Published in „Siegrunen“ Magazine – Volume XIII, Number 3, Whole Number 77,
Summer 2005
by Leopold Rubis Provided and Translated by K.L.
Above: The official coilarpatches of the two Latvian SS Division. 15th Waffen-Grenadier Division der SS on the left and 19th Waffen-Grenadier Division der SS on the right
It is Easter, the 16th of March 1944. Our battery’s First Platoon is at a river named Velikaya. We are fully dug-in into frozen clay mounds. The surrounding sparse bushes hardly give us any cover from the possible view of an attacker. At present it is not possible to hide. On the left, 300 meters from us stretches a steep bank on which grows young spruce trees. Beyond that is the enemy. Directly in front of us, the ground rises gently and ends up in a flat area with scattered small trees. 300 meters to the right stretches a line of trenches that curve to the right following the river bend. There in position, according to our commander, at Height 94.3, is the Assault Battalion Laumanis, which took shape after many regroupings following the battles of the last winter. Behind and below the battalion’s positions is the Velikaya River. On its opposite side is a steep river bank and a grove of white birch trees. There is located the second line of trenches. A little further behind us is the border of Latvia, (i.e. these troops are still deployed in Russian territory).
Our platoon, which contains three of our battery’s 37mm Anti-tank guns, with armor-piercing rounds, is placed in a triangle position about 300 meters behind Laumanis’ men on the other side of the river. As it happened, we were to provide security for the infantry from behind. We count the days, changing guard duty at the guns. At times of full alert, we shoot at the low flying fighter-bombers that in the last weeks have increasingly strafed and bombed anything that moved. Behind the forest, far away and high in the air, an enemy balloon with aerial observers sometimes rises up. In the silence of the frosty nights we can hear motors growling behind enemy lines.
Pre-Easter week is sunny. Inside the windbreak formed by the protective clay mounds around the guns, the sun is starting to warm nicely. It is Saturday evening; during the day I walked along the river looking for pussy-willows. But there were none! In this place near the border one can’t even find a pussy-willow branch. (Pussy-willows, along with painted eggs, are a part of Latvian Easter customs associated with traditional folklore). Outside it is already dark; a few stars in the sky are watching us. Under the boots the snow squeaks, but the frost does not feel too bad. The front is unusually quiet. There, behind the forest, an occasional rocket went streaking through the sky.
A contingent of Latvian Waffen-SS volunteers from an unknown unit. Note the national sleeve shield. An individual in a German police uniform is third from the right in the back row. (Erik Rundkvist Archives).
EASTER MORNING
We are awakened by a thunder-like noise. We hear clap after clap until it just becomes an ongoing roar. Even in our underground bunkers we feel the earth trembling. One of our duty guards rushes in shouting: “Its starting, its starting!” My boots are on already and the jacket is on my back. “Hurry lads!”, I yell. Nobody needs urging; just like in training we are in our places without wasting a second. Bullets whistle in the air; from somewhere shrapnel hits gun metal. The whole side of the hill is wrapped in smoke curls from explosions. Occasional whistling shells drop not far from us. Howling “Katyusha” rockets with fiery tails, are already falling behind the first line of trenches and are moving towards us. The platoon commander, Lt. Saulitis Aleksandris, runs to us bent over from the third gun. “Boys, boys, there will be tanks!” His voice is loud, trained through experience in the Volkhov swamps, (a former battleground of the Latvian Legion). We experience a mild excitement as for the first time we will be meeting real tanks. I cannot show my men that “stage fright” has also overtaken me, so I give my commands as if in training. Jazeps, a slim lad from Latgale, (the eastern part of Latvia), takes up his gun aimer/shooters place. He was an excellent gun aimer, who understood the technique of the gunsight well. This brave man would later save us with his aiming expertise from the most difficult situations.
Arnolds, a son of Selija, (the southeast district of Latvia) from the banks of the Dignajas Daugavas, (a tributary of the Daugavas River), unafraid, fills the jaws of the gun with armor piercing rounds. It only remains for Jazeps to press the trigger pedal. Others unpack ammunition from boxes and get them ready to pass on to the gunners. The fire hurricane is still raging. Then, over the tops of the spruces, the regular rocket salvo falls over us and long cigar shapes explode with a terrible noise, throwing high black fountains of smoke into the air. Frozen earth, ice and snow was raining and raining over us. That was only one salvo — how many more would follow it? Suddenly the noise stops. I look at my watch; 45 minutes of bombardment, maybe it was an hour, it does not matter. “Your watch is wrong mister; we’ve had an hour’s thrashing”, says Arnolds. Suddenly the low level IL2 (Ilyushin armored fighter-bomber “Sturmoviks”), began attacking us with guns and bombs; hosing the ground with machine-guns.
