Nikolai Shishkin i remember.ru -tankers-

8/13/2019 Nikolai Shishkin i remember.ru -tankers-

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i remember.ru

-tankers-


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Nikolai

Shishkin

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In 1939 I finished high school with

high marks in the Kazakhstan city of

Petropavlovsk and applied to three

colleges: Moscow Aircraft

Construction, Moscow Architectural

and Sverdlovsk Polytechnic.After

being admitted into all three (they

admitted the best students without

exams), I decided to study at

Sverdlovsk Polytechnic in the

metallurgical department. Within two

months after I started my studies and atthe same time of the start of the Finnish

War, they announced a voluntary call

for students for the war service. I didnt

have to go into the army, but we were

all patriotic. Practically the entire class

decided to volunteer for the defense of

the Motherland, same as the guys from

all our neighboring universities. We

thought that they would immediately

transfer us to the West, however, it

turned out we were sent to the city ofAchinsk. Snow already lay on the

ground by the start of November. We

arrived at our transit point, where we

cleaned up and changed into army

uniformwhich so changed our appearance that we at first could not recognize one

another. They formed us up on the parade ground in two ranks, along which buyers

walked and picked out soldiers for their sub-units. I and some other men found

ourselves in the artillery unit of an infantry regiment. Thats how I became a gun-

layer of a 76mm gun Model 1927. With that gun I went through both the Finnish War

and the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The commander of our platoon was

Lieutenant Orel, while the commander of my gun was Seminwho would receive thestar of the Hero of the Soviet Union for fighting in the Karelian Isthmus. This is how

he received it: the Finns broke through to the headquarters of our regiment, and even

though our gun was in disrepairthe counter recoil did not workwe swung it about

and opened fire on them, counter recoiling the gun with our hands. Thats how we

saved our regiment headquarters, and Semin was rewarded and later became a captain

only to die in a stupid way

They taught us well at Achinsk, but for too brief a period of time. We did not have

live fire exercises we only trained to load our guns with a wooden dummy shell,

and already by the middle of November they sent us to the front. [Translators

note:The war began on 30 November 1939, so it appears that Shishkin is off by one


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month so the dates he gives in November ought to be understood as December]As we

went, Lieutenant Orel conducted exercises with us. I remember he forced us to work

blind-folded, feeling the movement of mechanical part only by touch to set the

deflection and elevation for our guns. We learned to place the deflection precisely,

and we placed the elevation with error of not more than 2-3 hundredths off the mark.

They unloaded us at the Dno station. Through snow we dragged our guns to the firing

range and fired live ammo for the first time, getting the taste of the gunpowder. It

must be pointed out that we left for the exercises at 10 or 11 in the morning, but the

field kitchens forced their way through the snow only by the evening. We were

hungry the entire day! And imaginethe cooks forgot the salt! They made pea soup,

but how could you eat it without salt?! Lieutenant Orel said, Pour in sugarthe taste

will be the same. We poured it in, but it became completely impossible to eat it.

From there, from the Dno Station, as part of the 613th Rifle Regiment of the 91st

Rifle Division, I ended up going to the Vyborg sector. Heavy battles raged there. In

the month of December the snow was waist deep. It was true for us that Siberia had

prepared and equipped us well. We were dressed in sheepskin coats, hats that covered

our ears, and mittens to our elbows. I cant say that 40 degrees below zero was

nothing to us, but we didnt feel it so severely. We could and did lie in the snow for

several days. They taught it to us in Siberia, and they also taught us to run in the

snow. The platoon leader, thanks to him, trained us. For example, we would bring our

gun out to the position to shoot wooden dummy shells. Then he would give the

command: Target: machine gun, reference point one, left 20, 2 shells. Fire! And

then he would yell: To cover! That meant we had to run 200 meters in half-meter

deep snow to get to shelter. Youd run that distance and then just collapse. We would

catch our breath for a little bit, and then already the command: Detachment, to yourgun! So youd run the same 100-200 meters back to the gun. Thats how he trained

us and saved us from the frost. On the Karelian Isthmus that helped us a lot. We could

quickly open fire, then run to seek cover from either an artillery or mortar

bombardment. After all, through the whole war, we were able to use indirect fire only

several times, otherwise the whole time we dragged our guns with our hands behind

the infantry, always using direct fire. Wed capture a ridge, advance 100 meters and

spend a week in one place, then advance another 100 meters and again stop. Thats

how we were breaking through the Mannerheim Line. And even though I think that

the command of the regiment was competent, the regiment received replacements

more than once until we reached Vyborg.

A.D.: What is your opinion of the cause of the heavy casualties?

The command underestimated the enemy. I think the soldiers are not to blame. They

fulfilled the task that they were given. The defense of the Finns was competent, with

concrete bunkers, flanking fire, and of course, if you advanced into this defense

without reconnaissance, without preparation, and without reliable suppression of

enemy weapons emplacementthis happened more than oncethen losses would be

great and unjustified. In our section of the front there were concrete bunkers called

millionaires in which there were two or three machine or even an artillery piece. To

capture such a bunker, we probably had to roll out a 203mm howitzers and put several

rounds into the bunkers gun-port, or drag up to a ton of blasting charges. The warwas very hard, but if it had not been for itthe Great Patriotic War would have been


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even worse for us than it was. The Finnish Warit was the schooling that came with

much blood.

A.D.: What kind of missions did the regimental artillery fulfill?

Supported the infantry. You could say that a regimental gun had doublesubordination. Before the battle, the commander of the battery, who was next to the a

rifle battalion commander, gave the orders. He received the missions from the

battalion commander and passed them on to the gun commanders through the

commanders of the platoons, who were always next to him. The platoon commander

would come running from the battalion observation post and give the command to

two of his own guns (there was often not more than 100 meters to them): Reference

point two, right 200, machine gun emplacement. As soon as we advance to attack,

start pushing the gun after, do not fall behind more than 250 meters. As soon as the

battle started, the command of our operations passed over to the infantry. For

example, lets assume a rifle platoon advances toward some hill. In the platoon there

may be 30 men or maybe only 15. In the hands of every fighter is a rifle and one to

two machine guns per platoon, if they were intact. The task for the commander of the

guns was to observe the weapon emplacements of the enemy, who might be located in

the first trench or in deeper defenses. Well, my task as gun layer was to suppress these

weapon emplacements. We all lay in the snow, or later in the Great Patriotic War on

the ground, or behind the guns shieldbullets whistling, the enemy about 400-800

meters away. The commander would observe events though binocularsit was

difficult for him as he had to poke himself out of the cover. The infantry runs for 20

meters and lies down seeking cover. At that time we would open fire on the flashes

we had just spotted. At the signal the infantry would again get up to attack. And again

we look to see from where they were shooting and fire our gun there. Lets assume wetook the first trench. The enemy retreated to the second that was located 200-300

meters away. We moved the guns 100-200 meters forward and fired over the heads of

our infantry. Then we would wait for command from the infantrythey had to

indicate the target, or the commander of the gun himself picked them out if he spotted

any. What kind of communications did we have with the infantry? From the

commander of the company or platoon came a messenger running with an order to

suppress some weapon emplacementthat was all the communications we had. Wire

communications were down to the level of the company commander, and below that it

was all by voice, whistles, and rocket signals. For example, a red rocket showed the

direction of the movement, greenfor attack. Well, and then you just had to look and

seewhat the neighbors were doing, the infantry.

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A.D.: What were the norms for ammo expenditure?

The ammo load of a regimental gun consisted of 80 rounds, but during any given day

we were allowed to fire no more than 20 or 40. We sparingly used the shells,

especially during the Great Patriotic War under the siege of Leningrad, where everyround was worth its weight in gold. I must say that there were always limits on


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expenditure of ammunition. The limit was defined for the whole mission. For

example, two ammo loads would be allocatedone ammo load used for carrying out

the immediate mission, while a half or even a quarter of an ammo load for reaching

the next objective. This was the case in both the Finnish and Great Patriotic War, only

in the second half of the Great Patriotic War the expenditure of shells for the

fulfillment of a typical task was increased. There were such battles where theyallowed us to use unlimited quantities of ammunition. If in strained circumstances for

similar tasks where they normally allocated two ammo loads, then they might assign

three or four.Of course, we had to take into account that guns also wear out. You

could use it up so badly in one day, that it wouldnt even fire the next day. We had to

observe the regimen of firing, cleaning, and lubricating. So you had to use your head

when firing. As to the expenditure of shells for fulfilling a concrete tactical task, there

were established standards. For example, from the distance of 800 meters, a well-

trained crew was supposed to hit a gun-port the size of 50 by 50 centimeters with at

most the third round. Before the Great Patriotic War,during the competition for direct

fire against a moving tank from the distance of 800 to 1000 meters, my crew was able

to land all three shells in a square 50x50cm and receive the highest mark.Thats howwell-trained we were!

