“We decided to hang out a red flag on the building, so the Germans wouldn’t think we had given up the fight. But we had no red material. What could we do?
One of the wounded heard of the plan and took off his bloody vest. He wiped it on his bleeding wounds and handed it to me.
The Germans called out as us through loudspeakers: ‘Rus! Give up! You are going to die anyway!’ At that moment our red flag was raised over the building. My radio operator Kozhushko shouted back:
‘Bark all you want, you scurvy dogs! We still have a long time to fight!’”
– Lieutenant Anton Dragan, 1st Battalion 42nd Regiment of the Red Army. Stalingrad 1942.
———
As we always say here at Battles and Beers (TM) Every soldier has a story, and every story deserves to be told.
