Poor Knock - Paul Knock, corporal of the 193rd Infantry Regiment of the 18th Division.

Boris Ivanov. Poor Knock

Paul Knock, Corporal, 193rd Infantry Regiment, 18th Division,
medical commission in the spring of 1943 transferred from the first
fitness category in the second and has not served since then
in the first line troops, and at headquarters, where he, among others
duties, carried to battalion command posts
daily mail, October 17, 1943 was killed. Rifle
the bullet hit him in the collarbone and, sliding higher, interrupted the arteria
cardis. Doctors believe that in this case death occurs
instantly.

The shot was fired by Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, before the war
worked as a mechanic at the rope factory named after October 25. He
recently graduated from courses and joined the sniper squad of the 316th
rifle regiment.

Friedrich Koch, the machine gunner on duty, was the first to notice the body
fellow soldier Paul Knock. He reported what happened to the commander
company to Chief Lieutenant Schelling. "Poor Knock!" - said
Schelling and asked to connect him with the battalion commander.
The battalion commander was not near the phone, message
received by a signalman who, without hanging up, called back
duty officer of the regiment headquarters. "Poor Knock!" - said the officer,
whose responsibilities, by the way, included drawing up reports
about losses incurred, preparation of papers related to
deduction from the regiment personnel, and sending things
and documents to the relatives of the murdered person.

"Are you sure this is a Russian sniper?" - he asked.
"Single shot" -said the signalman, realizing that there were no
no other additions are required in this case. Officer
thanked and reported what had happened to Major Ratner,
the artillery fire manager at the regiment's site. Ratner
looked at the diagram of the fire and gave it through Peter Goethe, his
telephone operator, ordering three batteries to prepare for
artillery attack on a 17X14 square.

Ivan Pavlov was not sure that his bullet reached its target.
Several machine gun bursts that followed
shot, showed that the Krauts did not detect his cover. But,
as experienced snipers recommended, he immediately went to the bottom,
without even reloading the rifle. He knew - it was known
in the trenches to everyone - that for every successful sniper shot the Germans
responded with a punitive fire raid. And if there's a raid soon
will follow, that is, by shooting at the gray spot that flashed
in the crosshairs, he didn't miss.

Pavlov turned over on his back and began chewing bread, looking at
gray cloudy sky, relaxing the eye muscles. That's what they advised
do at school.

By 9.30 the batteries reported to Major Ratner that they were ready to conduct
fire in a 17X14 square. To the regimental commander, Colonel Hochdorfer
have already reported that an artillery attack will be carried out in response to
sniper activity. He looked away from the book he was reading,
nodded and asked who was killed. “Corporal Knock,” he received
answer. "Poor Knock!" - said the colonel and looked at his watch.

Private Pakhomov heard a shot from a snipertrench,
advanced towards the enemy by 25 meters. "Pavlov
shot," he said to Sergeant Ivanov, who was heading
to the foreman, his fellow countryman from Kursk, to drink tea. Ivanov
looked towards the German trenches and disappeared around the bend
trench.

At 9.45 the second, third and fourth batteries fired the first
volley Of the twelve 88-mm shells fired, ten
exploded between the trenches, one fell into a bomb crater,
left over from the spring of last year, where the company commander was set up
toilet, the twelfth hit the parapet, behind which there was
Private Pakhomov, but did not explode.

Private Zaitsev was killed in the toilet.

According to the documents of the Zaitsev, born in 1921, by education
industrial engineer, married, has a child, awards and convictions
does not have.

A minute later a second salvo followed. Two shells destroyed
part of the second line trench, the wire connecting
company command posts, and machine gunner Semyon was shell-shocked
Alexandrovich Makarov. He did not leave his post even later
received gratitude from the battalion commander.

During the third salvo, not twelve were fired, but
eleven shells. This happened because on one of
guns of the second battery, the cartridge case jammed in the barrel chamber. Second
and the third crew number as directed by gun commander Willie
Brahms removed the cartridge case with a hand extractor, but the gun was already
fired without any problems until the order “Shroud the guns!”