A.D.: Did you understand the reason for waging war against the Finns?

The political instruction work during both the Finnish and the Great Patriotic wars

was conducted very well. I think that the commissars and later the political officers

[zampolit deputy commander for political work, replaced commissars in 1942]

worked well. These were people who did not spare themselves, who did not think of

themselves. They conversed well with the soldiers, often making small talk about life,

asking who was writing from home, how we were fed, and they never crammed

agitprop party of Lenin-Stalin stuff into us. I, for example, never heard the cry For

Stalin! during battleobscene cursing was heard more often. Perhaps there was

someone in the platoon or the company who raised the cry: For Stalin! For the

Motherland! when going on the attack. But, overall, this was not the case. As regards

to our battery, the circumstances turned out during the Finnish War that we never

assembled for the commissar to talk with us. There wasnt the opportunitywe were

all with our own guns within the combat formations of the rifle battalions.

A.D.: Did they give you vodka during the Finnish War?

All the time. In the morning a company could have 100 men, in the evening20, butthere would be a full canister of vodka for the entire complement. You could drink as

much as you wanted. But it wouldnt have an effect on you because of the frost. The

ground was like steelwe could not even dig out a shelter. So youd lie behind a

dead body, piercing a tin can with a knife to open it. What vodka?! The whole of three

months we were in the snow. We made a rampart of it, lying down in the center layer

and covering ourselves with snow. If we stopped for 2-3 nights, then we made tents

out of pine branches. In the day wed light a campfire, but in the nightit was not

allowedwe were afraid of planes seeing us.

A.D.: Did they feed you well?


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We never experienced constant hunger. Though, it happened sometimes that the field

kitchen would fall behind. And under the siege of Leningrad in 42, yes, there was

hunger.

A.D.: Did you ever happen to meet the Finish cuckoos?

Personally, I didnt, but there was much talk that the Finnish snipers organized

ambushes up in the trees. I had no basis not to believe them, so far as it seemed to me

that such a tactical method in the surrounding areas seemed fully justified.

A.D.: Did you ever rub shoulders with the Finns?

No. I saw them only through the gun sight. Its true, though, that this situation

happened in our battery. Our cook was a big man, the merry fellow Vania Chechurin.

The kitchen rarely succeeded in dragging up to the forward positionseither the

snipers would prevent them or the snow had piled upso food carriers would set out

to the positions with thermoses that contained enough food for 20. If there appeared tobe a lull in the fighting action, then the kitchen came up close the positions of the

battery. And so, one time the battery members lined up with mess tins. When another

soldier came up to Vania, who was giving out food, Vania looked at him: And you?

Who are you? Maybe youre a Finn?! And he whacked him on the head with his own

ladle.It turned out that this was a real Finn. The Finn was so insolent that he came toour kitchen to receive a mess-tin of hot soup. For his vigilance Vania Chechurin was

awarded the medal For Bravery.

The last fight of the regiment they ordered us to Vyborg. During the assault we got

delayed. Our neighbors succeeded in breaking through, while the Finns pressed our

infantry to the ground under barbed wire obstacles with flanking machine-gun fire.

And it was only 400 meters to the city! The commander of the regiment gathered all

who remained, grabbing half of the personnel of the battery, and led everyone to the

barbed wire. He himself raised the men to attack. And even though we lost a lot of

men, we burst into the outskirts of Vyborg. On the night of the 12th, when it was

already known that tomorrow there would be an armistice, all of our artillery fired on

the Finns. There were forests with small clearings there, so our guns stood next to

each other three meters apart, and all night we chiseled away at the Finns, not sparing

any shells.

In the summer of 1940 they transferred us to the Hanko peninsula, having alreadycreated the 8th Separate Rifle Brigade from our division. There we had to set up the

state border. A special demarcation commission was established. I had to accompany

it, dragging along the artillery director. The chairman of the commission was General

Kriukov, besides him there was also the commander of a battalion from our regiment

Captain Sukach, who had been decorated for his fighting on the Karelian Isthmus with

the Order of the Red Banner. On the Finnish side a unit that had fought against us on

the isthmus was quartered. When one of the Finns realized this he said to the captain:

We were enemies there, but herewe are making a peaceful border. I was a witness

to this meeting. Besides that, the garrison of the peninsula also traded with the Finns,

who provided us with milk, butter, and vegetables.


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The regiment took up the defensive positions on the Petrovsky opening, through

which, according to legend, Peter the Great had pulled through ships from one of the

gulfs to another one on a different sea, and by June of 1941 was thoroughly

entrenched.

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Up to the 17th of June our regiment had only six dummy shells per gun with which

we trained in loading, but on this day the order came to take up defensive positions,

and instead of imitation rounds we received 200 real ones. The pillbox for our gun

was still not finished: it had two lateral walls and a breastwork that screened the gun

from the front so that only the barrel stuck up from it. We put channel bars above it

and brought in and placed rocks on top, and later we buried this whole construction

with dirt. We created a large hill, and even though we camouflaged it, it stood out

distinctly against the terrain. A ditch was dug in front of it, and at the bottom of itwere built three lines of electrified barbed wire obstacles. Two machine gun pillboxes

for flanking fire were built in front of the ditch.Everything was mined. The engineer

of our regiment was Lieutenant Repneva professional in his work and a big

inventor. He installed not only mines, but also remotely detonated charges and rock

throwers (in the ground we dug out conical holes, in which we put gunpowder

charges, and on top of them placed sacks of rocks). So they told us that something

would happen and gave us our missiondo not let the enemy pass. We could only

shoot in response to the attack of the enemy because there were strict orders not to

shoot, so as not to provoke a war. There was even this incident: The driver of the

Komsomolets tractor attached to us, Emelian Gnesin, while cleaning his machine

gun accidentally gave a burst of fire. They took him away to the special department,

as a provocateur of war, but within some time let him go. We asked him, Well,

Emelian, how are you? He answered, They told me to be quiet. Such was the

gag 22nd of Junewar! But it was all quiet in our sector, nothing was happening.

Only on the night of the first of July we came under artillery bombardment, which

lasted for two hours, after which the Finns descended

on our pillbox.

Interview: Artem Drabkin

Translated by:Mary Schwarz

Editing: Oleg Sheremet


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Arsenij

Zonov

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Arsenij Nikolaevich Zonov was born in 1925 in a peasant family living in the

village of Balezinschina in the Bakhtinskij (now Kirovskij) District of the Kirovskaja

County. Upon his graduation from the Factory Worker School No. 42 in the city of

Kirov, from winter of 1942 until the summer of 1943 he worked as a machinist in a

repair shop at a factory. In the summer of 1943, he was drafted into the Red Army;

after graduating from the 32nd Tank School in Kirov, he served as a SU-76 gunlayer

in the 1201st Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment, a T-34 loader in the same regiment,

and a motorcycle section commander in the 94th Separate Hingan Motorcycle

Battalion of the 7th Mechanized Corps. In total, he fought in the Ukraine, Rumania,

Hungary, Czechoslovakia and China. He was decorated with the Order of Lenin,

Order of Glory III Class, two Medals of Valor (Za Otvagu Transl.), the Combat

Achievements Medal (Za Boevye Zaslugi Transl.) and the Order of Honor. In1950 he became employed at the Krin factory, where he works through the present

day and where he earned the honorific of Expert Machine-builder of the Russian

Federal Socialist Republic.

A.B.: At the tank school did they immediately begin to train you as a loader?

No, I was being trained as a gunlayer, and successfully completed that course. Then

we started to drive out to practice shoots at a firing range near the Bahta village and

the problem was that I was too short. I was a good student in the classroom, but in the

vehicle itself I had to stand on my tiptoes just to try and reach the gunsight. The

shoots were early in the morning, too, I didnt really see the target at all sent all mythree practice shells into the empty sky (laughs A.B.). The assault gun commander

was a veteran tanker, fought in T-70s, came to us straight from the hospital. When I

finished, he nearly cried, and told me: son, what am I going to do with you once we

get to the front? The assault gun exists to fire at tanks over open sights if we cant

shoot, well just be a practice target for them. I was very disappointed too it was a

bad practice shoot. But then, during my first battle, near Odessa, we ran straight into

German forces and I was right on the leading edge. In my first combat I destroyed an

armoured transporter, one gun and a lot of enemy infantry. The Germans and the

Rumanians were retreating, and we formed up right in their path thats the kind of

battle that was. For that fight I was awarded the Medal of Valor the first in my

regiment!How did I manage to fire the gun? Before that first fight we did have some run-ins

with the Germans, some long-range firing but nothing more substantial. During that

time I rigged up an empty ammo crate to serve as a platform on which I could stand

while firing the gun. The regiments commander later nicknamed me gunner with a

lectern.

