Stalingrad by Michael K. Jones

Author:Michael K. Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Stalingrad
ISBN: 9781848842014
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2010-10-02T16:00:00+00:00

Storming the Mamaev Kurgan

The most powerful act performed by the Red Army in mid-September was to launch an aggressive counter-attack to recapture the Mamaev Kurgan. The clash was fought out in the open, with all the advantages held by the Germans. The Russians made their assault in daylight, attacking up the slopes of the hill towards a well-defended enemy position, in the teeth of a devastating air and artillery bombardment. The attack could not possibly succeed.

And yet somehow, it did. Incredibly, the red flag was hoisted above the water towers on the Kurgan’s summit. The message to doubters in the army was unmistakable: we are here to stay. As Chuikov said: ‘We decided that we would hold on to the Mamaev Kurgan, whatever happened.’

Ivan Schylaev was artillery co-ordinator for the attack and watched the whole assault through his binoculars: ‘The story of how we recaptured the Kurgan is usually told incorrectly’, he said. Unfortunately, Chuikov made a slip in his memoirs, muddling up different regiments of the 13th Guards, and this mistake has been repeated in subsequent histories of the battle. Speaking of the night of 15 September, the 62nd Army’s commander recollected: ‘We were all concerned about the fate of Mamaev Kurgan. I ordered Yelin’s 42nd Regiment, which was still on the other side of the Volga, to be ferried across that night and to be sent to the Kurgan.’ He then added: ‘On the morning of September 16 Yelin’s 42nd Regiment took the Mamaev Kurgan. Close engagements, or rather skirmishes to the death, began and continued on the Kurgan until the end of January 1943.’

Schylaev clarified the situation:

The leading battalions of the 42nd Regiment crossed the river on the afternoon of 14 September, and the remainder that same night, along with the 34th Regiment. Their task was to erect a defence line in the central part of the town and stop the Germans reaching the Volga, and it was a reconnaissance battalion from the 42nd Regiment which briefly recaptured the railway station during the night of 14 September. But it was my own regiment, the 39th, which crossed the Volga twenty-four hours later, during the night of15 September, and took up positions close to the Mamaev Kurgan, ready for an attack the following morning.

In the early hours of the morning Chuikov met with the regiment and explained the importance of his daunting order. Schylaev recalled:

He talked informally with our regimental commander and was frank with him – Chuikov was under no illusions how difficult this was going to be – promising him all the support he could muster. We would be reinforced by a tank brigade and an infantry regiment from the 112th Division. Then he walked round, speaking simply but forcefully to clusters of our soldiers. I heard snippets of his conversation: ‘We have to retake the Mamaev Kurgan – everything depends on it’, ‘If you are going to sell your lives, sell them dearly.’

Over the passage of time Chuikov became unsure of the regiment’s number, but he never forgot the experience of meeting with its soldiers.

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