Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

We were supposed to leave – as it turned out, we were not intended to capture Lodz. The tanks formed a column on the road, and the ‘mount the tanks’ order came. Our tank stood between two houses. I walked up to the tank commander and told him to move the tank a bit further forward and park behind a house, so that the enemy would not see us mounting the tank. Why should we take risks? As a response some officers from the tank regiment and our battalion criticized me. No one understood the logic of my request; all kinds of shouting, obscene curses and insults about my person were flying through the air. The tanks did not hide behind the houses, as I requested, but remained where they were. While they were cursing me, two shots sounded in the air and both shells hit the tanks that stood between the houses. After this the tanks immediately moved forward and hid behind the houses. The great officers that had cursed me walked up to those tanks and saw a horrible picture. A high-explosive shell from German Tiger tank had hit the back part of the tank, when soldiers of our company had already mounted it. The explosion killed almost everyone, some soldiers were simply blown to pieces and nothing remained of them. Some seven or eight soldiers were killed. The other tank did not have soldiers on it. The Germans did not fire any more. Colonel Turkin, the Brigade’s commander, walked up to the scene, and when he realized what had happened, he told Stolyarov and Kozienko: ‘You know, Bessonov was right.’

We left the suburbs of Lodz, and again my platoon on three tanks was ahead of the Brigade. I had already mentioned that the Army’s, Corps’ and Brigade’s task was to advance to the Oder as quickly as possible and establish a bridgehead on its western bank, in area next to Keben (northwards from Wroclaw). Having travelled some 50 kilometres from Lodz, we stopped for a rest, in order to refuel tanks, replenish ammo and have a nap, if the situation allowed it. After all, in seven days, from 12 to 18 January, we had travelled over 200 kilometres in heavy fighting. In 24 hours we would travel up to 50 kilometres almost without any sleep. We were quite exhausted. Penetrating deep into the enemy’s rear, we were supposed to capture good river crossings and destroy enemy reserves, if we could not bypass them. Our rest was short and on the night of 21 January we moved on. The Poles did not meet our warriors with the same attitude everywhere. Some met us with joy, others with distrust. Sometimes villages did not have a single living soul – all the villagers would escape as soon as they heard the news of approaching Russian tanks.

Once, when the battalions stopped for a break after a day-long march, I was ordered to move forward with five tanks in the night and capture an important road junction. The commander of the tank regiment Stolyarov personally led the task force, and I was on his tank. Suddenly we spotted Fritzes, and Stolyarov asked me: ‘What should we do?’ ‘Crush them!’ I answered. He dispatched this order to all the tanks over radio. It was actually clear that we did not have any other choice. The Germans were superior to us in numbers, but owing to the element of surprise, we smashed the well-armed unit into pieces. My soldiers displayed miracles of bravery, decisiveness and fearlessness in the running battle. Some stayed on tanks, while others dismounted. Trucks and APCs were burning, their crews abandoned some of them, dead bodies of German soldiers were all around. We even managed to burn two Tiger tanks, while all the surviving German infantry fled. For some reason we did not manage to take any prisoners, all the surviving Germans ran off. The remains of the column managed to disappear in the darkness, and we did not pursue them. The way forward for the Brigade was open.

My soldiers were coming up to me, excited and happy with their victory. We captured some war booty, but it was not the main thing, the main thing was our success. This shows the importance of the element of surprise in a night attack. The Germans did not expect such boldness from us, and did not organize the security of the column as they usually did. They paid dearly for this. For some reason I remember that battle very well, probably because of our success and the absence of losses on our side.

In our joy we even had a bit of a drink and drank a symbolic toast to Stolyarov and his tank crews. We slaughtered so many Germans in that battle, that even Stolyarov, an experienced front line commander, got sick, but alcohol got him back into shape. Until dawn we moved forward, fulfilling the order given to us. We stopped in a village to get ourselves warm and stayed there till evening, waiting for the main body of the Brigade.

During the night of 22 January the Brigade moved on. From that time on our company was riding on JS-2 tanks instead of T-34 in front of the Brigade. The Brigade was reinforced with three such vehicles.