I got my second Medal of Valor for destroying a German tank in another battle

later on. We were behind the Dniester River, when that bridgehead was already

somewhat enlarged. The assault guns were standing in prepared positions, then theinfantry told us that there are German tanks in such and such a place. We moved out, I

let off a few shots and hit him in the side, I think. Then I heard shouts hes burning


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up! Its like this you move out, then you start maneuvering. The assault gun

commander moved us forward, I fired my shots and he immediately moved us back

and to the side as he knew that the Germans would aim at the spot from which we had

opened fire. In any case, I was credited with a kill meanwhile, Im still not really

sure whether it was my target that was burning back there.

A.B.: How many shells did you fire?

I cant say exactly. Its like this typically, you start by firing a few aiming shots with

high explosive shells once youve zeroed in on the target, then you hit it with an

armor piercing round. You have to fire aiming shots first though. On the other hand, if

youre firing over open sights and can actually see the target in front of you, then you

can use an armor piercing shell straight away. We were also issued specially made

sub-caliber shells, 5 per combat load. I only ever got to fire one of those, for some

reason they all had to be accounted for. Now regular high explosive or armor piercing

roundsthey gave us lots of those.

A.B.: Were you trained in indirect fire from the start?

Well, you see on the firing range we took practice shots after gunnery classes

mainly to get used to the sound of the gun firing. I m ean, thats how I understood it at

the time everything was different at the front. At the front, youre firing on a live

target. Artillery is an interesting and fairly simple discipline. They did train us in both

direct and indirect fire, how to use the various instruments. Indirect fire training was

fairly simple: you have your observer, but you yourself cant see the target. So you

aim the gun and fire, then the observer gives you a correction: too short. But then at

the front, I never had a chance to fire at something indirectly, from fixed positions.When youre right on the leading edge, youre always firing over open sights thats

the only kind of targets you get. Thats precisely what small caliber artillery is

intended for. The 45mm guns are anti-tank weapons, while assault guns are used to

engage the enemy forces directly. War is war, and different equipment serves

different purposes.

A.B.: How were your assault guns used tactically?

An assault gun isnt meant to go in with the main attack like the T-34 tankthe tanks

have armor, while our guns are completely open from the rear. This one time, at the

village of Grigorevka near Odessa, HQ ordered us to go in with the tanks.Fortunately, my battery didnt participate in that attack a lot of the assault guns from

my regiment burned up. Just imagine a SU-76 has two engines working on high-

grade aviation gasoline. That thing could blow up from the tiniest spark, which is

what happened near Dniester when I almost burned up. That was the one instance of

when we went into the attack like that, and several people burned up. Seems thats

how HQ wanted the attack to be conducted.

The Dniester was forced in May, and we wound up on a small bridgehead about one

kilometer deep and half a kilometer wide. If you can picture the steep shore of the

Vjatka Riverthats how it was at the bridgehead, with a serpentine road leading up

from the river. So 6 of the 21 assault guns in my regiment went up the serpentine anddeployed to defend the bridgehead. Of course, the Germans tried to push us back into


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the river, but the will of our soldiers was stronger than the Germans.

A.B.: What other shortcomings did the SU-76 have, in your opinion?

It was open-topped, for one. When youre in a T-34, you feel protected. Not in the

SU-76. Of course, the fact that it lacked an enclosed crew compartment could be agood thingone time, an explosion threw me clear of the vehicle. If it hadnt, I might

have died then and thereas it were, my greatcoat was cinged and my face burned all

over, but I got clear. The assault gun just continued to burn and eventually the shells

inside detonated and blew it apart. And after all that I had to come back to the

vehicleActually, it was an interesting event. I did a very dumb thing well, maybe

I did the right thing, who knows. The SU-76 gunner serves as the machines second-

in-command and has the right to issue orders to the driver independently of the crew

commander, because sometimes the commander might not notice something

important. You issued orders through a visual intercom system. The system had three

lights white, green and red. Certain combinations of lights, for example if you

pressed red and green, translated into different commands for the driver: start the

engines, forward, back. An assault gun is more limited than a tank, which can

rotate its turret 360 degrees. A tank can point its body in one direction while firing

entirely elsewhere, while an assault guns main weapon can move 15 degrees right or

left, no more than 30 degrees up, if I remember correctly, and 5 degrees down. Very

limited.

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There was this one battle when we were in the Dniester bridgehead. Our assault guns

were deployed in a fan formation, its a kind of artillery tactic. All our vehicles were

fairly close to the river bank, and positioned close together so that the firing sectors of

neighboring assault guns overlapped. All dug in, that was mandatory. Thats the main

thing we were in dug in positions. When we dug out an emplacement, we always

left a small cell under the vehicle to rest in. There is no place in the vehicle itself to

rest when youre in defensive positions. So as the gunner, I would keep watch, the

driver would be in his seat, and the rest of the crew would crawl into this cell.

It was May 4, around 4 oclock in the morning. It was still dark, but the Germans litup some houses. Someone brought me a map of the area after the war, and I couldnt

find the village where all this took place. I kept looking for something named

Sherpen, but the actual name of that village was Sherpeny, a neighbor of mine was

from Moldavia and she set me straight. Anyway, the Germans open fire and

commenced an attack from the village graveyard. I decided to get our SU-76 out of itsemplacement, since we couldnt fire at the Germans from where we were. Just as I got

it out and tried to turn it around, the thing got stuck. All the other crews were in a

basement of a half-ruined hovel, only the men on watch were in the assault guns. So

when the shooting started, they ran to their vehicles but the commander of a

neighboring assault gun mistook my SU-76 for his own. Just at this time my

commander jumped out, and a German shell or a mine went off right on top of myvehicle, my teeth clacked from the explosion. So the other commander helped me


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bandage ours up. Meanwhile, the shrapnel knocked off my gunsight, and my

commander is signing to merun, its no use, the assault gun is stuck where it is and

the Germans are already advancing.

I started to jump out of the vehicle, there was a pair of small doors in the back for

that. All Ive got is a revolver. A gunner is supposed to have a revolver, the loadergets an SMG and the driver and commander each get a revolver. So three revolvers

and an SMG, plus a few grenades. So first I went to grab a grenade from an ammo

storage compartment, put in my pocket, grabbed my revolver it was attached by a

chord to my arm and started to jump out. Just as I grabbed the doors, I was blown

clear by the explosion. What happened? When my commander told me to get out, I

thought to tell the driver. When I bent down towards his station, I saw his hatch was

open and hed already split. Thats when a shell hit us and blew up. The ass ault gun

has ventilation grilles on top of the engines, flames burst through those and burned

my face. I shut my eyes, turned around, grabbed the doors and thats when the assault

gun exploded. I was thrown clear for maybe five meters. Somehow I managed to turn

to avoid getting hurt by the fall, and still had the revolver in my hand, although itschord was torn. At first I didnt feel anything from the adrenaline rush, and

meanwhile the place is covered by a net of tracer rounds, and enemy shells areexploding everywhere.

Then I saw some soldiers running behind the hovelsif these were Germans, I would

have run straight into their hands. But these were ours. I was completely disoriented,

but finally got to a hovel where our soldiers gathered.

My greatcoat was all cinged, my neck and face were burned. I saw my commander

there, we went down to the river and I took him to the medical station. He was a good

commanderLieutenant Aleksej Ivanovich Dylev. He was my second commander,

actually, the first was Aleksej Ivanovich Dernov. Both were Aleksej Ivanovich, and

both from Saratov. Dernov was wounded in the arm, while Dylev got it in the cheek.

The German attack was repelled in the end, but there was only one assault gun left out

of the six that were there. When I got my commander to the medical station the sun

began to rise, and our IL-2 Shturmoviks began to arrive. I decided I had to go back to

my assault gunI had no right to leave the frontline. I thought if I were to go back

to the rear areas, theyd ask me what was I doing there. So I went back to my assault

gun.

