From the memoirs of Pyotr Alekseevich Mikhin, a participant in the Battle of Rzhev
"We were advancing on Rzhev across the corpse fields. During the battles of Rzhev, many "valleys of death" and "groves of death" appeared. It is difficult for anyone who has not been there to imagine what a mess stinking under the summer sun is, consisting of thousands of human bodies covered with worms.
Summer, heat, calm, and ahead is such a "valley of death." It is clearly visible and shot through by the Germans. There is no way to get past or around it: a telephone cable is laid along it – it is broken, and it must be quickly connected at all costs. You crawl over corpses, and they are piled in three layers, swollen, crawling with worms, emitting a sickly sweet smell of decomposition of human bodies. This stench hangs motionless over the "valley". A shell explosion drives you under corpses, the ground shudders, corpses fall on top of you, showering you with worms, and a fountain of noxious stench hits your face. But then the fragments flew by, you jump up, shake yourself off and go ahead again.
Or in autumn, when it's already cold, it rains, the water in the trenches is knee-deep, their walls are slimy, the Germans suddenly attack at night, jump into the trench. Hand-to-hand combat ensues. If you survived, keep your eyes open again, hit, shoot, maneuver, trample on the corpses lying under the water. But they are soft, slippery, and it is disgusting and regrettable to step on them.
And what does it feel like for a soldier to attack a machine gun for the fifth time! Jump over your own dead and wounded who fell here in previous attacks. Every second, expect a familiar push in the chest or leg. We fought for every German trench, the distance between which was 100-200 meters, or even to throw a grenade. The trenches changed hands several times a day. Often half of the trench was occupied by the Germans, and the other half by us. They annoyed each other with everything they could. They interfered with the meal: they imposed a battle and took away lunch from the Germans. Songs were shouted to spite the enemy. They caught grenades thrown by the Germans on the fly and immediately threw them back to their owners."
by Aleksandr_Ulyev