The 900 Days Read Online Free PDF Page A

car and that ended our meeting.
    From Moscow nothing definite either. The situation remains unclear.
    It got no clearer on Thursday, June 19. There were more German overflights. Nothing on Friday. On Saturday Moscow’s Stanislavsky Musical Theater, starting its summer tour of the provinces, was presenting Offenbach’s La Perichole in Murmansk. Golovko decided to attend. He took his Military Council member, A. A. Nikolayev, and his Chief of Staff, Vice Admiral S. G. Kucherov, with him. The theater was filled. There were standees.
    Golovko relaxed and let the music push his worries out of his mind. So, he thought, judging by their expressions, did his aides.
    The audience seemed at ease, possibly because Golovko and his staff were present. “The situation can’t be so bad—the chiefs are here.” This is what he read in the faces of the spectators as they promenaded in the lobby between the acts.
    All the way back to headquarters he, Nikolayev and Kucherov talked about the operetta. Arriving at headquarters a little before midnight, he ordered tea and sat down for the late-evening situation report.

    At the Leningrad defense command installations at Kingisepp, on the Moonzund Archipelago of the Estonian Baltic coast, Major Mikhail Pavlov-sky spent Saturday, June 21, at Coastal Defense Headquarters. He had been receiving reports of unusual German activity for days, but nothing new came in on Saturday. As he was leaving the office, a friend in the 10th Border Regiment, Major Sergei Skorodumov, telephoned.
    “How about getting your better half and coming to the theater? The NKVD song-and-dance ensemble is giving a concert and I’ve got tickets.”
    Pavlovsky said he would have to check with his wife.
    “Any incidents today?” he asked.
    “Absolutely quiet,” Skorodumov replied.
    The two couples went to the concert. Afterward they walked home. The city was still. Most people had already retired for the night although it was still full daylight on the Baltic.
    Pavlovsky and his wife were undressing and talking about an excursion to the country on Sunday when the telephone rang. It was headquarters calling Pavlovsky back to his post.
    “What is it?” Pavlovsky’s wife asked.
    “I don’t know, Klavdiya,” he replied. “I don’t know anything at all. Maybe it’s a training maneuver.”
    He kissed his wife and, opening the door carefully so as not to disturb the sleeping children, walked out of the house. The hour was just before midnight.

    What was happening in the Leningrad area was duplicated in other frontier regions.
    June 21 found Army General Ivan I. Fedyuninsky in command of the 15th Rifle Corps, based on Kovel and defending the Bug River sector of the Central Front. His concern had mounted since Wednesday the eighteenth, when a German soldier deserted to his lines and reported that the Nazis were preparing to attack Russia at 4 A.M. , June 22. 1 When Fedyuninsky reported this information to his chief, Fifth Army General M. I. Potapov, he was curtly told: “Don’t believe in provocations.” But on Friday, returning from regional maneuvers, Fedyuninsky encountered General Konstantin Rokos-sovsky. Rokossovsky, commander of a mechanized corps attachéd to the Fifth Army, did not shrug off the signs of imminent Nazi attack. Indeed, he shared Fedyuninsky’s concern. 2
    It was late Saturday night before Fedyuninsky retired, but he could not sleep. He got up and smoked a cigarette at an open window. He looked at his watch. The time was 1:30 A.M. Would the Germans attack tonight? All seemed quiet. The city slept. The stars sparkled in a deep azure sky. “Can this be the last night of peace?” Fedyuninsky asked himself. “Will the morning bring something else?”
    He was still pondering this question when the telephone rang. It was his chief, General Potapov. “Where are you?” Potapov demanded. “In my quarters,” Fedyuninsky replied.
    Potapov told him to go immediately to staff headquarters to stand by