My vehicle had completely fallen apart, I only remember the gearbox; it had been

thrown clear and was burning with a blue flame. Our assault gun was on one side of

the street, while right across from it stood a German tank. With a tanker half-fallen

out of one of the hatches. My crew told me: we were standing right there, the German

tank came up and got hit right in the side at point blank range, at most from 10 meters

away. So thats what happened in the Dniester bridgehead.

There was this one episode I want to talk about. On the white wall of one ruined hovel

someone wrote with a charcoal: Tankers and assault gunners, dont let us take you

prisoner, well cut you to pieces while youre still alive. And right nearby we found

the bodies an assault gun commander, Lieutenant Rjazantsev, his gunner Karataevakid from Vjatka, we were in the tank school together and his driver, forgot what the


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guys name was. The commander had a star carved into his forehead, the arms were

broken, his eyes were gouged out and his member was cut off and stuffed into his

mouth. Karataev was stabbed to death with a bayonet, while the driver was apparently

shot execution-style. Dont know what happened to the loader. They were all from the

same crewwe buried them in the nearby orchard under an apple tree and made an

oath to avenge them. And we kept that oath.

A.B.: Do you think it was the Germans or Vlasovs men? [Russian soldiers fighting

on the German sideTransl.]

Vlasovs men, they were at the place around that the time.

A.B.: Did you see any of them?

We didnt see them since the whole thing happened at night. Plus you have shells

exploding, all sorts of noise. [Laughs A.B.] During combat, during heavy fighting,

you can never tell who is who.

A.B.: When you were in a SU-76, what was your most frequent opponentinfantry,

artillery or tanks?

You know, since I was a tanker I had to view enemy tanks as an obvious threat. Later

on, when I was a scout, all threats were equally dangerous when youre on patrol,

you are not protected from anything, not bullets, not shells, not bombs. But when you

were in a tank, you didnt care about, say, a machine gun burst, or someone advancing

towards you. Its when youre outside, you might as well be naked, and you have to

work to make yourself invulnerable.

A.B.: What happened after your assault gun unit was destroyed?

Well, my face was all burned. Our regiments commander, a man named Makatsuba,

he was a good man a frontline soldier, wounded many times. Well, he left the

regiment soon afterwards, and his replacement was our chief of staff Dobretsov. His

name really did describe the man. [The root word of Dobretsov is dobro or kindness

Transl.] So Dobretsov ordered that I am not sent to some hospital, but rather that the

medics would treat me while I remaind with the regiment. The only decorated

crewman in the regiment and so forth. And thats how I managed to stay with my

regiment.

Page 3 of 9

We were withdrawn to the rear for reconstitution, and thats where we were given T -

34 tanks. We also got a new regiment commander, Colonel Muhin. Also a very good

man, very good to the soldiers. Somehow Ive always been lucky in life with meeting

good people, having good friends. My wife always told me you know Arsenij, its

just a pleasure when your friends come over. And come to think of it, I never had

any bad ones always people with whom you could have a decent conversation.Colonel Muhin was like that, a very good man.


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A.B.: What was the most memorable part of the Jassy-Kishinev Operation for you?

Heres why it was interesting. The defense lines were practically on the Romanian

border. Stalin launched ten big offensive, and so this was number eight. We, soldiers,

didnt really know all that much, but I think our commander was Tolbuhin. The

mission was to break through the defense line in a couple of places, link up behindenemy lines and create a cauldronthat was the point of the whole thing. We went in

south of Bendery, practically in the enemys rear area. We were driving forward w hile

the fighting was still going on behind usour mobile units like tanks and assault guns

just tore forward.

A.B.: At the start of the offensive did your regiment go in as a separate unit or were

the SU batteries detached in support of other troops?

No, it was like this. First, you had the antitank minefieldsthey were mostly cleared

by sappers, but the terrain didnt allow them to get at most of the anti-personnel

mines. So the order came down as soon as the tanks and assault guns go through,the infantry will follow in their tracks. The shrapnel didnt really do anything to these

vehicles, the mines just exploded harmlessly. Now, after the infantry went through the

minefield, it could begin its attack and so was left behind while we surged forward.

We broke through the defense line quite easily, actually, there was virtually no

resistance. The artillery preparation must have lasted at least an hour a veritable

curtain of fire from all sorts of guns. Our jump-off point was in a clearing of some

wood, and so by the time we drove out in the open space we just saw the Katyushas

firing on enemy positions. It was quite a spectacle. The Germans hunted them, tried to

figure out their firing positions as soon as the first salvo landed. Katyusha units had

to fall back to the rear as soon as they finished firing, because the Germans would

start to pound their position with mortars and artillery, even with aircraft.

This one time, when we were marching along the main roads, we ran into a German

column. These were reinforcements moving up to the front, either didnt have radio

contact with anyone or just got lost or some such. We caught them completely by

surprise, took several thousand prisoners and left them with our supporting infantry.

The Germans didnt expect us at all. I remember, we grabbed one of their officers

near the Parizhi village, the guards fell asleep and he escaped, but before he did he

told us that from the German perspective the offensive was very sudden and

unexpected, like a bolt of lightning.

When I got transferred to the T-34 I became the loader, while the tank commander

worked the gun. I spent the entire the Jassy-Kishinev operation on the T-34. Of

course, I didnt have any combats where I got to fire the gun, like I did on the SU -76.

Our entire regiment, in fact, didnt really run into any heavy resistance, so my tank

commander, named Isaev, also didnt get to do any shooting. Interestingly, they didnt

change the regiments name even though it had T-34s at that point. When we were

holding the line near the Dniester we got the honorific Ismailovskij you know

where Suvorov fought? [Generalissimo A.S. Suvorov had famously captured the

impregnable Turkish fortress of Ismail in Bessarabia towards the end of 1790

Transl.] I actually got to visit Ismail after I got out of the hospital, but I wont bore

you with all of my biographical minutia.


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I became a scout after I got out of the hospital. Since I had been a tanker, when I got

to the 94th Separate Motorcycle Battalion I was in full tanker uniform, including the

helmet. The battalion had some T-34s, and I told the CO that Im a tanker and wanted

to serve in a tank. And he then says to me:

- All of our tank crews are at full strength. If that ever changes, well look you up, butuntil then youll be a tank rider.

Well, then I guess Ill be a tank rider. This was in December of 1944, in a Hungarian

town of Bichki. So instead of staying a tanker I wound up in a scout unit. We

actually didnt have any motorcycles at that point, so we were basically general

infantry. I was a sergeant then; one day, they call me into the HQ in a village named

Chabli and told me:

- Sergeant, take this soldier, - mind you, this was about two or three oclock in the

morning. Half the village was German, halfours.Take this soldier and get him to

the forward edge, you know the way. Get the password and a written pass, and take aprisoner.

- Yes sir, - I said, and went off on my way.

At that point I didnt really know anything about being a scout in the reserve

regiment near Slobodskoe all they trained us in was infantry tactics: defend a position,

fire at the target. How to attack: short step, long step, run forward, crawl forward.

Thats it. Plus, I used to be a tanker completely separate from the whole infantry

business. Later on I understood that this particular mission was a test, of sorts. They

were trying to see what I could do, what I was capable of. So I got to the forward

edge, right to the sentry post, and told them were going to get a prisoner. They

looked at us as if I said something absurd some teenage small fry going after a

tongue (laughsA.B.). The other soldier was also pretty small, Vlasenko was his

name. So me and Vlasenko crossed into no mans land without really knowing where

the Germans were, where anything was.

It was night. I said to Vlasenko: You know, we have no idea whats here or here the

forward edge is lets just go this way. So we went down a gulley it was

wintertime and there was a lot of snow on the ground towards a nearby grape

orchard, these usually had bunkers converted out of wine cellars. We saw something

on the ground near the bunker and figured that maybe it was a German, though I saidto Vlasenko: Maybe hes just deadI mean, how are we going tosnatch anyone if

we dont even know where the Germans forward edge is? In any case, we crawled

towards the bunker past what we thought was a hostel turned out it was just a big

heap of straw. The bunkers door was half-open; I started to open it with my SMG

barrel, and it squeaked if anyone had been inside, they would surely have started

shooting. So I said: Cover me, just in case. Opened the door and went in I didnt

go in firing though, so as not to light up as a target. Vlasenko went in afte r me. I

told him to shut the door, and then I lit a match there were some steps leading down

for a couple of meters, and a body of a dead German. I thought: Well, he probably

went up to the door and got shot, then tumbled back down the stairs. Then I told

Vlasenko to give me some light and searched the Germans pockets he had somematches on him, a handkerchief, a torn newspaper and something resembling a letter.


