Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

Deputy battalion commander Captain Maxim Tarasovich Burkov came over on a motorcycle, apparently to offer me support and control, or maybe just because they had little hope for my task force. After bringing Burkov, the motorcycle returned to Bobzha village. Burkov was a wonderful person and enjoyed great respect among the officers. He informed me that there would be no reinforcements (although earlier they had been speaking about it). He told me that we had to hold the crossing till dawn at all costs with our task force and see it from there. We walked into a house, where some of my soldiers were resting – it was warm inside. There were no owners of the house; they had abandoned it even before we arrived. We had a snack, given the fact that we had something to eat. Burkov laughed and said: ‘Where do you get all that food, Bessonov?’ However, we did not drink alcohol, even the German wine. I had a bit before I was sent to the crossing, and it was enough for me, while Burkov also did not want to drink it – it was not the right moment. We walked outdoors and heard a motorcycle coming over from Bobzha. We thought that it was our motorcycle again and Burkov even walked up to roadside and raised his hand, but the motorcycle rushed by us at high speed. Soldiers opened fire on the motorcycle in the gloom, but they were way too late and it disappeared.

A truck drove to our crossing from the forest after some time. My men opened fire on the vehicle and it stopped some 10 metres from the tank, behind which I was standing. I shouted to my orderly ‘Fire!’ but he paused. Germans started to jump out from the back of the truck, shouting ‘Ivanen! Ivanen!’ I pulled an F-1 hand grenade from my greatcoat pocket, loosened the pin, pulled it out and threw the grenade into the back of the truck, continuing to shout to my soldiers: ‘Fire! Fire!’ Then I threw the second hand grenade into the truck, but none of my grenades exploded, although I distinctly remember that I had pulled out the pins.

The Germans, at least fifteen of them, all ran away in the direction that the truck emerged from. I am sure that some of them got hurt by the fire of my platoon, but there were no bodies. We did not pursue them – how could we find them in darkness of the night? Maybe we did wound someone, but we did not look for the escaping Germans. I forbade my soldiers to search the body of the truck, where my unexploded grenades were lying – I feared that they could go off. I climbed up the truck and inspected it myself, but did not find the grenades in the dark. I have been puzzled for a long time as to why the grenades did not explode and have not been able to come to any conclusion, but in subsequent battles I started to change grenades for the new ones more frequently and thoroughly inspected them, especially the fuses.

At midnight of 16 January, the artillery section leader reported that at least ten Tiger tanks had appeared at the forest edge in front of our defences. I ordered them to open fire on the tanks. The two guns of the battery opened fire on them, but in the darkness you could see the armour-piercing shells hitting the front armour, ricocheting and flying off into the sky with a loud ring. Our tanks also fired a few rounds and ceased fire. The tankers reported to Burkov that the tanks were not working properly and could not fire on the enemy: the first tank could not rotate its turret, while the second one also had some defects. Besides that, the second crew only had the driver and tank commander. When Burkov learnt about this, he just spat on the ground, cursed and said that the tank regiment was supposed to know what kind of tanks they were sending on such a responsible mission.

Nevertheless, our fire stopped the enemy’s tanks, but they opened intensive fire with armour-piercing and high-explosive shells on our defences. We spent an awful night at that road crossing. The enemy’s shells were exploding next to tanks and guns, but we did not have losses and even the house that we had abandoned did not catch fire. Soldiers had only been able to dig skirmisher’s trenches, which secured them from bullets, but not from artillery fire and splinters, while Burkov and I did not even have those shelters – we sat behind a tank.