Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

It was unbearably hot on those August days of 1943 in the Orel area, and we mostly moved on trucks during the night. There was a huge amount of dust on the roads, our feet sank into it as if it were cotton. By morning we were all covered with thick layer of dust. In an attempt to turn the area around Orel into a wilderness, the enemy burnt entire villages during his retreat, putting everything that he could to the torch. Just chimneys remained after the fire – a horrible, depressing view. Surviving civilians had to come back to those ashes. The Germans blew up railways and broke sleepers with a special machine, snapping them in two. Before their retreat the Germans, as a rule, would set village houses on fire. From the black pillars of smoke that rose from the burning houses we knew that the Germans were about to retreat and we could advance without resistance from their side, capturing the village as it burned. On 13 September, 1943, on the order of the front, the entire personnel of the Brigade, except for the officers, were transferred to other units to replace losses. Our company had just the sergeant–major, clerk, medic and company commander’s orderly, as well as my assistant platoon leader Sabaev. However, we continued to move along the front on trucks at night, sometimes with lights on, as late as 15 or 18 September. It was explained to us that this was done to deceive the enemy. During those days all units of the 4th Tank Army disengaged and went into reserve, concentrating in the thick forests around Bryansk in the vicinity of Karachev.

TRAINING FOR A NEW OFFENSIVE

After the end of the Orel operation the battalion had just 28 or 30 officers left, among them five company commanders, ten platoon leaders and thirteen staff officers – the remaining sixteen were either dead or wounded. The signal platoon leader – chief of communications of the battalion – was among the wounded staff officers. Only ten out of 22 platoon leaders were left. Just six of these ten lived to see Victory Day, and I was among those six. Just three company commanders survived the war. At that time we were all young: the platoon leaders were 20 or 21 years old. Company commanders were 26 to 27 years old, the battalion commander was 29. Most of the officers were young men in their twenties.

The autumn was dry and warm, which allowed us to build dugouts for the incoming replacements and ourselves before the cold weather set in. We found metal barrels to make stoves and metal pipes for chimneys; however, we could not find doors for the dugouts, and we had to cover them with rain-proof capes. Officers and enlisted men started to arrive. The battalion commander in person distributed them among the companies. Lieutenant Kolosov arrived at our company as a machine-gun platoon leader. Young soldiers arrived at the company, born in 1925, just boys and middle-aged Azeri men, older than 30 or 35 years. They could not speak very good Russian and could hardly understand an order, but after some time started to understand orders without a translator. The Azeri men fought well and I had no complaints about them. Sergeant Major Vasili Blokhin left for the 3rd company, assistant platoon leader Sabaev was appointed Sergeant Major of the 2nd company on my recommendation. Mikhail Karpovich Bratchenko, machine-gun crew leader from the battalion’s machine-gun company, became the company’s Sergeant Major. We fought almost till the end of the war together with him.

An intensive training period started after the arrival of replacements. The personnel arrived from the replacement regiment; they were not from civil life and had some skills, but we had to teach them many things, especially firing the PPSh submachine-gun and the RPD (sometimes called DP) light machine-gun. We never had rifles in the battalion, just submachine-guns. After the cold weather set in, we were issued winter uniforms – valenki (felt boots), vatnik (padded jackets) and trousers, winter hats, woollen helmet liners and tarpaulin mittens with three fingers, warm underwear, woollen foot cloths. Officers were issued sweatshirts, fur vests and sheepskin coats. I did not take the sheepskin coat – the Germans knew that officers were dressed in sheepskin coats and tried to kill them first. Besides that, I was warm enough in a padded jacket. I did not wear the helmet liner and felt boots either. As ill luck would have it, the supply unit personnel could not get the winter hat for me and I had to wear a civilian hat of my size, of a reddish colour.