Now there are sharp, but fewer cannon shots — it is the tanks. Up on the hill infantry weapons are working; machine-guns and hand-grenades. The bullets are whistling more frequently around us, and then they come! Over the edge of Height 93.4 rolls a dark bundle; it stops and shoots at something. One follows another and another, and then more follow. The platoon leader Lieutenant Saulitis is already at the first cannon commanded by Corporal Silins, a lad with a sense of humor. Silins’ gun is in the closer, most favorable position, but I am not observing them, all of my attention is drawn towards the tank movements. They are coming closer, having crossed the first trench line, and now it is clear that the Latvian lads are not there anymore — they were knocked out of the first line of trenches. Later it was told that the attackers had come in three waves; a solid black mass. Our lads had not been able to hold them back.
Above: Latvian Waffen-SS anti-tank gunners loading their weapon, (Erik Rundkvist Archives)
A quartet of tanks, having already left the trenches behind and run over the machine-gun nests, is coming closer, at times shooting and machine-gunning. High on the hill appears another tank. On the left flank the crawling tanks has suddenly stopped with black smoke whorls coming from it. It was stopped by the Silins’ cannon; there in the aimer’s seat is the platoon leader himself, showing the lads how it is done. This does not stop the other four and it appears that on our right, Ozols’ crew is also fighting. Suddenly our ears are hit with a load explosion and earth sand and snow flies into the air. The middle tank, large and black, moves directly towards us, it will stop and shoot. “Jazeps! The middle one, the middle one, fire!” I scream in the hellish noise. Jazeps does not need any urging. After 4 to 5 shots the monster stops, veers sideways and small men jump out and hide behind the tank’s body. The third cannon with Ozols’ crew has fallen silent; through the battle noise we cannot hear the distinctive sharp crack of his anti-aircraft gun. What has happened? We did not know then that Ozols, the crew commander, was fatally wounded. The tank we saw moving towards his crew was not easily seen from our position, at times being hidden by a knoll. We would not like it to get behind us. In the worst situation we could not get away from this position, because behind us is the Velikaya River, but our transport machines are hiding behind village houses built on the other side of the river. So it is a fight to the last round! We were in quite a situation now, that is what I thought! But there will be many, many other seemingly hopeless situations ahead in the future. This is only the first. We will get used to it!
Above: Latvian Waffen-SS volunteers dining outside of their bunker. A camouflage shelter quarter is the table cloth! (Erik Rundkvist Archives).
On the left another tank is burning, enveloped in swirling flames. That is in Silin’s sector; that means all is well. Another middle-sized reptile crawls into the valley, wanting to hide and then showing only its turret to attempt to remove us from its way. In training we were taught to remember tank “hiding” methods. Jazeps had warmed to the fighting and sensed the urgency of the tank. Without being told he looked through the aiming sight, moved the cannon and managed to stop the tank halfway to its hiding place. At the same moment, I felt a hit in the upper right calf and something wet flowing into my boot. No time to think about it, but I hear somebody behind me shouting: “ay, ay!”.
Ammunition handler Lavinskis’ arm is badly smashed. “To first aid!” Zarins begins bandaging him from his personal first aid kit, saying something assuring to him. Ozols crew 150 meters on the right from us is back in action. They liquidate a tank; it had already gotten that close. Only Ozols is no longer among the living; he had been killed in the fighting. There is a short pause. I take my trousers off and with the personal bandage packet, I dress my shot-up leg, pulling the bandage on tight. Arnolds steps down from the loader’s platform and ties my bandage; my fingers have become clumsy. I decline to stay at the first aid station as I don’t want to be taken behind the lines. They give me a note and I hobble back to our crew.
