Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

Some commanders – we were no longer cadets – some 25 to 30 men, including me, stayed in the academy. They told us that we were supposed to undergo training as tank-hunter platoon leaders in the anti-tank rifle platoon. No one really knew what this might involve. Afterwards we received an explanation in the form of a manual. It stated that in every rifle battalion, first a platoon and then an antitank rifle company were to be formed to engage the enemy’s tanks. The academy received two anti-tank rifles – the first one a Degtyarev model and the second a Simonov, the semi-automatic one, as well as anti-tank grenades. We rarely fired the rifles, as we had to spare the ammo, and threw dummy grenades instead of live ones. Then, in early July 1942, we were sent to an army unit.

We did not go straight to the front but ended up in the 365th Reserve Rifle Regiment of the 46th Reserve Rifle Brigade at Surok station in the Mariiskaya region. They trained replacements for the units at the front in that regiment. Red Army soldiers did basic military training, mostly shooting and tactics – the usual actions of an individual soldier in squad and platoon. Lieutenant Zhukov, a man from our academy and a Muscovite, and I were sent to a sniper company. A 40-year-old, Junior Lieutenant Chudakov, who was called up from reserve, was the company commander. I became platoon leader; I had 30 men as my subordinates. They were all of different ages and nationalities, and many of them had already lived a long life. At first I was a bit uncomfortable giving orders to older men and I felt frustrated, but later it all seemed normal. The platoon leader’s wage was 600 roubles a month; 50 roubles were deducted as a military tax and we got 550 roubles in cash, but we did not have anything to spend the money on, as there were no shops in the regiment. Outside the regiment there was a rationing system, and market prices were very high: a loaf of bread was 200–250 roubles; half a litre of vodka or moonshine was 250–300 roubles – that was all we could get for our wage.

Besides shooting and studying weapons in the sniper company we taught the men to dig in with a small entrenching tool, camouflage in terrain, advance in short rushes, throw grenades, mostly RGD-33s, and to charge with the bayonet. They sent younger men who were enthusiastic about marksmanship to the sniper company, and they tried to reach my level of skill, but there were very few men in the regiment who could shoot better than me. Although we did not have real combat experience, we taught our subordinates to do the things that we knew and could do after graduation from the military academy. The training period for snipers was extended in comparison with the training period of a private from an infantry company. After two or three months of training, or sometimes even less, men were sent as replacements to the combat units, but the regiment’s officers, or more correctly commanders, were rarely sent to the front. For example, I spent at least one year in the regiment (from June 1942 to April or May 1943). During the summer and autumn of 1942 I was twice sent as an escorting officer for marching companies to the combat units, first to Mozhaisk area, and the second time to Voronezh area. The task of the escorting officer was to deliver the company without losses in personnel (there were cases of escapes). Sometimes the political officer of the company accompanied the company commander. Marching companies were normally brought to the divisional or regimental HQ, where men were distributed among units. Officers also started to leave for the front from the 365th Reserve Regiment; officers that came to the regiment were from hospitals, where they had been recovering after wounds, sometimes serious ones. It was time for me to leave the regiment. I had been stuck in that regiment for a long time, but I obtained experience of leading men and received advanced knowledge of military science, and I also became an excellent shooter. I did not have any good friends left in the regiment – many of them had left already, and I was happy to leave the reserve regiment.

In late May 1943 I was sent to the personnel section of the Moscow Military District. They sent me and other officers to a battalion of the officer reserve in Kuchino, in the vicinity of Moscow, where the battalion was stationed. I did not stay there for long, just around a month. We did almost nothing there and tried to get sent to the front as quickly as possible. In late July 1943 we, around 100 officers, were sent to the Bryansk front. We started our journey from Moscow by train, then we hitchhiked and then even had to walk. That was the time of the Kursk battle – one of the largest battles of the war. Our counter-offensive started successfully, but because of bloody fighting in defence and then in attack units suffered heavy losses both in men and officers. This is why the units of the Bryansk Front desperately needed replacements.