Writing exercise VIII, July 1942
18 July evening. Into battle \u2013 At rest by the Louwat. Bunker construction. <\/i><\/p>\n
We did not have to wait long for Ivan\u2019s next action; he apparently intended to strike while the iron was hot, believing that we were worn down after his constant hammering on our lines over the past day, with forces far superior to ours.<\/p>\n
Already the same day, at dusk\u2014when it was neither fully light nor fully dark, but rather more dark than light\u2014he again launched an attack on our H.K.L. with very strong infantry forces, supported by artillery and mortars, whose shells rained down on us.
Now Per and I were thrown fully into the fighting, because he (Ivan) struck directly at our entire H.K.L., thereby placing the command post in immediate danger, as the foremost enemy at one point was only about a hundred metres from it.
Just a few minutes after the firing began, we moved out with the machine gun together with the group leader, who was carrying a submachine gun. <\/p>\n
The moment we stuck our heads out of the bunker we were under fire. Shells exploded all around us, and bullets from rifles and machine guns flew past our ears by the thousands.
They had been fired at close range\u2014we felt that immediately. In the twilight, the enemy had crept so close to our forward positions without being noticed in the dense, low scrub forest that they could surprise us by opening fire at a distance of 25\u201350 metres.
But our never-sleeping men were ready, and they were immediately given a warm reception.
When we made it through the hail of bullets to the positions, we had of course not given up a single inch of terrain, which we also had not expected.
From the bunker we jumped, crawled, and dragged ourselves forward through the sea of fire. Behind a large thick tree we paused for a moment to assess how we should continue our difficult advance.
We were to reach a specified bunker position in the H.K.L., considered the weakest point because losses had already been suffered there, and because the enemy, using the scrub in front of us (which reached all the way to our positions), could creep in unseen and suddenly get right up to our posts. <\/p>\n
When we stood up to move on, Per suddenly burst into laughter\u2014quite uncontrollably. I looked at him in surprise, because I could see no reason to laugh, even though we were in a fighting mood; it was a serious situation after all.
I quickly realized that he was laughing at me, and soon I had to join in myself, because when I looked down at myself I discovered that, apart from my face, I was covered from head to toe in human excrement.
The mystery was solved when we realized that the tree we had taken cover behind had been used as a shelter and cover by men relieving themselves.
It was strange that the smell had not already made me aware of it. <\/p>\n
Writing exercise IX, July\u2013August 1942
First day at rest by the Louwat. On the train in Latvia, in front of Riga. <\/i><\/p>\n
Per and I, together with our mutual good friend, 1st MG gunner Peter Lorentzen, built our first dwelling, where we were to live together with our capable group leader, Unterscharf\u00fchrer Laursen.
It was not exactly a work of art. <\/p>\n
Writing exercise X, August\u2013October 1942
Arrival at Omlau \u2013 leave \u2013 return to Omlau <\/i><\/p>\n
In the afternoon we reached Riga. We saw nothing of the city itself beyond what we could glimpse from the railway station, where we only had a short stop.
After that we left this old and famous capital and rolled on further south, without any idea that we were already very close to our destination. <\/p>\n
Writing exercise XIII, December 1942
On the march toward Pureby \u2013 at the bridge guard. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2273,"template":"","personer":[104],"class_list":["post-2435","litteratur_og_kilder","type-litteratur_og_kilder","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","personer-aage-mariegaard"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/litteratur_og_kilder\/2435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/litteratur_og_kilder"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/litteratur_og_kilder"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"personer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/personer?post=2435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}