Evening star., 1942-10-15

VOLS eyes lighted, his Jaw shut tight.
He made q swift gesture with q
closed fist.
by moral force" he declared, in a
ringing voice. Then, with a second
iron-fisted gesture and another snap
Of his jaws, the lieutenant colonel
repeated: by. moral force"
thought Of those people, includ-
ing Mr.. Lindbergh, who in the win
ter and spring OF 1941 were saying
that both Britain and the United
States could never outbuild Ger
many in fighting planes. and 1t.
Col. Polevoi's words echoed in my
ears: by moral force" Those who
said it couldn't be done had never
been to HeI's Elbow nor would
they ever get there.
But I understand you had no
natural protection to begin WITH"
said to the lieutenant colonel.
Made Fortifications.
He smiled: That's right. But we
made fortif1cations. We dug trenches
and improved them. Do you know,
UA4C4C OAAV SkOV W1lCAC Oul 1klOSL
advanced trenches are only II yards
from the enemy? And in another
place the Nazis are less than so
yards away? But that's an advan-
tage. When you get really close to
Fritz, he can't bomb you without
bombing his own troops. And, you
know. the German infantry has
very little heart for attacking unless
their bombers can pave the way"
The colonel had promised that I
would get chance to talk With
some Russian anti-tank men who
had contributed greatly toward hold
ing Hells Elbow in more than cne
month of repeated attacks. Now
they came filing into the dugout,
led by young Armenian lieutenant
of pa dozen hard-muscled. CRIME
covered soldiers who had been in
front-line positions only an hour be-
fore and had only had snatchcs OF
sleep for week or more.
The Armenian lieutenant was a
little fellow as straight as a ramrod,
with burning black eyes. black hair
and tiny black mustache to match.
In their last major engagement, his
group OF 13 had destroyed IA Ger
man tanks, and in one fight the
lieutenant had knocked out five
tanks himself. He spoke very briefly
without any frills or any dramatic
incidents for decoration.
H.H>I No.: Axx..I,.
my men use anti-tank rifles, but
in our unit, of course, we also have
anti-tank cannon. The Fascists
started their last attack at in the
morning. Then we counterattacked
and we demolished nine Of their 18
tanks. After that, the Germans re-
treated, but they tried again about
40 minutes later. We we're ready,
and this time we destroyed five
more tanks Since then the enemy
has not made another tank attack
not for four days, now"
I noticed that the Armenian
lieutenant wore two wound stripes.
In this small group Of his from
Hell's Elbow were privates who
spoke Tartar, Bashkir, Ukrainian
and Georgian. With the ieutenant's
native Armenian and other Russian
tongues, that made six different
native languages in this group of
13 men. That is one of the extraor-
dinary things about the Red Army.
1t is made up Of very many races
and some OF its men, from the deep
interior of the Soviet Union, may
speak. Russian only haltingly,. vet
soldiers of every origin have distin-
guished themselves for valor in this
war.
Among the group was one bullet
headed, igh-cheekboned bundle of
iron named Asonov. He was a
Tartar and also wore a wound stripe.
He was obviously much more used
to fighting battles than telling about