Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

On 27 July, 1944, Lvov was fully liberated from the enemy. The battles for the city ceased. I should mention that the city had been under German occupation for three years (1941–1944), but we met five or six Jews, who had been hidden from the Germans in a shelter by their acquaintances. One evening, some time after Lvov was fully in our hands, Semyon Tsikanovski told me that we had been invited by several Jews for a dinner on occasion of the city’s liberation. For three years these people had been suffering, but survived and were happy. They welcomed us in the warmest possible way. The table was served just like before the war: Moskovskaya vodka, sausage, ham, canned meat and fish. How on earth did they manage to get all that food? Everything was very tasty, and we had a nice evening, just like being back home.

We stayed for several days in Lvov. The 2nd and 3rd companies arrived in those days – they had separate missions. After the arrival of the rear and support units the Brigade has finally gathered all its units.

On 29 July the battalion received a new order – to attack towards the Polish town of Peremyshl. However, several kilometres before the town our Tank Army commander, Lelyushenko, directed the battalion to the south, towards the town of Sambor and further towards the Carpathian foothills, towards the oil fields. There was no major action, the enemy retreated and did not try to delay our advance. Only in one place, at a large village, did the battalion encounter resistance. We dismounted our tanks and rushed into the village. The terrain was swampy behind the village, pitted with large trenches, apparently for drainage. Tanks could not offer any significant support to us in this terrain. We had to attack right from the village without tanks or artillery support.

My platoon attacked some sort of a factory, as it turned out later, a distillery. The enemy stopped us with heavy small arms fire, and we had to lie down in the swamp. We did not suffer losses, but the enemy’s fire prevented us from advancing further, especially because in front we could see the stone wall of the factory. We could not see the enemy, while we ourselves lay exposed. As soon as the Fritzes spotted any movement in our lines, they fired, forcing me and my soldiers to lie completely still. It took me a lot of effort to make it to a dry spot, seven or eight soldiers made it out of the swamp with me. We ran behind a house and started to look around, trying to find a way to drive Fritzes out of the factory’s brick buildings.

I ran forward on dry land, trying to find a better way to attack the enemy, and show the soldiers, who were stuck in the swamp, a route of retreat to a dry place. The Fritzes noticed me and opened fire on me, not from small arms, as it was usually, but from a small-calibre mortar, apparently a company mortar. We encountered such mortars sometimes, although they quickly disappeared. Shells exploded not far from me. I ran, paying no attention to the fire on me. I ran as fast as my feet could carry me, while mines exploded behind me, all falling short. I ran at least 50 metres like this, before I ran behind a house. I was not even wounded, but by hunting me, the Fritzes had been distracted from the soldiers in the swamp, and they managed to run and sneak to a dry spot and hide from the enemy’s fire. If the Germans had aimed longer, I would have been in serious trouble from mortar fire. I would run and a mine would explode behind me, then I would accelerate and it would fall short again. Owing to my talent as a sprinter I got off unharmed. I rarely ran that fast.

When twilight fell, we left that swampy area, joining Lieutenant Shakulo’s platoon. Shakulo arrived from the hospital while we were at Lvov. He was lightly wounded at the beginning of that operation. Company commander Chernyshov was not there, and no one knew where he was. As early as during the day Shakulo and I received an order to gain possession of the village behind the swamp. We decided to attack the village along a good road, as soon as it grew totally dark. At first fortune was on our side, but as soon as we almost reached the edge of that village, the Germans opened a withering machine-gun fire on us. We lay down, and I consulted with Petr Shakulo what to do next. Eventually, we decided to wait for the Germans to make a pause in their fire, rush to the nearest houses of the village and act from there. So we did, although the Germans fired on us with great accuracy – tracer bullets flew low and close to the ground. We hid behind the folds of the ground and managed to avoid losses.