Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

Our combined company dug in at the outskirts of Kamenets-Podolsk on a bad spot, in the open in front of a ravine, really more of a hollow. The opposite side of the hollow was higher, and our position could be clearly seen from there. At the same time, a bit behind us was a good natural defence – a mound. I proposed that we dig in there, but no one listened to me. Soldiers dug foxholes and put their weapons, which had no ammo, on breastworks; next to them they put German weapons with ammo and two or three German grenades. Each soldier had a bottle or two of wine to help them keep warm. There were no serious frosts, but living in the open under rain and snow at zero temperatures night and day is a really unpleasant thing. We shivered with the cold. Behind the mound we could at least light fires, but even in the foxholes soldiers found a way to keep themselves warm, covering the foxholes with German rain capes and blankets. I also had two blankets, and covered my foxhole with them during the night – it kept the trench amazingly warm. I would dig a foxhole myself or with my orderly. All soldiers and most junior officers had the small entrenching tool with them, including me. The soldiers had their entrenching tools in a case that they put on their belt, while I had a folding German tool that I carried in my hand. I carried it like this till the end of war.

We did not have gas masks – they only frustrated us in battle, especially the tank riders. I, like many of the soldiers, did not wear a helmet – they were heavy and slid down on to your face. Defending the city of Kamenets-Podolsk, we had to pick up German small arms: submachine-guns, rifles and machine-guns, as we had no ammo for our own weapons. Right up to the end of the operation some soldiers carried two types of weapons, their own and German weapons, before we received ammo for our weapons. The Germans tried to drop ammo and sometimes food to their encircled troops. Two containers with ammo fell in our hands, and company Sergeant Major Bratchenko took the parachute silk for industrial purposes. Silk could be traded for moonshine and lard in villages.Villagers made blouses and underwear from the parachute silk.

I would sleep little during the night, checking the guards, especially in the second half of the night – what if they fell asleep or missed the Germans, or did not pay attention to them? Anything could happen. Regular inspection of the positions became my obligatory habit, and my soldiers knew about my night checks and felt safer that their commanding officer was not asleep.

We stayed in defence for several days. Germans appeared on one of the days, but they did not attack the company, capturing several houses some 100 metres to the left of our defences. They opened fire, mostly from rifles, even on individual soldiers. Interesting indeed, that the Germans could approach secretly, and apparently were already there in the evening or in the night, but we only spotted them in the morning. This was exactly what I always feared – that we would fail to spot the enemy. However, most likely it was a small scout party that was searching the area trying to find retreat routes to the west and good roads that wheeled vehicles could use. We returned fire from all possible weapons, as we had plenty of ammo and we did not have to save it. Because of this need to save ammo we had not fired on the enemy freely for a long time. The Germans ceased fire, and so did we. At the same time we could hear heavy firing on the positions of the 3rd company (then it was the 2nd) and the battalion’s mortar company.

The platoon leader of the mortar company, Lieutenant Novozhilov, was killed in that fight. The Germans were about to capture the mortars, and then Novozhilov ordered his soldiers to withdraw to another position, while he himself stayed and covered their retreat with a machine-gun – mortar crews had one just in case. The Germans set the house, from which he fired, on fire, but he continued to fire from that house until he himself burnt to death. This is how Lieutenant Sergei Vasilievich Novozhilov died on 28 March, 1944, a brave and cheerful officer. He sacrificed his life to save the lives of soldiers from his company. The Germans did not advance any further after Sergey’s death, and, on the contrary, they abandoned a couple of huts next to the burnt-down house. We had to fold the left flank of the company towards the enemy, in order to keep them under our fire, and in that moment they almost got me – the bullet just scratched the skin on my side. Apparently, a German had fired an explosive bullet at me, and as a result for a long time I had a black stain on my right side.