Word: sosnovkin
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...river near Rzhev. On the bank opposite the Russians, the Germans were waiting & watching. Yet this bridge had to be so devised that the Germans would neither see the men while they were building it, nor see the bridge after it was built. The men gaped at Engineer Sosnovkin, and in their individual ways pondered the demands of the insatiable Liubimets. Then they went to work...
...Engineer Sosnovkin decided to build his bridge in sections, 18 inches below the river's surface. For many nights his men practiced underwater construction on their side of the river, in a spot out of sight of the Germans. They set log pillars firmly in stone foundations. They clamped crosspieces to the pillars with oiled nuts and bolts. In the freezing water and darkness they did, it all by touch...
...Russian bank where the bridge was to be built was low, flat and easily seen by the Germans atop their high, sheer bank. Engineer Sosnovkin therefore decided to build his bridge backwards from the German side, beginning it in the shelter of the high bank. On a night when clouds hid the moon and snow shrouded the river, the strongest swimmers crossed with the foundation stones in stretchers and in their tunics. Others swam with the logs. Blue-black with cold, praying that the ice along the bank would not crack and betray them by the sound, they laid...
...morning chosen by the Liubimets, Engineer Sosnovkin placed stakes on the thin sheet of ice just above his bridge...
Then he stood in his grey coat by the river and waited. Russian artillery suddenly loosed a great barrage. Engineer Sosnovkin saw the puffs of the shells bursting in the German positions. From the woods behind him, Russian tanks, whitened for winter war, snouted down to the bank, crunched through the ice and found his bridge. In squadron after squadron they charged toward the stupefied Germans and opened the Rzhev offensive...