The battle itself was horrendous. Anticipating the German attack, the Soviets fortified themselves in a complex set of trenches and minefields.
Large numbers of anti-tank guns were strategically positioned to shoot the German Panzer tanks to pieces. Longer-range artillery covered the approaches. Soviet T tanks stood concealed, ready to lead the counter-strike. The trap was set. On 5 July, after many delays, the Germans finally attacked — 2, Panzer advanced, including the fearsome new Panther and Tiger tanks. They were supported by just under a million men and 10, pieces of artillery, creating an inferno of shrieking metal, howling motors, thundering explosions and the cries of wounded men.
Aircraft pelted the Soviet defenders with bombs and machine-gun fire. Despite nearly a fortnight of fierce fighting, however, no breakthrough was achieved. Africa 54 - November 12, VOA Africa Listen live. VOA Newscasts Latest program. VOA Newscasts. Previous Next. Back to top. Water may have flooded in during the abortive escape attempt, killing those sailors who had gathered in that section; alternatively they may have died from hypothermia or high pressure.
Four corpses were found on Wednesday, hours after a Russian military diver began the highly dangerous search inside the submarine.
All four have been taken to a mobile forensic unit at the naval base of Severomorsk, but Kolesnikov is the only sailor to have been named so far. The son of a submariner, he is due to be buried in St Petersburg next Wednesday.
In a brief television interview, his wife, Olga, was so crippled by grief that she could hardly stand. Now that I see that there was a reason for this pain," she said. Attempts to recover new bodies were postponed yesterday, because stormy weather made the operation too dangerous.
As a result of the information within Kolesnikov's note, further attempts will focus on the ninth compartment, where most of the 27 men are thought to have died. Officials gave no indication of whether Kolesnikov's note went into detail about how the Kursk went down. The government has yet to give an official explanation for the disaster, although senior naval officials continue to favour the theory that the accident was caused by a collision with a foreign submarine over the possibility that a second World War mine or an internal malfunction caused the blast.
But the limited information released proved in itself extremely controversial, highlighting new contradictions in the officials statements about the accident. Earlier this month the Deputy Prime Minister and head of the commission investigating the disaster, Mr Ilya Klebanov, said initial investigations indicated that almost all the sailors would have died before the vessel even hit the bottom of the Barents Sea.
Kolesnikov's testimony gives new credence to the navy's original reports that sailors could be heard knocking "SOS, water" distress signals for three days after the disaster. But the note contained no new evidence about what sank the Kursk, whether it was an internal explosion or a collision. Initial sonar reports said tapping heard on the hull of the vessel suggested that at least some sailors were alive. But the tapping faded and disappeared in the days following the crippling explosion.
Others discounted the reports as unsubstantiated and said the sounds could have been caused by collapsing equipment or the submarine settling into the seabed. The survivors of the initial explosions probably died of drowning, hypothermia or high pressure. Russian and Norwegian divers recovered the first four bodies after five days of painstaking work to cut holes in the top of the submarine.
The complex underwater operation is being performed with leading-edge diving equipment, including robots and mechanical arms.
Two widows of the Kursk crew members visited the Regalia on Wednesday and, on behalf of all the families, pleaded with the divers not to take excessive risks.
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