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He also had an automatic cigarette maker, its like a little box, you put in some

tobacco and cigarette paper and a cigarette comes out the other end. Anyhow, I

grabbed all his stuff, figuring that even if we didnt get a live prisoner, at least we had

proof of some contact with the Germans. When we came back out of the bunker, the

sun was already starting to come up. I told Vlasenko: Listen, if we just crawl back to

where wed left our pass, were not going to make it before dawn. Its almost half akilometer. Lets just walk normally, there dont seem to be any Germans around

anyway. And sowe went, but a patrol noticed us before we could pick up our pass.

Page 4 of 9

- Who goes there?

- Friendlies!

- What friendlies?

- Scouts

- And wheres your pass?

Pass, what pass, we just came back from a reconnaissance. So they sent us back to

their HQ under guard. When we got there, we told them we were scouts from such

and such unit, they called our own HQ and verified that two scouts were in fact sent

forward on a snatch-and-grab. Thats when they finally let us go.

A.B.: Did you ever carry any identification on a mission?

No, of course not. You had to leave all that at the HQ, even your medals. Physical

evidence. And at that point, there werent even Red Army IDs like we have today,

they just gave out a written document saying that I serve in such and such unit.

Anyhow, after that patrol, I reported to HQ, gave them everything I found on that

German, and went back to quarters. A couple of days later they called me back in, and

ordered myself and two other men to go forward and verify where our forward edge

is. So we went along all our sentry posts, making sure they were where the map said

they should be. Finally, wemyself, Vlasenko again and another soldier whose nameI forgetgot to the street where we were picked up the other night, it was right at the

edge of the village, and very well covered by the Germans mortars and machine

guns. It was dawning again, and so I said to Vlasenko:

- Ill make the first run, then you follow. So I ran across, then waited for Vlasenko.

He ran up to me and I asked him:

- Wheres the other guy?

- He aint there.

- What do you mean he aint there? Why not?


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- He was there one minute and wasnt there the next.

- All right, wait here, Ill be back, - and I ran back across the street, looking for this

other soldier. I mean, I couldnt get back to HQ without finding out what happened to

himtheyd ask me what happened, and Id be held responsible as his commander.

So Im looking for him, calling out his name, and then I hear a muffled Im downhere coming from something that looked like a brick doghouse built next to a hut.

- What are you doing in there?

- Im afraid! He was fairly young, too.

- What are you afraid of?! Run!

Meanwhile, mortars and shells are bursting all over the placeof course the kid was

afraid. Vlasenko and mewe were veterans, we knew that if you could hear a shell,

then its not meant for you. You never hear the one meant for you, if you can hear it,you can always dodge away or drop into cover. So I told him: Come on, dont worry

just watch how I run across, then do the same. Then I ran across, and he followed.

When I reported back to HQ, I didnt mention this incident. Why knock on a guy for

getting a little scared? And after that, I finally began to feel like a real scout. Then we

went after a tongue for real. Heres how its done first you have the observation

team root around for about three days, figure out where the enemy is, what his

patterns are, where his weakest link is. Then you send forward a capture team and a

covering team.

A.B.: Which team were you on that time?

I was on the observation team, we watched the German positions through binoculars.

The village was split in two our positions were on one side of the village hostel, the

Germans were on the other. We crawled up into an attic and watched them from there.

I think theyve managed to spot us somehow. There were three of us myself, Victor

Jacenko and another guy. Wed move the shingles aside and watch. There was this

knocked out German medium tank next to one of the houses on their side of the

village. All of a sudden, a German with a Panzerfaust came out, leaned against the

side of that tank and aimed straight at us. We were gone in an instant, I mean, he blew

half the shingles off the roof. [Laughs A.B.] Clearly we gave ourselves awaysomehow, and then had to find another position.

A.B.: Later on, did you ever go on a prisoner capture mission behind enemy lines?

Did they give you special training as a scout?

No, no special training. Usually, during a break in the fighting our commander would

just march us out of our positions and tell us lets say the enemy is deployed over

there, go capture a prisoner. That was all the scout training we had. We had that in

Hungary a few times, but it was a real joke, we didnt even use training rounds, just

whatever live ammunition we had on us.


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Remember that guy I didnt report for getting scared under fire? Well, heres what

happened to me and him one time. There is a town called Sekeshfehervar in Hungary,

the Germans kicked us out of it twice after wed captured it. And there was a canal

connecting Lake Balaton and Lake Velency. It was January 18, 1945, 20 degrees

Celsius below zero, and we were falling back from the town. HQ gave the order to our

sappers to wait until all the heavy vehicles had crossed the canal, then blow thebridges. The sappers, of course, went across first and then blew the bridges without

waiting for anyone leaving all of our heavy equipment on the wrong side of the

canal.

So I wound up having to swim across. By the time I got across I had to ditch my SMG

and my greatcoat, and I still couldnt lift myself out of the canal. Suddenly that very

soldier turns up and shouts: Zonov give me your hand! I gave him my hand, he

pulled me out, I was shivering badly (shows just how badly A.B.), but when I

looked up literally a few seconds later he was gone. To this day its a mystery to me

the place was completely open, no cover around at all, where could he have gone?

Page 5 of 9

A.B.: What was the most terrifying moment or incident for you in the war?

The whole war was terrifying. I guess my test for toughness was that canal and what

happened afterwards. After I got across, I walked for about 5-7 kilometers down the

main road. At the time, we were moving fresh reserves to Sekeshfehervar, units from

the Karelian Front. When the fighting in Karelia ended, they reformed those units and

threw them to help our forces near Budapesht. Anyway, I walked up to a hamlet

where we had either a field hospital or a medical station I saw wounded being

carried out of the huts and loaded on carts. The Germans were advancing, so the

wounded were being evacuated. It was very cold, and I didnt have my greatcoat so

I asked them for one. They told me they didnt even have enough for all the wounded.

So I went back to the main road, and thats when a Willis jeep and a couple of

supply carts drove up. We always called these things hoofers, basically horses

pulling peasant carts with rations or ammunition. So the Willis pulled up to me and

stopped, a colonel came out in a fur coat and hat and asked me:

- Where are you coming from, Sergeant?And I was just dying from the cold at that

point.

- From the other shore.

- What other shore, - he asked?

- Just keep driving down this way, Comrade Colonel, and youll see for yourself!

The colonel then called a soldier over.


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- Come here soldier!The soldier came over.Stand guard over this oneIm going

to drive up to the head of the column, line everyone up and have him shot for

panicking.

- You know, Comrade Colonel, - I said, - you can shoot me right now if you want. Im

not going to just stand here and freeze.

He got back into his Willis, but just as he was driving off some German aircraft

appeared and blasted everything to bits. His car was flipped over, his carts were

smashed, the horses were running wild. So I just kept going. Understand, I was

walking and counting my steps, waiting for a shot in the back. I was under guard, you

see. But at one point I looked back at my guard, and saw him leaning against a cart

casually holding his carbine. [Laughs wryly A.B.] So I managed to walk away. By

that point, it started to get dark. I was walking across a wood in some gulley when I

saw a man approach wearing a captains insignia.

- Who goes there?

- Friendlies, - I answered. He came up and looked me over and I had nothing, no

coat, no weapon. He then said:

- Listen, sergeant, dont waste time talking, go past the wood and therell be some

sheds. Go through the furthest door in the shed at the end, weve got a bakery there.

Tell them captain so-and-so, - I forget his name, - directed you to them, theyll warm

you up.

I did what he told me. There were some men sitting inside the bakery, I remember one

of them, a red-haired soldier with a moustache, said to me:

- Oh, sonny, looks like youre gonna be a real live one! - not quite sure why he said

that. All my clothes were completely frozen. I wanted to take a leak, but couldnt get

my hands to work and so wound up wetting my pants. When I got inside the shed,

towards the warmth, pain shot through my hands and arms thats how you know

youre starting to warm up. They told me to take off my uniformbut I couldnt. So

they did it for me, and it was so frozen up that it came off looking like a church bell.

They hung my clothes above the stove and they began to steam. So they undressed

me, put me in a warm place, gave me some hot milk and fresh bred. Then, after theyd

caught a hare, they gave me some of that. Long story short I woke up in themorning, dried out my clothes, got dressed, then saw some commotion. I asked them

what happened, they told me during the night, a few more half-drowned soldiers

showed up, and theyd stolen their last greatcoat as well as their carbine. Probably lost

their own gear just like I did. SoI tucked my uniform into my trousers, put on a hat

and went outside. Right into the morning frost, it was so cold! As soon as I came

outside, I immediately wanted to go back inside (laughsA.B.). But then I thought

what am I going to do here, I need to find my unit. I asked them:

- Did you get bombed here?

