PESTORY
How field mice changed the course of World War II
By Michael Moran
Many thought Stalin was a quite a rat. Whatever you’re opinion (I personally think it’s an insult to rats), the Soviet dictator definitely owed his survival to mice. Let me explain.
Just over 83 years ago, the situation on the Eastern Front of the Second World War had turned dramatically against Hitler, his Sixth Army and Fourth Panzer Army. The place was Stalingrad on the Volga River – now called Volgograd, (but I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually becomes Putingrad, give the direction drift in modern Russia. But I digress … )
Hitler’s forces had steamrolled across the USSR in the summer of 1942 and appeared on the brink of pushing Soviet forces beyond the Volga while its comrades in the German First Panzer Army targeted the oil fields of the Caucasus. Then it got cold. I mean, Russia cold. Machines froze, men froze and the destruction that German artillery and air raids had wreaked on Stalingrad turned the city into a fortress of rubble. The battle there, which lasted from September 1942 to February 1943, remains the single most intense urban battle in history.
It also, arguably, was the battle that turned the tide of the war. I know – yeah, D-Day. That was great. But by the time D-Day happened, Soviet tanks had already destroyed Hitler’s best forces and were engaged in a steamrolling war of their own – westward.
“Come on, what about the mice?!” I hear you squeak. Patience, please. They’re coming.
Russian field mice poised to strike, December 1942
By December 1942, the German commander, Gen. (later Field Marshal) Friederich Paulus, knew he was in trouble. His 330,000 troops were surrounded and merely feeding and fueling them was proving almost impossible. But there was hope. Paulus had expected that the Soviets would mount a counter-offensive at some point to try and cut off his supply lines. Indeed, in November, the Soviets unleashed Operation Uranus (can’t make this stuff up, folks) with over 1 million troops and 900 tanks to encircle Paulus. Paulus had placed the 22nd Armored Division, equipped with over 100 light tanks, in reserve to help plug any gaps a Soviet counter-strike would open.
On Dec. 5, 1942, the order went out: The German 22nd Armored Division was to fire up its tanks and help shore up the defenses of the Romanian 3rd Army, who were fighting alongside Hitler’s troops.* Ill equipped and poorly led, the Romanians were the soft underbelly the Soviets were looking for. Now, Paulus desperately hoped the 22nd Armored Division could ride to the rescue.
But when the tank commanders cranked their engines, there was a problem. Many tanks simply would not start. Others quickly caught fire. Having sat idle for a month in reserve camouflaged in a field, the shocked tankers discovered that field mice had eaten through distributor wires, electrodes, fuel lines and magneto grounding wires, paralyzing the whole division. The 22nd Armored never moved, the Romanians were ground to dust and Stalin’s troops completed their encirclement of Stalingrad within a week.
Stalin, Tito and a hero of the Soviet Union review the Red Army during the first Victory Day Parade in Moscow, May 1945.
*Romania, Hungary and Italy sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight and mostly die on the Eastern Front as allies of Hitler’s Germany.
What to learn more?
Wikipedia has a deep and well curated account of the Stalingrad battle and its importance. (No mice included).
There’s a short documentary on Romania’s alliance with Hitler – mice included – on YouTube. The mice make their debut at 23’30”
And a nice shorter look at the battle from Ohio State University on the 75th anniversary in 2017.
We hope you enjoyed this first edition of Pesttory: A blog about pests through the ages. And if you plan to park your tank division in a field this winter, try deploying #EverSmart Pest. #NoPestLeftBehind.
Michael Moran is CMO, Chief Risk & Sustainability Officer at Microshare. He welcomes your thoughts and suggestions, and if you know of your own piece of Pestory, please let us know.