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This is the thought which occupies our minds as we fly sortie after sortie against the Red fortress. The section of the city held by the Soviets borders immediately on the west bank of the Volga, and every night the Russians drag everything needed by the Red Guardsmen across the Volga. Bitter fighting rages for a block of houses, for a single cellar, for a bit of factory wall. We have to drop our bombs with painstaking accuracy because our own soldiers are only a few yards away in another cellar behind debris of another wall.

On our photographic maps of the city every house is distinguishable. Each pilot is given his target precisely marked with a red arrow. We fly in, map in hand, and it is forbidden to release a bomb before we have made sure of the target and the exact position of our own troops. Flying over the western pant of the city far behind the front, one is struck peculiarly by the quiet prevailing there and by the almost normal traffic. Everyone, including civilians, go about their business as if the city were far behind the front. The whole western part is now in. our hands, only the small eastern quarter of the city towards the Volga contains these Russian nests of resistance and is the scene of our most furious assaults. Often the Russian flak dies down in the afternoon, presumably because by then they have used up the ammunition brought up across the river the night before. On the other bank of the Volga the Ivans take off from a few fighter airfields and try to hamper our attacks on the Russian part of Stalingrad. They seldom push home the pursuit above our positions, and generally turn back as soon as they no longer have their own troops below them. Our airfield lies close to the city, and when flying in formation we have to circuit once or twice in order to gain a certain height. That is enough for the Soviet air intelligence to warn their A.A. defense. The way things are going I dislike the idea of being away from my flight for a single hour; there is too much at stake, we feel that instinctively. This time I am physically at bend or breaking point, but to report sick now means the loss of my command, and this fear gives me additional stamina. After a fortnight in which I feel more as if 1 were in Hades than on earth, I gradually recover my strength. In between we fly sorties in the northern sector north of the city where the front joins the Don. A few times we attack targets near Beketowa. Here especially the flak is extraordinarily heavy, the sorties are difficult. According to statements taken from captured Russians the A.A. guns here are served exclusively by women. When the day’s mission takes us here our crews always say: “We’ve a date with the flak girls to-day.” This is in no way derogatory, for all of us who have already been there know how accurately they fire.

At regular intervals we attack the northern bridges over the Don. The biggest of these is near the village of Kletskaja and this bridgehead on the west bank of the Don is most vigilantly defended by flak. Prisoners tell us that the H.Q. of a command is located here. The bridgehead is constantly being extended and every day the Soviets pour in more men and material. Our destruction of these bridges delays these reinforcements, but they are able to replace them relatively quickly with pontoons so that the maximum traffic across the river is soon fully restored.

Up here on the Don the line is mainly held by Rumanian units. Only in the actual battle area of Stalingrad stands the German 6th Army.

One morning after the receipt of an urgent report our Wing takes off in the direction of the bridgehead at Kletskaja. The weather is bad: low lying clouds, a light fall of snow, the temperature probably 20 degrees below zero; we fly low. What troops are those coming towards us? We have not gone more than half way. Masses in brown uniforms—are they Russians? No. Rumanians. Some of them are even throwing away their rifles in order to be able to run the faster: a shocking sight, we are prepared for the worst. We fly the length of the column heading north, we have now reached our allies’ artillery emplacements. The guns are abandoned, not destroyed. Their ammunition lies beside them. We have passed some distance beyond them before we sight the first Soviet troops.

They find all the Rumanian positions in front of them deserted. We attack with bombs and gun-fire but how much use is that when there is no resistance on the ground?