¹⁄35

Diodrama - Final Countdown

Blame Star Wars for setting the precedent– having kicked off last month with Episode 2 of the Kursk north salient story (Diodramas – Porsches smashed up), here’s the prequel Ep 1. This sequence attempts to portray the calm before the storm, 12 hours before Model's 9th Army’s massive assault on Rokossovsky's north salient’s defensive lines north of Ponyri. For these Red army soldiers and AFV crews the tension was off the scale by this time, because they knew what was coming and when. Although they’d had months to prepare for it none of them knew if they’d survive the first couple of days, and many did not. So if some or any of these photos conveys an impression of that hot, oppressive atmosphere I’ll be content. Several times I changed my mind between monochrome & colour but the former strangely didn’t seem to add anything so here they are, untouched.