Six Miles a Day

From southern Russia the news was distressingly parallel to that from France in 1940. In six weeks the Germans had plunged 300 miles deeper into the country. Tank columns concentrated in Schwerpunke ("thrust points") where enemy lines were weakest, broke through, then mushroomed out behind them. Mechanized infantry rushed through tank-opened gaps. Dive-bombers roared overhead.

With amazing speed the main body of the German forces rumbled forward in a thousand-fingered advance encompassing new lands rich in oil, wheat and industry. The tide had surged forward at an average rate of six miles a day. Often it was 20 or 30 miles, particularly south from Rostov into the Caucasus. In 1940 the Germans had swept through the Low Countries and France at a ten-miles-a-day pace, sometimes as fast as 50 or 60 miles.

Now the defender was a better equipped, better trained army, hardened by a year of conflict and steeled by a year of hate. But still the German progress was only slightly slower than in France. At least for the moment, Russia's Maginot Line of men and tanks and guns was holding on the plains before Stalingrad. But southward the North Caucasian flatlands were suffering the same fate as the Dutch-Belgian lowlands. The Germans had wheeled south of Marshal Timoshenko's main defenses and were overrunning lightly defended territory up to the Caucasian foothills. Their swift advance down the transCaucasian railway left one body of the Red Army, probably a small one, cut off as were the British at Dunkirk. Instead of a Channel, the Black Sea was at the Russians' back. Already the Germans were bombing transports which they said the Red Army was using in a small-scale Dunkirk.

There the unhappy similarity to the Battle of France, at least for the time, stopped short. Nowhere were there signs of disintegration of the Red Army, of any flagging in the Russian will to fight; of confusion, despair and flight such as heralded the fall of France. As long as the Red Army held together, as long as the mighty Volga and its parallel railway on the east remained in Soviet hands, the Battle of Russia was not lost.

Ni Shaga Nazad. As evidence of the situation's seriousness, however, Red Star? the Army's newspaper, lengthened its slogan from "Not one step backward" (Ni shaga nazad) to "Not one step backward without order of commanders." In a moment "pregnant with great danger for our country," Red Star appealed to southern troops to maintain iron discipline from the top commanders to the lowest ranks.

In Moscow top-flight military men of the United Nations were conferring (see p. 37), undoubtedly about Russia's plight, perhaps to arrange for entry of U.S. British forces from Persia to help defend the remainder of the Caucasus and keep open the Caspian as a supply route. In northern Persia the United Nations had collected men and war materials. Behind them were a string of air bases across Iraq and Persia, at Red Sea and Indian Ocean ports. The time might be at hand for a new move--if Russia consented, for American and British soldiers to join in active defense of Soviet soil.

Eyes on Astrakhan. As the Germans hammered east from Rostov, it apeared that Nazi strategists might be planning to by-pass Stalingrad, whose defense lines for three weeks have remained relatively unchanged in the Don bend. Cutting the Volga at Astrakhan would be just as effective as servering it at Stalingrad. Between the German forces bulging east from Rostov and their river objective lie only rolling steppes, covered with slivery feather grass, ridged with few hills, marked by few towns. It is terrain eminently suitable for mechanized warfare. Part is scorching desert now, particularly as it slopes down to the salty Caspian: hard-baked land, offering scant obstacles.

Sky Tanks. On the critical front between Stalingrad and the North Caucasus the Germans smashed ahead with all their brawn and brains. Railways, supply depots and rolling stock were the particular targets of a section of the Luftwaffe detailed to pound interior supply lines. In groups of from two to 15 planes they came over, often on 15-minute schedules, led to their prey by protecting Messerschmitts. Parachutists armed with tommy-guns were dropped extensively behind the Russian lines. Planes also were dropping tanketka (baby tanks) in numbers that caused plenty of trouble unless Soviet units isolated and destroyed them. A favorite parachute tactic was to land 100 or so men near a town or rail line, attempt to hold on until break-through units arrived overland. Often they dropped into towns, trying to create panic and the belief that the town had been surrounded.

To fight parachutists the Russians used highly mobile units that could converge quickly wherever a parachute descent was reported. The civilian populace long ago had been trained to participate in such warfare. Even children were impressed with the duty to report everything they saw fluttering from the sky.

Stalingrad Under Fire. The fluid front aimed toward Astrakhan also presented a new threat to Stalingrad. A Don river crossing southwest of the city raised the menace of encirclement from that direction, though the Red Army put up a foot-by-foot defense.

From Walter Graebner, TIME correspondent in Russia, came this description of the threatened city:

"Russians are fighting for Stalingrad as they fought for Moscow and Leningrad.

"Stalingrad is the St. Louis of the Volga. The western shore is a wall of brown four-storied landing stages that look like floating Montana boardinghouses. Large-bosomed women hand out of windows. Moppets, stripped to the waist, fish for minnows with flies hooked to bent pins.

"Landing stages are nearly awash from the weight of iron and steel products ready to be shipped north or south, when fat, white side-wheelers pull up, conveyor belts immediately move incoming cargo to freight trains paralleling the river, while sunburned, sweating dockers fill up the space with outgoing materials.

"The main part of the city sprawls across a plateau which falls sharply into the river. Between the edge of the plateau and the center of the city is a narrow residential area of neat low houses and well-kept boulevards.

"The business section is an ear-shattering din of crawling tanks, trains, of street cars, lorries, motorcycles, marching men and policemen's whistles. Newly arrived troops queue up to register at various headquarters before going to the front. If they have spare time--and usually they have not--they roam into music shops to have balalaikas repaired or buy new ones, get shaved by women barbers, watch the pretty girls, have their nails manicured, or read the latest newspapers slapped on billboards. Above the sound and fury are the protecting wings of Red Air Force bombers and fighters.

"Joseph Stalin has reason to be proud of his city."

Stalin had reason to be proud of his whole nation and its Red Army, but he had equal reason to fear that the German Juggernaut, as in France, could not be stopped until too many wellsprings of Russian oil, iron and food supplies had been lost, too many waterways and railroads had been cut, too many Russian soldiers had bled to death on the southern steppes. The next few weeks would tell.

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