World War: Pearl Swallowed

General Ion Antonescu stood on a green hill overlooking Odessa, German binoculars fixed on a covey of his Rumanian Army planes that were blanketing the city with leaflets. Back in Bucharest, Nephew Mihai, now Acting Premier in the General’s absence, waited anxiously . for news of Uncle Ion’s first major assignment from his Nazi bosses.

In Odessa, the war-reduced population (normal: 600,000) scanned the leaflets which read not unlike the manifestoes of the late great barbarian Genghis Khan: “The main forces of my Army are at the gates of the city and other large units are following them. Do not offer resistance. Surrender the city. I promise mercy to the population. Otherwise, when I do take Odessa in two days’ time, I shall show no mercy to anyone.”

That was ten weeks ago.

Odessa, Pearl of the Black Sea, historic Russian seaport and No. 3 industrial center in the Ukraine, was unimpressed. It was bombarded by the French after the Bolshevist Revolution of 1917. The city was built almost entirely of stone; during the famine of 1921-23 the inhabitants razed wooden buildings for fuel. Odessa’s citizens tore up the ultimatum, settled down for a siege.

Ion Antonescu, his Fourth Army supported by German auxiliaries, moved into action. German support, it appeared, also included a good deal of prodding. A Rumanian platoon commander, later killed in action, wrote in his diary: “Our men are grumbling and asking what business do we have beyond the Dniester. But Germans are behind us and they don’t answer such questions—except with their guns. . . . We’ll be commanded to sacrifice our lives in order to seize what never belonged to us. So it must be, they tell us.”

Inside the city, home-defense industries sprang up rapidly. Factories continued to grind out armaments. Firing positions and trenches were dug. Like so many commuters, men trudged to the defense lines each morning, their women accompanying them to the suburban parks. So close were the front lines that soldiers on leave walked or hitchhiked home.

Each night German and Rumanian planes battered the city with bombs, relying heavily on parachuted land mines to crumple the white-stone apartment houses and office buildings. Each morning street sweepers cleaned up the debris. And still the siege dragged on.

After 59 days of continuous siege, Adolf Hitler’s headquarters announced last week that Ion Antonescu’s Army, with German and Rumanian planes inflicting heavy losses on evacuating vessels in the harbor, had crushed Odessa’s last defenses, found last-ditch defenders behind street barricades made out of their own dead. Women and children fought side by side with the men.

Said Germany: The city had no civilians save, babies and wounded. Losses were fantastic. Crowed young Mihai Antonescu in a victory broadcast from Bucharest: “The population received the German and Rumanian troops enthusiastically.”