- Dont know, could be bombs, could be heavy artillery. Lots of explosions, buteverything missed the shed.


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I went out on the road and decided to go back to the other end of the gulley. Then I

came upon a big village with some troops inside. I couldnt tell whether these were

ours or the Germans, at first, but then I saw a tracked APC and figured out these

were friendlies. As I came up to the village, I heard some soldiers shout:

- Zonov, good thing you showed up. The CO is in that house there. You know, myheart almost stopped when I heard that. The other day a colonel nearly had me shot,

and here I show up at HQ without my weapon. Our scout battalion was Captain

Kravchenko. I went into the house, and saw Kravchenko and some others sitting at the

dinner table with a pitcher of wine and a big pan of fried potatoes. In Hungary, there

was as much wine around as we had kvas back home. [Kvasa popular low-alcoholic

Russian beverage made of fermented breadTransl.]

- Comrade Captain, - I reported, - sergeant Zonov reporting for duty. Was forced to

ditch my SMG and greatcoat in the canal.

- Dont worry about it, Ill give you so much iron to carry around you wont be ableto move. Lukashenko, didnt you have a spare greatcoat in your APC? Now this

name I do remember.Go get it, would you?They brought be a big greatcoat and

the captain said to me: Good thing that you made it out alive, sergeant. I need a

machine-gun loader, so youre with me from now on.

But I never got to be a machine-gun loader, because our unit wound up being

encircled. We spent the entire night wandering around, trying to get to our lines. I

remember those days very clearly, January 18 to January 22, 1945. After that episode,

we got to this big village of Djomry near Budapesht theres also a town called

Kishhunhalash nearby and thats where we got our motorcycles, Harleys. These

got us to Prague and then back east, to the Great Hingan in Manchuria. We had either

104 or 114 Harley Davidson motorcycles in all. We also had a mobile recon element

a tank company with 10 tanks, two APC companies. One company was on American

wheeled APCs, and the other was on half-tracks, with rubber tracks. Plus we had an

anti-tank battery of 4 guns. That was the 94th Hingan Separate Motorcycle

Battalion. Even though it was on motorcycles, it served as the reconnaissance unit for

the 7th Mechanized Corps. The Corps commander was General Katkov. Our unit was

fairly strong, we could even engage small enemy groups. We could also engage

enemy aircraft, our half-tracks M17s, if I remember right had turrets each with

four 14mm AA machine-guns. I commanded a motorcycle section, 4 motorcycles

with sidecars. A platoon had 4 sections, each sidecar had a Degtjarev machine-gun. Ithink each company had two platoons, plus a 12 RP radio. These were small, mobile

units, while the half-tracks had really powerful radios, very good communication.

Page 6 of 9

A.B.: What can you say about your motorcycles? Were they good?

They were great, except for one flawthe engine was too loud. It was very noticeable

on the move, you cant say the same about the M72. We got the M72s in China. TheHarley is a good, reliable machine, a V-type engine protected by a fender, chain


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transmission. But the wheel is just stuck to the axle like with a bicycle, no shock

absorbers whatsoever. The M72 had shock absorbers, etc. But then, the Harley had a

leather seat on springs, that dampened a lot of the hits. The sidecars were all ours, of

course; Harleys were shipped as stand-alone motorcycles.

A.B.: Could you use German gasoline in your bikes?

We never had to try. I must say by that late in the war, there was an abundance of

weapons and supplies. I remembered recently a conversation I had with the guys

about this. SMG rounds came in black tar-paper boxes, probably 500 each. And you

know, you take the rounds, load up the magazines and then just dump the box in the

trench. No reason to carry it around anymore. We had plenty of fuel for our vehicles,

too, the supply services were very good.

A.B.: What tactics did your scout battalion use?

One of the most dangerous tactical ploys was the so-called combat reconnaissance.They used it when they didnt know where the enemys weapons and firing nests

were, what strength did the enemy have. So they would send a group of infantry and

vehicles towards the enemy positions as live bait, to get him to open fire on a live

target.

A.B.: First, the motorcycles and then the tank company?

Nothe key was to make it seem like there is a real breakthrough, a real offensive.

For instance, if they know that somewhere in a certain direction there is German

artillery. The Germans keep firing at our forward edge a few shells, then nothing,

then a massive bombardment, basically wears you out and our guys cant get their

exact coordinates. So a decision is made to get the guns to reveal their positions by

sending a combat reconnaissance. You dont send the troops straight at where you

think the guns area bit to the side. So our infantry and vehicles move forward, and

oftentimes its not just our battalion, wed be reinforced by other scout units or even

regular army forces.

A.B.: What other missions did you carry out?

Other missions? Id say that reconnaissance units didnt have complex tactical

missions but I cant really say for sure, since I wasnt in the HQ. Mycompanysmissions variedreconnoiter a road, find a side road. Theyd look at a map and say

we need to verify that this side road branches out here, and whether heavy vehicles

can pass. Or there could be a river, and wed have to find out if there was a ford, if

there were bridges, what load could those bridges take.

A.B.: How would you determine that if there werent any signs near the bridge?

Well, I wasnt the one who made that call, but it seems pretty clear that if a bridge is

built for carts orpedestrians, it probably wont take heavy tanks. Most of the time we

just looked for a ford, because then you know all the vehicles can pass across. And

that was more for sapper units, anyway the scouts job was to get there and get


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across, while the sappers handled the actual logistics like building crossings and

getting other units through them.

A.B.: What were you feeling when you went off to war?

When I worked at the factory, most of the time you just felt the cold and the hunger.Even though my ration was 800 grams of bread a day, and that was the biggest ration

category. My sisters, with whom I was living at the time, also got that ration, but we

worked for 12 or more hours a day, and on occasion we didnt leave the factory floor

for days at a time. You know, when theyd say Everything for the Front! Everything

for Victory!, and let the machines run non-stop. I was a repairman, and we kept a log

where youd write down which machine came offline, when, for how long, what work

was performed. God help you if you were slacking off, everything and everyone had

to work at maximum capacity all the time. Plus you have the hunger and all that. So

there were a lot of volunteers for the army, and when I got in I thought: Thank God!

Because life in the rear areas was very hard. I mean, I did volunteer for the army

because it was my duty, but its a fact that soldiers were fed a little better. And then,when I finished my training to become a tanker-gunlayer, and got into a combat

vehicle, I felt that I was clad in armor, that I was invincible.

My second disappointment was when I got to the forward edge and saw the wrecked

vehicles, the whole meat grinder, complete with explosions. Then I felt like all that

armor was nothing more than some plywood or a sheet of paper. The third

disappointment was this when all you see around you are dead bodies, blown up

vehicles, destroyed houses, when all you hear are screaming bombs and shells,

machine-gun bursts and all sorts of gunfire, you think to yourself this is Hell on

Earth. You want to run away from it, but you cant. Sometimes you look up at the

clouds in the sky and think if only I could lie down and float away like that. For

some reason, they always flew n the right direction, to the east, to where home was.

Or sometimes you saw birds also flying away from the front, to the east. And you

think to yourselfif I were a bird, Id fly away from here. Those feelings passed

after about a month. Fortunately, there wasnt any heavy fighting at first, I got to the

front in February but combat operations didnt really get underway until March-April.

For the first couple of months, the body just couldnt get used to war. It was very

hard, there was just this strange feeling of dread. But and Ive always said this, then

and nowI was very afraid to show any fear. If someone had called me a coward, I

think I would have shot myself right then and there, I swear to God. Thats how I was.

However bad things got, I always tried to carry myself as if I werent afraid. Yourereally afraid, but you look like youre not. Thats the sort of thing that you dealt with

on the inside.

A.B.: What did you feel during combatfear, excitement?

Ill tell you this. There is such a thing as, if its the right way to call it, bat tle-lust.

When youre in combat, youre not really controlling anything, youre not really

feeling anythingnot even fear. You just start shooting, doing your job sometimes

you have to stand up and expose yourself, but youve got a job to do so you ignore the

danger. After its over, then you ask yourself: why did I do that? I had put myself in

grave danger. Battle-lust dulls the self-preservation instinct, you lose control over


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yourself. I wasnt the only one who felt it, and maybe someone else can describe it

more accuratelybut this is my subjective definition.

A.B.: Why did you fight?

For the Motherland.

Page 7 of 9

A.B.: What does that mean?

