The kind of foe the US Army might meet in the next major war, S.L.A. Marshall explains, in The Soldier’s Load and the Mobilty of a Nation, was outlined by Lieut. Gen. Sir Giffard Martel, chief of the British Military Mission to Russia in World War 2:
He wrote: “The rank and file [of the Red Army] were magnificent from a physical point of view. Much of the equipment which we carry on vehicles accompanying the infantry are carried on the man’s back in Russia. The Russians seem capable of carrying these great loads. They are exceptionally tough.
“Many of them arr1ved on September 6 and slept on the ground. It was bitterly cold and a little snow had fallen. The men had no blankets. But when we saw them on September 7 they were getting up and shaking themselves and seemed in good heart. Not a word was said about the cold. Two meals a day seemed to suffice for these troops.”
This was the discipline to which Russian soldiers were being submitted during a training maneuver.
There is other abundant testimony as to how this extraordinary physical vigor and ability to endure against adverse climate which is to be found in the average Russian individual redounds to the strength of tactical forces. I have dealt with many German generals who commanded on the Eastern Front. They said, as did Martel, that the Russian seems to be inured to unusual cold, just as he seems conditioned by nature to living with the forest, and using it in all possible ways to advance his own fighting and baffle his enemies. One of these generals told of surrounding a Russian regiment along the Volkhov in the 1941 winter campaign. The Russians were in a small forest. The Germans decided to starve them out. After 10 days, German patrols found that the enemy resistance had in no wise lessened. Another week passed; a few prisoners had been taken but the majority of the entrapped regiment had succeeded in breaking through the German lines in small groups. The prisoners said that during these weeks the encircled force had subsisted on a few loaves of frozen bread, leaves and pine needles. The weather was 35° below zero. According to the prisoners, the junior leaders had never even raised the point that this cold and hunger were a sufficient reason for surrender.
General Eisenhower wrote of his own feeling of shock on hearing Marshal Zhukov say that the Russians did not bother to clear minefields; thev marched their infantry across the mined area and took their losses.
In 1943, southeast of Kremenchug, the Germans were holding a bridgehead in such strength that they felt certain of holding against the attack which they expected the Russians to loose the following morning. But by night the enemy fanned out over their rear area and collected hundreds of their own civilians, herding them forward at rifle point. When the attack began, this mass was driven forward as a cushion to absorb the German fire. As they were mowed down, the Russian infantry rolled over them and into the bridgehead.
Said Colonel Joachim Peiper, who had fought through three years on the Eastern Front: “On defense the Russian surpasses any soldier I know. Excellent choice of ground, unimaginable diggings combined with good camouflage and unusual depth in the fighting zone are among his characteristics. Every infantryman carries anti-tank grenades. Snipers are effective up to 800 yards. The infantrymen are tough, persistent and given to weight carrying. In a retreat, they will hand-carry their dead to obscure casualty figures.”
Peiper recounted how during the 1941–42 winter, the Russian command published an order decreeing death by the firing squad for any soldier so careless that he allowed himself to becomefrostbitten. Some men suffered this misfortune but were afraid to report it. The Germans came across them in the lines with their hands completely frozen. They were bundled in anything they could get to keep warmth in their bodies. A nail sticking out between the fingers of the right hand enabled them to work the rifle trigger.
The Eisenhower story about the Russian mine-clearing method is topped by Peiper’s account of how the Reds dropped sabotage crews behind the German lines during this same winter. They were flown over in old double-wing planes. While the planes glided ten feet or so above the snow the troops were pushed from them without anything to cushion the shock. The greater number were cracked-up and subsequently died of freezing. The survivors carried out the order.
This came from another witness, General Hasso-Eccard Manteuffel, who later commanded the Fifth Panzer Army on the Western Front: “Their advance is unlike anything ever seen in operations between western armies. The soldier carries a sack on his back with dry crusts and raw vegetables collected on the march. The horses forage where they can. You can’t stop them like an ordinary army by cutting their communications, for you rarely find any supply columns to strike.”