The next day the gunner of the batterySchmidt produced
checking the ejection mechanism of the gun, but obvious defects
didn't find it. He suggested that the gunpowder charge, apparently,
damp and therefore the barrel rollback was not complete. This and
it is explained that the automatic ejector did not work.

Battery ammunition was checked: conditions
storage and correct sorting according to the dates of their factory
manufacturing. No violations of the rules were found, as reported
The battery commander, Captain Walecki, reported to the authorities.

The commander of the 316th Infantry Regiment Martynov called
command post of battalion commander Major Platonov: “What’s that noise there
at yours?" Platonov said that most likely the Germans produce
fire raid, no enemy movements were noticed.
Martynov reported the fire raid to the division headquarters himself, so
how I wanted to find out along the way when reinforcements would arrive to the unit.

Chief of Staff of the Division Usvyatsev, recently awarded the second
Order of the Red Star, asked the artillery commander
Lieutenant Colonel Krulev, who was located right there in the basement, where
headquarters was located, did he know the location of the German
batteries firing at the positions of the 316th regiment. Krulev
answered: "Yes." But to fire on every occasion, Lieutenant Colonel
considered unnecessary, since it reveals the location
own batteries, what - for such tactics - the commander
division once remarked: “For you, the best guns are those that
They don't shoot."

Usvyatsev didseveral calls to find out if there is
the need to open counter-battery fire. Lieutenant Colonel
Krulev headed by message to the artillery reconnaissance officers.

Sergeant Ivanov was killed while heading away from the dugout
foreman Paramonov to the dugout of company commander Malofeev.
A shell fragment cut him almost in half. Sergeant Ivanov
I thought that the blood flowed like a river.

The crews of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th batteries continued to fire. After
fifteen salvos, they knew it was customary to pause for fire
one and a half to two minutes. This had a positive effect on the condition
material part of the guns, and in these one and a half to two minutes
the enemy can, while awaiting a sortie, take up positions in their trenches.
While they will again take refuge in dugouts and dugouts,
the shells will cause them additional losses.

Teachers pointed out the advisability of fire breaks
artillery and infantry schools around the world. And now,
continuing to fire, the gun crews glanced at the commanders
batteries

The shell of the fourteenth salvo, fired by a gun with
there was a delay with the ejector, it got into the chimney of the dugout
1st company of the second battalion 31 of the 6th regiment. At this time here
there were ordinary Potapovs, before the war a person without certain
classes, Sidorov Mikhail Petrovich, cutter at the Tribuna factory,
big fan of choral singing, Platonov, namesake
battalion commander, and Corporal Ovchinnikov, who believed
that people die in waronly because of my stupidity.
Potapov, Sidorov, Platonov were killed. Ovchinnikov unharmed
thrown through the door of the dugout.

At 10.00 there was no command to continue fire. But on
a belated shot rang out from the second battery: the crew of one
guns did not keep up with the rate of fire. On other batteries
when they heard the shot, they smiled.

Lieutenant Colonel Krulev was called to the telephone as soon as he entered
to the division's artillery reconnaissance dugout. Chief of Staff
Usvyatsev, recently awarded the second Order of the Red Star,
reported that orders had been received for a retaliatory raid on
German batteries. Krulev said that in five minutes he
will open fire.

Senior Lieutenant Kandyba, commander of a reconnaissance platoon,
placed before the start a map with marks about the intended
the location of the batteries currently firing. Krulev on the phone
dictated their coordinates to his assistant captain Vorobyov.
He, in turn, handed them over to the commanders of two 75-mm batteries
guns and a battery of 122-mm howitzers and set the time for the first salvo.

The commander of the 1st howitzer battery, Captain Kutuzov, stated that he
can fire only from two guns, since the other two
under repair, as he already reported. Captain Vorobiev said:
“Everything is not good with you, thank God,” and he indicated that the execution should be carried out
shells based on firing with all four guns.