Easter day is going on towards evening. The second line holds; the enemy cannot force his way over the Velikaya. Enemy rockets rain over the lines. Black fountains from explosions cover the other river side, destroying the white birch grove. The mortars chop down the trees and the howitzers do not let up until the evening. Finally the explosions subside. Occasionally we hear “maxis” (Russian Maxims machine-guns) or “bone-saws” (German MG42 machine-gun) working. As dusk falls we escort Corporal Ozols on his final trip across the river. There in the truck lay other heroes. Our Levinskas is taken away in the wounded transport. I do not tell my commander about my mishap. My lads are silent; I understand that they don’t want to lose their older comrade; we have bonded well together. Nightfalls. At last we are supplied with food. We have to go across the river for it as it is too dangerous to bring it any closer. The bombardment starts up again. In the clear spring evening a mortar battery commencing to fire can clearly be heard. It sounds like somebody up on the hill is banging on a wooded board. And then the mortars are snorkeling overhead and all around us a series of yellow-orange explosions burst. We are learning to predict by its hissing snarl if the mortar is going to pass over us, fall short in front of us, or fall on our heads. We were not always able to tell. Mortar fire is covering the whole area, interfering with the resupply of ammunition. After supper and ammunition have been received, I hear lads still discussing how it went and how they could have done better. Towards morning I drop into an uneasy sleep. The battle is over. Tomorrow it all starts again.
That was our Easter Sunday, 16 March 1944.
Above: Studio portrait of a group of Latvian volunteers; the national armshield is visible on the two on the left while the two on the right wear “home-made” SS runic collarpatches. (Erik Rundkvist Archives).
COUNTERATTACK
The next day starts with bright sunshine. There is not even a small cloud. A deceptive silence on the front. Jazeps, checking his aiming apparatus, thinks that the “Russkies have had breakfast delivered”. We clean out the cannon dugout from the snow, ice and pieces of earth that have fallen into it. The sun lights up yesterday’s battlefield with the black shape of destroyed tanks, the blackened snow and the fields plowed up and pitted by explosions. Not a sign now from the spring-like scene of the day before yesterday. Our opponent stops us from gazing at this terrifying view, a sight that we have never seen before. We had forgotten that we were being observed from the enemy-held high ground and a machine-gun round of bullets went singing over our heads. A second burst hits the protective mound before us. Some bullets hit the cannons’ armor plates and ricochet off whistling and changing direction. We crouch in the dugouts until the end of the firing as we don’t wish to offer our heads as targets. With binoculars I searched the edge of the heights and was able to spot a machine-gun barrel and even a head with a winter cap and ear flaps is visible. Last night we carried up snow to newly camouflage our cannons. In the daytime we are not going to shoot unless attacked, otherwise we will be ground up by enemy fire — we are that close. We know that our infantry is no longer in front of us as in the trenches sit yesterday’s attackers who keep us under fire. Behind us is the river and we could not get our guns across it under enemy firing no matter how strong we were. There is also snow and pitted holes from the explosions.
A flight of fighter-bombers is bombing and strafing the village across the river. One of them crashes into the river, throwing up a geyser of ice and water. Once again the “Katyushas” howl. Rockets tear into the opposite bank of the river and again wreck the birch grove. Wind carries the black smoke stacks towards us. Today we are being bombarded by 150mm artillery. The rounds fall between the cannons, not doing any harm to the crews. One rips out a big chunk of the protective mound, but our sentry, Karlis Zarins, is safe in the deep dugout calmly smoking a “Safari” cigarette. Hearing the explosion, I jump out of the bunker to assess if everything is all right and that was the case except for a few dents in the armor plates of the guns.
Jazeps is guarding his aiming box more than he would his pocket watch. With the aiming box he can calculate an airplane’s precise speed and the angle of fire. He is one of the men to have gone through special training in Germany and he understands well the automatic aiming device entrusted to him. Arnolds understands well the automatic cannon’s properties while Karlis knows the aircraft of all the combatant nations by body, by wings, and by cabin configurations. They are irreplaceable specialists.
In the breaks of the battle, I sit in the sun, listen to the bullets singing and contemplate how we Latvians are: the more we are being hit, the tougher we become. It creates a kind of arrogant conviction that “we beat the mighty ones and then the grey blue ones”. This was the refrain to a Latvian soldier’s song, a kind of wishful thinking about independence again and it was a reflection of the Latvian War of Independence from Russia after WWI. It was a good morale booster. I did not know then, that all the crews, all the lads in the last weeks of the war, would gather large amounts of weapons and ammunition hoping that after Berlin fell, the Latvian soldiers could unite and go to Riga. Latgale’s lads wished so much to go back to their lake country, no matter what the cost was on the way to freedom that our transports were overloaded with weapons and ammunition garnered from the Germans; mortars, “bonesaws”, hand-grenades and machine-pistols, which everyone had, even if they were not part of our assigned armament. But on this day I did not know any of that.
