Sniper on the Eastern Front - The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger Knights Cross by Albrecht Wacker

Author:Albrecht Wacker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Balmy Days on the Dniester

3.G.D., desperately short of men and weapons, received a token influx, mainly survivors from other divisions, which helped little. We were also given a stiffening of Rumanian units. Our Axis ally was very poorly equipped and armed, lacked battle experience and proved of equally limited value. On 17 April 1944, only ten days after our arrival on the Dniester, orders came for a third of 3.G.D. to bolster another sector of the front under serious threat. It was my good fortune to remain behind on this occasion, for G.J.R. 138 'Kampfgruppe Rohde' was to suffer fearful casualties with over 800 dead.

For a few weeks I enjoyed halcyon days with the remainder of the division. May was a warm, gentle month, and after the troubles we had gone through to get here, our front line with a river view on the banks of the Dniester came as a delightful surprise.

Germans and Russians faced each other across the river within the range of heavy infantry weapons, but limited their hostilities to the occasional exchange of mortar and MG-fire and the odd commando raid to break the monotony. The river was about 400 metres wide and did not allow for reconnaissance outings by snipers. I visited the battalion trenches daily but did no more than fire the occasional precision shot at targets spotted by our infantry. Aiming at a Soviet head 400 metres off had a 30 per cent chance of a hit, but the effect on morale of 70 per cent hair's breadth misses from a sniper's rifle made the effort worthwhile. As regular as clockwork I made my calls on the trenches. The Russians had been lying low for days, for they were loath to show themselves once they had received notice that an expert sniper was present in the German lines opposite. That particular morning I had been with the MG-gunners surveying the enemy positions without

finding a worthwhile target, and decided to pass the afternoon at the northern end of the battalion's trenches. I rarely went there, for they overlooked a bend in the river a kilometre wide, and I considered them valueless. Sometimes the belligerents exchanged MG bursts, but the range was far too long for a rifle.

In our positions the mood was rather like a holiday camp. The May heat wave had gone on and on, and we had become accustomed to stripping to the waist to soak up the sunshine. Improvised showers had been rigged using the waters of the Dniester and wonderful small picnics of ship's biscuit, tinned marmalade and ersatz coffee were quite common. At the northernmost trench I was invited to partake, the fare being all the more delicious for having been 'liberated' from the Kubelwagen of two artillery officers who had visited the area the day before on a reconnaissance outing. During the conversation, an MG-gunner mentioned hearing unusual sounds borne on the wind from the Russian side of the river. He thought the nearest thing to it he had ever heard was at a municipal outdoor swimming pool on a bank holiday weekend.

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