Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army

During the day of 24 April, 1945, we rushed into Schmergov. The Fritzes fled and we captured the village straight away. We moved forward a bit and stopped in front of a water obstacle – the Havel channel. There was no bridge, while the channel was up to 150 metres wide and was deep and navigable. Before that channel we had already crossed the Bober, Spree, Neisse, channels Teltov, Hogenzoller, Hute and other water obstacles. Parez and Ketzin towns were on the other side – these were our last towns on the route of our Brigade. The Brigade was supposed to join up with units of the first Belorussian front at Ketzin, thus completing the encirclement of Berlin. The main body of the battalion, the artillery battalion and the remaining tanks of the tank regiment drove up. The 2nd and the 3rd battalions were sent to Brandenburg in the meantime. There they encountered strong resistance from the enemy – the Germans had plenty of infantry and even Tiger tanks, but united the battalions drove the Germans out of the city. The battle for the city was intense; the enemy had numerical superiority, but Brandenburg was captured and the enemy suffered heavy losses. I learnt about all those things from the stories of my friends from these battalions.

Colonel Turkin, Majors Kozienko and Stolyarov and other officers walked up to the channel. All was silent. The battalion commander called me up and asked me where Chernyshov was. I answered that I did not know and I was the only officer in the company. Major Kozienko ordered me to find several good swimmers, volunteers, cross the channel and bring a ferry on the other side of a channel in order to transport the rest of the company. The Germans were nowhere to be seen; no one was firing at us. Three or four brave guys volunteered, they swam across the channel; no one fired on them on the other bank and they were able to bring the ferry to our side.

Kozienko sent me across with a dozen soldiers. We did not know the capacity of the ferry, but eventually we crossed the channel safely. We went up to a mound, lay down behind it and spotted four Tiger tanks ahead of us. They were standing in a garden some 60 or 80 metres from us. The gardens were in full blossom and we could not see the tanks clearly. I sent a soldier back across the channel to report about the tanks to the battalion commander. The tanks were standing there quietly and did not show any signs of life. The entire company crossed the channel and we lay down behind this natural shelter. The battalion’s battery – two 57 mm guns under the command of Lieutenants Kharmakulov and Isaev – also crossed the channel. Company commander Chernyshov also finally came running to us, he looked around and told me: ‘Let’s assault, not towards the tanks, but to the right, towards the city.’ I objected, saying that the tanks would kill us there and squash us all with their tracks. I told him that we had to wait for our artillery to knock the tanks out first. The problem was that the tank crews of our tank regiment were really bad shooters. The Tigers, in contrast, first damaged one tank on the other side and then knocked out the second one. Lieutenants Shakulo, Mikheev and Guschenkov were away in hospitals, and Chernyshov and I were the only officers that remained in the company. Chernyshov ran to the right flank of the company and got Shakulo’s platoon up to attack. Soldiers started to advance in short rushes towards Ketzin between the ugly houses and structures, closer to the road. He should not have done it, he could have lost his soldiers and have died himself, but he did not even listen to me, just cursed at me, while I could not stop him. I did not send my soldiers to attack in such a careless manner – the war was about to be over, why should I have shown such bravado? Chernyshov, however, was out of control and would often make a show.