The commander of the 2nd company, Captain Malofeev, left without accompanying
from your command post andheaded into the trench first
lines. He first met Semyon Alexandrovich Makarov,
who lost his hearing due to concussion. Captain Malofeev
decided to express gratitude to Private Makarov, who,
despite the shell shock, he did not leave his post. Then he
met Sergeant Major Paramonov, who, together with private
Pakhomov carried the murdered Sergeant Ivanov on his overcoat. Captain
Malofeev examined the German positions through binoculars. Corporal
Ovchinnikov told how he got into the chimney of his dugout
projectile “Fool,” thought the company commander. How is he already
reported that there was no movement in the Germans' disposition
was not observed.

“Poor Knock,” thought the commander of the infantry regiment of the 18th division
Hochdor-fer, when after the break I heard it again
artillery shooting. But he immediately mentally corrected himself, because
shots came from the Russian side.

Shells from a howitzer battery, half of whose guns were
under repair, exploded at the location of the transport company
engineer battalion of the 18th Infantry Division. The projectile was
two horses were killed and a woodpile of firewood was scattered.

The coordinates obtained by the other two batteries are only partially
coincided with the location of the German batteries participating
in a punitive fire raid: the shells of the 1st battery landed
on the right, and the 2nd battery - with a flight of 300 meters.
But the howitzer battery destroyed the
transport company of the engineer battalion, which found itself under
fireaccidentally.

Two Opel cargo trucks and a fuel warehouse were destroyed
and cement. Corporal Vogel, who received a medal for bravery,
demonstrated during the crossing of the Narva River, tried
take my car out of the car park, but gave up this idea,
when shells exploded again at the battalion's location.
Battalion commander Major Knysch, a member of the Nazi Party since 1923
year, reported to division headquarters that if the Russians were allowed to
half an hour to shoot his battalion, then nothing will come from him
will remain.

In agreement with the aviation representative, Major Knorring
Lieutenant Nuschke, who piloted his Focke-Wulf in the area
Sinyavinsky swamps, received an order to determine the coordinates
guns firing in the Kolpino area. Nushka reported
about receiving the order and changed the flight course from the north-west
to the west. In the Kolpino area the cloud cover was lower, and he
it was necessary to accurately calculate the output to the batteries so that
avoid being targeted by small-caliber fire
automatic guns.

Ivan Pavlov at the bottom of the trench was burning cotton wool with a crystal
wick and extinguished. Experienced snipers warned: if you smoke,
you will be dead.

A car was burning at the location of the transport company.

The batteries of 75 mm guns were supposed to be firing at
German fascists.

Lieutenant Colonel Krulev, who was considered an intriguer in the division,
I guessed that the battery fire did not cause damage to the enemy.
Sergeant Major Nagel, he was valued for his knowledgehistory of Rome,
collected into a knapsack the personal belongings of the murdered Corporal Knock, which
will then be sent to the family of the murdered person:
- a stack of letters,
- two photos with my wife and children
- nickel silver cigarette case,
- novel “I was with them” in a glided cover,
- Gospel,
- plastic ball,
- a deck of playing cards.

Corporal Ovchinnikov, who, by order of Malofeyev, replaced Semyon
Alexandrovich Makarov, who will soon be announced
gratitude for the fact that, having received a shell shock, he did not leave
his post, smiled stupidly and repeated:
"My dear mother, my dear mother!"
A shell from a howitzer battery that has half the guns
was under repair, Major Willie Feth was killed - before the war he
practiced in the amateur boxing section, weight up to 70 kg, and was wounded
his comrade Otto Mayer, penetrating wound of the left lung.
Otto Mayer is blond.

Artillery reconnaissance observer Likhodeev, by rank
sergeant - he was in the factory chimney, a third
destroyed, - reported that he saw black in the disposition of the Germans
smoke. Lieutenant Colonel Krulev immediately reported this to his superior
headquarters and proposed to increase the fire with other guided batteries
to the smoke. Division commander Sokolov noticed that the guns were not burning
and that Krulev was tasked with suppressing enemy fire
batteries, the performance of which is still not felt.

Lieutenant Nuschke warned the observer - the second member
crew - that the descent will now begin. The cloud layer turned out to beat 800 meters level. When the Focke-Wulf passed the clouds,
a shell from the battery in which Willie Brahms served - the next
the day he will have the ejection mechanism checked
shell casings - Captain Vorobyov, who came out of the dugout, was slightly wounded
without much need.

