War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 19 Holding on to the Don
Putting on his gloves again, Wei Ran carefully unscrewed the rusty iron wire on the gun mantlet with pliers, and took off the copper-skinned five-pointed star that was only as big as a palm.

This five-pointed star itself has a slight curvature, and there are traces of hard objects hammering on it and scratches extending from the center point to the five sharp corners. In addition, on one of the corners, there is a hole that just allows the wire to pass through. Small hole.On the other side of the five-pointed star, several vague names are engraved.

Putting it aside and putting it away, Wei Ran carefully opened the breech breech, there was still a shell shell that had been fired in the breech, but the shell shell had been completely rusted together with the surrounding breech.

He took out a strong flashlight and looked carefully along the muzzle of the gun. After confirming that there were no shells, he was relieved at first, but then fell into doubt again.

The ZIS3 anti-tank gun uses a vertical wedge breech breech with a faster rate of fire. With the assistance of a semi-automatic machine, it can automatically unbolt and draw out the empty cartridge during re-entry, so it stands to reason that there should be no Empty shell casings, since they shouldn't be, how did the shell casings come from?

"Could it be possible to rely on this book?"

Wei Ran sat down on the artillery hoe, looked at the tattoo on the tiger's mouth on his left hand, and hesitated. He hadn't had time to find a place to learn some life-saving skills. The last time he survived the Battle of Stalingrad was all due to luck. Whether there is such good luck this time, I am afraid only God knows.

But on the other hand, he was eager to know whether that cowhide notebook was really what he thought, as long as he kept the tattoo, he wouldn't mess around.Second, is it true that I can't bring weapons over there?

He even wanted to know, if he was sent back to the World War II battlefield again, if he was injured or died in battle, would he be able to come back, or in other words, would he come back with injuries.

"Done! I don't believe there is a battlefield more cruel than Stalingrad!" After thinking about it, the restless Wei Ran, who was provoked by curiosity, slapped his thigh hard and stood up.

Before summoning the cowhide notebook, he first opened the plastic gun case brought back from Mr. Alexander's gun modification studio, took out the desert-colored pistol and fiddled with it for a while, and only after he was sure he would use it did he rummage through the box Find two boxes of ammunition, load three magazines, and load one of them into the gun.

Taking a deep breath, Wei Ran held the gun in one hand and two magazines in the other, and after getting ready, he summoned the cowhide book that turned into a tattoo.

With the sound of the pages turning, the metal quill slowly floated up, and a ZIS-3 anti-tank gun was drawn "shuashuashua" on the third blank page.

"Clang!" With a sound, when the cannon was completely drawn, the quill fell heavily on the floor, and at the same time, two lines of text appeared on the page.

Character identity: Postman Victor of the 64th Army Field Post Office

Return conditions: stick to Don 19 position, take a photo

postman?Don?To suffer!

Wei Ran's heart sank, his vision was already occupied by the dazzling white light. When his vision returned to normal, he realized that he was in the sidecar of a Ural motorcycle, and the breeze with the smell of water vapor and gunpowder was blowing towards him, faintly You can also smell the unique smell of decomposing corpses.

In the night lighted by flares from time to time, the front view is a large trench and barbed wire winding to the end of the line of sight, of course, there is also the dust blown up by the trench line and the continuous sound of gunfire.

Turning your head and looking behind you, there is a river almost parallel to the trench, and you can even see busy cargo ships going back and forth on that river.Looking down at his empty hands, Wei Ran sighed in disappointment, as expected, he couldn't bring any weapons.

What made him feel even more chilled was that one of the returning tasks this time was to take a photo, but he didn't have a camera hanging around his neck at all, instead he had a bulging cross-body canvas bag.

With a "creak", before he could figure out the situation, the sidecar motorcycle under his buttocks had already stopped at the edge of the trench with a beautiful flick.And the soldier driving the motorcycle also took off his goggles and almost shouted at him, "This is the Don River position of the 64th Army! But I don't know where the field post office is, let alone send you there."

The Don River position of the 64th Army?

Wei Ran was taken aback for a moment, then quickly jumped off the sidecar, and asked at the same time, "What month is it today?"

"July 7, what's the matter?" The other party subconsciously answered the question Wei Ran wanted to know the most.

"nothing"

Wei Ran responded loudly, pressed the canvas satchel with one hand and jumped into the trench full of water.Finding a place with relatively less water to hide, he groped around himself, took out a flashlight and pressed it on, and bit it in his mouth, then wrapped his raincoat around him, and then opened the bulging canvas bag at his waist.

Except for a boxy kraft paper package, the rest of the package is filled with letter paper folded into triangles.On these letter papers, there are also black postmarks and the words "checked by the military review agency".

Scanning the date on the letter paper, Wei Ran turned off the flashlight and frowned. If the time told by the motorcycle rider was correct, then combined with the year on the letter paper, today should be July 1942, 7.

Combined with the mission requirements in the cowhide notebook, that is to say, the big river not far away is the Don River?
and many more!Wei Ran's body trembled, he clearly remembered that the motorcycle rider told himself just now, this is where the 64th Army is stationed?

On July 1942, 7, the Don River position, the 22th Army?
Wei Ran sat down in the muddy trench, this time is nothing, but a week later, on July 7, the 29th Army will be forced to retreat to the other side of the Don River under the attack of the German army!

I'm afraid the broken mission in the leather notebook wasn't arranged by Professor Alexei?

Wei Ran even became suspicious at a certain moment, whether it was the last Battle of Stalingrad or this time, the time when he "rushed over" is almost a key node that must be recorded in the professional courses he studied!

Shaking his head to dispel the unrealistic and wild guesses in his mind, Wei Ran turned on the flashlight again and looked at the letters folded into triangles in the canvas bag.

These triangular letters without envelopes are almost the characteristics of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War, and the reason why envelopes were not used is actually very simple. The Soviet Union, which was busy producing war weapons and equipment at that time, had no extra production capacity to Envelopes are produced.

So no matter whether it is sent from the front to the rear or from the rear to the front, it is folded into a triangle and then directly stamped with a postmark on it for delivery.But this is not a bad thing, at least the letter managers or the blue hats want to check whether there are leaks or negative emotions in the communication, because it is very simple and convenient without the envelope.

But for Wei Ran, who played the postman role as a guest postman, it was not easy to personally deliver the package full of letters to each soldier. Hand it over to them, and then distribute it by the other party.

We have to find a way to get to position 19.
Wei Ran turned off the flashlight again, and advanced quickly in the muddy trench, catching a soldier from time to time asking for the location of the field post office.

After running around for several times, Wei Ran finally arrived at the field post office next to the command post after half an hour.

To his surprise, the person in charge of the post office in this position turned out to be an old man missing an arm, and most of the people under him who were in charge of distributing letters were half-grown children.

Before he could finish listening to the introduction of the one-armed old man, a soldier hurried down the trench and into the underground bunker that served as a field post office, "Uncle Mehri, we need some help to deliver the shells, the 14th, 18th The ammunition on the No. 19 side and the No. [-] position is almost used up!"

"How many people?" The one-armed old man asked quickly.

"The more the better!" said the soldier anxiously. "As soon as the German shelling is over, their tanks will definitely rush over. We must send enough shells over there before then, if there"

"Stop talking." Mehri waved his remaining right arm and said loudly to a middle-aged woman beside him who was sorting letters, "Sasha, you take the children to take charge of the nearest position 14. The others followed me Walk!"

(End of this chapter)