Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

On that day, 24 March, 1944, the German air force almost completely destroyed the battalion. We suffered high casualties in personnel and the tank regiment lost many tanks. The rest were not spared either. The air raids started at noon and lasted till evening. One wave of aircraft, fifteen or twenty of them, would drop their bombs, and as soon as our battalion column gathered for further advance, the next wave would arrive. This lasted for several hours, until the twilight came. ‘Luckily’, the tank that I was riding on with my platoon threw a track and we had to halt to repair it. The Brigade advanced further, but we stayed behind for the repair. It was right after the first air raid, and I did not see the other air raids on the Brigade. Having completed the repair of the track, we moved on, and two more tanks joined us on the road. We arrived at the battalion when it was already dark. I found battalion commander Kozienko and tank regiment commander Stolyarov; they were both happy to see us, a significant reinforcement. The battalion commander asked me if I had seen company leader Titov. I reported that I had not. It turned out that our company commander Petr Ivanovich Titov had disappeared, and they had been looking for him before darkness fell, searching all the area around, but failed to find him.

Soldiers of the battalion, who had previously scattered in the fields and hidden in all possible ways till darkness, started to gather at the village, which was almost totally burnt down. The battalion suffered high casualties in personnel, while the tank regiment lost a lot of tanks. In my company, except for Kolosov and myself, we had some 30 or 35 soldiers left, the other companies had even less – ten or fifteen soldiers each. Kozienko and Stolyarov gave me an order: advance on three tanks with the remains of the company and machine-gun platoon of Lieutenant Kolosov towards Kamenets-Podolsk, capture its outskirts and then act depending on the situation, but try to hold on until the main forces of the brigade arrived. They stayed behind to gather personnel and tanks after the air raids.

THE BATTLES FOR KAMENETS–PODOLSK

At dawn on 25 March, 1944, we reached Kamenets-Podolsk. Our company on three tanks bypassed the city from the west and approached the outskirts from the south. It was still dark. The Germans did not expect Soviet troops from the south, but when we approached the bridge across the Smotrich river they opened fire on us, although not very intensively. Trucks and other vehicles were parked on the bridge. It was some sort of a barricade, which even had a tank without tracks in it. The river had steep banks, up to 10 metres high, which did not allow tanks to cross the river. My attempt to enter the city over the bridge was stopped by enemy fire. The machine-gun fire did not cause any harm, but the snipers were deadly. I decided not to risk and suffer useless casualties, but rather to wait for the main forces of our Brigade to arrive. We occupied a small house not far from the bridge, and sent a scout party to the bridge. The men came back and reported that the it was impossible to bypass the barricade on the bridge, while sniper fire gave them no chance to lift their heads from the ground. While we were waiting for the main forces of the Brigade to arrive, soldiers of the company started to inspect the trucks that the Germans had abandoned as we arrived. The large trucks were filled with German uniforms, equipment, food and even wines of different kinds and countries of origin. The food and wines came from all over Europe. My men gathered German weapons and ammo, some wrapping themselves in MG-34 machinegun ammo belts – just like the seamen in the times of the Russian Civil War. What could I say – they were mere boys. Many soldiers picked up new German jackboots, but the beautiful and shining German officer long boots did not fit me – they were too tight, although I tried many of them, and I really wanted to have them. We gathered food, wine, Cuban cigars in special boxes, cigarettes, chocolate, cookies, sweet breads, canned fish and meat. We had a nice meal with all that food and smoked cigars and cigarettes. The cigars were Cuban, just like the ones that Churchill had.