm: jof the fourth day fresh Red Arm.v j troops came up. That was the end of j the engagement. The Germans—what i were left of them—retreated." Planes, Tanks and Infantry ' Xilin saw air battles, tank battles i and infantry engagements during his stay in hi* unnamed sector. In one j tank battle both sides used their I tanks, and Xilin declared that I the Soviet tanks were obviously j stronger, because they were able to ; race headlong into the German tanks j and upset them. "During infantry engagements," he went on, "the Germans always did a ! lot of shouting at each other, generally calling for help or yelling instructions. The Soviet troops fought in dei termined silence. | "'lhe Germans have evidently been I convinced by propaganda that they cannot be beaten, because, when thev j do lose, they break down like babies." | Xilin said that when German pianos ; were brought down, peasants rushed | up. surrounded the plane and airmen. and guarded them with axes and pitch- • forks. Ihe German crews were more I afraid of being hacked io pieces bv ; angry peasants than they were of being | captured. Several airmen he talked to had made bombing raids on England. l'wo who wore the Iron Cross had maps of Kngland painted on the fuselages ol their planes. Hurried to the East Some prisoners told Xilin that they were in France a few days before the war with the F.S.S.R. 'started, and that, without being told where they were being taken, they were put on trains and brought to the Soviet border, where they began fighting betore they had a chance to find out what it was all about. According to Xilin. many of the German bombing planes contained three Germans and one Czech the Czech was always the rear gunner. Captured Czechs invariably said they had been forced by the Germans to become reargunner" because that was the most j dangerous seat in the plane. The Gorman infantry, he said, were! afraid of bayonet attacks. Thev don't I mind fighting with machine-guns or i other fire weapons, but they begin i yelling, shouting and surrendering bv ; the hundreds when the Red Army ! launches a bayonet attack. ''l he Germans always give them- j selves up by shouting. . ' Genos<e. : genosse, genosse ' —the .Nazi's party's own word for 'comrade.' "