Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

The Germans left, while we gathered together and started to debrief the clash with the other officers (including 3rd company commander Kostenko) and gathered the scattered soldiers. Our subordinates assembled too. I noticed that machine-gunner Ishmuhammetov sat there without a weapon, and realized that it was he who had dropped the machine-gun; I sent him to pick it up. It is infamy for a fighter to drop a weapon. Soldiers came back with a feeling of guilt, they were ashamed of their fear and cowardice in battle. The proud ones suffered twice as hard in their feelings, we also did not spare ourselves.

We distributed the returning soldiers between the companies and ordered them to dig in just in case. If memory serves me well, by some miracle we had no losses. The machine-gun platoon of the 3rd company under Lieutenant Tsikanovski had disappeared during the fight, but as it turned out later, they had had to hide in thick vegetation on the Dniester shores for some time. Several days later they caught up with the battalion on the march.

We were all hungry after the skirmish and arranged some snacks. During the meal one of the officers asked me: ‘Where did you tear your garrison cap?’ I took it off and saw two torn holes in it – in the front and in the back. It was only then that I recalled that the garrison cap had fallen from my head as I fired the machine-gun and told the story. The guys told me: ‘You were really lucky, Bessonov, if that sniper had aimed several millimetres lower, you would have been dead.’ They were right, I was lucky, really lucky. How many times have I been lucky? Quite a few. Luck at the front is quite an important thing. However, such luck does not happen very often.

By the evening our company, as well as the other companies of the battalion dug in on a dominant hill with a steep slope towards the river, some 150 metres from the river. Some units to the left us also tried to attack Sambor. The cannonade lasted some thirty minutes, Katyushas also took part, as well as heavier missiles, launched from the ground, not from trucks. Sometimes their missiles (M-31) were launched together with the launch frame, in order not to waste time for preparation. However, those units also attacked in vain, their assault was repelled and the Germans still held the bridge across the river and Sambor proper.

On the night of 2 August a heavy rain fell from the sky, water fell like a shower. The deluge continued all night and the whole day after. We had to ladle water out from the trenches with mess kits, and we were all soaking wet. The soil was so saturated with water that it turned into a total quagmire. In the evening the Germans decided to drive us out from that hill. Eight to ten T-VI Tiger tanks emerged from the bushes by the river. Probably, there were more Tigers, but I could not see all of them. At the time I did not understand how Tigers had appeared against us, and even now I cannot explain how they appeared. Regardless of how they made it there, the main thing was their assault on our defences. The Tiger is a serious thing. Our 76 mm gun could penetrate its armour only at a range of 50 metres.

The Tigers advanced slowly, with frequent stops, sometimes opening fire. We all hid in trenches, afraid to make a move. A tank could fire even on a single soldier, but they fired over our heads on some targets in the undergrowth behind us. It was good that infantry were not escorting the tanks. Apparently, they wanted to squash us with tanks without infantry support. At that very moment the rain shower and wet soil, as well as the steep slope played their positive role. The tanks were some 50 metres from us, when all of a sudden a miracle happened – the Tigers skidded on the wet soil and stopped. The tanks were stuck on one spot, their tracks were spinning, but the tanks could not move. We were lucky that because of the Tiger’s weight its tracks did not have good cohesion in the mud. The tanks could not approach our defences and they retreated to the line of attack, and then disappeared from our sight. Had it not been for the rain, they would have squashed us in our trenches. It was hot before the rain fell, and the soil was dry. Nevertheless, we suffered casualties – it was in that fight that Lieutenant Karpenko was killed and I again had to take over the company, though not for long.

FIGHTING ON THE SANDOMIR BRIDGEHEAD

The next day we left that position and quickly moved on tanks to the west, towards the Vistula, where Soviet troops had captured a bridgehead on the western side of the river. We entered Poland.