CARGOES OF LIFE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3298, 9 August 1943, Page 6

CARGOES OF LIFE

BLOOD FOR THE WOUNDED

STALINGRAD DEFENDERS

A STORY FROM .RUSSIA

(By

K. TARADANKIN)

The other day I was at a front line aerodrome on the Stalingrad front. Six planes landed at short intervals. Red Cross signs were conspicuous on the wings of each. Two lorries raced up, and Red Army men began to unload cases from the planes on to the lorries. “What’s in the cases?” I asked one of the men. “Blood,” he said shortly. Life for the wounded defenders of Stalingrad. Blood transfusion is practised by the hospital service on the Stalingrad front on a wider scale than on any other sector of the Soviet front. The evacuation of the wounded from the battlefield in this area is about as complicated an affair as it could be. The stretcher-bearers have to probe about in streets blocked by the debris of houses, in the basements of buildings the upper floors of which are stilb being blasted to pieces by shells and mines, in shattered factories that were sometimes half in enemy occupation. Courage of Stretcher-bearers The stretcher-bearers display skill and courage of as high an order as the fighters themselves. During one battle Mikhail Kormiltsev rescued 77 badly wounded men, along with their rifles. The wounded are ferried across to the opposite bank of the Volga under cover of darkness. They are’ carried in armoured boats. Enemy artillery shells the crossing day and night. On the far side the wounded men are placed in ambulance cars and in planes. The worst cases are evacuated to rail heads in the rear, where they are accommodated in comfortable hospital trains which take them to regions far behind the lines to recover. The less serious cases are taken to hospitals in the Stalingrad vicinity. One such hospital is situated underground. It has an excellently equipped operating theatre and spacious wards, all air-conditioned. On the trip to Stalingrad the ambulance planes carry- cargoes of dressings, chocolate, anti-tetanus serum, fruit, rice, an infinity of 'comforts—but, above all, blood for transfusion. A doctor or nurse flies with the pilot ' on each trip. Attacked by German Pilots The Nazi pilots seem to take pleasure in attacking the defenceless ambulance planes. One morning Lieut. Yershov. who has made dozens of flights with wounded to the rear, took off with two patients and a nurse. During the take-off the ambulance plane was attacked by a Messerschmitt.

The German pilot could not possibly have mistaken the nature of the plane he was attacking, but he let loose with all his guns. The pilot was wounded by shell splinters in the leg and head. Mastering all his strength, ‘ he landed and ran for the gondolas, lifted the wounded men and carried them to a nearby shrubbery, where he hid them, for the German, was preparing to launch another attack. Then he helped the nurse to alight—she was wounded in the arms and legs. Only after he had dressed everyone else’s wounds did he remember that he, too, had been injured. Both plane and pilot have long since recovered. In fact, Yershov brought in a big cargo of blood for transfusion only this morning.