It means a lot. It means that I live in this land, that I have loved ones who must feel

peace and calm and not have to suffer the horrors that I am going through. Maybe it

sounds brash, but I think every one of us was a true patriot and felt that it was his duty

to fight. Some yelled: For the Motherland! For Stalin during battle I wasnt in theinfantry, never fought hand-to-hand, so never heard anyone shout these things. There

werent any slogans on our tanks, but you saw them on other tanks, gun barrels. It

truly was the Great Patriotic War; when we were in the rear, the slogan was:

Everything for the Front! Everything for Victory! Consequently, we fought to win.

Thats it.

A.B.: When you were escaping from the encirclement near Balaton, was your faith in

Victory shaken?

We would not have won without faith in Victory. We strove to break out and survive,

and if you manage to survive then you must strike back at the enemy. And thats it.

A.B.: How did you view the Germans?

Maybe its just my own philosophy, but I felt that the Germans were people like us.

Many of them didnt have a choice in fighting us. I was very negative towards the

Germans that committed atrocities all of us hated those. But even though some of

them were like that, most were treated just like regular human beings. Ill tell you this.

After the war was over, we were near Prague. We, the scouts, were detailed to guard

the German prisoners. There were some German colonists who had lived in

Czechoslovakia, families, children. The Czechs threw them all out of their houses,called them Schwabs. Effectively, these people were living like refugees in

occupied territories, even though the war was over. We saw these women and

children, and went to local bakeries asking for bread. The Czechs asked us: Bread for

whom? The Schwabs? We told them no, it was for us. Our units are quartered here

and here. But really, it was for these kids, we would bring the bread and hand it over.

Our feeling was: its not the womens fault, its not the childrens fault. When we had

to march them all off to some place, you could see their bodies on the roadside. I was

driving along on the motorcycle, and there was this red-haired German standing by

the road, I remember his face as if it were yesterday. He was there on his knees,

signing that he was hungry. I tell my driver a Bashkir named Juldashev, hey, stop

the bike. See that German there is asking for some food. I had bread and otherfoodstuffs in the sidecar. So I took about half a loaf of bread, came over and gave it to


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him. Juldashev said to me: We ought to just shoot him! And I told him: What, you

havent done enough shooting yet? Shoot him for what? Let him eat!

I gave the German the bread, and he was crying. His tears were leaving tracks in the

dust covering his face. He was trembling when he took the bread. I turned and walked

away, and he was making the sign of the cross at me. He was still doing it when Idrove away. Thats what it was like the war was over. We fought until May 11,

some general near Prague had refused to surrender. Then on May 13 my legs

suddenly gave out, had to do with scouting operations, and I got a letter from my

sister. She wrote me that my older brother had been killed, he was born in 1918. I

wasI think, had we been guarding any Germans then, I would have taken an SMG

and just executed them all right then and there. Thats what I felt grief for my

brother. But it all passed, it was just a moment, a flash almost. And later I thought

had I actually done that, I would have committed a great sin.

A.B.: Aside from the Germans, did you fight against any other nationalities?

Besides the Germans? Romanians, Magyars. When we crossed the Romanian border,

they immediately came over to our side. Antonescu had ordered the Romanians to the

Caucasus. I cant say what the difference between Germans and Romanians was, we

never really ran into any.

A.B.: How would you compare the vehicles on which you foughtassault gun, tank,

motorcycle?

I wouldnt compare them, really. I liked machines in general, and I knew that I wasnt

fighting on foot, that the machines would carry me around. Well, some of them also

had powerful guns. So, in general, I always loved all sorts of machines, and will

continue to love each in its own way.

A.B.: What were the diversions at the front?

Just imaginetheres a lull in the fighting, and all the performers come out to liven

up the scene. Not the state performers, just talented soldiers. Two or three of them

would usually band together and say ok, lets do our act. Theyd gather troops

around, tell storiesnot just about Vasja Terkin [A fictional soldier, the subject of a

number of well-known humorous tales Transl.], all sorts of stories. Theyd sing

some really bawdy couplets, tell jokes, tell war stories. It just helped everyone unwinda bit.

A.B.: What was the favorite activity? Sleep, food, singing, dancing?

To tell you the truth, sleep is what you wanted the most. These days, oftentimes I go

to bed and cant fall asleep at all, but back then, the moment you found any suitable

place, you were out cold. This one time, when I was on an assault gun before my

commander was wounded there was a two-day battle near the Dniester River. You

were constantly on alert. This was after the bridgehead, when I got my second Medal

of Valor. We were dug in, and as Ive already told you there was this little space

underneath the assault gun. I was dead tired after the battle, falling asleep whileholding the gun. My commander told me: Lie down and rest a bit, sonny! That was


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in the evening, and so I literally fell into that little space and went into a deep sleep.

Then, in the morning, I woke up from someone shaking my foot.

- Are you alive or not?My greatcoat was covered over with earth. I wiggled my leg

out of someones grasp, and they shouted:

- Hes alive!

- Why wouldnt I be, - I asked.

- Just look around!

Apparently, a bomb went off about five meters away. The crater was almost big

enough for our assault gun to fit into. And I slept through it. Then my commander

said to me: Hey, theres something wet in the combat compartment, see what it is. I

crawled into the compartment, checked the gun, and saw that a piece of shrapnel went

through the side armor and sliced right through the recoil mechanism, so all thehydraulic fluid leaked out.

Then, when I opened the breach, I saw that the gun barrel was bent. Another piece of

shrapnel hit it from the side. Later on they told me that the entire vehicle almost

flipped over, that the blast wave literally picked it up off the ground and dropped it

back into the dugout. And I didnt hear a thing. If Id been up on top, I would at least

have been shell-shocked. Now thats some nap. But besides that we didnt have any

films or any concerts. After the war we finally got a jazz orchestra. When we were in

Mongolia, theyd always start with The Waves of the Danube; later on, when we

passed the Great Hingan, they switched to the waltz On the Hills of Manchuria.

Page 8 of 9

A.B.: What was the most difficult time of the year for you?

Winter, of course. Ill tell you this as scouts, we had to crawl all over no-mans land

for weeks on end, not an iota of warmth. In Hungary, you get a little bit of heat during

the day, but then the nights are very cold, the climate as a whole is quite wet. Your

feet are always freezing, you had to carry two sets of leg wraps. One set is aroundyour body, so that when the ones youve got on your feet get cold or wet, you can

switch them around. And then about a half hour later, your feet are freezing again. I

thought to myselfif I survive this and get home, Ill wear warm winter boots even in

the middle of summer! [LaughsA.B.] Yes, winter was the most difficult. When its

raining or snowing, you have no place to warm yourself up, dry your clothes. I always

dreamed of having some sort of a rubber cape, just to keep dry. Of course, in wartime

any time of the year is difficult from a mental standpoint; but winter is the most

physically challenging. So.

A.B.: How would you characterize your relationship with your senior commanders?


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For some reason, I always lucked out with my superiors. After the war as well.

Seriously.

A.B.: How would you define a good commander?

Well, first, a good commander treats you well and understands you. He has to be ableto give you sensible orders, in a way that you can understand them. There were all

sorts of commanders. Some were very flaky, though most of them were good people.

Sometimes you even pitied a commander who had made a mistake. Our scout

battalion CO was a man named Ivan Dmitrievich Lustin. When we fought in the

West, he performed just fine, but then at the Great Hingan he made a mistake. The

scout battalion must be at the head of the Corps. Lustin didnt read either the map or

the terrain correctly, and got the Corps a bit off track. It wasnt bad, but Corps HQ

figured out that he led us the foothills of the mountains instead of where he was

supposed to lead us and for that, he was relieved. Thats when we got another

commanderNikolaj Nikolaevich, dont remember his last name but we really felt

for Lustin. He had replaced Kravchenko after we broke out of the encirclement nearBalaton.

Ill tell you this when I was with the HQ as a drafter, I had to work very closely

with my commanders. Id go out on reconnaissance with them, draft the maps, track

the battle as it developed. So I was lucky, everyone treated me well. It depends on

discipline, I guess; if youre self-disciplined enough, and carry out your orders, your

commanders treat you well. Its a two-way relationship. Just because he might have a

higher rank than you doesnt mean hell pull it on you every time. During exercises

we were practically equals, within the bounds of unit subordination. Everyone had his

place in the chain of command.

A.B.: Are you familiar with terms like REMF, HQ rat, etc.?

You heard them in conversation. Soldiers felt that way about certain officers, but I

personally never really encountered this. It happened, of course. I dont know what

the cause would be; I think I would have found it insulting to be referred to in this

way.

