… The clothes they had worn then made them look like awkward bears, but they were warm, much warmer than the Germans or Rumanians. Their hats, with short visors to accommodate their helmets, had earflaps that encircled all but nose and eyes. The sheepskin coats were bulky and hung below their knees, and their weight made fast movement difficult, but it was preferable to freezing to death. The Volga was already filled with ice flows, and it would get much colder before the next offensive was over. They had warm gloves that were pliable enough to allow them freedom of movement, but the best- part of their uniforms were their valenki, the felt-covered, padded boots. It was said that armies traveled on their stomachs, but since there was little food the 62nd Army managed to get by with warm feet. The Germans they were able to capture could not run because their feet had frozen in their straw-stuffed boots, worthless protection in the Russian winter.
The photo had been taken between one of the many pitched battles during the street fighting in Stalingrad. They were standing near the Central Railroad Station, a place that General Chuikov had decided would be a "must hold" position. It was near Mamai Hill, another of the bluffs in the city that had seesawed back and forth. They were not allowed to give up the station as long as they were still alive.
That was another order that had been forgotten with time. Russians in Stalingrad had to be dead before they gave ground.
It had been decreed that the city would be the turning point of the war. If they did not stop the advance here, then the Germans would move on the Baku oil fields. They had been told they had only two obligations to the state — continue to fight or die. The Germans seemed to be of the same mind. They fought fiercely, giving up an attack only when there was no one left to fight. The Rumanians to the north and the Italians to the south, who were fighting for the Germans, were not as motivated. They preferred to take their chances as prisoners. They did not fear the torture the German soldiers expected if they were captured. Himmler's doctrine of Untermensch, the Commissar Decree of May 1941, ordered all Russian political officials and army political commissars killed on capture. The German soldiers expected no less.
The Admiral's thoughts drifted back to the early days of the war, after Hitler had surprised Stalin by striking on three fronts. Gorenko had been a young captain of his own destroyer in the Black Sea Reel. He had been too junior to be caught up in the purges of 1937 and 1938, and the loss of so many of his superiors had created a rapid career path for him. He had then been made a commander of a squadron of destroyers, and when the Germans were sweeping into the Odessa region he had been charged with organizing the "sailor army." It was September, 1941, and his sailors had delayed the Germans until late October. The plan was to slow them down as much as possible until they were stopped completely by the Russian winter.
They had evacuated the sailors after Odessa fell. Then they became part of the Azov Flotilla, trying to keep the supply lanes open through the Azov Sea and up the Don near Stalingrad. He had organized the Kerch Landing in the struggle to save Sebastopol. The German armies were relentless and their tanks gradually drove the Russians back to the sea. But they held the city through the winter, effectively stalling Hitler's advance until the spring. It was Gorenko's sailor army that had fought the Germans 50 bravely, time and again throwing back the advances and taking such heavy losses. They were forced to evacuate Kerch in May of that year and in July of 1942 Sebastopol finally fell. There were few of those sailor soldiers left. The citizens never forgot the brave "five sailors of Sebastopol" who threw themselves under advancing German tanks. It was a defense of the homeland and each sailor was committed to die on land or sea.
On his wall, next to the photo from Stalingrad, was the simple message found on the body of one of his sailors at Firing Point Number Eleven:
Russia, my country, my native land! Dear Comrade Stalin! I, a Black Sea sailor, and a son of Lenin's Komsomol, fought as my heart told me to fight. I slew the beasts as long as my heart beat in my breast. Now I am dying, but I know we shall win. Sailors of the Black Sea Navy! Fight harder still, kill the mad fascist dogs. I have been faithful to my soldier's oath.
No one ever passed through his office without having it pointed out. Gorenko expected no less of his sailors forty years later.
By August, they had lost control of the Azov Sea to the Germans, and Gorenko led his small band of survivors toward Stalingrad, where the final stand would be made. If the Germans took Stalin's city and captured the oil fields, then the war was lost. Word of mouth preceded him as he led his men up the Don, skirmishing with German elements as they made their way to the next front. They did not go hungry, for the peasants brought what little they had to the sailors, whose commander was already a myth.
He lost more men at Kalach when they successfully destroyed a German fuel depot, the primary one the Panzer divisions depended on in the struggle for Stalingrad. Then, they captured a freight train and ran it along the canal to the great city. They arrived during the hardest month, October, the month in which General Paulus knew he must capture the city or face another cruel winter. The defenses had already pulled within the city limits and reinforcements from the Volga's eastern bank found themselves instantly in the front lines. The heroes were greeted for five minutes and then immediately sent to General Gorishnyi's 62nd Army, a unit already famous in its own right. Perhaps Chuikov had realized that the two heroic units should be charged with defending that part of the city — that protected the supply paths over the Volga behind them. At any rate, the remainder of those sailors who had left their ships to defend Odessa, Sebastapol, and now Stalingrad would never again see the Black Sea. They died defending Mamai Hill, and a Central Railroad Station that was already unrecognizable when they got there.
There was a sharp knocking at his door. "Yes." His aide entered, saluting as he stepped inside. "A report from Admiral Kupinsky, sir."
Gorenko nodded, not answering, as was his habit. "Two aircraft were sent to harass the Americans. They fired missiles from long range making one hit on a cruiser. Little damage reported. One of the Rigas was brought down by a low-level missile we were unaware of. The remaining aircraft successfully evaded the others."
"Is there any sign of Nimitz yet, or any of her screening or supply ships'?"
"Nothing, Admiral."
He pondered for a moment, then looked up to the aide. "Message to Admiral Kupinsky — continue harrassment. Sacrifice if necessary to determine any other new weapon systems."
"At once, Admiral." He wheeled and left, shutting the door quietly behind him and leaving Gorenko to his thoughts again.
Gorenko rose from behind his desk and moved over to the windows, looking into the courtyard below. The snow had stopped, and there were already many footprints through the light dusting. Soon, flakes would again drift down, erasing those prints and making room for new wanderers, though there were few in this section of the Kremlin. A brief flash of midday sun glanced off one of the domes on the Cathedral of the Archangel. He turned and looked directly at the photo.
The smells came back to him again, the gut-wrenching odor of death that hung over the city no matter where you were, and the calming blend of black bread and cabbage and makhorka tobacco in the basement command post. They had lost Mamai Hill once again and the General had been forced to move his headquarters. A fuel-storage depot had been bombed and burning oil was running into the basements. It was quiet outside because the Germans did not usually attack during the day. Gorenko was eating a hasty meal with Kupinsky, the young sergeant who had just been made lieutenant to replace the last officer in his unit who had been killed that morning.