There was the usual shooting during the night. In the daytime there was no movement at all. We are eye-to- eye with our opponent. T owards evening, under cover of the river banks behind us, we see small groups of men move across our constructed bridge. They are men from the 15th Division (15th Latvian Waffen-Grenadier Division der SS); 1 cannot remember what battalion. (Editor’s note: possibly I./Waffen-Grenadier Regiment der SS 33). Now both Latvian divisions are together. It is clear to me that tomorrow will be “hot”. In the darkness of the evening I go down to the river, but there is no one there, like ghosts (the men of the 15th Division) have come silently in the darkness and quietly vanished. Their unit had many older men, unlike our twenty-year olds. I wake early, feeling a strange excitement. The morning is not overly sunny; light gray clouds move about the sky. Here and there is an odd shot. A 150mm shell falls some twenty meters from our bunker without exploding; with a gurgling sound it bounces and flies across the river to fall in front of the door to the sauna. There it stays until I carry it back and put it near the bunker forbidding anyone to touch it. What a scatterbrain!
Above: Another squad of Latvian Waffen-SS troops. Not the national armshield visible on the sleeves. (Erik Rundkvist Archives).
Just after we finish breakfast, artillery starts firing from our side. Explosions cover the enemy occupied trenches. It is now time for us. Jazeps liquidates the machine-gun nest that was bothering us and keeps the rim of the heights under systematic fire. The 2nd and 3rd guns are firing as well. We see that the enemy has called for I L2 fighter bombers. Now no jokes come to mind. As soon as they get over their own lines, the grey-black birds bend down their snouts and from the flaming wing gun barrels, send shells all around us. One after another, with winking gun eyes, they rush over us and around again until all their ammunition is spent. Not doing well today! Planes suddenly appear over the wall of the spruces and cover the 200 meters in a couple of seconds. Jazeps misses them time and again..
A few moments later our aircraft observer Janis Salenieks reports: “Planes approaching from the right!” What are they? The planes have a familiar bend of wing. They are still high and far away. Then along the river bank on the other side past the broken birch grove, white rockets rise up again and again. It is clear our side is marking the enemy trench line. Nobody bothers us anymore; thank God nobody was hurt during the attack of the I L2’s. Now we follow the “Stukas” as they go into action. It seems that every soldier’s eyes were concentrating to observe this war episode. One after another, the “Stukas” point their noses at the ground and dive almost vertically. On the heights before us, gigantic stacks of explosions grow; the howling of the planes is unbelievable, it is an unrepeatable noise. The planes rise up sharply and circling around in a line, point their noses to the ground again. Afterwards the silence is interrupted by the action of our artillery. They are working on the enemy’s rear. Our combined forces manage to occupy their former positions again. No more mortars, no rockets, no howtizers, and no more enemy.
Hours later, Jazeps and I are with our (infantry) lads in the trenches. They said: “So it was you, who shot up that junk.”, (i.e. the tanks). They said they had no “Panzerfausts” in this sector. I did not know how it was there, we just did what we could. But it is still not advisable to walk about freely; the bullets are still whistling like wasps. “Better stay in the trench so you won’t get your hat ripped off’, warns a sergeant coming to us along the trench. With all the whistling wasps flying around us, we get to the tank we stopped by wrecking its track. We take off the machine-gun along with 1100 rounds and 30 hand-grenades. I leave the round pot with boiled potatoes that we found, thinking how poorly off with food they are on their side. (The author used a Latvian word, “maizite”, thinking how sadly lacking in food the Russians were to carry boiled potatoes in their tank going into battle. But using “bread” in its diminutive form, the meaning becomes an affection towards food in general, particularly bread, and displays concern that their enemy is so badly off).
Jazeps takes trophies, including an automatic sub-machine gun with the round magazine and two spares, and loaded like pack horses we go back to our crew. That was my first risky trip. There will be many more. Why? Was I inspired, driven? And so, I have looked for a battle all of my life and I have not always lost.
Leopolds Rubis
Editor’s note: The above article provides a unique view of the Velikaya River fighting from the perspective of an actual participant. My thanks to the author and translator for providing this. For a detailed overview and more complete story of the Battle for the Velikaya River, see the articles on the same and the Latvian Legion in SIEGRUNEN #43 (still available from SR for $8 + postage).
Above: Actual sketch map of the battle front and the author's own position by the author.
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