Excerpts taken from letters of unknown member of 90th rifle division Luga Valley defences:
“….The rain of the bombs being thrown at us adds a strange percussion to Illiya’s katylua, its amazing how un effective this bombardment is! A true point of how well are engineers did constructing these bunkers, if only they made them a bit larger and maybe a bit more ventilation….â€
“…Seven panzers lay smoking in the valley below us! We wheeled the gun out of its bunker while the smoke from the bombardment had still not settled. It was a surprise how brazen the germans were in there advance, no advance guard nothing they must over rely on the stukka’s. But we showed them between us and our sister gun on the far side of the valley we destroyed them! As there support troops ran ragged to any kind of cover our riflemen surfaced from their bunkers ,It did not last long…â€
“…As we stumbled in the dark to repair the defences, phone lines, and refresh the mines before our bunkers and trenches, suddenly we were blinded by the headlights of a truck as it swerved between the trees in a panic to evade crashing into anything and it disappeared over the ridge towards the german lines. We didn’t realise what was going on till we returned to our point headquarters and saw the boxes of shells, charges, food, medical supplies and above all a few crates of bottles that luckily have found themselves to be stored in our bunker!.."
"..The sirens of the planes can be heard again getting closer this means two things, we will have to get Illiya to play again and the one none of us are willing to talk about…the germans will be coming…â€