Captain Vorobyov will soon return to duty, will marry
hospital nurse Lyuba and will be killed in Courland through
one year and one day.

“Achtung, achtung,” the Focke-Wulf radio began to work.
Below the plane stretched a plain, which now, when
the grass withered - the trees were destroyed by artillery fire
or went to build defensive lines and shelters, -
looked like a large-scale topographic map. Everyone
the hillock of the earth and every depression on it were marked
concentration of craters - bomb, shell, mine - and
every rise and fall of the terrain was articulated
trenches, communication passages, bunkers, battery positions,
warehouses, barbed wire and gouges. All this gray
the plain from a height of eight hundred meters was a drawing,
the purpose of lines and points on which was less and less a secret
as she became, in simple terms, essentially
rules, defensive line.

But for Nuschke and his colleague Gustav Berger, the task was not
in unraveling the Russian defense system, it has long been
is already known, but to find two 122 mm howitzers in it,
locationCaptain Kutuzov, rather elderly, bald,
a melancholic individual, a non-drinker, suffering from hemorrhoids,
and his subordinates firing at the engineer battalion of Major
Knysh, a member of the Nazi Party since 1923. Here is a list of these
subordinates:
I. P. Rybnikov (does not smoke), S. T. Alisherov (married), G. M. Chudikov
(fitter), R.V. Vokhrushchev (writes poetry), B.M. Levitsky (Jew),
Yu. L. Shor (has a separate apartment in Moscow), G. R. Ivanov,
M.K. Ivanov, F.D. Ivanov, A.V. Mukhametdinov (loader),
K. N. Nikolaev, 3. I. Shulman (19 years old).

Lieutenant Nuschke and his colleague - radio operator-machine gunner -
at the same time they noticed how ahead, behind the rectangle
former railway warehouse, ran microscopic
figures around the same microscopic mechanisms.

The lieutenant pulled the wheel towards himself and said: “Gustav, don’t
do you know why our little Germany is so saddled with this
pig giant and why our mighty Reich
haven’t been able to knock out this pockmarked woman yet?”

A 37-mm shell exploded right in the cockpit of the Focke-Wulf when
he had already entered the clouds. The plane crashed at fifteen
kilometers from the warehouse behind which the anti-aircraft gun stood
battery.

A downed Focke-Wulf after heated arguments between commanders
anti-aircraft batteries was assigned to the combat account of the 85-mm battery
guns of the 13th anti-aircraft division, and now, forty years later,
in the red corner of this division we can see
number 7 - numbershot down during the war by a battery of aircraft
enemy, while the "frame" was supposed to be listed
behind the MZA division of the air defense forces.

This is the only (though indirect and incorrect) public
and the protected life certificate of Lieutenant Nuschke
and sergeant major Gustav Berger. In Germany even this
there is no evidence.

The first to finish firing was the howitzer battery, which was completely
used up the quota of scarce 122-mm shells. Two others
the batteries stopped firing after the German batteries
stopped firing at the positions of the 316th Infantry Regiment.
A total of 1,059 shells were fired from both sides.

Results of the artillery battle on October 17, 1943 near Kolpino:
9 people killed -
A. K. Abramtsev, private,
G. Berger, sergeant major,
P. S. Zaitsev, private,
I. I. Ivanov, sergeant,
R. Knock, Corporal,
O. Mayer, private,
R. Nuschke, lieutenant,
S. S. Potapov, private,
M. P. Sidorov, private.

The Russians lost one more man, but the Germans
suffered greater material damage: four horses were killed,
750 meters of barbed wire, 17 bags were rendered unusable
cement, two cars were damaged, and one burned completely.
The Russians suffered one earthen shelter, which by nightfall
was corrected, and Corporal Ovchinnikov took his former
a trestle bed, although I could have chosen another one.

It gets dark quickly in October. But the clouds cleared, and Ivan
Pavlov had to lie down in the trench for an extra hour.When
it got dark, he moved into the trench, frightening Pakhomov, although he
knew that at this time the snipers were returning from an ambush.

Pavlov laughed quietly. Everyone returns a little after the ambush
crazy.