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The Battle of Krasny Bor in 1943 was part of the Soviet Red Army’s efforts to lift the blockade of Leningrad, one of the longest and most destructive in history. Previous works on the Battle of Krasny Bor have focused primarily on the infantry involved, especially when using veteran testimonies, and the use of artillery has been conspicuously absent. This book aims to put the reader right in the heart of the battle, describing the action from an artilleryman’s point of view, seeing it fundamentally as a duel between the Soviet and German-Spanish soldiers.

Review

This book is about the gunners of the Spanish division, and their German colleagues supporting the division during an important part of the Leningrad battle. I was quite disappointed. I agree with the author about the importance of artillery, but I didn’t learn much. I didn’t know the German army relied so much on captured guns, and very few guns were mobile, so in a defensive battle they often had to destroy them to prevent their capture.
There are lots of details about the organisation of a German artillery structure up to corps level, which is sometimes interesting, to a point. The other aspect is commemorative, and celebrates the glorious behaviour of the Spanish gunners, quoting captain or sergeant so and so and how they were hard done by, by receiving no battlefield honour. No disrespect here but it is like reading a text about the glorious fighters during the recent Indo Pakistani wars, a bit like it is the permanent epitome of courage. The author takes a lot of pain to redeem the Germans regarding the support they effectively provided to the Spaniards who felt abandoned. You almost feel for the poor Nazis. A lot of efforts are made not to forget a particular battery often overlooked apparently. The author also regularly describes his efforts to find a particular piece of information, which generally is a fragment of individual recollections, or the organisation of the units at some stage of the three days (or so) battle. Despite the hard work of the author, i failed to be very interested, sadly. There is a lot about hand-to-hand fighting around the battery positions, but the artillery battle is not really explained. The information is probably lacking. It is too commemorative for me; you must have a strong interest in this Spanish division more than in artillery.