A.B.: How would you appraise the role of alcohol at the front?

When I was in the scouts, and since I was still a kid, I did try wine. But I neverindulged in any of the strong stuff. I was very negative towards that, and the army

vodka ration was given out very rarely on the founding anniversary of the Red

Army, maybe, or the anniversary of the October Revolution. On holidays, in other

words. They never distributed it to us as part of our daily ration, though there was

plenty of hard drink around if you wanted any. But you know, when youre out on a

missionthey say a drunk feels that the sea only comes up to his knees. You can

easily lose control, and lose your head. A drunk can get too careless, and so I was

very negative towards drink. And the rest of the guys, they werent really drinking

much. From time to time, of course, but I didnt see a single man drinking during

combat.


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starts to bomb you or shell you (and I noticed this in myself, too), youre lying in

some piece of cover and it just seems that the ditch in front of you is a couple of

centimeters deeper. You start thinking that you just have to make your way to that

other ditch to survive. But I knew from veteran soldiers that under no circumstances

should you break cover. You take cover where you can and stay down until its over;

if you start looking for a better spot, youll just find your own death! In that firstcombat where I got my first Medal of Valor, they started to bomb us and we bailed

out of the assault gun. I managed to roll into some small slit trench, but then curiosity

almost got the better of me. I wanted to see how a bomb falls to the ground (laughs

A.B.). So I watched a bomb separate from the aircraft, and just then my commander

screamed at me: Get down! Then I went prone. There was a saying at the front:

when theyre bombing you, nail your arse to the ground. And its true, when a bomb

explodes nearby, the earth shakes a little, you feel as though someone is pressing at

your back. My CO told me afterwards not to stick my head out like that. Well, what

can you doI was still a kid. But yeah, we had omens.

A.B.: Were you religious during the war?

Yes. I always kept my faith. My mother and sister were very religious, they passed

their faith on to me. I just believe, I dont know a lot of prayers. I just believe that

there is something there above us.

A.B.: Did you ever pray at the front?

Silently, yes.

A.B.: Did it help?

Probably. Who else could have prayed for me to survive the war and to live for all

these years? Thank God he is still with me, and Im still needed here. If not for God

Id already...thats just how I feel.

A.B.: Do you recall the reaction back home when you returned from the war?

I have two brothers and two sisters. All my life before the war they were never rude to

me, always treated me kindly. When I came back, my one brother had five children,

the otherjust one son and one daughter. I lived with my brother, he was our elder.

Petr served in Stalingrad, among other places, had been wounded several times anddemobilized from the army. He is a good smith, both my brothers are skilled workers.

Petr worked for a whole year, and got only 20 kilograms of grain. Everyone in the

village saidyour brother is about to come home from the army. In the olden days, I

would have taken a plot of land for myself, something from my inheritance. But then,

when I came back, I took a look at him, gave him my last greatcoat and said to him:

Petja, you have helped me so much in my life. Let me raise one of your sons for you,

give me your eldest. Ill take care of him.

So I filled out the forms, as Id already bought a house of my own, sent him to school

and told him: until you finish your 10 classes, I wont let you get married. Helistened to me, finished school, got married, had a son of his own. Quite


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unfortunately, something was wrong with his lungs, and he died at the age of 29. I

grieved as if he were my own son. In general, my brothers and I were very close. I did

not know my father, and my mother died when I was 15.

When I came home, the first thing I did was go to my parents graves. I cried my eyes

out, and then said: my brother made these two small crosses for you, and Ill give youfull headstones. I made them from metal, then replaced them with marble headstones.

Then replaced them with new ones, and put up ones for my brothers and sisters

theyre all buried together. Its good for me here.

Interviewer:Aleksandr Brovcin

Editing: Aleksandr Brovcin

Translation:Gene Ostrovsky


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Vladimir

Vostrov

Page 1 of 4

V.V.I was borne in August of 1924 in the town of Jartsevo in the Smolensk

region. I only managed to finish 8 grades of school before the war began. Five days

after the invasion, our district created a destroyer battalion from Komsomol

volunteers. The German bombing raids on the region were very heavy, and our

battalion was tasked with guarding the two nearest railroad bridges, dealing with any

German saboteurs and paratroopers, and patrolling the district. The battalion received

one 1.5-ton truck, which provided all of our mobility.

Our commander was a man from the towns militsia [local police Transl.] who had

served a tour with the army before the war. We were issued one Vickers rifle and 5

rounds for it, housed in a schoolhouse and sworn in as soldiers. In July we had a battle

with some German agents that had infiltrated behind the frontline, and even managedto capture one of them alive. Everyone was really surprised at how easily we dealt

with the Germans thenwe could hardly have known what a terrible and bloody war

awaited us all. We all wanted to get to the front as fast as possible, worried that the

war might end without us getting to fight. Of course, later that summer I gained a

more realistic perspective on the war. The area around Jartsevo was held by

professional troops, very well trained and equipped. They had an echeloned defense

30 kilometers deep, with artillery positions every 100 meters. The commanders were

fond of saying things likewell fertilize the earth with German corpses! And the

Germansthey just flanked the entire defensive position

When they did that, people started to panicour battalion just fell apart. We waitedfor orders to begin an orderly evacuation of noncombatants out of the region, but

never received it. I myself managed to walk 20 kilometers along country roads to the

next railroad station, and rode out of the encirclement on the last freight train that had

escaped the Germans.

G.K.And did your relatives manage to evacuate?

V.V.My father was in the army by then, the next time I saw him was 1946. When I

came home after being discharged, my father was waiting for me on the train

platform. I walked by him twice, and he didnt recognize meThats how much the

war changed me.My mother wasnt fortunate enough to escape. When my regimentliberated Jartsevo in 1943, she wasnt in town the civilians whod survived the

occupation were hiding in the nearby forests during the battle. Our house had been

completely destroyed. Someone later told my mother that they had seen me standing

over the ruins of our home. After that, for a long time she kept going to Smolensk to

meet the medical trains headed east, hoping to run into me. She never did, but I

actually was on one of those trains when they shipped me to a hospital in the rear

areas. Thats a mothers instinct for you

One of my uncles, Semen Fillipovich Vostrov, tried to break out of the encirclement

in a car with two of his friends. They ran into a German patrol and were

killedanother uncle, Grigorij Fillipovich Vostrov, stayed behind with his wife Vera


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and daughter Valja. At one point, they were hiding in their house a wounded Russian

pilot whod been shot down behind enemy linesa neighbor told the Germans, and

they shot my uncles entire family as well as the pilot. My family lost a lot of people

during that terrible war

G.K.What happened to you after you escaped from the German encirclement?

V.V.I wound up near Moscow, worked as a garage mechanic for a while. In April

of 1942 I volunteered for frontline service. I was first assigned to a reserve regiment,

went through basic training, then became an infantryman on the Western Front.

Towards the end of 1943 I was wounded, and after I was released from the hospital I

wound up in an assault gun regiment.

G.K.Would you like to talk about your life in the infantry?

V.V.You know, Ive looked at your website, and there is already a wealth of stories

from regular infantrymen. I dont think I could add anything substantial to that. The

infantry was almost certain death. No-one who served escaped his fate. I was

extremely lucky to last as long as I did on the frontline. I can tell you about my last

infantry combat. The frontline was near Orsha. The German positions were 400

meters away from our trenches. We were deployed in defensive positions cant start

any fires, they fed us cold stew and crackers once a day. Then suddenly they relieved

us, took us back 10 kilometers behind the front. We washed up, got new uniforms.

Then they formed us up and read aloud the order about a new offensive. The next

morning, we attacked after an artillery preparation. We barely advanced 100 meters

when the German dive bombers showed up and started plastering our lines. We

couldnt retreat, and staying put meant certain death from German bombs and so werushed forward. Across the barbed wire, across the minefield, under fire from German

machine guns and mortars, and all the while the bombs kept whistling overhead and

exploding among us. Finally, we captured the first German trenchline, and

immediately the order came down Keep forward! Do not stop! At that moment,

my SMG jammed. I squatted down, cleared the jam, then started to run again. I only

had about 50 meters to go to the next German trench when I felt a hard blow to my

legs. A German mortar shell exploded just behind me, and a big fragment lodged in

my left knee. Butonce again I was extremely lucky. My boots and my greatcoat

were full of holes and shrapnel, but only a few fragments actually hit me. A friend

dragged me off into a fresh shell hole and bandaged me up. I crawled back to the rear

using my SMG as a supportnot even the wounded were permitted to leave the fieldof battle without their weaponEventually, I wound up in our medical batta

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