Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

We had all kinds of training for the personnel. After the first snowfalls we even learnt to ski, although many did not know the first thing about skiing. I was reasonably demanding in my relationship with the soldiers, I tried to be just and did not try to find small faults, I treated every soldier as an individual. Most of the soldiers were 18 years old in 1943. They were not strong physically, mostly small and frail youngsters, so I tried to adjust the training programme to meet their physical and health capacity. Day and night we trained them for the future battles. We taught them things that they would need in combat at the front. We knitted the units together in tactical training, trying to cultivate a sense of comradeship. Soldiers had to adjust to each other; they had to understand how a platoon or company attacked in order to assist each other. That was the main thing. We had to build a core, to have a team, not a group of individual soldiers. We paid most attention to training at the platoon-company level. We had political classes as well – conversations and political information.

We considered that removing ‘tank fear’ and training soldiers to knock tanks out with hand grenades was a crucial point in the training. We did a ‘tank test-drive’ for that purpose. Soldiers would sit in trenches, while a T-34 would roll over the trenches once or twice. Boys were happy to see that it was not that scary and they were happy to see how brave they were. We had a little combat training with live ammo in attack and defence. I would often tell them about life at the front, sharing my combat experience. I went through the war all the way to Berlin with some soldiers from that replacement of 1943.

We all felt that our combat training was about to end. By then the soldiers had learnt skills, such as handling weapons, and grew stronger; I could see bravery and confidence in their eyes. Some of them were appointed squad leaders or even assistant platoon leaders. A short period of time passed – just two and a half months, and one could see the military bearing in them, the young boys had transformed into soldiers that I could lead into battle.

THE KAMENETS–PODOLSK OPERATION

^{Map to show the Kamenets-Podolsk offensive, July to August 1944.}

In early January, 1944, following the order of Stavka, the 4th Tank Army was transferred to the Kiev area from the Bryansk forests. Our battalion and the tank regiment travelled to Bravary station near Kiev in one train. After this we crossed the Dnieper river by means of a temporary bridge, drove into Kiev’s outskirts and stayed in the buildings of a former technical college not far from Klavdievo station. That was in late January. We stayed there for a long time. I remember that the supply units fell behind us on the march and for some time we had awfully poor food – rye flour boiled in water without salt. We were constantly hungry. It was impossible to buy food for money, one could only exchange things for food, but we had nothing to offer for exchange. Officers had to put up with it, but soldiers were soldiers, they had to get good food – one could kick the bucket with that rye flour. Food was finally arranged by the efforts of the battalion commander and the zampolit; after a week we started to receive decent rations. In mid-February 1944 we were again loaded on to a train, and even received 100 grams of vodka before getting on it (veterans usually refer to ‘grams’ of vodka – translator’s note). That was the first and the last time that we received vodka – we never received it later. It was already late February when we got off the train at Polonnoe station. These rail journeys, both from the Bryansk forest area to Kiev and from Kiev to this station, took ages; especially long was the journey to Kiev, as it took about two weeks. The military trains were following each other at short distances, so we had to unload quickly, as the next train was about to arrive. The sky was cloudy; that is probably why the enemy’s air force was not present. We unloaded in darkness at Polonnoe station and marched on foot to Shepetovka, walking in dirt the whole night with short breaks for rest. We walked some 30 kilometres in the night and reached Shepetovka, where we went into houses and immediately fell asleep, even refusing to eat. We were so tired and exhausted that we did not even pay attention to the enemy’s artillery strikes that fell on the city.